Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: More than Hello


Sermon by J. Ligon Duncan on September 2, 2012 2 Thessalonians 1:1-2

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The Lord’s Day Morning


September 2, 2012



“Enduring Trials in Light of
Jesus’ Return: More than Hello”


2 Thessalonians 1:1-2


The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III

If you’ll turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians, we’ll begin together a
new series. We’ve been working
together through 1 Thessalonians for a number of months and we concluded that
study last Lord’s Day, and so today we take up the greeting that we find here in
this little letter of 2 Thessalonians.

Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians for a variety of practical, pastoral purposes.
Among them to counter some confusion that had been fostered by those who
were teaching that the day of the Lord had already occurred.
When you get to chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3, you will see
Paul addressing Christians in the church there in Thessalonica who had been
troubled by that teaching. He also
wrote this little letter to strengthen those who were experiencing unremitting
persecution. From the time that this
congregation existed, it experienced public persecution, not simply from the
Jewish people who were increasingly antagonistic towards the Christian message
and missionaries and to Christian members of local congregations, but especially
from the public. The Roman public
was very antagonistic towards Christians.
And for the next three hundred years, to be a Christian in the
Roman Empire
was to court some kind of persecution.
If it wasn’t an outright attempt to exile you or your family or even to
martyr you, there was a constant and regular subtle economic oppression and
marginalization that these Christians faced, and so Paul is trying to prepare
these Christians in this church for that.
He also wanted to deal with the problem of some who, in light of the
teaching of the second coming, had failed to work and provide for their families
and so he gives them exhortations in that area that become part of an overall
understanding of work that is important for every Christian.

So in the course of doing these practical things, Paul teaches the Thessalonians
how to endure trials and to live life in light of Jesus’ return.
And as we read God’s Word this morning, I want you to be on the lookout
for four things. First, I want you
to see what Paul says here about the Father, and he repeats this phrase twice —
in verse 1 and in verse 2 — and he draws our attention to the Father.
Secondly, I want you to see what Paul says about the Savior.
And again, he repeats these words about Jesus twice, once in verse 1 and
then again in verse 2. Then, in
verse 1, especially in this interesting phrase, “in God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ,” I want you to see what Paul teaches us about our status, where we
are situated or located, what privilege we enjoy as believers united to God
through Jesus Christ. And then
fourth, I want you to see what he says, and we see this especially in verse 2 in
this, again, interesting phrase, “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.” I want you to see what he
says about the source or the supply of the strength that we need for the living
of the Christian life. So what he
says about the Father, what he says about the Savior, what he says about our
status, and what he says about the source or supply of our need.

Well let’s pray before we read God’s Word.

Heavenly Father, thank You for this, Your Word.
Work it deep into our hearts.
Open our eyes to behold wonderful things in it.
Apply this Word in ways that even I could not have anticipated that the
Holy Spirit would use this Word, specifically in the lives of individuals who
come here in different circumstances, with different challenges and sets of
needs, but Your Word, O Lord, is profitable for reproof, correction, and
training in righteousness. It is
powerful and it is able to discern the deep things in our hearts.
And so we pray that You would do all of these things by Your Word in us –
that You would instruct us, that You would correct us, that You would equip us
for the living of the Christian life by Your Word.
We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

This is the Word of God. Hear it in
2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 1 and 2:

“Paul, Silvanus, and
Timothy,

To the church of the
Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Amen, and thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant Word.
May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.

Today, we are going to study the opening of a letter, the greeting, the
salutation, and that’s not something that we usually do.
Usually, when we get a letter, we don’t ponder the initial words of
greeting because there is a standard form that almost everybody uses and we rush
quickly into the content of that letter.
The only time that we typically pay very close attention to the greeting
and to the conclusion is if we have gotten a letter from a boy or a girl or a
man or a woman who we really want to know how they think of us, and we pay very
close attention then to the greeting and to the conclusion.
You know, if you get the letter and she says, “Fondly” at the end, your
heart kind of sinks; you were hoping for more than “Fondly” at the end of the
letter! Maybe your relationship is
going to have to develop a little bit more before you move beyond “Fondly” at
the end of a letter! Well again, you
could skip over these words of greeting and think they’re just pro forma,
they’re just standard form. And
indeed, Paul uses something of the normal format that would have been used in
letters of the time. But when we
look at these words of greeting and salutation, we quickly find that they are
more than just a hello. Just as
Paul’s pastoral counsel in this little letter, and it only has forty-seven
verses — three chapters, forty-seven verses — just as Paul’s pastoral counsel in
this little letter is suffused with truth about God, it’s profoundly
theological, so also are the greetings that Paul gives, in these two little
verses, chocked full of deep truth that is important to the living of the
Christian life, and especially to helping us know how to endure trials.
And so I want to look at four things that we can learn from these words
of greeting that Paul gives us at the outset of 2 Thessalonians.


