2Th 2:13-17; Where Is Comfort When the Trouble Remains?Sunday October 1, 20232Th 2:16-17 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, 17 comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.
This is a closing to the main body of the letter before he gets to the actual closing (chapter 3). The main message of the letter is for them not to be encouraged by Paul and to not be deceived by any false doctrines. The close of the letter will be the encouragement to pray for Paul, keep the commandments and keep going, and to deal with proper church discipline (possible source of the false doctrines).
This close to the body of the letter emphasizes comfort of the heart.
Paul states that he wishes that the God who loves us and gives us eternal comfort and good hope in grace, would comfort your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.
You can do what is commanded while feeling the burden of stress and impending weakness.
Comfort: doing all that is commanded with strength and joy (despite people and circumstances).
The trouble of any Christian at any time has a timeless principle that all can apply.
First emphasis: The Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who love you.
Get that first. God loves you. You. Just as you are right now. Eternally, wholly, fully, to a manner and depth that your finite mind will only continue to discover.
Rom 8:35-39 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written,
"FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED."
37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Will it always feel like God loves you?
Psa 77 For the choir director; according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph.
My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. 2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted. 3 When I remember God, then I am disturbed [I moan]; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah. 4 You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. 5 I have considered the days of old, The years of long ago. 6 I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, And my spirit ponders: 7 Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? 8 Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion [comfort]? Selah.
The psalmist is so troubled that he cannot sleep and even when he thinks of God, all he can do is moan.
Has the Lord forgotten you? At least for now?
If God loves you so infinitely, why does He not just fix everything?
God wants you to enjoy your spiritual life in the midst of the trouble that is going to be around you and in you. Enjoyment meaning strength, optimism, endurance, and a sweet memory of God’s work from the past.
2Th 2:16-17 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, 17 comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.
The Son and the Father have loved us and given us eternal comfort and hope in grace.
Going back through both letters, we can see the need for all three.
The persecution experienced by the Thessalonians was unique to them (Act 17). This is not likely the kind of trouble that you face from others. God has so composed letters written for a specific reason to apply across all time and cultures.
Trouble in you: Within (sin and temptation to sin from the flesh). Without (sins of others and Satan who pulls strings)
There are many forms of both.
In chapter 3, Paul is going to ask for prayer for his own work of ministry and for them to stand firm and keep the commandments. The issue, as always, is people without faith who make trouble for those who do.
2Th 3:1-3 Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you; 2 and that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men; for not all have faith. 3 But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
It may not be that they are purposely persecuting you for your faith, sometimes they are, but they are “perverse and evil” in their lives, and that cancer spills over into your own life.
You do not have to have everyone doing well or good around you to be at peace and happy – comforted. You don’t have to have everything going well in your own self for you to have peace and happiness in your soul – comfort. If that were true, then God in our world right now has no power.
God fix it! Now!
Job came to this point in his despair. (To his credit, it took a lot.)
Feel the darkness in this poem of Job’s jump into despair.
Job 3:3-7 Let the day perish on which I was to be born, And the night which said, 'A boy is conceived.' 4 "May that day be darkness; Let not God above care for it, Nor light shine on it. 5 "Let darkness and black gloom claim it; Let a cloud settle on it; Let the blackness of the day terrify it. 6 "As for that night, let darkness seize it; Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 "Behold, let that night be barren; Let no joyful shout enter it.
His friends thought they knew how to comfort him.
The wrong kind. Job 21:34 "How then will you vainly comfort me, For your answers remain full of falsehood?"
When did Job receive comfort? It was not when all was restored. That came afterwards.
Job 42:1-6 When Job answered the Lord and said,
2 "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. 3 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." 4 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.' 5 "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; 6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."
Now, let’s get back to poor Asaph who wondered if the lovingkindness of the Lord had ceased forever.
Psa 77:7-10. Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? 8 Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion [comfort]? Selah. 10 Then I said, "It is my grief [or supplication], That the right hand of the Most High has changed."
Vs. 10 is tricky in Hebrew. It is something of the sort:
Psa 77:10 (in essence -ish) My grief and my prayer – the mighty hand of God that must humble me changes.
Half-way: It is my grief (or prayer) that the time of the mighty hand of the Lord in which I must humble myself have been measured out to me, and His hand has changed … and it will change.
Here in lies the comfort that the Lord gives. It is not fixing everything. It is His word that reveals who He is and what He has done and what He is doing now. This is power and comfort faith in the truth of who God is and what He will do, whether His hand changes today or years in the future – we will trust in Him. The glory of God makes a heart strong and comfortable even when the storms of people and life burst against it.
Psa 77:11-20 I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 12 I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds. 13 Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? 14 You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. 15 You have by Your power redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah. 16 The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were in anguish; The deeps also trembled. 17 The clouds poured out water; The skies gave forth a sound; Your arrows flashed here and there. 18 The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook. 19 Your way was in the sea And Your paths in the mighty waters, And Your footprints may not be known. 20 You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.
In The Psalms and in Job, and in our passage, the unprincipled and evil men in the world around us are not just causing us trouble (intentionally or not), but they are also pits to fall into.
There is a gravity to ungodliness. Our fallen nature makes it impossible not in infect us in some way, hopefully just a momentary distraction of temptation. But we all know that it can draw us in. The unhappy person spreading misery like a flu.
Remember the Lord and His deeds. Take a moment. Take your eyes off him or her or it for a few moments and look upon Him. God is not going to take away the trouble to give you comfort (sometimes He will) He is going to give you something eternal – a word in your heart that will comfort in any affliction.
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