Not just words, but Power
Notes
Transcript
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of the election season. We are bombarded with advertisements on TV, in our searches on the internet, and in our Facebook news feed.
Don’t even get me started on the news media. It seems like all they like to play is snippets of a conversation. The problem with a snippet is that you do not get the context of what a person said. I have sometimes “fact-checked” things that the news is reporting to discover what they said that another person said was not entirely true.
This happens on both sides of the political spectrum. What I think that I dislike about politicians is that they are great at making promises but fall way short of actually fulfilling those promises.
I don’t know about you, I don’t want to just hear promises, I want to see a person who puts into action the words that they have spoken.
Don’t worry, I’m not stand up here and talk about politics all morning. I am certainly not going to tell you who to vote for. I am going to tell you to vote with your Christian worldview.
The thing about politicians is that they will say most anything to get elected or to get reelected. It has always amazed me that lots of these politicians enter the political world with an average income and when they come to retire, they are multi-millionaires. How does that happen?
It is all about power and money. That is why Christianity is like living upside down in this world. It is not about the money and power. It is about giving up everything and proclaiming that Jesus is Lord.
Our scripture text brings up this topic of words, or saying things.
Words are important, but they are not enough.
Lets dive into what Paul has to say to us this morning. In the case of this letter, it is not just from Paul, it is from Silvanus also known as Silas, and Timothy. It makes be wonder why all three of them collaborated on writing this letter.
They open the letter
Common English Bible Chapter 1
To the Thessalonians’ church that is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia. It was actually a secular word that the church acquired and used. In the Greek culture the ekklesia was a gathering of like minded people, such as being called together by the government to elect people to various positions. There was a calling by someone for the people to gather.
For the Christians, the ekklesia is the gathering of the congregation because God is the one who has called us together. One author put it this way:
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 32: 1, 2 Thessalonians / 1, 2 Timothy / Titus Chapter One: Grace and Peace
Thus, it is often pointed out that the word does not mean a group of people who have been “picked out” from others, but a gathering of people who have been called to come together to meet with God. God is the convenor of the gathering, and the invitation is to all who will come.
Paul says that the Thessalonians’ church or ekklesia is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we gather as the New Life Church of the Nazarene we are gathering as the ekklesia in God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ.
They write of two members of the trinity right here.
God the Father. God is the Father. God is our Heavenly Father.
The second is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord means that he is supreme, there is no one above him. He is coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. To call Jesus “Lord” is to pledge allegiance to him as the supreme ruler of our lives.
Lawrence Richards in his commentary on this passage wrote:
The Teacher’s Commentary 148: 1 Thes.—The Word: Heard and Lived
Paul here pointed out the complete reorientation that came when people of the first century grasped the meaning of the Gospel’s core.
• A personal God lives.
• The God of the universe calls us to know and serve Him.
• This God invaded history in the person of His Son, and through His Son’s death and resurrection God rescues us from coming judgment.
• Jesus’ return testifies to the promise that the universe has an end as well as a beginning.
Paul and his co-writers are stating that we find our true meaning, purpose and joy in life through our relationship with God. The reality is that this is all about God Himself. God the Creator of the universe.
The life-transforming truth is that God calls us into a personal relationship with Him. When God create man and woman in the Garden of Eden it was because he wanted a relationship with them. It was a relationship that was based on love and respect. It included obedience on the part of humankind to God.
I do not care who you are or what you’ve done, God wants to have a relationship with God. That relationship is found in the Lord Jesus Christ and by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 2, they hit on an extremely important part of our Christian living.
2 We always thank God for all of you when we mention you constantly in our prayers.
We mention you constantly in our prayers.
What a tremendous privilege it is to go to God in prayer. In prayer, we are talking to the God who created everything. Paul writes that they always thank God for them and constantly mentions them in prayer.
What a sacred blessing it is to pray for each other. Never ever take that for granted. If you do nothing else, pray. Pray for the church, pray for me, pray for the church board, pray for each other, pray for the ones in our treasure chest of love. Pray, pray like your life and the life of others depend on your prayers. In reality your life depends on prayer because if you are not praying, you are not living in relationship with the Father.
Look at verse 3
3 This is because we remember your work that comes from faith, your effort that comes from love, and your perseverance that comes from hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father.
Notice that they point out three aspects of their life in relationship with the Father.
We remember your work that comes from faith.
Your effort that comes from love.
Your perseverance that comes from hope.
Does that remind you of another passage that Paul wrote using those words?
13 Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love.
It is as if Paul has summarized our relationship with God and others in the words of faith, hope and love, with love being the greatest.
The Apostle John really grabbed onto this concept when he wrote:
7 Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. 8 The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. 10 This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. 13 This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world. 15 If any of us confess that Jesus is God’s Son, God remains in us and we remain in God. 16 We have known and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them. 17 This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on the Judgment Day, because we are exactly the same as God is in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love because God first loved us. 20 Those who say, “I love God” and hate their brothers or sisters are liars. After all, those who don’t love their brothers or sisters whom they have seen can hardly love God whom they have not seen! 21 This commandment we have from him: Those who claim to love God ought to love their brother and sister also.
Love is not because we loved God, but that God loved us. God demonstrated that love by sending Jesus as the supreme ultimate sacrifice.
Our relationship with God begins with faith in God. Our relationship is maintained in hope that Jesus who came once will come again so that we can be with him eternally.
Our relationship then is lived out in love. Love towards God and love towards each other.
