Participants: Jon Paulien & Jon Ciccarelli
Series Code: TBOTB
Program Code: TBOTB000006A
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00:22 Welcome to Books of the Book where we are studying,
00:25 1 Thessalonians and I'm Pastor Jon Ciccarelli and 00:28 I'm joining Doctor Jon Paulien. 00:30 Jon here we are in 1 Thessalonians and it 00:34 has been a great study. 00:35 Why don't you take us where we want to go today? 00:38 Alright, our text for today begins with Chapter 2 and 00:42 verse 13 to the end of chapter 3. 00:45 I should probably mention that in Chapter 1, Paul is 00:49 focusing on his prayers for the Thessalonians. 00:52 The focus is on who they are and what God has been 00:55 doing in their lives. 00:56 In the first 12 verses of chapter 2, Paul switches the 01:01 focus to himself and his fellow apostles. 01:04 He gets into the motivations of why they are in ministry. 01:08 Its conclusion was basically there is two motivations. 01:12 One is pleasing God, and the other is his love 01:17 for the Thessalonians people. 01:19 So that brings us back to loving God and loving people 01:23 again, I remember you had a few things to say about that 01:26 from your sermon series. 01:28 Yeah, I love Paul and we have talked 01:31 about his authenticity before. 01:32 You really see his motivations for life, his love for God 01:37 is so obvious, his love for people, he describes himself 01:41 as sometimes as a father and sometimes as a mother in 01:45 how he cares for the Thessalonians. 01:48 Here we see, because often we will often hear well how do 01:51 you actually live these great commandments you just talked 01:54 about? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, 01:57 soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. 02:00 That's so difficult to do, and yet when we read Paul we see 02:03 what it looks like, this is what it looks like the love, 02:06 God and to love people. 02:08 So as we grow in that relationship with God in loving 02:13 people, we really focus on relationships. 02:16 Obviously relationship is big to God, He came to die for us 02:21 so we could be with Him for ever. 02:22 He also leads us into relation- ships with others and so in 02:27 this Society, this culture, I think one of the things 02:31 we wrestle with intention, everything is always about 02:35 productivity, produce, produce, produce. 02:37 Do more, do more, do better, do better. 02:39 Even in ministry! - Even in ministry and yet Paul, 02:42 in his ministry, was focused on relationships. 02:46 Relationships are so important, you know it is funny, 02:48 when I came to the Calimesa church, I have only been there 02:51 about two years now. 02:52 The church I was at before Calimesa, I was there for 02:55 17 years, I was there 11 years as an Associate and Youth 02:58 Pastor and six years as a senior Pastor. 03:00 The relationship was rich. 03:02 When I was interviewing at Calimesa, I asked the question. 03:05 I said, I said what are you really looking for in a Senior 03:08 Pastor? One gentleman on the search committee looked me 03:11 right in the eyes and said, we are looking for someone 03:13 who will be here 17 years. 03:17 They wanted relationship, and that is what I wanted 03:19 as well, and that is what Paul has here. 03:22 As we grow in our love for God, He will lead us deeper 03:25 into our love for others, it's just a natural thing. 03:28 It is part of that fruit, and we will focus more on 03:30 relationships and maybe not worry as much about productivity 03:33 Let God be the judge of the productivity. 03:36 Focus on loving God and loving others, and that is what 03:38 we see Paul doing. 03:39 Well this section we are looking at this time 2:13 going 03:44 all the way to Chapter 3:11-13. 03:47 Paul begins this section with a prayer, and he ends 03:50 this section with a prayer. 03:52 It seems whenever Paul is praying, he gets into 03:56 thankfulness and praise. 03:58 The two go together, and that is one of the amazing things. 04:01 Everywhere you go in 1 Thessalonians, - I don't think 04:04 you can't praise God when you're giving thanks. 04:06 When you realize how much you can be thankful for, 04:08 you just start praising Him. - That's right! 04:10 So it is about relationships, but it is also about 04:14 thankfulness and so on. 04:16 It seems that Paul used prayer to kind of process what 04:22 was going on in his life. 04:23 He didn't just let his mind spin, is it possible to 04:28 spin your wheel's in prayer? 