05.08.2011 1 Thessalonians 1 - How to Experience Genuine Transformation

05.08.2011 Grace Summit Sermon - How to Experience Genuine Transformation (1 Thess. 1) from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

SermonAudioSermonAudio^^^^^^^^

Lord, thank You that You love us – thank You for the chance to celebrate Mothers’ Day and to be thankful for those who loved us – Thank You for the sacrifices that Moms make on a daily basis – to raise children who love You. Thank You for Your mercy – and Your relationship with us – and the opportunity to worship You to love You and know You and to experience this intimate relationship with You. Open Your word to us – speak to our hearts – that we can go forth and serve You faithfully, with joy, encouraged in all that You’ve done for us. Open our eyes to the opportunities to be of service to You – to minister to people whom you love - Help us to be alert to that to step into those opportunities. In Your name we pray.
1 Thessalonians – it is unique in some ways from all of Paul’s letters – more than any other letter – it is a narrative – He is telling their story – what happened when he went there. It is almost like a 20/20 news report – stating the facts, but in story form. It is believed that this is the first letter written. I hope you did your assignment this week.
Paul was in Thessalonica for a brief time – scholars estimate one to six months. Many are converted. The guy who is hosting them, Jason, gets arrested because of Paul – He probably had to pay a pledge – Paul sneaks out in the middle of the night – and the persecution remains. Had he stayed, they would have all been in trouble!
Paul ends up in Corinth – and writes this letter back. Paul is really concerned that he wasn’t there long enough to make things as solid as he would have liked. When someone you love is out and you can’t get to them. Like when you have kids who are traveling and you don’t know where they are – there is that anxiety – will they be okay? And that is what Paul is going through. There are rumors that people have gotten in there and saying bad things about Paul – who is this guy, who gets you in trouble and sneaks away in the middle of the night.
1Thessalonians 1:1 Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you. 2 We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. 3 We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia--your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
This is a story of transformation – how the gospel changed the lives of the people in Thessalonica. You know how encouraging it is when God changes someone’s life? We all have a story like that – if God is in your life – He has changed and transformed you! And often, as the years go by, we forget that story. And that is what has happened in Thessalonica – it was evident to everyone everywhere – it was so dramatic that the news spread. Every city he preached in, they are saying to him – did you hear about the Thessalonians?! They tell about your faith.
Here they are – having had a radical transformation – in the Roman capital of Macedonia – they were fully Roman – embracing the Roman culture – they were idol worshipers. They had many religions that they worshiped – embracing Roman sexual morality – meaning very little morality, but rather, sexual immorality. They were a violent people – and they embraced all of this, and TURNED from it. The word is repent. They stopped embracing the Roman culture and ways - but they didn’t just STOP – they STARTED worshiping God. They turned from idols to serve the living God. When someone is converted, there is a change in WHOM they worship. Too often, we focus on behavior – we want to see a person’s behavior transformed – but before that can take place – they have to change on the inside. There is a real temptation for us to preach a moralistic gospel in our culture. We look at all that is going on in the culture – and want to preach against it – but Jesus preached forgiveness first – and helped them turn to the living God first – and then the change can begin.
There are plenty of people who change their behavior – without changing the person they worship. They keep worshiping the same stuff. It has to begin with the change in our worship where we begin to worship God. This is important to understand because of culture. A recent survey said that 75% of Americans claim to be Christian. Two interesting things – 1) This is down 10% from 10 years ago. In the future, most that you come into contact with will not have a Christian background – and we need to learn to reach and minister to them. The second reality – we need to convert people out of civic or nominal Christianity – there are so many who are ‘I was baptized, confirmed, dedicated’ – but never having given themselves to God. They think they are okay – because they grew up in the church – who never came into a genuine relationship with Christ – and we need to help them in a kind, gracious, and understanding way. Those may be the most difficult to reach.
For the Thessalonians – let’s look at verse 2 We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. 3 We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Genuine faith produces good works – if a person believes, they should be different.
Ephesians 2: 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Genuine faith produces good works.
“Your labor prompted by love”
