Book of 1 Thessalonians - Ch. 3, Vs. 7-9 (12/30/2001)

Well, we're in first Thessalonians Right at the end of chapter 3 and But I want to read a couple of verses at the end of chapter 2 to tie in with this

Let's have a word of prayer and we'll get started dear father. We thank you for the day. We thank you for the good spirit that we have because you have molded us together and And Lord, we thank you for each person that you've brought into this body and the gifts that you've given them that they may be

Actually a gift to us and and most of all to the father Father may all that we do glorify you and bring pleasure in your eyes and in your heart and Lord, we pray that you would teach us by your spirit this afternoon as we study your word

We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Can you hear me? Okay? I just talk a little louder Look at 1st

Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 19 and 20 Before we get into the passage for today

It says for what is our hope our joy our crown of rejoicing

Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming for you are

Our glory and joy and this ties in with what we're going to be talking about today

Starting with verse 8 down through the end of the chapter the verse we just read ties into it

It's almost like the passage for this afternoon ill Illustrates and gives you the detail on what's being spoken of at the end of chapter 2.

So as we look at this 1st

Thessalonians 2 19 for what is our hope our joy our crown of rejoicing are not even you

Put that in plain modern English. Paul is saying that you My converts but also my disciples the people that I've been allowed by God to share scripture with To maybe give a deeper understanding of the scripture

You are in fact my joy now Anybody that's ever been given the opportunity to teach the

Bible could say an amen to that I know brother Otis and miss B Would say that probably what got them through some of the hardest years of their life when it seemed like most of the pastors in town

Didn't want brother Otis to even be around And it didn't seem like everybody just loved them all the time.

The thing that got him through was the Bible study That they had at their home and the people and I'll never forget the first Christmas party that the

Bible study had that I went to where I got to meet the people from the different Bible studies from all over town different churches different denominations even and and yet the spirit there was just a spirit of unity and I thought to myself what a joy it must be to Be the one who is able to teach these people and bring them along and help them see new things

And so I know that that's given you great pleasure and joy and it does any of us

Who God allows to teach it gives us great joy to know that we're learning together and We're learning more about the creator of the universe

Every time we open this book Same verses we've seen through the years and and some of us have been together for almost 20 years now

Going back to 1980 and 1981 We've studied some of these same things together, but it's never the same.

Is it when we studied again and It's like Jesus said it's both old and new and he brings it together

But the message for us is this I think It's not just to the

Bible teachers that this is written It's to all of us just as Christian people as we go out in the community where we buy our groceries

Everywhere we go to the post office wherever you go in life as you rub shoulders with other people

You will be privileged Through time to be a witness to people and from time to time you may even see one of them come to know the

Lord Or you may come across someone in your life that Was saved years ago in another town another place another church and for some reason they come into your circle of life either through work or Some maybe you're at the gym

Who knows wherever you are and this person you can sense that this person is not has not been in the word much

Lately or maybe they haven't grown much since they got saved and you're able all of a sudden to start sharing

Some truths with this person Well, this is actually a disciple of yours and you may not think of it that way you say well,

I'm not called to preach I'm not in the ministry. Well, they you know, that's kind of a that's kind of a modernism actually because if you look at the book

Of Acts who was it that went door -to -door in every house? Witnessing do you think that was a concerted church effort?

I used to read it that way, but I don't believe it was I believe it was just when they met together Then when they went out all over the city where they were they were house -to -house

I mean just because they were doing stuff, you know, they they were with friends They were different people that they came in their life came into contact with but guess what they were doing

They were sharing what they had seen and heard and known of the Lord It may not even been quoting

Bible verses like we can but truths that they had been taught from the scriptures

And then those people actually became their disciples they would meet in the homes We know for a fact that even some of the great teachers in the

Bible were instructed Was it always get I think it was Barnabas who was instructed by Aquila and Priscilla, isn't that right?

