Join me, if you would, back in 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Last week I sort of centered my remarks on the first four verses of this chapter. Today we'll look at verse 5 to the end of the book. Not the book. We'll be here forever. We're going to be here a while anyway. But to the end of that chapter. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 beginning with verse 1. Follow as I read. Paul and Silvanus, that is the Roman Latin form of the guy we know as Silas. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, or Timothus, that's the Latin version of Timothy, okay? Unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the sight of God and our Father, knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as you 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. So that ye were in samples, that's just an old way of saying examples, 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 Godward is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you 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, who delivered us from the wrath to come. Now, Silas are on the second missionary journey of Paul, we call it. They have drifted across Asia Minor, that part of the world we call today Turkey. And they have drifted westward and westward, forbidden to preach there. But they keep going west till they run out of land. They come to Troas on the western tip of Turkey. And there Paul has his Macedonian vision. A man in Macedonia saying, come over here. And so they took by sea across the Aegean Sea passing from Asia into Europe, landing at Neapolis, a little seaport town, getting on the Via Ignatia, that Roman road, paved road, almost an unheard of thing in the ancient world to have a paved road. But they built it in the second century B.C. to get their armies from one side of their empire to the other so they could govern it. And they joined on that superhighway and went inland about 10 miles to the little town of Philippi. And there we have the first convert of Paul in Europe, Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened. We have the encounter with the little girl who was a demoniac and Paul casting the demon out. And that got him thrown in jail. You remember at midnight, they're singing and praising God and the earthquake hit. And from that, the Philippian jailer and his household are converted. The next morning, they go on their way. Now, it didn't seem like much happened there, but notice a church was formed from that rather inauspicious beginning. The Philippian letter is proof of it. They go about a hundred more miles to the southwest to the town of Thessalonica. It was the largest city in that part of what is today modern Greece. It was the capital of Macedonia. Sits on the seacoast. It has a natural port there. So it was well favored right on that trade route, that highway that ran through there. It is there that Paul finds a Jewish synagogue. He goes into the synagogue and over the next three Sabbath days proclaims to them that whoever the Messiah is, the Old Testament Scriptures teach that he must suffer, he must be put to death, he must be raised again from the dead. That's point number one of his preaching. Point number two is Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He's the one who fits exactly what the prophets of the Old Testament have proclaimed. So Paul, as his custom was, went into the Jewish synagogue, and as his custom was, he got run out of the Jewish synagogue. They drove him out. You remember, they went on the war path. They couldn't find him, but he was apparently staying in the home of this guy named Jason. So they can't find Paul, so they dragged this guy Jason out before the city officials. And remember what they said. They said, these that have turned the world upside down have come here. And this guy, he's housing them. He's received them. And these are teaching us to do contrary to what we're commanded to do in the law. And they teach us there's this other king than Caesar. And you just sort of wonder, why are you Jews so upset about the fact there's another king besides Caesar? Don't you know that's what your Old Testament prophets are telling you about the Messiah? He's going to be a king. The king shall reign and prosper. But notice this has driven them, as it were, berserk. Anything they can do to bring a charge against Paul and his company. So they take a bond, a pledge of Jason. Apparently some kind of amount of money he must put up and promise not to house these men because the next day they go on their way. Now that's, again, doesn't sound like much happened there. He was only there a few weeks and yet out of that comes a church. And Paul goes on down the road to Berea, then to Athens, and finally to Corinth, where he'll spend about a year and a half. And it is from Corinth that he writes this letter back to Thessalonica. It is, best we can figure, the earliest letter of the Apostle Paul, and he's sending it back to one of his favorite churches there in Macedonia. Now, last week I broached the subject that when you look at the gospel coming into a place like Thessalonica. It looks a whole lot like an epidemic. How many of you have had the flu? Let me see your hand. Raise your hand if you've seen the flu. Good. Great. Almost everybody in here has had it. We're thankful that if you're the walking wounded today and back with us, but it has just sort of swept through our number. Well, when you see What happens when Paul and his company come into a place like Thessalonica? It is a lot like the invasion of the flu. Gospel flu. A different kind of flu. Now, I know some of you may say, well, isn't it rather sacrilegious to speak of the gospel