Glory And Joy - [1 Thessalonians 2:17-20]

How do you express your love for your children? How do you show them how much you love them? For those of you who don't have children or are too young to have children, think about how your parents show that they love you.

I thought about this question. I figured if I was going to present this question to you, I should probably think about it myself. And I realized that saying, I love you a lot, it doesn't really have the gravitas to drive home what that really means, right?

I mean, I do, guys. I love you a lot. But I mentioned showing your love, by the way, because it's not just about how deeply you feel something, but it's how you put that love into action. So what I did, as any 21st century researcher does to look for the ultimate answer to this question, how do you love your children, how do you show your love to your children, I went to Google.

Everybody knew that I was going to say that. By the way, I remember in high school, when Google wasn't really around and I had to do research, I never want to go back. Google, boy oh boy, you have no idea how lucky you have it.

So I went to Google, and you can do this yourself when you get home, by the way, and you say, how do you show your love to your children? And just like I would expect from the oracle that is the Internet, I got ten easy ways to show how you love your children.

Oh, that's convenient. So here we go. Number one, write your child a love letter. I heard some laughing. Write down a few of the reasons why you love your child and why you think they are special. Mail that letter to your child.

Number two, surprise them. Skip afternoon activities one day and take your child on an adventure. You can take them ice skating, to the beach, take a walk in the park. Number three, read them one more story.

By the way, some of these are sweet, so if you say, oh, I'm not going to condemn you or anything, it's, you know. Say yes when your child asks for another story, even when you are tired. Our kids now say, hey, Dad, will you play a game with me?

I'm like, oh, I'm so tired. Number four, frame a favorite picture. Number five, tell your child your favorite memory of them. See, these are nice. It's nice to be nice. Number six, multiply the affection.

Give your child a dozen hugs. Tell her that you love her 25 times. See, if this was biblical, it would say 70 times 7. 25 times, or give her 100 kisses. Number seven, dancing and laugh together. Number eight, this means I owe you a dollar.

I need you to do this. Lunchbox love. Write a silly poem or the lyrics to a song that remind you of your child and hide this in their lunchbox. Your child will smile and feel loved even when you are apart.

Number nine, throw out the rules sometimes. Number 10, tell your child you love her every day. I don't know why you laughed at that one. Now, of course, there's other places that we could go, not just to the Internet to get the answers to how to love your children.

We could look to Scripture to see what love is. We know the definition, the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and implicit in that. We could see how that love is to be applied. Or even better yet, we can look to Scripture to see how God himself showed his love to his children.

And I'm sure many of your minds went to this passage, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world. He loved the world in this way, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The father loves his spiritual children to the uttermost, giving up even Christ himself, Jesus, his son, to save us. And today, our passage is one that captures the essence of this self-sacrificial love.

It might not seem like that on the onset, but as we look at this, you'll see, I think, exactly what Paul and Silas and Timothy did. God showed his love to the apostle Paul through direct revelation, and Paul imitated Christ in showing that love to his spiritual children.

Now, your bulletin says chapter 2, verses 17 to 20 of 1 Thessalonians, and that's true, but I've been preaching through this book in pulpit supply ministry, and none of you have the context of this book, and so we're going to take a little bit of time to understand the context in which this book, 1 Thessalonians, has been written.

And so to do that, I actually want to start, so it sounds strange, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. So if you open to 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, starting in verse 1. Therefore, when we could bear it no longer, this is forced separation from the Thessalonians, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's co-worker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and to exhort you in your faith, so that no one would be moved by these afflictions.

For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

But now, verse 6, but now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us as we long to see you.

For this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about you through your faith. This book, 1 Thessalonians, is a book that is rooted in joy. We commonly look to Philippians, the theme of Philippians is joy and rejoicing in the Lord, but 1 Thessalonians, as it's a look at this model church, this model New Testament church, we see the joy of Paul bleed out of the whole thing.

And in truth, there are many parallels between the book of Philippians and the book of 1 Thessalonians. And so this letter is a reaction to Timothy's report. We sent Timothy to you and he has returned, and you have continued to grow in your faith despite the adversity you're experiencing.

