Go with me, if you would, back
to 1 Thessalonians 1. 1 Thessalonians 1. Tonight's message
is the result of two things that came together in my heart and
encouraged me, very much encouraged me. The first thing is this. I left the conference this past
weekend and I drove home with such a thankfulness in my heart for being allowed to be a part
of the ministry. I cannot really honestly describe
to you the thankfulness that I had and I was grateful for
it. I was grateful for it. You know,
if, if a man desires the office of a Bishop, he desires a good
work. And everything that pertains
to this is a work, but I drove home with such a thing. I just
felt so, so thankful for being allowed to be a part of the ministry. And in that I do mean being a
preacher, but that's not all that I mean. I'm talking about in any way,
shape or form, just being allowed to be a believer. We take believing for granted. We take believing. So for granted,
we think, well, why wouldn't I believe this? Well, here's
why we wouldn't if God's Holy spirit withheld this. Life-saving
revelation from us. If God's Holy spirit did not
speak the word into our ear and into our heart, we wouldn't believe
this. Just being allowed to be a believer. Just being allowed to be a part
of the true congregation, the true congregation, our congregation,
their congregation. There were probably five or six
congregations represented there. Just being allowed to be a supporter
in any way. of the promotion and spreading
the announcement, the declaration, the ministry, the ministry of
this glorious news gospel of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. I'm wanting to encourage us tonight. This is, I'll give you a little
side cliff notes here to the whole message. I'm wanting to
encourage us to keep our eyes on what we're doing, what, who
matters, why this matters, and the joy of being allowed
to do it. The absolute joy, the privilege of being allowed to
do this. I say with humility, I believe
in my heart that I have a desire to press toward the mark. Sometimes
you have that desire. Sometimes you lose that desire
in God's goodness. Sometimes he gives it back. But
that's what I feel right now. That's what I feel. I want to press toward the mark.
I pray the Lord might send a revival in the midst of our years. We
say that and we think it won't happen. Send a revival in the midst of
our years. That won't happen. Those days
are over. Well, maybe not. The Lord can do it if he wants
to. The Lord can do it if He wants to. All He has to do is
speak the Word. That's all He has to do. All
He has to say to these poor people, just like us here in Kingsport,
is, come. That's all He has to say. Live. That's all He has to say. And we will come. We will live. I'm not ready if the Lord does
not. Now, if the Lord does, thy will
be done. But I'm not ready to wind this
thing down and fold up shop. Let's press toward the mark.
Let's press toward the mark. So that's the first reason why
this is our text tonight is because of this, um, thankfulness. I think that's the best way to
say it. This thankfulness that the Lord has given to me for
being allowed to be a part of the ministry. The second reason
why this is our text is because when I got to my office Monday
morning, I opened a note by a very dear sister in the Lord, and
she wrote some verses from this chapter at the bottom of the
note. Y'all write me notes and put
a scripture in it. It, it blesses me a lot. Happens a lot. And I was thankful
for it because I had this in my mind. I came back Sunday with
this in my heart. And if you look at verse two,
Paul said, 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 and our
Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our father. Over in verse eight, he said,
for from you sounded out the word of the Lord. Do you realize
what a privilege it is for a congregation to get to from us, sound out
the word of the Lord. This is the motivation for what
I'm saying tonight. He's worthy of it. He's worthy
of it. He's so worthy of it. And Paul
is telling the Thessalonians here, we're thankful to God for
your labor in the work of the ministry. We're thankful to God
for you and for giving you that heart to labor. So for those
two reasons, this chapter is gonna be our text. I wanna go
through these 10 verses and then I wanna tell you something, all
right? Verse one, it says, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto
the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and
in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a place to be. What a place to be. This whole
chapter is the gospel. The privilege of the gospel,
the beauty of the gospel, the glory of the gospel. What a blessed
place to be. He said, I'm talking to the church,
the saints who are in God the Father, in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the blessing for God's
sinful people. That is the grace and the peace
that he's about to mention. That is the gift, that is the
salvation, that's everything. Oh, to be in God the Father and
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul told the Philippians, he's
speaking to the Thessalonians here, but he told the Philippians,
all I want, and it takes the grace of God to say this, but
he said, all I want is to win Christ and be found in Him. How can that be? How can a sinner
win the prize and be found in Christ? Of God, are you in Christ
Jesus? It only comes by the grace and
the peace that God gives to His chosen people. Verse one says,
Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians,
which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, Grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace through the choice of the
Father, the choosing of the Father. Gift through the choosing of
the Father. Peace through the blood of the
Son. Grace and peace. Verse two, he
said, we give thanks to God always for you all making mention of
you in our prayers. He said, we are praying for you.
