Love Increasing

Hampden United Methodist Church

November 2, 2025 homily on 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 by Pastor Galen for All Saints Sunday.

“…Your faith is growing abundantly and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.” -2 Thess. 1:3

How do you want to be remembered?

What is something that you’d like people to remember about you?

I realize this may sound like a morbid question, but I’m not just referring to how you want to be remembered when you’re gone. I mean, even if someone has just met you one time or had one passing interaction with you, what sort of impression do you want to leave with them?

Every day we have the opportunity to leave an impression on someone else. So often we go about our days with our heads down, on our phones, or with our minds in other places. We pass people on the street, but we barely look at them. We interact with someone at the store, but we don’t even see them as a person. And nowadays, with technology, we can often bypass interacting with other people altogether. 

And yet, as we look back over our lives, every one of us can think of people who have impacted our lives. Perhaps parents, grandparents, teachers, co-workers, bosses. People who have made an impact on us, for better or worse. We know the power of just a single interaction, and of many interactions over time. I can think of many times in which a simple word or phrase, even from a stranger, has stuck with me, changed the way that I think about the world. 

Over the past year, we’ve lost several dear members of our congregation who each lived to be over 90 years old. Marge, Ginny, Jean, and Muriel were all faithful members of our congregation who passed away this past year. They all lived to be over 90 years old and served Christ faithfully right up until the end. Each of them lived a life that was worthy of Christ’s call, as Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy talk about in Second Thessalonians. Each of their lives — their good works and their faith, brought glory to God’s name. And in this way, we could say that they, along with all of those faithful members of Christ’s church who have gone on before us, were saints. 

Saints are Not Born, They are Made

Here in the United Methodist Church, when we talk about saints, we do not mean that someone was perfect or performed miracles. Rather, in our tradition, a saint is anyone who exemplifies the Christian life. In this way, every Christian who is truly seeking to live like Christ could be considered a saint. 

There’s a saying, which I believe is true, that “Saints are not born; they are made.” In other words, the process of becoming a follower of Christ, and of our life and character being formed into Christ’s likeness, is something that happens over the course of our lives. It’s a process that is often referred to as “sanctification.” Often it’s gradual and incremental, with our character being shaped most noticeably we go through difficult and challenging times. Like a rock that has been made smooth through the constant crashing of the ocean waves, our character is often refined when we experience difficulties. We are not born saints — we are made into saints, often slowly, gradually, sometimes painfully, over the course of many years and experiences.

I believe this is in keeping with the sentiment found here in Second Thessalonians, where Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy address the Christians in Thessalonica who are experiencing persecutions and afflictions. Interestingly enough, they didn’t ask God to take the Thessalonians’ suffering away — at least not here in these verses. Rather, they rejoice at the faith and steadfastness of the Thessalonians and the fact that their faith is growing abundantly and that their love for one another is increasing. 

And then they pray that God would make the Thessalonians worthy of the call and that God would fulfill by God’s power every good work of faith, so that the name of the Lord Jesus would be glorified in and through them.

Increasing in Love

Wouldn’t this be an amazing way to be remembered? What if you and I, what if our church, were to be remembered for the fact that we were steadfast and faithful, even in the midst of difficult and challenging times? What if people saw our love for one another increasing, even when times were tough? 

One thing that strikes me about the phrasing here is that Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus say, “the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing” (2 Thess. 1:4). Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are not just speaking in generalities here. They are not saying that when people visit the Thesselonians, they get this vague and general sense that they are welcome, but rather each and every person in the congregation and community was growing in their faith and love for one another!

I wonder if Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy would say the same thing if they were to come and visit us this morning at Hampden UMC. Would they look around at us, and give a glowing report that every person in our congregation is growing in faith and that our love for one another is increasing? If someone visited our church last year and then came back this year, would they observe that each and every person in our congregation has grown in faith and in love for one another? I pray this is the case!

Amazing Grace

This is not to say that we are expected to be perfect or to have it all together. It’s a question of which direction we are moving in. Who are we becoming, and who are we becoming like? This is the true test of a saint — are they becoming more like Christ?