See, Paul was worried that the Thessalonian church might be like the seeds that fell on the rocky soil. We remember the parable of the soils. What happened to the seeds that fell on the rocky soil? They sprung up.

They showed growth. But then, in the heat of summer, they wilted away. And Paul was worried about that because they had to leave, and we'll see this in a few moments. Verse 5, I sent to learn about your faith for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

They worked there, they labored there, they toiled there, but they had to leave, and Paul didn't know what was going on, and that's why they sent Timothy. But Timothy's report rebuts this fear that Paul had.

The church is healthy. The church is growing. The church even has more questions as they desire to better understand the truths of Jesus Christ. Just imagine the joy that Paul would have when he hears this, when he hears this report from Timothy.

Imagine how you would feel, hoping against the odds to receive a good report, and then receiving it. You took a test, and you thought you bombed it, but you didn't. You interviewed for a job, and you thought you did something wrong, or you said the wrong thing, you answered poorly, you got the job.

Even this week, think of the McLaughlin family, and just everything that was going on with Larry, and the brain surgery, and all this stuff, and then he had brain surgery on Monday, and he was home a day and a half later.

That was cause for joy, right? It's amazing. So how joyful would Paul have been to have received this news, especially in light of these afflictions that he refers to in verses 3 and 4. Now, the Thessalonian church had pretty much always been under affliction.

I think we know this mentally about a lot of New Testament, young New Testament churches. There was a lot of turmoil in Greece and in that area, and there's a lot of stuff going on, and there's all these things happening.

But boy, oh boy, the Thessalonian church, much affliction. So if you keep your finger here in Chapter 3, it's basically where we're going to spend most of our time today, but let's take a quick look at Acts 17.

This is where we find Paul, and Silas, and Timothy going to Thessalonica. By the way, there is great debate about the pronunciation of Thessalonica. I learned this yesterday. I was listening to Pastor Bob's message during Sunday school last week.

He pronounces it Thessalonica. I have always pronounced it Thessalonica. Great debate about this. Apparently, both of them are accurate. I might switch. I apologize. I mean the same thing. So in Acts 16, Paul receives the Macedonian call.

He sees the vision, and immediately after that, Paul, Silas, and Timothy leave Troas and travel to Macedonia. First, they go to Philippi to preach. They go through a few places. They go to Philippi to preach, and one of my favorite passages in Philippi where Paul just gets super annoyed with this prophet girl and casts a demon.

Paul, having become greatly annoyed, is for some reason something that cracks me up. I don't know why. So he casts the demon out of this woman, and this slave girl, and the owners get mad, and so they have Paul thrown in prison.

There is a bunch of stuff that goes on. They find out they are Roman citizens, and they have been thrown in prison without trial. They are like, oh, this is a problem. So the magistrates get them out of prison.

They are like, just don't come back. Just leave. We don't want any trouble. Get out of here. That brings us to Acts 17. Acts 17, 1, we see this. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul went in, and as was his custom, on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.

And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some of the wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, and they set the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, most likely where they were meeting, seeking to bring them out into the crowd.

And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them.

And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, King Jesus. And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. When they had taken money and security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Verse 10, the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. And so, they have left Thessalonica, and throughout the remainder of Paul's second missionary journey, his heart is with the Thessalonians.

See, Paul had a system. Pastor Bob mentioned this last week in Sunday school. Paul would go to a town, and he would go into the synagogue there, and he would first preach in the synagogue and teach Jesus the Messiah in the synagogue.

In this case, three Sabbaths. And after that, they would leave the Sabbath. They went to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles, and they would seek to form a church in that city. They'd meet in a house, usually the house of a Greek, sometimes a converted Jew.

And typically, the missionaries would stay there for some amount of time, maybe a year, maybe 18 months. In some reports, they were there for three years, establishing the church, preaching and teaching everything that the believers needed to know to be fully informed New Testament believers.

But in Thessalonica, that time was cut short. He was probably only there for maybe four to six months at best estimate. And so he was worried. Paul was worried. He was worried the believers might not be mature enough.

