Certain Hope for Uncertain Times
10/21/2001 - Handling the Unfairness of Life
Waiting for news can be one of the hardest things in life, can't it? A few months ago I remember waiting for a phone call from Jennifer letting me know that she and Chelsea had arrived safely in Mexico after driving from here to Baltimore, then flying from Baltimore to L.A., then from L.A. to Mazatlan, and then finally driving a few more hours to Culiacan. It was an all day trip. And how relieved I was to finally talk to them and know that they were safe. I can remember how important it was for me to call Jennifer from Bolivia as soon as I arrived to let her know that I had safely landed in Santa Cruz after a two-day, 4,000 mile journey.
Waiting for news is tough. Sometimes we have to wait to find out if we've passed that exam that'll make or break our marking period. Or we wait to hear whether we've made the varsity soccer team or not. Sometimes we wait to find out whether we've been accepted to that college that we really want to attend. Or, if we have a job in sales, often we wait to hear whether our client finally wants to do the deal. Sometimes we wait to hear the results of a biopsy, to find out whether that lump is benign or malignant. Those can be the toughest waiting days of all. And those who've been through it often say that the waiting is worse than the results. "Just give me the news, good or bad, then at least I'll know what I'm dealing with. The 'not knowing' is killing me."
Those of you who know people who worked in the Pentagon or in the World Trade Center know how tough it was to wait until you finally found out that your friend or loved one was safe. Those hours of waiting seemed like days. And sadly there are thousands of people who are still waiting to hear from their loved ones. And many never will. They just hope that in that five-story pile of rumble they find some shred of evidence for closure.
This morning we're going see the agony the apostle Paul went through waiting to hear some news from the church he had started in Thessalonica. Today we continue our series called Certain Hope for Uncertain Times. It's a series that's going to take us through the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians. If you were with us last week, you'll remember that we looked at Acts 17 and saw how Paul started the church in the city of Thessalonica.
Thessalonica was and still is a major city in northern Greece. And Paul knew that if he could start a church there it had the potential to spread the gospel throughout the entire Roman Empire because Thessalonica was located on the Via Egnatia, the major Roman Road that connected East with West. It was also nestled along a bustling seaport on the Aegean Sea. It was a world trade center.
But Paul only spent three weeks there, maybe a little longer. Then he was run out of town. How can you start a church in three weeks? You can't, unless it's a total God thing. And it was. A number of Jews and Greeks, both men and women, came to Christ when they heard Paul's message. But as soon as they did, they found themselves at war with those who didn't believe in Jesus. Riots and harassment and beatings started immediately.
And Paul had to run for his life first to Berea, sixty miles west, and then when he was discovered there, he headed two hundred miles south to Athens. And there he paced back and forth waiting to hear what happened to the believers in Thessalonica. Did the church survive? Were the believers okay? Were any of them seriously hurt or even killed in the riots? What did they think of Paul? Did they think he misled them? Abandoned them? Didn't care about them? He couldn't sleep at night. So he sent his companion Timothy back to Thessalonica to get some news. Any news would be better than not knowing.
Listen to how he describes his torment in 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5, So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy ... to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them ... I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.
So what did Timothy find in Thessalonica? What did hardship, harassment and persecution do to these baby believers? Did it snuff out their faith? Did it kill the church? Did it cause them to be angry with God and upset with Paul? After all, their life was going along pretty well until Paul showed up with this "good news" about Jesus. Then all hell broke loose!
Look at Timothy's report in 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8, But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, as we long to see you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.
Paul went, "Whew! Thank you, Jesus! They still like me and they're going strong for you." Have you ever noticed that trials and difficulty in life can push us one of two ways. They can bring us to the end of ourselves and drive us to deeper levels of faith and dependence on God. Or they can turn us angry and bitter with life and with God himself. The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay, doesn't it? The choice is ours.
