1 Thessalonians 1

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Through the Bible Studio series with Pastor Nate Holdridge. Join us as we continue our study through the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians. Here's Nate.

[00:00:15] Now we turn to 1 Thessalonians, more than likely the first epistle from the pen of Paul the Apostle. The first letter that he wrote, the first moment that he sensed the leading of God's Spirit to under the inspiration of God's Spirit, pen, the Word of God for the people of God.

[00:00:39] The book of 1 Thessalonians is a wonderful 5-chapter epistle in this little epistle what we'll discover is that the book basically breaks up into two parts or two main sections.

[00:00:54] This is fairly normal for the epistles that Paul writes as we've seen previously. Paul will often use the first half of the book to declare doctrine, theology or wonderful position in Christ.

[00:01:11] Then following the doctrine and theology Paul will then use the latter half of the book to practically exhort the believers that he has just instructed, instruction followed by excitation and direction.

[00:01:30] Here however in the book of 1 Thessalonians Paul uses a different course or a different tact. The first half of the book is distinct and the second half of the book is separate from the first but it's two separate types and categories.

[00:01:48] The first half of the book, the first three chapters Paul uses to simply reminisce about the Thessalonian church. They're beginning, the way that they launched out, the way that the gospel was preached in Thessalonica, the suffering and difficulty that Paul experienced there for a period of three weeks of persecution, the turmoil and the hostility that the church in Thessalonica was born in, the instantaneous persecution

[00:02:15] that these believers experienced once they gave their hearts and their lives to Jesus Christ, the fond recollection of Paul and Silas and Timothy as they remembered this glorious and beautiful and wonderful church.

[00:02:30] Then in chapter 4 Paul turns and changes his tune after hearing a wonderful report from Timothy whom he had sent to Thessalonica to do a little bit of follow-up ministry.

[00:02:41] Paul then responds to the good news that they were continuing on in their faith in Christ with some simple excertations concerning the will of God for their lives which was their sanctification.

[00:02:55] God's desire, God's heart that the Thessalonian church would be sanctified and so he spends the final two chapters of this book giving them practical instruction and excertation in their sanctification, the way that they ought to live as the people of God.

[00:03:15] And so a wonderful epistle broken up into two sections, the reminiscing section and the excertation section.

[00:03:24] And here today we have first Thessalonians chapter 1 beginning in verse 1 and immediately as with Paul's other letters we begin with the authors.

[00:03:37] He starts out verse 1 by saying Paul, Silvanus and Timothy. Now a couple of things are noteworthy here in his addressing of the Thessalonians.

[00:03:49] First of all notice that Paul does not identify himself in this epistle as an apostle.

[00:03:56] That is not to say that Paul was in doubt of his apostolic authority at this time. No he was in full assurance of it.

[00:04:05] However it gives you a hint into the tone of the epistle. When Paul refrains in a letter from referencing his apostolic authority you know that the letter is friendly in nature.

[00:04:19] More than likely there is no heresy to correct, no contention that he has with that church and such as the case with Paul's writing here to the Thessalonians. It's a friendly epistle.

[00:04:32] Secondly you notice that he includes Silvanus and Timothy. Silvanus is just the Roman version of the name Silas who had gone with Paul to Thessalonica and Timothy is merely Paul's son in the faith.

[00:04:49] The man that Paul had written first and second Timothy too, a wonderful man who was well on his way to a very productive and fruitful ministry in the past.

[00:04:59] It is not as if Paul's Silas and Timothy sat down and wrote this together. It's that these three men cared for and were concerned about the church in Thessalonica.

[00:05:09] So even though Paul was writing it, Paul included Silas and Timothy in the greeting in a sense to say we agree in sending these truths to you.

[00:05:20] And so receive them as if from the three of us but the letter is distinctly and completely from Paul the Apostle.

[00:05:30] It says there in verse 1, to the church of the Thessalonians, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

[00:05:41] Now as I mentioned, the Thessalonian church did begin in a season of difficulty.

[00:05:48] I should sort of explain the birth of the Thessalonian church, the way that they had begun.

[00:05:55] You might remember Paul being called to the city of Philippi through a vision that he received from the man of Macedonia.

[00:06:02] A Thessalonica was actually also a city in Macedonia and so when Paul's ministry in Philippi was completed, he and his comrades went down to Thessalonica where they followed their regular course of preaching the gospel in the synagogue to the Jews on the Sabbath.

[00:06:20] In the following weeks, the Gentiles began to come out with a desire to hear the gospel message.

[00:06:27] The Jews grew jealous of this following and began to persecute Paul and his companions.

