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1 Thessalonians chapter 3, we'll
read the whole of the chapter together. Our text for this evening
is the first five verses of this chapter. Paul writes, wherefore
when we could no longer forbear we thought it good to be left
at Athens alone and sent Timotheus our brother and minister of God
and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ to establish
you and to comfort you concerning your faith, that no man should
be moved by these afflictions. For yourselves know that we are
appointed thereunto. For verily, when we were with
you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation,
even as it came to pass and ye know. For this cause, when I
could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith. lest by some
means the tempter have tempted you and our labor be in vain. But now, when Timotheus came
from you unto us and brought us good tidings of your faith
and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always,
desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you, therefore,
brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and
distress by your faith, for now we live, he stand fast in the
Lord. For what things can we render
to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for
your sakes before our God night and day, praying exceedingly
that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking
in your faith. Now, God himself and our father
and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you. And the Lord
make you to increase and abound in love toward one another and
toward all men, even as we do toward you. To the end, he may
establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even
our father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all
his saints. Amen. That's why we read in God's
holy and inspired word. Beloved covenant people of God,
we return this afternoon to our series in 1 Thessalonians. You may remember somewhat of
the history of this letter, the history of this congregation.
You may remember that we looked at that from Acts, in Acts chapter
17. We read that God was the one
who raised up this congregation of God's people in Thessalonica.
He did so in the midst of all sorts of strife and turmoil and
persecution, even in the establishing of that church. And since that
time, the persecution and trials of this congregation hadn't eased. It had continued. And accordingly,
Paul had written this letter to the Thessalonians. to seek
to encourage them in their faith in the face of great trials and
sorrows and especially after he received the report from Timothy
who had visited them to inquire after them and to strengthen
them. So far in this letter, if we could very briefly summarise,
what Paul has done is he has commended the Thessalonian Christians
for God's grace in them that resulted in faith and hope and
love and thus their genuine faith arising out of the true gospel
preached to them despite all the opposition that they had
faced. Now, as we come to our text this afternoon, chapter
three in the first five verses here, Paul begins to speak of
the practical steps that he took to care for this Thessalonian
congregation as he was considering the state that they were in,
and before they sent Timothy. As he does so, God uses what
Paul outlines here to teach his New Testament church, to teach
us, including us, about tribulation and about persecution. First
of all, what to expect. He teaches us with regards to
that, but also how to see that in the light of the gospel. What
blessings that we have in our Saviour. That's, of course, very
relevant to us today. It's relevant to us today in
Australia because increasingly there arises opposition and persecution
to the true fervent Christian faith. It's obviously a lot more
relevant in other countries where there is far more opposition
and persecution of Christians, but it is increasingly relevant
to us today. We will increasingly suffer opposition
and trouble. It's very important truth therefore
to be applied to us. Let's examine therefore what
the Holy Spirit has to say to us this afternoon from these
verses under the theme concern over tribulations. In that we'll
look at three things. Let's look first of all at Paul's
serious concern for these Thessalonian Christians. Secondly we look
at God's sure provision for them and thirdly our confident faith. Concern over tribulations. Paul says something very important
in these verses, which we do well to take to heart. Notice
with me in verse 3, he says, that no man should be moved by
these afflictions, for yourselves know that we were appointed thereunto. Very important words to consider
and think about. The word afflictions, when he
says that no man should be moved by these afflictions, it's a
more general word. In fact, it's a word that means
to apply pressure to, if you like, horrible, squeezing pressure
that is being applied. So this word affliction, of course,
can mean affliction, it can mean oppression, it can mean tribulation,
it can mean persecution, it means any of those things which come
upon us that tend to push us around and cause sorrow and pain
and stress and anxiety. It includes all of these things.
But then, notice Paul says, you know that we are appointed thereunto. to the affliction. We're appointed.
