Got a question for everyone in earshot of me today, age four to 94. Here's the question. What's your job description? What's your job description? Because everybody's got one, whether you're officially employed or not. Everybody's got a job description. If you're four years old, eat, sleep, play happily with your brothers and sisters, Obey your parents. It's your job description. For stay-at-home moms, your domestic engineer job description is so long, so detailed, so nuanced, so custom fit to your home that I'm not even going to try to outline all the pages and pages of responsibility. And even if I could, when I'd be done, there'd still be that last line. Other duties as required. Engineers, farmers, doctors, carpenters, business owners, we all have a job description that narrows all the possibilities of what you could be doing with your time to what you should be doing with your time. And retired friends, you've got a job description, too, because retirement is more, as you know, than just obeying the not to do list, right? You're investing and leveraging your time in prayer and Bible study and fellowship and ministry to your grandchildren and service in the church. Formally or informally, everybody's got a job description. And as a pastor, I have one too. I pulled it out this week and looked at it. It's about a page and a half long. It mostly has to do with living a life of godly character, and preaching and teaching the Bible here at Cedar Heights Baptist Church. Somebody, somewhere, sometime has said once that at bottom, a pastor's job description is to help people suffer well and to help people die well. That's a pastor's job to help people suffer and die well. In his book, Gospel-Driven Ministry, An Introduction to the Life and Calling of a Pastor, pastor and author Jared Wilson writes this, I used to think that pastoral ministry was about helping people live. Then I learned it was actually about helping people die. If Jared Wilson is right, and I think he is, then if I haven't equipped God's people for the inevitable suffering that happens in this life, and if I haven't prepared them for entering the next life, I have not lived up to my job description. This message today is in partial fulfillment of that job description, to help you to suffer well. And at the start, I realized that this is an uphill battle because suffering is an anathema to our culture. In a world where the ultimate goal of my life is seen as the independent, unrestricted pursuit of my dreams and my happiness, suffering can only be an obstacle to that. Before you say amen, before you point your finger at that kind of navel-gazing, godless selfishness, suffering is also an anathema to much of American Christian culture as well. And I'm not just talking about TV preachers and the heralds of the prosperity gospel who insist God wants every Christian to be healthy and wealthy. No, we have our own unrealistic expectations regarding the outcome of our faith as well. healthy marriages, children who don't rebel, successful surgeries, financial security, good grades, religious freedom, the love and respect of unbelievers, gainful employment, and the right to bear arms. For instance, a successful American life, free from suffering, all in return for a smidgen of obedience to God. That's a very different kind of existence. and a very different kind of perspective than life in Thessalonica in the first century. A very different list of expectations than the believers that Paul is writing to in 1 Thessalonians are experiencing. In these verses, chapter 2, verse 13 through chapter 3, verse 10, actually constitute the longest section that we're going to tackle all at once in 1 Thessalonians. By the way, if you're not there in your Bible already, on your phone, your tablet, Hard copy, please turn so you can follow along. See if what I'm saying is true. See if it's there. In this section, the theme of distress and affliction. dominates. Suffering is the thread that unifies this passage, and we shouldn't be surprised. You remember, may remember, that one of the purposes in Paul writing this letter that I've tried to keep hammering into our heads in the first place is to show how the hope of Christ's second coming, among other things, propels believers to be joyful in affliction. And if you were tracking when Avery read this into our hearing, you probably noticed that this text is largely narrative in nature. Paul is reviewing, he's telling a story, reviewing the shared history that he and Silas and Timothy have with the Thessalonians. brought the word to them, but then they were driven out of the city by the Jews. Paul was left alone then in Athens while Silas and Timothy continued ministering in Berea. At some point, Silas and Timothy joined back up with Paul in the city of Corinth, but they didn't bring any news from the believers who were in Thessalonica. So Paul sends Timothy back there to establish and exhort, he says, the Thessalonians in their newfound faith. And there's a continual sense, did you feel it, in these verses of Paul's anxiety for these new believers amid the persecution and the suffering that they're experiencing. So when Timothy returns, and it says there, he brings the good news of their faith and love that they've