The Holy Spirit in the Church (1 Thessalonians 5:12-28)
Following Faithfully: Lessons in Discipleship from Thessalonians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 51:40
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Sermon
Sermon
Key Passage
Key Passage
Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.
Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
Rejoice always,
pray continually,
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not treat prophecies with contempt
but test them all; hold on to what is good,
reject every kind of evil.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Brothers and sisters, pray for us.
Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.
I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Introduction
Introduction
Today’s passage is the conclusion of the book to 1 Thessalonians.
In our passage, Paul makes a number of appeals that span quite a large spectrum of topics.
However, there is one primary theme that threads all of them together, and I believe that is found in the center of this passage.
And here is the key verse that ties our entire passage together:
Do not quench the Spirit.
I again want to navigate this passage from the beginning so we can see the role of the Holy Spirit in this church.
When Paul showed up in Thessalonica, here is what he encountered.
When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.
As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said.
Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.
Paul’s time in Thessalonica was very short. It appears he was able to present the Gospel for three Sabbaths.
I don’t know if it was three consecutive Sabbaths or three total over the span of a month or two, but either way, his time there was very short. Too short to adequately plant a church.
So when Paul was driven out of town, his heart ached for this church.
But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you.
So instead of going himself, Paul sent Timothy to see how the church was doing.
Paul said he was afraid that Satan may have tempted them and the work that he, Silas and Timothy had done would have been in vain.
When Timothy returned to Paul, this is the report that he brought:
But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you.
Here is the circumstance:
We know Paul went to this synagogue and presented the Gospel.
We know he presented Jesus Christ as the Messiah by using the OT Scriptures that the people in the synagogue were familiar with.
We know Paul gave them basic instruction about faith, hope and love.
And we know that Paul left after a very short stay in Thessalonica.
What did that church have? How could it possibly succeed?
They didn’t have a New Testament.
Imagine if all we did was preach about Jesus from the OT.
It is possible, but it would be pretty rough.
They had Paul’s eye witness account of Jesus.
They had the OT
And they had very little else.
The only hope this church had can be found in one of the opening verses of this book:
For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you,
because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.
You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.
And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.
The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it,
for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned 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 rescues us from the coming wrath.
Do you see the catalyst in this church?
It was the Holy Spirit.
It says they received the Gospel, not just as words but with power, with the Holy Spirit and with DEEP conviction.
They received joy from the Holy Spirit.
After talking about the Gospel they recieved and the Gospel that he preached, Paul says this in chapter 4.
For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
How did this church continue to grow into holiness?
It wasn’t by Paul’s careful guidance. It was by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
In fact, as we look at this church, it was their love and joy in the face of suffering that was how the Gospel spread and Paul directly attaches that to the Holy Spirit.
They grew in personal holiness and that was a result of the Holy Spirit in their lives as well.
Now in the middle of our passage today, we see that Paul says, “Don’t quench the Holy Spirit”
The word “quench” literally means, “extinguish”
If the Holy Spirit is a fire, don’t put the fire out.
You must continue depending on the Holy Spirit.
God has done a good job building and growing this church to maturity, and Paul’s primary theme in our passage today is to continue dependence on God through His Holy Spirit.
Understanding that it was the Holy Spirit that had led and guided this church in the absence of a discipler, I want to look at how Paul encourages and challenges this church and how the Holy Spirit has grown this church.
Sermon
Sermon
The Holy Spirit brought order
Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.
Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
Paul gives this instruction to the church: Acknowledge those who care for you, work for you and admonish (correct) you.
As we look at this passage, we can see the order that God ordains for his church.
Care, work and admonish are three of the roles that elders are called to serve within the church.
Also, we see in this text that this leadership is not singular, rather it is plural.
This passage breaks down in simple instructions basic understanding of the role of an elder and the role of the church in response to the elder.
This passage does not outline the qualities of an elder. However, Paul later goes into those qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1.
As a church here at Real Life Selkirk, we hold to the literal description of those definitions as the leadership of our church.
I encourage you to go through those and read them yourselves to become familiar with a Biblical structure of the church.
We hold that the eldership must be a plurality of Biblically qualified men who exhibit high moral character and a deep relationship with Jesus Christ.
However, this passage gives us a deeper understanding of the role of an elder and the role of the church regarding the elder.
