Now may I urge you to turn with me in your own Bibles to Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians and chapter 1. Here in what could well be the first or one of the first apostolic letters to the infant churches, the Apostle Paul writes, Paul and Silvanus, or Silas and Timothy, unto 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 you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience or endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before our God and Father. knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, because our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. And, even as you know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake, And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you has sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to Godward is gone forth, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned unto God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son out of the heavens, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Now again, recognizing our need of the Spirit's aid in both the preaching and hearing of the Word, let us seek God's face for that aid. Holy Father, having been reminded in the previous hour of your infinite and exalted majesty, we are yet bold to come because we have the words of our Lord Jesus that if we who are evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will you, our loving Father, Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him, and so while recognizing your majesty, your exalted place in glory and power, we thank you that you have taken us into your heart and into your family, And as family members we come asking you, our Father, give us your Holy Spirit. Give him as the spirit of wisdom and illumination. Give him as the spirit of unction and utterance to your servant, open ears and open eyes to your truth. To the end that we may have more reasons to praise and magnify your holy name, Hear us, we plead, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now I begin this morning with a very simple, but a very searching question. And that simple and searching question that I ask of every man, woman, boy, or girl gathered in this place this morning is this. Has the gospel come to you in word only, or has it come to you in power? Simple question, but a searching question. that you must answer in the presence of this great and glorious majestic God of whom we heard in the previous hour in our various adult classes. Has the gospel come to you in word only or has it also come in power? Now the basis on which I ask that question is patent in our text, for Paul could say to the Thessalonians in verse five, our gospel came to you, Thessalonians, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance, or in full conviction. And so the apostle is the one who uses the very words from which I framed this simple but searching question, has the gospel come to you in word only or has it also come in power? Now that it's come to you in word, I have no question whatsoever. For I have sat many times where you sit, and from this pulpit, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ comes to us again and again and again and again in word. and often from the standpoint of the objective, attendant presence and power of the Spirit. With the preacher, it comes objectively, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and in full conviction. The preacher stands not under his own steam, But the Spirit of God comes and gives them utterance. And when those words come out of the preacher's mouth, by the time they reach our consciousness, we know that God Himself sits upon those words. And they come to us with power, and with the Holy Spirit, and with the sense, if nobody in the world believes what the preachers are saying, they obviously believe what they are saying. But Paul's concern is not just the objective attendance of the Holy Spirit with the preachers, but the subjective personal impress of that gospel that comes in word, yes. We will never know its power unless we know its word. It comes to us in the form of propositions about God. about man and his sin, about the person and the work of Jesus Christ by which God has provided a righteous redemption for sinners. And it comes in a word, calling us to repentance and faith. That gospel has come to us in word, yes. But the great question is, has it come to us in power as well? Now as we look at the flow of thought, the apostle could say of the Thessalonians, look at the text, after he describes the thanks that he and Silas and Timothy give for the Thessalonians when they pray for them, in verse 4 he says, we do all of this with a certain knowledge, knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election. Now how in the world did these three men become persuaded of the election of the Thessalonian believers? Did God take Paul up into heaven and usher him by the hand to the Lamb's Book of Life and with a register of the Thessalonian church members check to see if all of the names were written there? Paul was caught up into heaven, 2 Corinthians 12, heard things that it wasn't lawful for him to speak. Is that how he became convinced of their election? Obviously not. Or perhaps did God give direct revelation to Paul here on earth? He did that many times. He said, my gospel was not given to me by men. I was taught it by revelation of Jesus Christ. Did Christ come to Paul and did he then share that knowledge with Silas and Timothy? Oh yes, those Thessalonian church