Recognizing the Power of the Gospel

False Advertising and the Power of the Gospel

Companies have to be careful when they advertise their products.

That advertisement is saying why you should buy their product.

Sometimes the advertisements are quite clever and convincing.

And sometimes they say things that might be a little too far reaching.

For example, Duracell, sold batteries called Duracell Ultra Advanced.

They were supposed to provide longer battery life than their normal batteries.

And of course they cost quite a bit more than their normal Duracell batteries.

It turns out that the Duracell Ultra Advanced batteries were their normal batteries, with a different wrapper and a higher price.

They were sued for deceptive marketing.

There was Enfamil, a baby formula.

They advertised that it was “clinically proven to improve brain and eye development.”

Think that through.

That’s a huge claim!

You can either have a normal baby.

Or you can have a genius baby, that can see like a hawk.

In the end, Enfamil had to pay $13.5 million in false advertising.

Even Splenda has gotten in trouble.

Splenda is a sugar substitute, a sweetner.

They used to have a slogan that was, “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar.”

Equal, another sugar substitute, sued Splenda saying that their advertising was claiming it was healthier than other sugar substitutes.

In the end, Splenda lost, and had to change its slogan to something much simpler, “no calorie Sweetner.”

The yogurt, Activia, has gotten in trouble as well.

They advertised that Activia “helps prevent colds and flu and one daily serving of Activia could relieve irregularity” and “it helps slow intestinal transit time.”

When you compare intestines to transit time, you are in trouble.

In the end, they had to pay $45 million dollars.

And lastly, remember, the Skechers “Shape Up” shoes?

They looked like normal tennis shoes, except, they had a giant rounded soul, that looked like a rocking chair.

The slogan was “Shape up while you walk.”

Apparently, this wasn’t true, and they were sued for $45 million dollars.

The church has made some pretty outlandish claims as well.

We talk about the power of God and the power of the Gospel, and at times, churches are just as guilty as these companies and their false advertising..

Think about how the Gospel is promoted on TV.

When people talk about the power of the Gospel, what do you see on TV.

You flip through the channels and you find TBN.

This is always a dangerous endeavor, I don’t encourage it.

You get to TBN and you find Benny Hinn, and what’s the power of the Gospel?

It’s him blowing on people.

They fall over on the ground.

They are slain in the Spirit.

There is a song being performed.

The organ player has been vamping the same 3 chords for 10 minutes, while the singer repeats the name Jesus in a hushed tone.

And the audience is in tears.

The woman on the stage is in tears, as her make up drips down her face.

What is promoted is if you become a Christian, and if you truly experience the power of the Gospel, and the power of the Holy Spirit, it will be a huge emotional experience.

TBN may be more on the fringe of true Christianity, but that same expectation emotionalism can work its way into the church.

And the idea is that the Gospel is something you should be able to feel.

When you experience the power of the Gospel, you feel it.

And when you come to church, you better feel something, or something is wrong.

You better have some kind of emotional experience each and every time you come here, or you are not experiencing the power of the Gospel.

I’m not against emotions.

They happen.

I just read this morning, of Jesus encountering Mary and Martha when Lazarus was dead.

What did Jesus do?

He wept.

These emotions don’t prove that you are a Christian.

Saying that these emotions prove your conversion … is false advertising.

This morning, I think it would be helpful to us to recognize the true power of the Gospel in a person’s life.

I don’t want to be accused of false advertising the Gospel in one’s life.

Because believe me … if I speak wrongly about the Gospel, the punishment is a lot more than a $45 million dollar lawsuit.

says that I will be judged stricter than others.

To help us in this, we will be in .

Read .

Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and in this section he is verifying the affects of the Gospel within their lives.

There is verifiable proof that they are actually born again.

He is writing to show what the power of the Gospel looks like in a person’s life.

The first proof is that The Power of the Gospel produces an imitation of others.

At the moment of conversion, a person’s sins are completely erased.

They are gone.