as salvation, like an epidemic? Well, I am speaking, you understand, tongue-in-cheek. I'm speaking, sometimes Paul, I'm thinking in Romans 3 where he says, if my unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, in other words, if God gets glory even from my sin, then is God unrighteous to judge me? And he says in parenthesis there, I speak as a man. In other words, I'm speaking like men speak. I'm speaking like the natural man, how he looks at it. A little later in 2 Corinthians, he talks about the fact these guys boasting of their privileges and their rank and all their resume. And he says they're speaking foolishly, so I'm going to speak as a fool. I speak as a fool. I'm going to speak like they speak. So this morning, for the sake of illustrating this to you, I am going to continue this illustration. That when you see Christianity, come into a place, into a city like Thessalonica. It looks like the invasion of a flu. It looks like an epidemic. It has victims to speak as a man. It has those whose lives it touches, whose lives it conquers. And that's what we looked at last week. Notice, we ended last week with verse 4 where Paul says, knowing, brethren beloved of the Lord, your election of God. I know that you're the elect." How does he know they are the elect? Did he get a glimpse at the Lamb's book of life? Did he hear a voice from heaven, have secret insight into the hidden secret councils of God, those predestinations from the foundation of the world? No. What he's saying is, I saw what happened to you when the gospel came into this place. You came down with this thing called gospel flu. You say, well, what were the symptoms of it? We looked at those last week in verse 3. You suddenly had this faith. You got delusional. You started seeing things. Because that's what happens when we come down with gospel flu. After all, isn't faith just another kind of seeing? Remember, we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by faith. Paul describes the Christian life in 1 Corinthians 4, why we look at things which are unseen. What? How do you look at something that's unseen? Well, you don't do it with these eyes. You do it through the eyes of faith. You base your seeing on the testimony of another, not on your testimony. And so it is when the gospel message comes into a place and people believe it, they start seeing things. Things that are far off as though they're near. Things that are promised as though they're sold. They start not only seeing it, but notice the work of faith. Your faith acted. It wasn't just intellectual. You began to live and order your life as if these things are true and so. And what are you basing that on? The testimony of God that He has given concerning His Son Jesus Christ. That's my best definition. You want to have a good definition of the Gospel? It is simply the declaration of the person and work of Jesus Christ. That's the shorthand version. If you want the long version, you've got to read the book. Okay? That's the long version. The short version is the Gospel is God's testimony through His Apostles of the person and work of Jesus Christ. And they believe it and they order their steps. And not only that, he says, you came down with this fever, this labor of love, this warmth in your heart towards God, towards Christ, towards the brethren, And your love wasn't just in word, it was a labor of love. The word labor here differs from the word work in that it speaks of intense work. It's like reaping a crop, the farm hand out in the field. This is hard stuff. And you did it out of a heart of love. And then you have this patience of hope. We said last week that you've got a terminal case of this stuff. Thank goodness most of you got over the flu. But this flu you don't ever get over. And again, by the term terminal, I don't mean it's going to kill you. I mean that when you die, you'll still have it. When you die, you're still going to have this kind of flu. And if you can get over it, you never had it to start with. Because when it infects those that it targets, it infects them for the rest of their life. They got a terminal case of life, life everlasting. Oh, I'm sort of glad I came down with this. I don't know about you. So we're looking at salvation perhaps from a different angle. We're looking at it from the sort of through heavenly spiritual eyes rather than the eyes of man. But viewing it from man's point of view, it looks like the gospel is like a wave, an epidemic that came through Thessalonica, and it got this guy, and it got this one, and it got this one. And Paul says, those that it got, you see in this case, this flu is a targeted infection. It targets particular people and that's how I know you're the elect of God. You're the ones that God intended to come down with this gospel flu. Alright, that's where we started last week. Just sort of get you all back up to speed. Today I want to go on thinking along these lines as we go on in to verse 5. we see further evidence of why Paul would say, I know that you're the elect of God. Notice the very first word there in verse 5 is the word for. And if you just substitute a synonym, because, you'll get the sense of it. Paul says, I know, brethren, that you're the elect of God, because. Here's how you came down with the flu. First of all, he says, our gospel came. It came unto you. Any of y'all remember, you old folks, you know who you are, Dave, do you remember back in the Apollo shots, you know, when we used to put men on the moon? Y'all remember that? Yeah, Bob, you'd remember it. You're right there. Well, you remember what they did to those astronauts when they came back from the moon? They put them in quarantine. You remember that? They'd