Celebrating a Consecrated Church, Pt. 2
1 Thessalonians 1:1‑10
Turn in your Bible to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, if you will, please. Because of the special nature of this week, we decided to share with you out of this first chapter of Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. We're enjoying a very special season in the year, a time of concentrated thanksgiving. And we've tried to focus on the fact that of all the things that we could be thankful for, this year we wanted to express our thanks to God for our church, for our family. This church means so much to all of us. And so we set a time aside last week which we called "Celebration Sunday," and we really were celebrating what God has done in our midst. And I shared with you how I believe this is indeed a church to celebrate. Oh, not because in ourselves we're anything, because we're not. But because by God's amazing grace, He has chosen to pour out upon us very, very unique blessing. We're not like every other church. In fact, we're not like any other church. We're spiritually rich. We're the recipient of boundless mercies. It seems as though there is an endless stream of kindnesses that comes to us from God's hand. And it seemed fitting for us to spend some time thanking Him for our church, for what He's done, what He's doing, what He will do here.
And so, we've concentrated in our worship and our giving on celebrating what the Lord has done. And as a testimony of thanks to what He has done, we have given in order to provide a new building so that we can teach our children and our young people and our adults and our students the things of God so that we can advance His Kingdom to His glory.
And as I was thinking about it this week, my mind ran to the Old Testament for some similar celebrations. And I was drawn to the great event of the thirty‑fifth chapter of Exodus where the tabernacle was to be built. And Moses came before the people there in the beginning of the thirty‑fifth chapter about verse 4 and he calls to them and he says, "Now all of you that are of a willing heart, I want you to bring for the building of the tabernacle." And he listed all of the things that they could bring. And he said over and over again in that thirty‑fifth chapter, "Bring whatever your heart tells you to bring, whatever you're willing to do, you do it." And so they brought, and they brought and they brought. And while they were bringing there was a spirit of celebration and a spirit of praise and a spirit of worship and a spirit of adoration. And finally the workmen came in the thirty‑fourth chapter or the thirty‑sixth chapter, rather, came to Moses and they said, "Would you please tell the people to stop. The stuff they have brought is more than enough. Tell them we can't use anymore. It just makes more work." And so he got up and gave the first and last speech of its kind in the history of God's people. That's enough...don't bring anymore.
And when it was built, the fortieth chapter of Exodus, the Shekinah glory of God came and dwelt in that place and the cloud filled the congregation so the priest couldn't even minister. And then you go into Leviticus chapter 1 and the people begin to worship. So, worship, celebration was tied to giving and the giving was for the building of a facility to the glory of God.
Later on in the twenty‑ninth chapter of 1 Chronicles, David comes before the people on the behalf of Solomon who's still very young and it's time to build the temple. And David says the same thing, takes his cues from Moses, as it were, and says, "Now we want you to bring because we're going to build the temple and we want you to bring gold and silver." And in order to get everything started, David gave an unbelievable fortune. And then the people became struck with what David did and the leaders and the rulers and the people over thousands and the people over hundreds and all the rest of the people began to come and they brought and they brought and they brought and they brought for the building of the temple.
And while they brought, they sang and praised God and worshiped. And it was a great celebration. And it was all because they were building a place to the glory of God.
Well, the place was destroyed when Israel was taken into captivity, but when they came back under Ezra and you come to Ezra chapter 3, it's time to build again. And so, the same message comes forth, the people are called upon to give. And they're called upon to give their money and whatever it is they can to Zerubbabel who's going to build the second great temple to the glory of God. And they came and they gave and they sang and they praised God.
And these three great celebrations tied to worship and adoration, tied to giving, tied to the building of a facility to the glory of God are reminiscent of what we've been doing. We're not building the tabernacle or the third temple, or the fourth temple, or any temple, but we're building a building no less to the glory of our God. And we've been doing so with hearts filled with celebration and thanksgiving. And we've been doing so by giving from the depth of our hearts. And so we stand in that great tradition of the people of God who gave for the glory of God to build to His honor. So these have been great days.
