Hope in the Word That Works

Intro: mum and dad’s chorse. My dislike of them but they bettered me. My doing chorse benefited my parents: I carried my fair share. Butit ultimately blessed me and prepared me for life once I left home.

Leads to: God’s Word isn’t a burden- but a gift.

God has given you his wored for you. Not for him. For your sake.

That in it, you might find freedom, transformation, strength and comfort.

That by it, you might rule over your sin, love and lead your families well.

That through it, you’d be empowered and set free to live your life fully for him and in union with him.

That’s the Gospel that Paul preached to the Thessalonians. That sin entered the world through mankind’s endeavour to be like God, to even be greater than God. It led to rebellion which inturn, created a world of chaos, darkness and death. God, in love for the world he created, sent His one and only Son Jesus, who did not rebel, who lived in unity with God the Father and was obedient to Him to the point of suffering and dying on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the wolrd so that sinners like you and me could turn to Him and be justly saved.

That is the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus Christ whom Paul preached. It is a Word that came from God, through men like Paul and ultimately written down for us as an inheritance of faith. For Paul, and for us, the Gospel is God’s Word. That’s important, because some people seek to take Jesus out of scripture and then tune Him into the version they want.

The Word of God has power to set free, transform and redeem a broken world. It’s a blessing, and we want it to bless us. You’ll notice here at Whitehill that we’ll start every service with the Word in a call to worship. We encourage a culture amongst our service hosts to stand here before you with God’s Word in hand as symbol of it’s place in our service, church and individual lives.

We reintroduced a liturgy, after the Bible reading our host’ll say “This is the Word of the Lord” because that is what we believe- it’s God’s Word. We want to emphasis that every week till be each believe it. Then the church will repond, “Thanks be to God”. God’s Word is the hope and joy found in the finished work of Jesus- are you thankful for it?

Liturgies, when expressed from the heart, produce belief. Be have confidence that God’s Word produces in its reader and listener hope, joy, peace, patience, thankfulness- a transformation of the heart from slavery to sin to obedience to the Holy Spirit who dwells within the believer.

And so, of course, when we preach we aim to preach not some message I want you to hear, but we set in advance books in the Bible to study, and allow the written word to dictate our message. We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to preach the truth of the passage pastorally and in a way that is relevant to you, our church.

If you’re new and exploring faith, that may perhaps all seem strange to you but for my self know that I have supreme confidence of the Word of God to change hearts, redeem lives and trasnform families and communities.

I’m confident because I have seen it. I’ve seen it in my wife. I’ve seen it in my friends. I’ve seen it in this church. And I’ll see it again.

Let’s turn to our text, verse 13.

The Gospel is God’s Word v.13

1 Thessalonians 2:13 “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

One thing we see from Paul through this letter is his supreme confidence in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For the same reasons I have confidence and you might have confidence- you’ve seen the transformation it brings and you know you’ll see it again.

The Thessalonians also had this confidence, “you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

Pastor Brad mentioned last week, that it was common for travelling teachers, self-appointed prophets and academics to teach in the towns and cities of the Roman world. Often there were new ideas, new beliefs, new trends that these men would bring. When Paul, Silas and Timothy arrive with this new Gospel of this new movement called “The Way”, there is every reason to dismiss the message as lunacy- a message of a God who would be King, who died for a sinful world.

Yet, they accepted that message, and they accepted it as “not from men..but the Word of God”. Why?

Paul points to that at the end of the verse, saying “...the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” They accepted God’s Word because they saw Him at work- it was some foreign idea but a reality for them that this was true. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy-

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

God’s Word isn’t some dusty old books written by men with an agenda, life breathe in the lungs it brings lifes. We have confidence in God’s Word as we see God Work through His Word.

For the Thessalonians, this is their experience. They heard the Gospel and its transformative power changed their life. There are a few words Paul uses that we passed over so I want to highlight them for you before we moved on. We’re going to work backwords through the verse, but you’ll see why.

“accepted” dechomai, it’s a hospitality word, it can mean receiving like a guest into your home, but it also welcomes. The Thessalonains welcomed the word of of God.

“heard” akoe, not just hearing but listening and obeying.

“recieved” paralambano, often used when talking about tradition. It means to recieve and take with you.

These three words desciribe to us, someone’s life being transformed.

God’s Word brings transformation. Scripture teaches us that we are hostile to God. We have rebelled against his reign and rule, opting instead for our own wisdom and moral compass and percieve ourselves great than God. And yet, upon hearing of God’s Word, namely the Gospel, it brings transformation. When the Thessalonains heard the Gospel, they welcomed it in, like guest to their house, they obeyed what was ask of them- that is to turn away from sin and they recieved new life and carried it with them. Like a tradition, they’ll come to pass it on.

God’s Word Brings Transformation v.14

1 Thessalonians 2:14 “For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,”

For, conjunction - an introduction of evidence to the previous point. The first idea is that the Gospel is God’s Word, it has come from God, not from men. The following sentance, verse 14 is evidence of that. What’s the evidence? You became imitators of the churches...

Imitation is one of Paul’s favourite themes and is central to what he describes as the Christian Life. By imitation, we don’t mean that they made some conscious decision to copy other christians. They didn’t pretend or try and be like other christians. That would be fake, and wouldn’t point to the power of God’s Word in the lives and hearts of the believers.

Instead, imitation is evidence of a genuine salvation.

When you start dating someone new, someone you really like you almost become a bit obsessed at first (hopefully it dies down after a while, otherwise your friends will find you annoying!). But in that obsession, that deep excitement, you want to know every thing about them, you want your time to be consumed with being with them, thinking about them and seeing your world be entirely shaped by them.

