Tonight we are. Beginning a new book Paul's
letter to the Thessalonians and its first Thessalonians chapter
1 and the questions will cover verses 1 through 6.
And normally I just read the verses that cover the questions
but because it's a start of a book.
I'm going to read the whole first chapter before we get into
our questions and there's five questions.
If you need them, they're on the back table.
So first Thessalonians. After one, and I'll begin
reading there in verse 1. Paul Savannah, Saint Timothy to
the Church of the Thessalonians in God, the father and the Lord
Jesus Christ grace to you and peace from God, our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God.
Always for you all making mention of you in our prayers,
remembering without ceasing your work of Faith, labor of love,
and patience of Hope. In our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the sight of God, our Father. Knowing beloved Brethren your
election, by God. For our gospel, did not come to
you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and
in much Assurance, as you know, what kind of men we were among
you for your sake and you became followers of us and the Lord,
having received his word, in much Affliction with joy of the
holy spirit so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and
aquella, who believe For from the word of the Lord has sounded
forth. Not only in Macedonia and
aquella, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone
out. So that so that we do not need
to say anything. For they themselves declare
concerning us. What manner of Entry we had to
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 even Jesus, who delivers us?
From the Wrath to come. And correctly.
Read barring any mistakes on my part reads.
The 10 verses that cover chapter one of the book of First
Thessalonians chapter 1, Obviously these were written
divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul writes to the first
letter to those in thessalonica. And there were many things that
they were being praised for their many things that they were
known for. Well, we're going to find later
on especially by the second letter.
That there were some things that needed to be corrected.
There's a lot of encouragement that happens.
I think in 1st Thessalonians and by second Thessalonians because
of their misunderstanding about when the Lord was going to come
back Paul had to correct some things and he does that but
backing all the way up to the very beginning.
We begin in verse 1 and it's Paul silvanus and Timothy.
Now, the question is, who was silvanus and what is meant by
the phrase in God, the father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Well, first of all, silvanus, obviously, I think we all know
this with Silas and Silas was a companion of the Apostle Paul on
his second missionary journey, as we About in Acts chapter 15
and verse 40 when they reach lystra, they met a disciple by
the name of Timothy and Paul took him along on this journey.
In fact, Timothy was Paul's most notable disciple in Philippians
chapter 2 verses 17 through 23. We find that he traveled with
Paul during his second and third missionary Journeys and stayed
near Paul during his first Roman imprisonment.
So what does it mean when he says, or why does he say in God
the father? And the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, obviously, he's writing to the church later on, he's going
to call them the elect. But in the very beginning of
this letter, he says to the Church of the Thessalonians in
God, the father and the Lord Jesus Christ, a couple of ideas
about that. First of all, God and Jesus
Christ are not the same person. In fact, some would say in some
do believe that it is God himself as Jesus Christ, it's
all the same person but there are three that bear record in
heaven. We know that there's God, the
Father, there's God, the son and there's God the Holy Spirit.
And when John would say and these three are one, it doesn't
mean that they're one person. It means they're one in the same
by way of purpose, by way of agreement, and they work
together in every way. But there are three separate
percentages in the Out of here, but it's interesting because he
says God and Jesus Christ. And he makes a distinction
between the two and yet ties them together at the same time.
I think there's several reasons about that.
Well, first of all, they do work together and they for the same
purpose. But you have to remember, too
that many of the early converts that Paul dealt with came from
Judaism and they were Jewish by blood.
In fact, later on there were those that would try to reject
Jesus himself. And I think that the fact that
Paul begins this letter by saying it is God and Jesus
Christ to show that. First of all, number one, the
Assembly of the church is not a Jewish assembly.
That's number one. It's of Jesus Christ, it is a
Christian Assembly. That's number one.
Number two, I think it also proves to them.
You can't have God without Jesus Christ.
They go together now. They work together.
They're different in this regard by way of Duties.
I would say, perhaps, or roles regarding the church.
Number one, first and foremost, God is the father.
And Jesus is the ruler. In fact, Jesus would say that
all power is given unto me in heaven and in Earth God gave
Jesus the power. So all authority is given to the
Sun and that's Jesus Christ. And so what Paul is doing is
he's tying them together. You cannot have god without
Jesus Christ and to have Jesus Christ is also to have God they
work together. And when with regards to the
church, You cannot separate them at all.
