Knowing God's Will for Your Life | April 6, 2025

All right.

So I'm just gonna say what many

of you are thinking is, wow.

Andy has a lot more hair

close.

You want this?

No, I'm good.

Alright.

I might regret that later, but it's okay.

Um, yeah, so for those of you

who do not know me, I'm Josiah.

For those of you who do know me, you might

be thinking, why are we letting him speak?

And that's okay too.

First and foremost, I'm super

excited to get to be up here and

share my heart with you guys today

because this, this is my home.

This is my family, this

is my home congregation.

These are my people.

Now, the reason I am up here

before you today might be because.

I'm also a student at IU and

I'm in a class called Homiletics

two because that's for seniors.

And uh, we have this really, really big

project called a preaching portfolio.

It's actually due tomorrow,

and it turns out we were supposed

to preach at a church for that.

So I might have twisted

an arm, used a grinder.

But here I am this morning,

but I'm actually super excited because for

this homiletics class I've actually had

to preach five times, but to a classroom.

So it's a very different feel.

This is, I mean, I got to be with you

guys for, uh, Christmas Eve service and

that was really special and really cool.

But I've actually never, never

really done anything like this.

So bear with me.

Um, it's gonna be a little bit more low

tech because I'm just not hip like those

cool preachers that use all the slides.

Like your grandpa.

Yeah, like my grandpa.

You know,

it's actually funny that you bring up

my grandfather because I don't know

how many of you have had the privilege

of getting to sit through a Marty wait

sermon that goes maybe 10 15 over.

I believe he's actually passed that

gene along to me because for my class,

we were supposed to preach five times,

four, 12 minute sermons, which I'm

sure all of you are hoping that's

what you're gonna get this morning.

It's not.

And 1 25 minute sermon.

Now, if you would like to see these

sermons, they are on YouTube for a

shameless plug for my YouTube channel

that has six, six whole videos.

Please don't watch the one about me in

physics class as a junior in high school,

but none of those, you will get through

maybe six or seven verses before they say

time, because I made this brilliant move

when I thought to myself, five sermons.

First Thessalonian says five chapters.

We're gonna do the whole book.

Don't try to preach an

entire chapter in 12 minutes.

It doesn't work.

I got cut off every time.

I wasn't even close to done

for most of them, the 25

minute sermon I came close to.

So today I'm going to try something new.

I'm going to try and end on time.

I'm ex I, I'm excited.

I think it'll happen.

I'm hoping.

Um, so

after preaching from First Thessalonians,

the whole book, well most of

it, first half of every chapter.

I felt like there was a lot of really,

really, really good information

in First Thessalonians, and it was

actually just laid really heavy on

my heart, and it's definitely what I

wanted to preach on here this morning.

And so I sat down and I was like, I

need to really just focus in on like

six verses if I really wanna preach

and get through a whole message.

And I gotta be honest, I

couldn't really pick one thing.

And so we're gonna do

the whole book actually.

Um, and the reason for this

is in our Bibles, verse

Thessalonians looks like this,

but if we wanted to look at the

Greek, not, not like a nice Greek

reader's bible, like the one I have

for my class, but if we were to look

at the original manuscripts of the

texts, it would look more like this.

I can't read it.

It's blurry, but.

Something you might notice is there

is no headings, there is no chapters,

there are no verse numbers, and this is

something that I, I mean, in my opinion,

it's like, yeah, headings are nice.

They help me figure out

where in the world I'm at.

Like if I just had a whole line

of words, no punctuation, I'd

be like, this is confusing.

But I think just this broad sense

of we sometimes get too caught

up in just reading a chapter from

a book that we forget that like

there were, there were no chapters.

They, they were reading the whole

book, especially a letter I think

is super important that we kind of

remember this detail is Paul sat down

and wrote this entire thing we call

a book to the church in Thessalonika.

He wasn't breaking it down into different

parts and saying, one Sunday, I want

you to read this and go over it.

He said, read this.

Read these instructions

to the whole church.

And so we do not have time for me

to go through the entire book, verse

by verse and verse Thessalonians.

So we're gonna do something that I like

to do at college, which is, how many

of you have ever heard of Spark Notes?

I love SparkNotes because for those

of you who don't know, SparkNotes

is this magical, wonderful thing for

college students and really anybody.

But like, say you have a really big paper

due on a book that you just don't want

to read, SparkNotes summarizes that.

The chapters, the book,

everything, it's all that you need.

And so this morning I'm gonna give you

guys SparkNotes for First Thessalonians.

