As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
3No
one to be disturbed by these afflictions for you yourselves know that we are
appointed into this, 4for we were also telling to you beforehand
when we were with you that we are going to be being distressed, just as it
happened, as you know. 5And I, holding out no longer, because of
this sent to know your faith, lest the tempter tempted you and our fruit had
become into emptiness.
Life is hard.
For everyone.
But for believers, we actually have the privilege of knowing
it’s all for a reason. “No one [should] be
disturbed by these afflictions for you yourselves know that we are appointed
into this…” Pain doesn’t “just happen” to us. We are “appointed into it.”
We are destined for it. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom
of God” (Acts 14:22). Immaturity may make us think as Christians that somehow we
should be exempted from pain, but that simply isn’t the case. This should be
apparent in the Bible from cover to cover, from the lives of believers who’ve
gone before us, and certainly from our own experience. It should be. But this delusional presumption of favored exemption
seems to be a weed that dies hard in our hearts.
Peter warned us, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the
painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to
you” (I Peter 4:12). He had said earlier in that book, “These [troubles] have
come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold – may be proved genuine …”
(1:7). His words sound like James, “Count
it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various troubles, knowing that the
trying of your faith develops endurance” (1:3). Jesus Himself warned us, “In
this world you will have trouble…” (John 16:33). The psalmist complained, “The
enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground … so my spirit grows faint within
me; my heart within me is stunned” (Ps 143:3,4).
I remember someone who suffered a terrible loss then later
confided in me they were really struggling with it all because they thought God
had promised to protect them from such horrors. They said, “I know we have to
suffer, but I didn’t think God would allow something this bad.”
I suppose we should remind ourselves that Jesus never did
anything but love God and love people and He got crucified. How we get it in our heads that we deserve better is
perhaps a mystery of our sinful pride. But, as Paul is telling the
Thessalonians, rather than playing all our mind games and dreaming of our
favored exemption, we instead need to acknowledge that troubles – and even
really painful ones – are simply part of the plan. We’re destined for them.
And, again, that may seem a strange way to encourage people –
to tell them the faith to which you’re inviting them will come with pain and
sorrow – as Paul said, “for we
were also telling to you beforehand when we were with you that we are going to
be being distressed, just as it happened, as you know” – but the reality is
that, in this world, you will suffer with or without faith. Life is hard. For
everyone.
The difference for us lies in the greatness of our God and
the wonder of salvation. While a believer goes on living in this world of
trouble, suddenly he finds those troubles have been divinely commandeered for his
greatest possible eternal good – that they become one of the primary means by
which the Lord prunes away my pride and selfishness. In this there is great
hope and encouragement. I don’t want to be who I was. I don’t want to be who I
am. I want the Lord to do what He has
to in order to change me. I’m glad He isn’t deterred by all my whining!
On the other hand, the certainty of trouble moves us to holy
fear and humility, knowing how easily I fail. Paul worried over the people, “lest
the tempter have tempted them and his fruit turn out to be empty.” “The spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus told Peter, “Watch and pray lest you
enter into temptation.” In his pride, Peter boastfully responded, “I’m ready to
die for you!” then when he should have been praying, he was sleeping, and
failed horrendously. This is a sad thing to say, but I think I have just
recently learned the truth of Jesus’ warnings. I fear my whole Christian life I
have arrogantly thought somehow I could “do it.” But now some 40 years into it,
I look back and see how completely I have failed the Lord almost constantly. I
have of course done a few things right, but overall, my life is just another
version of Peter’s failure.
I am finally now learning all day every day to be praying, “Lord,
help me not to fail you.” The plain simple fact is that I will. Even as I imagine somehow I “can handle it,” I’ll be failing
at whatever it is the Lord is really trying to accomplish. I ought to live in holy fear of myself! I ought to the have the humility to lean
constantly on the Lord. Jesus didn’t say, “For without Me you can’t do much.”
He said, “You can do nothing.”
Paul had this holy fear for the Thessalonian believers –
that, like Peter (and me), when the challenges and hard times came, they might
not be ready, they might not be found “watching and praying,” and one way or
another, they’d fail in the temptations. His fear was so strong that he chose
to be left alone in Athens and sent his helper Timothy to find out how they
were doing.
From this passage, we learn that, in this hard life, we
believers of all people should not be overwhelmed by the troubles that come –we’re
actually “destined” for them. We have been told beforehand we’ll have to face
them. We’ve been warned there is a strong likelihood we’ll fail in them. We’ve
been warned that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” We’ve been
warned to “watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” But the Bible also
reveals to us that our God is a strong Deliverer. His name is Jesus, “for He
shall save His people from their sins.” Our great and sovereign God has promised
“to make all things work together for good” and never to give us “more than we
can bear.” He is a “very present Help in trouble.” He is the One who said, “For
I know the plans I have for you, plans to do you good and not to harm you,
plans to give you a future and a hope.” Like the old hymn said, “The fire shall
not harm thee, I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”
Life is hard.
For everyone.
But we are a people of hope.
Even while it’s hard.
We are “the people who know their God.”
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