Faith That Echoes 1 Thessalonians 1 - Kurt Shiver, Missionary

Well, good morning and greetings from Gainesville, Florida.

As Pastor Byron said, I've been serving at the University of Florida for the past 10 years, and I grew up in a little town halfway between Gainesville and Tallahassee, a little town called Mayo, Florida.

Has anyone ever heard of Mayo, Florida?

A lot of you have.

Okay.

That normally doesn't happen.

Well, I grew up there, and so growing up in Mayo, you were either Florida or Florida State.

I think they may have put it on the birth certificate when babies were born.

What family people rooted for was serious.

And I grew up in the 90s when it was really serious.

And so my mom graduated from Florida State.

And so she tried to kind of, you know, where I'm from, women care about college football.

And she cared.

And so she really wanted me to, you know, she was kind of nudging me towards Florida State.

And my dad actually is a Florida fan.

And so we were a divided house growing up.

But Bobby Bowden was a real just kind of inspiration.

His Christian walk and just who he was as a man was just an inspiration for me.

And I I was really kind of drawn towards Florida, Florida, just the Florida, Florida State rivalry and Florida State football.

And when I was a little kid, I'll never forget Florida State.

I keep saying Florida, I'm having to kind of relearn how I talk about my schools.

They played Miami in the big Miami Florida State game.

And it was the game where Florida State was number one and the field goal kicker missed a short field goal.

Do you remember this?

Oh yeah.

And it ruined Florida State's season.

And so Bobby Bowden went out and got the best kicker in the nation.

And he kicked the winning field goal later against Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.

But I was just so invested in that game as a little boy, and I was so crushed when the guy missed a field goal.

And that's what kind of locked me in as a Florida State fan when I was a little kid.

And God called me from OU.

I was serving at the University of Oklahoma with the BCM.

I went to Southwestern Seminary and ended up at OU, it's where Pastor Byron went to school.

And I was serving there, and God 10 years ago opened the door for me to go to UF.

And I had to really pray about that.

Seriously, I really did.

It felt like God was sending me to Nineveh.

I was like Jonah.

And I really had to pray about it, and God made it very clear it's what he wanted for me.

And so I've been there for 10 years, and I've had to keep my love for Florida State quiet.

And I went and bought a Florida.

I got there, I bought a Florida shirt, and I sent it to some of my high school buddies, somewhere Florida State.

And one of my buddies graduated from Florida, diehard gator fan.

He responds in the text.

He said, God always opens people's eyes.

So I've been at Florida for 10 years, and God opened the door for me to go to Florida State this summer, completely unexpected.

It's not what I was anticipating at all.

But God made it very clear.

That's a long story, but very just without a doubt, God's will for us.

And so I'm going to my school.

I thought it would never happen.

It's not something even necessarily wanted to happen because Florida is such a UF is such a wonderful place and such a strategic place for the gospel.

But God opened the door.

And so we accepted the opportunity a few weeks ago.

And I had to break it to my pastor.

I also had to break it to my best friend from college whose son is going to be a freshman at UF in the fall.

And he was so excited about getting plugged in with me at the BCM.

And I had to break it to my students that I was going to FSU.

So I we had a meeting, we have a lot of stuff at night with college students.

And so this was about three weeks ago.

I said, hey guys, I need to let you know something that things are changing for our family.

We're going to another school to do campus ministry.

And I didn't have the heart to say the name of the school.

I said, it's a school in Tallahassee, Florida.

And they I remember Kid Isaac, he just puts his hands over his face.

He said, not FSU, no, not FSU.

And they said, that's not even a four-year school.

Why are you going to FSU?

And I can tell you that FSU is a four-year school.

And I hear that most people graduate in five to six years from FSU.

So it's a great place.

And we're excited.

God is good.

God gives good gifts to his children.

And honestly, uh, the opportunity to take my family, my wife and I have four little kids, and to raise my kids in Tallahassee at FSU, and to be able to do gospel ministry at FSU is an absolute dream coming true.

I would say it's my dream job.

