Are you ready for the Lord's return? (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10)

There was an unusual article posted in the London Times of the twenty-first of January nineteen seventy-seven.  It concerned a man called Ernest Digweed, who had died the year before.  Digweed had left a will of over twenty-six thousand sterling and had instructed that the money should be paid out to Jesus on his return, provided that Jesus provided sufficient proof of his identity and returned within eighty years.  I have no idea what Digweed was thinking!

There is a lot in this letter about the second coming of Jesus, but the most important thing is to be sure that we are ready for Jesus to come back. 

1.      Jesus’ return will be unexpected and inevitable (1-3)

Now brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1-2).

If only Christians could take these words at face value!  In September, on Facebook, there were people circulating articles that claimed that Jesus was going to return on September twenty-third of this year.  Someone once produced a pamphlet giving eighty-eight reasons why Jesus would return in nineteen eighty-eight, which was reproduced the next year giving eighty-nine reasons why Jesus would return in nineteen eighty-nine.  The Jehovah Witnesses have given similar predictions that they have later had to explain way.

It seems that some of the Thessalonian Christians were guessing dates.  Yet the times and dates were not even known to Jesus during his earthly ministry, so why do we think that they could be known to anyone else?  Paul says that Jesus will return like a thief in the night.

Now think about that for a moment.  The problem with burglars is that they don’t tell you when they are coming.  They don’t send a text to say that they are coming in five minutes.  As a result you always need to be prepared.

Tragically, there are many who will not be ready.  They will be saying, “Peace and safety,” and destruction will come on them suddenly, as labour pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape (3).  

There are many who laugh at the notion that the Jesus who coming back.  But the Jesus who came and died so that we could be rescued from God’s judgement is coming back to judge those who did not take hold of his mercy and grace.  The world will then be divided in two.  Those who have put their trust in Jesus will greet him with unbelievable delight, and those who have rejected his offer of love will see his coming and be filled with inescapable dread.

I think that one of our biggest problems is that all this can seem so unreal.  We find it hard to believe in things that have never happened before.  It stretches our belief.  I have no doubt that Jesus walked this earth two-thousand years ago and I think that the evidence points to the fact that he was raised from the dead.  His teaching makes sense of the world to me and I believe that he is in my heart.  If all these things are true, then it is certain that he will return as he said he would.  Sometimes we pray, ‘I believe, help me in my unbelief.’

2.    We must warn people to be ready (4-8)

Paul reassures the Christians, you are all children of the light and children of the day (5).  But as children of the light, we must live in the light.  Let us not sleep … but be awake and sober (6).

The warning here seems to be very relevant to people who think they are ready for Jesus coming and are not.  Now I need to be careful here.  Some of you are naturally anxious and insecure, and any talk of not being ready makes you feel worried.  If you trust Jesus for his forgiveness and are seeking strength to live for him, even though you live for him very imperfectly, then you have nothing to fear.  The Jesus who is coming at the end of time is the same Jesus who has made you his brother or sister.  He will never forsake you in this life and he does not want you to be afraid of him when he comes back.  He is coming back to bless you!

In Café Church in a couple of weeks we are looking at the question of how we can know that we are Christians.  There is a whole letter in the Bible devoted to that topic, the letter of first John.  John describes the Christian as someone who believes in Jesus Christ—here belief is the opposite of work.  A Christian is not someone who has worked their way to God, but someone who has accepted his free gift of life.  They are someone who has realised that they are dying from thirst and accepted the free gift of living water.  But that water changes us.  It does not mean that we are perfect.  In fact John says that if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  However, the Christian shows the reality of God in their lives by the fact that they are seeking God’s strength in the struggle against temptation.  They do not treat sin as if it does not matter.  They want to become more like Jesus.  We encourage those who come to us and admit that they are struggling with temptation.  But we warn those who have drifted away and seem not to care about how they live for they are not acting like someone who is awake and sober.  We warn people never to rest their assurance on past experiences but to look at their dependence of God in the present.

3.    We are prepared because we trust Jesus (9-10)

I want us to end on a positive note.  Having given his warning, look at Paul’s assurance! ‘For God has not destined you for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died so that whether we are asleep or awake we might live with him’ (10).

Do you see that Paul is using sleep in two different ways in these verses?  There are those who are spiritually asleep, who are not ready for Jesus’ return.  Here, however, sleep is a picture of how have passed on in death.  Some will still be alive when Jesus returns and others will have fallen asleep (died) before he comes.  All his children will live with him for ever.

