Living Communally
1 Thessalonians 2:17 to 3:13 - 13 May 2007

Andrew Lim

David P. Gushee / Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy
at Union University at Jackson / Tennessee
wrote an article called: “How Immortality Almost Killed Me”

He spoke about how one day / he came to the harsh realization
that someday / he was going to have to die
And not only that but that within only a few years after his death
only a handful of people will know or care that he was ever here

And he came to realize that much of what has occupied his life
has been an attempt to defeat insignificance / anonymity / and death
He thought / if he could only work hard enough / he could live forever
and be among the few who cheat death of its victory
by gaining a reputation that outlived them

But he came to face the reality
that he’d never become another C.S. Lewis or another Augustine

Instead / he’ll just be a university professor
wrote a few books / taught a few classes / did a few good things

And he came to see /
that for all his accomplishments / will not defeat death
that after a generation or two
no one will visit his grave / or remember him
And he came to see that he was powerless against these forces
and he found the whole prospect both frustrating and terrifying

And / as a Christian / he gave us an interesting insight
He tells us that one of the great ironies
of trying to look for significance through work / is that
no amount / accomplishment / of performance is ever enough

There is always one more mountain to climb
one more task to accomplish / one more phone call to make
- all in the effort to build a hedge against death and obscurity

Now that was the struggle of the university professor
But I believe whether we articulate it or not
or whether we’re even conscious of it or not
we all share the same feelings to one degree or another

We all hope that when we finally make an exit from this little planet
that our lives would have count for something
that we were not just a biological twitch in time / only pulling air

I believe that is a God-given feeling
Because a day will come / for each of us
when a door will be opened before us
and we will find eternity staring us in the face
That / is the day / when you will have to account for the way we have lived
And a verdict will be given to us / over where we shall spend that eternity

And because God made human people to last forever
how our lives will stack up on that day is most critical
From eternity’s point of view / what counts
is whether we accomplish God’s purpose for us

So from eternity’s vantage point
we need to ask what are some of God’s purposes for us

I believe our text before us gives us a few pointers
and we can learn some crucial lessons from it

FIRST I want for us to take a closer look at how Paul relates
to these people he is writing this letter to / the Thessalonians
Did you sense a kind of an embarrassment when you read this letter
It’s like opening and reading someone else’s intimate love letter
you feel like you’re intruding into something most intimate
- there is such a depth of feeling in his words
- William Hendrickson says “the very words seem to tremble”
- he’s intensely emotional

Just listen to these lines
2:17 / we were torn away from you for a short time
out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you
2:18 / For we wanted to come to you
2:20 / You are our glory and joy
3:1 / When we could stand it no longer / we sent Timothy to see you
3:5 / When I could stand it no longer
I sent Timothy to find out about your faith
3:6 / Timothy told us you always have pleasant memories of us
and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you
3:9,10 / How can we thank God enough for you
in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God
because of you? / Night and day we pray most earnestly
that we may see your faces again”

Paul openly reveals his intimate longing to be with these people
He wants so much / just to be with these people / to see them face to face
to embrace them / to enjoy their company / and serve them again

He becomes almost delirious / just in knowing that they are well
Listen to 3:8 from Eugene Peterson’s translation:
“In the middle of our trouble and hard times
just knowing that you are doing well / keeps us going
Knowing that your faith is alive / keeps us alive”

Paul is saying / “How can I possibly thank God enough
for the supreme joy that has been my experience / because of you?
My joy comes / not in what has happened to me
I am absolutely thrilled / at what is happening to you
because you / matter that much to me”

He’s here saying / if the Thessalonians weren’t standing firm in the Lord
then life would be that much harder and sadder / for him

Now that / is powerful / what seems to be going on here?

There is a passage in Romans 9 / that is most difficult to grasp
It is perhaps one of the greatest expression of love
ever made by any human
This is what he says / “If there were any way
I could be cursed by the Messiah / cut off from Him / to go to hell
so they could be blessed by him / I’d do it in a minute
They are my family / I grew up with them”

I have never in my life
heard any single Christian speak like that of another person

Further / look at what he says in verses chapter 2:19-20:
“For what is our hope / or joy / or crown of exultation?
in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord when he comes
Is it not you? / You are our glory and joy

Paul is saying / “It is you / who are the reason
for our glorying in the Lord / and our joy / and not only that
but even at the parousia / (b.t.w. used for the first time here)
even at the return of our Lord / you / will be
our hope and joy and crown

From those verses / this / is what I get
There is no running away from the equation
What you do with the opportunities of life / to love and serve people
will determine if you’ve fulfilled God’s purpose for you
on the day eternity is ushered in

