Standing Firm: Life of Thanks and Prayer
2 Thessalonians 1:1-12
I. Standing firm comes through a perspective of thanksgiving; 1:1-4.
1 Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. 4 Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
As a family, we have a Father who not only loves and leads us, but He also brings us together to accomplish a common purpose. The Thessalonians growth in faith and love was taking place under the most adverse conditions.
The person who has a genuine faith in God will view pain and suffering with an enduring hope that thanks God even if the trial does not pass. There is the possibility that God will not allow your trials to pass. This was true of the Thessalonian Christians. They received the gospel through persecution, they were following Christ in persecution, and they were trusting God to deliver them from persecution. Do we have the kind of hope that will endure? Are people bragging about how well you hold up under persecution and trials?
II. Standing firm involves choosing to avoid judgment; 1:5-10.
5 All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
Affliction and persecution can be interpreted either as attacks on God’s people by forces hostile to God, or as punishment suffered by God's people for their sins. The Thessalonians are not only persevering and trusting in the midst of persecution, but actually growing in faith and increasing in love for one another, as a sign of God’s blessing, not judgment.
They were not made worthy of the kingdom because they suffered; they were counted worthy of the kingdom because they suffered. Their suffering was evidence that God loved them, not a sign that He had abandoned them. This paints an entirely different picture of suffering that would dramatically influence the way in which we live.
There are two sides to God's righteous judgment, one negative (retribution to those who trouble God’s people) and one positive (relief to those who are troubled). The troublers of God's people are part of a larger group identified as "those who do not know God," that is, who "do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." While it appears that injustice and unrighteousness prevail, God is going to have the last word when He repays those who do not know Him and those who don't obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with His powerful angels.
In contrast to those who disobey the gospel, those who have believed will experience both the presence and the glory of the Lord Himself (the very things the other group will not experience). This is because the Lord will be glorified in the presence of His holy people.
God does not set His justice aside when He redeems sinners. If God sacrificed His justice to pardon a sinner, then He would no longer be God. But through the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross, God provided a way to show mercy without doing away with His justice. Though all human beings stand guilty before God's perfect holiness, by His mercy He graciously offers them forgiveness and redemption through the death of Jesus Christ.
Paul describes God's future judgment on an unavoidable choice: the decision whether to accept or reject the gospel of our Lord Jesus. When the time of judgment comes, as it inevitably will, those who, in response to the gospel, believed the message and placed their faith in Jesus will be with the Lord forever in His presence. However, those who have rejected the gospel will find themselves shut out from the Lord’s presence and majesty.
Paul seeks to encourage them to remain faithful to the God who has called them, in spite of whatever persecution they may experience in the meantime. To those of us who have made the same choice as the Thessalonians, it likewise offers encouragement to us. But for those of us who may not yet have made that decision, it confronts us with a sobering vision of the irrevocable consequences of a decision that must be made, an unavoidable choice that makes all the difference.
III. Prayer for those standing firm; 1:11-12.
11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. 12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our faithfulness in affliction and steadfast hope in trials reveals the genuineness of our faith. So, we demonstrate our worthiness of His calling by passionately pursuing God regardless of our circumstances. The other petition is that God might fulfill, or bring to completion, every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. Paul is asking God to complete the work that He began in them at their conversion.
Persevere in the face of unjust treatment as a declaration of the fact that God is just and will vindicate His people. Such faithful endurance provides evidence not only that God exists, but also that His judgment is right and that He Himself is just. It is a bold declaration that the persecutors are wrong and that they are hostile to God.
We have the tendency to view our world through the lens of our personal experiences instead of through the lens of God's redemptive plan. From the perspective of the Thessalonian Christians, their future did not look very hopeful. Their life was a never-ending story of persecution, affliction, and pain. While knowing God's ultimate plan for the future may not make our problems go away, it does provide us with a firm foundation on which to stand in uncertain times.