Then he goes in verse 2. And he says we give thanks to
God always for you always for you all making mention of you in
our prayers. And then also, this verse
covers, this question covers verse 3 also, which I will read
remembering without ceasing your work of Faith, labor of love,
and patience of Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of
God, and of our God, and Father, First of all, giving thanks to
God always for them, making mention of them in your prayers,
you know, statements like that was very common to Paul.
I heard somebody say one time wouldn't it have been nice to
have been included in the prayer list of the Apostle Paul?
When Paul would say a number of times in his writings and he
wrote over 2/3 of the New Testament.
And many times Paul would say that he makes mention of them in
his prayers, daily mentioning them in his prayers, Paul
obviously was a man of prayer and gave a great example by his
own. Own prayer life.
He begins by saying he says to them.
I give thanks to God. Always for you, making mention
of you in our prayers. Then he says, remembering
without ceasing your work of Faith, labor of love and
patience of Hope the question is this?
What is the work of faith? And what is a labor of love?
Now obviously the threefold combination of faith.
Hope and love was a favorite of Paul.
In fact, Paul says, those very things they and the greatest of
these is love and so forth. So obviously these are tied
together and what Paul is doing is he's referring to a
fulfillment of spiritual duties that results from three
spiritual attitudes and obviously this to let's just
make mention of this in passing. We'll spend very much time on
this. We know that there's a
difference between faith and meritorious works.
We get that many believe today in the religious world that
there's we are saved by faith alone or faith only and we know
that that's not true. But there's a difference between
a meritorious work and a work of obedience and what's brilliant
about what Paul is doing here is Paul puts together, the word
work and the word faith in the same sentence.
It is a work of Faith. A couple examples about that
first of all, If we demonstrate our faith by obedient works,
it's an expression of our faith. It is an outward expression of
our inward Faith. Its faith in action in Romans,
chapter 10. And verse 17, though Paul says
that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So, we know that the word of God is connected to Faith.
It has to be and really, when you think about it, this way, if
you think about works that are done by By faith, a work.
Cannot be a faith in accordance with the will of God, that is
not founded on the word of God or supported by the word of God.
When the Bible talks about be ready for every good work.
You know, sometimes people can think that a work is good
because they look and they see the good that comes from it.
And they think well, that's a good work.
And if something is achieved that is good and how can it be
bad? I'm talking about from a
spiritual perspective, but a work is only good if it's in
accordance with the will of God. It has to follow suit with the
word of God, faith is the foundation based upon the word
of God. God faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the word of God. In other words, it is what God
authorizes. So, our work to be acceptable to
God must be a work of faith that is connected to the word of God
and what God has authorized. And then he says, labor of love.
Christians need to understand that.
Not only do we follow the works that we must do in obedience,
but it has to be a work of love. It's kind of like are giving,
right? Paul says, with are giving, he
says not of necessity, he said not grudgingly.
In other words, in any aspect of our Christian Life, we can't do
it just because we know we need to be obedient to the word of
God. So therefore we just do it.
And we have and maybe even resisting against it, but we
just go through the motions. You can do have a work of Faith
which is a work of obedience but if it's not a work of Love or
it's not a labor of love, it's vain.
It needs to be from the right motive, the right perspective of
the right attitude, it needs to come from the right heart, the
right spirit, and it must be a labor of love.
So, a work of faith, is a work of obedience, that demonstrates
our faith. And that's based on the word of
God, Odd a labor of love is when you do that and love is the
basis or the motivation behind it.
I didn't ask this in the question but look at look at the
phrase patience of hope. These two things really go
together because you can't really have one without the
other and they really do go together for example.
If a person doesn't have hope and I can't even imagine living
the Christian Life without hope. If all we had was this life and
there was nothing else and there was nothing after this life.
You know, Paul says, we are of all men, most miserable And if
you think about the idea of hope, hope is something that we
trust God for the future. Faith is when we trust God in
the present, but hope is what we hope for for the future.
Now, hope if we have hope it produces what it produces.
Patience in that word means perseverance.
So if we have the proper, hope it will give us the proper
patients or perseverance to make it to the end.
