Thessalonians Introduction

This morning we're going to do a brief introduction to the book of Thessalonians, or 1 Thessalonians, and then dig in through verses 1 through 5. So hopefully you'll endure the shortness of that and know that there's a lot more information if you want to do some personal studying on some of the background behind it. We're going to take a quick look at some of what the scripture says, but then because We have to go through verses 1-5, we're going to be brief. Quickly, the book starts out in verse 1, as we'll take a look. It starts out being sent from Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. So we want to take a look at the authorship. Who remembers Paul's fantastic introduction to Christianity? Where did Paul first show up? The first thing Paul does is his other name, Saul, stoning Stephen, or holding the coats while other people get stoned.

That way he doesn't get himself dirty. But he's washing everybody's jackets, because you don't want to screw those up. You get blood on them, it adds complications. He was Iraqi, that's right. It's the other kind of Iraqi. That's really good art. Man, I wish I'd have thought of that.

But then, so that was in Acts 7, 58. And then in Acts 9, he was confronted by Christ on the way to Damascus. He'd gotten permission from the rulers of the synagogue, hey guys I want to go try to stop this Christianity nonsense and so on his way down there God blinds him and it's Christ says you know why are you persecuting me? Then after having his sight restored he began to preach the gospel and began going by Paul.

Now if you've been Saul your whole life and everybody knows Saul as this guy going out trying to persecute and kill Christians Change your name up a bit may help indicate that something has happened. It's not necessarily that people aren't going to figure out that you're the same man, it's that why is he changing his name? There's something there.

The Lord protected him from persecutors. If you read the story of Paul, which there's been other classes that have gone over that, so I definitely recommend going through the Acts class online if you have that opportunity, or request tapes or CDs or 8-track, whatever. The Lord protected Paul from persecution, and so it's pretty awesome to see how Paul grew from the persecution, but also how the Lord used the persecution. My favorite thing is that when Paul was in chains, he's a prisoner in Rome, and all those things, he's chained to a centurion guard. It's like built-in witnessing opportunities. They're stuck to you for however long their cycle is. So Paul saw those chains as an opportunity. So Paul, being one of the authors, has that. He went on three missionary journeys as well, and one of them, of course, threw him into the city of Thessalonica.

Now the next author we have is Silvanus. Silvanus is the Latin for the Greek name Silas. So if you read Silas in other places, Silvanus is his Latin name. But you can know that it's kind of like Saul, Paul when you see it in different places. Abram, Abraham. That's who we're talking about. Basically, he was an awesome assistant to the apostles. and he went on some of Paul's missionary journeys with him. So it's pretty cool. That's who Silvanus is. We really don't have a lot more information about him, but that's who he is. And then Timothy. Now we all know who Timothy is because he had at least two letters written to him.

Timothy was met by Paul in Acts 16. Paul wanted him to join him on his missionary journey. Quick theological trivia question. What did Paul do that was part of the law to Timothy that Paul said in Galatians, you shouldn't do if you're doing it for the law. He circumcised him. Which is kind of funny, but Paul was doing that because of their ministry was going into the temple, and he needed to be able to bring Timothy with him into the temple if Timothy was uncircumcised. Couldn't bring him in there with him in certain ways, and that would be a problem. So to conform to that so that they could go in and evangelize inside of the Jewish compounds, Timothy was circumcised. Timothy was obviously a lifelong companion and a recipient of at least two letters first and second Timothy that we have. There's a good chance that they probably wrote some other correspondence but we've got these two letters.

Let's take a look if you'll open your Bibles to Acts chapter 17. We're going to look at verses 1 through 9. This is where Paul is going to show up in Thessalonica and we're going to read the brief the brief story told there about what took place. I'm going to go ahead and read it out loud for the recording so that everybody can hear it loudly but read along with me if you will in your various translations. Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia They came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.

And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women. But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the marketplace, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar, and attacking the house of Jason they were seeking to bring them out to the people. When they did not find them, they began dragging out Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, These men have upset the world. and have come here also, and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. They stirred up the crowd, and the city authorities who heard these things, and when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them.

