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Sermon: The Power of God’s Word Confirmed Date: March 14, 2021, Morning Text: 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 Series: Awaiting Christ Preacher: Josh Sheldon Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2021/210314-ThePowerOfGod'sWordConfirmed.mp3
We'll turn in your Bibles, if you would, please, to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.
Our text this morning will be verses 14 through 16, but I will read, just as a reminder from last week,
verse 13, and to gain the context.
In the three verses that we'll preach from this morning, verses 14 through 16, the Apostle Paul
commends the Church of the Thessalonians for their perseverance under persecution.
And that turns out to have been the evidence that the Word of God was, in fact, at work in them.
It was when, it's, see, it's when we are willing to suffer for the faith that we prove that God's Word came to
us, or comes to us, with power in and of itself, as the Holy Spirit works in you
to keep you, to keep us, to have kept the Thessalonians believing the gospel.
See, the Word of God has the power to convert men's souls, and it has the power to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ,
and it has the power to strengthen us to endure the trials that the world puts on us as we suffer for the
sake of the gospel.
So the Thessalonians' willingness to suffer for the gospel was proof positive that the Word of God
was at work in them.
One comment, just before I call you to stand as we read God's Word, I do need to make a little correction from
last week when I preached from verse 13 about how the Word of God was preparing them for
persecution to come.
Well, that was an error on my part.
It was evidence of persecution endured.
And so with that, please stand for the reading of God's Word, 1 Thessalonians
2, verses 13 through 16.
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us,
you accepted it not as the Word of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God, which is at work
in you believers.
For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.
For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the
prophets, and drove us out, and displeased God, and opposed all mankind by hindering us from
speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins.
But wrath has come upon them at last.
God bless the reading.
And now the preaching of His Word.
Please be seated.
You know, there comes a time in most of our lives, or for many of us, there came a
time in our lives when our words get put to the test.
When the things that we say we believe, the things that we say we stand for, the things we say we will do when push
comes to shove, as we like to say, well, it happens.
And our commitments to these things that we have proclaimed get tested.
Some circumstance comes along that relates directly to what we've said, or maybe even just thought we were fully committed
to.
For example, the soldier's courage when the bullets start flying.
The accountant's integrity when he can cover his own tracks.
The doctor, when his Hippocratic oath stands next to a viable, but as yet unborn child.
The husband, when that woman passes by and the next seems to want to follow of its own accord.
We have these circumstances that most of us have come across, and if you're younger than some of us,
you will come across where your words get put to the test.
Do you really believe what you said you believe?
Are you really committed to this way of life?
To this way of thinking?
To this moral scheme?
There comes that crisis, out of which we emerge strengthened in our commitments
or dismayed at how easily they slipped away.
Has that happened to you?
Have you had those opportunities where you could stand for what you said?
You could stand for what is right as you thought you might?
And perhaps, God willing, you did.
Or perhaps you fell away.
You know, in Israel's history, the Reubenites wanted their allotment of the promised land to be on the east side of the
Jordan.
On the opposite side from where the rest of Israel was going.
And they promised that if they were granted that, that they would fight on the other side of the Jordan with
all the rest of Israel until the land was subdued for them.
Then they would go back to the land that they wanted on the east side of the Jordan.
And all that just to say, Moses warned them in that time.
They made these commitments.
They said, this is what we'll do.
And Moses said something, and this relates to us today.
But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin
will find you out.
See, God in his providence arranges circumstances that put our words to the test.
The Reubenites' word was put to the test when they had to come across with the rest of Israel and fight until the land was subdued
before they went back and got their own land.
And if they did not do so, your sin will find you out.
Circumstances will come along, and your commitment will be proven for what it really
is.
You know, most of us probably have a pretty uneven history in this regard.
Times of moral courage where the price of dereliction was as nothing compared to maintaining integrity, and times
when courage failed and you cave to pressure or some temptation.
We find in these verses 14 through 16 of 1 Thessalonians 2,
where Paul gives them the evidence that he saw that proved to him that the word of God really
The end of verse 13, the word of God which is at work in you.
And in the very next verse, verse 14, when he says for, f -o -r,
he cites the reason for why he could say what he did at the end of verse 13.
The word of God is the only power, you see, that's going to bring us victory in persecution.
The word of God is the only thing we have that's going to see us through that.
