EPISODE 85 1THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 3 "Our pride and joy."

Welcome to Share the Word podcast. For those of you who are just joining us for the first time, we are a Great Commission project sharing the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter. Now, if you're not clear as to what the Great Commission is and what it entails, then this podcast, Paul gives a great insight as to just that and expands on it. Let's listen in. First Thessalonians chapter 3. Our pride and joy.

I wonder sometimes about the way my mind works. I often find myself thinking, does anybody else ever think about this kind of stuff, or is it just me? For one example of this, I remember every really nice thing someone has ever said about me, literally. I mean, since I was a small child. Maybe it's not that hard because it hasn't happened all that many times in my life, but I wonder, when I have these memories of someone complimenting me or whatever, do other people have this easily accessible file folder in their brain that holds these things, or is it only me? I need a psychiatrist to email us and tell me if there's something wrong with me, if this is abnormal or normal.

Let me give you an example because it ties into our lesson from First Thessalonians 3. There were five children in my family. I was the last born, the youngest. I distinctly remember a conversation with my mom when I was maybe 18 or 20 years old and her saying to me, You know, Paul, of all my children, you're the only one who's never given me a moment's trouble. You've always made me proud. Truth be told, my mom wasn't completely aware of everything I'd done as a teenager, but nevertheless, I've never forgotten that.

Do you also remember specific words of praise from a parent or a coach or a teacher or a friend you respect? I'm not sure. My hunch is that many of us do. I hope I'm not alone in this. But I'm a little curious about why. One obvious reason is praise is gratifying.

It makes us feel good. It builds us up. But maybe more importantly, it's also very motivational. It's something you can go back to and say, Hey, this person believed in me. It makes us want to live up to the good that others commend in us. At the end of the previous chapter, after Paul had compared his feelings for the Thessalonians to a loving mother or father, he then added this.

After we were separated from you for a little while, though our hearts never left you, we tried really hard to come back because of our intense desire to see you again. We wanted very much to come to you. I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before the Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you. You.

You are our pride and joy. That's pretty much what my mom said to me, right? If you listened through the podcast in Acts, you may remember that Paul had to leave Thessalonica much earlier than he hoped. The opposition against him grew so strong in that city from prominent Jews, they hired some bad actors to start a riot and then blamed the riot on Paul and his team. A mob came looking for Paul at the home where he'd been staying, and not finding him there, dragged Jason, his host, before the city magistrates. Luke tells us about this in chapter 17 of Acts.

At that hearing, Jason was required to post a bond, a substantial sum of money. Part of which likely required ensuring that the troublemakers, mainly Paul, would leave town. Jason did so, and this is probably what led to Paul having to depart Thessalonica before he wanted to, before he felt he'd finished his work there. Jason and the other believers in Thessalonica would have been held responsible if he didn't, and that explains why chapter 3 continues like this. When we could stand it no longer, we decided to stay alone in Athens and send Timothy back to you. He is our brother and God's coworker in proclaiming the good news of Christ.

We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles that were going on. You know that we were destined for such troubles. Even while we were with you, we warned you about that. Troubles would come, and they did, as you well know. That's why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out whether your faith was still strong, because I was afraid that the tempter, that Satan, had gotten the best of you and that our work might have been in vain. Paul had to move on from Thessalonica to try and defuse the situation there and protect the early Christians.

But later, when he was at Athens, he was desperate to know how things turned out. So he had Timothy return to the city to see how the new believers were doing, and Timothy brought back a glowing report about the health of this church, as we discussed in chapter 1. I want to focus in on two big ideas in this short chapter, chapter 3. The first comes from Paul's comments I just read. Listen again more carefully this time. We sent Timothy, he wrote, to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through.

But you know we were destined for such troubles. Even while we were with you, we warned you that trouble would soon come, and they did, as you well know. Paul had told the new believers in Thessalonica that they were destined for trouble. Wow. What kind of a message is that to create for new believers? That has to sound pretty surprising today to those who listen to the steady diet of what we were calling last time the prosperity preachers, remember?

Their gospel of receive Jesus and things will all smooth out in your life. God will start blessing you in every imaginable way, and wonderful things will start coming true for you. Hmm. That doesn't line up very well with what Paul had told the people in Thessalonica, does it? He says, I warned you when I was there that if you decided to follow Jesus, trouble could likely follow. And as you know, it did.

So I sent Timothy back, hoping to be assured that the trouble, the opposition, hadn't destroyed your faith, hadn't caused you to turn away from Christ. You know what? I'm betting Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland have probably never once preached on this section. But think back. Do you remember how God had also said to Ananias in Damascus concerning the man we now are calling the Apostle Paul, right after he was saved, He's a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and their kings and the people of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake.