And in our celebration, we've been particularly focusing on the fact that God is to be glorified for what He's done in our church. It isn't that we've arrived. It isn't that we're perfect. It isn't that we're all we ought to be. But it is true that God has done marvelous things here for which we praise Him.
And in order to find a place in the Word of God that parallels our hearts at this moment, we've been drawn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. The Thessalonian church was a church to celebrate, also, like ours is. And as I told you last week, when I came her nearly 14 years ago, I preached that first month that I was here on 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and I said this is the kind of church I'd like to see here. And I can say now 14 years later that this is the kind of church God is building here. And that great prayer is being answered in my heart. Because the church of the Thessalonians was a church to celebrate and the whole first chapter is really Paul celebrating the church. He's just overjoyed with it.
He writes:
"Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in all our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much confidence as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit so that ye were an example to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia but also in every place your faith toward God is spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come."
Now that is a paean of praise, that is a celebration. That is a statement of thanksgiving to God for what He's done in that marvelous Thessalonian church.
Now, it's not my intention to give you a closely knit exposition of the flow of the text, but rather to look into this text and to see, as it were, the ingredients that make a church worth celebrating. Because I think they parallel our own church here. And we said basically there are two things. First, the role of the pastors must be right, and secondly, the response of the people must be right. Last week we looked at the role of the pastors. And we saw that as we sensed the heart of Paul and Silas and Timothy who write. And we see implied in what they say and in their heart attitude, three essential responsibilities that pastors must fulfill.
Number one, prayer. Notice verse 2, and this marks the right role of a pastor. This is where it starts. "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing..." and then he goes on to describe the elements. Unceasing prayer. The right role of the pastor is to give himself to prayer and they did that. And in that sense he functions as the priest, taking the people to God, lifting them to God in prayer, praying continually for their spiritual mastery.
The second thing that marks the pastor who fulfills his biblical role is proclamation, verse 5. "For our gospel came not unto you in word only," it wasn't just a lecture or a sermon or a speech, "but it came in power and in the Holy Spirit and therefore it had with it much assurance," or much confidence. You believed it. It produced in you a settled confidence because it came in the power of the Holy Spirit. And we saw that the pastor is not only the priest who takes the people to God, but he is the prophet who takes God to the people. And if his ministry is to have power, it is to be a ministry filled with the Spirit of God. And the only way the message of God can ever come with power is when it comes in the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of knowledge guiding into truth, who is the Spirit of wisdom applying it to life, who is the Spirit of holiness cleansing the soul and the Spirit of conviction drawing men from sin to the Lord Jesus. It must come in the energy of the Holy Spirit and that church was a church to celebrate because it had leaders who prayed and those who proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And thirdly, we see here an example of pattern. And that's the third element of the role of a pastor. He says at the end of verse 5, "You know what manner of men we were among you for your sake." In other words, he says you know how we lived among you for your sake, for your sake we lived a certain life. And then in verse 6, "And you became imitators of that and consequently of the Lord whom we are imitating."
And here you see the pastor not as the priest taking his people to God, or as the prophet taking God to the people, but in a sense as the king who sets the pattern for all who are in his care. And he becomes the model, setting the example. And that, by the way, is the sine qua non of all leadership. You can pray for your people and you can preach to your people but inevitably they'll follow the pattern you set. If the preaching is one thing and the pattern is something else, they'll follow the pattern not the preaching. And so the pattern must come together to validate the prayer life and the proclamation. And in this assembly it did. These men set an example to them which was an example to follow. And when they followed Paul and Silas, they were following the Lord. Paul said it to the Corinthians, "Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ."
And so, the reason you had a church to celebrate was because you had those in leadership who were committed to prayer, proclamation and setting the pattern. And I shared with you last week how I think that's really been the key at this church that God has given us through the years those men who prayed and still do, those men who proclaim the Word of God in the power of the Spirit and still do, and those men who set a pattern to follow. That's half the ingredients for a church to celebrate.
