1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13 - The Tempter and Your Savior

Well, it's a new week with Tabernacle Talk. Thank you for joining me today.

We are in 1 Thessalonians, chapter two, and beginning in verse number 17 today.

We're looking at this letter that the Apostle paul has written with his good friends and traveling companions Silas and Timothy to a little fledgling church plant in a port city of Thessalonica with about 200,000 people.

They're trying to encourage them in their faith. They had planted the church not very long before at all, had been run out of town.

paul had gotten nervous about their spiritual state, and so he'd sent Timothy back to give them a little bit more of the things that they needed to know in their new faith following Jesus.

And Timothy reported back with just a great report of what God was doing with the church. And that's where we're finding ourselves today as paul recounts that.

Verse 17, but as for us, brothers and sisters, after we were forced to leave you for a short time in person, not in heart, we greatly desired and made every effort to return and see you face to face.

So we wanted to come to you, even I, paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us. For who is our hope or joy or crown of boasting in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?

Indeed, you are our glory and joy. Here, paul says, we wanted to see you guys. But he says, here, Satan hindered us.

And for many of us, we can sometimes blame minutia on Satan. And we'd say, I stubbed my toe. That was Satan and different things like that.

And as the New Testament talks about the spiritual realm, and as we look at even the Old Testament, see the Book of Job and look at the fact that weather patterns, the actions of wandering nomadic tribes, sometimes diseases and sicknesses, all sorts

of things can be brought to us by the spiritual world, as Satan brought all of those troubles and trials to Job. There is an element in which the difficulties that we face, as it is evil and there is wickedness and wrong, that as we encounter those

things, there is a sense in which we're engaging in spiritual warfare. Now, what that doesn't mean is that perhaps you need to perform an exorcism on, you know, your house or something if your fridge breaks down.

You don't have to try and, you know, have a thing of holy water or a special cross talisman to try and ward off evil spirits. That's not the way that it works.

The way that we fight spiritual battles, as paul would tell us in Ephesians 6, is through kind of two main things. One on the defensive side is faith, is a belief in what God has said and what he has expressed.

James 4 would tell us, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So we resist, we have faith, and paul would describe that as the shield of faith. It's what protects you from Satan.

It's not perhaps magic words that you would say. It's not incantations or exorcisms. That's not what defends you.

It is faith. It is belief that God is the one who will protect you and who will keep you from harm. Even as you would read about in Psalm 90 or 91, there's also a great song from, I think it might be Psalm 131, 121.

I will link it in the show notes by the music group, Sovereign Grace Music. And they wrote a great song from Psalm 121 called, He Will Keep You.

And just great encouragement of the fact that the Lord is our protector and he's the one that we can rely on to save us from spiritual evil and all of the evils in this world that come as as motivated from the spiritual realm. So faith is our shield.

And then how do we how do we attack Satan? Well, there's two things. He says the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And then he says, actually, I'm going to turn over there real quick.

But he tells us to pray that the combination of the word of God and praying to God is our primary, really some of the only actions that we are told to take in defiance and in attacking the spiritual realm.

So Ephesians 6, 17, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So we fight Satan with the word, even as Jesus did.

And at each point in his temptation, as Satan said, hey, why don't you do this thing that goes against God's word? Why don't you worship me instead of God? Why don't you put God to the test?

Why don't you do something that your father didn't command you to do, but that might benefit you and Jesus to each of those temptations brought in scripture to say, nope, God's word says, I'm not living by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds

from the mouth of God. No, I'm not going to tempt the Lord my God. I will worship the Lord my God only and will serve only him. So we have the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

That's how Jesus faced temptation, and that's how we're called to fight spiritual battles as well.

And then verse 18, pray at all times in the spirit with every prayer and request and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

So we have kind of that double edged sword that the spirit was the one that first spoke the word into existence, that he was the one that inspired, that moved the holy writers of old, as we learned in 2nd Peter chapter 1, that he moved them, that

they wrote exactly what God wanted them to say in the exact way in which he wanted it said. And because of that, we have the word of God, which is the word of the Holy Spirit.

And then we have the Holy Spirit himself that we pray to, that we ask him to work and to operate, that he would defeat Satan. because if it's maybe just us fighting against Satan, we're not really gonna win.

In the Gospel of Mark, we went over the story of Jesus and his disciples as Jesus is coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples were trying to cast out the demon out of a little boy that was just going through horrible

circumstances. And they couldn't help him out. And so then they asked Jesus, hey, why couldn't we do this? And Jesus says, well, this kind doesn't go out except by prayer.