So you're looking at a guy who's who's walking into a season of just gladness and joy as I step into the season.

Well, my life was shaped, my ministry was really shaped at my by my time at the University of Oklahoma serving at the BCM.

And my wife graduated from there and I met her there.

And there was a man by the name of Max Barnett, who was just a real spiritual hero and mentor to me, and Byron knew him.

And Max passed away a couple months ago from cancer at the age of 89.

And I'm going to share with you today what I believe.

I haven't had the opportunity to ask Max this, but I really think this was probably Max's life message, and it's really become mine.

And you can find it in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

1 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

And this is where we're going to be today.

And while you're turning, I want to give you a little bit of background about 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

1 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

The apostle Paul founded this church on his second missionary journey.

And so you can find this in the book of Acts.

So he's he's serving in Philippi and begins the church, starts the church there in Philippi in Macedonia.

He's beaten, he's put in stocks, he's thrown into jail, he's released through a lot of things happen in Philippi.

And Paul and Silas make their way, and Timothy make the 100-mile journey on foot, or we presume, not by car, to Thessalonica, which is also a city in the Roman Empire.

And they would trap would have traveled a road called the Ignatian Way, which was a part of the Roman highway system throughout the empire.

And it was capital, Thessalonica was the capital of a Roman province, the Roman province of Macedonia.

And at the time the city probably had a population of about 200,000 people.

So probably about the size of Tallahassee, Florida.

It was the size of the city of Thessalonica.

And it was a port city, it was on the on a on the coast, and it had ties to Rome through trade and just through travel.

And this was actually part of Paul's ministry strategy.

He would go to a leading city and he would share the gospel there.

He would proclaim the gospel.

People would come to Christ.

He would start a church.

And the strategy was for the gospel to echo or spread.

And we'll see this word echo in our passage today.

That the gospel would spread from that leading city to other places.

And so this is what he would do.

And so he would he would go to these cities and proclaim the gospel.

And we see this here as he begins to share the story of what happened in the church.

This is exactly what happened.

He proclaimed the gospel.

The church began.

Paul leaves.

He actually is not in Thessalonica very long.

But later, this is exactly what happens.

The gospel spreads from Thessalonica.

So we only have a record of Paul preaching in Thessalonica for three weeks.

A very short stay, perhaps.

Many scholars believe that it was a longer stay than three weeks.

Most scholars believe he was there for maybe six months to a year, a year and a half in Thessalonica.

And he eventually leaves.

He lands in Corinth.

He's run out of town, and there's no indication that Paul personally never went back to Thessalonica.

We know that Timothy did.

But he received a report from in Corinth from the church and he writes the letter back to them.

And this is where we get the letter of 1 Thessalonians.

So I'm going to read for you, starting in verse 1, we're going to read the whole chapter just so you can get the context.

And then I'm going to really zero in on some key verses here that make up our outline for today.

So let's start in verse 1.

Says Paul and Sylvanus or Silas and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalon Thessalonians and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the presence of our God and Father.

Verse four, knowing, brethren, beloved by God, has choice of you, for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake, you also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers of Macedonia and Achaea.

For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaea, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.

For they themselves report about us what kind of reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.

That is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.

So Paul wrote at least thirteen books in the New Testament, and most scholars agree that the first book that Paul ever wrote was 1 Thessalonians.

So we have uh the first book uh among all the books uh that Paul wrote in uh in the New Testament, and this is the first chapter in the first book that Paul ever wrote.

And just a few verses into this chapter, we can see, we can see clues, we can see truths here that indicate why Paul had such the dynamic ministry that he had.

I want to I want to look at verse five here in the in the text.

It says, For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

Paul had a multiplying ministry, and we'll see this here.

We'll see the spiritual principle of multiplication here.

And he had a multiplying ministry because he began with the gospel.

He began with proclaiming the gospel uh to people.

He said it he said he brought the gospel to them.

It says, our gospel did not come to you in word only.

So they proclaimed the gospel through words, which is what we have to do.

But it also came in power.