members, they are God's elect. God is revealed to me with absolute certainty. Well, the answer to that question again is no, there's no indication whatsoever. And also Paul tells us precisely how he came to the conviction that they were God's elect. Look at the text. Knowing brethren loved of God your election because because our gospel came to you, not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in full conviction. In other words, Paul says, we are persuaded of your election Because the gospel came to you, yes. God's elect will never be known apart from the gospel coming to them and being the instrument of their being called into union with Christ. But Paul says we know your election because our gospel came not in word only, but in power, in the Holy Spirit, and in much or full conviction or assurance. Now, that raises another question. How did he know that the gospel had come not in word only, but in power? Did God give him a power registering instrument where he could connect some electrodes to the wrist or to the chest or to the temples of people? And if the needle went up, aha, the gospels come in power to this one, to that one, to this one. No. Or did God do something like He did on the day of Pentecost when cloven tongues of fire rested upon the head of each one of the 120 so that you knew the ones who had received the Holy Spirit with this visible sign of a cloven tongue of fire resting upon a person's head? Well, again, the answer to those questions is obvious. Of course not. Well, how did he know then that the gospel came in power? Now, follow the train of thought. He says, we know you're elect because the gospel came in power. But Paul, how do you know that the gospel came in power? Well, he tells us. Look at this significant phrase at the beginning of verse six. And you became. And you became. When the gospel came to you in power, you became something. It did something that has no explanation, but that the gospel was operating with power in your hearts. Look at verse 7, "...so that you became." Two times Paul says, our certainty that the gospel came to you in power is rooted in what you became by means of that gospel. So the gospel comes not only in word, but in power, and its influence upon them was such that Paul says, I have no explanation for this, but this, that they are God's chosen ones, they are loved of God, and the gospel has come not just to their outer ear, and into their cognitive faculties, so they can give you back the word of the gospel, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, He was buried, and the third day raised again from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen, that He ascended to the right hand of the Father, and on the basis of the work of Christ God offers to any and all sinners full and complete pardon of sin, a full acceptance in justifying grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promise of eternal life, My friends, that's the word of the gospel. But Paul was persuaded they were God's elect not because they merely heard the word of the gospel, but that gospel did something so they became something that defied any other explanation but that Almighty God had laid hold of some of His elect and drawn them out of darkness into marvelous light. Now, what were the things that they became? What were the things that occurred in them that persuaded the apostle that they were loved of God and that they were the elect of God? Well, my purpose in the time allotted this morning is to answer that question from this very chapter. And time permitting, I want to trace out three, possibly four lines of truth with you. The first one is disproportionately larger than the others. So if I'm 20 minutes with the first, don't look down at your watch and say, oh, 20 minutes for first, three more, six more, we're going to be for an hour and 20 minutes. You say, Pastor Martin, you think anyone sits here, is that carnal to do it? Yes. Yes, yes, I do. So, I want to disaffect your mind of any carnal anxiety. And the first thing we see that is in this chapter when we ask the question, what happens when the gospel comes in power, is this. When the gospel comes in power, it produces a radical conversion. It produces a radical conversion. Now the word radical, I'm using it deliberately. It is not a synonym for dramatic or sensational. When something is radical, it goes to the root of an issue. It goes to foundational principles. And as the Apostle opens up this subject in this chapter, it's in the last two verses that we see the foundation of the entire chapter. Everything he describes in verses 2 through verse 8 rests down upon what he describes in verse 9. Look at the text. He says, wherever we go, and we begin to open our mouths to say what happened when we came to Thessalonica, Acts 17, people tell us, no, no, Paul, we've already heard what happened. And Paul says, this is what they tell me. For they themselves, verse 9, report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son out of heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Here Paul gives an account of a radical conversion which occurred among the Thessalonians that persuaded him, aha, the gospel has not come to them in word only, but it has come in power, it has come in the Holy Spirit, it has come in full assurance. Now, what's involved in a biblical radical conversion? What are the elements? Well, three of them. There is a decisive turning, there is a decisive submitting, and there is a decisive reorienting. Three things here