I Thessalonians 213-16
Just after Janet and I had started to date she went to live in France for a year. One day while I was at UUJ I was standing at the bus turning circle at the Loughshore when I noticed this girl coming towards me. I thought she looks very like Janet but it can’t be because she is in Bonnville in France. Sure enough it was Janet and as you can imagine she was warmly welcomed. In verse 13 of this second chapter Paul speaks about the Warm Welcome that the Word of God received from the Thessalonians. And that is the title I want to give to point 1: A Warm Welcome.
Verse 13 – A Warm Welcome. Once again Paul praises God for the Thessalonians. We have read in chapter 1 the reasons for these thanksgivings – namely their conversion and perseverance in the gospel. They had become a gospel church because Paul had a gospel ministry amongst them. They are a changed people. They had been transformed by the gospel from dead religious worshippers to spirit filled believers. Paul goes on in this verse to cite their wholehearted welcome of the Word of God. They had welcomed it not as the words of men but as the Word of God. They heard Paul and Silas preach and they heard not their words but God speak. They did more than actually listen with their ears, they listened with hearts and minds and so they heard God speak.
Illustration: Advertisement for business men. Title: There is a lot more to listening than hearing! Do you realise that the brain can think 4 times quicker than anyone can speak? Therefore we are easily distracted when we listen to preaching. We need to actually discipline ourselves to listen. Yes the preacher has his part to play in making the message come alive but the hearer has his part to play also – to truly listen, to concentrate, to evaluate and to respond. Listening to the Word of God is not a passive thing but an active thing. We must work at it – just as I have to work at putting the message across so you must work at listening to the message. Paul commended the believers at Thessalonica because they did the following:
Appreciated the Word of God – they realised it was not just Paul speaking but god speaking. They appreciated from whom the message actually came. That is why Paul can say of them you accepted it as the Word of God and not the word of men. Can I say to you the way you treat the bible reflects your spiritual state. Can I suggest to you the way you treat the reading and preaching of God’s Word reflects the state of your heart this morning. Oh I know we preachers can be awfully boring – we never intend to be, contrary to popular opinion. Paul praises God that the Thessalonians appreciated the Word of God.
Appropriated the Word of God – these people not only heard the Word with their ears but with their hearts and with their minds and they lived it out in their lives – their wills were affected by it. May is say to you 95% of what I will say this morning you will hear only with your ears. It will go in one ear and out the other as we say. It is not that there is nothing in between to stop it – it is just that we have all gotten so use to hearing but not listening to the Word of God that we actually do not know the voice of God anymore. Our ears have become dull because our hearts and minds have become dull to the Word of God. Not the Thessalonians – they heard with their ears, they understood with their minds, they evaluated with their hearts and they responded with their wills to the Word of God which Paul preached to them.
Applied the Word of God– well you just have to go back to chapter 1 to see how they applied the Word of God to their lives. They were a transformed people. As James says in chapter 119-25 of his letter they became ‘doers’ and not just ‘hearers’ of the Word. They applied the Word of God to their daily lives. They lived it out. They heard the Word of God and they applied it to their daily living – that took time, concentration and effort – all of their faculties were used – hearing, understanding, response of heart, mind and will. The Thessalonians could answer ‘Yes’ to the question:
Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength and do you love your neighbour as yourself? How? Because they applied the Word of God and were not just hearers of it.
Verse 14 – the result is that they became imitators of the gospel in their lives. They became godly people. That is the purpose of the Word of God – to bring us to salvation and to transform us daily into the image of Christ. We are to daily become more godly. If you are not growing in godliness then there is something wrong spiritually. If you are still committing the same sin that you were this time last year then you have not truly repented – that is you have said sorry but you have not turned away from it – nor sought God’s help in turning away from it. Repentance is much more than saying sorry – it is doing an about turn and resolving with the help of the Holy Spirit not to do it again. You see the believers at Thessalonica were transformed and as a result they ceased to conform to the pattern of the world in which they lived. The result was opposition from those not of the kingdom of God. The Thessalonians became more godly and because of this they faced opposition. This leads me to my second and final point:
A Cold Shoulder.
