The church as it is supposed to be is: The church in Thessalonica was an exemplary church. Paul even mentioned that other churches had heard about Thessalonica and their faith, and that they were examples to these other churches. Why does this church, or any church have these qualities? Because these are God’s qualities. And the people of God are indwelt by God’s Spirit.
1 Thessalonians
1) a people of encouragement (1:2–10);
2) a people of self-sacrifice (2:1–12);
3) a people of controversy (2:13–16);
4) a people of joy (2:17–3:13);
17 But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. 18 Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? 20 For you are our glory and joy.
3 Therefore, when we could no longer endure it, we thought it good to be left in Athens alone, 2 and sent Timothy, our brother and minister of God, and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith, 3 that no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. 4 For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened, and you know. 5 For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain.
6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us, as we also to see you— 7 therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress we were comforted concerning you by your faith. 8 For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.
9 For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God, 10 night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith?
11 Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, 13 so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.
Key theme verses: 18 Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? 20 For you are our glory and joy.
6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and brought us good news of your faith and love,
9 For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God,
11 Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you,
It’s just full of joy! You are our joy! You know Paul could have called them any number of things; You are our pride, our life, our favorite, our best, our reason, our strength. But he chose joy. And not only their joy, but at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The most anticipated and joyful time in the life of a believer. And what did Paul say was going to bring him joy; no the return of Christ itself, though that will surely be true, but he will have great joy in presenting to our Lord, those who he has nurtured in the faith at the church of Thessalonica. That’s quite a testimony of the elation he feels over their faith.
So, with all this joy being described, do you think that the church should be a place of joy? The Bible describes the people of God as a people of joy.
Psalm 5:11 But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; Let those also who love Your name Be joyful in You.
Psalm 16:11 You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Jesus
John 15:11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
John 16:20 Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.
Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
My favorite
1 Peter 1:8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory
So, when people come to our church, they should encounter a joyful people.
The people of the church are to be a people of joy. We are not to be a negative people; always seeing the pile of manure in a field full of flowers.
The question
How can the Church be a people of joy? What makes a joyful church? Or Christian?
Well this passage shows us a number of things about Paul and the church at Thessalonica that feed joy. Our feelings, such as joy, really come out of our thoughts, and beliefs, don’t they? If we believe and think certain things, they illicit sorrow, not joy. Other beliefs tend to build us up. So what are the beliefs that illicit joy? That’s what we will start with today.
Just two points today
A. Joy comes from your beliefs about Time and Space and beliefs about our enemy
17 But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire.
1. Now remember the backstory here.
When were Paul and Silas and Timothy taken away from the Thessalonians? Well it was at the very start of their relationship. Remember that Paul and his group had come there, come to the synagogue and shared the gospel for three weeks. And they were effective. And “a multitude” of people had believed what Paul was preaching. The circumstances were probably very similar to what happened in Antioch of Pisidia years earlier (chapter 15). Paul preached in their synagogue to a great response, primarily from Gentiles, or God-fearers.
You can almost imagine this same scene repeating itself in Thessalonica.
42 [n]So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. 43 Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.
44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together (Antioch of Pisidia) to hear the word of God. 45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul.
Well, what happened in Antioch? Out of jealousy,
50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.
And that’s exactly what happened in Thessalonica. The unbelieving Jews raised a ruckus, and drove them out of town. And remember that they then went to another town down the road named Berea, and many believed. And the Jews from Thessalonica heard that they were preaching there. So they sent their goon squad to Berea to drive Paul’s team out of the region.
So that’s what Paul means when he says,
2. Having been taken away from you.
And, by the way, the words here really show us Paul’s heart toward these people. “Taken away from you” could be translated,
3. —“bereft of you” this word is only used here. It means-to be orphaned—bereaved—to be torn away from.
You can almost imagine the scene, Paul being forcibly separated from these new Christians was like an invading army, forcibly separating children from parents, wife’s from husbands as they send them off into exile. That’s how Paul felt as he was forced to leave Thessalonica.
But look at how he describes it now that he is writing a letter back to the church. Look at his perspective on time and space.
“having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire.”
We were separated for a short time in presence. The word for this is literally the word for “hour.” We’ve been taken from you for an hour. Just an hour
4. In presence-“not in heart”
What’s he saying?
We have an emotional and spiritual bond that cannot be broken by time or space. We are separated geographically, but our hearts are still with you. And it’s only going to be a short time. An hour, no biggie. Well how long will Paul be separated from them? Well there’s good evidence that he gets back to Thessalonica in chapter 20.
But, at the point that he writes this letter, he doesn’t know if, or when he will ever be allowed to return to Thessalonica. So how can he say, “we are bereft of you for a short time?” Because he knows that they now belong to the Lord. And even if he never sees them again in this time and space, he will see them after this life, after he and they die and enter the presence of the Lord.