I'm just gonna set this down so

I don't play with it anymore.

Um, 'cause that's it.

Those are my slides.

Um.

I am gonna give you the Spark notes

for the first four and a half chapters

of First Thessalonians, and then we're

gonna jump into the last six verses

or so, seven verses or so, because

that's what we really wanna hone in on.

But in order to really grasp the ending

of this book, I think we really need

to look at it as a whole, just like the

Church of Thessalonika would've done.

But before, before, before we start, I do

wanna read to you if you guys want to open

your Bibles, it won't be on the screen.

One Thessalonians, we'll

kind of be jumping around.

I wanna read you one verse from

one Thessalonians 5 27, I think.

I don't have any notes with me either.

I put you under oath by the

Lord to have this letter read

to all the brothers and sisters

at the very end of this

letter, Paul instructs.

The Church of the Thessalonians,

he says, I put you under oath.

That seems pretty extreme right off

the bat to have this letter read

to all the brothers and sisters.

Not like, Hey, your

sibling needs to read this.

It's all the brothers

and sisters in Christ.

Paul literally ends this letter by

telling all churches across all time

that this is applicable to them.

This letter's technically written

to the Church of White Rock

Fellowship in Noblesville, Indiana

to White River to harvest.

It's written to every Christian, and I

wanted to lead with that instead of ending

with that, because I really do think that

the message throughout First Thessalonians

is very, very important to how we

live our lives as Christians, and so.

I wanna just make sure everybody

understands that like we can't

sit here and just read this book

and go, yeah, it's cool for them.

No, it's cool for us, all of

us, but All right, here we go.

Spark notes.

We're gonna try and go fast.

Basically.

I mean, I'm not gonna give you everything

'cause we really don't have time.

I'm sorry.

If you would like to read it for

yourself or wanna watch some YouTube

videos or have a conversation with me,

we can really break this book down.

It's a lot of fun.

But chapter one has a little bit

more of this focus on reputation,

fun, little history context.

Thessalonians is believed to be

Paul's first letter ever written.

It's kind of cool.

Paul's letter to the Thessalonians

is also an interesting one because.

In it.

He writes to the Thessalonian church

and says, y'all are doing a good job.

Here's how you can do better.

It's not a reprimand like

you're doing a bad job.

He's congratulating them on their work.

The rest of the letter

is him encouraging them.

Here's how you can step it up a notch.

It's this concept of Excel even

more, which shows up later,

and we'll touch on that later.

But he really drives home this point

that they had a good reputation,

that they were known, not just by

the people who lived in Thessalonika.

The Christians of Thessalonika

were known by all of the

surrounding regions of Macedonia.

And so how we can make that applicable

to our lives a little bit is saying,

are we known not just by the people

in our immediate vicinity, our family,

our friends, our church family?

Are we known by the people.

Around us, our immediate

context, our surrounding context.

The people who we brush shoulders with

every day are we known as Christians.

The Thessalonians were known.

The people from the surrounding regions

knew of the Church of the Thessalonians.

They knew that these people were serious

about Jesus, and that's a really hard

question that we have to wrestle with.

Like even for me, I think to myself,

I say, do I walk through Walmart and

Marion Indiana and do I reflect Christ?

Will someone look at me and say,

oh, that's a Christ follower, or

do they think I'm just another

one of the people in the world?

Do I stand out?

That actually kind of then moves

into the second and third chapter

in which he talks about persecution.

You see, Paul was persecuted.

We kind of know this

from our stories of Paul.

And if you didn't know that,

it's a big, pretty big deal about

Paul is he went from being the

persecutor to being the persecuted.

But he then tells the Thessalonians

that they are too, also being

persecuted, which is true.

And they were thriving admits,

persecution, and Paul talked

with them about how to still

share the gospel persecution.

And I think this is a really important

detail that we brush over far too often.

I brush over far too often, is

that if we are a Christian, we face

persecution and we associate that word

a lot with death and imprisonment,

voice of the martyrs, which is true.

We need to be praying for our

brothers and sisters in Christ who

are facing that level of persecution.

But I gotta be honest, the Church of

America faces persecution as well.

And we don't even realize it, but

part of this whole concept of being

counter-cultural, where we look

different from the culture around

us is that persecution that we face,

we don't like looking different.

We like engaging with the world around us.

We like fitting in.

The culture has a lot of

really cool things to offer.

Sometimes we engage in it and we know

this isn't what God would want for us.

This isn't what God would want me to

do, but I don't want to feel different.

I want to engage.

And it's actually this really weird

concept of persecution where we're not

actually even being forced into it.

We can choose to look different.

We've just developed

this sense of I don't wanna be alienated.

I don't wanna be the person

that stands up and walks out,

but that's actually the

persecution we face.

And this choice that we have

to make to look different is

the persecution that we face.

We have to say, is being a Christian worth

feeling different, looking different?

In the end of chapter three,

Paul also talks about how we need to

encourage one another in the faith.

We need to uplift and edify.

And this is really interesting 'cause

this made me think about how if I come

to church on a Sunday morning and I go,

Hey guys, Hey Seth, how are you doing?

Right.

Just I engage and interact

and then I go about my week.

I'm not really checking in with my

brothers and sisters or helping build

them up more of a Sunday Christian.

I might engage in personal DeVos, but I'm

not really doing anything to encourage

and build up one another in the faith.

And this is something that

I'm reflecting in my own life.

I'm like, am I even doing this at all?

Because Paul's talking about how he

takes joy in the fact that he's getting

to help build other people's faith.

And I go, am I taking joy in the

fact that I have the opportunity

to build people's faith?

You see, we are supposed to, as

Christians, encourage one another

and in our faith it is

supposed to be our lifestyle.

I love that we have Wednesday

night groups kicking back up to

kind of bring more of that kind of

concept of building one another up.

But if that's not how we choose to

live our lives, like I feel like.

Especially in the church, we need

to be people who are not necessarily

having to hold each other accountable.

Like, are you being a

good Christian this week?

But we should be rejoicing in one

another's faith because as Christians,

if we believe that we are destined for

hell without Jesus Christ, that we are

destined to eternal torment and punishment

without Jesus Christ pretty sure

we should be a bit more jazzed

about this gift of Jesus Christ.

We want other people to receive it.

I mean, like what does that say about us?

If we're walking through the store

and we're like, I don't care if that

guy goes to heaven, he can go to hell

As Christians, we should be

rejoicing in the fact that

everybody in this room, we hope.

Is walking this road

towards eternal salvation.

Chapter four, Paul hits

on sexual immorality

and he touches on a lot.

But I wanna point out this, this just

made me laugh if I'm being really honest.

There was one of the verses in

chapter four that was talking about

how you need to view each other as

your brothers and sisters in Christ.

'cause you're not gonna violate

your brothers and sisters.

And I just sat there and I laughed and I

was like, how different would our society

look if we're looking at one another?

Not as objects, but as our

kin, our flesh and blood.

Our brothers and sisters.

Like how much more repulsing

sexual immorality ends up actually

looking when we view one another

as our siblings in Christ like.

I just think that's a really

cool touch that he makes.

And then as we move into chapter

fours and five, the end of four,

he talks about, uh, the day of the

Lord and the day of the Lord coming.

And I'm not gonna get into the day or

the hour 'cause not knows, but it's

really interesting 'cause the one thing

that the Thessalonians weren't doing

well, Paul touches on and he says, you

keep grieving for those who have died

before the day of the Lord has come.

And that's because back then

everybody believed that Jesus was

gonna come back in their lifetime.

They were ready.

Like all the Christians, like that's why

they're, they were evangelizing so much.

'cause they're like, Jesus is

coming back soon and we gotta

get as many people as we can.

I mean, that's how we

should also be living.

'cause we don't know when he's coming.

He could come back tomorrow.

Is your neighbor saved yet?

But they were grieving for those who

had died in persecution and thought

they had missed the resurrection

or the coming of the Lord.

And Paul writes to them and tells

them, Hey, the living and the dead

will take part in the resurrection.

He's comforting them.

And then in chapter five, okay, actually

before I tell you chapter five, I do

wanna tell you a story because I'm

gonna sit down my Bible for a second.

Okay.

In my homiletics class, we were

taught, if you don't have a good

story, you're gonna lose people.

They're gonna disengage.

They don't wanna hear what you're talking

about if you don't tell him a story.

Muhammad tics professor actually told

me, I will cut you off if you don't

have a story in the first two minutes.

So he's not here, so I got

to go longer than two minutes

without telling you a story.

Okay?

But I think, I think this story

is actually gonna help tie

in chapter five a little bit.

I don't know about you, but I

grew up in a home with some pets

and we had some, we had some strange pets.

I think like if, if you were to

just stop and think about the casual

pet you have, like we had a, we

had dogs, no cats, mom's allergic.

But we also had frogs and they were weird.

But then we also had a turtle

and that turtle's name was Ninja.

And you're probably thinking to

yourself, wow, that's a good name.

