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We'll look at that part of the text that begins with verse 8 this morning, where it

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says, For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and

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Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have

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no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us, what kind of reception we

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had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and

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to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, that is, Jesus, who delivers

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us from the wrath to come. Someone has said that in Minnesota there are two seasons of

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the year, no parking snow emergency and no parking road repair. Well, there's some truth

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to that, and mercifully the road repair season is just about finished. It seems like there's

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been an inordinate amount of road repair around our region during this particular season.

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Often the roads have gotten narrower, traffic has slowed to a crawl and sometimes even stopped,

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and the roadbeds have been rough. But that's sort of the way life is too, isn't it? There

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are times when it also becomes narrow and slowed and seems to come to a stop, and times

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when it's rough, or times when there are detours. Just as there are highway signs that

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tell us, men at work ahead, so when those seasons come to our lives that seem slow and

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rough, we can be sure that God's sign is up in our lives that says, God at work. God

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is at work today in his church. His purpose is to build it. His work in you and me individually

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is not unrelated to his work corporately in the total body. For what he is doing at any

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given time in you and in me relates directly to what he is doing in the church as a whole.

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What he is doing privately in our lives has a greater end than just in our lives. It fits

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together with what God is doing in the lives of other people, especially those people that

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we are related to within our local church. We are saved individually, but we are not

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saved to an individualistic faith. You and I share the same Lord, the same gospel, the

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same family name, the same spiritual life, the same destiny, and we share the same earthly

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bond within the local church. God has designed for believers to be a part of a community

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in this world. To be very honest about it, that runs counter to the individualistic trends

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of our culture. In the 90s, it is predicted that one of the things that will stand out

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in Western culture is individualism, privatism. People and families are going to withdraw

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more and more into their shells, say the futurists, but that is not the plan of God for his people.

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What God has called us to runs exactly counter to that. He has not called us to independence

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but to inner dependence. The tendency we face, though, is to conduct ourselves, our lives,

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in the same direction as the trends in our culture. Indeed, sometimes even the language

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that we use in the church tends to further that. We talk about personal salvation. We

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talk about personal devotions. We tend to come to church and sit by ourselves, or at

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least relate to others as little as possible, be among the first ones out the door. We listen

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to tapes in our cars. We read books alone. We keep our troubles to ourselves so as not

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to bother others. We have to ask ourselves the question, what kind of a community is

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that? That kind of a community leads to isolation into what I think is an unbiblical autonomy.

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Because God has designed for us to be a part of a community. The Thessalonians felt that.

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The Apostle Paul thanked God for what God was doing in their midst, in their church,

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in their community of faith. He expresses a deep confidence, what we've called a blessed

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assurance, that Jesus was building his church in Thessalonica in them. The cause of his

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blessed assurance related back to how the gospel was proclaimed, as we studied last

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week in verse 5, and how the gospel was received by them in verses 6 and 7. Today we pick it

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up and we see that his blessed assurance also related to how the gospel was magnified.

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Look at verse 8 where he talks about that. The picture is a very lively one. It says,

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the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you. The verb there is related to our English

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word echo. The picture that the Apostle is drawing upon is the echoing of a blast of

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a trumpet within an auditorium as it reverberates off the walls. Or the rolling of thunder after

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lightning strikes and from horizon to horizon the thunder spreads out. That is the picture.

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The Thessalonians spoke the word of the Lord broadly in their region. It was like lightning

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striking. And then the thunder of the testimony reverberated throughout the region, also in

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Macedonia and Achaia, it says, two areas nearby. Their testimony was being noted with attention.

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It was being gossiped about in conversations. It was being gazed upon with curiosity in

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the pagan community. And it seemed as though nothing could stop the reports any more than

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you can stop thunder from rolling. Like the wake of a boat that keeps rolling and rolling

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and rolling outward. So the testimony of the Thessalonians kept rolling through their community.

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What this seems to say to us is this was an enthusiastic church. There was a great boldness

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there that got the attention of people. There was quite a striking contrast between them

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and the people they lived around. And that did not go without notice. Because you see

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they had ceased practicing and participating in the evil of their pagan culture. Their

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lives had been cleaned up. Not so that they could become God's children, but because they

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were God's children. They no longer did the things they did before. They didn't participate

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in the kinds of orgies that were involved in their pagan worship. Their business practices

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were different. Their language was different. The word of the Lord spread like a contagious,

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wonderfully contagious disease through the community. Oh, that it might infect people

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the same way today. The result was that the missionaries said, we don't have any need

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to go back to that region. We were only there three weeks or so, but my, look what God has

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done in the meantime. We can go to other places. You see the curiosity of the people had been

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captured by the converts. I hope that's the kind of a church that God will allow us to

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become more and more like. Where the gospel is so magnified and amplified, the people

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throughout the region will hear about the word of the Lord. We certainly can't improve

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upon the word of the Lord, but we can amplify it, and that is our calling. When you amplify

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something it means that you give a louder voice to it. If we were to cut off the amplification

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this morning, some of you in the front could hear me, but those of you in the back could

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not. We have a system here that amplifies my voice. It makes it louder than it really

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is. Now, if my wife were up here, you'd have no problem hearing her without the amplification.

