First Thessalonians, 2:17-3:5
1 Thessalonians, 2:17-3:5 · Randy Peterman · Nov 4, 2007
1 Thessalonians, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926043494841

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All righty, well, I got 217 through 3.5, which seemed like a funny break. And actually, really, 3.1 through 5 is a buildup for next week. So we're going to get almost to the exciting climax part, and then I'm going to stop. And you're going to go, oh, the cliffhanger innings in the first Thessalonians class. I've got to come back next week. It's like TV. They have to end each episode with something intense, so you'll come back and watch next week. I'm going to go ahead and read this out loud.

If you'll read along with me, this is 1 Thessalonians 2.17 through 3.5. If you've got handouts there, you'll be able to read along with me in your seat if this is small enough print.

But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while in person, not in spirit, were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. For we wanted to come to you, I Paul, more than once, and yet Satan hindered us. For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you? In the presence of our Lord Jesus it is coming. For you are our glory and joy.

Therefore, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone. And we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to you yourselves Wait a minute, I skipped a line.

As to you, your faith, so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions, for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. For indeed, when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction. And so it came to pass, as you know. For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

All right, other than the skipping lines part there, that's the passage we're going to cover. Before we dive in, it's time to cover the tricky part of the theology of 1 Thessalonians 1. We have a repeating pattern. The last verse or several verses of each chapter ends with something that we want to cover. I'm going to just look at those verses quickly in the blink of an eye. Hopefully we don't finish this topic because it's fulfilled first. I'd rather you learn the lesson firsthand.

Caution, we're going to be discussing dispensational, premillennial, pre-tribulational rapture messages. Okay, we're going to be, I want to emphasize here, we're going to be going over something that is an area of theology that there is differences of opinion depending on which church you go to and which denomination is involved. By going through 1 Thessalonians, we definitely made a choice to not dance around this issue.

How many of you were in the Revelation series in the main service when they went through Revelation? Okay, so you already know where Holly Hills stands, but for those who haven't been participating that long, I'm going to go ahead and just read this statement. I ran it by my dad real quick and he said that it was not, nothing alarming in it.

But Holly Hills Bible Church interprets the Word of God literally With an understanding that Gentiles, the Jews, and the church are all three distinct groups in the Bible. That's dispensationalism boiled down to a very simple statement. We also believe that Christ will return to take the church to be with him. That's the rapture. And while God the Father pours out his wrath for seven years during the tribulation, this will be followed by 1,000 years of Christ ruling over the earth. That's premillennialism. Well, that's the millennium. Premillennialism is... Anyways, we'll get into that.

Here's a picture, real quick, to just hopefully outline this for you. On the left hand side, we are in the church age. We're in the church and there is a time that the church started and there will be a time when the church is taken away at the rapture to be with Christ. What is the church and why would Christ want to take us up to be with Him? The Bride of Christ. The rapture is kind of like we're being snatched away to go be married. As a husband, that's a little different to think about myself as a bride, but it's a good thing. At that point in time, God's wrath and his justice is going to be poured out on the earth. That's the tribulation.

Daniel 9.27 implies that it will be seven years long. After the rapture, Christ in the church, and it's more in-depth than this. Like I said, this is simplified up in the top left corner there. Christ in the church will return and Christ will reign for a thousand years as outlined in Revelations 20.

Those are some really quick introduction concepts when it comes to end times theology. We could have spent, well seminaries spend months and months and months going over that and in the Revelations class that my dad taught in the main service That was, I think, months and months and months as well. So I just wanted to give a brief visual introduction to that and then we'll take a look at some of the passages that outline the rapture, including some of the better this morning.

We already went over 1 Thessalonians 1, 9-10. You turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. We talked about the tribulation. That's seven years of God's wrath, and we will be rescued away from that wrath. This morning's passage, 1 Thessalonians 2, 17-19.

But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while in person, not in spirit, were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. For we wanted to come to see you, I, Paul, more than once. And yet Satan hindered us. For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? At His coming, we are going to be raptured away.

1 Thessalonians 3.13, so that he may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. And I'm just going to stop reading because we're going to be short on time, but especially this one's a bit of a longer one. But you can see 1 Thessalonians has a few things to say about the end times. All right, now that we have finished the world off, let's finish this passage off.