in the text. First of all, there is a decisive turning. The verb that Paul uses is one of the most prominent verbs in the New Testament, particularly in the writing of Luke and especially in the book of Acts. Eight times it is used by Luke in the book of Acts to describe what we call Christian conversion. And the form of the verb indicates that it was a decisive, a critical, a radical turning. When the gospel came to them, they turned. Only one of those passages I quote from the book of Acts, Acts 2620, Paul says, I preached to you and wherever I went among the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, there's our verb, and turn to God doing works meet or answering for or to repentance. There is a decisive turning. Now notice it has a positive and a negative side. The text says, you turned unto God. Now, if conversion is a turning pros theon, towards God, it means when the gospel comes to us, it finds us away from God. It finds us with our faces in the direction that is anti-God. And that fits with the whole tenor of scriptural teaching. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, each one of us, to what? To his own way. Romans chapter 3, there is none that seeks after God. There is no fear of God before their eyes. The very essence of our sin is our backs turned to God. The first thing that happened to Adam in the garden when he sinned, his back is to God when God comes to commune with him in the cool of the day instead of his face toward God. and his heart opening like a flower to the sun to this special visitation of his God. His back is toward his God. My friend, that's what you are and that's what I am by nature. We are creatures of the turned And yet, when the gospel comes in power, what does it do? It affects the change. Now follow me closely. It affects the very change for which Jesus Christ died. What are you talking about, Pastor Martin? Turn to 1 Peter chapter 3 for the answer. 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 18. because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might deliver us from hell. That isn't what Peter says. In our text we'll see Christ is the one who does deliver from the wrath to come, but his ultimate purpose was not to fireproof you or me. He went into that horrific baptism of agony and suffering, experiencing the outpoured wrath of His Father, His hidden face, the shrouded heavens, the pangs of hell itself. Why? He died for us. He suffered for us, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. that the creatures of the turned back would become creatures of the face towards God, the heart towards God, the affections towards God. He died to take turned back sinners and to make them God-absorbed saved sinners. And if that's the reason for which Christ died, then the instrument to apply the virtues of the death of Christ is what? It's the gospel. It is the power of God to salvation. So when the gospel comes with power, what happens? The purpose for which Jesus died is realized in us and we turn to God. Logical, scriptural, inescapable, and it is only the gospel that will take the turned-back sinner and bring him into that face-to-face communion with God. A decisive turning, positive, you turned toward God. And isn't it interesting that when you read the call of the gospel, the purpose of Christ dying to bring us to God, and what's the call that comes in the gospel? Isaiah 55, 7 and 8. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake. his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. For he will have mercy upon him, and to our God." for He will abundantly pardon. So if the purpose of Christ in His death and the very focus of God's mercy and gospel call is focused upon this turning toward God, whenever that gospel comes with power, that's exactly what will happen in the hearts of sinners. But then look at the negative. It's right there in the text. You turn toward God from idols. Now when we read the account of how the gospel came to Thessalonica, very few verses in Acts 17, the focus of Luke's account is on the initial penetration of the gospel at Thessalonica. And as Paul always did, he went in the synagogue and he reasoned and disputed with the Jews from the scriptures demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer, had to be raised from the dead, and that Jesus of Nazareth was precisely that Messiah. He was the long-promised prophet to teach, priest to forgive and intercede, and king to rule and govern. And then it says, there were also some God-fearing Greeks who might have had various levels of attachment to the synagogue without having been circumcised and become full-bodied Jews, but there's no account of the gospel penetrating into the rank and file of the Thessalonian populace, which, for the most part, was given over to idolatry, as was Athens. But it was not very long, according to later parts in our chapter in 1 Thessalonians, that from the Thessalonians this gospel, he says, sounded out like a trumpet or like a thunderclap. Paul uses a word that's not used anywhere else in the New Testament, but in secular Greek it was used to describe a thunderclap. It was used to describe a trumpet call, and Paul says the gospel was trumpet called, and like a thunderclap went out into the region, and when it did, it found people worshipping idols. That is, there were objects of wood and stone that they worshipped, and worshipped the so-called deity represented and embodied in that idol. and the evil powers are the things they really worship, for Paul