Our text this morning is going to be 1st Thessalonians verses, or chapter 1 verses 1 through 10. You can find that on page 1172. And only because I noticed this last week, the text I preached out of also was on a page that the number wasn't actually at the top. So look for 1173 and then go left if you're trying to find the page. Also, briefly, as you turn, I thought it'd be fun to share that yesterday, five years ago, yesterday, was the first time my wife and I ever stepped foot at Escondido URC. We're from the East Coast, but we were on vacation, and I heard about this church, so I really wanted to go. And my wife, afterwards at lunch, said to me, it would be really cool if you preached from a pulpit like that someday. Well, who says wives aren't really wise, right? But 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 1 through 10. Hear now the word of our Lord. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians and 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 received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 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 need not say anything. 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, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. And that concludes the reading of God's Word this morning. So it's an interesting time to be a Christian right now, is it not? We talk about it a lot. We've heard it from the pulpit a lot. But the reality is the reason we keep saying it is because it's a very intriguing time. We're experiencing this shift in the culture that, for those of us, at least my age and older, we've not seen this before, and comparing with what we've seen in the last 10 years or so. It's that the attitudes towards Christians have become increasingly hostile. Before, at best, the church, even by non-believers, was seen as some sort of beacon of hope to the broader culture. At worst, it was ignored or just kind of disregarded. There was a neutrality in terms of attitude towards it. But now, that attitude of neutrality is seemingly the best case scenario. And at worst, there's just this open hostility that is being directed towards the church. And for us as believers, it can feel, as we look at what's going on, like we're experiencing defeat after defeat after defeat. We used to have a more comfortable life as Christians. And the thing is, for us who hold the historic faith that's been confessed throughout the ages, it's very easy for us to become cynical. It's easy for us to become pessimistic as we watch everything go on. Now, I confess, when I'm writing sermons, I feel that weight. I feel that pressure because I hold the gospel up against what I'm seeing outside my window, so to speak. And it leads me directly to that point. It leads me to the prayer of, come Lord Jesus. And I suspect that Reverend Contreras and Reverend Gordon also feel those tensions as well when they're writing their sermons. It is easy then, for not just those who are exhorting or preaching, but all of us as Christians, it's extremely easy for us to forget then, that Christ still reigns, and that his gospel, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is still transforming lives. And this brings us to where we are this morning, in 1 Thessalonians. Now, 1 Thessalonians, in many ways, I believe, is an overlooked book. We can sometimes take a book or a letter for granted, and I think this is one of them, where if you think about it, when's the last time you heard a sermon from 1 Thessalonians? Or when's the last time you studied through 1 Thessalonians, or even thought about 1 Thessalonians? Another thing that happens, though, with a book like 1 Thessalonians is we pigeonhole it. We kind of box it in to only having significance for one area, Namely, what is in chapters 4 and 5, speaking about the Lord's return. But with 1 Thessalonians, we actually come to a book that is full of hope. And we come to a book that I think has a lot of relevance for us in this time that we live. In it, Paul's writing to a young congregation. A congregation that is full of new converts. It's a recently planted church. But they're energized by their newfound faith. And he's writing to encourage them, but also still give them some instruction. What we come away from 1 Thessalonians after reading it is that it gives us a picture, a picture of the Great Commission in action and the power of the gospel in a world that is hostile to Christianity or at least indifferent to the gospel. And as such, it serves to remind us that Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is still calling individuals to himself. He is still calling people from death to life. He's still calling people from serving idols to serving the living and true God. Now, to explore that this morning and to get there, our three points that we will be using to see the gospel in action are believers are chosen in Christ, believers are imitators of Christ, and believers are a cause for thankfulness. That is, believers are chosen in Christ, believers are imitators of Christ, and believers are a cause for thankfulness. Now, first, I think it would help for us to orient ourselves a little bit with Thessalonica, the city that this church existed in. Thessalonica was a port city of about 100,000 in the province of Macedonia. One historian has called it the Rome of Macedonia. That tips off to us that this is a pretty important city. It's a pretty big city. Now the importance of it namely lie in that it was a port city. Macedonia had a wealth of resources that it could offer to the rest of the empire and also the location being by the sea and the roads in and out of Thessalonica afforded it a great place for the trade