1 Thessalonians 2.17 But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while in person, not in spirit, were all the more eager with great desire to see your face.

Now he says they were taken away from you for a short while. When we read the account in Acts chapter 17, what happened that they were taken away? This is not a rapture passage or a rapture reference of being taken away. What happened in Acts chapter 17 that they were taken away? They shipped them off. Where did they go? They went to Berea. And they went to Berea because the people in Thessalonica wanted to stop this Christian uprising. If it wasn't a lynching, they at least wanted them really stopped. So, they had to be taken away, and then he says, for a short while, but not in person, but in spirit. I'm sorry, but we'd rather have it from you a short while in person, not in spirit. Sorry, if I switch those around, it says something completely different.

In spirit, they're with him. Now, when I was younger and a bit more ignorant in my theology, I got really mystical about what it meant in spirit. I tried to figure out this really confusing reference to spirit. In spirit, does that mean that, you know, Paul did some out-of-body experience and they did that? And let me tell you, I was not a good theologian at that point in time and hadn't been equipped with good Bible interpretation skills. So I really tried to read a lot into this. When we look at being with them in spirit, it is definitely a reference to a unity in theology and a unity in Christ, not out-of-body experiences where the spirit of Paul shows up.

Hopefully none of you ever had that thought, but just in case, I wanted to clarify that since I was weird... We don't want it to be a Shirley MacLaine thing. Oh, I know who Shirley MacLaine is. I am unfortunately well aware of who she is. I'm sorry. The verse starts out with intimacy, as is a theme in this letter when we first started out.

This is a love letter in many respects. Paul is writing to these people that he loves. He's calling them brothers. And then he says, I wanted to see you face to face. There is a passion for this relationship to grow deeper and deeper and for them to know one another.

My grandparents are here in town and I'm not pointing them out for anything other than to say that in my own lives I could not wait to see them again because it had been four years since I'd seen them. So it was so good yesterday morning to go over to my parents house. It's like I can see them face to face. It's way better than pictures over the internet or just an email or a letter. Let me tell you face to face is always better.

So Paul, with the same mindset of a passionate, you know, earlier in chapter 2, he says, like a mother, we did these things. And then, just a little bit later in that passage, like a father, we did these things. It's the same attitude of intimacy of a caring apostle, you know, with a parenting attitude towards the believers of the church. He wanted to see them.

In our own lives, practically speaking, that should be our attitude that we have towards seeing one another on Sunday mornings. There shouldn't be anything that ever gets in the way between one another so that every Sunday morning we can go, poor, I can't wait to see so and so when we get to church. In our family, every morning on Sunday morning we'll say, okay, it's Sunday morning, where are we going? And Abby goes, oh, we're going to church. Then we list off all the people the kids are excited to see at church. This is very similar in the sense that Paul was very excited to go see the church or the body of believers, not just the building where the people would get together, that were in Thessalonica.

For we wanted to come to you, I Paul, more than once, and yet Satan hindered us. Now Satan's hindering them, again, back when I didn't have a very good grounding in theology, Satan's hindering them. I put all kinds of things into that that Paul was not implying. So let's ask the important question, who did the hindering? How did Satan hinder the Apostle Paul and his company that traveled with him? I mean, we have to take some guesses because he doesn't outline it, but let's evaluate the way that the scripture discusses that. Go ahead, Roger. Okay. Okay. Temptation.

Yeah. Any other thoughts? Does Satan influence us directly? Does he influence us like the Holy Spirit? Okay. No. Satan does not influence us like the Holy Spirit. But he'll do other things to block us by bringing who and unfortunately this is part of theology that every time somebody discovers that it's a little bit of a stumbling block it seems who are the children of Satan non-believers okay and that's tough yeah everything This is his domain.

Everything that's not of Christ is of Satan. And so Satan hindering him doesn't mean that Satan was down there with a roadblock by himself, but there are things that Satan influences through the world that blocked Paul and his company from being able to travel. How does Satan use non-believers to hinder us? We look at Paul, Satan said that that happened there. How does Satan use non-believers to hinder us in our own walk? In our own daily lives? Lies and deceit, sure. But they distract us from setting our minds on things above where Christ is seated in the heavenlies. The Broncos? The Rockies? Come on, who was not praying last Sunday that the Rockies would pull it out in the fourth game? Yeah, we were praying heavily for the Rockies.

