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1 Thessalonians 2:13-16
The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III
If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1
Thessalonians chapter 2. Were going to be looking at verses 13 to
16 today as we continue our way through this, perhaps, the first letter
of the apostle Paul to the churches, and by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit to you and to me. As we read this passage together today I'd
like you to be on the lookout for two things. First of all, in verse 13,
Paul recounts two specific reasons why he is grateful for what God is
doing by His Spirit in the hearts of the Thessalonians. And I'd like
you to zero-in on that as we read it and ask yourself, What are the
things that Paul is grateful for? What does he list here in 1
Thessalonians 2:13?
Then, as we get to verse 14, especially the first section, Paul
announces that the Thessalonians have become imitators of the
Christian churches, the churches that worship the Lord Jesus Christ,
in Judea, specifically in experiencing persecution and continuing to
believe the Lord and trust the Lord while theyre experiencing that
affliction and opposition and persecution. And in the midst of drawing
attention to that and actually praising and encouraging the
Thessalonians for the fact that they've received the Word of God and
it's gotten them persecution and they've believed it anyway and
therefore they are like their brethren back in Judea who received the
Word of God and they got persecuted for it and they believed it
anyway. In the context of encouraging them for following in the good
churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered
the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the
Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us
out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from
speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved so as always to
fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at
last!
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God's holy, inspired, and
inerrant Word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
I wonder what role gratitude plays in your Christian life and I mean a
specific kind of gratitude. I don't just mean gratitude for the blessings
that God gives us in the resources that He puts into our hands, the
food that He puts into our mouths, the clothes that He puts on our
backs, the roofs that He puts over our heads, those kinds of earthly
blessings, great as they are and things that we ought to be grateful
for, I'm especially thinking of spiritual gratitude and I'm speaking of a
special kind of spiritual gratitude. Right now I can think of numerous
men and women over the course of my life who have poured their
lives into mine and have blessed me by showing me what it means
to live the Christian life. I'm not even talking about that kind of
gratitude. I'm talking about a different kind of spiritual gratitude a
gratitude that is regularly looking around, especially at our own
congregation, and thanking God for what He is doing in the lives of
our brothers and sisters in Christ. Do you find yourself, in whatever
circle of Christian friends your membership is, whether it's in this
congregation or another, do you find yourself looking around
regularly saying, Lord, I want to thank You for how You are at work
in the life of that sister, that brother, in Christ? Do you find yourself
thinking that way from time to time? Do you find yourself being
blessed when you see God's Word at work in somebody else's life
who is a fellow member with you? Well Paul is giving us an example
of that in this passage.
If youll look back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 2, you will see
that this passage is not the first time that Paul has expressed
gratitude or thanksgiving. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 2 he
says, We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly
mentioned you in our prayers. So Paul begins this letter by speaking
of his gratitude for the Thessalonians and for what God is doing in
the Thessalonians. And if you look specifically, he tells you a couple
of reasons why he thanks God for them. Notice verse 5 Our
gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the
Holy Spirit and with full conviction. In other words, one of the things
he was thanking God for was that the Gospel didn't just come with
words; it came with power in the lives of the Thessalonians. It
changed their lives. In fact in this passage, he speaks about their
faith, their love, and their hope. He says, I can see the way the
Gospel has changed you by your faith and your love and your hope.
So that's one thing that he thanks God for, but he doesn't stop.
If you look at verse 6, he says, You became imitators of us and of
the Lord for you received the Word in much affliction with the joy of
the Holy Spirit. So Paul's saying, Another thing I thank God for is
even though you have been afflicted, even though you have been
opposed and oppressed and persecuted because you trust in Christ,
you still believe and in the midst of that affliction you showed joy, and
in so doing, you followed the example of the Lord Jesus and you
followed the example of the apostles. Jesus, who for the joy set
before Him, endured the cross and despised its shame. Paul, who
along with his missionary team, in Philippi, in prison, having been
beaten, was singing hymns of praise to God in the middle of the
night and the Thessalonians are acting the same way in affliction.
And so in 1 Thessalonians 1:2-6, Paul gives thanks for what God
was doing in the lives of the Thessalonians and for the way that they
were enduring affliction, and do you notice how that mirrors what
he's doing here in chapter 2 verses 13 to 16? The same themes pop
up again.