BEHOLD YOUR GOD

And I want to begin with what he says to us about God.
He asks us, in verse 1 and verse 2, to behold our God.
And he says something very specific and important about Him.
He tells us that God is our Father.
Now this is just a little bit different from 1 Thessalonians.
If you’ll turn back, probably in your Bibles just one page, and look at 1
Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 1, you will see Paul say to the church of the
Thessalonians exactly like he says here in your ESV – although the Greek is
slightly different it means the same thing; he’s writing to the church of the
Thessalonians — he then says, “in God the Father.” But if you
look at 2 Thessalonians he says, “in God
our
Father.” And then he repeats
that again in verse 2 — “from God our
Father. Now Paul is pointing to you
a very important truth about God.
He’s asking you to behold your God and realize that He is your Father.
The God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is our Father, He
is your Father, and He is especially concerned to point out this in the phrase,
“in God our Father.”

In the phrase in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 1, “God
the Father,” particularly draws attention to the unique relationship
that Jesus has with the Father. The
Father is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is His Son, and
as such, it especially draws our attention to a truth about the triune God.
Paul will later in this passage, just like he does in 1 Thessalonians,
mention the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and so he speaks of Father and
Son and Holy Spirit. But when he
speaks of “God the Father” in 1
Thessalonians, it especially draws our attention to something about God, the
triune God, and especially about Jesus’ relationship to the Father.
But when he says here, “God our
Father,” he’s doing something that the Old Testament did with
Israel
and that Jesus did when He was teaching His disciples to pray.

In the Old Testament, Israel collectively, the people of God, had the privilege
of approaching the God who was the Maker of heaven and earth as
our Father, because the children of
Israel are collectively the people of God.
They are His children. That’s
why they’re called the children of Israel; they’re His children, and they have
this unique privilege of saying, “Our Father” to God.
Well the Lord Jesus Christ applies that to His disciples when they say,
“Lord, would You teach us to pray?” He says, “You pray this way:
Our Father which art in heaven” because of the unique privilege we have
of addressing God as Father. And the
apostle Paul is wanting to hold that before our eyes here just like Jesus did in
the Lord’s Prayer as He was teaching the disciples to pray, Paul is saying,
“Thessalonians, ponder who your God is.
Behold your God; He is your Father.”

This is enormously important. You
know, many of you here had good fathers and some of you tell me about them.
They were men of character, they were loving, they gave you a good
example of work ethic, were good providers, they loved your mothers well.
And I love to hear those stories. Others of you didn’t have a great
experience with your father and you’ve been left with a void in your heart
because of an absence of something that you’ve yearned for, that you long for in
your earthly relationship with an earthly father that just never ever happened.
Just this past week one of our elders shared with me a poem that he wrote
about his father and it was deeply moving as he complimented the way his father
had modeled godly, Christian manhood, the way his father had provided security
in the home. He had a real sense of,
“I’m going to take care of you; everything’s alright.”
It’s very moving to read that.
Some of you recognize that and it brings back very tender memories.
For others of you, it’s a very painful thing to hear about because you
lacked that kind of experience. But whether you are in the category of having a
great earthly father or whether you are in the category of having a not very
good earthly father, all of you have a heavenly Father who is quite matchless.

And the apostle Paul wants you to contemplate that.
If you had an earthly father who was good, he is but a pale reflection of
the heavenly Father. And if you had
an earthly father who failed you, then you have a heavenly Father who is not
like that at all and in every way that you have been failed, He will never fail
you. And so the apostle Paul wants
us to contemplate who our God is. He
is our Father. And that’s the first
thing that Paul draws to the Thessalonians’ attention.


BEHOLD YOUR SAVIOR

But the second thing he does is he draws our attention to the Savior, Jesus
Christ, and to His incomparable person.
So from beholding God our Father, he then — and again, twice you see it
in verse 1 and verse 2 — draws our attention to the Savior.
“The Lord Jesus Christ,” he says in verse 1, and again, “the Lord Jesus
Christ” in verse 2. Now those three
little words, Lord, Jesus, and Messiah are very important.
This is the standard Pauline title that he ascribes to Jesus.
He likes to mention that Jesus is Lord and Messiah and there is a world
of theology packed in those three words.
And I want to think about those three words with you for just a moment.
As he beckons you to behold your Savior, what is he drawing to your
attention when he refers to Him as “the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Well, Lord was the standard word that was used in the Greek translation
of the Old Testament to translate the personal name of God.
Yahweh or Jehovah we often sing in our hymns or perhaps you remember from
your King James translation. And
that word, Lord, applied to Jesus, is one of the ways that Paul says Jesus is
fully God.

