1 Thessalonians 1, What Do You Do While Waiting in 2023?

First Thessalonians chapter 1. Be reading the here the Word of the Lord Paul Sivanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for all of you constantly mentioning you in our prayers. Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love instead fastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you. Not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

You know.

What kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake and you became imitators of us and of the Lord. For you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. So that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia. But your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything for they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and How you turn 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. Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, the New Year is here and the media has been over the past week indulging in his routine year-in-review.

Waiting on the Lord in a New Year

Kind of things highlights of the year. Biggest news story. I guess the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The then the best of 2022 best of everything best books. I wish they'd say mine, but somehow they never do best movies.

It wasn't a great year for movies. But Top Gun Maverick got a lot of attention everything everywhere and all at once which I haven't seen is supposed to be good. Menu is better than the glass onion. I don't care what Rotten Tomatoes says best sports moments.

Wasn't Tom Brady coming out of retirement, but maybe Argentina winning the World Cup. Oh, we got we got Argentina fans here. Welcome to the Argentinians. There we go. And so they did all this year-in-review kind of stuff and and last night then they rang in the New Year hopeful.

Waiting on what's next? What are you waiting for in 2023? Some of you may be waiting a long term to retire. 2023 will be the year to make progress toward that make enough money be financially secure. So you don't have to worry about work anymore.

Some of us know people who are so focused on that that they can't make any time to seek the Lord to come to church to our Bring their children to church coming up in March. It will be three years since a pandemic hit in which we closed down schools and cut off other experiences like church for our children.

Waiting for a virus to pass and at first I could understand that the need to wait. I've kind of see what this is gonna happen what this is gonna be. A lot down stay at home for a couple of weeks 15 days to slow the spread remember that but then as it went on indefinitely I thought this is horrible.

For the kids. I mean it's someone individually. They don't have any responsibility. They want to be locked down. I'm sure for them.

But what about.

For the children a study shows that this generation of children school children right now have lost a great deal of learning. Because of it because the schools are shut down in some places for over a year.

Some of them missed once-in-a-lifetime experiences of the end result of that. For us here is only just recently like in the past month or so as Jim jr. Bounced back and The children and some of the children of our own members who were at least occasionally coming to church.

They've gotten out of the habit. We can just we can't Just wait for them to get back on the habit kind of hoping things will go back to normal. Because which what's a habit is broken. You got to develop new habits.

We can't just wait for them. To come back we've got to do something about it because their youth is flying by as youth always does and they are missing what we pledge in our Church Covenant to instruct them in nurture and admonition meaning the teaching the correction of the Lord.

A New Year's resolution for 2023 should be. To get our children back in church. What are you waiting on? Some. Some of you you were here last year that may sound familiar. Like sometime last year if you can remember way back to last year.

That I was also asking you What are you waiting on that's ring a bell? Sounded off from here. I was asking what are you waiting on? Last year we saw that if we wait on the Lord wait based on what he's done already.

Then he'll renew our strength we get strength. While waiting so we can mount up with wings as eagles. This is all sound familiar sometime way back last year. Run and not be weary walk. Endure the daily grind and not faint not get too tired to give up get depressed.

That we can't go on anymore. But what exactly are you waiting on and what do you do while waiting? What resolutions are you waiting and working to bring to pass. Well, we see that here at first Thessalonians 1 in 10 parts one per verse.

I racked my brain to how to outline this chapter and then it occurred to me I'm just gonna go verse by verse one part per verse. Okay, we'll see how long it goes. Well, what do you do while waiting first greet?

Greeting the Church and the Grace of God

Paul begins the letter with greetings. This was a typical way to begin a letter in their day. What we see here is the typical way a letter would start in their time. State who it is from. Notice that although the letter is clearly from Paul.

He identifies himself as part of a team a we. Individualists ask well, who is this way you're talking about? But here he says the we includes Sylvanus otherwise known as Silas and Timothy the young protege.

So he's waiting as part of a team. He's a group of believers part of a group of believers, but he's attached to. He's greeting a church so he says to the church the word church literally just means assembly the gathering of believers of Thessalonians of the Thessalonians.