And you would be right 3-year-old.

Josiah was very proud of that name.

And I don't know about you

how many turtle lovers we have

out there, turtle owners, but.

How I was raised.

Okay.

I was three.

So please keep that in your

knowledge of like, I was a

3-year-old, so this wasn't me.

You can blame my parents for this.

If Peter gets angry,

they can talk to them.

But I was raised on this

understanding that when it was time

to clean your turtles cage, you

would take your turtle outside.

'cause turtles love playing in the grass.

So there I was alone holding a hose.

I don't know why.

Let the turtle feel the water.

I don't know.

And he was just tearing the grass

and I mean, I could not have

looked away for more than a minute.

Maybe longer.

I was three.

But when I turned back

around, he was gone.

Either he was really fast

or he lived up to his name.

I don't know

Now.

Our neighbors had a pond in their

backyard, and to this day, mom

and dad tell me he made it there.

As I was reminiscing over this,

I started to wonder if maybe they

just went and put him in the pond.

Might've happened.

We'll talk about it after.

But

I was not an observant

three-year-old, as most of you would

assume, a three-year-old is not.

But chapter five, God is telling

through Paul that Thessalonians to

be observant and alert and aware.

The whole first 11 verses of First

Thessalonians five is Paul telling

him to be awake and be sober.

This concept of always being ready.

Now up to this point, Paul has had long

flowing, not necessarily arguments, more

like discourse conversation and points,

but starting at verse 12, Paul does

something that I actually learned about

this last week that I guess if you read

most of Paul's letters, he has this same

kind of style where he has long points,

long points, long points, gets to the last

chapter and goes, I got a lot more to say,

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Which is like when I tried to

preach my sermons, I was like,

oh, I have two minutes left.

Let me see how much of this

I can just fit in at the end.

And so I'm going to read verses 12

through 22 with you guys real quick.

In chapter five, and you can

open your Bibles, if you will.

It's not gonna be up there, but it

goes, and I'm, I am reading from

the New American Standard Bible.

That is something I was

told to say at college.

Just so everybody knows what

translation this is, it's not NLT.

Don't worry.

But we ask you brothers and sisters

to recognize those who diligently

labor among you and are in leadership

over you, in the Lord, and give you

instruction, and that you regard them

very highly in love because of their work.

Live in peace with one another.

We urge you.

Brothers and sisters, admonish the unruly.

Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak.

Be patient with everyone.

See that no one repays another with

evil for evil, but always seek what is

good for one another and for all people.

Rejoice always.

Pray without ceasing in everything.

Give thanks for this is the will

of God for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not utterly reject prophecies,

but examine everything.

Hold firmly to that which is good.

Abstain from every form of evil.

Now this part we will break down verse

by verse and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Stepped on a accord, verse

12 and the beginning of 13.

We ask you brothers and sisters to

recognize those who diligently labor

among you and are in leadership over you,

in the Lord, and give you instruction

and that you regard them very highly

and love because of their work.

My dad did not pay me to preach on that.

Gotta be honest.

I would say that's one of the

harder verses to have to preach

on to a congregation because

you're basically telling them,

Hey, you should love me more.

You should regard me higher in love,

and I would just say that I'd point

this out because Paul's writing to a

church where he has worked at before,

where he has labored among them and

he has instructed them in the Lord.

So maybe he's writing to a church

of people who didn't love on their

pastors well, but Thessalonians have

done a pretty good job thus far.

So I would say that this concept

of excelling even more, this

call that you are never good

enough when you're a Christian.

You're always striving to be better.

This great not good concept is probably

what Paul's striving for in this whole

section that we're reading, is that

it doesn't matter how well you have

loved, how highly you have regarded,

you're still supposed to do it.

You're not ever going to reach a point

in which you're loving well enough.

And that's great that that's

not a diss, that's not saying,

come on, white Rock, you suck.

That's saying, Hey, we're

always called to do more.

And then at the end of verse 13,

live in peace with one another.

Pretty straightforward.

We're not called to be quarrels.

Some within the church.

We are called to live at

peace with one another.

These are people who

are facing persecution.

So Paul's reminding them, Hey,

within the church, your family

live at peace with one another.

And that's something that we

should apply to our lives today.

And I, I, I would think that here at

White Rock, we do a pretty good job

of living at peace with one another.

I don't feel like there's that many

quarrels that break out except around

football season when everybody hates me.

But.

No idea why, but

live at peace with one another.

Verse 14, we urge you brothers

and sisters admonish the unruly.

