Enjoying God's Mission

If you are new or relatively new here, I'll let you know we've been doing a short series on the concept of joy — the Christian's joy. The catalyst for it, I introduced a couple weeks ago with this idea that we are familiar with the goal of the Christian life being glorifying God. But one of the things we often refer to as a primary aim of the Christian life is glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. And that "enjoying Him forever" often lives in the shadow of "glorifying God." So we've been talking about what it means for the Christian to enjoy God.

In the first message of that series, that's exactly what we addressed — enjoying God — really wanting you to understand that you can get out of bed in the morning, put your feet on the ground, and experience the pure joy of the Lord. But enjoying God requires a shift in what you instinctively prioritize in your life. In that message, we talked about a need to change what we desire, a need to shift the things we tend to hold on to, and that we need to adjust what we do. In doing that, I endeavored to show that glorifying God and enjoying Him are really intertwined — those things cannot be separated. They're interconnected.

Last week we looked at the idea of enjoying God's good gifts — that enjoying God's gifts really is a beautiful act of worship to Him. So it is a way in which we glorify Him. We talked about the fact that God has clearly made the world good — scripture establishes that — but that there is a danger in God's good gifts, and that is we are tempted to either idolize them or abuse them. And we talked about how we glorify God and enjoy Him by enjoying His good gifts.

There's one more component I want to focus on as we think about this idea of enjoying God, glorifying God and enjoying Him — and that is enjoying God's mission. Or we might put it this way: enjoying obeying God.

Matthew 28:19-20 — very familiar verses. If you've been in the church for any period of time, you've no doubt been exposed to these. It's what we often refer to as the Great Commission. This is where Christ, just shortly prior to His ascension into heaven, gives instructions to His disciples about what they're supposed to do when He leaves.

If you want to turn to Matthew 28, I'd like you to glance at verse 16. Notice that Matthew tells us, "Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them." This would be the remainder of the twelve, Judas having now hung himself over his guilt for betraying Christ and selling Him for thirty pieces of silver. We have eleven of Jesus' twelve disciples there with Him during this event.

When we come to the Great Commission in verses 19 and 20, never in the church's history has the church understood that the Great Commission only applied to those eleven men who were there — that it was limited to them, instructions exclusively designed for them. All you have to do is keep reading the New Testament and you'll realize that even before the Bible is completed, Jesus' disciples — and indeed their disciples — understood this was a calling Christ had placed on every believer's life. The Great Commission is for all Christians.

In verses 19 and 20, Jesus says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

I emphasize that this Great Commission is for all believers because there exists, even to this day, a strange misunderstanding about what it means to be a Christian — that there are two kinds of Christians. There's your base-model Christian, basic John and Jane Doe Christian — people who believe the gospel is true but carry on pretty much the same way they lived before they came to that belief. They're Christians in confession only. And then there's this understanding of a second-tier, elite-level Christian known as a "disciple." So you've got your base-model Christians, and then you've got your fully-optioned disciples — leather seats, heated steering wheel, all that stuff. These are the Christians who take their faith to the next level and actually seek to grow closer to Christ and obey His word.

In other words, people might say all disciples are Christians, but not all Christians are disciples. Let me assure you, that is 100% wrong. There's only one kind of Christian. All Christians are disciples of Christ. It's just a matter of how well you are being a disciple of Christ — how closely you are following Him, how seriously you are taking His commands.

If there were these two layers of Christians, then when Jesus told His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples, what He was essentially telling them is: go and find the people who are already Christians and help them go to the next level. That doesn't make any sense at all — that He would leave His eleven closest men and say, "There are all these Christians out there, but they need to take it to the next level, and I want you to go find them and help them make that step." It's nonsense.

To go and make disciples is to do the work of evangelism. It is to go and tell people the good news of salvation by grace through faith in Christ, and to call on them to respond to that message in faith, repentance, and obedience. That's what it means to go and make disciples.

But that begs the question — what is a disciple? Most fundamentally, the term means "learner," someone who learns. Typically, a disciple would have followed a rabbi, seeking to be a student of his and to learn from his teachings.

Here's some examples from scripture that underline this idea that a disciple is a learner, and that Jesus would have us learn from Him — that is, seek to understand His teaching, and then, as the Great Commission challenges us, obey that teaching and live it out. John 8:31-32 says, "Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, 'If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" There's an idea of abiding in His word — they're learning, discovering this truth, and this truth is setting them free. That's the true disciple.

Or Matthew 11:28-29. Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And then, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Come and learn from me.