So they go together all these go together.
And so also to, if you flip it around, if you don't have the
proper perseverance, you don't have any right to the hope that
comes after this life. To It.
Go together for the promised reward question.
Number three, what is the phrase election by God mean?
And it covers verse for knowing beloved Brethren your election,
by God. Now, now, obviously first, let's
just Define the word election. The word election means Choice,
election, or selection. And what's interesting is is
when Peter dealt with this and second, Peter chapter 1, in
verse 10, he talks about the elect And really, it's
misunderstood a lot today, but it's very simple.
God has elected or predetermined the kind of person that's going
to be saved. It doesn't mean that he chose
one man over it. You're going to be saved.
You're not going to be saved. You're going to be save, you're
not going to be saved. What it means is, is he has made
the determination. He is predetermined the class of
person that's going to be saved and that's an obedient
Christian, okay? That is God's election, but you
become the elect of God when you obey the gospel.
Oil. So by your own obedience and
your part, that's conditional Divine election.
God's part. He said in an order man's part
your elect when you obey the gospel.
So that's what it actually means.
We are elect, we are the elect of God and it puts all the
emphasis on us to. As Peter says, make your calling
and election. Sure showing that our conduct
our obedience, our Behavior, our Works in all of that truly
matter too. Verse 5.
For Our Gospel, did not come to you in word only, but also in
power and in the Holy Spirit and in much Assurance, as you know,
what kind of men we were among you for your sake.
The question is break down this verse and explain its meaning.
The first part of the verse where it says, for Our Gospel,
did not come to you in word. Only, I think what this means
is, what he's saying, is the gospel, did not just come by the
eloquent speech or the eloquent words of man, it's more than
that. It didn't just come that way.
But also in power now, It kind of makes you think, at first
that, what he's talking about is he's talking about miracles when
he says power, but not necessarily and and I don't
think that's what he means specifically.
Because if he was talking about the gospel being preached to
them, by not only the words, but Power, miraculous power.
We don't find any of those indications where the word of
God to thessalonica, actually came in that way.
I'm not saying that there were no me.
Goals in the Revelation or confirmation of the word.
What I think he's saying though, is this, the power came as the
inspired, Holy Spirit, inspired those that preach the word of
God. It's powerful.
It wasn't just in eloquence of speech.
It came also, it came by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
And in Romans 1:16. Paul said, for I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God to
Salvation to everyone that believes to the Jew first and
also to the Greek, I did read one commentator and he thought
he this is a really good point that he made.
He said the gospel is not just an invitation.
It's not just an invitation, it is the power of the word of God
that has the power to save you. Therefore the power comes from
the word of God. It wasn't just the speech of
man, it wasn't just man's words, it came with power and the power
is the gospel and the gospel was inspired by the holy spirit.
So I think that's what he's talking about.
Vincent said, it's the power of spiritual persuasion and
conviction. Not tell you something.
It doesn't make any difference when it's been either back in
the days of the early church. Modern times in the United
States of America on foreign soil.
It doesn't matter. The power of the Gospel still is
the same. in fact, you know, so many times, people have said, to
me, oh, you go to the Philippines and, you know, you
might baptized 80 or 100 people and then you come back home and,
you know, You hold a whole meeting and your preacher heart
out, the whole meeting the preach, the same word of God,
you preach the same gospel. And you might have a number of
visitors that come and attend that gospel meeting and you'll
be lucky. If you baptize, anybody during
the course of that meeting. And sometimes people have said,
well, is it discouraging? Or is it depressing?
And the answer to that? Really is.
No because when you go places and see the word of God, and the
power of the word of God, you realize it's not the The problem
of the preaching and it's not the problem of the word of God.
The problem is the heart of the recipient.
It's the heart of the recipient. and one more thing to remember,
when Jesus gave the parable of the sower, Remember the very
first one that he said, the very first one he said the Wayside
soil. Now we understand we preach the
word of God. It's like taking seeds and
scattering it or broadcasting it.
Like they used to do in the old days and by the way, in the
Philippines, we would drive down the road.
Oh look, he's broadcasting, they do that grab, a handful and
fling it, like this. Do you remember when Jesus said
that which fell on Wayside soil? It was the hard pan.