Encourage the faint hearted, help

the weak, be patient with everyone.

This, this verse was intended

for all the youth pastors in

Thessalonica admonish the unruly.

Correct.

I'm just kidding that

this is for everyone.

I was just getting a jab at the fusion

kids that I had to deal with yesterday.

Admonish the unruly is sort of this

word for like, Hey, don't reprimand.

Don't reproach help.

Correct.

'cause we're supposed to be

living at peace with one another.

So it's not trying to start a

big quarrel with admonishment.

It is trying to help

correct, course correct.

When people are unruly, when they're

breaking away from where you're supposed

to be, let's get 'em back on the right

track because again, if we believe

that eternal salvation's, the big, the

big winner here, it's probably how we

should be treating our brothers and

sisters in Christ is when we see someone

starting to veer, we're encouraging

them back onto the right track.

Encourage the faint hearted.

Sorry, I was on the other page.

One of, I don't know how many of you have

been here long enough to hear my dad use

one of his favorite phrases, but encourage

literally means to put courage into.

I feel like I've heard that

more times than I can count

in my life, but it's true.

The faint hearted, it's

actually really interesting.

I was looking at the Greek for this one.

Again, I have no slides.

I'm so sorry, but it really

means this kind of small spirit.

Faint hearted, not somebody who's

fainting, faint hearted, somebody

who is low in spirit, weak in spirit.

We're supposed to encourage and build up.

This is a callback to the

encouraging of each other's faith.

Building one another up, help the weak.

I think it's really cool because

you know what kind of weak,

and Paul says, help the weak.

I would say there's two

different kind of beliefs here.

He's either saying, help the weak

and spirit kind of reemphasizing

what he just said with fainthearted.

Or it's help the weak physically, like

those who cannot care for themselves.

And I would like to be honest,

both of those are biblical.

And so if Paul left it ambiguous and

just said, help the weak, I think we're

called as a church to help the weak.

As Christians, we're

called to help the weak.

Regardless of whether it's physically weak

or spiritually weak,

we're called to help 'em

and then be patient with everyone.

Now, that's the one for the youth

leaders because man, man ate glasses

of chocolate milk is not okay, Jed,

but in reality, that kind

of coincides with that.

Be at peace with everyone.

Be patient with everyone.

It's really hard to start a fight with

somebody who's really patient with you.

And if we're patient with everyone with

one another, I think that's actually

gonna really help us to live in peace.

Verse 15, see that no one repays

another with evil for evil, but

always seek what is good for

one another and for all people.

This is one of the first ones

in this section where it's not

referencing the brothers and sisters.

This is everyone, all people.

So this isn't just when somebody

in the church does evil to

you, you don't repay evil.

You hit 'em with good.

This is with anyone in the world

who directs evil towards you.

You do not return.

Return with evil.

You return with good.

Kind of like that silly song that

Dad made me and Josh and Jed come

up here and sing from Romans 8 28.

God works for the good of

all of those who love him.

We're supposed to be working for the good

of everyone, even those who don't love us.

Verse 16, 17 and 18.

Very complicated.

This one took a long time to

kind of really break down.

Rejoice.

Always pray without ceasing in everything.

Give thanks.

For this is the will of God

for you in Christ Jesus.

16 and 18 are not my favorite.

As someone who has finals week coming

up soon and lots of big projects,

I don't always feel like rejoicing.

I gotta be honest.

I'm not always giving thanks.

But Paul is letting him know, Hey, you

are supposed to be constantly rejoicing.

There is no end.

There is no stopping.

You will rejoice from now to eternity

because when we get to heaven,

there's definitely no stopping.

This constant state of rejoicing.

And I'm gonna go to 18 real quick

and everything give thanks when

you're thankful for everything.

It's really easy to be

rejoicing and everything.

When you're ungrateful, it's really hard,

this constant state of giving thanks.

It is not easy to give thanks at all

times, and I don't want to give thanks at

all times, but it's something that we're

called to work towards and to try to do.

We're supposed to do it.

So we need to live our lives,

like people who are going to

give thanks in everything.

And then back up to verse

17, pray without ceasing.

Some people might look at that and go,

oh, well, I can't fold my hands and bow

my head and close my eyes while I drive.

Is God saying no more cars?

Yes.

I'm just kidding.

No,

it's this constant state of

communication with God, knowing

that at all times he's with you.

And that is also something

I don't always do well at.

I'm not trying to sound super

spiritual like I pray 24 7.

No, but like this Christian

cliche, God's always with you.

God is with you always right?

Like it's the truth though.