Turn back just a few pages in your Bibles from 2 Thessalonians to Philippians
chapter 2, verses 9 and 11. In
Philippians 2 verse 9, Paul says that God the Father is going to give to Jesus
“the name that is above every name,” and the he tells you what that name is in
verse 11. He says that at the name
that is given, every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess
that Jesus is Lord. Now that clearly
is an indication that it is a divine name, the name that is above every name,
the name of God Himself that is given to Jesus.
This is Paul’s way of saying Jesus is fully divine; He is fully God in
every way that the Father is fully God, in every way that the Spirit is fully
God; Jesus is fully divine. It is an
inscription of the God-ness of Jesus.
And so that’s one thing that Paul means to draw to our attention when he
says that Jesus is Lord but there are two more things as well.

He also wants us to understand not only is Jesus fully divine, but Jesus made us
and Jesus redeemed us; He is Lord.
Just as in the Old Testament Jehovah, Yahweh, the God of Israel, was the Maker
and Redeemer of His people, so Jesus is the Maker and Redeemer of His people.
Look for instance, if you turn forward one page from Philippians to
Colossians, look at Colossians chapter 1 verses 3, 14, and 16.
And when you look there, you are going to see Paul telling us that Jesus
is the One through whom the world was made and who redeemed us with His own
blood. Verse 3 — “We always thank
God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.”
And then he begins to describe what Jesus has done for us.
And first of all we look at verse 15 and 16.
“He,” that is, the Lord Jesus, “is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation, for by Him all things were created, in heaven and on
earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or
authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.”
Jesus is Lord. He created.
And every good Hebrew knows that only God created.
But not only that, look back to verse 14.
What did the beloved Son do?
“Through Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.”
And so Paul uses the term Lord for Jesus to remind us that He is divine,
that He made us, and that He redeemed us.

Well what about that precious name, Jesus, itself?
Of course that word itself reminds us that no one can save but Jesus.
When the angel came to Mary and to Joseph and said, “You must name the
boy, Jesus,” he explained — why?
“Because He will save His people.”
Now that of course picks up on the meaning of the Old Testament name.
Jesus’ name is actually the Greek version of Joshua’s name, which means
either “God helps” or maybe even “God saves.”
And so Jesus points to the fact that Jesus is the Savior; no one can save
but Jesus. It also, of course,
points us to the fact that salvation comes from God.
We do not save ourselves; Jesus saves us.
God provides the way of salvation.
He doesn’t say, “Do the best you can.
Do it on your own. Earn the
forgiveness of sin.” He Himself
provides for in the person of His Son the forgiveness of sin.”
It also points out that salvation comes through the person and work of
Jesus. Think again of how Jesus
Himself emphasized this in John 14 verse 6.
“I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father but through Me.”
And it emphasizes that Jesus is alone appointed by God as the Savior of
the world. Remember what Peter says
in Acts chapter 4 verse 12? “By no
one else is there salvation, for there is no other name under heaven that has
been given among men by which we must be saved.”
Jesus is the name that God has given because Jesus is the Savior that God
has given. And so in pointing us to
the Lord and Jesus, Paul is pointing us to Jesus’ divinity, His creative power,
His redeeming work. He’s pointing us
to the truth that God saves and that salvation is in Jesus alone.

And then in the word Christ, of course we have the Greek version of the Hebrew
word that we say in English, Messiah. That is, Jesus is the anointed one,
promised by God through the prophets in the Old Testament.
And Paul here, beckons us to behold our Savior.
Behold your God; He is your Father.
Behold the Savior; who is He?
The Lord; He is fully divine. He is
the creator and redeemer. Jesus,
He’s the only name under heaven by which a man can be saved.
He’s the Christ. The prophets
foretold that He would come, the anointed one, and save His people. That is your
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.


BEHOLD YOUR STATUS

And then, having pointed us to our God, the Father and the Son, he now asks us
to look at the status that we’ve been given or the situation which we’ve been
placed in, or the privileges that have been heaped on us.
Look at this interesting phrase in verse 1.
He says — he’s writing to the church of the Thessalonians — “in
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now that is a strange phrase, to write to you and say that you are “in
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
If I were to say to you that you are presently
in
Jackson that would make sense, but Paul writes to the church of the
Thessalonians and says, “You’re in God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
That’s an interesting way of talking, isn’t it?
There’s an African American denomination with deep roots right here in
Mississippi and in Jackson called, “The Church of God in Christ.”
And that’s a very interesting title that we could unpack, but what Paul
says here to the Thessalonians is the church of the Thessalonians is in God and
Christ. “You are in God and Christ.
That’s your location; that’s where you’re situated.”