Let's look at the second half. And this has to do with the response of the people. The role of the pastor we looked at last week, now let's look at the response of the people. And this again sort of bleeds out in this chapter. And I just want to be somewhat selective and yet not violate the intent of the writer to show you how he praises God for a people who have had such right responses to those who fulfilled their roles in their midst. And the parallels again to our own fellowship are...are very interesting and very exciting.
The key is verse 3, and as there were three elements in the role of the pastor, there are three elements in the role of the people as well. Verse 3 says and continuing his thought about his prayer that he remembered without ceasing three things: your work of faith, your labor of love and your endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. They really lived consistent with a relationship with Christ. They really lived under the...under the oversight of God. In other words, they lived under the control of God and an intimacy with Christ. And as a result, these three things marked them: the work of faith, the labor of love and the patience of hope.
Now let me transpose those into one word: salvation, service, steadfastness. Those are the three things that mark a church worth celebrating. Number one, salvation. Verse 3 says he remembered their work of faith. Now what is this saying to us? Well, basically it is what in the Greek is called an objective genitive. And it could be read this way: your faith which produces a work. He says, I remember unceasingly your faith which produces a work.
What do you mean by that? What he means is it's true saving faith. You see, there are at least two kinds of faith. There is the faith that produces a work and there is a faith that does not produce a work. And the reason Paul can celebrate the Thessalonians is because they have the kind that produces. So important. What he's saying is they were really saved. They were truly regenerated. They were truly redeemed. They had a faith that worked. They had a fruitful believing.
Now, this faith that works is exactly what James is talking about in chapter 2, so let's look at it. And he'll help us to understand what Paul is saying in those brief words. In James 2:14 we read this: "What does it profit, my brethren, thou a man say he has faith and has not works?" Now listen. People have misunderstood this text and there's no need to. It's the same thing Paul is saying in 1 Thessalonians 1:3. He is saying what does it matter, what good is it, what benefit is it for a man to say he has faith when he doesn't have any works? Then it says, "Can faith save him?" Now some people sort of choke on that statement because we want to say, "Oh yes, faith can save him, Oh yes, Ephesians 2, `For by grace are you saved that not of works,' and so forth. Oh yes, faith." But the implication is this, can that kind of faith save him? What kind? The kind that has no...what?...no works. In other words, there are at least two kinds of faith. There is the kind that doesn't have any works and there's the kind that has works. So James says ‑ Let's say there's a man who says he has faith that has no works, can that kind of faith save him? And the implication in the Greek language is no. In fact, you could even read the last part of the verse, "That kind of faith can't save him, can it?"
You can't be saved by a non‑productive faith. In other words, it isn't enough to just believe and say ‑ Well, I believe in Jesus ‑ unless there is an evidence there. It's the same thing Ephesians 2:8 and 9 is saying, "For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast." You say, "Oh, it's faith and not works." Yes, faith and not works saves you but it's faith that works because the next verse says, "For ye are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto...what?...good works." We're not saved by works, we're saved unto good works. So there is no saving faith that doesn't work. And when Paul says, "I praise God for your faith that produces a work," he is saying, I'm glad you're truly regenerated, you're not a sham, you're not just saying I have faith you give evidence of it being saving faith.
And then in James 2 he gives an illustration of the kind of faith that doesn't save. "If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled. Not withstanding, you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?" I mean, what kind of a person is going to say I'm saved, I belong to God, I have faith in God and then someone comes along across their path who is literally dying of starvation and you give them a speech about be warmed and be filled while they starve to death and you're closet is full of stuff? James is saying ‑ Don't tell me that kind of faith saves because it doesn't.
It's the same thing John said when he said, "You say you love God and you close your compassion to one who has need, how dwells the love of God in you?" In other words, there's no...the Bible knows no such thing as a faith that doesn't produce, no such saving faith exists. That's why we've said through the years that you don't walk an aisle and necessarily come...become saved. You don't stick your hand up. You don't say ‑ Well, I believe. There's more than that. It is a faith that produces righteousness. That's saving faith.