Have you ever been snubbed? It is a pretty painful experience. Someone turns their back on you when you go to talk to them. You are embarrassed and the wound cuts very deeply. But what is even more painful is when you live a godly life, you strive to obey God, you are actually walking in the will of God and you face opposition. The Thessalonians knew all about opposition – in fact it was persecution. Paul says to them – you are in good company. They persecuted the prophets of old, the persecuted Jesus, even to death on the cross, they are persecuting the church in Judea and now you are being persecuted. Brethren you are in good company. Paul was only relaying to them exactly what Jesus said – they will persecute you because they do not know me. You see Jesus said in John’s gospel that his sheep knew his voice, they heard it and they obeyed it – but those who were not and are not his sheep well they hear only the words of men and not of God and they oppose it. You see persecution inevitably arises when you follow Christ and you base your life on his. Paul with all tenderness reminds them they are not the first and they are not alone in this experience. He points to the Judean Christians as an example of the people of Christ living under persecution. Paul knew this from both sides – he at one time was the persecutor and now he had become the persecuted. In these verses, 14-16, Paul wants the Thessalonians to realise that they are not alone, that they not only have God’s people around them but they also have God’s Word within them. These two things help them face this persecution.
Paul is not being anti-Semitic when he points out that the Jews persecuted and executed Jesus and the prophets. He simply stating historical facts. The Jews were the main opponents of Christ and they were the instigators of his crucifixion. They persecuted the followers of Christ – Paul at the stoning of Stephen being an example. They opposed the preaching of the gospel vehemently. Paul says to the Thessalonians – look it happened to the prophets, it happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, it is happening to the Christians in Judea why should you be exempt. With the gospel comes opposition. Friends it is no different today and we would be fools to believe otherwise. This world is never going to embrace the gospel – it is sinful and will oppose it. We are fools to believe that our government, that the media, that popular opinion is in favour of the gospel they are not. In fact the very opposite is true – they are downright hostile to it. Look at the TV programmes how are Christians portrayed – either weak do-gooders who are actually hypocrites or fundamentalist bigots. Never portrayed as balanced people. The world hates you because it first hated me Jesus said to his disciples and to us. You see Paul is saying to the Thessalonians don’t be elastic Christians. Don’t conform to this world just because you face opposition. Follow the example of Christ and the imitate the Judean Christians – stand firm in the face of the opposition. Paul had set them an example, the Judean Christians set an example and most importantly so did Christ Jesus – as Paul says in Philippians 2 READ. So stand firm brethren.
Finally in verse 16 Paul sends out a warning to the persecutors. All you are doing is heaping up sin upon sin and when the wrath of God comes it will burst upon your head. They fill up their sins to a divinely appointed level and then the day will dawn and the clouds will part and the Lord will return and the wrath of God will fall on all those who are not in Christ Jesus and it will fall on all of those who have opposed the gospel and persecuted the believers. Just as in the days of Noah – the divinely appointed measure of sinfulness had been attained. Listen to what God said in Genesis 67 READ, and if you go on to read chapter 7 to 9 you hear God say about the wickedness of mankind and he has had his fill and he destroys them. A little later in Genesis it is the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah who have reached the limit of their sinfulness and God destroys them. When the Egyptians go into the Red Sea which God has parted for his people they are destroyed their sinfulness had reached its limit. The nations God commanded Israel to destroy – read what God says about tier sinfulness. So it will be at the last day – the trumpet will sound and the shout of the Lord will be ‘enough’. This world will have reached its divinely appointed limit for sin and Christ will return bringing salvation to His people and the wrath of God on those who are not.
Friends do not believe the lie of satan that this life is getting better. Our standard of living may be rising. We may have better health, more wealth, better education and opportunities than our forefathers but we are as sinful, in fact we are heaping more sin upon their sin and the limit of God’s divine plan is nearing its end. The wrath of God is coming Paul says – in fact it has already come – by that he means you only have to look at the Cross of Christ to see how God deals with sin. Death and abandonment. Yes the cross atoned for our sin. Yes it opened the way to God the father through the shedding of the blood of Christ the Son but he died, he was abandoned by God, he descended into hell – that is the result of sin. That is the wrath of God being poured out on sin and friends it will come again as surely as he rose from the grave and ascended into heaven. The wrath is coming Paul says and as believers stand firm. You welcomed the Word of God and the world gave you the cold shoulder. But friends, says Paul, the wrath of God is coming on the world so embrace the Word of God all the more.
Application
I think it is so obvious I hardly need to state it but I will. Friends we need to embrace the Word of God. We need to welcome it into our hearts, minds and lives. We need to do more than just hear it with our ears. We need to understand it with our minds, evaluate it with our hearts and respond to it with our wills. Friends we need to embrace with all our being the Word of God – Jesus Christ the Word made flesh and dwelt among – that we might be saved from our sins and delivered from the wrath to come.
Do not be dismayed when the world gives you the cold shoulder – you are not alone in the history of the Christian faith. They did it to the OT prophets, they did it to our Lord Jesus Christ, they did it to the church of Judea and the Thessalonians – why should you be any different. Be not dismayed stand firm because all the world is doing is heaping sin upon sin and the day of the Lord is nearer than ever and the wrath of God will burst upon them.
