I Thessalonians 2:13-20
Introduction – It’s June 7, 1944, one day after D Day. The beach landings and air strikes were only the beginning. Brig. General Norman “Dutch” Cota, assistant division commander of the 29th, came upon a group of infantry pinned down by some Germans in a farmhouse. He asked the captain in command why his men were making no effort to take the building. “Sir, the Germans are in there shooting at us.”
John Eldredge writes: Why were those guys pinned down? First, they seemed almost surprised that they were being shot at. “They’re shooting at us, sir.” Hello? That’s what happens in war – you get shot at. Have you forgotten? We were born into a world at war. This scene we’re living in is no sitcom. It’s a bloody battle.
Eldredge makes a good point for us to remember this morning. We’re at war.
There is an enemy. There is an opposing force in this great journey heavenward
I’m thankful this morning for opposition. Prosperity has often been fatal to Christianity, but persecution never has. Opposition draws the line between Christians and phonies; makes the enemy clearer; makes it more obvious when the devil’s at work.
Paul said,
2 Timothy 3:12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Quote - J. I. Packer in Knowing God. “Opposition is a fact: the Christian who is not conscious of being opposed had better watch himself for he is in danger.”
It’s a fact that the Church has experienced some of its greatest growth under some of its hardest times.
You won’t hear much about it in the news, but today, brothers and sisters in Christ are facing incredible opposition around the world. In places like…
Kuwait:
Kuwait has a law regarding converting to Christianity: This is from an actual ruling in the case of Robert Hussein, a Christian accused of converting from Islam:
"Any Muslim who converts from Islam and attacks Mohammed's prophecy and accuses him of being a liar, his blood would be shed. His wife should be divorced from him and his possessions should be distributed among his heirs and he should be killed. The Islam [ruler] should kill him without a chance to repent." This was the proclamation in the case of Robert Hussein, 1996.
Robert Hussein was executed for his belief in Jesus.
Laos
Around 150 Christians were arrested in Laos last year. Christians there are being rounded up, imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to renounce their faith. Accounts described how 7 Church leaders and a member were recently released after a month in prison in a southern province. They said they were denied full rations, placed in stocks or made to wear handcuffs and pulled into the prison yard to sign a declaration that they’d given up their beliefs by police officers pointing guns at their heads.
Pakistan
Two Christian men were shot to death as they left a courthouse on July 19, in Faisalabad, Pakistan. 2 brothers, were facing blasphemy charges after allegedly distributing papers that denigrated Mohammed. 5 days earlier, handwriting experts had informed the police that the signatures on the papers didn’t match the Christians.
Police were leading the two brothers from the courthouse when masked men opened fire on them. The gunmen urged Muslim police officers to back away from the accused Christians to avoid being shot. No arrests have been made for the murders.
Sources said Muslims in the area celebrated the killings with tea and candy.
India
On Aug. 15, police in Karnataka, India, arrested a pastor and an evangelist with India Campus Crusade for Christ, along with 10 other believers, accusing them of forcibly converting locals. Police arrested the 12 Christians after the attack, and at last report they were still in detention.
China
A report released in New York said, "The level of persecution aimed against unregistered Christians in China is high. The persecution against underground Christians has escalated and originates at the highest central levels of the Chinese government."
Aug. 5 and 6, the Chinese government shut down three house churches.
Aug. 30, a complex owned by the Taishan Christian House Church, in Taizhou City, was demolished.
Iran
Neshan Saeedi, a 27-year-old Christian, has not been seen since his arrest by government authorities July 24th.
The family was taken from their home to a detention center where they were interrogated for several hours before Saeedi’s wife and daughter were released. Officers threatened Saeedi’s wife, saying if the family continued its Christian activities their daughter might be taken away.
More Christians have DIED for their faith in the past 100 years than in the previous 19 centuries combined. An average of 171,000 Christians a year now die for their faith in Jesus.
As I was reading through the kind of suffering that people are enduring in the name of Jesus I found myself asking the Lord, “How can they endure it?” How can the world endure it?
We’re going to look at I Thessalonians 2 again today and what it was that helped them to stand under opposition, but I also want you to realize the same thing sustains the Church of today that’s facing persecution.
Fine, but that’s not me. That’s not us. That’s “them.”
Really? The people with whom you’re going to spend forever? Your fellow-heirs? Your brothers and sisters? The Family of God? The people who are alongside you at the throne of God when you pray? Other parts of the Body of which you are a part?
Saul of Tarsus was on his way to Damascus to imprison and persecute Christians. Jesus stopped him, remember, and asked Saul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting all those believers in Damascus?” right? Wrong! He said, “Why are you persecuting ME?”
