Please turn with me to First Thessalonians chapter one. It's right after Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. As I was working on this text, I realized I had eight points and realized I was not going to be able to get all eight points done today. So this will be the first part, hopefully, of a two-part series. It's just a detour from what we were going to do. We were going to study Malachi, but I was thinking of this passage this week. And given certain things, I thought this might be important for us to consider. Before we read this text, let us seek God's face in prayer. Our Father, we thank you that you have given us your inerrant, infallible word to a world in darkness and in error and confusion. We pray that you would open it up to us and deal with all our souls. You know where we are spiritually. You know where we sit in our relationship with you, and we pray you would use your word to give life to those who are dead and light to those in darkness. Encouragement to your people and comfort to those who are struggling. Oh Lord, deal with us graciously through your truth. In Christ's name, amen, amen. Chapter one, 1 Thessalonians. It's only 10 verses, we'll be reading the entire chapter. I remind you this is God's holy word. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you, not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among 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, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Thus ends the reading of God's word. May the Lord bless it for his glory and our spiritual benefit. I want to look at this passage to get a better understanding of what it looks like for a person to become a Christian. There are people in various denominations and various Christian backgrounds, they consider themselves Christians. But not all of them have a true understanding of what the Bible teaches of how a person becomes a Christian. In fact, over the years, I have been struck by the inability of some people to explain what has actually happened to them spiritually. They don't know how to talk about it in biblical and theological terms. A few weeks ago, our church met on Saturday with the men and women in this church, going through the book devoted to God's church. The second chapter emphasized a very simple point, namely that every believer has a story to tell of how God had saved them. And we should be able to tell it. You know, one of the things that has surprised me and quite fascinating to me, actually, as I begin to talk with other people is that when a person has been diagnosed with a certain illness or disease or certain ailment, It's amazing that most people, not all, but most people over time begin to understand exactly what's going on about their body. If it's a particular ailment, they listen to the doctor, they go on YouTube or wherever else on the internet to figure things out, like, what's wrong with me? And it's amazing that over time they have a better understanding. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I didn't even know where the prostate was. So I had to study, and I understand a lot about these things over time, and that's what happens. We do that, we want to know what's wrong with us, then the doctor explains the procedure, you begin to listen intently. Okay, why are you doing that and why? And he explains it to you. Because you know they're doing this and doing that to take care of this problem and that problem, so you have a better understanding. And so you don't go into the room like, I don't know what they're gonna do to me. You have an understanding. And then after the surgery or after the treatment or whatever, you know what's supposed to happen and what to look out for and what to expect. It's a very common thing. Especially with the advent of the internet, we have access to a lot of information. Prior to this, some families had a medical book with some terms and stuff they could look into. But now we can look at anything and everything. Not only that, we also learn certain vocabulary words, like prostatectomy, and other things. You learn words you've never known before, and they make sense because why you went through the process. You wanna understand what happened to you, what's going on, and it's entirely appropriate. Should that not be the case for believers? To understand what it is that has happened to them. What it is that has actually been done to them by the gracious Lord who has worked in their hearts. It is necessary that we should be able to do, kind of recount those things to other people and understand how God has worked in our hearts. And I believe 1 Thessalonians in this passage, it gives us a picture of some of those things. We'll look at other passages in 1 Thessalonians, but I'm just, I want to look at some of the things that are brought out in this chapter. Paul recounts what happened to them, the Thessalonians, as he recalls it in this letter. He had visited Thessalonica in his second missionary journey. We read about this in Acts 16 and 18. It's one of the towns in Macedonia, so you have Philippi and then Thessalonica and Berea. He preached there in the synagogue and some of the Jews and some of the God-fearing Greeks and some of the Greeks were simply converted. But Paul had to leave Thessalonica because persecution broke out against him. So they sent him, the Christians there who were converted, sent him to Berea, which was further south. We read of that in Acts 17, 1 to 15. He probably wrote this letter we're reading right here sometime after that, perhaps while in Corinth. This might have been several months after he left and departed out of Thessalonica. He was probably in Thessalonica several weeks before being ushered away. And when he arrived in Athens, he actually sent Timothy to inquire about them. The way he put it in chapter three is, to establish and exhort you in the faith. He got