A person is seen as:

Justified.

Righteous..

Perfect.

Good in God’s eyes.

But … a person is not a finished product yet.

Let me put it another way, the Christian is not perfect.

His sins may be paid for, but there certainly are a lot of flaws in the person’s life that need to be ironed out.

The Spirit comes into the person, and changes the person.

One of the changes is that he mimics or imitates others.

Notice that in verse 6, Paul says, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord.

There are two people that the Christian imitates.

Other Christians.

And Jesus.

Evidence of the Gospel in a person’s life is that he imitates other Christians.

This makes sense in any other arena of life.

This makes sense in any other arena of life.

You want to learn how to work out … you sit under a personal trainer.

You imitate the trainer’s movements.

You want to get better at baseball … you find someone who knows about baseball.

You imitate his movements.

When a person graduates high school, he goes to college.

He sits under experts in his desired field of work.

He imitates them, so he will be prepared for the workplace.

And evidence of a person’s salvation is that he also sits under another Christian.

But he doesn’t imitate just anyone.

You don’t go through the church directory and blindly pick a name.

This isn’t picking someone who can become a business mentor, or help you make loads of money.

Paul says, “you became imitators of us”.

The us are in relation to the Lorx

The “us” are more mature Christians.

And within the church are more mature Christians.

This has nothing to do with age

It has to do with people who are stronger in the faith.

When you see someone who knows what they’re doing … you watch them.

In Paul lays out a program for how to follow Christians.

He explains that older women are to teach younger women how to work at home, and thus honor the word of God.

At the same time, younger men are to sit under more mature men.

In , Paul commissions Timothy to shepherd younger men, who are then to imitate him.

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

See the progression there.

Timothy imitates Paul.

Those under Timothy, imitate Timothy.

Then others are to imitate them.

This all happens within the context of the church.

In order to imitate other mature Christians … you need to be around other Christians.

True fellowship should be happening.

And it should be happening joyfully.

Remember, this is an affect of conversion.

It’s an affect of having the Holy Spirit within your life.

The power of God is seen in your life when you are in fellowship and imitating more mature Christians.

That’s quite different from the false advertising you see on TBN.

In a couple of weeks, we will be getting back into the swing of things around here.

Wednesday night Bible study resumes.

Christians University resumes.

Men’s Breakfast resumes.

Make an effort to be with other Christians.

And specifically, to sit under someone who will shepherd you and counsel you.

Strategically, sit under someone that you can imitate.

Thinking about our prayer partners, it might be helpful to find someone who you can imitate, or who can imitate you.

It’s not just other Christians that we imitate, but we also imitate the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Obviously, here’s what that doesn’t mean.

It doesn’t mean you find a neighbor who has a pool.

Hop his fence and try and walk on water.

It doesn’t mean you go to deadly disease ward of the hospital, and start touching everyone there, trying to heal them of their diseases.

That is not what it means to imitate the Lord.

It means that you obey Him.

It’s to follow Christ, and follow what He has commanded us to do.

says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

This is important.

The power of the Gospel is worked out in your life when you obey.

And if there is no obedience … then the power of God is not active in your life.

How often does this happen to you?

You are preparing to go to bed.

You plug your phone in, expecting it to be fully charged in the morning.

You wake up, and find it at 12%.

You are frustrated.

At first, you think something is wrong with your phone.

Then you follow the cord … it’s not plugged in.

There is no power to it.

That explains why it’s not charged.

How do you know your phone is charged?

It’s plugged in.

The power of God is made clear in your life when you are plugged into Christ and you obey Him.

This raises the question … do you know what Christ has commanded?

This is the result of being in the Bible.

When I teach, it’s not to promote my ideas.

It’s to open God’s Word and say here is what He has commanded, and then act on it.

My teaching is so that you can better experience the power of God in your own obedience.

It happens as you regularly studying the Bible.

Regularly reading it.

And reading it for the purpose of obeying.

With New Years on Tuesday, this is a great time to start a new Bible reading plan.

