Author: Wes White

Categories
Evergreen Midweek

Moving Forward: The Right Goals

Introduction

For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? (Ecclesiastes 6:12).

If we were living our life as God wanted it to be lived, what would it look like? Sometimes we think in terms of Bible reading, prayer, and evangelism. These are all good things, but they begin with salvation. We forget that salvation is salvation unto something. It is meant to restore us to what we were created to do. So, we need to ask, what did God create us to do? To answer that, we need to go back to Genesis 1–3. Here is a responsive reading that highlights the key elements of what God made humans to do and how it is reflected in the rest of the Scriptures.

A quote on the goal of creation from a philosopher: “And this is the task that I’ve laid down for myself, to set you free from every obstacle, compulsion, and restraint to make you free, prosperous, and happy, as one who looks to God in everything, great or small” (Epictetus, Discourses, 2.19).

Scripture Reading

Creation: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Gen. 2:2–3).
Response: Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness (Psalm 29:2).
Creation: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (Gen. 1:26).
Response: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight (Prov 3:5–6).
Creation: God blessed them . . . and the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food (Gen. 1:28, 2:8–9).
Response: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts (Deuteronomy 6:4–6).
Creation: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Response: How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore (Psalm 133:1–3).
Creation: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28).
Response: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Col. 3:23–24).
Creation: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. . . . I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food (Gen. 1:31, 29).
Response: God created [these foods] to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:3–5).

What has the church heard in the Word? Some Confessional References

Westminster Larger Catechism, Q/A 1 What is the chief and highest end of man? A. Man’s Chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 6 – Q. Did God create people so wicked and perverse? A. No. God created them good1 and in his own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that they might truly know God their creator, love him with all their heart, and live with God in eternal happiness, to praise and glorify him.

Westminster Confession of Faith, 4.2 – After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image, having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it; and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

The Four Areas: Brief Summation

  1. We are created for communion with God
  2. We are created for communion with people
  3. We are created for consequential labor
  4. We are created for creational enjoyment

Some Diagnostic Questions

  1. How is my relationship with God? Where do I stand with Him?
  2. Am I taking time to develop my relationship with God? If so, how?
  3. What is the state of human relationships in my life?
  4. What is my relationship with the important people in my life like?
  5. Do I have friends and people in my life who encourage and challenge me?
  6. How am I being productive in service to God and others?
  7. What are my gifts and how am I using them?
  8. What are my opportunities to serve, and am I taking advantage of them?
  9. What do I enjoy doing? Am I taking time to enjoy doing good things?
  10. Do I take time to enjoy the good things God has given me, or do I rush through them? Do I ever go outside and just enjoy the beauty of God’s creation?
Categories
Sermons

How We Grow (1 Thessalonians 2:1-13)

[Listen to an audio version here]

If you are going to be successful at anything, you need two things. You need the right messages, and you need the right messengers. You need principles, and you need people. You also need practice, but I want to focus on the first two based on our text.

Now, these are not categories that are specific to our salvation. This is true in a variety of areas of life. Think of learning to play football. You need the right messages that tell you the rules, the plays, and the skills. However, you need the right messenger. You need a coach to teach you and remind you of the messages. If you are to improve in any area, you need clear messages and good messengers.

When God recreates us into His image, the way He grows us is no different. He uses messages to change us, and He uses messengers to communicate those messages. The point here is rather simple. If we want to grow, even in the midst of our suffering, we need the right messages and the right messengers. Those are the two points of this sermon.

The Right Message
The words we hear, and the messages we receive shape our hearts and lives. The stories we tell ourselves are the foundation of our character. Messages like “the future is bleak,” “you will never amount to anything,” “no one will like you,” “you are strange,” or “you shouldn’t have to suffer,” shape our character and our mindset.

If we want to change our character, then we will need different messages. Every attempt to grow a human being from the beginning of the world to today is fundamentally about new messages.

The Thessalonian Christians had received a new message, the good news about Jesus Christ and the restoration of human beings in Him. This was the Gospel.

In our passage it is called the Word of God. The reason it is called the Word of God is because it is exactly what God wants to communicate to us. Some people wonder how the Word of God can be written by humans. Here is the answer: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).

So, the message was not a message from any mere human. It was a message from God Himself. “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). They accepted an entirely different message from God about their lives.

