The Pastor's Heart
Tom Shrader works through 1 Thessalonians 2–3, drawing out Paul's deep affection for the Thessalonian church as a model of what he calls a pastor's heart — a love for people that grieves their absence, rejoices in their growth, and labors in prayer for their maturity. Paul's acknowledgment that Satan thwarted his plans leads to a practical discussion of suffering: believers should expect hardship, resist the urge to demand answers, and keep their eyes fixed on eternity rather than circumstances. Shrader closes by challenging every believer to see themselves as ministers with a responsibility to ground others in the faith, encourage them through trials, and pray earnestly, frequently, and specifically for the people God has placed in their lives.
“You will have all that life brings under normal circumstances, but beyond that, you will have suffering associated with your faith.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Thessalonians
Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 2 min
Themes: pastoral care, suffering, prayer, perseverance, encouragement, love for others, ministry, eternity, pastor, mentor, feeling distant from your church, walking through hardship, new believer, small group leader, struggling with unanswered prayer, learning to minister to others
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20, 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, 1 Peter 5:8-9, John 8, Job 1–2, Job 42:5, Romans 8:28, Romans 12:12, 2 Corinthians 11:24-28, 2 Timothy 2:3, 3 John 1:4
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, pastoral ministry, sanctification, spiritual maturity, second coming, eschatology, intercessory prayer, spiritual warfare
Full Transcript
Series Introduction
I was talking to somebody this week who was on a business trip and had missed the last two Sundays. They asked, "How did we end up in 1 Thessalonians?" So let me remind you what we are doing. We are working our way through the book of Acts. As Paul goes to specific cities and writes letters back to the churches he has visited, we are going to study those letters. That is why I said, and I was not kidding at the very beginning, that this study of the book of Acts could literally take me through the rest of my career at East Valley Bible Church, because we will study all thirteen of the letters that Paul writes. As you know, some of those take a great deal of time to work through.
Paul writes back to the church in Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians, the first of the epistles he writes. We date it at about 51 AD. I love the recurring themes in this letter. There is the theme of suffering — we will see it today — and that is always coupled with the idea of perseverance. But over all of that there is this sense of joy and delight, because the future is the constant focus. Remember, we said all five chapters end with a reference to the second coming of Christ. Christ is coming again, and that is so clear and so important to this early church.
A Pastor's Heart
Today I think we see one of those things I have heard about since I have been in church, something I always wondered about: a man with a pastor's heart. The reason that is important to you is that God has given every person in this church a ministry, and that ministry makes you a minister. You are a servant, and you need to develop a heart for the people around you — a pastor's heart.
Paul writes almost like a father speaking of his children. You will get the sense of it today. He is so proud of the church at Thessalonica, and as we study this, we pray that if he were here today, he would be proud of East Valley Bible Church.
Longing and Separation
Here is what he says, picking this up in the context of Paul speaking to these people about their suffering and hardship: "But we, brethren, having been bereft of you for a short while." That word is the same word that gives us the English word *bereavement*. It means to leave or to lose someone at the point of death. The word itself, according to Webster, means to leave in a sad or lonely state. In a sense, Paul is saying, "We left you orphaned. We left you for a while in person, not in spirit. We were forced out." You remember those circumstances.
His heart is broken. He longs to see them. He is eager, with great desire, to see them face to face: "For we want to come to you. I, Paul, more than once, and yet Satan thwarted us." He is saying, "I have wanted to come. You know of my deep love. You know of my desire. You know of my passion for you, but Satan stopped me from coming to see you."
Verse 19 continues: "For who is our hope or joy or crown of exaltation? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus that is coming? For you are our glory and joy." Let me read those two verses from the New Living Translation: "After all, what gives us hope and joy? What is our proud reward and crown? It is you. Yes, you will bring us so much joy as we stand together before our Lord Jesus when He comes back. You are our pride and our joy."
Pride and Joy Like a Father's
As you listen and read these words today, as we work our way through 1 Thessalonians chapters 2 and 3, this just emanates with the love and the pride Paul has for these people, like a father. Today is baccalaureate day for Haley's class, and I already remember the same feelings we had two years ago when it was Sarah. At a moment like this, where you stand and see them, there is a clear mark in the sand — you look and see the passing from one time to another. What a great joy Haley is to her mom and dad. What a delight to have a girl like Haley. She has had a great role model in her sister Sarah.