He was concerned that they hadn't finished teaching the young Thessalonian church everything they needed to know. He was concerned about what he figured was being said about them. He was troubled by the rabble, by the crowd.

He was troubled by the angry Jews and the wicked men of the town and what they might do to the believers meeting in the house of Jason. And yes, he was concerned for Jason as well. His heart was with them.

And so they sent Timothy, and as we saw, Timothy returned with news that filled him with joy. It's probably only been six months, nine months, less than a year since he was there. But in that time, that short time, the impact of the Thessalonian church in Macedonia was undeniable.

Very brief geography lesson for you. If ever there was a central location in Macedonia to spread the gospel, to spread really any news, but in this case the gospel, it was probably this city, Thessalonica.

You have the Mediterranean Sea. We're going to start zoomed back. Mediterranean Sea. You've got the boots coming down. Off the Mediterranean Sea east of Italy is the Aegean Sea. And then off of that, there is a large gulf called the Thermaeic Gulf.

At the very tip of that gulf was Thessalonica. The major highway, think of the I -90 of Macedonia. The Ignatian Way ran right smack dab through the middle of this city. And so if you were on one side of the Aegean and you wanted to get to the other side of the Aegean, guess where you were going?

You were going through Thessalonica. And what did this do? It created opportunities for the Thessalonians to spread the message of the gospel throughout the land. We see this in chapter 1 of 1 Thessalonians.

You don't need to turn there, but in verse 6 it says, and you became imitators of us. Imitators of Paul. And of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction. Remember that affliction that we saw in Acts and that Paul was describing?

You received the word in much affliction. And with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

Could you imagine that? That your faith has gone forth so much that the apostle Paul doesn't feel the need to say something? That's amazing. This is broad commendation. Paul recognizes the evangelistic heart of this church to the point where the gospel preached by the Thessalonians were winning souls for Jesus Christ.

And so in chapter 2, the writers remind the Thessalonians about their ministry there. They remind them that unlike many of the other traveling preachers of the era, and there were many, the motivations of the missionaries were pure.

Chapter 2, verse 3, for our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

P .S. by the way, shouldn't that be our motivation when we preach the gospel, right? It shouldn't be to please man. By the way, if you're pleasing unbelievers with your preaching of the gospel, you're doing it wrong.

We speak not to please man, but to please God. And they go further, reminding the Thessalonians that they went not only up to the call of duty in their ministry, but above the call, beyond the call. See, there was a societal expectation at that time that if a missionary of whatever stripe would come to your town and serve you and minister to you and preach whatever doctrine or whatever it is that they wanted to preach, that you were kind of socially required to sort of put them up and feed them and at least provide for them so that they could focus on their ministry, right?

But they didn't do that. These three men didn't take advantage of that thing that they had every right to by societal norms. Verse 9, for you remember, brothers, our labor and toil. We work night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you the gospel of God.

We know Paul was a tent maker, so he would have been working in his trade. Silas and Timothy, too, would have been working alongside Paul. They wanted to do whatever they could so that they did not have to rely on this young church.

And then moving closer to our passage today, we see throughout Chapter 2 the parent-like love that Paul had for them. Verse 7, but we were gentle among you like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

Verses 11 and 12, for you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Pro tip, keep these two verses in mind as we study our passage today. And once again, the missionaries commend the Thessalonian church in verses 13 and following, which brings us to our passage. 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 17 to 20.

Verse 17, but since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person, not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face because we wanted to come to you.

I, Paul, again and again, but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and our joy. This passage is amazing because it's so emotional.

If you read this passage and you look at this and you just put yourself in Paul's head and. Understand and just consider how concerned he was for them. And how joyful he would have been at that report.

There's so much emotion here. And yet he's so clear with his his recounting of the events that happened after they had left. Thessalonica of Goventa says perhaps the most outstanding feature of this text is the way it interweaves a straightforward account of events with highly emotional, interpretive remarks and asides.

