Week commencing Sunday 25th November

Sermon. ‘Stand firm in the Lord’

When a father and mother bring up a child, they teach that child to stand and then to walk. Paul was a spiritual parent to the believers at Thessalonica. He had been like a mother and a father to them. But he had been forced to leave. So how could he help them learn to stand in the trials of life?

In Chapter 1 Paul explains how the church was born. In Chapter 2 he describes his involvement in nurturing the Church. Now he deals with the next step in maturity- how the Church is to stand. The key word is found in verses 2 and 13, how the Church might be strengthened. The key thought is expressed in verse 8: “For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord”. So in this Chapter we too can learn of how Christ wants to strengthen us.

The pioneer missionary CT Studd, said, “Mere soul saving is easy- what is difficult is making those converts into soldiers, saints and soul winners!” Paul was not content to have statistics of people being converted, but he desired and prayed that the Thessalonian believers would grow in faith, hope and love. So how can a Church stand firm?

A Church is strengthened when it learns to be stand firm under trials.

Paul had sent Timothy, verse 3, to “strengthen and encourage the believers” so they would not be “unsettled” by the trials they were facing. These trials not only referred to the hostile opposition the believers faced- the same kind of hostile opposition Paul had faced that forced him to leave.(pause) The phrase here suggests something more insidious. The word for “Unsettled” here was first used of dogs wagging their tails, it came to mean to “flatter” or “fawn upon” and so deceive. Hendrickson reconstructs the kind of flattering but destructive comments the Thessalonians would have got from Paul’s critics after they had forced him to leave:

 “We can fully understand how it was that you were led astray by these enthusiastic foreigners who came from Philippi. You were led to believe that they had your interest at heart. But their sudden departure and failure to return clearly proves that they are not concerned about you at all. Moreover, the things that have happened to you since their coming shows that the gods are not pleased with you. Why exchange that which is tried and tested for something novel? Rejoin our ranks, the ranks of those who have always admired and respected you, and we’ll promise you that we’ll never mention the subject again!”

What would Timothy have said to these believers faced by such hostile and seductive forms of opposition? What does Paul counsel?

Here is the fundamental lesson for Christians when it comes to teaching on opposition and forms of trial in our lives: Paul says of these trials “You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way.”

We are destined for trials. You won’t hear that today in circles that teach “wealth, health and prosperity”. Our culture doesn’t like it either since our society’s present aim is the removal of all difficulty and the pursuit of comfort as an end in itself. This, it thinks will bring happiness. Actually that is a superficial approach and breeds spiritual and moral weakness. The Bible’s teaching is that the trials and testings that come into our lives as Christians are not accidents but they are appointments. God, as a loving Heavenly Father, allows us to go through trials to refine us:

South Africa pastor Andrew Murray once faced a terrible crisis. Gathering himself into his study, he sat a long while quietly, prayerfully, thoughtfully. His mind flew at last to the Lord, and picking up his pen, he wrote these words in his journal:

First, He brought me here, it is by His will that I am in this strait place: in that fact I will rest.

Next, he will keep me here in His love, and give me grace to behave as His child.

Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.

Last, in His good time He can bring me out again- how and when He knows.

Let me say I am here,

1. By God’s appointment
2. In His keeping
3. Under his training
4. For His time

When we look at trials like that, as God’ sovereign appointments for us then they can accomplish much in our lives and in the lives of those with which we come into contact:

1 Peter 1: 7 describes how trials prove the reality of our faith. James 1:2, 3 says the same thing “Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete…” We do not rejoice about the suffering itself, but we rejoice because underneath we know that God will use this suffering- even if it arises from our own sin, as an instrument to perfect our faith and make it tough and enduring. Trials faced in this way become character building exercises. We are stretched. So we mature. John White compares this process to learning the piano:

“In my teens I was taught piano by a superb teacher. “Play anything you want, today,” he would sometimes tell me, then listen attentively to my immature productions. When I had finished, he would sit silently, puzzling. After a few minutes he would seize manuscript paper and scribble a few notes on it. “There. Try to play that,” he would say as he placed the new exercise in front of me.

Always I found it frustrating and difficult to do so. “O.K take it slowly at first. Pick up speed when it comes naturally. Try working on it for a week.”

Little by little an astonishing technical fluency began to come to my fingers. The hated exercises became stepping stones to musical freedom. I began to take a fierce4 delight in grappling with whatever exercise in frustration my teacher placed before me.”

As we submit to this character building process, the strengthening of our faith, we are made stronger, more useful to God and more loving and willing to serve others.

