Suffering for Christ’s Sake

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Now, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, we’re going to look at all 12 verses tonight. Admittedly, just a quick view through them. But it starts in verse 1, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s a pretty standard greeting that we see those in each of the New Testament letters.

And really, we’re going to focus in on verses 3 through 12, where he starts to give some instructions to the church. He says in verse 3, We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, since your faith is flourishing, and the love each one of you has for one another is increasing. Now, remember, he wrote the first letter to the church at Thessalonica.

In the aftermath of his checking on them, he had been there with them and spent time with them. Through circumstances outside of Paul’s control, he was forced to leave them sooner than he had planned on, and he kept wanting to come back to them. He kept wanting to come back and check on them and was prevented at every turn from doing that.

And so when he just couldn’t stand it anymore, you know when you want to know something and it’s eaten away at you and you just can’t stand it anymore. Paul said, I had to do something. So he sent Timothy, I believe it was, to the church at Thessalonica to check on him.

Paul couldn’t go himself, so he sent Timothy. And Timothy brought back a pretty good report about their faith and their love and their growth. Of course, as with any church, we talked about this Wednesday night, we are not a perfect church.

I’m not a perfect pastor. Y’all are not perfect members. That goes with the territory.

You’ve heard it said, if you ever find a perfect church, don’t join because you’ll mess it up. There’s some truth to that. They were not a perfect church.

There were a few things he needed to address, but by and large, what Timothy brought back was a positive report. Paul worried, especially with having to leave them so soon after their conversion, many of them, that with them still being spiritually immature, that they were going to fall prey to false teachers, that they were going to get swept away because of their suffering and lose their faith. He didn’t know what was going to happen.

And so when Timothy comes back and tells him they’re growing in the faith, Paul was ecstatic. Okay, that was all in the first letter. Now he’s written the second letter to them and says, he ought to thank God for them, and rightly so, because your faith is flourishing and the love each one of you has for one another is increasing.

So by the time the second letter gets there, some more time has passed, maybe a year or so. Paul gets another report back from Thessalonica, and things have changed, but not in the sense that they’ve gone backwards. If anything, they’re doing better in some of these major areas.

Now, we’ll see through this book over the next few weeks that there are still some areas that he needs to address, some problems, some things that need to be tweaked. But by and large, this is a church that’s doing well. It’s a church that’s growing.

When I say growing, I mean spiritually. They are a growing church. And he rejoices in this.

And one of the reasons I think that they are doing so well, and I’ve kind of pointed this out to you as we’ve studied 1 Thessalonians, one of the reasons I think that they were doing so well as a church, one of the reasons why they were so strong in their faith, one of the reasons why they were just committed to love one another, one of the reasons why they were so faithful in serving Christ is because they lived with the expectation that Jesus could come back at any moment. We see some talk about the end times and some talk about the second coming and the rapture in 1 Thessalonians. We see some more of that in 2 Thessalonians.

They were a different kind of church because they were in a different kind of mindset. And their focus was always on the fact that he’s returning soon. We don’t know when, but he’s returning soon.

And so Paul writes and commends them for the love that they have for one another and the faith that’s growing. Verse 4, he says, Therefore, we ourselves boast about you among God’s churches, about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions that you’re enduring. He said they’re doing so well that they brag, that Paul and his associates brag about the church at Thessalonica to the other churches.

Now that’s not necessarily a prideful thing on Paul’s part. It’s more like giving a good report to these other churches. And saying, you’ve got to hear about what God’s doing at Thessalonica.

Of course, if you’re those other churches, if you’re the church at Ephesus that had problems, the church at Corinth that had problems, it might sound a little bit like, why can’t you be more like your brother? But Paul, he said, things are going so well there. We brag about you to the other churches.

And not so much about you, but we brag about what God’s doing in your midst. And I think this is telling. He said, we brag on these things and what’s going on about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions that you’re enduring. You know, we tend to think that a church is going well, when things are going well in a church when it has no problems. We think things are going well in a church when the numbers are always up and the giving’s always up and everybody’s happy.

And we tend to think that’s when we know things are going well. But Paul said they’re going well in spite of the persecutions and afflictions. This was a church that had serious trouble.

It was trouble from the outside. It’s not as though there was sin and division that was tearing the church apart from the inside. They were being pressed on from outside.

And he said, and yet your faith continues to grow. And yet the church continues to prosper in spite of this persecution and affliction, really in the midst of the persecution and affliction. It’s easy.

It’s easy to be faithful when things are going well, isn’t it? It’s easy to feel good about what God’s doing when what God’s doing makes life easier. There’s more money in the bank account.