Next Friday is graduation — seventy kids. Only one that really matters. There will be next to her a group of parents who each think it is that one, but it is not. That is the pride, that love you feel when you look at them and say, "They have got it. We have passed it on." And not us — God's grace did that. That is what drips all through this letter.
Somehow Paul has this reputation of being a cold, sterile man who does not care. Does this sound like someone who does not care? "You are our pride and our joy. I long to see you. I love you. I wanted to come, but there was opposition." In verse 2 he spoke of opposition from the governing authorities. In verse 14 he spoke of opposition from the religious authorities. But here, he names the ultimate opposition: Satan.
Two Extremes Regarding Satan
I fear that when we talk about Satan, we tend to fall into one of two extremes. On one side, there is the view that says not to worry about it. The last poll I saw showed that 80% of those who described themselves as born-again Christians said they did not believe Satan was a real power — that he is just some force out there, nothing to concern yourself with. It is like Sparky at an ASU game. You do not need to worry about him. He does pushups for every point scored; this year he did ten in one game. That is the one extreme.
Here is the other side of the coin, and this seems worse. Everything is Satan. Satan is here, Satan is there, Satan is behind this. I was speaking in a church once — and you can tell a great deal just by the way people talk and the way they introduce you — and the introduction went something like, "Well, Brother Tom is coming, and God's laid a powerful..."
Spiritual Opposition Is Real
We need a healthy understanding that there is a real person, a real force. Satan and his demons are real, and they are out to destroy you. He is not kidding around. It is not just a game. Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5:8: "Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world."
He is a roaring lion. If you are here today and you do not know Christ, Satan and his demons' deepest desire is to keep you away from Christ. But do not for a second think that because you have been converted and your heart has been changed and your life has been changed that the demons are done with you. Their deepest desire is to see you bogged down in sin, your testimony destroyed, and your life ruined, so you can be one more example the world points to and says, "If that's what Christians are like, I don't need it."
He is a roaring lion, a subtle serpent, an angel of light — that is how we see him. Jesus spoke to the Pharisees in John 8 and said, "You are of your father the devil. You want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks, he speaks a lie. It speaks from his own nature. He is a liar and the father of all lies." It is so important for us to understand that there is satanic and demonic opposition to you in your life.
There are two errors to avoid when thinking about this opposition. On one side, people dismiss Satan completely. On the other side, people blame everything on him — their own stupidity, their own failures, their own disobedience — and suddenly it is all Satan's fault. What we need is simply a healthy, grounded understanding of who he is and what he does.
Four Things to Remember About Spiritual Opposition
There are four important things to remember about this opposition. The first is that it is permitted by God. There is no more classic illustration of that than in Job chapters 1 and 2, where we see a dialogue between Satan and God. Satan says, in effect, "Look at Job — why wouldn't he believe in You? He has everything. Let me start taking some of that away." So God says, "Fine. Take that away. Take those children. Take that property." And each time, there is Job, faithful, not cursing God.
Then Satan says, "It's his health — take his health, just don't kill him." Along come those attacks. It gets so bad that finally his wife says, "Just curse God and die." Job says no. Job hangs in there. Everything that comes into your life, God permits — including opposition. Why would He do that? Because He uses it. Opposition, suffering, and hardship become tools that God uses to grow you spiritually.
Opposition is really the primary method He uses to train us. Oftentimes it is what He uses to get our attention. You are much more coachable in the midst of hardship than you are in the midst of prosperity. It seems as though God whispers in prosperity and screams to get our attention in hardship.
This suffering is also inevitable. The Scripture says, "When you encounter various trials" — not if. This is bound to happen. You will suffer. More on that in a moment.
Opposition Reveals True Christianity
The last point is that opposition reveals true Christianity. There is a great moment at the end of the book of Job. In Job 42:5, Job says, "I had heard about you before, but now have seen you with my own eyes." We often speak in these terms: this place is the classroom, and the world out there is the laboratory. Job is saying that when he was in the classroom, he heard about God, he studied, he attended, he learned. But once he had suffered, his eyes were open. He truly understood who God was in a way he had not before.
This connects to a personal story from a few years ago when my daughter Sarah was in a car accident. After a month or two, several people asked me what I had learned from that experience. I always had to qualify my answer by saying I did not mean to sound cocky or arrogant — but I did not learn anything new. People would say, "You must have learned how fragile life is." My response was that I had already known that. What happened to me — and I think to Susan, Haley, and Sarah as well — is that what we already knew became more real to us, and we grew deeper.