2 Corinthians 1:4 describes how we can comfort others with the comfort we have received from God for our own trials. We are in a better position not only to sympathise but to also say there is still light at the end of the tunnel. We know. We have been there ourselves. One thinks of Christians who have had troubled marriages but come to find comfort, guidance and a stronger union through God’s word, and in turn becoming counsellors to others with troubled marriages. Similarly those who have been very ill or bereaved; they have received comfort from God and are now in a special position to share the comfort they have received with those going through the same thing.

Another way a Church benefits from trial, specifically from opposition is that God can use it to make that church more zealous in evangelism. When Peter and John were told by the rulers, elders and chief priests of Jerusalem to stop spreading the Gospel, they and the other believers prayed together. Acts 4 records how they prayed. The believers began by recalling Scripture which spoke of such persecution against God’s people in the past. They also acknowledged that God was sovereign, all powerful and that even the persecution of God’s Son Jesus Christ was according to God’s purpose: “They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen”. On that basis they appealed to God’s sovereignty and purpose for their own circumstances- He had permitted this to happen now let Him use it for greater ends- to fill them with the Spirit and make them bold in proclaiming the Gospel. And that is exactly what happened; “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness”. God used the trial to make them courageous and use them to win many for Christ.

So whatever we go through God can use it to refine us, mature us make us more like Christ. This is the way we should look at the difficulties that come our way. Whatever we are called to God has given us the promise that no trial is allowed to fall our way but what is ‘common to man’. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted (peirasmos means trial or temptation) beyond what you van bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it (I Cor.10:13).

God keeps his eye on the clock and the temperature gauge- he knows how long and how hot is right for us.

Carswell says “a thing may not necessarily be God’s commanded will, but if it happens to us it is in God’s permitted will for us. God is able to take the worst of scenarios and make them work for good. It is worth remembering that God uses for His glory those people and things that are broken: god broke Jacob at Peniel before clothing him with spiritual power (gen.32:22-32); Gideon’s 300 men broke their pitchers and defeat came to the adversaries (Judg.7:19-25)…Jesus body was broken by the thorns, nails, spear, but redemption poured from him to sinful men and women the world over (Matt,36: 26).”

All God’s intentions towards His children are loving, and every situation is used for our good and His glory (Rom.5:8; 8:28)

F.B Meyer writes, “The sweetest scents are only obtained by tremendous pressure; the fairest flowers grow amid Alpine snow- solitudes, the rarest gems have suffered longest from the lapidary’s wheel; the noblest statues have borne most blows of the chisel.”

These are the ways we remain stand firm as we respond to trials by faith in a Sovereign, powerful, loving Heavenly Father. Trusting him within the trial, willing to see what he will yet do through us- to benefit others. Trusting what He is doing within us to make us more like Christ.

Another way that the Church learns to stand firm is when it resists Satan

Paul was concerned that the “tempter” (verse 5) might have tempted the Thessalonians away from the faith.

Behind the persecutions the Thessalonians faced was Satan. He is the enemy of the Christian. He is the tempter and he seeks to ruin our faith. When Satan tempted Eve he began by weakening her faith in God. In Genesis 3:1 he said to her “Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” He tries to cast doubt on the truth of God’s word. He’s even got theologians denying the Scriptures- “Did God really say?” We saw previously how in Chapter 2:13 Paul wrote he was overjoyed that the Thessalonians had accepted and received the word of God from them “as it actually is the word of God”, but Satan wants you and I to doubt God’s word. He panders to human vanity and arrogance by suggesting we substitute human opinion instead of the Scriptures.

Satan is a liar. Sometimes he will even quote Scripture, but as the puritan William Perkins said, “Don’t believe the devil, even when he tells you the truth!” Some of his accusations concerning you will be true. He will throw up your past. He points the finger at you. He keeps a record of wrongs, has a memory better than yours and will remind you of things you thought you had forgotten. He certainly does not want you to know you are forgiven if you have trusted Christ’s atoning death for your salvation.

 2 Corinthians 11:3 calls him the deceiver. He appears to be attractive- an angel of light, but he wants to lure you into the darkness and blindness of sin, and so destroy you. What energised the flattery of the Thessalonians by Paul’s critics? Satan- the deceiver!

A crowd of men, women and children huddled together at the train station. Dressed for a long journey and standing with their bags at their side. They spoke in low tones. Armed men in the grim uniform of the Nazi SS, surrounded the travellers.

The people shivering on the platform were not criminals. They were Jews, French Jews who had been hauled from their homes by the occupying soldiers and French Nazi sympathisers.

