Let's open the Word of God together to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.
We begin reading in verse 4.
Our text for today is going to be limited to verse 7, and then we'll take the last
half of this paragraph next week.
We know, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you, for our gospel did not come to you in word only,
but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, just as you know what
kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.
You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation
with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in
Macedonia and in Achaia.
A few weeks ago I drove through Leadville, Colorado.
In Leadville, Colorado, there was a famous theater right on Main Street called the Tabor
Theater.
It was built about 1890, about 100 years ago, by one of the silver barons of Colorado.
In its day, the great entertainers of the world performed there.
As I sat in one of the now faded velvet seats, I tried to imagine what it must have been
like that opening night, or those years later, as the stars of the world came across that
high mountain stage in Colorado.
Now all that remains of the Tabor Theater really is a dusty, little used building that
echoes the memories that once were.
In a world that is dominated by sin and consequently decay and death, change is the norm and almost
nothing is permanent.
One has observed that for every living thing on earth there is a span of life.
It varies with different creatures and plants, from a few days to perhaps hundreds of years,
but at the end are always death and decay.
Man too attains his full growth soon after his teens.
He comes to maturity, remains there for some years, and then begins to deteriorate and
decline until life departs.
There are no exceptions to this rule.
The past cannot be done over.
Today quickly becomes yesterday.
Monuments crumble, buildings disintegrate, relationships come to an end, people, you
and me, daily grow older and eventually die.
Wise is the person who lives with this truth in mind, especially in a culture that desires
to deny death.
Some unknown poet has penned these lines regarding the quick passing of life.
Once in Persia reigned a king who upon his signet ring graved a maxim, strange and wise,
which when held before his eyes gave him counsel at a glance, fit for every change or chance,
solemn words, and these were they, even this must pass away.
Trains of camels through the sands brought him gems from other lands, fleets of galleys
o'er the seas brought him pearls to rival these, but he counted little gain, treasures
of the mine or main.
What is wealth, the king would say, even this must pass away.
Mid the pleasures of his court at the zenith of their sport, when the palms of all his
guests burned with clapping at his jests, seated midst the figs and wine, said the king,
ah, friends of mine, pleasure comes but not to stay, even this will pass away.
Towering in a public square, forty cubits in the air stood his statue carved in stone,
and the king, disguised, unknown, gazed upon his sculptured name and he pondered, what
is fame?
Fame is like a fleeting day, even this will pass away.
In a world like that, one might wonder, is there anything that will last?
And the answer to that is a resounding yes.
The church of the Lord Jesus Christ will last.
It is a building, not of brick and mortar, but of born-again people, being united into
a spiritual body by the Holy Spirit.
The church is no accident or chance.
The church is God's eternal purpose.
And those of us who compose it do not do so by chance, but rather by choice, and that,
God's choice.
Our text says, we know, brethren, beloved by God, His choice, His choice of you.
God has chosen before time began who those are who will be saved and who will be part
of the church.
Hear me.
By election, God graciously selects some to be objects of mercy, while allowing the rest
to go on their way of choice, their way of rebellion, and ultimately to certain judgment.
We might ask the question, if that's the case, then why doesn't God choose everybody?
We don't know the answer to that question, except that it pleases God not to do that,
but in grace at least to save some.
The theologian Leon Morris has written, election is not a device for sentencing men to eternal
torment, but for rescuing them from it.
Election protects us from thinking of salvation as depending on human whims and roots it squarely
in the will of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ is today building His church just as He promised to do.
He is building it out of living stones, whom the Father has before the foundation of the
world selected for His use.
The church that Jesus is building is not a particular denomination, but it is a universal
congregation of His chosen ones.
The apostle Paul in our text expresses blessed assurance that God was fulfilling His eternal
plan to call out a people for salvation, and that the Thessalonians shared in that plan.
There are four causes for his expression of confidence, that Jesus was in the process
of building His church in 50 A.D., and that He was building it even there in Thessalonica.
Today we're going to have a chance to look at the first two causes for His blessed assurance.
As the apostle looks back upon his experience in that city only a few months before he wrote
this letter back to them, he expresses the fact that he was sure that God was at work
in their midst because of how the gospel was proclaimed.