The word of God is the only thing that will see you through those smaller crises, if you will.
The sort of things I mentioned at the beginning.
The power of the word of God at work in you, as proved
by the way the persecutions to the church and the various circumstances
and temptations that we have in our daily life are encountered and engaged.
Do you have this power working in you?
Are you able to withstand the pressures and stay true to Christ?
The power of the word of God does this.
It is an active and living and powerful word that comes from a God who is the same.
The power of the word of God is the only power that can bring the victory.
Anything else just produces stubborn results.
But this is not the Christian way.
This is not what Paul commends the Thessalonians for or would leave for us.
He would have us to submit to, to have working in us that power of the word of
God.
And here are the proofs of it.
I want us to look through verses 14 through 16 and see why Paul could say the power of God is working in you.
He saw it.
In verse 14, we're going to see how their imitation of good examples proved that the power of
God was working in them.
In verse 15 and then the first part of verse 16, we'll see how rejection of the bad examples
proved that God's word was at work in them.
And then for the rest of verse 16, we're going to see how apprehending and believing the warnings proves the same thing.
That God's word is at work in them.
And all these things work together.
Following the good is proof of God's word working into you.
Rejecting the bad is proof that God's word is working in you.
And apprehending and believing the warnings is proof of the same.
Verse 14.
Imitation of good examples proving God's word was at work in them.
And proof that God's word is at work in you.
For you brothers became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.
Now remember I said it earlier.
I'll say it one more time.
That word for means that that's how we know that Paul is citing evidence for
what he just said.
The word of God which is at work in you as proven by we could say
that they became imitators.
So how do we know this?
How do we know the word of God?
Because they imitated a positive example of perseverance set by the Judaic churches.
Now the Thessalonians had a habit of imitation.
In chapter 1 verse 6 at the very beginning of this series in Thessalonians.
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord for you received the word in much afflictions.
You know it wasn't just that they got the word of God and they had time to think it over and to mull
it over and to work out its intricacies and say okay well it says this so when this happens
let's behave this way or that way.
You see the receipt of the word of God itself was in the midst of afflictions.
Now Paul doesn't say exactly what those afflictions were but we could speculate just a little bit and it seems
to me that maybe they were gathering around Paul and being attracted to this gospel he was preaching.
And in the meantime they're being sneered at.
They're being derided.
They were beginning to be persecuted if you will.
They received the word in affliction as it was being given to them.
This is something Paul says even earlier where he says that the word of God was preached by them with
power with the Holy Spirit.
That was from his viewpoint.
He saw it and perhaps because I say perhaps, perhaps because the afflictions began
against the Thessalonians even while it was being proclaimed to them.
The Thessalonians withstood that and it wasn't as if they had that time as I said to prepare
themselves.
It came immediately.
Now Jesus warns of this very thing doesn't he?
He warns us in this world we will have tribulations.
He warns us that you will suffer for your faith.
He said in John that in this world you will have trouble.
You will have trials.
You will have tribulations.
But rejoice I have overcome the world.
He adds to that.
But he does warn us that even the receipt of the gospel of God, you don't even get a chance to catch your breath
if you will.
Comes with suffering.
Comes with persecution.
Comes with this antagonism against it.
The Thessalonians had no honeymoon period.
Like I said, they didn't have a chance to think it over, to work it out, to prepare themselves.
It happened all at once.
It was like a flood.
It came with suffering.
In chapter 3 verse 3 Paul writes that he sent Timothy to them that no one be moved by these
afflictions.
The afflictions with which they received the word and lived in the word.
In 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 he says,.
Therefore we are we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in
all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are suffering.
Now we can take a brief excursus here for just a moment.
The Thessalonians seem to have received from Paul a warmth and a friendship
that was unusual at least to say the least for Paul.
And if we wonder why that might be, why this warmth and this friendship with them, this attachment to them
so flows from Paul to them.
I wonder if it's because more than any other churches these Thessalonians shared the experience of
persecutions with Paul.
They had this common experience together of knowing what it's like to have immediate
violence against yourself for the faith of Jesus Christ.
So how was it that the Thessalonians, what was the cause of the Thessalonians being able to
endure these persecutions and stay true to the faith and for ourselves
to stay true as we walk along the way in all the things that come at us?
Well, there's two causes that we can see right here in the text.