Your children are behaving. But when they were struggling and suffering, and really not struggling or suffering because of anything they’d done, they were struggling and suffering because of their witness for Christ. They were struggling and suffering because of doing the right thing. They were struggling and suffering because of believing the right things and preaching the right things.

They were struggling and suffering because they were in the middle of God’s will. And Satan doesn’t like that. And he said it was in the middle of that persecution and affliction that their faith was growing and their love for one another was growing.

He said they’re enduring. It’s easy to be faithful. It’s easy to be faithful when everything’s going well.

But the real test of our faith in God is whether or not it perseveres in the midst of the struggle and the afflictions and the persecutions. And theirs did. He said in verse 5, It is clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment that you will be counted worthy of God’s kingdom for which you are also suffering.

Now we need to go back and figure out what that’s talking about. It’s clear evidence. The it he’s referring to, I don’t believe is the struggling.

I don’t believe it’s the persecution and affliction. That somehow if you are suffering, it’s proof that God’s pleased with you. That’s not what he’s talking about.

He’s talking about their endurance. He’s talking about the fact that they are growing continually in the faith in spite of these persecutions. he said that is clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment.

Now that phrase God’s righteous judgment doesn’t mean necessarily that their persecutions were because God was judging them. Now he says it’s clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment that you will be counted worthy of God’s kingdom for which you’re also suffering. So to break this down a little bit, what he’s saying here is that Paul believes, and rightly so, God revealed this, the Holy Spirit inspired this, but Paul in his writing believes that God has looked at the church at Thessalonica, and God in his righteous judgment has said, you, you belong to the kingdom, you belong to me, and the evidence that God had made that judgment about them, the evidence that God considered them to be his, the evidence of that was their continuing faith and their endurance of persecution.

He said that’s clear evidence. Now sometimes we will go through times of suffering, we’ll go through times of struggle, and we’ll wonder, does God really care about me? I won’t ask you to raise your hands, but I’ll ask you, have some of you ever been in that position?

You don’t have to answer out loud. but I think if I sat down and talked with you on one talked with you one-on-one we’d find that many of you have been in that in in that situation even even if it’s just for a moment I’m thinking God if you really love me would I be going through this God does this mean I’m not where you want me to be does this mean I’m not doing what you want me to do God does it mean I’m not really yours that I’m struggling and suffering like this? I think a lot of us go through times like that.

And we think the fact that we’re suffering and we’re struggling is evidence that maybe we’re not as close to Him as we ought to be. Now that’s possible. It’s possible.

We see throughout Scripture that God has judged people and God has disciplined people for going against His word. But we also see here that He said sometimes that persecution, sometimes that affliction is there because it’s not that the persecution and affliction necessarily are evidence that we don’t belong to Him or we’re not close to Him or that we’re doing something wrong. Sometimes the significance of that persecution and affliction is that our perseverance in faith, our continued faith in Him, is evidence that we belong to Him.

Because again, anybody can say, I belong to Him, I believe in Him when times are good. But to say, I still believe Him even when times are bad, indicates a genuine faith. So Paul said, what’s going on in you in spite of what’s going on around you is clear evidence that God has considered you worthy for his kingdom.

Not worthy because of any good that they’d done, but worthy because they were in Jesus Christ. He says that they were suffering for the kingdom. So verse 6, since it is just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to give relief to you who are afflicted among us. He said there will come a day when God, because he is just, will repay those who’ve afflicted you.

He will repay those who’ve caused you trouble, and He will repay you for the trouble that you’ve received. We read that and think, oh, I just think about the last person who did me wrong, and God’s going to get them. Let me mark that day down on the calendar.

You know, He says in verse 7, this will take place at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. We get a sobering picture here. And by the way, he’s not talking about somebody in the church offended me and he’s going to punish them for that.

What he’s talking about is those who were afflicting the church, those who were persecuting the church, those who were standing against the gospel. He’s not talking about, you know, if June and Sharon got mad at each other, both believers, y’all don’t see that happening, do you? Both believers, but they said some things and hurt each other’s feelings, and now the other one’s saying, Christian or not, God’s going to get her.

That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s not saying here God’s going to get everybody who we’ve ever been at odds at, because guess what? We’ve been at odds with some believers as well.

And that’s not what we want either. That’s not what he’s talking about. These persecutions and afflictions, their suffering are not personal slights.

They’re the persecution of the gospel, the persecution of the church. And he’s saying to this world out there that is putting so much suffering on the church, not because of personal disputes, but because of their stand for the gospel, that God will one day make those wrongs right. But we need to be careful before we say good.

There’s a tendency in church culture, in the Bible Belt, to look at the world around us and say, you know, this world rejects Jesus. And one day they’re going to know. One day he’s going to fix their wagon.