But specially two things Paul draws to our attention. In verse 13, first,
what the Word of God was doing in the Thessalonians and then in
verses 14 to 16 how they had become imitators of the churches in
Judea in enduring affliction and still believing. Now I'm going to take
the second of those two things first because there's a problem there
that I want us to face up with. Many people look at this passage and
they say, You know, Paul, you sound like an anti-Semite. You sound
like someone who is anti-Semitic. Look at verses 14 and following.
You have blamed the Jews for killing Jesus and the prophets,
driving out the apostles, displeasing God, opposing all mankind, and
hindering the spread of the Gospel, and you have said that God's
wrath has come down on them at last. You, Paul, are an antiSemite. Now anti-Semitism means suspicion of the Jewish people,
hatred for the Jewish people, or discrimination for the Jewish people
simply because of their ethnicity and their heritage. And it is a very,
very serious charge. And let me say, before I say anything else, we
emphatically reject anti-Semitism. We have theological reasons why
we hold anti-Semitism to be a very grave sin. It's not just because of
political correctness that First Presbyterian Church rejects antiSemitism; we have theological reasons why we reject anti-Semitism.
why are you persecuting Me. And did Saul participate in the
persecution of the prophets? Oh yes he did! He held the cloaks while
the men who stoned Stephen to death did the deed. And did he
hinder the apostles in the spread of the Gospel? Yes, with very
breath in his being he worked to hinder the spread of the Gospel!
And did he displease God while he was doing it? Yes, he did. In fact
Paul tells us, I thought I was pleasing God, but in fact I was
displeasing God. So Paul did all the things that he's denouncing
Israel for. He's not talking about this in some sort of theoretical,
distance, detached sort of way. He understands this up close and
personal. They are him and he is them. So this is not hatred for a
race, for an ethnicity, this is not a hatred for the Jewish people
because of their heritage. This is a condemnation of unbelief. It is
not an expression of hatred against a particular ethnic group.
Understand what's going on here.
That leads me to the second thing. Paul is doing exactly here what
the Old Testament prophets do. If you read your Old Testament
prophets and especially the later prophets and the minor prophets,
what do you find them doing all the time? Denouncing Israel for
unbelief. Now when those Old Testament Jewish prophets are
denouncing the Jewish people for unbelief, are they being antiSemitic? No, they don't hate the Jewish people for their ethnicity and
heritage! They love the Jewish people; they love them so much
theyre willing to denounce them for their unbelief. My Hebrew
professor in seminary grew up in a Jewish home. He went to Hebrew
school as a little boy. He was converted to Christ in university and he
became a professor of Old Testament. I want to tell you it was
enormous privilege to study Hebrew and Old Testament under him.
He had a Jewish sense of humor and if you know a Jewish sense of
humor there is nothing quite like it in the world and he brought that
into his teaching, and there were stories from youth.
While I was studying under him, the Jewish Campus Ministry at
Washington University in St. Louis there was a large Jewish
community in St. Louis and a large Jewish community at Washington
University came to him and asked him if he would come and
deliver a lecture to the Jewish Student Union at Washington
University on the subject, Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic? He
said, I would be honored and delighted to as long as you allow me
to give two lectures and youll let me choose the topic of the first
lecture. And they said, Well that's a little strange, but sure, that will
be fine. You can come speak to us twice and you can choose the
topic of the first lecture. He chose for the topic of his first lecture, Is
the Old Testament Anti-Semitic? And what he did was he went
through the language of the Old Testament and he showed that the
prophets of the Old Testament use stronger language denouncing
Israel than any of the apostles used in the New Testament in
speaking out the Jewish people. And it set the stage for him to be
able to explain the language, like this language, that the New
Testament uses. So Paul is just picking up the language of the
prophetic denouncement of the Old Testament prophets of Israel for
Israel's unbelief. This isn't ethnic hatred; this is a denouncement
against not believing God's Word.
Third, Paul is just picking up the denouncement of Jesus here.
