hymn book number 21 the covenant
ordered and sure let's all stand together number 21 God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past, made a covenant,
sure and fast, God my Father chose His own in the person of
His Son, and ordained that I should be one with Him eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law
and retrieve me from the fall. Christ in love so willingly stood
as my great surety. For my price he offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, Heavenly Dove,
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and He brings us to the Lamb. By His mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood, ties of grace and ties of love. Hold me to my God above. Please be seated. I love that hymn. That's the
gospel. We just sang the gospel. A covenant. What is a covenant? It's a promise. It's a promise. And all man-made religions are
based on the promises that man makes to God for the hope of
his salvation. The covenant of grace is a promise
that God made to God and God made to His people. And he's
gonna keep his promise. What a... What a salvation. What a hope. His faithfulness. His promises. That's why they're
called precious promises. And that word precious means
priceless. And to the child of God, the promises of God are
priceless. They're worth everything. Everything. Pearl of great price. We're going to begin a study
in 1 Thessalonians this morning, but if you want to find that
and mark it, we're also going to... introduce this study by looking
at Acts chapter 17. So Acts chapter 17 and 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1. Thursday night Ed Emmerich's
father uh... died suddenly at a banquet that
he was at and uh... it was a real shock to uh...
to ed and the boys and everybody everybody so uh... lord enables
you to encourage and pray for and i know that uh... he would
be grateful for that also uh... fred mary jane drove home yesterday
and I hope you got a chance to speak to them before they left,
but they're back in Chicago for the summer and will be back in
the fall. Mary Jane is always encouraged
to hear from different ones here, so if you have a chance to correspond
with her, I know she'd be happy to receive a text from you. Let
her know you miss her. All right. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, how thankful
we are for the covenant, the covenant of grace providing for
us everything necessary for the salvation of our souls. What great hope we have in knowing
that you are always faithful to your promises. Lord, we confess
to you. that though you've put it in
our hearts to love you and trust you, our promises are fraught
with our failures and our sin. and we find no comfort or hope
in relying upon our promises for our salvation. But oh, for
that covenant of grace, that covenant that is sure, everlasting
covenant, the covenant whereby we have the Lord Jesus Christ
as our surety, Lord, we pray this morning that you'd be pleased
to send your Holy Spirit in power. We pray that you would open what
no man can shut. We pray that the mystery of the
gospel would be revealed. and that you would increase our
faith. We pray for those, Lord, that
are yet strangers to your grace, and we ask that you'd be merciful
to them. We pray that you would call out
effectually your lost sheep and bring them into thy fold. We
pray for Ed and for his family as he deals with the sudden loss
of his father. And we ask, Lord, that you would
give hope and comfort and peace, and that you would use this for
your glory. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I've titled this, A Persecuted
Church. The church at Thessalonica knew
something about persecution. And we can see that in Acts chapter
17 if you would like to turn with me there in your Bibles. When the Apostle Paul went to
Thessalonica, he followed his custom, which was to go to the
synagogue first and to preach the gospel to the Jews. The Lord
came for the Jews first and then for the Gentiles. And so it was
always Paul's pattern. to bring the gospel first to
those Jewish people who had had the covenant in the scriptures
for generations. And there was always hope that
the Lord would be pleased to cause them to see that the Lord
Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, and so that's what he went to
do. And Well, let's just read it. Chapter 17, verse 1, Now when
they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica,
where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner
was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them
out of the Scriptures. The only message we have to give
to men is out of the scriptures. Our experiences are, well, they're
questionable, aren't they? Our feelings, our perspective
on things, God uses his word. of His own will, of God's own
will, begat He us, birthed us into the family of God by the
Word of Truth. And so the Lord promises to bless
his word. And that's our means of preaching. That's our method of witnessing. Just tell folks what God has
said. And God's elect will believe
what God has said. Now some will want to argue,
some will want to defend their position with their own experiences,
some will want to mock, so be it. God's people will hear and
they will believe if we speak to them from the Word of God. So we reason with them out of
the Scriptures. believing that God's Word will
not return unto him void. It will accomplish the purpose
for which God sends it. And so the truth of this for
you and for me is, is the Word of God the power of salvation
to my heart. Do I just... I can't resist believing
what God has said. I can't resist rejoicing in what
God has said. The hope of my soul is founded
in the Word of God. That's every believer's experience.