So the gathering of believers who live in the city called Thessalonica the believers from them from that city. Gather together and he's greeting them. Every one of the believers there is a member of this gathering and they come together to greet each other and to worship and to Hear the Word of God sing psalms you spiritual gifts pray and encourage each other and probably sometimes they ate together, too.

And this gathering of Greek believers is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What you do while waiting is you actually do what you're doing, right at this moment. You join with other believers who are also in God the Father and the Lord Jesus and you greet them and so resolve To go to church to assemble in 2023 and congratulations, you've gotten off to a good start you're doing it you greet each other typically.

In a letter the recipients would expect to hear greetings. Otherwise like here Paul Savinas and Timothy to the church Thessalonians the fourth you expecting to hear greetings To you, but instead he says something else greetings is Karen in Greek.

He's playing on words. He's playing on sounds making a little pun here instead of Karen. Paul says Charis playing on words. And the caress means grace and it's derived from Cara. Karen caress Cara which means joy.

Grace is that which causes joy? So it's not just greetings the typical way to begin a letter in their day. He puts a little twist in there a Christian twist. I just greetings Karen but grace Charis to you what you do while waiting is give not just greetings, but.

Grace.

Which gives joy and Peace and a Hebrew peace would be Shalom. You the usual Jewish greeting give grace and Shalom To each other the gathering the body that you are a part of The one you just resolved to join together with every Lord's Day.

Greet.

With grace. What do you do while waiting.

Thanksgiving, Faith, Love, and Hope

Second in verse 2.

Thank.

Be grateful and express your gratitude with thanks. We that's the team He's part of give thanks to God the one who gave.

Always.

So continually They are giving thanks to God for all of you for the church. Thank God for the church that you gather With be thankful to God and affirming To your church to the church constantly as without ceasing.

Don't stop doing it mentioning you in our prayers. That's why we have a Wednesday night prayer meeting to mention you in our prayers and we probably mentioned all of you in our prayers. Probably even you Hayes bunch.

We probably Herbie is probably mentioned you in our prayers by name. At some time in those prayer meetings, that's why we have that and if you can't make it you got to work or whatever. Then please make sure to mention us discipline a time of your own when you can when you're praying mention us.

Thankfully, thankfully, don't forget that part. Don't just don't call down curses on us, please in your prayers. Resolved to pray more and more thankfully for the church in 2023.

What do you do while waiting?

Third in verse 3.

Remember.

Paul is remembering before our God and father three qualities of the Thessalonians and hopefully of you. First your work of faith work produced by faith.

Faith.

Inspired work. That's what he's remembering. He's remembering the work That comes from their faith not just their profession of faith. But the but faith that shows up that you can see and the work that they're doing now.

Some people like to claim that Paul and James Contradict each other that Paul teaches that salvation is but faith alone Not by works and he does and that James says that faith without works is dead and he does say that.

But notice here that Paul is thanking God.

For their work.

That is the fruit of their faith. Living faith. In both Paul and James they agree living faith produces work. Just like good apple trees produce good apples. We're safe to faith alone, but faith that saves is never alone.

It produces work. Like prayer like thankfulness to God like being part of a church. Second remember still in verse 3 Paul remembers before the father in verse 3 your labor of love. Your labor from love labor prompted by love and the word therefore labor.

Very unusual word only occurs here in the entire Bible and it means laborious toil. Involving weariness and fatigue. So just like faith produces work love produces labor. And it produces a labor that will wear you out.

But.

If you wait on the Lord. Remember all the way back from last year. You can remember that far back. You wait on the Lord. Wings his Eagles. Does it ring a bell at all? Paul said in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 10 for I have worked Harder than any of the other Apostles yet.

It was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. He worked harder because he loved. Third still in verse 3 Paul remembers before God the Father their steadfastness of hope. Just like faith inspires works and love motivates labor.

So hope produces steadfastness in endurance perseverance. You keep going. You keep running. Running from temptation fleeing from the devil running after the Lord. You keep walking walking day in and day out a daily grind.