He tells us about that in verse 5.
He says in the first place, the gospel was proclaimed to you with personal responsibility.
Notice that he calls it our gospel.
He is not saying by that that he somehow originated it, but he's saying he has ownership of it.
It is the gospel that Paul himself had trusted as he bowed the knee to the risen Christ appearing
to him on the road to Damascus.
He calls it our gospel because it was the gospel that Silas had believed and Timothy,
the other members of the team.
Our gospel.
And they as a team had a commission to preach it and proclaim it.
Beloved, this gospel that Paul speaks about is our gospel today also.
It is not different.
It is Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary, the God-man come into the world to live a
sinless life and to die in the place of sinners.
And to be buried for three days and raised again to prove that his payment had been sufficient
and to live forever to save those that come to God by him.
That is our gospel today.
And as that team had a sense of ownership in it, I hope that we do.
So that we're not just saying it's the gospel, but it's the one I have believed.
It's the one we have believed.
And the one that we have a commission in 1990 to proclaim to our community as the Thessalonians
did to their city.
Secondly, he says the gospel was proclaimed with powerful blessing.
The gospel was operative.
It was life transforming in its energy.
He describes the coming of the gospel to them with four phrases.
He says it came in word, with preaching, with discourse.
But he says it was more than word.
It has to start there.
He didn't say we came and lived the Christian life before you.
He gets to that.
But he begins by saying we proclaimed it, and that's where the gospel must always come
to.
It's not enough just to live before others.
There has to come some point when we begin to verbally share the gospel.
But not just verbally.
He says it came to you not just in word, but also in power.
Paul remembers that as he proclaimed the gospel, there was a sense of God's working in an unusual
way as he spoke.
This word power is related to our English word dynamite.
The word dunamis refers to inherent power that is within the message.
And he says it was in the Holy Spirit that it was proclaimed.
There's the source of power.
Zechariah, the Old Testament prophet, reminds all of us that it's not by might nor by power,
but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
Paul is reminding us here of what Jesus said in Acts 1-8, that it's when the Holy Spirit
comes upon us that we can then be witnesses that we'll be fruitful.
When we're saved, the Holy Spirit comes into our life.
But it's when we yield unto the Holy Spirit and we are enfilled or empowered by the Holy
Spirit that our witness, our proclamation of word becomes powerful.
Because the Spirit of God empowers us.
He says it was done with full conviction.
He's talking about his own conviction.
He says we had a deep assurance as we proclaimed the gospel and the Holy Spirit to you.
We had an unfailing confidence that our message was true and that God was using it in your
life.
Do you feel that way in your own witnessing?
Oh, let that fill your heart.
That the message that you are sharing with others is a true message.
And that whether you immediately see the impact or not, it is effective.
God is doing something with that word that you are sowing in the life.
Never forget that.
He says the gospel was proclaimed to you with personal responsibility and with powerful
blessing.
And then he says also with proven character.
We cannot separate the message from the messenger.
When there is a dichotomy between the one who proclaims and what he says, it ends up
being not only a sham, but a disgrace to Jesus Christ.
We have all seen that sadly witnessed to in the last few years, especially in media ministries.
We cannot separate the message from the messenger.
He says in our text, you know what kind of people we proved ourselves to be.
You see the complications that Paul had in Thessalonica were divinely arranged by God.
The complications, what were those?
So you go back and read about it in Acts 17 and you see that there was a hornets nest
stirred up when Paul went to that city.
He could only stay there a few weeks, only a few weeks because of Jewish opposition.
And it was so severe that they stirred up the whole populous of the city against Paul
and the team.
But God allowed all of that because you see all of those complications proved the character
of Paul.
God oversees your witness too.
And the complications that may come up in your life in the midst of your trying to witness
to somebody else.
In fact, you can almost be guaranteed that when you seek to become an active witness
for Jesus Christ, your life is going to get complicated some way.
God oversees all of that.
Even if the devil is the one instigating it, God's overseeing it so that through that
complication, through the pressure that comes upon you, you and the message you are proclaiming
is proven.
The Thessalonians had witnessed the selfless and faithful devotion of this team.
