Sensitive Servanthood Series

• Our ministry here is run by faith. We trust God to provide.

• We know and come to see that where God guides, He provides.

• The Word teaches you already that you’re to give, so obey!

• You say, WELL I DON’T WANT TO GIVE… then don’t.

• But understand, you will answer to God for your giving.

What a testimony in v10… you guys are our witnesses! You know.

• Paul was a CONCERNED FATHER by both example & exhortation!

• We challenged you, comforted you and charged you!

• Time is short, the Lord coming is near…

• And Paul’s desire was their walk, their manner of life be worthy!

NOTE: That’s my heart for you. That your walk would be worthy, that it would be steady, that it would glorify Jesus Christ!

DL MOODY was convinced that total surrender to God was the key to successful ministry. It was only reinforced in the early years of his ministry when he heard the British evangelist Henry Varley say, “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to him.” -- Moody asked God to make him that man. And so do we today!

So a GENTLE MOTHER, A CONCERNED FATHER…

III. (2:13-16) ENCOURAGING FRIEND

2. (13-14) You Heard, Received, & Imitated

a. Now he commends them, because they heard, they received, and they acted upon it.

b. They received the Word of God, not the word of men!

c. You took in the truth and it effectively worked in you.

NOTE: That’s why I believe there is an all out assault to get you away from & out of God’s Word!

• Question it. Confuse it. Water it down. Misinterpret!

• That was his tactic in the garden of Eden, in Genesis 3.

Genesis 3.1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, ’You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?"

The Bible is an awesome BOOKS. Books? Yes.

• 66 books, 40 authors, 3 languages, 3 continents!

• Yet there are no contradictions!

• One theme: God’s undying love for man and His plan for man to have his sins forgiven and his eternal life secured!

THE Bible IS THE WORD OF TRUTH.

• Not only is it about Jesus, but Jesus validated it Himself.

• You know some of the very things that man denies, Jesus affirmed?!

• For the sake of you note takers and for the CD I want to list them out for you. READY?

Jonah – Matt 12:40 Adam & Eve – Matthew 19:4

Abel – Matthew 23:35 Daniel – Matthew 24:15

Elijah – Luke 4;25 Global Flood – Luke 17:27

Moses - Luke 20:37 Sodom/Lot – Luke 17:28-29

Matthew 24.35 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

NOTE: God’s Word is truly so effective & powerful guys.

• I look around at the work God is doing here among us and I’m just in awe of His faithfulness.

• I’m just a knucklehead. What am I doing in the pulpit?!

• I’m teaching the Word and watching God do the work!

• If you read it. If you study it. If you take heed to it.

• God’s Word will accomplish His work! Stick with it gang!

And their commitment to Jesus and His word brought great persecution… v14-16