And knowing this / Paul prays for these people / 3:11-13
He prays that they’d be able to see each other face to face
He prays that their love would deepen
He prays that they would stand firm / together
and be ready / to be ushered into eternity

What a big deal / Paul makes / of his relationship with his people
Here is a man / who virtually lives his life / for other people

Today we know how to build a church / but
- we do not know / how to forge a community
- we do not know what it means / to covenant ourselves with people in church

We no longer relate to one another / in such a warm and personal way
We no longer make covenant with people / in our community
Even marriage / which is supposed to be the most sacred of all covenants
that two human people can ever make / is breaking up everywhere

We no longer know how to live in a community
We have all chosen to live for ourselves

In 1985 Robert Bellah / Professor of Sociology
at the University of California at Berkeley / published a book
which I am sure most of you know by its title / even if haven’t read it
Its called Habits of the Heart

It was a study in American individualism
But the warning applies to all Western nations
It warns us that if we persist in isolating ourselves
if we are careless about such ideals
as commitment / community and covenant
it will finally be our own undoing

Our culture emphasizes the virtues of individualism and privacy
But that only breaks down whatever communal ties / we have left
that bind us to one another

We live in a society where people are extremely lonely

One of the saddest sights for me
as I drive around this beautiful country of New Zealand
is that in most of the towns you drive through
you’ll find the Town Halls either shut down / disused / or neglected

It used to be that the town hall / was the hub of life of the town
- people got together / to eat / make music / dance / to discuss matters
- interest groups met there / people gathered frequently

Of course there are sociological factors that have lead to this
- like changes in work patterns / the decline of the family structure
suburban lifestyle / television / the internet / computers

But we are saying that over and above this
there is a scheming grandmaster / at work
trying to get people isolated / dismantling human communities
and conspiring to disrupt any existing healthy community

C. S. Lewis has said / that hell is a place of isolation
Not only is a person separated from God and His love
but they are also separated from people because there is no love there

* Robert Putnam has written a most disturbing book called Bowling Alone
He draws on evidences from nearly 500,000 interviews
over the last ¼ century to show the collapse of American community
but the findings reflect most Western countries

Putnam observes that since the 50’s / membership
in voluntary community groups has been steadily declining

Virtually every group he has surveyed / has been on the decline
- labour union membership has been falling for nearly four decades
- PTA meetings have been declining
- Federation of Women’s Clubs on the wane
Doesn’t matter what it is / membership is declining
- Boy Scouts / Red Cross / Lions / Masons

And people are even bowling alone / hence the name of the book!!
More Americans are bowling than ever before
but they are not bowling in leagues / they’re bowling alone
- we’re signing fewer petitions / we belong to fewer organizations
- we know our neighbours less
- we even socialize with our families less often

It used to be that in the evenings / families would gather by the piano
just to have fun together
In most of today’s families / the lounge is hauntingly empty and silent
- each one is in his or her room / gratifying themselves

We’ve been created for each other
Let me says again / What a big deal Paul makes
of his relationship with his people
Here is a man / who virtually lives his life / for other people

Our relationship with God may be personal / but it can never be private
- it was never ever meant to be private
Our salvation is intensely personal
- but God never planned for our salvation to be private

The day you came to Christ / you not only made God your Father
you made every other believer your brother or sister

And the clearest evidence / that you’ve been born again
can be seen in your love for other believers
I got that from 1 John 4:21 puts
“The one who loves God must also love his brother”

You can’t claim to love God
and not be intimately connected to the people of God

Jesus loves the Church – Eph 5:25 / He died for her
And if you should think less honourably of the church / than Jesus does
Be careful / it is at least hypocrisy / and at worst blasphemy

I love the church of Jesus Christ
I began attending church since I was 13 / I have never been out of church
Sometimes I find her beautiful / Sometimes I find her utterly repulsive
Sometimes I am proud of her / Sometimes I am embarrassed by her
But whether she’s ugly or beautiful I remain committed to her
Jesus loves the church / warts and all / He died for her
But I keep coming back to it / Jesus died for the church

Author Annie Dillard puts it this way / she says:
“Week after week I was moved
by the pitiableness of the bare linoleum-floored sacristy
which no flower could cheer or soften
by the terrible singing I so loved
by the fatigued Bible readings
the lagging emptiness and dilution of the liturgy
the horrifying vacuity of the sermon
and by the fog of dreary senselessness pervading the whole
which existed alongside / and probably caused
the wonder of the fact that we came / we returned
we showed up week after week / we went through it”

Dillard is right
Good or bad / she is our church / and to her we return / yet again

Chapter 2 verse 18 / is most crucial / Let us not pass over it too quickly
“We wanted to come to you / especially I Paul / more than once
But Satan hindered us”