Because.

You have hope.

The hope is in our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's not just kind of an ambiguous positive mental attitude. It's in Jesus. He's the one you're waiting on you're hoping for. You wait expectantly on him. Hopefully.

And so you continue you your strength is renewed and you don't collapse at exhaustion. Hope in Jesus gives you perseverance all the way through 2023. So resolve. Third resolution. Resolve to remember your faith That inspires work Your love that labors and your hope in Jesus That keeps you going.

Chosen by God and the Assurance of Salvation

What do you do while waiting? Fourth in verse 4.

No. No.

To wait you need to know for we know he says, what do you know? Brothers and sisters Loved by God. There's that corporateness again that Venus being part of a body know who your brothers and sisters are.

That's what church membership does saying I know I'm part of you and you know, I'm part of you know that. They are loved by God. Commonly people they assume that God loves everyone.

It's it's assumed that.

But we know from Romans chapter 9, but that's not so. Remember God hated Esau Jacob. I love he saw. I hated. Meaning that God did not love him. Oh God gave him some blessings on earth. But God did not choose him to inherit the birthright to being among God's people to be one of the Beloved.

He saw was not one of the Beloved. So being loved by God here is a special phrase meaning love completely.

Settled in the past.

By God's choice to love you To be in covenant with you for known Predestined justified all that being loved by God is a special status. Know that there is a people your brothers and sisters Who are loved by God and they are he says there verse 4 they are chosen.

That's that specialness again. It's not for everybody. Not everyone's chosen. No who is We know That he has chosen.

You.

Do you know that? Do you know that there are? That there is a chosen people and that you are part of them. Resolve to know that in 2023. Well, what do you do while waiting. Fifth in verse 5.

Assure.

He's continuing the sentence in verse 4. We know that he has chosen you. He's continuing the sentence. One of the questions of what's called Calvinism is how do you know? We know that he's chosen you how exactly okay people ask Calvinist.

Well, how can you know you're saved by Calvinism? I mean what that gospel explained it in Romans. God's salvation comes to those he has mercy on but some people ask that well then how do you know you're safe if it depends on God's decree.

God's grace. Can you know that you are saved? If you think salvation depends on your choice if it is a mic making the right decision. That that it happens automatically if you make that decision. Well, then assurance of salvation is easy, you know, if you made the decision.

Then you can be assured in their way of thinking you understand you said the right words. They would say well you're saved don't ever doubt it. Even if your life doesn't show any difference. But if it's different than that if it as in Romans chapter 9 verse 16 salvation does not depend on man's desire or effort.

But on God's mercy, in other words, it doesn't depend on what I choose. Then. How do you know if you're saved? How can you have assurance? Well, he tells us here. Two reasons, how can have insurance first how the gospel came?

Second how it was received. How the gospel came to you? We know. This is verse 5 we know that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you.

Not.

Only in word. But also in power at the Holy Spirit. The gospel came not just kind of mindlessly. You just repeat after me you or you sign your name. You say I believe this say you believe something say the right words and then you're saved.

Not like that. No, it came powerfully. He says with power to change you.

Give you that.

That faith that produces works that love that produces labor that hope that produces steadfastness. You inspire all that in you it came in. He says here in the Holy Spirit the gospel came to you in the Holy Spirit as the Spirit empowered.

The preaching or the teaching of the sharing your own parents sharing with you or something you read something you heard. The Spirit empowered that however, it came the Spirit was speaking through that.

That's one way you can know second. We can know that we're saved by how we received it. The gospel was received. He says with full conviction I'm just apathetically. You know, I'll go along with that.

Sure. Why not? I'll say I believe it. I'll repeat the prayer. It's after all, you know mom or dad. They want me to. The preacher or the Sunday school teacher is manipulating me. You know, they're playing that just as I am behind.

Move music as he's making a Emotional invitation putting the pressure on well, why not everyone else around me is doing it. Who knows might be true kind of attitude. I don't have anything to lose might as well say I believe it.

