Untitled Sermon (7)

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As a kid, I would often wake up very early in the morning, head downstairs to the family room, and watch tv. Unfortunately for my 6-yo self, the children’s shows weren’t on at 5am, so instead of watching cartoons I would watch infomercials. And before long, I’d get all excited about a new vacuum cleaner or blender, and then they’d get to the end of the commercial and make their pitch, and I was 100% sold. I’d be like, “My mom absolutely needs this thing.” So I’d copy down the number, and at 5:38am I’d run up to my parents’ room to my mom’s side of the bed and I’d whisper, “mom, you have to call this number right now. It’s really important.” She’d ask what was happening, and I’d try to repeat the sales pitch from the commercial, but it seemed like no matter how hard I tried she would never call the number.

Looking back now, I understand why. It’s because those products you see on tv don’t always work as advertised! The fact that it was 5am probably didn’t help, but more than that, some things just aren’t all that they were made out to be, and so my mom didn’t want to take the risk when we already had perfectly functional appliances.

Things are not always as advertised, and the same can be true for being a disciple of Jesus when we don’t preach the whole Gospel. When Christianity is just about me getting everything I need in Christ, which is true, but not about what I’m leaving behind to follow Christ, we can end up feeling like our walk with Jesus arrived with some assembly required. That it isn’t as advertised. That it isn’t as immediately glorious as it was supposed to be.

That’s the tension that the Thessalonians are wrestling with as we come to our passage today.

As we read last week, the Word of God is working in this young church, but it’s working in some unexpected ways. The Thessalonians had come to believe in Jesus, but the short term result of their chasing after Jesus was, as we will see in our text this morning, suffering. They were receiving Jesus, but they were losing their safety, their comfort, their social status, their good standing with Rome, and possibly, their lives. And this suffering was causing them to wonder, “If Christianity is true, why is it so hard? If Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, why does following Him result in our suffering?” And so in response to these tensions, Paul writes to comfort and encourage them. Let’s see what he says, and what the Lord might have for us this morning.

*Read 1 Thes 2:14-16

As we look through our text today, we’re going to see in Paul’s encouragement to the Thessalonians three things to know about suffering in the sacred overlap. The first thing I want to point out for us is this conjunction here in verse 14 — “for.” Right off the bat, Paul is providing the grounds for an inference he’s making. In verse 13 Paul writes, “and we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” And immediately after that we get our passage starting in verse 14 with this conjunction, “for…” What we’re seeing here is the reason that Paul knows that the Thessalonians have accepted the gospel, and that God is working in their lives in and through that message.

And what is that reason? It’s that they became imitators of the churches in Judea (we’ll talk more about that), but how did they become imitators? Because you suffered. In other words, according to Paul, He knows that God is at work in the lives of the Thessalonians through the message of the gospel because they suffered. Paul is saying that their suffering is proof that God is at work.

Now you may be sitting there thinking, wait, hold on, time out. I thought suffering was a bad thing! How could suffering be evidence that God is working? I mean, I thought God’s plan was to do away with suffering in my life!

I know. If you’re asking these questions, you’re wrestling with the tension of the sacred overlap. If you’re anything like me, there are times when you ask these questions, all of which boil down to this one contention: I thought that following Jesus was supposed to be easy. There’s no way that it should be this hard.

We, like the Thessalonians, experience difficulty and opposition in our walk with Jesus, and we interpret it as a bug in the system. We freak out! Did I mess something up? What am I doing wrong? The only explanation for difficulty and suffering that we can fathom is some sort of systems failure. And so we conclude that our suffering is because of some secret sin, or because we haven’t found the right church, or because we didn’t pray hard enough, and so we shuffle the deck and deal ourselves a new hand only to find out that the struggles and the tensions continue! Surely this difficulty is a bug. This suffering simply cannot be what Jesus intended for me. And Paul is coming in hot off the heels of persecution and saying it’s not a bug my friend, it’s a feature. This is the first thing we need to know: Suffering is not a sign that God has forsaken us! Suffering is proof that God is at work.

This is so hard for us to internalize. Deep down we believe that following Jesus should be easy, but the reality is that it is costly. It is easy, and it is light. But it’s an easy yoke. It’s a light burden. These are oxymorons! Yokes are definitionally difficult! Burdens are inherently burdensome! This is the sacred overlap!

And what Paul is saying is that he sees these young believers wading deep into the waters, and he knows that it is the truth of the gospel at work in them that is enabling them to do so. He knows that they have accepted and received and believe in the truth of the gospel—that Jesus is all we need! That just as Paul writes elsewhere, because of what Christ has accomplished through His life for us and His death in our place, for us to live is Christ and even to die is gain!