Notice, too, that our being ready is ultimately about God’s gracious gift to us.  He has chosen us for salvation.  He sent his Son to die for our guilt.  He has washed away all our sin.  He holds us in his right hand.  Nothing can separate us from his love.  He will keep us from falling.  God is more committed to you than you will ever be to him.  He assures those who trust him we have nothing to fear about Jesus’ return because he has determined to keep us to the end.

But what if I am having a bad day when he returns?  What if he returns just as I have given in to some besetting sin?  Remember the gospel of grace!  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  The blood of Jesus goes on cleansing you from all sin.  I am not saying that sin does not matter. But when the Christian sins they do not go from no condemnation to condemnation.  There is never condemnation for those who trust in Jesus, even when they fail him.

But would Jesus mind waiting until after my summer holidays or after you meet the girl of your dreams and spend some time with her?  Don’t be so foolish!  God has destined you for eternal glory.  If you knew what awaits you, you would think that Jesus cannot come soon enough.  ‘No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’ (1 Cor. 2:9).

I can think of one legitimate reason why we would want the Lord to delay.  We might want him to delay because we want more time for people to turn to him in repentance.  God shares that concern.  In fact his delay in returning is so that more would be brought into his kingdom.  Listen to the apostle Peter: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some count slowness [they were wondering why he had not returned yet], but is patient towards you, not wishing that any perish, but that all come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).  When Jesus returns, all that will come into his kingdom will have come into his kingdom.

Conclusion

Finally, notice that this morning’s reading finishes almost exactly the same way as the last reading we had from this letter (4:18).  Therefore, encourage and build one another up, just as in fact you are doing (11).  We are to take these words and remind each other to have an eternal perspective.  This world as we currently see it is not our final resting place.  Things that seem important now, may have no lasting significance.  Times may be difficult, but an eternal reward awaits God’s people.  Keep going, in the sure hope of what is yet to be revealed. 

In Scotland there are large golf-ball-shaped satellite receivers that date back to the Cold War.  They were there to give warning of nuclear missiles.  Now, who do you think paid for that warning-system?  Did the Soviet Union construct them so that people could be prepared for an invasion?  Of course not!  You don’t warn your enemies of danger.  But God does.  He doesn’t tell us the time or hour, but he is constantly warning people to be ready.  In his kindness he warns a hostile world that he is sending his Son to come back and bring an end to evil and judgement for sin.  He wants you to be ready.  He calls you to come into the safety of his embrace.  And, if you have placed yourself in his loving grace, he tells you that you should not fear what is to come.  Unimaginable, eternal joy awaits you!

Sex, ambition and living to please God (1 Thessalonians 4:1-12)

Why would you want to please God?

You should want to please God because God can be pleased.  Before we became Christians it was impossible for us to please God.  Our hearts were hostile towards him.  Our guilt, which affects everything we do, was held against us.  But in Christ this guilt is removed and our heart is changed.  God is now always on your side.  He may not be pleased with everything you do, but he always takes pleasure in the fact that you are his.  You are the apple of his eye, and the very thought of you gives him joy.  As his child, he delights in your most imperfect attempts to please him.  He is not like a sort of critical parent who is hard to please.

We should want to please God because we have seen his beauty.  The most important thing you can do every day is to remind yourself how wonderful God’s love is.  God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.  This is love, not that we loved God but he loved us and gave his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.  The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me.  We love because he first loved us and we want to please him because of that love.

We should want to please him because our pleasure is found in seeking his pleasure.  Before we understood grace, we saw God as the enemy of our happiness.  We thought of God as demanding, if we thought of God at all.  We hoped that we might get to heaven if we obeyed him enough.  But there is nothing delightful about obeying a graceless God, and it is impossible to enjoy living for a God we do not love.  However, when we experience his kindness, then we realise that his pleasure is always in line with our good.  Every pleasure we seek apart from his is bound to disappoint us.  Every pleasure we seek in him will bring him glory.  He is the most loving of Fathers who knows what is best for his children.

Having told you why you should please him, I must tell you how you can please him.  

A year before this letter was written, the Apostle Paul had spent less than a month with the Thessalonians.  While Paul was with them we instructed you how to live in order to please God … Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord to do this more and more (1).  He turns his attention to the areas of sex and ambition.

Good sex is God’s gift (3-8)

God is not anti-sex, he is pro-sex.  I used to have one book entitled, ‘Sex, romance and the glory of God.’  I gave the last couple I married a book to read called, ‘A Celebration of Sex.’  I remember my mother embarrassing me as a teenager as she read verses to me from the Song of Songs.  The Bible celebrates sex between a man and woman in marriage.  God does not blush, but smiles, when he sees a married couple giving each other sexual pleasure.

