1 Thessalonians No.3 The Word at Work

And to the book of Acts, two passages to read together from the 17th chapter of Acts and then from 1st Thessalonians. During the days of the Reformation when Scripture gained once again its supremacy in the churches, often one of the elders would carry an open Bible to the front of the church. The Reformation churches had no altar.

They came to a realization that there was only one altar and that was the cross of the Lord Jesus. And the authority of the church was not vested in any hierarchy of bishops or cardinals or popes, but rather the authority of the church was the inerrancy of Scripture and the proclamation of God's Word through Scripture. That's the reason why the Word was carried into the church and given a very central spot.

It's the reason why in Protestant churches the pulpit is often central. In my estimation it's sometimes too high, but nonetheless it's central to emphasize the fact that Scripture is supreme. It has an infallibility about it.

Well, let's turn to the Word of God. Acts 17, when they, that's Paul and his colleagues, when they had passed through Amphipolos and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a Jewish synagogue. As Paul's custom was, he went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days he reasoned, notice that verb, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead.

This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ, he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women, but the Jews were jealous. So they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city.

They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd, but when they did not find them they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, these men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here. And Jason has welcomed them into his house. They're all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.

When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they put Jason and the others on bail and let them go. As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.

Let's go back to or forward to Thessalonians. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 13. And we also thank God continually, because when you receive the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God which is at work in you who believe.

For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.

In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time, in person, not in thought, out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you.

For we wanted to come to you, certainly I, Paul, did again and again, but Satan stopped us. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy. So good to have you all with us this morning.

If you're not used to fellowshipping here at the tab, let me explain that our spiritual diet is set by the Word of God. I mean by that it's my objective to explain Scripture. There is only one authority, reference has already been made to that, that we recognize at the physical level in our church it's the authority of the Word of God.

But that's not just an academic pursuit because God speaks to us through his Word by the Spirit. And what we want is for God, the Holy Spirit, to be our instructor and to take his Word and apply it to our hearts. So the passage that we're looking at is from the Book of Thessalonians, the first letter that Paul wrote to this Greek church, a young church obviously, in the early years of its existence.

And we're going to examine those last verses from the 13th through to the 19th of the second chapter. In the church where I was brought up as a lad, we'd sometimes sing quite enthusiastically choruses which alas have gone out of vogue today. And one of them, I wonder if some of you oldies remember this one, one of them said the B-I-B-L-E, yes that's the book for me, I stand for square on the Word of God the B-I-B-L-E.

Well it's the Bible and the whole of the Bible and nothing but the Bible, says C.H. Spurgeon, that is the religion of Christ's church. Do you remember three or four weeks ago when we looked first of all at Thessalonians, I said it's very hard for you and me to catapult ourselves back 2,000 years and to consider what it was like to be a Christian in one of the early Christian fellowships. No building like this, no high pulpit, no Bibles, no hymn books, no organs, not many wealthy people coming along together, probably gathering in somebody's house, and one of the men would try to explain what he recalled about what he'd been taught from the founder of the church, in this case Paul.

They couldn't look at a Bible because there weren't any Bibles, they'd just got their recall and they were helped by the Holy Spirit of what Paul had taught them, and they began to appreciate that what they had been taught had an authority of its own, and eventually what was being taught around the churches in Asia Minor was written down. The verb that we get for that is inscripturated, and that of course leads us to the word scripture, and so the epistles of Paul containing his teaching and the life of the Lord Jesus, as remembered by the four evangelists, they were put together and eventually we had the New Testament, but it was a long time after the death of the first believers that the New Testament was available in full form for everyone. So you see how advantaged we are this morning in being able to look into our own personal copy of scripture.

But they did recognize, as I say, the authoritative preaching of the gospel, so Paul came to the marketplace in Thessalonica, then he went into the synagogue for three Saturdays running, he spoke to the Jews and he told them what is being taught here by Ted Davey and myself and all others who are privileged to occupy this pulpit, he taught them about the Lord Jesus Christ. Alas, most of the audience rejected what he had to say, but there were those who accepted, both Jews and Gentiles, that what Paul was preaching in that Greek city was indeed the truth of God. And when Paul later on reflects upon the response that there was to his preaching, he does so with great thanksgiving in his life, in his heart.

