Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, what great
joy we feel and we know in acknowledging the Lord Jesus
Christ as Lord of all. For Thou, Father, hast made Him
Lord over the living and the dead, and we ask now that You
would be pleased to send Your Holy Spirit and to cause Him
to be lifted up in our hearts, to cause us to be drawn to Him. Turn us, O Lord, and we shall
be turned. Pray that You would open that
which no man can shut and shut that which no man can open. Pray that you would reveal to
us his glorious person and accomplished work and that we would find all
our rest and all our hope in him. To find thy dear son to
be our all in all is our hope and our prayer. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. Good morning. Today, the first Sunday of March,
can you believe it's March already, is the one-year anniversary of
the church in Sarasota. We started meeting one year ago. If you haven't been yet, I hope
that you'll take an opportunity to do that some Sunday. Most
of you, I think, have been, and I'm so thankful for that. They're
very encouraged, and we are too, and just very thankful for them.
Scott and Christine McMinn. attend our services here via
the internet every Sunday and every Wednesday out in San Jose,
California. And they are here with us in
the flesh this morning. And so we're just so very thankful
for you guys and happy that you're here. Digna, as you, I'm sure, have
heard, fell Tuesday and broke her pelvic bone. And she was
in the hospital for a few days, and she has been moved from Health
Central in Ocoee, which is on the south side of 50, if you
know where that is, to just the north side of 50, a place called
Lake Bennett Rehab Center. And she'll be there for about
20 days. So, if you'd like to go see her,
this would be a good time. She's in great spirits. I have to tell you this, but
you need to know this. Digna prays for you every day. Every member of our church, every
day. She told me the other day, she
said, if I can't remember their names, I pray for them by face. I'll tell you, she's a very,
very special, very dear lady in our assembly. And if you go see her, you'll leave
blessed. You'll be the one encouraged.
So I think Tricia may have emailed the address to that rehab center
out to everybody. So if you don't have that, let
me know and we can get it for you. Alright, you have your Bibles,
let's open them together to the book of 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians, just for the sake of getting
the passage we're going to look at this morning in its context
without any comment I'll read the first six verses which is
what we dealt with last Sunday morning in 1st Thessalonians
chapter 1. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus
unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and
in the Lord Jesus Christ. in Christ, to be in Christ. Grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention
of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of
faith, your labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord
Jesus Christ, in the sight of God our Father, knowing, brethren,
beloved, your election of God. Oh, there's so many things in
those first few verses, isn't there? In relationship to our
union with Christ, our part in the body of Christ, our hope
in the electing grace of God who chose us before the foundation
of the world in Christ. And I'm so thankful this epistle
starts with such clear and glorious declarations about God's work
of salvation for his people. And that's what Paul's doing.
This is just not a letter to the Thessalonians. This is a
letter to the Hopkins. This is a letter to us from God. And what an encouragement it
is. And my hope this morning is that
that the Lord will make us an example of the gospel. That he
will make us as a church to be like the church at Thessalonica. You'll see where I'm going with
that in a moment. For our gospel came not unto
you in word only. We didn't just preach doctrine
and preach Bible, but we preached the living person of the Lord
Jesus Christ, attended by the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit of
God doesn't take the Word of God and apply it effectually
to our hearts and reveal to us the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,
then what we do is in word only. We're not interested in something
that's done in word only. Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost. In other
words, the Spirit of God opened the eyes of our understanding.
He opened our hearts. He shut our minds to all things
that were contrary to the gospel. And He revealed to us the glory
of His dear Son and enabled us to find our hope and our trust
in His glorious person and in His accomplished work. That's
what Paul's saying here. When we came and preached the
gospel to you, that's how it was preached. In much assurance. There's our hope that the Lord
would give us assurance that the gospel would not be something
that we just process intellectually, but that the Spirit of God would
make it real to us and that we would find ourselves loving and
hoping and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for all our salvation.