Lord, make it my experience. Verse 3, opening and alleging. What do we preach from the Word
of God? Or do we just tell people the historical events that took
place? Do we just try to educate people
on theology and doctrine and church policies and all those
sort of things? No. These are they which testify
of me." In the volume of the book, it is written of me. Beginning with Moses, the Psalms,
and the prophets, he expounded unto them those things concerning
himself. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the Spirit of Prophecy. Everything in this book points
to Him. And so when we go to the Word
of God, we're looking for Christ. Who is He? And what has He done?
Because He is my life. He is my salvation. And if I'm
going to learn of Him and believe on Him, He will reveal Himself
to me, not through my experiences or through my feelings or through
my understanding. He'll reveal Himself to me by
His Word. So this is the pattern that we're
continuing to follow 2,000 years later, expounding unto them those
things concerning Christ from the Word of God. And so He opens
and alleges. That's all we can do. We can
just say, this is what God says. We're not giving you our opinions.
We're declaring unto you what God says. that Christ must needs have suffered
and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach
unto you is Christ. He is the Messiah. Now the Jews
in particular, every generation, perhaps this is it. Perhaps the
long promised Messiah, the anointed one, the one sent from God for
the purpose of saving all Israel. That was the whole objective. And it began in the garden when
God told Adam and Eve that from the woman's seed, a man would
come that would crush the head of the serpent, destroy Satan,
destroy sin, destroy the grave, destroy hell, destroy all our
enemies, and give unto us everlasting life. So that promise started
there. That was the covenant. That's
God's promise. And now the fulfillment of that
promise is made in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you love it when Andrew
was under the fig tree and Philip goes to him and says, we have
found the Christ. We found the Christ, Jesus of
Nazareth. And what did Andrew say? Can
anything good come out of Nazareth? Come and see. Just come and see. And what did the Lord say to
him? An Israelite indeed with whom there is no guile. You're
one I came to save. You're one I came to save. How do you know me, Lord? I saw
you when you were under the fig tree. What do you suppose he
was doing under that fig tree? He was asking the Lord for the
Christ. He was praying. He was asking to be saved. He
was asking. The Lord had put on his heart
to seek the Lord, knowing that the Lord was going to reveal
Himself to him. And that's always the case. The Lord puts it in
our hearts to seek Him and for the purpose of finding Him. Here Paul, just every time he
preaches, This Jesus of Nazareth, revealed in the Scriptures, He's
the Christ. He's the one we've been waiting
for. He's the one sent of God for the purpose of saving all
of Israel. He's the one who came in the full power of the Spirit
of God to do for you what you could not do for yourself. to
accomplish a righteousness that you don't have, to suffer the
wrath of the Father in order to put away our sins and satisfy
divine justice once and for all. That's what he came to do. Apart
from that, there's no life. Apart from that, there's no hope.
There's no salvation. And so we're just We should preach
Christ. And that's what Paul's doing.
He's opening the scriptures, alleging that this Jesus must
needs have suffered. Why must needs he have suffered?
Because God's justice had to be satisfied. It pleased the
Lord to bruise him. This is, you see, in Genesis,
not only did the Lord say that the seed of the woman would crush
the head of the serpent, but that the serpent would bruise
the heel of the seed of the woman. And that's exactly what happened
on Calvary's cross. He's bruised and broken. Why? For our sin. For our sin. Christ was that
brazen serpent put upon a pole. Moses said, look to him, look
to him and you shall live. He's bearing your sins on Calvary's
cross, putting them away once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself. He bore all the sins of all of
his people. He must needs suffer. This was all part of God's purpose.
This was the means of salvation that the Lord was going to accomplish
for His people. And some of them believed. When
the gospel of God's free grace in the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ is preached, some are going to believe. They're
just going to believe. They're not going to be able
to not believe. They're just going to say like, I had a woman
tell me Wednesday, she heard the gospel for the first time,
she said, I believe what you're saying to me is true. I just
believe it. I've never heard anything like
that in my whole life. But I believe what you're saying
to me is true. God's people just, when the Lord
opens your eyes, you see it, you believe it. Some believed and consorted with
Paul and Silas. Those who believe are not just
going to go off on their own and worship God by themselves
under a tree. They're going to gather together
with God's people. and they're going to listen to
the message that god gives to his preachers and his teachers
and his profits and his people uh... you know that they're not
gonna have to be told to come to church they're not gonna have
to be shame to come to church that are going to be made to
come to church they're gonna come because that's where paul
and silas are and paul and silas are still here You know, I pray the Lord speaking.