He's saying, we've been appointed to this. This has been appointed
to your lives. Who's appointed us to that? Well,
God, of course. God's appointed that. And that's
to be our thinking. This is to be our thinking. We
know, or we should know, it should be very clearly there in our
consciousness, that if we are Christians, If we have a true
faith in Christ, if we are believers, if we are the Lord, then God,
because he loves us, has appointed many pressures, many afflictions,
many trials and difficulties for our life. Because he loves
us. This is his good and perfect
work, and he's working all of these things together for our
good, right along with the blessings and the joys. Now, we don't have
too much trouble, do we? When lovely blessings come and
wonderful joys come in our life, we don't have too much trouble
saying, God appointed that for me. And I'm thankful that he
has appointed that for me. That is wonderful. I am so thankful
to the Lord. But you see, it ought to be,
if we know the truth that Paul speaks of here, we ought likewise
to say, when God brings great trials and oppression and affliction
and persecution upon us, that we likewise say, blessed be the
Lord. He appointed this for me. He
has done great things for me. And I am thankful that he is
my God in all that he is doing in my life. But parallel with this, so that's
the one truth that Paul is bringing home here. Parallel with this,
Paul also says in verse 5, I sent to know your faith, lest by some
means the tempter have tempted you. And so here is, if you like,
a parallel truth that goes along with that. Satan is constantly
at work. Satan and all of his demons are
constantly at work. It's a spiritual warfare and
he is constantly looking at our life and he is constantly seeing
all the pressures, these afflictions that God is sending. He looks
at the troubles that come piling into your life and he is going
to be very active. He is the ultimate tempter. That's
why that Paul actually says to him, he gives him a name and
calls him The Tempter. That word tempt, it means to
put to the test. It means to come along and, as
it were, apply some sort of pressure to test. And in this case, because
it's The Tempter, what he's doing is he's pushing on it trying
to make it fail. It's a bit like you've got a
post in the ground and you think, hmm, I want to try and push that
thing over. I wonder if it will fall. And
so you push on it like anything, expecting that hopefully you
will make a crack and fall and be broken. And that's the idea
of Satan. Satan sees all of these things and he's at work. He attempts
to take everything that's happening in a Christian life and then
try to insert all sorts of wrong thinking and wrong attitudes
about those things, to tempt the Christian towards failing,
to tempt the Christian towards sinning and not trusting God,
to tempt them to become weaker and weaker in their faith rather
than becoming stronger and stronger through the trials. So Paul is
not, as he also tells us in 2 Corinthians 2 verse 11, Paul is not ignorant
of Satan's devices. He's not ignorant of what Satan
gets up to. He's not ignorant of the way
in which Satan gets into his life and he knows other people's
lives, including us. And because of that, he has a
great concern for the Thessalonians. How are they doing? How are they
doing under all of these pressures, under these afflictions, which
he knew that they would suffer? And even now they're undergoing.
What is happening as the tempter, as it were, plies them with his
devices? What's happening? Are they in
fact full of anxiety? Are they full of stress? Are
they feeling the pressure to give up and despair? Or are they
resting quietly in the Lord? Are they confident in Him? Are they at peace in mind and
heart, strong in the faith, gladly walking forward, being a blessing
to others, even while the pressures and afflictions and troubles
are still pouring upon them? Well, because Paul has such a
love, such a concern for them, there is a response from him.
What is that response? As Paul knows all of these things. Well, first, his response really
goes right back to the beginning of when the church was established.
And you see that and he reminds them of that. He says to them
that he forewarned the Thessalonians right at the establishment of
the church. That's verse four. When he and Silas and Timothy
had been with them, they had warned them. In fact, literally,
Paul says, for even when we were with you, We were telling you
beforehand that we were about to be oppressed. That's what
he says, that we were about to be oppressed, as it were. He's
saying to the Thessalonian congregation, here's the truth. God's gathered
you together. God, through his gospel, has
saved you. And here's the warning, people of God. You're about to
receive affliction and oppression. It's about to come upon you. He knew that all who walk godly
in Christ Jesus would suffer persecution, and brethren, we're
to know that too. Do we understand that truth?