An elder must:
Work hard
Care for the church
Admonish the church
The church must:
Acknowledge (literally: to know)
Hold in high regard
Love (agape)
Both elders and the church must:
Live in peace with each other
I want you to see this. We are not talking about a “I’m greater than you” structure.
This is a structure of order and correction, for unity and also for alignment with Jesus Christ.
Eldership can be seen as a position of power to wield
Or it can be seen as an aligning tool within the church to keep it focused on Jesus.
This is what has happened in this church.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Biblical structure that endured through this time, the church flourished.
The Holy Spirit brought unity
The Holy Spirit brought order
The Holy Spirit brought unity
We typically see the word “unity” as “the absence of conflict”
However, the work of the Holy Spirit in this church developed unity at a deeper level than just the absence of conflict.
The absence of conflict is not necessarily healthy. It might be, but it also might not be healthy.
And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
Paul instructs them to understand where each other are in life and encourage them to holiness.
Sometimes that means to give a warning.
Sometimes that means to encourage.
Some people need these things.
We can go down a list that is longer than my arm of the condition of humanity and how we ought to respond, but Paul sums it up like this: Be patient with everyone.
Everyone needs patience. I need patience. You need patience.
Within the church, how much toxic conflict can there be if everyone displays a Biblical patience with one another.
Not much.
The second verse takes this concept deeper.
ALWAYS STRIVE to do what is good for each other
ALWAYS STRIVE to do what is good for everyone else.
We can look at this as instructions. We have to check the box and God will be happy.
Or we can recognize that this is God’s will and we need to quench our own frustrations and impatience and not quench the Holy Spirit who is always at work within us.
The Holy Spirit brought God’s will
The Holy Spirit brought order
The Holy Spirit brought unity
The Holy Spirit brought God’s will
Rejoice always,
pray continually,
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
The discussion of this point is very important and I want to begin with the concluding statement of our passage
This is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
If we are disciples of Jesus, that means we are:
Following Jesus
Being changed by Jesus
Obedient to the mission of Jesus to make disciples
Step 1 is following Jesus
This requires a surrender of our lives, our perspectives and our ways of doing things in this world.
We conform our actions and thoughts to the will of God, not my own will.
Very rarely does my will conform with God’s will
Therefore, I must surrender my will to the will of Jesus.
What is God’s will?
It is God’s will that I rejoice always.
I think we may look at this and feel like we need to be happy with every circumstance we face in our lives.
There are tragedies that we face. Not all circumstances make us happy.
I want you to know that these instructions cannot be circumstantial based. They are identity based.
Identity is another topic that Paul has spoken extensively about in this book.
In Christ, we have received grace when we were deserving of punishment
We have received forgiveness, when we have sinned
We have received life when we were dead in our sin
And we have received the promised Holy Spirit
None of this is earned. It is the gift of God.
We have joy, because what we have is not something that can be taken away, or changed or broken by this world.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
We have joy because we have the Holy Spirit within us, which is a promise of the inheritance
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
We can fall into the trap of saying, “Well these are just different circumstances.”
In one sense, they are different circumstances. Eternal circumstances.
However, our joy is not rooted in our circumstances, temporary or eternal.
They are rooted in the Holy Spirit that lives within us.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Keep that passage in your mind, because we will likely return.
We have a joy in all circumstances, because we have been given eternal life and an eternal hope that transcends our circumstances.
We have the Holy Spirit living within us.
We can be joyful in all things
Pray continually
It is God’s will that I pray continually
One way of thinking about this is that God never wants me to sleep, or have conversation with anyone except him.
I don’t think this is practical, nor is it Biblical.
We need to look at Jesus as our example of continual prayer.
In every circumstance, Jesus continued to go to prayer with the Father.
Before choosing the disciples— He went to prayer
Before feeding the 5000— He went to prayer
Before going to the cross— He went to prayer
We must have joy in our circumstances because we have eternal life, eternal hope and the Holy Spirit
But our circumstances still impact us. Therefore, we must go to prayer continually for every circumstance that we face.
Give thanks in all circumstances
We certainly do not see every circumstance as good in our lives.
But we can know that in every circumstance, God has not left us and God has not forsaken us.
We may not understand, but we are never alone.
In my mind, I think to the 23rd Psalm
In every circumstance, the shepherd was with the sheep
Whether it was beside still waters
Or in the valley of the shadow of death.
