1 Thessalonians 2:1-4 (Part A)

I'd rather be a little inconvenienced and read the hard things from scripture, knowing that they are edifying.

They will build us up if we would receive them. And so he says, Take away from me the noise of your song, so I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But that is what he wants. Let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. You tell someone the truth. Today, and they get offended. They don't think you're being harsh.

Since when did telling the truth become harsh? Turn to Thessalonians, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2. I suppose historians don't tell us much about what Paul looked like, though there is one statement mentions that he was short, rather bald, with bow legs and thick eyebrows. But he was one tough servant of the Lord.

It's just phenomenal. I get so much from this man and Jeremiah, their stick-to-it-ness for Christ. Well, of the three churches in the region of the world that Thessalonica was in that Paul started, they were all a success, good ministries. He had come into Europe, what is now the country of Greece, the northern section known as Macedonia at that time.

Some still call it Macedonia, but there he was. He started the church in Macedonia onto Berea and worked his way down to Corinth. And the successes of these churches answer for us why it is that God allowed Paul and Silas, who was with him, to suffer the beatings that they took in Philippi and for Timothy to witness the beatings and still stay with them. You see, Satan's resistance sprung up from people devoted to wrong things, oftentimes things poorly thought out, foolish things, harmful things. It doesn't seem to stop wickedness.

It just keeps right on going, causes us a great amount of concern as a matter of fact. But he was chased from this region, from Macedonia, where God sent him. So let me get this right. God, you're sending me to Macedonia to start a church to preach Christ, and I have succeeded in doing that, but I had to take a heavy beating in the process.

Yes, that's right. God would answer. And then you're going to chase me from those places to other places, even though the work is doing well. Yes, that is exactly what I'm going to do. And then I'm going to take another beating and shipwreck and all sorts of mockings and, you know, people laughing at me and all these other things just to preach that Christ takes away sin. That's what's going on with you, God, right?

That is exactly it. Well, how about I pray you protect me from the beatings? You can pray, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it. You are my servant. I need you to do these things or they won't get done. I could find somebody else. No, no, no.

I'd rather do it myself than you having to go look for somebody else. And this is how it turns out to be, and this is why it's so shocking and disappointing and striking that Christians get so upset over a piece of lint, comparatively, that's out of place in the church. Come on, dear, we're going out of here. There's a loving spirit. I understand if the truth is not being given, I'm talking about when the truth is being given from the pulpit. That is the main part of the church. Why did God ordain preaching? Because we need it. It's what it takes.

Just go on for a while without it and watch what happens to you. Watch how weak you become. This is something God has done, not man. And so how did Paul arrive in this hot zone? As I said, he was led by the Holy Spirit of God. How did God do that?

Well, God closed doors. That's how he led Paul. We read about it in Acts chapter 16.

First, you have to have a servant that is looking for what God wants, not what they want. In Acts 16 and verse 9, this is before he gets to Thessalonica, we read, And a vision appeared to Paul in the night, a man of Macedonia. That's where he's going to end up getting that beating in Philippi. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them. So off he goes to Philippi, where again he had great success. You know the Philippian letter is a beautiful letter.

Every Christian should read it at least once a year. Why was he sent there? Why, he concluded, this is the Lord's leading, why did he go? Because there were converts in waiting. In other words, there were people there that were going to get saved, but only if God's servants got there to share the gospel with them.

Paul did not know who they were. He thought there were people in Bithynia. That's where he wanted to go. And then God shut the door there. And then he wanted to go to Asia. And God said, No, that's not where I want you to go either.

This is Asia Minor, what we now call modern day Turkey, not Asia such as China and Japan, that part of the Orient. But he's forbidden to go to these regions. He will end up there later, at least in Asia Minor. Peter will preach to those in Bithynia.

All the saints will travel around. But at this time in history, God is closing doors. I don't want you to go where you think you want to go. I want you to go where I know there are converts who are ready.