I'll never forget the story that Phil Yancey tells in his book Disappointment with God , because it helped me so much to understand the difference between God and life. Yancey interviewed a man named Doug who was a committed Christ follower and had an urban ministry that reached out to the poor. He was doing God's work when the bad news hit that his wife had cancer. Then one night shortly after that he was driving down a city street with his wife and 12 year-old daughter when they were hit head on by a drunk driver. Fortunately his wife wasn't hurt, but his daughter broke her arm, and Doug suffered a serious head injury. He developed double vision. He couldn't walk up and down steps without help and he'd never work another full day in his life.
When Yancey went to interview him he was braced for the worst. He asked Doug what he had learned through all the tragedy. And this is what he said, "I learned, first through my wife's cancer and then through the car accident, not to confuse God with life. I'm no stoic. I'm upset about what happened to me and feel free to curse the unfairness of life and to vent all my grief and anger. But I believe God feels the same way about the accident that I do-grieved and angry. But I don't blame him for what happened."
He went on to say, "We tend to think that life should be fair because God is fair. But God is not life. And if I confuse God with life, then I set myself up for a crashing disappointment. But if we develop our relationship with God apart from our circumstances then we can hang on when life falls apart. We can learn to trust God despite all the unfairness of life. Was life fair for Jesus? For me, the cross demolished for all time the assumption that life will be fair."
Life isn't fair. Was life fair for the passengers trapped on those four hijacked planes that on September 11th became weapons of mass destruction? Was life fair for those who were caught in the Pentagon or the Twin Towers that day? Not at all. In fact, many of the survivors will live the rest of their lives battling "survivor guilt" wondering why them and not us. Why did we survive?
Life isn't fair. But life is not God and God is not life. And the Thessalonians understood that and so they didn't blame God for the tough times they were having. In fact, Paul told them they were destined for trials. And so are we. Jesus said, In this life you will have trouble.
So that's what's going on when he writes this letter to these brand new believers. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you.
Paul starts with his typical greeting, grace and peace. It's always grace first and then peace, because we will never have real peace, God's shalom in our life, until we first receive his grace. And that comes when we trust Jesus Christ alone as our Savior, realizing that he died for us and all we need to do is believe in him to have our sin forgiven and to receive eternal life. Then the Bible says we are at peace with God. Grace always comes before peace.
This week I read a statistic from the Barna Research Group that really startled me. It was on the critical question of what a person must do to be saved, or to have a relationship with God. Seven out of ten Americans believe that they can earn their salvation by doing good works. Seven out of ten don't accept the teaching of the Bible that says salvation is a free gift of God received through faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation is a gift, not a paycheck. That's what God says. And what God says is more important than what seven out of ten Americans say. That made wonder how many of us still think we can work our way to God. We can't. Receive his grace, then you'll be at peace with him.
Paul goes on, 2 We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. 3 We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
After Paul heard the good report from Timothy he was so excited and so proud of these believers. Now I really live, he said. They had faith that weathered the storms of life. They had love that prompted them to lay down their lives for each other. And they had certain hope for very uncertain times, hope in Jesus that kept them pluggin' away.
They weren't the perfect church. In fact, listen if you ever find the perfect church, don't go there, because you'll ruin it! There is no perfect church. Valley View isn't a perfect church that's why you fit great here. But I'll tell you what, I'm proud to be part of Valley View Community Church. I'm proud to be your pastor. And I could stand up here and tell story after story of your work produced by faith, or your labor prompted by love, of your endurance inspired by hope.
This week I received an e-mail from someone who came to Valley View for the very first time last Sunday. This person, to my knowledge, is not a regular churchgoer. And through e-mail contact I discovered that the person was blown away by the sincerity and the love that everyone had for each other. They couldn't believe that we didn't pass an offering plate and make them feel like they needed to give. They said that when they do to church they usually fall asleep, but they didn't fall asleep last week. In fact, the teaching on "How to be Certain of Your Faith" gave them a lot to think about. They were from out of town, but said if they lived closer they'd be here. Thank you church for making that kind of impression on those who come into our gathering.
Verse 4 For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.