be in there about a week before they let them out. They cut off the Apollo capsule and put them right into quarantine. You remember why? They were afraid that they might have picked up some virus out there on the moon, and they didn't want them importing that back to earth, some virus against which we have no natural immunity. That is what has happened with this gospel flu. This is a virus, if you will. The virus is the message that has come, not from earth, but from heaven. Over the last few weeks, I've been emphasizing that fact over and over that Jesus speaks of Himself as not being of earth. He's an extraterrestrial. We want to use that language. He's an alien. He says, you're from beneath, I'm from above. This is the Lord from heaven. He may have appeared as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, but the One who made His appearance there was the One who's been going forth, says Micah 5, 2, from everlasting and everlasting. He didn't start in Bethlehem. He made His appearance, but He came from heaven. This is the eternal Son of God who has come into this world, and He has brought in His life, in His work, in His death, and now in the Gospel message, something that is utterly foreign to earth. That's the point I want you to understand. That this thing called the gospel is not earthly in its origination. It didn't come from here. It is not a message that then is compatible with the way earthlings like you and me think. We have a natural immunity to that which is foreign to us. Correct? I mean, I was a physics guy, not a biology guy. You've got to talk to my daughter if you want to know the biology behind this. When you get a germ, when a virus, a bacteria enters your system from without, what happens? I mean, if you're a healthy individual, your immune system kicks in, right? You start producing all these white blood cells, these T-cells, these antibodies to fight off this bacteria or this virus. You're fighting it. You're resisting it. And fallen man has a natural resistance to the gospel. this message, if it's properly preached. Man is not going to listen to this and say, you know, that's just exactly what I've been thinking. He's going to say instead, I've never heard anything like that, and he's going to get mad. Nine times out of ten. That's what the Jews did. I mean, think about it. What has enraged these Jews? Why would they go to the Roman officials and say, this guy's teaching, we've got another king besides Caesar. Why would they deny their messianic hope? What would bring them to that point? It's because they hate the gospel. Lost man is going to hate it. He's going to resist it. If it's preached right... Let me give you another example. Paul in the Galatian epistle said, if I just preach circumcision, then would my persecution cease. Because then would the offense of the cross cease. Let's analyze what he's saying. If I would just tell these Galatians that you can get saved just by doing something, in this case being circumcised, then they wouldn't be mad at me. If I would just give them something to do, because you see, man loves man at his heart, is a legalist. He thinks the way to heaven is by his own doing, by his own merit, by his own achievements. And along comes this gospel of grace. that tells you, no, it is not your doing, it is the doing of another, the doing of a substitute, the doing of the Son of God, and your only hope is to cast yourself on His merit, on His works, and forsake your own, reject your own. And man goes on the war path. He said, all I have to do to quit all this persecution is just give them something to do. A little something. Then would the offense of the cross cease. I said last week that the cross is the great humiliator of mankind. Because the cross leaves you nothing. Nothing in you. It tells you it's all about Him. It's not your doing, it's His doing. And it's not your boasting and your glory, but it's to glory in Him, your Savior. And man's pride bows up against that kind of thinking. How dare you? How dare you tell me that I am completely and totally at the mercy of my God? How dare you steal and rob from me the vestiges of my boasting, my being able to look down my nose at a fellow going to hell and say, you're going there because you didn't do what I did. You see, the doctrine of election just sort of destroys that, doesn't it? It tells me that if I'm going to heaven, it's not about me. It's about God. It's not what I did, it's what He did. And so the Gospel came. It came from up there. It entered into this world. And it came, He says, unto you. And it didn't come, He says, in word only. Now notice that language. If it didn't come in word only, then it did come in word. Right? means the gospel came in word. And that is an interesting thing to think about. The gospel is something that comes to us in verbal propositions. It's understandable. It's logical. It's rational. It is a logical system of things. Now, you may reject that system of things, but it is a self-consistent system. It can be explained through words through logical prepositions. In other words, you don't introduce somebody to the gospel by showing them pictures or going staring at the stars and so forth. It is a message, an intelligible message. That is why Paul, when dealing with the subject of tongues in 1 Corinthians 12, talks about the fact that unless somebody speaks something you understand, nobody gets edified. Somebody can speak in gibberish, what does that do for you? Nothing. You say, but oh, if they could just see this miraculous speaking in tongues, the lost would just stand amazed. And Paul says, no, they'll say you're crazy. That's what they'll do. In other words, the only way