So there was power in the gospel and with full conviction.

The gospel came in power.

So the Holy Spirit did a work in the lives of these people.

You can proclaim the gospel, but sometimes you can proclaim it without much power.

And this brings us to our first point.

If you're taking notes, and there's a it should be a little handout there that you can look at.

If you want to have a multiplying ministry the way Paul did, then you need to present the message of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So there's only one that way that people can come to know Jesus, and that's through proclaiming the gospel for them to hear the gospel.

And humanity is grappling with this question.

I see this all the time on campus.

It's such an interesting place right there in north central North Florida.

You're at the University of Florida.

If you go any direction around campus, you see small towns, you see farms, you see people driving pickup trucks and with salt life stickers on the back of their cars.

I don't know if you see those around here in Inverness.

I'm assuming that that's something you see.

But I can look out the window of our building, which is right on campus, and see women walking by in Burkis.

With their only thing that you see is their eyes, Muslim women that are completely covered, that are there at the University of Florida.

It's so interesting.

You see all the worldviews that you can imagine.

And the University of Florida is has is one of the most diverse schools that you can imagine.

It has more international students than any other school in the Southeast, and one of the largest international student populations in the world.

I was at a coffee shop uh Thursday or Friday, and one of my colleagues who works with international students was sitting there having coffee with a student from Iran.

And he's sharing the gospel, he's building a relationship with this young man from Iran.

It's just so interesting.

Uh, just the diversity that you see.

But everyone is grappling with the question: what makes someone right with God?

How can I be right with God?

Is it works?

Is it religion?

Is it philosophy?

Is it morality?

And here's the truth: God loves us and wants to have a relationship with us.

Romans 3.23 it says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So we're all guilty of sin.

No matter if we're from North Florida, if we're from Iran, if we're from somewhere in Asia, we're all guilty of sinning.

So we have a sin problem.

In Romans 6.23, it says, for the wages of sin is death, death.

And just like a job, just like we get paid a wage for what we do.

The wage that we pay for our sin is death, physical death and spiritual separation from God.

But the free gift of God, here's the good part, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

And so we all need that gift of eternal life.

And the way that you receive that gift is through just taking it, receiving it by faith, understanding that there's nothing that you can do to risk to earn it, but it's a gift.

Jesus offers that gift to everyone.

He offers that gift to you and me.

So uh Jesus died on the cross for our sin, Jesus rose again.

And here's the truth: if you go back to the story of Philippians in Acts chapter 16, this is what Paul said to the Philippian jailer.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

And there was an earthquake in the jail, and he Paul proclaims the gospel to the jailer, and this is what he says in Acts 16, 31.

He says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and what will happen?

You will be saved.

If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

So faith or belief is not just intellectual understanding, it's total commitment to Christ.

So Romans 10 9, I've shared some verses from what we would call the Romans Road gospel illustration, which I use all the time on campus.

This is what Romans 10 9 says.

It says that if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So you confess Jesus not just as God, but you confess him as Lord.

Jesus as Lord of your life.

Jesus isn't is in charge of your life.

I had to make a big lordship decision ten years ago when God called me to the University of Florida.

Uh and I joke about it.

I was like, man, God, are you sure?

You sure?

And God spoke to my heart and and He did kind of have to address the idolatry of college football that I had in my heart.

And I began to realize, you know, when I'm in heaven, I'm probably not going to care that much about who my football team was.

And people have needs no matter what what school you're at.

And when I'm at UF, they need Jesus.

And I know we all know that FSU people need Jesus.

I think my UF friends know that at FSU people need Jesus.

But that was for me in my journey, that was a lordship decision I had to make.

But Jesus is in charge, and you have to do what Jesus says.

And so when you're committing yourself to Jesus as your Savior, he's also your Lord.

And Jesus is in charge of your life.

And as you proclaim the gospel, the Holy Spirit takes the word of God and brings conviction.

And there's power that you see when you see radical change in people's lives.

There's a young lady I was thinking about her when I was sitting on the front row.

