Faith Under Pressure // Guest Speaker Damien Desena

Grateful for your friendship over the years.

Thank you.

I have another friend, or I had another friend back when I lived in LA who was from Costa Rica.

And he was really into martial arts.

He trained in Costa Rica.

And he would tell me about how he would train and some of his um experiences with his uh what do you call them?

It's like a sensei.

Any martial artists in the room?

What do you call your trainers?

Nobody.

Okay.

No safety team recruitment in this.

Oh, right here?

Did I miss somebody?

Okay.

Um, well, he would call their lead, his his lead guy, his mentor, uh, I think it's sensei, and basically he would tell me that they would bring him and the other students out into the jungle and they would have to punch the trees.

Um, so they would go out and they would punch the trees and they would kick the trees, and I'd be like, What are you like?

This guy is crazy.

I don't know what he's talking about.

Um, and he would show me like his hands, and one hand was like 40% bigger than the other hand.

And he would say they would do this thing called um uh body conditioning or bone hardening, is sometimes it's called.

And it was made popular through Muay Thai.

Bruce Lee did it, and essentially what it is is through constant impacts, uh your body begins to adapt and your bone density increases, your muscles can take impacts a little bit easier.

And we there's a similar science behind strength training.

For those of us who have ever gone to the gym and you kind of get sore, what's happening there are these strategic injuries, these little tiny tears in your muscles that produce growth and recovery.

And in that growth and recovery, I don't know all the science, but essentially you become stronger.

And how do you know when you become stronger?

Well, you gotta pick something up that's heavier than you've ever picked up before, right?

So if you're going to the gym and you you can't increase your weight, then maybe I don't know, go for a walk instead because it's not working.

And so you know you're getting stronger because you can put more pressure on your body.

And I think it's it's a cool thing that God gives us the picture of his body as being the church.

The church is the local church, is the body of Christ on this earth.

And I think just like a body trains and becomes resistant to pressure, God does that with his church.

And it happens from the inside out.

And sometimes we don't realize, we don't see how strong God is making the church until opposition comes our way, until there's pressure, until there's hardship.

And that's what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about a church in a city called Thessalonica.

And in Acts chapter 17, we read about the Apostle Paul.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

The Apostle Paul was somebody who would travel around in the early days, we read about him in the Bible, with a team, and they would start new churches all around the Roman Empire.

And they come to this city in Acts chapter 17 called Thessalonica.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

And Thessalonica was unique in the sense that it was much larger than many of the towns uh in that time.

It was extremely diverse because the Roman Empire was extremely diverse.

They didn't annihilate cultures as they conquered, they would absorb cultures and they would retain everybody's religion and philosophical beliefs.

And so the mindset there was like more the merrier in terms of different belief systems.

And Paul came in and preached Jesus, they didn't like that.

Because Jesus is exclusive.

The message of Jesus is that we believe in him and we trust in him, therefore we don't believe in any other gods or any other ways of salvation, any other ways to God.

And they didn't like that.

And what happened was in Acts chapter 17, we read that Paul and his teammate Silas, they were chased out of Thessalonica just in about three weeks.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

And so in three weeks, Paul was there to share the message of Jesus.

And there was a lot of people who believed in Jesus during that time, but they didn't have a lot of time to become grounded, to really understand the depths of their faith.

And so Paul was concerned.

And so what Paul does is he sends Timothy back and to just to kind of check, like, hey, Timothy, go check on the church in Thessalonica.

And Timothy goes and he kind of feels things out, and what he sees is that God had done a great work, and he returns back to Paul and says, Hey, Paul, God did something great.

The church is still there, the church is still standing strong.

And so Paul, he didn't just feel relieved, but he was overwhelmed with gratitude.

And he wrote a letter to the church in Thessalonica, and that's the letter that we're going to be in today, 1 Thessalonians.

And God taught Paul a valuable lesson that we see kind of go through many of the many of the other letters that he writes to other churches.

Even though Paul had to leave early, even though circumstances weren't perfect, God didn't leave.

The work of God didn't stop.