Alright, after that, in verse 10, the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. Alright, so they figured that Paul and Silas were probably really close to a lynching. Basically it's time for stoning. I guess they probably did more stoning than lynching. So we have here, they preach the gospel. There's a decent response. Where do they go? What is Paul's custom when it comes to preaching the gospel? Where do they go first? They go to the temple first. Why do you think that is?

The Jews are there and the Jews have the Old Testament word of God. They have the Old Testament scriptures that are prophesying the Messiah. Paul can come in and they probably got scrolls there and various things that are of the text of the scripture. He can open up Isaiah and read what we call chapter 53. He's going to say, that was the Messiah that we crucified in Jerusalem. I happen to have been there or not been there. I happen to have seen him. And let me tell you, you know, this is the Messiah.

So they responded. There were God-fearing Greeks and prominent women. I think it's interesting to say prominent women, but there's probably a lot of history there. We don't have time to go into that, but it really is an interesting thing to see. The people that responded weren't just Jews. There were people that responded in Thessalonica of various ethnic backgrounds and social backgrounds.

Now Jason is mentioned here. We really don't know a lot about Jason, but they dragged him out. They misrepresented Christianity. Do you find it interesting that their tactic for attacking Christianity is to not accurately state what Paul was teaching, but instead twist it They grab some unsavory people from the marketplace, got everybody riled up, because any time you can get a larger group involved, you're likely to get more action, right? They bring them before the city council, they bring Jason before the city council, and after a pledge, which from all that we can tell is basically a bribe, Here's a little money, and the city council kind of goes, well, that seems like enough to take care of the problem.

And they move on. But they get Paul and Silas out of there. So that is a very quick introduction to the gospel hitting Thessalonica. And you can understand with working conditions like persecution from angry Jews, unsavory Greeks who are just looking to get whatever they want and can out of things, and greedy officials, it's easy to see why Paul would write this letter of encouragement, because they are getting persecuted.

As I was rereading this letter and studying it and preparing for this lesson, I just kept thinking, this is a really cool love letter. So as you read it, think of it as a I mean that in a non-husband-wife scenario, obviously. But this is an awesome love letter from Paul, sending to these people whom he loved. Here I am, I love you guys, God loves you, and I want to share this message with you.

It's pretty powerful. I took the liberty of summarizing the book into four different categories that I think, if we were to make some overarching statements, this would fall in there. And there's little nuances and details that definitely fit outside of these categories.

There's horizontal relationships between believers. Paul is going to tell them, hey, these are your brothers and sisters in Christ. This is how a believer interacts with other believers. There are horizontal relationships between believers and non-believers. Obviously, if they're being persecuted by the non-Christians, Paul is going to encourage them, hey, just keep having awesome behavior amongst these people.

It's going to be a witnessing tool or opportunity. And obviously, the vertical relationship between the believer and the Lord. The chapter Chapter 5 was probably one of my favorite chapters in all of the New Testament when I was younger because it has some really practical Christian living things that it discusses. And also the believers hope in the return of the Lord. The rapture. The believers hope in what the Lord is going to do when he comes.

That's a brief summary. Obviously, as Bob and Brad and Roger and myself teach, we're going to go over all kinds of details that are going to move outside of some of those boundaries that that sets. But I want to just give you a little heads up. This is where we're probably going in the big picture.

Now let's read 1 Thessalonians 1, 1 through 5, because we're going to start digging into the meat of the passage. And hopefully you'll find it as cool and exciting as I did. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians, in God the Father, in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bringing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren, beloved by God, his choice of you, For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake." All righty. So we have here the text. What did I do? I just covered up my remote control. We've covered who Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy were, so we're going to just keep going with that.

He says, to the church in Thessalonica and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Interestingly enough, he immediately starts off with their identification with Christ. Boom! Right out of the gates, you're identified with Christ. This is who you are. You are in Christ. You're in God the Father. You're united. He doesn't start off with minor doctrine. He doesn't waste any minute. He's like, hey, it's us! Boom! You're identified with Christ. On top of that, he says, in God the Father.

Now that's the part that is going to be something that the Jews are familiar with. Of course we're Jews. We have a relationship with God because we're Jewish. But he goes beyond that. He says, you're in Christ. So the Jews of the culture are already feeling comfortable with the idea of being identified with God the Father because they're Jews. I'm a descendant of Abraham. that's all I need. Paul came in and presented the need for the gospel with Jesus Christ being in their lives and so he identifies them with Christ. Gives them a different standing. Then he says something that I think is really cool.

