I invite your attention this
morning to the epistle of 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 if
you would please. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse
4. Earlier this week in my studies
as I ran across this verse and felt impressed that I preach
from this chapter, I had forgotten and was a bit surprised that
I had preached from this text less than a year ago, but at
that time I tried to show you that election is not salvation. There's a lot of folks that think
that election is salvation. But election is unto salvation. And that's what we considered
in that particular study. But today I want to address the
subject of evidences of election. Because, and here's the reason,
there are still many of God's people I mean, professing believers,
those who trust in Christ, who still struggle with the assurance
of salvation. We all have and we all do to
some degree, if we're just honest. Some more than others, some more
often than others, but we all do. We struggle believing that
God has saved us. And all of us will again. Should
we? No. Not if we're looking to Christ. But that's the problem. We take
our eyes off Christ and we begin to look within. We begin to look
to self. And we say, how can a believer
think the things that I think? How can a believer say the things
that I say? How can one who says they know
God do the things that I do? How can one who professes to
love Christ be so cold and be so distant to the One who loved
them and gave Himself for them? Sometimes a believer struggles
with having any assurance that they're saved. And we've all
asked questions like, how can I know that God loves me? How can I know that Christ died
for me? What evidence is there of these
things? Are there some things about my
eternal destiny that I can know that will give me some confidence
in an assurance of life, eternal life, salvation, being reconciled
to God? Everything being alright again
with me and God. But are some of the things revealed
in this book that let me know, that give me some assurance and
some confidence that there's hope for me. One who is totally
undeserving of God's love, mercy, and grace. When Paul wrote to
the church here at Thessalonica, he rejoiced in what he found
there. Look beginning in verse 2 with me. We give thanks to
God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love
and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of
God and our Father. And immediately here we see three
things about this group of believers that Paul quickly commands. Verse 3, their work of faith,
labor of love, and patience of hope. And you might find it hard
to believe, but this is where some folks just come off the
tracks like a derailed train. They look within. They see none
of these evidences within themselves. They may see the evidences in
you and someone else, but not in themselves. And do you know
why? Because they live with themselves. They know what they are. They
do unless they're completely deceived. Some men and women
convince themselves that everything's alright with them. That they're
doing just fine on their own. But this book paints a totally
different picture of the sinner, doesn't it? None but sinners
are going to be saved. Did you know that? Oh, that's
good news if you're a sinner. Christ came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. We looked at that last week.
Those who are whole have no need of a physician, but those that
are sick do. I've seen it happen time and
time again. It's happened to me and it probably
happened again. We start looking within. We start
looking at ourselves. Looking for some evidence. Some
work of faith. Some labor of love. Some work
of righteousness. And when we do, one of two things
always happens. First, we get discouraged because
we don't feel like we're good enough or we're doing enough
or that we can do good enough. Or, we get puffed up and proud
because we think that we have done these things. Your salvation,
your righteousness, your perfect standing before God, your acceptance
in the sight of God is the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else.
The true evidence of being a child of God is simply to believe on
Jesus Christ to save you from your sin. And folks, there's
got to be more to it than that. Trust in Christ to save you from
your sin. Look at verse 3 again. Paul said,
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love
and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of
God and our Father. The only real evidence any child
of God has of being perfect, and that's what we must be, perfect
in the eyes of God. Not just good, but perfect. It must be perfect to be accepted. I think all the time about that
rich young ruler that came to the Lord Jesus. He said, Master,
what good thing must I do to be such? It was all about being
good. And the Lord Jesus said, Thou
would be perfect. So you've got to be perfect.
Not just good, but perfect. There's no evidence other than
faith in and on the Lord Jesus Christ. No other work of faith
but the faith of Jesus Christ. There's no labor of love but
the love of Christ that constraineth us. And there's no patience of
hope but that which is in our Lord Jesus Christ. A good hope
is founded in Him, in His person, in His blood, in His righteousness. Can a believer, can a child of
God know for certain that Christ died for their sins according
to the Scriptures? You better believe they can.
You better believe they can. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11. Job said, I know
that my Redeemer liveth. I know that the only one that
is able to redeem me, I know He lives, and He's my Redeemer. He's my Redeemer. Is He your
Redeemer? Paul said, I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded
that He is able. That whom is a He, and He is
Christ, and Christ is able. Able to do what, Paul? Able to
keep that which you committed unto Him. What have we committed
to Him? Well, it better be everything.