And I've told you this before, and I won't hesitate to tell
it to you again and again. Why? We forget it. We kind of
think and we kind of expect, even though we shouldn't do,
that, hey, I'm a Christian, God should be blessing me, and I
should feel happy, and everything should be lovely. Why does everything
have to be so hard all the time? Why do all these things happen
to me again and again, and I keep having all these troubles? Well,
God said to you, affliction is about to happen. It will come
upon you. And God tells us that again and
again and again in his words, so that we're not to make any
mistakes. God is the one. who appoints and who sends all
the troubles, all the difficulties, the afflictions, the oppositions,
the persecutions into our life. And this is his purpose, being
a loving and a wise heavenly father, he knows exactly what
we need in our life. And that's what he sends. Because
he loves us. Because he's wise. because he
knows exactly what we need in our individual lives to rescue
us out of our own foolishness and sin and to bring us to him,
to make us cast ourselves upon him and to know how much we need
him and to walk with him. You know, Satan knows that too. Satan knows that God is sending
the trials, the tribulations, the afflictions and the persecutions
into your life. because God would have you cast
yourself upon him and know of a fullness of grace and peace
and strength. And Satan doesn't want you to have that. He's the
great tempter. And so he's going to be right
there to try and turn our thinking in a different direction, turn
our heart in a different direction. He wants to have us despair or
to think that somehow God is punishing us or to think that
somehow things are out of control. It's all chaos. Nothing's as
it ought to be. He wants us to think like that.
rather than saying, God is in heaven and all is well with everything
that he is doing. And he is perfectly bringing
the circumstances of my life to bring me to him, to have me
cast myself upon him. So Paul then does even more. That's his first response was
what he already did. He formed them. Affliction is
about to come upon you. Opposition, persecution. But
notice that Paul doesn't say, oh, well, that's enough. You
know, I told them. I told them right back at the beginning they
were going to suffer affliction, so they'll be fine. And neither,
notice, he doesn't send Timothy off to them just to give them
a message and say, hey, I told you so, you know, I told you. There it is, just like I said.
He doesn't do that either, does he? Paul urgently knows that
just like himself, and just like all of us, we're prone to fall,
we're prone to fail, we're prone to lack faith, to not believe
the truth and promises of God. So, verse one, he knows that
he must do more. And even though Timothy, remember
they're about mission work, they're in Athens at the present time
and there's so much ungodliness there, and there's tons of work
for himself and Silas and Timothy to be about, and Timothy was
of much value to them in that mission work, they decide that
the urgency of the situation in Thessalonica was such that
they would send Timothy back in order to, verse 5, know their
faith. He wants to know Is their labor
that they had expended in Thessalonica in preparing them for these hard
afflictions and persecution, has it borne fruit? And are the
Thessalonians flourishing and are they doing well? Or has the
tempter got in? Has the evil one managed to cause
them to fall into despair and into trouble? So Paul's response
then is to send Timothy back. You know, in all of this, What
we are really seeing is God at work. What we see here is God's
sure provision. We ought to take a step back
and see that what is happening here is what God is doing in
the life of his people. We have the advantage of that
because, in fact, we know the letter, we know the history,
we know all that God was doing, and we get to have the bird's
eye view, as it were, of this. God marvelously has given to
these Thessalonian Christians everything that they need. God does this, not Paul, not
the missionaries, but it's God who provided for them. How did
God provide for them? Well, what he did for them especially
was to give them the preaching of the word. Initially, that
was what God did in the calling of them through the preaching
of the gospel, that these missionaries came and they preached the beautiful
truth of the gospel that called them out of darkness, that set
before them the only saviour, that Savior who would be the
payment for their sins as they trusted in him and to give them
his righteousness and make them right with God to reconcile them
to God and have eternal life. But as well as that, Paul would
have preached much more than that as that gospel. Because
Paul, even as a missionary, notice that Paul is a missionary here,
he's not a pastor in a settled congregation. But as he says
elsewhere in Acts 20 verse 27, he did not fail to preach all
the counsel of God. So right there in Thessalonica,
Paul, even in the brief time that he was there, would have
been preaching all the truth that's found in all of the scripture,
which is centered in Jesus Christ. And as a consequence, they received
a rich and full of preaching, including that's the reason why
Paul was actually preaching to them. You are about to suffer
persecution. That's the truth of what happens
in the Christian church. It's happened all through the
ages and will continue until Jesus comes again. So they were
prepared. They were strengthened by the
preaching of the word that God was providing to them right from
the beginning. But it wasn't just that God made
his provision through the preaching initially, we see God's ongoing
provision. Through Paul's love and care
for them as a pastor, Timothy is sent back to them in the midst
of their troubles. And I want us to take notice
once again of the wording that is here. Timothy is sent, verse
two, as the minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel
of Christ to and establish you and to comfort you concerning
your faith. So the emphasis that is placed
here is not, oh, I've sent Timothy to sit down with you and weep
with you. I've sent Timothy to sit down with you and commiserate
with you and say, oh, this is so sad, this is so hard, this
is terrible. No doubt Timothy would have done that. If Timothy
had a feeling heart, he would have sat down and wept with those
that weep. But that's not the main emphasis.