Now how many of you have have been listening or were previously possibly in the grace class? If you listen to the grace class via CD or MP3 or 8-track or Dictaphone, whatever you got. Anyone? Nobody's listening to the Grace Class. I'm sorry to hear that. Definitely give it a shot. Listen to the Grace Class. At least if none of you have been listening to it, that's lucky me because now I get to tell you things that you already would have heard in the other class.

What does grace do in the life of the believer? It sanctifies the believer. It's part of what sets the believer aside and sets them to be holy. So he's saying, hey guys, grace to you. This awesome thing. What is grace? Can anybody define grace? Maybe not so easily if you haven't been listening to the grace class. Unmerited, unlimited blessing of God or favor of God. So grace to you.

Grace offers a lifestyle of relationship. When you think of What does the law do? The law brings bondage. The law has all these problems. Grace comes in. He says, Grace to you. Grace is how we can have a relationship with God. There's nothing that separates us from God. That's pretty awesome. Again, the identification ties in with the grace. And grace also brings glory to God. I'm missing an S there, so my mom's not reading it, but I know that she'll catch that typo. Grace brings glory to God. Now, what's the big deal about grace bringing glory to God? We talked about this in the Romans class a little bit. What happens when you sin? Is God glorified by your sin? God is not glorified by the sin, but God is glorified by the grace that He shows you when you sin.

That's pretty awesome. Okay? What Satan would say, ha ha ha, look they sinned. God says, yeah, but I paid for that. And the angels go, ahhh, and they glorify him. Probably better than that. And it's pretty awesome. He starts out with, hey, grace to you. May the grace of God be part of your life.

And peace. What does peace do in the life of the believer? No fair looking at the handouts. Peace brings rest or the flesh would be panicked. In my own life there's been lots of times of panic and it was not until more recently that I realized, hey, that's not part of what the Lord has enabled to be part of my life. Going into all of that would be probably a good idea for you to listen to the trials and suffering class because that's more than we want to cover in the scope of this but it's on the website and Hal does a great job of teaching it. But peace brings rest where the flesh would be panicked.

If you're being persecuted for your faith, like is happening around the world today, we're pretty lucky here in the United States, or we're blessed, we're not lucky at all. We're blessed by God to not be persecuted so heavily. We don't have that as an area where we get to be worried about the door knocking. Oh, somebody's knocking on my door. What's that going to mean? We don't panic about that.

Of course, in places where they are persecuted they can still rest that God's got a plan. Peace brings rest. It allows the believer to focus on their relationship with the Lord. You notice the theme of relationship is I bring relationship up in all kinds of places when we teach. The relationship with the Lord comes through grace but peace is part of God's allowing us to rest in that relationship and focus on that relationship instead of whatever else is coming at you.

Whether the Rockies win in the series or not. Whether or not you've got money in the bank or not. Whatever it is, there's rest. There's peace that passes all understanding. Any questions on grace and peace before we jump to the next verse? Or being in God and in Christ? I want to make sure I don't jump too fast here. You're smiling. You like to smile. He's smiling. I'm worried. I'm like, oh, he's smiling. He's thinking of like 75 things that I'm not saying. 1 Thessalonians 1, 2.

We give thanks to God always for all of you making mention of you in our prayers. This verse right here is very practical and should be something that we evaluate and look at in our own lives as opportunities to be thinking about Holly Hills, any other church we've ever been to and churches we've never been to.

Okay, but where we might have contacts and relationships with people. Okay, thankfulness for co-believers. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ. So we give thanks to the Lord for them. I have a lot of Christians I've met whom I don't agree with doctrinally on every point. And I pray for them and I love them dearly. Because they're my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I didn't always do that. I used to really be nasty. The Lord is hooked on me. And I'll be honest with you. I've left a lot of churches and said a lot of nasty things about a lot of believers. And it's not good. But instead, the Lord has taught me and opened my eyes that I need to be thankful. If you've left another church and you say, well, Holly Hills has better teaching, or Holly Hills this, that, or the other thing, that's great. But be thankful for what the Lord did there, and be thankful for the brothers and sisters in Christ that are there. It's very easy to have a jaded mindset. That's not the way that we should operate. Obviously, Paul planted this church, so he's not, you know, I left the church. They kicked him out, sent him off to Berea.