Saints are not people who have it all together, or have already arrived. Rather, saints are people who recognize that they could never be perfect in their own strength, and they rely on the grace and mercy of God to form them more and more into the likeness of Christ. Like the hymn that we sang earlier — Amazing Grace — saints are people who were once lost, but now have been found. They are people who have often gone through many dangers, toils, and snares, but they recognize that it was God’s grace that has brought them this far, and God’s grace alone that will bring them home. They put their hope and trust in God and God’s word. God is their shield and their portion. Even at the end of their lives, they have joy and peace as they look forward to that day when we will spend eternity singing God’s praise

God’s Presence in Challenging Circumstances

I wish I could say that following Jesus means that we will never face difficulties or hardships in this life, but that’s just not true.

Recently, a friend of mine called to tell me that his mother’s health has been declining rapidly. Knowing that I’m a pastor, he asked me what promises there are in Scripture regarding healing? He wanted me to tell him with certainty that his mother was going to be healed, that she wasn’t going to die, and he wanted to know what promises in the Bible he could claim to know that that she would experience full healing.

But the reality is that the Bible doesn’t promise that we will always be healthy and experience physical healing in this life. Frequently, people get sick and heal rapidly, but other times healing is slow and gradual, if at all. Sometimes, even the most saintly people experience chronic illnesses. And all of us, no matter who we are, will one day pass on into eternity, unless Jesus comes back first. 

But the promises that we have in Scripture that we can hold onto and claim no matter what are that no matter what we go through in this life, Jesus has promised to never leave us or forsake us. He will always be with us. Even if we turn our backs on him, he is always there, waiting with open arms to welcome us back. Sometimes we doubt, and often we question. Often, it’s difficult to feel Christ’s presence with us in the midst of difficult times. And yet when we look back over our lives, we often realize that in the midst of the most difficult circumstances that we faced in our lives, Jesus was right there with us, carrying us through.

The other promise that we have in Scripture is that in the end, all will be well. If we do not experience healing in this life, we certainly will in the next life. In heaven, there will be no more sickness, no more sorrow, no more grief. We will not only be restored to health and free from whatever ails us in this life, but our bodies will be made new. In fact, we’re told in Philippians 3:21 that “[Jesus] will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” So in eternity, we will truly be made like Christ!

All the Saints

So what does this look like on a practical, day-to-day level? What does it look like for our faith to grow and for our love to increase and for us to be formed and shaped into Christ’s likeness?

As I think about some of the saints who have passed away from our community over this past year, in each and every one of them, we catch a glimpse of Christ. As we consider the way they lived their lives, the way that their faith and love increased throughout their lives, we see a model, an example of how we too can grow in our faith and love.

Yesterday at the memorial service for Muriel, her granddaughter shared that she always knew her grandmother to be the kindest and most generous person ever. She recognized that Muriel had faced challenges in life. She had lost friends and loved ones. But somehow these losses that she faced in life did not cause her to become bitter, but she actually grew even more kind and generous and loving. 

When I think of Ginny, I think about how she made everyone feel special, and how she was always so present and in the moment. When she would leave after worship she would thank me for the sermon, and say, “I was just sitting there and praying while you were preaching that God would help me to remember each and everything that you said in your sermon.” Talk about being present!

Marge, too, was a strong woman of faith and honesty and courage. I loved that you never had to wonder what Marge was thinking — she always let you know! But she didn’t hold grudges, and once she expressed her opinion, she let it go. I’m told that one of the reasons she was so passionate about serving at the food pantry is that when she was younger, she and her mother experienced hardships, and so when she retired she dedicated herself to helping others in need.

And then there was Jean, who passed away at the age of 99, just a few months short of 100. Every time I visited her, the topic of children came up. She always asked me about my family and how my children were doing. She would tell me about what life was like for her when she was a child growing up in Hampden. She told me about her son who had passed away, and whose picture she always kept right beside her, and about the children at the Hampden recreation center where she used to serve. Jean’s love for children and her childlike joy reminds me of Jesus’s statement that we must become like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Conclusion

And the list goes on. So many have gone before us have left an example for us of faith. Let us give thanks for those saints who have gone on before, and may we too strive to be worthy of the calling to which we have been called. And may God cause our faith, and our love to increase like those saints at Thessalonica. 

Amen!

Questions for Personal Reflection in Response to Today’s Sermon:

1. If someone were to describe me after a single encounter, what might they say?
2. Who are the people whose faith has shaped my own? What about them stands out most?
3. In what ways has my faith grown stronger over the past year?
4. When have I experienced God’s presence most clearly in times of hardship?
5. If Paul were writing to our congregation today, would he say that our faith is growing abundantly and our love for one another is increasing? How can I help our church become a community known for steadfast faith and growing love?