an encouraging report from Timothy about their faith, which made him glad in the Lord. He was afraid that, quote, somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. In other words, remember, he was persecuted. He was concerned something happened to them after that. He wanted to inquire, so he sent Timothy, and finally he got news from Timothy. They're doing okay and thriving. They stood firm, and he wrote this letter. Why did they stand firm? He wasn't there long. Several weeks, maybe a couple months or three months, we don't know, not very long. And yet they stood firm. Why? Because there was a real conversion. God had actually powerfully worked in them. It was solid, real conversion, a genuine conversion. So let's chart some of the things that happened to them. And the first thing I want you to see is found in verse five. And it's a simple point. They were confronted by God's word in verse 5. For we know, brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you, not only in word, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction. Now that phrase, there's interpretive issues like, what's he talking about? Is he talking about his preaching style and how God granted him this unction to preach faithfully and powerfully? Or is it the reception of those who heard it? I think it's both. As he preached with power and with a full assurance or full conviction, it correspondingly had the same effect. Paul would be talking about, I was so powerful and none of you were moved. Now they were affected too. And they could echo what he was saying. It powerfully worked in them. We talk about the effects of all of that. But God's word confronted them, the Thessalonians. They were Greeks and they were Jews. They were pagans and they were religious. And God's word came and affected them and confronted them. Notice the phrase, not only in word, he was a plain preacher just like anybody else. But it came in power. in the Holy Spirit and in full conviction. The idea is, as he preached, it came with power, with a way of driving itself in, the word of God, into the hearts of those who were hearing. And that happened because the Holy Spirit was there. He allowed that to happen with full conviction or persuasion. Both the preacher and the hearer, they understood this was true. It was a mighty work. They didn't come to God's word. God's word actually came to them. God confronted them with the good news. Jews and Gentiles were converted. Every preacher preaches, but God must actually affect the heart. We pray for that every Sunday before we come in, that God would move in your hearts. that God would take his word and with power in the Holy Spirit bring full conviction into your souls. And that's what we pray for. Man cannot produce that effect. Man cannot mimic it, he cannot copy it, he cannot reproduce it. Only God can do that. And when Paul was preaching, God, the Holy Spirit, came with great power and affected their hearts as well as encouraging Paul as he preached. This is how Paul knew that God had chosen them, because of the effect in their lives, because of the unction that was in him as he preached. He powerfully preached. Listen to what it says in chapter two, verse 13. This is how they received what was preached. In verse 13 it says, and we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, You accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you, believers. They accepted what Paul was saying as God's word. God was speaking to them. God was dealing with their souls. Notice that phrase, which is at work in you, believers. Let's see. Sometime in the fall, I ended up getting some books. And the guy didn't have access to this book. He hadn't seen them and he was giving me a list of books. So I bought it and I was going through the boxes and I picked up this one book and I forgot what the author was. And I opened it and there were these caverns all through that book. A bookworm had eaten through that entire book. It just went in there and just had dinner, lunch, and supper, and meals upon meals. And that book was utterly unusable. And it went through the entire volume. I was surprised that the structure of the book retained itself. That bug got in there, worm or whatever it is. I don't even know what they looked like, but they ate the whole thing up. And I had to throw that away. I had to get it away as quick as I could. If there's anything in there, I didn't want it in my house. It worked and it burled. That's what God's word does in the heart of someone God is dealing with. It goes in there, it burles in. It is at work in believers. That's what happened to the Thessalonians. It got in there, it started to get into their heart and they couldn't help but respond. That is the first thing that happens in a real conversion. God's word confronts the person, it comes with power, it goes in there and deals with their heart. God works in them. It's an amazing thing. Every true believer knows this very well. I remember when I was converted, and I was going through that season of figuring out what's going on. This girl shared a gospel with me. I'm struggling with this. A week later, as I've been struggling with this, I read God's word, and all of a sudden, a verse comes alive and deals with my soul. I am crying. For the first time, as God was touching and pulling my heart, and all of a sudden, I realized He's real, and He's having mercy on me. What would they have heard from him as he preached to them how God created them? And how they fell away in sin, but God in his mercy sent a savior to redeem sinners. That they had to pay the debt for their sin, they can. So God would send his son to pay that debt. And they would hear about how sinful they are in worshiping idols and all these things, and they had everything exposed to them, and God's word grabbed them. was at work in them. That's a wonderful thing. In real conversion, what's