How long would that be? 20, 30, 40, maybe 90 years if some of the Thessalonians are very young. How does Paul describe 20 to 90 years? An hour. A Short time. How does he describe their physical separation. “Apart from you in presence, but not in heart.”
Do you want to know the first belief that illicits joy? The belief that this evil life is very short, and that this physical world and the space that divides Christian from Christian, parents from children, husbands from wives, is not the real world. The spiritual world is the real world.
And that’s how the Word of God describes time in our world.
Job 7:6 “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,Job 14:1-2 “Man who is born of woman Is of few days and full
of [a]trouble.
2 He comes forth like a flower and
fades away; He flees like a shadow and does not continue.
Psalm 39:5 Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity
Psalm 90:4For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.James 4:14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
So, the first key to your joy, is what you believe about time and space. They are not the limits that we make them out to be, as believers.
Now Paul continues,
5. I endeavored more eagerly to see your face.
Even though we were separated in presence for an hour, we were together in heart. So,
“we were all the more eager with great desire to see your face
We did want to see you. We are still living in this world of time and space, so we wanted to look you in the face.
That’s something that I think we have learned from all this “remote, virtual school” that we’ve been a part of this year. In my remote classes, the students were not required to have their cameras on. So, most of the time, I didn’t even know if they were there. And even the kids who did participate, I didn’t see their faces, and rarely heard their voices. So, I couldn’t see comprehension, or confusion, or boredom, or hostility on their faces. Frankly, I had no way of gauging whether my teaching was effective or not, until the assignments or tests came in.
Paul wanted to see their faces for the same reason.
So, the first belief that elicits joy is your Biblical understanding of time and space.
Even in the secular world—the key to happiness is to lower your expectations. For the Christian, we have to lower our expectations of this life, and think of the eternal one.
B. Joy comes from your belief about your enemy
18 Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us.
Chapter 3
5 For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain.
In both of these verses, Paul is fully aware of the work of Satan.
We cannot lead lives of joy as Christians if we have a misunderstanding, or incorrect beliefs, about our enemy, the devil.
Let me tell you why. Christians get all confused, and despairing, because they either give Satan too much credit, or they give him too little credit.
Some Christians live life as though there is no enemy in the world. So, when they encounter his attacks, they are taken aback.
Others see Satan under every rock, and live in fear. Every bad thing that happens is the devil. Every time they sin, it’s his fault, not their own failure.
But listen to how Paul describes our enemy.
1. I wanted to come.
Remember, 3 weeks he preached, and a multitude believed. Then they were driven out of town. They went to Berea, driven out there. Went to Athens and had little response. And now they are in Corinth. And all this time he is thinking about the people he left behind. And I think he would have been especially concerned with those churches where he had little time, he wasn’t able to finish.
18 Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—By the way, notice that he takes care to emphasize to them that it’s not just “we” who wanted to come to you, “even I Paul, time and again.
He wanted to get back to Thessalonica to see them. To see how they were doing. To see their faces. To rejoice with them. To encourage them despite persecution.
But,
2. Satan hindered us.
What does that mean? They were hindered from getting back to Thessalonica.
Well, how did Satan hinder? Well, we don’t know. We do know that when they were in Thessalonica originally, a Jewish opposition arose that used every legal, social, and under-handed means to drive them out of town. Those same people were still there. And unlike some other places, they had nothing that took the power away from those opponents.
God’s providence in other places
Remember in Philippi, they had been unlawfully beaten by the magistrates, so in the end, those same magistrates were afraid they would get in trouble with Rome because Paul and Silas were Roman citizens. Paul could easily return to Philippi. Remember that in Corinth, the Jews tried to charges against Paul in the courtroom of a Roman proconsul named Gallio. But Gallio considered their accusations to be Jewish religious questions, and kicked the Jews out of his courtroom. This was God’s providence in Corinth. This allows Paul to continue ministry in Corinth.
But in Thessalonica, all that happened was that Paul and Silas were spirited out of town by the church, and one of the new believers, Jason, had to put up a bond, assumedly this was some sort of bail saying that he would guarantee that they wouldn’t return.
So, Paul and his team are in a bind. To return could put Jason in a bad legal, or financial place. But to not return left Thessalonica spiritually vulnerable.
Satan hindered us. Had they tried to resolve this? We don’t know.
Maybe they tried to change their legal status there. Maybe Jason went back to court, but the judge wouldn’t hear him, or was hostile to him. We don’t know. But whatever had gone on after they left Thessalonica, they still weren’t able to return. so Paul said,
Satan hindered us.
Next time, we will look at things we can learn about our enemy.
So, what can we learn about our enemy from this narrative? Here are a few things.
Satan is actively at work in opposition to Christians. Christians have to discern between the work of God and the work of Satan. Christians do not have complete power over Satan.
So, what can we learn about our enemy from this narrative? Here are a few things.