All right, so we finished up with Ephesians, and so some of you are pretty tricky. Jay tried to trick me earlier this week, and Peggy was trying to get me this morning, oh, where are we going? It's a new book, and so there, that's a clue. Like I said, we finished Ephesians, and I started out with that book. I hadn't, you know, I've read it, but I hadn't in-depth studied it, and I see it for the treasure that it is now. When I would read a lot of people talking about Ephesians, they're like, oh, this is the book, you know, this is it, and I agree with them. It's... It was great to get us to come alive in our faith about what it's like to be a Christian, what it means. Do we just occupy till he comes? No, he's called us to be a soldier, right? It's a call to action and how he told us that you have the power that is behind us, that we just don't go out and we stand and witness for Christ on our own. He's like, no, I'm with you. I'm around you and I've armored you. And he talks about the armor and how I'm gonna embolden the words that you say and I'm gonna use those words and all that. He's called us to action. The resurrection power of God is behind us that he says, I can do these things. And he equipped us, and he says, you're ready to go, and then he sends us out. And so I have that sense, and I have that feeling among you that, yeah, we're equipped and we're ready to go out. And so I wanted to keep that momentum going. I wanted a book that encouraged soldiers to keep on keeping on. And there's several ways I could have gone, and I wrestled up until Friday. I also wanted a book to give us hope. encouragement while waiting for the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because Jesus is going to come and airlift his troops out of here at one point in time. We call it the rapture, but he's going to do that. That's important to know that that is coming, that we have that hope, that we're not soldiers that are abandoned, that he's never going to remember, that he's never going to come. No, no, no. Left Behind books are a very popular series. I like them, I enjoy them, several of us have gone through them several times. But then there was a group of people that read them and thought, well, he hasn't come yet. The book's finished, and Jesus didn't come, and they've abandoned their faith because Christ hasn't come yet. That's not what it's about at all. So it tells us all that we're to be ready at any moment. We're to discern the signs and the seasons that are around us, and we're to keep an eye open and watch for it. And that's supposed to then fire us up a little bit more. And we talked about some things on Wednesday, and even on Wednesday after we got through some of the news events that were happening today, that we're on the brink of World War III, a lot of things that were going on. And then it got crazier, and then we found out that China was here attacking our food supply to the point where it was trying to poison our food supply, trying to, kill our livestock, and then if people ate it after it had gone through, it said it would then decrease birth rates. They're trying to depopulize here, and this is just another way that they've tried, and we'd mentioned several other things that day. That had happened just that day. Agro-terrorism, they called it. That's not the first time that they've caught it, where they've tried to come in and taint our food supply while it's growing in the fields with some kind of poison mushroom that went out, I think was how they said. And so yeah, it's vital, it's relative, but we need to remember that we soldier on. It's a battle, it happens. We're continuing to fight. And so I had a few options of books that we could go through. But I went with the first letter that Paul wrote. It's the first one that he's written. We call them epistles, that's the fancy Bible word. That just means letter. And if you'll turn with me to Acts 17, this is, we just finished Acts on Wednesday. But as a little background, I wanted to read this. Acts 17, we'll start with verse 1. Acts is an action book, and if you've never read through Acts, we're going to kind of jump right into the throes of it here, where Paul is going around preaching the gospel. Paul's been called to deliver the gospel to the Gentiles. A Gentile is someone who is not Jewish, and so these pagan nations, where a lot of times they've never heard anything. They were idolatrous. And so he goes there. If there was a Jewish synagogue there, he always presented to the Jews first. And then they would usually tell him to be quiet and try to kill him or something like that. And then he would preach to the rest of the town, and we're going to see some of that. But we're going to read the first 15 verses of Acts 17. So verse 1. It says, Now when they had passed through Amphilus and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was the synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures. And so he goes to the synagogue, and then he's taking the scriptures that he has, which is just the Old Testament, and he's preaching Jesus Christ to them, verse three. Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ, or Messiah. And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas. And of the devout Greeks, a great multitude, and of the chief women, not a few. But the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, and took them certain lewd fellows of a baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. Verse 7, and when Jason had received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus, and they troubled the people and the rulers in the city, and they heard these things. And when they had taken the security of Jason and of the other, they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea. And coming hither, he went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore, many of them believed also of honorable women. which were Jews, and of men not a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached to Paul at Berea, they came thither also and stirred up the people. And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go, as it were, to the sea. But Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they that conducted Paul brought him to Athens, and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timothy, or Timotheus, for to come to him with all speed, and they departed." And so then he ends on, he keeps on moving, and he ultimately ends up in and Athens, and then he goes from Athens to Corinth. And so, Paul, he stirs it up everywhere he goes. And so, like I said, we just finished going through the book of Acts on Wednesday nights, and we just moved on to Proverbs, we're only in chapter two. But Paul goes through Acts like that. He starts out in Philippi, and this is just, and then he goes to Thessalonica. From Thessalonica, he gets run out of town, he goes to Berea. Berea, they come and they run him out of town, and he goes to Athens. And from Athens, he goes and he ends up in Corinth. And so he's hopping around a lot. At Corinth, Paul writes, it's debated, some say whether it's at Corinth or at Athens, but it's in that time there between the two. Paul writes his first letter to encourage the fresh recruits, this new church that he had just planted. And so he writes a letter back to them because he'd been run out of town. He writes to encourage them to have hope while waiting for the return of Christ, have hope. And so he's instilling that in them, like don't be doubting, don't be discouraged, have hope. And so I wanted us to have hope. And so I wanted to read this letter. And he encouraged them in their faith, and that they should love one another, and they should have love towards Christ. And so he's encouraged them in their brotherly love, and he's encouraging their love towards God. And so he writes a letter to encourage in that. And I thought that's always good for us, to love one another in the waiting, and to make sure that our love of Christ stays where it ought to be. Because the church at Ephesus did a lot of great works, but they lost their first love. And so we've got to make sure we have our priorities straight and make sure that we are doing things in the right order, in God's order, in the right way, keeping Christ at the center of it all. And he writes to encourage them to be faithful during persecution, so they have persecution coming. We don't have persecution per se yet, not in a harsh way. Justin was mentioning someone was, it's Pride Month if you haven't heard, and so he didn't want to wear the required clothing at his company, and so he had an alternative thing, and someone came by and made a big deal, and he said, hey, there's a court case, I'm allowed to wear this. He said it was pretty amicable. He had a ready defense for what he could do and why he could do it and why he didn't have to do and wear the pride promoting things at his work. It got resolved through that, but he was like, it's starting to be persecution. I had an escape and I didn't have to go through it, but he was able to defend it and I was proud of him for that. It's starting. We get a little bit here and there. We're kind of in a reprieve a little bit, but it's still there. And so he's encouraging them to not be discouraged. He's encouraging them to live a holy life, because they'd only known paganism before, and how the pagans worship is quite a bit different than how Christianity is. And so he's encouraging them in that, to make sure you live by these standards, the standards of Christ now. So the same for us. They were a young church, and they had some theological questions and some confusion. And so he writes this letter to make sure that they can get straightened up, to straighten them out, and they understand a few things, to make sure they have it down squarely in their infancy. Like I said, they were under persecution, and he feared that they would quit and give up and walk away from their faith. And so he's trying to give them some longevity and to say that this is expected. Think of how it is with me, from town to town. And they said, Paul, was already kind of short, but they said he was kind of stooped over and he walked kind of bowlegged. And they said it was because how many times he'd been whipped between the scars and the way the scar tissue in his back and how it would bend him over and cause his leg, because they would whip inside your thighs with those leather thongs on either side to rip it out. And he had had that done multiple times. And so, he's like, you can see that I'm not calling you to an easy path. And a lot of people say that with church today. They're like, oh, church is a crutch. Church is the easy path. You're just wanting the easy way. It's like, God doesn't tell us that. It's not all front parking spaces and you get the check all the time. It's knowing that when judgment comes, that we're right with God. It's knowing that if I'm jumping out of the airplane, I'm not gonna go splat. No, the airplane hears this live and splat would be hell. It's like, no, I have put on the parachute of Jesus Christ and he's going to deliver me. I'm not wearing Jesus Christ to make my ride on earth more comfortable. I'm wearing Jesus Christ to save me from the destruction ahead. And so I think we need to have that right priority in our mind. Why do I have Jesus as my savior? To save me from hell. Because that's my destiny, that's where I was going to go, that's where I