Why Are So Many Christians Lonely at Church? with Dani Treweek

What does that have to do with the gospel? It's one of the fascinating things about 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Here's another one.

The language of siblings, brothers and sisters, he addresses them and calls them that in these two letters, which have a total of eight chapters across them, they are called brothers and sisters more than 25 times.

So again, in our first earliest letters, probably more than any other New Testament letter, brother and sister, brother and sister is just over and over again.

It just runs right through these letters in a way that you cannot miss.

But to go back to your question, let me just read from 1 Thessalonians 4.

Paul says, Now concerning brotherly and sisterly love... which actually is the word Philadelphia.

That's, you know, where the word Philadelphia comes from, brotherly love.

You have no need for anyone to write to you for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

Because they know the love of God for them in Jesus Christ, that love of God has taught them to love one another.

And that's what we see over and over again, not just in these two letters, but throughout the New Testament.

You know, Jesus says that they will know us by our love.

Coming to put your faith in Jesus and knowing his love for you in the most profound way cannot help but actually revolutionize the way that you relate to others in this world.

And particularly, not only, but in a very unique and distinctive and profound way to other people who have also put their trust in Jesus.

You know, when we turn to Christ and The Bible says that we are adopted into God's family.

He becomes our heavenly father.

We are his children.

And so if we are God's children, then we are each other's brothers and sisters.

We haven't chosen each other.

That's not the way brother and sisterhood work.

You know, you get stuck with the brothers and sisters you get stuck with.

But the incredible thing is that when we become Christians, we are adopted into a household of countless brothers and sisters.

And for the Thessalonians, you know, who really would have been cut off from their kind of natural relations if their other household members had not also turned to Christ they really would have been very relationally isolated, but they're not because they have each other as brothers and sisters.

And Paul is saying, you know, I don't even need to write to you about how to love each other because you're already doing it.

And he says, I just want you to keep doing it more and more.