I think by now, if you've been listening to Share the Word for a while, you know how much we hate any distortions of the gospel, such as what the Judaizers did in Galatia, for example, that sharing the message falsely, that religious acts or law keeping had to be added to the gospel of grace through faith in Jesus in order for people to really be saved. Or, another example here, the prosperity gospel, as it's called, which is popular, a popular distortion of the gospel in my generation, had Paul spun out the kind of ego-flattering messages that the prosperity gospel preachers do on their television shows, how could these lines from 1 Thessalonians 3 make any sense at all? They couldn't. And that's just the problem.

Paul told people the honest truth, which is that honestly, following Jesus, following Christ in sincerity, is probably going to produce some opposition from Satan, as well as from perhaps some other people around your life. He said, It's destined to happen, just as Ananias was told about him, just as Jesus had told his own disciples when he said to them, If the world hates you, remember it hated me first. And of course, Jesus meant by world the same thing we saw in the epistle of James, meaning the unbelieving world system that is in opposition to God and his truth. If new believers are taught this distortion, that everything is going to come up roses if they just come to Jesus and turn their life toward following him, then what happens when that doesn't occur?

When they find their spouse or people in their family now thinking they've become religious fanatics, when they lose their job because they will no longer do dishonest things that were standard procedure before. I know people where these things have happened, these exact things. When they were ostracized by their friends because they don't run with them anymore to the same kind of parties, the same kind of entertainments, or when they get sick or suffer from another kind of setback. Paul told the Thessalonians to expect trouble if they accepted Christ as their Savior and started following him as their Lord. He knew from experience, as well as Jesus' teaching and example, that this would often be the case because spiritual opposition is real. He was giving them an honest, preemptive warning.

He didn't want them to reach the wrong, discouraging conclusions that when trouble came, that meant they were on the wrong track, that when the unbelieving world and the enemy of our souls pushed back against them, that their faith was somehow a mistake. He told them in advance, trouble may well come, but what that means is just the opposite. It means you're exactly on the right track. I know I've gone over these things before, and I will probably go over them again because they come up so often in the New Testament, and they are so important. First, listen. We should accept Jesus as our Savior because we are sinners who desperately need a Savior, and He is the only qualified Savior there is.

And we should follow Jesus as our Lord because He is the way, the truth, and the life, and there's no one else worth following. If someone is presenting the gospel much differently than that, they're presenting a false gospel, and they likely have ulterior motives. And also, when it comes to interpreting Scripture correctly, if someone's interpretation or application of a Bible passage is not universal, by that I mean it wouldn't make sense everywhere and at any time, then it's bad theology. It's a wrong interpretation or application of God's Word because God's Word is for everywhere and all time. By that I mean you can only get away with preaching something like the prosperity gospel nonsense in America today because contemporary America is, by comparison to other places in the world and to other times in history, a pretty wealthy society.

So, untaught or naive young American believers are susceptible to that distortion that God wants everybody to be prosperous and wealthy. But you could never preach that message in North Korea today. You could never have preached that message in a poor manor village in medieval Europe, or for that matter, at most any other time or place in all of history. It would be immediately recognized as a distortion of the gospel of Christ. It would be laughed at as unrealistic and ridiculous. And it should be repudiated the same way today because it is, in fact, ridiculous and a distortion of New Testament teaching.

Okay, that rant is now over. On to the other big idea that strikes me from this chapter. At verse 7 and following, Paul writes this: But now Timothy has just returned, bringing us good news about your faith and love. He reports that you always remember our visit with you with joy and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you. So we have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering, dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith. It gives us new life to know that you are standing firm in the Lord.

How we thank God for you. Because of you, we have great joy as we enter God's presence. He means in prayer. Night and day we pray for you earnestly, asking God to let us come and see you again so we can fill in the gaps in your faith. Paul sounds so relieved, doesn't he? Now that Timothy has returned with his glowing report of the Thessalonians and how they are standing steadfast in their Christian faith, the troubles they faced and what has happened to Paul, these things have not discouraged or turned them away from following Christ.

They're standing firm. I think Paul probably was fearing a different report. The team had not been able to spend that much time there grounding these new believers in their faith before that opposition and circumstances led to them having to get out of town. And Paul understood how important it is for those new believers to be taught God's Word, to be rooted and grounded in it, to borrow one of his phrases from another letter. Without that indoctrination, young believers are very vulnerable to discouragement and susceptible to being misled by false teachers. Did you know that trees are genetically capable of growing very deep roots?

Huh? Where did that come from? Stay with me here for a minute. They don't always grow deep roots because root architecture is determined by soil condition, available water, and nourishment. But under ideal conditions, some species of trees can grow roots more than 20 feet below ground level. We've had a particularly bad season for tornadoes so far this year.

I remember seeing a photo that was making the rounds a while back on social media of a community in the Midwest that had just been flattened by a powerful tornado, except standing fast in the middle of all that twisted devastation was a large, strong oak tree. Oaks are one of those trees capable of the deepest root systems. I remember when I saw that photo thinking, Wow, what a great picture of a believer who has their roots down deep into Christ and into God's Word. It doesn't matter what new philosophies are prevailing in their society or what troubles may be blowing hard against their personal life because they are deeply rooted. The verse I alluded to a moment ago, it's Colossians chapter 2, verse 6. It reads in full, Just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him, letting your roots grow down into him so that your lives are built on him.