Paul says, you know what kind of people we were for your sake, for your sake.
That's one of the highest motives of serving Jesus Christ, the sake of others.
He talks to us here about how the gospel was proclaimed, doesn't he?
Evangelist Billy Graham was writing a year ago in the magazine Ministries Today.
And sharing from his perspective as the greatest evangelist perhaps of this century, Billy
Graham says there are some things to remember when you're talking to any audience, whether
it be one or whether it be many.
First of all, that the life needs of that audience cannot be totally met by social improvement
or affluence.
Even though the people think that their life needs can be met that way, it can't be.
He says secondly, remember there is an essential emptiness in every life without Jesus Christ,
everyone.
We talk about people of affluence being hard to reach, they still have an emptiness, every
life does.
He says in the audience you're speaking to there are lonely people.
Fourthly, he says in the audience remember that there are people who have a deep sense
of guilt and finally remember that in that audience you're speaking to there is a universal
fear of death.
In light of that, Billy Graham suggests the following principles of communication.
It's amazing how these align with what Paul says.
He says in the first place, communicate your message with authority.
Secondly, preach it with simplicity.
Third, use repetition.
Fourth, preach with an urgency.
Number five, live a life of integrity.
Number six, have genuine love for your fellow human beings and make it visible.
Number seven, unite with the Holy Spirit in the presentation.
Now in those seven principles that Billy Graham gives you see an alignment with what the apostle
Paul said.
The apostle Paul said I have blessed assurance that Jesus is building his church right there
in your city because of how the gospel was preached among you.
But there's a second cause for his blessed assurance, it's because of how the gospel
was received by the Thessalonians.
He says now this is what we were like but you on your part, this is how it really begins
verse six, you on your part received the gospel he says with deliberate choice.
In other words, it was with a careful consideration of the facts.
These Thessalonians were not superficial believers.
Their response to the message had not been impulsive.
As he looks back he remembers that they had received the word, a meaningful term.
The verb means that they embraced it.
It means that they appropriated it, they welcomed it and it was a definite action on their part.
Enthusiastic but not impulsive.
And the tense of the verb he uses signifies that when they did it, they did it forever.
It was a final action on their part, you received the word once and for all he says.
The idea is that they had welcomed and embraced it so as to make it their gospel too.
It was their own possession.
And isn't that what brings salvation?
It's not just hearing the gospel, it's not just being a member of a church that preaches
the gospel, but it is making that message one's own possession by personal faith.
Paul thanks God as he looks back that that's exactly what happened in the city of Corinth.
They had received the message secondly with diverse conditions.
He says you received the word in much tribulation.
Externally he says you received the word with a lot of persecution.
If you don't have time to read about it we will cover it as we proceed through the book.
Paul talks about the kind of stress they were under.
The word tribulation in its verb form means to press hard on something.
The word refers to the pressure of circumstances and the antagonism of people.
People attempted to make life miserable for the Thessalonians.
Did that happen to you when you became a Christian?
I know it has to some people in our church because they've shared it with me.
It hasn't been in the immediate family.
It's been perhaps the in-laws or the outlaws.
Someone has put pressure on them in the family circle.
Sometimes it comes from work or those that we study with in school.
But suffering for Jesus Christ is to be expected by those who choose to follow him.
There will be attempts of an opposition to force us to recant or to compromise what we
say we have come to believe.
The Thessalonians knew about that.
They had believed with external persecution.
But internally what was the condition?
Did they become bitter?
Did they become discouraged because there were those in their city viciously opposed
to them?
No.
He says, much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Their lives were filled with joy internally even as externally they faced pressure and
stress.
This really defies a natural explanation.
It goes against what one would normally think.
There is a supernatural attitude of cheerful acceptance which the Holy Spirit has stimulated
in their lives.
That's just what Jesus promised.
He said, in the world you will have what?
Right, tribulation.
The very same word.
Stress, pressure, opposition.
Jesus said in the world you will have tribulation.
But be of good, what?
Good cheer.
Why?
For I have overcome the world.
How can we have an attitude of courage, of cheerful fortitude when it seems like everybody
has turned against us that we were once a part of our circle of friends?
