You can go out in the power of the Gospel or just go out.
There's a snuffed out candle. It's up to you, especially you young'uns. You young in the South, I can say that. You young Christians walk around apologizing for what you believe. It's an honor to be persecuted for truth under the leadership of God himself.
It's a dishonor to be persecuted because you won't shut your mouth. 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 1 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. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Let's open our Bibles to Paul's first letter to the church located in Thessalonica, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Paul had been the one used by God to start this church, came at a high price for him. He took a beating in Philippi, made his way to Thessalonica, found opportunity to preach the gospel in the synagogue, made converts, caused a riot, chased out of the city, went to Berea. They chased him out of that city, went to Athens, fretted somewhat, if we can use that word for a man of such faith, over the state of the Thessalonians. What was happening to them? They were being persecuted.
Were they going to stand? Was his work in vain or were they going to stand in Christ? And so he is met by Silas and Timothy who catch up to him in Athens or Corinth, but one or the other is not absolutely clear, and he dispatches Timothy to go back to Thessalonica to find out how they're doing. Timothy gets to Thessalonica and ministers there, encourages them, teaches them a little further, gets back to Corinth where Paul now is, starting yet another church, and tells him the saints are strong. They're hanging in there. They're holding to the faith. That encouraged the apostle Paul so much that he wrote this first letter. Could not get there himself.
We'll find out as we go through. Satan had hindered him. It was a tactical error on Satan's part. Paul could not get to Thessalonica to encourage the saints, so he had to write this letter, and thank God we have it. It is one of those letters in Scripture often bypassed because there are some that to a fault, I think, overemphasize certain sections of Scripture which causes them to neglect other sections, and this is one. This is one of those gems in the Bible that when you read it, you say, why haven't I heard of this before? Why don't I read this more often? And so he has been talking to them in this second chapter about his conduct, what he did not do when he was with them, and what he did do, and then he now writes about their conversion and their conduct under persecution, and that is significant because it is one thing to read about those being persecuted.
It's another thing to go through it yourself. Hopefully, all of us who call Jesus Lord prepare in the back of our heads to some degree some measure of preparation for if the day should come when we are physically persecuted. Well, we left off at verse 13. Actually, we read verse 13 last session, commented on it. We will read it as introduction or review, and then on to verse 14. We will start in verse 13, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. 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 for you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus, for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen just as they did from the Judeans. When Paul showed up in Thessalonica, those who listened to him had come to the synagogue of the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Jews alike. And whether it was conscious or subconscious, when a person goes to church or synagogue, any religious assembly, you would think that they want an encounter with God.
That's why they're there. And the speaker steps up and they are hoping he has had such an encounter. Not the extraordinary type of miracle necessarily as Moses on the mountain comes down, his face shining and just hair gray and blowing the people away with just his appearance. He had an encounter with God. But there is also the miraculous routine where God speaks and works effectively through his servants to his other servants and then through those servants, and that's how converts are made, that's how saints are made stronger. And it's not enough to be made strong. We must also want to be made stronger.
It is progressive in that sense. When they got this letter from Paul, they knew they were going to have an encounter with Christ, with God. How excited they must have been. That letter arrived and it was announced it was going to be read in the service that Sunday. Meanwhile, back in Corinth, there's another group of believers having the same experience coming to church, this new thing, this new ecclesia, the called out ones from the world, the saints. Well, this church, as Paul says to the church in Thessalonica, you imitated the church to churches in Judea, which were persecuted by their countrymen. You imitated the Jewish Christians in Judea, being that you are gentile Christians in Thessalonica.
They were persecuted by their Jewish countrymen, you are persecuted by your Macedonian countrymen. This church, Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville, for years we imitated Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in so far as they imitated Christ. That's discipleship.
It can happen on an assembly level, it can happen on an individual level, but it should happen. Discipleship. I think a lot of Christians don't hang around long enough to be discipled. You know, the process, you get to meet somebody and it's very pleasant and then maybe some folks begin to think, you know, I can't stay around long. They might start seeing through me. They may start seeing some of my faults.
And it's not a very pleasant experience, and so I'll just hang around for a while, then I'll move on. Well, I am not going to pretend to be able to reverse this event or process in the human experience, but I can, to some degree, influence individuals. And if this is you, you should understand that, you know, God is able to work with you in spite of you, and He's able to do it quite wonderfully. Now, you can miss out on it, or you can be used as an example in the negative.
Here's how I don't want you to behave. Or, you can be used as an example in the positive. Here is a saint focused on Jesus Christ, singular in mind, living this life with eternity before them. And there is power, and there is discipleship, and there is rubbing off one on the other, and there is taking away from the enemy opportunity to criticize. Now, I'll get back to Satan in the churches, in the Scripture, and in Mechanicsville later on in the message.