Well, the truth is God will judge mankind. But we need not be so cavalier about it. Because but for the grace of God, we’d be in that class of people outside persecuting the church.

We’re not saved because of any good that we’ve done. We’re saved because we heard the gospel and believed. and when we understand the judgment that he’s talking about here he says that when Jesus comes from heaven with his powerful angels verse 8 when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and who don’t obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus he said vengeance with flaming fire and it’s not just a one-time thing it’s not just this one-time battle of Armageddon and they suffer with the cleansing fire of the Lord Jesus Christ and then it’s all over with.

Now he goes on to say in verse 9, they will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from His glorious strength. There will be an eternal separation from the love and from the presence and from the grace of God. And I believe what, I know it’s become fashionable today to question the existence of hell, the eternality of hell, the literalness of hell.

Maybe I’m not as smart as some other people, but you know what? They’re not as smart as Jesus either. I’m going to go with what Jesus said about it.

He called it a place where the fire is never extinguished, where the worm never dies. It’s a place of eternal suffering. It’s a place that we should not wish on our worst enemies.

it’s a fate that we should not that we should not delight in ok so the people around us in the community believe things differently than we do they use words that we would never use they’re engaged in behaviors that we wouldn’t do they look, talk, act, vote, smell different from us. And it’s easy to look at that and say, God will get them someday. But instead of taking delight in the fact that they’re going to get the judgment of God and they’ll know they were wrong, instead we should be praying now for their salvation because we should realize that this judgment is severe and it’s forever.

I’m not saying it’s wrong. God’s judgment is always just. But at the same time, God is merciful. God himself, who’s far more right than we are, said he’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Instead of condemning the world outside these four walls for the way they persecute the gospel, for their hostility toward the gospel, we should be in prayer for them. And we should lovingly point them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, when God does judge them through Jesus Christ, when He does judge the world, He won’t be wrong. He won’t be wrong.

By definition, God cannot be wrong. But at the same time, we see throughout Scripture that even though God will judge the world, God also loved the world enough to send His Son. And we ought to love the world enough to carry his son to them and at least give them the opportunity to hear the gospel rather than just write them off because, well, they’re going to get it.

He says they’ll pay the eternal penalty, the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength on that day when he comes to be glorified. When he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at by all those who have believed. Remember what I told you this morning?

We need to come to a place where we realize how incredible Jesus is, where we are amazed by Him all over again, where we fall in love with Him all over again. That’s going to be our eternity. We might as well practice now.

It’s fun to discuss sometimes what heaven’s going to be like. We have these conversations in our family. You may have had them with your friends or family at some point.

is there going to be fishing in heaven? Is there going to be Chick-fil-A in heaven? I’d like to think there’s going to be all these things in heaven.

I don’t know that for sure. But we tend to look at heaven as being the fringe benefits. Now, I think it’s going to be a place of pure delight.

There’s going to be all sorts of things that we’re going to be able to enjoy with our Lord forever. But folks, don’t forget that the purpose of heaven, above and beyond anything else, is to glorify Jesus Christ. is to delight in being in His presence for all eternity. And Jesus is coming back to be glorified by His saints and to be marveled at by all who have believed.

Because our testimony among you was believed. How do we get to that place? How do we get to be there with Him to glorify Him and to marvel at Him?

By believing the gospel. They were going to be there because what Paul had preached was believed by them. That brings me back to what I said earlier.

Our attitude toward those who are currently careening toward condemnation. We tend to think, you know, like I said, generally speaking, church, Bible belt culture, we’re better than them and they deserve what they get. Well, we also deserve what they’re going to get.

The only thing that stands between us and eternity separated from God is a bloody cross. You and I won’t get into heaven because we went to church, because we acted right, because we were respectable members of society, because we voted the right way, because we kept our language clean. The only reason any of us are going to heaven in the first place, the only reason any of us escaped the righteous judgment of God, is because of Jesus Christ on that cross.

He says in verse 11, in view of this, we always pray for you that our God will make you worthy of his calling. We can’t be worthy of his calling. It’s something he has to do in us.

It’s something that we’re worthy of only because Christ makes us worthy. And by his power, fulfill your every desire to do good. We read so many things in scripture and think it’s a blanket promise that God’s going to give us whatever we desire.

Now, I think this clarifies it. He said that he prays that God would, by his power, fulfill your every desire to do good. That when we desire to serve him, when we desire to glorify him, that God would give us those desires.