Community / is the one thing Satan hates
He seethes with jealousy and resentment
whenever he sees any expression of a true and loving community
- that’s why he hates families so intensely / and the church so fiercely

Satan’s ploy is to get people to isolate themselves from one another
He detests community / and he’s been eroding it
since God initiated the family / and he is succeeding

Soon after God’s beautiful creation
culminated in the creation of the first man and the first woman
Satan began scheming with the demonic hosts
to hatch their plot to disrupt
what was to be the most beautiful thing God created

And our first parents were sucked in
They bought the lie and caved in / to the seduction of Satan
Instead of drinking from the nectar of the pure garden
they reached out for the slime

And God called out to Adam “Where are you?”
“Why are you hiding? I did not create you to hide from me”

Soon after that / Cain / in a fit of jealousy / killed his brother Able
Again God drew near / and He asked the same question
“Where is your brother? / What have you done?

Maybe if we remain quiet enough / we might just be able to hear the same cry
“Where is your brother? / What have you done?
for largely / we have isolated ourselves one from the other

But that is precisely what tries to get us to do
he not only gets you / to separate from God
he wants you separated from others / and even from yourself

The Bible refers to Satan as a thief / The thief comes to steal and kill / Jn 10:10
And he is stealing and destroying human communities on all fronts
And it’s time we snatch back what he has stolen from us
And we’ve deliberately spoken of making this church
consciously strong in community life

We need the example of Paul / For him / without doubt
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
the crown / will be his people / his community

Let’s try to match that up a little / where we are

I trace a SECOND purpose / and that is this
We all go through suffering to some degree or other
God wants us to learn to keep our faith intact / in the midst of suffering
because He / can be trusted

The context is crucial / Look at chapter 3:2,3
“We sent Timothy / who is our brother and God’s fellow worker
to strengthen and encourage you in your faith”
v. 3 / “so that no one would be unsettled by these trials
You know quite well that we were destined for them”

We remember from chapter 2 verse 2 that in Philippi
Paul was treated roughly / outrageously / with criminal violence
His Roman citizenship had been largely ignored

He and his friends left Thessalonica in a hurry / and in their absence
their opponents had continued their devilish work
of smearing their character
- they made some very serious charges
- they questioned their motives / cast doubt on their character
- they did everything to undermine Paul and his friends

Some of you here know / that strange as it sounds
even if you do right / speak kindly / and act righteously
you will not be spared
Instead you will be maligned / slandered / smeared
and viciously / brutally accused of stuff
you know before God / you never did or say

Now Paul had received this sort of treatment at Philippi
and because of this / the Thessalonians were left without a guide
and Paul Timothy to them / to establish and encourage them / 3:2

Paul is saying / “I’m sending Timothy to you
so that no one would be unsettled by these trials” / 3:3

The word “unsettled” / has the meaning of being “disturbed” / “shaken”
The Greek word translated “shaken”
came from the idea of a dog wagging its tail
It has the picture of someone being violently rocked about
by his grievous circumstance

Paul wants to establish a firm foundation in their faith
by teaching them / about they place of suffering in their lives
so that they would be encouraged
and not be “shaken” by these afflictions

And the same for us today
If we don’t understand the Bible’s teaching on suffering
we run the danger of being toss about and shaken / in our faith

I know that some of you here
have recently been going through a grievous time / of pain and anguish
and you have been most discouraged
And perhaps there are others here whose situation I know nothing of
- perhaps a break-up in a relationship / a prolonged illness
- a disappointment with a child / a spouse / a work-related problem

Now I want to be careful here
I don’t want to diminish the reality of your grievous situation

But where God is concerned your trial / is not as critical as your responses to it
We naturally focus on our problems / as if it is everything in the world
But God is more concerned / with how we respond when trials come to us

And right here / Paul drops it on us like a ton of bricks! / He says
Did you not know / that your trials are appointed by God / v.3b
“You know quite well / that we were “destined” for them”

The word “destined” comes from a verb that means “to place”
Paul here says “your hard times are placed here by God”

3b again / “You know quite well / that we were “destined” for them”

Does God appoint our suffering? / According to the Bible / He does
Now I know we don’t like to hear this
I know that / in the face of the gospel of prosperity
this is not a popular teaching / But it is clear enough in Scripture

Remember Job / the man who lost everything
His sons / daughters / house / flock / cattle
his body became infected with painful boils from scalp to toes

And yet Job remain faithful to God
even when his world tumbled down on him / like it did?

