2 Thessalonians 1:4-5 “Among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. All this is evidence that God’s judgement is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.”

The Christians who lived in the city of Thessalonica were severely persecuted people. Paul spent only three weeks in this city before those who opposed his teaching started a riot. He was forced to escape the city in the middle of the night.

After he left, the attacks on this little group of new Christians did not stop. Their former friends at the synagogue and their Gentile neighbors spread bad reports about them. They were no longer an accepted part of the community. Someone even forged Paul’s name on letters that contradicted Christian teaching and sent them to the church to deceive them.

Paul wrote them now not just because he felt sorry for them, but because he recognized the temptation they must feel. The same kind of temptation faces us in a world that rejects much of what we believe. One way or another we are tempted to deny our faith so that others will accept us. We become guilty of this a number of different ways.

Sometimes we just keep quiet about what we believe. We bite our lip and hold our tongue when the truth is under attack. Then others may think we agree with them. Maybe we find acceptance, but we are denying others the chance to know God’s truth, whether they accept it or not. Sometimes peer pressure may even lead us to say we agree with things we do not.

Ultimately, Paul was concerned that some Thessalonian Christians might leave and go back to the synagogue. What does Jesus say about this? “Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

There is a second temptation that confronts us when people persecute us. We know that God is in control of all things. He may not approve of the sinful things someone else does to us. But he didn’t stop them, either. Is God’s judgment right, his decision to let this happen? Somewhere in every complaint we make we are questioning his judgment. We are opposing his ideas with our own. Our faith is slipping toward doubt. Paul was concerned that the Thessalonians not let their present persecution lead them to conclude, “The Lord doesn’t know what he is doing.”

But so far these Christians were holding their own. Their faith was intact, even growing. Persecutions can drive us more and more to God’s grace. The trials themselves are not a means of grace, but God uses them to lead us back to the gospel. Enduring them shows us that the message of Christ crucified for our sins, the promise of life God holds out in the resurrection, the forgiveness and love we find in the gospel is no dead theological theory. These have the power to change us and sustain us even when our beliefs come under attack.

The Apostle Peter wrote another group about their trials, “These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7). That is what was happening to the Thessalonians. The testing of their faith made them cling to God’s promises that much more. As a result, their faith was stronger, their Christian witness brighter, and their eternal future more secure.

The testing of our faith is a kind of discipline. It makes us better, and stronger, but it is never something we enjoy. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful” (Hebrews 12:11). But like God’s people of the past, we can be confident that it still produces “a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”