Sermon Tone Analysis

An Alive Church

1 thess 1.

Steve N. Wagers

January 2, 2005

Sermon Outline

1.

The Witness this Church Released!

A. The Condition of the Lost!

B. The Commission of the Lord!

2. The Worship this Church Regarded!

A. Divine in its Focus!

B. Dynamic in its Format!

3. The Word this Church Received!

A. They Eagerly Received the Word!

B. They Earnestly Received the Word!

- I have never liked the word 'average.'

Someone has defined average as being, "One step above the worst, and one step below the best."

I have no desire to be the worst, and I see no reason why not to be the best.

Yet, sad to say, there are many 'average' churches today.

Let me give you a picture of the 'average'

Many churches are like the airplane pilot who came on the loudspeaker and said to the passengers, "Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that our navigational equipment has malfunctioned.

We do not know where we are going; we do not know where we are; but, we are making excellent time."

But pilot says for the sake of safety we will continue on this course.

- Of those 381 members, 110, or 29% do not live in the nearby community.

- It takes 81 of those 381 members to win one person to Christ in a year.

- The 'average' SBC church baptizes 9 people a year.

Sometime I feel with our present worship structure that describes us ....

- It takes 5 'average' SBC churches to support one missionary.

- I don't know about you, but I am interested in being an 'average' Southern Baptist Church.

In fact, I am not as interested in being a Baptist church as I am in being a Bible-believing, local New Testament Church.

For that will be the church that's alive in 2005.

- Many churches are like the airplane pilot who came on the loudspeaker and said to the passengers, "Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that our navigational equipment has malfunctioned.

We do not know where we are going; we do not know where we are; but, we are making excellent time."

- Sadly, that is the plight of the 'average' church.

They have no idea where they are, or where they are going.

But we will keep doing it anyway

We are ADD or ADHD going from here to there but not sure where we are ...

Some are busy being busy and actually believe that God is in all the ADD activity

They have no clear vision of their priorities, their power, or their purpose.

Thus, every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, it is simply business as usual.

They have no clear vision of their priorities, their power, or their purpose.

Thus, every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, it is simply business as usual.

- I want you to look with me at our text and notice a church that was alive.

It was the church at Thessalonica, and we read in verse 7:

"So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia."

"So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia."

- The word "ensamples" literally means, "to be a pattern."

It gives us our English word 'model, or type.'

vs 8 - Thus, Paul was saying that this church was a model, a pattern and a type for other churches to follow.

There are 3 things about this church that I want us to consider;

Background

They were sounding out “the word of the Lord.”

This expression, which occurs more than two hundred times in the Old Testament, stands for the revealed truth of God.

If a Gentile wanted to hear it, he had to go to the synagogue and become a proselyte of Judaism.

The Christians received the Word of the Lord, amplified as it was by New Testament revelation, and took it out of the synagogue, out from behind the closed doors of Judaism, and into the marketplace and onto the city streets.

They trumpeted the message where they worked and where they lived.

They told everyone.

They became fearless ambassadors for Christ and earned the resentment and active malice of the Jews as a result.

Pentecost put an end to all of that.

After Pentecost, if God had anything to say, He said it in Greek.

He spoke in a Gentile language that most people could understand.

The New Testament was written in Greek because God was now speaking to the world, and Greek was the lingua franca of that world.

The Greek was the common language of that day....

It was being preached and proclaimed to Gentiles and by Gentiles in ever-increasing numbers.

Timothy had brought the good news to Paul at Corinth.

But, by the time Paul came to write this letter, he was hearing the same story from everyone.

All of Macedonia and Achaia were ablaze.

The Thessalonian believers were setting the world on fire!

The gospel was sweeping across the heartland of Greece like a prairie fire driven by the wind.

The Holy Spirit was at work, and no amount of persecution was going to put a stop to His work.[1]

Wow if this was given as a model church lets see what it entailed ....

Wow if this was given as a model church lets see what it entailed ....

I The WITNESS this Church RELEASED!

Sounded forth - they made known

- We read in verse 8,

But in every place

"For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing."

- The church at Thessalonica had built up a wonderful reputation in their community as a result of their gospel witness.

They had made the main thing, the main thing; and, thus, had released a glorious witness from their church.

There were know it the community and had earned a right to be heard....

THEY WERE NOT JUST BEHIND THE WALLS OF THE CHURCH BUT IN THE COMMUNITY

- I believe two reasons confirm the reason they had released a witness.

First, they were aware of:

A. The CONDITION of the LOST!

- We read in verse 9,

They remember where they came from ....

"For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had to you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God."

- The church at Thessalonica lived in the midst of a heathenistic day.

They were surrounded by a Pagan society.

They were faced with idoltary, and the worship of many false gods.

- Thus, they knew firsthand the condition of the world that surrounded them.

They knew that they had been strategically, specifically and sovereignly placed there to be a witness to a city that was lost.

Wow what about us ....?

DO WE KNOW THE CONDITION OF OUR NEIGHBORS AND COMMUNITY

- We get the idea that these people had not forgotten where they came from, and what they used to be.

Paul makes reference to the fact by saying, "they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had to you, and how ye turned to God from idols."

- In other words, these were people who once worshipped false gods before they received the true God.

Thus, they had a burden for their fellow countrymen and neighbors.

They were concerned over the condition of the lost.

- We should never need to be reminded that the #1 priority of this church, or any local New Testament church is REACHING THE COMMUNITY

Vance Havner speaks volumes, "For a church to say it is going to major in evangelism is like a railroad to say that it is going to major in transportation."