forefront in the hearts and minds of those who are converted is God's truth and God's word, the precious gospel. Nothing else matters. If you're converted, that's exactly what happened to you. I've heard stories of men being converted in hotels. flipping through the channel and all of a sudden there's an evangelist or some preacher speaking and all of a sudden God uses it to address his heart right then and there. Or others in a hotel room or somewhere, they come across a Bible and they're drunk or whatever and all of a sudden they sober up as they read and God converts them right there. It's his word confronting. Sometimes it's through a friend, sometimes it's one event that leads to another, and they hear the truth, and all of a sudden, God deals with them. You see, that's what happens in real conversion. He confronts them with his truth. He sends a messenger and the message, and God uses it to draw sinners. You understand the significance of that? It's not accidental. Well, how did I get here? Why are you talking to me about Jesus? Is that accidental? The sovereign, gracious God is confronting sinners with his truth. He redeems them. He disturbs them that they might live. And every real convert has a story to tell about how God's truth affected them. Yeah, we go to various different things, but you can't be a Christian without confronted by the truth of God. Something has to deal with it. You believe in something. Sometimes, it's like being awakened in the middle of the night with the lights on. You don't know what's going on. You're kind of beside yourself, this alarm. Some people are converted like that. Others, it's like waking up on a good morning with the sun's coming in. You just kind of wake up gently. But in both situations, light shines in. And God's truth prevails. So they're confronted by God's word. It comes with great power. It's not just mere word. Oh, these are the opinions of Paul. They received it as exactly what it is, because the Holy Spirit came with power upon their souls, and they said, this is the word of God. I want to ask you, have you dealt with that? If you're a real convert, can you say that if you haven't, then you don't know God. God confronts people through his word. That's how he saves him. It's not a feeling. It's a confrontation of who you are and your needing to repent of who you are and coming to grips with the truth presented to you and God dealing with your soul. That's the first thing. That's what happened to the Thessalonians. Paul wasn't like persuasive because he was a great rhetorician. He makes it clear in Corinthians, epistle to Corinth, that that's not how he preached. He simply proclaimed God's word and God used it and grabbed hearts. They were confronted by God's word. And I trust that everyone in this room, you too have been confronted by the gospel. where they invade your soul, and you can't leave it, and it grabs you, and it deals with you, it tugs at you, and gives you no rest, until Christ is your Lord. The second thing is, they receive the word of God, or they exercise faith. You can put it together. Notice what it says in verse six, and verse 13 in chapter two. For you receive the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, in verse six. In verse 13 of chapter two, when you receive the word of God, there's a reception. Not only is it that they hear it and confront them, they receive it, they embrace it, they embrace it by faith. Why is that so significant? Because there are many people who hear it, it deals with their soul, and you know what they do? They reject it. They push it away. Something disturbs him. And that is the point where they say, no, I'm not going to deal with this. I know where this is going to lead. I do not want to give up my pet idol. There are people who have actually said something like that to me. They've told me, I know exactly where this is going to go. I'm going to be honest. I don't want to go there. That happens. I remember two people, since I became a Christian, to this day, it hasn't left my mind. One young, one in college, another at another time. And I remember this young man, he was confronted, he was so shaken by it, he was going up to the church to give his life to Christ, he tripped over chairs and everything, he seemed so disturbed by what he heard. But it lasted for a week. Another person, God had dealt with his heart somehow. And he seemed serious, and he met me. I met him two or three times in two weeks. But at each time, the enthusiasm, the attraction began to wane. In the third week, he was back to his normal self, uninterested. See, they hear they're affected, but they don't receive and believe. And they don't change, they're like the parable of the sower in which they receive the word immediately with joy. But it has a temporary effect. In football we call it, they fumbled. They dropped the ball. Being confronted, convicted, the Thessalonians received it. They believed it. They received the word of God as an act of faith. They believed what was taught and accepted it as truth from God. They have faith in the threats, the promises, the overtures of mercy offered to them in Christ. They believed all of that. They received it. Your faith in God, he says in verse eight, has gone forth everywhere. The description in verse six helps us to see the nature of this reception. They received it while being afflicted or persecuted. And they received the word with joy in the Holy Spirit. It wasn't just casually received, it affected them in such a way they can receive it with joy because it affected their hearts. And even in the obstacles before that, they didn't care, they will believe. Genuine joy. and they would not give up. Undeterred, they will receive what God hath for them. You see, a real convert remembers when he truly received God's word. He rejoices in it. He loves it. He says, this is God's word. All of a sudden, all the