And so there is this mystery at the center of the Christian life: I die to myself so that I might live. I decrease so that He can increase. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book titled The Cost of Discipleship, in which he says that “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” What he means is that the good news of Jesus requires that we no longer live for ourselves, that we relinquish control over our lives, that we surrender to Jesus Christ. You may not recognize that as the Christianity that you signed up for, but this mystery of dying to myself so that I can live in Christ is exactly what Jesus describes in the gospels, and Luke 9 is just one great example. Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Jesus describes following Him as a literal death march! And yet He knows that it is the only way we will truly live.

Are you living that kind of life? Have we lost our lives to follow Jesus? Has being His disciple been costly to us, requiring us to die to our old self who would rather sit on the couch than self-sacrificially serve those around us? Or have we simply added Him as an ornament onto our American dream? What would Paul say if Timothy had returned with a report from the church of Jesus Christ in Lorain County?

Part of the reason that suffering is proof that God is at work is because a willingness to suffer is not natural. If we are willing to suffer, it means we’re denying ourselves. You see, even the willingness to suffer demonstrates that God has done a work in the heart. Paul knows that if the Thessalonians were living according to their own desires, they would have avoided suffering (like we so often do…). He knows that they could have easily turned away when they realized that following Jesus was going to be hard. They had a decision to make early on: Which is more important, Jesus, or my family; Jesus, or my social status; Jesus, or my comfort and safety; Jesus, or my job and my ability to provide a good life for my kids; Jesus, or retirement; Jesus, or living the life I always dreamed of. And when Paul hears that they are willing to suffer for their faith, he knows that they have chosen Jesus. He knows that God has deeply changed their hearts.

And on that note I want to share another consolation. Because not only is our suffering and our willingness to suffer proof that God has been at work, but Paul knows that God is at work in the midst of our suffering. This is why he can write in Romans 8 that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” We don’t tend to think of suffering as included in the “all things” that God is using, but that may be the most explicit thing that Paul is referring to! God will use our suffering to refine us like a refiner’s fire. We don’t die to ourselves, we don’t deny ourselves just for the fun of it! God is using our self-denial and our suffering to form Christlikeness in us! None of it is wasted!

Whenever I put my daughter to bed, there are three songs I sing to her, and one of them is How Firm a Foundation, an old hymn. There’s a verse in that song that I love, and it goes like this: When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be your supply! The flames shall not hurt you. I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine!

All of our sufferings in this life present us with a choice: is Jesus worth it? If this is what following Jesus leads me into, is Jesus still worth it? Of course He is, but whenever a new trial comes our way, we need to come back to this same question. And as we say “Yes, Jesus is worth it,” God uses that question to draw us deeper into surrender, deeper into faith, deeper into Christ. In this way, God redeems even our suffering, turning it for our good, and so it is not meaningless. Our willingness to suffer is evidence that God is at work, and God is working in the midst of our suffering to make us more like Christ as we rely on Him.

Back in the text, I want to point out the next thing to know about suffering in the sacred overlap. If you look closely, you’ll notice that Paul is not only talking about suffering, but it is suffering “from your own people the same things” as the other churches in Judea have suffered.

In the church devotions, we’re just about to read through the beginning of these very persecutions in Judea. And Paul knows all about them because he was there not as one of the Christians, but as one of the persecutors. It all began with the stoning of Stephen, immediately after which in Acts 8 we read that “on that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul (Paul) began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.” We don’t know exactly what was happening in Thessolonica at this time, but if it’s comparable to the persecution that broke out in Judea after the stoning of Stephen, people were being torn from their families, forced into hiding, imprisoned, and perhaps even killed.

So why does Paul make this comparison? What is Paul’s point? Well we know that Paul is trying to comfort and encourage the Thessalonians, and so in this comparison he’s communicating to the Thessalonians that what they are experiencing is not unique or unexpected. Remember that the church in Judea is the first church! Jerusalem is in many ways the birthplace of the church—where Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and where the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost. So Paul is saying to them that this suffering that you are experiencing from your neighbors is part of being a disciple of Jesus.

This isn’t a fluke; you aren’t doing anything wrong. This has been the story of the church from the beginning. Your suffering is placing you in the story of the church. Is this the story that we’re living in?

I mean, consider the logic of what Paul is writing: I know that you accepted the Gospel because your neighbors are trying to imprison and kill you. Now that may not be the only metric for knowing if the gospel is taking root, but if that is a mark of discipleship, of following Jesus, then that should cause us to ask some questions. Because that does not describe my walk with Jesus at all. That doesn’t describe the church in America at all.

Much of the Bible is written to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And friends, when it comes to persecution, we need to face the reality that we are the comfortable, and that we could stand to be a little bit bothered. Remember that Jesus Himself said, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own (is this us?). As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (Jn 15:19-20a). Paul also writes “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12).