deserve to go. But praise God, he is rich in mercy, and that he is gracious, and that he provided a way of escape for me through his son, Jesus Christ. And so he didn't want them to give up, and to think that, no, I'm not promising you a life of ease. He didn't want them to walk away from their faith. Like I said, he also wanted to clear up some misunderstandings about the rapture of the church. They had some misunderstandings, they thought, and they were getting discouraged, and they were upset about it. If you look at verse one here of Acts 17, it says, Now when they had passed through Amphilus and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. This is who Paul writes to first. His first letter is the church of Thessalonica. And that's where I wanna go, and I'm not gonna go there just yet. And one thing that we find fascinating in studying Paul and how he went around and what he talked to is the things that he taught, the things that he thought was important in his short time there to make sure that he gave to this young church. We know that he preaches, because it tells us there in verse three, he teaches that Jesus is Messiah, that he's the one who's come to fulfill the scriptures, that Jesus is the Jewish king. They accuse him that later, like, oh, they're saying there's somebody else besides Caesar, this one Jesus, you know, so they accuse of that. He comes preaching that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, is the fulfillment of the law, and he goes through, and that he's in the Old Testament, so he uses the Old Testament to preach and to proclaim Jesus. He comes preaching that Jesus is fulfilling the scriptures about the one who would come, the Messiah, and so he goes through and he points those things out. You know, we try to point those out. There's some 300 prophecies about Jesus' first coming. Jesus fulfills all of them completely. Paul used only the Old Testament in all this, and we have done that on Wednesday, too, I think, during the book of Acts. We kind of had a challenge. Could you present the gospel in a few different points, you know, using only the Old Testament? And I appreciate you who took up that challenge. He preached about life after death. That's the big question, right? Is there life after death? And he's like, yeah, we believe in resurrection. A lot of times that's why he's in trouble. I'm in trouble because I believe in the resurrection. And he would kind of use that as the Pharisees believed that too, or the Sadducees didn't. And sometimes he would use that to kind of start another fight and be able to get him out of town. And so he preaches that there's life after death. And so that's part of what Judaism's all about, that there's life after death. Even Jesus said, he goes, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'm God of the living, not of the dead." They're still alive. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they're still alive. They've not died. Physically, but spiritually, they're alive and they're with him. One day, they'll be reunited with their body. He preached the resurrection. We see that in verse 3. Two, resurrection of Jesus Christ, and also the future resurrection of believers. This is where the confusion comes in. They're like, did we miss it? What's going on? That's something that comes up later in the book. And so he goes into detail how the rapture happens, the order in which the rapture occurs, and those things. And I don't know about you, that's the next event that happens on God's prophetic calendar, is the rapture of the church, where the church gets taken out. It's the most bizarre teaching in scripture. A lot of people have a hard time with it. But the church began miraculously. All of a sudden, one day, fire comes down from heaven, and they're able to speak, and everybody hears them in their own language. It's pretty miraculous, and the church has a miraculous ending, too. One day, he just says, go get my children, and he yanks us up out, and there's a shout, and there's a voice of the archangel, and the dead in Christ rise first, but I'm giving you spoilers, and then we go up to meet him, but the rapture, and it has its different phases as it happens, and when does that occur, and it's an imminent thing, and this is something that he's teaching them, and we saw he's only there three weeks, and so he's made sure he's covered these things, so this is important. It's important to Christianity. It's important for us to know that we are waiting, That we have hope, and it's not like, I hope. It's a hope as in a guarantee, and that we're just waiting for it to be fulfilled. Our hope is in that, and so we are waiting for that. Verse two again, just so we see it. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures." So he's only there three weeks, possibly four. He might not have made it until Saturday again. Sabbath was on Saturday. And so he might have been there that fourth week, but didn't quite fulfill it all, before they come down and they start making this big old to-do about it, and then he gets chased out of town. Verse five talks about, it says, which believe not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of a baser sort. When we went through the book of Acts, we talked about how the King James can say something in a very kind way. He's not calling these guys a nice name, but it's something you might want to add to your vocabulary, right? You lewd fellow of a baser sort. It puts you on the higher ground there a little bit, just calling them an idiot or a jerk or something like that. They're lewd fellows of a baser sort. But they come in and they stir up the city. They put it in an uproar. This is no small thing. This is a big thing. They