The shepherd was with the sheep.
As we said before, the Holy Spirit is within us.
This gives us joy.
Also, we respond in gratitude to the God who will never leave us, nor forsake us.
Earlier in 1 Thessalonians, we see that God’s will was that we be sanctified.
And now we respond with joy, prayer and gratitude.
God’s will is often not about changing our circumstances. It is changing who we are in our circumstances.
The Holy Spirit was present
The Holy Spirit brought order
The Holy Spirit brought unity
The Holy Spirit brought God’s will
The Holy Spirit was present
Now we get to the segment of Scripture that talks about not quenching the Holy Spirit
Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not treat prophecies with contempt
but test them all; hold on to what is good,
reject every kind of evil.
We live in a time where there is very little clear teaching on the Holy Spirit.
There are those who abuse teaching on the Holy Spirit and communicate Him to be the showy, display of God through all sorts of emotional highs and amazing events that stretch beyond Biblical precedent.
Then in reaction to that, there are those who completely neglect the Holy Spirit out of fear of abusing the Holy Spirit.
I hope we have navigated this passage in a way that we see that there is no substitute for the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our church.
The Holy Spirit is necessary for us to be a church.
The Holy Spirit draws us to holiness
The Holy Spirit directs us to Jesus
The Holy Spirit reveals truth
The Holy Spirit convicts of sin.
May we never quench the Holy Spirit.
Which leads us to the next verse, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt”
Prophecy is someone speaking on behalf of God.
There are differing views of this manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our world.
There are those who believe that the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit were for that time and establishing the church, but they are not for our time today.
Then there are those who believe that they are for today.
We have people in our church that will be on either side of that argument
Much like we did last week: Which side is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ?
With all of the discussion on this topic, one thing cannot be argued.
The Holy Spirit did direct this church, and He did so through the use of prophecy.
There were people that God enabled to speak on His behalf to direct the church to holiness and His purposes.
In the absence of Paul and the written New Testament, I think we all see how necessary and valuable this needed to be.
As we have seen earlier in the description of this church, they grew in love for one another and love for the world around them.
The preached the Gospel and demonstrated a supernatural agape love to the world.
The Holy Spirit didn’t spread the Gospel with big exciting displays
The Holy Spirit spread the Gospel through sanctification and love.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
That passage about love concludes with this:
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Here is the most important thing this church did.
They tested the message of the one claiming to speak for God.
If it was true, which means it aligned with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul had preached and the rest of Scripture, they accepted it as good.
If it did not, they rejected it as evil.
Someone who claims to speak for God will either truly be speaking for God or it will be a grave sin of lying on behalf of God.
There are warnings about false prophets all through Scripture.
If anyone claims to speak as a prophet, they MUST have their words tested. If they are untrue in ANY WAY, they are a false prophet.
God will not allow His word to be spoken incorrectly or misunderstood.
At Real Life, we insist that if a person claims to have a word from God, we will not give free reign to the stage to say what they want to say.
They must bring that message to the elders of the church.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
The Holy Spirit brings sanctification and hope
The Holy Spirit brought order
The Holy Spirit brought unity
The Holy Spirit brought God’s will
The Holy Spirit was present
The Holy Spirit brings sanctification and hope
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
We already talked through this topic a couple of weeks ago when we talked about sanctification.
But I find it interesting that Paul always connects our sanctification to our hope in Jesus Christ.
How sanctified do we need to become?
Our whole Spirit (pneuma), Soul ( psyche), and body (soma).
He is our sanctification
This is discipleship
Follow Jesus
He will change us.
Now, we must bring others along on our journey.
Conclusion
Brothers and sisters, pray for us.
Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.
I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Paul asks for their prayer.
He says to greet each other with a holy kiss.
I would warn you that this is likely something cultural for these people.
Don’t walk around trying to kiss each other. You’ll likely find yourself getting punched...by me.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The Holy Spirit brought order
The Holy Spirit brought unity
The Holy Spirit brought God’s will
The Holy Spirit was present
The Holy Spirit brings sanctification and hope
Real Life in Action:
Head- What have I learned about the Holy Spirit?
Heart- Is the Holy Spirit convicting my heart of sin?
Hands- Go to God in prayer and confess our sin.