However, our society has degraded sex.  It has ignored God’s instructions concerning this most precious gift.  It has made sex something cheap rather than precious.  We all know the pain of this because each of us knows the shame caused by our own sexual sin, whether in thought or in physical actions, whether as we look at someone on a screen or compromise with them in person.

Ours is not the only sexually dysfunctional culture.  Paul was writing from Corinth to Thessalonica—two cities known for sexual immorality.  Thessalonica was associated with the worship of deities called the Cabiri, whose worship included ritual prostitution.  In that culture it was widely accepted that men would not limit themselves to their wife as their sexual partner.  It was not uncommon to have a wife, a mistress, a slave you had sex with, and if that was not enough for you, to go and visit prostitutes.  The Thessalonian Christians lived in a society where chastity was an unknown virtue.  As one commentator points out, ‘they had to unlearn what their society considered “natural”.’  Never read the New Testament and consider that it is naïve about sex or that is was easier to obey then than it is now!

Paul tells us to ‘make a total break with all forms of sexual immorality’ (Tinker).  This command rules out all forms of sex outside the bounds of the marriage between one man and one woman.

You may have coveted another woman’s husband, you have lingered over images on your computer or television screens, your eyes have checked out that jogger.   Often, people, particularly men, feel a sense of helplessness in this area.  We can give up and stop seeking God’s help.  We need to ask God for a greater desire to please him in this area of our lives.  We may need to open up to a caring Christian friend, ask them to hold us accountable and seek their support in prayer.

Love for God always goes hand in hand with love for people.  So Paul urges us not to wrong, or take advantage of, a brother or sister in the area of sex.  Sleep with a woman before she is married and you rob something from her marriage bed—even if it is you who marries her.  Sleep with another woman’s husband and you have stolen something very valuable from him.  You will also leave the partner you are sleeping with feelings of shame, regret and guilt.  So much that happens in the name of love is anything but love!  When a married man flirts with a married woman, he betrays his spouse and encourages her to betray hers.  When you watch porn, you are engaging with an industry that degrades people.  When you lust over a person’s shape you are devaluing them and seeing them only as an object.  You are also hurting yourself and weakening your love for your spouse.

I want you to hear grace as I challenge you.  Sexual sinners were drawn to Jesus because he told them of a forgiving God.  We dishonour God when we live in shame for the sins that he has forgiven.  We also dishonour God when we feel too defeated to look to him for strength.  But Jesus loves us too much to have us carry on in sin.  Remember the woman caught in adultery, Jesus did not condemn her, but he did command her to ‘go now and leave your life of sin’.  Indeed, one of the things we need to do is to keep on seeking to grow in purity.

When a young man comes to me and admits that he is struggling with lust I feel sympathy and assure him I know how he feels.  We should meditate on the beautiful Saviour whose blood goes on cleansing us from all sin.  We should encourage each other to look to God for strength and not give up the battle for purity.  But when I meet a person who thinks that they can do as they like sexually, who takes this issue lightly, and who consider Christian values a little extreme, then I worry for their very salvation, for Paul says that those who disregard this teaching disregard God, and that God will judge those who do not seek grace in this area of their lives.

There is nothing wrong with being ordinary (9-12)

The churches of the New Testament were often wonderfully generous places.  They worked together to provide for the poor, especially the poor Christians.  But a problem had emerged in Thessalonica.  It seems that what had happened is that some rather immature Christians had heard Paul’s teaching on Jesus’ return, assumed that it would happen very soon, and given up their jobs while they waited.  ‘After all,’ they thought, ‘what is the point of breaking your back at work if everything is about to be wound up.’  The thing was that these same people were demanding that those in the church pay for their keep.  So Paul tells them to get a job, in order that you will not be dependent on anybody.  Of course he is talking about those who can work and refuse to work, not those who would like to work and can’t find a job or are disabled.

Instead of being selfishly idle they are to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that you will win the respect of outsiders, and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.  Greek culture despised manual labour, and thought of it as being fit only for slaves.  But the apostle Paul was content to work at mending tents as he followed the example of his beloved carpenter.