And yet, the interesting thing is that our focus is to be of Christ, but we are to be of light. Yeah. Well, but they don't have to hinder us. That's where we have to have our mind set on Him, but be aware of the ministry opportunities that the Lord presents to us. This is an evangelism opportunity.

If I don't get to share the gospel with somebody, that doesn't mean that I'm not at the same time being a light for Christ. I have various people that I work for and with that I have to make sure that I'm honest with them, but that I don't have a problem in my relationship because some of them are very uncomfortable with me sharing my faith with them. But at the same time I need to make sure that my life shares my faith with them. But I need to not be hindered by that distraction.

Should believers attribute everything negative to Satan? Paul is not doing that, but it's important that we recognize not everything is of Satan. Where else? Yeah, we have the flesh. That is, by itself, Satan doesn't need to do anything. He can just sit and watch us wrestle with that, and often we get so distracted by the flesh that he doesn't work very hard in the life of the believer to try to tempt us, because we're already dealing with it on our own account. So it's important to recognize that. Again, they wanted to come see them. Paul repeats that several times in this passage in this letter. There is just a real desire for intimacy with this body of believers. And here is part of why that is the case.

1 Thessalonians 2.19-20 For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus that is coming? For you are our glory and joy. I was looking at the structure of this first sentence here, for who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation. The structure is actually, and I'm going to jump to the next, well, I'll jump to the next slide and then stop what I was going to say before and go through the slide over so it's not confusing.

The Lord's work through Paul fulfilled Ephesians 2.10. God prepared the church in Thessalonica for Paul to preach the gospel and for them to respond. the Lord would reward Paul with a crown because of the church in Thessalonica. The church in Thessalonica responded to the gospel because God had prepared their hearts and prepared them and that was for rewards.

Can somebody please open their Bibles, if not everyone, flip over to Ephesians 2.10 and we'll read that together. If somebody wants to read out loud for that, that would be great. So Paul and his company were sent to Thessalonica to preach the gospel because it was the works, the good works that God had prepared beforehand.

When they got there, those things were set up. Those good works are going to be rewarded. If we look at 1 Corinthians 3, we'll take a look at that in just a few moments. But if we look at 1 Corinthians 3, we see that those works are going to be rewarded. The thing there is that the church in Thessalonica brought hope and joy to Paul and his companions. Hope is confident expectation. Confident expectation of things that will be true. The things that are coming that will be true.

But then he uses the word or. In our English language we hear or and we just go or, okay, and that's okay. But you need to think about it in a comic book scenario. Superman The comic book Superman. What happens when the civilians down on the ground see him? They say, it's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman! It's a bird. We go, yay, a bird. No, it's a plane. Ooh, a plane.

That's more powerful. No, more powerful than that. It's Superman. Now, I'm not saying that because I want you in any way excited about Superman, but when he uses the structure of hope or joy Or, our crown of exaltation, the Greek there for or is a contrasting, building vocabulary word. He's saying this is greater than this, which is lesser than this, and this is the greatest. So not only are they bringing hope into the life of the Apostle Paul, not only are they bringing joy into the life of the Apostle Paul, but even greater than that, they're a crown of exaltation. Okay, now that crown is something that we need to take a look at.

I think it's on the next slide here. Nope, that's not on the next slide here. Now I'm worried about where I didn't bring my slide outline like I normally do. We'll take a look at 1 Corinthians 3, and I believe it starts in verse 9, because it was on the slide, and of course it's not on the slide now, which means it's probably going to show up later and I'm getting ahead of myself, but we'll do it now. 1 Corinthians 3 starting in verse 9 and I'll go ahead and read that until 15.

For we are God's fellow workers, your God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God which has been given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one who is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if a man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident, for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If a man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet is through fire. Now I wanted to emphasize in verse 14, if any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.

The phrase crown of exultation is one of those rewards, the Stephanos crown is a crown that is given to the believer for works of righteousness that are done. Now, how are those works of righteousness done? We already went over it, so it's not a trick question. How are they done? Okay, the Holy Spirit does it.

Ephesians 2.10. God planned those good works for us to be doing those things. So, how cool is that? God plans the works for us to do, we do those works, we're rewarded for those works, and then we glorify God with those rewards that that He gave us. It's like, wait a minute, I didn't do anything really other than submit myself to Him and I'm being rewarded and He's being glorified. That's pretty cool.