But Paul is thankful. He recognizes the source of their joy. We give thanks to God always for all of you. Mentioning in our prayers that the joy is coming from them being brothers and sisters in Christ and God's work in their lives. God is working in our lives. He's working in other believers lives and we should be thankful that the Lord is doing that and come before him with that.

The other thing is he says always. always was a stumbling block for me when I was younger because I slept. And it's hard to think about always doing something when I'm sleeping because when I'm sleeping I'm usually not doing very many productive things with my time. I could tell you some scary dreams. Scary because they're weird, not scary because they're nightmares.

But always, okay, as a part of their lifestyle of fellowship with the Lord, they were being thankful. As they're walking in their journeys, okay, remember Paul's been on three missionary journeys and a trip to Rome. Well, not necessarily by the time this letter is being written. But as he's traveling, there's opportunity to be talking with Silvanus and Timothy and other people that may be traveling with him. But there's also time probably to be praying. And so as they're praying, they can be doing that always. It's part of their mindset and their lifestyle that they're praying for one another.

That's something that we can do as believers today while we're awake. If you're asleep, we can get some time off. The brain is in recoup mode. Okay, so he says, making mention. Okay, mention there is recollection. I have added on there intercession. It's the concept of, is anybody familiar with intercession as far as prayer is concerned? I don't mean this in Christ interceded for us. But it's this concept of praying passionately for somebody and saying, Lord, I want to come before you and ask that you would do this.

And it's not just a, hey, I pray for Roger. I hope he's doing good, God. It's, I know what's going on in Roger's life, and so I'm praying. Now, I don't right now currently know what's going on in Roger's life. And when he did prayer requests, he wasn't traveling anywhere. But yeah, he's working. He's a working man. But the idea is that he's thinking of them and there is a relationship-oriented prayer there, making mention of them.

It doesn't just necessarily mean, hey, hope Brad's doing good. Hope that Winnie's doing all right. Hope that she keeps her organ fingers in tune and her piano playing well. But you're thinking about all of the areas in that person's life that you know. Not that you must pray for them, but that it's a privilege to have that opportunity. Any thoughts on this before we move on to the next chunk here?

Always is probably one of the biggest things to take away. You can't do always unless you're abiding. It's that relationship with the Lord that enables us to always be praying for one another and always thinking of one another. It's not mentioned here, But what's the difference between supplications and intercession?

I'm not ready to answer that question. I'm not prepared to answer that question. I'm not going to make up something off the top of my head. That won't be beneficial for anybody. Supplication, if I had to just be put on the spot, and since you did, I will try. Supplication, in my understanding, is sometimes personal intercession. may have more to do with others, but that's just off the top of my head and I don't take that as long-term theology that Randy is pontificating on, which would be an overstatement of anything I do.

Alright, 1 Thessalonians 1.3 Constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father. Now this could be sticky right here because he uses the word work and in the Romans class we had to take some time to discuss this because every time work comes up we think of what other three-letter word which is almost like a bad word. Law. So we hear work and we go works, salvation, legalism and we run away and we just skip 1 Thessalonians 1-3. Not really. Okay, work doesn't always have to be tied into the law, and in this case we're going to see why not.

It's an act, something you toil doing. He is saying that you guys are working, this church in Thessalonica. I wouldn't expect anybody else to work, but I'm just kidding. But in Thessalonica they're working. They're doing things, but they're doing it by faith. Now here's where it gets tricky.

What is faith? It doesn't actually get tricky. We're going to work through faith. What's faith? Belief and trust. Reliance, belief, trust in something. So the work is not an act of the flesh, but instead an act in response to the relationship and resting in faith. They're working in faith.