Or was it Apollo's I would get the two computers the Barnabas, right? Somebody tell me I'm right. I hope I am I'm not let's fix it real quick Barnabas wasn't it

He was zealous and was out preaching already, but he was not doctrinally

Sound yet. He he was to the place where he didn't have the whole package where he knew how this

Passage related to this passage over here perhaps and so they brought him into their home and they just taught him doctrine

And it was a great blessing not only to him but to the whole church because he had the gift of teaching He just didn't know what to teach yet So they weren't as good at teaching maybe where they could have whole rooms full of people

But they could one -on -one teach this teacher Doctrine you don't think that was a joy for them then when he went out maybe had opportunity to speak to a thousand people or 5 ,000 people and to be a great orator, but all of a sudden his doctrine was sound

So this is telling each of us We're always talking about how to have joy and we have the joy of the

Lord and so forth Look what this verse literally says What is our joy are not even you?

You are our joy That means the people that are my disciples and then the people that are your disciples

They are your joy now. There's a couple of ways in which this is true First of all, it's going to be true at the rapture now

Notice what it says at the end of the verse are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming

That gives the timetable that is saying that when the rapture takes place

And you go up to meet the Lord in the air Everyone in this earthly life that you had an opportunity to disciple in any way rather to teach them

But what you may have thought was the least little simple truth about the Bible But you were able to bring them up with you to bring them along and get them growing get them going a little bit faster

When you see that person or it may even be someone you really led to the Lord When you see that person on that day, it will bring great joy to your life

Both because you will see them there But also because you know, the Lord is pleased

It was all part of his work and he's pleased and he can even say well done to you

Because you disciple this person or you led this person to the Lord or you taught this person? You brought them from where they were up to a new level of understanding then maybe they moved away and you never saw him again

But you had that bit of influence Paul teaches all of us That out of all the joys of the

Christian life That would be one of the greatest and it'll happen after at at the rapture on the day of the rapture when you see those people

It'll bring you great joy because you see a lot of the other stuff that we did may well burn off on the way up Some of the cares the world stuff and the different stuff we were into but that won't it'll be there forever and it's a human

It'll be a human being That has the knowledge when they enter heaven the knowledge of the

Lord that they have in part will be because you brought them to a Newer level then where they would have been if they'd never known you there'll be great joy in that for for you

But not only is it at the rapture in? Verse 20 it brings it to the present tense notice what it says for you are what tense is that?

You are our joy Our glory and our joy he says not only at the rapture, but you are right now

Right now you're my joy So if you want to have more joy in life

Think about finding someone to disciple this year It doesn't have to be someone you go out and lead to the

Lord the odds are the person you leave the Lord's gonna leave And go to some other church. Anyway, you know, they're gonna move there there

You're not gonna probably ever get the pleasure of them being right here now Sometimes that happens, but that's that's not often

So it may be someone that some other person led to the Lord and then they moved and all of a sudden here

They are right next to you for some reason for some Coincidence in life and God puts them there because the

Lord wants them to learn some of the things that you already know It's not that they couldn't learn it with the Holy Spirit by themselves on an island

But God didn't put them on an island. He put them next to you means he wants them to learn it faster than they would On their own they can grow faster.

There's a synergy that's created with the teacher So that can be you and when it is it brings great joy into your life right now in the present tense you may not be a person who's quote called to teach or preach and you may never stand up here and Teach any group of people at all.