remained faithful. You could almost hear Paul's audible sigh of relief. filled with joy and thankful to God that Thessalonians faith has remained steadfast in spite of all the afflictions and persecution that they're experiencing. And as he's retelling the story here, as he's expressing his joy and his gratitude, he's also teaching us how we can remain steadfast in our afflictions, in our suffering, to be sure, Our afflictions are quite different than what the Thessalonians were facing, but comparison doesn't do any good for anybody, anytime, ever. We have sufferings that are unique to our cultural situation. For instance, your verbal witness to the truth of Jesus Christ might result in being labeled a weirdo on your college campus or in your office cubicle. Your purposeful acts of love and purposeful acts of obedience to Christ may bring down the ire and the rejection of your extended family members. And really, I think any affliction, any trouble that we endure on the path to heaven can be considered suffering for the sake of Christ, whether it's physical pain, children and grandchildren who've walked away from the faith, dealing with an impossible boss, staying faithful in a difficult marriage or no marriage, disability, yours or somebody else's, the death of loved ones, loneliness, unwanted and un-understood depression. In these and many other areas of trouble, God has a word for you from First Thessalonians today. In all your distress and affliction, I want to encourage you first to pursue help from above. Pursue help. from above in your troubles and afflictions. Two Sundays ago, we camped out on that one verse, chapter two, verse 13. I include it again in this week's passage because it's logically part of Paul's thought process here. The Thessalonians had welcomed the word of God. They joyfully received it. They eagerly accepted it like you would welcome a well-loved and honored friend into your home. And then the closing thought in verse 13 is that God's work, Paul says, is at work in you believers. And then in verse 14, Paul tells us how the word was at work within them. For, he says, or how do I know? Because you brothers and sisters became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. And how does Paul know that they'd become imitators of them? For you suffered the same thing from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews. And Paul knows personally how the churches of Judea had suffered. He knows because he was one of the major perpetrators of their suffering. For instance, he tells the Galatians later in his life, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. Galatians 1.13. He writes to Timothy telling him, I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent of the church in Judea. The same kind of persecution and suffering that Paul had inflicted on the young church in Judea was being endured by these baby believers in Thessalonica. It's the same thing. But in their suffering, the Thessalonians have an anchor. Underneath their endurance in the faith is the word of God, which is at work. and you believers, verse 13. So the efficacy and the power of the gospel was on display as their faith was sustained in much affliction. Remember that phrase from 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 6? Sustained in much affliction, and it was sustained by the word of God. This is a demonstration of the Bible's sustaining power. And the Bible still has that same sustaining power today. And this sustaining power is one of the themes that runs through that love letter to the word of God that we call Psalm 119. So in his affliction, the psalmist cries out, my soul melt away for sorrow. Where does he go for help? Strengthen me according to your word. Verse 28. I am severely afflicted. Give me life, oh Lord. From what? According to your word. Verse 107. So, if you and I are gonna be found faithful in our afflictions, if endurance and joy will be ours in our suffering, we must pursue this help. from above, from the scriptures. And that help comes from the Bible. It comes by delighting in the living and abiding word of God. Before our trials come, I have stored up your word in my heart. Past tense, like already there, already stored up. Why? That I might not sin against you. For instance, in the sin of abandoning the faith. How did I not do that? Restored, previously, in the past, your word in my heart. This help will come by appealing to the word of God during your trials. My soul clings to the dust, the psalmist says in 119.25. Like, right now, this is happening, it's clinging to the dust now. Give me life according to your word. And then that leads to even more leaning on God's word after your trials. It is good for me that I was afflicted, the psalmist writes in verse 71 and 72, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth, the psalmist has found in his afflictions, is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. So friends, In all of your distress, in all of your affliction, pursue the help that comes from above. Pursue the help that comes from God's word. And secondly, expect hindrance from below. Seek the help that comes from above, expect hindrance from below. Many of you know my friend John and his wife, Janae, a regular