1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 (Part C)

Why do you come to church? Hopefully, to be built up again.

I can do that on my own, but that's outside of how the system's been designed by the designer of the system. When you come to Christ, it is no longer owned and operated by me. It is owned and operated by the Lord. This is a concept that seems to be rejected by so many people sitting in pews. He is not my Lord.

He's just my Savior. I preach on this all the time. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1st Thessalonians. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

Today on Cross-Reference Radio, Pastor Rick will continue teaching through 1st Thessalonians Chapter 1. I'm his slave. He can do or not do with me as he pleases.

And there have been some intense times. I said, why did you let me say that? God's like, what are you stupid? You said it. I know, but I asked you to not say, well, it doesn't work that way. Well, how does it work?

Well, you're finding out how it works. Do you like that? No, I don't. Okay. Go.

Get away from me. He doesn't say that. Doesn't do that part.

He never does. And so the next time I'm coming in, sometimes I find myself, Lord, you know I've asked you to make sure I don't say silly things in the pulpit. And God says, you know, there's some things you ask that for me to fulfill, I'd have to take you out of this world. Would you like that? How about right now? Not till we cross this bridge.

I don't want to go into the water. No, I'm kidding. So part of being a Christian servant is accepting. He's God. If he's led me this way, he's no less God.

If he didn't answer the prayer the way I wanted to, he's still my God. That's what makes me his slave, a bond slave. You see, the difference between the bond slave and the slave in the Jewish mind was that the bond slave wanted to remain a slave. That's what makes it love. But in the world, a slave has no choice, has no rights, is not loved, is chattel.

It's just a piece of possession. You see the difference when we go back to the free will? I choose. I choose to have him all my ear to the post because I love him enough.

I don't love him anywhere nearly as much as he loves me, but I love him enough to make a difference in my life. And in this is power. To be able to accept from the hand of God harsh things and still preach with power is the mark of a believer. We judge God by how much pain he allows or disallows in our life. Who are we to judge God?

We are to accept it and to understand where he is going with it. This is why this man Paul was able to take the beatings that he took and still preach with the power that he had. So he goes from Philippi to Thessalonica still bruised and he preaches with power. So Christ came to Thessalonica through Paul. He never would have gone there without a man like Paul.

He would have had to raise somebody else up. Paul was the one. When we speak of the coming of Christ, we speak again of his coming into view. He's always here.

He's always here. But when he comes, he comes into view. The coming of Christ to earth, his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, the ascension, these are scriptural. And Paul took advantage of that. And so he goes into Thessalonica, we read about it in Acts chapter 17 in verses 2 and 3, which is the account of him entering into the city. It says, Paul as his custom was went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying this Jesus whom I preach to you is Messiah. He's reaching out to the Jews.

This is the one that Isaiah talked about. Christ is him. He's become Christ to us because that's the Greek for the Hebrew word Messiah. And so the coming of Christ scripturally, that's what we believe, that's what we preach, whether it's through thick or thin. Inside the gospel is the coming of Christ. When you preach, God loves you, you're preaching. He really came here. He really suffered and died. God has one son, one child with no sin, that's Jesus Christ, but he has no child without suffering, that's us.

And that was him too. The coming of Christ is into my heart, that is salvation. So the preaching of Christ, that's scripture. The coming of Christ into my heart, that is salvation.

That's what happened to the Thessalonians. That's why he said, Beloved brethren, you who are elected, could not say that before he got there. Then the coming of Christ is upon my life after I am saved. That is sanctification.

This is a process. That is all the difference between mature Christians and immature Christians. That is all the difference between mature Christians who have pockets of immaturity.

They're still working on it, still being worked out. Then the coming of Christ upon my life goes from sanctification to through my life, which is service as we mature. We're not serving in God's house because we think we can do it.

All the hats should be part of it. But if you come to a church, you say, well, I'm going to get involved because I like being active or because I have, I can make this a better place. Those are good things, but they're not first. The first thing is I'm a slave of Jesus Christ. I am here to serve as a willful slave, whatever he wants me to do. This Thessalonian letter, one and two, is about the coming of Christ on all these levels scripturally, through salvation, sanctification, service, the coming of Christ for his church, the rapture, and the coming of Christ with his church, the return of Christ, the second advent, and the end. All of this belongs to this Jesus Christ who's come into view for us that we could do something with this information. Why do you come to church? Hopefully to be built up again. I can do that on my own.

Yeah, but that's outside of how the system's been designed by the designer of the system. When you come to Christ, it is no longer owned and operated by me. It is owned and operated by the Lord. This is a concept that seems to be rejected by so many people sitting in pews. He is not my Lord. He's just my Savior. I preach on this all the time.

It's very problematic. I would have to answer with, I don't want to stand before the Lord, and he says to me, you saw the Christians that were brought into the presence of your speaking, you saw the problems, and you ignored them. Why?

Why'd you ignore them? Well, I don't plan to, I'm not going to, I don't want to give them that shot. I don't want them to be able to ask that of me. I want to be able to say, Lord, when you put it on my heart, those things that were unsaid that needed to be said were spoken. And I want him to say, well done. That's what I'm talking about. I don't want, listen, we cannot impress Jesus Christ, but we can try.

That's where the beauty is. The pursuit of holiness. When he said, be perfect like I am perfect.

Be perfect like my Father in heaven is perfect. They could have said, come on, that's too much. The standard's too high. We'll never do that. When he said it, they stood for the challenge.

All right, let's go after it. It is the pursuit of righteousness that makes us righteous. It is the going, it is the very thing that the unrighteous person will not do. They will not pursue righteousness. They will pursue some other lifestyle because they're owned and operated by some other than God. So when he says, but also in power. To be successful at preaching the gospel, there has to be the power of the Holy Spirit in operation.

Just go try to convert your community to find out. Paul had caused a riot in Thessalonica. He would go on to cause a riot in Ephesus and Jerusalem. I haven't started any riots that I know about, but I'd like to do at least one. Have that on my resume. Cause a riot in your name, Lord. Man, that would be nice.

If I could just get a stunt double to take the beating for me. And so he caused a riot in Thessalonica, which he leaves, but he has at least, as I said, two more ahead of him. And he caused these riots because he went after the sacred cows. He did not go into the city and say, I know what you people believe in, but it's all wrong.

Although that was true. He went into the city and he said, I want to tell you about Jesus Christ. And I don't know what you've heard in the past.

Maybe you've heard nothing. Maybe you've heard the wrong things, but I'm going to tell you how it is from the scripture. That is what he did. And there is where the power was. Now you may say, listen, pastor, I have sat through sermons and I have been moved in my heart to go out and this with this zest and quest for Jesus Christ.

And then I get tripped up. I fail. My own sin hounds me like a dog.

It doesn't come out as wonderfully as it seemed when I was listening to it in the sanctuary. That's your excuse? That's all you got?

Oh, it didn't work out? Satan could beat you senseless with that kind of thinking. Here's the kind of thinking that causes him to get afraid.

When he hears someone say he's getting up again, oh man, that guy again. That's what God wants from us. That's called perseverance. Not hypocrisy.

Not saying what you know is true and knowing you have no intention of following it through. But saying what you know is true and giving it everything you've got to make it so in your own life. So it had not been just an emotional experience for these Thessalonians. They did not just hear the gospel and say, wow, the oratory skills of the Apostle Paul, they are splendid. They listened to what he said and they said, this is our God.

We're going to junk these little fake ideas we've had. And to make it authentic, they took a beat down. They took persecution. I got some junk mail the other day.

Who doesn't, right? Electronic junk mail from a church that was said to be in Pakistan. Now if you know anything about Pakistan, or if you know nothing about Pakistan, Pakistan used to be part of India. But when Gandhi, Nehru, broke from British rule, the deal was this. That piece of land, now known as Pakistan, that footprint would be a separate country. It would be an Islamic country. And so they forced, they relocated the people that lived in that territory, came into India who were the Hindus and the Sikhs and other faiths. And the Muslims went into India, the ones that wanted to go, went into what is now Pakistan. And that is the Pakistan, the nation of Pakistan. And here is this little church in Pakistan, thriving amongst the outcast.

And I went on their website and I'm saying to myself, man, they don't have a chance. So long as, so long as they're quiet and they're not making converts, they're free to exist. But the moment they step off the reservation, the moment they start making an impact on their surroundings, Satan's going to come at them.

And in that area, he's going to destroy them. That's real faith. And so they're inviting pastors coming, you know, I don't, every need is not a calling. I don't believe just because somebody says come, we're to go. Who's the one saying come?

It has to be God. And if you can't discern the voice of the Lord, then you shouldn't go. Well anyway, and unfortunately, pause there again, many people do go when they're not called by God but called by men and it often ends disastrously. Much of what we call missions, here's another sacred cow, much of what we call missions is just a babysitting center for teens to go explore the world. It has nothing to do with the preaching of the gospel. It has everything to do with look what I did. Look where I went.

See my pictures of me? Real, real missions involves the preaching of the gospel to a people that don't have it. You want to get involved in real missions, then get involved in a ministry like the far-reaching ministry of Asia, get involved in the PTA, pastoral training of Asia, far-reaching ministries of Africa, mostly Africa and Sudan.

Okay, I got all these letters in my head but alphabet soup here. My point is, just the other day I'm reading a letter from pastoral training of Asia. Jim Davies, just a humble and great man of God, goes into all these places. I judge a man by what he eats. If he eats things that I would never eat, I have a lot of admiration for him. I just won't let him cook for me. But anyway, so he's in Vietnam and he's preaching to the pastors there and everything there is a secret.

I mean, the communists will allow them so long as they do not make too much, bring too much attention to themselves. So he says, well, we're in Vietnam, but the restaurant that sells only goat meat was closed. So he had to go to another restaurant. And there he had cowgut soup, the most chewiest soup that he's ever had, he says.

I am sure. It wouldn't have been for me because I would have rather starved to death. Listen, I'm a pastor, I'm doing my own service right now. Funeral service.

So if I got to eat that, I'd rather die. So my point is, and he says these things matter of fact, and he eats, you know, the way you tell old missionaries from new missionaries, the new missionaries pick out the bugs. These men are going into places where there's a hunger for God's word. The pastors that they're teaching, many of them don't know how to present a message. What they do is they memorize someone else's message and they just speak it. Well, they need to have homegrown messages from the Lord. And they're in this closed system. And these kind of men are going into this area, and not just men, they're bringing their families with them, and they're going for short runs like two, three months, and then they get out, and then two, three months, and then they get out. They go into places where no vehicle goes.

You've got to take a donkey to get there, or a walk through the jungle. Another letter a few weeks back, he was talking about that the church building wasn't finished, and so part of the roof was still open, and it was during the rain season. And so the congregation under that side had to huddle over the other side. It was quite crowded with chickens and goats moving through, and the humidity that was killing them.

My point is that I don't remember my point. There's a power of the gospel. And I listen to these, I read these new letters, loose letters, yes, and a part of me says, thank you, Lord, for calling me to an air-conditioned ministry, coffee machine in the back, running water, plumbing, nice truck.

And then the other part of me goes, oh man, this is painful. But I have no right to say, that's service, I'm doing that, and then pack up and say, see ya, I'm heading out to a cow gut soup, so I can validate my Christian ministry. God calls, God provides. When he leads a person to do something he's calling them to do, he gives them everything they need to do it.

Not only the external tools, but the internal resources, the desire, the passion for the people. If you don't love the people in your workplace, don't preach to them. If you don't love them in your community, leave them alone. If you don't understand the love of Jesus Christ, you've got work to do on your knees. You need to take a day and just call out to the Lord and ask him to reign upon you the love of Christ. You have to love ugly people if you're going to be effective. I don't mean physically ugly. I mean people who are mean, who are unforgiving, who are self-righteous, who are superstitious, who are wrong, who are misguided, who are under the care of Satan, who are owned and operated by the enemy. We have to love them. And you know, I've been for some time now saying, Lord, I want to be more tender in the pulpit.

Now he hasn't said yes or no. You would have to judge that. But I'm sorry, I have this chip on my shoulder that has been put there by Christianity. I am offended at how dull it is in preaching the truth that was leading me to hell.

I'd go to church and I'd get everything except the truth from God's word. And so now that it's my turn to be able to share the gospel, I don't ever want to lose sight of the things that hurt the gospel. And so I attack them. But I try not to attack the people. But it's not easy. They come away feeling like they've been rebuked by the truth. Fine. But I don't want them to think that they've been hated on by the pastor. Well, we need to finish this verse.

We'll only get this far. Here in verse 5, he says, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. It's what we're lacking, brothers and sisters. We lack assurance.

There's so many doubts. Where is the authority that comes with being immersed in the Holy Spirit? Immersed. Soggy.

Spilling over. Touching others. Where is this passion? Why is it missing?

Take problem solving steps to correct this. Here in teaching them, he introduces them to the Holy Spirit, to the Trinity, by speaking of the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son, giving them doctrine. Don't you think for one minute that your passion will make up for doctrine? And don't think that your doctrine will make up for passion. If you have doctrine, if you have solid teaching but no burden of love, then you're just a nuisance to God. But if you have all this love but not passion, it's not obedient love. It's not Christ-given love. It's not agape. It's something else.

You have to have them both. You have to have knowledge of the Scripture without puffing up, without trying to be the boss because you know more than the other guy. Staying under the leadership of God. Ambitious souls in Christ ache to be effective. If you've ever had a desire to minister and no opportunity, you know it is physically painful.

It is like missing someone. It is a form of grief that you, Lord, you've given me this desire but no outlet, no vehicle to do anything about it. Well, if I'm speaking to you, you ought not give up on that. I can remember back in where I came from, not begging the Lord but leaning on Him.

God, you've got to give this to me. You cannot leave me with a calling and nothing else. God knew what He was doing. He didn't need me to say that but He needed me to say that.

He needed me to articulate what He was what He was doing inside of me. The only way to do that at certain times in our walk is to have it expressed out of us, to have it squeezed out of us. The very things that we don't want, the very inconveniences that we work very hard to avoid are the very things that He has to use to make us men and women of action who can go into a place where Jesus is not and bring Christ there and leave it with Christians, not as exceptions. So this is where I'm closing with this point. You see Paul going into Thessalonica, see yourself going into your place of work or to your school or to your wherever it is you find yourself. It's no different. Much of our work in America concerning preaching the gospel is to Christians who think they have it because they have the external word.

They have nothing on the inside. And then the other half are to those unbelievers who hate us because they've been given the wrong information. And then there are those that hate us simply because they're the devil's children. As Jesus said, the devil's spawn. So when we go to talk about and Jesus said your children, your father is of the devil, I mean that's what it means. When we talk about this love of Jesus understand it is not without boundaries. When Jesus dealt with people who were harmful spiritually, he was fierce with them. As I just said you're a brood of vipers he said to them. Your father is Satan.

Now how tough is that? So don't think that this love, just Christian love is this airheaded stuff that is useless in the face of a fierce devil. Christian love is well thought out. It is eternal.

It is the most powerful force in the universe. It is able to take someone that is filthy and make them pure unlike anything else. And so don't get tired of hearing about Christian love so long as well of defense a way to not get tired of hearing about Christian love is to understand what that true love of Christ is about. Otherwise the the verse God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son can become so overplayed that it has lost its effect among the righteous and it should not. When we hear that verse God so loved the world I know what I say, Lord help me because I have a hard time loving them. They don't make it easy for me to love them.

Then when I find a decent one that's easy to love I soon fall out of love with them if I'm in the flesh because of their rejection of you. That's not agape. Agape love is fierce stuff. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of First Thessalonians. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry visit our website crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app as well. That's all we have time for today but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of First Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.