questions disappear. He begins to see this is God. And if you truly receive God's word, you should love it. I cannot for the life of me understand how a person says he's a Christian and he was converted by the preaching of the word and he doesn't read God's word. That is the word that's life. That is the word that feeds your soul and comforts you in times of darkness. That is the way God deals with your soul. That is the word that gives you life. And here, the Thessalonians, Paul doesn't say, you received the preaching of the gospel, but you never accepted anything else. You just kind of, you know, my ethical teachings and this and that you didn't accept. You just received the simple gospel. That's not what the Thessalonians did. They received everything. And we begin to understand it through this letter, some of the things he was teaching them. To receive it means to receive everything, everything it teaches. And that also is such an astonishing thing in our generation, how men and women, children, pick and choose what they will receive of God's Word. I'm astonished. They approach it like it's a Chinese buffet. There's some things they like and some things they turn away from. You know, some people don't like fish, so they stay away from the fish, especially with their eyes looking at them. So there's just some things they don't like. And they look at God's word like that. It's a buffet, they can pick and choose. It's teaching on husbands and wives. Some choose it, some don't. It's teaching on male headship. No, no, no, not for me. It's teaching on divorce. You don't understand. On creation, well, we're a scientific generation. On male leadership in the church, we've gone, we've come of age. And it's teaching on the Sabbath, let's not be legalistic. Teaching on ethic, don't be so moralistic. It's homosexuality, are you kidding me? And the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ. That is so narrow-minded. On the Trinity, that is offensive, that doesn't even make sense. And there are even people now questioning God's immutability. People pick and choose. When the Thessalonians received God's word, they embraced it all. And that's the way we have to respond. If we're truly converted, we take his entire word. Now there are difficult passages where you can say, Lord, I don't understand, but implicitly I will take everything you teach. I don't understand. I want to understand it. But if you say this, if you say I got to wear a tinfoil hat, I will. That's not what it's saying. But it goes to that point. We'll take what God's word teaches. Because he brought life to the Thessalonians, it brings life to true converts. And we have to take all his word. Not the things that are convenient, but everything. The third thing is this, they also embrace the cross in verse six. Listen to what he says, and you, You became imitators of us, for you received the word in much affliction." Now, what does that mean, much affliction? Well, it meant that as Paul was persecuted there, in that very context, they received the word. They understood the implications. Look, they're attacking Paul. What are they going to do to us? But they still received it. They embraced the cross. They understood this was part of discipleship. They understood that to be a Christian, I may be persecuted. In 2.14, Paul talked about the Thessalonians who suffer by their countrymen. In 2 Thessalonians 1.4, Paul says, therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. They embraced the cross. It's an amazing thing. Jesus said we would be persecuted for his namesake, and being a true convert means I am willing to endure persecution for my faith. They were not ashamed. They knew faith in Christ would bring pain, but they could not change what they believed. A real convert counts the cost, embraces the cross, and endures the ridicule, persecution, and shame. Brothers and sisters, our generation has it very easy. You know, some people have said, you know, other generations had the Goliath attacking them. But they have said now, but our generation has Delilah attacking us, seducing us. But you know what, Goliath is coming. And the persecution could be over, but right now he shows up at work and the way people look at you, like you really believe that stuff? It's always a challenge. Why would you endure this? Because you know what you got is good. Don't do this. But if you won the lottery ticket, It's worth $500 million. And someone's bothering you, manipulating you, bothering you just to get it. Would you give it away? Okay, I'll give it away, just leave me alone. You said no. This $500 million, I can endure a lot. You would do that for a stupid lottery ticket. What about for our Lord what he has done for you and me? They endured the persecution. They embraced the cross that was required of them. There are many who profess Christ, but who are simply ashamed of identifying with him. They want a faith that doesn't offend, doesn't keep them out of step with their peers. If we can't take those small shameful looks from our peers, their disapproval, then how can we endure when it really becomes full-blown persecution? One's husband, one's wife, one's child, one's, excuse me, one's parent, one's relatives, one's friend might embarrass you and me. But we endure. I don't love for them. But Christ has never shamed us. He has never been faithless. He sealed his love by dying for us, the death that you and I deserve for our sins. Should we be ashamed? Each one of us deal with it. Some of you are bold and some of you are not. Some of you, the more resistant you are, the stronger you get. Others, you just wilt. We are different. But each one of us, we have to stand. and not be ashamed, and that's what happened. You see, one of the effects of true conversion is that they're willing to stand. Many of you have similar testimonies. I remember I talked to everyone in high school. What