1 Thessalonians 1:2-10 - Following the Right Lead

We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; 3 constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, 4 knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; 5 for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. 9 For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.

Target Date: Sunday, 20 February 2022

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Became (3 forms) – γίνομαι – to come into being, to be, be made, become. Much depends on the verbal details and conjugation.

1096.γίνομαι ginŏmai, ghin´-om-ahee; a prol. and mid. voice form of a primary verb; to cause to be (“gen”-erate), i.e. (refl.) to become (come into being), used with great latitude (lit., fig., intens., etc.):— arise, be assembled, be (-come, -fall, -have self), be brought (to pass), (be) come (to pass), continue, be divided, draw, be ended, fall, be finished, follow, be found, be fulfilled, + God forbid, grow, happen, have, be kept, be made, be married, be ordained to be, partake, pass, be performed, be published, require, seem, be showed, × soon as it was, sound, be taken, be turned, use, wax, will, would, be wrought.

V5 – proved to be – First-person plural, aorist indicative, passive – the English word “became” is not really strong enough for this word here (perhaps nowhere is it really strong enough for the nuances). The passive voice indicates that it was not the team that was causing the “becoming”, but that they were “being made” into this kind if men.

V.6 – became imitators – Second-person plural, aorist indicative, passive – like v.5, this indicates that the Thessalonian believers received the action rather than causing it (which would be denoted in a middle voice – although the root ginomai is in itself a middle).

V.7 – became – infinitive, aorist middle – their actions produced a result in themselves, linguistically, not theologically. By the work of the Spirit in their lives and through their testimony, they became an example for other churches to follow.

7 – example – τύπος – a pattern.

It could also denote the seal that leaves an impression or the mold by which some material, such as soft clay, was shaped.

This word is singular, so they are not providing multiple examples (for each individual believer), but a single example (as a church).

This passage can be seen as a group of bullet points:

Knowing…His choice of you

Gospel not in word only

But in power

And the Holy Spirit

And with full conviction.

You saw what manner of men we were

And you became imitators of us

and the Lord

Having received the word in tribulation

With the joy of the Holy Spirit

To the result that you became an example to all the believers around you,

And your example is still rippling out

They are proclaiming YOUR testimony (to God’s glory)

And you hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ

You hope in the return of Jesus Christ

Thoughts on the Passage:

Following Paul’s example:

Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. – Philippians 3:17

I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. 17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church. – 1 Corinthians 4:14-17

32 Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; 33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved. 1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. – 1 Corinthians 10:32-11:1

You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. 12 I beg of you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. – Galatians 4:10-12

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. – Philippians 4:8-9

For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; - 2 Thessalonians 3:7-8

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. – Ephesians 4:32-5:2

Being a model:

nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. – 1 Peter 5:3

7 in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, 8 sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. – Titus 2:7-8

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. - 1 Timothy 4:12

In his homily on 1 Thessalonians, Chrysostom comments on this verse, saying, “illustrious and admirable men do not shut up their virtue within themselves, but by their good report benefit many, and render them better”

The gospel of Jesus Christ has ALWAYS meant leaving behind the material concerns, lusts, and faiths and living in trust, love, and glory to God alone.

These believers had been faced with this crisis, even when their own lives degraded – and they followed Christ.

5 – Paul explains that their own endurance of persecution in Thessalonica was for the sake of the Thessalonians.

They would have a godly example to follow.

They would have encouragement in their tribulation.

They would have the same hope of glory on the Day of the Lord.

Applications:

For the Christian:

You will be recognized as a child of God not by your great arguments or your great works, but by your abiding love for others.

For the Backslidden:

There may be some here who, once professing Christ have turned again, loving the things of this world. There is no greater danger for your soul than this. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; (Revelation 3:2)! Find that first love; judge the things of this world against the light of the grace of God, who gave His SON to die for your sin. Pray that God will turn your love continually to Him while you practice despising the attractions and comforts of this present life.

For the Unconverted:

You have before you the example of people just like you who once lived for the things they could see, feel, hear, and taste; and they turned to God, finding in Him something greater than they could even imagine before. What does it take to awaken your soul to God? The first step is to realize you are sinful. It is more than the fact you do the occasional sinful thing, but that your heart is foul with sin you have dismissed as normal. It is not normal – it is not the way God intended you to be.

Sermon Text:

We move ahead this morning in our study of this first epistle to the church at Thessalonica.

I would remind you we are still in the introductory section of this letter, written to the young church that Paul and his companions had begun in Thessalonica.

And you will remember they had to flee the region because of significant opposition to the gospel by the local synagogue and many of its leaders.

This morning, perhaps breaking with my recent practice, I would like to focus on three verses in our passage today – the second part of verse 5 through verse 7.

Often it is good and helpful to tighten our focus to a particular word or phrase so we may be sure of what God is telling us through His written word.

But as good and helpful as that can be, we must also expand our focus for the same passage so we can see the relationships between these great words.

Serious study of the Bible is not one or the other, but both in their time and place.