Jesus, if you look at His words to His disciples spoken in the Olivet
Discourse, for instance in Matthew, you will find Jesus saying the
same kinds of things about Israel as Paul says here and speaking of
the wrath that God was going to bring upon Jerusalem for their sins.
Jews. Listen to that line again. You suffered the same things from
your own countrymen that they did from the Jews. Paul's point here
is not to get the Thessalonians to hate the Jews; his point here is
that they've suffered as much from Gentiles as the Jewish Christians
in Judea have suffered from the Jews. In other words, he's saying,
Both Gentiles and Jews have persecuted God's people
predominantly Gentile churches; predominantly Jewish churches.
You've experienced the same thing. His point is not to get them to
hate the Jewish people or to blame the Jewish people for every sin
ever committed. His point is to say, Hey guess what? Your
experience is just like the experiences of the churches in Judea.
They were persecuted by the Jews; you've been persecuted by the
Gentiles.
By the way, what doe Paul argue in Romans 1,2 , and 3? That the
whole world, both Jew and Gentile, stand condemned by God and
under His just judgment and wrath because of our sins. For all have
fallen short of the glory of God, both Jew and Gentile. It reads like
an elaboration on 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. No, Paul is not antiSemitic. His point is to commend the Thessalonians for enduring
their afflictions just like the Jewish Christians in Judea were enduring
their afflictions from their own countrymen. Paul is pausing and
saying, I am watching Christians be willing to suffer for Christ and
still believe Him and still believe the Gospel. And my friends, do you
have that experience? Can you look around and see people
experiencing affliction because of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ and give thanks to God for them? If you don't, youre not
looking. If you don't, youre not looking. It is happening all the time
and it will more and more in our own culture. But my friends, our
missionaries face this constantly, constantly, and if we're not looking
at that and not just praying for them but deriving a reason to give
God praise and thanks and gratitude, we're missing the point. Paul
looks at these Thessalonians experiencing persecution for the sake
of the Gospel and he says, Lord, thank You that the Gospel is real;
it's so real in their lives that theyre willing to bleed for it. And he
gives thanks to God.
PAUL WAS CONSTANTLY GRATEFUL FOR
THE RECEPTION AND THE ACTIVITY OF THE WORD OF GOD
Now here's the second thing. And I wish that I could have spent the
whole time on verse 13 and youll see why, but here's the second
thing. And it's Paul is constantly grateful for two other reasons. Not
only is he grateful that the Thessalonians are enduring suffering and
persecution and still believing and thus becoming imitators of the
churches in Judea who have enduring suffering and are still
believing, but he gives thanks to God for two other reasons. Look at
what he says. We also thank God constantly for this, that when you
received the Word of God, which you heard from us, that you
accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the Word
of God. The first thing that he wants to thank God for is that they
accepted the Word of God as the Word of God. He wants to point to
their receiving of the Word and thank God for it. Secondly, you see
this in the last words of verse 13, You accepted it not as the word of
men but as what it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you
believers. So he's thankful for their receiving of the Word of God and
for the activity of the Word of God in them.
Now let me just think about those two things with you for a moment.
First of all he's saying, I thank God that when we preached the
Gospel to you, you understood that this was not something that had
come out of our brains. This message was not a message that
human beings had made up. It was the very Word of God. J.I.
Packer says that, In preaching, the Word of God delivers through
the preacher a message from God to His people about God and
godliness. Isn't that a wonderful definition of preaching? In
preaching, the Word of God delivers through the preacher a
message from God to His people about God and godliness. Notice
what Packer doesn't say. He doesn't say that a preacher delivers a
message about God. He says that the Word of God delivers through
a preacher a message from God which is about God and godliness.
It is a glorious way of explaining what happens in preaching. And
Paul is saying the Thessalonians got that. They understood that
when I stood up and preached the Gospel this was not something
that was coming from my heart and my mind; I'd not invented this. I
received this. This is a message that was given to me. This is a
message that's being preached through me. Do you understand that
every time we gather under God's Word on the Lord's Day you are
here to experience a Word-mediated encounter between your soul
and the living God? God Himself is using the preacher as an
instrument, as a tool, to mediate an encounter with you by the Word
of God so that He can speak into your life. It is impossible for you to
have too high a view of the Word of God. It's impossible.
