Godly Examples

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Transcript:

1 Thessalonians chapter 2. We’re going to look at the second part of the chapter, the part that we did not read and study last Sunday night, starting in verse 13. Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica, For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God, which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us. And they do not please God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved.

so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, and endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire, therefore we wanted to come to you. Even I, Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us.

For what is our hope, our joy, or crown of rejoicing? is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming? For you are our glory and joy.

So he’s writing to the church at Thessalonica here, and over the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2, and we’ve seen how Paul commends the church at Thessalonica in chapter 1 for the good start that they had. And if we go back to that message, it doesn’t mean that they, you know, from the very beginning of their life that they started well, but there was a very definite time of turning in their lives, a very definite point where they walked away from their idols, they walked away from their old sinful ways, and instead said, we’re going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. They were turning from idols to the one true God, and we’re going to serve him through Jesus Christ. And then last week, we looked at how they served, and one of the ways that they had made good use of the time that they had.

Not knowing when Christ was going to be returning, they made good use of the time they had by serving. And Paul commends them to serve, and he gives an example from his own life of what it means to serve, even in the midst of difficulty, you know, to not be dissuaded. It’s really easy to serve when people are appreciative, when things are pleasant, when it’s easy.

But it gets a lot harder to serve when God calls us to do something we don’t want to do, or people are unappreciative, people are cranky. And yet the church at Thessalonica, just like Paul himself, they weren’t dissuaded from serving when these challenges arose. because they ultimately realized that their service was not to people, or it was not to please people, but it was to please God.

And when we look at what we do not as something that’s going to please people, but is meant to please God, then when people aren’t happy with the way we serve, and they’re critical, and they’re ungrateful, and all these other words that we could throw out, then it makes it harder to walk away, because it wasn’t really for them in the first place. And now we come to this point where Paul is thinking back over his memories of the church at Thessalonica, his time there being far too short. He says, you know, we wanted to stay with you.

In verse 17, he talks about having been taken away from you for a short time in presence but not in heart. Paul was required to leave Thessalonica much earlier than he’d planned on. He wanted to stay there much longer, investing his life in the people of Thessalonica.

And even since then, he’s wanted to return to them to continue discipling them, to continue helping them to grow in the truth. But for a number of reasons, he’s not been able to return. He says, even Satan has hindered us.

And what we’ll find is Satan won’t mess with you when you’re not doing anything, right? He won’t mess with you when you’re not being effective. If you’re just laying around waiting for Jesus to come back, which some in Thessalonica later on would do, if you’re just laying around waiting for Jesus to come back, Satan’s pretty much going to leave you alone.

But when Satan saw the potential for Paul to go and minister to these people, and saw the potential for the growth of the kingdom through Paul’s ministry there, then Satan began to throw up roadblocks. Now, ultimately, Satan’s not all that powerful. Now, compared to us, he is.

You know, you don’t want to mess with Satan. But at the same time, Satan’s not that powerful compared to God. You know, the world has this idea that God and Satan are evenly matched, good versus evil.

No, God at any time, Satan’s done. And just with the words of his mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ will one day defeat Satan. And then God is going to lock him in the lake of fire for all of eternity.

Satan’s not in charge in hell, by the way, folks. Hell is not a place where Satan is in charge and he’s running around tormenting people. Satan himself is being punished in that lake of fire for all eternity.

God is sovereign. God is in control. And I was listening yesterday while I was out working on refinishing some chairs in the garage.

I was listening to Charles Swindoll, Chuck Swindoll, preach. I don’t know why so formal. Chuck Swindoll preaching on the radio. And he was talking about the book of Job, preaching through the.

. . No, I’m getting two people mixed up.

Never mind, that was from Brooklyn Tabernacle. Anyway, I did listen to Chuck Swindoll, but it was a message from Brooklyn Tabernacle about the book of Job. And the man who was preaching was talking about the beginning of the book of Job, where Satan is required to come and present himself to God, and is required to come and give an account of all that he’s doing and all that he’s up to.

And when Satan challenges God and when Satan challenges God over Job, God relents and allows Satan to test Job. Allows Satan, but he says, you can go take everything from him, but don’t touch him physically. You see, even Satan has to get God’s permission.

Then he comes back to God and God says, fine, you can touch him physically, but don’t kill him. You say, why am I bringing this up to you about Job? because we’ve got to realize too that Satan can’t do anything to us without permission.

Now that doesn’t mean that it’s any less devastating when Satan starts to throw roadblocks in our path, but we’ve got to remember that even when it looks like Satan’s at his most powerful, God is still ultimately in control. Satan can’t do anything that God hasn’t said, okay, I’ll allow you to go this far. Now, why does God allow him to get by with things?