The suffering of believers in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, China, Laos, Kuwait is Jesus’ suffering. It’s my suffering and your suffering. It is our concern. Let’s have our prayers be more than thanks to God that we don’t have the same experiences here. Let’s pray for their strength and endurance in the face of strong opposition. Encouragement for those Christians is our concern too. We’re not so far removed from our brothers and sisters in Christ who are dying for their faith in Him today.
Hebrews 13:3 (NIV)
Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
Maybe we aren’t afraid that our worship hour is going to be raided and we’re going to be hauled off to be imprisoned or beaten – not at this point anyway. But you have to work pretty hard to ignore that there is a powerful, well-organized opponent to your faith. They’re after the minds of your children. They are after your money. They are after your freedom to worship. They are after the conscience of the community.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you must. I’m just simple enough to believe it when the Bible tells me that our adversary is seeking to destroy us – seeking to devour us like a roaring lion.
We do face opposition. Our opposition comes in different forms, but we’ve always had, and will have until the Lord returns.
What does the Church that’s facing opposition need? Encouragement! This was for 1st cent. Thessalonica, but I want you to also see it’s the stuff that we need when we encounter opposition because of our faith.
How can we shoulder up against opposition?
I. High Regard for God’s Word (v13)
Few features of your home, your private life, or this congregation will be more telling than this point. How do you regard this message? Is it good writing or something better?
1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.
(A. It’s God’s word, not man’s)
When the Thessalonians decided they’d regard the words of Paul as more than just the words of man, they were making the decision to suffer for Jesus! Think of it: if what Paul had taught them was less than a revelation from God, if it was just some man’s ideas, they could have just dropped it when times got tough.
We make a similar decision. When we decide to regard this book as more than just the words of man, we’re deciding to face the ideas that oppose it. We decide to be people who disagree with the ideas of abortion on demand, sex outside of the context of marriage, and adjusting truth to fit the situation. We become an opposed people, just because we believe that the truth we find in here comes from God; that it can’t be compromised or ignored!
(B. It’s doing a work)
Paul said (v13) that word is “at work in you who believe.” It’s doing something. That shouldn’t surprise us. James described it as “the word planted in you, which can save you..” Hebrews calls it a 2-edged sword. Timothy would hear it called the “word of truth.” The Philippians would hear it called the “word of life.” The Ephesians would remember that it’s the “sword of the Spirit,” and the elders from Ephesus would remember it was “the word of His grace.” All of them are descriptions that carry a certain expectation -- an expectation that God’s word isn’t static. It does things. It does that when we finally regard it for what it really is: the word of God and not the word of men.
2 Corinthians 10:3 5 "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
In this passage, “opposition” is the opposing lies of Satan; it’s the arguments and pretension he has used to dupe mankind.
How do you deal with the opposition? You’d better get your sword!
Reading Max Lucado is great - I enjoy his writing, but you’d better get your sword.
Reading Christian magazines and novels is fine, but you’d better get your sword!
I enjoy listening to good Christian music, but you better get your sword!
Veggie Tales videos are good for our kids, but they’d better get their sword!
If what we stand on is man-made, it will teeter and fall. The Church will crumble in the face of opposition if we fail to stand on the word of God. The churches in the US today that are failing are especially the ones that have openly denied the Bible as God’s word.
There must be a high regard for the word.
Another part of shouldering up under opposition is
II. Concern for the Suffering of Other Christians (vv14-16)
It’s so easy for us to ignore the suffering that’s going on in the name of Christ right now -- because the press isn’t making it as obvious.
Just the same, Christians are suffering and being put to death everyday because of their decision to follow Jesus. If the Church of today is going to shoulder up under opposition there, and if we’re going to deal with the opposition we face here, we’re going to need a genuine concern for the suffering of others who are remaining faithful to Christ.
(A. Remember that others share the experience)
That’s what Paul’s doing as he goes on in this letter. He helps the Thessalonian Christians realize they have a connection with the Christians of Judea.
1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.
Ill - When Elijah was running from Jezebel and hiding out at Horeb, he hit a pit of depression. “They’re against me! Lord, I’m the only one! (Translation: I’m facing opposition and I’m alone!)” God told Elijah, "I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
Listen, this morning, if you’re faced with opposition because you’re a Christian, you need to remember you’re not unique in that experience. Others have been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and are going through it more thoroughly today than you ever may. That’s why there’s value in reading the stories of Christians who have successfully endured even to the point of death in the name of Jesus.