The first part of verse 13, we also thank God continually. Why, Paul? Why when you think of these Christians at Thessalonica, why is your heart filled with gratitude? And Paul, if you were here with us today, if you were reflecting upon your time spent in Worthing, if you were displaced from us by a few miles, distanced by a few months, would you also thank God continually for us? Why was Paul so glad? Well, he was glad about the Thessalonians, because of the way that the Word of God that he had preached had worked amongst them. He was grateful, first of all, for the reception the Word of God found.

That's what verse 13 tells us, isn't it? We also thank God continually because when you receive the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men, but as it actually is the Word of God which is at work in you who believe. Reception is very important, isn't it? Some of you know that, town hall permitting, we'd like to have a reception area, the first thing that you come into in our sanctuary as we modify it. You recall, those of you who are not like me, brought up in a Christian home, the first time you ever went to church, assuming that that wasn't when you were a boy or girl in Sunday school, I suggest you, it wasn't the easiest thing to come into a church.

I've known people literally walk up and down the road here with the adrenaline in their bloodstream, wondering if they dare penetrate Worthing Tabernacle. Now, you might feel that that's an absurd thing, but you've been coming here, as you understand what we're like, you know that we're not strange, they don't. You know that our lives are pretty parallel to their lives, but we acknowledge the existence of God and the supremacy of God's purposes in our life.

And so the first thing that becomes important when someone comes to church is the steward, not so? The person who meets the outsider, gives them a handshake, very nice to have you, steers them into the church, points out that there are no reserved seats, what other, whatever people might think, they can sit where they like and we're glad to have them. Reception, most important. And when Paul looks back upon the Word of God that he preached amongst the Thessalonians, his heart overflows in gratitude because of the reception it found, the reception it found.

Jesus was often speaking about reception in his ministry, not so? He went to his hometown of Nazareth, like I might go to my home city of Sheffield, and there he spoke, and he didn't have a very easy time, did he? The congregation in the synagogue were incensed, they took him to a nearby precipice, they would have pushed him over, but miraculously his life was preserved. On one occasion he went to a place called Gadara, there he delivered a man who was possessed with demons, and as a result of that miraculous display of his power, the people were so terrified they pleaded with Jesus to leave the area. He didn't always get a good reception, did he? On another occasion he's teaching a parable, one of his famous parables, the parable of the sower and the seed, and he says in Mark's Gospel in chapter 4 that the seed had a varied response in the differing type of ground where it fell.

And he goes on to say the seed is the Word, and when the Word is proclaimed amongst a disparate group of people, then there will be differing reactions, differing responses. But when Paul reflects upon the Word that he planted in Thessalonica, he's full of joy. Why? Because the seed found good ground, it was watered by the Spirit, it germinated, and a church resulted.

Paul is glad because of the reception it found. It was a reception, first of all, in the head, because the Bible addresses its message to our reason. Paul in Thessalonica reasons with Christians.

I spend my life reasoning with people about the Christian faith. I believe that the Christian faith is an advance over every secular philosophy. But I don't tell people to believe it because they have to believe it.

I'm happy to give a reason as to why they should believe the faith. I appeal, first of all, to the brain, to the mind, that God-given faculty that you and I have. And so Paul is grateful because of the way the Word was received in the minds of these people.

But the Word is not just addressed to the head, it's secondly addressed to the heart. And Paul's glad because of the reception it found in both the head and the heart. You see, my dear friend, it is possible, and I've known it, and it's one of the saddest things I come across as a preacher.

I've known people come to church year by year, and they go through all the mechanics of religious worship and so on and so forth, and they know the Bible back to front and upside down, and they can quote you the verses, and they could tell you a little bit about John Calvin and various other theologians. But the Word never went beyond their head. And the Word that Paul proclaimed was not just directed at the mind.

It was not just for the intellect to accept. Rather, this Word was to take on the energy within the personalities of those who received it in their mind, so that their whole being is changed as a result of what they believe in their head. Isn't that what Paul is saying here? You accepted it not as the Word of men, but as it actually is the Word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

You can't be a Christian. Let this be written in bold letters and neon. You cannot be a Christian just through your mind alone.

You can only be a Christian when the Spirit of the Word resides within your heart and makes precious and real to you what you have received in your mind, so that people who come by you appreciate, through living alongside you, that there is something different in you. God is at work in us, says the Apostle Paul, when he writes to the Philippians. God is releasing His power in us and through us.