Why doesn’t that description seem to fit most of us? We can sit back and say, “well yea maybe back then, but that doesn’t really happen anymore.” Yet it does! Christianity Today recently cited a report from an organization named Open Doors, which has tracked the persecution of the church around the world since 1992. According to their research, from October 2020 to September 2021, 5,898 Christians were killed for their faith. 5,110 Christian buildings were destroyed, shut down, or confiscated. 6,175 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned. 3,829 Christians were abducted. 218,709 Christians were forced to leave their homes or go into hiding for faith-related reasons.

This is the story of the church. It’s been happening since the beginning. One commentary I read said it like this, “The story is ever the same. It is repeated in every age and in every clime. For a true believer not to suffer persecution in some form is impossible” (NTC 70). Is that the story that you see playing out in your life?

Is that even a story we’re interested in? Because if we’re honest, I don’t want to suffer. Suffering exposes my weaknesses. Suffering exposes my attachment to the world. Suffering exposes my lack of faith. Suffering exposes my idol of comfort and affirmation. And honestly, I don’t know that I have what it takes to walk that road.

I want to be careful not to resolve this tension too quickly, because I think it would benefit us to consider why it is that we don’t think suffering is an essential part of our discipleship to Jesus.

See, in the story of the church, opposition can come from a number of different places. This tension, this conflict that’s playing out, it goes back to the garden of Eden. The Enemy has set Himself against God and His kingdom and His gospel. We learned in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, so it’s not as though we should be trying to provoke our neighbors. We’re to love them!

The goal is not suffering at the hands of other people. But in our adventure with Jesus, if we aren’t coming into conflict with our sinful flesh, if we aren’t coming into conflict with the pattern of this world, or if we aren’t coming into conflict with the Enemy and his forces of darkness, then I wonder sometimes if the gospel is really taking root. It’s like we think we’re flying down the road but there’s no air resistance. When we’re moving against the enemy and against the pattern of this world and against the sinful flesh, I promise you there will be air resistance! And if you want to see what I mean, commit right now to share Jesus with your neighbors this week as the Holy Spirit provides opportunity, and see what happens! Already our palms get sweaty, right? That stuff that cries out against the idea, that anxiety, that fear—that’s the flesh! Just one time, go out with John Jacobs and his guys in Vermilion, and begin ministering to people downtown. When we begin to live like Jesus lived, the enemy will try to swoop in and oppose us. Our flesh and our natural inclinations will try to put on the brakes. And if you're not experiencing that resistance, is it possible that it’s because you aren’t living like Jesus?

In the end, Paul’s point is not to call the Thessalonians, or anyone else for that matter, to seek out suffering! Paul doesn’t want the Thessalonians to suffer. But he knows that they are, and that they will. And many of you know this because you’re experiencing suffering right now. Paul is making this comparison, he’s talking about the story of the church because he wants to encourage them by showing them that in their suffering, they are not alone. They have their brothers and sisters as a great cloud of witnesses surrounding them. But more significantly than that, not only are they imitating the church in Judea in their suffering, but as Paul writes into verse 15, “you suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus.” They are also imitating Jesus. So not only does our suffering place us in the story of the church, but it also places us on the trail of Jesus.

We may not feel that we have the strength to walk that path, and at times we may be right! We can walk this path only because Jesus blazed the trail. Just like it’s written in Hebrews chapter 12, Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Jesus lived this life that ran through suffering and into glory. We may feel like Christianity isn’t working out when it’s painful, but if the goal of Christianity is to avoid pain and suffering then it didn’t work for Jesus either! And so while we may not escape pain and difficulty in this life, Paul wants us to know that we are not alone.

And so as following Jesus leads us into suffering, it also leads us into being more deeply unified with Him. This is why throughout the New Testament, you find verses like Philippians 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” I love the word “somehow” in this verse, because it seems to me like even Paul is trying to grasp this reality, that in some way that I don’t fully comprehend, my suffering for Jesus brings me closer to Jesus, that He is with me and I am with Him in the midst of it. That I am not alone. That even though suffering is exposing my weaknesses, it is also bringing me into communion with Jesus, and that when I am weak, He is there with me to make me strong. Not as some vague idea or principle, but as my high priest who went before me in suffering, and who totally understands and empathizes with my weaknesses.

If you’re suffering this morning, know that you have a savior who sees you, who knows you, and who understands what you’re experiencing because He went through it first. We may have the difficulty of suffering, but in the midst of it we have the deep comfort of the presence of Christ in the midst of it. Suffering may be part of being a disciple, but that means that we’re not alone. Jesus went through it first, and Jesus is with us now.