(B. Remember that opposition comes from close to home)
You don’t have to go to a faraway land to see it. Opposition may come from real close to home. Look what Paul says: Your experiences are similar. They suffered at the hands of their own people. The Jews killed the Jewish prophets, Jesus, and they had even been the main cause of Paul’s troubles. The Thessalonians weren’t suffering because they were outsiders. Their own countrymen were hassling them because of their decision to serve Jesus.
So don’t be overly shocked when your non-Christian family member or close friend hassles you because of what you believe. But when that happens,
C. Remember that the ones who really suffer are those who are hindered from hearing about Jesus
1 Thessalonians 2:16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.
You can tell what really upset Paul wasn’t the fact that he was beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and shamed. What upset him was the way it kept them from sharing the gospel with the Gentiles so they’d be saved.
I think the HS wants us to get this perspective this morning: What ought to concern the Church is when sharing the gospel somehow gets hindered.
Ill – Ron Hoyer had just preached to a village in India. About 30 people had raised their hands that they believed in Jesus and they were going to be baptized. Ron turned his back to go to the water, and a rock hit him in the back. An angry Hindu woman had thrown it to get his attention and to defy him. She stood up and began to yell and oppose him. She managed to frighten all those people away from their decision that day. In another village, John Meur had just preached to a village, and the village elder came out, drunk and angry, to oppose the gospel. Everyone was afraid to respond to Jesus – except there was one. John couldn’t understand his words, but it was obvious what he was saying “I don’t care what you say, I’m going to do this!”
There’s more going on in Pakistan and China and India and Laos than the suffering of Christians – there’s also the hindering of people hearing the gospel. Anything that hinders the spreading of the gospel is the opposition. Remember that. Somewhere out there is an unsaved person who’s counting on us to be the ones who will share Jesus with him or her. Let’s not let them just sail into hell because we found ourselves somehow opposed and giving up.
(D. Remember that God will avenge those who oppose)
We need to concern ourselves with the suffering of other Christians. So Paul would have you remember this morning that God will avenge those who are of the opposition (v16) the wrath of God has come upon them at last. For the Jews that opposed Paul, it was about 20 yrs later - Jerusalem was destroyed. God avenged those who were of the opposition.
If you’re feeling oppressed, remember, you’re not alone in that. We need to learn to have this perspective when we begin to feel like it’s tough to be a Christian here. Remember who’s really suffering and going to suffer in this; that the day’s coming when God’s going to make it all right.
A 3rd strength we’re going to need to shoulder up under opposition is a
III. Burning Desire to Be Together
It should be strong. Paul uses a word here where our word “orphan” comes from. If you can imagine how a child feels when his parents have been torn away from him, you can begin to appreciate how much he hated being separated from the Thessalonians.
1 Thessalonians 2:17-18 But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you--certainly I, Paul, did, again and again…
This is Paul, the stalwart, the strong, the preacher, the super Apostle, the writer of Scripture. He wanted to be around the Thessalonians! He felt a burning desire to visit with them; just to be around them. That’s part of shouldering up under opposition -- we have each other, by the grace of God. And if the Church of today is going to stand, we’ll need that inner link that makes us want to be around each other.
I weary of trying to convince people who claim Jesus as Lord to get together with the Body to worship once or twice a week! No one should have to coax us to be here. There should already be a desire to be here just because this is where my brothers and sisters are gathered together, and I want to be around them. We need it! One proof of that is...
A. Satan will try to keep you from it!
[18b] but Satan stopped us.
There’s the opposition again! Satan knows that we give each other encouragement. He knows that when you gather with the rest of the body, it builds you up, and you build it up, and he doesn’t want that. So you can bet he’ll find whatever excuse or rationalization he can for you to use.
Why be involved in a ministry? Why plug in to Sunday School? Why get into a community group? Why be a part of the leadership? Why get here for Family Nights on Wednesdays?
1 Thessalonians 2:19-20
For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.
B. The whole Church is looking to be together one day!
Amen?! When you accept God as your Father you join a family. If you can’t get excited about being together with your brothers and sisters now, what do you think you’re going to be doing for eternity in heaven?!
-Ill - just sitting down to a meal with a couple of families you can spend time with people you’re planning on spending forever with.
And how else are you going to learn things like why Scott and Lori Cruden are big hockey fans, or Beryl Johnson’s baked potato soup recipe?
Satan knows that our togetherness is a big part of what helps us to stand firm when we’re opposed. That desire ought to be there.
Conclusion:
One way to describe what it means to be a Christian: someone who’s going to heaven and trying to take along as many people as I can!
You have an opposition this morning. He’s opposed to your joy and fulfillment. He’s opposed to you living forever -- and to everyone else living forever, for that matter. He’s the enemy, and he’s winning, until you accept Jesus as your Lord.
You can shoulder up under that opposition. You can face it. You just need to get on the right team.
