1 Thessalonians 5:19-28 - Testing Podcasts and Kissing Christians
Well, welcome back. And this should be the very last of our episodes in 1 Thessalonians.
And what an incredible book this has been, of looking at maybe the question of as a church starts off, what are some of the things that they really need to know?
And as paul has walked through this book, writing along with Silas and Timothy, they've said young Christians need to know how God views them, like what God thinks about them.
They need to know that their witness and their life, their turning from idolatry, all of that makes such an incredible difference and an impact on the world around them. It makes an impact for other Christians as they share the gospel.
They let them know, hey, how we as your church planters, how we interacted with you is how we want you to interact with others.
Those are the kinds of people and the kinds of teachers that we want you to emulate, that we want you to seek those kinds of people.
He's talked about how the heart that he has for them and the heart that he wants them to have for others, the prayer requests that he's asking for God to work in their lives.
He talks about a purity in their culture, and he highlights for their very sexual culture, what it looks like for Christians to behave in such a way that is reflective of the fact that God's Holy Spirit lives inside of us, that we are brothers and
sisters in Christ, and so that affects our relationships with one another. Looked at having grace towards others, living at peace, being kind, seeking the goodness of others, realizing that Jesus is coming back, and that gives us hope and certainty
for our life going forward. We don't have despair. We're not like the world that's going to be condemned. When Jesus returns, we are those accepted by him.
And so we live and we walk in such a way that's reflective of the fact that we've been forgiven and that we are God's chosen people.
And then from verses 12 and on, as we've looked the past couple of days, we've seen just kind of step by step of caring for our spiritual leaders.
We've seen warning those that are going astray, comforting those that are in need, encouraging people, being patient, not repaying evil for evil, consistently always rejoicing and praying and giving thanks.
And then now we get into kind of the plain landing for 1 Thessalonians. And we're going to begin today in verse number 19. He says, don't stifle the spirit.
In the Old King James, this would read, do not quench, quench not the spirit of God. What a, what a challenge. We can stifle the spirit in our life.
That as he, from what Jesus tells us, the Holy Spirit's role is to tell us everything, remind us of everything that Jesus has said. He's the one that guides us into all truth.
He's the one that convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. The Holy Spirit is the one that moves in our hearts so that we would pray what we need to. He's the one that seals us for all time.
He's the one that makes us part of the family of God, that he places us into the church, into Christ's body. And so we can stifle him. We can tell the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, we can tell him no.
We can say, I know that you are guiding me into what Jesus wants me to do in this situation, and I'm not going to listen to you. I know that God's will is that I would give thanks, but I'm going to be ungrateful.
I know that God's will is that perhaps I would evangelize or be a good witness, but I'd rather just kind of fit in with these people.
So I'm going to say everything they say, go everywhere that they go, do everything that they do, because I don't really want to stick out. So I'm not going to really listen to this.
We would stifle the Spirit, that the Spirit would say, hey, you should do this thing. This would be really good for you to do for this other person.
We can stifle him and not do good things, or we can stifle him and say, I am going to do wrong things and not listen.
Ephesians chapter 4, the very end of it, has another verse along a very similar line, where it says in verse number 30, and don't grieve God's Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. That we can grieve the Spirit of God.
We can make him sad. 1 Corinthians would tell us that we can make, in a sense, the Holy Spirit be like standing by for our sin, that he doesn't leave us ever. We're sealed for the day of redemption.
And so when we choose to sin, we are doing it in the presence of God Almighty. The God Spirit lives in us. And when we sin, we grieve him.
We break his heart. His heart is not that we would continue down the path that we were on before we knew Jesus. He wants us to go down the path of righteousness, the path of doing right in the sight of God and to other people.
I'd encourage you today, if the Holy Spirit tells you, hey, do this thing, don't do this thing, listen to him. And you might say, okay, how do I know if it's the Spirit of God or if it's just a random impulse or thought that I have?
If it lines up with the Word of God, it's the Spirit of God, because Satan will never be like, hey, I really want you to obey the Bible in this circumstance. Evil is never going to prompt you to do what Jesus would do or to obey God.
So you can know, all right, yeah, God... I think I've used the illustration before. The Holy Spirit is never going to tell you to rob a bank.
The Holy Spirit is never going to tell you to be a jerk to someone. That's not in line with the Word of God.
The Word of God might tell you, hey, you've got this loved one, and maybe they're heading down a path and they're just careening, and everyone else in their life is just kind of fawning over them and being like, oh yes, you should do this, follow
this. Keep going with your heart. And the Holy Spirit might say, hey, like warn those. Actually, that was one of the verses earlier in chapter five.
Warn those who are idle or who are disorderly, undisciplined. Comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
That you might say, okay, I know God would have me to say to this person, hey, I know you think that this is a good idea, but this is in direct opposition to God. And I love you. I'm for you.
