The Gospel Joy

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

I almost wondered this morning whether I should ask Mark to introduce the guest speaker today. That is a bit what it feels like to stand here after over a month away. I must say, it is good to be back. I am looking forward to giving you a report on my trip to Myanmar tonight in our evening service.

As we begin this morning, let me ask you, What gives you joy? For some of you I know a few things that give you joy. For example, I know Pastor Aaron gets joy from a fantastic golf drive. My wife gets joy in finding a piece of Polish pottery on sale somewhere. Several of you find joy in teasing Carl Gray. We find joy in children and grandchildren, in good meals, in hobbies, and countless other things.

Involvement:

This morning we are going to be looking at another source of joy; a common source of joy that comes from our union with one another through the Gospel. That is why I have entitled this message, “The Gospel Joy.”

Context:

As you all aware, it has been several weeks since we last opened the word together in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians; we are finally coming back to it this morning. In fact, we will be picking up right in the middle of Paul’s thoughts, starting with verse 6 of chapter 3 this morning since the last time we were in the book in October we looked at the first 5 verses of the chapter. One obvious concern that I have as we prepare to do so is that we may not all remember what was going on when we last opened this letter together.

In order to dust off the cobwebs that may have accumulated in our memories this morning, I want to begin by backing up and reading the first 5 verses of the chapter again before we look at the verses for this morning.

Maybe pulling up a map for just a moment will also help to jog your memory. Hopefully you are beginning to recall that during his second missionary journey, Paul, along with Silas and Timothy, had proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ in Thessalonica and saw a small group of new believers form a church in that city. Before that church could get very well established, though, Paul and the other men were forced to flee from the city under severe threat by a number of hostile Jews. Those Jews actually went on and followed the men to Berea and forced Paul to flee on to Athens. It was in Athens, as we just read, that Paul decided to send Timothy back to Thessalonica to check on the young believers they had left behind while he made his way on to Corinth.

We are picking up our passage with Paul in Corinth at the bottom of the map and Timothy in Thessalonica.

Preview:

As we will read in just a moment, Timothy has now returned and joined Paul, bringing a good report, a report that produces great joy in the apostle. You see, because of the Gospel message, Paul’s life was intertwined with Timothy’s life and the lives of the Thessalonians; the gospel had linked them permenantly together. A good word from them brings joy to Paul. As we prepare to look at our verses this morning, the idea that I want to set before you for you to be thinking about is this: Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others.

Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others. Let’s go ahead and read the verses that make up our text for this morning.

The approach we are going to take this morning is real simple; we are simply going to ask ourselves three questions. These are not deep questions; this is not a deep sermon. They are basic questions though that should help us think about our verses. We are going to ask first of all, what is happening in our verses, and then we will ask two questions as to how we can benefit in our lives by understanding what was happening in these verses.

Transition from introduction to body:

Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others. Let’s begin by asking our first question,…

BODY:

I. What is happening in our verses?

We should probably start answering that question by reading our verses…<read 1 Thess 3:6-10>

On the surface, the answer to this question is not too difficult. In fact, if you have been part of this series from the beginning you already knew the answer because I have talked about the situation several times to help us understand earlier sections in the letter. Timothy has just rejoined Paul after his check-up trip and reported that the young believers in Thessalonica are doing great; they have not walked away from their faith in Jesus Christ at all. In fact, other sections of the letter have already told us that this was not all; these young believers had actually expanded the gospel message from Thessalonica to others throughout a wide region. This is the report that we are reading about in our verses that caused Paul to respond with great joy.

Transition:

Yet, I believe it is important for us to push a bit deeper and ask why this report generated such a strong response in Paul. In order to do that we need to first of all recognize that…

A. Paul has faced a string of discouragements.

Paul’s missionary journey has not been an easy one. He had survived a beating and night in prison in Philippi. He faced life-threatening hostility from the Jews in Thessalonica which followed him to Berea. He experienced loneliness in Athens. He had spiritual oppression there as well as he saw the incredible hold that idolatry had over the people. From the record in Acts, we know that he has not had any significant level of success in Corinth to this point either. So far, all he has experienced in Corinth is hard work trying to earn enough money to survive through his tent-making trade. This has not exactly been glamorous ministry. Paul has experienced a string of disappointments.