and just moving the shipping, the going and the coming of resources throughout Macedonia and the empire. It was so important because it facilitated the commerce throughout the empire. Now given this and the location of this city, we can figure out and we know from historians the types of people that lived there. It was a very diverse city. You had Roman soldiers. You had Roman officials. You had Roman citizens, just in general, who, I don't know if they were retiring there, but they were living there. You had people who were in the trade business, whether being business owners or those that helped facilitate the trade that went on. You had pagan religious heralds. You had philosophers. And then you had pilgrims and travelers, people just coming and going. Does this sound like any cities near you? Now, among the religious component in the city, there were a couple things going on. You had your standard ancient gods that were found throughout the ancient Mideast, the ancient Roman Empire. You had that going on. But you also had the civic cult, the imperial cult, which was a major religion. Because it wasn't just a private thing. It involved the everyday life. the civic cult was essentially worshipped to the emperor or whomever the government, that is the empire, wanted to be worshipped. And the more devout that your city was, the more devout that you were in worship to the emperor or whomever they wanted you to worship, the better it went for you, the better it went for the city. Now this is important because I think it's worth noting that Thessalonica really only truly became a pro-Roman city within 100 years of Paul coming to it. So there was a sensitivity to your loyalty to the empire given how recent things had changed. And this serves to help us, if you recall, in Acts, when Paul is in Thessalonica, that the revolt that is led against the Christians is centered around the claims that there's this new king that they're proclaiming named Jesus. It spoke to the sensitivities to try and stir up the government to squash or oppress the Christians. It also, though, helps inform us of a major obstacle to the gospel. And with that, it brings us to the church at Thessalonica. Now, we read in Acts 17, 1 through 9, that it was planted by Paul and Silas and those that were traveling with him. But the story of the church coming to existence, it starts much earlier. It actually, if we go back to Acts 16, verses 6 through 10, it starts there. By way of reminder, for those that may forget, what happened there is Paul, he was set on going to the province of Asia. He had his mind set on going there. But he was forbidden, and this is what it says, he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit from entering Asia. So in the meantime then, Paul has a vision, a vision of a man in Macedonia and the man saying, please come help us. And Paul, being obedient to Christ, understood what was going on and set out for Macedonia. First, he ends up in Philippi. And then after experiencing some turmoil, after planning the church in Philippi that dealt with arrests and beatings, he heads on to Thessalonica. Now, given the way that this played out, it's very clear to us that the Thessalonians were indeed chosen by Christ for salvation. Recall, Paul had no intentions of going there, at least at that time. But this also teaches us something today in the 21st century. It teaches us that God has chosen souls unbeknownst to us. And he has called them from situations and places that we never would have considered or we never would have expected. And this is all rooted in God's hidden will and decrees. Again, I point back to what was Paul's desire, what was his will at this time. He had big lofty plans to go into Asia to share the gospel. Maybe he would have got to Macedonia at some point, but that's not where he was intending to go. But God had a different plan. And it's not that there was anything in Macedonia or Thessalonica that was important that made them special compared to the rest of the empire or compared to Asia. No, this was purely rooted in God's good pleasure. It was purely rooted in his will. And it was his good pleasure to reap a harvest in unexpected places. Again, if you recall what happened in philippi it wasn't like philippi the city turned and went to christ and it became a christian city no it was an unexpected place because they still faced opposition the church was still surviving amidst turmoil and so it was also at thessalonica because similar things would happen there and yet god's spirit was still at work in these places would it have not been perfectly understandable if Paul, Silas, and Timothy would have been pessimistic or cynical about what was going on in Macedonia. Maybe they would have said with Philippi, all right, that's just one city. Maybe in Thessalonica it'll be a little bit better. But we read that the same thing essentially happened there with the opposition that they faced. But yet they persisted in obeying christ and preaching him to the people and that leads us to a question this morning a question for all of us do we underestimate the power of the gospel message now i confess sometimes of being guilty of this and i suspect i'm not alone in this but brothers and sisters it is the holy spirit not man who transforms hearts and minds if you look here at verse 5 paul writes because our gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in the holy spirit and with full conviction it was the holy spirit who is behind this transformation it's the same spirit as we if you were to turn to act 17 4 where we read it's the same spirit that changed the hearts of some Jews and a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few