assaulted the house of Jason. A few years ago, we'd have been like, man, I'm glad I live in America. Well, there's never any violent outbreaks. Well, there's no riots where they just start attacking a building and go in and crash it and burn things down. It's going on right now in California. To the point, as you go through the book of Acts, every time this would happen, if there were Romans around, the Romans came in and put an end to it. They're like, no, no, no. Peace is what we have here. And Romans, for all their violence and all their, they wanted people to live peaceably. They didn't want uproar. They didn't want violence. They didn't want that. And they would come in and they would be the bigger dog. And they're like, you're not starting nothing. We're going to finish. And apparently that's what we've done right now. We've sent out some National Guard and then also talked about 2,000 troops from Camp Lejeune, I think they said, or maybe the coastal marine base there to go in and start it, you know, to stop this because we don't have that. And yet they have it here. And yet this is a little too familiar for us as it happens now. They assaulted Jason and his house. Because they think that's where Paul's hiding and chances are where it is. but they're able to protect him, and they can't find him, and so they grab Jason and somebody else, and they basically extort money from them to let them go. And then verse six says, these guys says, when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, these that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. Paul had a reputation. turning the world upside down everywhere he went. He came in and he preached the message boldly and unashamedly, and that's where it's kind of ironic, because we were finishing up the book of Ephesians, right? What's he say? Tells us about our last instrument that we have, prayer, communication with God, the last piece of our armor that we have, that we are connected to the Holy One of the universe. And he says, you pray for one another, and he says, pray for me. Pray for me that I'd have boldness. Paul, that's what you're known for, your boldness. He's like, yeah, but keep it up. I need to be bold. It'd be easy to say, I don't wanna go in there and get beat again, but he kept going in there and would do it. And so yeah, that's what we pray for. So he turned the world upside down. That would be good for us if we were known for the ones that turn the world upside down by preaching the good news of the gospel. Paul escapes, he makes it to Berea. and then to Athens, and then to Corinth, and Corinth, and he's at Corinth about 18 months, and I think that's why some side that that's where he wrote this letter, and others were kinda in between, but it's a bit calmer time. So he has a chance to breathe, so he writes this letter, and we have it, and it's 1 Thessalonians, so that's where we're gonna go, if you wanna turn there, 1 Thessalonians. Every time we start a book, we give an introduction and talk about it and put it in its context. And I think it's vital because I think a lot of times when we pick up the Bible, it's a daunting book, right? I mean, one, it's not a small book. Depending on what version you have, it's written in a little funny English. If you have the King James, we live in a day and an age where we have some great translation. I would recommend the ESV or the New American Standard. The NIV does a good job. It's a little different from word for word. It's thought for thought. We have a lot of options now. You can have it on your phone. You can have all the options. I have a Bible in the back that has four options right next to each other. I'm talking about a thick book. It is right there, thick all together, where you can look and compare them side by side, and it's helpful. I like that our congregation has different varieties, so like on a Wednesday night, when it's more casual style, we can read the different passages. We have a tricky section, what's your say, and it brings a fuller picture to understand it. We just kind of have it agreed upon verse that I read from because no one argues whether the King James is the Bible or not. And so, and you know when I'm reading it because I don't usually talk in these and those. And so that's just kind of part of our reasoning. But I also go through this introduction so that you understand how it's laid out a little bit. This isn't random. It's not just a random collection thrown together that comes together. Now, there's a reason why we have what we have, and how it is here, and why they have the title. I mean, because it has a lot of weird and funny names, and it just seems like it goes from story to story to story. But, you know, Matthew has a point. He's trying to tell you that Jesus Christ is king. Luke is telling you that he is the servant. No, he's telling you that he is human. Mark's telling you that he's the servant, and John's telling you that he's divine. So that's why we have four accounts that are a little bit different because they have a different emphasis, let alone it's a different person. And the books have the writer's name on it. The book of Acts is telling you about the acts of the apostles, and so it makes sense. It has that name. Here's what happened. As the gospel gets laid out, we go to the book of Acts, and here's what are happening. Now we're finding out here, here's the first letter that he writes during Acts 17. He writes this letter back to Thessalonica to be able to encourage them, and so we have this title because it's a letter to them. It's like its address, and so it makes sense. It's history. It's the first Thessalonians. It has a one in front of it because there's two books, the