No, you can be assured of salvation. If suddenly the words that before they were boring all this gospel stuff this Bible stuff is just boring. It was dead. Suddenly it came alive. That's the Holy Spirit.

You received it with an overwhelming confidence that it is true.

You know that you know.

So you can have assurance of your salvation your personal salvation if you have assurance of.

The truth of the gospel.

So resolve to bolster your confidence in the gospel in 2023. What do you do while waiting? Six in verse six imitate. Continuing from the end of verse five. They've seen the example of a believers life and Paul and Silas and Timothy and now they imitate them.

They follow their example as a way of imitating the Lord and his team because Just like Paul and his team suffered for the word the gospel. So the Thessalonians received it received the gospel and much affliction.

The word therefore affliction literally means a pressing a pressure like pressing grapes to get juice. Take some squeezing make some pressure. These people the Thessalonians were pressured For having believed the gospel.

They're probably insulted for not worshiping the Roman and Greek gods. Maybe they were thrown out of their homes. If they were children, they were dependents. They're thrown out.

Humiliated.

Insulted you join that Jewish sect. People was scorn at them. The Romans accused Christians of being cannibals for talking about eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood. They kind of overheard that and they what are they doing there in their meetings?

They're eating each people. They were accused of having orgies for having love feasts and say come on Let's have a love feast and they were of course would imagine all kinds of crazy things. Maybe some of you are pressured to put business.

Money-making.

Ahead of gathering with the church This past year someone who lives near this building Accused you all you members here of being insane For coming here. She claims to be a Christian but seems to use every weekend going on camping trips, but defames you as Being insane for coming to church here.

But like Paul and Silas singing hymns at midnight after having been flogged for preaching the gospel the Thessalonians received the gospel not only With affliction with being pressed and pressure with insults and scorn and rejection.

But also he says with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Like James says they counted it all joy. When they fell into trials when they were pressured the joy overcame the pressure resolve in 2023. To have joy in the Holy Spirit that lifts you above anything That pressures you.

Exemplifying the Gospel to the Community

The seventh thing you do while waiting is in verse 7 Exemplify in verse 5 they knew what kind of people Paul and his team were at the end of verse 5 for your sake. That's what kind of people they were.

Paul and his team were. As they were for the sake of the Thessalonians to bring the gospel to you so that they the Thessalonians imitated them imitated Paul and his team in verse 6 and the result of that in verse 7 was that they Exemplified the Thessalonians exemplified that is they modeled they displayed for all the people of that country Macedonia and Achaia what we now call Greece.

They demonstrated the Thessalonians demonstrated what it means to be a believer in Jesus their life was a Testimony to the gospel so that all people around them all the people of Greece they could see it exemplified in the lives of the Thessalonian Christians.

The world needs churches that exemplify the gospel. I Told you about an insult that we suffered from someone in this area. On the other hand when we were at the Averitt new students orientation some lady there from another church came up to us and said she was sure that we Held up well through the pandemic because we're such a lively church I don't know how you know, this is the reputation she had gotten from us Mary and I repeatedly.

It's almost commonly now have people come up to us when we're out and about in Danville or Yancey Ville Greeting us and thanking us for our churches programs. Some of them are were children with us early on for our programs are now grown up and we try to be imitators of the Lord and we may not be successful in big numbers of members, but I think we've been successful in Exemplifying to the community what the body of Christ looks like so resolved in 2023 to help make covenant an example to exemplify The body of Christ.

The Gospel Sounding Forth and Spreading Everywhere

A thing you do while waiting in verse 8.

You reverberate?

That's a great word isn't it? Just like saying that word reverberate. They became an example. That's only it's became an example for all the people of Greece of the body of Christ so that First the word of the Lord, that's the gospel Sounded forth it reverberated from you.

From Thessalonica because of their church the gospel came to them from the Apostles from Paul and his team and Then because they received it and the power of the Holy Spirit and it proves confidence in them that full conviction Confidence that is true.

Because of that it echoed out from them. It reverberated like shouting hello in a canyon and it echoes back.

Hello, hello.