It better be everything. Everything that God requires,
we commit to Him. God says, I require perfection. I require perfect holiness. I require perfect righteousness. You must be just in order to
be so. We can't provide that. He provides
it for us. Everything, everything that we
need. Everything that I don't myself possess. I'm committing
it all to Him. My eternal soul, I'm committing
to Him. There's no merit in our committing. It's a benefit that we do. I'm
simply trusting that He put my sin away and I can't look within.
I can't find any evidence. I can't find any assurance within
me, for in my flesh dwells no good thing. And since all the
work that I must provide must be perfect to be accepted, I
can't do it. I can't provide what God requires.
I don't have the ability to provide it. None of us do. None of us
have the ability to provide what God requires. So there's no need
to commit anything to me. No need to commit anything to
you. It must all be committed to Him. Have you committed all to Christ? I'm persuaded that He's able
to keep it. Whatever it is, all of it. He's
able to keep it. All my hope of salvation is committed
to Him. It must be. All my confidence
that God's law is satisfied is found in Christ and in Christ
alone. And that's where all my assurance
is. How about you? Isn't that where your assurance
is? You've not put any trust in anything
yet. And we find such comfort there. We find such rest. Can
we have assurance? You better believe we can. You
better believe. Because our election, which is
unto salvation, has nothing to do with what you and I do. Nothing. Therefore, our salvation
has nothing to do with what we do. I can't earn, I can't merit,
I can't deserve redemption, and therefore, I can't lose my salvation
because of something that I do. And someone's going to say, someone's
going to say, well, you're giving people a license to sin. Aren't
they, Gene? That's what they're going to
say. You're giving people a license to sin. You know what? They don't need one. We sin because
of what we are. We're sinners. And folks will
say, okay, well then now you're excusing sin. You're making light
of it. No. Shall we continue in sin
that grace may abound? God forbid. God's word says,
the soul that sinneth, it shall die. You see, not even God can
excuse sin. There are some things that God
can't do. Excusing sin without just payment for sin can't do. Sin's got to be punished in order
for God to remain just. And that's how Paul could know
that these folks were God's elect. This is the evidence that followed. Paul says, I know and believe
that you're God's elect. And in verse 5 he says, For,
and that same word is because, same Greek word, he said, because
our gospel, and that's the gospel of God's glory, the gospel of
His free grace, the gospel of His sovereign mercy. That's the
gospel. Not what most men call gospel,
where man gives his will to God to help him save him, that man
makes a collaborative effort with God in order to be saved.
No, sir. That's no gospel. The gospel
of grace. The gospel of His dear Son. The
gospel concerning Jesus Christ. The gospel of substitution. God
doing for me what I cannot do. He said our gospel didn't come
to you in word only, but it came in power. And it came in the
Holy Ghost. And it came in much assurance.
This evidence of their election had to do with hearing. Did you
notice that? It had to do with believing.
The Gospel had to come in words. And those words had to be believed.
And man cannot hear the Gospel without words. How can they believe
in Him of whom they've not heard? How are sinners going to hear
without a preacher? You've got to have words. Peter
said, we are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible
by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Does this
book mean anything to you? I mean, does it mean anything
to you? Do you believe that this is God's Word? Well, it'll mean
something to you if you do. And it won't if you don't. Paul
had confidence that the Lord had done something for these
sinners. Paul believed in his heart that God had chosen these
men and women in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Paul saw evidence that God had by His own will and purpose chosen
them in Christ in timeless eternity. But I can assure you that many
of them didn't think that. I love how Paul here says our
gospel. Paul's gospel was now their gospel. Do you know what? Paul's gospel
is now my gospel. It's our gospel in the child
of God. Believers, it's our gospel. We
share in that gospel. This is our gospel. Paul's gospel
was the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'm convinced
of that. I'm convinced that's all he was
determined to know among any to whom he preached. I'm determined
not to know anything. But Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Is that what you believe? Is that where you're putting
your trust? Is that how you're depending
upon standing before God in the day of judgment and Him saying
to you, Enter in, thou good and faithful servant. Is it your
only hope of acceptance with God that He, the Lord Jesus Christ,
His own self, bear your sins in His own body on the cross?
Paul is saying, I see evidence here that you're God's elect.
First because God sent the Gospel into you. And the Gospel came
unto them. Isn't that what the text says?