She grew up in a Muslim household in Florida, and she's come to faith in Jesus.

And she's part of our summer project.

She was there that night when I shared that I was leaving.

And she's learning how to walk with God and how to share her faith and how to memorize scripture.

And she's gaining a heart for the world.

We're reading a book this summer called The Insanity of God by Nick Ripkin.

I'm sure many of you have read it.

And she's learning about what's going on in the world.

This young lady that grew up in a Muslim household is walking with Jesus and she's experiencing persecution.

She's recently told her parents.

She didn't tell her parents for a long time, but she told her parents that she's become a Christian and it's not been a good situation in her household.

But God's changing her life.

Jesus has changed her life.

There's been power and conviction in her life.

So get this.

This is something that's just so empowering.

When Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, he talks about how he shared the gospel with them.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

He says, I came to you in weakness.

I didn't come to you with superiority of speech.

I came to you in weakness and much trembling.

The apostle, the mighty apostle Paul.

But God used that.

He says, My message and my preaching, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of a man, but on the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

So get this.

The Holy Spirit, he He, the Holy Spirit is doing a work in people's lives.

So you can share the gospel weekly, and God can use it powerfully in people's lives.

So we have to share the message of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, let's go to point number two.

It's part of verse five.

Set the example for others.

It says, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake.

So you see that the lives that they lived, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, the lives that they lived authenticated the gospel that they were proclaiming.

He says, just as you know, we share the gospel with you, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake.

So people that are exploring the claims of Christ and new believers who are trying to walk with the Lord, they need an example to follow.

If you want to see people walk with Christ, if you want to have a multiplying ministry, walk with Christ yourself.

My wife and I have, as I mentioned, we have four little kids ages eight, six, four, and two.

And we're we were in Tallahassee on Friday looking at houses, so we looked at ten houses with four kids.

And I I should have sent out a prayer request to you all before we went.

And I really wrestled with just the question okay, how do I be a good dad?

How do I um raise my kids the right way?

I've read books about it and and um wrestled with that.

And you know what?

The best thing that I can do, there's a lot I need to do for my kids, but you know the best thing I can do for my kids to walk with Jesus, uh, to live an authentic Christian life in front of my family.

That's the best thing I can do for my kids.

So do you purposely call attention to the life that you're living with people?

Um you would think here that Paul would say that he would set the example, just as you know, the kind of example we we prove, you know, the kind of men we prove to be among you for Christ's sake, but he doesn't say that he says, for your sake, the kind of men we prove to be among you.

Paul was keenly aware of the type of example that he was trying to set in all areas of his life.

And Paul was living communally with these people.

He was living up close to where they could really see his life, and he was aware of the example.

That he was setting.

And 1 Timothy 4 12, it says, Let no one look down on your on you because of your youthfulness, but set an example for others in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

So he says, speech.

You can learn a whole lot about somebody by their words, by their speech.

This is an old quote from Max.

He says, What is in the well of the heart comes up in the bucket of the mouth.

And he had a West Texas accent when he would say it.

Ephesians 4 29, it says, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification or for building up, so that may give grace to those who hear.

So our speech is so important.

Our conduct.

This refers to our lifestyle, to our behavior.

People should see consistency between what you teach and how you live, or what you proclaim, or what you confess and how you live.

So character gives credibility to the ministry.

It says love.

In love, like really loving people.

The love that you have for people.

I think this means for me, people like me who are in full-time ministry, this means serving in love and not with selfish motives or selfish ambition.

But do I really love the people that I'm ministering to?

Do I really love UF students?

Do I really love FSU students?

Because people can pick up on that.

They know.

They really know if you really have love for them.

1 Thessalonians 2.8 in the next chapter.

This is just a key verse for me.

And I think this gives us a picture of what's happening in chapter 1.

It says, having so fond an affection for you, this is verse 8, chapter 2, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but our own lives, because you have become so very dear to us.

So they didn't just proclaim the gospel, but they share their lives and they share their lives because they loved them.

There was love that they had.

