1 Thessalonians 1:4-10 - A Port City That’s Not Baltimore

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Hope that you are having a good start to your day so far.

We are continuing our study in the book of First Thessalonians. Wanted to rehearse a little bit of the history behind the book of First Thessalonians before we start off today. We went through verses one through three in the last episode.

In this episode, gonna remind us about some things. So Paul and Silas, they had been traveling. This would have been their second missionary, Paul's second missionary journey, his first one taken with Barnabas.

So here with Silas, he's going back through some of the same kinds of areas that he had been to the first time. But this time, they stop off at the city of Thessalonica. And Thessalonica was a port city with a population of about 200,000.

And it would be on the Aegean Sea. And it was really a nice central hub that once the gospel reached the people in Thessalonica, then it would travel by ships and by transfer of items and commodities, traveling with the people carrying those.

It would go to all different parts of the Roman Empire. And especially in that Grecian region. This was a lot of what Paul did.

He went to some of the urban centers where once the gospel hit there and made its impact and began saving people and once they began telling others about Jesus, it would spread out to all of the smaller areas.

And while they were there in Thessalonica, it says they were there about, I think it was three weeks or so, Paul's preaching in the local Jewish synagogue.

And some people believe and some Greek speaking people and some Greeks believed and the Jewish people were not appreciative of that. So they kind of start an uproar and they actually attempt to get Paul and Silas.

But Paul and Silas had kind of escaped from the particular house where they had been staying and all sorts of insanity ensued. So Paul and Silas, they needed to go to another town.

They went to Berea and then Paul would eventually get as far as Athens. But he was worried about the Thessalonica Church and those believers that had just really started off.

And he hadn't been able to spend a whole ton of time with them in establishing their faith. And so he sent Timothy because he was nervous about them.

And so Timothy goes, he speaks to the church, he encourages them, and then he reports back to Paul what he had heard and what he had seen. And it was a great encouragement to Paul.

And so that's why he's writing this letter of First Thessalonians, is to help shape a little bit more of their new Christian faith, to let them know how thankful he was for them and for how they had continued to serve and follow Jesus, even through

the persecution that he had been experiencing. So, yesterday at the start of the episode, we looked at just him thanking God for who the First Thessalonians were and their walk with Christ, all of that. We're gonna pick up in verse number four today.

For we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance. So, he reminds of a couple of things.

He says, number one, you are loved by God. What a wonder it is to be loved by the God of the universe. Man, we are just such small specs in the grand scheme of things, but yet God has personally loved each one of us.

And he says, you know that you are loved by God, and that he has chosen you. I think I've mentioned this several times before. Your salvation is not an accident to God.

It's not something that, oh yeah, I guess that person can be saved, but God knew from all eternity past, the Book of Revelation would tell us that those that are saved, their names have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the

foundation of the world. And I'm so grateful that God not only loves us, but he has chosen us. We are not just incidental to his plan. We're not just an add-on, but that he intentionally loves us.

And what a comfort that is. Verse number five, where it says, Our gospel did not come to you in word only. It wasn't just words that we said, but it came with power.

It came with the Holy Spirit and with full assurance.

There is power when Jesus genuinely moves into a life, that there is new life that is created, life that is found through the Holy Spirit, that then the fruit of the Spirit begins to show up in you.

All of those things that we learned about many, many, many weeks ago in 2nd Peter 1, the add to your faith, character, knowledge, temperance, all of those things.

All of those things move into your life, that the Holy Spirit begins to let you know what you ought to do, what you ought not to do. It lets you know how God thinks about you.

He prompts you to obey God, to love others, to witness all sorts of amazing things, that when God moves in, he doesn't just want you to acknowledge something with your head. He wants you to live it out with your life.

And that's what happened with the Thessalonians. And with power, with the Holy Spirit, there came full assurance that they knew that they were saved and loved by God. Romans 8 is one of those chapters.

I know at some point I'm going to be going over the Book of Romans. I don't know if it will be in the podcast or if it will be in a sermon series. It will likely be a sermon series.

But Romans 8 is that full assurance chapter that whenever I think about, how does God think about me? I'm struggling. Where do I find hope?

I go to Romans 8, and I reference it very, very often on here. So won't need to do that today.

So Paul continues writing, You know how we lived among you for your benefit, and you yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord when, in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the Holy Spirit.

Says the whole time that we were with you there in Thessalonica, you know, we weren't living for ourselves. We weren't looking for what we could get. We wanted to benefit you.

Is that how people would describe your presence in their life today? Would your wife say that you live for her benefit?

Would your coworkers say that, yeah, when, you know, when Jake is around, I know that Jake genuinely cares about me, that, yeah, he's working, he's doing his job and he's not slacking, you know, he's not, you know, taking on things that he shouldn't

be. But I know, you know, if I ever need a prayer, I know Jake's going to pray for me. If I need, you know, a pen or something, Jake's not just going to like pass off and ignore me. He's actually going to care about me.

How would other people describe you? Do you live for the benefit of others? And then he says, and you yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord.