that men are going to be brought to salvation, to faith in Christ, is through an intelligible presentation of the gospel. It may be from a pulpit. It may be from your personal witness. It may be in a song. It may be in a book. But it's going to be in a verbal proposition of some sort. It does come in word, and yet he hurries on to say it didn't come in word only. Because you see, lost man has this immune system, this resistance to the gospel message. And if the gospel, there's a lot of folks who have sat under my verbal preaching of the gospel, and they have left as unaffected as they were when they came. If the gospel only comes in word, nothing of any consequence is going to happen. But Paul says there in your midst, to some of you, the gospel did not come just in word, it came in power. Well, what kind of power? Notice he says in the power of the Holy Spirit, it took nothing less than the power of God to open your hard heart and hard head. to break the backbone of the pride of your life, to bring you to your knees, to cry out to God for mercy and grace. It took that kind of power. Paul will write the Ephesian saints. He has two prayers in there. The first one is in chapter 1. And he prays that the eyes of their understanding would be opened so that they would know. I'm not going to quote this correctly. I'll give you the gist of it. You can read it later on your own time. so that you will know the kind of power it took to save your soul, to raise you from spiritual death. He goes on to say it's the same kind of power that took when God raised His Son from the dead. It took miraculous power to save your soul. You are a miracle of grace if you're a saved person here this morning. It's a natural. You had a natural resistance to the gospel. And many, if the gospel only comes in word, they will fight it off, just like your immune system fights off the bugs and the bacterias and the viruses. But oh, if it comes with the power of God, it breaks. That's what we call irresistible grace. It breaks through the resistance of man and it conquers your soul. And so it comes in power with the Holy Spirit and with, he calls it, much assurance. Full conviction is the literal Greek rendering here. Full conviction. In other words, it's not your full conviction that makes the gospel powerful. It's the power of the gospel that brings you full conviction. Full conviction of what? That it's true. That you will bet your soul on this gospel. You will hang the hope of your eternal life on the cross of Jesus Christ. Because you are utterly and firmly convinced that it's true, that it's right. And it's not the fact that your faith activates the power of the gospel, it's the other way around. This message came and it just didn't come in word, it came with the power of God. And it produced this conviction in your heart and life that these things are so. Do you see what we're doing? We're tracing the course of gospel flu here. You know, flu runs its course, right? How does it start? You guys that have the flu, what's the first symptom? What, your nose started running? Of course, they say, you know, if your nose runs and your feet smell, you've got that upside-down disease. But your nose starts running. Your eyes start watering. You say, well, I'm coming down with a cold. That's the first sign. And then, next thing you know, you've got this scratchy thing in your throat. Next thing you know, you're running a fever and you're aching all over your body and then you got that cough. Oh yeah, that cough that you just can't get rid of. It stings around for a week. Right? That's what I'm saying. Notice it doesn't all hit you at once. There's a development of the disease. So there is a development of the disease of salvation. I speak as a fool. I speak as a man. But if you looked at salvation like lost men. See, lost man doesn't want salvation anymore and you want the flu. He doesn't want Christ as his all, his everything, to forsake everything for Christ. That's the last thing he wants. And so he avoids it like you avoid the flu. But if you get the flu, this flu from heaven, this thing I call gospel flu, it's going to run its course. And it started with exposure. Paul and his company were the carriers, weren't they? You didn't have a case of it until they showed up. They obviously brought it. And so wherever they go, this flu breaks out, right? That's what's going on. So that's the first step. And then it starts doing some stuff. Notice that Paul says, you knew what manner of men we were among you for your sake. That's a strange statement. Paul says, not only were you convinced of the gospel, but you also knew what we were like. And you say, Paul, don't you understand the gospel is about Jesus, not about you? He goes on to say, you became followers of us. Well, why, Paul, are you out there trying to get disciples for yourself? Why this twist? Why all of a sudden does Paul say, you became followers of us? You knew what kind of people we were. Because when it comes to the gospel, unlike just being a mailman delivering the mail, The gospel requires that the preacher of the gospel, that his life conform to the message he's preaching. In other words, it takes an infected person with the flu to pass the flu on. In other words, Paul is saying, you saw in us a lifestyle that was peculiar, that was different. You saw there was something strange about you guys. And so you became followers of us. The word in Greek is interesting, mimētēs. We get our word mimic, mime, mimeograph. Some of you are old enough to remember the old mimeograph in school. It means to copy, to imitate. And usually we think of imitators as something bad. You know, imitation cheese. I don't even know what