So Paul got chased out, but God didn't get chased out of the city.

And when pressure came, the strength that God built inside of that church showed.

Let's read together 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

1 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

We're gonna read the first five verses and get started.

1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

1 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We always thank God for all of you.

This is the gratitude coming out.

We always thank God for all of you, making mention of you constantly in our prayers.

We recall in the presence of our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor motivated by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers and sisters, love by God that He has chosen you, because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance.

We're gonna spend a lot of time this morning in verse three breaking down the work produced by faith, the labor motivated by love, and the endurance inspired by hope in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray together and then we'll start.

God, thank you so much again just for your goodness and grace.

Thank you for this time that we could spend opening up your word and learning.

Lord, I pray that your spirit would move and work, would lead and guide.

I pray that you would strengthen us as your people.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Here's the core thought I want you, I want to I want you to take with you.

If you're taking notes today, um, write this down.

If you're not taking notes, write this down.

Okay.

And here it is: God equips his people to stay faithful under pressure.

God equips his people to stay faithful under pressure.

And Paul here in verse 3, he highlights three visible realities that prove God is equipping them.

And so this is the evidence of God's work.

Now, before I get into the first one, work produced by faith, I just want to make this note that the Thessalonians were not perfect.

Sometimes when we get an encur we read an encouraging passage in scripture, we read something positive, we're like, wow, those people must have been on it.

Like they had it figured out.

That's awesome.

I need to strive to be like them.

But that is not the story here.

The Thessalonians had some issues.

And to prove it, I'll spill the tea on them right now, okay?

They had some problems.

In fact, Paul had to uh defend his credibility at some point because it it seems we can in we can get an inference that that they probably were bad mouthing him.

There probably was some mistrust among the people.

They didn't really know him that much.

He was only there for three weeks.

And so he had to defend his credibility.

They had some character issues.

There seems like there was some gossip happening.

They struggled with sexual immorality.

Paul takes some time to teach and correct in this area later on in this book.

They also had some doctrinal issues.

Okay?

They had some doc that's like that is like the thing you're not supposed to ever have as a Christian, right?

They had some doctrinal issues.

They didn't understand some of the stuff, they were taking it out of context, they were they were doing some things they shouldn't have been doing because they believed wrongly.

And Paul had to correct those wrong beliefs.

And so these are people who had some issues.

They had doctrinal errors, they had moral failings, and they had some character issues.

But how does Paul introduce the letter?

He doesn't introduce it with correction, he introduces it with gratitude.

He doesn't say, Hey, let me let me point out all these problems and I'm gonna fix them real quick for you.

He says, No, no, no, I'm so grateful for the work that God is doing in your life.

And just as a side note, just as a bonus today, we can still be happy.

We can be happy about God's work in someone else's life, even though we see there's still work to be done.

And to make it personal, we can still be happy about God's work in our life, even though we see there's still work to be done.

And what I don't want today is for the enemy to distract us, for the enemy to discourage us and say, well, what's being described today is not me.

That's not me because I have this problem and I have that problem and I have that issue and I have this misunderstanding or this insecurity about this thing.

Look, God is doing a work in you.

If you are his child, if you are a Christian in the room today, God is working in you.

He has worked in you, he is working in you, and will continue to work in you.

And I hope that as we go through this, we're able to identify some of the work he's doing in you and in this church.

And so let's look together at the work produced by faith.

In verse number three, what does this mean?

Work produced by faith?

Well, the word for work is referring to good deeds.

Good deeds.

These are not good deeds that are lived out to earn our faith, they're good deeds that are produced by our faith.

Faith isn't just belief, it is allegiance that expresses itself in action, especially in a culture that pressures silence or compromise.

The Thessalonians would have definitely been in a culture like this, and I think there's a lot of parallels with our culture today, that wants to accept everything.

There's a plurality of thought, and to stand firm on a truth, especially the truth of scripture, can sometimes cause some uncomfortable situations, can cause some misunderstanding, can cause some pressure for us to be silenced or to compromise our belief.

And let me encourage you with this.

There's three ways that Paul tries to strengthen their faith.