said, when people worship idols, they worship demons. So when they worshiped idols, it wasn't that piece of stone or piece of wood that was the focus of their worship, it was that so-called God behind the idol. And Paul says, when the gospel came to you in power and produced this radical conversion, commensurate with your turning to God, and in inseparable accompaniment of it, you turned from your idols. And for many of the Thessalonians, it was real idols that they repudiated, and in so doing, they made themselves vulnerable to becoming social outcasts being considered disloyal. Remember, these were the days of the Caesars and the worship of the emperor, all of that. But surely, because there were converted Jews, he doesn't say, you turn to God from your idols, parenthesis, that is, if you were an idol worship in pagan. For you see, at the end of the day, there's not only an external idolatry, There's an internal idolatry that has no connection necessarily to anything we can touch or carve or mold with our hands. For an idol, hear me carefully now, is any person or anything that occupies a place in your affections that belongs only to God. Any person Anything in your affections that occupies a place that belongs only to God, that's your idol. It can be a wife, a husband, a child, children. It can be a career. It can be the desire to be married, the desire for something, a house, this car, that suit, that dress, that position. That attainment, athletically, academically, whatever person or thing keeps you from loving God with how much of your heart? All your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength, that's your idol. And whenever the gospel comes, not in word only, but also in power, it comes like a mighty arm and sweeps through the heart and smashes all the idols on the table of your heart. It takes the idols and smashes them. We turn from idols to the living God. And all of us, Jew or Gentile, religious or irreligious, we have that great idol. And you know what it is? It's you. It's me. That's why Paul could say in 2 Corinthians 5.15, in that he Christ died for all that they who live should no longer henceforth live unto themselves. but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. By nature you are your biggest idol. I am my biggest idol. But blessed be God when the gospel comes in power, that idol is in principle smashed. That's what happened here. Paul could say, knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. And what was the evidence? He said the evidence is you turned unto God from your idols. This radical conversion with its decisive turning, but then notice secondly, it involves a decisive submitting. What does the text say? You turned unto God from idols to serve as a willing slave, a living and true God. I translated it that way because the verb Paul uses, and he had several at his disposal that embody the concept of service, but he took the one, dulio, that means to serve as a slave. to serve as a slave with the emphasis not being on what we often consider the negative connotations of the slave and his master. The master, this narrow-hearted, cruel being who abuses his slaves. No, no. The emphasis is upon the nature of the disposition of the converted man or woman to the absolute rule and government of God in his life. That's where the emphasis falls. When the Lord is trying to help us to understand there are other dimensions of his relationship to us, remember what Jesus said, I no longer call you slaves. But I call you friends, in terms of aspects of the intimate communion with Christ and our relationship to God, He is our loving Father who knows our needs before we ask. But there is another dimension that is critical to true conversion, and the Holy Spirit guided Paul to use this verb to highlight that dimension. where there is a radical conversion, there is not only a decisive turning, there is a decisive submitting to the living God to cheerfully, willingly, voluntarily serve Him with all of the abandonment of a slave to the will and to the purposes of His Master. And if that is not a description of you, the gospel, has never come to you in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. Dear people, These are not my notions. This is what the scripture says. Happened not just to a few super spiritual people at Thessalonica, he's writing to the whole church, verse 1. And he says, all of you who comprise that church, when the gospel came, this is what the gospel did. It made you the willing servants of the living God and of the only real God. That's why he describes God that way. And to serve this living God in contrast to the dead idols of the pagan. and to the dead idols of the human heart that cannot convey any life. You think that life is to be had by pursuing that idol of your heart. No, it's as dead as a hunk of wood or stone carved into some grotesque image. but the living God, the God who possesses life in Himself and has given to His Son, the Lord Jesus, the authority to impart life. That's the God to whom we turn with this decisive submission in true conversion. Romans 6, 15 to 23, I expounded it some time ago, or even 1 Peter 2, 16. Notice how Peter assumes As he writes to those believers scattered throughout what is now the land of Turkey, Asia Minor, he's giving a whole string of directives here in chapter 2, and he says in the midst of that, verse 16 of 1 Peter 2, 16, as free and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bond slaves of God. That's a terminology to describe