I want to encourage us to this. Let's pray for each other. Let's
pray for each other. We don't, I'll speak on my own
behalf, but I don't pray as I ought. I don't. And usually when I do, it's concerning
myself. The scripture says the Lord turned
the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. And I'm being very serious. Write
a note if you have to. Write a reminder if you have
to. Let's pray for each other. It'll create a love for each
other. It will. It will create something
in us as a congregation that'll bring glory to our Lord.
Let's bring each other before the throne of God. I'm always
coming to the throne of God saying, Lord, this is my need. Let's
bring each other before the throne of God. The prophet Samuel told Israel,
he said, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing
to pray for you. And our heavenly father knows
what things we personally have need of. He will supply the things
that we have need of. I believe he will bless, and
I'm speaking to myself, I believe he will bless me praying for
you. He knows what I need. I believe that. Let's remember
each other in prayer. As we go through this ministry,
let's make mention of each other in our prayers. Verse two says,
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. He didn't say, we give thanks
for your work of salvation. That's Christ's work. Any work that we do is just a
work of faith. Any work that we do is just a
work that's looking to him, giving thanks to him, waiting on him. He did not say right here, your
labor for acceptance with God. That's Christ's labor. It's not ours, that's his. He
bore the burden of that. Any labor that we do is a labor
of love. But he said in verse two, 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, knowing brethren beloved your
election of God. God has an elect people. And
there's a way that those people can be known. We have an illustration that
we use all the time of somebody saying to Spurgeon. If you believe only the elect
are gonna be saved, then why don't you just preach to the
elect? And he said, I would if they had a big E on their forehead.
Meaning, what he's saying is, I don't know who they are. And
that's true. We don't until God calls them
out. But once he calls them out, there's
a way that they could be known. And that way is faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. following Christ, bowing to Christ,
believing Christ, casting our all on Christ. That's how they can be known.
Verse four says, knowing brethren, beloved your election of God,
for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power, it reached you in the heart. Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in
much assurance. He said the Holy Ghost brought
faith and convinced you of the complete salvation that God has
provided for his people in the righteousness and the blood of
his Son. Convinced you. Verse five says,
For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as you
know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And
you became followers of us and of the Lord." The only reason
any child of God follows a preacher of the Word is because he's preaching
the Word. That's the only reason why. Paul said, You follow me as I
follow Christ. You're following me, he's saying,
because I'm preaching Christ. Verse six, and you became followers
of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction
with joy of the Holy Ghost. You received this word in much
affliction. with joy of the Holy Ghost. Even
so, even through the affliction, joy was there. Verse seven, so
that you were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and
Achaia, 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 to speak
anything. Paul is thanking God for them
and for God's work in them because he said, in spite of the affliction
and in spite of the opposition, you sounded out the gospel as
boldly and as clearly as you could possibly sound it out.
To the point, he said that all of God's saints everywhere knew
what you believed. They knew where you stood. in the truth concerning all the
glory for all things, especially salvation, go into the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. He said they knew. He said we
didn't have to convince anybody. We didn't have to go tell anybody.
