Transcript

During a war, three soldiers were on a recon mission looking for the enemy. As they were searching, they approached a well. One soldier looked down in the well and said “I can’t see anything”…the echo came back “I can’t see anything.”

Then the second soldier looked down in the well and said “Maybe they’re hiding in the woods”…the echo came back “Maybe they’re hiding in the woods.”

The third soldier looked down in the well and said “I’ll throw a grenade in there”…the echo came back “Maybe they’re hiding in the woods.”

The Thessalonian church echoed the gospel of grace so that others could hear and believe and be saved from all their sins. Their gospel echo sounded out clearly, widely, and it carried a long distance so that many heard the truth.

We learn from examples. And we can learn from the Thessalonian church’s good and godly example in how God desires the Body of Christ to echo the gospel call.

1 Thessalonians 1:5-6: “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.

“And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.”

Paul talks about “our gospel.” The reason Paul calls it “our gospel,” is that the gospel Paul, Silas and Timothy were sharing was the gospel revealed first to Paul, the gospel of the grace of God, the good news that Christ died for our sins and rose again and that just by grace through faith alone, we are saved and have eternal life.

Paul wrote this about the gospel he made known in Galatians 1:11-12, “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

This gospel of grace came to the Thessalonians in “in word,” or was verbally made known to them. Paul and his team communicated the truth of the gospel, but Paul recognized that it wasn’t their eloquence that brought people to faith, and that “our gospel came not unto you in word only.” It had come to them in word, but not word ONLY.

The gospel had also come to them in power, the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. It was the power of the gospel and the work of the Spirit that had pierced their hearts showing them their need of salvation and of Christ.

John Stott shares the following story from 1958 when he was leading a university outreach in Sydney, Australia.

The day before the final meeting, I received word that my father had passed away. In addition to this grief, I was also starting to lose my voice and did not feel well.

It was already late afternoon within a few hours of the final meeting of the outreach, so I didn’t feel I could back away at that time. When time came for me to give my address, I preached the gospel.

I had to get within half an inch of the microphone, and I croaked the gospel with a raspy voice. I couldn’t exert my personality. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t use any inflections in my voice. I croaked the gospel in monotone.

I’ve been back to Australia about ten times since 1958, and on every occasion somebody has come up to me and said, “Do you remember that final meeting in the university in the great hall?” “Yes I do,” I reply. And they say, “I was saved that night.”

Stott concludes, “The Holy Spirit takes our human words, spoken in great weakness and frailty, and He carries them home with power to the mind, the heart, the conscience, and the will of the hearers.”

Paul wrote the Thessalonians that the gospel of grace had come to them with power in the Holy Spirit. The truth of the gospel has power, and by the Holy Spirit, He uses our words, our proclamation of the gospel to save souls!

And he does so, even when they are spoken in weakness and when we stumble all over ourselves, we don’t answer their questions well, and it feels like we blew it.

Conversion does not depend on slick salesmanship techniques or powerful rhetoric or convincing logic on our part.

The power is in the truth of the gospel, not in how well we speak it. We are simply called to make it known, and God works thru our faithfulness to do so and He gives the increase.

Romans 1:16 says: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

There is power in the gospel of the grace of God. The power of God unto salvation is vested in the gospel of grace.

the Holy Spirit’s work, it has power to pierce the heart, convict us of our need of Christ, and show the grave danger we are in being in our sins.

The gospel has power to show what Christ has done as our Substitute in dying for all our sins and rising again. It has power to save and give us new life when we trust it.

The word for “power” here is the Greek word “dunamis,” from which we get our word “dynamite.” And the truth of the gospel is the dynamite that can blast away and destroy our mistaken beliefs, self-reliance, and pride.

The Gospel’s power is derived from God Himself. And nothing short of the very power of God can save anyone from all of their sins. Not one of us can claim that power.

Salvation is not of us or our own power. It is all of the Lord and by His power and His Cross. The power unto salvation belongs only to God, who alone has the power to save a soul from their sins and give them eternal life.

It’s been said well that “The gospel is not the presentation of an idea, but the operation of a power and of truth. When the gospel is preached (or spoken)…the power of God is at work for the salvation of men, snatching them from the power of destruction…and transferring them into new life.”

