How to Bring Your Leaders Joy

Tonight we will be looking at a very dynamic text, 1 Thess 2:13-16. We’re going to soar with Paul to the heights of gratitude and joy, and then we’re going to plunge into condemnation and wrath. The shift from one to the other is so fast, so abrupt, so violent, it’s almost like the amusement park rides that slowly lift you in the air and then suddenly drop out from underneath you. It is dramatic, but I hope you’ll come away with a clear understanding of the truths here.

To that end, let me read our text for us and pray, and then we’ll work our way through it together:

13 And for this reason we also thank God without ceasing that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe. 14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also suffered the same things at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, 15 who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and do not please God, and are hostile to all men, 16 hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.

Pray: open minds, humble hearts, eager to receive this text as what it really is, the Word of God

So far in 1 Thessalonians, we’ve been looking primarily at the standard Paul and his companions set for pastors and elders in ministry, and we’ve found that the bar is exceedingly high. Now Paul pivots to thanksgiving, in a way that reminds me of 3 John 4, where John says, “4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” Both John and Paul find great joy in seeing their spiritual children walk in the truth, and rightly so.

As a result, we are going to focus tonight more on the church members than the church leaders, on the right response to godly ministry rather than the ministry itself. I’ve given this lesson the title “How to Bring Your Leaders Joy” because we are specifically going to look at how we can imitate the ways the Thessalonians gave Paul occasion for thanksgiving.

In particular we are going to look at four ways they brought joy to their leaders:

They accepted what they heard as the word of God

They imitated the example of faithful churches

They endured common suffering and persecution

They did not imitate what was evil, but what was good

Accept what you hear as the Word of God

Look with me at verse 13, where Paul describes the reason for his thanksgiving toward God:

Paul reiterates twice that the Thessalonians received and accepted what they heard as the word of God, and he contrasts this with “the word of men.” Earlier, in his epistle to the Galatians, he differentiated the gospel he proclaimed as “not according to man” and he defined that by saying that he “neither received it from man” nor “was [he] taught it” by man, but he received it “through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Gal 1:11-12). That is the same thrust here.

Instead, the Thessalonians received what they heard as “what it really is, the word of God.” They listened with reverence and awe. They understood that they were in the presence, not just of an old, tattered apostle, but of the living God Himself. Paul was merely a messenger. They were hearing the summons of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Almighty God was speaking in their midst, and he demanded their full attention.

Earlier, in 1 Thess 1:5, Paul described the qualifications that differentiated the word of men from the word of God saying, “our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full assurance; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.” This is important to consider briefly.

On the one hand, the message could be tested by the presence of power, the Holy Spirit, and full assurance, the result of which is transformation in the lives of the hearers, as we see here in v. 13, “which also is at work in you who believe.” There was real evidence of fruit in the lives of the Thessalonians when they heard the word of God; it is effectual and does not return void. In addition, we see from 1 Thess 1:5 that the word could also be tested by “what kind of men” the speakers proved to be, and this is the same test Peter and Jude put forward for discerning the character of false teachers.

By these two tests, the Thessalonians were able to differentiate the word of God from the word of men, and to receive and accept that which was true, just like their neighbor church Berea was famous for doing. Much more could be said about this, but I’ve included a number of questions for the group leaders to explore this topic further.

Imitate the example of faithful churches

In addition to that similarity with the church in Berea, Paul specifically mentions a connection between the Thessalonians and the churches of Judea, which were some of the earliest churches to be planted. He says:

14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, ...

We know from Luke’s account of Jesus’s words in Acts 1:8 that the apostles were called to be “witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth.” This brief chronology of the early church indicates that the Judean churches were the first to be founded outside the original church in Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, we do not know much about these Judean churches because the account in Acts skips almost straight from Stephen’s stoning in Jerusalem in chapter 7 to the church spreading into Samaria in chapter 8. We know it went through Judea to get to Samaria, though, and Acts 9:31 does shed some light on the situation for us:

Ac 9:31, “31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria was having peace, being built up. And going on in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it continued to multiply.”

Here we see that the churches of Judea, as well as Galilee and Samaria, were all enjoying peace, the fear of the Lord, and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. These are all wonderful things, and as a result of this combination we see that the church continued to multiply. Not all was smooth sailing, though, and in Acts 11 we find one other snippet:

Ac 11:29, “29 And as any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the service of the brothers living in Judea.”

This verse and a few other references to the same incident indicate that the Judean churches were poor, and in a minute Paul will go on in 1 Thess 2 to note that they were also persecuted. Poor and persecuted, but peaceful.

