2Thess 3:1-5 JESUS IS... LORD?

SERMON
10.8.2008
7:00 service


We have a swear-jar at Moore College… you know, us Bible students are a caring swearing bunch. Not surprising – try learning Greek and you’ll be amazed what you WANT to say… No, the swear jar has been introduced by a lecturer, and a word each week is set up as “The Unspeakable Word”. Say the Unspeakable Word, put 20c in the jar, all funds raised go to Church Mission Society.


This week the word was “Saved”.


Not just saved, but any word using the root word. Salvation, for instance. Just get into your mind the picture of a theological college, with 115 first-years trying desperately looking for ways to NOT say saved, saving, salvation, Saviour... CMS is going to be financially independent by the end of 2009, and a third of all the students sound like they have a terminal stutter.


Still, it’s not as hard as the week before – the week before, the Unspeakable Word was LORD.



Which raises an interesting issue, doesn’t it? How do we use the word Lord? Have we become somehow immune to a word? Who do we think of when we use the Unspeakable Word?


Jewish tradition held – and still holds – that the name of the Lord of Heaven and Earth is itself so pure and holy that merely speaking the name would somehow tarnish it, or defile it. We generally think that this is probably extreme, but it must be said that we’re probably at the other extreme. We might well have forgotten that the God who wanted no statues made of Him also didn’t need to name Himself. Remember Moses? Exodus 3:13 “ ‘When they ask me “what is his name?”, then what should I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites – I AM has sent me to you’ ” There’s a statement of absolute power.


And yet we are so free and easy with the name of God that it’s now a pretty acceptable part of our language to invoke His name with no thought. I wonder if the blasphemy isn’t in saying “oh, God” but in saying with no thought.



The NT word for Lord is kurios. A slave calls his master kurios. A tradesman calls a nobleman kurios. The kurion, the Lord, was the city ruler, the head of a country, or the Emperor.
For just a moment, I want us to consider how alien Paul’s words would have sounded in Thessalonika – a Greek city with heavy Roman connections and temples to a hundred gods. Listen again to the strangeness… from the Greek transliteration...



1v1 Paul, Silvanus, Timothy – to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father of us and in Lord Jesus Christ. Just God – and calling a Jewish man executed in faraway Judea – Kurios – the Lord.
1.2;Grace and peace to you from God the Father of us, and from Lord Jesus Christ.
2.1With regard to the coming of the Lord of us, Jesus Christ…
2.14;… that you might share in the glory of the Lord of us, Jesus Christ
3.6; In the name of Lord,Jesus Christ, we command you… [and if that doesn’t sound like a commander invoking the authority of the Emperor I donj't know what does].
3.18; The grace of the Lord of us, Jesus Christ. [Again, an Imperial pardon was issued because of the grace of the Lord, the Emperor].
Calling this man Jesus kurios – Lord – is a big, big call.


Keep the strangeness of this in mind as we keep digging through Paul’s prayer request that we read in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5. And keep in mind that "the Lord" – at least in this passage – should be understood as the Lord Jesus.

Paul has written a follow-up letter to address a couple of problems. In it, he assures them – several times – that they are constantly in Paul’s prayers.
1v3; We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so…
1v11; With this in mind we constantly pray for you…
2v13; But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord…
That would be unbelievably encouraging to this young, flourishing church – knowing that the man, who brought them the Good Message of the cross and the rising of Jesus, still kept them in his constant prayer. I know that there are a couple of people who pray for Fiona and the kids and I, and they pray every single day. They are some of the most godly people you could bump into on a very long walk. That’s pretty encouraging, let me tell you. I have no doubt that the Thessalonians would have smiled the widest smile as they read how Paul still held them up to God in prayer.



Now he himself asks for prayer.



James Macbeth said this a long time ago, and it’s an interesting thought – a lot of a person’s heart can be seen in their prayers and what they ask others to pray for. Let’s look at what Paul asks for.
1. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honoured, just as it was with you.
Paul isn’t shy about asking for prayer. But he immediately deflects the focus of the prayer – pray for me that the message [word] may spread. Again, it sounds odd when we give it a little thought. He doesn’t ask for prayer so he can have success in getting the word of the Lord out, although that will be the result if the Lord answers their prayer. But Paul’s doing a little teaching here too, and focusing the Thessalonians’ attention onto who will be answering the prayer. And why.