The only minor successes he has seen in places like Thessalonica have been cut short before he ever had the chance to ground the new believers fully in their faith. He even made the point in the last verse that we read that he wishes to see the Thessalonians again so that he could make up what was still lacking in their faith. Until Timothy returned he had many reasons to suspect that what Timothy might find when he got back to Thessalonica would be more discouragement to add to the large pile he had accumulated; Timothy could find that the young church had disappeared back into the idolatry of the city.

Application

Folks, we need to remember that ministry is always hard and is filled with discouragement. I find that truth talking to every person in ministry, regardless of where that person in serving in the world. There are countless disappointments that come with the task. And I’m not just talking about vocational ministers. Many of you have experienced disappointment as you minster here in our church as well.

Transition:

The first thing we can observe is that Paul has faced a string of discouragements. But, let’s also consider a second point from these verses…

B. Timothy has brought word of enduring faithfulness.

Enduring faithfulness. Nothing is sweeter than words that the gospel seed has taken root and grown and has produced fruit in the lives of those you have ministered to. As John says in his final letter, Third John verse 4 “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.” That is the joy that Paul is experiencing in our verses. Timothy has told him that his spiritual children are continuing to walk in the truth. Not only that, but they long to see Paul again. They have not forgotten him; they long for him with genuine affection. This is why we find Paul overflowing with joy…gushing over himself with joy-filled emotion.

Illustration

I am sure many of us have experienced this kind of overwhelming joy. A loved one is undergoing surgery. We hope everything will be fine, but we also have a genuine concern that it might not be. And we wait… Finally, the doctor comes out and tells us that all went perfectly and our loved one will be just fine. The release of emotion causes joy to gush from us.

Paul is gushing in this fashion, but I want to make sure we notice that he is not just gushing in this letter back to the Thessalonians. No, he tells them in verse 9 that he has gushed first and foremost in his joy to God. After all, it is God who has allowed them to stand firm. It is God who has given and preserved their faith. It is God who deserves the praise and adoration for the report that Timothy has brought. God is the ultimate focus of Paul’s joy…and he wants God to be the focus of their joy as well.

Transition:

What is happening in our verses? Well, Paul has faced a string of discouragements, but Timothy has brought him word of enduring faithfulness in the people making up the young church in Thessalonica. And Paul is filled with joy.

Remember: Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others.

We have answered our first question as to what is going on in our verses so now I want us to ask a couple further questions as to how we can benefit from this understanding. Let’s ask ourselves next…

II. How can we be encouraged by these verses?

My guess is that there are probably some people here today who need encouragement. I am sure that Paul is not the only one to experience discouragement; I have even had that experience myself. In fact, I am convinced that everyone will face discouragement at some point in life.

Application

If you are an unbeliever—you have not placed your faith in Jesus Christ for your personal salvation—, there inevitably comes a point of discouragement when you come to realize that your life does not have any ultimate purpose. Friends, there is a reason that we have something called a mid-life crisis in our society. There comes a point when there is less life left than spent and when that reality hits a person without any ultimate purpose becomes discouraged by the futility of it all. If you are here this morning without Christ in your life, this may be your feeling at this very moment…a feeling that leads to discouragement. For you, my friend, I can assure you that there is hope. It is not the hope that I will be talking about in the rest of this sermon, however, because in this text Paul is addressing believers. I encourage you to come and talk to me afterwards so that I can share with you the real hope that the Bible offers you in your discouragement.