04:29 Yes it is possible, I can testify and I think there is 04:35 a fine line when we are praying with God about what ever 04:40 it is we are talking about. 04:41 It could be fears, worries, anxieties, different things. 04:43 If we are not careful, instead of processing it with God it is 04:47 almost like we can begin to re- hearse our worries and anxieties 04:52 You know, over and over and get into that type of a cycle. 04:55 But what I love about Paul, is that he really processes 04:58 his life with prayer. 05:01 And when he processes it, he is not just thinking about it, 05:04 not just thoughts, he's really talking with God about it. 05:08 He releases them to God, he is with God in the experience 05:12 with the people and I think that is so important for us. 05:16 When we are praying with God, not to just get in and kind 05:19 of let the wheel spin about whatever we are anxious about, 05:22 or worried about, but really just be with God in it. 05:26 Process it with God, let Him have it, surrender it 05:28 and think about what He has said about those things in 05:31 His word, and we can think about those things. 05:32 Really process it with God. So I love that about Paul. 05:36 He process life with his prayers. 05:39 He has habits too come he is intentional about those 05:43 things and I think it is important for us to be habitual, 05:46 if you will, or you mention thankfulness in our prayers 05:50 and in our praise. 05:52 The word discipline, we often think of that in a negative 05:55 context, but think about the athletes that we admire. 05:59 They are very disciplined people, and at the root of the 06:03 word discipline, is the word disciple. 06:05 To be a disciple of Jesus means that there is a discipline 06:09 involved about being inten- tional, about the things that 06:13 God asks us to be intentional about. 06:14 That includes being thankful, Scripture says later on 06:17 that is God's will for us, is to be thankful and to pray 06:20 continually and so forth. 06:21 So there is a habit, there is that intentionality and we 06:24 see it with Paul definitely. 06:26 That is a great leading to the text. 1 Thessalonians 2:13. 06:30 And I will mention once more that the translation from 06:34 Thessalonians are my own intended sometime to bring out 06:38 the grammar of the Greek, more than to be good solid 06:42 English so you can see some of the dynamics that are 06:46 going on in the text. 07:10 You know this I think has great impact for how we read 07:14 the Bible, we need to understand this is not just ink 07:18 on a page, the Bible is the very words of God. 07:22 It is designed for us to give us guidance from life in a 07:25 way perhaps nothing else possibly could. 07:29 Why don't we go on and read verses 14-16? 07:32 These are kind of challenging verses, 07:34 they're troubled some people. 08:10 Jon, I feel a little uncomfortable with this so maybe 08:13 you can help us unpack this. 08:15 It has troubled a lot of people through the years. 08:18 It is possible to read this passage in a way that would 08:21 make the Nazis proud. 08:22 I think we have to take a careful look at it and 08:26 understand a couple of things. 08:28 First of all the location starts out with Judea. 08:30 In the Greek language the word for Jews and the word for 08:34 Judeans is basically the same. 08:37 So what I think is happening here is Paul is focusing 08:41 particularly on the ruling council. 08:44 Now he was one of them, the Sanhedrin because it was the 08:48 ruling council that killed Jesus and it seems from this text 08:52 that the ruling council was following Paul around. 08:55 They were sending represent- atives who were following 08:59 him around and causing trouble it seems 09:01 almost wherever he went. 09:03 In the Gospel of John, the Jews doesn't mean all Jews. 09:08 Paul is a Jew, there are many Jews following Jesus 09:12 so this is not a blanket that covers every Jew, 09:16 but rather in the Gospel of John, the Jews was the 09:19 ruling authority in particular. 09:22 I think when we understand the text in this way, 09:24 Paul is frustrated about some people who not only killed 09:27 Jesus, they are following him around and causing trouble 09:31 where ever they go for malicious purposes. 