It came unto them. For our Gospel came not unto
you in word only, but also in power. And if the Gospel ever
comes to a sinner in a saving way, I can assure you it's going
to be in power, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you know
when the Gospel comes to a sinner in word only? First, when you
don't hear the gospel as a sinner. It just comes to you more and
more. The only way you can hear the gospel is as a sinner. A sinner has a need. The ungodly
have a need, but not those that are holy. They need not. And
it's when I see that I have no righteousness, when I see that
my need of Christ's righteousness and how precious that perfect
righteousness is, it'll mean something to you, the righteousness
of Christ, when you see you have none. Secondly, you hear the
Gospel in word only when you don't hear it as the absolute
truth. Look, you may not even have to
turn the page. Look in chapter 2 here, verse
13. 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13. Paul says, "...for this cause
also thank we God without ceasing, because when you received the
Word of God, which you heard of us, you received it not as
the Word of man, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which
effectually worketh also in you that believe." You see, the Gospel
was sent in the power of the Holy Spirit when the Word of
God effectually It works in those who believe. It comes in power. That's what it does. It's going
to take the power of God to make one who is dead and trespasses
and sin alive. The same power that it took to
create the universe. It's going to take the same power
that raised Christ from the dead to give you life from above.
It's going to take the same power to create in a chosen sinner
a clean heart and a right spirit within. The Gospel comes in power
and in the Holy Ghost. I think sometimes we forget who
we're talking about here. Men have made the Holy Spirit
something of their own imagination just as they have God. Mr. Spurgeon once said, I'm so glad
that the power of God doesn't lie in the eloquence of the preacher.
Men would say that men were the converter of souls if that was
the case. And he said, I'm so glad that
the power of God doesn't lie in my learning and in my education,
because then salvation would be attributed to wisdom. He said,
I'm so glad that the power of God doesn't lie in the will of
man, for man's will is not to come to Christ that he might
have lied. Unless God the Holy Spirit be with the Word of God
and empower it to convert the soul, we might as well preach
the stone wall. Because that's exactly what an
unregenerate heart is. Just stone, cold, and indifferent. And friends, if the gospel is
not accompanied by the power of God, you and I will never
hear it with our hearts. But it comes in the power of
the Holy Spirit. If it does, it's going to come
with much assurance. That's what he says. Does this
gospel message give you much assurance? It most certainly
should. But when we look within, when
we look to self, it's just not there, is it? To say that Christ
is mine and that I trust Him does not mean that I will never
doubt my interest in Him. Yet, it ought to mean that I
should never doubt His interest in me. There are going to come
times when me, the sinner that I am, so without faith, so cold
and indifferent in my heart, that I doubt. It's not my work
of righteousness that saved me, it's His work of righteousness
in my place that did. My righteousness has nothing
to do with it. Filthy rags, the Scripture calls
it. Look at verse 6 here. Here we
see another evidence of our election unto salvation. Paul says, and
you became followers of us and of the Lord. I knew a man once
that had been hurt pretty bad, disappointed by a preacher that
he had put great confidence in. With great frustration, he told
me one time that he would never follow a man again. Not long
ago, I heard a preacher say, I don't follow any man, I follow
Christ. But you know what? You cannot
follow Christ and not follow a man that's following Christ.
You cannot follow Christ and not follow a man that's following
Christ. You remember Rebekah? Abraham
sent his trustworthy servant Eliezer to find a bride for his
son. Did Rebekah follow him home?
You better believe she did. What was it that convinced Rebekah
to travel such a great distance to marry a man that she had never
met, she had never laid eyes on? Well, it was the word and
the testimony of Eliezer. The trusted servant of Abraham
said, oh, let me tell you about my master, Abraham. Oh, he's
a rich man. Let me tell you about his son.
He said, will you go with me? She said, I sure will. Never
seen him. What a picture of following a
man. If you're ever going to hear
about God's Son, it's going to be through a man. God uses the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. In plain English,
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1, he said, follow me as
I follow Christ. And Paul says here in our text,
you became followers of us. Well, you're just putting preachers
on a pedestal. No sir. No sir. And I don't want
anybody to put me on one. I am just a man endeavoring to
trust Christ the same as you. The Lord Jesus said this in Luke
chapter 10 verse 16. He said, He that heareth you,
heareth me. And he that despiseth you, despiseth
me. And he that despiseth me, despiseth
him that sent me. That's pretty plain and pretty
simple. I love the simplicity of John's writings. In 1 John
4, verse 6, John said, We are of God, and he that knoweth God
heareth us, and he that is not of God heareth not us. Boy, isn't
that plain and simple? Those that believe God are going
to have an interest in this Word, and they're going to hear the
man that God sends to preach it. Pretty plain language the
Scripture is. You've not chosen me, but I've
chosen you. Is there anything about that
that you and I can't understand? John said we love Him because
He first loved us. How simple is this? Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us. You want