[00:06:36] That's when Paul fled secretly to Berea and eventually moved on in ministry down to Athens and then over to Corinth where he reconnected with Silas and Timothy.

[00:06:51] The church in Thessalonica had begun in great difficulty and Paul is probably writing this letter about a year after he had birthed or launched or been involved in the launching, I should say, of the Thessalonian church.

[00:07:05] In verse 2, at the end of verse 1, he says, grace to you and peace.

[00:07:12] In verse 2, he says, we give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before God our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love instead of fastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:07:34] I want to mention for a moment and camp out for a second on the word we in verse 2.

[00:07:41] I already mentioned to you the ministry of Paul and Silas and Timothy towards the Thessalonian church that Paul is the author of this epistle but a word that we will see repeated especially in the first three chapters quite often is the word we.

[00:07:59] He's using it to reference himself in Silas and Timothy.

[00:08:04] And what I wanted to say at this particular moment is I wanted to highlight the importance of good and godly leaders, pastors and teachers in the local church.

[00:08:18] You see this carried out in the health and vitality of the Thessalonian church.

[00:08:27] Jesus said in Mark chapter 4, pay attention to what you hear.

[00:08:34] With the measure you use, it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you.

[00:08:41] But pay attention, Jesus says, to what you hear.

[00:08:46] Jesus, or excuse me Paul said in 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 2.

[00:08:51] He told Timothy to preach the word.

[00:08:55] Be ready in season and out of season.

[00:08:57] Reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

[00:09:02] Take heed to what you hear and what you're supposed to be hearing according to Paul to Timothy is the word of God.

[00:09:10] I can't understate, I don't think, the importance of good, solid and strong spiritual leadership in the local church, the local body of Christ.

[00:09:23] And the Thessalonian church had it and I think that's part of the reason why they had begun so well.

[00:09:28] They had strong spiritual leadership willing to feed them the word of God.

[00:09:33] And with Paul, with Silas and with Timothy they must have had an absolute feast of the word of God.

[00:09:39] There was no famine of scripture in Thessalonica.

[00:09:42] They were strong and steady and stable in the scripture in the word of God.

[00:09:47] And notice Paul's prayer life or the prayer life of these men as listed in verse 2.

[00:09:53] There are a couple of elements to it. They gave thanks, thankfulness and prayer.

[00:09:58] They were praying constantly in prayer and never ceasiness in prayer.

[00:10:03] And they were mentioning the Thessalonians.

[00:10:06] They were specifically interceding for specific people in prayer.

[00:10:11] Then he says in verse 3, he says there's something that we remember about you Thessalonian church.

[00:10:16] We remember your work of faith, your labor of love, and your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:10:25] Did you see that there?

[00:10:27] They were remembering that there was a faith and a hope and a love.

[00:10:32] The Christian triplets in the lives of Thessalonian believers.

[00:10:36] Here's what I want you to see.

[00:10:38] Notice that all of that, the work of faith, the labor of love and the steadfastness of hope.

[00:10:45] Notice at the end of that sentence Paul says it is in our Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:10:51] In other words, I think that what Paul is saying is that their faith and their love and their hope was absolutely rooted to the reality of Jesus.

[00:11:02] In other words, they took ventures of faith because they believed in Jesus.

[00:11:07] They believed that Jesus took the ultimate venture, so to speak, in incarnating for the sin of the world to die on the cross and to leave the comforts of heaven.

[00:11:20] And so because of His venture, they would take works and ventures of faith because of Jesus.

[00:11:29] They had a labor of love, I believe, because of Jesus.

[00:11:34] Their response to Jesus and what he had done in the gospel was a heart of love and compassion and mercy.

[00:11:42] And notice also they had a steadfastness of hope.

[00:11:47] Their hope was rooted in the reality and in the truth of Jesus Christ.

[00:11:53] And specifically this hope here that Paul is mentioning is a hope of the return of Christ, as we'll see all throughout the book of First Thessalonian.

[00:12:01] So just beautiful attributes found in the Thessalonian church.

[00:12:05] And then he says in verse 4, he says, for we know, brothers, loved by God that He has chosen you.

[00:12:12] Because our gospel came to you not only in Word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

[00:12:20] You know what kind of man we prove to be among you for your sake.

[00:12:25] This is really interesting.

[00:12:27] What Paul says here is he says, listen, you know that when we were among you, God chose you.

[00:12:33] It's very clear that God chose you.

[00:12:37] Now you'd say how was it clear to Paul that God had chosen the Thessalonian believers?

[00:12:43] Well he says it in three ways.

[00:12:45] He says because our gospel came to you not only in Word but also in power, in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

[00:12:57] In other words Paul is saying, listen I was going to preach the gospel in Thessalonica no matter what.