that is. Give me the real stuff. But in this case, the imitation is good. It's to be copies. In other words, you saw us as copies of Christ, of this lifestyle that was exhibited first by Jesus, and you saw us as being copies of that lifestyle, and then you became followers. That's that word, mimetes. It's the word mimickers, imitators. Can I use a more modern term? Clones. You were cloned, you saw us as clones of Christ, and now you have become clones of us. Notice the disease is running its course. The same thing you see in the ones who proclaim it has now infected you. That this thing is doing like a virus. Now again, you want the scoop, talk to my daughter. But viruses, we don't even know if they're alive or dead. just a little genetic code encapsulated in protein, and it invades your cell, and it attaches itself, in some cases, to your DNA, so that it's a parasite. It hijacks your cell, and your cell starts making copies. It infects the DNA in one cell, and it starts making copies of the infected cell. It starts transforming. In other words, there's a genetic thing going on here. Your genetics is being changed. I'm not talking about physical genetics, I'm talking about spiritual genetics. That there is something that has invaded your system and it is changing you on the inside. It's producing a clone of Christ. I mean, after all, isn't that what Paul says? We're predestined to what? to be conformed to the image of Christ, God's Son. We are being molded, made, worked over, if you will, in the image of Christ. Notice that that has already taken place in Paul's life and in those that are with him. And now the hearers are being conformed themselves to the message. I've got to hurry or we'll never get through. Oh, I don't have anywhere to go. My fiancé is gone. I don't have anybody to rush home to. So I'm here for the afternoon, y'all. No, I know y'all got to go. But I want you to understand that what's being described here is very much like a virus that impacts your life, and it's there for the rest of your life. And so first of all, you became examples. And then in verse 8, then you became the sounder outers. The Greek here, ek, out, and echo. Anybody at your Wi-Fi at home, you got a repeater? You know, it doesn't reach the other end of your house, so you put a repeater. A repeater picks up the signal coming in and amplifies it and sends it back out. That's what Paul is describing. You were the receiver of the gospel, but this thing has transformed your life, and now you're the repeater of the gospel, the echoer of the gospel. The gospel has come to you, but it's bounced off of you, it has entered you, and then bounced off of you, and now it's being sounded out to everybody around you. Isn't that an amazing thing? You see how they've become clones? They were once on the receiving end of this gospel message. Now they're on the repeating end of it. They're broadcasting it. They're repeating it. And he says, you spread this stuff all over Macedonia, northern Greece, all over Achaia, southern Greece. In fact, it's gone further than that. We can't go anywhere. And we get ready to tell them about the folks up in Thessalonica, and they've already heard of you. They're telling us what happened up there. You just didn't get the gospel and hoard it. You became propagators of this thing called the gospel. You see, the flu just keeps on advancing. They tell us what manner of entering in. He says in verse 9, we had unto you. And again, here comes that work of faith, how you turn from idols. That labor of love to serve the living God. and then this patience of hope to wait. You became waiters willing to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. I didn't ever hear what Joel Osteen preached the other week. I would almost bet good money that the word wrath never popped up. Anybody with me? Think that's a pretty safe bet? Because you see, that's not what he's concerned about. What he's concerned about is you having your best life now. Well, may I put it bluntly, the gospel is not concerned about you having your best life now. It's about you having your best life later. Now, don't get me wrong. The Christian life is the best life you can possibly live. It is, as Peter puts it, a life full of joy and full of glory. Okay? But it is a life mingled with problems, with tribulations. Notice he just described that you became followers of us in verse 6, having received the Word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. See the double thing going on there? On the one hand, yes, there is this joy unspeakable and full of glory, and on the other hand, there are people beating the tar out of you. So it is a mixed thing at best in this life. It's a wonderful life, but it is a life full of travail. But oh my, the best days are ahead. The best life is over yonder. And notice, you became willing to wait on the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ who is going to bring a day of wrath. We forget about that. That there is a day of judgment coming in which all great and small have to stand before the throne of God and give an account And yes, we speak of having been saved, but salvation is sort of in three tenses. Yes, we have been saved. And if we have been saved, we are being saved right now. And if we are being saved, we will be saved in that day of judgment. But we must be saved in that day of judgment. There is a future aspect of salvation that in that day of judgment, But are we seeing, O may I then in Him be found, dressed in His righteousness alone, thoughtless to stand before the throne. You're going to have to be delivered in that day. And notice, who is it that will deliver us? The one who died on that cross 2,000 