You may be like Aquila and Priscilla You just had them over to your home for coffee or whatever and You shared some of the things, you know about the

Lord and they were inquisitive and they were curious and stuff They'd never heard before and you just said well look it's right here and you share that with them and then they go on with That'll bring great joy not only at the rapture in the future, but today in our lives

Now notice that he says about these people Let's go down now and start with our passage in verse 7

Therefore brethren We were comforted over you and all our affliction and distress

By your faith now you see how that ties in with this last part of the chapter 3

He's going back now and talking about his disciples and it's some of them are his converts. Some of them are people he taught

But look what it says when Paul comes into affliction and distress

He is comforted by the those who are compared to him babes in the

Lord They brought comfort and strength to him when he was in affliction and distress He says that you comfort me now this word comfort in the

Greek is Parakaleo, which is the word the word paraclete comes from that and that's what the

Holy Spirit was called by Jesus He called him the paraclete the comforter he said I will send you the paraclete the comforter and Paul says that you people that Were brought to the

Lord and that I had the opportunity to teach and you have seen it and had faith from the

Lord and You see it clearly and you believe it and your faith is now strong and evident You are a comfort to me when

I'm in trouble So we're a comfort one to another Now notice he says that I we were comforted over you

I thought that was a strange expression over you you would think you'd say we were comforted by you But he says

I'm comforted over you this little word in the Greek that's rendered over in the

English is Epi it's spelled. Well, they don't use the same letters with you, but in English, it would be spelled

EPI Epi and it means literally to be superimposed upon something else

Like you take a transparency and you put it Where'd I let the machine go wherever it is you put the transparency on there you could flash that up on the screen and then you could put a go up there with a

Pencil and draw whatever's on that and make another image of the same thing because it's superimposed upon the top of that one

Well, that's what this word means when he says I was comforted over you. He's if he's saying spiritually

Even when I may be in prison in a dungeon and I know you're there worshiping in that house or wherever their church was

I'm with you It's as if spiritually I'm merged. I'm superimposed with you upon you and it

Comforts me. He says now notice the two things two areas where he needs to be comforted affliction and distress in the

Greek language This word affliction Literally means pressure The first word the word affliction

Pressure now, who is it that ultimately puts the pressure on the clay? To make it be molded into what it's supposed to be

God so it's not the devil that does that Not ultimately now he may be a tool in God's hand

Just like some of you or me. I may be a tool in God's hand to aggravate the devil out of you And you may be a tool in God's hand and you may be backslidden when you do it

Not that I would be when I do it to you, but you might be when you do it to me To put pressure on me that makes me actually come closer to the

Lord It Reminds me that I can't let the Sun go down on my anger and all those things

I'm supposed to be doing Shows me how spirit did you know that when you misbehave it shows me if I'm spiritual a lot better than if you behave

And you treat me just really sweet If you're a little bit off one day and you bark at me or bite me, you know it

Well, we don't have any visitors be wondering what we do in this church, but You you know,

I then have to test out my Christianity Am I like Jesus or am

I like the one that would slap you back? You know, it tests every doesn't matter how

God brings it. The pressure ultimately is from the Lord now Paul says sometimes I Get under affliction.

This means pressure and he says when I'm under pressure you The ones who have grown with me the ones that I've seen grow in faith.

You are like the paraclete you're like the one that's along beside me, even if you're a thousand miles away and It comforts me.

The second problem he has is distress Now affliction means pressure distress means constraint

Now there is a difference if you think about it a little bit It can be translated into the word need or needful or necessity

It's when the Lord puts constraints on us and we don't have what we think we need at the moment.

You ever been there. I Just had another two thousand dollars If I just had you know a car that ran better Then I could be a good

Christian Then I could be a better husband a better father. I had more time I could be you know, all of these things and so all of a sudden we're in distress.

It brings distress We're short on the money. We're short on time. We're short on ability to get everything done.

We're supposed to do I know moms have to feel that way just about every day and Some of us guys do out in the world trying to take care of everything to you just under distress

It's just not all the packages and all together, right? It's not neat. It's just there's some things missing and We hate that and yet it's

God that put that on us Because it's part of the molding process to make us be who we will be

When we see him face to face someday and who we are now, we're right where we're supposed to be now

I've been taught all my life that I'm not haven't you and you've been taught all your life You need to seek the center of God's will and get in his will that implies

I've been out of it my whole life Man, that'd be scary. Well, it was frightening

You know to think that way it's much more comforting to realize God has us in his hand didn't he say in John 10

No one is able to pluck you out of my hand. And he said you're also in my hand and I and my father are one

We're right where we're supposed to be doesn't mean we can't get better tomorrow but we're right where we need to be because God has brought affliction and God has brought distress and guess what even through it.