First the powers of power of God's word at work in believers and this is primary to what Paul is saying here.
So it's primary in this message.
It's the power of God's word at work.
I spoke about this at some length last week, and I don't want to repeat too much of that
except to remind you that God's word is powerful.
It's such a simple statement.
That's so profound.
God's word is powerful.
Reading the word of God, memorizing the word of God is all good.
But remember as you read it, it's not just words.
It's the power of God.
It's a living and active word that as you ingest it, if you will, it's a word that
transforms you more and more.
It strengthens you.
It empowers you.
It makes you more and more able to do God's will.
God's word attended by His Holy Spirit.
It does more than just influence.
It converts.
It can change your soul.
The word of God which is able to build you up.
That's Acts chapter 20 verse 32.
The word of God which is able to save you as I've said.
James chapter 1 verse 21.
The word of God which accomplishes that for which is sent.
Isaiah chapter 55 verse 11.
The word of God that will discern the thoughts and intents of your heart.
That's Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12.
This word of God, more than just words, more than just something to memorize and
regurgitate.
It's a word of God that can actually accomplish in you God's will.
In the Thessalonians it accomplished God's will that they would persevere and stay true to Christ in the midst of much afflictions.
And this is what Paul credits the Thessalonians perseverance to.
To their grand endurance.
No.
To how wonderfully they came together and made a covenant among themselves that they're going to respond this the way that
way.
That would be good too.
But what is the cause of any of that?
The word of God working in them.
So that's first.
And second is the desire to follow the example of other churches was proof that they were indeed
recipients of the word of God and that power in them.
The desire to follow good examples.
The desire to imitate those who are following Christ and staying true to him.
I mean if you were looking for someone to follow as a lifestyle example,
who would you look for?
Would you look for somebody who is successful?
Somebody well adjusted?
Someone who fits in well with other people?
The Thessalonians follow the example of people who had given themselves up to be outcasts, to be hated, to be
persecuted.
You became imitators of the churches in Judea.
What were the churches in Judea?
Outcasts, despised, persecuted.
And they looked at that and said, well, that's what we want to be like.
Now who would do that?
Who would look at some poor bedraggled person and say, there's my model.
We see those people at the intersections, you know, they're at the left turn lane.
And they've got that little sign.
They see different things on.
They've got the cup for the money.
And you wonder, is the light going to turn?
Or am I going to get my wallet out before the light turns?
And all those kinds of things.
Well, how many of us look at that person?
I want to be like that.
Well, they're made in the image of God, and we're not going to take an excursus about that.
My point is, who would look at a church that is surrounded by
hatred, that is poverty stricken, that is losing their jobs because their employers hate
the gospel, and say, that's what I want to imitate.
Well, that's exactly what was happening to the Thessalonians.
They were imitators of the church in Judea.
It was exactly the situation that I explained.
How could they do that?
How must we pick our godly examples?
Well, they did it by the power of God, by the word of God that was working in them.
That made them want to be like Christ, no matter the cost.
We all need examples.
Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ.
Could Paul have imitated Apollos?
Could Paul have tried to be more eloquent and speak better the way Apollos could?
Sure.
But insofar as Apollos follows Christ, and insofar as it was to make the gospel
clearer and more plain in his speaking, would it have been wrong to be an encourager like Barnabas?
I'm speaking of those two who Paul knew so well.
Well, no.
But the goal has to be to follow Christ.
And this is the word of God working in someone that looks for that Christ -like, that godly example
to follow.
Who do you look for to imitate?
Well, let it be that one, no matter their social status, no matter their job, race,
color, sex, whatever it is, that one who follows Christ and sets that scheme before you,
no matter what.
And here, in this immediate context, that one whose faith
has been tested, that one who's been, as we say, up against it,
and came out pure for the lesson.
You say, I want to be like that, no matter the cost.
Is this proof of the word of God working in you?
Do you have that word working in you?
Do you know this word?
Do you see the examples of godly men?
You go back to Moses.
You can speak of Elijah.
You can look at Paul.
You can look at Apollos, even.
So many we have, primarily, and most importantly, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We all need someone to follow.
So we have the scripture before us, and that's why we have each other.
It is my belief that someone who looks around says, well, yeah, we're to be imitating others as they
imitate Christ.
I should find that godly example.
We're all here together to encourage, to exhort, to build up.
Yes, but there's nobody here I can follow, really.