And unless you know something of the power of God released within your life, then it is not the Word in its fullness that you have responded to. And Paul is so concerned to express his great joy before God. We thank God continually concerning the Thessalonians, because they not only receive the Word of God, but the Word of God works so powerfully in their lives that they turn from their idolatry, from the way of life that they had led heretofore, as you read in the eighth verse and onwards of the first chapter.

You see, it's not just what I say, it's what I do. On the day of judgment, you will not be asked what you read, you'll be asked about what you did. The Word of God affects your mind, the head, but if it's truly the Word of God in all its power, it's going to affect your heart, your disposition.

So the Apostle is very grateful, and he thanks God for his goodness to him in propelling him into Thessalonians with a blood-stained back, because he'd been so roughly treated in Philippi, his last port of call, and there in Thessalonica, he was enabled by God to plant a Christian fellowship. They received the Word, the reception it had. Now if I could stop there, I'd like to, and I'd like to get us all to stand up and sing, praise God from whom all blessings flow, because of his Word, but I can't do that.

I could get you to sing the doxology, that's no problem, but I would not be doing justice to Scripture to leave you at this point, because when you receive the Word, it doesn't make life wonderful, the weeks and the months and the years that are to follow, in terms of causing you never to know anxiety and strain. The reception, the Word found, for which God, for which Paul praises God, leads on to Paul referring to the persecution it fermented, the persecution it fermented. Look at verse 14, for you brothers, you who had accepted in your head and your heart this word, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ.

You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out. You see, it's the Word of God, and though this world was made by God, this world at the moment is not acknowledged, at least the inhabitants largely do not acknowledge who God is. And when you acknowledge a superior authority to the aggregate authority of men and women in our world, you will run into difficulty.

Persecution has many formats. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the man who lived so bravely returning from the United States of America to Germany because he was a German, who lived so bravely during the Nazi regime in Germany and was killed by Hitler's butchers, said this, that suffering is the true badge of the Christian. Suffering is the true badge of the Christian.

The Apostle Paul tells us that he wants to know the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. That's not the basic emphasis of the Evangelical Church in the West, is it? There's a lot of emphasis on joy and praise, worship. That's fine.

I've no problems. I'm not knocking any particular aspect of teaching. But I am saying this, that fundamental to the New Testament was this concept that when you receive the Word of God and applied it, you would run into difficulty.

Sufferings is the badge of the Christian church. And so the apostle makes this observation as he outlines his point, as he breaks it up and extends on it. He gives us, first of all, an illustration to Gladden.

For you brothers became imitators of God's churches in Judea. How did Jewish Christians cope under difficulty? Well, they coped very well, but in no way underestimate the cost that it was for a Jew to turn to Christ. Incidentally, don't underestimate that cost today.

Not so much in Israel, but in Bangladesh, I have sometimes wondered what impudence I have to suggest to a Bangladeshi that he turns from the Islamic faith to become a Christian. You see, by and large, suffering for Christ in the West is in the third division. You get some difficulty, but it's not accentuated like it is in the Islamic society or in a Jewish society.

Try becoming a Christian, converting from being an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem, and you'll be in trouble. You'll be in great difficulty today. But here was an illustration that Gladden, the heart of Paul, he discovered in the tenacity, the courage of Jewish Christians in Judea, a similar sort of experience also reflected amongst the Thessalonians, whom he'd won to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it's not easy, is it, sometimes to be a Christian. See, God allows things to happen in your life and mine which we can't quite understand. Somebody puts it quite gently.

God sometimes puts us to bed in the dark. Ever had that experience? He puts us to bed in the dark. In other words, He doesn't always explain why He allows to happen what has happened.

Now, don't think of these Thessalonians as superstar Christians. They weren't. They're like you and me with all our warts and pimples, with all our foibles, with all our failings, and at times they went to bed in the dark.

They haven't got a Bible, remember? I keep emphasizing that because it's so important for you to realize. They didn't have a large community of people like you and I have to relate to. They were there on their own in the rough and tumble of life in Thessalonica, but they held true to their faith and the small deposit that they had of the Word of God which was locked up in their memory.

And Paul sees the quality of their lives as resembling that of the testimony of Jewish Christians in Judea. And so there was an illustration to Gladden. But then there was a situation to Sadden, wasn't there? You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.

