1 Thessalonians 1:1-10. The Power of the Gospel
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) won the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature. He also won the only the Templeton Prize in 1983. During this lecture he surveyed the rise of atheism in Russia and its consequences. He strongly attacked the communist way of thinking and behaviour, adding,
“But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
He finished,
“All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today’s world are fruitless unless we redirect our consciousness, in repentance, to the Creator of all: without this, no exit will be illumined, and we shall seek it in vain.”
When Paul wrote his first letter to the church at Thessalonica he began by reminding them that the good news is about God and his son Jesus Christ and that this news has life-changing power,
“ . . . our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” 1 Thessalonians 1:5
The whole of the opening chapter concerns the gospel and its presentation. This is a vital theme for today when so few people, even church people understand the immensity of Jesus’ message.
If the Christian gospel is the only hope for the world, it is vital how we present and communicate this. The danger is that in our efforts to communicate with a worldly audience we adapt the message to what people want to hear. Of course we must use contemporary language and illustrations, but the essential message has not and cannot change. Yet this is precisely what is happening in many churches today.
The age old problem
When Paul first went to Macedonia he came to the thriving capital city of Thessalonica, the country’s capital city. It was a decadent city with much immorality. The vast majority of its inhabitants had no thought of God. It was therefore not at all dissimilar to many towns and cities in Britain today. The problems of apathy and antagonism were the same for the young church in Thessalonica as those facing our churches today. The main difference is the state of the churches.
The Gospel that came to Thessalonica
This small church had something that the apostle Paul deeply admired and was so grateful to God for. He began his letter,
1 Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you.
2 We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. 3 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
4 For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
It was in this decadent city of Thessalonica that Paul began to preach the good news of the gospel. It is important that we understand how he did this and what the message was that Paul preached, as there could be much for us to learn that would be helpful for us today.
a. They lived among them
Paul had learned a great lesson. It is very hard to communicate with people you do not know well and are not socialising with. The character and lifestyle of the small band of Christians were attractive to those with whom they opened their lives. When a friend invites someone to come to hear someone speak, they are much more likely to take note than if a stranger gives an impersonal invitation. We do need to learn to live among and socialise with those we long to share the gospel with.
b. They shared God’s message
This is fundamental. Paul and his colleagues had a clear message they wanted to share with people. Those responding positively to this message took on the responsibility to pass it on to others.
“The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.” 1 Thessalonians 1:8
A preacher’s job is much easier if other Christians are active for Christ amongst their friends. The remarkable influence of Billy Graham, when he came to lead missions in Britain, was largely because the Christians were ready and willing to invite their friends to come with them to hear the gospel being preached.
What is the Christian Message?
It is a tragedy that so few people today understand the Christian message. This is probably because they are not being taught it in our schools or even some churches. The apostle here reminds us of the important facts.
a. It really is good news
If the message being taught is not ‘good news’ it is not the Christian gospel. Advocating a Christian ethic is not proclaiming the gospel. Protesting against certain political stances is not proclaiming the gospel. Although Christians have much to say on social issues such as abortion, euthanasia, sexual behaviour, nuclear bombs or on international issues, these matters must never overshadow the proclamation of the gospel. Our job is to proclaim the good news.
b. The message is well defined
In contrast to the poorly defined, flabby message that comes out of many churches today, the Christian message is precise and clearly defined. It has been wrongly suggested that,
“Christianity is caught, not taught.”
This catchphrase suggests that it is essentially a lifestyle that others can admire and copy. Christianity becomes a vague feeling that warms people’s hearts. But it is far more than this. Christianity is not primarily a moral message describing how people should live but a message from God about how we can be rescued from eternal judgment and then inspired to live as God’s people. This gospel message has been heard over the millennia and has been recorded for us in the Bible. Paul tells us that the Christian message can be precisely explained,
“. . . our gospel came to you not simply with words . . .” 1 Thessalonians 1:5
Paul’s message could be taught precisely using words, it was a testable message. In the early churches there were preachers who tried to alter the Christian message so the leaders felt it was essential to clearly define the central Christian message. As a result the Apostle’s Creed, the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene Creed were each written to counter specific false doctrines that were encroaching into the churches. These early church leaders had to ‘contend for the Faith’. The Christian faith is a very precise message of hope.