That's where I'm sending you. And so that's the story surrounding this church in Thessalonica, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, the churches in Macedonia that were very successful. He will end up being chased from Berea down to Athens and into Corinth and then he'll have more troubles. That's life in ministry.

That's what it takes to be effective. In verse 1 now, we look in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, it says, For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. And so he starts out saying, Our coming to you was not for nothing. Even though we were chased out in time, it meant something to God. Faith, exercise demonstrated that God was not unmindful of people who he wanted to save from assured judgment.

It's no different for us today. And so this indisputable, meaningful force that goes behind the gospel, real religion, as opposed to false religion. I want to read from Amos, the book of Amos chapter 5. Amos chapter 5. Here this prophet Amos who found himself having to deal with a priest who was corrupt and a priesthood that supported the corruption. Amos was a prophet and he came to preach God's word in the midst of this religious corruption that you might find yourself in today.

You may find yourself around. People say, I go to church. I believe in the Bible. They just care nothing about what it says and what it means. They sort of just check the box and go on with their lives and expect God to bless them. And many times they're practicing things that bring the wrath of God.

And so here you come, you say, listen, this isn't right. Well, that's now you're in the office of a prophet in that sense. And so this is God addressing this corrupt priesthood through Amos the prophet. He's talking to the false leaders and he says, God speaking through the prophet, I hate, I despise your feast days and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them. Nor will I regard your fatted peace offerings. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I don't want to hear you singing to me because you don't mean it. It's false.

It's a lie. And I will not honor it. And yet we have this practice going on today as though this is a wonderful thing. This is what God wants.

He wants us to sing to him even though we don't mean it. This is what the Bible teaches. It continues. It's not even comfortable for me to stand here and read it, but this is God's word. It is more of a, it is rather a greater displeasure for me to skip over it though. So I'd rather be a little inconvenienced and read the hard things from scripture knowing that they are edifying.

They will build us up if we would receive them. And so he says, take away from me the noise of your songs so I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But, now this is what he wants, let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. You tell someone the truth today and they get offended. They don't, they think you're being harsh. Since when did telling the truth become harsh?

I mean, if you say it in the wrong way, it could be for sure, but it still does not remove the guilt of those who are in violation. It continues in verse 25 of Amos chapter 5. Did you offer me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness 40 years, O house of Israel? Remember when Moses was leading you around? I was doing all these miracles.

Did you really worship me then? And God says, you also carried Sekuth, your king, and Chuon, your idols, stars of your gods which you made for yourselves. So God says, I was on to you the whole time. You were pretending to follow me, but really you still had these fake gods with you.

Now it wasn't all the people, but the guilty would know who they were and the innocent would know who they were and they were to respond accordingly. And so God always has a concern for his ministers that they would be effective even in the midst of persecution as Paul was. Galatians chapter 3 verse 4 is where Paul expresses to another church earlier on his concerns that he wasted his time with them. But first, before I read from Galatians 3, again, chapter 2 verse 1, for you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. Paul wanted meaningful ministry. These beatings I took in Philippi, I didn't take them for just for the sake of it.

Fruit needs to come out of these things. And so he says, have you suffered, he writes to the Galatians, so many things for nothing if indeed it was in vain. You see, in the church at Galatia, Paul was concerned that the Christians were going away from Christ and moving into this system of checks and balances, this merit system of legalism. You have to do this and you must do that and put your hair this way and wear these kind of shoes and face this way when you pray and all these rules and rituals. And Paul was saying, hey, Christ took away all that.

He brought you in by love. You do decent and right things according to his word based on love, not because you think you're better than someone else or that you can earn favor with God. You could earn favor with God, then who needs to cross a Christ?

Just go work hard. It would be a cruel thing to have Christ crucified if there was some other way for you to be right with God. Well, the legalistic mind there, the Judaizers of Galatia was saying, well, yeah, we need Christ's blood, but you also need to.

And here they come. Jesus said, there's one sin that I can't forgive, and that is rejecting the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring you to Christ. But the legalists said, there's one million sins that you need to watch out for and things you have to do.