James says in verse 17, "Faith, if it doesn't have works as a byproduct is dead because it is alone and faith alone is not sufficient." Now it doesn't mean that faith alone can't save you, it means that faith alone that doesn't produce works can't save you. Saving faith will produce in your life otherwise it's dead.
And then in verse 18 he shows, "A man may say you have faith, I have works," and there's the dichotomy. One guy stands over here and says I believe you're saved by faith. And this guy says oh, I believe you're saved by works. So, you've got faith over here and you've got works over there and he says, "Show me your faith without your works and I'll show you my faith by my works." He brings two together. He says don't tell me about a faith with no works, there's no such thing. You know, when you see somebody that says, "Well, you know, I...I received the Lord one time and I know I don't live it and nothing in my life gives evidence of it," and so forth and so on. They're not saved because a faith without product is dead.
"Oh," you say, "I believe, I believe." "Well, you do well," verse 19 says, "so do the demons." And they do more than believe, at least they have a work, they shudder. "But will you know, O vain man, O empty man, O useless man, that faith without works is dead?" And as somebody said, "Corpses do not make public appearances." And people with dead faith don't come before God.
So, truth in terms of faith is validated by works, the product. Now go back to 1 Thessalonians. And what Paul is saying here is that I am thanking God for your true faith which produces. That's true faith.
And then he gives us four insights into that true faith. Looking at it as if it were a four faceted diamond. Facet number one describes it in verse 9. It says, "How you," middle of the verse, "How you turned to God from idols." This...this real saving faith involves repentance. It involves turning from idols, that is any false belief or false worship, to the true God, the living and true God as it says later in the verse. There is a turning. There is a repenting. There is a conversion. There is a dramatic change. True saving faith is validated by a turning from idols to God.
Secondly, it is further defined in verse 1 when he says to the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Saving faith then turns from idols to the true God and then is intimately in God and in Christ. What a marvelous truth that is. It is marked by an indivisible and eternal union with the living God. "He that is joined to the Lord," 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, "is one spirit." The New Testament says we are partakers of the divine nature. We are jointheirs with Jesus Christ. We are sons of God, children of the Father, brothers of the Lord. Our life is hid with Christ in God. We are one with the Father as the Father is one with the Son. And as 1 John so beautifully says, "We enter into a fellowship and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ the righteous."
So, he says ‑ I thank God first of all for your faith that produces a work. And what is that work that initially is produced? It is a turning from idols to God and an entering into an intimate and eternal relationship and union with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Marvelous.
And then there's a third element. And this moves to the sovereign viewpoint. Verse 4, he says, "Because I can see your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and in sight of God our Father, I know, brethren beloved, your election of God." He says this is another way to look at your salvation. You've been chosen by God.
You say, "Well, how do you know when someone's elect?" Only one way, you have to go back to verse 3 and see if the product is there. Do you see the work of faith? Do you see the labor of love? Do you see the endurance of hope? That's the stuff that proves they're elect. You can't know until you see that. You can't know whether someone's elect before they believe. You may not know whether they're really elect at the moment they say they believe. The only way you'll know they're elect is when you look at the product of their life. But isn't it a marvelous thing? He says, "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." God has chosen you to be beloved. As he says in Ephesians, "You are chosen in the beloved."
And so, he's really affirming their genuineness. They are elect of God as evidenced by their fruitfulness, their work of turning from idols to serve the living true God.
And then there is a fourth element that speaks of the genuineness of their salvation. I think it's so important. Verse 5, "The gospel came in the power of the Holy Spirit and much assurance as you knew what manner of men we were among you for your sake. It came with power." But look at verse 6, "And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction," or thlipsis, tribulation, trouble, "with joy of the Holy Spirit."
Here's another mark of a true Christian. He receives the Word even though it costs dearly. Even though it's in much tribulation and affliction and trouble, he receives it with what? Joy produced by whom? By the Holy Spirit.