The Lord has presented an opportunity for physical activity whatever it is and they're doing it. Could somebody please open their Bibles to Romans chapter 14 and we'll take a look at the last verse in Romans chapter 14 which is 23 and go ahead and someone please read out loud Romans 14 23 And he that doubteth is condemned if he eateth, because he eateth not of faith. For whatever is not of faith is sin. Alright, now that's potentially a tricky passage and you need to read it in context, but I want to look at the contrast that Paul puts in Romans 14, the end of 23, and whatever is not from faith is sin. These people are working in faith. They're not sinning. It's not legalism. It's not law.

The Lord has presented an opportunity for them to do something. And so, with great rejoicing and opportunity, when we looked at Romans 16, Paul says, greet so-and-so and greet so-and-so. One of the things he says is greet this guy because he's a hard worker. He labors to the point of exhaustion. In the spirit. Okay? Yeah. Could you say, Dan, that a work of faith is really the Lord's work being done through you, merely as you trust Him? Absolutely. You should say that.

I have been in conversations with various people over time where we'll talk about how are you motivated, and they want to bring the law in. They don't want it to be works of... You're not saved by the law. but they want the law to guide their lives and what they end up having is not works of faith but works of legalism that comes from that because you've got a checklist. It's not a work directed by the Holy Spirit ruling in your life. It's a work based on this is what I must do today.

I was joking this morning right before I got in here. We were driving on the flyover from Parker to 225 and somebody was going the speed limit while the rest of traffic was not And I thought they must have like Jewish GPS or something. If you were going 56 miles an hour, you will have to sacrifice a dove. And so it's like this weird thing. And they pulled into the fast lane because I thought the GPS must have said merge left. And there's like traffic breaking to not hit them.

Work of faith is not like that. The work of faith says, I'm going with the flow of traffic. That's the law. You know, I'm not going to do 55 because the law says go with the flow of traffic and I'm moving with what the Lord is doing around in my life.

And sometimes that means that in the case of the German person that has the SS person knocking on the door and says, do you have any Jews? The law says I shouldn't lie. Yep, I've got Jews that I'm harboring in here. Okay, well then you've been accomplice in murder. Law says I shouldn't murder either. Okay, so which one do I do? Well, you have to abide in the Holy Spirit as a believer so that you know that this is not about law, this is about what is right. And the Holy Spirit will reveal to you what is right today, right now.

Okay, so I totally went off on law when we talked about work and faith. Any questions of work and faith before we jump into labor of love? I'm going to take the no hands and no shouting at me that I'm doing alright. Labor of love, labor to wear out to toil, again like work, but this time with love. The agape or love feast. Labor of love, that's pretty interesting if you think about it. When you look at your own life, do you experience or have you experienced a labor of love? Something that you do because you love somebody and it's not because you really get a kick out of doing it. This could be as simple as dishes, or as complex as building something, or bigger. It could be going into the clothing store with your wife, and enduring all 700 shirts, or whatever it is that's in there. I don't care about the shirts, but I sure love my wife.

This weekend, we went to the mall, Jessica and I did, because my parents watched The Girls for our anniversary, and I went into Ann Taylor. They don't sell any men's clothing at Ann Taylor. They have seats in the changing room area, which is good. It was a labor of love. It was not something that I went in there going, yes, I'm going to look at women's clothing.

But I went in saying, I am going to support my wife. And it was awesome to have that opportunity to go in there and support my wife. It was a labor of love. I love my wife, and I'm going to go do this thing with her. There have been other times when I have not labored in love. As you can imagine, that is not fantastic for the marriage relationship. Then you have to do the apologizing of love, which is in its own way a labor of killing the pride. But a labor of love. So Paul says you guys are laboring in love for one another. Have we possibly in other places in the New Testament read about people doing things because they love one another?

Is this only in First Thessalonians 1.3? No, it's in other places.

We could go look at places in Romans 12, places in Acts chapter 2, and many other places where it's just natural, because I love my brother and sister in Christ, and that in my case includes my wife, but also other believers here, I'm willing to go help.

I would love to help you move. I mean, not away, but I'd love to help you move. I would love to help you You know, when we moved here, we showed up with our moving truck to the apartment and bunches of people from Holly Hills were helping us unload the truck and they didn't know me.