Now notice something here. He thanks God that they received this word. Why? Because it is the Holy Spirit who works faith in our hearts. No one will believe except by the power of the Holy Spirit. The joy with which we receive the message is a gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s what we confessed together in the The Heidelberg Catechism:

Q. It is through faith alone that we share in Christ and all his benefits: where then does that faith come from? A. The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.

It’s important to see, though, that in the first movement of faith, we are wholly passive; in the continuing work of faith, we are active. We must exercise faith. When we exercise faith in the Word, then the Word is at work. The message from God works into our lives as we exercise faith in it. It is “indeed at work in you who believe,” as Paul says.

How does this happen? Well, first we need to know the message. However, it’s not enough to have heard it once and let it pass through our ears. We need to meditate on it in our hearts. What does that look like?

Consider: what if our parents don’t seem to approve of us? What if they abandoned us at an early age? What if our spouse is displeased with us? What if our children don’t like us? It can make us think that we are worthless. The message of God’s Word says something different, you are accepted, valued, and loved by God.

To make this message, the message of the love of God, the dominant factor that shapes our lives, we have to listen to it constantly and accept it into our hearts. We have to apply it to our lives and our thoughts. This is what it means for the word to be at work in us.

Let me add one more thing here. You need to have some time set aside to do this. If you want to hear from God, you have to make time for Him. This requires a habit and a regular time. It will not happen by accident. I encourage you to set aside a specific time each day in which you can hear the Lord: at morning, at lunch, at a break, or before you go to bed. Anything that is really good in this life comes through consistent work. A transformative relationship with the Lord is no different.

But God does not leave us merely with His message. He also brings messengers into our lives. He brings us into a community of friends.

The Right Messengers
A few years ago, on one particular month, I was preaching on relationships in the life of Jesus. One of my sermons was, “Relationships Are Hard,” based on some of Jesus’ difficult experiences with relationships.

One Sunday after that sermon, I was struggling with a relationship myself. I came into the River Plantation Conference Center where we meet, and one person there could tell that things weren’t right. He asked me how I was doing, I told him, “I had some negative interactions with some people, and I’m struggling with that, to be honest.”

He looked at me and said with compassion, “Relationships are hard.” Hearing the words that I had preached from someone else enabled me to hear them in a way that I would not have been able to otherwise. This messenger brought a message that put things back into perspective, and the light began to dawn for me.

We often underestimate the importance of the messengers. But if you think about it, what is it that people struggle with more than anything? It’s not just bad messages. The bad messages get their force from the messengers. Maybe it was a friend who turned on you. Maybe it was a parent who was always critical. Maybe it was a child who wants nothing to do with you. These messengers have a powerful force in our lives.

If your life has been dominated by the wrong messages from a messenger like this, then you will need new messengers who will deliver a more helpful message. You will also need to gain awareness of the messages you learned and re-think the truth of those messages for yourself. You will need new messages.

For the Thessalonians, that community began with the messengers who brought the message from God, Paul and Silas. Paul also wrote this letter. He was the messenger of God’s message to the Thessalonian believers.

Paul sums up what his relationship with them was like in this letter. He told the Thessalonians that he was, “encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12).

The design of the church is to be a messenger communicating the Word of God in practical ways to people. When people are down, they encourage them. When they are struggling, they comfort them. When they forget the promises of God, they remind them. When they become sluggish, they urge them forward. This is the work of the church.

It is interesting to note that the Apostle Paul describes himself as acting like the entire family. He was like a child in his transparency. He was like a mother who nurtured them. He was like a father who encouraged and challenged them. All these metaphors give us fruit for meditation. We can take different roles in our relationships at different times, according to the need.

The heart of it is this. You need people who comfort you, but you also need people who challenge you. If you go to people who simply affirm you, then they are not the messengers you need. You need people who will challenge you. If you go to people who simply point out what you are doing wrong or could do better, then you will you will get wrongly discouraged. You need encouragement and comfort as well as the challenge to live lives worthy of the kingdom of God.

The importance of messengers applies to us in two different directions. The first is that we need good messengers in our lives. We need people who will care for us, encourage us, and challenge us.

To get people into our live like this, we often need to take the initiative, especially in our modern world. To get people in our lives like this also takes time. Just like meditating on the message, it takes an investment. Relationships are not built overnight.

The second direction we need to take the importance of messengers is based on what the Apostle Paul says throughout this letter. The Apostle Paul had to leave this congregation. This did not mean that they were without the resources of good messengers. They would have to be this for each other. “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11).