And this, I think, is the fourth mark of the genuiness of their salvation is their response to the preaching of the Word of God. When the Apostles gave them the Word of God, they received it. The price was very high, but they received it anyway. You know, there are many people today who say they want to be Christians, who say they want to go to heaven and they want to know Jesus Christ and they want, you know, Him in their life, but they are unwilling to conform to the Word of God. And in much of current‑day Christianity, they're rewriting the Scripture to fit their own desire. And as Joe Bailey said in a recent article in Eternity magazine, he says, "Now we have homosexual theology and we have black theology and women's theology and liberation theology and all these other things. And when the Bible verses don't square with what they want, they just eliminate the Bible verses." That...you wonder at the very heart of that whole thing whether these people are redeemed at all. Because they give no evidence of being willing to receive the Word of God no matter what the price and to obey it with joy.
In that same article, he makes a very interesting statement. He says, "The evangelical church is sick. So sick that people are crowding in to join us. We're a big flock now; big enough to permit remarriage of divorced people, beyond the exception Jesus allowed, big enough to permit practicing homosexuals to pursue their life style, big enough to tolerate almost anything pagans do. We're no longer narrow, it's a wide road of popular acceptance for us," end quote.
Well, he's really reflecting the sign of our time, that instead of receiving the Word of God no matter what it asks and take the tribulation that comes with the price you have to pay and doing it with joy in the Spirit of God, you want to twist the Bible so that it's comfortable for your own life style. I question whether that's a mark of genuine Christianity. These dear people paid a price to receive it. Let's find out.
Go back to Acts 17, let's see how they were born. Acts 17 says, "And when Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica." They're in the area of Macedonia, modern Greece. "There was a synagogue of the Jews there and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures." So, he's only there two weeks, a sabbath on each end and one in the middle. That's all he had with these people. He went in there and he had been chased out of synagogues all over the place, but he went right back again into his synagogue knowing what he would get. He went in there, reasoned out of the Scriptures, dialogued with them, taught them. And the main theme, verse 3, "He was opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered." He showed them the Messiah had to die, talked about the death of Jesus Christ and how God raised Him from the dead. "And that this Jesus whom I preach is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, and some of the Jews believed and they associated," is what that says, "with Paul and Silas." The church was born.
And even devout Greeks, and those would be those devout Greeks who had come to be proselytes to Judaism, many of them, a great multitude believed and even the chief women, some of them believed. Some of the wealthy dowager types in the city of Thessalonica. And so the church was born in the first four verses.
In verse 5, "The Jews who believed not were moved with envy," and isn't that what the gospel is supposed to do, prompt Israel to jealousy? Romans 9. "Took unto them certain vile fellows of the baser sort." You know what that means? Market‑ place creeps...marketplace thugs, the worst, the pits, trouble makers, rabble‑rousers. "And they hired these guys to stir up a riot and they set the city in an uproar, assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people." They wanted to capture all the Christians and bring them out. "And when they had found them now, they drew Jason and certain brethren to the rulers of the city crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come here also, whom Jason hath received," tried to indict Jason for taking them in. And their indictment of these people is that they are trying to overthrow Caesar. Now, of course, they knew the Romans really weren't too interested in the fact that they were different in terms of their theology of the Messiah than the Jews, that was a Jewish issue. But once you got them into the Roman bailiwick and said he was trying to overthrow Caesar, they thought that might be an issue they'd respond to.
They didn't respond. "They troubled the people; and the rulers of the city when they heard these things, when they had taken security of Jason and the others, let them go." They just posted bond and let them go, just posted bail for them and set them loose. And the brethren knew the heat was on. Imagine, these people have only been redeemed for two weeks, some of them may have not even come to Christ till the third sabbath and they've only been a matter of hours in the Kingdom. "But the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night to Berea." So, they get them out of town, get out of here because it's going to be hot here.
And it was so hot, verse 13 says that "When the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the Word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there and stirred up the people. And they had to send Paul on from there to Athens." So, there was heat in Thessalonica...real heat. This is a baby church. I mean, this is an infant group and the heat is on. Now go back to 1 Thessalonians, let me show you two verses.
Chapter 2 verse 13, "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing because when ye received the Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the Word of God." What a gr