When the gospel was shared with the Thessalonians and they heard it, the Holy Spirit took those words and manifested the power of God by His work of conviction.

And when they believed the gospel, He manifested His power by immediately saving them from their sins, giving new life, placing them into Christ, and indwelling them.

By the Spirit’s work also, Paul wrote that the gospel came to them “in much assurance.”

They accepted the gospel with firm conviction, full persuasion of its truth. It was not embraced as a doubtful or uncertain thing, but in much assurance of its truth and reality.

Paul reminded them of his own conduct while he was with them, when he wrote, “as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.”

Paul not only preached the saving gospel, their lives demonstrated change and transformation because of the gospel of Christ.

The assurance of the truth of the gospel and of the power of salvation could be seen in the changed lives of Paul, Silas and Timothy, and by this also the Thessalonian church was further assured and convinced that the power of the gospel to save was real and true.

Because stop and think about Paul, Silas, and Timothy’s example. They had left the comforts and safety of home, and traveled hundreds of miles to distant lands and put themselves in danger of persecution and death just to share the gospel with others. This can only be explained by the reality of Christ’s resurrection and the saving gospel.

Faith in Christ resulting in changed lives, however, does not happen in every case. It did happen in the case of Paul, Silas, and Timothy. And it is the ideal of what God wants that having been saved by His grace we would be transformed by grace. God wants His grace to touch our hearts and for us to yield ourselves to Him and live for His glory.

But not every person who is saved by God’s grace then lives a changed life. Many make the decision to trust Christ and are saved from all their sins, but then they go on living for themselves and like the world. But they are heaven-bound and safe in Christ.

The Corinthian church is a case in point of people who were saved and were indwelt with the Holy Spirit, but they were not growing in their faith; they were worldly, were doubting the resurrection, and were involved in immorality. But they were members of the Body of Christ and saved by God’s grace.

There are preachers out there that say you must bear fruit to show that you are saved. But these teachings come from not rightly dividing the Word of truth and from misapplying God’s instruction meant for Israel to the Body of Christ.

Paul’s gospel teaches that we are saved by faith ALONE, not of works. You trust Christ as your Savior, that He died for our sins and rose again, and that’s it. You have eternal life.

Paul wrote that “ye became followers of us, and of the Lord.” Later in this letter, Paul wrote the church “But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God, with much contention” (2:2).

Having come from Philippi and the persecution they suffered there, Paul and Silas then came to Thessalonica and had been bold to speak the gospel in the middle of contention and conflict there as well. The Thessalonians then followed Paul and did the same.

As Paul was sold out for Christ, so were they. The Thessalonians trusted the message and then imitated the messengers. And in the middle of “much affliction” they too were bold with their faith like Paul. In the middle of “much affliction,” they continued to boldly follow Paul and the Lord with joy.

This sounds like a paradox: much affliction, yet filled with joy; external persecution, internal joy. Even in the middle of affliction for their faith in Christ and following Him, they had the “joy of the Holy Ghost.”

God’s joy produced by the Spirit isn’t based on our outward circumstances but on Christ, who the Spirit always points us to, and so these believers could rejoice in Christ and the life we have in Him, even when they were persecuted and hated by the world.

Nothing can ever take away what the believer has in Christ, and we can rejoice in the Lord always as a result. Persecution and affliction only drives the believer closer to the Lord, and closer to the Lord is where joy of the Holy Spirit is found.

Worshipping idols was the popular thing to do. There was no persecution or affliction there. To turn to God from idols, believing in and serving the living and true God was the unpopular thing to do. This angered friends, relatives, and unbelievers around the Thessalonian believers, and led to persecutions and conflicts.

1 Thessalonians 1:7-10: “So that ye were ensamples 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-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.

“For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye 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.”

The world is lacking in good examples. Wherever you look it is difficult to find solid examples to follow: among political leaders, in the sports world, and even in the church and the home. But the Thessalonians had found good examples to follow.

The Thessalonians were inspired by Paul, Silas, and Timothy’s Christ-like example, and they imitated them. In turn, their enthusiasm, joy, and passion for Christ led to them becoming “ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.”