I like our relationship will always be there. I will always forgive you. I will always want to do what's best for you.
I will always be pursuing and seeking your good. And but I do because I'm seeking your good, I do want to warn you that this is not a good path to go down.
And I know other people that maybe they don't know Jesus, or maybe they know Jesus, but they don't feel like they can give you counsel in this area. I do think I need to be the one that warns you that this is not going down a great path for you.
It might be that the Holy Spirit tells you something like that, as opposed to maybe in just a fleshly way, you might chew someone out and you're like, Oh, listen, if you make this decision, I'm never talking to you again.
And maybe if you follow down this path, like, I'm, you know, don't ever talk to me again, things like that, where that wouldn't be a spirit led way. The Holy Spirit will use the Word of God to make the Child of God more like the Son of God.
Something I say often that I feel is very, very, very true. So don't stifle the Spirit. When he prompts you to do something good that's in line with the Word of God, do it.
And when he warns you against doing something because it doesn't fall in line with the Word of God, then listen to him. Don't stifle him. Don't shut him down.
Now one of the really helpful ways to get to know the Spirit of God, to know if it's him that's pushing or prohibiting is to read the Word of God, to memorize the Word of God, because then you're not doing guesswork on whether, okay, is this impulse
like good or bad? Is this God? Is it not God? because when you have equipped your mind with the Word of God, that's what the Holy Spirit will use, that he'll bring by to say, okay, well, the Bible says, go and make disciples of all nations.
And right now you have an opportunity to do good to this person, that you're eating at a restaurant and you have the opportunity to leave a good tip for your waiter or your waitress.
And you can put a little church invite card in or a little gospel tract in with your tip, that way they know, okay, well, these people are nice. They tip generously and they actually care about me as a person.
They don't just care about the service that I provide for them, but yeah, they invited me to their church and maybe they weren't pushy or weird about it, but they actually cared about me.
And you might sift your actions through that lens of, does this align with the Word of God? So that's all from, don't stifle the Spirit. Verse number 20, don't despise prophecies, but test all things.
So it goes from the sentence, goes from verse 20 to verse 21. Don't despise prophecies, but test all things. So during this very early period in the church, you had the Holy Spirit would often use prophecies.
So all of the New Testament had not been written yet, and yet God still had his message for his churches.
And they didn't have, they wouldn't have the Gospels for about maybe a decade or two, maybe in the case of John, maybe three decades or so after this book was written. You'd have, many of the epistles would not have been written.
1 Thessalonians was one of the initial books that was written in the time span of the New Testament. And so God would give a prophecy through the Holy Spirit to individuals. So they would say the prophecy.
1 Corinthians would tell us how this would work was, would be someone would say like, hey, God told me this. And so then they would say what their prophecy was.
This would be more of a 4th telling of like, here's what God says more so than like, hey, here's a future event that's going to come.
Sometimes it would be that even as we read in the Book of Acts, where the guy says, hey, like there's going to come this famine at this point. Or when someone else, Agabus tells paul, hey, you're going to be arrested when you get to Jerusalem.
But most of the time it was, hey, here's what God has for us. Like here's a right thing to do. Here's how we think about Jesus.
Here's this or that.
And then once the person gave the prophecy, what paul told the Corinthian Church, which I would assume would be the same thing he told the Thessalonian Church while he was there, was once someone says it, then you need to have the people that know
the Old Testament, that know the scriptures that have already been written, see if it lines up. Does this line up with what we were told about Jesus from paul and Silas and Timothy?
Does this line up with God's character that we read about in the Torah? Does it line up with what God has said is maybe going to happen or the ethics that he tells us to have in the prophets or the major or minor prophets?
Does it align with the truth that we read about God or how he views the world or the spiritual realm in the Psalms? Does this align with the wisdom that we see in Proverbs? Or does it go against God's word?
And so, here he says, don't despise prophecies. Here, when someone brings a word from God, don't, like, don't hate hearing from God. He says, but test all things.
He says, don't just take everything that everyone says, hey, this is from God.
Today, especially with the advent of the internet, there's plenty of people that are like, hey, here's my, like, secret prophecy that I have about this world event or this world leader or this thing that's going to take place.
And God has given me this prophecy. And so you all need to do this or prepare for this or send me money for this. And what we could see from verses 20 and 21 is, okay, don't despise prophecies.
Don't hate hearing from God. You know, if you're going into a church on Sunday, don't hate hearing from the word of God. It says, but test all things.
Run everything you hear through the lens of the word of God. So you want to hear the Spirit, you don't want to stifle him, pay attention to the word of God. You want to not despise prophecies.
You want to hear what God has for your life. There's a reason that we even here at Tabernacle, preach the word of God and don't just have maybe prayer and singing and testimonies. And that's not all that we do.