We can have a good attitude, be filled with confidence and joy because Jesus has already
overcome the opposition.
We need not fear.
Paul says, I thank God for what happened there, the way you received the gospel in those diverse
conditions, the external, the internal.
He says, I thank God that you received the gospel with definite change in your lifestyle.
He says, you became an example yourselves, an imitator, he says, to all the believers
in Macedonia and Achaia.
What an exciting thing that these Thessalonians began to pick up the lifestyle of the Apostle
Paul.
They began to imitate or to mimic him, to do what he did.
Several years ago our family was in Boston and as we were at the Thaneuil Square, I believe
it was, there was a large open courtyard and there was a mime working in that courtyard.
It was fun to watch him.
One of the most interesting things and humorous things that he did, humorous for those of
us watching, was when he would pick an unsuspecting person strolling across the square, sneak up
behind him and walk right with him about that far from his body.
He did that to numerous people and they had no idea he was behind them and he was walking,
mimicking everything that they did.
It was absolutely hilarious.
The idea is here, Paul says, you became imitators of us, you walked right behind us.
You did the same thing that we did and he commends them for it.
They imitated not only the team, but the Lord and the team was imitating the Lord.
A question, who is following your pattern?
And as they follow you, what will they look like?
The Apostle says, I thank God that as you received his word, it was with dynamic consequences.
You became an example yourselves to others.
Jesus is building his church.
He is doing it today in Roseville, Minnesota.
Building his church has been Jesus' agenda for the last 1900 years.
He gave his life to lay the foundation and now he lives in heaven so that eventually
he might finish the superstructure of the church.
The proof that he is building his church is found in its continuance.
Through persecution and plenty, through dark ages and through the Enlightenment, through
the isms, the asims, and even the spasms that have come at times to the church to undermine
or sidetrack it, Jesus keeps on building his church.
The proof of it is found in changed lives today as in Thessalonica.
Wave after wave comes, generation after generation, century upon century, and movement upon movement,
but the church of Jesus Christ is being built today as it was then.
And his work will continue until he has completely finished.
One of the great underlying fears that every person has is the fear of insignificance,
of making no difference in this world.
God wants us to make a difference.
The philosopher Kierkegaard said, one lives only once.
If when death comes, the life is well spent, that is, spent so that it is rightly related
to eternity, then God be praised eternally.
If not, then it is irremediable.
And only one only lives once.
Life is still before us, at least today.
Tomorrow, perhaps, maybe many years.
But if we really want our lives to have significance, we need to invest our lives in building the
church of Jesus Christ.
For many things pass away as that Persian king learned, but the church of Jesus Christ
is going to last forever.
For our lives to mean something and to make a difference, let's pour them into building
the church of Jesus Christ and give ourselves to what is eternal so that whenever death
comes and we then stand before God, we may be glad for the way that we have lived our
one life.
Let's pray.
Father, I don't know exactly how you want to apply this message to the life of these
three or four hundred people here, but you do have a personal application for each one.
Someone may need to be saved.
I pray that someone today will trust the Savior.
Trust Him alone for eternal life.
The first Father of us need to consider how we're investing our time and our money, our
gifts and our talents.
I pray that we might leave here with our hearts determined to live our only life for Jesus
Christ and to invest it in building up what will last forever, the church.
Let's stand together, please.
We sing acapella just the chorus once more.
In my life, Lord, be glorified, be glorified.
In my life, Lord, be glorified today, in your church, Lord.
In your church, Lord, be glorified, be glorified.
In your church, Lord, be glorified today.
God is working in our midst, too.
Let's not miss out on what God is doing, but be fully involved in it and have blessed assurance
in our lives that what we're doing is counting forever.
God bless us with that determination in our hearts as we leave today.
May I ask you to help us?
We need to bring a new congregation in here fairly quickly.
So this morning, if you would exit through the two front doors, we'll leave the back
one so that folks can come in the back and begin filling in.
Thanks for doing that and to kind of free up this door, I'm going to shake hands over
here by the pulpit.
If you're visiting, would you please be sure to come by so that I can meet you.
You're dismissed and the Lord bless you abundantly.