And why? That the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honoured – just as it was in you. Spread rapidly; literally to course like a great river. Honoured; the word Paul uses is a luminous word - doxazetai. Honoured, glorified… but there’s also a sense from the Greek word of glowing fiercely, of shining out in the dark.
And that’s exactly how it had spread in Thessalonika; an unstoppable flood. “The Lord’s message rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia – your faith in God has become known everywhere,” Paul wrote in his first letter. Now Paul wants them to pray that the miracle that occurred in their life – in their city – will never stop happening.

How’s the swear-jar looking? – I’ve said Lord four times (the message / word of the Lord). Whose message or word? God the Father or God the Son?


Verse 2. And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith.
Following his baptism and first preaching, Paul manages to avoid an assassination plot. He flees to Jerusalem – and then has to run to Tarsus, because of another attempt to kill him. He’s expelled from Pisidian Antioch, escaped a stoning at Iconium, didn’t escape a stoning at Lystra, publicly stripped and flogged before being jailed in Philippi, evacuated by night from Thessalonika, escaped from Berea… Those stoning and flogging episodes, by the way, were very often fatal.
Pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith.


Do you think that Paul should have prayed for this a little earlier? Or maybe prayed a little harder? I’d be surprised if he didn’t pray this every day. Considering that, to the best of our knowledge, he was executed – beheaded, tradition tells us, in Rome – do you think he was delivered from evil and wicked men? Did those people with no faith finally get him? Was this prayer answered or ignored? For that matter, here is the man who spearheaded the first ever persecution, who was complicit in the mob-execution of Stephen. Paul, at one stage, WAS one of the wicked and evil men he asks the church to pray against.


Pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith.

It may help us to see the request more clearly if we look at Paul’s prayer request a little closer. I think that the end phrase is pretty important, and it again shows us the heart of Paul. See, I don’t think that Paul was afraid of faithless men at all.
If I take that phrase and attach it to the first verse – pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honoured, for not everyone has faith – well, that’s a little different. Read the two verses as one request. In other words, pray that the message pours forth, and that nothing hinders people without faith to hear the Good Message of Christ. That makes more sense. And that’s more like the Paul who sang hymns after being flogged.
Deliver us from wicked and evil men, because they delay the progress of the message of Jesus to people who have no faith. Pray that nothing gets in its way.
Paul is on a mission. He wants the Good Message of Christ crucified and risen to be absolutely planted before he leaves the earth. He understands why Jesus rescued him, called him and chose him. Besides which, he’s quite comfortable with the thought of leaving the world behind…
Phil 1:20-24 shows Paul’s thoughts here; … but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two; to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
A man thinking that won’t be too worried about the wicked and evil men for himself – but he will be praying that they never get in the way of the Word. Get out of its way – it’s got a world to get to.

The next few verses he spends doing something he spent a lot of time doing in his first letter – encouraging them, building them up spiritually.
Verse 3. The Lord – the Lord Jesus, remember – is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. It’s a bold, confident statement. There’s no uncertainty, no hesitation – not even an easy “I’ll pray for…” He WILL strengthen and protect you from the evil one. No doubt at all.
Verse 4. We have confidence that you are doing, and continue to do, the things we command. I used to get a little worried when the principal said that. It made me think he had eyes everywhere. And he had the unnerving habit of saying “I have every confidence…” about things that, well, confidence should not be placed in. Paul uses his words far, far more positively than a principal – and it’s good motivation; out-loud confidence in their future protection and obedience.
Verse 5. May the Lord (Jesus) direct your hearts into God’s love, and Christ’s perseverance. Direct… guide – kind of like a rudder guiding and directing a boat into a safe harbour. May Jesus steer your hearts into God’s love, and Jesus’ perseverance. Good encouraging statements, something that Paul spent a lot of time doing throughout 1 Thessalonians.