There can sometimes be a well-meaning thought that says, okay, I don't follow any person. I just follow Jesus. But here's the thing.

If we are truly following Jesus, we will also be following, we'll also be imitating other people that are following Jesus. And it's a good thing. It's something that we should aim to have lives that can be imitated.

Now, it never means that we will be perfect in what we do and thus worthy of people's imitation, but Paul says it consistently in 1 Corinthians, here in 1 Thessalonians, in the Book of Philippians, many other places.

He says, follow me as I'm following Christ. Be imitators of me as I try to imitate Christ. We can sometimes be so avoidant of having people or encouraging people to imitate or to follow us because we're not imitatable.

Like, we aren't acting like Jesus. And so we would think it to be a bad thing, and it would be if we'd say, hey, do what I do. Like, look how I interact with people.

Look how I talk about our world. Look how I, you know, perhaps spend my money. Look at how I evangelize.

Look at how I spend time in God's Word. We ought to pursue having a life that can be imitated by other people, not because of our own, like, genius, or yes, I've definitely got all the life hacks, and so you should definitely mimic me.

No, no, no, no. I'm following Jesus, and if I know what I'm doing, how I'm speaking, where I'm spending my time, I know it's things that Jesus would want me to, then I'll invite people along. I'm not gonna say, you all should do this good action.

You all should obey Jesus there. I'm not doing it. So you don't really have like a model for what that looks like practically in your life.

No, it's frankly the call of discipleship that as we follow Jesus, we're calling others to come alongside in that journey, and together, let's imitate Christ. So, that's what he says.

You yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord when in spite of severe persecution, they didn't shirk away from receiving the gospel or receiving Jesus and following him just because Paul and Silas got ran out of town, just because Jason and

some of the other new believers were captured and forced to pay like a security fine thing to the government. He says, that didn't even dissuade you. Instead, you welcomed the message with joy. How do you hear God's word in your life?

Do you receive it with joy? Are you happy to know what God says? Or do you view it as an affront to your individuality?

Do you view it as a challenge to you just doing whatever you want to do?

I'd like to encourage you, like the Thessalonians, receive the Holy Spirit's message when God's talking to you, when he speaks to your heart and he goes, hey, like you've been doing this thing and you should not be doing this thing.

Listen to him and be glad, be joyful that the God that loves you and died for you and chose you, he has not left you alone and he wants to still be active in your life. And his activity in your life is not always going to be affirming your actions.

Sometimes it will be saying, don't do that, don't like that, that's a mess up. You should not pursue that.

And we ought to be grateful for those times as well as the times when he affirms and says, you know, well done or you did good in witnessing to that person, even if they didn't accept it.

Be willing to receive God's message with joy no matter what format it takes. Verse 7, he says, as a result, you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

So he says, for your guys' region of the world, you were a huge picture, like you showed them what it looked like to not run away from Jesus when persecution comes.

Verse 8, for the word of the Lord rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place that your faith in God has gone out.

Therefore, we don't need to say anything, for they themselves report what kind of reception we had from 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 rescues us from the coming wrath. So here he says, you guys, through your actions, through your testimony, then even through the people that you witnessed to that then went to all of these regions of north of Greece and Macedonia and all the rest

of the area of Achaia, he says, all of these people, they, we don't even have to say anything. Like, we show up and we're like, hey, here's Jesus, and they go, oh yeah, we know about Jesus, the people in Thessalonica.

They told so and so, and they told us, and so we received it.

And we know that they, they're in Thessalonica, where there's all these temples and worship of Greek and Roman gods and of the emperor, Caesar, where all of this false worship is, those people in Thessalonica, they stopped participating in the

worship of all of these idols, all of these gods. And now they serve the living and true God, the God of what they would have had at that point, the Old Testament and his son Jesus, who is in heaven, who was raised from the dead and who will rescue

us from the coming wrath, that we are not under condemnation when we have Jesus. Is there anyone that could say, I know about Jesus because of my friend, I know about Jesus because of my co-worker, I know about Jesus because of my neighbor?

Here, that's what the Thessalonian Church had done, that in their country, north of their country, in their place of 200,000 people, this wasn't a huge church, but it made a difference because the people sounded out the word, they rang out the word

of the Lord from where they were. And it was shocking because what was normal, what was acceptable, the idol worship, the following pagan ways, all of that had been rejected. And instead, now they were new people. Now they were countercultural.

They didn't just do what everyone else did. They didn't say what everyone else said. They didn't act how everyone else acted.

They had a new purpose, and their purpose was serving Jesus. Today, will you have that same pattern of behavior that the Thessalonian Church did? Will you imitate Jesus and invite others to join you in your Christian journey?

Don't do it alone. Be an example to others. Live for the benefit of others.

Be a blessing to them. Realize that you're loved by God. You have brothers and sisters now in Christ.

That you were chosen by God. And so that gives you a holy reason to go forward, to share the Gospel. Because there is a God in heaven who sent his son Jesus, who voluntarily died in our place and rose from the dead in power over sin and the grave.

And he will one day return or call you home. Will you serve him? Thank you for tuning in today.

Tomorrow we will begin chapter 2.