Idleness is awful, so is selfish-ambition.  We are called to be humble and content.  There is nothing wrong with ordinary.  We should be happy to be a part of an ordinary church, full of ordinary people, to do ordinary tasks, and to make a name for Jesus by not having to make a name for ourselves.  Ordinary remembers the matchless humility of Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing; taking the form of a servant … and humbling himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

In the 1920s George Mallory took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest.  He was once asked why he wanted to climb that peak, and he famously replied, ‘because it is there!’  On another occasion he wrote to his wife saying, ‘dearest … you must know that the spur to do my best is you … I want more than anything else to prove worthy of you.’  Sounds great until you hear what his son wrote later in life.  ‘I would so much rather have known my father than to have grown up in the shadow of a legend, a hero, as some people perceive him to be.’  

Conclusion:  

What makes sex and work pleasing to God is when they are used to bless people and not harm them.  Seek your pleasure in sex and ambition, apart from God, and you will end up hurting yourself and others.  See that God is gracious and loving, and you will trust him to know what is best for you.  Thank God that the blood of Jesus goes on cleansing us in these areas of our life.  Seek his strength to find your pleasure in pleasing him.  

Finding motivation to obey God (Thessalonians 2:1-16)

A Christian decided that he was going to take his faith more seriously.  He soon discovered the beauty and challenge of putting God first.  You see, he was running late for a train, and in his haste he bumped into a young boy who spilled his jigsaw everywhere.  The train was about to leave, but the man knew he should stop and help.  As the train pulled away, the man and boy were on their knees picking up the pieces.  The young boy stared at the man in amazement and asked, ‘Mister, are you Jesus?

As we saw last week, Paul, Silas and Timothy had been in Thessalonica for just under a month when a riot occurred and serious charges were brought against them.  The claim was made that Paul and his companions were trouble-makers who were saying that there was another king than Caesar, King Jesus.  So they had to leave under the cover of darkness.  Paul had wanted to return, but was unable.  He sent Timothy to them, to find out how they were getting on.  Timothy’s report of their faith was generally positive.  However, there were some problems, including the fact that there were trouble-makers who were criticising Paul.  ‘He ran away.’  ‘He hasn’t been heard of since.’  ‘He doesn’t care about you.’  ‘He’s insincere.’

So Paul now defends how he conducted his ministry among them.  He is doing this because he doesn’t want his critics to end up undermining his message.  As we look at Paul’s defence, we can see three motives that spur Paul on in his ministry: his desire to please God, his love for God’s people and his confidence in God’s word.

Motive 1: To please our loving Father (1-6)

Paul explains that he and his companions shared the gospel with the help of God (2).  If you find sharing your faith easy, then you might be tempted to think that you can do it in your own strength.  But when you find it intimidating, as I do, you have the advantage that you are going to lean heavily on God for courage and wisdom.

He spoke, even though he encountered opposition, because we are not trying to please men, but God, who tests our hearts (4).  Now Paul would have been the last person in the world to claim that he was perfect, but he was motivated by the fact that our gracious God takes pleasure in the sin-tainted efforts of his people to please him.

‘But my desire to please him is so weak.’  Yes, but he loves the fact that you desire more desire.  ‘But my motives for doing good things are so mixed.’  Yes, and he delights in the fact that you are humble enough to know your motives are mixed, and that your motives aren’t entirely corrupted.  Sometimes we are so overwhelmed by the deceitfulness of our hearts that we can’t see what the Holy Spirit is doing in us.  John Newton writes, ‘you serve a Master, of whose favour … you cannot be deprived, who will not overlook … the smallest service you attempt for him, who will listen to no insinuations against you ...’

One young leader said to me, ‘I may be hard on everyone else, but you have to realise that I am even harder on myself.’  People with a critical spirit are hardest on themselves, which leaves them miserable.  Of all people, they find it most difficult to understand how God would graciously delight in their imperfect lives.  God is not as hard on you as you are on yourself.  If you can’t see that God graciously delights in your sin-tainted efforts to please him, then you will become disheartened and want to give up.

Motive 2:  Our love for God’s people (7-12)

Paul and his companions were motivated by a desire to please God, and they were also motivated by their love for people.  We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children (7).  Mother-love is filled with affection.  A mother endures having the sleep broken at night, endless changing of nappies and responds to the constant need for attention.  Of course, Paul was simply following the example of our foot-washing, cross-bearing Saviour.  We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel but our lives as well (8).

They had a right to be paid for their ministry, but they did not want to be a burden.  So, for example, Paul preached the gospel by day and made tents by night.  It would seem that they gave Jason money for their board and lodging.  What a contrast to the prosperity-teachers on the television who pressure their viewers to give in order to fund their lavish life-styles.