They displeased God and are hostile to all men. Here is one of the most intense accusations that Scripture levels at unbelieving Jews in the way that they handled the ambassadors of the Church of God in its infancy. It says the Apostle Paul, the people who were God's own people as far as the Old Testament dispensation is concerned, they allowed their venom and hatred to fall across the emerging Christian community in Judea and also around the world.

They were the ones who had killed the prophets. They were the ones who had killed the Lord Jesus. And as the prophets and the Savior were treated, so the Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians were being treated.

I think the saddest verse in the Bible is this, he came unto his own, but his own received him not. You say, Paul is very severe when he deals with the Jews here, but the heartache is something that he picks up from Jesus, not so? Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets, how often would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathereth her chicks, but you would not. Desolation came to the Jews.

Jerusalem is ransacked by the Roman armies and the Jews who asked that the blood and the consequence of the blood of Jesus being shed be upon their heads had the fulfillment of their request in a most awful fashion. Down the centuries and even today, the large part of Israel refuses to acknowledge who Jesus is. And were it not the fact that Paul writes Romans 9 through to 11, we might feel that there is no further hope left for the Jew whatsoever.

Here is a situation to sadden, but Paul tells us that the day will come prior to the advent of Christ when Jewish people shall turn and acknowledge who Jesus is. The Word of God, the reception it found in the head and in the heart of Thessalonian believers, the persecution it fermented. Here's an illustration to Gladden.

These Christians were like the Jewish Christians. They were firm in their faith, but here is a situation to sadden. The Old Testament people of God largely rejected the message of salvation as proclaimed by Paul with the result that the wrath of God has come upon them at last.

But let me proceed. Finally, having spoken about the reception of the Word of God, the reception it found, and the persecution it fermented, here is the communion that it fostered. Look at verse 17, will you? But brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time, in person, not in thought, etc.

I do like the creed, you know. You've got the message because I make you say it so often. But I don't make you say it because I feel that I'm confronted with people who have to be told how to express their faith.

I make you say it because I believe that it is one of the finest statements of Christian belief. And also, as an English teacher, I used to go in for praises and summaries. If you can get Tottenham children to summarize a three-page essay and get it across succinctly, you're doing extremely well.

But sometimes it's good to summarize, isn't it? To shorten what you're trying to, what you believe. And in the creed, we not only read about the second return of Jesus, but we also say, I believe in the communion of the saints. Do you know what that means? I believe in the communion of the saints.

What kept this small, emerging church in Thessalonica going at the horizontal level? Well, it was the way in which they found strength by meeting with one another, loving one another, sharing with each other. The Jewish Christians went from house to house. They were infatuated with one another's company.

They'd been taken out of this world, translated out of darkness, and they moved into the marvelous light of God. And therefore, they wanted to relate with the people of God. And here is the Apostle Paul, and he tells us that one of the things that the Word does is it creates community.

It creates fellowship. Brothers, he calls these people. And he's not just using that affectionate term because it seems gentle and kind.

He means business when he employs it. This is what he thinks of them, brothers. Do you know what the cost is of being the pastor of a church for 17 years? It's just that you get to know people too much.

Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. You see, 17 years ago, conducting a memorial service wasn't a great difficulty for me. I hope I did it with sensitivity and with respect.

But by and large, I didn't know or only knew in passing the people for whom I was officiating. But it's a different game now. Use that word in inverted commas.

These are folks I've known and loved. There is a pain in parting, is there not? And that's part of what Paul brings out just here. You see, he isn't allowed to stay at Thessalonica.

Why not? Well, you see, the Jews have roughed things up, and there are Gentiles too who don't appreciate what he's having to say. And so Paul is sent on his way, but he leaves there in Thessalonica a small group of children of his, spiritually speaking, who just have the recall of his teaching. No Bible, you remember? And for Paul, it was difficult to take his leave.

Brothers, when we were torn away from you, that's a strong verb. Here is Jacob thinking that he is going to lose Benjamin, having already lost his favorite son Joseph. Or so he thought, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved, says the patriarch.

As the rest of his sons take young Benjamin with them down to Egypt, you remember the story? And here is Paul with exactly the same emotion. I was torn away from you. There was pain in parting.

One of the great problems of going on the mission field is not that the pressures of life out there, they exist, but sometimes they maybe are exaggerated in our estimation. The greatest pain is not belonging to a fellowship like this. The greatest pain is saying goodbye to mother and father and feeling that you may not see them again.