And so finally, we come to the last few verses in our passage today, and there’s one more thing that I want us to see about suffering in the sacred overlap. Paul writes, “They (the Jews who are persecuting the church) displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. (They are opposing God and His gospel, and as a result, Paul says) In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. (and Paul’s conclusion) The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”

You know, when we come to the Text, it’s important to ask the right questions. And as we work through this last portion, it can be easy to ask questions like, “What kind of wrath is Paul talking about,” or “How exactly did God pour out wrath on these Jewish people who were opposing the gospel.” And those are interesting and valid questions—questions that I spent a lot of time with—but they miss Paul’s point. Paul isn’t writing to a Jewish audience who is opposing the church as a warning, he’s writing to a mixed Jewish-Gentile audience of believers who are suffering persecution. His purpose isn’t to make some nuanced and mysterious statement about the destiny of the Jewish people, his purpose is to encourage the church. So rather than asking “What are the theological implications of what Paul is saying about the Jewish people,” we need to ask “How is what Paul is saying an encouragement to the Thessalonians in the midst of their suffering.” Paul’s point is not to explain God’s wrath against the Jewish people, his point is to encourage the church (how?) by showing them that in the midst of persecution and suffering, God is still in control. He is still attentive. That even suffering happens within God’s sovereignty.

This is at the heart of Paul’s statement when he says that those who oppose the gospel “always heap up their sins to the limit.” You can write down under point three that sin has fixed “limits.” This phrase “heap up to the limit” is translated from a Greek word that means “to fill up,” and so we get other translations like the ESV which says, “so as always to fill up the measure of their sins.”

What’s interesting is that a very similar phrase is used all the way back in Genesis 15, in which God is talking to Abraham about inheriting the promised land. We read in verses 15 and 16 that, after God made His covenant with Abraham, He says “You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” In the Greek translation of the OT, we have here almost the same wording as our text in 1 Thessalonians. Their sin is not yet filled up.

What’s the point? The point is that God has not turned a blind eye to sin. The point is that God is not allowing sin to continue on one second longer than necessary. The point is that sin and the suffering that it causes does not go unchecked. And the point is that God will set things to right. It does not undermine God’s providence. And so when in His sovereign plan the sin of the Amorites was full, He used the nation of Israel to bring judgment upon them in justice and wrath. And when Paul says that the same thing is happening with the Jewish people opposing the spread of the gospel in the First Century, he is reminding the Thessalonians that the destruction and the death that is resulting from the rebellion of the Jewish people has not thwarted God’s plan. God is still God! He is working, in our lives and in our world, to accomplish His purposes for our good and for His glory—even in and through suffering. The same is true for us today, and that can be a deep source of encouragement for us.

See, the Enemy wants us to believe that our suffering is proof that God is distant, and unable to help us. He wants us to believe that those who oppose God do so without consequence, but that’s not true! Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. Those who persistently oppose God in Christ will be separated from Him forever, and those who long for God in Christ by faith will be united with Him forever. And this means that in Christ, like Christ, because of Christ, our suffering is not forever, and the day is coming when it will give way to glory!

So now in the sacred overlap we experience the beginning of the end of suffering, and the foretastes of the glory of God’s presence with us, yet the day is coming when suffering, and sin, and even death will give way to glory entirely before the throne of our victorious king Jesus. And so though we suffer now, we do not lose heart! Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day as we set our eyes on Jesus, and find in Him the example, and the encouragement that we need to endure with great hope.

So when we suffer in the sacred overlap, let us take courage! Remember that suffering is proof that God is at work — it is not meaningless! It is part of being a disciple of Jesus — we are not alone! And God is still in control — it will not last forever.

As I was reflecting on this message, I kept coming back to this feeling that I don’t know if I have what it takes to suffer like this. And every time, I was reminded of the truth of the Gospel. That God sees our weakness, He knows our frame. He knows our limits. And He knows we couldn’t do it in our own strength. So He took on flesh so that He could suffer for us, to end all suffering! He went before us. He crucified suffering, sin, and death on the cross in His flesh, so that we could live with Him forever.

And it reminded me of a time when I was skiing in Colorado with my dad and my brothers. For the first time ever, we took the highest ski lift in North America up to the Imperial Bowl at the top of the mountain, and then when we got off the lift we hiked about a hundred yards up to the summit with our skis on our backs. And I remember looking down at the terrain and thinking to myself, “There’s know way I can do this. There’s just no way! I’m going to die! I’ve never skied this kind of incline before. It’s practically a straight drop.” And as I was having those thoughts of fear and trepidation, my dad dove into the bowl ahead of me. And I knew in that moment, I may not be able to make it to the bottom of the hill in one piece, but I can follow my dad to the next turn.

And Christ has done just the same for us by suffering on the cross. He blazed the trail! All we need to do is to set our eyes on our suffering savior, surrender our lives once again to Him, allow Him to encourage and strengthen us by His Spirit, and follow Him to the next turn. Let’s pray.