Well, that's just arrogance.
If you think that way, I tell you plainly, it's just pride and arrogance.
God has given you the whole fellowship here.
And amongst this group, there are those you can look to and say, I want to be like them,
not because of their job, money, the kind of spouse they're married to, or anything like that, but
because they follow Christ.
For the Thessalonians, as they followed Christ, as they endured the persecution, was proof that the word of God was working
in them.
And for you to look for and follow that godly Christ -like example,
no matter the cost, is proof of the same.
So the Thessalonians, they sort of looked around, and they said, okay,
who are we going to follow?
We're going to follow those trouble -infested people from Judea.
Let's be like them, because their faith stood firm as a testament to Jesus Christ, the
very word of God.
Well, Paul goes on, he says, you suffered the same thing from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews.
There's this correlation, you see, that their countrymen, and these are
Thessalonians, so these are pagans, these are idolaters, as the Thessalonians themselves had been,
that they turned away from those gods,
the gods that they turned away from, that their fellow countrymen still worship.
Those are the ones.
They did the same thing to them as the Judaic churches received from their
neighbors, who were Jews, of course.
You suffered the same thing from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews.
Now, it's very likely that none of the Thessalonians had ever met a member of the Jerusalem church.
Now, if they had, it might have gone something like this as they talked to them.
Let's say they're sitting at a Starbucks or wherever 2 ,000 years ago they would sit for some fellowship, having a cup of coffee.
And the guy from the Judaic church, speaking of the persecutions, they might have said something like, you know, that was tough.
That was really hard to get through.
The Jews had this guy that they sent out against us.
I mean, he imprisoned us.
He watched us be executed, and he approved of it.
He even went to foreign lands and dragged us back here to be punished for believing in Jesus.
Man, that guy was rough.
And you'd say, well, who is he?
I'm going to watch out for this guy.
And the answer, be careful.
His name was Saul.
He's like the Pharisee of all Pharisees.
He's the meanest guy you ever met, and he's tough.
Now he goes by Paul.
And he claims to be a Christian.
You got to watch out for this guy.
You see where I'm going with that.
Suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews.
How did Paul know that?
If they hadn't been there, the Thessalonians hadn't been to Jerusalem, they hadn't seen all that.
Well, Paul knew what the Jerusalem churches withstood, and could compare it to what the Thessalonians were withstanding.
Because Paul was the one who brought it to them in Judea.
He's the one who taught them who to imitate and why.
He was the leader of the persecution.
Now it wasn't like the traitor who reveals his former nation's secrets.
There is no secret.
It's the power of God at work in believers that makes persecution bearable.
Paul knew this from his own experience.
He watched the young church grow in the face of his best efforts to stop it when he was Saul.
And Paul was able to tell them from his own experience as a persecutor what the Jerusalem church had gone through and was
going through.
He knew the experiences were the same from his own experience on both ends.
He brought persecution to the Judaic church, and he experienced
persecution from the Jews there in Jerusalem.
The Thessalonians' countrymen learned from the Jews of Thessalonica in a way.
I'm thinking of those pagans, those ones who were persecuting the Thessalonian church.
Really they're one and the same with the Jews of Thessalonica.
Acts chapter 17 verse 5 says that the Jews of that city of Thessalonica were jealous and some
wicked men of the rabble and gathered some wicked men of the rabble and they formed a mob and set the city in
an uproar.
Now just so we can sort that out, the Jews of Thessalonica were jealous
because the Thessalonicans were coming to the gospel.
The Jews there started a riot.
They gathered up some wicked men.
They gathered up Thessalonian pagans as it were and formed this mob
and attacked the Thessalonian church.
You can read all that in Acts chapter 17.
You know your faith today, like their faith then,
is being attacked and really for the same reason.
Being attacked because it shakes up the whole world.
The accusation is these men are turning the world upside down.
They're upsetting the order of things.
They're claiming this god and putting a god and a king above Caesar and all these other accusations we read about
in the scripture.
But your faith like theirs is attacked and for the same reason because it shakes things up.
What's under attack today?
I'm not going to give you long quotes.
I did just a very quick research on this.
But today the Christian ethic of parental responsibility is under attack.
You read the United Nations statements on the rights of children.
Rights of children.
Well children have rights of some sort, but not like they put them there.