leading women of the city. The same spirit that turned those who were rooted in Jewish beliefs, civic or pagan worship, or philosophy, and turned their hearts from serving idols to serving Christ. And he is the same spirit who can and does work in the hearts of those today. There's still idolatry going on today. Whether it be at the root, the idolatry of ourselves and our own autonomy. Or the idolatry of pleasure or whatever you want to put up there. But he is still changing hearts today. Consider those that may be mired or were mired in apathy or neutrality. Those who have walked away from the faith they grew up in. And they became skeptical. Or even those that were already just pure skeptics? Or what about those ensnared by sexual deviancy? Or just sexuality issues of their own? Or those that have been trapped or are trapped by addiction? This same spirit can transform the hearts and the minds and the souls of those individuals. See, Jesus would not have given us this great commission only for it to fail to ever produce a harvest. or fail in sanctifying his people. And that leads us to our second point this morning. The Thessalonian church, they were not some frozen chosen, or a group of people who received this gospel and just accepted it, and sat there, and kept to themselves. No, empowered by the Spirit, they in turn became imitators of Christ. The Great Commission carries with it this implicit flow or outcome of disciples making disciples, who make disciples. And the Thessalonian story, it's just that. After Jesus wins salvation through his death and resurrection, he commands his disciples to go and baptize all in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then after Pentecost and the receiving of the Spirit, the apostles go and they proclaim the good news of the gospel to those in Jerusalem and Judea and those who are involved in the Jerusalem church or the Jewish church. And after some time, after the Jerusalem and Judean ministry, Peter and Paul, they come to receive a call to take this gospel to the Gentiles, to the nations. So Paul, namely, he goes to the Gentiles and he eventually comes to Thessalonica, where we are this morning. But it doesn't stop there. Because as we read, the Thessalonian church, they carried it forward as well. They didn't just accept it. They did the same thing that the apostles, that Paul was doing. But it's not just about evangelism. It's also discipleship that is going on. I think we forget that with the Great Commission. The Great Commission also includes discipleship. And it's the same flow. Jesus taught the disciples who taught the people. And the modeling of Christ and the apostles was imitated, but it wasn't imitated to attain salvation. I think that's an important thing when we read this text. Some of us, maybe, who have had a background like mine, you might get sensitive to any sort of action and conformity where you might think this is about attaining salvation. But no, this was a response to salvation. See, Paul spent time with the churches he planted, and he had to spend the time with them. Because he's dealing with people that are coming out of different religions, different ideologies, different ways of living. And things would have had to have been taught and corrected and modeled to them. But Paul's modeling, it was not of himself. And it wasn't a show. This was his life as it was. And this was a product of the Holy Spirit's work in transforming his life. And so that was a confirmation to those that saw Paul that this gospel really was powerful. And so it follows, and what Paul tells us here in this passage is that it was the lives of the Thessalonians upon coming to faith that confirmed to him that they were indeed believers and that this gospel really had taken root. If we look down and we read verse 6 and 7, And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received 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 Achaia. See, imitating Christ, it does more than just give legitimacy to the evangelism. It gives more than just legitimacy to the gospel, but it truly is discipleship. As I was preparing for this and studying this passage, what came to my mind was an instance last year in a class over at the seminary where a teacher broke from his lecture. And he broke from his lecture and he said to us, there's about 30 of us in the room, and he said, I can only reach so many people. I can only teach so many people. But the way that I can teach more than just the 30 in this room or those who have come through his classroom, is by you taking what you have learned and you teaching them. Now, no doubt, my professor, as he shared this with us, was probably taking something that was taught from him. At its core, he was taking the idea of the Great Commission and the discipleship that goes with it. He was taking it and showing that, look, the way that this message spreads is not just from select individuals, but really everyone becomes involved. And when we look at Thessalonica and what was going on there, in a short time, this was already happening. If we go back to the example I was just sharing, my professor is a little bit older than I am, but you trace it all the way back. Essentially, you trace it back to the apostles in terms of teaching about the gospel and the church. Well, you know, that's 2,000 plus years. But this, this is happening what's estimated to be in less than a year. It's believed that Paul was writing this letter roughly, maybe within a year of his time in Thessalonica. He had to leave after a short time. But we see that the Thessalonian witness was so powerful that it lessened the job that Paul and his team had to do. Now, whether