That is what suffering does. It reveals who you really are. Job said he did not think he would have chosen it, but he would not skip it for the world, because it was in the midst of that suffering that God used it to show him who He really was.
Paul's Unbearable Burden for the Church
In chapter three, Paul writes: "Therefore, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind in Athens alone and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith." Paul said that when he could handle it no longer, he had to know what was going on with the Thessalonians. It was almost unbearable to him — and notice, this was not the suffering, not the beatings, not the physical pain.
Paul's resume on suffering is laid out in 2 Corinthians 11 — you may want to make a note of that passage. If Bo knows baseball, Paul knows suffering.
The Weight of Pastoral Concern
"Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of the concern for all the churches." That is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:28. He had already described receiving thirty-nine lashes five times, being beaten with rods three times, being stoned, shipwrecked, and endangered by countless external forces. But he says that what was really hard was the concern for the churches. What was happening in Philippi? What was happening in Corinth? What was happening in the church at Thessalonica? There were no emails or faxes, no way to know. He was saying, I cannot stand this anymore — are you growing? Is the church surviving and thriving?
So Paul sent Timothy. His hope was that Timothy would strengthen them — the word means literally to build a support under something, to shore it up — and encourage them in their faith. Verse three continues: "So that no man may be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. For indeed, when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know."
Consider what Paul was doing. This church was only a few days, a week, perhaps no more than a month old when Paul was with them. And what was he talking to them about? Suffering. He was not giving them a gospel that says everything is going to be all right — health, wealth, prosperity, do not worry about it. He said, here is the deal: you come to Christ in repentance and faith, your salvation is secure, you are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. But while you are here, you will suffer.
You Will Suffer — Expect It
Verse four makes it plain: we told you it was going to happen. We kept telling you — you are going to suffer, there is going to be hardship — and it came to pass. Let me be the bearer of that same news to you. You too will suffer. You will have hardship. There will be some extent to which you will be persecuted for your faith.
You will have all that life brings under normal circumstances. You will have parents who die. You will have children who get sick. You will have jobs that go away. You will have all the normal hardship of life. But beyond that, you will have suffering associated with your faith.
How do you handle that? How do you react to suffering when it comes? Here is some practical advice. Number one: expect it. Do not be surprised by suffering when it comes, for we know it is inevitable. Do not think for a second that because you have come to Christ in repentance and faith, your suffering will go away. It will not only not go away — there will be more of it, because you have all of life's suffering plus persecution for your faith. So expect it.
Don't Try to Understand It All
Here is the second piece of advice: do not try to understand it all. There are men and women who are hurting and constantly trying to figure it out — always starting with the word "why." Why would God do this? Thinking about those questions is fine, but most often the answers are not available at the point you are considering them. Maybe after the fact you can look back and say, "I can see now what God did." But so often when you start with the "why" questions, you simply do not know. And you do not need to know. If you needed to know, God would tell you.
What do you do when you are uncertain? You always go back to the things you know are true. What do we know is true? Romans 8:28. In my Bible I have the four-letter word "fact" written beside it: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."
Now, if you are here this morning and you do not know Christ, that promise is not for you. All things are not going to work out well for you. Even if you get through this life, at the end you die separated from God forever, with no way out. If you do not know Christ, this life is as close to heaven as you are ever going to get. But the verse is not addressed to you — it is addressed to us. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good. So I do not know why things are happening the way they are happening. I just know that they are. And I know this: God did not blink. It may be beyond my control, but it is not beyond His. I do not need to know why. I do not need to waste a great many brain cells on that question.
Suffering Shrinks Your World
What is helpful to understand is that other people suffer too. Maybe you are in the middle of hardship — perhaps physical hardship — and there is a tendency to think nobody has ever really hurt like this, nobody has ever been this sick. This happens all the time. Every time Taylor gets sick, he cannot just get sick like a normal person. He always has to go to the doctor. He goes to the doctor more than a ninety-five-year-old heart patient. The last time he was sick, a couple of weeks ago, he came back and it was not a cold, not a flu, not a runny nose — it was bronchitis. And not just bronchitis. According to the doctor, it was the worst case of bronchitis in the history of the state of Arizona. No one had ever had bronchitis like that.
But is that not how we get? When you are suffering, have you noticed that your world shrinks? You become less and less concerned with what is going on out there, and more and more concerned with what is happening right here. All you can focus on are the things immediately around you.