And he says, it came to you with much assurance. That's the ministry
of the Holy Spirit. I can't make you sure. I had
somebody say to me one time, I need you to give my children
assurance of their salvation. I can't do that. I can't do that. You can't do that for yourself.
Old men do. They look back to an experience,
don't they Tom? They look back to, we were talking
about this before the service, and someone he was sharing the
gospel with this week. And they were looking back to
a moment in time when they nailed it down. You know, I prayed the
prayer, I accepted Jesus, and my life changed. And the fact
that I don't do the things I used to do, and the fact that I'm
doing things that I didn't used to do, is my assurance of salvation. There's no assurance there. That's
men lying to themselves, hoping against hope that somehow their
experience is their salvation. The assurance of our salvation
is when the Spirit of God convinces us beyond any shadow of a doubt
and enables us to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we
can say, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is
able to keep that which I've committed to Him. I've entrusted
to Him. I'm resting in Him. I've deposited
in His account all the hope of my salvation. I'm not hedging
my bets. I'm not looking anywhere else.
Christ is my life. And only the Spirit of God can
bring you to that place. can give you a love of the truth. And that's, you know, again,
it's salvations of the Lord, isn't it? You're doubting your
salvation? You need assurance of your salvation?
Ask the Lord. He's the one that has to do it
for you. Ask the Lord. If you, being evil, know how
to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will
your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask Him?
You have not because you ask not. Ask Him. Ask Him to comfort
your heart with the assurance of salvation. Ask Him to send
His Holy Spirit in power. That's what Paul said, I didn't
just come with word only, but in power and in demonstration
of the Spirit of God with much assurance. How do I know the
Spirit of God has come in power and demonstrated His grace in
my heart? Because He's given me assurance. And my assurance
is not based on anything other than what God has done in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. My assurance is not based on
the experience I had 10 years ago, 20 years ago, last year. Oh, it goes back a whole lot
further than that. A whole lot further than that. My assurance
is based on what God did in Christ on Calvary's cross 2,000 years
ago before I was ever thought about. My assurance goes back
further than that. It goes back into eternity. Before
time ever began. Knowing that God chose a people
in Christ before the foundation of the world. And that the Lord
Jesus Christ is that lamb that was slain before the foundation
of the world. My assurance is in Christ. He's my assurance. That's why Paul said, I know
whom I have believed. He's my assurance. Only the Spirit
of God. It's expedient for you that I
go away, the Lord Jesus Christ said to the disciples. Why? Because
if I go not away, the Comforter won't come. But when He comes,
He'll lead you into all truth, and He'll testify to you those
things concerning myself. That's the ministry of the Holy
Spirit. He's the only one that can do it. You can't do it for
yourself. Your spouse can't do it. I can't
do it. He's the only one that can do it. But when He does it,
He causes us to cry in our hearts, Abba, Father. It's the ministry
of the Spirit of God. Don't settle for anything less. That's what Paul is saying. He came to you and you know what
manner of men we were among you for your sake. We didn't come
making merchandise of your souls. We didn't come for our own profit,
for our own benefit. We weren't deceitful. We didn't
twist the word of God to make it say something that it didn't
really say. We brought it to you with simplicity, with clarity,
with compassion, and without any personal agenda. We weren't
looking for a following unto us. We weren't looking for, he
said, he told the elders, turn with me to, Acts chapter 20. Look at Acts chapter 20 at verse
33. I have coveted no man's silver
or gold or apparel. I didn't come. We're not doing
this for our own personal profit. There's a lot of that going on
in religion. A lot of that going on in religion. Men building
a name to themselves, men building a... You understand that. And that's
what Paul is saying here. We didn't come to you that way.
We brought you the gospel for the salvation of your souls.
And that's the only thing that matters. Go back with me to our
text. And you became followers of us.
Yes, why? Because we're following the Lord.
And when you follow Christ, you follow with God's people. The
Lord doesn't have children following Him in different directions.
They will have one way, and Christ will be that way. And so Paul
said, you followed after us. Why? Because we're following
after Christ. We're all in, yes, lockstep conformity to Him. to him and glad to be there. Glad to be there. Having received
the Lord in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Ghost. If
you receive the gospel it will come with much affliction. The gospel is contrary to everything
in this world. The gospel of God's free grace,
first and foremost, is contrary to your flesh. And the first
pain of affliction that you're going to experience is when God
kills you, when He lays you low and puts you in the dunghill
and makes you to be a sinner. The gospel is contrary to all
the pride of man. The gospel is contrary to everything
this world stands for. Friendship with the world is
enmity with God, and the gospel will set you at odds with this
world. The gospel is contrary to everything
in religion. Everything in man-made religion
is contrary to the gospel. Man-made religion is based on
the idea that God is like us. And being like us, well, we've
got a free will, and God wants everybody to be saved, He's doing
everything he can, and it's kind of up to us. The gospel's contrary
to all that, isn't it? It contradicts everything in
religion, it contradicts everything in the world, it contradicts
everything in the flesh, and when the gospel comes, it comes
with much affliction. I'm always encouraged when someone
professes faith in Christ, and the first thing they say to me
is, man, I didn't know I was going to have so much trouble.
I didn't know my family was going to turn against me. I didn't
know my children were going to hate me. I didn't know my parents
were going to forsake me. I didn't know that was going
to happen. And sometimes, I'm sad to say,
that when that affliction comes, they turn back. They count the
cost and they go back. It's a very, very sad thing to
see when the seed falls on stony ground and because of the shallowness
of its root and the heat of persecution comes and the plant withers and
dies and produces no fruit. But you remember in Acts chapter
16 and Acts chapter 17 when the Apostle Paul went to Philippi
in Acts chapter 16 and preached the gospel and the scripture
says that there was a damsel, a young girl, who was a servant
of her master and that she brought him much gain by her soothsaying. She was a a poem reader, let's say. People came to her for prophecy,
and she followed the Apostle Paul around in Acts chapter 16,
and she kept crying out loud to the people in Philippi, these
men are the servants of the Most High God, and they've come here
to tell us the way of salvation. Now here's a woman who's possessed
with a demon who's doing that. Why would Satan do such a thing?
Why would he do such a thing? If he can convince the men of
Philippi that these men of God are in fact in lot with this
soothsayer, then the message of the gospel has been destroyed.
Even though what she was saying was true, her attempt to identify
herself with them would have destroyed the effects of the
gospel in that city. And the scripture says that she
did that for many days, and finally Paul turned and rebuked her,
and the demon left her, and her master lost all means of being
able to make profit from her. And as a result of that, a riot
broke out. in Philippi. And Paul was placed
into prison, was beaten, you remember? And the end of that
chapter ends with the salvation of the Philippian jailer, and
then Paul is delivered from prison, and he leaves prison and goes
to Philippi. And when he leaves Philippi and goes to Thessalonica,
and when he shows up at Thessalonica, he's still got the wounds. He's
still got the wounds that he suffered from being beaten. You
remember the Philippian jailer that the Lord saved dressed his
wounds that night. And so Paul said, don't, you
know, he said, I've got the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ in my
body. What he was talking about was the wounds that came as a
result of his persecution. So when he shows up in Thessalonica,
the believers in Thessalonica see this guy coming to town and
say, man, what happened to you? You know, what happened to you? I mean, this guy's been beat
up horribly. And he comes and preaches it
and the same thing happens again. Acts chapter 17, a riot breaks
out, and he's only in Thessalonica for three weeks. But the gospel,
the effects that the gospel had. And then they, in Acts chapter
17, there was a man who believed the gospel, his name was Jason,
and they attacked his house, and persecuted him and his family,
and they finally got Paul out of town. And he went on down
to Athens and preached the gospel there, and same thing happened
again. Everywhere he went. Is that still true today? Yeah. I mean, I'm thankful that we
live in a nation of free speech. I'm thankful they can't arrest
us and put us in prison for preaching the gospel. They would if they
could. God's allowed us to live under
certain laws that restrain them from doing that. But men are
no more violent against the gospel, no less violent against the gospel
today than they've ever been. Just stand for Christ and see
what happens. And let me make something clear. In no way am I encouraging you
to add offense to the gospel. That happens. There's a lot of
cults and subgroups and subcultures of religious people that say,
well, you know, you need to separate yourself from your family and
you need to forsake them and you need to treat all unbelievers.