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Now we talk about this all the time. She goes out in the backyard and she yells for the

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kids. She doesn't yell loudly, she just yells, and they hear her a block away. I go out and

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scream at the top of my lungs and they can't hear me in the next yard. It's the difference

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in the quality of voice. She has one of those voices that carries. Mine doesn't. It has

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to be amplified. God's plan is for you and for me to be amplifiers of His word. When

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you magnify something, you make something that seems small look big. You put it, for

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example, under a microscope and what perhaps was invisible to you before suddenly seems

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large. I remember the first time that I looked at a slide of water from a pond underneath

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a microscope. It looked just like water until I looked in and saw all of those things swimming

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and crawling around and I thought I would never get in water again when I saw what was

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in water. You and I are to make what seems small to the world, the word of the Lord,

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big in their eyes as they look at it through us. God has called us to magnify the gospel

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of Jesus Christ just like He did the Thessalonians. How do we do that? Well, in our church we

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are committed to it in at least two very important ways. We are committed to it in the first

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place in every one of us developing a network of relationships. By that network, building

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bridges into the lives of people so that we can share the gospel with them. Some people

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call this relational evangelism or friendship evangelism. I believe it is the most single

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effective way today to reach people for Jesus Christ. There was a time a quarter of a century

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ago when churches had an evangelistic meeting at least once a year. For a week, Sunday through

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Sunday and sometimes for two weeks, an evangelist would come in and people would invite their

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friends to come to church. The evangelist would preach and people would come down the

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aisles and be saved. Occasionally that works today but not very often. Our culture has

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changed. Today people are skeptical of evangelists who come and preach like that. But they are

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wide open to seeing the gospel magnified and hearing it amplified in the lives of people

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that they know personally. That is what we are about as a church. When we talk about

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our evangelistic strategy, it is this, relating to other people on a personal basis and earning

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the right then, the privilege to present the gospel to them. There is a second key part

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to our evangelistic strategy though and that is what we call cultural keys. Because there

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are some people and there are some areas of our community that we will never relate to

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on a personal basis unless we devise some strategy to go there, to be a part of that

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community. I believe that God would have us develop cultural keys that would enable us

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to unlock the door of people's hearts. Keys that will allow us to present the gospel to

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them as we begin to prove the love of Jesus to them. Cultural key ministries focus on

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felt needs of people. The people for example who are suffering from AIDS. People who are

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of a different color than we are. People who might be in impoverished situations. How can

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we as Grace Church Roosevelt develop cultural keys that will allow us to bridge into a culture

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that is very different than our own and present the gospel to those people. Well there are

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scores of ways we can do that. But I will be honest with you, we as a church are not

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going to organize it en masse. What we are going to do is continue to pray that people

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within our church will be burdened by God for particular cultural keys that he would

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develop through their lives. And we as a church will do everything we can to support and come

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along side and pray and help solicit workers to join but we are looking for individuals

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in the church to say you know I believe God wants me. God wants our family. God wants

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me and this brother, this sister to do this or that. There are already some people who

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are working with foreign students. Some of them are teaching English as a second language

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to them. And in that way developing a cultural key to people from overseas right here in

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our city. There are innumerable ways, oh may God give us the creativity, the courage that

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it will take to develop them so that the gospel can be magnified in our region. May it just

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roll like thunder across our community. Let's remember that that is our primary duty, our

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primary responsibility to God. There are other things that we can become involved in. We

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can get involved in the abortion battle. And I think frankly as citizens we ought to. We

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can get involved in anti-pornography things and as citizens I suppose we ought to. But

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let's remember that as Christians our primary responsibility is to preach the gospel of

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Jesus Christ. Well Paul was certain that God was building his church in Thessalonica because

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of the way that the gospel was magnified in those people. But finally he was certain that

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God was doing his work there because of how the gospel was incarnated. Verses 9 and 10.

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The gospel to these people was more than just a message that they had given intellectual

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assent to or to which they had given some kind of profession. The gospel you see was

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fleshed out in the lives of these people. It embodied results because they had welcomed

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it with all of their hearts. They had reached out and embraced it. They had received the

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gospel. It was actually fleshed out and embodied in two very important ways which the apostle

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tells us about. He says in the first place it resulted in true conversion in them. He

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says they themselves report about us, what kind of reception we had with you and how

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you turned to God from idols. That turning is what conversion is all about. Conversion

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means simply to turn around, to turn about. It's the positive side of repentance. It's

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the human aspect of salvation. It says they turned. It's a very intensive word. It means

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that they did it in one completed act. They turned to God from idols. It's another way

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of Paul saying that these people genuinely believed. For to believe is synonymous with

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turning in the way that he uses it here. When one believes it is not merely giving assent

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to certain things but it involves the very core of the life. To turn. Notice how he says

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they turned. He says they turned to God from idols. This turning involved the basic belief

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system of their lives before their lives were focused on Mount Olympus nearby which was

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headquarters and home for the gods of their pantheon. Now they had turned to God from

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these idols. Notice the order. It was not that they turned from idols to God. One Greek

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expert Dr. Lineberry says in one sentence what is important. He says the difference

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between the two expressions is the difference between salvation by works and salvation by

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grace. They didn't turn from their idols to God but they turned to God from their idols.