But we move on. Well, we continue in verse 14. He says, For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans. Well, the Jews, the Jewish zealots and then the Gentile idolaters, pick your poison, if you will.
The same result. In Thessalonica, the Jews had gone down to the marketplace, it tells us in Acts chapter 17, and hired lewd men of the baser sort. That's the old King James language, and I love it.
You don't hear that every day. But they, scoundrels, thugs is what they were, and they got them together to cause trouble in the church. What a Christian does, especially a young Christian, those of you in college and high school. What you do under such circumstances of persecution is a test upon you to see if there is a reality to your faith. God is testing you. There is soft persecution, there's a hard persecution.
Soft persecution is no one that the table agrees with you. They think it's silly. They think it's out of style.
They think it interferes with fun, and you want to fit in. You better want to fit in heaven more than anywhere else in this planet. You better learn how to stand up to them with meekness and respect, but a firmness that they've not seen before. You have a real cause.
You have something to say. No, this is where I stand, and I'm inviting you to come with me. May it never be said that you were not invited. What you do with the invitation is on you, but you've been served.
That should be our attitude. Now, you may not use my personality, because it's copywritten, to do it. Use your person. Say it the way you want to say it. Young man, stand up to some other man and say, let me tell you about Jesus.
No, that won't work. Let me tell you about my Lord. I know I'm only 12. I'm only 14. I'm only 18. I'm starting out now. I do not want to be in my 40s or 50s or later and say, what was I thinking?
Why did I wait so long? So I'm going to give it to you now. To the church in Smyrna, John the apostle records Jesus' words to them. They were being persecuted. He says, be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. In Revelation chapter 12, we read, they overcame him, that is Satan, by the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony, because they did not love their lives to the death. There's something more important to them than this life.
There was eternal life. And so in verse 15, continuing with this line of thought about them being persecuted as their brothers were in the churches in Israel, he says in verse 15, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and persecuted us. They do not please God and are contrary to all men. Well, he's saying, this is what you're up against. This is your encouragement. These murdered the Lord Jesus. You're dealing with the same stuff. Don't look for mercy from them.
This can go south on you real quickly. And so strong speech, but true, needed to be said. What's said, they received it, was stronger because of it. He did not put a bow on what was happening to them, the horrid things that were taking place and had taken place. Violent religious history, it's everywhere. It seems so contradictory to the idea of religion. Well, I think we, we feel that way because we are raised under the influence to some degree of Christianity. People in America have an idea of Christianity, albeit warped in most cases, and that's where we come in. We're not here to unwarp their views. We're here to throw them out and give them the good stuff, the right, the faithful, and the true. We're not trying to rock the boat of bad thought about Jesus.
We're trying to sink it and keep it at the bottom. And so this, and their own prophets, he says, is a mismatch to religion. They killed their own prophets.
That's what he's saying. And now that you're dealing with them in Thessalonica, I'm dealing with them in Corinth, and I've dealt with them in other places too. Get used to it. It's the faith. It's the price of holding up the truth.
We're going to get more into this in chapter 3, next session. Stephen, the deacon of Jerusalem, the first martyr in the church. Remember, the Lord was more than a martyr. He was a savior, and the church really was not, technically not born at the time of his crucifixion.
That happened at Pentecost 50 days after his resurrection. But Stephen won the argument. He silenced the debate, and they killed him.
That's the outcome. He put a whooping on him. Acts chapter 7, verse 52, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you now have become betrayers and murderers. In their face, he knew these people. He knew they would kill him. But for him, the leading of the Holy Spirit, to tell it like it was at that moment, and all of it, was more important. And so they did kill him, but not without him destroying the false peace of one man in the crowd that would change history, the apostle Paul. Never underestimate, when you preach it, don't underestimate what is happening. It is spiritual, it is war, it is combat. And you may preach it to somebody and walk away thinking they laughed at you because they did, they rejected what you said because they did, and yet one of those individuals for the rest of their life, until they are born again, will not be able to get out the sentences you sent to them in Jesus' name and will be converted.
For me, it was the look of my brother, just the stupid look on his face. Why won't he argue with me about me? Why won't he argue when I'm telling you how bad Christianity is? Because he wasn't Christ's lawyer. He was his witness. And he just looked at me.
And as that look, I could not get out of my head to this day. Thank God for it. I thought I won.
I shut him up, my older brother. Christ said, come here, and laid it on me. And so, you can go out in the power of the gospel or just go out.