What’s he saying? He’s saying that
even though you’re in Thessalonica right now, even though you’re in Jackson
right now, if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ you are situated in
union with God through Jesus Christ so that God who sets His love on you and
chose you before the foundation of the world, gave His Son for you and the Holy
Spirit united you to His Son and what did His Son pray for you in John 17?
That you would experience the same love relationship, would be drawn into
the same fellowship, which He enjoyed with the Father.
And Paul’s acknowledging that here. “You
are in God our Father and in Jesus Christ if you are trusting in the Savior.
That means you have the benefit of adoption, you have been welcomed into
the family of God, you’ve been given the benefit of justification, you’ve been
forgiven by the Savior’s work, you’ve been given the benefit of sanctification,
you will be experiencing all of the blessings of glorification in union with
God. It’s an enormous privilege and
Paul wants you to understand that, that even though you’re in Jackson,
ultimately you are in God your Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of our colleagues who has frequently preached in the pulpit of First
Presbyterian Church is Ralph Davis.
He’s retired now and lives in Tennessee but he taught Old Testament during two
different tours of duty at RTS Jackson.
And Ralph, when he was here in Jackson, would typically sign his letters
with the conclusion, “In Christ, In Jackson.”
And it was his way of saying, “I’m a citizen of two kingdoms.
I’m in this world but my real home is in Christ.
That’s where I’m situated.”
And the apostle Paul is just wanting to remind you where you’re really situated.
And that’s so, so important to believe because you know you go through
trials in this life and you wonder, “What’s going in?
Is God really in control here?
What’s He doing in my life?”
That’s why I love that first stanza of, “This Is My Father’s World” when Maltbie
Babcock has us sing, “This is my Father’s world.
I rest me in the thought.”
Now he goes on to talk about rocks and trees and birds and seas and all
sorts of things like that, but I like to rest in the thought that this is my
Father’s world because sometimes this world doesn’t look like my Father’s world
and I have to say to myself, I have to look in my mirror and say to myself,
“Okay, it doesn’t look like my Father’s world but this is my Father’s world.
I’m in Him. I belong to Him.
He’s in charge here. I don’t
understand what’s going on in my life, I don’t like what’s going on in my life,
but this is my Father’s world and I’m going to rest me in that thought because
that’s where I’m situated. I’m
situated in Him. That’s home
address. I’m in Him and I’m safe and
I’m secure there, no matter what’s going on in Jackson, no matter what’s going
on in this world.” So that’s the
third thing. He beckons us to look
at our status, or our situation, or our privilege.
We are the church in God in Christ.
What a glorious truth — a truth of union with our God through Jesus
Christ.


BEHOLD YOUR SUPPLY

And then he asks us to look at our supply.
Where do we get the strength, what’s the source of the strength that we
need to endure trials and to live the Christian life?
And his answer is, it’s this little phrase, “from God our Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ.” Everything that
we need to live this Christian life is amply supplied to us.
And where does it come from?
From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
What do they supply? They
supply everything that we need — grace and peace.
Now grace is both pardon and power and we need both of those things every
day to live the Christian life. We
need forgiveness and we need strength; we need pardon and we need power.
Every day we need those things to live the Christian life.
Every day we sin; every day we need forgiveness.
And it’s provided for us in what Jesus has done definitively on the
cross. It’s supplied to us by God’s
grace.

And we need God’s power. Not the
least of which we need God’s power for is so that we have the desire to do the
right thing and to aspire to do the right thing.
You know, I was reading just this last week that someone saying that
though Satan has a thousand temptations for us, they all boil down to one thing
— you don’t have enough. Ever since
he tempted Eve and Adam, every temptation that he’s ever offered to anyone, to
everyone, to you and me, is that you don’t have enough.
“You know, satisfaction is somewhere else.
You’re real desires are going to be fulfilled somewhere else; not in God.
You’ve got to look somewhere else.
You don’t have enough. You
mean He told you, you couldn’t eat from any of these trees?”
“Oh yes, we can eat from those trees but not from that one.”
“You mean He’s that stingy He wouldn’t let you eat from that one?
You don’t have enough. You’d
be better off if you disobeyed Him and you found real fulfillment in the places
He told you not to look. You don’t
have enough.” And every temptation
of Satan’s – thousands, ten thousands — they’re all a variation of that one
thing. You need the strength of God
to desire the right thing and God’s grace supplies it — pardon and power for the
living of the Christian life and for the enduring of trials.

And peace. We talked about it last
week — total wellbeing; God-given, total wellbeing.
Where does it come from?
“From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
That is a word of greetings that packs a whale of a punch.
I can’t wait to hear what else Paul has to say to us in this little
letter. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we ask now that You would help us see something of Your glory
and Your Son’s glory and of our privilege of Your supply in this little word of
greeting. And we ask that You would
help us by it to live for Your glory and to endure in trials.
And we ask these things in Jesus’ name, amen.

Now let’s take our hymnals and turn to number 80 and sing to God’s praise,
“Lord, With Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee.”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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