They knew where you stood. I pray that might be said about
us. Where do they stand on things? I pray that might be said about
us. Verse eight, 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 word is spread abroad so that we need not to speak
anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering
in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve
the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come." This is the gospel, isn't it? This
is the gospel of the true and living God, not the idols of
man, the true and living God. He said, you're waiting for his
son from heaven, who is coming back. The very one whom he raised
from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us past tense done,
delivered us from the wrath to come. In Paul's commending them and
exhorting them, he wasn't preaching works. He was preaching the sovereign
grace of God Almighty through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But he said, because of that sacrifice and because
of that salvation, he said, I want to commend you and I want to
encourage you to continue pressing toward the mark like you're doing. He said, you're doing it. And I want to commend you and
I want to exhort you to continue pressing toward the mark like
you're doing. Our flesh is so weak, isn't it? May the Lord give us strength
for His gospel's sake. May the Lord keep us. May the
Lord, honestly, honestly, like fire from His altar, may
He revive us again and again and again. We have a glorious
gospel to preach. The message of works is awful. We have a glorious gospel to
preach. It's so freeing. We have a glorious
Lord to praise. And we have a glorious labor.
It's a labor of love, but we have a glorious labor that has
been entrusted to us in the ministry. And that's what I. would love
for the Lord to impress upon us this ministering of the kingdom
of God. This has been entrusted to us.
Let's press toward the mark. Let's press toward the mark.
Let's work hard. Paul has established he's not
preaching works. He's preaching grace. Let's work
hard in the ministry that he's given to us of spreading this
message of grace, spreading this message of the gospel. The work of salvation is finished.
We have been called to tell everybody. That's one of the things that
I was thinking about driving home. We have been called to
tell everybody. We've been called to believe
it. We've been called to bow to it. We've been called to give
thanks for it. We've been called to a lot of
things and we've been called to tell everybody. We've been
called to tell everybody. It pleased the Lord by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that belief. Faith comes by hearing,
by hearing the word of God. We've been called to tell everybody. A few years ago, one of our little
ones was coming to the service with her family and asked her
parents, why do we go to church? And they said, we go to church
to worship the Lord. we're going to hear about our
salvation, the salvation that he accomplished for his people. And this little one said, does
everybody go to church? And her parents said, no, honey,
they don't. And she said, why not? And they said, well, they
don't know. They don't know God is holy and
they don't know they need to worship the Lord. And she said, Well, we need to
tell them. And I say, Amen, sister. That's the point of this message.
We need to tell them. For the sake of time, I'm not
gonna have you turn, but I was gonna have you turn to places
like 2 Corinthians 4-2, 2 Corinthians 5-18, different places where
Paul was saying, seeing that we have received this ministry, let's preach this with all of
our might. He said, we've been given the ministry of reconciliation. We're not going around reconciling
people. God was in Christ, reconciling
his people. We've been called as ambassadors
for Christ. Does that not? Oh man. That makes me want to crawl up
under this pulpit and throw dust and ashes on my head, crying,
God be merciful to me. I'm a sinner. We have been called
to be ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ. In don't turn in Matthew nine,
the Lord said, pray ye to the Lord at the harvest that he will
send forth laborers into his harvest. That does not just mean
preachers. We read that and we think, well,
he's talking about preachers. We need to pray that he'll raise
up preachers. He is, but that's not all that
he's talking about. He did not just say preachers.
He said laborers. Laborers for anything that needs
to be done for the cause of declaring the Lord Jesus Christ. I just
want us to view things in this light. I know you ladies, if you had
the choice, you know, yes or no, A or B, would you rather
keep the nursery or not keep the nursery? Which would you
pick? That's the ministry of the gospel. That's ministering to the cause
of declaring Christ. I know, trust me, you fellas,
you know, thankfully we have a man taking care of it because
there's plenty of other work to be done. But when your time
rolls around to mow the grass, are you just all chipper to come
over here and mow the grass? That's the ministry of the Lord.
Cleaning this building, that's the ministry of the Lord. going
to work, just going to work and being diligent at your job so
you can earn a paycheck to support the preaching, the lights, the
heat. That's ministering unto the Lord.