Sometimes we call disciples "followers." Other times we simply call them "Christians." These are people whose hearts have been transformed by the gospel, who desire to know the truth, to be transformed by it, and to live out its practices in their daily lives. This is what it means to be a disciple. Mark Dever says regularly that everything is discipleship.

So if we take that concept into the Great Commission: going and making disciples is evangelism. Baptizing is disciple identification — public declaration that they are disciples of Christ. And teaching them to observe everything Christ commanded is helping one another mature and develop as disciples of Christ.

So, thinking about enjoying God, and now we're at this idea of enjoying God's mission, or enjoying obeying God — the Great Commission is the starting point, but I want to take you to a book of the Bible that helps us see what this looks like on the ground. What does it look like where we see people actually living it out, being obedient to the Great Commission and finding nothing but pure joy in it? In my mind, there's really no better place to go than the book of 1 Thessalonians.

In 1 Thessalonians, we see that a life obedient to Christ — specifically a life obeying the Great Commission — is one of pure joy. It is a life of rejoicing. We're going to spend the rest of our time picking at pieces in this book — I might even occasionally jump over to 2 Thessalonians. What we're going to see is three things in this idea of enjoying obeying God: a joy in doing, a joy in seeing, and a joy in experiencing.

Let's look at the joy of doing first. This book is great proof that discipleship is not just a matter for elite Christians — the "super followers" of Jesus, not just the everyday, run-of-the-mill Christians. The proof is in the two sides of this letter. On one side you've got the Apostle Paul, accompanied by Timothy and Silas, writing this to them. With the Apostle Paul, we might say, well, that's as elite as it gets — Paul, Peter, James, John — those are the top dogs. So you've got your elite. But the Thessalonians — they're barely Christians. This is a new church, a young church.

Even when Paul had been there, he was only there for a short time — he basically got run out of town by Jews who opposed his message and were stirring up riots, and he had to flee lest he be arrested and perhaps even executed. So the time he'd been able to invest in the Thessalonians was very short, even compared to other churches on his missionary journeys, where he'd stayed for months or even a couple of years. Here he's there for maybe a few weeks at most.

So we've got a relatively new church with not a lot of exposure to Paul's teaching, and what we see in this letter is that they are thriving. Their love and devotion for God and His word is basically exploding out of them into the world. Some people have described the Thessalonians as an example of the model church. Despite Paul's short stay and the newness of their faith, they jump into this Christian thing, into discipleship, with both feet — practically glowing with the joy of their newfound faith.

Let's look at an example in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. "Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace." Then: "We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything, for they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come."

They received the gospel with joy — the joy of the Holy Spirit — and they lived it out. They were obedient to the Great Commission. They imitated the character and conduct of Paul, Silas, and Timothy, the men they had learned it from. And then they evangelized — they went out and made other disciples. Paul says the word of the Lord sounded forth from them, and it had a ripple effect, not just in Thessalonica but in the surrounding cities, and then the cities surrounding those. People could not believe how passionate the Thessalonians were about the gospel, about their transformation. Paul says it's almost as if they don't even need to go to these places, because the Thessalonians' testimony alone had saturated the surrounding area so that people already knew what the gospel was and what effect it had had on their lives. This pure joy, this delight — I can't think of anything like it that I've ever experienced.

In 2 Thessalonians, written to this same church not long after 1 Thessalonians, we see that Paul is still experiencing the full joy of their obedience to Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 3, he says: "Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one."

Paul's asking for prayer — that God would continue to bless his evangelistic efforts, go before him, prepare people's hearts, and protect him from strong opposition to the gospel. So in these two letters, we see the new believers loving God, overwhelmed by the joy of the Holy Spirit so that they can't help but go out and be obedient to the Great Commission. And we see the senior, elite Christian — the Apostle Paul — still desiring, even in the midst of persecution and opposition, nothing more than to go into cities and tell them about Jesus. He doesn't want to hunker down and rest and take it easy. He wants to be in the thick of it. Both the mature and the immature, the older and younger Christians, share this desire to be obedient to their Lord and Savior — and it is exhilarating to them. It's enlivening. It's nothing other than joy.

It's not a duty they have to endure — not like the solar-panel salesman who has to go canvas another neighborhood. They're not being robbed of the fun they had as unbelievers, wishing they could get back to that. It's not something they'll eventually get around to. They just can't help but do it. As disciples of Jesus Christ, they recognize they don't deserve to be a part of any of this. This is a privilege — something they didn't earn, could never merit. To be part of God's family, adopted into His kingdom, entrusted with His kingdom work here on earth, was something they would never have dreamed up for themselves. And yet God has given it to them, and it's nothing but joy — the joy of being able to do it.