To get into the habit of a daily reading.

We imitate other Christians.

We imitate Christ.

And we are expected to live a life that others can imitate.

Verse 7 says that the Thessalonians became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia and beyond.

So it’s no secret, I have braces.

I’m an adult with braces.

A special breed of person.

One of the rare people that didn’t get it done when they were younger.

Part of the process of getting the braces were having impressions done.

This is done by having a mouth piece filled with some kind of pink goo put into my mouth.

It remains in your mouth for about 5 minutes.

And if you’ve ever had it done before, you know, that the whole time you are trying your hardest not to gag on it.

After 5 minutes they take the mouth piece out, and they have a mold of your mouth.

They know how your teeth look.

They have a perfect copy of the inside of your mouth.

The Thessalonian Christians were an impression of true Christians.

They were a mold that could be copied.

They were making disciples.

That is the power of God on display.

And the power of Gospel is on display in your life, when you are a mold that others can copy.

This is why obedience to the Lord is so important.

I don’t want people to copy me in my weirdness.

But I do want people to copy me in my obedience and my love of the Lord.

The power of the Gospel is on display, when you make disciples.

When people can imitate you in your own obedience.

Parents this is worked out in your life, as your children mimic your own devotion to the Lord.

Adults with grown children, this is worked out in your life, when your kids realize, maybe you weren’t so crazy growing up, and your grown children seek to imitate you.

The second proof of recognizing The Power of the Gospel is that it produces a change.

The Thessalonians have not only imitated Paul and Christ, but the news of their conversion has spread far and wide.

Earlier this year, I’d looked into the statistics for the Orange County Harvest Crusades.

I’d found that according to harvest.org, they’d had 8.8 million people attend their crusades.

Out of the 8.8 million people, about 506,000 had apparently been converted.

Let’s put some perspective to those stats.

As of May of 2017:

Murrieta had 115,000 people.

Temecula had about 111,000 people.

But that’s still shy of the 500,000 that apparently have been converted at the Harvest Crusades.

If I totaled all the people from:

Murrieta

Temecula

Wildomar

Menifee

And Perris

We’d still only have about 488,000 people.

Which is still short of the 506,000 that Harvest claims to have been converted at their crusades.

But just imagine, imagine if every single person from Temecula to Perris, along the 215 freeways became converted.

What would Riverside County look like if it was made up of 488,000 born again Christians?

It would look radically different.

I’m doubtful of the Harvest numbers.

Paul, on the other hand is talking about something verifiable.

He is talking about the power of the Gospel within the lives of the Thessalonian Christians.

He’s talking about the clear evidence of their conversion.

The Thessalonian Christian converts are not some hidden statistic on a website.

They are known.

They are heard about.

The power of the Gospel within their lives has spread like wildfire.

I wonder where the Harvest Crusades 506,000 Christians are, because there’s not much of a change in Southern California.

They don’t always like it when our faith is known.

But there’s no questioning the reality of the Thessalonian Christians.

They say we need to keep it to ourselves.

The presence of our Christianity lingers in their nostrils, like a spoiled milk.

says, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?”

But this doesn’t mean we should be silent.

Their conversion has “sounded forth from Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so we need not say anything.”

Because this is what we are commissioned and commanded to do.

The region has been transformed by the power of the Gospel in their lives.

We are to go and make disciples.

Verse 9 says, “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,”

We are to evangelize.

We are to let the world know who we are.

This is the affect of the power of the Gospel upon our lives.

We are changed.

And we let people know.

So it’s no secret, I have braces.

I’m an adult with braces.

A special breed of person.

Part of the process of getting the braces were having impressions done.

This is done by having a mouth piece filled with some kind of pink goo put into my mouth.

It remains in your mouth for about 5 minutes.

And if you’ve ever had it done before, you know, that the whole time you are trying your hardest not to gag on it.

After 5 minutes they take the mouth piece out, and they have a mold of your mouth.