It is unto the Lord. It is unto the Lord. Everything
we're doing is unto the Lord and he's worthy of it. He is
so, so worthy of it. I was driving back and I talked
to three men on the phone and they said that a bunch of you
met over at the church building and were cleaning up and sweeping
up to get ready for Gyp Crete. That blessed my heart so much. To think that God has given men
and women in Kingsport, Tennessee, a heart to labor in the work
of the ministry. Whether you realize that's what
you were doing or not, that's what you were doing. You were
laboring in the work of the ministry. You say, no, we were just doing
grunt work. Yep. Labor in the work of the ministry. Doesn't that give a whole new
meaning to everything we're doing? everything we're doing. May God
send forth laborers. May God raise up from these children
laborers in the ministry of the gospel
for the cause of his harvest. Habakkuk is the one who said,
oh Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. Revive thy
work. This is your work. This is your
work. That's our prayer, Lord. Revive
thy work and give us a heart to be a part of it. Just give
us a heart to be a part of it. Now, I'm gonna be quick, but
let me wind down by telling you this. The Lord willing, we're
gonna finish this building soon. At that point, the work will
begin. I have been telling everybody.
Well, now, as soon as this building's over, you know, we're working
really hard right now, but as soon as this building's over,
I believe with all my heart, as soon as we finish that building,
the work will begin. I believe the Lord has a work
here. I believe that's why he's given
us a ministry. Kingsport, Tennessee is not the
only place that has a ministry. We know where God has raised
up places that preach the truth with dear saints that have come
together. And for each of those places, God has a ministry there. God has a work there. I believe
God has a work here. I believe God has a work ahead
of us. And I believe it's just the beginning.
I believe it's just the beginning. Obviously, we're not gonna be
doing the same type of work that we've been doing in construction,
but work in the ministry. Work in the ministry. And what
a blessing it is to have it. Perish the thought that we would
not have a work in the ministry anymore. Nothing else to do here. No more gospel to preach here. What a blessing it is to have
it. What a blessing it is to be a part of it. May God give
all of us a heart to take part in the ministry of the gospel. Let's give ourselves. Let's, as we have been, As we
have been, let's give ourselves, let's give our all to the ministry
of declaring Christ. We have, you know, a little time
left, a few decades left. Let's give ourselves to the ministry
of declaring Christ. Not for salvation, but because
we love God. He loved us first. And he's caused
us to love him. And he's caused us to give thanks
to him because he gave Christ to us. And for that reason, let's
give ourselves. I'm just going to say it. Let's
give our money. Let's give our time. Let's give
our talents. Let's give our energy. Let's
give our prayer. everything and anything we have,
to ministering, to supporting, to promoting, to spreading, announcing,
declaring the glorious news of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
in any way that we can. If we do, He'll get the glory
for it. If we do, it is God which works
in us, both to will and do of His good pleasure. But if we
do, if He causes us to, it'll be our blessing. It'll be our
blessing. And I'm gonna just close. I was gonna have you turn, but
don't. First, don't turn. First Corinthians 16, 15 and
16, Paul said, you know the house of Stephanas? That they were
the first fruits of Achaia? He said they have addicted themselves
to the ministry of the saints. He said that family, he said
they are so addicted, they're addicts. They're just completely
addicted to the ministry of the saints. And he said, follow such
and submit yourself to them. He said, fall in with them, jump
in there with them, be just like them, help them, labor with them. All through the epistles, Paul
said, you tell this one, you tell that one. I said, thank
you for laboring with me. And I say that to you and I mean
this, you all have given yourselves for almost two years on the work
of this building and almost, I don't know, 16 years since
the start of this ministry. Thank you for helping me labor
in the ministry. It's not my ministry. It's God's
ministry, but he's entrusted it to us and we're in it together. And may he be glorified for it. May he be glorified. But if the
Lord will addict us, we'll be addicted and it'll be for his
glory and honor. All right, let's all stand together.