And the challenge that we heard even in that episode from that portion of Scripture, that we must pray, we must have a reliance on God if we are going to defeat evil.

So, all of that discussion stemming from 1 Thessalonians 2, 18, that Satan hindered paul and Silas and Timothy from being able to go back to Thessalonica.

And verses 19 and 20, he says that this young church, this group of believers is their hope, their joy, and their crown of boasting in the presence of the Lord Jesus at His coming.

Here, they have such a joy in knowing that there are disciples of Jesus that they have personally poured themselves into, that they have given themselves for, and that is the thing that they are most looking forward to at Jesus' return.

That there is joy not in how righteous they were, not in how well they kept the law, not in how many sins they didn't commit. They're not even necessarily most looking forward to a perfect new earth or all sin and trouble gone.

They say, our hope, our boasting, our joy, the thing that we are thrilled about at the coming of Jesus is the fact that you all are going to be joining in at that, that we're able to present you to Jesus and say, hey, you saved us and because of our

just love and appreciation for who you are and what you did for us, we brought along some others as well. And we can't wait for them to be part of this larger family.

And I'd encourage you today, maybe have someone that you are intentionally choosing to bring along in their faith, that as here with paul and Silas and Timothy, they weren't at a place for a very long time, but they decided that they were going to

make an impact. Decide today in your family, in your job, in your friend group, in your neighborhood, that you are going to make an impact. It won't necessarily be for everyone.

You, I've heard the old story before, two friends walking along a beach, and on the beach, a bunch of starfish had all washed ashore. There'd been a big storm, currents, all that, and put just a ton of starfish onto the shore.

And one of the friends started grabbing starfish and throwing them one at a time back into the ocean. And the other friend went, hey, like there are thousands of these. You're never going to be able to like make a dent in this.

And the friend that was throwing the starfish in was like, yeah, but I made a difference for that one. Picked up another. I made a difference for that one and another one.

God will likely not have you to maybe drastically change your entire neighborhood, but he might have you make a difference in one person or in one family.

You don't know how he will use you, but start, like start talking to people, start inviting people, start spending time with people, and see what happens. Then chapter 3 and verse number 1.

Therefore, when we could no longer stand it, we thought it was better to be left alone in Athens.

And we sent Timothy, our brother, and God's co-worker in the Gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you concerning your faith so that no one will be shaken by these afflictions.

paul was like, we couldn't stand it anymore, so we said, all right, we'll stay here in Athens. Timothy, you go back, you strengthen them, you encourage them. We talked, I think, an episode or two ago about that strengthening and encouraging others.

And then he says this, for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this, to the afflictions of this life. Part of the life that we go through is rejection of the gospel. It's what Jesus experienced.

And as we align ourselves with him, we'll experience what he experienced. Jesus experienced the difficulties of religious people, misunderstanding, twisting, judging his actions and his words. And we should likely expect that same thing.

If we're following Jesus, we should expect to receive what he received. He had family members and friends that misunderstood, maligned, mistreated, tried to stop him from doing what God wanted him to do.

And so we should expect to interact with those same things as well. Everyone in life goes through troubles and sicknesses and job loss and friendship difficulties.

What makes Christians, if you will, as paul says here, what makes us appointed to afflictions is these are the kinds of afflictions that Jesus underwent. And so that's kind of an add-on.

It's, hey, you're human, so here's all these regular difficulties. But now you're a Christian. And if you're going to be a Christian, a little Christ, a follower of Jesus, then it means that we follow him into trials and temptations and difficulties.

Verse number four. In fact, when we were with you, we told you in advance that we were going to experience affliction and as you know, it happened. Says, hey, I warned you guys about this.

It didn't come as a surprise. I didn't want you to think that you were signing up for the easy life. Some of perhaps the name it and claim it, you guys weren't signing up for that.

We let you know, yeah, persecution is coming, difficulties, affliction is coming, and it happened.

Verse 5, for this reason, when I could no longer stand it, I also sent him to find out about your faith, fearing that the tempter had tempted you and that our labor might be for nothing.

Here, what paul did not want to happen was what we discussed in Mark Chapter 4, and I feel like there was one other spot that we mentioned it, that sometimes when the seed of God's word is sown and it's thrown out onto the ground, sometimes the

birds, Satan or spiritual beings come and they steal away the word of God and they make it so that belief and that genuine conversion does not take place. And this can happen in many people's lives.