I mean, I heard recently of a church who says they preach the gospel,
who encouraged a man in their church to divorce his wife because
his wife wasn't a believer. And that's the reason you need
to leave her. And you need to consider him to be dead. Consider
her to be dead. You know, that's not what the
Lord... We're to seek to do good unto
all men. We ought to be the most pleasant,
kindest, most considerate people that the unbelievers know. We just should. We don't have to, but once we
take a stand for Christ, There are consequences to that, and
those consequences will be in their hands, not in ours. Look what Paul says to the believers,
what the Lord is saying to you and me, verse 7, So that you
were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. Now
that's what I said, I want the church, I want grace gospel church. here in Apopka to be an example
of the gospel to the world and to other churches. And Paul's
just so thankful that this congregation was an example. For from you
sounded out the word of the Lord. They declared the gospel without
apology. How is it that a local assembly
like the church in Thessalonica can be called by God an example? How is it? Well, they received
the word with much affliction. But that affliction did not keep
them from declaring the gospel. They were faithful to preach
the gospel. And Peter says in 1 Peter 1,
verse 25, but the word of the Lord, notice in our text, verse
eight, for from you sounded out the word of the Lord. And Peter says, the word of the
Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. There are plenty of fundamentalists
who will stand firmly on the fact that this is the Word of
God, but they're not preaching the Word of God. Why? Because
the gospel is not being preached. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, beginning with Moses and the Psalms and the
Prophets. He expounded those things concerning himself. This
book is about Christ. This is not a history book. It's
not a rule book for Christian living. It is a revelation of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it is. And let men
stand on this book as the Bible, as the Word of God. If they're
not preaching Christ, Peter said, this is the Word of the Lord,
which by the Gospel is preached unto you. If the Gospel is not
being preached, the Word of God is not being preached. It's just
that simple. They can be quoting it, verse,
word for word, from the pages of this book, but if it doesn't
point to Christ, then the word of God is not being
preached. For from you sounded out the
word of the Lord. From you. An example of a church
to follow is that church which receives the gospel with much
affliction. The affliction of our own flesh,
the affliction of our own family, the affliction of the world.
the affliction that come as a result of the gospel and yet they don't
forsake the gospel. They continue to proclaim the
truth of Christ in spite of the fact that everything's against
them. For from you sounded out the
word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also
in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad, so
that we need not speak anything." Your own testimony went out.
We didn't have to go around convincing other people that you were believers.
They heard it themselves. They saw it, they heard it, they
experienced it. And what a glorious thing that
is when the evidence of the gospel is seen by other believers in
other believers. What a blessing that is. What
a joy that is. And I pray that we'd be able
to say that about each other. And I pray that other assemblies
would be able to say that about us when they come here. that
they would be able to say, and they do, they do. I was so encouraged just a few weeks ago when other
believers came here and people were saying to me, oh, this is
like a breath of fresh air, it's just such a joy to be around
God's people and to be able to fellowship with them, and this
is my haven. I don't have anybody in the world
I can have this kind of relationship with, nobody. But what a blessing
it is because all the relationships I had before were nothing like
this. They were nothing like this. Verse 9, for they themselves,
those who know you and those who have testified to the grace
that they've seen in you, they themselves show of us what manner
of entering in we had unto you. In other words, we go to other,
Paul left Thessalonica, he went to Athens, he went to Corinth,
and the testimony of their faith continued to follow them. And
he said, you know, we didn't have to tell people, we heard
from them what they heard about you. And what kind of entering
in we had unto you. How do we know that we entered
in? How do we know that the gospel, that you really did receive the
gospel? Look at the rest of that verse.