Paul knew that God had chosen these people because of the way they responded to the gospel. They welcomed the message with joy in spite of severe suffering. Can you believe they kept their joy in the midst of hardship? I mean it doesn't take much for me to lose my joy. I can lose my joy getting stuck in traffic on 422. I can lose my joy picking the wrong check out line in the supermarket. That's how fragile my joy is. This week the muffler fell off my car, a car that we just bought less than a month ago. Do you think I was saying, "Thank you, Jesus? This makes me so happy!" Not! But these believers kept their joy in the midst of beatings. And that's one way Paul knew that God had chosen them.
Does it bother you that Paul says God chose them? One of the mysteries of the gospel is the fact that every person who chooses to believe in Christ has first been chosen by God. Theologians call it the doctrine of election. It's found throughout the New Testament. It doesn't get us off the hook, because we still have to choose. But in the end we'll find that we chose God because he first chose us.
One of the ways we've been created in God's image is that we all have the capacity to choose. We all like to choose what we're going wear in the morning or what we're going to have for dinner or whom we're going to marry. So it shouldn't surprise us that God has the right to choose as well. And he will choose his bride, the church, the one he's going to marry and spend eternity with. Election is a beautiful doctrine. It's says that God adopted us, he walked through the orphanage and said, "I'll take that one. I'll take that one. I'll take that one." Look around the room. Are these the people you'd choose to spend forever with? Don't answer that!
Verse 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia-your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead-Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Paul's strategy worked, because it really wasn't Paul's strategy at all, it was the Holy Spirit's. The church was established in this world trade center, in this hub of transportation and the gospel spread quickly throughout Macedonia in northern Greece and cascaded down through Achaia in southern Greece. And everybody who met the Thessalonians marveled that they had turned to God from idols and were waiting for Jesus to return and rescue them from the coming wrath.
Thessalonica lay at the base of Mount Olympus. And Mount Olympus was home to the Greek pantheon of gods. The Greeks believed it was the center of the world and that the gods had beautiful palaces on the peaks of this 9,500-foot mountain. The palace of Zeus, the chief god, was at the very top. He had the best view of what was going on. And usually the gods were ticked off about what was going on and so people lived their lives in fear.
And they worshipped idols that represented these gods to keep them off their back. There was Poseidon the god of the sea and Dionysus the god of wine and Eros the god of love and Kronos the god of time and Demeter the goddess of farming and Artemis the goddess of hunting and Athena the goddess of wisdom and Aphrodite the goddess of love and Hestia the goddess of the home.
And we laugh at that today and say, "How ridiculous! How could they worship idols like that?" But they did. And you know what? So can we. We have our own idols that we worship. They may not look like stone statues, but they're idols nonetheless. In fact, anything in our life that's more important to us than God is an idol.
Some of us worship our jobs. We just work all the time. Our career is the most important thing in our lives. That's an idol. Give it a name. Some of us are in unhealthy dating relationships, doing things that we know displease God, but we won't break them off. That's an idol. Call it Aphrodite. Some of us may be turning to alcohol or pornography or drugs to deal with our problems instead of seeking God that's an idol. Call it the worship of Dionysus. Idols can also be good things that just get out of control. Our kids can become idols, when they're more important to us than God. Call it Hestia, the goddess of the home. Whatever comes before God is an idol in our life.
But the power of the Holy Spirit can change all that and he did for the Thessalonians and he can for us. We need to turn to God from our idols and serve the living and true God and wait for Jesus to come back to deliver us from the coming wrath. We'll talk more about his coming and that wrath later in the series.
Someone has said, "If somebody can steal your god, you're worshipping the wrong god." Someone can steal our house, our car, our money, our girlfriend, our spouse, even our kids can be taken from us. But nobody can steal our God. Nothing and nobody can take him from us. He alone is worthy of our worship. Are you worshipping him? Is he number one in your life? Let's be like the Thessalonians known throughout this whole area for our work produced by faith, our labor prompted by love, and our endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.