They know how your teeth look.

They have a perfect copy of the inside of your mouth.

The Thessalonian Christians were a mold, they were something that could be copied.

They were making disciples.

There was a clear change

They were disciples.

And they made disciples.

The power of the Gospel was recognized because they turned from idols.

I don’t think we give idols enough credit.

When I think of an idol I think of an old pagan religion.

We often think idolatry doesn’t pertain to the modern mind.

We think of a totem, or some kind of statue that people worship.

Which they certainly had in their Greek culture.

But let’s define an idol to anything that consumes your affections outside of God..

If that is the case, then it’s not just the Thessalonians who worshipped idols before their conversion.

Every generation of mankind has had idols.

It can be tradition.

It can be false religion.

It can also be the everyday elements of our lives.

These are things that take the love and affection that you should give to God, and you give them to created and temporary things.

Your toys and technology.

Your entertainment.

Your pets.

Your money.

Your education.

Idols can masquerade themselves as things that are good as well.

An idol doesn’t have to be a golden calf, a laughing Buddha, or something inherently sinful.

Family can become an idol.

Jesus recognized this in , “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

If anyone loves their family, wife, children, even his life, more than Christ … he is not a disciple.

Remember, our definition, is an idol is anything that consumes your affections outside of God.

If someone were to say I am not going to church, because my I am going into the woods to spend time with my idol, you’d say, “Weirdo!”

That’s idolatry.

But how many times does this happen with things that are not wooden statues?

How many times does this happen with families?

I’m not going to worship God today, because I’m going to ride mountain bikes and create memories with my family.

We usually don’t call that idolatry.

But what has happened?

That person has put their family in front of Christ.

That is not the action of a disciple.

I’d say it happens pretty often, and most Christians are okay with it.

If

Something needs to change.

The Thessalonians changed, and the world took notice.

Note that the Thessalonians turned from idols.

Many times people merely change idols.

They find out that they are too obsessed with one thing.

They decide they need to make a change.

So they change to a different thing.

They change to a different idol.

Think of the person who is trying to quit smoking.

He distracts himself with another addiction.

Maybe he chews gum compulsively.

Maybe he chews on pencils, just to replace the habit.

A person decides that coffee is bad.

So he compulsively drinks tea.

The Thessalonians didn’t turn a new distraction.

They didn’t change religions, just to change religion.

It says they went to serve the living and true God.

We must remember how important true worship of Christ is.

Let’s pretend that there is this guy named Charles and he’s an atheist.

If I told you that Charles, changed from being an atheist to a Mormon or some other religion, would you think that is good or bad?

He went from not believing in God, to believing in a god, just not the true God.

You might think, it’s better.

It’s better than nothing.

Let’s be real, it’s a vanity.

It’s changing from one false god to another.

The Thessalonians went from idolatry to serving who? The living God.

No fake god.

The real God.

The living God.

The power of the Gospel results in real change.

And in your life, I hope that there this same kind of evidence.

Radical change.

Repentance.

Repentance where you abandon your old gods and turn to the living God.

Remember, your old gods don’t have to be a statue.

They are whatever robs your affection from God.

And if you can see this … then you are recognizing the power of the Gospel in your life, because it produces a change.

This is something to praise God about.

This is describing repentance.

Turning from sin.

Turning to God.

But notice that repentance has two sides to it.

One side is stopping something.

Namely sin.

But there is a positive action as well.

Serving the living and true God ...

This means to become a slave of God.

Serve, that is an action word.

This tells me … that you haven’t repented, until you have done an action.

And in this case become a servant of God.

Or to put it another way … till you have begun serving Him.

Remember, this is Paul, recognizing the power of God, active in the lives of the Thessalonian Christians.

This isn’t about you showing off.

This is about showing off the power of the Gospel in your life.

So you’ve become a Christian.

You are turning from sins.

Now, we turn to God.

What next? We serve Him.

As we begin a new year, I’m not looking to lay a guilt trip on you.