It was the, it was the footpath that people walked, and it was
so hard that the seed could not penetrate the Earth.
Right later on. Jesus said that the birds come
and eat the seed. Later.
He find, we find in his explanation of that, he says,
who the birds represent the birds, that's the devil.
Sometimes people think, you know what?
It's my choice. It's my decision.
And if I say yes or I say no, do you not realize if somebody has
the wrong heart? And the seed of the Gospel is
spread and it lands on that hard heart, they might think that
they have the power to make all those choices and all those
decisions, but the devil takes the seed away.
I think we have a lot of that today.
I think we have a lot of that in the preaching of the Gospel.
Somebody here is the Sears, the gospel.
They don't have the right heart and before it could penetrate
their hardened heart or their heart can be prepared, properly.
The devil takes to see the way. My point is this the power of
the Gospel is as it always has been and it doesn't matter where
it's priest. It's always been and always will
be the power that will save a man.
It's the heart of man makes the difference.
It's the heart of the recipient. It's the power of spiritual
persuasion and conviction and obviously when in this verse
when it says and in the Holy Spirit it very likely is a
reference to the fact that Paul spoke by inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. I think that's what that means.
But then he says something interesting.
He says in much assurance Vincent said, this is the Sheard
persuasion of the preacher or that the preacher that the
message is divine. Now, there were a time when the
word of God was not was not completed. so, miraculously the
Holy Spirit had to reveal, The revelation of God's word to man
who could therefore Proclaim it. And so that was in the age of
Miracles that was before the word of God was revealed and
confirmed and finalized. And because of that Revelation,
they had greater assurance that what they were speaking was
true. And I think that's what he's
saying here. It was in the power of the Holy
Spirit, it was in much Assurance.
You know what really matters to someone who's listening to you.
If you are preaching the word of God with assurance that it's
true. Now we have we have something
even greater, we don't have it miraculously revealed, we have
the word of God. We have the we have the Bible,
and it has the power to save and we know it's true.
So when we preach the word of God today, we also do so with
much. Such Assurance.
No. Doubts at all.
And then he says, and you knew the manner of men among you?
You know, it's interesting about this, we can't say enough about
the kind of person that a preacher or a teacher of the
word of God needs to be. If a person is a powerful
speaker, I mean, a guy's just a great speaker.
He could lay it out like no other man.
Could if his life is not conducive to a man that a
Christian should be It's meaningless, it'll have no power
and the reason for it is it's not that the gospel doesn't have
its power. Its that the gospel loses its
influence through the speaker, that's not living as he should.
so what Paul is saying is he says, all of these things it was
In power in the Holy Spirit in much assurance.
And as, you know, the kind of men that were among you for your
sake, you know, the kind of man Godly men that preach the word
of God and all of that. Was for your sake.
It was for somebody else. Finally question number 5 and
verse 6. And you became followers of us
and of the Lord, having received the word in much Affliction with
joy in the Holy Spirit, okay? So the question is, what is
meant by the phrase with joy of the Holy Spirit?
Obviously the gospel was received by inspiration of the
Holy Spirit obviously. But there were many that had
that suffered two for the sake of the Gospel.
In fact, there was a time when the Bible talks about those
that, thank God and praise God because they counted themself
worthy to be beaten for the cause of Christ.
You know, when you think about some of the things that, that
the early men had to go through and the strength and courage
that they had to go through, with great Affliction, I think
what he's saying is he's saying the same thing with those in
thessalonica, they receive the word of God in great Affliction
as those that were being persecuted.
In fact, in much Affliction describes the external effect of
the Gospel, but the joy of the holy spirit is the internal
effect. And something else, too.
Joy is a product of the Holy Spirit.
Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22.
You know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the
circumstances of your life. You can have joy.
You can have peace, you can have the peace that surpasses all
understanding regardless of the circumstances in life.
And when you're the, when you're the kind of a person who puts
all of his faith in trust in God, you might have much
Affliction in the receiving or the preaching of the word of
God, but you can have joy. You can have joy joy of the Holy
Spirit. One scholar said, the same
Spirit who gave power to those who preach.
The gospel Was the Same Spirit that gave joy to those who
received it. So I think that's what that
means when it talks about. And with joy of the Holy Spirit,
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