If love is missing in our daily lives that we are not really living in relationship with the Father.
This letter is written from the perspective that we can and must live a changed lifestyle.
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 32: 1, 2 Thessalonians / 1, 2 Timothy / Titus Chapter Three: Jesus Christ Can Change Your Life
Can a person really experience significant change? That was the question Nicodemus asked Jesus (John 3), and it’s an important question for all of us. The Christian faith is grounded upon the claim that people can be changed. While such change may not be as dramatic as that experienced by Paul (Acts 9), the central message of Jesus Christ is the possibility of radical transformation of the human personality by His love and grace.
Can a person really experience significant change? The answer is absolutely yes.
Look at what they wrote:
4 Brothers and sisters, you are loved by God, and we know that he has chosen you.
You are loved by God, and he has chosen you. Being chosen for something can be good or bad. How about if you are chosen for juror duty? Some might enjoy that or they look for a way to get out of it. During the Vietnam war and the ones that came before it, young men were chosen by the draft.
You have been chosen, you are loved by God. God is active in your life today.
Paul then brings it all together, listen to verse 5
5 We know this because our good news didn’t come to you just in speech but also with power and the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know as well as we do what kind of people we were when we were with you, which was for your sake.
Paul says that they know that God loves them and has chosen them. He can clearly state that why?
Because. Because the good news did not come to them in just words.
Remember what I said when I started out about politicians who say a lot of stuff to get us to vote for them and after they get elected or reelected they forget about what they said. Words are meaningless if there isn’t some action to back them up.
Paul writes that the good news about Jesus didn’t just come to them in words. There are a lot of religions and philosophies in our word. The one difference between them and God is that this isn’t just about words, the good news of Jesus who died, was buried, was raised from the dead, and who has ascended to the Father.
The good news about Jesus came with power and the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. Three things there they point out.
The Holy Spirit came on that first Pentecost and the Church was born in power. The Holy Spirit came and filled them and they could not keep quiet. They had to tell someone. They spoke with power because of the Holy Spirit. They had boldness to open proclaim a message that went against the ruling authorities. Rather than proclaiming that Caesar is lord, they proclaimed that Jesus is Lord. Paul would later write that the day is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the Glory of God.
That is power and that should get us just a little bit excited.
Do you remember going to the theater years ago and the screen would go dark because a problem with the film? You might still hear the sound, but there was no picture. As soon as that happened you would make all sorts of noise to get the attention of the person in the projection room. It is very frustration to hear the words and not see the picture.
Do you know what is more sad than that?
How sad that many people never respond to the gospel because they’re only hearing the words with the picture!
Paul wrote:
1 If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal.
We can speak all sorts of words, but if we don’t have love, if we aren’t showing them the transformation that has happened in our lives we are nothing but noise.
Power is important. Paul talked about it often.
16 I’m not ashamed of the gospel: it is God’s own power for salvation to all who have faith in God, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
This power is God’s own power for salvation. The gospel comes through the power of God at work in our lives. Our faith is not in some philosophy or belief system. Our faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as Paul said
I’m not ashamed of the gospel: it is God’s own power for salvation.
The words of the Gospel are to be accompanied with the Power of God.
The word and power are not enough. It is not enough just to say the words and have some power, they add “the Holy Spirit with deep conviction.”
The Holy Spirit is God Himself who comes with the word and power.
Are you deeply convinced of that? Is that a conviction you live with?
Gary Demarest wrote:
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 32: 1, 2 Thessalonians / 1, 2 Timothy / Titus The Gospel is More Than Words
The most vivid picture of the Holy Spirit has to be the “tongues, as of fire” sitting upon each of them (Acts 2:3). The fiery tongue is a symbol of the Word with power. Fire purges and cleanses; it consumes and changes. The Word proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit is a Word of fire.
There’s always a danger that we reduce the Holy Spirit to some kind of a religious experience for our own sense of spiritual growth or well-being. Here we are reminded that the Holy Spirit is mission oriented. God comes in His Spirit to empower the words used to proclaim the gospel. The purpose of the power of the Spirit is to make us witnesses, not to entertain us or make us feel good. To be in Christ is to be in the Spirit, and to be in the Spirit is to be in God’s power.
What is the outcome of that word and power and the infilling of the Holy Spirit?
It is a transformed live. It is a life radically transformed by the Holy Spirit. Because of that life is totally reoriented and changed. Paul could write that because of what the people in Thessalonica saw in Paul and the other that they were transformed.
They wrote there in verse 6
6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord when you accepted the message that came from the Holy Spirit with joy in spite of great suffering.
They became imitators of Paul and the others. They witnessed how they lived their lives and they began to imitate them. They didn’t imitate just because of what they saw, they imitated them because they accepted that message. They accepted the words of Paul and Silas and Timothy because they saw the power of the Holy Spirit in them.
We desperately need to to be people of words, we need, we must proclaim that Good News of Jesus. That is not enough. Words are never enough, those words must be accompanied by power and the Holy Spirit.
How desperately we need a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit in each of our lives. How desperately do we need kids, teens and adults who without embarrassment boldly proclaim the Good News because they have the power of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives.
The result of this transformed life is there in the later part of verse 9 and 10
9 People tell us about what sort of welcome we had from you and how you turned to God from idols. As a result, you are serving the living and true God, 10 and you are waiting for his Son from heaven. His Son is Jesus, who is the one he raised from the dead and who is the one who will rescue us from the coming wrath.