The Christian idea that parents are responsible for their children and children must obey their parents and
follow in their ways is definitely under attack.
Your faith is under attack.
The United Nations has statements defining the rights of children over and against parents wishes.
There are those who would make corporal punishment.
I'm talking spanking.
I'm not talking beating.
Spankings would make it a crime.
There are those who consider teaching a child about sin to be child abuse.
Now there's no laws against that in this country.
But brethren, I'll just say quickly that ideas have consequences and these things
get floated up.
And if they don't get shot down right away as something ridiculous, they have a way of
solidifying as they become more and more accepted.
And next thing you know you have senators writing laws.
You have judges making determinations.
And this is really where it starts.
Abortion is women's health and to object to that is to be a hater.
Religious organizations, religious organizations and churches are coerced by the state to hire people whose
lives are opposed to that organization's beliefs.
And we could go on and on and on with this.
Your faith, like the Thessalonian faith, was under attack.
Have you felt this?
Have you felt this personally?
From your friends?
From co -workers?
From employers?
It's coming from everywhere.
Are you ready for that onslaught?
Were you ready when your pen could make an entry that would pocket you some money and hide your tracks?
Were you ready when that woman who is not your wife, and I mean this whether you have a wife or not, a woman
not your wife spun your head and you saw her looking back.
Were you ready for that?
Were you ready when the door is closed and the keypad's just begging for a click?
The point I'm making here, if we talk about the big stuff, we talk about a church in Thessalonica under
persecution.
Enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ trying to destroy a church.
And they're ready for it.
And so I'm asking you, are you ready?
And I go to these seemingly small things.
You say, hold on, pastor.
Hold on a second.
First you talk about big things like persecution, churches being destroyed, and then you move to this piddly diddly little small potato
stuff.
I'm ready to fight the beasts of Ephesus.
Isn't that enough?
Let me give you an excerpt from one of Jesus's parables.
The parables of the three men who were given talents when the master left.
Ten talents, five talents, two and one.
I'm sorry, four men.
In the middle of it, he says, this is Jesus speaking.
This is his parable.
And he also had the two talents came forward saying, master, you delivered to me two talents.
Here I have made two talents more.
His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant.
You have been faithful over a little.
I'll set you over much.
Are you ready for the persecutions that are sure to come against the church?
Are you ready to fight the beasts at Ephesus?
Are you ready to be surrounded by your former friends?
And derided, and to lose your job, to lose homes, all sorts
of things.
Don't assume you're ready for that quote -unquote big stuff, the hard stuff,
the hero's challenge, until you've gotten through some of the more mundane, smaller
things.
You don't move on to calculus until you've mastered algebra.
The Word of God's working in you is the same powerful word that makes you faithful in little over the
two talents as it makes you over much.
Makes you faithful when that the eyes are forward, no matter who's going by the other way, because the heart
is right.
The heart is right, not just stubborn resolve that I'm not going to look.
A heart that wants to honor Christ and stay true to commitments.
But don't assume that you're ready for the big stuff until you're faithful in the
small.
The Thessalonians, it seems like the big stuff hit them right away.
So it's a bit of a exception.
Most of us have to start small and work our way up.
The Word of God working in you is the same powerful word that can make you faithful in little and in much.
It's not that the power of the Word grows.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Our confidence in it grows.
Our transformation grows as we see God faithful, as we see God's Word carrying us through
whatever comes.
So how did Paul know?
What was his evidence that the Thessalonians had the Word of God working in them?
It was their imitation of the good example.
No matter the cost, they followed the way of that church in Jerusalem, the
Judaic church that stood firm under severe persecutions.
How severe?
Just read about Paul before he became Paul and what he brought upon them.
There's proof of the Word of God working in them.
It's the proof working in you.
Have you submitted to this Word?
Do the daily temptations of life overcome you?
Or do you, by the power of God and that Word working in you, overcome them?
That's really the question we need to ask ourselves before God.
For Paul was proof of the Word, proof of their conversion, that they stayed true and they
followed the good example of the Judaic church and withstanding the persecution.
And in a like, in a like manner, rejection of the bad example is proof of that same Word of God
working in them.
He says you received the same thing from your own countrymen that they received from the Jews.
Now verse 15 to the first part of verse 16.
Who told both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and opposed all mankind by
hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved.
Now here is the most intense condemnation in all Paul's writings of the Jews.