In addition to imitating the Judean churches, Paul also praises the Thessalonians in 1:6 for becoming “imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit.” These were the eager Thessalonians: imitators of the apostles, of the Lord, and of the churches of Judea. They soaked up the word of God like a dry sponge in a bucket of water, and their sharp eye noted every godly example around them.

This dramatic transformation in their lives did not go unnoticed, though, and so they suffered for the gospel.

Endure common suffering and persecution

This brings us to the third way in which we can bring our leaders joy. We’ve already seen that we can do this by accepting what we hear from them as the word of God and by imitating the example of other faithful churches. Now the third thing Paul notes about the Thessalonians is that they endured common suffering and persecution. He says:

14 ... for you also suffered the same things at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,

Notice that he equates two things: the same kinds of suffering and the same kinds of people. From these two points, we can gather his message for the Thessalonians: they were not alone. Peter said the same thing in 1 Pet 5:9 too.

These verses remind me of seeing little kids fall down. If they know they’ll get sympathy, the tears often come. But if they’re okay and nobody is going to coddle them, they get right back up and just keep going. We’re the same way, even as adults, and both of these apostles knew it. They knew that perspective makes all the difference. Suffering isn’t novel.

By way of encouragement, F. F. Bruce noted in his commentary that perhaps six years later Paul was still speaking of these sufferings of the Thessalonians, who were located in the region of Macedonia:

2 Cor 8:1-5, “1 Now brothers, we make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, 2 that in a great testing by affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the richness of their generosity. 3 For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, 4 begging us with much urging for the grace of sharing in the ministry to the saints, 5 and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.”

So we see that their reputation for enduring suffering eventually became iconic. They were the case study, the example other churches came to follow. This was sweet and encouraging affirmation for them, a early reward for endurance.

In addition to sharing in the same kinds of suffering, Paul also points out that the Thessalonians suffered from the same kinds of antagonists, that is, from their own countrymen. This is very similar to Jesus’s observation that,

Mk 6:4, “4 … “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.”

The Thessalonians suffered at the hands of their own countrymen, and the churches of Judea suffered at the hands of the Jews. So also we can expect to suffer for our faith among those who know us best. There is often an element of betrayal in persecution and suffering that adds a sting to the blow, not unlike Judas’s kiss for Jesus.

Do not imitate what is evil, but what is good

It is at this moment with the sting of the Jews in mind that Paul pivots to pursue a dramatic tangent in his letter:

15 who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and do not please God, and are hostile to all men, 16 hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.

This is the pendulum swing and the roller coaster ride I mentioned earlier. Paul suddenly shifts gears from thanksgiving to tirade, from praising the Thessalonians to condemning the Jews. And the commentator crowd goes wild.

We’ll take a few minutes to look briefly at each of these six strokes of condemnation, but I want to orient your attention toward two key issues here. The first and most important is why on earth Paul felt the need to blast the Jews like this, and the second is related to the mysterious “wrath” that he states in his conclusion “has come upon them to the utmost.” We will address both of these issues in just a moment, but first let’s briefly consider each of the six statements that Paul makes concerning the Jews to better understand the weight of his point here:

Who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets - This is the only time in the New Testament that Paul ever made this accusation explicitly; here he lays the accountability for Jesus’s death at the feet of the Jews. And then he adds to that the prophets, pointing to a long line and steady history of anarchy and rebellion.

Who drove us out - We recognize this familiar event, recorded even in Acts 17 during the founding of the Thessalonian church! Many times riots were stirred up and Paul and his companions had to leave abruptly.

Who do not please God - This is an old concept, and one that commentator Gene Greene helpfully unpacks for us:

The Letters to the Thessalonians, Gene Greene

“To please God” is a moral concept rooted in the OT (Num. 23:27; 1 Kings 3:10; Ps. 69:31); it arises frequently in Paul’s ethical teaching (1 Thess 2:4; 4:1; 1 Cor. 7:32; Gal. 1:10; Col. 1:10; 2 Tim. 2:4; and cf. 1 John 3:22). Rebellion against God and his law is characteristic of those who do not please God (Rom. 8:8).

So we learn that the Jews, despite having been the chosen people who received the law, were also those who rebelled against God’s commands.

Who are hostile to all men - This is a broad statement, but based on the immediately following context, it seems likely that their hostility was evidenced in their opposition to the gospel, similar to the first of Jesus’s seven woes leveled at the religious rulers of Jerusalem in Mat 23:13, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” This woe led the others in procession and was the most dastardly dangerous.