years ago to become a refuge, a hiding place, a place where we can run and flee for refuge in the day of wrath. We forget all about that so often. Yes, the Christian life that we enjoy is wonderful. And yes, I do believe in health and wealth, the health and wealth gospel. Just not here and just not now. God does want you healthy and wealthy over there in that world to come. That's why He says, lay up your treasures over there. This world is passing. Judgment is coming. And we, as the Thessalonians, have fled for refuge to the mighty Christ, because the judgment that fell on Him there becomes a place where we can hide our guilty soul. I've used that illustration so much, I'm ashamed. Well, apparently not enough to use it again. But the way the old wagon trains across the West used to run into those brush fires, these fires all the way across the horizon, headed at them, blown by the wind. And the only way they could survive it was to start their own fire, a backfire. And then they rounded up all the wagons and all the women and the children, everybody and the livestock, and they got inside that area that they had set. And that wildfire would come and separate magically and go right around them because you can't burn the same grass twice. And God, in judging sin at Calvary, Sin cannot be judged twice. Payment, says Top Lady, God cannot twice demand. First at His bleeding, sure to His hand, and then again at mine. God, the righteous judge, will judge sin, but He will not judge it twice. And so the cross of Jesus Christ becomes a hiding place for my soul. So here I've tried to sort of sketch out for you how this gospel flu invades our lives. And you say, Brother Mark, this is terrible. I mean, you know, the flu is what we want to avoid. Well, I don't know why you're complaining. Apparently you managed to avoid it, this gospel flu. And you know, the strange thing is the folks, unlike the flu that's been going around here, the folks that have come down with this gospel flu are jumping up and down saying, hallelujah, I've got a case of it. Wish you didn't have it? Any of you wish you could get a shot and get rid of this gospel flu? Or are you glad you got a terminal case of it? That it's here now and it'll be there in my dying breath. That my hope will be there when I live and my hope will be there when I die. And it is a hope that will take me beyond the grave. You say, well, Brother Mark, I just don't understand it all. Well, you don't have to. We sang about it, didn't we? I know not. Listen to that verse. I know not how the Spirit moves, convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in Him. You ever thought about those words? That's exactly what I've been preaching to you this morning. That's what the Gospel, when it comes in power, does. And do I understand all the ins and outs of it? No, I don't get it. I may not have understood everything when it was happening to me, but I know whom I believed. What did this gospel do? It brought me to Christ. It brought me to throw myself at His feet and plead for mercy and plead for grace. And in the final analysis, you may not know how you got the flu. You may not know a thing about viruses. You may not know a thing about how it runs its course, but all you know is something came. You may be like the frog in a hailstorm. You know something got you. You just don't have a clue where it came from. That was sort of me when I was nine years old. Christ invaded my life. That's the only way I know to put it. Christ came and gave me a case of this gospel flu. And I hadn't been able to shake it. Sixty years ago, infected by this thing called the gospel. Praise God. Well, I hope you get a good case of it if you don't have it. I hope you infect others if you do have it. How do I infect them? Just like you got infected? by the word, the gospel coming from your mouth, impacting, infecting the lives of others. Everybody you talk to, do they get a case of it? No, no more than those who get exposed to the natural flu. Everybody gets a case of it. But what we are looking for is out of those who hear, God has his people and he has the power to call them and bring them to salvation. May God bless us in that endeavor. And may we shout hallelujah. Thank You for this flu. Let's pray. Father, we give You thanks for the mysterious thing You've done in our heart and life. Have You invaded our turf. Have You seized our soul, or to use the words of Paul, You apprehended us. Father, You did it by opening our eyes, causing us to see things. to receive a message, to receive a testimony, and to receive it with such conviction that we will die believing it, if that's what it costs. Thank you for doing that for us. Lord, our lives have been invaded from on high, that we might now live our lives to the glory and praise of our great Savior, who brought this thing into this world. May we glory in nothing but the cross of Jesus Christ. May it be Him and His work that is the theme of our song. May it be our boast that we glory in nothing save Jesus and His cross. And may we impact the lives of others. Father, as this thing runs its course in us, that once we were the receivers, once we were the recipients, may we now become the sounding board, the echoers of this gospel message that it reaches out to all around us, that others come down with a case of it as well. Use us to spread the kingdom of Jesus your Son. Thank you for grace. For this thing that has come into our life so undeserved, so unwarranted, Lord, we have no right to it. And yet, not because of us, but in spite of us, You have mercy on our soul. So we praise Your name for Your grace exhibited to us through Your Son Jesus. For it's in His name we pray, Amen.