So when the gospel comes to a people by the power of the Spirit they receive it confidently. Then they spread it to others it reverberates. Sounds forth into the community around them to the nation around them and then to the world here not only in Greece.

But your faith and God has gone forth.

Everywhere.

It bounces off you and it sounds out into the world. That's why here we host Jim jr. For local kids Jim for youth and young adults and when we want our children to hear the gospel so the faith doesn't end with us.

It'll keep reverberating for generations down to our families. It's why we send money to Ethiopia and I hope hoping we can do more so that the word that came to us Would then reverberate into the whole world to resolve eighth resolution.

Resolve in 2023 to do your part to make the Word of God echo out. First from you and to your family. Did Caswell County in Danville and to the ends of the earth? Nice while waiting.

You report.

Turning from Idols to Serve the Living and True God

Calls others to report in verse 9 the news of the Thessalonians faith in God has spread. So that everyone knows it. Others they have a reputation. For their faith. It's so widely known that Paul and his crew.

They don't have to tell others about the Thessalonians. Now when he goes back to his home base in Antioch or to the mother church in Jerusalem, he'll have to give reports. Maybe it's I guess they didn't have slides.

But whatever if something equivalent had to give reports the Philippians. What's what's going on there in Philippi the Corinthians and the Ephesians? But he would have to tell him about the Thessalonians because everyone had already heard about them already.

We need not say anything says at the end of verse 8 notice that the liveliness of their faith was common knowledge. Believers everywhere they go have already heard the report in verse 9 how eagerly the Thessalonians receive Paul and the others.

Otherwise the believers he's visiting wherever he goes would be telling Paul About the Thessalonians a Paul. Did you hear about those people at those believers the church at Thessalonica? He go. Oh, yeah, I Heard they rolled up the red carpet for you Paul.

Yeah, they did. Boy, there's Thessalonians. Well, he pulled out all the stops for you Paul. I don't know we here and Philippi or Corinth or Ephesus. I don't know we can compete with them. They had a reputation for how generous They were and how earnest they were in their faith.

They also had a reputation for turning away from idols. Christians and other churches were reporting to Paul and that the Thessalonians Turn to God from idols. To serve the living and the true God really emphasizing God here.

Does he turn to God first from idols to serve the living and the true God God at the beginning and the end of that? They were Greeks. They were raised Greeks. There so they were raised to worship Zeus and Poseidon and Apollo and Artemus and Hermes and others and like anyone else.

They're proud of their culture and it was all part of their culture. Now they had to change and some of them were raised to worship the some of you here have been raised to worship other idols to worship the Queen of Heaven or worship your ancestors or Maybe you worship the state the government you do whatever it says by example many are now taught.

To worship money.

To live for wealth. You know when kids see their parents certain to work on Sunday morning when they never can skip work. But they can't skip church. That sends a lesson that money is more important than God.

And some religious people tell us now that we can serve God and mammon the Lord Jesus says we can't. In Ephesians chapter 5 verse 5 Paul says that covetousness that is living for the thing. For the wealth the bank account the cash the house the car the success.

Whatever trinket it is that the world says that successful people must have living like that. Covetousness is Idolatry, so we still have plenty of idolatry in this culture. Even if we rarely see people bowing to literal images in their hearts, they're bowing to the dollar to the house the car the next.

Gadget.

Or even to the family or the relationship. The Thessalonians had a good reputation for having turned away from idols. Do you. Well the report about them wasn't just that they had turned away from but what they've turned toward.

They turned toward the living and the true God. Secular people whether atheists or not May have turned away from literal idols in our cultures. We have a lot of secular people that have turned away from literal idols.

Course, they worship money or whatever their worship their ego. But they have a turn. They have it turned toward the living. In contrast to the dead gods of the idolaters the dead statues of Zeus the dead ancestral tablet.

They have turned toward The living God. They have it turned toward the true in contrast to the fictional. You know the mythological gods of Homer's Iliad in the Odyssey. Atheist mockers now say the Lord is just another mythological God.

Like Greece's and we are silly people that still believe in an ancient God. But the living in the true God came in actual history at a time dated by a census. I remember the Christmas story all that. It's what is telling us he came in an actual time that you could date in an actual or real town Bethlehem and was seen and heard by people all around.

When he even still around when Paul wrote this letter about 80 50. So all these things happened with Jesus only like 20 years before Paul said 500 people saw Jesus. After he was raised and can attest to it and most of them are still alive.

He told the Corinthians now we don't ask people to turn to miss. We don't ask them to create cute feel-good stories. That didn't happen just kind of motivating them. No. Soon after we moved here in 2007. I went to a funeral a nearby funeral in which a preacher told a cute little story.

Told this story was the graveside of how an angel came down looking for a soul to escort to have told it really. Well really effective storyteller good speaker. Angel came down from heaven looking for a soul to take and it goes like to this one person this child or whatever sick on the sickbed and One person to another comes to a sick person and is told no.

This is not the one and then finally comes to the person is now deceased about to bury and is told this is the one. This is what he's the one take him. That was supposed to be comforting. He told him us better than I just did.

So he sounded almost comforting in tone, but I was offended by that. There's offended because it's fiction. We don't serve a.

Fictional God.

We don't serve a God. We just make up cute stories about like Homer did. If it's just a good if it's a psychological trick. It's a good gimmick to make people feel better at the moment. Our God is true and actually alive.

Notice again how faith inspires works. In verse 9 the report about them wasn't just that they have faith in the true God. Rather than the mythological one the report was that they serve the true God. To serve means to be subject to to obey to be devoted to.

He says when when the true God says worship.

You worship.

When he says give.

You give.

You serve him by doing what he says. So the report about them was that they were serving God.

Not just.

Talking about him.

We should have reputation. In other words people should be reporting about us. That we've turned away from all the dead idols of our culture money things pleasure relationships to serve to serve. Now just talk about.

The Lord.

So resolve ninth resolution in 2023. Resolved to get a reputation. So that people report about you. How eagerly you receive the Word of God and you put it into practice that you serve? The living and the true God.

What do you do while waiting?

Well the tenth. The last thing you do while waiting in verse 10 It's probably the hardest thing on the list. By almost certain is the hardest thing on the list in verse 10 the last thing you do.

While waiting.

Is wait. You've got to wait. Sorry hard to take isn't it? You got to wait while waiting. The report about them was that they had turned from idols to God and in verse 10 to waiting For God's Son from heaven like last week, we've got to know what to wait on and What is accomplished?

Don't confuse the two. Don't start talking about things that are accomplished. Is that we still got to wait on them. It just confuses people that causes doubts. Jesus was not born last week. He doesn't suffer and die all over again in the Lord's Supper every time we take it or a good Friday.

Is it resurrected again on Easter? All of that has been Accomplished like that's what we come together for on Sunday to remember what has been Accomplished is the foundation of what we wait on. Joy to the world.

The Lord has past tense come. But we still have to wait on his second coming. There are things we have to wait on. Don't talk about it all as if it is all Accomplished and this is a large part of what the letters of the Thessalonians are about Christ coming again.

Apparently despite all these good things that he says about the Thessalonians about their great reputation. They had some confusion among them about the second coming and so Paul wrote this letter to correct them and if we have if we have Some confusion about it.

This letter can correct us in verse 10. We wait For his son God's Son from heaven. It's a lot there. Notice first that we're not waiting on going to heaven. We're waiting on. Who is coming from?

Heaven.

We're not waiting to be taken out of the world. That's not our hope. That's not what we're waiting for to escape. We are waiting on him who is right now. Putting all his enemies under his feet. He says that first Corinthians 15.

He he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Suggesting that reigning and that putting enemies under his feet is going on right now. We're waiting as he's putting those enemies under his feet.

We're waiting on him to come here and finish the work that he's begun so that He'll make the nation's. There's all kinds of people that we're told to make disciples of the nation's. Remember. He'll make them prove.

Because he has authority in heaven all authority in heaven and on earth and so he will make them prove the glories of His righteousness and the wonders of his love. So we're waiting on him to come here.