Paul and his companions were not only like mothers to the Thessalonians: we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory (11-12).  It is interesting that he says, ‘with each of you.’  They didn’t care just about the movement.  They cared about the individuals that made up the movement.  This description of fathers should be noted by all of us who have been granted this role.  Dads, are we encouraging, comforting and urging our children to live lives worthy of God?

I read the story of a big man with a big personality who loved to hug people.  He said, ‘when I first became a Christian, I was so frustrated because I wanted to hug God and didn’t know how.  I was so thrilled by what God had done for me in Christ … I wanted to hug God … Over the years, I have learned that the best way to hug God is to love his children …’ John Newton, ‘to administer any comfort to [God’s] children is the greatest honour and pleasure I can receive in this life.’

Motive 3: God’s changes lives (13-16)

Each of us is to be motivated by a desire to please our gracious Father and by our love for all God’s people.  We are also to be motivated by the fact that this gospel changes lives.

The Thessalonians had been idol-worshipping pagans who knew nothing of God’s saving love.  The gospel told them of how Jesus died for the sins of his people in order that we may have new life.  Look at how happy Paul is when people respond to this message.  And we also thank God continually because, when you received 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 (13).

This is the word that is at work in you who believe.  The Greek verb in ‘at work within you’ is that from which we get the word energy.  The Bible is a power source for a joyous and godly life.  I want you to listen to these sermons and go home and study this letter because through these verses we will see more and more of the face of God and the beauty of his Son. We see mercy and grace, we are shown how to please God, and it changes our lives.  

Conclusion

In the eighteenth century, John Wesley was a famous evangelist who was mightily used by God.  But like the apostle Paul, he had his critics.  One bishop warned everybody that he was ‘a wily and malignant hypocrite.’  The lie was also spread that he had been expelled from Oxford University for grossly immoral behaviour.  Wesley’s Methodist preachers also received a hard time.  Some of them had glass ground into their eyes and others had their homes burned down.  Sometimes this opposition was instigated by their local Church of England clergymen.

Our passage ends by pointing out that like Jesus, God’s people will face opposition.  So if following Jesus is going to be difficult, why bother?  Why move beyond our comfort zones?  Why have people say hurtful things about you, even from within the church?  How do we keep going?  We need the three strong motivations of this passage: we have a gracious Father who is pleased with every weak and imperfect effort to please him; he has placed a love for his people into our hearts; and he has given a message that turns people’s lives upside down.

Chosen to be different (1 Thessalonians)

A long time ago in an English town, a faithful church ran a Sunday school.  One week their little group was joined by a young boy who caused lots of trouble.  But he kept on coming and eventually invited Jesus into his heart.  A few weeks later he came back with a little girl, who had a sign around her neck.  The sign read, ‘we don’t know what you have done for Johnny.  Can you please do the same for his sister?’  This morning we are going to see how the gospel radically changed a bunch of people in Thessalonica.

Background

Thessalonica was an important city of around a hundred thousand people in what is now modern Greece.  Paul, Silas and Timothy had visited.  As they shared the good news about Jesus, some Jews, a large number of God-fearing Gentiles and not a few prominent women became Christians.  However, trouble soon erupted.  

You see, the Jewish authorities became jealous and so they recruited a gang of thugs who started a riot.  They stormed the house of Jason, where Paul and his companions were staying.  But they were not there.  So they marched Jason and a few of the other new Christians down to the magistrates and made a most serious accusation.  ‘Paul and his friends have caused trouble all over the world and now they have come here.  Jason has welcomed them into his house.  They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.’

Jason and his friends were released on bail and that night, under the cover of darkness, the Christians sent Paul and Silas out of the town.  Their visit to Thessalonica had lasted less than a month.  The year was A.D. 49.  You can read the story in Acts 17.

Now Paul was concerned for the young church at Thessalonica.  He wasn’t able to return to them, but he sent Timothy to find out how they were getting on.  When Timothy next caught up with Paul he was able to give them a good report that warmed Paul’s heart.  However, there were some problems.  There were people criticising Paul, saying that he was insincere and did not care enough to return to them.  There was also confusion on such issues as the Lord’s return and sexual immorality.  So a year after visiting them, writing from Corinth, Paul pens what is the second oldest book of the New Testament.

The Thessalonians were a persuaded people (1-3)

In the book of Acts, when Paul came to Thessalonica he reasoned from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.  ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’  The people were persuaded to join Paul.  True faith never by-passes the mind on the way to the heart! True faith is never just an emotional experience.  However, true faith is never confined to the heart.  Some of you put too much emphasis on the emotions, but others don’t engage your emotions at all.