But they said, this is a brother in Christ. Let's go help him and his family. All right. And it was humbling for me and it was edifying for me. I said, hey, this is a labor of love. These people are loving me and they don't know me, but they know my Savior. And I know their Savior. And then he continues on there, "...and your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of our God and Father." Okay, our hope. Hope is the anticipation of things to come. It's not wishing, it's hoping. Wishing is what you do, I wish I had a million dollars. You don't know if you're going to get a million dollars. I wish I had a this, that, or the other thing, but you don't know you're going to get it. Hope is in something that is true. Our hope is in the truth of Christ. Their hope was the same.

Their hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father. Now that's an interesting thing. Again, what did he start out with in verse 1 was that the church in Thessalonica was in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here again, their hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father. He couples those together. This is a reference, obviously, to the Trinity in the context of the Father and Son being one and united.

Obviously, the Holy Spirit isn't here, but he's going to be referenced in a few moments. We have Hope. That's my daughter's middle name. Until I named her that, I didn't really know what Hope was. I had to look it up and think about it. That was kind of embarrassing.

We have hope. We have it in Christ. The certain Savior is that thing that they're anticipating. This book is going to have some other passages that are going to be talking about the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Their hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ who certainly is going to return. Their hope is in their unified time with Him when they get to be in heaven with Him and there's nothing that separates them.

One of the things on the Thursday night study at the Doyles, we went over beholding the Lord in 2 Corinthians 3.18. It says we behold him like we're looking in a mirror, like he's right there. That's our Lord. 1 Corinthians 13 says now we look in a mirror dimly.

On this earth, in these bodies, it's a little dim, but the time is coming and the hope of the first Thessalonians is that we're going to be there face to face with our Lord. And that's exciting. That's the hope that they have. They're walking daily with that hope. And we obviously have that same opportunity to do that. If you're not walking daily with that hope, why not?

What things distract us? You can share in here. It's only going to be broadcast on the internet. OK, that shut everybody down. Let's try that again. We can edit it out if we need to. But honestly and truthfully, why are we not thinking with that hope? Why do we not think with hope for the return of our Lord or if we should pass away that we would go be with Him immediately? Why would we not do that? We get so focused on this physical world in which we live that we get distracted by the traffic, our hair, the way the shirt fits, the kind of car we drive, whatever it is, that we forget that this is the temporary and the real and the permanent is in that moment.

Roger, were you going to say that or something else? Exactly the same thing. Now we ask why would we not be hoping and I guess we should probably go back just for the sake of thoroughness and ask why would we not be working of faith? We kind of discussed the alternative of looking of faith, which is working of law. Okay. But why would we not be laboring of love?

Bud? You don't have to follow the Hebrews. If you read Hebrews 1, the evidence of things not seen. Okay. In other words, God, his promises, his confidence, his promises. Absolutely. Some other things. No, that's a fantastic answer. It's inspired by the Holy Spirit. We can't argue with that.

Why would we not be doing a labor of love? Why would we not be laboring in love as believers? Because you can't labor in love unless you're focused on the Lord. Because if you're in the flesh, it's not the kind of love that would do the labor of love. Yep. If you're not walking in the flesh. The flesh isn't capable of that kind of love. Absolutely.

The other element of that is that one of the prayers that I have in my own life, and I would hope that you would have a similar prayer when we get to 1 Thessalonians 5, you'll get to hear that Paul recommends we pray this way, so work with me on this. I don't want to jump ahead and kill somebody else's lesson.

But we need to be praying for that opportunity for intimacy with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Having that intimacy is going to let somebody open up and say, you know what, I have this need. And you'll say, oh, what an awesome opportunity for me to labor and love for you. Again, the intimacy and the relationship that's there, that life that we can have together as a body is quite a privilege. The deacons work on various aspects and areas that keep this facility and things outside of this facility going. They keep it moving, they keep various things working as a labor of love.

If you get a chance to sit down with Wayne, you're going to hear that. It will come out in your conversation with him. And I'm picking on Wayne because he's my neighbor. He's only a couple houses down the way. But I've had conversations with other deacons and I can say the exact same thing.

It's a labor of love. They love to do it and they love to serve you, whether you know you're being served or not. It's pretty humbling and pretty awesome. I'm running out of time and we've got four and five left here but we'll just we'll keep going at a steady pace and hope that I don't miss anything important. Verse four is short but oh my gosh this is like a landmine field here if you were to get into the greater theological world.

