Stand Firm In The Lord!

God got a hold of my heart through the gospel, and light started to break into my family.

A few years later my brother Craig, trying to ‘unconvert’ me, trying to ‘fix’ me, examined the gospel up close, and much to my parent’s chagrin, Craig became a Christian. The first is a sign of more to come.

The Thessalonians were the first to come to Jesus, and they are being reminded that many others will come, and that they themselves are a sign, a guarantee that there is more to come!

You may have been the first in your family to come to faith in Jesus.

Or maybe someone else was the firstfruit and you were part of the promise of the firstfruit fulfilled.

You’re either the firstfruit or you’re the fulfillment of the promise that the firstfruit contained-that more good was coming.

Whatever the situation, we know that God wants each person in this church to be a forerunner, to be a sign of the promise of more salvation to come. (Pause)

I hope you share your faith with your friends. I hope you’re ready when someone asks you why you are a follower of Jesus.

If you don’t feel ready, just think about it. “Why do I follow Jesus? How has he been good to me? How has He been faithful to me?”

Answering your own questions can give you the seed of your testimony to others as to why you love the Lord. Understanding, believing, living.

God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

You came to faith in Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit, drawing you to Jesus. That’s called grace. Specifically, that’s called prevenient grace.

God calls you, He woos you, and you respond because the Spirit of God is at work, and you come to believe in the truth of Jesus.

You develop a profound conviction that God loves you so much that He gave His only Son for you. That Christ’s sacrifice was for YOUR sins.

You are blown away by this revelation, and you respond with a mustard seed of faith. As you keep trusting Jesus that little seed of faith blossoms and becomes a mountain.

Jesus becomes your source of hope, your source of joy, your source of encouragement, or purpose. He becomes key to your world.

You see verse 10 of 2 Thessalonians chapter says that people “...Perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved”.

People who are presented with the same gospel, with the same witness of transformed and transforming lives, people respond differently.

What’s the difference between a person who is saved, who comes to be a follower of Jesus, and one who does not?

One who hears the gospel and is moved and transformed and one who hears the gospel and couldn’t care less?

The one who does not believe “refuses to love the truth and so be saved”.

Who is the truth that saves us? Jesus Christ Himself. What is the truth that saves us? That He gave His life for you and me.

So the one who is not in the end saved is the one who in the end “refuses to love the truth and so be saved”.

It’s their choice as to how they respond to the grace of God. “God...wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”. (1 Tim 2:3-4)