09:34 I think that helps us understand what is going on in this text. 09:38 Is it possible sometimes our greatest opponents are those 09:42 who are closest, and Paul had been part of this very group. 09:47 It does seem to often, I think our greatest opponents can 09:52 be those that are closest to us. 09:53 And maybe that is also because there's heartstrings 09:57 attached, things that can really get down deep under us. 10:02 It is often the case, it seems like. 10:05 We find that in church too, you know. 10:08 Sometimes, within the church, even though we love each 10:11 other and we are with God, we can get into fights. 10:14 There can be disruptions, it always seems it's often been 10:18 close to home where some of our greatest opponents can be. 10:23 God wants to change that. 10:25 Let's say you are a group of people in church, and someone 10:28 makes a derogatory comment about Jews or Muslims or 10:32 blacks, or something, how do you handle that? 10:34 Well I think it is very important, especially looking at 10:38 this text for example. 10:40 Not to make a blanket statement about somebody in that. 10:45 For instant you wouldn't want to say with this, 10:47 this is speaking about all Jews. 10:49 Look at the horrible thing at the Holocaust, just looking 10:52 at that, we just can't do that. 10:55 We have to always again to seek to understand instead of 10:59 being understood, we have to seek to understand people 11:02 and to be with them, we have to understand them. 11:06 So when someone makes those blanket statements, say wait, 11:09 wait, wait a minute, this is not the way God calls people. 11:12 Because someone could make a derogatory statement about 11:14 your ethnic group too. - Exactly! 11:16 Or your religion or so on, everybody is like that. 11:20 Always and everybody are not good words to use. 11:23 In every group, in every ethnic group, in every religious 11:26 faith there are people that are tuned into God, and there 11:29 are people that are sliding away and it is not ours to 11:32 judge, it is God's to judge. 11:34 Well looking at the broader picture and moving ahead 11:38 we see Paul sending Timothy. 11:41 He sends Timothy to encourage them. 11:46 Is there a need for encouragement in the church? 11:50 Is there ever. Encouragement for everybody, 11:53 Pastors included, we can all use more encouragement. 11:57 You know this life is hard, this life we are getting beat 12:02 up everywhere you go, at the job, when you go to school, 12:06 even when you just drive down the road and you look at 12:09 the billboards you get beat up, you're not good enough, 12:12 you're not smart enough, you don't have enough money 12:14 or whatever it is. 12:15 The society out there is not real conducive to 12:19 encouragement sometimes, and in the church this ought 12:21 really be the place where we are getting built up. 12:25 I think of the Barnabas who came along side of Paul 12:28 when others were afraid of him. 12:29 He is the one who brought them in, the son of encouragement. 12:32 Barnabas means son of encouragement, I noticed in our 12:35 Calimesa church we have Pastor appreciation month. 12:38 How does that feel? - It feels really good. 12:42 They take time to really take time to say, 12:45 we really appreciate you. 12:46 11 challenging months. - that is right. 12:48 One month of encouragement can get you through a lot. 12:51 Give us a little summary of Paul's emotions as 12:54 he goes through Chapter 3. 12:56 We have talked about it before, but we can make it pretty quick. 12:59 I think, again I love Paul's authenticity as transparency. 13:04 He says, my heart is just breaking, I am longing to see 13:09 you, it's like I've been orphaned from you. 13:11 I almost can't endure, I'm under distress and I just might not be 13:16 able to go on living. It's almost funny to read. 13:19 But we really see his attachment to the Thessalonians here. 13:22 He kind of sums up in 3:12 where he says, 13:40 He is praying that their love will increase for each other 13:43 but also for people outside. 13:45 He is concerned that this kind of relationship they have, 13:50 the feelings they have will be expanded throughout all 13:55 the work that they do. 13:56 That brings us up to a time for break and we will be back 13:59 with you in just a moment. |
Revised 2023-01-25