In Romans chapter 5, Paul says, "Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings" — a weird thing to say — "knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

That's something else that comes out in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. They're joyful, they're doing it, but they are oppressed, afflicted. There are people in Thessalonica who don't like it and are coming after them — people who ran Paul out of town. Paul knows: if I go into another city, I may run up against people who can't stand the gospel, who hate the idea of Jesus being resurrected, of Him being Messiah, of Him being Savior — and because they hate Him, they'll hate the messenger. So Paul says in Romans, we rejoice in suffering — we rejoice that we get to do this even though we're suffering, because suffering has benefits. It produces patience, endurance, character, hope. James says, "Consider it all joy when you experience trials of many kinds."

We see this lived out in Acts chapter 5, where Peter, James, and John have been preaching about Jesus Christ on the Temple Mount, and the religious leaders grab them off the street. They want to execute them, but instead they beat them and let them go. Acts 5:41 says, "They left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for His name." They were thrilled that they got beaten for preaching Christ — that God would count them worthy enough to endure suffering for His name. How foreign is that to the way we think? Pretty foreign. We'll do almost anything just to keep somebody from getting a little ruffled at what we have to say — we'll move to another state if we have to.

So for the Thessalonians and for the Apostle Paul, there was a joy in going out and being obedient to Christ — a joy of doing.

There's also a joy of seeing in 1 Thessalonians — specifically, getting to see other people saved, rescued from hell and death and damnation, and getting to see them grow in their faith. This was so exhilarating, so exciting, that it filled people with joy. This comes out in Paul's language at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians, where he's essentially saying, "I can't help but give thanks to God for you all the time. Every time I pray, I can't help but thank God that He saved you and that your lives have been so transformed that you're out there sharing your faith." Paul says God's clearly chosen them, and the proof is that the gospel came through Paul and they received it with joy.

In Luke 15, Luke records three parables of Jesus, all sharing the same theme: something that was lost is found. There's the parable of the lost sheep — a shepherd with a flock of a hundred, and one goes missing. When it's found, the owner calls his friends together and rejoices. There's the parable of the lost coin — a woman with ten silver coins loses one, tears her house apart looking for it, and rejoices — she's ecstatic — when she finds it. And then the most famous, the parable of the lost son — the prodigal son, rash and wasteful, but a son nonetheless. He demands his inheritance, goes out into the world, wastes it all on selfish living. When he hits absolute rock bottom, hoping his father might let him be a servant in the household, he returns, and the father runs to meet him, embraces him, and throws a party celebrating that this lost son is found.

In each of these stories, the lost being found represents repentance and turning to Christ for salvation. And in each, the celebration seems excessive, over the top, given what was actually lost compared to what remained. But this is more than relief or satisfaction at finding what was lost — this is the height of ecstasy, pure bliss and joy. Jesus elsewhere comments that the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents — that in the throne room of heaven, a place of pure joy and delight, there is an ecstatic celebration when a sinner comes to faith.

In 2 Thessalonians 1:2-4, we read: "Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring."

Even in the face of persecution and affliction, they were making real strides in spiritual maturity. Paul says, in effect, "Wherever I go, I love telling people about you guys. I love sharing your testimony. I love telling the world how God has rescued and saved you, and how your lives are not only being transformed but are being used to impact others around you. I just love seeing what God is doing in your life."

In 3 John, the apostle John says, "I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth." And, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." No greater joy than seeing God work in someone's life, seeing their life transformed, seeing them live out their faith.

Do you experience that kind of joy when you hear someone give their life to Christ? When you hear of someone repenting and trusting Christ for salvation? Do you have that joy when you see someone maturing in their faith, becoming more Christ-like, more invested in obedience to Christ? Or do you hear that and just think, "Well, that's nice, that's good for them" — detached from any emotion? If so, you're really depriving yourself of one of the great joys God has provided the Christian church: the joy of seeing other people saved and seeing them grow in their faith. These are experiences that Christians living in isolation don't get to enjoy — Christians who have to live in hiding, or in places diametrically opposed to everything they believe, who have to live in silence. We often take these realities for granted because they're right in front of us all the time. This is one of the great joys God has given His church — the joy of seeing other people come to know Him and grow in their faith. Learn to experience that joy and let it resonate in you.

There's a third joy that comes with obeying Christ — the joy of experiencing. Look at 1 Thessalonians 3:6-10. Paul says: "Now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love, and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you — for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God? And we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face, and supply what is lacking in your faith."