So when we take a look at the crown of exaltation, it's a reward from God that reflects His glory. As believers in the Church of Thessalonica, they brought joy and hope, but even greater than that, They were what Paul knew and counted as a reward in his own life. Now, as believers, we don't get to have that crown for planting the Church of Thessalonica, do we? So for us, we don't get that.

But there are other rewards as believers that God's Word tells us we will get, and we can look forward to those things. And we'll be rewarded for those things that God has planned for us to do. That means you don't have to worry about whether or not you will do those good things. you're going to do them and you'll be rewarded for them. Now he continues on to talk about the Lord's return and of course this is one of the rapture passages or end times passages that we need to take a look at.

The question that comes to my mind is something that I really wrestled with when I was younger and it was something that I knew I should be doing and something that I was not doing well. I was a young newlywed guy and frankly at that point in time the returning of the Lord was less on my mind than returning back to be with my wife. I was a newlywed. That was way exciting and on the forefront of my mind. It was also a sign of my youthful immaturity.

The Lord's return should be something so that at all times we should be looking, watching and waiting for his return. What about if before we finish this lesson, he returns. I'm sure none of you would be disappointed. You'd be like, oh, we missed out the rest of Randy's lesson. No, you'd be like, we're beholding the Lord in person! That's the coolest thing ever! And I don't think there's anything more exciting than that.

So the idea of Waiting for the Lord is important. When was the last time you caught yourself hoping in anticipation, waiting for the Lord's return? Is that a normal part of your thought process? It's setting your mind on things above. That's part of that whole lifestyle as a believer that's focused in on Him. When was the last time? Can you say it was recent or was it further away?

That's not to make you feel guilty, but to draw to our attention that that should be the mind of the believer. Is it the way we think? Obviously, when we talked about Satan hindering us, one of the things he wants us to be doing is looking at everything we've got to get done. What's my to-do list for today to get this done for today so that tomorrow I can get on to tomorrow's to-do list and I'm not trying to play catch-up for the to-do list of today. Or any of those other things. I'm so focused on five minutes from now that I'm not thinking about the eternal glory of the Lord and our relationship with Him. Any thoughts on that before I jump to the next slide?

No. No, absolutely. Yeah, right now would be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that's alright. Everybody, you know, again, that wasn't intended for guilt. Yeah. Yeah, nothing like having children woke me up to the idea of the rapture being a really good plan. Wait a minute, I'm raising my children in this? You know, and you look around and...

So, no matter what worldly circumstances there are, we should rely on the Lord, but we should always have as part of our focus on him, the anticipation. I don't mean this to sound bizarre, but it's a romantic anticipation. It is our groom coming to take us as the bride. The one who's purified us and set us aside to be holy. Here's where the first Corinthians passage came in. I had my slides in a different order. The Lord's return will come with it a time of judgment, but it's not for salvation. The judgment is not for salvation, it is for rewards. We'll be judged. In the works that we did in the Spirit, what did the passage describe in 1 Corinthians 3? What did it describe it as? What were those works compared to as building materials? Was it concrete and I-beams? No, it was gold and precious stones. That's pretty awesome. So those are the works that we do as we abide in the Holy Spirit, or abide in Christ, and the Holy Spirit works through us. We'll be rewarded. Believers without rewards are still believers. They're still saved.

Paul explicitly states, some people are really not going to have figured out their relationship with Christ. And they're still going to be raptured up, and they're still going to go to be with Him. And they may barely have gotten through, so to speak, But they're there. Some people die on their deathbeds, fresh believers, babes in Christ. And so their opportunity for works were slim to none. But they rejoice in their unity with their groom.

So it's important to emphasize that rewards are going to be there for the mature believer because they're abiding in Christ and the Lord is working through them. In works that God planned for them to do. But it will happen. after the rapture. So we should anticipate with great excitement the return of the Lord and then also know with even more excitement that that he has prepared awesome jewelry for us as the bride. I don't wear a lot of jewelry, I have a ring, but I'm excited about the concept of having a crown. That's okay with me.