Labor – great effort to the point of exhaustion – the person of faith goes and does good works of love that will make you tired! Love makes us tired – is what he is saying. When it comes to loving people in this world, it will wear you out. Our tendency is to do a little bit of love. Paul is talking about a love that gets in there to keep working and doesn’t stop to do good in a person’s life. Really helping someone takes tremendous work and effort. And I think that is hard in our day and age. We like to do just enough – we have our own stuff going on – but love takes work.
How do you do this? How do you do labor of love works of faith? Ask what Jesus speaks of in Luke – Who is your neighbor? Who are the people God brings into your life with needs? That is your neighbor – both inside and outside the church. We need to look at people we know and to see the needs in their lives and then, labor of love means a commitment to meeting those needs. That will be hard work. At times, it will require patience with little fruit. So often, we want to do something for someone – and we think that once we do it – everything ought to be okay – but when you get in there, you see it is not okay – like peeling back the onion (that never stops unpeeling!) But that is how God is with us. God saves us – but years later, there is still so much to work on – and He keeps loving and working and bringing about change. We need to understand that about people we are loving – they won’t be perfect tomorrow or in twenty years! But the Thessalonians loved to exhaustion – for one another and those in their community.
He closes it off with ‘inspired by the hope in our Lord Jesus’ – Love that endures has to have a sense of hope and reward. At times, it won’t seem like there is any reward for what you are doing. There is a reward if you are doing it for Jesus – You will be rewarded eventually for all the labor you have done for His name. The quality of a person’s hope is seen when there is no hope in sight! When it looks like there is no reward – that is when the quality of that hope is exposed. Are you patient, knowing you will be rewarded eventually? If you don’t believe you will be rewarded eventually, you will stop. There is hope that God will reward. And it may not be in this life – but it may – but there will be a reward for all of your service.
The gospel was preached. He preached Jesus – not religion, not self-help, but the cross. Jesus died on the cross for our sins – preached on the reliance of the Holy Spirit with confidence, boldness and persuasion. They preached and lived the gospel. We didn’t just come in with a message, but we served you and laid down our life for you. When people live what they preach, people become followers of Christ, and that is what the Thessalonians did. They then became an example to others. When lives are transformed, the news gets out. People are drawn to the community when change takes place. You probably have stories of people noticing how different you have become – and that draws people to Christ. Yes, some will be repelled – but when that happens, the gospel spreads.
That is our hope – we want that to be our story at Grace Summit – lives transformed – no longer like the world – but people hearing about it and saying WOW! What has made the difference?!
Practicals – what will it look like? First – to have this transformation – and to be agents of transformation. We need to make sure we are not conformed to the broader culture in our own lives – being assimilated in. That sounds simple, but in many ways we are. We have adapted to the surrounding culture. We need to understand where our culture is – to look at it critically. We are not the Roman culture, but we are not a Christian culture either. We are probably more like a Roman culture. But we look out and think – we are much better than them! But we need to make the Bible our standard and guide for morality and ethics. It starts there. We need to be genuinely transformed people. Second – on the opposite side – we need to not become a Christian ghetto culture - - too often we build walled fortresses – holding the walls high, lobbing culture bombs over the wall, not knowing who it will hit and who it will hurt! That is not our job! We see things out there – and think – that is terrible! And we are provoked on the inside. There is a choice at that point – we can choose to pull back and throw a bomb over the wall – or we can engage – not assimilate, but engage, and minster in that area to those people. That is what Jesus did – He was always engaging people’s lives. We need to b in culture, not of culture – serving the common good of the culture through a different value and moral base. We are to bring heaven into this world – as agents of change and transformation – engaging in the world.
Finally, as we do that, we must be open and bold about our faith – and loving those who do not hold to it – and serving them. Then, in our discussion – we need to be civil in our approach and presentation of all things. It is okay to present the Christian perspective – but it must be done with civility, persuasion, conviction – and convincing – Patient – with gentleness correcting those in opposition. People get enough bombs thrown at them. Christ walks in and here is the woman getting bombs from the Pharisees – from the religious leaders – and Jesus throws a bomb back at them – let the first without sin cast the first stone. Forgiveness is always first.
Let’s pray.
Lord, start with us – change us – may we be transformed in You. Then – when we are transformed, make us agents of change in our world – those people you bring into our lives who are in need – help us to be alert to that and to put forth the effort, all the way through, to bring Christ to them by our actions and words. May we bring this life-changing message.