What's the main emphasis upon God's provision here through
Timothy? It's that he would come as a preacher of the gospel,
and in this way, notice, establish and comfort them in their faith. Here is what is so necessary
in all of our afflictions. It's the solid preaching of the
word. that constantly rescues us from
all of our wrong thinking and our wrong acting under the pressures
of life and what it does is it draws us back, draws our souls
and our minds and our hearts back to Jesus Christ, back to
our King, back to our Saviour, back to our Redeemer. What He is doing for us and in
our lives, so that right there, right there, wherever we are,
perhaps in the midst of your marriage and family troubles,
or perhaps it's in the middle of your financial and work stresses,
or perhaps it's in the afflictions of health, perhaps it's in the
persecution of the world against you, perhaps it's in all sorts
of horrible troubles in the midst of your church. Whatever it may
be, The Word of God comes powerfully to bless you. That's why they
sent Timothy back. That Word comes to us and reminds
us, in the midst of our suffering, why we are suffering. Why are
you suffering? Because your Savior loves you. It's for the purpose of turning
you from your sin and foolishness to walk with him in truth and
peace. Brethren, we can see it so clearly, can't we, for the
Thessalonians. Here they are in all those struggles.
And here comes Timothy being sent from Paul to come back and
as a minister of the word, as someone who labors, a fellow
laborer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that gospel is brought
in God's provision, preached into the midst of them to encourage
their hearts, to strengthen them in their faith, to say, ah, that's
what we needed to remind us of these wonderful truths and center
us on the Lord Jesus again. We can see it for them and we
see it for us too. Can we see it for us too? Can you and I say, I'm applying
that gospel truth in my life, right now, in my trials, in my
difficulties, that I am trusting that my God, my covenant God,
has appointed every trial and every difficulty and every affliction
for my blessing and it's part of Him saving me. It's part of
his purposes in my life and for all those that are around about
him. He is in perfect control. And he knows what he's doing.
And I am to love him and to thank him for his wondrous saving work
even in and through the trials and afflictions I face. What a wonderful provision is
that word of truth So that what happens into the darkness and
confusion and the anxiety of all the things that we face,
that wonderful word shines light and truth as well as comfort
and solid truth upon which we can place our feet. It's the
rock who is Jesus Christ. But there's more here in God's
provision. There's more here. because God not only provides
for us in the preach word applied by the Spirit, but in a very
real way, he provides for us through fellow believers. There
is here a genuine love, a warm love, a heartfelt concern of
working for the good of the Thessalonians, evident in Paul, as well as in
Silas and Timothy. This is not just a determination
on their part, as it were, to say, oh, we've got to get the
truth to them. And that's it. That's so important.
The preaching of the word, because that's what God uses. That's
what the spirit uses. But there's a warm fellowship,
there's a gracious walking with their fellow believers, there's
a heart for them. And as Paul has said at the end
of chapter two, he said, speaking of the Thessalonians, he says,
for you are our glory and our joy. And so he he sorrows with
them in all their failings and their troubles, but he rejoices
as they walk forward in the strength of grace and salvation. You are
our glory and joy. Hence, he cannot help but feel
for them. have a heartfelt concern for
them, a care for them, and he will do all that he can, both
to inquire about how they're doing and to assist them, hence
in the sending of Timothy. We're called to do the same.