Thessalonians. We're going to find out. There's also a third one that was a forgery that caused a lot of uproar and why he writes the second letter. That makes a whole big thing. We might just go right into that next because this is going to go pretty fast, I think. And so it's from Paul in the midst of the book of Acts. And so it's almost like a zoom in detail. Here he is jumping from town to town to town as Luke writes it in the book of Acts. And now we get to read something that he writes while he's at this time of respite for these 18 months or so. It's kind of neat to zoom in and see how Paul's thinking. We can build a fuller picture of his ministry, what he was saying, what was important, what was he talking about. Who was with him when he traveled? What was it like when he was there? Sometimes he talks about, I didn't take any money from you, I made tits the whole time, so you couldn't use that as an accusation against me. So he has all these things talking about how his ministry worked. We learn that Paul has a rich prayer life, and it's alive. He doesn't plant a church and just move on and say like, you're on your own now. And he goes, no, he goes and he's still thinking about them. He cares and he concerns. Matter of fact, he gets done with his first missionary journey and his second missionary journey where he meets up with the Thessalonians. He's doing it because he wanted to go back and check on those churches that he planted the first time. Oh, I wonder if they're doing okay. Let's go back and see how they're doing. And they go back and they travel back around. And so he does a lot of back and forth to make sure they're still doing okay. And if he can't make it, he sends someone or he writes a letter. And so we have his letter. He doesn't just move on, and so he's always going back and forth. So here he writes a letter. He also prays for them. Like I said, he writes them a second letter we know about, and we know there's a forgery that's inserted in between. Yeah, we have this letter to the Thessalonians. Thessalonica, as it was called back then, was founded in 315 B.C., so it's pretty old, before Christ, and we don't use the B.C.E., that's the new thing to try to take Christ out of even dating things, we keep it there. And so this is before Christ. It was founded by Cassander. He was the king of Macedonia. He was the one who took over after the death of Alexander the Great. If you read the book of Daniel, these things come alive to you because he tells us about how these kingdoms are going to come. He names this town after his wife. Her name was Thessaloniki. And so that means victory of the Thessalonians. It's got the last part of her name has NIKE Nike like you see on our athletic stuff which means victory and so her name was Thessaloniki because she was named after this victory they had over the Thessalonians and so he names this city after her. She was Alexander the Great's sister and so there we can You remember her? No, I don't remember her either, but we know who Alexander the Great is. I don't know how many sisters he had, but she's one of them. And so Thessalonica is now called Thessaloniki. It is in Greece. It is the second largest city in Greece, and so I know that at least John's been there, right? He's been there, so it's, some people, much of the travel to see it, so it's still there, live and active place today. It was populated by Greeks and Romans and Jews, and it had a synagogue there, and that's why Paul goes and he speaks to the synagogue first. If they didn't have a synagogue, he would just start coming out in the assembly and stand up and preach, but there's a synagogue. He takes the dictates as was given to the church, you know, to preach them to, to the Jews first, and then to those in Samaria, and then the outermost parts of the earth. And so he always presented to the Jewish people first. And so it's a very diverse group and rich police of people. And so Paul goes here on his second missionary journey. So verse one. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the salutation. He's opening his dear Thessaloniki. He's also telling us who's all traveled with him. And we know from reading what we just saw in Acts 17, these guys were with him. So that's why he's bringing their names up. Remember, me and all my buddies were just there with you. It's Paul, and then he says, Slavanus, which we're like, I don't remember reading his name. That's because we normally call him Silas, Paul and Silas, we think of them together. And I can help you remember his name all the better, because I looked up to see what Silas meant. And it's kind of a nickname, it means woody. So yeah, he's there, he's the guy, when you poke him in the back, he said, there's a snake in my boot. And then that would be Silas, his little, from Toy Story, so yeah, no. But it's a nickname for him. His name's Woody, which is kind of funny. We don't always think of Slavenicus, Slavenus, or Silas. It doesn't sound like nicknames. I think he's from Edinburgh. And so he has a nickname. You can picture him with a hat. Maybe that helps you as you remember through these things. Timotheus, we know him as Timothy. That's kind of his fancier name. He was young. He picked him up on the second missionary journey and we see Timothy's with him all the time to the point where the last letters that Paul writes are to Timothy to encourage him, this young now church leader, as Paul is going off the scene and he's coming on the scene, passing the torch. So he's always traveling with him and learning and just a faithful companion. He says, Grace be unto you. That's pretty much Paul's signature. That's how we know it's from him. I haven't verified it to go through and