Then your faith will grow strong in the truth that you were taught. Although the Thessalonian believers were doing surprisingly well, according to Timothy, Paul badly wanted to be able to return to them to, in his words, fill in the gaps in their faith. You've probably noticed that we often refer to Share the Word, our project, as a Great Commission project. To many, Great Commission means exclusively sharing the gospel message, like missionaries arriving on a steamboat in the 19th century in the Congo to tell people steeped in animism the good news of Christ. Or, for that matter, a Billy Graham crusade rolling into a city in the late 20th century America, renting a big auditorium and preaching the gospel message every night for a week or two, challenging people to give their hearts and lives to Christ, as the invitation song Just as I Am with One Plea is sung.

But making disciples of Jesus is more than that. That's only the first part of the Great Commission. The second part of Jesus marching orders to his followers was to teach them all of the things that I have taught you. Once they've believed the gospel message, teach those new disciples, get them rooted in their Christian faith. That's what Paul was so concerned about here when he said in this letter, I'm anxious to get back to Thessalonica so I can fill in the gaps in your faith. He knew there was much more they needed to understand, much more they needed to buy into, to believe, to get their roots down into Christ firmly, to get rooted so that they could endure difficulties and weather persecutions he knew were ahead, or whatever Satan or just this life would throw at them.

I hope you appreciate by now that this is exactly the mission of our podcast, to do exactly what Paul's heart concern was here. We want to not only share the gospel message and make disciples of Jesus, but also fill in the gaps in your faith. That means give you the whole story of the New Testament, explaining and applying all of its big ideas so that you can grow deep roots down into Christ, all that he is, all that he taught. At our home church, both Tony and I are involved as teaching pastors. You've heard others on Share the Word also who function this way in their churches, in their communities. I can tell you, nothing is more gratifying to me than to see and to hear good reports like what Paul got from Timothy about the young believers in Thessalonica.

Can't you just hear it in the words that he writes when he says, What gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown one day when we stand before the Lord Jesus when he returns? It's you. You're our pride and joy. And again when he says, We have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and our suffering, brothers and sisters, because we've heard you remain strong in your faith. It gives us new life, new breath, to know that you are standing firm in the Lord. How we thank God for you.

You know, personally, I've been teaching something our church calls leadership development, helping prepare Christian leaders in our church for almost ten years now. Some who have joined those groups are newer believers. Others have been Christians for a longer time. But those of us who are teachers in it, our job is to help fill in the gaps in their faith, to get them rooted and grounded in God's truth. I understand Paul's joy and excitement learning about the Thessalonians' faith and hope and love, because I feel the very same thing when I see some of my students growing strong in their Christian faith, becoming effective witnesses for Christ, even leading and teaching others now. They are my pride and joy.

You know what? Now that I think of it, I should probably let them know that, on the off chance I'm not the only one who really enjoys compliments, who enjoys praise and is motivated by it. I think probably all of us are. Let me leave you with this thought. I said a few moments ago, trees don't always grow deep roots because root architecture is determined by soil condition, available water, and nourishment. In that analogy, the available water and nourishment, that's the spiritual food at our disposal.

Assuming you're in a good Bible-believing and teaching church, and I hope you are, but even if you're not at this point, assuming you're taking advantage of resources like our podcast and other similar opportunities to learn God's Word, what do you suppose the soil condition part in that analogy has to do with? Soil condition. That corresponds to how hungry you are to take in the spiritual nourishment, how prepared your heart is to accept the truth of God's Word. Jesus told a parable about that, remember? We covered it back in episode 30 about different types of soil, different kinds of hearts. When the seed of God's Word falls on them, how they accept it, remember?

So, how is the soil condition of your heart? How do you think you are doing as far as getting rooted and grounded in the truth of God's Word? Just like the Apostle Paul wished he could return and interact with those new believers at Thessalonica, we wish we could meet and get to know every one of you who finds our podcast and is deepening their faith by listening to and learning the big ideas in the New Testament chapter by chapter. You know what? We would love to hear from you if that sounds like you. Drop us an email at info at sharetheword.org and let us know how things are going in your spiritual walk.

If your faith is growing strong and we have anything to do with that, you are our pride and joy. Right, Tony? Without a doubt, Paul. Without a doubt. How deep do your roots go as a believer in Christ? Have you experienced the joy that comes when someone you know accepts Christ as their Lord and Savior?

If you're enjoying listening to Share the Word, send us an email and let us know. We would love to hear from you. Our email address is info at sharetheword.org, and we'd also love to pray for you and with you. Don't forget to visit sharetheword.org and check out the archives of podcasts, blogs, and other educational materials. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.