So love, faith, faith.

Are you believing God?

Are you trusting God?

Do you have faith?

Real faith in God that God will work, that God will move in your life, that God will move in their lives.

I'll never forget, I'm gonna share a couple of stories about Max, but uh I was single up until my 30s.

I was in my mid-30s before my wife and I uh were married.

And I was single and searching, you know, wasn't happy necessarily about being single.

And I was going to a little church in Norman, Oklahoma.

It was kind of like a church plant there that had been planted a few years before, and it was kind of you know small, still small, and there weren't a lot of dating opportunities there at the church.

And and and Norman, Oklahoma, is about 20 minutes from Oklahoma City.

And so Oklahoma City has big churches.

And so I went to Max and I asked, I just for some counsel.

I said, Max, maybe I should, what do you think?

Maybe I should go up to Oklahoma City to church somewhere.

Maybe one that has a singles ministry, maybe I can meet somebody.

And I'll never forget Max looked right at me.

He said, Kurt, um, God knows exactly where you are.

And when he's ready to bring somebody into your life, he will.

And I'll have to say, when he when he shared that with me at the BCM building on the couch there in the in the back of the building there on Lindsay Street in Norman, Oklahoma, I had a hard time really having faith that God would do it.

I but I knew Max believed it.

Max had no doubt that God could do it.

And that's actually exactly what happened.

God, I don't have time to get into it, but God, the way God brought us together, it was really just my wife and I was just incredible.

So when God was ready, and I stayed at my church in Norman, when God was ready, He He brought my wife into my life.

Another story, great story, is our our building at OU was really in disrepair.

So my first job when I went on staff there uh was to go out go to Walmart and buy a window unit uh for our office because the AC had gone out and they didn't want to fix it because the building was in such bad shape.

And so we were just kind of in this run-down, leaky building.

The building would it had a basement and it would flood when it rained.

And I mean, it would just, it was just terrible.

And so they finally sold the property to the university and they did a property swap where uh we had a lot kind of in the backside of campus, but we didn't have the money for a building.

And so they drew up the plans for the building, and they decided they're going to build like a 6.3, 6.5 million dollar building.

And we were all just kind of blown away by that number.

This was 15 years ago or so, and they didn't have the money.

There were there was a wealthy family that pledged, I think, a million dollars, which is a good start, right?

And so they started fundraising for the building.

And they they got some you know, some pledges, you know, people pledged, I'll give a thousand dollars, I'll give five hundred dollars, or I'll give twenty-five dollars, or or whatever, uh whatever the amount was.

My wife and I, we were kind of in the lower tier of pledges for the building.

And Max started a prayer meeting on Fridays at the build at the at the current building.

Uh and we'd pray on Fridays before, you know, this is before the building was built.

We'd pray, we just pray for the money.

And we months went by, a year went by, multiple years went by where we're just praying in their support raising.

And a time came where they ran out of um contacts uh for the building.

And I had moved to Florida.

Well, about a year into my time here, I'll never forget the students were moving out of the dorms, and I was helping some students move out of the dorms, and one of the students said to me, 'Kurt, did you hear what happened at OU?

And I said, No, what happened?

And he said, They got the money.

They got the rest of the money that they needed for the building.

And I couldn't beat it, believe it because I was kind of feeling bad for Matt's because I was like, oh, they're gonna have to scale back the building.

You know, a two million dollar building's not bad.

Well, um, they went to this man and asked him for a million dollars.

He was a businessman in Oklahoma City, and he had come to faith in his 40s, and he was discipled by an OUBCM alumni as a new believer.

He wasn't even Baptist, he was Presbyterian.

So they went to him and asked him for a million dollars.

And he said, Well, how much do you need?

And they said, We need$4.3 million.

But he said, Let me pray about it.

He came back a couple weeks later and said, I want to give the$4.3 million.

And by the way, the money's available now.

It wasn't a pledge.

Uh, and so they could start construction of the building.

So we should have a picture here of the building that they hopefully that they built.

We may not have a picture of it.