We want to hear what God has to say. So it's why every Sunday, I open up the word of God. Right now, we're going through John 1 through 4.
We've had several messages in John 1. I think our last one is this coming Sunday, before we get into Chapter 2 and beyond. We hear what God has to say in his word because that is the prophecy.
It's the fourth telling of God's will for our lives. So don't despise that. Don't hate that.
Don't hate preaching. It says, but test all things. Test all things by the word of God.
Does this line up with what the rest of scripture says? Is this something I'm constantly like trying to do in my own heart and life? And even sometimes on here when I figured out later, OK, well, that that didn't quite line up there.
Having to go back and go, all right, thanks, guys, for your patience. It was actually this thing or this thing was how this actually took place. It was in this place.
So he says, don't despise prophecies, but test all things. Run everything by the word of God. Then he says, hold on to what is good.
Man, if there's something, especially here, he's talking about the spiritual.
If there's something spiritually good that has entered into your life, a word from the Lord, maybe a ministry that you have been given, perhaps an opportunity to disciple someone, don't relinquish the good that God has brought into your life.
Hold on to it. Hold on to what is good and don't embrace evil. We can even see that in the following phrase.
Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil. That is, everywhere the evil appears, everywhere it rears its head, stay away from it.
And instead, hold on to what is good. Verse number 22 in some older translations was phrased in such a way that occasionally tripped a couple of people up.
It was phrased, abstain from all appearance of evil, which in kind of 1600s language meant stay away from every kind of evil. Everywhere that evil rears its head, stay away from it.
But in maybe some older translations, it was misrepresented to say anything that anyone could maybe take as being evil, stay away from it.
So sometimes that got then applied to circumstances like you maybe can't go into a movie theater because someone doesn't know if you're watching Finding Nemo or if you're watching, you know, Saw or something.
They don't know if you're watching something good or maybe something untoward or something that might have some very wicked elements in it. And so you just need to stay away from movie theaters entirely.
Occasionally, it was even like, okay, well, don't go to a this is a little bit more dated reference.
Don't go into a restaurant that also serves alcohol because if someone sees you walking into that restaurant, they don't know if you're just maybe drinking water or if you're getting drunk at the bar.
And so just stay away from restaurants that do stuff. That's not what the passage means. This is everywhere that evil raises its head.
So if, you know, perhaps in your workplace, you know, all right, everyone around the water cooler, they're swapping stories and jokes that are just vile. It's not stirring my affections for Christ.
I'm not even able to necessarily like be a witness in that moment. I'm just party to hearing filth. That maybe you would stay away from that.
It might be that for your phone, if you know, okay, every time I go on to this app, it just stokes like hatred and vitriol in my life towards other people. Stay away from that. Stay away from every appearance of evil.
If there are maybe people in your life that consistently simply just bring out the worst in you, do your best to stay away from everywhere that evil lifts up its head. Why? because you want to hold on to what is good.
Don't hold on to what's evil. Hold on to the good. Run away from the evil.
I say some of those things again. Let the Holy Spirit bring to your mind, maybe the specific scenarios that that would apply in your life. In what areas of your life does evil rear its head?
What is evil? Well, we find out from the Word of God. It's that list from Galatians 5 where it's like, hey, here's these 18 works of the flesh.
Here are the things that are not the fruit of the Spirit. These are not godly. This is these are the things that are wrong and realizing, okay, when do those show up in my life?
What are the circumstances? Who are the individuals? What's the location?
And find out how you can avoid those pitfalls in your life. It's about for you. What barriers are you putting up so that you can hold on to what is good and you're not falling headlong into sin?
It's for you. It's not what could others look into your life and say, I think that thing that you're doing could be misconstrued or incorrect. That's not the point.
The point is for you. Are you staying away from every appearance of evil every time that evil appears? Then verse 23.
Now, may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. We talked about that word sanctify. It's that day by day of God saving you from the power of sin, that you become more and more like Jesus.
You're being set apart for God. May God, may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here he says, I want your entire person to be set apart for Jesus so that when he comes again, you are complete, you're sound, you're whole, and you are blameless.
There's nothing that anyone could really grab on to and say, okay, this person just persists in this evil and refuses to repent of it, refuses to say that it's a problem, refuses to do any battle against it.
May we have that sound, whole, complete, blameless life because we know that Jesus is returning. Verse 24, he says, he who calls you is faithful, he will do it. If God saved you, God will sanctify you.
If God justified you, you will be sanctified and you will be glorified.
That's what we find out from Romans chapter 8, where the apostle says that those he for knew, he predestined, those he predestined, he called, those he called, he justified and glorified.
I'm turning over to that passage real quick just because I want to make sure that I've got the order correct on that. It says this, those he predestined, he also called, those he called, he also justified and those he justified, he also glorified.
If you have accepted Christ as Savior, if you've been truly saved, then you don't have to worry about maybe your eternal future.