Knowing brethren, beloved by God, his choice of you. Okay now we could get into the Calvinism, Arminianism discussion but we're not going to. Okay? This is to avoid that which is not necessary and also we're going to take God's word at face value. If you're a believer you are chosen. I'm not going to go tap dancing around that. He says you're chosen. Or he says they're chosen. We're going to assume that's true of all believers. I think that's a reasonable hermeneutics. Knowing, brethren, beloved by God, His choice of you.

That's pretty awesome and humbling. You don't get to say I'm not worthy. You don't get to talk back to God and say, I'm not worthy. You are worthy whether you like to think so or not. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, He chose you. That makes you good enough. That's one of my favorite things when I'm talking with people and they're like, oh, I just feel so bad. I'm like, why? Why do you feel bad? You've got grace. You should have peace. Why should you be not worthy if He chose you?

And of course, then they get all, what did I say? And I'm like, well, so what? Which one did he not pay for? Well, but I keep doing it. Yeah, and he paid for all of them. You know, well, and they come up with excuses to not be chosen by God and not worthy and all these things. And it's like Heisenberg says it.

Randy, the issue of God's choosing is certainly God chooses, but God hasn't rejected even the Muslims. Absolutely. It says that God does not want any to perish. And the thing is, we could get into the complexity of that, and I'm choosing not to go into all of the details of that, but definitely if there's a class on salvation at Holly Hills, that will be one of the topics that needs to come up and be discussed.

In talking with my dad, I feel that it's reasonable that I'm representing all the elders and saying that there's a mindset that the believer responds as an act of faith. It is an act of the believer's will. God chooses the believer. It is an act of God's will.

And so there's some tension there in the sense that we want some kind of easy, God-in-a-box scenario, but it's a little bit more complex than just saying that God chooses this guy and hates the other guy. But we're not going to go into that discussion right now because, like I said, it's a long, lengthy class. of weeks of time that we could go over that and right now we're going to just take God's Word at face value. For your own studying, please, please, please go take a look at Romans 8, 28 through 30 on your own time. Probably better look at all of Romans chapter 8. But the other thing that's neat to look at, not only being chosen, but they're loved by God. Brethren, beloved by God. Okay. Is God's love perfect? Of course the answer to that is yes. How cool is that? To be loved by God perfectly.

I mentioned the beholding of the Lord from 2 Corinthians 3.18. One of the things that came to me as I was studying that passage was to think about the Lord looking at us as our bride, and us returning, beholding, and looking at Him When Satan tries to come and bring a distraction, when our flesh tries to bring a distraction, whatever kind of distraction comes up, that's somebody trying to step in between you and the Lord. You should be able to pretty easily recognize, hey, that's not my Savior I'm beholding. Because He's looking back at you in love. It's not just a one-way scenario where I'm looking at the Lord in love. He's loving me back. There's that relationship there. It's pretty powerful.

First Thessalonians 1.5 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake. So the Apostle Paul, Silanus, and Timothy came to them with genuine passion, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and with great conviction about the truth and reliability of that truth. Paul didn't come in feeling halfway about the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's pretty important. Have you talked to people who are looking for an opportunity for people to be saved outside of the gospel? I'm sure somebody's got to have run into somebody who wants there to be salvation outside of Christ.

And they come in and they basically play the uncertainty card. They come in and say, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, if I say I don't know enough times, maybe you'll not know too, and we can not know together. I don't know, and they keep saying I don't know, and I'm like, okay, you don't know, but this says it's this way, and I do.

I'm going to take God's word on faith and say that he probably has a better idea of how he's going to save people than I do. He makes the rules, I'm going to follow. If he says we have to believe in Jesus Christ, that's good enough for me. In fact, it was sufficient for me. So, Paul and Silvanus come in there, but they didn't just have words of the gospel, they didn't just present a theological idea, they lived it out.