Believers, though, are not immune to discouragement. We carry the name of Christ and that places us within a spiritual battle. The enemy is real and he is seeking to discourage us so that we will cease our efforts on behalf of Christ. We are really the ones who can benefit from these verses by asking ourselves this question today: How can we be encouraged by these verses.

Transition:

There are two parts to the answer to that question that comes out of our verses this morning. First of all, we must learn to…

A. Look beyond our troubles at others.

That is what Paul is doing in these verses. Paul’s focus is on the Thessalonians rather than his own circumstances.

One of the things that disappointments and trials tend to do to us is to shrink our world. We focus on ourselves and our troubles begin to grow in the amount of attention they receive from us. Lifting our gaze from our own lives to look at others provides a helpful reset.

Illustration

I experienced this in a very practical way of few weeks ago, not because of my super-spirituality, mind you, but because of the circumstances I was in at the moment. During my trip to Myanmar, we had a new sliding door installed in our house. When I talked to Grace after it had been installed she informed me that the screen was not functioning correctly in the new door and that a service man was going to have to come out and repair it. Here we had a new door that we had paid a lot of money for as far as I was concerned, and it wasn’t working properly. And yet, I found myself having a really hard time being at all concerned about it. You see, every day that week I had been driving past shacks…you will see some pictures of those shacks tonight…shacks in which entire families were living in which the walls and roofs were much less substantial than our new malfunctioning screen door. When I looked at their lives, my troubles were insignificant.

Now, I am not saying that we should look around for the purpose of trying to find others who have larger troubles than our own so we can be glad we are not in their boat. What I am saying that when we start looking at others we will find that we pay much less attention to our troubles…period.

In fact, this is one of the reasons that when you have having troubles in your life, you need to be faithful about coming to church. You may not feel like being with other people but you need to look beyond yourself to others…and being in church is a great way to force that to happen.

Transition:

How can we be encouraged by these verses? First, Look beyond our troubles at others. And then secondly,…

B. Look at God’s work in the lives of others.

As I said, the goal is not to look for others who have bigger troubles than we have. No, the goal is to look at what God is doing in the lives of others…God is at work; God is doing things in others that we can look at and rejoice over. There is nothing like spending time praising God for what He is doing in others to encourage us in the midst of our own circumstances. As we praise God for His work in others we will find that we are praising God for many aspects of His character: things like His sovereign control, His inevitable goodness, His grace and His mercy, His love. As we praise God for all of these things being displayed in others, it is rather hard to grumble and complain about our own circumstances. After all, it is the same sovereign, good, gracious and merciful God who has allowed our particular circumstances in our own lives. And if He is doing such wonderful things in others…He certainly is doing the same in us even if we cannot see it ourselves at the moment. We see Paul living out this principle as he writes about his joy in what God has done and praises God for doing it in these young believers.

Transition:

How can we be encouraged by these verses? By learning to look beyond our troubles at others and learning to look at God’s work in the lives of others.

Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others. Part of sharing our lives with others is this focus upon what they are going through and seeing what God is doing in their lives.

But there is also a flip side that we also need to think about which is our final question…

III. How can we encourage others because of these verses?

When we are discouraged we should place ourselves in the sandals of Paul in these verses. But we also should be aware that we might very well be in the sandals of the Thessalonians at the same time. There are undoubtedly people watching us who are discouraged and need to be encouraged by what they see in our lives. How can we be that encouragement to them?

Transition:

Again, our verses give us two points that will allow us to encourage others. First of all, we must…

A. Stand firm in our faith.

Look at verses 7 and 8. Paul ends verse 7 talking about how he was comforted through their faith. That word that we have translated “comfort” is a word that means to be strengthened or encouraged. Paul is encouraged as he hears of their faith. In fact, he says that it is as if he is now living. It is like he had been holding his breath waiting for Timothy’s report, but now he can breathe again. Then he goes on and says, “if you stand firm in the Lord.” Why would Paul say “if” when he has just received this great report? Does Paul still doubt that they will stand firm in their faith? No…that is not what is going on here. What is happening at the end of verse 8 is that Paul is using an unusual construction in the original language to create an exhortation for the Thessalonians. He is reminding them that they have a continuing responsibility to “stand firm.” Standing firm is not a one-and-done type of assignment. It is something that must continue and as it continues their standing firm will continue to be a source of encouragement to Paul.