study, but I've heard it say that the only New Testament books that even mention grace are Paul's, except for Peter does once. And so Paul uses this as a point at one time. You can tell it's my letter if I talk about grace. If I begin it with grace and if I end it with grace, grace be unto you all. It's like his signature. It's like his flair that he puts on there. And so it becomes an identifier of Paul that if it has grace mentioned. And so he uses it here. In verse two he says, We give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in our prayers. He said prayer is important. It's huge to him. It's what he does. You have to think about it in their day and age. It's different. And our mindset would be different too. Couldn't call him. Hey, how's it going back there? There's no Zoom, no FaceTime, nothing like that. Couldn't even email him, it's archaic. Couldn't send him a fax. Couldn't do anything like that. You could send a letter, and that's what this is, a letter. And letters are different than emails, and you might have a folder where you save an email or something like that, but for how long? But a handwritten letter from an apostle. Someone that was there and started it with you. You cherished it, you held it. Someone would get it out and they would read it, they'd all assemble together, then he would read them this letter. They'd copy it, we can't lose that, that was Paul's letter. You know, this was encouraging to us. Copy it down, another church could benefit from this. And so they'd copy it down and they would pass it and they would share it with other churches. As another host would come around, are you a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Christian. Have you read Paul's letter to us? No, oh, we've got a copy for you. And they would give him a copy and they would give it. And that's how it becomes a part of our Bible, is letters that were shared around that they saw as vital, that they kept, and that they encouraged them that then come down to what we have. And so they copied it, they kept it, they read it, and they reread it. And it comes to the point where even Peter calls Paul's writings scriptures. And so that's how we know they get acclimated, and let alone he's moved by the Holy Spirit. And there's all the other tests that we do. And so he prays. You know, because he can't get back there, he can't go, and so he sends his words and his thoughts. He travels great distances. And prayer doesn't care where you are. I love that. We can pray. One time, when the kids were young and at home, I was working downtown Indianapolis, I get a frantic phone call from the cordless phone, so it's breaking out, Elaine's running across the yard, lay your eyes jammed a stick down his throat or something like that, and then, I think he's gonna die, I think something like that, and I'm like, I'm stuck in Indianapolis, an hour away, what can I do? I could pray. He survived. But it turned out to be, Oh, I, okay, sorry. A stick in his throat was a chopstick. All right, so there was Levi's danger. Judah's gonna keep them on their toes, I think. But, you know, I'm an hour away, and my wife is frantic, and I don't think, my son's blind, you know. What can I do? I went downstairs, and I ran a machine that had to be cleaned up. If not, it would seize up. You know, so I yelled to the other guy, you gotta clean up my machine. You know, I gotta go and tell him I'm leaving, I get down. But the first thing I did was start praying. I can't be there, but I know who can. I know who is. And you know what a relief that was? I didn't feel so helpless. I wasn't like throwing up out the window on the way home, you know, trying to get there as fast as I can, stuck in every red light, because I could pray. And instead of doing that, I prayed, you know, and God, please, you know, this was like before cell phones, wasn't it? So it was like, you know, now I've got an hour gap, you know, between the two, and back in the primitive days, And so, turn around, he's got both his eyes, and so, but God worked out, but to have that, and I think the dependency of Paul and them in their day to have prayer, that ready access that they could do, was a great, great thing. And it's no great now, but I think we've, we're so used to instant right now and getting that we lose something. So we should probably pick up prayer more. See it as the first resource more. See it as firing a winning shot, as it is. Who's on your prayer list? Paul has Thessalonians. And he added others as he went, plus all the other churches. Is your prayer list just you? You should pray about your day, you should. You should take things and lift up for the God and you should get your sins confessed and all those things, right? We should have others on there as well. Verse three, he goes on and says, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and of our Father. He remembers without ceasing. He thinks about them often. He left in a hurry. You gotta figure it out. These lewd fellows of a baser sort show up, jerks, violent people, rioters. They come in seeking blood. This was a mob that were wanting to lynch him. They were wanting to take him outside and stone him, which often happened. They would stone him, but miraculously, God would either resurrect him or Paul didn't die. There's a few times Paul doesn't know. He goes, whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. They stoned him and he's not quite sure where he was. But this one, he's hiding in Jason's. They start to come, somehow they sneak him out. In the middle of the night, they get him to go on and get him on a boat, and they send him on down to the next town, and so he leaves in turmoil and upheaval. He doesn't get to tell them