And he sounds like a raving anti -Semite, doesn't he?
Let's just say right up front that he's not anti -Semitic.
He is not that.
Nor is he telling us to be.
His heart for his own people, including these killers, is found in Romans chapter 9 verses 1 through 4.
He says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
I'm not lying.
My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen,
according to the flesh.
Now it's very intense language that we have in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 15.
We need to admit that.
But Paul no more condemned every Jew without distinction than you or I would every American if we
said something like America is guilty of murder for the wanton slaughter of the unborn.
If I said that, you would agree with that.
But what I mean by that, that you are guilty of it?
That you did it?
Of course not.
Nor does Paul mean that when he speaks of the Jews and sounds like he's speaking of all Jews no matter what.
No, it couldn't be.
If I said that this has become a godless nation led by demonic influence, and we've trashed any semblance of
biblical marriage by the laws that have been passed, you would agree with that.
But of course I wouldn't mean you, particularly the nation as a whole.
You and I would no more mean each and every person without discrimination or distinction than Paul did.
So why is this here?
This very intensive language.
As he's speaking about the Word of God working in the Thessalonians, and I'm speaking about the Word of God working in you.
Why do we have such intensive language here?
It's really kind of hard to figure out.
This scholar named Denny, who's quoted by Heibert, just to give proper attribution.
He says,
the vehement condemnation.
The idea is that Paul's just so exasperated.
What am I to do with this people?
Well, I don't want to go into a long excursus about Paul not being
anti -semitic.
I think it's pretty clear he's not.
But we mustn't be ashamed that the biblical evidence does focus on Jewish obstinance against the gospel
as being surprising, exasperating.
Romans chapter 3.
He says,.
And he goes on to list even more.
And then in Romans 6, he repeats much of the same theme.
If they had all this, why are they so violent against the gospel as a whole?
Paul, of course, was a converted Jew.
Jesus rightly said salvation is of the Jews.
He being born to a Jewish family.
He being born a Jew.
I myself converted from Judaism.
So not every Jew.
But on the whole, I could see Paul being exasperated.
If you had all this advantage, you had the oracles, you had the prophets.
Well, Jesus himself held the nation at large as responsible.
The nation at large.
Not every person.
But he said,.
So we have very hard language.
Language we must not be ashamed of.
This is proof to Paul though in the Thessalonian context of these things
coming upon them.
And the word of God working in them.
And the proof was that they're able to resist even such intensive attacks as these.
So let's go back quickly through Paul's indictment there.
They killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets.
Well, the Romans did the injustice.
But who demanded it?
The Jews.
It was Pilate who stepped aside from Roman justice.
But it was the Jews who said, crucify him and let his blood be on our heads and our
children's heads.
Not everyone, but as a whole.
They drove us out.
Then our friend Brian Borgman said something really interesting in a message that he preached on this same thing.
That if you drew a map of Paul's missionary journeys, which are pretty easy to find, right?
Overlay it with a map of the Jews following Paul from town to town.
He said it'd be almost exactly the same.
You just overlay the two.
You wouldn't be able to see any difference.
They followed him.
Wherever Paul went, he found Jews in their synagogue.
And when they heard the gospel, they started gnashing their teeth against the gospel.
And it wasn't enough that they rejected the gospel.
They had to follow him to make sure others rejected the gospel and
displeased God.
Which I think flows pretty naturally from what I just said.
Now we have to think about this for a moment.
Does God find only Jewish opponents to the gospel displeasing?
In 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 8 and 9, Paul
writes about flaming fire, fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God.
And those, excuse me, not Jews only, those meaning everyone, on those who do not
obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.
You see opposition to the gospel displeases God no matter who it is.
Do you know the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Have you heard the words that we've been speaking about faith and repentance?
Faith in Jesus Christ and repentance towards God.
To recognize yourself, admitting yourself a sinner, and fleeing to the cross of
Christ where your sins were paid for by him who knew no sin.
And if you reject that, it doesn't matter to God if you're Jewish or atheist or
Buddhist or what.
It displeases God.
More to the point, if you stand in others ways
of receiving this gospel, that displeases God.
They displease God and they oppose all mankind.
That's a very interesting phrase, oppose all mankind.
No, I just don't want the gospel for me.
No, you're opposing all mankind.