We need to be encouraged, but we need to move out in encouragement toward others. Now as I look at our church, I can say, just as the Apostle Paul said, you are in fact doing this. You are speaking into people’s lives. You are messengers. You just need to be more aware and do so more and more.

Conclusion
So, my friends, there is growth in suffering, big and small suffering. The Word of God, the message of God, supplies a foundation for joy that transcends our suffering. It is a foundation on which we can build our lives. The Holy Spirit produces joy through His Word that enables us to continue moving forward. It can give us a faith that makes us able to stand in trials and not be unsettled by them.

And so we will grow. We will move forward, but we will do it not alone but together. God uses a group of friends to enable us to grow. It is God’s messengers delivering His wonderful messages that enables us to grow and remain ever green in the changing seasons of life.

_______

Photo by Kev Costello on Unsplash

Categories
Evergreen Midweek

Moving Forward to Joyful Service

A Prayer for Joy
O God of Infinite Joy, Our Shield and Portion, fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in you so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit and be empowered to serve your church and the world, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Scripture
Reader: Sing to him, sing praise to him;
People: Tell of all his wonderful acts.
Reader: Glory in his holy name;
People: Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice
Reader: Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
People: Let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!”
Response: Let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
People: Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them!
Reader: The righteous will rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him;
People: All the upright in heart will glory in him!
Reader: Light shines on the righteous
People: And joy on the upright in heart.
Reader: Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous,
People: And praise his holy name.
Reader: Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
People: Let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
Reader: Let them praise his name with dancing
People: And make music to him with timbrel and harp.
Reader: Rejoice in the Lord always.
People: I will say it again: Rejoice!
Reader: Though you have not seen him,
People: You love him;
Reader: And even though you do not see him now,
People: you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
Reader: Jesus said to His Father, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world,
People: So that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.
Reader: For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking,
People: But of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,
Reader: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him
People: So that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Confessional References

Heidelberg Catechism

Q & A 1 – Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death? A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Q & A 2, Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
A. Three things: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

Q&A 90, Q. What is the rising-to-life of the new self? A. Wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to live according to the will of God by doing every kind of good work.

Westminster Standards
WLC 1 What is the chief and highest end of man?
A. Man’s Chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

WCF 18.3 And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure; that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance: so far is it from inclining men to looseness.

WSC 36 What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification? A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.

Outline of Discussion

1. Introduction – joy in the midst of hard and difficult experiences. Introduction to the idea of moving forward.

2. Scripture Reading

3. What are we saved for?

4. How I learned to look for joy

5. The Scriptures on joy

6. The Confessions on joy

7. Developing joy

  • Do we make it a goal?
  • Do we see it as a process?
  • Are we re-thinking all of life from God’s perspective?
  • Do we look at suffering as an unmitigated evil or also as an opportunity for growth?
  • Do we get other people involved?

8. Lacie Shingleton on joy

9. Common objections/questions to the pursuit and priority of joy

  • My life is and has been rough, how can I have joy?
  • How can I add developing joy to my already very busy schedule?
  • I don’t have a bubbly personality.

Note: this lesson will be interactive. You can feel free to ask questions at any time. Read a thorough discussion of this subject here.

Overview of the Moving Forward Series

1. The Goal — What We Were Created for
2. What Keeps Us from It — The complexity of sin
3. What God Does to Restore Us — God’s Work of Redemption and Restoration
4. Accepting God’s Redemption and Applying it to Our Lives
5. Means of Growth in Grace
6. Maximizing Our Service
7. Hope: Prospects for Moving Forward

See a more extensive outline here.

Categories
Sermons

Power to Live a Life of Joyful Service (1 Thess. 1:4–10)

[Listen to an audio version here]

“Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the Master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.” Tom Bombadil is a mystery in the book The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson left him out of his film entirely.

But Tom Bombadil is a character that has always fascinated me. On the surface, he seems so simple, but he is complex. He is merry, full of joy. He delights in his wife and hills and home and food. He seems like he would be easily overcome, but the Ring cannot tempt him. In the midst of his joy, he is happy to serve.

He is a sort of picture of an unfallen human being, a human being not tainted by sin. I think such a person would be very different than we imagine. That person would be open to the world yet clearly defined. He would be a slave to none but a servant to all. He would be content and joyful yet always willing to serve. He would be transparent and simple yet complex and deep. I think Tolkien gave us a glimpse of this in his character of Tom Bombadil.

Sometimes, we think that joy and service do not go together. The Bible and this passage teach us something very different. Those who want to save their lives will lose them, and those who are willing to give them up will find them. Joy and service go together.