He says we're here to comfort each other now part of your ministry in your life is when you see your brother going through the pressure is

That you help him through it Not that we're supposed to take it away because we might thwart the very thing

God's doing in Humanly speaking we can't do that anyway, but you don't want to make an effort.

You don't want to tempt God either. Do you? So you don't you have to be wise? I mean, you don't always you may have someone off the street come in they say

I need money that may not be what they need, you know, and Then sometimes when we see one another under affliction and distress we and we can't probably remove that anyway

But we can hold their hand. We can hold one another's hand through it and We can cry together and we can laugh together and we can share this life together.

And you know what? when this is over and we're with him in the air, I Think there will be

I don't know how he does it if he takes the bad stuff where we can't remember it But I bet we get to remember some of the good stuff.

I Bet we will cherish some of the times that we had on this earth together And we'll think back just like don't you think guys tell old war stories when they come back from World War two and they made it

And they meet another one. Mr. Russell that runs my oil lease out in West, Texas. He flew one of those

Be whatever it was B -52. No, that's the new one those old things They had

World War two had guns on the front and the glass the fortress flying fortress thing. He was the one of the gunners and He tells me stories every year.

They have a reunion and they go meet somewhere You just in Omaha, Nebraska seems like somewhere out in that area

He'll go meet with him and don't you know, they get together and tell stories And it's like the defining moment in their life

Problem out of everything else and when we get to be together on the other side

Some of the things that we did some of the war stories perhaps we'll get to share them I would hope we would get to and It's gonna be a blessing

Because we will see how We were able to help one another through the trials of tribulations the pressures the distresses the constraints and so forth

Well now look at the very thing that it is that comforted him though Not just that they held his hand and hugged him and and he knew that they were with him

Look at verse 7 therefore brethren. We were comforted over you and all our affliction and distress how?

By your faith by their faith Paul had faith God had given him an

Enormously strong measure of faiths incredible the faith that Paul had But you know what comforted him

He didn't I don't remember him ever mentioning being comforted by his own faith But when he saw lost people out in the world of sin come to know the

Lord Jesus Christ and Believe the doctrines that Paul would teach him and they just just drink it up like it's water

They're thirsty and they and they say yeah, I see that I get that and he sees their countenance change

And how many of you remember Miss Capps? Do you remember what she was like? Not many left that remember

Miss Capps, but Alton Phillips led her to the Lord one day just going door -to -door Well, he didn't really invited her church.

It's actually what he did. He did not lead her to the Lord He brought her to church and she was lost and I can't remember

Charlotte may remember better me some of you guys But she came for a long time as a lost person and she was in a home.

That was hard. It was tough The husband was an alcoholic and they all smoked her skin was like leather, you know

And she was just kind of had a sour countenance, but she kept coming one day brother

Phillips finished the sermon and she came down that aisle and And Stayed there a while went back from that day forward her countenance was different out of that whole family

She was like the gym out of the whole family. We thought we could go win them all, you know,

I Don't know if any not one other one got saved. I don't know because they stayed pretty rough but that woman's countenance was different to this day and And what a blessing that is and When Paul could look at people and see their faith and see them come from darkness into light and see that change it

Comforted his heart. So we see these ways that our our disciples People we might lead to Christ, but certainly people that we can teach and bring along When we see their faith growing it actually comforts the teacher or the disciple or whatever role you happen to be playing

So it's by your faith he said now There is a couple of ways this happens

Paul says that in the present tense He is given joy and comfort by his converts when he's in distress.