They never say it that way, though. He continues in Galatia, he says, I'm afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain. So twice he says to them, have you suffered so many things in vain?

If indeed they were vain. I'm afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain. Well, Christ comes along, the Holy Spirit comes and he says to you, have you been a Christian all this time for nothing?

What is your understanding of the faith? What is going on between you and I? Do you love me? Am I worthy of your time? I just like a little bit of your time each day.

Is that too much to ask? Could you just sit down and read something from the scripture, from my word? Could you just pray to me? Well, I would, but I don't get the change that I want, so why bother praying? Because I'm your God.

That's why. And if I choose not to answer your prayer, you being the servant are supposed to say that I am worthy. And if I choose not to answer, it's my prerogative. Well, to get to that place, you have got to have a relationship with Jesus Christ personally. And it has to be special.

And it has to last not just a little while, but your entire life, no matter how old you get or how young you are. It's so difficult to talk to the young Christians and have them nod their heads up and down and then go do opposite of what they were told. It is so difficult to find the same thing taking place in the older Christians. Some of you say, well, I've heard this one before. Well, not all of you act like you have. So it's repeated.

And then sometimes I say to myself the very same things. You know better. You know God's word.

How come you're not doing it? Because I am weak. God loves me anyway. He picks me up.

He says, get back in there. And I say, yes, Lord. That's a great difference between being a hypocrite and a weakling. God can work with a weakling.

Any weakling can take a punch on the chin and get up and take another one. But the hypocrite, there's not much God can do with that. So it is again as though Paul had said, oh, God had said to Paul, I will not waste the suffering you've done in my name.

That would make God indebted to Paul, would it not? God will not. There will be no IOU handed to God.

You cannot step before his throne and say, here's my IOU. You owe me. Look what all the things I did for you. It is funny, isn't it? Fortunately, those who go to heaven don't think that way. In verse 2, he continues, he says, but even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.

So do you see why I've introduced this by talking about the churches in Macedonia, the beating that we've been having this in front of us since we began the Thessalonian letter? He says, but even after. This proves he was a bronco-buster type cowboy. That thing would throw him off, he'd get back on it.

And throw him off, he'd get back on it. What happens to us? Something bad happens to us. Why, God, did you allow it? I thought you loved me.

You said right here. I will never leave you no more. And we go on and on and on. Well, I don't think the Lord blames us for that. I just think that if we let it go too far, there's not much more he can do with us.

What would make me say that? Looking at a life, at the life of a man like Paul. I am still, we just finished the book of Jeremiah. And I am still bothered by that scene in the book of Jeremiah where he says the Babylonian army goes away because they have to deal with Egypt. And so Jeremiah says, fine, I'm going home. I've had enough of the city life in Jerusalem and all of this bickering and fighting and the treatment.

I'm just going to go home and take some days off. And on his way out of the city, he gets arrested and accused of being a traitor and a defector to the enemy. And so they put him in prison and he would have died there had it not been for one servant of the Lord who was moved by the messages of Jeremiah and went to the king risking his own life on Jeremiah's behalf. And I'm bothered. I say, you know, he was that close to getting out of the city and having to put up with this stuff by these numskulls.

You all feel that. You read the news. You know, you check the news. You say, let's find out what they're up to now. And you, you know, yi yi yi, can anybody be that wicked and stupid at the same time?

Yep, yep, yep, they can. And so Jeremiah, he continues to follow the Lord. He got thrown off the horse. He's still following.

Paul, thrown off the horse, still following. Great lessons, profound lessons, and listen to this next thing that is said. He says, but even after we had suffered, after we have suffered, what can you say to that? If you're going to suffer, this is what we can say. If you're going to suffer, make it count. You see, you young, you younger Christians, you may not have had enough failures to understand just how difficult it is to accomplish something for Christ. You're now, you, boy, when I get to the, I get driving, and I get my license, I get, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this for Christ, and I'm going to say, and you get out there, and you start, and you find out all the things that are thrown in your way by people who you thought were going to help you.