It wasn't mysteriously unknown, hey, what is this Christian living business about? I'm a Christian, now what do I do? I've never seen it before. So I'm a Christian, now what do I do? Oh, I'm indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but I can also see it in Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy. It's there, it's lived out. In our own lives, do we have non-apostolic people that live in our own lives that live out the life of Christ? I can happily say amen, yes, yes, yes. Not only do I believe that elders live that way, but often other believers in this body live that exact same way. Does that mean nobody here stumbles? I wouldn't go that far. At least I don't. Maybe the rest of you are all good. But we live that out and we see it. Yeah.

I was just going to say that also in other places, in other books where it talks about power, also in power, it's the kind of power that raised Christ from the dead. Yeah. And these people that they're talking to, they understand because many people witnessed Christ even at that time. And so there were witnesses who saw Him raised. Paul being one of them.

Right. But I don't know what the word there, the Greek word power, but I know in other places that's what that word actually means. The power to raise. It brings along that. Also in power and in the Holy Spirit. Their power was Holy Spirit enabled power. Basically it was the power of God that raised people up.

When they came in there with the gospel it wasn't just a nice fancy PowerPoint presentation. It wasn't just a nice, you know, like a salesperson can come in with great words and woo you in and sooner or later you got a $5,000 set of pots and pans and you say to yourself, wow, I am making $5,000 eggs. It wasn't like that. When they came in it was with power.

It was with the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit's showing up was a sign to the Jews that this was legit. When you read back in Acts that the Holy Spirit shows up as tongues of flames and they start speaking in tongues to the Jews, sharing the gospel and the language of the region from which they came, it was a sign to the Jews that God's doing something new. It's pretty powerful. When they went to Thessalonica, were there Jews there in the temple? Absolutely, they were in a Jewish temple. Of course there were Jews there. And God used his Holy Spirit to be assigned to those Jews.

Hey, this is something new and different and God is doing that and these are my chosen people. Including this half-Gentile guy, Timothy. Okay, that's going to be shocking for some of the really Orthodox type Jews who don't like the idea of non-Jews being involved. The other thing I want to point out here is that their character was genuine. Men, we prove to be among you for your sake.

All right. I have had the opportunity in my own life to be two-faced. I don't know if you've ever done that before. I hope you haven't. But I have been fake Randy many times on many occasions to try to get what I wanted or to influence people a certain way. Most of that was in junior high and high school. I cut that out when I became an adult mostly. Although when I get nervous I joke around a lot at the doctor's office. Which I know sounds like, Randy you joke around all the time, but it's a fake Randy, I promise.

But their character was genuine. As believers they came and lived out the life of Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit, with the power that raised Christ. But genuinely, they were in their lives. They knew them. There was not this pretense to Paul. Well, there was tense to Paul, but not pretense. Sorry, he was a tent maker. Bad joke. I thought Gene would like that. Sorry, sorry. But you see, there's this seriousness to their lives that comes from a reality. They're real people in front of the church in Thessalonica.

We can be that way with one another or we can be pretentious. We can be somewhat superficial. We can always talk about the Rockies and the weather and never have to get into what's in our hearts. We can pray for the Rockies and we can pray for the weather and those are okay things but we can't stop there. We need to get to know one another so that somebody can say, oh hey you met Randy Peterman.

He's a really neat guy or watch out for him, he's a scoundrel. Whatever they say. But you really would know Randy Peterman. and you would really be able to say Randy Peterman was a real guy that I really knew and he had real problems and we really prayed about them together. And he lived out a real life. You need to go be nice to Randy or kick him in the shins or whatever it is because you know Randy. They knew Paul and Silvanus or Silas and they knew Timothy. They knew them. There's the NMC there. Bell's rung. Apparently I'm supposed to be done. That is actually the last slide, so I didn't manage to eek through. Well, it's the second to last slide.

Don't worry about that. In the end, when you walk away from this letter, and we're all done at the end of this semester, I hope that you find this love letter to the church in Thessalonica as awesome as I have found in preparing for it. These other guys that are going to be teaching are going to do a fantastic job. Bring your helmets next time, because you're just fall out of your chairs in amazement. Just kidding.

But let's go before the Lord in prayer and we'll close. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time in your Word. We thank you for the opportunity to grow. We ask that you would continue to show us these truths in our lives as opportunities, that your Holy Spirit would move through us and we would have works of faith. We would labor in love and we would live in hope. of your return and our time with you. We thank you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen.