Participants: Jon Paulien & Jon Ciccarelli
Series Code: TBOTB
Program Code: TBOTB000004B
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00:00 Hi and welcome back to Books of the Book where
00:03 we are studying 1 Thessalonians. 00:04 We are going to pick it up now Jon, with verse 5. 00:07 Let me read that for us. 00:23 Alright, so he here, he is giving reasons why he is 00:27 thankful, as I mentioned previously this is all one 00:31 sentence and he is thankful, that is the main sense. 00:34 I give thanks, I give thanks for all these things. 00:38 One of them is that the gospel did not come to them in 00:41 Word only, but in power and the Holy Spirit 00:45 with much certainty. 00:48 So Paul can see when they received the Gospel 00:50 they were changed people. - Yeah! 00:53 The Gospel is not changed, the Gospel is what God has 00:56 done, what Christ has done. 00:57 But change in our lives is evidence that God is 01:00 working and so he saw outward evidences that they had 01:07 power they didn't have before. 01:09 Inward evidences, there was certainty, they had and an 01:13 assurance, a confidence that they didn't have before. 01:17 So there was outward and inward evidence in their lives. 01:20 That is often how you can see God is working in someone's 01:24 life, you see the fruit, the Bible calls it the fruit of 01:27 the Holy Spirit, that love and patience, kindness 01:31 gentleness, I mean there is a whole list of them there. 01:34 Jesus Himself said, a good tree produces good fruit, 01:38 inside and out. 01:40 Well what better evidence do you have that God is working 01:43 in your life then love, peace, patience, long- 01:49 suffering, and stuff like that. 01:51 That is not normal for human beings, it isn't natural, 01:55 it doesn't come easy for us. 01:57 When that happens in our lives it is a miracle of God. 02:01 Paul was observing those miracles going on, and I want to 02:05 point out one word toward the end that it isn't usually 02:08 translated this way, but in the last line of verse five, 02:13 it says, "just as you know what we became among you for 02:17 your sakes. " Now usually that is translated, what we were 02:21 among you, but you see English has a difference between is 02:26 and become. - Okay! 02:29 Greek has a difference too, emi and getomi. 02:32 Paul here doesn't use the normal word for just being. 02:36 It is the word for becoming. 02:38 So he is emphasizing over and over, it occurs five or six 02:43 times in his first two chapters about becoming, becoming. 02:47 There was a transformation, there was a change, things 02:52 were moving in the Thessalonians 02:54 It must've been an unusual church, Paul is so excited by 02:57 this and maybe this is an experience he didn't often have 03:00 in his preaching of how people's lives were transformed 03:05 in this way and we want to emphasize that word became. 03:08 That is why in my translation I bring out that nuance 03:12 over and over again and you'll see it again in verse six 03:15 as well. - I think that is so important Jon. 03:18 Because often times we think of I accept Christ and now 03:22 I am. - yeah. - becoming is so important and I try to 03:26 remind people of this all the time, and my wife tries to 03:29 remind me of this about myself because I can be hard on 03:33 myself to expecting to be at a certain place and 03:35 she reminds me and I try to remind others that we are 03:38 becoming, we are growing, we are in the process. 03:40 I think this is a huge call to veteran Christians, if 03:44 you will, within the church to live that life before 03:48 the younger generations as well. 03:50 Veteran Christians? - yes those who have been walking with Jesus 03:53 for a long time to show and say we are all in a process, 03:57 we are all growing, and that also means being vulnerable. 04:01 You talked about before, real love is also being 04:04 vulnerable, being able to ask for forgiveness. 04:07 One of the things of being a parent, now a veteran 04:11 parents 12 years is we had to learn a lot of humility. 04:15 There are times when I had to say to my own kids when 04:19 I have blown it, to say, maybe one of my children 04:21 didn't do something they were supposed to do and 04:24 I reacted in the wrong way. 04:26 Maybe in anger, you don't always have to respond in anger 04:29 to correct somebody and I hate to admit too often, 04:33 more than I would like to admit, I've had to go to my son 04:36 and daughter and say, you know what? What you did was not 04:39 right, but the way I reacted was not right. 04:41 I did not need to react that way, would you forgive me? 04:44 I confess that to them and think that is what can be done 04:46 in the church as well. 04:48 But to live that out, and to see that we are also becoming 04:50 and that we are growing, so it is essential. 04:53 I have had so many parents come to me and say my children 04:55 aren't in the church and it breaks my heart, what do I do? 04:58 Once I know the situation, and almost every time the 05:02 appropriate answer is well an apology would be a good 05:05 start, because kids are growing, their forming, 05:08 they don't just leave the church because one day 05:12 they decide to leave the church. 05:13 They are usually leaving because they don't see the model 05:17 that they are looking for. 05:19 Paul gets into this, and in the very next couple verses. 05:22 Let's look at that and verses 6 and 7, 05:44 You know we often say, and I think it is absolutely right, 05:47 that only Christ should be imitated. 05:50 If you imitate a human being they are likely to lead you 05:55 astray, but the reality is people will imitate us and it 06:00 is important as veteran Christians, it is important that 06:04 we not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, you see. 06:09 They will model Christianity on us more when we confess 06:14 our sins, when we show a vulnerability then 06:17 when we act so perfect. 06:20 I once was a leader of a youth group and asked the youth 06:24 what is it? What is the one thing that would prevent you 06:29 from staying a Christian when you grow up? 06:31 Do you know what they answered that, several different 06:34 kids answered the same thing. 06:37 They said people who act as if they have no problems. 06:41 They could see there were problems in the church, and they 06:44 can also see the people were not willing to confess those. 06:48 That imitation was very discouraging to the young people 06:53 So Paul is saying look, imitate Christ, but if you have 06:57 never seen, heard, or touched Him, it almost inevitable 07:00 you will probably fix on some human being to imitate. 07:04 We need to realize, if we are veteran Christians that human 07:07 being is us, there is going to be somebody who is looking at us 07:10 and modeling us so in our lives we want to be sure 07:14 we don't just talk, but we also walk, that we practice 07:18 the things that we are preaching. - Umhumm! 07:21 I've had some role models in my past experience, maybe 07:26 a dozen that I could name, just various people who at 07:29 various times in my life plugged one thing into place. 07:33 I picked up this from that one, and this from that one, 07:36 and this from that one. 07:38 It's part of growing, it's part of becoming. - Yeah! 07:42 Paul touches on that here in these verses. 07:45 Yeah, it is scary to think about actually being someone 07:48 that someone maybe is going to imitate, but that is also 07:52 what God has called us to do as we grow in Him. 07:55 Making disciples, you know we've reference that before. 07:58 There is imitating, that part of growing, there is 08:01 a statement, I don't remember where I heard it. 08:04 But it is great. It says we teach what we know, but we 08:07 reproduce who we are. - Oww, that's good! 08:10 That is so true, and that is why we can say one thing 08:13 but if we are not living it, we are going to reproduce 08:16 who we are often in times. 08:18 So it is important that that we. - so if my kids look 08:21 a lot like me, it is my fault? - Or your joy. 08:24 - Or my joy. - that is right, that is right! 08:28 Now if you don't like where your kids are heading 08:30 take a good look in the mirror perhaps. 08:32 If you do like where your kids are heading, 08:33 praise the Lord. - that is right, that is right. 08:36 Well do you want to move on to verses 8 and 10 here? 08:38 Why don't we. - Let's do that. 09:08 The Thessalonians must've been amazing. 09:11 A really great church. - amazing, he is three weeks 09:15 with them and somehow something happens in such a way 09:18 they are fired up and talking about it everywhere. 09:22 Paul is saying he has been to Berea and to Athens and 09:26 to Corinth and in all of these places people are talking 09:30 about what has happening back in Thessalonica. 09:33 That's what he's telling us here, so this was really 09:37 a special church, some really special things were taking 09:41 place and Paul is excited about it, and at the end of 09:45 this verse, verse 10 they were waiting His Son from 09:50 heaven. Part of his faith that was really important to 09:53 Paul among the Thessalonians was that focus on the 09:57 second coming, the focus on the return of Jesus. 10:00 They are walking with Jesus now, they are looking 10:03 forward to being with Him in person in the future. 10:07 So the Thessalonians are kind of remarkable, because 10:11 when you think of the ancient Greek world, the ancient 10:14 Greek world didn't believe in resurrection. 10:16 According to the Greeks it didn't happen, there was no 10:20 such thing, if there was an afterlife, and Plato came up 10:24 with this idea, if there's an afterlife its some bodiless, 10:28 ghostly existence that I'm not sure anyone would really 10:32 want, and so to come with a message of resurrection, 10:37 that the dead can be raised in bodies and special 10:42 heavenly bodies, with new powers that are totally foreign. 10:46 It is a crazy message to talk about raising someone 10:49 from the dead. 10:50 I just did a study of a whole bunch of Greek works on the 10:53 resurrection of the dead, so this is fresh in my mind. 10:56 They did not buy it, so right from the start you are 10:59 bringing them a message that they know is false. 11:03 Not only that, it was a crazy Jewish message. 11:07 So you have all these Gentiles Thessalonians getting 11:10 excited about a message that you would never expect 11:13 them to get excited about. 11:15 So Paul is thrilled and excited and he praises 11:20 God for all of this. 11:22 So we have been talking about becoming, and that gives me 11:27 a chance maybe to talk about stages of Faith just briefly 11:31 here, because people grow through various stages in life. 11:35 The first stage is where you get acquainted with God. 11:38 The second stage is where you become a disciple, 11:42 you attach yourself, imitate someone. 11:44 The third stage is when you become a leader and other 11:48 people imitate you, you see the Thessalonians they have 11:51 gone through all three stages that often takes decades 11:54 for people, they have gone through all three stages. 11:56 But then there is something else that happens, 11:59 when you are successful, when you are following God and 12:03 people are admiring what you do for God, often there 12:06 comes something we call a dark night of the soul. 12:09 The Thessalonians had that too. 12:11 The dark night is when suffering comes, when persecution 12:15 comes, when trouble comes, when inner turmoil happens. 12:18 We may at that time think God is abandoning us. 12:22 You may be going through a dark night right now and feel 12:26 like God is abandoning you, but it is a normal part of 12:30 a healthy growing Christian experience. 12:33 What it does is it weans away the pride, it pulls you 12:37 away from those things which holds you back and allows 12:42 you to serve God in a more selfless manner. 12:45 So growth will come through hard times, it did for the 12:50 Thessalonians, and it will for us. 12:51 We don't need to be frustrated about that because in the 12:55 end, what we have gone through those difficult times, 13:00 and when we come more solely focused on God, then we can 13:04 come closer and closer to the Spirit and the character 13:08 Jesus who loved others because God loved them. 13:12 It didn't matter if they were nice, it did not matter if 13:14 they were friendly, He loved them because 13:16 they were souls that God loved. 13:18 Well we can see from Paul's writings that he had a lot 13:23 to be thankful about. - Yes! 13:24 There was a lot of fruit in their life of what God was 13:27 doing through the word that He gave them. 13:30 So we are happy that we could look at this section of 13:35 Scripture, that we can be thankful all the time and 13:40 keep growing in God's Word. God bless you! |
Revised 2023-01-25