There’s a number of reasons we could spend a whole message on that alone. Sometimes it’s to change us and to grow us. Sometimes it’s to stop us from getting involved in something even worse.

There’s any number of reasons why God allows Satan to do the things that he does. But what we need to understand for our purposes tonight is that Paul’s saying here that Satan prevented me from coming. Satan can’t prevent you unless God gives him permission to prevent you.

So even when it feels like Satan is just at his most powerful and he’s stopping us from doing what we want to do and he’s stopping us from doing what we ought to do, we’ve got to remember that Satan’s got nothing on God. And even when Satan feels like he’s at his most powerful, God is still on the throne. All right, so he says, Paul says, I had to leave you sooner than I’d planned on.

He was run out of town as he was run out of many places. He’s tried multiple times to come back and see the people at Thessalonica, and yet he’s been prevented. He has not been able to get back to them.

And all Paul really wanted to do was spend some time with the people at Thessalonica and help them to grow spiritually. These were, in a spiritual sense, these were his kids. He had helped birth them into the family of God.

He had led many of these people to Christ. He’d helped found the church there at Thessalonica. He had a vested interest in these people. It’s not like today where you might lead somebody to Christ and you’re on your own.

No, he had a vested interest in their spiritual growth, and he’s desperate to get back to them, and he can’t. And so he relies on what he hears, what messages come back from Thessalonica to him, and he says, we thank God without ceasing. When we think about you, we thank God without ceasing.

There’s no end to the joy in our hearts and the thanksgiving that we give to God when we hear about what’s going on in your midst and when we think about what happened in your midst when we were there. What had happened when Paul was there? He said, you received the word of God which you heard from us, and you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.

Now this debate still rages today. We talked about this just a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning. Is the Bible the word of men or is it the word of God?

I read an article this week from an ostensibly Christian writer who was criticizing the idea of inerrancy. You know, when we say the word of God is inerrant, we mean the original manuscripts that they wrote down had no errors in them of anything they talk about. You know, if God’s Word said, this is the way it is on a spiritual matter, that’s the way it is on a spiritual matter.

But by the way, if it says this is the way it is on a historical matter or a scientific matter, then that’s the way it is. You know, the Bible, on anything it discusses, has no errors in it when you look at the original manuscripts. And we don’t still have the original manuscripts, but we have enough copies that we can pretty well piece together what they said with a high degree of reliability.

So the original writings were completely without error, and what we hold in our hands today is a reliable transmission of that message. And he was attacking this idea of inerrancy from the standpoint of the Bible clearly is just a book written by men. Well, no kidding.

I mean, it says it was written by men, but that doesn’t mean it’s a human book. The Bible itself says that these things were written down by holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. That it says all Scripture is breathed, is inspired by God.

I said breathed there because that word for inspired is theonoustos, meaning breathed out by God. That yes, people sat down and put pen to paper. God didn’t just send a brook down from heaven floating down on a cloud for us.

There were people that sat there and put pen to paper or papyrus, quill to papyrus, whatever they used at the time, vellum. but God oversaw the whole process. This debate still rages today, and it really comes down to either you believe the Bible or you don’t.

And he said one of the things that he was glad of is when they heard the gospel, when they heard the gospel that Paul preached, they received it not as the word of men. They recognized that what Paul was preaching was not human opinion, but the gospel was the word of God. It was inspired by God.

He said, I’m thankful that when you heard this message, you welcomed it. You received the word of God, which you heard from us. You welcomed it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, as it really is the word of God.

He said, I’m thankful that you were willing to take what you heard from us and receive it for what it really was. It was not the word of men. It was the word of God.

He says here further in verse 13, which also effectively works in you who believe. So that’s one of the things about the Word of God that sets it apart from other influences, from other writings, from other teachings, is the Word of God, it also says, is sharp and powerful, quick and powerful, like a two-edged sword. The Bible is alive.

I know a lot of times when we hear the phrase living document, that’s said by people who want to reinterpret things and change what they mean, whether it’s the Constitution. We hear that a lot with the Constitution. It’s a living document.

It needs to mean what we think it means, not what it means when they, what it meant when they wrote it down. People will say the same thing with the Bible. It’s a living document.

Doesn’t mean what Paul meant when he wrote it down. It means what we think it should mean today. That’s not what I mean when I say the Bible is alive.

I mean, there is power in God’s word. There’s power in every word that was uttered by God and written down by these men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And the Bible, because the word of God is alive, his word has power to influence us and change us.

I am a very stubborn man. You may not realize it because I pray very hard for God to make me gracious in dealing with other people, but my wife can tell you and my mother can tell you, I’m very stubborn. Once I decide this is the way it is, I don’t change my ideas and I don’t change my opinions.

And yet I come to this book and I find myself time after time changed in some thought, in some attitude, in some behavior where nobody else is going to change my opinion. And yet this book, The Word of God has the power to do it. From my own life, I can’t give you.

. . It would be hard to find any higher evidence than that, that it can change the heart of a stubborn person like myself.

And why is that? You know, I don’t go. .

. I read a lot of books. I don’t sit down and read them all cover to cover, But I sit down and read at books and read articles, and a lot of times I’ll think, oh, that might be a good point, something I’ll read.

Or I’ll read an article and say, that’s absolute drivel. I don’t care what you said. It’s ridiculous.

I don’t do that with this book. God’s Word has the power to change our hearts. And not just me as a Christian.

I mean, we heard testimony a few weeks ago from Brother Scott, who came with the Gideons. And we’ve heard other Gideon speakers before of people whose lives were changed. Their hearts were totally transformed in an instant as they sat down in a hotel room or in a motel room or in a hospital waiting room and picked up a copy of God’s Word.

Somebody who was 180 degrees diametrically opposed to the things of God in their lives picked up that book and their lives, their hearts were transformed because that Word is alive. And that’s what, even though it wasn’t in its written form yet, at the time he’s writing the New Testament and talking about the things that have happened, they didn’t have the New Testament already in written form yet. It’s being written now.

But the message of the gospel that was being preached is what we find in these pages. And the word of God is alive and it changed the hearts of the people at Thessalonica. And as a result of this, as a result of being influenced by God’s word, it says in verse 14 that they became imitators, the people at the church at Thessalonica, they became imitators of the churches at Judea.

So under the influence of the word of God, they came under the influence of others who were doing what God said to do. The churches of God which are in Judea in Jesus Christ, he said you suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just like they did, just like the Judeans. The churches in Judea had suffered.

We know a lot about the churches at Judea. You say, I don’t know about Judea. Jerusalem was located in Judea.

So when we know what happened to the apostles in the earliest days in the book of Acts, that’s what he’s talking about, those churches in Judea. These were the people, the Judeans, were the people who had first persecuted Christianity. The Judeans were the ones who had gone out and arranged and collaborated, colluded, if you want to use today’s terminology, colluded with the Romans to put Jesus to death.

And then they were the ones who had denied the resurrection. They were the ones who started a ruckus every time they went out preaching the resurrection, and they were beating Christians in the streets, and they were saying that the Christians started it and getting them thrown in jail. They were the ones who Paul knew all about this because Paul was one of the Judeans.

He wasn’t originally from Judea, but he was there. And he worked with the religious authorities in Judea to get permission to go out elsewhere and arrest Christians and bring them back to stand trial in a kangaroo court so that they could be killed. There was intense, intense persecution of the churches in Judea, beginning with Jesus and his apostles, but also the regular people whose names we don’t know.

There was intense persecution of these churches by their neighbors, and yet by and large they stood firm, and they stood steadfast. And they remained with what, you know, they refused to recant. They refused to abandon their faith, even at great personal cost. And we know this because God had told them, go and spread the gospel everywhere. And they said, no, we kind of like it right here.

So they weren’t so faithful in that aspect. We kind of like being gathered right here in Jerusalem. Let’s keep all the salt in the salt shaker.

And God said, no, you’re supposed to spread it around. No, we’re going to keep all the salt in the salt shaker. And God said, you’re going to spread it around one way, the hard way or the easy way.

Well, they chose the hard way, and God sent particularly intense persecution so that they’d be scattered. But guess what? that any one of them could have saved their lives or made their lives certainly easier if they’d said, you know, why don’t we just forget about this Jesus thing?

That’s not what they did. They were scattered and persecuted for preaching the name of Jesus Christ. So what they do is they were scattered. They went elsewhere and everywhere they went, they preached about Jesus Christ. So as much as we’d like to fault the churches in Judea for staying put when God told them to move, At least once he finally moved them, they did what he wanted them to do.

And they preached Jesus. And they had become a great example of what it means to be faithful. And they were somebody that the churches at Thessalonica, the church at Thessalonica, could rightly look to and say, we need to be doing the kinds of things that they did.