goodbye. He doesn't get to say, I'm praying for you, and he had three weeks of trying to convince them, and now he's left with didn't stick. Do they believe? Are they doing okay? You know, the worries of all that. What's happening? What's happening to them? Because now he goes to the next town and they run him out. The Thessalonians come over there. These lewd fellows come to the next town and they chase him out of that town too. And so he's on the tails again. And so he has no, what about the ones in Berea now? So now he's added that to the list. And so he says, I remember you often. He actively takes time to remember them. He probably pictures where he was, what he was doing, who they were, where they sat. You know, I can usually go and kind of picture most of you all from where you're seating, sitting, setting, your spot. I saw this quote. It said, memories are the road we travel again and again in our mind. And the more we return, the clearer they become. I thought that's true. I remember a lot of things. and it's because I like to rehearse them. There's some stories that I've been with my wife so long, I can't, I think I was with her when she was six, and I did these things, because I've heard them, and I know her, that it becomes a part of my story. Her story and my story become meshed together, because we remember, and we talk over things that we've done, and she's done, and we've done, and we think, and we meditate on it. And another one, put it like this, and it really hits home, because I live in the woods, and when I'd get home from school, when I lived at home, I'd grab my BB gun, and I'd hit the woods, and walk through, it was my daily routine to go do it, De-stressed from the day, you know, if I didn't get home from practice or whatever, we'd hit the woods. So I know what this one means. It's visual in my mind. They put it this way. Memory is like a path through the forest. The more you walk it, the more defined it becomes. The trail gets cut out in the woods. You're like, oh, here's where I always go. There's where I always get. And so remember things by tracing them again in your mind, going back over and thinking about the time we did this and we did that. I love campfires, because it's usually a lot of time thinking and remembering and telling stories and building it down, and then experiencing those stories with others and to do it. And Paul says, I make sure I run down the trails of my mind to come back to you and remember you there in Thessalonica. He kept it fresh. He traveled it often. It wasn't something he was gonna forget about because he didn't do it very often. It's something that he was thinking on them often that they became like they were with him. And so I think that's good. He remembered, he remembered their work of faith. that they believed and they trusted God. They trusted God and his word and they took it. And then once he presented God's word, that they did the right thing, they just believed it. That was God's word? God said that? Jesus is the Christ? And they believed it. And he was like, oh, he was encouraged by it. And he'd remember that, thinking, I'd hope I have another crowd like Thessalonians again. They believed that Jesus was the Savior. Verse three says, he remembered their labor of love. What was that? That was probably their care for him. Here he is, a stranger in town. causing an uproar, you know, because his message always kind of left with something being mad about it. They probably cared for him. He had Timothy and old Woody with him, Silas. Do you like how they cared for them? Timothy was young, probably a teenager at this point. Do they have those guys that come alongside and made sure they took care of him and showed him the things that he would need to see just as a young man growing up to make sure that he had that as well? Probably, you usually care more how someone cares for somebody that you love more than you do for yourself. And so I'm sure it's probably those things that he's like, man, they were kind, they took care of us. Verse three says, he also remembered the patience of hope, patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how the King James puts it. Another put it, how their endurance or their steadfastness in their deep trust in Christ, that once they believed, they believed. Once they realized Jesus was their Savior, Jesus was their Savior. It was like locked in, they had a steadfastness, they had an endurance that was going to be there. It was a foundation that held them, that trust in Christ was what they trusted in and that's what they stood up on and stood up, opposed things against and so it held them and held them tight. And so he remembered that, how they hit it, how they held it. And verse 4 says, knowing brethren beloved your election of God, he knew that their salvation was sure, that they were elect, that God had chosen them before the foundation of the world. He told us in Ephesians chapter 1 that God knows it. And he says that, I think it's just mainly that God knows those who choose him. He was with them three weeks and God did a bold work in them. that they saw it and he builds on that in verse 5 here it says, 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. The Holy Ghost must have fell upon them with much assurance in the sense that there was salvation and it was secure and he could see the change within them and there was proof that was displayed. that Paul came humbly into them, and yet he could boldly preach the truth, and they saw it, and they accepted it for what it was, and they then become imitators of him and imitators of Christ, verse six says, and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Ghost. And so they become imitators and acting