There's a snuffed out candle. It's up to you, especially you young'uns. You young in the South, I can say that. You young Christians who walk around apologizing for what you believe. It's an honor to be persecuted for truth under the leadership of God himself. It's a dishonor to be persecuted because you won't shut your mouth. You just blurt out things because you think they need to be said and there's no lordship of Christ. But when Christ is leading you and you are given it, it is an honorable thing. It is virtuous and the world needs it. The world lacks it.
I think many Christians don't give the gospel because they really don't appreciate what they have. When God confronted Moses on Mount Sinai, he said to him, what's that in your hand? It's a stick. It's a dead piece of wood. And God did wonders with it, turned it into a serpent. Moses ran from it like I would have run from it.
I would have run to get another stick. But anyway, God still says to his people, what's that in your hand? Some of you might have to say nothing because I don't do any. The only time I think about Jesus is when I come to church. That's not what God has in mind when he saves you on the cross. He says, and Paul does here in verse 15, and have persecuted us. So if they persecuted us, they're going to persecute you. They persecuted the Messiah. Why should any of us feel that we have a pass on this?
We're not surprised. John chapter 16, verse 2, Jesus said, they will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. Well, how do we resolve this? You have people killing people in God's name. Who's right and who's wrong? The one that abides by the scripture.
That's the right one. The Jews weren't following the scripture. They were following the zeal of the law, but not the word of the law.
Certainly not the spirit. They weren't even following the letter. They were following the rabbis, Caiaphas, and all the rest of the group that had long since stopped honoring the word of God.
Yet, they still used his name because it opened doors for them, gave them opportunity. To this day, there are people that will do the same thing. I am swearing by God. I am not lying. Why do you have to do all that?
Why can't you just let your yes be yes, your no no? Many times, the individual has so ruined their witness that no one believes them anyway. You know, the guy that lied so much, he had to get somebody else to call his dog.
You'll get that later tonight. Oh, yeah, yeah, the dog knew he was lying. Anyway, he says, and they do not please God. Well, how can you please God? You're busy killing people. It's the flesh.
When we feel like we want to strike physically and hurt the opposition, it is the flesh. It's not the weapon of our warfare. They're not mighty in God. They're mighty in men. They lead to bloodshed.
That's it. Look at the Crusades. Look at the Christian history, the Reformation period.
What did it accomplish killing the enemy? How about preaching to them? Well, where in the Bible does it say that if you don't like what God says, disregard it? You see, when he says they do not please God, there are many people around us that do not please God because they don't like what God has said, so they discard it. If it's unpleasant, they find peace, false peace in ignoring it. If the culture runs contrary to what God has said, then they want to change what God has said or get rid of the messages.
It's always been this way, nothing new under the sun. Therefore, you know, that works against us. God can say, you know, it can work against us or for us. God can say, you know, what is happening to you is not new stuff. There's a record of it.
Therefore, you should know how to respond to this. But you're not interested in the record. All you want is relief. In seeking this false relief, there is no relief to be received.
So why don't you just do it my way and make it meaningful, make it count? And so it is one thing to fail to obey God, as all of us do at some point, but it is another thing to oppose God, to fail him, to not be strong enough to say no to a temptation is failure, but to oppose him is something entirely different. To oppose his word, his people, his love, his cross, his majesty, and God's not going to just wink at that as though it were a trivial thing. It is a sin from which those who do it will never recover, lest they repent in this lifetime.
It is an insult to actively seek to get God to conform to you or to mankind or to the universities, the popular thought or the philosophers or scientists. You know, scientists really are nothing but observers. That's all they really are. I mean, they produce things from what they observe, in that sense, kind of like a chef. And we appreciate these things. They're good.
Now I'm a little hungry, but we appreciate them. But when they start messing with God, our role is to look for opportunity to respond in a meaningful way, or at least to receive the invite to be useful. For instance, when Paul the Apostle was saved on the road to Damascus, there he is going up to persecute more Christians. And he gets saved and he's there and the street calls straight, blind and restricted to where he was. And God calls a man by the name of Ananias. Ananias is minding his own business.
You know, buttering his bagel with jelly and butter and once it's toasted just right. And here comes God. Ananias, I want you to go speak to Saul of Tarsus.
What? Not him. How about the mailman?
How about anybody but him? Now, it doesn't come out that way, but it comes out that way because he begins to tell the Lord, do you know, Lord, this guy persecutes the righteous. My point is that here was a man who would not have recovered from the sin he was committed had he not submitted to God, Paul. Paul submitted to God. And here was another Christian by the man named Ananias who submitted to God's direction no matter what.
Even though he did not get it, like it, he was under the authority of God. We read about him and we identify with him and we admire him. 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-16 18:57:30 / 2023-09-16 19:06:16 / 9