And even in the midst of this persecution, where they were killing, they killed Jesus Christ, they killed their own prophets, They’ve persecuted everybody. There was a long history even before Jesus that many times God would send a messenger to his people, would send a prophet to his people, and they didn’t like the message, and so they persecuted him. And even in the midst of this, as they’re being forbidden to preach the name of Jesus, they’re being forbidden to go and speak to the Gentiles in order to bring them to faith in Jesus, They’re being forbidden to do anything that God wants them to do.

They continued to do what God wanted them to do, not what the people wanted them to do. Because it says that they do not, in verse 15, they do not, scratch that. I was looking at the wrong spot.

But ultimately they realized that their ministry was not to please the other people around them, their neighbors, it was to please God. And in the book of Acts we see it recorded where they tell the apostles tell the religious authorities we ought to obey God rather than men and so this was a tremendous example see Thessalonica was doing well because they were looking to the right kinds of examples they were looking to the right kinds of examples they were looking to God’s word as it had been preached by the apostle Paul and let me tell you there’s no better example that you can look to than God’s word. I just don’t know what God’s will is for my life.

Read his word. I don’t know what God wants me to do. Read his word.

I don’t know how to have victory over this temptation. Read his word. He’ll tell you.

You read his word. You study his word. You apply his word to your life.

It will not steer you wrong. And then you find just like they did other examples of people who are being true to his word and you follow their examples. You look to godly examples.

That’s one of the reasons for me why it’s so important to have my children involved in a church. Not because I’m the pastor. I’d have them involved anyway because I want my kids being influenced by grown-ups who love Jesus Christ in hopes that they’ll grow up to be grown-ups who love Jesus Christ. Now are y’all perfect?

probably not Julie is okay Julie says she is no none of us are perfect but I want them to be around people I want them to be around grown ups besides mom and dad who love Jesus Christ and who reinforce the things that we’re trying to teach because I want them to have examples to follow I had examples to follow not only in the faith but in ministry you know I didn’t I didn’t start any kind of formal Bible training in the sense of Bible college or seminary or anything like that until I had already been a pastor for years and years where I learned how to do ministry was by looking at some good examples of men doing ministry I think I’ve told you before where I really got started was to annoy the living daylights out of the staff at the church where I grew up. Some of y’all don’t find that hard to believe. I annoy the living daylights out of you all here.

When I was in high school, I knew that God had called me to ministry. And once I finally accepted that and came to terms with it, that was not my plan, not my goal. I’ve told you before, I was going to go into politics, and I’m so glad now that I didn’t, because things have gotten so ugly. No thank you.

No thank you. But when I finally came to terms with what God wanted instead of what I wanted and said, okay, let’s learn how to do this ministry thing. I started following our youth pastor at church and our pastor at church and our music minister at church.

Started following them around like a lost puppy dog. After school, when I didn’t have to go work at the grocery store, I’d be up at the church. During the summer, I was up at the church with them.

On my lunches from school, I’d go up to the church. Anytime there’s a church activity, I’d be there with them. When they’d go do hospital calls, I’d go with them.

Learn how to do hospital calls that way. Some little old lady who didn’t know how to change the bulb in her headlights on her car. We’d bring them up to the church and beg for somebody to help her, and we’d go out and change her headlights.

And one of them would look at me and say, you know what this is? Say, a nuisance? No, no, it’s not a nuisance.

It’s ministry. You’re serving other people in the name of Jesus Christ. I learned to do ministry by looking at men who were doing it and learning from their example of men who didn’t just do ministry on Sunday, of men who didn’t just talk about ministry, didn’t just limit their ministry to what they did in the pulpit, but men who were living it out day by day, serving others in the name of Jesus. I followed them, and I followed their example, and that’s how I learned.

And I want my children to learn from the example of adults. Just as I learned from the example of ministers who were serving in that way, I want my children to learn from the example of adults, whether they go into ministry or not, to learn from the example of adults who love the Lord Jesus Christ in hopes that that gives them something to aim for, that they’ll grow into adults who love the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s my goal. That’s my prayer for them. And that’s what Paul was saying here.

They had grasped hold of God’s word. They were under the influence of God’s word and it taught them to seek out these godly examples. And I tell you what, for them to live as they did in the Greco-Roman world, in this pagan world that hated Jesus Christ, the church at Thessalonica was going to need some examples of what it meant to serve God in a hostile culture.

And thank God for their sake that they sought out the example of the church at Judea, the churches in Judea, because they knew what it meant. to put themselves on the line for their faith. They knew what it meant to say, I’ve decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.

To paraphrase the song that we sing sometimes during invitation. There’s no turning back. We’re all in here.

Doesn’t matter what the Roman government throws at us. Doesn’t matter what the Jewish mobs throw at us. Doesn’t matter what the pagan mobs throw at us.

Here we stand. And they were able to learn that and they were able to do that because they followed the example of the churches in Judea. in spite of what it says in verse 16, that the authorities and those around them were forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved.

So as always to fill up the measure of their sins, that wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. Realizing that God’s going to take care of these things. That these who want to challenge us, these who want to persecute us, God’s going to deal with them. That’s not for us to deal with.

God’s going to deal with them. Our calling is to be faithful. And to do that, we can look to these examples.

He said, but we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, he says, our hearts are still with you, even though our bodies are not, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. They just, Paul wanted to get back to them and continue teaching them and continue. Part of that was teaching them by example.

As you read through this book, time after time, he talks about the stuff that he’s been through in serving Christ. even before he came to Thessalonica. And he uses his example. Therefore, we wanted to come to you, verse 18, even I, Paul, time and again, that Satan hindered us.

And he says in verse 19, this is important, for what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? What do we have to rejoice in? What do we have to be excited about?

Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? See, Paul’s looking forward to the day that they all stood before the Lord Jesus Christ and he was able to rejoice, not only in his own salvation, but to rejoice in the fact that the people from Thessalonica were there with him at the foot of the cross, at the foot of the throne, worshiping Jesus Christ, worshiping the Lamb around the throne with him. What reason do I have to rejoice?

Because look at these people who once were pagans, who once were hostile toward God, who once were filled with hate toward the things of God, and yet their hearts have been softened by the preaching of the gospel, the calling of the Holy Spirit, and now they too stand changed and washed in the blood of the Lamb, and now we all stand together as sinners who have been washed white as snow by the blood of the Lamb, and we all stand redeemed together in the presence of Jesus. He says, for you are our glory and joy. Paul said, you’re what we rejoice in.

and that takes nothing away from God being the source of our joy he’s saying what’s really important about my ministry what have I really accomplished on earth he said I can point to you I can point to what time we’ve invested with you and what God has used us to accomplish to accomplish in your midst you’re our glory and joy you’re our reason for celebrating The work that God is doing in you and the small part we had in that is our reason for celebrating. It’s our reason for boasting. Hey, what’s my greatest accomplishment?

Look at how God has used me in this way. Now, that’s not a boasting way because we’re still just tools in the hands of God. He’s the one who does the work.

God allowed me to have a small part in what he did among the Thessalonians. Paul is anxious to get back to them so that he can continue to influence them as well. We see three major influencers here on the church at Thessalonica that contributed to their spiritual growth.

They had the Word of God, they had the Apostle Paul, and they had the churches at Judea. One of the things that allowed them to finish well is that they were looking to good examples and they were following those examples. Now the world is only too happy to tell us how to live, right?

how we should live our lives to be better people, to be more fulfilled, to be wealthier, to be more popular, to be more stylish, whatever it may be. The world is only too happy to throw out all sorts of opinions about how we ought to live our life. And we can look to any number of examples that we think are going to give us a better life.

It’s horrifying to me sometimes to stand in line at the grocery store and see the magazines. and sometimes you have to avert your eyes from the magazines. But when you can actually look at them, you see some of the.

. . When you can actually look at them because the pictures are not all that risque, you see sometimes the headlines that are on there and the articles that they’ve written and things that, you know, are supposed to be.

. . You know, pattern your life after this person.

Here’s so-and-so’s tips to a better life. You can run out tonight and find any number of examples of how to live your life. People that you can pattern your life after.

People that can inspire you to follow in their footsteps. But folks, if we want to finish well, if we want to make sure that we take whatever amount of time we have, whatever amount of energy, whatever amount of resources, whatever it may be, if we want to take what we have left on this earth, whether it’s five minutes or 50 years, and we want to put it to good use, glorifying Jesus Christ, and advancing his kingdom. If we want to finish well, one of the best things we can do is choose the right examples to pattern our life after.

Now they had, again, the word of God, they had the Apostle Paul, and they had the churches in Judea. We also have the word of God. We have this book right here that tells us all that we need to know in order to live a godly life and to please him.

If we pattern our lives after the example taught in this book, we can’t go wrong. We also have the Lord Jesus Christ. And coincidentally, we see the written record of his life in this book. Do you know what God’s will is for each believer?

And we don’t even have to pray about this. He tells us this is his will for us. So we’d be more like Jesus.

We need to look at the things that Jesus did. We need to look at the things he taught, the things he said, the ways he reacted to things. And we need to pattern our lives after that.

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