And so as we look at this versus 17 to 20, we're going to look at three motivations of Paul in writing this passage. Number one, Paul's fatherly love for the Thessalonians. Number two, Paul's frustration with Satan's influence.

And number three, Paul's future hope of glory. Yes, I did the Baptist thing. Let's look first at Paul's fatherly love for the Thessalonians. We see this in verses 17 and 18. But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time.

In person, not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face. Because we wanted to come to you. I, Paul, again and again. This passage starts with a transition, the word but.

Remember, we were just looking at the description of how these men acted when they were with the Thessalonians. And now we see a picture of their hearts while they were separate. It is the same heart.

Hendrickson said, not only was it true that during their stay in Thessalonica, the missionaries had conducted themselves in a most unselfish manner, as has now been shown. But also after the enforced departure from that city, their loving concern for the brothers whom they had left behind had asserted itself.

Absent in presence, but not in heart. Immediately after the events in Acts 17, Paul and Silas were sent away to Berea. That was unplanned. They hadn't finished their work in Thessalonica, but they were forced to leave.

And the language here really shows how painful this was. If you have an NIV, by the way, you've got a step up on this next point. This phrase here, where it says, torn away in the ESV, but since we were torn away from you.

It's the Greek word, orphanos, translated in the NIV as orphaned. We were orphaned. The idea here is that Paul is saying, it's as if they were made orphans. Now we think of orphans and we're like, well, hold on.

I thought this was a fatherly love thing. Like, aren't you getting it confused, Andrew? What's going on? In the Greek, this can be used both as the separation of a child from their parents, but also as the separation of a parent from their child.

And that is exactly how it is being used here. You can even use this to describe the separation of two dear friends from one another. It hurt them to be apart from each other. And you even see in verse 17, it hadn't been a long time.

But since you were torn away from your brothers for a short time, this is obviously relative. But even most estimates here, I mentioned this before, they put the time period here probably between six and nine months between when they were forced to leave Thessalonica for Berea and when they were in Corinth and they wrote this letter to the Thessalonians.

But anyone who has been apart from their family for any amount of time can attest to how hard that can be. Especially if it's unexpected. And so the writers remind the Thessalonians that their absence was physical only.

That since we were torn away from you brothers for a short time, in person, not in heart. And again, the nuance here is lost in the translation. The word that is used here literally means in face, not in heart.

It's talking about face-to-face communication with them. The missionary's presence in Thessalonica was not defined by just kind of being around. I mean, sometimes that's nice. Nietzsche wants to read a book, I want to watch TV or something.

It's just nice to be in the same room. But that's not how their relationship was defined. It wasn't just nice to be around. Paul was there with a purpose. Their presence in Thessalonica was defined by their close face-to-face communication.

Working together, preaching, teaching, asking questions, getting answers. This absence being described wasn't just that they were physically separated, but they were missing this physical fellowship. This koinonia.

It was not there. He said, in the Greco-Roman world, as in our own, true friends were never understood as absent in the ultimate sense. That's exactly what the writers are trying to convey here. And P .S., this also served to continue to remind the Thessalonians of their true nature.

Of the true nature of Paul and Silas. There's not a lot of doubt here that these same Jews and Greeks who rallied to kick Paul and Silas and Timothy out of Thessalonica would also have been engaging in a little bit of character assassination while they were gone.

There was a little bit of trouble and they peaced out. What do you think they think? That's exactly what they're saying there. And that's actually probably the primary motivation of most of the writing in chapter two.

That's why they're recounting, look, remember how we were. It hasn't changed. Just because we're not there, our feeling for you has not changed. We love you. We have shown it in every opportunity. Do not miss it.

Hendrickson says the parenthetical in face not in heart must probably also be viewed as a refutation of the slander that the missionaries did not really care for those whom they had duped. That they would know better than to try to return to them.

In short, that for Paul and company, out of sight means out of heart. No. Not at all. And so the writers continue. They continue to describe their feelings for the Thessalonians. We endeavored the more eagerly.

Right. For 17 B. We endeavor the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face. I don't like going to the NIV too much, but the NIV here translates this as intense longing. Right. We endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire.