If you are truly saved, then the same God that saved you at the beginning, the same God that's saving you day by day is the one who will one day glorify you. And he is the one that accomplishes it.
It's not that God saved you and now all the rest of your life, it's kind of on you to be good enough. No, Jesus is the one that's working in you.
So just as at the beginning, repent of your sins, believe in Jesus that he will save you day by day from the power of sin over you and your life. Verse 25, brothers and sisters, pray for us also. Man, as a pastor, I feel that.
Pray for your spiritual leaders. Here paul and Silas and Timothy asking for that from the Thessalonians. As a pastor, as several people listen to this podcast, I'm asking you, pray for me.
Pray for my spirituality that I would walk with Jesus every single day, that I'd be more and more like him, that I would repent of sin, turn from wickedness and follow Jesus wholeheartedly. Pray for my family.
Pray for my kids, that they would grow up, that they would be safe and healthy, that when the time comes that they can understand the gospel, that they would accept Jesus.
Pray for my marriage, that it would be strong, that I would be the husband that I need to be for Samantha. Pray for myself as I try and lead Tabernacle.
It's a church that's experienced 74 years of God's work, and I am praying that God would give us 74 more years, not just of like slow decline, but that we would see just rejuvenated growth and excitement.
The church planted a couple other churches within the first 10, 15 years of its existence. And I would love if over the next 10 to 15 years, if God in His grace saw fit, that we would be able to plant a church out of Tabernacle.
And I would love it if we were able to add on to our church and church staff.
I would love to have a family pastor that would be able to come alongside me and work with our teens and our kids and be able to have just a dynamic youth ministry for our church.
I'd love to see us do some outreaches even to CCBC because there's a campus right here in Essex. There are so many opportunities for us to reach into our community. I would love for all of that to happen.
And that stems from God's people at Tabernacle being healthy, having that maturity in their faith, that they are personally doing the work of the ministry. They're giving to the work of the ministry. They're encouraging and comforting one another.
They're discipling people. And it just spills out into so many areas. So pray for me as I try and lead that for our church because that's where I know that God wants us to go.
because we're to make disciples of all nations. And that includes the nation of America. It includes Baltimore.
It includes our area. And I want to be faithful in all of that. So all that from verse 25.
Brothers and sisters, pray for us also. Verse 26, greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. As a teenager, reading commands like this from scripture was always a little bit taken aback.
Like what? We're supposed to kiss each other. This is familial greeting.
Much like you would see they in maybe France or Latin America or something like that. This was just a normal greeting. This isn't, you know, making out or something like that.
It's a heartfelt greeting and love for one another. Today, you might do a hug, you might do a fist bump, a high five, just a greeting that says, I genuinely love you. Like you're not just some stranger, you're not just an acquaintance.
You are my brother or sister in Christ. And here paul encourages them like, hey, have that family love for each other because you are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Verse number 27, I charge you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers and sisters. This is why I preach through books of the Bible, because this is the command.
This is why I podcast through books of the Bible, because this is the scriptural command that the books of scripture be read to everyone. That's why every single book of the Bible is important.
It's why I've gone to the Minor Prophets and Zephaniah and Obadiah. That's why I've gone through Psalms, why I went through 2 Peter, why I went through Leviticus, because 1 Thessalonians, paul says, this needs to be read to everyone.
If that's true for 1 of the books of scripture, it's true for the other 65 books of scripture as well. And then verse 28, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Thankful that Jesus' empowerment, his favor, his love for us is always with us.
And we ought to hope for that grace for other people as well. Think of the old hymn, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.
Thankful for the grace of Jesus that as we dive into his word, that we're able to obey the spirit. We're not stifling him. We're not despising hearing from God, but we are through God's word.
We are testing everything that we hear. We're testing the podcast that we listen to. We're testing the books we read.
We're testing the preaching that we're hearing through the word of God and not through like a skeptical, like kind of hateful mindset, but just as we hear from God, as we welcome prophecy, as we welcome hearing from the Lord, that we would then test
it through the Holy Scripture. We would stay away from what's evil and we would hold on to dearly what is good in our life, the spiritual blessings that God has given us.
That we would realize if God began our salvation, He's going to take us the rest of the way. He's the one that sanctifies us and presents us spotless and holy as His bride.
And we ought to, as a result of that, then love our brothers and sisters, pray for our spiritual leaders, and realize that God's grace is what holds all of it together, through God's power. We are able to have all of that.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode. I have loved going through the Book of 1 Thessalonians with you. Our next book will be Book 2 of Psalms.
So I think it's Psalm 42 to Psalm 60 or 72. I think it's 72. So that'll be back to the Old Testament.
We've been in the New Testament for a good little bit now, and I'm looking forward to diving into that study with you all. Thank you for tuning in. Have a wonderful day.