There's so much to be excited about here — a strong faith, a genuine affection between the Thessalonians and Paul, the hope of a reunion. But what rises to the top as the great joy is that the Thessalonians are not wallowing in spiritual mediocrity. They are not what we often call lukewarm Christians, like the church of Laodicea in Revelation — neither hot nor cold. Paul and the Thessalonian Christians experience the simple joy of being called to be Jesus' ambassadors here on earth. They're in this together, both getting to experience the joy of being Christ's disciples. The opportunity to participate in the Great Commission, and the benefit that comes from it, is reason for rejoicing. Paul is genuinely excited — he can't wait to see them. That's why he sent Timothy, and now Timothy has come back with good news about their faith. They haven't just gotten their ticket to heaven stamped and settled into doing the same old stuff — they literally can't help but live this out.

Here's some other examples of the joy of experiencing the Christian life — the joy of experiencing what it means to obey Christ in this world. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples — a kind of trial mission for these fledgling disciples. Luke 10:17-20 says, "The seventy-two returned with joy" — they got to go out and do it, to experience it, to see what it's like to be obedient to Christ — "saying, 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.' And he said to them, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.'" They got to do it, and they were excited about it. And Jesus says, yes, that's wonderful — but there's something even better: your names are written in heaven, eternal life, you get to dwell with me forever. Joy upon joy.

In Acts 8:39 — this is Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch. After Philip explains that Isaiah 53, the passage about the suffering servant, was prophesying the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, who would suffer and die for sinners, the eunuch asks to be baptized. Acts 8:39 says, "When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing." He was saved, and he gets to be part of Christ's kingdom work — the joy of salvation, the joy of experiencing the saving work of Christ.

In Acts 13:48-52: "And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."

So again, the joy of salvation comes through in all three of these illustrations, along with the joy of the disciples experiencing the work of the Great Commission. And there's another common theme: persecution and opposition to the message, yet they rejoice that they get to experience what it's like to be saved and to obey their Savior.

So much of our reluctance to be obedient to Christ — to do the things He's called us to do — grows out of either complacency or fear. Either we like the way our life is right now and don't want it to change (maybe our life isn't even that great, but we worry obedience will make it worse), or we fear the response of friends, the way our neighbors will look at us, what strangers will say about us if we live and talk boldly like true believers of Christ. It's strange that those two things — complacency and fear — are what derail us, when so often in scripture we see people rejoicing at doing, rejoicing at salvation, rejoicing at seeing others saved and mature, rejoicing at being able to experience what it's like to live for Christ in this world. And what comes out again and again is that all that joy so often comes in the midst of a whole lot of people who aren't happy about it. They're being persecuted, chased, thrown out of town, antagonized, afflicted — and none of that diminished their joy.

We need to understand — and this is where I think we get tripped up — that the joy of obedience doesn't mean this is always going to be easy, or that it happens instantly or automatically, like a switch flips and everything's wonderful and roses and nothing's bad. No — get used to that word "affliction." Both Paul and the Thessalonians, and so many other disciples, experienced it.

Also understand, I'm not suggesting the Thessalonians were perfect. Reading these letters, it's clear there was still a lot of maturing they needed to do. They needed serious correction for idleness. They had to be reprimanded for sexual immorality. Some were confused about Jesus' second coming and what would happen to those who had died, and the last half of 1 Thessalonians 5 is full of very explicit, practical instructions for Christ-like living. They still needed help. We're not talking about perfect Christians — but Christians who can experience the joy of obeying Christ even in the midst of persecution, nonetheless.

Come to terms with the fact that life growing in Christ is a process. You will experience hardships and setbacks, but you can fully enjoy everything that goes along with it. It's part of one of God's great gifts, and enjoying that is one of the many ways we glorify Him.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank You for the powerful testimony of the Apostle Paul. We thank You for these Thessalonian Christians. We also thank You for all the many other examples peppered throughout the New Testament of people who do what You command and find joy in it — people who look at others growing and maturing around them and find joy in it, people who experience what it's like to be obedient and find joy in it. May You help us understand that this is possible for us as well. We don't belong or deserve to belong in Your kingdom, and yet You have chosen us. You have redeemed us by the blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ. You have called us into Your family, You've adopted us — and it's not because of any good works or merit we could offer You, but simply by Your grace. May You help us see that one of the great joys You have given us is the joy of obedience — the joy of going out and doing what You have commanded, being evangelists, helping people grow in their faith, helping people have the courage to identify themselves publicly as Christians, and being excited about the way Your Spirit works in the lives of people. May You help us get over our fear and get past our complacency and see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us. We ask this in Your name.