“Ensamples” is the Greek word “tupos” which gives us our English word “type.” It’s a word which makes reference to a die, a mold or a model to duplicate.

The word also speaks of a “blow” or an “impression,” and refers to the visible impression left by the strokes or blows of an instrument.

This church was setting a wonderful pattern for others to follow and duplicate. The Thessalonians were impacting, striking a blow, serving in such a way that it made an indelible impression on others for Christ. They were making a mark for Christ.

They became a model church, a pattern church, a church for other churches to follow in Macedonia and Achaia. Macedonia was their own area. Thessalonica, Philippi and Berea were in Macedonia.

Achaia was adjacent to Macedonia. Corinth and Athens were in Achaia. And so they became the model in their own area and then the model for the neighboring area.

And they were making an impact by their faith in the midst of affliction and by their enthusiasm in sharing the truth of the gospel.

A storekeeper had only one fish left in his barrel. A lady came to the counter and asked for a big fish and he reached in and showed it to her. She wanted a bigger one, so he put it back in the barrel, grabbed it again and said with enthusiasm, “How about this one?!”

She declined and asked for something bigger so he again put it back in the barrel, grabbed it again and really excited with his find with even greater enthusiasm said “How about this one!?” She said, “No, they’re all a little small. Just give me all 3!”

Unlike the shopkeeper, the Thessalonians were sharing THE TRUTH, with enthusiasm. These Thessalonians were so stirred, having been saved from all their sins, that they couldn’t keep the good news to themselves, and they “sounded out the Word of the Lord.”

“Sounded out” in verse 8 means “sounding forth like a trumpet, or like a roll of thunder.” They were trumpeting and thundering the good news of salvation.

And like a trumpet, it had a clear and certain sound to it. They were clearly sharing the gospel of God’s grace. And like a roll of thunder there was power behind their testimony. As they shared the gospel, the power of God unto salvation, was being sounded out.

These word pictures here also carry the idea of an echo. Like the booming of thunder that echoes across the sky, and like brass instruments sounding off and that sound continuing on with a prolonged echo, the Thessalonians trumpeted and thundered God’s good news.

And it reverberated and echoed through the hills and valleys and cities, villages, and towns of Macedonia and Achaia. And not only there, Paul wrote, but “in every place.”

What they were sounding out and trumpeting, thundering and echoing, was “the Word of the Lord,” or “the word of the truth of the gospel” as Paul wrote in Colossians 1:5.

And when we thunder or trumpet the gospel, by God’s working and power it often echoes from one person to the next to the next. The gospel can sound out and then bounce and echo from life to life to life to life.

In one “Peanuts” comic strip, Lucy came up to her brother, Linus, and told him that she had “converted” someone in her class to her way of thinking religiously. Linus asked, “How did you do it?”

Lucy explained, “I told him everything I believe and asked him if he believed it, too. When we came to something he didn’t see my way, I just kept hitting him over the head with my lunch box until he believed it!” There are cases and methods of “lunch box evangelism” out there. But we can’t be the Holy Spirit and we can’t make people believe.

My wife and I once visited a gentleman who was near death. He was lying on his bed on his side facing us with his eyes closed. We shared the gospel with him a number of times and as clearly as we could. I asked him if he wanted to trust Christ right then.

He said, “I know what you’re saying is right. But I’m too tired. Come back another day.”

And he turned over and faced away from us and stopped talking. He died the next day. We couldn’t force him. We wished we could with all our being. And it broke our hearts.

The impact of the Thessalonian church went far and continues to this moment. It is a church to be modeled and patterned after in their faithfulness to share their faith.

Because it is the responsibility and the privilege of each local church to sound out the Word of the Lord, the message of salvation with their community and beyond, and allow the truth of the gospel to echo from life to life.

As Paul moved through Macedonia where Thessalonica was located, and then Achaia where Athens was located and where Paul was currently at, he would start to proclaim the gospel, then stop short in amazement. Because echoing down the canyons and through the streets was the Word of the Lord spoken by the Thessalonian believers.

People would stop Paul and say that they had heard about this already. They had heard about some church up in Macedonia who was proclaiming this same thing. Their testimony for Christ was contagious and spreading faster than Paul could travel.

He was beaten to the punch before he could utter a word. Paul must have laughed and marveled at these Thessalonians.

God’s Word echoed out not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place. News of their faith in God had an ever-widening circle of influence, like ripples in a pool of water. And these believers had gained a worldwide reputation.

And the Thessalonians didn’t even have Facebook! But they were located at a strategic geographical point in people’s travels back then. Located on the Egnatian Highway, the main east-west thoroughfare, the criss-crossing of trade went through Thessalonica.

So the gospel was spread by land. Then they were located at a seaport, on the Aegean Sea, and with the ships that docked and traveled to and from there the gospel was spread by sea. By land and by sea the testimony of the Thessalonians went everywhere.

Paul didn’t even need to say anything because in every place people already knew and would rehearse to him the story of the “entering in we had unto you,” how he, Silas, and Timothy went to Thessalonica to share the gospel and that they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”

It had become a matter of common knowledge that a startling transformation had taken place in the lives of many people in Thessalonica, as a result of them turning to God from their idols and willingly yielding themselves to God as His servants.

Situated just 50 miles from Mount Olympus, where the Greek gods were said to live, when the Thessalonians turned to God and away from idols, seismic shock waves reverberated throughout the entire region.

Notice how it’s put in verse 9, that they “turned to God from idols,” not from idols to God. Their first movement was toward God. It wasn’t that they had become fed up with their idols and then decided to give God a try.

They turned to God and found Him to be true and everything they could ever need so they dropped their idols, and they just fell away.

When the Thessalonians worshipped idols they had no hope, a false hope in a false god, no life from a lifeless god. But when they trusted the true and living God, they had a true hope in the true God, and a living hope and everlasting life from the living God.

And the next step they did was to willingly give themselves to Him, and gladly serve the true and the living God out of gratitude to be His and for the salvation we have in Christ.

Everybody serves something. Before trusting Christ, we served sin and self. Now we are called to willingly serve the Savior and others. We are saved to serve.

The word “serve” here is in the present tense in the original, showing that our service is to be a continual, lifelong activity. Servanthood to Christ is a lifestyle. It is our calling.

After salvation, now the Thessalonians had two purposes for their lives: (1) to serve the living and true God, and (2) to wait for His Son from heaven.

While we serve Christ, we wait for Christ. “Wait” speaks of a patient trust.

The Thessalonians were waiting for God’s Son from heaven. This implied the possibility of His coming at any moment during their lifetime.

And the Body of Christ is still waiting for God’s Son from heaven knowing that for us too, He could come at any moment during our lifetime. And this waiting for Christ’s return is now 2000 years closer from when the Thessalonians were waiting.

Believers in the Body of Christ are taught by God’s Word that we may leave this world in one of two ways: (1) through death, or (2) through the Rapture. Both involve seeing Christ for the very first time.

We could leave this world and follow the pattern of our Savior: death, burial, and resurrection one day at the Rapture. At our death, we will close our eyes in death, but will open our eyes in Christ’s presence in glory and we will see Him.

We could also leave this world via the catching away of the Church to heaven directly. We have the hope that the Lord could come at any moment and that we will leave this world and enter heaven in our new bodies without ever dying. And when Christ comes at the Rapture, we will see Him in the air.

And when Christ returns, He comes to deliver His Church from the wrath to come, which is the seven-year Tribulation period.

We cannot be looking for the Lord’s return at any moment if some event or period of time has to intervene. The Rapture of the Church BEFORE the Tribulation is the only one that permits the believer to look for Christ’s coming at any moment.

If you are saved, you are safe from the coming time of God’s wrath being poured out on the earth, and you will be delivered from it by Christ at the Rapture, the catching away of the Church to heaven.

But if you have never trusted Christ, you are in danger every single moment of being left behind to face this horrific time when God’s judgment and wrath will rain down on this earth in full measure.

Turning to the living God, trusting the gospel that Christ died for your sins and rose again, you are saved from the wrath to come. And when Christ returns, you will be caught away to heaven to be with the Lord forever.