You know, you're hearing my voice audibly. I hope that the inspired
rider's voice is being heard. More important than that, I hope
that the voice of God's being heard. They shall be all taught
of God. And my sheep will hear my voice
and they'll follow after me. So here's the means. They consorted with Paul and
Silas and the devout Greeks, a great multitude, and of the
chief women, not a few, not a few. The Lord was pleased to save
a good number of folks in that city, Thessalonica, which was
the cause of the persecution. You know, Hugo said to me one
time, he said, you know, the only reason people don't hate
us more than they do is because they don't know what we believe. And the
only reason that we're not persecuted more than we're persecuted in
this city is because the number of people that we see here being
converted, the Lord's not, you know, He's not doing that. We're
not a threat to the religions of this world
as a citywide persecution. But, individually, look at what
happens. But the Jews which believed not
were moved with envy. They were moved with envy, and
they took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort." Sound
familiar? That's exactly what they did
to the Lord. The Lord said, don't be surprised if they hate the
servant, they hated the master. They're going to do the same
thing to you that they did to me. They were moved with envy, that
took unto them certain lewd fellows of a baser sort, and gathered
a company, and set all the city up on an uproar, and assaulted
the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people." This was real persecution. Life-threatening persecution. And when they found them not,
they drew Jason. They were looking for Paul and
Silas. They couldn't find Paul and Silas in Jason's house, so
they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city,
crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come
here also. Now that's the same accusations
that they made against Peter in Jerusalem when he started
preaching the gospel. you are turning the world upside
down the truth is god saves your soul he's gonna turn your world
upside down he's gonna turn your whole world upside down but turning
it upside down is in fact turning it right side up you were born
upside down isn't that true? I mean we We come into this world
spiritually dead. I mean, we're a breached birth. We don't know God. We're at enmity
with Him. And when the Lord's pleased to
reveal Christ to your soul, everything in your life is turned upside
down. Verse 7. And whom Jason hath
received, and these also do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying
that there is another king, one Jesus." Well, that was a lie.
That was a lie. God's people are never taught
from God's Word to be contrary to the governing authorities.
Never. We're taught to submit to governing
authorities. We're taught to give honor to
those to whom honor is due. And anyone who thinks that they
can derive anything from God's Word, a message of rebellion
against governing authorities, has not understood the Word of
God. Believers ought to be the best
citizens that any country and any government could possibly
have. But that was an accusation they
made against the Lord. He's claiming to be king. He's
threatening the sovereignty of Caesar. No, he said, give unto
Caesar what's due to Caesar. Give unto God what's due to God.
We're not here to threaten the governing authorities. Argument
can be made that the entire book of Acts was written to Theophilus
who, well, an argument can be made is in the scriptures that
it was addressed to Theophilus who was a governor in the Roman
government. And the argument can be made
that one of the objectives that Luke had for writing the book
of Acts was to show this governing governor, this Roman governor,
that he didn't have to persecute the church. We're not here to
threaten the governing authorities. The Lord said, My kingdom is
not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world,
My servants would take up arms and fight. But this is spiritual
kingdom. And so they made these false accusations.
And verse eight, and they troubled the people and the rulers of
the city when they heard these things, and when they had taken
security of Jason and of the others, they let them go. And the brethren immediately
sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who coming thither
went into the synagogue of the Jews, and were more these, the
ones in Berea, Now, he's not talking about those who believe
the gospel. He's talking about the Jews in
Berea were more noble than the ones in Thessalonica because
they received the word of God with gladness and searched the
scriptures to see if what the Apostle Paul was saying about
Jesus being the Christ was true. And so the church goes, the gospel
goes from Thessalonica to Berea You can look on your map and
see where these places are in Mesopotamia and then all the
way down to Athens and then to Corinth in southern Greece. We just studied the books of
1 and 2 Corinthians. And the gospel came here to Thessalonica
before it came to Corinth. And so Paul is going to write
to them now. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians. And I want to preface this message about persecution
with some encouraging words. If people don't like you because
you're rude or obnoxious or self-righteous, don't interpret that as persecution. uh... that's just a bad personality
uh... scripture says we're to seek
to be at peace with all men whenever possible the lord admonishes
us to do good unto all men especially those who are of the household
of faith and in Ephesians chapter four the lord says let all bitterness
wrath anger, clamor, evil speaking, be put away from you with all
malice, be ye kind and tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." Yeah, I shared with you all a
couple weeks ago about the mistake that I made one time of trying
to talk to some protesters at a abortion clinic down the street
from my house. I mean, I don't right now, but
I used to jog down that street, and I just decided to stop. Well, the reason why it was such
a horrible mistake is because they interpreted my attempts
to talk to them as persecution. It just bolstered their whole
agenda. You know, here this guy's persecuting
us because of what we're doing. That's just self-righteousness. People are not going to persecute
you for doing good. You know, I remember in religion,
well, you know, they persecute me because I don't, you know,
I don't participate in the things that they do. No, persecution
is going to come as a result of the gospel. And the only time, the only time
that we ought not to seek to be at peace with a man is when
it comes to compromising the gospel. Make concessions and
compromises in every other area of your life to be at peace with
all men whenever possible. But if you let people know what
you believe, here's what God says. All that will live godly
in Christ Jesus, all that will be bold enough to let folks know
what they believe, will suffer persecution for the gospel. You unbelieving friends, they're
not going to want it. Why? For envy's sake. The same reason that the Jews
persecuted Paul and Silas in Thessalonica. It hasn't changed.