Application

You know, the same is true for us. As we stand firm in our faith, we inevitably encourage others to do likewise. Others see us go through tough situations and they observe that our trust in God remains firm and they are encouraged to do likewise. In fact, often I suspect that one of the reasons that God allows us to experience trials is so that our faith can be observed by others. You and I know that it is God who enables us to stand firm in our faith. But God’s enablement is made visible in us—through our actions.

Have you ever thought that one of the greatest ways you can show love for others is by simply standing firm in your faith? Standing firm is an act of love because as others see it they will be encouraged to live faithfully themselves and to praise God for what He is doing…and helping others live faithfully and praise God is true love. We love others by standing firm.

This is not to imply that standing firm is easy. I know it is not. Our flesh and our enemy are constantly at work trying to make us stumble. But I also know that our Savior is able to help us resist both our flesh and our enemy because He already shattered the hold of sin and death over our lives at the cross. And I also know that these verses show us that standing firm is important. It is important because others are watching and need the encouragement of our lives.

Illustration

Allow me to take just a moment and talk about our afternoon service next week. This may be the first Thanksgiving service for some of you at our church. This is a special annual service in our church. We will have a potluck meal after our morning service which will be followed by a special afternoon service. The entire afternoon service will be dedicated to testimonies…which is really us telling each other how God has enabled us to stand firm in the circumstances He has allowed into lives. We call it our annual show-and-tell service. The show part comes because I encourage you to bring some item to show the church that visibly reminds you of what God has done in your life. Of course, you can talk about God’s work in your life without an object to show as well. This is always one of the most encouraging services of the year. Our God is powerful. Our God has been at work in all of our lives. Let me urge you to plan how you can share what God is doing in your life next week as an act of love to those around you this morning. Share how God has helped you to stand firm as you have grown in His grace so that we can praise Him with you next week and be encouraged by His work in your life.

Transition:

How can we encourage others? We can stand firm in our faith and secondly, we can…

B. Share our faith with others.

Fellow believers will know that we are standing firm in our faith because of the work that God is doing within us. Unbelievers will not. They will simply see us bearing up under difficult circumstances; trusting in a God that they cannot see; rejoicing in a way that they cannot comprehend. Our lives do not make sense from their perspective. We need to remember that we have the responsibility of sharing our faith with others.

That is what the Thessalonians had done. It is not part of these particular verses, but remember, part of Timothy’s report included the news that word of their faith along with the message of the gospel had spread throughout the entire regions of Macedonia and Achaia (ch 1, vv. 7–10). The Thessalonians had shared their faith with others.

We need to do likewise. We have the privilege of telling a lost world that God has sent His Son to give save them from their sin; which will bring meaning into their meaningless lives. What better way to encourage others than to tell them about the ultimate Source of encouragement. We cannot be silent! We need to share our faith with others. And I can guarantee, as some of the people we share our faith with accept Jesus as their own Savior, we will experience incredible joy—Gospel joy! There is no greater joy that you can experience than to watch someone pass from death to life.

Transition from body to conclusion:.

How can we encourage others? We can stand firm in our faith and we can share our faith with others. Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others.

CONCLUSION

We have asked our questions of this text this morning. We have allowed the text to answer them. We have seen how we can be encouraged and how we can encourage others.

Let’s go back to our original question: What brings you joy?

This morning I have tried to get us all to focus upon one the greatest joys that we can experience, the joy that rings out from our text—Gospel joy.

Gospel joy is produced by sharing our lives with others. Let’s be engaged in gospel joy. Let’s be sharing our lives with others!