There is nowhere on earth you

can go where God is not with you.

Your bedroom, your bathroom,

your car, your job, teens more

than your mom monitors you.

God is with you.

For everyone who's married more

than you are with your spouse.

God is with them and you.

For everyone who's single.

The more, more than you are alone.

God is with you.

You cannot outrun, you cannot escape.

He was there.

He is everywhere.

And this prey without ceasing, I think

is almost more so just acknowledging

his presence that you are not alone.

There is not an act you can

commit where he is not with you.

And I think that also kind of

ties into this whole like way of

Christian living that the rest of

Thessalonians talks about a little

bit like acts of sexual immorality.

If we were really living like

God's right here, I don't

think we commit those things.

It's this kind of ignorance that we

live in that, oh well God can't see me.

Or this doesn't matter.

It's this lifestyle that we live

in, that God is present with me

at all times and I know that.

And so I am in constant community

with my Heavenly Father.

You are not praying nonstop in your head

like, dear Jesus, I hope this goes well.

And as I'm talking to

Rusty, I'm like praying.

I love God.

I love God.

I love God.

No, I. It's, I know that God is

in my conversation with Rusty

that I need to monitor how I'm

speaking with Rusty, the example

I'm setting to the world around me.

And then verse 19 through

21 was interesting.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not utterly reject prophecies,

but examine everything.

Hold firmly to that, which is good.

I gotta be honest, this almost sounds like

a bit of an argument for Pentecostalism.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not stop with the spirit is doing.

Do not utterly reject prophecies

in someone's prophesying,

but then it follows it up with

this little note after that says,

but examine everything and hold

firmly to that, which is good.

It's saying.

If the spirit is moving, don't stop it.

If someone's prophesying, don't stop

them, but listen to what is being said

and examine it, because if it does

not match up to that, which is good,

then that's when you can reject it.

But until you examine it and you

take the time for yourself to

check what is being told to you,

you cannot just reject it utterly.

And then, and then in verse 22, I

literally laughed out loud when I was

reading this and preparing because

it genuinely just made me laugh.

It says, abstain from every form of evil.

This is like the classic catchall,

like Paul's like Running outta time.

Running outta time.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I have one more.

Okay.

Don't do anything evil.

It's like, okay, could

have led with that one.

Um, but I think it's important to note

that Paul gave them all these things

and then he went Also, there's a lot

of other evil just than what's in

here because I think a lot of times

we find ourselves finding all the

gray areas we want, and this is just

a reminder that there's no gray area.

'cause God's with you all the time

and you know what's right and wrong.

Abstain.

That's like run.

Don't touch it.

Don't take part, don't dabble.

Don't teeter on the edge.

Don't partake in any form of evil.

Not a little evil, not a lot of evil.

Any form of evil.

Do not take part in.

And after all of that,

we get to verses 2324,

which I was standing in the back

and I looked at my dad and I

went, dang Rusty and Tina trying

to take away part of my sermon.

I was joking, but he reminded me,

he's like, Hey, when the spirit's

moving, there's a reason for it.

So we're actually gonna kind of touch on

what you guys talked about a little bit.

But verses 23 says, now, may the God

of peace himself sanctify you entirely

and may your spirit and soul and body

be kept complete without blame at

the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he who calls

you, and he will also do it.

Now I go to a Wesleyan school where

sanctification, it's a hot topic.

I just wanna talk with you guys real

quick about what this verse is saying and

how it ties into the rest of this book.

'cause it's not an accident, that it's at

the end of a letter, that it all matters.

That it isn't even just these last

seven things that I read with you guys,

but it is every part of Thessalonian.

So I challenge you to read

through one Thessalonians

and see what God has for you in this.

But this is a promise.

May the God of peace himself

sanctify you entirely.

First off, this is something

that God and God alone does.

We cannot sanctify ourselves.

This is an act of God.

Sanctification is this process of

being made more and more like Christ.

May your spirit and soul

and body be kept complete

without blame at the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ, God is going to

sanctify us and we know that because

verse 24 says, faithful is he who

calls you, and he will also do it.

God is faithful.

We know this to be true.

We believe it to be

true, and he will do it.

In the Greek, that word

will do it is puello,

and in the future tense,

it's PO which is used there.

We are not given a clear parameter for

when this act of sanctification comes.

We believe that it will

come in the second coming.

When Christ returns, we will make

complete and entirely like Christ.

But this is a promise from God that

he himself will sanctify you entirely.

You will be made blameless,

complete

at the coming of Jesus Christ.