OK, that's not really kind of common English vernacular. Intense longing. I get that. There's so much emotion in this writing. It almost sounds like Paul is desperate. And as I look through this and especially at the end of chapter two, the desperation in Paul's writing is palpable.

This is war zone communication. Thessalonians are in a spiritual war zone. And Paul is so eagerly endeavoring, desperate, intensely longing to return to them. Listen to this. It is hard to express the strong sentiment which I feel today.

Never did Mother's Day really mean so much to me. And my thoughts are most any minute with you. It is Sunday about two o 'clock now, making it time for church. And I only wish I could go there with you.

I know what a wonderful mother I have, and I am glorified to see the sublime way you look at the state of affairs. And I'll try to be the boy that my mother thinks that I am. Your loving son, George. This is a letter that George Weigert of Lincoln, Nebraska, wrote to his mother on Mother's Day 1918.

While he was on the fields of France in the middle of World War I. Does it sound familiar? Do you hear the desperation in his voice? My thoughts are most any minute with you. I only wish I could be there to go with you.

This same emotion is what we see in Paul writing to the Thessalonians. Paul's trying desperately to return, so much so that this letter, which is written by three men, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, we see in verse 18 Paul steps out of the triad of authors and says,.

Because we wanted to come to you, I, Paul, again and again. Let me impress upon you how much I want this thing. His desire was not casual. It was intense. It was directed. It was planned. Tried to make some plans with someone yesterday.

We're like, oh yeah, no, we should get together. Oh yeah, we'll do a thing, whatever. Then I sat there and I said, OK, we've got to pick a date because if we just are going to get together, it's not happening.

We all know this. Let's not pretend that we're better at scheduling than others. If we don't make plans and we don't set a date and say on October 6th at 1 o 'clock, you show up at my house and I will give you food.

If you don't set those things, all the young men are like, yes. By the way, that is not an invitation. Sorry. That was the plans I made yesterday. But if you don't put specifics together, these things never happen.

Right. This desire that Paul had. You know what? I'd like to go back to Thessalonica. That'd be nice. You know, that wasn't what this was. It was intense. And by the way, notice that in all of this, there's no regret.

Paul doesn't say, man, I wish I stayed behind. Didn't say that at all. There's no regret in his writing. But his cause and his purpose is sure. He had a practical, parental, fatherly love for the Thessalonians, and he eagerly, earnestly desired to return to them.

And he was frustrated with the influence of Satan. We see this at the end of verse 18. Because we wanted to come to you, I, Paul, again and again, but Satan hindered us. Now, if I'm being honest, and that is my goal, we don't really know what exactly it was that hindered them or prevented them or stopped them from returning to Thessalonica.

We have the narrative of Acts, right, that tells what's going on through the missionary journey of Paul. But it doesn't describe something specifically here. Pillar said there is a term, this term hindered, that comes from the military.

In order to stop the advance of enemy armies, soldiers would tear up and destroy the road to hinder their passage. Warfare imagery is embedded in the metaphor, Satan himself being their adversary. And, of course, I think of this, and I'm like, okay, this is like Indiana Jones.

He's running along. He's like knocking boxes behind him and stuff like that, right? That's kind of what's happening here, only more, well, with much more gravitas, right? Satan is preventing them from returning.

And, again, we don't really know exactly what happened. There's a lot of different reasons why this could have been. It might have been because of the bond money that they took from Jason, right? They took this money.

The magistrates in Thessalonica took this money from Jason as security. And it could have been that if they returned, that he would lose that, and he would lose other things, and maybe he would be fined and all these things, and it would be even more difficult for them.

It could have been the thorn in the flesh that Paul talks about. He says that Satan gave him a thorn in the flesh, right? It could have been a lot of other things. But no matter what, what we do know is that regardless of what the particular thing was, it could only have happened if it was permitted by God, right?

And so there's no doubt that there is some frustration for Paul, but he yields ultimately to the authority of God. Satan acts in Scripture. We know this. We see it. But it is only under the authority of Almighty God.