Pray, Endure, and Give Thanks
Pray during this. Job prayed, and God restored him. Endure. Paul writes to the church at Rome in Romans 12:12, "Rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation." Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:3, "Suffer hardship with me." Endure.
Five more things quickly. This may sound strange: thank God for this. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." We have a tendency to thank Him for the healthy baby, but do you thank Him for the baby that is born with some sickness? Probably not. We thank Him when the deal closes, but do you thank Him when the deal blows up?
We thank Him when everything goes well, but do you stop and thank Him in the midst of hardship? God is doing something when you are suffering. Something is going on, and it is probably one of the most significant times God will use in your life to help you grow.
If I gave a microphone to Mike Sr. and passed it all the way through this place, and asked everyone to tell me the time when God most clearly demonstrated Himself to them and when they grew the most, almost always people would talk about a time of hardship. Almost always, that is when He works best. So thank Him for that. Rejoice in the midst of it.
A Caution Against Self-Pity
A little practical advice: do not become a self-declared martyr. Not a lot of people are interested in that. Do not suffer needlessly. Some people just love to have everything in chaos around them — they want to suffer. In some way, the more things are stirred up around them, the more the focus is on them, and when things are stirred up, they think they do best.
For those people, life is winning and losing, and if they do not have a battle to fight, they cannot win or lose. They cannot simply live. That is not what enduring hardship looks like.
Keeping an Eternal Perspective
All of life has to be compared to eternity. How do you get through suffering and hardship? Your eye must be on the eternal.
When I arrived this morning, a little before six, I was walking through the building, making sure everything was where it ought to be — though the truth is I do not really know where it ought to be, but I still like to walk around and think I do. I saw a man and asked how he was doing. He said, "Awful." I asked how everything was going. He said, "Terrible." I asked if there was anything I could do, and he said he did not think so. Then he said, "You can remember this: no matter how bad it gets, you know the end, don't you? It can only last a lifetime."
He has heard the teaching. No matter how bad your suffering gets, it can only last until death. That may sound like a long time to us, but Paul says to take these next fifty years and weigh them against eternity. Paul says he cannot compare the two — he takes the suffering and hardship of this life and puts it on one side of the scale, then puts God's eternal weight of glory on the other side, and the scale simply drops. He cannot compare these two things.
That is how we are to live. That is not merely how we survive — that is how we grow. We are continually looking forward, and that is why all five of these chapters written to a church that understands suffering end with the reality that Christ is coming again. Keep the end fresh in your mind.
Timothy's Return and the Good Report
Paul continues in verse 5: "For this reason, when I could endure it no longer." It is the second time he has used that phrase. He said he could not stand it anymore and did not know what was happening to them. So in verse 6, he writes, "Now I sent Timothy to you."
Now Timothy has come back. I believe this return is the occasion for the writing of this letter — Timothy is back with his reconnaissance report, and Paul writes to the Thessalonians in response. Paul writes, "He came back to us, and he has brought us good news of your faith and love, that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us, just as we long to see you."
The Joy of a Pastor's Heart
There is a verse we rarely mention because it is tucked away in a little book we rarely read. 3 John 1:4 says, "I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth." That is a great verse, and it is deeply real.
When I talk to staff — when I talk to Walter, Jim, Les, Gary, small group leaders, Tim, or Jamie — there is always a moment in the conversation where I can see them light up. It happens when I ask, "What is God doing in the life of the students? What is God doing in the life of the men? What is God doing in the women's lives?" A pastor's heart is simply filled with joy when he sees his children in the faith grow.
I know how hard summer camp is. It is very hard for me. But having now done two of them, I know that again and again during those days I will see God work in students' lives, and I would not trade that for the world. There is nothing better than sitting down with Harper and asking him which student in his small groups has really grown and might be a leader someday — and watching his whole manner change as he lights up and begins to tell me about this young man who is now a career person ready to give.
The Report That Lit Paul Up
Paul says that when Timothy came back with his report, it lit him up. There was nothing better than what Timothy said. The church was excited, and that excitement was contagious.
Timothy's assignment had three components that are worth examining, because these three points are what you should see in your own ministry. First, Timothy was used by God to ground these people in their faith. Second, he was there to encourage them. Third, he became Paul's eyes and ears — that is why Paul sent him.
Talking to a man not long ago, it was a frustrating conversation. He was whining and moaning and groaning, saying nothing was going on spiritually. Finally, he said something that set the conversation off: "I'm just a baby Christian." When asked how long he had been a Christian, he said seven years. Seven years is not a baby Christian.
If there is nothing happening in your life spiritually, it is your fault — no one else's. You are either ignorant or stupid, and here is what we have to hope: we hope you are ignorant, because you cannot get off stupid. Stupid is just stuck. But ignorance is the more likely problem. You may have a Ph.D. in the world and still understand theology no further than "Jesus Loves Me."
Timothy brought the truths of the faith to the church at Thessalonica, just as you need to bring those truths to the ministry God has given you. He was also there to encourage them — to say, hang in there, do not be surprised by suffering, and do not think God has missed it.
Comforted Through Their Faith
Now Timothy is back, and Paul writes: *"For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction, we were comforted about you through your faith, for we really live if we stand firm in the Lord."* The phrase "stand firm" is a picture of an army that does not waver after attack after attack from an enemy that keeps coming.
Paul continues: *"For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God for your account, as we night and day keep praying most earnestly, that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith?"* He says, here is our prayer — we pray night and day, we pray earnestly, we want to see your face, we want to be with you, and we want to make you complete by continuing to teach you these things.
What Paul's Prayer Life Teaches Us
Paul is not teaching a lesson on prayer here, but he sure tells us a great deal about it. Look at how he prays. He prays earnestly and fervently. He prays frequently, night and day — working on a tent, working with leather, with his lips moving as he prays for the church at Thessalonica. And he prays specifically: "We want to see you again."
Is that how you pray? Too often prayer sounds like this: "Father, I'm praying. You know the day. It's a hard day. Help us out. Use this food to nourish our body. Amen." Compare that to praying the way you actually talk to someone — "Father, we're here, we need Your help, we know who You are, that's why we worship You, we praise You for what You've done." Night and day, that becomes a constant attitude.
Some of us avoid praying specifically because we are afraid that if God does not do what we ask, it becomes a black mark against Him. He can handle it. Pray specifically. A perfect example is Dave Moore. For years, the prayer has been direct and clear: "Father, heal him." Every time Dave's name is mentioned in prayer, it is, "God, heal this man. He has done so much for so many. Heal him." And immediately the prayer comes back around: "However, if that is not Your will, use his sickness for Your honor and glory."
And God does. People often say they do not know how they could go through what Dave Moore goes through. Yet day after day, he is faithfully there — at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning when someone is in surgery, there in the middle of the day when someone is sick, there when a marriage is in trouble. Hurting himself, sometimes barely able to function, God gives him extra strength and grace in those situations.
That is the model: pray earnestly, pray frequently, pray specifically.
A Closing Prayer for the Church
Paul closes the chapter with prayer: *"Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct His way to you. May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all men."* He is asking God to cause these people to love one another. Real love for Christ changes a heart, and that changed heart will produce love not only within the church but for all men.
He continues: *"just as we also do for you, so that He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints."*
Work Like It Depends on You, Know That It Depends on God
When Paul looks at the church at Thessalonica, he sees work — the work of faith, the labor of love, the steadfastness of hope. He prays day and night. He labors. He shares. He sends Timothy to ground them in the faith, to encourage them, and to bring back a report. He works and works and works. But underneath all of that effort is a clear understanding: it is all about God, not about us.
We work like it depends on us, but we know it really does not. We share the faith. And if there is one thing that is important to the life of this church, it is not just understanding the doctrine.
A Heart for the Lost
It is important to understand that the gospel has been entrusted to us to share with men and women who are lost — people God brings into your life at work, in the neighborhood, wherever. We share the faith, but God wins the soul. We pray for healing, but if there is to be one, God heals them.
Let me end the way I started, with the question: do you have a pastor's heart? I know the staff does. I know the elders do. How about you? Do you understand that God has given you the great privilege and responsibility of being His ambassadors to this world? How exciting is it to think that God is doing powerful things in the world and you can be a part of it?
At the core of it, you have to love people. That was his prayer, and we will close with the same prayer: Father, we pray that You would cause an increase of love in our hearts for You, for Your Son, for Your people, for Your Word, and for lost men and women. God, let us be a church like the church at Thessalonica — filled with love because they knew the Savior and understood that was not the end, that was the beginning. God, let us execute to the end of our lives the ministry You have given us, help people grow in their faith, and be a source of encouragement to them. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.