happened to this hersher? I didn't care. Everything I read the night before I shared, if I understood it correctly, and a girl that led me to Christ, she would teach me things I would share with my friends and everything. I embraced everything, and you know what? My friends started to leave me. But I didn't care, because I was once lost, but now I'm saved. They embraced the cross, and fourthly and lastly, they repented. Look at verse nine. For they themselves, these people in Macedonia and Achaia, report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Their old way of religion changed. No longer did they serve idols. They turned away from it to serve the true and living God. To do that means they disowned it. They repented of it. They could not live their old lives anymore. This change, this repentance was manifest. It says it was known to all. Our brother in the New Testament exposition talked about the change that occurs. They repented of that. They would no longer do what they did before. Part of a changed life is to repent of, to turn from, to disown the life that was contrary to God's Word. Worshiping idols is a breach of the first four commandments. There has to be an about face on many things in our lives. One cannot continue to do what he was doing before. There is a repentance that occurs. It is faith in Christ, but a repentance, repenting of our life away from God, and that's what they're doing. You cannot have a conversion without repentance, because the only way that's possible is you're perfect. You have everything to repent of. Real conversion does not mean Jesus is simply added into your life. and you continue on as if he was just added on, you continue on as you did before. It means a radical departure from your own ways. You see, what's amazing, it was so manifest, the change was so real. It says, they report the reception we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. These people in these regions heard about this. Have you heard about those Christians? They changed. They no longer worship the idols. They're going to this Jesus, this Jewish God they talk about. I don't know what's going on. They can, all kinds of words, but the change was real. The repentance was real. And if you're a true convert, there is repentance and there's continued repentance. We cannot go as we did before. There are young men who used to cuss. They will have to stop. The relationship, the way you treated other people, that has to change. The old habits of drunkenness and drugs, whatever, that has to end. Pornography, it has to end. The views of sex, it has to change. All that has to change. You repent of it. You cannot say, ah, the Lord is my Lord. He saved me. I am a true convert. I'm going in my old ways again. You can't. There has to be an about-face. And I end with this, and it's a sad, sad story, and I'm not gonna get into the lurid details about this. We've mentioned this before. Many of you have heard stories about this, and it brought great dishonor to the Lord, how Ravi Zacharias, the international evangelist, a renowned author, conference speaker and everything, And I remember in one summer, I listened to hundreds of hours of his lectures. Then we find out just before he dies and after he dies, he lived a double life that was wicked. And how he used his religion to pervert and to do all kinds of things brought great dishonor to the Lord. That is not repentance. He died doing this. To repent means to turn away. It doesn't mean we're perfect. None of us are. But there's a decisive shift that occurs, and it is so sad to even recount that story. But I bring that out for this simple reason. There is a view within evangelicalism that is perverted, which they believe you can do this double life. What you don't understand, that's his struggle. That's not right. Some think because they're God's gift to the world, a different standard applies to them. They think they're politicians. But in fact, the stricter and greater standard applies to you and me, especially to Christian leaders. There has to be repentance. It was manifest in the Thessalonians. None of us are perfect, brothers and sisters. We sin daily. In thought, word, and deed, we repent, we go to him, we confess. We would rather die. Here's one thing I learned over my lifetime as a Christian. I would rather die than to keep on dishonoring the Lord. That's how, I wish there was somehow, God, if there's a way I could just, in my life, and I don't sin against you, I would. But that would be sinful. And God enables you to hate your sin over time. They've repented. That was a sign of true conversion. And some of you need to consider this. Some of you are willing to say, I want to follow, but I don't want to let this go. No, you need to repent. Wherever you go, I will follow. It comes in different forms, but you know what you're dealing with. May the Lord have mercy upon you. Let us pray. Gracious God, almost 2,000 years ago, you addressed these people in Thessalonica, and you converted them. And what a wonderful change. And weeks and months and years after that, you did that with many hearts and lives in various nations. And there are many in this room that have also been affected in which you brought repentance to us. You confronted us with your word. You enabled us to stand firm and to bear the cross and to receive your word with joy. You have done it. We pray that you might keep us, oh Lord. We pray for friends. People sitting in this room who are strangers to this, they've heard of it, and yet they know not its power, where your word has changed them, where they've received it, where their life is converted and totally renewed. We pray, oh Lord, you would save them, convict them, give them no rest, disturb them, oh Lord, until they say, Lord Jesus, I follow, I believe, save me. Oh Lord, hear us, in Jesus' name. Please turn with me in your hymnals to 427, 427.