We're called to do the same. Our Lord Jesus Christ has not
saved us, brought us into his kingdom, so that we can sit smugly
in his kingdom and say well that's great you know I'm saved and
you know like we were talking about I got all my theology right
that's great good all done no we've been saved so that we can
show forth his praises that that's the word of God we've been saved
to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We're to show forth
the praises. Certainly we show forth those praises, first of
all, directly in our worship, in our thankfulness, in our glorifying
Him every day. But He calls us to show forth
His praises in this, to love our fellow saints, even as they are going through
all sorts of trials, afflictions and persecutions, because we
all have them appointed into our lives. and where to have
a loving concern for all of our fellow saints. This love and
care and concern for our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ
is part of God's provision to his church for each other. And it manifests itself in truly
knowing one another, walking with one another. It will be
to ensure that all the comfort and strengthening of the truth
of the Scriptures that's able to heal and help and strengthen
and encourage and admonish, it's going to be known by us and applied
by us. So, as we receive the Word of
God and it helps us and encourages us, then we are to take that
and apply that to others also. and we'll all be receiving different
parts of the Word of God. Even in the preaching, different
ones of us receive different things, and we can encourage
one another, speak to one another about that. But we're all reading
different things and different parts of the Word of God, and
God is speaking by His Spirit into our hearts. And the way
to share that with one another, encourage one another. As we
face different trials and God speaks to us and helps us, Then
we speak to others and you say, you know, God really comforted
me in this and he spoke to me in this and I really want to
encourage you in this as well. We can only do that if we're
truly involved with one another. In a similar way to which our
God and Savior is involved in our life. God is not a God who's
far off in some distant universe who's far off and aloof and so
forth. Our God is a God who is right
beside us. Our God is a God who, in Jesus
Christ and by His Spirit, He dwells within us, in our very
heart and in our mind. Jesus Christ is the Savior who
is touched with the feelings of our infinities. So it is that we, very imperfectly,
but we too are to have that kind of living with one another and
God wonderfully uses us very imperfect broken instruments
but he uses us in that provision of his care to us which brings
us to our confident faith This is the wonderful confidence that
we can have as we stand in awe of the salvation which God is
working in Jesus Christ for us. We can have a confidence in the
truth that he tells us. First of all, the word of God
makes plain that we will suffer persecution and afflictions and
trials and sorrows. God himself has appointed these
things for our life. We will know that and therefore
we can expect as you go into the day tomorrow, you can expect
that further afflictions will arise. They will come upon you
and sometimes they seem to pile one on top of another really,
really quickly and yet we can know God appointed that. Things
aren't out of control. They're proceeding exactly as
God had always planned it from before the foundation of the
world for my life. As we are the Lords, you see,
God has removed the curse of sin in Jesus Christ. It's gone. It's taken away. And not only
that, but God has already punished Jesus Christ for all of my sins.
There is no punishment that God will apply to me anymore. The
curse, punishment, gone in Christ Jesus. But our Heavenly Father,
He will chastise me because he chastises every single son and
daughter that he has because he loves them, just as a godly
parent will lovingly discipline and train and chastise their
child. God is proving our faith. He
puts us to the test. Not like Satan does, who wants
to break us, but he puts us to the test because he wants to
strengthen our spiritual muscles He wants to increase our faith.