Who hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved - Here we find the similarity between the Jews that Paul describes and the religious leaders that Jesus lambasted just days before his crucifixion. This happened in multiple times and places, similar to the driving out.

Who always fill up the measure of their sins - Again, we find common ground between this characteristic and the final woe and conclusion from Jesus,

Mat 23:29, 31-32, “29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! … 31 So you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers.

Just like the scribes and Pharisees, the Jews were filling up the measure of their sins, and their condemnation lurked just around the corner.

But wrath has come upon them to the utmost - This is a most certain and final declaration. The Jews were not going to be spared but would receive their due penalty in full. Sadly, this was not a new process. Jesus described the same at the end of his woes for the scribes and Pharisees, and even before that Yahweh did the same with Israel:

Mat 23:33-36, “33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? 34 “On account of this, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth… 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

2 Chr 36:15-16, “15 And Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by the hand of His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His habitation; 16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh arose against His people, until there was no remedy.”

Neither of these texts provide the answers we need for our text tonight, but I share them to make the point that while Paul’s words are atypical among his letters, they are not unprecedented in Scripture. Twice actually, and in both testaments, we see no one less than God himself making very similar statements about the same people group.

However, we must seek answers to the questions I raised earlier, which are, first, what Paul means by this wrath to which he refers so ominously, and second, why and how these two verses fit into our otherwise peaceful epistle.

In regard to the first question about the meaning of this wrath, we have to acknowledge the fact that Paul simply does not specify the nature of this wrath. Many commentators have taken educated guesses, and the theories are nearly as numerous as the books, with very little consensus. This is not surprising, and the fact that Paul does not pinpoint the wrath for us means that the significance must lie in something other than it’s specific timing and nature.

I believe the significance lies in the simple fact that the consequence of the Jews’ behavior is the wrath of God. The meaning is that their behavior has a bad ending; it is a tragedy not a comedy. For the Thessalonians, this would have been like a little girl finding out that her little brother got spanked for pushing a kid on the playground. If she were to ask how many times he was spanked, she would have been inappropriate and out of line. If, however, she were to note that she should not push other children because that ended badly for her brother, we would consider her wise. This is exactly the case with the Thessalonians. It is none of their business to know the details of the divine wrath that befell the Jews, but it was certainly the case that they should take heed and avoid imitating the Jews’ disastrous example.

This leads us to the second question about this passage, that is, why Paul suddenly felt the need to digress. I believe it was the result of the maternal and paternal instincts just discussed in the first half of our chapter. He is considering the beautiful gospel fruit present in this infantile church, and he is stirred to righteous anger as he considers how the Jews worked so hard to attack and destroy these gospel seedlings. We think of this today as the mama bear mentality. When Paul lists all his sufferings in 2 Cor 11, there is no spite or anger. When he thinks of these wolves invading the churches, though, all hell breaks loose as it were, and Paul violently confronts their evil and perverse behavior. As Jesus said, woe, woe! to those who “shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for they do not enter in themselves, nor do they allow those who are entering to go in.” There is no question that wrath will come to the utmost upon such rebels.

Therefore, there ought to be no thought remaining in the minds of the Thessalonians or our own that perhaps the Jews were right and we should turn back from this whole Jesus-gospel thing. No, absolutely not. Paul has painted a dramatic picture for us, not unlike the ones of Yellowstone National Park in the news. The road is out; the way is dangerous. Like the strange woman in Proverbs 5:5, the path of the Jews goes down to death and takes hold of Sheol. We shall not pass.

Conclusion

Instead, we must double back and continue in the the way which brings joy to our leaders. We must receive what is taught as the word of God. We must imitate the example of faithful churches. We must endure common suffering and persecution. And we must not imitate what is evil, but instead hold fast to and imitate what is good. This was Paul’s yearning for the Thessalonians, and their obedience was the occasion of his joyful thanksgivings toward God.

Post Script

He has given us his Word, a treasure beyond measure

Deut 4:5-8, Moses says, “See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. 6 You shall keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is Yahweh our God whenever we call on Him? 8 Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”

Ps 147:12-20 as well, flip and just skim v. 12, 15, 18-20

He has proven Himself faithful in the lives of holy ones who have gone before us

He comforts and encourages us even when we are suffering under persecution

He is worthy of enduring persecution for he has created us, suffered more on our behalf, saved us, and blessed us

He is just and rightly pours out his wrath on the wicked so that the righteous may be warned and vindicated