And paul says, here was my concern for you all, this would not have taken place because we love you. We gave ourselves for you. We shared our lives with you.

Verse number six, but now Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news about your faith and love. He reported that you always have good memories of us and that you long to see us as we also long to see you.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction, we were encouraged about you through your faith. For now, we live if you stand firm in the Lord.

Realize this, your spiritual walk with Jesus, your actions, your belief, your actions that you take in your faith, it affects more than just you.

Here, paul says, like, it is such an encouragement and a bolstering of our faith as we see that you're continuing in yours.

And he says, and we're able to, like, live and stand in our faith knowing that it's real in you, that the work that we did wasn't useless, as paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, I didn't receive the grace of God in vain, empty.

It wasn't useless for me to have heard the gospel and hear about what Jesus did for me and to be invited to be a part of God's family. For you in your Christian life realize it's not just you. It's not just about you.

How you follow Jesus, your belief in the Lord, the actions that you take, it affects your spiritual family. It affects your spiritual mentors. It affects your pastors.

It affects those that maybe are in different teaching roles in your life. It affects those that are co-workers with you for Jesus. It affects those that are discipling alongside of you.

It affects the baby Christians that are just entering into this life that as they're looking at the landscape and trying to see, okay, is this life with Jesus, is it real or, you know, did I enter just some religious cult or something or just a group

of people that it's not real with them? So value your walk with Jesus because it makes an impact in the lives of others. Verse number nine, how can we thank God for you in return for all the joy we experience before our God because of you?

Let me read that one more time. How can we thank God for you in return for all the joy we experience before our God because of you? As we pray very earnestly night and day to see you face to face and to complete what is lacking in your faith.

Here he just expresses to them, we have so much joy in knowing you and knowing that you know Jesus. I mentioned it a couple of episodes ago. Be grateful for those that do know Jesus.

Let them know that you're praying for them. Here as paul tells this church, we've been praying for you night and day. We want to get back with you guys.

We know that there's more that you all need to hear about Jesus and your faith. And we can't wait to help out more with that process.

What a joy it is when people know that they're being prayed for, that they are cared for, that they have value within God's family. Certainly when they read it in scripture, that's an encouragement.

But when it also comes from scripture, the Word of God and from the people of God, man, that's a powerful combination. So I'd encourage you today, maybe just send a text to someone that's been an encouragement to you in your faith.

Maybe there's been a new believer that's been baptized. I can think of three individuals that have been baptized at the church since March.

And each one of them, as they have expressed their desire to follow the Lord and to be real with him, man, it has brought so much joy to my heart.

And probably right after I do this recording, I'm going to send a text to him and just let him know that I prayed for him today and that I'm thinking about him. And I just want to be a help to people.

So I'm going to end, depending on time, yeah, I've got time. Okay, I'm going to end with this prayer that paul gives at the end of chapter three. He says, now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.

Here's paul's request. I want to get back with you guys. So I'm praying that the Lord would send me to you.

He says, and may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone, just as we do for you. Is your love increasing and overflowing, number one, for other believers, and then number two, for all people?

It can be easy to overflow with anger, easy to overflow with sadness, easy to overflow with disgust, but are you overflowing and increasing in your love?

Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And then verse 13, may he make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints, amen.

What a wonderful truth this is, that God can make our hearts blameless in holiness.

That though we all know where the blame genuinely goes in our life, we know what we can be blamed for, but God through the sacrifice of Jesus washes our hearts clean so that we are no longer condemned.

We no longer have that blame in the sight of God, but he has made us his own.

He's made us something different, that just as we learned about in Leviticus, when the blood is sprinkled on the altar and in the room where God's presence is and all of that, that it makes that place and it makes that people holy and makes it set

apart special to God. And God says, that's what I'm doing in your heart.

Where there was sin, where there was wickedness, where there was a lack of love, where there was doubt and unbelief, I'm cleaning it so that on the day you appear before God, there's no sin that he is going to be condemning you for.

There is nothing that you have to pay on that day. Jesus paid it all. You are completely forgiven forever.

What a wonderful truth. And here paul reminds some of that. He says, I want God to bring us back to you.

We want God to make you increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone.

And we want him to do his Holy Spirit work of cleaning up your heart so that you can stand before him unashamed because of the work that Jesus accomplished for us. Thanks for tuning in today.

The next the next couple of days are going to be a delight. Might be a little crazy, but we'll jump into First Thessalonians for next episode.