We're so weak, and yet he carefully applies things to us. He's saving
us in that way, and we're to be so thankful. So this means
that as those things arise, as they come tomorrow, as I can
tell you, just like Paul said, okay, brethren, you're about
to be afflicted. We can know that. It might be
small, it might be big tomorrow, but brethren, tomorrow, we're
going to be afflicted. But rather than then, because
we have a faith that's confident in Him, rather than getting all
stirred up in anxiety or frustration or unrighteous anger or despair,
we can humbly say to the Lord, thank you, my Lord, you are bringing
me what I need. We can acknowledge the truth
of 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13, God is faithful. who will not
suffer me, if I can paraphrase it, who will not suffer me to
be tempted above what I'm able, but will, with the temptation,
with the trial, he will also make a way of escape and I may
be able to bear it. And that way of escape that's
mentioned there, that's Jesus. That's our Savior. His perfect
grace, His wisdom, His strength, so that I can not only bear up
under the affliction, that God will enable me to truly flourish
in His grace in the midst of that affliction. That's the attitude
of faith, a confident faith in God and in our Saviour. We put
our hand out to the Lord and He reaches down in fatherly love
and He gives what is good into our hands. It doesn't mean it's
always something that is joyful. It may be hard, it may be painful,
but He gives what is truly good for us. Our faith then can be
made even stronger as we trust Him. And then you see, as we
are trusting, as we are walking close to our Saviour, Satan has
no foothold. He can't get a hold of us to
make us get distracted into all sorts of anxieties as we're having
a confident faith. Brethren, let's heed what Paul
says to us here concerning Satan the tempter. because here's where
we need to have a confident faith especially. The devil is a defeated
foe. That's part of the confidence
of God's people. He especially was dealt the death
blow, his head was crushed at the cross where Jesus Christ
made the full payment for his people and Jesus rose again from
the dead on account of our justification. Satan's head was crushed, and
he's a defeated foe. But we ought to recognize, that
doesn't mean that he's toothless, that he's got no power, there's
nothing Satan can do, not at all. We need to be so very wary. He's cunning, he's exceedingly
angry, especially the Word of God makes that plain in the New
Testament times, that he's been frustrated in all of his purpose,
and his hatred for Jesus and the church means he's just like
a roaring lion. We'd be fools not to see him
as a formidable adversary. And we know his devices, including
this one here. He will try to get in and twist
your heart in the midst of trials, afflictions, pressures, persecutions
that come upon you and cast you adrift on a sea of worry and
hopelessness away from your mighty shepherd and redeemer. But a
confident faith knows that. It knows this is what faces me. And I can be confident in my
king. I can be. Satan can't win the
war because it's not ready. And as I walk tightly with my
king, trusting in him and knowing he's sending all these things
and it's for my good, once again, Satan cannot get a hold upon
you as you're walking in faith and thankfulness. We can never
be confident in ourselves, can we? Every time if we start to
become confident in ourselves and say, I've got this, you're
going to fall. I can guarantee it. We by ourselves
are weak as water, changeable as the wind, And so easily, just
remember like the Apostle Peter, if he got out of the boat and
started to walk on the water, what did he do? He looked at the wind
and the waves and sunk down quick as anything. And we will do the
same. But, confident in the Saviour,
remember while Peter was looking at the Lord, he could walk on
the water. Not because of his own strength,
not because of anything that was in him, but because of the
strength of the Lord and His truth. And when we sink, which
we do, then we can cry out just like Peter and say, Lord, I perish.
Help me. And he will, with his hand, lift
us up. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner,
and he will hear your cries. Send his word. both in the preaching
and our own reading. And he will send the church,
the body of Christ, the provision of God's people around about
us to encourage us and to turn us back and to remember the Savior
and to remember his truth, to encourage and admonish one another.
Everything that's encapsulated here about what Paul was doing
in his care of the believers in Thessalonica. Let's be encouraged,
therefore, by this portion of God's word, which speaks to our
real needs each day. in the way in which God truly
meets those needs in our Lord. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. Lord willing, we sing shortly.
Amen. Let's stand to pray. Our dear heavenly Father, oh
Lord, we thank you for your care of your church And even as we
read these things, which are so practically relevant to our
lives, faced by the saints 2,000 years ago, and yet, Lord, we
face the same things in our lives, we thank you for this encouragement.
Strengthen us in this truth. May we have a confident faith
in our God, and that you may keep us from the tempter. We
pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Concern Over Tribulations
Series I Thessalonians
- Paul's Serious Concern
- God's Sure Provision
- Our Confident Faith
| Sermon ID | 1021242228105599 |
| Duration | 38:34 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5 |
| Language | English |
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