[00:13:03] And I didn't have some kind of sweet radar to figure out who was chosen by God and who wasn't.

[00:13:11] All I know is that as I preached there was a response on the part of certain people.

[00:13:19] And that response to the gospel was one that was filled with power, was filled with the Spirit of God and was filled with full conviction.

[00:13:29] And he says, these Thessalonians, he says, and you were those people who responded in such a powerful way to the message of the gospel.

[00:13:40] I love Paul's approach and Paul's tactic.

[00:13:43] And he wasn't there looking and searching and trying to figure out who out there is really called.

[00:13:51] And once I find the people that are chosen, once I discover the people that are called, then I will preach the gospel to them.

[00:13:59] Now in Paul's mind the preaching of the gospel was the thing that would reveal who had been called, who had been chosen.

[00:14:10] You know, I live here on the Monterey Peninsula as I preach these messages and this is the central coast of California.

[00:14:19] And at times you can go down to the beach and you can see someone with a metal detector.

[00:14:24] It's a device where they scan over the surface of the sand.

[00:14:29] And anytime that there's metal underneath, there's a loud beeping and they will then begin to dig.

[00:14:36] And their hope is to find perhaps coins but perhaps something more valuable, some precious jewelry or something like that.

[00:14:45] And I think many people are sort of scanning and trying to figure out who out there is really called.

[00:14:51] Let's try to figure out this question, who has God chosen?

[00:14:55] Well, there's another approach and that is to go down to the beach with a highly powerful magnet.

[00:15:02] Just scan it over everything and whatever pops to the surface and sticks to your magnet, you know is metal.

[00:15:12] And I think that was Paul's approach to preaching the gospel.

[00:15:16] I preach the gospel and it is this powerful magnet that will draw out those whom God has selected, those whom God has chosen.

[00:15:27] Just a wonderful, incredible, beautiful reality.

[00:15:31] And when it comes to God's selection and God's choosing, I've said it before but I will never be able to fully explain this in this life.

[00:15:40] In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, Paul writes and says that he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.

[00:15:50] There is the selection and the election by God of his people but then Jesus says things like this, for God so loved the world

[00:16:00] that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

[00:16:07] Or Romans 10, verse 9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

[00:16:19] So what is true?

[00:16:21] What is true and I would have to answer and say, I believe that both are true, that ought to be easy to see in Scripture.

[00:16:28] How both are true is difficult to understand but that both are true is an element of faith.

[00:16:36] And so Paul saw that when he went to Thessalonica, he saw the radical effect of the gospel on the Thessalonian church, the spirit of God, the full conviction that they experienced and the power

[00:16:50] in miracles that he witnessed as he preached the gospel to the Thessalonian church.

[00:16:57] What a wonderful, wonderful thing.

[00:16:59] Preach the gospel.

[00:17:02] Now in verse 6 he says, and you, you became imitators of us and of the Lord.

[00:17:10] 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 in Achaea.

[00:17:25] Now one of the things that Paul is going to say here is he's going to say to the Thessalonians, listen, I rejoice at how you receive the gospel.

[00:17:35] Paul went to a lot of different cities. He preached to a lot of different people and at times the response was cold and lukewarm, at times the response was vehemently rejected, at times the response was warm and there was a warm reception of the gospel.

[00:17:55] And Thessalonica, that church, that city had both.

[00:18:00] There was a harsh rejection of the gospel by some but there was a wonderful reception of the gospel by others.

[00:18:08] And here Paul sells them he says, listen, when we came you received the word and you received the word in much affliction.

[00:18:18] And they had, they had. You know, I think that they probably received affliction obviously as you read it in the book of Acts, they received affliction from people because of their new belief.

[00:18:34] And this is one way that we experience persecution or one, one way that we experience affliction for receiving the gospel is because of a new belief.

[00:18:44] I mean if you think about what it would have meant for a Jewish Thessalonian to go home and to declare that they found the Messiah, that the law doesn't cut it, that dead religiosity must die and that Jesus Christ is the great high priest.

[00:19:01] You can imagine the persecution inside of Jewish homes, but you can also imagine the persecution amongst Gentile believers when they went home to say that there's only one way to God and that there is not a plurality of gods.

[00:19:16] And that the pantheon of idols that they were worshiping was pointless and damaging to them, to believe something like that because of their belief, they would experience persecution but additionally they would experience persecution not just for what they believed, but they would also experience persecution for their new lifestyle.

[00:19:39] You know Jewish believers even though their morals as Christians would have been very similar to the morals that they carried as observing, practicing Jews still would be persecuted because of their willingness now to die in with Gentiles to eat food which had previously been forbidden to spend time with the tax collectors and the sinners of the world.