that's in regards to the legitimacy of Paul and his band, and that they were not just some group of people trying to make a buck off of teaching some sort of religion or ideology, or it was just the legitimacy of the gospel and its power. Paul and his crew, they had less that they had to do in trying to prove these things to people because of what was going on from the church at Thessalonica. Now, one of the ways that the imitation of Christ and his apostles was also done was done in the way that the Thessalonian church lived. This is how it was spreading in part. We read that they're turning from idols to Christ. And the fact that Paul mentions this is a key to us as we read this text. That should clue us in on something about those at Thessalonica. Recall again the civic cult and worship that was going on. Recall again how their religion and conformity, at least outwardly, to that religion affected their day-to-day lives. It wasn't just a private thing. But for the Thessalonians, if these Christians could live in the midst of opposition, going against the status quo, if they could live and survive without fear of not having the benefits of the government because of their obedience or conformity to the government, If they could do all this, it showed that it could be done. It showed the power of the Holy Spirit in sustaining those who had faith in Christ. See, the Thessalonian people, they understood that Caesar or whatever religion or philosophy that existed in their circles, they understood that that had temporary power at best. It had temporary benefits at best in this life. what they understood was that the gospel had eternal power. It had life-changing power, not just for this life, but for the life to come. And thus, with all of this, they became an example of the power of the gospel to all those in Macedonia, Achaia, and all over, as Paul indicates. Now, beloved, our imitation and obedience to Christ in this world, it is and it always will be a testimony to the unbelieving world, the unbelievers that we come in contact with. Consider what we're doing right now. Consider our Lord's Day attendance. We do it to worship our Savior and receive His Word. We don't do it out of obligation, no. We do this out of a desire, out of a heartfelt will. We want to worship our Savior. We want to receive what it is that He has for us through His Word. I'm sure many of us, we would love an extra day off in our daily lives. I know for me, as a parent of two that are under the age of three, the busyness that goes on, I could use an extra day. If anyone wants to make an eight-day work week, I'm all for it. But no, it's important to come here on Sundays and to worship our Lord. Again, not out of that obligation, It's because we come together and we worship our God, we worship our Savior, and then we hear from Him as well. But what about something else? There's something else that I think is a very powerful witness, especially in this day and age, to the unbelieving world. What about our commitment to marriage? Marriage is an institution given by God. Now, it is one thing to oppose gay marriage, But that's not where I'm going with this. There's a testimony that we have as believers in our commitment to our spouses. In our sticking together through thick and thin, through the highs and the lows. Now, I don't want to be insensitive to the fact that there are things that go on that lead to divorces that are just causes for divorces. What I have more in mind, though, are the no-fault divorces that seem so prevalent, even amongst Christ's church. But if marriage is an institution given by God, and on top of that, we understand that it is a type. It helps indicate to us our relationship to Christ. That is, husbands, love your wives as Christ has loved the church. Wives, submit to your husbands as the church submits to Christ. Those commands and those teachings, and those are models that we follow, That's a testimony to an unbelieving world where commitment really isn't a big deal. It shows that we take God and His Word and also His Gospel seriously. Now, we come to our third point this morning. The Thessalonian church's lives, they were a confirmation, just as our testimony to others is a confirmation. Their lives were a confirmation of their salvation and the power of Christ's grace and mercy given to them. Now, Paul, writing from a different location, he shares later on in this letter about a report he got from Timothy because he was concerned. He was nervous. He didn't know what was going to happen after he left Thessalonica. So he sends Timothy to find out what's going on. And what he found, what was going on among them, was that they were continuing to live in light of the gospel. And not only that, they were spreading the gospel. And this, for him, was a cause for thankfulness. And so too for us, we can look around and see that Christ is still reigning and working and that this is a cause for thankfulness for us even now. Now, it may seem out of order to go all the way back to verses 2 and 3 at the last point this morning, but read it with me. 