The non-Jewish French watched these episodes unfold with increasing concern. After all, these people were neighbours and friends. The group included the watchmaker and his family, the lad who sold newspapers, the old lady who made beautiful quilts. Now they were being ‘relocated.’

The townspeople cast a nervous eye as armed guards herded the Jews into the train cars. They went co- operatively. Concerned observers wondered why this was taking place; but they told themselves things would be fine, there was no need to worry. Their friends and neighbours were in good hands.

How could they believe that? Because neatly printed in French on the door of every boxcar was the reassuring logo “Charitable Transport Company”

That’s what Satan does. He lulls you into apathy. He deceives you into inactivity. “Did God really say?”, “Is God really Holy?”, “Is sin that serious?”, “Will He really judge the World?”, “Is Jesus really the only way to the Father?”, “God can’t really care for you if he allows you to go through that difficulty”. He is the deceiver and accuser and his aim is to choke your faith in God. His aim is to destroy you. He is described as a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Of course he would prefer that you believe that he does not exist. Unbelief in the devil is the devil’s work. If you don’t believe in the reality of Satan you have just told me he has succeeded with you.

To remain steadfast against his wiles, we not only recognise his activity, we also remember he is limited. God is greater. God is all powerful, not Satan.

 RT Kendall writes: “Satan is always under God’s sovereign thumb; he can proceed no further than what God allows (Job 1-2). Therefore, know that the buck stops with God. Whatever trial you are going through, never forget that God gave Satan permission before He let him have a go at you. God knows you are big enough for it or He would not have let it happen (1 Cor.10:13)

And because we belong to God, the Bible says we can simply resist Satan – we can tell him to go in Christ’s name and Satan has to flee!

Revelation 12 reminds us of what will happen to Satan: “for the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony” So whatever Satan says about your past to make you doubt your salvation, the truth is the blood of the lamb is sufficient to cleanse you and make you acceptable in God’s sight. So the next time Satan reminds you of your past, you remind him of his future!!

In verses 6-8 Paul speaks of Timothy’s good report about the Thessalonians, he “has brought good news about your faith and love”. The Thessalonians longed to see Paul as he longed to see them. This brought great satisfaction to Paul “For now we really live” he says in verse 8 “since you are standing firm in the Lord”. Through Timothy’s encouragement and teaching, which no doubt included Paul’s instruction about maintaining faith through trials, and resisting Satan, these believers had stood firm. Despite persecution. Despite the worst Satan could do. God reigned supreme. He kept them. He and made them stronger for all they had gone through.

The missionary Joan Wales had first gone out to China in 1949. Then she had provided medical care for those plagued by tribal violence, opium addiction and poverty. Leprosy too was a real problem. But when the Communist government established control in 1951, the missionaries were told to leave. The medical project was barely established. A few illiterate girls, two Chinese mothers and a drug addict were her only converts. Unable to return, Joan went to Thailand and served as an evangelist in a hospital, but there was still no news of her friends in China. Then in 1986, a letter arrived from one of the Christian “teenagers”. Would she visit? When Joan stepped down from a rickety bus, 37 years after leaving there, she met 6 of the teenagers!

For long periods there had been hostility to the girls’ fledgling faith and they had to attend propaganda classes. Were they still Christians? Yes, of course. Hadn’t they promised to be a 100% for Jesus? Now grandparents, they were sharing their faith with their families. For Joan this was confirmation that her time in China had not been wasted. She said “In spite of having no contact with Christians since we left and having no Bibles, the Lord had wonderfully kept them faithful”

The Lord had wonderfully kept them faithful. That’s what Paul could say about the Thessalonians too.

Whatever the trial you face- perhaps a crises in your family, perhaps unemployment, perhaps hostility from others because you are a Christian, perhaps a discouragement within the Church. Whatever lies Satan is pumping into your mind- to make you think God is powerless, that He does not care for you, that his Word cannot be trusted, then let this outcome with the Thessalonians strengthen and encourage you in your faith. Let this outcome with the Chinese converts strengthen and encourage your faith.

God will keep you strong and steadfast. So work with Him. Keep looking at what is happening to you according to the truth of His Word and what He has shown you about the reality of spiritual warfare. You won’t win theses battles any other way. Keep walking by faith, not by sight. By faith recognise the trial as God’s appointment for you. By faith resist Satan. Put your faith/ your trust in God. He is sovereign. He is in complete control. He will work all things together for good for you and for his church in His good time. He is faithful and one day you too will be able to look back and say in this difficult time “He made me stand firm in Him. He has wonderfully kept me faithful.”

Final Hymn