How that you turn to God from idols to serve the living and
true God. Now, works religion says that
you turn from your idols to God. And there's something in every
one of us. We're recovering Pharisees. And there's something in every
one of us that still has that little thought. Well, if I'm
going to renew my relationship with God, I'm going to have to
turn from this and turn from that and then go to the Lord,
you know. Isn't there? Isn't that what keeps us? We
fall out of fellowship with the Lord and we're just in a funk
about things and, well, what's the first thought that comes
to mind? Well, I've got to clean that up. I've got to get rid
of that and then the Lord will accept me. Never works that way. Ever. You turn to God. and in turning to God. And you
know that if you turn, it's easy to turn to you. You can't turn
on your own. Here again, we're back to the
Holy Spirit. Lord, turn me. Lord, give me faith. And you
turn to Him with all the garbage you've got. Everything, all your
sin, all your, just turn to Him with that. And you'll find in
turning to Him, you'll be turning from your idols. You don't, you don't, you don't
get rid of your idols and burn your idols and then find yourself
redeemable and find yourself acceptable now in the sight of
God because I did that. Paul said, we had an entering
in among you with the gospel and the testimony that others
are hearing that you turned to God from your idols to serve
the living and true God. Still the case today, isn't it?
Nothing's changed. If we're to be an example, we'll
receive the gospel with much affliction, we'll continue to
declare the gospel, and we'll continue to be turned, won't
we? Always turning, always needing to be. Well, I've already made
that turn. Well, I've made it ten times
since I've been standing up here. Isn't that the case? We're just
perpetual backsliders, aren't we? We're always looking back
over our shoulder. We put our hands to the plow,
and then we look back, and then the furrow gets all crooked,
and, Lord, turn me. Turn me. all my sin, all my weakness,
all my inconsistencies, all my unbelief, just turn me to Christ. If He does, He'll give you that
spirit of repentance to turn from those idols. Verse 10, to wait for his son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come." Now there's four questions, five
questions in this one verse. What are we to do? That's the
first question. What are we to do right now?
What are you to do right now? You know what the answer to that
question is? Wait. Wait. Well, waiting, that's nothing. I mean, that's pretty passive,
isn't it? Yeah. They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. Didn't Isaiah say that? Waiting. Just waiting with hopeful expectation. Waiting knowing that the day
will come. Waiting and hoping that perhaps it would be today.
Waiting on the Lord. That's what we're to do. Just
wait. Just wait. It's just another way of saying
look to Christ. Just another way of saying, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Just another way of saying, rest in Christ.
Come to Christ. Just wait. That's what we do. Who do we wait for? Who do we
wait for? And to wait for His Son. The Son of God. This is my beloved
Son. In Him I'm well pleased. Hear
ye Him. Follow Christ. Come after me. Wait for the Son of God. He's
the one that's received the full inheritance. The Father has given
everything to the Son. He's got the preeminence. The
only hope that we have of having any access at all to God is through
the Son. He's the Son of God. What did
that Philippian jailer say? I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. In Him dwells the fullness of
the Godhead bodily and my only hope of being complete is to
be found in Him. To be found in Him. So what do
we do? We wait. Who do we wait for? The Son. Where is He coming from? Where is He coming from? He's
seated at the right hand of the majesty on high right now. He
was received up into glory as a successful Savior. He took
with Him the names of all those for whom He lived and died and
presented them accepted before God in Himself. He ever lives
to make intercession for us. He's in the heavens. And all
the blessings of God are in Christ in the heavenlies right now.
He said, I go and prepare a place for you. And I'll come and receive
you unto Myself, so that where I am, there you may be also."
That's our hope. Our hope is not in this world.