So it is when someone becomes a Christian. Your life completely changes. How you spend your time changes. How you model your weekly schedule changes. What you value changes. You change, or atleast you should. We shouldn’t look like, talk like or walk like the sinful, broken world around us if we have come into contactwith the eternal, transforming power of Jesus.

Paul says, that should look like imitation. I see an impicit meaning here, when Paul says they are imitators of the churches in Judea. That being, that God works through His Word so that churches 1000s of miles away all have been transformed and are “imitators” of each other, as they are both imitators of Christ, or atleast they should.

I keep saying that “they should” because, as you know, not all churches, not all Christians imitate Christ. To answer that, let’s ask the question: How do I imitate Jesus?

Paul has given us the answer already. It’s through the transformative work of God through scripture.

Say you had 100 pianos to tune. Piano 1 ius the only tuned paino. What would be your process? Would you tune piano 2 to paino 1? Yeah sure. Would you tune Pino 13 to Piano 12 which is tuned to piano 11. No! Overtime, every slight mistune would lead to the later piano’s sounding terrible. You have a source piano, let’s call it our authoratative source. And that is what we always refer to.

Jesus is the first piano. His voice is the voice ours should be tuned to. How do we know His voice? Scripture has it written for us.

While that is true, we also hold with that the Holy Spirit guides us and there is value in the input of Christian community. However, what happens if we tune the first 50 pianos to the first, but we get to number 51 and we really like the way it sounds? Test it by the tuning of the first. Test the spirits by the Truth of scripture.

False Teachers, tickle our ears. How do we tell? Tuned in.

The Bible, Scripture, the Word of God offers you what you need to grow into Christlikeness, and become an imitator of his church. I truly believe God still works through scripture and through by it continues his work of discipling His people. It is a well of truth and comfort that never runs dry.

"Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years."
Charles Spurgeon

We continue to grow and we always need to grow. No one “arrives”, unless Christ calls them home. We are all paino’s being tuned toward beauty. We become imitators of the love we have found in Jesus and His Word.

Paul, also says that we are imitators in experience. For the Thessalonians, it appears Paul directly links them to the churches in Judea as they “suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews”.

Paul has expressed to us some truths of God’s Word, that it is of God, it comes from God and that it brings transformation but also we see here that the Word of God brings opposition.

Darkness hates the light. That is a theme that also prevails through scripture. John writes in his Gospel:

John 3:19–20 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

The Gospel of Jesus is light into a dark would but darkness tries to resist, fight and tempt people back into the shadows of their own heart. And it brings opposition to the work of God’s people.

The Word of God Brings Opposition v.15-16

1 Thessalonians 2:14b–16 “For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!”

The lingering sin resists God’s Word and its work in the world. Paul gives a few examples.

Opposition to God’s people “opposition from own countrymen… they drove us out”. The localised opposition to Paul and the church, as well as ongoing persecution by factions and governing bodies.

Opposition to God’s Appointed Leaders. Paul mentions the Prophets. These were men, called by God to condemn the darkness that his people were living in and celebrating. Many of them were treatred harshly and killed. Paul had seen how opposition to God’s Word had seen the Disciples treated, Paul himself stood as he watched Stephen, the first Matryr be stoned to death. When God calls and appoints leaders in his church- they’re often attacked by the ndarkness. Pray for them!

Opposition to God Himself They killed Jesus. Resisted His call to repent and be baptised. Nothing new, when Moses brought to the Israelites God’s law and promises they celebrated and committed themselves to God. Then, shortly after, made a golden calf and worshipped it instead. When God’s Words, commands and law are replaced with darkness- we become oppossed to Gopd Himself.

Opposition ultimately to salvation. The darkness in the Jews who opposed the Gospel led them even to blocking non-Jews from hearing about Jesus. For this, Paul says they “oppose all mankind”. 1 Thessalonians 2:15–16 … (they) oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved...”

Opposition internally. The sin that sat in the heart of these Jews, oppossed the saving light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whilst their sin opposed to the point of unbelief, it is true that our sin continues to oppose the work of the light of Jesus in our own life. Sometimes we read God’s word and feel a well of resistance within us to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We need to learn to submit ourselves to His work through His word. If we fail to do so, we risk tuning our version of Jesus to the sound of the piano we prefer. We lose the truth and oppose the light.

The darkness opposses the light of the Gospel and that opposition leads to judgement. We get the last part of verse 16 which is a bit funky, 1 Thessalonians 2:16 ...”so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!”

Paul is not saying all Jews condemned, nor is he talking about a specific historical event happening at the time. Rather, Paul’s point of view was that Jesus was coming soon. Jesus would come at last to bring judgement upon the world. His coming is the appointed time in which suffering would end, sin would be destroyed, and- for Paul, these specific Jews who had killed Jesus, persecuted the church and had rejected Christ- would face justice for their continued rejection of God and hinderance in redempive history.

And it is true, judgement is coming. That phrase might come to you with some negative connotation, but remember that God’s judgement is also justice. He is the highest being, the author of creation, King of the World, everlasting Father. He has the ultimate say on what is just and what is good. And we have rebelled, rejected and oppose Him and His judgement. But there is hope, and hope alone, in Jesus Christ who gave himself as a substitue for that judgement. He died and was resurrected as he was not under the judgement of death, he has defeated death and now offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life to any who would believe in Him.

Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

So I reflect on the chores and responsibilities my parents gave me. What seemed frustrating, oppressive to my youthful freedom- what raised up from within me- opposition. Was actual one of the best gifts to me. I relate it to God’s Word. It’s hard, sometimes it is confusing, but by it it has brought me life and hope. Today friends, you can find hope in the eternal, certain, unchanging truths of the Gospel in the scriptures, amidst an everchanging, uncertain and opposing world.