And both can provide us great insight into the commandments of God and the work of His love through us.

We have in the past several weeks been looking at the great concepts that Paul is reminding the Thessalonian believers of in his introduction,

But we come to a new point in his outline for this first chapter.

You may remember several weeks ago, we spent some time looking at the question of God’s election, his calling, of believers.

And since that time, we have been looking at the beginning of the evidences he gives the Thessalonians to confirm God’s election of them.

The entirety of this first chapter following his declaration of their election in verse 4 are the evidences he is giving.

And for the purposes of understanding where we are in these pieces of evidence, I would offer you this rough outline of the categories he explores:

He begins with 1. How they received the gospel. This is summarized in the first half of verse 5, and is what we have been looking at for the last few weeks.

2. How the gospel changed the Thessalonian believers. This is where we begin this morning, and the discussion continues through verse 7, with some details in verses 9 and 10.

3. How the gospel radiated from them. We will look at this, God willing, when we reach verses 8 and 9.

But we must be very careful not to simply look at this from an academic sense, making some study of what was special about the Thessalonian church.

Because this is a question, I would be quite confident to say, that every believer in this place has struggled with at some point – perhaps even now:

How can I be sure I am saved?

A great many fine believers I have known have, from time to time, been assailed with some doubt about their faith or position in Christ.

It is perhaps ironic that the only ones who seem to never have doubts about their status in Christ are the self-righteous.

But for the rest of us, particularly as new believers and un-matured Christians, we will sometimes be quite worried about whether we are really part of God’s people.

And even for the more mature, there are times of doubt that can cause us some concern.

Often this will coincide with an eruption of sin in our lives, or perhaps the discovery of a new depth of sin in ourselves we never recognized before.

These things, whether new failure or the new realization of existing sin, can sometimes shake us so deeply that we cry out, “How could God love me?”

And yet, even in those times of crisis, the gospel comes flooding in anew,

Reminding us our worthiness was never part of our salvation.

So for the unbeliever, the backslidden or errant believer, or the faithful believer in crisis, the gospel of Jesus Christ speaks the same message to us all:

Repent of your sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for your salvation.

How else were these idolaters in Thessalonica ever going to come to Jesus Christ?

To come to Jesus Christ means leaving behind the material concerns, lusts, and worldly faiths.

Not just in Thessalonica. TODAY!

What is it that makes coming to Jesus so hard that few will find the way?

Why is it impossible to discover this gospel without God’s own election to bring a person against his own ungodly will?

Coming to Jesus Christ in faith has always been harder than pushing a camel through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24), whether we are rich or poor.

When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” 26 And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:25-26

That is why these evidences Paul gives are not based ultimately in the WORK of the Thessalonians, but in the work of the Holy Spirit IN the Thessalonians.

There is a word that is used three times in verses 5-7 in this first chapter of 1 Thessalonians, and it bears some attention as we look at how these proofs of their faith are made.

Through the difficulties of translating in tense and person, the three times this word is used look a little different.

But this word we will look at for the remainder of our time this morning is the word “became”.

If you think about it, this word, even in our English language, defines a transformation, a fundamental change in something.

I read a biography of Abraham Lincoln recently, and the thesis of the book is that he BECAME a great leader with the beginning of the Civil War.

Or we see fictional superhero stories where an average person BECAME a superhero when they acquired extraordinary powers.

The whole idea of “became” means to be transformed from something you were before to something different now.

And so the second evidence I listed in this chapter, How the gospel changed the Thessalonian believers, is defined by that word “became”.

The first place this word is used here, and the most difficult to spot in our English translations, is in the second half of verse 5:

just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.

That “proved to be”, found in the ESV and NASB, is the same word “became” that is found in verses 6 and 7.

Most other reputable translations I checked, including the Geneva and KJV, simply translate this word “what kind of men we were among you”.

This choice is not an error – it is a good and fair rendering of a very rich Greek word and a very difficult tense and voice.

The most difficult thing here to translate is that the verb is passive.

That means that the men, meaning Paul and the team of evangelists, did not DO the proving – they received it.

As you can tell, it would be difficult to find a good English equivalent for all these criteria without significant explanation.

So what is the importance of this verb? What transformation does it imply?

In this first case, allow me to paraphrase it this way:

You know what kind of men we were made [we became] among you for your sake…

When we look at it that way, we see this first transformation is in response to the persecution they had received for the gospel.

In private as well as in public, Paul and the team lived the gospel, even in the face of persecution that threatened to engulf not only them but the new church as well.

That was the kind of men they were made into – men who would suffer as necessary for their faith in Jesus Christ.

They didn’t necessarily become holier;

They didn’t become better teachers or preachers.

They didn’t really have a great leap forward in their faith, per se.

The transformation in them was that they endured persecution in a new place in a new way from a new set of enemies of Jesus Christ.

And they endured as faithful followers of our Lord.

They BECAME more obedient to Jesus Christ.