They bring him comfort Secondly, he says they give us abundance of Life, let me show you the verse that says that Look at verse 8

Now this is strange language, but if you get it in the context now of everything we're talking about we now for now we live if You stand fast

Now you remember when Jesus said in John 10, he said I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly part of the thing that brings that abundance of joy in your

Christian life is when you see People that you taught the word standing fast through the years doesn't mean they stay at the same church you go to Doesn't mean that you that may you be in the same city

I get a call about once every couple of months from Don Gordon and I remember years ago

We had a Joe Boyd meeting over my a big old tent meeting and this big tall guy comes in kind of wiry strong and he comes in under that tent and The preaching got hold of him and I noticed that so I took him back into the church building afterwards and I said, you know,

Don Why don't you just receive the Lord tonight? He said no. He said my brother's an evangelist.

I'm gonna go let him lead me to the Lord Well, I Said to myself that won't be near as fun as if he gets saved right now

So I said well Don, you know Why don't you just let him teach you the word one if it's in your heart to receive the

Lord just do it Well, I didn't know enough about the Lord then to realize he's probably already saved He probably got saved under that tent at some point during that message.

The Holy Spirit came into his heart But he said, you know, you're right. He said I might get killed in a car wreck going to see my brother

Anyway, I think I'll do it now and I said that would be good and I didn't tell him any different either I figured he's right about that.

So I prayed with him and he he prayed his own prayer Though it was a sweet prayer big old man, and he flat got it

He got saved and he did come to our church for a good while but then the preacher ran him off along with a couple hundred other people, but he

He still calls me about every couple of months and chats with me about the Bible. That's the first thing he'll talk about and It's great.

It brings great joy And so you never know what what a word you will say will do in a person's life but as you see that person grow and Stay with it through all these years and he's been through some bad things in different churches and all this but he's still in the word and all of a sudden it gives me abundant life and So it's great and this is meant for all of us

This this is what should be happening through the years as we go through the years Not only does it bring great joy and great comfort the third thing it brings in verse 9 and we'll stop here

But notice what it says For what thanks can we render to God again for you?

For all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes or in other words because of you

Before the Lord so it brings thankfulness in Paul's heart He's thankful when he sees

God's grace in another person's life because he knows he didn't do it He just gave him the truth that God had given him and then he saw

God work and he was thankful for how real That was the rest of this chapter going from verse 10 all the way down through is a prayer and We don't have time to get into that prayer

But the rest of the chapter if as you look at it is Paul praying for these converts and asking some things

From the Lord and it's beautiful to look at and probably even though brother

I was going to move on into the next chapter next time when it's my turn next I want to come back and hit this

On these this prayer that Paul prayed and also there's a real interesting little verse in there

That's really it's not what it's teaching in the context, but it reveals some things about the

Try unity of God. I like to call it the try unity of God rather than the Trinity Maybe I'll explain more of that to you why

I like to call it that But there's a verse that has a bearing on the triune nature of God And it might take some time to talk about that, too

But I just can't move through a whole chapter in one time. Sorry about that. Just not even three verses not even three verses.

So That's okay took brother Otis a year to teach through Genesis in his home the first year not really

But I like it that way I like to walk through it rather than the It really did didn't it

Time flies when you're having fun, though Well, let's stand and pray together

I would like for some of the men to stay and help brother

Harvey to dismantle this and also, I've got the couple of Items we might need to move while we've got you here.

So a few of you could stay just for a few moments We'd appreciate it Father we thank you for the day.

We thank you for how we've seen you today, we thank you for the ministry of the strains and how you blessed it and increased it and I even even opened doors in the

Ungodly public school systems that are run by a government that doesn't know you We thank you that you've made these things come to pass

We thank you that our children right here and the rest of us could take part in it today, too We thank you for your word for how you've caused it to be that we bring comfort to one another by our mutual faith and father

May we always be thankful for that and not take that for granted And we ask it in Jesus name.