And he he sends Timothy.

So faith, faith grows best in relationship, not isolation.

He sends Timothy in chapter three to encourage them, to kind of figure out what's going on and to encourage them.

Faith grows best in relationship, not isolation.

And secondly, faith grows when believers remember who started the work.

Faith grows when believers remember who started the work.

In verse number four, it says, We know, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that He has chosen you.

The work of God in our lives didn't start with us.

We did not convince God to save us, to come up with the plan of salvation, to die on the cross, to the whole resurrection, all the stuff.

That wasn't our idea.

That started in his heart.

He loved us first, he initiated the work of salvation first, and he will finish it till the end.

When we remember who started the work, our faith will grow.

Faith grows when God's word is trusted.

In chapter 2, verse 13, Paul says, Hey, I came and I preached the word of God to you.

But you didn't receive it as my message, you received it as God's word.

And so when God's word is trusted, faith grows.

Feelings are unreliable, y'all.

How many of you know that?

Come on, and breakups happen, things happen.

Kids say mean things to you as parents.

Poor parents.

Poor us.

I have two boys and one little baby.

She can't talk yet.

But all she does say is, Mama.

Come on, guys.

Get it together.

Dada.

Feelings are unreliable.

Circumstances can get confusing.

Leaders can even fail and become discredited.

But what remains stable?

The word of God remains stable.

And so our faith grows when the word of God is trusted.

Second, labor motivated by love.

We got the work produced by faith, labor motivated by love.

Labor has the idea of exertion, this word.

So it's different than the word work, which is good deeds.

Labor is exertion to the point of weariness.

Like I'm gonna work so hard until I'm really, really tired.

And the word for love there is agape, which is God's sacrificial love.

It's the highest form of love that could ever exist.

Corey Tin Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped hide Jewish families during World War II.

She was arrested by the Nazis, sent to a concentration camp where her sister eventually died.

Corey survived, but later in her life, she traveled around Europe teaching and sharing about forgiveness through Christ.

After one of her talks in Germany, a man approached her who she recognized immediately as one of the guards at that camp.

He told her he had become a Christian and asked her to forgive him.

Then he held out his hand, and Corey later wrote that she felt nothing in that moment.

She felt no compassion, she felt no desire to forgive.

Everything in her resisted, but she prayed a simple prayer.

Jesus, help me.

I can lift my hand, but you supply the rest.

So she extended her hand in obedience, and only after that act did she describe feeling warmth and freedom flood her heart.

This is a beautiful story of agape love.

Agape love does not uh is not controlled by the feeling.

She raised her hand in obedience.

That is the act of love, the act of sacrifice when everything in her is saying no, everything in her, all of her feelings are negative towards this person, but she acts agape.

And the feelings followed.

And so agape love is produced in us from first having been loved by God.

First John chapter 4 teaches us about this love that love, we learn what true agape love is because of the agape love we've received from God.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

And so we can ask ourselves this question: who am I called to love right now in a way that actually costs me something?

What is the act of love, the labor of love God might be calling me into that might actually cost me something?

And this is not something that we drum up.

The point of this message isn't that we you got y'all gotta drum up some more agape.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm not seeing enough.

That's not the point.

The point is God is producing this in his people already, and we lean in.

We lean in, we listen, we let the Holy Spirit guide.

He is producing the desire for this in his people, and he wants you to act it out to labor with love.

And then the last one of these is endurance inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Endurance inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hope is not optimism or positive thinking.

Anyone in here an optimist?

Wow, just this just this guy up here, okay.

Yo, me neither, okay?

Um, anybody a pessimist?

Anyone alive?

No, anybody a realist?

Yeah, everybody, see, pessimists just want to be called realists, right?

It's their one leap at optimism.

Like, no, I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist.

Be optimistic about who I am, guys.

Okay, no, I'm a realist, I would say that.

Um, but to be real, I see problems first.

I see all the things that need to be fixed first.

But hope is not optimism.

So you can be a realist and still have hope.

You can be a realist and not have to worry about, oh, I need to change, I need to have all this positive thinking.