What is the secret of Job’s durability
It is derived / largely / from his vision of God
Job’s vision of God / is One who is totally absolutely sovereign

Listen to how Job speaks of his God / these are his own words:
“To God belong wisdom and power / counsel and understanding are his
What He tears down cannot be rebuilt
the man He imprisons cannot be released
If He holds back the waters / there is drought
If He lets them loose / they devastate the land
He leads counselors away stripped / and makes fools of judges
He takes off the shackles put on by kings
He leads priests away stripped and overthrows men long established
He silences the lips of trusted advisers
and takes away the discernment of elders
He pours contempt on nobles / and disarms the mighty
He reveals the deep things of darkness
and brings deep shadows into the light
He makes nations great / and destroys them
He enlarges nations / and disperses them
He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason
He sends them wandering through a trackless waste
They grope in darkness with no light
He makes them stagger like drunkards.

What a God Job has!! / Job’s God is great / glorious / sovereign

Far too many of us / have a God Who is puny and impotent
How else can you explain the fact that most Christians
when they read the story of Job / naturally conclude
that Job suffered / because Satan inflicted the disaster on him

But that is not how Job sees it / To Job / it is God Who’ve afflicted him
Job does not see his suffering as coming from Satan
He sees only the hand of God / afflicting him
He derives no comfort / from looking at secondary causes
But He receives great comfort from looking at the ultimate cause

He says in v. 21 / “The Lord gave / the Lord has taken away”
His words to his wife / are most telling / He says to her:
“Shall we accept good from God / and not trouble (from God)?”
And Scripture goes on to confirm for us / that Job’s theology is right
“In all this / Job did not sin / or charge God with wrong” v. 22

Job sees nothing wrong / in attributing to God the trouble he goes through
Job sees nothing wrong / in seeing God as the author of the grief in his life
Job sees his God / as unconditionally / unreservedly sovereign
Job understands / that its not about him / Its about God and His glory

Mary Byrne / in her beautiful hymn / Be Thou My Vision
has this sensitive line: “Naught / be all else to me / save that thou art”
Let my lot come to “naught” / but let me not lose Christ

Now this / is the point / Paul impresses on the Thessalonians
He says / “As for our suffering / / we were “destined” for them”

Suffering isn’t something that just happens
You didn’t one day went to work / and got slammed by the boss
You didn’t turn a corner / and someone ran a red light and slammed into you
God appointed that / it was no accident

And God appointed troubles in your lives
And He does this / to turn you
from puny little people / into people valiant and bold
in the face of anything life can throw at you

A W Tozer / “Seldom does God use a person greatly
who has not been hurt deeply”

Or as they say in South America
“To live without suffering is to die without glory”

Amy Carmichael sums up such a vision / she said
“My goal is God himself / at any cost / by any road”

So / that / is Paul’s second purpose for the Thessalonians
He wants them to learn to keep their faith intact
in the midst of suffering / because it is God
who appointed their suffering
and He can be trusted to deliver us from it after a season

This is closely tied to our THIRD and final point / and that is this
Paul wrote this letter to the Thessalonians
to encourage them that they can overcome the afflictions of life
by having faith in God / because He / can be trusted

He says in v.5 / “When I could endure it no longer
I sent Timothy to find out about your faith
I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you
and our efforts might have been useless”

Let me put it this way
God invariably never uses a person / till He has proves that person
and nine times out of ten / God proves a person on the point of faith

He proved Abraham / on the point of faith
You may not know where you’re going / but do you have faith in me?
He proved Jonah / on the point of faith
The Ninevites may be a vicious people / but do you have faith in me?
He proved Moses / on the point of faith
The Egyptians may be indomitable / but do you have faith in me?
He proved Gideon / on the point of trust
The Medianites may be more numerous than you / but do you have faith in me?

And I often imagine / if there might have been names of people
we could have heard of / but we hear of them no more
because in their distrust of God they have passed on into obscurity

But the point is this
Just as God / when he tests us / tests us on account of our faith
So Satan / when he tests on / tests us on account of our faith
He seduced our first parents / to imagine that they can be gods themselves
He reduced Job to a pile of quivering nerves
He sifted Peter like wheat
He want us to doubt God’s goodness
He tempts us to doubt if God really cared about us
- over troubles that plague our job / our marriage / our health

But we don’t have to buy into that / for our trials can be overcome by faith

Paul tells us in v.6 / “But Timothy has just now come to us from you
and has brought good news about your faith and love
and that you always think kindly of us
longing to see us just as we also long to see you”

Paul is saying to them / your faith seems to be intact
Hang in there / for your faith will go on being tested

Life will have its crises
You and I are yet to be hurt in a hundred places
We may lose our jobs / our spouses / our health
People who are unkind to us may go on to make it good in the world
People whom we love may turn around and stab us

But be strong / we do not worship a God who is mute and dumb
We worship the Living God
the sovereign / all-loving / merciful God

And He will not tantalize us with temptations we cannot bear
He will grow faith in our hearts / if we ask Him to / He will