to talk about your love for God? No, I'm going to talk about His
love for us. He loved us and He sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. That's the message. He that loved
us sent His Son. God loved His people and He sends
them the Gospel. Not in word only, but also in
power and in the Holy Ghost and with much assurance. And that's
the first evidence. The Gospel came not to you in
word only, but in power of the Holy Ghost. and in much assurance. The second evidence we saw in
verse 6, and you became followers of us and of the Lord. God's
people are going to follow Him. Then we come here to the third
evidence, also verse 6, having received the Word in much affliction,
yes, but we received it nonetheless, it says, with joy of the Holy
Ghost. Whatever God says, God's people
receive it. We bow to it. God's elect receive
all that God says. God says there's none that doeth
good, no not one. And the sinner says, that has
to be so. That's what God said. I see it
so concerning me. I agree with God. I'm going to
take sides with Him against me on this issue. That takes grace. That takes the intervention of
God. There's none righteous, no not
one. The sinner says, yes Lord, my righteousness is filthy rags. I see that. God declares it to
be so and God is always right. The kingdom of God is not meat
and drink, but righteousness. That being the perfect righteousness
of Christ. The kingdom of God is righteousness
and peace and joy and the Holy Ghost. And if Christ is my righteousness
before God, do you know what I feel? Peace. Do you know what
I feel when I feel peace? Joy. Joy in the Holy Ghost. And Paul says, Now the God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may
abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Look at verse
7, we see the fourth mark, the fourth evidence of election that's
unto salvation, and that is this. Paul says, so that ye were in
samples or examples, patterns is what the word means, that
you were patterns to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. You became examples. You're a
form. You're a mold. You're a pattern
of those that God elects and saves. Paul told Timothy, he
said, I obtained mercy that in me, first Jesus Christ might
show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them that should
hereafter believe on Him unto everlasting life. You think about
that. Knowing Paul or Saul of Tarsus,
knowing his history, was there anyone who was less likely to
be saved than him? Well, he persecuted Christians.
He killed them. He yanked them out of church
while they were preaching and threw them in prison. Was there
anyone who hated Christ as much as Paul did? If you had taken
a survey in all Jerusalem, Paul would have been the last person
on the list that you thought God would have saved. Christ
came into the world to save sinners. That's something I qualify for.
I qualify for that. So it has to be that if I'm saved,
the sinner that I am, it has to be that God saved me. In verse 8, another evidence
of election unto salvation. For from you sounded out the
word of the Lord. You see, the true believer identifies
with the Word of the Gospel and they sound out the Word of the
Lord. God has given all of us the ministry
of reconciliation. In one sense, God's made us all
preachers. Paul says, in every place, your
faith to God is spread abroad so that we need not to speak
anything. We didn't have to tell anybody
about you or your assembly or your church. We didn't need to
speak anything. You sounded out the Word of the
Lord yourself. It became obvious to all those
around you that God had done a work of grace in you. In verse
9, one other evidence of our election and salvation, believing
they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true
God. That's what God's people do.
They didn't turn from their idols and then to God. They turned
to God and they saw the idols to be what they were. It took
God turning you to sin. And then you see the error of
your religion, the inability of your idols, and you seeing
a living God to turn you from your dead idols. That's the order
of things. And then lastly, we see that
these folks here at Thessalonica gave evidence of God's election
because of verse 10. Look at it. And to wait for His
Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus which
delivered us from the wrath to come." Did you notice how Paul
identified the Lord Jesus here? It says He's the one from heaven. He's the one who was upon the
throne and made Himself of no reputation and came to earth
in the form of a servant made under the law to redeem them
And He's the One whom God raised from the dead. That's how Paul
describes Him here. He's the One that hell and the
grave could not hold. He's the One that death could
not keep. He's the One who sits now on
the throne of God. He's not wringing His hands on
the portals of heaven saying, won't somebody just believe in
me? Won't somebody just love me back?
No, sir. He's ruling and He's reigning. He's working all things after
the counsel of His own will. He's God. And He's in the heavens
and He's done whatsoever He's pleased. He's the one who forever
makes intercession for His people. He's the one who delivered us
from the wrath to come. That's what Paul said. I thought
about this evidence that Paul speaks of here. He says, "...and
to wait for His Son." Now listen, the only reason that you'll wait
for someone is if you believe that they're coming. Isn't that
right? When I stand bethrothed to the
throne of God, my judge, to give an account of all the deeds that
I've done in this body, what am I going to say? I'm not going
to say a word. I'm not going to say a word. I'm going to wait for my Lord
and my Savior to answer for me. That's what waiting on His Son.
Father, I died for that sinner. I paid his sin dead and full.
I gave him my perfect righteousness. And God in mercy, oh, can you
hear Him? Enter in, thou good and faithful
servant. Enter in into the joy of the
Lord. Oh, may God cause you and I to
have the evidences of being the elect of God in Christ.