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The first way of saying it says that they had to give up something first. They had to

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clean up their lives and get rid of their idolatry and immorality and then they could

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come to God. That's not the way it was. It says that they turned to God and as they turned

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to him in saving faith the automatic result of that was they turned away from their idols

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and all of the other things dropped away. There are a lot of people who get that confused.

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There are some people who think well I can't come to God because I'm doing this or I'm

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involved in that. God says just come to me and I'll help clean up your life. Don't

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clean up your life first. Conversion involves turning to God and then letting the results

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come as they may and will. Paul was certain that these people had been saved and that

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God was doing his work in their midst because of the way they had turned. But also there

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was something else that came about as they incarnated the gospel. It says they also were

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waiting for his son from heaven. These people were waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus

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Christ. To wait for his son means to wait up expectantly for someone. It's the picture

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of a mother who waits up for her child. We've gotten into that stage of life now where that

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becomes necessary occasionally. When the child is out and the car is gone and you wait up

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to hear the sound of the engine arrive and the garage door go up and the car come in

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and the child enter the door and you know everything is alright. It means to wait up

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expectantly. That's how the Thessalonians were. They had turned to God from their idols

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that they might serve him but also that they might wait expectantly for his son. His son

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from heaven, he describes what Jesus has done for us. This one who died for us so that he

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might be raised on our behalf. The one who is now in heaven from where he's coming.

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The one who is returning for us and the one who is and will rescue us, he says, from the

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coming wrath. They're waiting for his son from heaven. The Apostle Paul was sure that

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these people were genuinely saved and that God was doing his work building the church

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in Thessalonica because of how the gospel was being incarnated in their lives, the changes

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that were being made. They had turned to God from their past belief system. They were serving

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God sincerely with all of their hearts and their eyes were focused on the future. They

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were waiting for the son to come from heaven, the one who would deliver them from the wrath

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to come. Yes, Jesus was building his church in Thessalonica. Paul had blessed assurance

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that it was so. I wonder if he was privileged to what we're like today in 1990 if the Apostle

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could write a letter to Grace Church Roseville and say, oh, I thank God that he has chosen

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you and I have blessed assurance that he is doing his work in your midst because of how

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the gospel was preached and how you received it and how the gospel was magnified in your

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midst and how the gospel was incarnated in your lives. I wonder if he would have similar

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certainty because of your life and mine that God was still at work in the world today.

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Jesus is still building his church. He's been about this now for about 2,000 years. If we

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were to picture it in our minds, I think he's up on the steeple somewhere. I think he's

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right close to the very top of this church that he's building and it's just about done,

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but he's still doing it. He's still putting into place people who come to him in faith.

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Do you need to do that? Have you come to Jesus Christ in faith, come to him, and in doing

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so turned away from your idols? If you have, are you serving him? Are you as committed

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to the local church as Jesus is? Do you exhibit that by your faithfulness in attendance in

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the local church? Your faithfulness in praying for it, your faithfulness in serving through

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it, your faithfulness in giving to its work? That's what Jesus is calling us to. To faithfulness,

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to the work of God in our world today. That work is the same as it was 2,000 years ago,

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the building up of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's wonderful to have God

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working in our lives individually, but never forget that God is working in us individually

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so that he might work in us together. We can't separate the two. My prayer is that we will

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be the church that God calls us to be in the 90s, and that that work will embrace every

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one of us participating, faithfully contributing, being a part of the whole, what God has called

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us to be together. Let's pray. God's design for you is to be a part of a community of

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believers. Are you? Are you a part of this church? Have you joined it? Are you a member

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of it? Have you indicated your willingness to labor alongside of others in Grace Church

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of Roseville? In just another week we're going to have a series of meetings that may

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help you understand what membership in the church is all about. I hope you'll come to

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that elective. It is not God's will for any of us to float around from church to church

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or to come half-heartedly. He wants us to be built into the very frame, the very stonework

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of the church he's putting together. I pray that if there's been a tendency in your heart

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to take the church lightly, maybe even to be careless about it, that God will write

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upon your heart today a new desire to be faithful and committed to what he's doing in the world,

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to buck the trend of the culture, to go in the opposite direction of it indeed, to say,

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Jesus, have your way in my life. I want to be your man, your woman. We want to be your

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family. We want to be faithful to your work in the world, your work in our church. Let's

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stand together with our heads bowed, please, and sing just this chorus that many of us

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know. Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay.

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Hold me and make me after your will while I am waiting, yielded and still. Lord, may

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those words describe our spirits this morning, waiting, yielded and still. And as we are,

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fashion us, mold us, make us, and fit us into the church as a living stone where you want

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us to be. By your spirit, double, reinforce, underscore in our hearts the importance of

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faithful commitment to the church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he's building.

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May we go from here this morning with that echoing and rolling across our minds and producing

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in us faithful service for Jesus. We pray this in his name, amen. God bless you.