And Paul is looking at these Thessalonians and he's saying, Lord
God, I thank You that they get that! I thank You that they understand
that the Word of God is not the words of men; it is the very Word of
God! It's You speaking to them by Your Word! They get that! Do you
ever, do you ever look around and you see that going on in the
congregation and you see somebody who, the light has just gone on
for them and they understand now that this isn't just the words of
men, this is the very Word of God speaking to me? And have you
ever just paused and said, Lord, thank You that's Your Spirit working
in that brothers life; that's Your Spirit working in that sisters life for
them to receive the Word of God for what it is Your own Word!
And then Paul says, And it's Your Word at work in you who believe.
So it's not a dead Word; it's a living Word. It's a Word at work in you.
And we've already mentioned that He's pointed out some of the ways
that it's at work in verses 14 to 16. He said, It's at work in you
because it's enabling you to believe even in the midst of
persecution. But back in verses 3 and following he mentions faith,
love, and hope as evidence that God's Word is at work in you. It's
God's Word at work in you causing you to have faith and therefore
you are working out your faith. And to have love, therefore you are
laboring from your love. And to have hope, therefore you are
persevering and enduring because of the hope that the Word of God
implanted in you. All through this passage he's piling up things that
the Word of God is doing in these people. The Word of God is
transforming their lives. The Word of God is changing them and
Paul's looking at that and he's saying, Lord, I want to stop right now
and I want to thank You because I see the Word of God at work in
them.
Now do you do that? Do you look around at First Presbyterian
Church or in your own congregation and pause from time to time to
thank God for those spiritual, Gospel things that He is doing in the
lives of your brothers and sisters in Christ? If you don't, you will be
grumpy, because look, we are bunch of sinners living in close
proximity with a bunch of sinners in a local church and there are
things that we will do to make one another grumpy. And if you are
not, from time to time, deliberately looking around and expressing
gratitude to God for the Gospel work that He's doing by the Word of
God in the hearts of your brothers and sisters, youll get grumpy.
Listen to what C.J. Mahaney says. C.J. Mahaney says, If we fail to
notice evidence of God's grace in our church, we will gradually
become grumblers rather than grateful. If we fail to notice evidence
of God's grace in our church, we will gradually become grumblers
rather than grateful. And Paul here is pausing to express gratitude to
God for the real work that He's doing in the lives of people in the
Thessalonian congregation. Do we pause and do that? If we don't,
we will grump.
And look, there will be plenty of legitimate reasons to grump. You
may have things to grumble about me. I've got a longer list than you
do! And theyd be legitimate. There are all sorts of legitimate things
that you could become bitter and grumble about if you do not actively
cultivate gratitude to God for the evidences of grace that He is at
work in the hearts of people in this congregation. That means our
eyes have to be open all the time asking, What's the Lord doing?
So here sit dozens of young people who are going to spend their
summer pouring their lives into hundreds of young people. There will
be young people converted. There will be young people who have
such a tremendous advance by the work of the Spirit in their lives
that they feel like theyre converted. There will be people who have a
sense of call to the ministry or to the mission field and it will happen.
God will use some of these young people right here this summer.
Now are you going to pay close enough attention to that to give
praise to God for that?
All year long we have teachers and administrators at our Day School
pouring their lives into the lives of young people and amazing things
happen in that context. Are we paying close enough attention that we
pause and we give gratitude to God? We have people in our student
ministry, in our college ministry year round, pouring their lives into
the lives of young people and young people are being converted and
theyre being changed and transformed. Are we paying close enough
attention to that that we can give praise to God? Are our eyes open
for opportunities to give gratitude to God for the evidences of grace
as He works by His Word in the hearts and lives of our brothers and
sisters here at First Presbyterian Church? That's what Paul is
pausing to do here and he's giving us a good example. May God
enable us to cultivate that kind of Gospel gratitude in our own lives.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You that Your
Word is at work in us. And we pray, heavenly Father even now, as we
sing about the Gospel, that our eyes would be more opened to
viewing and appreciating Gospel truth in this congregation. We ask it
in Jesus name, amen.
Now we sang from 599 earlier, so let's sing from 499. Rock of Ages
is a song about the Gospel. Let's sing it to God's praise.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.