Paul now tells them about how he remembers them in his prayers.  We give thanks to God always for all of you … remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Like that little boy, who went to that Sunday school in England, the gospel was changing them from the inside out.  Their life focused upwards towards God, outwards towards people and forwards towards Jesus’ return.

I say forwards towards Jesus return because this letter majors on that theme.  I find that one of the greatest challenges of this letter.  I am so comfortably at home in this world, that I never pray, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’, the way the early Christians did.  Yet there are around three hundred references to the second coming of Jesus in the New Testament, which accounts for almost one in every thirteen verses.  The Thessalonians did look forward to Jesus’ return in part because they were being persecuted.  They wanted God to come and bring justice and comfort to his people.  

Look through the history of the church and you will see that the most effective Christians always had this steadfastness produced by their hope in the Lord Jesus.  Like the social reformer, Lord Shaftsbury, who explained that ‘over the last forty years there are not two hours of the day that I do not think of the coming of Jesus.’  Remembering that Jesus is coming back again should put everything in perspective.  It should shape our priorities.  It reminds us that so much of what we value will have no lasting value.  It should motivate us to be doing those things that will have eternal significance.  It prompts us to warn people to be ready.  It gives us peace when the world is shown to be against God’s people.

The Thessalonians were a chosen people (4-5)

For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you.  How do we know that they were chosen?  We know that they were chosen because the Holy Spirit enabled them to respond to the gospel.  There are many issues raised by the issue of God’s choosing people to be saved.  You will have to live with some level of mystery on this.  But the issue is raised here to humble and comfort us.

It humbles me because I can take no credit for my salvation.  I did not chose him, he chose me.  It wasn’t my decision, it was his.  I can take no credit it for it.  It was not because I was good, for I was a rebel.  He simply chose to set his love and me.  And because he has chosen me in love, I am comforted, for he will not chose someone and later un-chose them.  Having set his love upon our unworthy souls, he has committed to keeping us to the end.  One humble old lady explained to John Newton, ‘if God did not choose me before I was born, I am sure that he would have seen nothing in me to have chosen me afterwards.’

The Thessalonians were a transformed people (6-10)

Just as it did for little Johnny, this gospel that told them about God’s amazing love for them, turned their lives upside down.  

To start with, you became imitators of us and of the Lord.  They were copy-cats of those who followed Jesus.  You received the word in much affliction.  Getting a hard time for being a Christian is actually normal for those who are being saved.  They were persecuted for their faith, but that did not stop them from believing that this was the best news ever.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone everywhere, so that we need not say anything.  The verb translated ‘sounded forth’ is related to the word echo.  It is a word that can be trumpet call or even a roll of thunder.  Their witness echoed and thundered through the hills and valleys of Greece.  Christians from miles away said, ‘we want to be like them!’  Non-Christians told Paul, ‘we have heard of the amazing transformation in them.’

I imagine that if I was to ask any one of you how God brought you to faith, not only would you tell me about how you came to see that the message of the cross was good news, you would tell me of people who showed you the power of that good news in their life.  John Stott says that ‘we need to look like what we are talking about.’

They had turned from idols—an idol being anything that threatens to take the place of God in our lives.  I don’t know about you, but my greatest idol is ‘me’.  I am obsessed about myself, my reputation, what others say about me, my popularity, my silly little ambitions, and so on.  Like all idols, the idolatry of self is slavery.  Tim Keller writes a wonderful little book you all should read entitled ‘The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness.’

Now they were waiting for his Son from heaven, whom he has raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Conclusion
Finally, remember that the Thessalonians were a persecuted people.  The witness echoed all the more loudly because their faith and love blossomed against the backdrop of suffering.  At the time I was working on this sermon, I was dealing with the fact that someone seemed to have a real dislike of me and my family.  Of course, the little trial we were facing was nothing compared to the hostilities the Christians at Thessalonica had to put up with.

But I was struck by how opposition can be turned to good.  Let that insensitive relative, rude neighbour or difficult work-colleague drive you to pray.  Let them remind you how much you need your fellow-Christians.  Let them help you see that you are completely dependent on the Holy Spirit if you are going to respond to them with love.  They don’t deserve your kindness, but then you didn’t deserve God’s.  Let the discomfort of their hostility make you look forward to the day when Jesus comes and comforts you.  Allow them strengthen your faith so that the great name of Jesus echoes more loudly through the hills and valleys of Munster.