Some of us serve because we fear saying no. Some of us try to preserve ourselves but end up being self-centered. How do we get to a place of joyful service? That’s what the Thessalonians had found. They found joyful service to God and to their fellow human beings that made the world stand up and notice. How did it happen? In this sermon, I want to talk about the source, the means, and the effect of joyful service.

The Source of Joyful Service
How did the Thessalonians become joyful servants of the God of Israel and the Lord Jesus Christ? How did these servants of Aphrodite, Zeus, and Apollo who intertwined the worship of these gods into the fabric of their lives become servants of the God of Israel? The answer is clear in our text. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The first thing we notice is that the Apostle Paul gave thanks to God for their response to the Gospel. This means that their response was due to the grace of God. The reason why they accepted the message about Jesus was due to God Himself.

Paul says, “For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction” (1 Thess. 1:4–5). In other words, it was God’s choice and the power of the Holy Spirit that enabled them to respond. Paul and Silas could preach the Gospel, but it was God who gave the response.

This is what we see elsewhere in the Bible. It is God who makes our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh to respond to His Word (Ez. 36:26–27). The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14). No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3).

This means that even though the Thessalonians had faith, hope, and love, the one who got the ultimate credit for it was God Himself. Even their good use of God’s gifts was a gift from God.

Human beings have turned away from the joyful service of God that they were created for. Instead, they exalted themselves in their pride. This is what we all do unless God intervenes. This is why we all need God’s grace.

Why do we struggle so much in this life? In part, because we start on a wrong principle: making ourselves the center of the universe. It’s only God that turns this around, and so it is only the Holy Spirit that begets joy. “You welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 1:6).

This was evidence of God’s special love and the choice that He made of the Thessalonians. Their response was not due to their merit or their works but to God’s electing, eternal, gracious love. This is something that all who believe can say: “I believe because of the unmerited love and choice of God Himself.” That’s a rock on which we can rest our hearts and lives.

The Means to Joyful Service
Even though it was God’s Spirit that empowered them for joyful service, this did not mean that God did not use things and people to bring the Thessalonians to that condition. He used a message to bring them back to Himself, and He used the messengers who brought that message.

First, there was the message. They received what he will later call the “Word of God” because it came, as it were, from God’s mouth. In the next chapter, he will say, “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13).

Here he calls it the gospel. The gospel in the ancient world was “news.” A messenger would proclaim a “gospel” when a king won a victory or a new king was crowned. Here, the “gospel” is that Jesus is crowned King and has won the victory over Satan, sin, and death.

Why did God use the Word or the Gospel to transform the Thessalonian Christians? It makes complete sense. What keeps us from joy? It’s the messages we believe such as, “You are unworthy”; “you can’t do anything right”; “things won’t ever work out”; and “I won’t ever get to enjoy good things” that keep us from joyful service. What leads us back to joyful service is God’s good message: “you are accepted”; “you are valued”; “you can do good things”; and “you will be blessed.” These messages believed and imbibed can lead us back to joyful service.

So, the message has to be the right message, but the right message won’t be received rightly unless the Holy Spirit works in our hearts. We need the Word and the Spirit. That’s why Paul thanks God that it did not come to them only with words but also with the Spirit and power!

Because it is the Word that transforms, people sometimes think, we just need to get the word out there, and that’s all that matters. This idea fails to notice that God not only uses the message, he uses messengers to transform people.

How the messenger lives and how the messenger conveys the message is very important. “You know how we lived among you for your sake” (1 Thess. 1:6). The Thessalonians’ conversion to joyful service was the work of people that they could imitate. They conformed themselves to the commandments of the message but also to the comportment of the messengers. “You became imitators of us” (1 Thess. 1:6). Paul says.

How we live and what we say matters in the work of transforming people. God uses the Word, and He uses His people who live out that Word to bring people to believe the Word. So, we need to ask, what am I teaching with my actions? What do I say about God by how I live? Do I communicate joyful service? Or, am I communicating angry grievances? The former brings about the righteousness of God; the latter does not.

The Effect of Joyful Service
When the Holy Spirit worked, it had effects. The Thessalonians changed. They who were followers of idols and the gods Aphrodite, Zeus, and Apollo gave them up to joyfully serve God and wait for Jesus to return from heaven. This meant more than a private decision. The worship of the gods was intertwined with their political, economic, and family life. It was a radical change.