Alright, 1 Thessalonians 2.20 continuing on with Paul's sentence. For you are our joy and glory. The church in Thessalonica brought joy to Paul and company and caused them to glorify the Lord because of their commitment to the Lord. He knows that they have a relationship there and that relationship causes joy in Paul's life and those that are traveling with him. No matter what intense situation the Apostle and his crew found themselves in, they still had things in their lives that brought joy and glorification.

What do you have in your own life that brings those very things? When you're going through a tough time, when you're suffering, when you're going through things that stink, And that doesn't qualify if it's changing my daughter's diaper. That stinks sometimes, but that's nothing. When you're going through a genuine, real affliction or something that's difficult, what do you look at and count on that brings joy and hope in your life? You don't have to answer for really intimate things, but seriously, what things do we look to for hope and joy and rejoicing and having glory in our relationship with the Lord?

His return definitely should bring that about in our lives. Listen, if I get out of this through the rapture or I die and then I'm raptured up to be with him, I'm okay with that. That return is something that's pretty exciting. We're going to take a look next here at actually the first verse of the next chapter. And he's not going to be wimpy about what he's going through. Again, we've already read through it, but he's going to start talking about affliction.

Therefore, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith." Alright. We have Timothy being sent as a representative of the Apostle and his party. They're being sent there. Timothy's job was to do what? What was Timothy's job as a representative of the Apostle Paul as he's going to the church in Thessalonica? To strengthen and encourage him. Now the question I've got on there is was Timothy's job something that is not for normal believers? No. That is part of the Holy Spirit working in our lives is we're going to strengthen and encourage one another.

1 Thessalonians 2.11 is talking about that like a father, I encouraged you. Paul again brings that up as a concept for the attitude of the apostle and his party. They strengthen and encourage. How do we as believers strengthen and encourage one another? Yeah, we do that.

On multiple occasions, and I'm going to pick Roy out of the crowd, he's come up to me and he's asked, how are you doing? And I told him how I'm doing, and he goes, you know, I just want you to know you're in my prayers. And that is an incredible encouragement. Thank you, Roy, for doing that. It's one of those things where he probably doesn't do it thinking, I am going to really make Randy's day. He does it because he's a brother in Christ, and he comes and he just wants me to know, you know, I've been praying for him. And it's incredibly encouraging, as a brother in Christ, to have your brother come alongside and do that. It's really cool. I mean, I hope everyone in this room can say that they've experienced that. If you haven't, let me know and I'll pray for you. You'll be on my list, which is a good list.

The next question I have on here is, do you think of yourself as a fellow worker in the gospel of Christ? Sometimes we think of ourselves, especially our culture likes to say, what religious group do you group yourself in? Are you a Christian? And they sometimes like to put that in quotes because they want to include Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics and Bible-believing Christians and people who are oneness Pentecostal. And you go through the list of denominational breakthroughs and we'd be here for days because I think there's like 15,000 or some crazy number of denominations. But they lump it all together there.

Do you think of yourself as a fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, more than you think of yourself as just a generic Christian in the United States? It's definitely something that our culture encourages us to be nice, really secular Christians. If you can be a Christian, and as far as Christianity is concerned, you just believe Jesus was a good guy, they would love that. Of course, that's not how the Bible defines a Christian. But that's really what the culture and the world wants us to be thinking of ourselves as, as good people in our society.

In contrast to the less good people, but still most people are good most of the time, right? Because I'm better than average. That's not the way that God's word describes the life of the believer. And in this case, Timothy is described as a fellow worker in the gospel of Christ. It's just a good description of the life of the believer. A fellow worker.

I have been a crummy fellow worker on the last couple Saturdays for cleaning up around the church. I didn't sign up for that. I had to do a bunch of house stuff which is less exciting and had less camaraderie. In the past when I've come to do help with the cleaning things, I got a few moments to clean next to somebody. Those conversations with Jack on several occasions or talking to Wayne, that's pretty good stuff to go work next to somebody because you get that time together. I was working in my house by myself with periodic interruptions from children.

But we need to think of ourselves as fellow workers and the opportunity for work again is those things that the Holy Spirit opens up in our lives. It's not workers as in salvation by works, it's opportunities that the Lord has provided for us to do things as representatives of Him. Paul goes on, so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions, for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this.

Now here's the afflictions part. We're digging right into one of the doctrines or concepts that has been most powerful in my life that I learned at Holly Hills. On the internet, at hollyhillsbiblechurch.org, there are lessons that have been recorded in mp3 format. One of them is Hal's teaching through trials and suffering.

If you have not listened to that, take a day off from work and listen to it. I'm telling you, it is worth your time. You will not be sorry. It was some incredibly good material. And not only did he teach it well, but as he was suffering through the cancer, he lived it out. And it was joy in my own life to watch that happen. I'm sorry, I'm a little emotional. But Hal lived that out.

And so when we talk about Paul having affliction, he says, for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. Paul talked to the church in Thessalonica saying, hey, we're going to suffer. And that's one of those things that, especially American Christianity, we don't like that.

How many of you are familiar with the health and wealth gospel? If you're not, turn on the television. If there's a preacher, he's probably preaching health and wealth. They're on there trying to say, listen, if you're a good Christian, God's going to give you a million dollars. Give me $10,000, and God will multiply it by $1,000. No. But they say, if you're good, God will bless you with stuff. Now, that isn't to say that believers won't have money, but it is to say that our focus is not on the money, it's not on the stuff, it's not on what car you drive, what house you live in, what food you eat, what clothes you wear.

That's not the problem. It's about our relationship with the Lord, so that when afflictions come, we're not sitting there going, wow, what happened to my Armani? What happened to my Lexus or my Hummer or whatever it is that we esteem? What happened to my McMansion? All of those things are distractions of the world. He says, you're going to go through afflictions.

Let me tell you that in these small trials that I've been through in my own life, holding on to the Lord was the only thing I could do. I could call my family and say pray. I could tell my church body, please pray. And that was good. But my hope was in the Lord, it wasn't in them. Their hope was not that they would make me better, or take the affliction away, their hope was in Him.

The afflictions come, and what are the afflictions for? If you've listened to the Trials and Suffering class, then you know the answer to this. But what are the afflictions for? Our sanctification, for our growth, for our greater dependence on our relationship with the Lord. That's pretty awesome. If you look at it from a secular perspective, from a worldly perspective, affliction comes and you say, what? Why me? Why me? Oh, what good can come from this trial? What good can come from this?

I don't even ask that question. It's not even on your radar. Well, some people it is, I've talked to, but in general it's not. Get it off. I don't want this. One of my least favorite type of Christian song, if you ever listen to the Christian radio stations, there's almost always somebody's got a why song. Why Lord, why? And I'm like, he tells you why! Read your Bible!

It's right there. Let me recommend 1 Thessalonians 3. But there's other places in the scriptures that talk about the trials and suffering. But it's there for our growth. It's there that we may draw closer to the Lord. And even draw closer together as a body. When the trials and sufferings come together, should we...

I think of a wolf chasing a caribou or something through the Alaskan tundra. What do the caribou do when the wolf comes? It's kind of everyone for himself, isn't it? Run! There's a wolf! Well, good thing he's weaker than I am. I'm getting out of here. That's not the way the body of Christ works.

When we see somebody going through affliction or suffering, we come together. We come and we unite around them and we encourage them and we pray with them and we hope with them and if the Lord allows something severe to happen, we rejoice Bud, do you have something to say?

Oh yeah, and there's some videos on YouTube actually of that where a water buffalo actually was being drawn into the water by an alligator and it escaped free only to be attacked by a lion. The water buffaloes actually ganged together and attacked the lion and let the other water buffalo go free and scared the lions away. There are other reverse analogies in nature. he chases those he loves.

That's what I would tell my granddaughter and my husband. What those kids have been through in the past years is unbelievable. But he really, really loves you. But it's hard to see that when you're really new in your walk of the Lord. And they have that wonderful view.

Sure. And that's one of the ways that as believers we can not get bitter is to be aware that he does those things and allows for them and works through them rather than the opposite of being, why did God allow this to happen? I don't know. Is God really there? And we start down the rabbit trail towards fleshliness instead of being focused on the Lord. And don't you think too that we go through these trials because we're going to come upon someone in our lives and in our walk.

Absolutely. Certainly. Yeah. Absolutely. Romans 8.28 says that God uses all things for the glory of the Lord, and I always redefined all things to be the things that I could figure out. If I can figure out how to glorify God, then that's all things. No, no. All things means all things.

And that's even the junk. When we sin and we fall short, we don't see joy in that. We don't see joy in it now, but there have been sins of my past that I rejoice in the Lord. that he allowed me to go through, even though I didn't after I realized I was sinning, because I could come alongside someone else who was a believer who's younger, or sometimes older, who was going through the same thing, and I say, you know, I've been there, I've done that, let me put my arm around you, and let's move on. Let's set our minds on things above. So trials, afflictions, whatever they are, can be for our growth.

If we recognize that they are for our growth, it won't be a can later it'll be a is, or it'll be a current present attitude of trials and growth are good for now. Absolutely, that's excellent. You yourselves know that we have been destined for this. Not only did you know that it was going to come, but you've been destined for it is a very strong word. It's not accidental.

It's just like you were destined for those good works that God has prepared for you to do in Ephesians 2.10, you're also destined for the suffering. The good works are for God's glory and the trials are for God's glory.

Again, nothing in your life is not bearing fruit for the Lord and bringing glory to His name. As believers, when we have evangelism opportunities, sometimes the evangelism opportunity is merely us rejoicing through that trial. You're not going to that trial with a why attitude. You're not going to that trial with a, this can never be good attitude. You're going to the trial with, man this is tough, but you know I'm learning from it. It's good. He must love me in a big way as I'm going through this. Absolutely. That's a right attitude.

I'm going to quickly just flip over to Hebrews 12.2. Hopefully that's a verse that you're familiar with. If not, definitely mark that and become familiar with it because I've found great hope and joy in it.

Hebrews 12.2, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Christ saw the trials and suffering of the cross coming. There wasn't a surprise about that. But for the joy set before him, this little distraction of the cross, and for us we don't think of that as so little, the little distraction of the cross made it well worth going through because we're focused on the heavenly things. The joy set before him. That's pretty awesome. Any other thoughts on this? We're going to keep going here. Bud?

Well you know it's one of those things where I love that part of the Garden of Gethsemane there is simply because we see that the humanity of Christ, there's a doctrinal concept called the hypostatic union and that is that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man and I think the Garden of Gethsemane shows the humanity of Christ It was not an attitude of sin, obviously, or else he wouldn't have been able to pay for our sins, but it was an attitude of humility, recognizing that God had already destined this for him, but coming to him In humility and brokenness, is there another way?

And God the Father, of course, said, no, not really. We already knew that. And Christ saw the joy set before him and endured the cross. It was worth it to say, you know what? I'm going to see my dad. We've been separated in physical form to a certain degree because he came and took on a human body, but not anymore. I'm going to endure that cross and go be with my dad, and that's okay.

So do you think it was that he not only had a sense that it wasn't necessarily the physical pain that he was talking about in the garden, it was more of the separation that he was going to experience, total separation from his father during that process that he was speaking of, as opposed to his physical... I mean, because if he had wanted to, he could have It's probably there's a complexity of both. Again, being that he's both man and both God, he has things that he was probably experiencing and feeling that were deeper than what we would experience, because we don't have...

Well, we're not part of the Trinity. You probably figured that out by now. We don't have that, so there's probably a complexity of both. In my own personal study, I've just found the depth of the personal passion, and I hadn't really thought about that aspect of it. So honestly, I don't think that's a bad thought. It's not one I've had. So now I have some things to think about.

So again, the intensity that's there, Christ still saw, whether it was on a spiritual level or a physical level or both, Christ saw them as small things worth going through, to look at the eternal joy that was set before him. Did you know that you are part of that eternal joy? Do you feel like you're part of that eternal joy? Because if you don't, you need to be reminded.

Paul continues on, for indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction, and so it came to pass as you know. We've already asked the question, what does God use affliction for? Why would God warn us of affliction? So we're not surprised. The other side of that is that when we do go through affliction, can we thank God for His faithfulness?

Is that an attitude that we normally cultivate? Hey, I need to have thankfulness to God the Father for this affliction, because He's being faithful to what He said would take place. It's not one of those things that that we normally have as an attitude and yet at the same time it is part of God's character to be faithful and we need to recognize it when it does show up in our own experiences and our lives on a very real and intimate way.

1 Thessalonians 3.5 For this reason, and this is the climax, you have to wait for more on this intense subject next week. For this reason, when I can endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

Now, if you remember 1 Thessalonians 2.19, Paul was talking about their faithfulness, or at least implying their faithfulness, and their joy that the church brought about in his life.

And here he says, we just wanted to make sure. Now why would he want to make sure? Is he contradicting himself? Or do we have other clues in this passage? Even in earlier parts of chapter 2? Again, I think of the references to mother and father that Paul used earlier in the passage.

Like a gentle mother nursing and wooing and nurturing this little baby, and like a father encouraging and strengthening. Again, we just wanted to make sure because as your spiritual parents, we want to make sure you're doing well. We don't have to read this as them going, they're probably teenagers and going off doing stupid things. That's not the way we need to have this attitude, but instead it's a loving, encouraging, parenting attitude that we should see in this verse here.

Now he says, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and we kind of already discussed temptation from Satan, But in your own life, ask yourself what are areas that you most often feel tempted. Don't share them out loud necessarily, because I don't need to know. We don't need to have a confession session where we go, oh, I get tempted by this, and I like this.

And then we'll break into separate groups, and we'll have everybody like, no, we're not going to do that. But the tempter tempts us from the outside. Satan does it from the outside and he tries to bring things around us to distract us again from setting our minds on things above.

Now the next thing here, why would their labor be in vain? And this is really one of those things that I spent some time thinking about and there are several various nuances of an answer but they're all related. Why would their labor be in vain? Does anybody have any ideas?

They're not phlebotomists, so it's not that kind of thing. You're not interested in anything that has to do with the Lord. You're not seeking out the Lord when you're in the flesh. And so Paul is, in fact, teaching them. And they're living in the flesh. They're going to be born again.

Go ahead. Could you suggest that possibly since he was there for such a brief time, and he was kicked out so quickly, like, I'm wondering if you maybe didn't get it to begin with. I want to make sure that you really got it. You just did suggest that. I did. You could, and you did, and I would suggest that.

The other element is that they're trying to establish a church in this city where there's pressures from Gentiles and Jews. When they got kicked out they had a rowdy group of people from the market and some very deceptive Jews trying to do a song and dance in front of the city council to get them kicked out. So they ship off Paul and his crew at night to go to Berea.

There is a personal desire to make sure that that church stays healthy and stays there and grows. This is the New Testament church in its very beginnings and roots. If this thing doesn't take root, it's gone. So the labor in vain thinking long term in that concept, if the Lord tarries, he wants to make sure that the church is rooted and established and growing. so that in a thousand years it's still there. Now unfortunately if we look at this area where most of the original churches were started, they're really not there anymore.

Which for us should put on our hearts as mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and any relationships we have that we are encouraging one another and teaching one another so that as the generations go by there is a passing on of God's truth and a continuation. You don't get to see it die off on some level. It keeps going. So, things to consider there. That's the end of the slideshow. Click to exit. Any other thoughts or things that you might personally like to add or ask questions about on this passage? We covered actually a lot of territory, so there could be questions on any number of things.

Well, it's recorded in the Psalms that Cursed is the one who hangs from a tree. Everything about the cross was humiliating. Shameful. Everything. But God's wrath was being poured out for sins. The complexity of the cross. We were discussing somewhat what class could be taught next. A series could be done on the cross and what took place on the cross for an entire quarter at least.

That's part of it. That's good, thanks. Any other thoughts, Bud? about this one. When he was on the cross there, the moment before he was part of the Spirit of the Lord, he said, My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? And that always shook me, because as though it was a surprise to him that he'd been nipped in, missing, unnipped, and had this knowledge. And it's often wondered if that was a cry of the flesh, leaving the You want to take a stab at that, Roger? I think that relates well with what Margaret said, because I think that's a key to what observation that Margaret made about the fact that it was a spiritual separation from his father. He has that 24-7, even as a God-man here on Earth, but for that moment in time, and that's what he was not looking forward to, that separation. And pride is indicative of that. I think that's good.

God did not look upon sin when it became sin. All right, any other questions or we'll close in prayer? I think we're in a closing prayer. Heavenly Father, we ask that you just allow us to continue to meditate on these things as we move forward throughout the week. Lord, thank you for the joy that we can find in your return. Thank you for the joy we can find even in affliction. We thank you and we praise you for all that you are doing and that you have done. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.