MacArthur quotes Lenski and says, Satan succeeded in frustrating Paul's two plans to return to Thessalonica, but only because this accorded with God's own plans regarding the work Paul was to do. All of this is under the divine authority of God.

So we've seen Paul's fatherly love for the Thessalonians. We've seen Paul's frustration with the influence of Satan. Boy, that was a fast point, actually. And now in verses 19 and 20, let's look at Paul's future hope of glory.

Verse 19, chapter 2, verse Thessalonians. The writers present this threefold eschatological question to the Thessalonians here in verse 19. And the answer they give immediately after, right? I have a boss who likes to ask this question.

Oh, what is the obvious thing that I did not talk about in my presentation? I don't know, right? That's not what Paul is doing here. He is asking almost as a rhetorical question. It's not really rhetorical.

The answer is rhetorical. Is it not you? These things, hope and joy and crown, they're intertwined. We can look at them separately to better understand them, but they are necessarily intertwined things.

This hope, you think of hope. Hope is this thing, oh, we're not really sure. We hope. This hope, Paul's hope, is a certain hope. This is similar to what he says in Romans 8 where he says, Not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved. That's a sure hope. That is a certain hope. Now, hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Paul's not writing this and saying, I hope you guys are good. That's not what he's saying here. That's what we think when we read this word. No, it's this more certain hope pillar again. They place hope in the Thessalonians in expectation of the time when they will present the church in the presence of our Lord Jesus.

The apostolic ministry will be put to the test in that day. And they hope to receive a reward. Their hope is that their labors will not be in vain. We saw that in verse five of chapter three. Whatever fears and frustrations face them now, their hope in this church remains strong.

And this joy. Remember, these are intertwined together. This joy is the consummation of this hope. Paul is joyful in the faithfulness of the Thessalonians. And he is joyful in the thought that the Thessalonians will be with him at the parousia of Jesus Christ.

This is an eschatological passage. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus at his coming? So he is joyful at the thought that when Christ returns, when we meet him in the clouds, you will be with us.

That is joyful. Think about your children, your brothers, your sisters, your friends. What would run through your mind if you're meeting Jesus in the clouds and you look to your left or you look to your right momentarily because Jesus.

And you see your loved ones with you. How joyful would you be? Hope and joy. He said it is less about how one feels and more about what one does in the presence of God. One rejoices in the Lord, which would be the way that the Thessalonians would be Paul's joy in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes.

Paul is there and Silas and Timothy are there in the clouds. They look to their left. They look to the right. They see the Thessalonians. They're not just happy. They are rejoicing. They are rejoicing that they are with them.

And these two things are tied neatly together by this crown of boasting. Now, boasting is a thing that in this context, I mean, we think about boasting. Boasting is bad, right? Blah, blah, blah. This crown is not a crown of royalty.

It is a crown of victory. So often Paul writes with military metaphors or sport metaphors, and he's doing the same thing here. The idea behind this crown is something that would be like a wreath, right, that would be presented to an athlete or general as a recognition of a great victory.

You've seen, I don't know, I think they do this in Gladiator, but if you remember the Athenian Olympics in 2004. I don't remember. That was a long time ago for some of you. Sorry, I'm old. When the medal winners were standing on their stands, they were presented with a crown, a crown of victory, right?

It was a wreath, right? The very idea is that these believers, Paul's spiritual children, would be with him at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, represented a sure hope. And the knowledge of the joy that he would have as he would rejoice with his fellow believers, right, as he rejoiced in Christ with them.

But the Thessalonians being the writer's crown of boasting tells us, suggests to us, that it is a declaration of victory, and they are the reward. This crown would be the rewards the Lord would give to these men for their service to him in winning souls to the crowd.

Hope, joy, crown of boasting. Now, Paul knows that this salvific work is not his doing. But, 1 Corinthians 2, it is demonstration of what? The spirit and of power. These men understood that they were vessels by which the Lord fulfilled his plans, right?

This is what Paul says in Romans 15 when he says, In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work in God. We talk about boasting, this is exactly what he's talking about. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed.