The Bible is viewed as archaic, barbaric, outdated, archaic, and the culture is what is important to people. And there's not enough of God's word in those types of churches to make soup for a sick grasshopper.
There just is nothing there. And they insist though that they're fine with God. And God insists that they're not.
We, we have to understand these things. 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 First 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. First Thessalonians chapter two is the text Pastor Rick will be teaching from today on Cross-Reference Radio. The laborer is worthy of his wages.
You shall not muzzle the ark while it treads out the grain. Do the math. Think about it.
We talked about this earlier. The cults shame Christians and how they care for their churches and their clergy and how they give of themselves and of their means. This is not a pitch.
It's a point. If you don't take care of those men of God, why should God take care of you? And he develops the thought later, but the point is here he was when he was in Thessalonica, he worked. When he moved on to Corinth, he worked even more. In fact, I think when he got to Corinth, he was so charged up by the victory in Thessalonica from where he writes this first letter. He's in Corinth writing this letter.
He says, man, this is a bigger city. If I can just have the results in Corinth that I had in Thessalonica, think what would happen. And I believe that helped Paul stay in the fight in Corinth. So when he finally says, I wanted to come back to you in Thessalonica when I was chased out, I wanted to come back, but Satan hindered us. It is a broad meaning, but part of the meaning is I'm here in Corinth and I cannot get to Thessalonica because if I leave the work here in Corinth, Satan's going to get the victory. So I got to stay here and deal with this.
I want to get to you, but I can't. He prioritized a bit of triage. He says here again in verse 9 that we might not be a burden to any of you. Pastors must be careful to not be a weight on the flock. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul writes, and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep myself. Again, he writes to them in his second letter. In Corinth, he writes to them, he says, for the third time I'm ready to come to you and I will not be burdensome to you, for I do not seek yours but you.
For the children ought not lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. He had an understanding of leadership in Christ Jesus. He says here in verse 9 of Thessalonians, we're back to our text again. He says, we preach to you the gospel of God.
He would rather die than contradict the faith and the message, the good news of God. Again, 1 Corinthians 9, 15, better for me to die than that anyone should make my boasting void. And I love this section and he starts out 1 Corinthians with, he says, my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the power of the Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. That's the way to go about ministry, not just for pastors but for all Christians. I have noticed that many great Christian men of our time, when they get tied up too much in the Reformation and the apostolic age, that period after the apostles, they get too much into the philosophies and the arguments of the faith and they start kind of drifting from the word a little bit and they get a little dull, kooky, and they begin to uphold doctrines that have much good in them but it's just something missing from them. And we like to learn, all of us, we love for someone to give us a new tidbit on something, especially if it's an anecdote about some event in life, a story that took place that makes the point.
Now, I'm not saying all of this is bad, not by any means, but what I am saying is I have noticed that much learning can make you mad if you're not careful. It can make you, that's on the extreme side, but it can take something from us when we step out of the word of God. And we've been going through this in Lamentations and in Thessalonians. The Jews had gotten rid of the scripture of Moses and the prophets and in its place they were now teaching what the rabbis taught until finally the rabbi's teachings weren't about scripture anymore but about tradition. You might remember Fiddler on the Roof, why do we do this? Why do we wear the prayer cloth? Why do we go to Sabbath? Tradition. Who's tradition? Rabbinical, the rabbis, the teachers, the pastors had become the dominant force in Judaism.
What was the result? Now, this happened after they came back from the captivity of 70 years in Babylon. They came back and they developed this rabbinical form of authority within Judaism.
And when the temple was finally destroyed, well, where did it end? They did not recognize their Messiah, their temple was destroyed, and then it supercharged to this very day. In certain sects of Judaism, they actually prayed to dead rabbis. You say, don't they know better? Don't they have the basics of the scripture? Don't they know that God said, I killed Saul because he dared to talk to the dead? Do they know that?
No, they don't. They don't read the scriptures. And so we are supposed to look at this as Christians and say, I'm going to act like I learned something before the Lord because he taught me. That's why he's given us the Holy Spirit. Thank you, God, for sending Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, that you came. Holy Spirit, won't you teach us more about his lovely name? Peter writes about the same thing, this honorable conduct. We look now at verse 10, Thessalonians chapter 2. You are witnesses in God also.
Man, that's powerful. How devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe. Man, I wish I could say that. Devout, just, blameless.
Well, I mean, don't get me wrong. When I say I wish I could say it, it doesn't mean I feel like I violated these things. But I think humility, which I have a lot of, would not allow any of us to boast in these things. You are witnesses, God also. This devoutness, this dedication, to be just involves not only doing the right thing but understanding it, appreciating it, blameless. Now, you know, a tendency of a Christian who struggles with legalism. Legalism is always judging the other person and always thinking about itself. The legalist is always self-centered when it comes to thinking, and it is always critical of others. That's how it lives.
It thrives off of that. Paul was not that type. He wasn't saying, we were devout, we were just, we were blameless because we're better than you and you need to change everything and conform to us.
He was just saying, you are there. You know that we dedicated ourselves to the gospel. That's the devoutness. You know that when we spoke to people about their ways, you know, in the early church there were people who were polygamous. They come out of the Gentile world.
It's not an endorsement of polygamy. But they were, they had multiple wives and they would get converted. What could they do?
Send their wives and children out into where? Paul said, you know, this is an awful situation. We're going to deal with this. And they dealt with it. And it must have been very difficult. The patience and the love of God. We think about the Song of Solomon again. It speaks of Solomon and his concubines.
It's not an endorsement. It's how it was. God is superior and he's wise and merciful and he knows how to deal with these things and he too has to apply triage. When the Jews said, we don't, we, when three, two and a half tribes came to him and said, we do not want to enter the promised land that you promised us. We like this other side more. Can we have it? It was God's mercy that said, I'll give it to you.
You parents, you know, sometimes you don't like something your child is doing and you just can't slam them down. You have to find, find out. You've got to find out the hard way and you have to kind of let it go unless you be viewed as a tyrant. And so what we're talking about is a holy and righteous God and messed up human beings who are sinners. Whole, entire cultures and societies ruined by sin.
Then the gospel shows up. The legalist says, that's wrong, that's wrong, get rid of it. Imagine if Paul had said, well, you're polygamous, you've got to stop that. Now, I'm not saying he endorsed it. He probably even put prohibitions on them, but he did not strip the take.
Well, you've got to take your two lesser wives and their children and just throw them out on the streets. That's what Paul would not have done. Very difficult to even talk about it, but it's a fact.
It's how it was. We see this in Abraham. Well, I could go on, I don't.
We need to get through with this. And so we are called to wonderful impossibilities as Christians. God says, I want you to be perfect.
As Job said, I've never, I've made a covenant with my eyes not to have lust for any other woman except proper desire for my wife. He doesn't say it in those words. He says, I make a covenant with my eyes that I should not lust. And he does that. But Satan works to undo such pledges.
They are high, they are wonderful. We're called to them even without achieving them. We acknowledge their splendor, but more so we acknowledge the one who said it. When Jesus says, I don't want you to do something, the born again Christian who is in love with him filled with the Holy Spirit is good with it.
It's fine. It doesn't even think twice about, well, let me try to, and that's what the world does. We share the gospel with them and they, well, that goes against my desire, goes against my culture, goes against my upbringing. And it is up to us to share with them the Jesus who is greater than all those things.
Remember, man's way takes them as far as death and that's it because there's no other. Verse 11, he continues, he says, as you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father does his own children. We didn't leave out anybody. This was for the entire congregation.
To comfort is to speak tenderly. And he gave charge to them. Again, he was not content to just convert them to Christ. He knew they had to be discipled and he knew that because Jesus told them.
He didn't fill in the blanks. Go and make disciples. Go make students.
Go make people who will learn, teaching them to observe. Unfortunately, in many churches, the Bible is viewed as archaic, barbaric, outdated, archaic, and the culture is what is important to people. And there's not enough of God's word in those types of churches to make soup for a sick grasshopper.
There just is nothing there. And they insist, though, that they're fine with God. And God insists that they're not.
We, we have to understand these things. And so it was imperative to him that converts to Christ become a lethal force against the forces of hell. 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 10, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God, pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. You may say, look, I've been a Christian for 30, 40 years.
I believe all these things, but they're not easy to get. Well, that's why it's war. That's why it's a struggle, a conflict, but you're still here. You're still preaching Christ. Satan is still trying to preach to you. He's trying to tell you, listen, it's not all that. It's too high and too glorious. You'll never get it.
Quit. The ones that don't quit are the ones that rock hell. That's why Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail. Multiple meanings in that statement. The gates of the ancient city was where they planned the strategy for war. It was also the entrance to the city. And so when the Lord says the gates of hell should not prevail, he's saying this strategy won't win. Number one, you will win souls. Number two, the block, the gate, the entrance way, you will crash through it because behind those walls, through those gates are lost souls.
They are hostages and it is an extract mission that you were sent on. That's why he says in Ephesians 6, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual numbers of wickedness in the heavens, in the spiritual realm, not the heavens where God sits. This is what it's all about. You can't escape it. Every alternative to the Bible fails.
It begins to make silly things up. When God starts doing the creation and he puts it on record, he says in the beginning God created from nothing everything you see and he separates himself with one stroke from matter, from material things in the universe. Polytheism. God is in the wood of this pulpit and God is in the dandruff on your shoulders.
Well, I don't have hair. But anyway, so God is higher than all of these things. Satan is a created being and he will be judged as a created being also and all those who sided with him, whether they did it by recognizing it. I mean, you think of Satanism. Isn't that the dumbest thing on and in?
Wait, let me get this right. You're worshiping an entity you were told about in the scripture who loses in the end, loses throughout, and you worship. You know what? If you're that bad, I ain't going to the next person because only God can straighten that bent road. Verse 12, he says that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
How many problems would this solve? Someone comes up, Pastor, can I do this? Is it worthy of Christ? Is it worthy of the scripture? Is it worthy of holiness and what he calls us to do? And so we must walk worthy, not to be saved, but as evidence of the salvation that is in us who calls us into his own kingdom and glory, he says here in verse 12.
Oh, Paul, better not say that goes against the God of culture and the demands of sinners who must be allowed to stampede into heaven on their terms whether God likes it or not or else they're going to say he's not loving. Thank God, God is not moved by anybody's opinion. Again, you go back to the Genesis record in chapter 1, you see this God is so big.
It's not even like I'm like in the run. Even though I'm created in his image, I'm still a grain of sand in the universe compared to his greatness. Isaiah chapter 8 verse 11, for the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people. Why can't Christians learn this? Why do Christians keep going to the world to ask permission to live, ask for instruction? How should we do our church, oh businessman?
Tell us how we can bring a prophet in. Nothing wrong with being a businessman, but if a businessman is going to serve in the church, he better forget the world's ways and understand he's a child of God, born again, a new creation. And while there are the ways of stewardship that belong to business, that the church has also, they do not come from the business world, they come from God. Ephesians chapter 5, Paul says, therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
See, that's that high standard. Imitate God, such a wonderful impossibility that I'm commanded to go after and walk in love, Paul says in Ephesians 5, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. But, now here comes the disconnection with the culture, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you.
Don't even speak that way. He continues, as is fitting for the separated, the saints, the ones who are separated, neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather praising the Lord. He says giving thanks, that's what it means. That's the Christian life in contrast to the world. And so, when you have the world trying to say, or you have these false prophets out there, writing books, people buying them, not that writing books is bad, but like Solomon, I always think it was Solomon who said writing books is no end.
Very few are worth reading. Well, we have these false prophets out there who are endorsing sinful lifestyles because the culture does. Under the guise of, well how else are we going to reach them? Well, appeasing them is not how. Again, read what Paul did.
We didn't come to you flattering. Hey, your sin's fine. All these things that you're doing for these fake gods and this society and this base, this is wonderful. Jesus loves you. He came to say Jesus loves you and I'm here to tell you that. However, he judges you too if you reject his love.
Not because he's a jealous lover or his feelings are hurting. He's God almighty and the bigness of the definition of the deity, of the word God, cannot be measured. That's the idea behind space being so big. No matter how big space is, God is bigger. The vastness of our God. So, when you see him big, he's not big like a giant. He's big like endlessness. So, they committed eternal side. It's like they killed their eternity. I made that word up and I was very proud of myself when I did another one because I find a lot of problems with language.
Okay, just a little humor. Verse 13, so little you couldn't find it. Verse 13, for this reason we also thank God without ceasing because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it. Not as the word of men, but as it is in truth. The word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. Ephocatius is the big word that I think we shouldn't use.
I think effective, does it? He says the word of God, they received the scripture as the truth for it was. Again, not appeasing society. Not letting, okay, you know what you sinners, let's make a deal with you. Let's have a compromise.
We'll give you this, you give us that. You come to our churches and you tithe and we'll stop talking bad things about all the sin that's going on. Go back to the guy who says there's someone else up there. That's what the world does.
That's what idolatry is. Well, we've got the answer from the only true God who could speak from the heavens. We didn't like what he said.
And so now we're looking for someone. Yeah, well the time's running out because eventually you're going to let go and perish because of your own folly, because of your lack of faith. And so when he says, because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us now, free will and no other way is how you receive God's word. And none of this violates his sovereignty, but it does rule out his tyranny. It does say God is powerful, awesome, big, but he's not a meanie. He's not indifferent and there are many good, otherwise good Bible teachers out there that they can't, they lose it right here. Well, there's no free will.
God is so sovereign. And they go into this, this trance and it's because look at who they read. They read the reformers and little else and they go back further to the apostolic age. They're quote Anselam and all these other men who had good things to say. I'm not taking away from all of them, but what I am saying is they're becoming rabbinical.
They're concentrating more on the traditions of the pastors versus the word of God in its entirety. And for someone to say there's no such thing as free will is the dumbest. It's like saying this evolution. It's like, come on, you have no facts.
This is a, this is something emotional. It's just counterfeiting your intelligence, but there's no point in trying to convert them. I say that like that in case you drift onto YouTube and watch some of their tirades and how authoritative they are. God is sovereign and there's no free will. Well then why am I free to turn you off? There is free will.
It's everywhere and I'm grateful for it. Whomsoever will, let him, what do you do with that verse? Well, you just insist it's not so. Okay, I didn't want to, I used to beat up on some of those groups a lot in the earlier days, but I enjoy not. They still irritate me and the Lord doesn't help me with that. Are you irritated by that? You need to stop that.
I know, but it feels so good. So the opportunity, we've covered this quite a few times, the mythology that was dominating this world that Paul was in. The scheming, the lustful, quarrelsome, warring, fake gods that they made up.
They were vengeful, malicious, cruel, weak, paranoid. These were the gods of the Jew, of the, not the Jews, the Greeks and the Rome and many other places. They were fabricated gods by sinners.
Gods made by sinners. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of 1 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 1 Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.
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