[00:20:06] The religious would persecute them and the Gentile believers they would be persecuted because of the new lifestyle that took them away from sexual immorality and drug use and the party licentious lifestyle that they had left behind.

[00:20:24] And in both camps there would be persecution that would come as a result of their lifestyle and I think we're persecuted for the same things today.

[00:20:34] Lifestyle and belief, lifestyle and belief and for those of you that are ministering the word for those of you who want to minister to people you want to lick the wounds of the faithful believers and Christians remember this.

[00:20:49] Because they are out there in the world living their lives, they are being persecuted for their new belief and they're being persecuted for their new lifestyle and they just need the grace of God and some encouragement to keep pressing on in the faith.

[00:21:06] So Paul remembered that about the Thessalonians he said, you received the word in much affliction.

[00:21:11] Then he said for verse 8 not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaea but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything.

[00:21:25] 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 in the true God and a way for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead.

[00:21:40] Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

[00:21:45] Now I wanted to point out to you that one word that Paul uses a couple of times in this text is reception or received.

[00:21:54] The Thessalonians had received Paul and his ministry and that reception led them to three distinct things that they received which as they received them was like a trumpet blast throughout all of Macedonia and all of Achaea and into the surrounding regions.

[00:22:13] You have to remember that Thessalonika was on a very prominent trade route and so the health of the Thessalonian church because of that trade route and because of that persecution which was spreading them out from Thessalonika led them to have a strong reputation throughout that part of the world.

[00:22:35] And here's what they had received number one they had received the word of the gospel the word of the gospel so that.

[00:22:48] The message was publicized throughout all the world how do you know when a person has really received the gospel well I think in one answer to that in one sense is when they begin to preach the gospel well.

[00:23:01] It makes such an impact on their soul that they begin to sound forth and that's what the Thessalonians were doing they were sounding forth literally that word means to amplify.

[00:23:12] I remember being a kid and we were all about buying amplifiers for our sweet rides you know and those amplifiers were designed to amplify the signal boost the signal that was being sent to the speakers to power the speakers so that as we cruiserly

[00:23:30] around town everyone else could hear the horrible music that we were listening to inside of our cars and the Thessalonians had received the gospel so well that they had now begun to amplify the gospel in the world in which they lived just a wonderful reality this is our task our duty our responsibility.

[00:23:54] And so they amplify the gospel they preached the gospel and I would encourage you to preach the gospel tell your friends about the truth the glory of the gospel have you received the gospel in that kind of way where you are willing to amplify it in the world in which you live but they receive the gospel in another sense to not only had they.

[00:24:14] Broadcast it and sounded forth but notice in verse nine he says and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living in the true God this is beautiful Paul says there's a reputation that you have that you have ditched idolatry and that you have turned to the one true God to worship and to serve him.

[00:24:38] Now one reason that this is wonderful is that what Paul is saying is it isn't that you've only ditched idolatry you've ditched idolatry because you have turned to God I think so often we try to spend so much time and so much effort and convincing someone to turn from a false God to turn from idolatry but how are the Thessalonians set free from their idolatry how are they set free from idolatry.

[00:25:08] They set free from their worship of false gods and false idols simply they were set free because they had begun to worship God they discovered the real true God and when you discover the real true God something happens inside of your heart that causes your heart to shift where you turn from the false gods and you begin to worship the true God.

[00:25:36] The worship of actual physical idols I think is making a strong comeback in the world that we live in and of course in major portions of the earth the worship of physical statues and idols has always been prominent but in other cultures these false gods take less visible forms however they are nonetheless very real.

[00:26:02] The worship of our own children the worship of entertainment the worship of career the worship of a specific relationship the worship of money the worship of success the worship of personal reputation and one that I think has increased and become more popular over the years the worship of our personal health these are all idols that although good in the proper place.

[00:26:31] Need to be put in their proper place and ought never to be worship they had received Paul's message and that was seen in their preaching of the gospel but also in their rejection of idols and lastly in verse 10 it was obvious that they had received the gospel because they had begun to wait for his son the son of God to return from heaven.

[00:27:00] Who God raised from the dead Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come one beautiful thing about the Thessalonian churches that they wonderfully anticipated the return of Christ have you received the gospel if you have one way that God would love for you to show it is by desiring the soon return of Jesus and it will be my privilege as we move on.

[00:27:30] We move through the book of first Thessalonians to lead you and to teach you more and more about the future coming of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior for it is a theme that is all throughout the book of first Thessalonians every single chapter ends with a reference to the coming of Christ amen and God less.

[00:28:00] If you have any contact us please visit us at Nateholdridge.com