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. What we've talked about so far in regards to the Thessalonian church was the basis for why Paul could lead off the letter writing that. See, the Thessalonian church, it's not a pride thing for Paul in and of himself and of what his ministry accomplished. There's pride there, but it's pride in Christ and his work that was going on. And Paul's thankfulness. It's a thankfulness to know that his sufferings were not in vain. It's a thankfulness to know that God's plans were greater and bigger than his own. Again, recall, at that time he had no will to go to Macedonia. It's a thankfulness that souls were being saved from the wrath to come. It's not just that these people were a number. It's a true thankfulness that souls are being saved. And at its core for him, his thankfulness was that God was not distant and remote. He wasn't sitting in an ivory tower, but rather that he was active in calling people to himself. Friends, and I need this reminder just the same. God is still calling people to himself. One of the things I love in the time that I've been here as a part of EURC is our year-end bulletin. And for those that haven't been here for that, the year-end bulletin, do you remember what one of the things are listed in the year-end bulletin? It's the professions of faith that took place throughout the course of the year. Now, this is not something to pat ourselves on or pat our backs on. No. This is a cause for thankfulness because it's showing that God's word is still powerful. His gospel is still transforming lives. Or another way of thinking about it is the stories that I've heard about what's going on amongst our brothers and sisters who are Chinese and the church that exists there. And hearing how coming to faith, they're there then sharing it with family members, who are then sharing it with other family members, and then sharing it with friends. And I know this isn't necessarily a church vocabulary word, but there's essentially a network, a gospel network, if you will, that's going on of believers. And that is taking place in a culture that's far more hostile even than our culture. But it's not just on the evangelism front. It's also in the discipleship side because God is also still sustaining his saints who affect other saints. Again, I always find myself blessed and encouraged after talking to an older saint. There's a joy that almost always seems to exist in these saints as I talk to them. A joy as they talk about God and what he's done in their lives. And you know what? That's infectious. And maybe you've had that experience as well. I was also blessed growing up. One of my lasting memories that I have of growing up with my grandparents is that they too, in their older age, they had that joy about the gospel and their faith in Christ and what he had done for them. But lest we forget, it's not just an older to younger kind of thing. No, it also exists at the believer-to-believer level. It leads me to ask this question. Have we stopped to consider the things that God is doing or that he has done? or do we stop and slow down and consider what he's done in our lives, both in the past and in the present? And do we share that with others? See, I believe that we all, we would find that God is doing far more than we often realize when we stop and we think about these things. And really, this opening chapter of Thessalonians, in a sense, that's what Paul's doing. He's slowing himself down and he's thinking about what is going on with the church at Thessalonica. And it's giving him that cause for thankfulness to know that God is still active. Now, beloved, again, we can't escape it. Our world is changing and it's changing at a rapid pace. And again, we can feel like we're losing. But our mighty God, yes, our mighty God, is still working and will continue to work until Christ returns. Again, I ask you to stop and consider your own lives. Maybe you have a so-called boring testimony. And what I mean by that is you've grown up in church your whole life. There's nothing boring about that, but I know that that attitude seems to sometimes hit us. Or maybe you were saved out of a sinful life. You lived a life of sin, and the gospel overtook you, and you came to faith. In either of those cases, the Spirit was at work. Now, take a glance at everyone in this room. Stop and look around. Obviously, you probably can't look at those in the balcony if you're sitting down here. But look around. Or if you can't right now, when we're out having coffee and cookies, Look at all the people out there. Now, I don't know the amount of people that are in this room or the amount of people that are going to be standing out there. But whatever that amount is, that is the amount of lives, the amount of hearts, the amount of souls that have been and are being transformed by our God. Let us be thankful then and pray that Christ continues to call men and women from idols to sin. And let us pray and thank him for those that are continuing on in the faith and that he would help them to continue on in the faith just as he did in Thessalonica in the mid-first century. Let's pray. Almighty God, you are the true and living God who sent your Son to take on the sins of your people while crediting us with his righteousness. Lord, we confess how often it feels like we are unheard or opposed, and we neglect to remember all that you've done for us and are continuing to do. We ask that you would apply this word this morning to our hearts and minds this week. Help us to be encouraged. Help us to see what you are doing and have done. Help us to share our experiences with our brothers and sisters in the faith. Help us to also hear those stories so that we may be encouraged. Lastly, even if we struggle to see things today, even in those tough moments where it feels, again, like we're on the wrong side, let us not, at least, take confidence in the cross of Christ and His resurrection from the tomb. Because that's where our confidence lies. Because that's where it all comes from. Knowing that we have life because of that. And we live by the power of the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead. We pray all this as we go forth this week in Christ's name. And it's with thankfulness that we pray. Amen.