There it is.

And uh we should have another picture of the inside of the building.

Um so I called Max and I said, Max, what happened?

And you know, just tell me the story.

And he told me the story, and he quoted Matthew 17, 20.

He says, Truly I say to you, give faith the size of a mustard seed.

You can say from this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

Faith.

Faith.

I learned a lesson about faith from Max.

Um, and um, yeah, it just wow.

And purity.

Purity.

Are you living a pure life?

Are you are you are you living a life that reflects the gospel?

Purity.

Okay, let's keep going.

Third point, third point.

Get them imitating you.

Verse 6.

You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with joy of the Holy Spirit.

Imitators, and that's where we get the word in the Greek mimic.

You became you began to mimic or imitate us.

So they were up close, they were living in a communal type ministry, and you became began to imitate us.

You see this word throughout scripture, 1 Corinthians 11 1, it says, Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.

Uh 1 Corinthians 4 17, for this reason I've sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ.

Isn't it interesting?

He says, My ways, not my teachings.

He will remind you of my ways, just as I teach everywhere in the church.

So there are certain things that he taught in every church.

And these things work.

I think evangelism was something he taught.

I think walking with God, being in the Word of God, prayer, there's certain things that he taught in every church, and this works no matter where you go, whether you're in Cambodia, where my wife served as a missionary with the IMB, or whether you're in Kenya, whether you're in Inverness or Tallahassee, this works everywhere.

Uh Philippians 3.17, he says, brothers, join in imitating me.

Philippians 4.9, he says, The things you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

We talked about the Great Commission earlier.

You know, go therefore make disciples of all nations, uh, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe.

He doesn't just say teaching, but teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, and behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

That word disciple, make disciples, is an interesting word.

And the word disciple means learner.

Somebody who's a learner.

And the root word of that word disciple is the word metheno in the Greek.

And metheno means learning by practice and obedience.

So to make disciples, teaching to obey, it means learning by practice and obedience.

It means living it out.

It means being up close where you can help people begin to apply and things to their life.

Here's something that's also hidden in that passage.

It says, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you.

What had Jesus just commanded them to do?

He had just commanded them to go and make disciples.

So this is a call to everyone.

It's not just for pastors or ministry leaders.

We're all called to go and make disciples.

And we have to set the example for others.

It's so key.

And sharing your life.

And here's what they always say man, I just the meals we had at your home with your wife and kids, just the Bible study we had at your house, and the kids were running around in their pajamas before bed.

Or the time you took me out witnessing on campus, or the time you taught me about how to abide in Christ, or things like that.

It's the life on life type things that people always bring up.

And I'm like, what about all the great sermons that I preached?

Or the great lessons, Bible study lessons I gave you.

And those things are important.

I love preaching.

It's such an honor to preach to you, but the things that I helped them apply and the things that I helped them see in my own life really made a difference.

So get them imitating you.

And number four, help them reproduce what you have done in their life.

So get them doing for others what you've done for them.

It says, so that you became an example to all the believers of Macedonia and Achaia.

For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.

So the word of the Lord has sounded forth, and this is the word for trumpet in the Greek or echo.

The word has just sounded forth from you.

And where we are, we don't have to do any say anything, because the word is going out, and we're hearing about it.

They've applied and lived out what Paul modeled for them, and they're modeling it for other people.

It says you became an example.

And this is a different word than mimic.

This word is where we get the word type or typewriter.

It's a word in the Greek tupos.

So if it well, some of you know what a typewriter is, but the typewriter letter will strike the page, and every time it strikes the page, it's supposed to make the same pattern, whatever letter you hit on the page.

And this is the idea.

It's also the idea of like a seal, like a king's seal on wax with his ring.

You became a pattern of living that people could look at and emulate and follow.

You were a two-pas, a type.

People uh you were began imitating you, and you became an example to all the believers.

So this is a pattern for others of what they ought to be and how they ought to live.

Does that mean that we're supposed supposed to produce clones, ministry clones, people that just act and dress and live just the way you do?