And your work produced by faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you. He said he wants all this to happen so that Jesus would be glorified by the people at Thessalonica, and you by him.

it’s not about our glory but oh how glorious it’s going to be when we receive our glorified bodies and when we get to stand in his glory for the rest of eternity kneel in his glory in his presence that he’ll be glorified by you and you by him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ again it’s not because of our goodness that we get to be with him it’s because of his grace now when he wrote this he’s writing to a church that was suffering for the sake of the gospel they were suffering even though they hadn’t done anything to deserve the suffering that particular suffering they were suffering and they were willingly doing it and they weren’t grumbling about it they were continuing to grow in their faith they were continuing to grow in their love for one another they were continuing to serve him and kind of like we talked about with Paul this morning, they seem to have taken an attitude toward it that, hey, if this is the price of following Jesus, we’re willing to pay that price as long as he’s glorified.

And I think there are three things I’ll give you real quick tonight, three things that we can learn from his instructions to them about suffering. First of all, we see in verses 3, 4, and 5 that suffering can aid our spiritual growth. He said they were growing not in the absence of suffering and not really in their suffering, they were in some ways growing through their suffering.

See, faith I’ve heard described like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it never grows any stronger. And usually it’s in those times, many of us know this from experience, it’s in those times of struggle where our faith actually has to work.

Our faith has to flex and stretch to believe God. Because we get to an obstacle, we get to a challenge that’s bigger than we’ve ever faced before. And do we believe God can do it or not?

It’s a bigger leap of faith than it’s ever been. And that faith has to stretch and grow. That faith in God has to stretch and grow to the size of the obstacle.

And then we walk away afterwards, and that faith is stronger than it’s ever been, if we’ve used it, if we’ve exercised it. Now, if we just say we have faith and we go along and the road’s never bumpy, nothing ever goes wrong, that faith is going to be weak. It’s going to be weak like arms that are never used.

So suffering can aid our spiritual growth. We see in verses 6 through 10 that suffering keeps our eyes on heaven. You know, they were struggling and they were suffering.

And again, at the hands of some of the people around them who were persecuting the church, and it’d be very easy to think, you know, why are we going through this? You know, sometimes our struggling and our suffering reminds us that we’re not supposed to be comfortable in this world. It’s easy to get comfortable.

And suffering reminds us this world is not our home. That really what we’re doing here is a dress rehearsal, a practice for what’s to come. That what we’re really engaged in is not an earthly struggle for our comfort and why won’t these afflictions just leave us alone.

What we’re really doing here, there’s a spiritual struggle at work. And it keeps our eyes on heaven. That’s why somebody can go through a long bout with a painful illness, and they’re much more ready to see Jesus than somebody for whom everything’s going great.

They’re ready to see Jesus because that suffering has changed their perspective where they realize this world is not a place of comfort. This world is not our home. This world is not where we find our ultimate peace.

So their eyes are on Jesus. That’s why Paul turns the attention of the Thessalonians to what’s coming with Christ’s judgment, but also his gathering up of the saints. And then we see in verses 11 and 12 that suffering lets us glorify Jesus Christ. Now, we can glorify Jesus Christ in good times as well as in bad times.

But Paul said, I want, even in the midst of this struggling, even in the midst of this suffering, I want people to see what Jesus is doing in you, and I want him to be glorified in you. Some of the biggest times of struggle and suffering in my own life have been, later on, the greatest testimonies to God’s goodness. I can tell people how good God was that He gave me to Christian parents who loved me and raised me to know the truth.

I can talk about all the good things that God’s done, and that’s important. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to count our blessings, as we sang about just a little bit ago.

But I’ve found in ministry, those stories are not really the ones that capture people’s hearts. It’s been the times where I’ve been able to tell the stories about the things that I wish had not happened. The stories about two miscarriages and a stillbirth.

And how God took care of me. Sometimes moment by moment. I didn’t know how I was going to get to the next moment.

but God took care of me every step of the way through those things. And my faith in God was strengthened. Those are the stories that I’m able to point to, and people say, wow, God did that.

Yeah, it wasn’t my strength that carried me through. It wasn’t my goodness that brought me through those times of suffering. It was God.

It was all Him. Folks, our suffering gives us the opportunity to glorify Jesus Christ to a watching world in a way we could not otherwise do. I hope you’re not going through a time of suffering right now.

I hope you don’t end up going through a time of suffering in the near future. But folks, the likelihood is at some point we’re going to suffer. And sometimes we’re going to suffer even when we didn’t do anything directly to cause it.

in those times, don’t question God’s love for you. Don’t question why, I mean, it’s okay to ask questions. What I should say is don’t doubt God’s love for you.

Don’t doubt that God’s got a plan. Don’t doubt that God will see you through it. Instead, realize that this suffering can be, as much as we don’t like it, this suffering can be used for our spiritual growth.

It can be used to really give us a different perspective on this life and make us more to turn our perspective toward heaven and it can be used to glorify Jesus Christ when we come out on the other side of it in a way that we otherwise could not have done.