part of the family here and worship here at Cedar Heights Baptist. In the past, they gave me permission, by the way, to share this. In the past, they were part of a church background that included teaching that God always wants to heal you. So if you pray and you ask him, and if you have enough faith, God will bring healing to you or to whoever you're praying for. Several years ago, Janay began having complications with her pregnancy. At 11 weeks, she was showing signs, indications that she was going to lose her baby. hadn't miscarried yet, and so they mustered up their faith as much as they could, and they began to pray, fervently asking God to preserve the life of this precious child that they were eager to welcome into their family. And from the teaching that they'd been exposed to, they understood that if we have enough faith, God will bring this about. Sadly, Janae lost that baby. And in the aftermath of that, my friend John, his foundations of his faith were shaken. He struggled with guilt. Oh, I must not have had enough faith. If I'd just prayed more, then maybe this would have turned out different. But because he couldn't rectify the contradictions, he said, I had as much faith as anybody could have that God could heal. It didn't happen. So he couldn't rectify this with what he'd been taught. John entered into a season of spiritual stagnancy. If God's not going to keep up with his end of the bargain, I might as well just live for myself. Thankfully, the Lord has been gracious to draw John and Janae back to himself, and you will find them today eagerly pursuing the word of God and growing in the grace of knowledge of the Lord Jesus and an eagerness to serve other people and to love other people, especially the hurting and the broken. But it seems to me that John's season of disillusionment and drifting could have been avoided by just having true expectations of the Christian life. Expectations that include suffering, struggle, and disappointment, and opposition as a normal part of what it means to follow Jesus Christ. And so if you look through the book of First Thessalonians, you'll see different kinds of opposition, different kinds of distress and affliction that we experienced. Some of it comes from the world, just from living in a broken world. A lot of it comes from our own flesh, our own selfishness, our own sinfulness. But twice in this section of our text, which runs from chapter two, verse 17, to chapter three, verse five, Paul refers to the opposition that we experienced from the devil. And this is what I'm calling hindrance from below, hindrance from Satan. The first reference is in verse 18 of chapter two. You see it there? Paul longed to return to Thessalonica so that he could see that these believers that he loved, he wanted to see them face to face, what is he says? But Satan hindered us from that. And the second reference is in chapter three, verse five, Paul is anxious for this young church and he's anxious for the young believers in it. So he sends Timothy to find out how they're doing. And he sends him, he says, for fear that somehow the tempter, that is somehow Satan had tempted them, and our labor then would be in vain. So Paul's point, I think, in mentioning this hindrance from below, this opposition that they are experiencing from the tempter, is to remind believers that spiritual warfare is real. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The war is real. The opposition is real, but It's not unusual. It's not some special hindrance reserved for just key times in our lives. It's not just for the super spiritual. It's normal. So in the context of attributing some aspects of distress and affliction and suffering that comes into our lives to the devil, Paul reminds us at the end of verse three that we are destined for this. Destiny, did you know what you signed up for? Your destiny is suffering. Verse four, for when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction. Don't be surprised at troubles and trials. Expect opposition and hindrance from the world and from the flesh and from the devil. Hardship and suffering are normal when you're following Jesus. And how could it be any other way? Jesus was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was oppressed and afflicted, Isaiah chapter 53. He was born in a barn to nobody peasants in a nowhere town. He lived on the earth as a homeless man with nowhere to lay his head. His own people did not receive him. And the most religious people, the ones who were supposedly closest to God, they opposed him at every turn. The men he'd invested in 24-7 for three years abandoned him when he needs them the most. The reality that he had come to this earth to give his life as a ransom for many hung over his head for 33 years, and when he finally did give his life over to death, it was the most excruciating, most shameful form of death ever invented by the sick mind of man, execution by public crucifixion. Brothers and sisters, we follow a crucified, despised, ridiculed, rejected, distressed, afflicted savior. Why should we think our lives would be any different? Apostle Peter tells us that believers have been called to suffering because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps, 1 Peter 2.21. And after