This radical message was rooted in joy. They welcomed the message, but this was not a mere intellectual acceptance. It moved their hearts. “You welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 1:7). They welcomed this message with joy. It caused their hearts to rise up as they heard the good news about Jesus Christ.

Christianity has a negative message. It says that all are sinners and that God’s wrath is coming against all sin, the pride of the theologian as well as the perfidy of the thief. Christianity also has a Gospel, a positive message tat answers the negative one. We are delivered from the wrath to come by faith in Jesus Christ. Recently, I read again the Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 60. It asks: “How are you righteous before God?” It answers:

Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, of never having kept any of them, and of still being inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is accept this gift with a believing heart.

This is the beautiful message that can fill our hearts with joy in every situation.

Notice also this important point: they welcomed the message with joy in suffering. To enable us to live joyfully, we must have a foundation for joy that can last through suffering. The Gospel enables us to reinterpret our experiences of suffering in a way that preserves our joy. Even unbelievers can reinterpret suffering in this way to a limited degree, but we can do it in an ultimate way because Christ has experienced our sufferings and triumphed over them. Christ’s resurrection powerfully demonstrates that suffering is temporary but God’s love and power are forever for all His loved ones. The suffering is a refiner’s fire that brings out the pure gold of our faith more clearly.

So, they had joy. What did they do with it? They served. This joyful service means, first of all, that they served God Himself. In one sense, we all serve something. However, the true service that we are made for is service of the living God. We are not made to serve Aphrodite or romantic love, Athena or intellectual endeavors, Apollo or our talents, Zeus or our power, Bacchus or our pleasures. We are only properly aligned as human beings when we serve the living God.

Second, joyful service means serving God’s interests in the world. Joyful service means serving God in the everyday events of life. It means always and everywhere seeking to advance His kingdom and His interests in the world.

Third, joyful service means serving God’s people, His created people and His redeemed people. The Thessalonians served the people around them, and so their faith become known throughout the world. Our faith commitment is known by the love we have. It is always, “work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love” (1 Thess. 1:3).

God is recreating people to be the joyful servants He intended them to be.

Conclusion
All over the world, there are people like the Thessalonians, people who have left their previous way of life to serve God and wait for Jesus Christ. There are people like Michael. He was a Chinese student studying in Spearfish, SD, and I met him through a program connecting foreign students with local families. He had not grown up as a Christian but went to a church in South Korea. Through the work of his Pastor there, he came to welcome the message of Jesus Christ with the joy given through the Holy Spirit.

There are people like Charles Strohmer. He tried the American Dream and the New Age movement before the Holy Spirit took hold of him and brought him to Christ. You can read more about his transformation in the exciting book he wrote Odd Man Out.

There are people like me and many of you reading or hearing this. We do not know the time when we came to welcome the message with joy and enter into the joyful service of God, but for us and for Michael and Charles and all those like them, we sing with the church throughout the ages:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me!

________

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The Glory of the Children of Light

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The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece. Greece, a place of such wonder, beauty, and glorious history. From this place burst forth such a level of creative thinking about all subjects that the world continues to stand in awe of it. It inspires politicians, architects, artists, philosophers, and theologians to this day. It is the foundation of much of our own civilization. Lord Byron, the great English poet, who died in the cause of Greek independence, said, “Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! Though fallen, great!” (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 2.73).

Even in Paul’s day, people would have looked at Greece in the same way. When the Romans conquered it, they took the Greek philosophers and teachers as tutors for their children and imbibed all they could of Greek culture and philosophy. For Christian theologians, the writings of the Greeks have been a conversation partner in a somewhat tumultuous relationship, sometimes wanting to throw them out and then going back to them again, seeing their value.

The Greeks themselves are today a Christian people, in the broad sense of that term. That is part of the story of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. In Acts 16, Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia, calling him over to Europe. He crossed the Hellespont and went into Europe. He entered the Roman colony of Philippi and met a woman named Lydia. She and her companions became the first church in Europe.

Paul and the Thessalonian Church
From there, Paul made his way to the capitol city of the region, Thessalonika. Today, the Greeks call it Thessaloniki. If you go to Greece, you can visit this ancient city. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue and told the people that Jesus was the promised Messiah or Christ. Several responded positively. “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women” (Acts 17:4).

Others were not as enthusiastic. In fact, they were downright hostile. They gathered a mob that searched for Paul and his associate Silas. They didn’t find him, so they took a man named Jason and brought him before the authorities. Here’s what they said, “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus” (Acts 17:6b–7). The authorities made Jason pay bond, and then they let him go.

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