Hope is not optimism.

Hope is anchored expectation, confidence in what God has promised, even when we cannot see it yet.

It's not, I hope Jesus is telling the truth.

Let's be optimist.

Let's be an optimist about it.

No, no, no.

It is anchored expectation.

We know, we believe, we trust so much that we can't help but act.

Hope is grounded in expectation, in confidence in what God has promised.

Hope doesn't remove pressure, hope gives strength to stay.

And this was the key to our core thought today that God equips his people to endure, to stay faithful under pressure.

Christian hope doesn't help you escape hardship, it helps you remain faithful inside of it.

Anchored, confident, resilient.

We know this.

Hardship is not something that we can escape from.

It's not something we should try to escape from, but rather it's something that we reframe for for growth.

I want you guys to finish this sentence with me.

Life is that's right.

You never know what you're gonna get.

Like that was good.

Let me try that one more time, y'all.

Let's be optimistic about this.

Life is, I'll help you.

Hard.

Life is hard.

Where's the parents in the room?

We live in a different generation, I guess.

I was taught that, girl.

Life is hard.

Life isn't easy, life is good, but hardship is good.

Life is hard, but hard is not bad.

Hard is not abandonment.

God is present in difficulty, and it's often the context in which he works.

Our hope anchors us to God's promise and gives us the strength to be resilient so you can be genuinely saved and still try to overcome sin and suffering in your own strength.

And you know what Paul would say to you?

He'd say, Stop.

Stop striving where God has promised to supply power.

Hope doesn't say, I'll fix this.

Hope says God will finish what he started in me.

Romans chapter 8, amen.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Y'all can praise God for that.

Romans chapter 8, we're gonna go there real quick because this concept of hope I think is so important.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 8, we're gonna look in verse 16 through 18.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children.

And if children also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

So Paul here, he's writing to Christians in Rome, and they were under severe persecution.

Many of them were in prison, had been killed, may be in prison soon, maybe killed soon.

Really severe persecution.

And he's connecting their suffering with Christ's suffering.

And then he's connecting the glory they would suffer with Christ, and then they would be glorified with Christ.

They would be united with Christ in glorification.

And then he starts in verse number 18.

He says, For I consider, this is Paul's mindset.

This is the mindset of somebody who understands hope and who is really resilient because of their hope.

This is the mindset of resiliency through hope.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.

The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Paul's saying, hey, look, I know you're going through hardship.

I know that people want to kill you.

I know people want to throw you in prison.

But look, when you see the glory that is to come, when you keep your eyes fixed on the promise that God has made that you will be with him for all of eternity.

You will be united with God forever.

Sin will be no more, suffering will be no more.

All of this will be in the past and it will seem so small.

He begins to then unpack that.

Romans 8.18 all the way to Romans 8.39.

Anybody know this verse that's right in the middle?

Romans 8.28?

Right in the middle of his argument, Romans 8.28, it says this we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God who are called according to his purpose.

What does that mean?

What is the good?

You know, a lot of times in church or a lot of Christians, they'll read this verse and they'll be like, Man, I lost my job again.

But God, all things work together for the good.

I know that I'm called according to your prayer.

I lost my job again.

God's gonna give me a better job.

God, I messed up that relationship, but I believe you're gonna work all things for good.

God's gonna give me a better relationship.

Y'all, that's not what the word means.

And here's the thing we gotta be careful of is sometimes does God come through in those ways?

Absolutely, yes.

This 21 days of prayer, I'm looking forward to God answers prayer.

Amen.

But this verse is teaching us something different, it's teaching us something differ uh deeper, and he defines the good.

I encourage you to go study this.

I don't have time to break it all down, but he defines the good in verse 29.

There's this word for, and in English, that's a really tiny insignificant word, but in Greek it's a really important word.

And what it's saying is, I'm gonna define what I just said in verse 28.

So get ready for the explanation.

For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

The ultimate good in verse 28 is directly connected to the con the conformity to Christ.

What is the ultimate good?

It's that we become like Christ.

And what is the the the ultimate end of us becoming like Christ?

He continues, verse 30.

The ultimate end, those he predestined, verse 30, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified.

And so the ultimate end of being conformed to Christ is glorification.

It is that we one day will be without sin, with him forever.

The promise that he made, John 3 16, whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Eternal union with God.

That's everlasting life.

That's what it is.

This is the promise.

So then what do we learn from the promise?

Well, what he says here.

What then are we to say about these things?

If God is for us, who is against us?

Hey, I know Roman soldiers are knocking your doors down and throwing you in prison, but if God is for us, who can be against us?

I know that your cousin just died last week after they received Jesus, but guess what?

God is working all things together towards your likeness to Christ and your ultimate glorification.

So the worst thing that can happen to you, even if you're killed, is that you're unified with God.

The promise is fulfilled.

The promise is fulfilled.

In death, this is how in death and life, in life and death, believers throughout history have been able to stand up through pressure, through intense persecution.

There are Christians even today in other countries who are being killed, whose lives are being completely destroyed.

You think they're walking around saying, okay, God, they cut my leg off, but you're gonna give me a better leg.

That's not what they're doing.

They're saying, man, the suffering of this life is nothing compared to the glory that is to come.

The things I'm going through today will seem small one day because one day I'll be united with God forever.

The one who I love, my Savior, my God, Jesus Christ, this is the hope.

This is the hope.

Verse number 38 in Romans 8.

This is how it ends.

And we're gonna wrap up in a moment.

Says, for I am persuaded, he's convinced because of all he what he just laid out.

I'm convinced that neither death, remember, some of them were about to die, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Y'all.

It's good enough for us.

And I don't want to belittle our hardship, but what I want us to do is just have some perspective.

To have some perspective.

We are being shaped into Christ now, and in God's eyes, we're glorified with him now, but in our life, we still look forward to our glorification to be with him forever.

What is the source of this faithfulness?

Where does this faith, hope, and love come from?

Because be again, I'm not trying to convince us to have more faith, to have more hope, to have more love.

We don't produce it in ourselves.

God produces it in us and we lean into it.

1 Thessalonians 1:4 and 5, right after verse 3, he lays those things out and he says, We know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance.

1 Thessalonians 1:4

God equips his people to stay faithful under pressure because the gospel is powerful and the spirit's work is active.

And so if you're a Christian in the room today, here's what I want to ask you to try to do, to consider, is to lean into the work that God is already doing.

We just finished 2025, we're starting 2026.

I don't know what this year holds for you.

God knows.

There may be hardship ahead, you may be in the middle of it.

There may be opposition, there may be some sin struggle, there may be some discouragement, some depression.

There may be someone you respect that fails.

There may be a realization that you've had something wrong for a long time and you gotta fix something, and that's hard.

There may be some strategic injuries that will produce strength eventually.

I just want to encourage you that those things, while important to be obedient to God in, aren't the things that should derail our faith.

They're not the things that God is most concerned with.

It's not the work that He's most busy doing in your life, he's most busy producing faith, hope, and love in you.

And as you read through the New Testament, you see those things all over the place: faith, hope, and love.

And so lean into these things.

If you're not a Christian in the room today, but you would listen to what we're talking about and be like, okay, this is interesting.

I've been in church, or maybe you haven't, and this is all new.

I just want to encourage you to consider today to become a Christian, to put your faith in what Jesus has done for you on the cross.

Like we sung about today.

He died for your sins, he took your punishment, the wrath of God, he took it on himself so that we could be united with him, and he rose again the third day, proving who he was, and that he had the power to actually fulfill the promise.

And our hope for the promise is dependent on that resurrection.

It's a beautiful thing, but you can put your faith in that today.

And so here's what I want to encourage you to do is during the time of response or directly after, I want you to come and pray with somebody.

We'll have some people over here to my right, your left, that you can pray with.

Faith grows in relationship.

Faith grows in relationship, not in isolation.

You're not on your own.

People want to pray with you, they want to walk with you through this decision.

Let's pray together right now, and we'll have a time of response.

Father, thank.