And as the years roll by, you now are susceptible to bitterness. I can't believe it. Why bother? I've been through this before.

He's not going to do anything. I'm disgusted with God secretly. But then when I go to the description, I find other men have gone before me, have taken more than I have taken, and they got back on the horse, and they rode others after we have suffered. We continued to serve the Lord. Well, then I have a choice.

My older years, I have to choose sides. Am I going to follow me? Am I going to follow the Lord in His examples? It's an easy choice.

We were singing. I've decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.

No turning back. The world behind me, the cross before me. That's a good place to be. That's between a rock and a rock. That's a good place to be. It's easier to go with the world.

Just join their ranks. They won't crucify you like that. But the Christian doesn't have that option. He slowly says again, but even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, and so having suffered at Philippi, more shame, more suffering, he moves on. This was the case with the Lord Jesus Himself. He, too, suffered the shame and the mockings of people.

He left it as an example for us. There at Gadara, there was a madman who was locked away from the people. No one wanted to be anywhere near this guy. The Lord goes there and delivers him from his madness, and in the process, he destroys the 2,000 swine. I think it was Billy Graham that we first heard referred to them as Deviled Ham because he had sent the demons into the pigs and they couldn't handle it. One of the outstanding lessons of that story is one human being can hold more demons than 2,000 pigs.

Pretty powerful. There are people that say, pigs are unclean. I never eat pigs. Why is it unclean? I mean, have you seen chickens?

Have you ever been to a chicken farm or a commercial? You can't even breathe, like two miles before you get there. Get your breath.

Take an oxygen tank with you. Well, anyway, the people wanted the Lord to get gone after that. Yeah, we see you helped him, but we lost our income. You're not good for the economy.

Instead of saying, you know, this is incredible. We really needed those pigs, but we'll get to that in a minute, Lord. You delivered this guy.

If you can do that, can you give us some pigs back too? That's not how they thought of it. And so, hardship in Christ does not mean we took a wrong turn.

It often means we took the right turn, and because that was the turn that we were directed to take, we engaged the enemy. So he did not go to Bithynia. He did not go to Asia.

He goes to Philippi. He catches a beating because that was the plan of God. And so we turn to Isaiah chapter 58.

Isaiah 58. Most of us know this verse, beginning in verse 8. My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts, than your thoughts.

That's the reality of it. God's ways are much higher than ours. They are much greater than ours, and so we line up with them to be led by him, and we don't slow down because of the setbacks, spiritually.

Physically we may have to, but spiritually we don't. And so he says, as you know, because it was public knowledge, again Thessalonica was on the same Ignatian way that Philippi was on. That's the major trade route where it traveled fast from one city to the other if you were along that route. And so the people in Thessalonica heard the morning news that what happened in Philippi to Paul. And so when he got there, and he started preaching, and they put two and two together and realized this was that man who was beaten in Philippi, they were very attentive to what he had to say. Imagine a sermon concluding by Paul, and he takes off his shirt and says, let me show you what I got in the city just down the road before I got here for preaching the same thing I'm preaching to you. In fact, he received the beating because he delivered a young lass from demon possession, and he began to make converts. That's why he got the beating in Philippi. But nowadays in our country we don't take physical beatings, we take verbal beatings.

We're afraid of rejection. I would share the gospel, but I don't want to go through that line, you know, here it comes, well you believe what you want to believe, and I'll believe what I want to believe, and I don't want to hear it. We don't want to hear that part, so we don't even give them the gospel. Look at the church in Pakistan. Imagine suicide bombers.

That's not right. Demonic bombers. People who are possessed by Satan, who think they're serving God by slaughtering the innocent, who have no concept of what it means to be a coward, or what love means. You see, when Islam speaks of love, they're saying it this way, I love those who hate like I hate.

That's their love. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of 1 Thessalonians. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app as well. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of 1 Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.