The phrase “deliver us from wicked and evil men” kept on coming back to me over and over. It’s a haunting phrase, possibly because these days we don’t think about too many people as being wicked or evil. I suspect that one of the attractions of fictional villains is that we just don’t see people in this light anymore. Sometimes the only way we think of them is through movies.
In Schindler’s List, Ralph Fiennes played a real-live wicked and evil man – Amon Goeth, the Nazi commandant of a Polish concentration camp. I haven’t seen it yet, but the reviews for Heath Ledger’s Joker keep on and on saying that his ability to play a psychopathic, evil anarchist – and to play him so darkly and menacingly – is just brilliant. I wonder who it says the most about: a man who can be considered a genius for portraying a wicked and evil man, or a paying public – i.e. me, when we get right down to it – who are really just a little bit fascinated by them…

Deliver us from wicked and evil men. Paul’s teaching would indicate that this is also an excellent thing to pray for ourselves and each other. So… What do we mean when we pray it? I think it’s something that we should give a little thought to.
I suspect that if most of us found ourselves in Paul’s position, we’d consider the circumstances pretty evil – being beaten to within an inch of our life, publicly flogged, people trying to kill us by hurling boulders at us, being hounded out of cities and countries, deported to a city, shipwrecked and eventually executed. It’s a pretty unhealthy CV there.

I suspect that if we found ourselves in the middle of a persecution – our homes torched, being jailed, families threatened, beaten, property confiscated by law, killed for our love of Jesus… we would find ourselves wanting deliverance from evil. I certainly would.

Paul’s thinking is almost completely the reverse, though. Again – to live is Christ, to die is gain.



Declaring the loyalty of our life… will demand our life.



Declaring the loyalty of our life… will demand our life.

When we read Paul’s incredible statement from Philippians, we see a man who understands what it means to call Jesus Kurios – Lord.

We are not of an age that easily recognizes the lordship of others. One of the reasons, I suspect, why democracy works so brilliantly in some countries and is such a disaster in other countries is how people view authority. And it has to be said that democratic countries like the US, Britain – and certainly Australia – generally hold authority in barely-concealed contempt. As a generalization, we see the law as necessary for confining others, but an infringement of our own rights. Most of the time we obey either the law or company policy or school rules because they are convenient for us to live by, but when it’s inconvenient we immediately start resenting that authority. French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon summed up the logical extension of this: “Whoever puts their hand upon me to govern me, is a usurper, a tyrant and I declare them my enemy.” And that’s a pretty close fit for today.

What are we, with such an appalling attitude toward authority, going to make of a man who desires to be Lord over us? We call Jesus “Lord”. We call God the Father “Lord”. Have we thought about what we’re saying here?
Can we, in a society that intuitively rejects any authority placed over it… can we (not merely passively) describe Jesus as LORD – can we accept the terms of his lordship?

Calling Jesus “Lord” today doesn’t sound as strange as it did when Paul wrote to the Thessalonian church – but that’s only because we’ve made it a cliché and a bumper-sticker.


Because it’s not merely naming him. Matthew 7:21 – “Not everyone who calls me Lord-Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.
The reality of declaring Jesus’ lordship over our lives is no less shocking and confronting. It means that everything else comes… last.
Listen to what this man Jesus said: Luke 14:26; “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Spouses, children, mates, girlfriends, boyfriends, money, music, sex, fashion, literature, movies, shopping, driving… everything about how we live and who we are…
All collected, taken out, and laid at the feet of… our Lord.

Can we do that? Can we really do that? Can we hold those terms of his lordship in a world that makes exactly the same claims over us? At the end of the day, we have to make that choice. Being passive – and not choosing – is itself a choice.

But know this about the one who wants us to call him Lord. He is the best one to have as our ruler and our King and our Lord. Listen to his words, and weigh them against anything else that can claim our life. Jesus says of himself –
· “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me – for I am gentle, and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matt 11:28-30
· “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” John 6:35
· “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have life everlasting.” John 3:16

Can you think of a better one to have as your Lord?

Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honoured, just as it was with you – And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men – for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing – and will continue to do – the things that we command.
May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.

Amen

Artwork: detail taken from Caravaggio, Jesus & Thomas