THE CHURCH THAT IMITATED THE LORD

I invite you to turn tonight to 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 that's found on page 1172 you'll notice the title tonight says the church that imitated and the church that imitated what for some reason God got left off the title so that's a kind of an important omission. The church that imitated God is the title tonight. So that's what we're going to look at as the theme here from 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. I'm going to read the entirety of the chapter and then we're going to skip down in chapter 2 to verse 13 and read a few verses there. This is 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. This is the word of the Lord. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the father and the lord jesus christ grace to you and peace we give thanks to god always for all of you constantly mentioning you in our prayers remembering before our god and father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our lord jesus christ for we know brothers loved by god that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in the holy spirit and with full conviction you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake and you became imitators of us and of the lord for you receive the word in much affliction with the joy of the holy spirit so that you became an example to all the believers in macedonia and in acaa for not only has the word of the lord sounded forth from you in macedonia and Achaia but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we do not need we we need not say anything for they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turn 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 delivers us from the wrath to come and then down at verse 13 of chapter 2 and we also thank god constantly for this that when you receive 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 for you brothers became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea and we'll end the reading of the word there tonight well I thought tonight as I said we're going to be in the month of May concluding our study in Joshua but I thought tonight this would be a good follow-up to what we considered this morning and to think a little bit about a church that is very much commended in the New testament by our lord there of course are a lot of churches with a lot of problems in the new testament and i think we're used to hearing about those it's remarkable when you study the new testament how many problems are in the church how many challenges are in the church and how many churches had become sidetracked and forgotten the very mission that the lord had given to them sidetracked over things that we would we we shouldn't be surprised because we see these things today but we would be somewhat surprised to see in a in a first century context you think of the church in corinth a church that had basically been sucked into the attraction of the culture and worldliness that had compromised the entire ministry so at the ministry of of jesus the ministry of the cross had been turned into something that was an embarrassment as they went for every other method under the sun to try to reach the culture you think of ephesus where jesus himself when he is addressing the churches in revelation uh he he says that they were strong in their doctrinal commitments but they were a church that had left their first love you think of philippi a church that had all kinds of divisions and disputes a good church but a church that fell prey to divisions and fighting in the body and then you think of galatia a church that had abandoned the gospel for going back to confidence in the law these are major epistles written to deal with all these problems that the churches face and i think we might have the impression that the lord is never really pleased with the church that the lord is always frustrated with the church that the lord is already ready to always ready to rebuke the church and that's why I think it's important to look at an epistle that is remarkable tonight. To look at this first chapter and stand back and ask the question, what kind of church pleases the Lord? What kind of church pleases the Lord? And what does that look like? If you were to ask that question, what do you think pleases the Lord about the church of Jesus Christ? What would it be? What are those things that mark a church that would be pleasing to the lord and that's what makes the church in Thessalonica so remarkable um we're used to the negatives we forget the positives and here's a great positive tonight for you here's an encouragement tonight of something that we should imitate something very important that's held out for us this church has an outstanding commendation right at the beginning of this epistle and it was meant to be a model for the churches this church was meant to be an example to other churches and that's what this chapter is is showing to us it could be summed up this way that when a church receives the word of god when a church receives the gospel in a way that pleases christ there are remarkable fruits in that place conversely you might say when the gospel is not being received when the word of god is not being heard there are all sorts of bad fruits that are going to show up. So my goal is that we would have this to be an example to imitate tonight. Imitation is a big theme in the New Testament and particularly the things that we imitate here and we look at a church that we're called to imitate, others that we're called to imitate. It should be inspiring for us as the Escondido URC to think about what are the things that should most be put in place and things that we should be seeking for as a church. And the first thing Paul essentially does here is that he rehearses all the evidences among them that the gospel has had an effect it's really an important thing to think about isn't it in other words he states the powerful fruits that were resulting and coming out of this church in Thessalonica the city of thessalonica itself was uh which makes the context rather interesting it was not an easy place to do to do ministry it was full of idolatry in fact as it goes mount olympus sat there in its view and the common tradition was that every time an earthquake happened zeus was shaking his curls there's a lot of hostility in this place to the gospel paul faced