Instead, let’s turn a new leaf, and together, demonstrate the power of God, recognize His glory, by serving Him.

Please consider how you can demonstrate the power of the Gospel in your life, by turning from sin and serving God.

By serving in some fashion here at church.

The last bit of evidence of the work of God in your life, is that The Power of the Gospel produces an expectation of Christ’s return.

Don’t read: Things we do.

We imitate others.

We imitate the Lord.

We turn from sin and turn to God.

And now the final evidence is something nice and easy … we wait.

We wait for the return of Christ.

We don’t always think about faith this way, but faith is something that is given to you.

Naturally, we don’t have faith in God.

says that it is a gift of God.

Faith is not empty.

It’s not a feeling.

It means something.

It is something.

And our faith is in Someone.

Our faith is that Christ is who the Bible says He is.

But notice, we also have faith that Christ will return again.

Look at verse 10, “and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

And specifically, that He will spare us from the wrath that is to come.

He will deliver us from His judgment upon this earth.

He will deliver us from Hell.

Our faith is that He is coming.

Notice that evidence of the power of Gospel in the Thessalonian’s lives is that they are waiting for Christ to return again.

This is evidence.

Paul is commending them.

Paul is affirming the work of God in their lives.

He is saying, “I know you are Christians because you are waiting for Christ to return.”

The belief in the return of Christ is an important belief.

It’s an evidence of the power of the Gospel in your life.

It is evidence of the presence of the Gospel in your life.

The return of Christ is a part of what is called eschatology.

It’s what we believe about the future.

It’s what you believe is going to happen to you.

The return of Christ has to do with what we believe the Christian faith even is.

I’m sometimes asked if I think it is essential to believe that Christ is going to return or not.

Here you go, let me put my foot down and say … yes.

Yes I do.

It’s so important, that Paul recognized it as evidence of the Thessalonian’s conversion to Christ.

They are imitators of Paul.

Others imitate them.

And … it’s something we are to imitate also.

You see this same expectation throughout the New Testament as well.

After the ascension of Jesus in , angels told the disciples of the return of Christ:

“and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

At the very end, , “He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

John’s prayer was for the return of Christ.

Do you see the expectation?

Maybe you say, Luke, it’s been so long, how do we know Christ is still coming?

says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

What do I say to those who say God’s taking too long, He’s acting too slow?

That verse says that God is not slow.

He is being patient.

What are we to do?

Be patient.

We practice the same patience that the Thessalonians practiced.

We wait for the Lord to return.

Knowing that His word is true.

And your patient expectation of the return of Christ, demonstrates the power of God in your life.

It shows that the Word of God has penetrated your soul.

It shows that God has given you faith.

There’s a very practical side to this as well.

It means we know that God has a plan for this world.

He has not abandoned His creation.

There is a direction to life.

Yes, I’m

And God still has things planned.

So in this little text, we have 3 signs of the recognition of the power of the Gospel.

They imitate others.

There is a change.

They wait.

So what have you been sold when it comes to Christianity?

Don’t read - Different examples.Were you told you would have these wild emotions?

You thought every worship service would result in you balling your eyes out.

You though’t you’d always experience this rush of emotion.

Maybe you thought you’d be speaking in tongues.

The reality is that there is a lot of false advertising out there, and it happens even within the church.

If you want to recognize the power of the Gospel in your life, it’s much simpler.

There is a humility to imitate others, the Lord, and for others to imitate you.

For you to make disciples.

There is a change.

You turn from idols, whatever and wherever they may be, to the living God and serving Him.

And the Christian has faith in Christ.

Patiently waiting for His return.

Hopefully, you see these things in your life.

And if so, then you can join in with the Thessalonians, and rejoice that the power of the Gospel is present in your life.

And if not, then maybe you’ve fallen victim to some false advertising.

It’s time to change your expectations.

Look to how the Bible describes those who have experienced the power of the Gospel.

Trust in Him.

Repent.

And pray that He will convert your soul.