But it's not just something he's gonna

do willy-nilly 'cause he feels like it.

This is him holding up his end of the

bargain to us choosing to live like

Christ, to live like a Christian, which.

What it means to be a Christian is not

all encompassing of First Thessalonians.

It goes much deeper and

much bigger, much wider.

But if we were to just look at one letter,

this is the lifestyle we are called

to live as Christians and as we

live out this Christian walk, this

looking different, this we might be

alienated by the culture around us.

We need to live a life where our

reputation says I'm a Christian.

Our lifestyle says I'm a Christian,

so that when the day of the Lord comes,

the God who is faithful to you, to me

will sanctify

you.

Dear Lord.

We praise you.

We thank you.

We rejoice always for the gift

of your eternal salvation.

We want to live in

communion with you, Lord.

We want to live a lifestyle in which we

look different from the world around us

because Lord, you are faithful

to finish your work in us.

And Lord, I ask that as we go out today,

you continue your work of sanctification

in our lives and you continue to

make us more and more like Christ

every day as we continue to walk this

road of following you and your name.

Amen.

Alright.

Gotta be honest.

I have no idea what time it is

or if we're on time, but you're

not allowed to be dismissed yet.

I was ready to let you out.

I was excited to let you guys out,

but Jackie Allen and Dax Allen get to

do announcements, but Jackie's gonna

come up first and share something.

Let me just give Josiah

a round of applause.

That was awesome.

I love seeing our babies growing up.

All righty.

All right, well, thank you guys for taking

a couple more minutes to be with us today.

Um, if you know that you're supposed to

be on stage this morning, come on up.

Um, we are gonna take a couple minutes

just to, um, kind of do a prayer and

commissioning for our care communities.

Um, so everyone who is on our

Michael's Family Care community

come on up to this stage.

Um, so real fast, I'm going

to, uh, give a quick rundown.

So we talked about this in October.

We've talked about it in the past.

Um, basically, uh, Maria and Abby and I

lead our, what's called our Rock Solid

Families Ministry here at White Rock.

Um.

Which provides, uh, we do a

lot of different things, but

specifically in the arena of caring

for foster and adoptive families.

And so in the last five years, we

have, uh, created what we call care

communities around several families that

are in our church, um, to just provide

meals and support and encouragement

for them as they're going through this

journey of fostering and adopting.

Um, in the last year, we've really

felt the call to reach outside of our

church family and support a couple

families that are not part of our church.

Um, and so we, it's been a long

time coming and I really appreciate

everyone who's up here this morning.

Um, one of our care, this is our first

care community, our other care community.

We will be, uh, welcoming and recognizing

and supporting, um, in a few weeks.

But I wanted to take the time.

I asked Andy if he would come

and be with us this morning

and just pray over this group.

Um, real fast this, uh, group

of people is supporting.

I won't go into a lot of details, but,

um, a single woman who has been fostering,

she's my age, she's been fostering for.

10 years, I think.

Uh, she's fostered over 30 children.

She currently has six

children in her home.

Um, she is incredible and we

are very excited to be, uh,

working with her and serving her.

Um, so, uh, Andy, if you just come up and

we're just gonna pray for our hands and

feet to be doing what God wants us to do.

Every care community has a black

sheep Nate, but you might wanna sneak

in here with the rest of 'em or not.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, if you've not had a chance to find

out more or heard, hear much about our

care community, definitely talk to Jackie.

A really neat thing you guys are

doing and super special way of

being the hands of feet of Jesus.

We have other groups, as Jackie

said, another group we're gonna

do this for again in April.

And, uh, super excited about the way

you guys are getting a chance to impact.

So let's just pray over this group and,

uh, the mission that God's got them

rolling in, and let's do that together.

Father, thank you so much for

your incredible love for us.

Thank you.

For the privilege you give us, as

just I talked about, to get out

into the world around us and to love

people and to try to have an impact.

Lord, we want your reputation to

spread and be known around us.

And so Father, I pray for all these folks

who are part of this care community and

what they're striving to do, to reach

and love, uh, Lord, the ways that they're

serving in physical ways, um, tangible

ways that are measurable, uh, for the

family that they're loving and serving.

But Lord, I pray that all of those

things would build for, for this family,

Lord, that they would feel your love

through these acts, and that they would

come to a place where even if they

don't totally understand that, they

recognize there's something bigger

than just trying to be a good neighbor.

But Lord, that there's some powerful

love behind what these folks are doing.

I pray you would equip them, give

them wisdom, discernment, strength,

health protection, uh, energy

and enthusiasm as they serve.