Paul, who with his various companions, had been:

Opposed in Cyprus (Acts 13:9)

Driven out of Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:50)

Chased out of Iconium (Acts 14:6)

Stoned to the point of death in Lystra (Acts 14:19)

(I would bring out at this point that when he and Barnabas returned to Syrian Antioch, their report was not of their opposition but was: they began to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. – Acts 14:27

Then he was prevented from preaching by God in Asia (Acts 16:6)

Imprisoned in Philippi (Acts 16:24)

Then attacked and arrested in Thessalonica (Acts 17:5-6)

How much opposition is too much?

How much opposition is too much for you?

How much opposition is too much for you in the light of your love for God?

Particularly, Christian, when you owe Him your very life, not only here on earth but eternal life.

We must never tell ourselves that “Well, this was the apostle Paul. He was a super-Christian!”

Nor can we look at Peter or James or any of the others and defend our sinful laziness or cowardice by saying they were simply greater men.

Each one of these men was brought out of sinful selfishness, just like every believer.

Each one of these men had to repent of their sin, just like everyone else.

Each one of these men had struggles with the remaining flesh within them, just like everyone else.

And each one of them had the exact same Holy Spirit who accomplished all this IN THEM.

In fact: Romans 8:11 - He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

If these men are superior in spirit to you, it is because they have exceeded you in obedience to Christ.

I have said this before, but for me, the greatest confirmation of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the transformation of these men.

From cowardly to courageous.

From deserters to martyrs.

But it was not their strength that accomplished this –

It was the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

If you want to live in that kind of obedience, and I hope you do,

Let us pray that God will take us down these troubled roads that bring about extraordinary transformation through His Spirit.

Let us pray that we will BECOME, be made, into greater servants of the Most High.

The second use of this word “became” is in verse 6: You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit

I do plan to unpack much of this verse in the weeks to come if God is willing, but look today at what the Thessalonian believers became – imitators of these evangelists and, through them, of the Lord.

Just like the last instance of this word, this one is passive as well –

They were MADE imitators.

What they saw in the word of God and in the evangelists who brought the gospel to them,

They grasped hold of and followed closely.

In many subsequent letters to other churches, Paul would commend the exact same thing:

We read this morning, beginning in 1 Corinthians 10:32ff:

32 Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; 33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved. 1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.

Earlier in the same epistle, he pleads with this troubled church:

I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. 17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church. – 1 Corinthians 4:14-17

And among other places, we also find this command in Philippians 3:17:

Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

We see what kind of transformation these believers in Thessalonica were made to become a little further in this first chapter:

kind of a reception we had with you [that they had received the gospel],

and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,

10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead

Consider how much it takes for a person to leave their old idols, perhaps losing in the process friends, community, family, and security.

There may be someone listening right now who is struggling with that very question:

Why should I follow Jesus Christ?

Perhaps your life is in shambles, with the consequences of your sin caving in around you.

Perhaps your life is peaceful, with plenty of money in the bank and everything going your way.

Perhaps you are somewhere nearer the middle, with a life that seems to go from day to day, or paycheck to paycheck, or week to week, with no hope of any improvement.

Or perhaps you are reveling in your sin, making your best life as you explore one excess to another.

And so you ask the question in your heart: Why should I follow Jesus Christ?

Why do I need Him as Lord of my life when I am doing so well running my own life?

My friend, no matter where you find yourself in this life – from the bottom to the top – your situation is only temporary.

If your life is golden – this will pass.

If your life is rusted and ruined – this will pass.

Because we will all stand before God and give an account of our life – what we did with what He gave us.

How did YOU spend this life? Did you use your life in the way He commanded?

And for EVERY SINGLE PERSON, the answer will be that we did NOT.

And the sentence for that answer will be eternal, infinite, destruction in a place called hell that God prepared for His worst enemies.

But God has given a single way to escape that sentence, even though we can’t go back and change anything:

He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take the punishment for you if you will only trust Him.

What does it mean to trust Him?

Turn away from your sin, leave it behind.

And trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation and your life.

No asset, no drug, no vice, no talent will help you when you stand before the holy God of the Universe;

Your only plea will be guilty, and your only sentence damnation if you reject His Son.

But you may say: “Is that the only reason I should follow Jesus Christ?”

It certainly is enough, but I also see the Thessalonians here having what is called the joy of the Holy Spirit.

And while escaping God’s terrifying wrath should make us thankful, there is something believers find that is of great value before that day of judgment.

And that is that in following Jesus Christ, we find the TRUE purpose in our lives.

Not simply what job or spouse or location we live in,

But we receive MEANING from God.

We were designed by Him to NEED Him, to SEEK Him, and to WALK with Him.

I can’t describe to you the joy that brings when you are finally brought into the purpose for which you were made.

It is like describing the sunset to a person who has never seen.

But the glory of the sky aflame with light is a pale representation of the glory of your spirit made ALIVE to God.

That is what drove these Thessalonian believers.

That is what they BECAME in the Spirit.

And that is why they went joyfully in their new life.

That is where we must leave it today. I plan, Lord willing, to return to the third instance of this remarkable word “became”, and from there to press forward next week.