it in this city you remember from act 17 paul himself was run out of this city there was such an uproar in the city over the gospel that a man named jason and some of the church members were dragged out into the open in heavy persecution that followed you'll remember and paul's writing to this this gentile congregation and he's overwhelmed by the fruits in this place he's essentially saying christians in thessalonica were overwhelmed as apostles we talk about you we are full of gratitude for you you have blessed us and we pray for you always because we've seen something in you we've seen something unique in you we've seen something powerful in you i mean he says it in verse 2 we give thanks to god always for all of you constantly mentioning you in our prayers remembering before our god and father your notice here three things he says work of faith labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our lord jesus christ what a remarkable um sort of string of commendations there Talk about encouraging. Three things that the missionaries saw, three things that the apostles saw when they thought about the church in Thessalonica. We're overwhelmed by your work of faith, labor and love, and steadfastness of hope. There's what's happening in your church. When we talk about you, you know what dominates our discussions? We get around and we talk about the church. You know, we say, this is just really a remarkable church, what's happened in that place. we're so impressed with this church we're so impressed with what's happening among you it makes us break out in prayer to thank god and pray for you all the more why because there's a work of faith there your faith hope and love are mentioned here and they're all connection connected with actions so he knows that this church believes but he's taken by the fruits there are all sorts of works flowing from you we can stand back and look at you and we're seeing what what calvin when he talked about this church he said in this church there was a rare energy a rare energy that was showing itself powerfully in the members a strange heat an aroma diffusing that made us all stop and praise god now i think the first thing you have to say is that you know that is possible isn't it that's the one thing you want to encourage the church with i know that most of the time we're always pointing out all the problems and we have to deal with that but i think this is one to remember in the encouragements for you this is most certainly a church that pleases god and i believe that paul was saying here that there was something in the heart of this church out of the good root of faith as we talk about from the heidelberg that that that gripped us as apostles he says we see work happening a rare energy of of um a work of faith there's a cultivation of think of this morning love happening in the body there are strenuous efforts of love in the church the members are loving one another there was real effort there was real sacrifice i remember reading a story of a church that had years ago really bad reputation in the community and it was a church that did nothing but fight and splits and nothing but problems and i've seen enough of those in the course of my time in the ministry the pastor described something that happened in this church many in the church were sick of strife and they responded to the spirit under the preaching of the gospel as a body they began to act and look more like christ and he says this is what happened this is what we noticed in this church gossip died down the gifts of the spirit began to flourish deacons he says were sending flowers to the hospitalized and sick in the community hot mills were taken to chronically ill persons the spirit of prayer and intercession began to overtake the prayer meetings visitors were impressed by a new attentiveness in sunday worship services one of them remarked you know before when i visited everyone was just reading their bulletins or looking around no engagement the youth were disconnected but now they listen like hungry people the change is so mysterious the author writes it's frightening you know and i think you can say this is why we should be a singing people you know it's a one of the worst witnesses is actually when we're mumbling the words give your voices to the lord sing to him sing praise to him well he says you're enduring in hope he says steadfastness in hope so we've seen a work of faith a labor of love a steadfastness in hope i'll come back to that Paul says something that I had to pause and think about a little bit here in verse 4 all of these things are happening in you happening in you work of faith, labor of love, patience or steadfastness and hope verse 4, it means that we know brothers, loved by God that He's chosen you now some of you have maybe been troubled over time by the doctrine of election and you shouldn't be troubled by it it's always meant to be one of the most encouraging teachings for the people of god to know that god has put his sovereign hand on you here's what he just said i see god elected you there's not many times it's said like this but he's seeing what even the canons talk about are the fruits of election and i can see god chose you he even says this in second thessalonians again to continue to say from the beginning god chose you for salvation but i see it your election is evident to me why because in your hearts i can see the burning labor of love i can see the patience i can see the endurance it's some kind of rare heat that we don't see on the mission field as often as we'd like to see so contrary to ephesus leaving its first love you know or the church of laodicea that was neither i'd wish i wish you were either cold or hot but you're so lukewarm i'd rather vomit you out of my mouth so this all invites the question how did this come about that's the question that's the million dollar question of the text you don't just this just doesn't come about willy nilly there was something that happened to produce these fruits if i asked you what do you think produces this kind of church what do you what do you think what would you answer well we talk about life where does that come from well he explains it for us doesn't he in verse five it's really a beautiful verse five and six something i think so special for understanding um a healthy church good church says because our gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in the holy spirit and with full conviction you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake what made this church abound to receive this kind of praise this kind of commendation these kind of fruits it's how they receive the gospel verse six and some of the old translations don't even catch this the the ESV does a does a good job here in capturing this but he says it so plainly doesn't he and you became imitators of us and of the lord that's a that's a remarkable statement how does a church become an imitator of god you know how does a church become an imitator of god well what was god's disposition to them what was god like to them really in the whole scheme of things in the big picture has god been hard on us or have we been hard on him the language we get across the scripture for his body his church is that our god is eager and joyful to bring us the gospel you ever thought that he's so beneficent he is so wonderful he's so gracious to his people when he commissioned this gospel program an agreement was made that he would give his son to us and his son would go through the excruciating death of the cross and that he would fulfill all righteousness for us that gift is unfathomable to our minds but that God did all of this and that the Lord himself is eager to tell you about his son the angels at christ's birth fear not for behold i bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people for unto you is born this day in the city of david who is christ a son a savior who is christ the lord and the angels break out into praise singing in the heavens the imagery we have in scripture the ministry is god raises up all these runners runners who wake up early who work hard in his word who pray to him for help he touches their hearts he touches their lips isaiah 6 and he sends runners to you early working and praying that you would hear the gospel of joy. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, your God reigns. Listen, your watchmen lift up their voices. Together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. burst into songs of joy together you ruins of jerusalem for the lord has comforted his people he has redeemed jerusalem the lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our god god says here's my runners i've touched their lips i've sent them with the word i put glad tidings in their mouth for you i put gospel there and paul says you imitated us and you imitated god well if god was like this and his servants he filled with joy to bring good tidings to them if the servants ran to them with good tidings they imitated it all in receiving it. They received it. That's what verse 6 says. They received the word. How so? You look at the next chapter in verse 13. For this reason we thank God without ceasing because when you receive the word of God which you heard from us you welcomed it. You were overjoyed to receive it not as a word from men. That's what skeptics do. that's what people who sit like this do you received it as it is in truth the word of god which effectively works in you who believe they're saying we hear the voice of the lord they looked at him as god's sent one the apostles and they received that word and they heard good news God so loved the world a world fallen into this kind of misery that deserves judgment that he gave his only begotten son whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life the mouths of their souls were open the Thessalonian church imitated God as he published it to them when you leave this service tonight I get to put up my hands and say the smiling face of the Lord be upon you. The smiling face of God. What pleased God was, what really pleased the Lord about this church was that the people in Thessalonica received this word with all readiness that way. That's exactly what Calvin said about this. The gospel cannot be received properly without a joyful heart. The gospel cannot be received properly without a joyful heart. Now, what makes this such an encouragement to us is the context in which this happens. You know, we're tonight in a pretty comfortable position. President Biden hasn't sent troops out there and said, if you walk in, you know, you're going to go to jail. It'd be quite a bit harder to receive the gospel, you might think, if you were under severe trial. It would be the worst kind of circumstance that you would think would challenge joy. Undoubtedly, no one here has had their life yet threatened for being a Christian. Could happen. Look at verse 6. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in what? In much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit. The church was under severe persecution for the gospel. Many of them had their wealth taken away. Many of them were fugitives. They were being heavily assaulted. False teachers were plaguing them from the inside. What Paul is observing is that not only did they receive the word, they received it in affliction, in the power and in the joy of the Holy Spirit. It's such a beautiful, beautiful thing that's being said here. in power and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction. This is the uniqueness of this church. It's the real power of the church. I was talking to someone this morning. I had a good discussion with them. They said, you know, I'd just like to see more of the Holy Spirit in this church. Where are you going to see the Spirit? How are you going to see the Spirit? He mentions the Holy Spirit here. He mentions the Holy Spirit when the word is received in affliction. Now we might think the Holy Spirit is mentioned and would expect the Holy Spirit to be present in something greater, in something more powerful, in a better experience. Here's where the Holy Spirit was shown to them. Here's where they received the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit came in the midst of hardship and trial when they receive the word with joy. That's evident of the Spirit. That's evidence of the Spirit. Again, Calvin, there's nothing more in conflict with our natural disposition than to rejoice in afflictions. That means the Holy Spirit is there working because they're rejoicing in afflictions. You don't do that by nature. When you have a church that's full of joy in the midst of trial, and this is in personal life too, when you can come and hear the word of God in all your trials and afflictions and receive it with joy. That's the spirit working. That's the spirit working in power. And you see, that's the greatest consequence here as he speaks of these fruits. He says in verse 7, you received the word readily with joy and hardships. And then he says this, and you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. All the churches are talking about you. Two things resulted from this. Readily receiving the word. Look at verse 9. For they, these churches, declare concerning us. It's really fascinating. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and the true God. So not only did they receive the word with joy and affliction, but one of the crucial things the apostle says here is they boldly turn from idols in the culture. Idolatry is just as much a problem in 2023 in Escondido as it was in 1st century Thessalonica, 1st century. What does that look like? Sometimes I think we're so desperately trying to fit in and we so desperately want to be accepted by the world and even the broader church world that we think the sort of downgrade is the best answer and hide the convictions. What has that ever accomplished? What has that ever accomplished? To stand against idolatry is to have a strong conviction about something. A lot of people can be on the right side of an issue, but they never fight for an issue. To stand against idolatry, to have a strong conviction is counterintuitive to what you think will work. Then we think, if we just go with the flow, we'll be liked, we'll be accepted. The difference in what's commended here is that they turned from the idolatry. People saw that. People saw it. That's a church that makes a difference. When we're known as a people committed to the truth and wavering in the truth, That's where the greatest witness happens. You understand that when we're committed to the truth, a church that is convicted in the truth, with people convicted in the truth, that doesn't make us cranky people. That's usually what's said, right? Just a bunch of cranky people. No, we're not cranky. We're joyful. We're joyful in the gospel. And conviction makes us joyful in the gospel. But we also care to worship the Lord. And to turn ourselves from idols. Because idolatry is a problem. And that's the example here. He says, for from you, verse 8, such a beautiful thing. For not only has the word of God sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere. So we don't even need to say anything. when you know somebody recently you know um wrote somewhere recently if god saw the church in america today he'd be sending a letter you know he's sending a letter you know paul saw the church today be sending a letter this church doesn't nearly he says we don't even need to say anything after seeing all this the members of this church as they received the word with joy couldn't help but speak the word of joy to others and turn from the idols that were profitless in the culture. Their witness as a church was so strong in a culture that bowed down to idolatry. Guess what was happening? Everyone in the community was recognizing something. They're recognizing their joy. They're recognizing the seriousness by which they receive the word and they see that they're turning from idols. That's a witness, whether it's liked or not. Their faith sounded out. Maybe one of the strongest witnesses we could have today would be our children who exhibit strong conviction in the truth right where they are. There's conviction. There's conviction in the word. There's love for the word. There's an understanding of what this costs to get us here. Notice how he closes this. It's because they knew this conflict, this struggle was soon to come to an end. They believed strongly. That's the steadfastness of hope aspect to this. They believed strongly. They lived in light of what was soon to come to pass. That's verse 10. It says, For they turned from idols to the living God and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. There's a goal in all this fight and there's an end in all this fight there's an end in this struggle and it's coming soon and the church has to live in light of that we've got a bigger thing that's about to happen jesus is going to come he's going to return and he is encouraging their steadfastness in hope as they receive the word when the lord looks at the escondido urc i see all kinds of good fruits here but this needs to challenge us. Is this how we receive the word every week? With joy. And are the fruits, are we giving ourselves to these kind of fruits? I see all kinds of fruits here. But to think about this is important. A work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope, a rare energy, as Calvin said, showing forth in your service here because you have imitated God and receiving the gospel that he ran to bring to you. That's a church that will truly make a difference. That's a church that will truly sound out in a community. It won't be what we think makes the church attractive that will ever make the church attractive. Trust me. It will be the church that is full of members who receive the word with joy, this implanted word that gives us life. a church that has this will sound out a church like this will sound out full of life in the community where it resides so i encourage you tonight may we be at the escondido urc humble and a church that continues to show forth in receiving this word the work of faith labor of love steadfastness of hope as you eagerly wait for christ to come and to give you what he promised let's pray heavenly father thank you for encouraging us tonight in a powerful text and in a great commendation that you gave to this church pray that we would be here in this place imitators of god and that we would be filled with joy we've been forgiven all of our sins and that we have this kind of hope in front of us so help us oh lord to be wise to be joyful and ourselves to turn from idols to recognize what they are. That's often half the battle. To recognize those idols and then to be willing to stand against those idols. And may then our witness be strong for Your glory. Whether it's received or not, may it be in this community strong for Your glory. But we pray, O Lord, that many would see these kind of fruits here in this place and would recognize that our faith sounds out many would say we've got to go and hear what this is all about in jesus name we pray amen