This gospel is radical. It turns the whole world upside
down, right side up. And men don't want a part of
it. Here's what the Lord said in Matthew chapter 10. Think
not, think not that I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace, but
a sword. I came to set a man at variance
against his father. and a daughter at variance against
her mother and a daughter-in-law at variance against her mother-in-law. And a man's enemies will be of
his own household. You let folks know who you believe
and what you believe, they're going to hate you for it. That's why fellowship among God's
people is so precious. You see, not only do we not hate
one another for what we love one another for what we believe.
I mean, this is the only place in the world where we can have
fellowship with one another in the gospel and in His truth.
How precious it is. So, men love the praise of men more
than the praise of God. If your objective is just to
always be at peace with men, then you're going to have to
sacrifice peace with God to get that. You just are. I'm just telling you what God
says. You know that's true, don't you? You know it's true. Don't be obnoxious. Don't blame
your bad personality. Don't blame persecution on, you
know. But the Lord said friendship
with the world is enmity with God. This gospel is radical. It is
just radical. It changes everything. Everything. So now Paul's writing back to
the church at Thessalonica. We'll just look at a few of these
verses. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Paul and Silvanus, that's
Silas, and Timotheus, that's Timothy. unto the church of the
Thessalonians which is in God." Let persecution come. I'm in
God. You can't hurt me. You can't
hurt me. I'm in God the Father and I'm
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've been found in Him. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. My question to myself and to
you is what do you value most? Peace with God or peace with
man? When it comes to the gospel,
you can't have both. We give thanks to God always
for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. We live in
a world that is contrary to everything we believe, everything we are. How important is it that we pray
for one another? Lord, strengthen them in the
persecutions that come. Lord, give them grace in the
trials and troubles that my brethren suffer. Lord, Lord, lift them
up, encourage them, provide for them, and use me, Lord, however
I can be used to encourage my brethren. We're pilgrims, we're
strangers, we're the odd man out in this world. How much we
need to pray for one another. Remembering without ceasing your
work of faith. Now from Acts chapter 17 it sounds
like the Apostle Paul was only in Thessalonica for three weeks.
He reasoned in the synagogue for three weeks and then right
after that is when the Jews gathered together. How much time was between
the time he quit speaking in the synagogue and he finally
was run out of town? Scripture is not really clear
but he wasn't there very long. But He says, "...the work of
faith, and your labor of love, and the patience of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ, and the sight of God and our Father, knowing,
brethren, beloved, your election of God." That makes it all well. It's all good. I'm one of God's
elect. I'm in His church. I'm in God
the Father. I'm in the Lord Jesus Christ.
What else matters? What else matters? For our gospel, there's only
one gospel. What's the word gospel mean?
It means good news. What is the good news of our
gospel? It's finished. It's finished. He's done it all. Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but also in power and in the
Holy Ghost and in much assurance, for you know what men are men,
we were among you, and you became followers of us and of the Lord,
having received the word in much affliction with the joy of the
Holy Ghost. The assurance of my salvation,
the joy of the Holy Ghost, the fellowship of the believers,
the forgiveness of my sin. Let persecution come, it's okay. How can that be compared to what
God has given me? Alright, let's take a break. Oh, yeah.