I disciple this young man named Sean.

I've been discipling for mentoring, discipling him for two years, and he's our BCM like president.

And Sean and I could not be more different.

And we're just as different today as we were two years ago.

I'm more of the reserved book guy.

Love reading, you know, just reading books and drinking coffee.

He's the wild life of the party guy.

We're totally different, but you know what?

There's some values, there's some convictions, there's some habits of living that I've been able to impress into his life that he's living out, and he's impressing these patterns on other people's lives.

Tupac.

So there's some basic things.

I want to, we're we're nearing the end here.

Some basic things, some some they're not basic, but they're they're just so foundational that we have to impress uh on people's lives.

Some training objectives, some things that I'm always thinking about when I'm trying to invest or trying to set the example.

And again, the the example is all of life.

This all of life example that Paul uh was living.

But but here's some things I'm always remembering.

Like, what is the gospel?

People need to know what the gospel is, the basics of the gospel, the lordship of Christ.

We talked about that, proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

Daily time alone with God, spending time with God, a daily quiet time, uh, scripture memory, hiding God's word on your heart.

This is a really important value for us with our college students to help them memorize and meditate on God's word.

The Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, key doctrines of the faith, understanding the doctrines of the faith, prayer, uh, evangelism, world vision, suffering, uh, the importance of community, the importance of the church, uh, the importance of the local church.

These are just some key things that we're really trying to impress on people.

And it's always helpful to remember these things because I could teach somebody, you know, I could go through Revelation with a young man or with a group of students, and we could just study Revelation for six months, and they could move on and graduate with their lives.

But if I haven't taught them how to share their faith, I haven't taught them how to spend time alone with God, then I feel like I've cut the process short.

So these are some key things to remember.

And here's the one thing I'm learning.

Sometimes I have just an impact on people I'm not even discipling or mentoring just because of the example of my life and being in close proximity with people.

And if if I s if you spend time with God, you're gonna find people and you're gonna influence people to spend time alone with God.

If you share the gospel, uh you're gonna influence people to share the gospel.

If you value the church, if you're all in with your with the church, you're gonna influence others to be all in with the church.

Uh so it's it's narrow, but it's also broad influence.

And that's one of the things I love about Max.

I think Max Barnett was keenly aware of the type of example that he was trying to set in in all areas of his life.

And God's got it rigged.

As we are aware, as we as we understand the influence that we're trying to set for others, that's a challenge to us to live the right type of Christian life.

Uh because we we're aware of the example that we're we're setting.

Well, when I was a kid, uh I was obsessed with sports.

And it was during Michael Jordan's real heyday when it when he was at the peak of his powers with the Chicago Bulls.

And I I'm you know at been at UF and there was there was a beverage created at University of Florida that we know and love called Gatorade.

And and Michael Jordan was the um the athlete who endorsed Gatorade.

And Gatorade had this uh commercial that they this campaign in the in the 90s called Be Like Mike.

If I could be like Mike.

And so I remember just being out in the driveway as a kid trying to be like Mike, and it didn't work.

Um, obviously, I couldn't be like Mike.

And when I was in college, I went to Stetson University and I wanted to be a sports broadcaster, so I interned at Channel 2 in Orlando for a semester, and it's when Michael Jordan made his comp comeback.

And so I got to, um, he was playing for the Wizards, so I got to be in the locker room post-game, and and everybody's huddled around in the corner waiting for Michael Jordan to come out, and he was always came out in a decked out in a suit, and he had the Michael Jordan cologne, so I was trying to smell, he came out, I was trying to smell the cologne as he came out.

So I got to hold the microphone for Michael Jordan with 50 other people around me holding the microphone.

And it wasn't at spirit, I had it was incredible just to be in his presence, but I think I realized I didn't really want to be like Mike.

Uh because he was trying to find who he didn't know who he was.

He was a basketball player.

That's who he was.

But there was a deeper identity issue, and this has been written about that he was wrestling with, and that's why he just couldn't let go of basketball.

But I've learned something.

There's other people I can be like.