Our hope is to be with the Son of God in heaven. He's in heaven. He said, wait for the Son who's
coming from heaven. He said, if it were not so, I
would have told you. I'd go and prepare a place for
you. I'll come again. And I'll receive you unto Myself,
so that where I am, there you may be also. That's our hope. That's what Paul's saying about
this church that is an example. Receives the gospel message with
much affliction. In spite of that affliction,
they continue to be faithful to preach the gospel. And other churches know about
it. And how they've turned, been turned to God from their idols
to serve the living and true God. And what are they doing
now? They're waiting. They're just
waiting. What are you waiting for? Waiting for a better job? Waiting for a better day? What
are you waiting for? I don't know if I mentioned this
on Sundays or Wednesdays. There's a person in my life,
every time you ask them how they're doing, their standard response
is, tomorrow's gonna be a better day. And it never is. But that's their hope. That's
what they're waiting for. Waiting for a better day tomorrow. Oh, what a terrible thing to
wait for. We're waiting for the Son of
God to come down from heaven. The trump of God shall sound
and the dead in Christ shall rise and those of us that are
left alive should be caught up together with them in the air
to ever be with the Lord. That's something to wait for.
I mean, that just puts everything in perspective, doesn't it? And
that's what he says about the church. He says, your example
is that you are waiting on the Son from heaven. How can we be
sure? It's the next question from this
verse. How can we be sure that He's coming again? Because God
raised Him from the dead. And if you're looking for any
other assurance than that, you're not going to get it. You're not
going to get it. If you're waiting for a feeling,
if you're waiting for a light from heaven, if you're waiting
for an audible voice from God, it's not coming. It's not coming. And if it does
come, it won't be from God. It'll be something you manufactured
or it'll be something that Satan gave you. The only evidence we
have that the Son of God is coming to deliver us that are left here
upon the earth is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. God
raised Him from the dead. And that is God Almighty's testimony
to His people that I'm satisfied with the accomplished work of
my dear Son. and I could not allow my Holy
One to see corruption. I was obligated by His accomplished
work to bring Him forth from the dead and to ascend Him back
into glory, and that's your hope. A wicked and perverse generation
seeketh after a sign. The Lord Jesus said that, didn't
He? Don't look for a sign. But no sign will be given unto
it except what? The sign of Jonah, who spent
three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. and then
was vomited forth. He was brought forth, wasn't
he? And that's what the earth did. It vomited up the Lord Jesus
Christ. He couldn't remain there. He
could not remain in the earth. The fact that he's alive, the
fact that God raised him from the dead, the fact that he's
the firstborn among many brethren, that is our hope. That's our only evidence. That's
it. And it's not in that he raised
from the dead, it's why he was raised from the dead. Big difference. Big difference. You know, in
a couple weeks, everybody's going to celebrate Easter, aren't they?
They're all going to talk about the resurrection, and they don't
know what the resurrection is. They believe it as a historical
event, and they think that that gives them hope of salvation.
Do you know why God raised him from the dead? Satisfied. That's it. The answer to that
question is in one word. Satisfied. Satisfied. You learn the meaning of these
two words and you've learned the gospel. Substitution and
satisfaction. Substitution and satisfaction. And the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ is all about God Almighty being satisfied with
the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even Jesus. Why is His name called
Jesus? For He shall save His people. What is my hope in His coming?
Here's the last question, and we'll finish with this. What
is my hope in His coming? Look at verse 10. Even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come. We don't have to worry about the
wrath of God. The fire's been quenched. The
judgment of God is satisfied. The substitute has received in
his body the full punishment for all the sins of all God's
people. There is no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus. That's our hope. He's come to
deliver us from the wrath that is to come. Now there's wrath
coming. There's wrath coming. Don't believe it when men say,
well, God's not angry and, you know, and God's not gonna, God,
no, no. There's a fiery judgment coming
against this world. But the Lord Jesus Christ came
to deliver his people from the wrath to come. Now, I want to
be delivered from that wrath. May God be pleased to make our
church an example of the gospel. Let's take a break.