After the Reformation, when a decadent medieval church was brought back to what God has said in the Bible, there was again a need to clearly define what the Christian message was all about and what it wasn’t about. Consequently the Augsberg Confession, the Heidleberg Confession, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Westminster Confession were all written so nobody could be uncertain what the Christian message is. Unfortunately these are too seldom recited and explained in our churches today so it is no wonder that many are unclear about the good news.
The Apostle’s Gospel
Paul had no uncertainty about the message God had commissioned him to pass on to others.
“They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
God
This message began with God and what he has to say. How different this is today where too often preachers begin with man’s problems and then go on to say how Jesus can help overcome these problems and how people can feel good, find great peace and success and have their feelings of guilt removed. Instead the church’s message should start with the God who created us.
The apostles contrasted the one true God with the pretend Gods that people were worshipping. In the first century, sexual idols and financial idols and success idols were associated with wooden or stone idols and temples to worship these gods in. Today we worship just the same gods of sex, money and success but we worship them through our televisions, magazines and papers.
Paul would begin his talks by stressing that people were chasing after false idols. People were worshipping man-made lies and vanities and consequently were not worshipping the one true God who created us. He reminded them that their idols had no power, could not prevent illness, old age or death in contrast to the living God who, ‘in the beginning created . . .’ This true God created us for himself and longs to live in harmony with us. Paul reminded his listeners that when they die they will all have to stand in judgment before this God so it is stupid not to live now in the light of this. Paul reminded his hearers that worshipping vanities, careers, families, success, money, fame or good reputations now will be brought into the light in this judgment by the living God.
This was how John the Baptist preached, calling people to repent of their wrong relationship with God. Peter, at his first Pentecost sermon also urged people to repent and turn back to the God who alone could forgive their sins.
Before people can understand the good news they must first understand the plight they are in. If people come to Jesus, asking him to help them with their physical, emotional or other need they will never understand the immensity of the gospel. They may come feeling unhappy, wanting healing, wanting guidance or a solution to a problem and if this is resolved it is all to easy for them to drift away because the true gospel hasn’t been understood.
I remember picking up a hitch-hiker may years ago. He had been a soldier in the Falklands War and was involved in the Battle of Tumbledown Hill. He explained that as they descended down towards Port Stanley the Argentinians suddenly opened fire with machine guns. They fell flat and rapidly dug in. My passenger explained that his best mate, who was next to him, was shot through the head and died immediately. He then added,
“We all prayed like mad – even the atheists among us.”
I then asked him if he still prayed,
“No, I don’t need to now!’
Jesus
Paul then told his hearers about Jesus who was the incarnation of God. He explained that the God who created this world had entered it as a human being. He was born supernaturally of a virgin but became a preacher and healer around the age of 29. He explained that this person had two natures, he was fully human yet also fully divine and that he fulfilled all the criteria given in the Jewish Scriptures for the Messiah, God’s chosen king. This was always his message. In another letter to a young church he said,
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” Galatians 4:4-5
There was a twelve year old boy in Bermondsey demonstrated how ignorant so many are about who Jesus was and the evidence about him. He had a question that had been puzzling him so he asked his schoolteacher,
“Miss, why did they give Jesus a swear-word for a name?”
The evidence the Jesus existed is very strong indeed.
The Cross
Paul would then tell his hearers that this remarkably good man, who taught and healed people, who openly claimed to be God, was willing to go to Jerusalem where he knew he would be executed by crucifixion. He told them about Jesus’ willingness to die because it was his Father’s plan that, by so doing, he would become responsible for the sins of many people. He would take on himself the wrath God because of our sin against him. Paul summarised this,
“. . . Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” 1 Thessalonians 1:10
This message about who Jesus is and what he has done for us has always been the Christian message. It is the good news of forgiveness first and then of the empowerment those who turn to Jesus as their Lord that enable sthem to live as God’s representatives in this world. It is not a message about how our societies will run better or that we will feel more fulfilled if we also sacrifice ourselves for others’ needs. The Christian message is about Jesus who entered this world to save a people for God. He became our substitute, his death on the cross was when he paid the price for my sin; his atonement for my sin is an essential Christian doctrine by which I can know that I am ‘at one’ with God. This message is repeated throughout the Bible, for example,
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:19
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Romans 4:25
As John the Baptist said, pointing to Jesus,
““Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29
There is no other remedy for my sin against God. Any efforts to improve my lifestyle are totally inadequate to please God. Our only hope is in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles, the fact that God took my sin and placed it on Jesus as he hung there on that cross. No wonder the sky went dark, no wonder Jesus cried out,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” Matthew 27:46
Here Jesus is quoting Psalm 22, which describes in detail his death by crucifixion. This was when he experienced the separation from his Father in heaven caused by the sin he bore.
