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

Well, we're in 1st 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 illa Illustrates and gives you the

detail on what's being spoken of at the end of chapter 2.

So as we look at this First

Thessalonians 2 19 for what is our hope our joy our crown of rejoicing or 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 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 Apollos always 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 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 this 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 wrath at at the rapture on the day of the rapture when you

see those people.

It'll bring a 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.

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 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 little 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 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.

If I just had another $2 ,000 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 going to 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 he invited her to 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 a sermon and she came down that aisle 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 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 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.

It 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 hey 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 they 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 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 try you 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 if you have 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 not take that for granted.

We ask it in Jesus name.