I can be like Max.

Uh I can be like others.

There's so many others who've just set the example in my life.

People who set the example in your life.

I can be like them.

I can strive to be like them.

And that has an eternal reward.

And here's the good news we can set the example.

We can model the way.

We can we can uh be people that can people can look to when they're trying to figure out what it means to live the Christian life.

So let's pray.

Father, we're thankful for your word.

God, we're we're we're thankful that it's laid out here for us.

We it's not that complicated, but it is very challenging and and uh difficult to really live the Christian life, to live by faith, uh, to trust you, God, to not compromise, to not cut corners.

Lord, help us to live out uh the right kind of example for others.

Lord, help us to be men and women who multiply to the ends of the earth.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

If you would stand with me, please.

We're gonna have a time of invitation, and the reason I'm wanting you to stand is I'd like you to spend some time if you need time praying yourself, or if you need to be praying for those around you.

I'm gonna ask if some of our pastors and deacons would come and be at the front.

The way I figure it, and uh I realize that my figuring is usually not as good as most, but the way I figure it, you're in one of two categories this morning.

You heard the passage from 1 Thessalonians and you realize that you've never received Jesus Christ as your Savior.

You've never been born again.

And you hear these things about imitation and about uh faithfulness and the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit, and those things are they're they're not really clicking with you, or maybe you're on the verge, you're thinking, I I really want to know more, I want to pray, I want to understand.

Well, this time is for you.

Uh the music will be playing in just a moment.

I'm gonna lead us in a time of prayer and just a time of reflection for you to be able to come forward and speak with a pastor or a deacon and just start the conversation.

You coming forward doesn't you're not you're not signing a uh a mortgage, you're not signing a contract, you're beginning the steps of getting to the point of understanding what Jesus is, who he is, and what God wants to do in your life.

Now it may be that you're already a follower of Christ, and this passage, this message, this morning has been a time for God to work in your heart, and you realize there's some things that I'm doing that's not worth imitating, and I need to work with I need to work on that, and you need some time in prayer.

It could be that that you're a Paul to someone in your life, and you want to be uh more proactive and more engaged in that person's ministry in their life, and God is convicting you of that, or you're a Timothy, and you you need to be more submissive and learning what how it is to follow Christ and imitate, or you're a uh a Barnabas and you want to be an encouragement.

You could be a lot of people.

My point is where God is in your life right now, what he wants you to do.

So as the music is playing, we won't we won't belabor it, but I want to give you an opportunity.

If you would pray with me, please, and then we're gonna spend a few moments to allow you to come forward or to pray for yourself or for those around you.

Would you pray with me, please?

Lord, I pray for the next few moments that you would.

But set in concrete what your spirit has already begun.

That you would give us a heart receptive to your truth, to the gospel.

I thank you for the simplicity of it, but also how profound that we are dead but now alive, that we are lost but now found.

I thank you for that.

And I pray for the individuals in this room right now who need to make that step of faith, of repentance and faith, of trusting you for who you are.

And I pray for your church.

I pray for the next few moments that you would undergird, that you would strengthen boldness, conviction of where we need to ask for repentance, where we need to ask for forgiveness, but also, Lord, where we need to step in faith, and where we need to be obedient and to want to be living lives that need to be imitated.

Lord, I thank you for First Thessalonians.

I thank you for your word.

And I pray for the next few moments that your spirit would move as only you can for your glory.

In Christ's name we pray.

As you remain standing, please be in prayer for yourself or for others.

And the altar is open, pastors and deacons are up front.

I pray for as we leave that you would continue to be glorified, that you would help us as we walk with you.

Lord, I can't help but just pray one more time for the young people who are going to be able to have fun and to be with each other.

And I pray that you would guard that time, that you would be glorified start to finish.

Let it be something that is remembered for your glory.

Lord, help us.

And thank you that you already promised you will and you do.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you.

Your dismissal.

I'm going to ask if, Kurt, if you wouldn't mind making your way to the back, let people greet you on the way out.

But thank you for being here.