That's the pain of koinonia. It's the pain of communion. But this is what the word does, you see.

It brings you together as a family. And if you really love one another, when you are separated from each other, there is that lack, there is that sense of miss. The pain of parting.

Brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time, and though we were away from you physically, you went out of our mind mentally, in person, not in thought, out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. But we were handicapped, says Paul. Satan stopped us.

The idea is of Satan digging up a road. That's a literal Greek word there. Digging up the road, preventing us from coming to you.

They were handicapped in having further fellowship with Paul. But Paul never stopped loving, never stopped caring. Can you say that, hand over your heart, about our fellowship here? Are you aiming to this end? Or is fellowship for you just like playing a game of billiards, you know? One ball touches another ball and goes off into the different pockets.

And there's not another sort of push on the cue, the movement of the ball, until seven days hence. That's not fellowship. That's just being a mere acquaintance.

Coming in to listen to somebody preach, doing your religious exercises on a Sunday morning, and that's the end. My friend, that is so far divorced from what the New Testament is teaching about Christianity and fellowship. You're really living in a completely different, in a completely different world.

Fellowship, that the word causes, that results from the word, is my loving my brother and sister, so that if I am not with them, it hurts. It's sharing the responsibilities of the life of Christ as we push forward the frontiers of the kingdom in this locality together. That is fellowship.

True church membership is not signing on a dotted line and maybe expressing some commitments that you have no real reason in your mind to live up to, at least no intention in your mind to live up to. Fellowship cannot be commandeered by signing on the dotted line. Fellowship is allowing the heart of God's love for me to overflow into the hearts of other people.

Not so? And that's when the cost comes, you see. Those of you who have a happy marriage, you pay your price when your partner dies. You see, I've known people whose marriages have broken apart or when one has died and there's been very little sense of loss because there was never any real fellowship and love.

But if you've loved someone intensely for years and years and suddenly they've gone, then there is the pain of parting, not so? And the Christian doctrine comes in and offers to help you by the tremendous program that there is in the future, that one day you will be with your loved one. But here says the Apostle Paul, there's the pain of parting with you people. I was hindered by Satan from renewing physical fellowship.

But he goes on to close down by saying this, that the pain of parting is compensated with the joy of ultimate reunion. Verse 19, what is our hope? What is our joy? For the crown in which we will glory when Jesus comes, the first reference in the New Testament to the coming of Christ in this verse, which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes. Is it not you? Indeed you are our glory and our joy.

The Apostle has in mind the return of the Savior and he says when Jesus comes, he wants to make a crown for Jesus. That was something that was done in the Grecian world. A dignitary came, a politician, someone who was leading a nation and they were recognized by people making a laurel wreath for them or a crown.

Now says Paul, whether or not physically I see you again, one thing I have in mind to do, when Jesus returns, I'm going to make a crown for him. And my crown will not be out of precious gems literally, it won't be out of the laurel wreaths. My crowns will be made out of you and you and you and you.

I'll mat together, so to speak, all the people that I won to the Lord Jesus at Thessalonica and I'll offer you to him. It will be my fitting recognition that Jesus has come back again. You're my joy, you're my crown, you're out of my sight, you're not out of my mind.

I can't physically touch you, but my emotions are always embracing you. Why is this, Paul? What has caused this relationship? Well, says Paul, it's the Word. I preach the Word and the Word had a reception amongst these people.

They received it in their heads, they received it in their hearts and as a consequence there was terrible persecution, but they held on to the profession of faith that they made. And there was born within them an increasing awareness of love and responsibility to one another. There was a communion that they enjoyed which I as their pastor feel.

That's what the Word does, you see. It demands reception. Have you received it? Is Christ Jesus your Savior? You tell me, yes, I have.

I'm going through difficulties as a result. Well, that's true to these people here, their new persecution, probably in a greater degree than you. But you say, despite the problems, I'm discovering within the Christian family such a tremendous bonus in terms of love and fellowship and understanding.

That's what the Word does. Paul continually thanks God that the Word worked its way through into the personalities of these people so that they became God's people in the stinking city of Thessalonica with all its permissiveness, with all its paganism. And as the Word did it then, so it can do it Now, with you, let's sing about the Word.

262. And let's really lift that second and third stanza. It's beautifully put together by William Howe, a Christian of a previous century.

262, a word of God incarnate, a wisdom from on high.