true Christians. They are believers, but they are bond slaves. And if you are not a bond slave, you're not a true believer. The Word is yet to come to you in power, blasting you out of that existence in which you are your own God. Your notions, your will, your desires, your purposes, they govern. In every truly converted man or woman, boy or girl, notwithstanding all the opposition from our remaining sin, areas of darkness in our mind, perversity in our wills, we can say, the living and the true God is my master. And my fundamental desire in life is to please him. You read this epistle. Dorothy and I have just come to the end of it in our family worship. It's probably one reason I was drawn to the epistle. And this church had problems. They had some skewed thinking about the second coming. They still had some barnacles on the whole of their lives from their pagan past in terms of sexual purity. Chapter 4, there were some people who were tending in their skewed thinking about the second coming to be lazy. They had problems. But they were the problems of bond slaves of God. So that when the directives came to them, they didn't say, ho hum, I'm saved by grace, doesn't make much difference. No, no. when they heard their master speak in his word. Yes, Lord, by your grace, we will obey. So, that's what happens when the gospel comes in power. It produces a radical conversion with its decisive turning, secondly, with its decisive submitting, and thirdly, with its decisive reorienting. Look at the text. They themselves report of us about our entrance. You turned unto God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Here is the decisive reorientation. The gospel came and loosed them from an inordinate attachment to this life and to stuff and fixed their hearts on the future and notice on a person. It doesn't say, and to wait for the second coming as an event. but to wait for His Son, to wait for His Son. Their hearts, as they turned to God, because the turning occurred in the context of the Gospel, and they were told that the only way to approach God is through Christ, and their faith in Christ birthed in them a love for Christ, and the love for Christ created a yearning to see Christ. You tell me any man in this place, married man, goes away on a business trip for four days, who can cut any credibility with his wife that he loves her if he doesn't say, you know, dear, I missed you. I couldn't wait to see you. When the heart is fixed on an object in love, it yearns to see and be with that Conversion had not only brought them under the government of God, but into a love relationship with the person of Christ. That's why Peter can say, Whom have ye not seen ye love? And why Paul can say, If anyone love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Strong language, why? Because in the very nature of God's work in grace, everyone who is truly converted has his heart drawn out and into a relationship of love to the Christ. whom he trusts, and the love creates a yearning, and so there is this decisive reorientation of waiting for his son from heaven. So it's a reorientation of the fundamental affections of the heart, but also of perspective. To be converted means I leave this world like Bunyan's Christian, And I set my heart on the celestial city. I leave the stuff and the associations of this world in principle and I join the company of what Peter calls sojourners and pilgrims who have here no abiding place. And that is not some attainment of a few super-duper spiritual Christians, Paul's writing of the entire church at Thessalonica. there was this decisive reorientation. Well, no wonder John Stott on this passage said, without this turning, this serving and waiting, we can scarcely claim to have been converted. I quote him, not to prove the Bible, but some of you sit here and say, oh, this is Pastor Martin's emphasis. John Stott is a noted Anglican. who's waffled on one or two fundamental doctrines of the Word of God, but when he's writing a commentary on this passage, he feels the pressure that my heart feels, and he dared to say, without this turning, this serving and waiting, we can scarcely claim to have been converted. Now that's what the Gospel does, and for many of us, I trust, we sit here and say, oh God, There's no explanation for who I am sitting here this morning. but that your gospel has come to me in power. And I know what that decisive turning is in its positive and negative dimensions. I know what that decisive submitting is. And I know what that decisive reorienting is. Lord, I want it more fully developed and more fully perfected and more extensively percolating through all that I am. But Lord, that's who I am. I tell you, the things that get me shouting happy in my study, in my leather chair, is when I think of what in the world's sitting here? What is this 75-year-old man? What makes him tick? And I say, oh God, there's no explanation. But you laid hold of this 17-year-old kid and you turned him by your mighty power through the Gospel. It's a wonderful thing to be an amazement to yourself. I hope your heart can say hallelujah. I am in amazement to myself. Well, I told you it was going to be disproportionate time on the first head. Now, I'll keep my word. What's the second thing that the gospel does when it comes in power? Now we go back to look at everything built upon those last two verses in the previous paragraph. Verse 2. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing, and we should probably bring the phrase before our God and Father, so it is prayer in the presence of God the Father. What does he remember? What does Silas and Timothy remember? Your work rooted in your faith, your labor rooted in and flowing out of your love, and your endurance fueled by your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he can say in verse six, you became imitators of us and the Lord having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit. So he mentions their faith, which produced work, their love that produced labor, their hope that produced endurance, and their joy in the midst of affliction. What are those? Have you ever heard, now abideth faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. In this very epistle, verse 8 of chapter 5, he says, Let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. What are faith, love, hope, and joy? They are foundational Christian graces. And Paul is here indicating when the gospel came in power, it not only produced a radical conversion, it implanted fundamental graces that were operative in their lives. It implanted fundamental graces, faith, love, and hope, and joy. Think of them for a minute. What's the fundamental characteristic of all of them? Faith goes out of itself to another. It's not self-centered, it's God or Christ-centered. Love doesn't terminate upon itself, that's narcissism. It is an active grace that goes out to others in their need. And hope, what is that? It's a confident expectation of promised blessings not yet received. It goes out of itself to the future and what God has promised And what is joy? It's the overflowing of a heart, content with its lot because it has Christ. And in the midst of the pressure of suffering and affliction, it continues to rejoice. You see, because of the radical conversion that turns people from self unto God. The heart in that sense is now free to be the recipient of graces that are other-oriented, faith and hope and love and joy in the Holy Spirit. And if the gospel has come to you, if it's come to me in power, it always implants to some discernible degree these dominant Christian graces. So much so that Paul can say that faith puts you to work. He says in Galatians, faith works by love. And then there was arduous labor that came out of that love and their hope was strengthened as it was tested in the midst of affliction every time the pressure came on them. The realization the best is yet to come. The Lord is going to come. Trials, troubles, pressure, opposition, affliction will all be passed. And so I ask you, very simply sitting here this morning, are these graces implanted and active in you? I didn't say, are they as active as you long they would be? Are they always consistently active? I didn't ask that, but I'm asking, are they in you and are they active? If Paul lived with you for a month, would he be able to write you a letter and say, Albert, John, Jack, Harry, Dorothy, I give thanks to God continually before the Father when I pray that the gospel is come to you not in word only but in power because I saw in your life love, I saw faith, I saw hope, I saw joy that had no explanation but that God That's what he could say of the Thessalonians. Timothy comes back from visiting them and he's able to report that those graces that were operative from the very beginning were continuing to flourish and grow and develop. Could he say it of you? Could he say it of me? But then thirdly, when the gospel comes in power, not in word only, it not only produces a radical conversion, implants these fundamental graces, thirdly, it creates a Christ-shaped life. It creates a Christ-shaped life. look at verse six and you became imitators of us and that conjunction chi can also be translated even and i believe in this context it should be you became imitators of us even of the lord having received the word in much affliction with joy of the holy spirit so that You became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. What's Paul saying? He's saying that when the gospel came to these Thessalonians, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance or conviction, it created Christ-shaped lives. For in becoming imitators of the apostle and his companions, they became imitators of Christ. Remember Paul said, be followers of me even as I am of Christ. And Christ is our great template, our great pattern. He that says he abides in him ought to walk as he walked. He could not commend these Thessalonians as examples unless they were beginning to demonstrate Christ-shaped lives, so that in that whole area of Macedonia, when you wanted to know what does the Gospel produce in an overall lifestyle, individually and corporately, Paul said, I could tell them, look at the Thessalonians. They were beginning to manifest Christ-shaped lives, so that in following the apostle and his companions, they were imitating the Lord Himself. See, this is one of the great benefits of the Gospels, and why I urge you to make sure you periodically read the Gospels, Because in the Gospels, our Lord takes shape and form and real dimensions of personality in the real world of men and things and disappointments and opposition and misunderstanding. And we are to pattern ourselves after Him. Yes, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, in dependence upon the grace of God, but the scriptures tell us, Peter told suffering servants, look, Christ died for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. And where do you see his steps? Not by mystic dreaming out the window saying, well, I think Jesus would