Christianity is not a message about what we should do to try and please God, it is a message about who Jesus is and what he has done so that we can become right with God. He has become our righteousness, it is because Christians are now ‘sold out’ to him that God sees not our sin but Christ’s righteousness. What a glorious message we have to share with others.
Resurrection
The apostles had no doubt that Jesus physically rose from the dead. Eleven out of the twelve were killed affirming this fact. Yet a survey, commissioned by the BBC in 2017, suggests today a quarter of people who describe themselves as Christians in Great Britain say they do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus,. What is even more disturbing is a survey of the views of Church of England clergymen in 2002. A third of them said they doubted or disbelieved in the physical resurrection and only half are convinced of the truth of the Virgin birth. This poll of nearly 2,000 of the Church's 10,000 clergy also found that only half believe that faith in Christ is the only route to salvation. This is in direct opposition to Jesus,
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
The apostles, when on trial for their lives before the Sanhedrin, said boldly,
“Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
Paul stated that the physical resurrection of Jesus is an essential belief if people are to be saved.
“1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” 1 Corinthians 15:1-5
This is the message the apostles taught and they were first hand witnesses of this. Paul continued,
“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God,” 1 Corinthians 15:14-15
Jesus reigns
The risen Lord Jesus returned to live in glory with his father but his Holy Spirit has been given to each Christian to enable us to live for God. All authority has been given to him and one day he will return to rule his people. What a great day that will be, when we will fully experience what it means to be members of his family because we have been adopted by God. Then we will experience the healing he has promised, we will be given new bodies.
It is because the Thessalonian church believed this message about Jesus that they wanted to pass it on to others,
“The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.” 1 Thessalonians 1:8
Hudson Taylor, who initiated a missionary drive to China said,
“I would never have thought of going out to China had I not believed that the Chinese were lost and needed Christ.”
Christians will only give themselves to fulfil our Lord’s commission to go into all the world to preach the gospel if this conviction about our sin and the good news of forgiveness through Christ is not part of us.
The Spirit’s Power
Biblical preaching and teaching are vital but Paul recognised that something else was needed for effective ministry. Today there are churches that teach an orthodox message but have still have no life. People are not convicted as the message is taught. When Paul taught in Thessalonica,
“ . . . our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” 1 Thessalonians 1:5
This power, that led to the hearers being convicted and convinced, was the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who gives joy to those who receive Christ.
“ . . . in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 1:6
Paul was not a naturally impressive man. He was said to be short and balding and probably had eye problems. He was not even a great orator yet God was at work through him. He says about his visit to Corinth,
“I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.” 1 Corinthians 2:3-4
This certainly differs from the use of psychological techniques and dishonest methods to induce people to make decisions for Christ. Paul later tells the Corinthians that although ministry is hard they never used inappropriate methods.
“ . . . we do not lose heart. Rather we have renounced secret and shameful ways, we do not use deceptiuon, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:1-2
When people see the sincerity of the Christians and that we are simply passing on what God longs for all people to know, the minds of some will be opened. It is God’s authority and that alone that convicts people.
What was it that enabled a man born in a small village in East Lothian to lead much of Scotland to the faith of Jesus and his apostles? John Knox had a remarkable influence because he really did believe the gospel was God’s message and he knew that God’s Spirit was at work with him.
Why are seeing relatively little of this effect of the Holy Spirit today? Paul summarised why the gospel had been so effective in Thessalonica.
“And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:3
It was the faithful teaching of the word of God, backed by the work of the Holy Spirit, that brought about this conviction and this permanent change.
“And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, swhich you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 1:3
Are we teaching the gospel as the apostles taught it? Are we praying that God will use all we say? Do we really believe that all people must believe in Jesus, the Son of God, if they are to receive eternal life?
BVP