No, I'm just trying to keep away from my children.
Listen, I just can't buy this thing about this eternal son of God who's God, and then
he comes and becomes a man, and he doesn't do any sin, then he dies.
You know, we get all these cynical explanations of it and descriptions of it.
You're opposing all mankind.
If God so loved the world, they sent his only son to save the world, then to oppose the gospel by which the world could be saved is
to oppose men for whom it's intended.
It's not just a personal choice.
Well, it is your personal determination.
I shouldn't use the word choice.
Gentile believers in Thessalonica were equal to the Jewish believers in Judah, just as the Jewish opponents in Judea
were equal to the Gentile opponents in Thessalonica, and the ones who are resisting and opposing
the gospel and chasing Paul from town to town, and you yourself, when you stop the gospel from being
declared to anyone in opposition to all mankind because you're in opposition to God's will.
Paul's language seems to be a warning of the determination of Jesus' enemies that they have to
wipe out the church.
And so let us take warning as we look to ourselves and need that power of God working in us in
order to resist such an intensive attack against us.
It's not just a debate that one wins and the other loses.
It's displeasing to God and opposition to all mankind, and it's
determined and it's powerful.
And the word of God at work in them was the only way they endured, and the word of God at work in you is the only way you
can endure.
So Paul knew that that word was working in them because they followed the positive example no matter
the cost.
They rejected the negative examples.
And finally verse 16, the second part of that to
the end, we need to apprehend the warnings.
And as we apprehend and believe the warnings that we're given, that's also proof of God's word at work in you.
So as always to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has come upon them at last.
Wrath and salvation come in equal measures in the gospel.
We're going to draw to a close very soon here, but I want you to think about this if you've come here, or if you're listening to this
message, and you know not the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wrath has come upon them at last.
What does that mean?
That they got wiped out right then and there?
Well, of course not.
Could it mean the soon coming destruction of the temple in 70 AD just a few decades after this?
That's very possible.
There's another way to look at this too.
You see the gospel comes to you in equal measures of the salvation of
God by faith in Christ, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God.
Not of your own doing, so no one shall boast before God.
That's the good part, right?
And you hear that.
You say, okay, so God by faith in his son Jesus Christ, will save my soul.
It's equally wrath and condemnation.
Because when you hear this message of salvation, and you reject it
in opposition to all mankind, and in displeasure to God, to reject that message
is to give the basis for God's wrath against you.
That you rejected the cross of Jesus Christ.
You said this one either didn't live, didn't die for me, wasn't God, whatever
basis on which you reject it.
The message I'm telling you of Jesus Christ and salvation in him is salvation to you if you will
believe this gospel, it is eternal life, it is salvation, and if you reject it, that same
message is wrath and condemnation, because the wrath of God was poured out for you
upon Jesus Christ.
And if not upon him, then upon yourself.
The gospel message is equally salvation and wrath.
So always fill up the measure of their sins, like a cup with things being poured into it, and often we
have in the scripture the idea of you drinking the cup of God's wrath, experiencing in your own
person.
They're filling up the measure of their sins by their opposition to the gospel.
And wrath has come upon them because they heard the gospel.
Are you ready for the challenges that lay ahead?
Are you ready for the small things in your personal life, the big things that may come upon the church?
Only by the power of God, only by that word of God working in you can you be ready.
The evidence of it is in choosing the good example and following that, primarily first of all
Jesus Christ, but he gives us each other, he gives us the examples that we can follow in each other.
Rejecting the bad and believing and taking seriously
the warnings that we have in scripture.
You know when they have those crises, those circumstances that force us to reveal
how committed we really are, many of us have fallen, many of us have stumbled, many of us have
let that head whip around and gotten a neck strained from it, many of us have made that entry that will never be caught.
You can be forgiven these things.
That word of God at work in you is also a word of God if you're in Christ that forgives.
For we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The gospel does forgive, but first you must come to Jesus Christ and know and believe this gospel
and by it be saved.
Amen.
Lord God we thank you for bringing us together.
We thank you again for the day of worship that we've had and that you Father might continue to mold us
into the image of Jesus Christ and that we Father might by this gospel be
able to by the word of God at work in us follow your ways, withstand the pressures of the world around
us and give you all the honor that you might be shown to be more praiseworthy
and Father that you be pleased to receive this glory for we ask it in Jesus name.