do this or Jesus would do that, by sticking your nose in the Gospels. And watch him as he interacts with raw sinners. Watch him as he interacts with dull and at times stupid, unbelieving, bumbling saints. We heard Dr. Ferguson preach Thursday night from, marvelously, from Matthew 16. How art Peter? Flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you, but my father. He commends him. A few verses later, get behind me, Satan. Blessed, get behind me. There are times when I need to move from gracious commendation to severe rebuke and reproof of any who would stand in the way of my going, the way of the cross, the way of self-denying obedience to God. We see our Lord at home with little children. I often think of that when it says, He called a little child to Him. You can't call a child to use them for an illustration if you haven't had lots of previous interaction that kids feel at home around you. Otherwise, So to be like Christ means I cultivate as an adult the ability to have kids feel at home with me. I'm willing to kneel down, get on my knees, get at their eye level so I don't look at this giant tree hovering over them. I see Christ in His gentleness and tenderness with a woman that people are ready to beat up on her, leave her alone. She's done what she could. Stop picking on her. Protecting the vulnerable. This is what happened to the Thessalonians. They didn't have Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John. All they had was the oral tradition. That amazes me, but yet he says, you became followers of the Lord. You began to have Christ-shaped lives. That's the fruit of the gospel coming in power. And then finally, see, I got through all those heads in 10 minutes, and now we're going to come to the final. It issues in a gospel-proclaiming and a gospel-affirming community. When the gospel comes in power to sufficient number of people that they can be constituted as a church, and remember this letter is addressed not to a bunch of fragmented individuals, Paul and Silas and Timothy, unto the church, This was a community of people who had been soundly converted and what did the gospel do when it came in power to them? It issues in gospel proclamation and in a gospel affirming community, verses 7 and 8. You became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia, for from you has sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God is gone forth. Here the apostle says you were gospel affirming in the manner of your life. and you were gospel-proclaiming in your witness. Thessalonica was right on one of the main Roman roads, the Via Ignatia, and they were a very significant seaport, and you had sea lanes going north and south and east, and by one means or another the commentators all wrestled with how this happened. Paul said, that the word and message of the gospel sounded forth from them, and I mentioned earlier that the verb he uses has no other usage in the New Testament, but in secular Greek literature it was used to speak of a thunderclap of a trumpet call, of the root word is used in Luke, of the roaring of the seas, so it speaks of this aggressive proclamation, Christ had done something in them, and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and they were speaking forth this word of the gospel. Well, I believe this is what Paul says, happens when the gospel comes in power, not in word only. And I ask each of you, as I ask myself, is this what the gospel has done in me? Has the gospel effected in me a radical conversion? Not a little patch-up job where Jesus comes in and takes his place alongside this ambition and that desire and this activity and all the rest. No, no, no. A radical conversion that involves a turning to God from our idols, with a disposition of unreserved submission to the government and will of God, and with a total reorientation of a love for and a yearning for the appearance of the Lord Jesus, while in the meantime I'm committed to the life of a pilgrim whose orientation is the land to which I'm going, not the one in which I presently live? Has it created in me by the grace of God or planted in me these fundamental graces, faith, hope, love and joy? Is it beginning to create in me a Christ-shaped life? Would anyone have any accurate idea of what Jesus is like by watching me? It was true of the Thessalonians. And then it issues in a gospel-proclaiming and gospel-affirming community, which I trust by the grace of God we shall more and more become in the days to come. Let's pray together. Our Father, we're so thankful for your Word, and we pray that the Holy Spirit will take that Word and burn it into our hearts. May it fasten itself upon our consciences. We pray for those whose profession has been shaken by what they've heard this morning. May they not quickly slough off the probings, the prickings of the Holy Spirit through the Word, but give them no rest until they face honestly whether or not The gospel has come to them in power. We thank you for the many that we believe can sit here and bless you and praise you and worship you, that it is because of your free, sovereign love and election that the gospel has come to us, not in word only. For some of us, Lord, it came in word only for years. but we thank you that in the day of your power we were made willing and so most willingly and freely came and embraced your beloved son and all the salvation that is in him. So seal your word that it may produce its appropriate response in every heart. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.