it out just like him. First they act like Paul, because he's who they could see, and then the more they learned about Christ, the more they act like him. and they were broken by the spirits moving and that God would save them. I pray that God has saved you. I pray that you can go back and run back to that day when you repented of your sins and trusted Christ as your savior and it gives you assurance because you know who you were and now you know who you are. The things that you loved, you don't love as much. Things that you used to think were cool, that aren't cool. Now you wanna read his word. You desire to please God instead of just yourself. That you wanna grow in holiness. You have a desire to be in God's house and to be among God's people and to hear God's word explained and to have a deep understanding, to try to consume it and to know it and have that deeper contemplation about it, that you wanna be around fellow Christians, to be encouraged by it. We have all those things that we can go back and remember. Do you remember the day when you came to Christ? The day when your sins were forgiven? I do, that's a path I like to run often. Paul says he examines himself daily to make sure he's in the faith, and I'm sure part of that was remembering on that road when Jesus Christ encountered him. Mine wasn't on a road, it was in a church, where truth was being proclaimed, and that my parents were praying for me, and family members, and Sunday school teachers that had taught the truth enough that it was picking away at my heart. and an aunt invited me over to watch a movie that terrified me to death called The Burning Hell, and if you saw it, it'd scare you, too. I'm like, I don't wanna go there. And I know that he would be just and that he would be right in sending me there. I hope I don't die before Sunday, last week before I got saved. I didn't know I could do it at home. I had to wait for the altar call. And they started that first note, and I burned it out and down the aisle. I wasn't gonna wait. Man, because I was gonna die and go to hell. I remember it, I remember the Sunday school teacher opening the Bible and showing me Romans 10, 13. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, he said, put your name in there. For Brian calls upon the name of the Lord, he shall be saved. Changed my life. Do you run down the road like that? Do you remember that season, that time? If you're like, man, I wish I had, I wish I did. Do it today. Is there a desire for salvation? Do you have an uncertainty that you don't like that bugs you? Do you understand that God's Word is true and that Jesus Christ is God's Messiah, His Savior, that He came down to die on a cross for you? And that He was buried and He rose again the third day showing that He's defeated death in the grave. That Jesus Christ has paid for your fine. That's what the cross is about. He's taken your blame upon Himself and suffered the penalty that you should have suffered But that's why we esteem him. And then he rose victorious the third day, showing that it was acceptable sacrifice. So now my sins could be forgiven. So now God doesn't see me in my sinfulness. Praise God, he sees me in Christ's righteousness. I am clothed with the foreign righteousness that is Christ's. And if you don't have that, today would be a great day to have that. To repent of your sins, to see your sins as exceedingly sinful, and turn your back on them, say, I don't want to sin anymore. You're like, well, I don't know how I could give them all up. I've done this my whole life. You can't. You need the Holy Spirit within you. He will give you that. What, are you gonna mess up? Yeah. You're gonna mess up and you're gonna fall. But he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins if we confess them to him. God understands. He who says he's without sin, God says he's a liar. So we still sin. Now, he grows us in holiness. It's called sanctification. As we continue to grow in him, But don't worry about the tomorrow. What about today? Have you started the journey? Have you repented of your sins? Have you trusted Christ as Savior? If not, today would be a great day to come forward and to know these things and to make your calling and election sure. To put a memory, a mental post on your life that you can run back to and say, I know if I die today I go to heaven because Jesus Christ has forgiven me. I remember the day that I asked Jesus Christ to save me. Let's make a memory, a path you can run back to and that you can wear it out and make sure it's good and clean, because Paul says, like I said, he did it, examined himself daily. And we do it often to make sure, and you go through, what is salvation? What am I trusting? Am I trusting my good works? No. Am I trusting the finished work of Jesus Christ? Yes. Am I trusting in communion? No. Am I trusting in baptism? No. I'm trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, not something that I have done. The baptism is an outward sign of an inward change. It's something that shows, I put on display, that Jesus Christ had died for me now I identify with the one who was dead and buried and now has risen again and so I go through the play of standing and doing that and being a little bit embarrassed that you're in front of everybody getting wet and you come up alive again identified with Jesus Christ it lets all us know that you're serious about your faith and it lets all the devils know I've switched teams I'm no longer on your team I identify with the one who was buried and risen again that's what baptism is it doesn't save you it proclaims your salvation It's another thing to run back to to say, that's who I am. And if you've not done it, I pray that A would be the day.