reminding us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him, the writer of Hebrews tells us to consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted in the inevitable suffering that we face. But, lest you be tempted to put on your eeyore, here, and get all glum and gloomy, would you listen to what the suffering servant says in John 16, 33? I have said these things to you, Jesus says, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Yes. Friends we will face tribulation from the world and from our own wayward hell-bent flesh and we will experience hindrance from below from satan, but the risen christ has overcome every foe every enemy every opposition every hindrance because alongside paul reminding the Thessalonians here that suffering and affliction is the normal christian life. He also reminds them that jesus is lord over all of our suffering and affliction. This is subtle, but it's powerful. Make the connection here. Do you see how Paul refers to Christ in verse 15? He calls him the Lord Jesus. And then in verse 19, our Lord. Jesus. Now that just sounds normal to us, right? It doesn't jump out at us. I often start prayer by saying, Lord Jesus. But this title, Lord Jesus or Lord Jesus Christ, is used more In 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, these two books, these two letters that are specifically addressing suffering and affliction and distress, those titles are used more than any other book in the New Testament. So the book of Acts has 28 chapters. This title, Lord Jesus or Lord Jesus Christ, is only used 17 times. 16 chapters in Romans you'll find that title 16 times but in the 8th chapter of these Chapters of these two letters where Paul is addressing distress and affliction. He refers to Jesus as Lord 24 times Friends do you hear what that's saying to you? In all your afflictions Jesus still reigns as Lord and So yes, expect hindrance from above, but Jesus sits on a throne of dominion above. He is Lord of all. In all your distress and affliction then. Pursue help from above in the word of God and expect hindrance from below. And thirdly, gain comfort side by side. I'm exaggerating here, but I'd be a rich man if I had a nickel for every time I sat in a hospital room or sat with a grieving widow or sat with someone with an unusual season of suffering and heard them say, I don't know how people get through this without a church. I don't understand how people do it. Well, the same perspective of God bringing comfort two people in suffering through the ministry of other believers, through the church, is what I see in verses 6 through 10, chapter 3. And for us to feel the full weight of this from the pen of Paul, I'd like to remind you of what's most likely going on in his life as he's writing this letter. He had arrived in the city of Corinth, he tells them, in fear and in weakness. This is review for many of you. I've mentioned this a couple times. For all that the apostle knew at that point, he had just been a part of four failed missions in four different Greek cities, not sure that the gospel was going to take root in any of them. And as he's writing to the Thessalonians, he's not only keenly aware of their distress and affliction, but he's also experiencing his own distress and affliction, according to verse seven of chapter three. And into that personal moment of weakness and doubt and discouragement and trouble, Timothy comes back from Thessalonica with What's the word he uses in verse six? Good news. He comes back with good news. That, friends, is the same Greek word that's most often translated gospel. So you remember ramping up to Easter and on Easter Sunday, we've been reminded week after week after week of the essence of the gospel of the gospel of God. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried. that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. That's the gospel. And every time the word gospel appears in the New Testament, it's a reference to the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus every time except one right here in verse six. What I think is happening here is that Paul is so impacted by how the power of God's word was preserving and growing the Thessalonians faith. He reaches then for this gospel word, this high word. The news was that big, that significant for him personally. And what exactly was this good news that Timothy brought? Look at how verse six goes on. It was the good news of their faith and love. And that's particularly precious to Paul because as he's going to write to Timothy later, the whole goal, the entire aim of his ministry is to bring about love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith, love and faith in Galatians chapter 6. 5. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Faith and love. Paul preaches the gospel so that people will grow in faith. That is, that they'll continue to embrace sound doctrine. that they'll embrace the faith once for all delivered to the saints and he preaches so that these same people will grow in love, living more and more in obedience to the great commandments to love the Lord their God with all their hearts and souls and mind and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves. But this good news was also precious to Paul because of his deep love and uniquely tender affection that he has for these Thessalonian believers in particular. You can hear all these emotions throughout this passage. Let me back up, for instance, in describing how he had to leave the city. Do you see how he describes it? This is back up in chapter two, verse 17. Since we were torn away from you. That's a loaded word. It's only used in the entire New Testament right here, this verb translated torn away. It literally means to make an orphan of. to make someone an orphan by tearing them away from their parents. So Paul, you remember, has already been using these family metaphors. He sees himself as tenderly, with affection, loving this church family as a nursing mother with her children. He talks about, I encourage you as a father, these family metaphors. And now he describes having to leave them as if he's an abandoned child. I'm an orphan now because I don't have you. Also in verse 17, Paul describes how he tried the more eagerly to come to them and that he had a great desire to see these friends in person. And here is yet another, Paul is really stretching the language here, really reaching for something because most of the time in the New Testament, this word for great desire is translated great lust, great covetousness. This is one of the very few times that this word has a positive connotation. The point here that I'm trying to make is Paul's yearning to be with them is really, really strong. And even more strong affections revealed in this passage. He tells this church family that they are his hope and joy and crown of boasting in verse 19. His glory and his joy in verse 20. In chapter 3 verse 8, he tells them that his very life is tied up in their faithfulness. In verse 10, he's full of thanksgiving and he has feelings. feelings of joy towards them because they're flourishing in faith and love. And three times in this passage he refers to his longing to see them face to face. I just want to be with you. You feel it? All this love and affection comes pouring out of Paul's pen in the context of his own personal distress and affliction. Now think about this for a second. You can't read long in the New Testament without recognizing that Paul is the champion of dependence on God alone. on Christ alone, on His strength alone, on His grace alone. What does He say in Philippians 1, verse 21? To live is Christ and to die is gain. Just Jesus and me, baby. Just the two of us. But at the same time, Here in this text, he champions mutual dependence, the mutual encouragement, the horizontal ministry of brothers and sisters one to another. If Paul was to sing it, he'd be singing with the black gospel artist, Hezekiah Walker. I need you, you need me. We're all a part of God's body. You are important to me. I need you to survive. Or if Paul took the voice of the Puritans, he'd be saying that the Lord Jesus uses means. to accomplish his spiritual purposes. He uses the means of horizontal relationships to bring supernatural comfort to the hurting. It doesn't just drop out of the sky. God uses Christian fellowship to encourage us towards endurance in our afflictions. So friends, don't ever underestimate the ministry of presence. being together. We dare not neglect meeting together, but instead to be encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Like the Apostle Paul, in your own distress and affliction and discouragement, gain comfort side by side with other believers and be the comfort side by side. with distressed and afflicted brothers and sisters. I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep. Alexander the Great. I am afraid of an army of sheep led by lions, led by a lion. I'm going to say that last phrase because I just messed it up. I am afraid, Alexander the Great said, of an army of sheep led by a lion. And so we are the army of sheep led by the lion of Judah. And as we close, I want to invite you to stand together now, army. And as you go now, side by side, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder as the church of the living God, as we're waging war against the enemy of our souls, expecting hindrance from below. And as we are sustained by God's powerful word, this help from above. I want you to receive this fight and job description from Great Morse. Come, my brothers and sisters, airs of the kingdom, sons of Abraham by faith, mighty men of heaven, precious daughters of the king, while as yet despised of earth and beleaguered. Rise up, you men of the cross, sisters of the crown, soldiers of Christ, endowed with his very spirit. Come and die. Come and serve. Come and overcome, come and stand firm. Do not mind if you are outnumbered. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Do you suffer? Think it not strange or worth mentioning compared to the glory that is to be revealed. We few, we happy few, We band of brothers and sisters march on for the king, with the king, in the king's power, onward against the foe, brothers and sisters, to war, to Christ, to glory. And after you have suffered a little while, The God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Would you read that last sentence with me? To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. You're dismissed. Thank you so much.