And Lord, that you

would use this ministry.

Specifically to this family, to grow

your kingdom and to bring people,

not just the food they need and the

shelter, the protection, and the

help, and the physical things, but

Lord, all eternity would be changed

because of these acts of faithfulness.

Thank you so much for

what you're gonna do.

You're in the process of doing,

Lord we love you, and we thank you

for the privilege of just walking

with you in this in Jesus name.

Amen.

And then we have one more thing.

So number one, I just wanna say thank

you to all of you guys for all of

the hard work that you have started

to do, and we still have ahead

of us in the next year at least.

Um, but we have one person in

particular who I want to recognize.

This has been a very long time

coming and it should have been done

a very long time ago, but I would

like to recognize Karen Keller.

Karen, I want you to come up here.

So we have been doing this ministry,

we launched it in August of 2020.

Um, we have done four care

communities within White Rock.

Karen has been our team

leader for three of them.

Karen has put countless hours,

probably hundreds of hours into serving

our foster and adoptive families.

This family right here, this family right

here, um, and we are immensely grateful

for everything that you've done for us.

So we have a couple cards and a

gift that we want to give you.

And this is not even enough for,

for everything that you've done,

but we just wanna appreciate you

and say how much we love you.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

You guys can have a seat.

Thank you so much.

All righty.

So moving on real fast so we

can get everybody outta here.

We got a couple fun things

going on in our church.

All right.

We have ba bam tonight.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Are you?

You see it?

That's what I was thinking.

'cause they're gone.

Yeah.

True question.

Josh and Audrey are gone.

Sono ba bam tonight.

But you know what?

You guys can go and head over

to Culver's or something and do

ba bam at Culver's or whatever.

Yeah.

You don't need to let that

stop you from hanging out.

Um, and the college age group

is still meeting tonight, I

believe, and other small groups

that are still meeting tonight.

All right.

This Wednesday night is our second and

fourth Wednesdays, our women's group.

So it's 7:00 PM in the other building.

Uh, it's just an hour for us

to get together and talk about

Jesus and encourage each other.

So all the ladies, you're

welcome to be there.

We'd love to see you.

Ready to talk about

first chapter of James.

Be ready to talk about that.

Just the first chapter.

Don't do the whole book.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, all right.

And then, so Palm Sunday, we have

a service at 10:00 AM that's gonna

be on Palm Sunday and Good Friday.

We also have a service at 7:00 PM

that's gonna be in the evening.

Uh, that will still be over here.

Then the next day.

All right.

Easter egg hunt.

So, uh, Shannon, I know has particularly

chosen to put this one in the afternoon.

There's a lot of Easter egg hunts in our

community that are in the morning, so

we wanted it to be an afternoon event.

We need helpers.

Noah is wildly waving a clipboard, so

if you'd like, it's gonna be great.

Uh, if you wanna help with that.

It's so much fun.

We get kids and families from our church,

but from all around the community as well.

Um, I know that this year we're

doing something a little bit

different, rather than just giving

lots of silly little prizes.

We are gonna have raffle

prizes for really cool things.

So, um, and some crafts

and some other fun things.

So, uh, be prepared to come to that if

you have children, and especially if you

don't have kids, you can come and serve.

And then we'll be all together as

a church family celebrating Easter,

which is, that's our biggest impor

most important holiday, celebrating

that Jesus came back for us and

he resurrected, he defeated death.

And that is a big thing.

And we're gonna all celebrate that

together at 10:00 AM And there's

the kids' clothing and toy giveaway.

Uh, and that's going to be April 26th.

And that's free.

Uh, but we wanna take

donations still for people.

So if you have donations, you can

come find Jamie or me and talk to us

about it and where you can put them.

Don't bring them until the Monday before

that, but gather them in your house.

I have a stack in my closet.

Men's retreat May 2nd through fourth.

Uh, I know some of us guys, uh, on staff

have met with the, and already talked

about some of the stuff we're doing.

We're really excited.

It's gonna be a lot of fun.

May 2nd through fourth, and you can

go ahead and start registering that

QR code is active and it works.

I've tested it.

Same deal.

Women's retreat is May 16th to the 18th.

So here's your chance, get your QR code.

Um, you should have also received

an email from Miss Tina this week

with links to both of these signups.

So if you haven't seen that and

you need it, go look in your

spam folder if you can't find it.

Got it, Nancy.

She's getting it.

Good job.

All right.

All right.

And then 2025 youth retreat

is June 28th to July 2nd.

It's gonna be great.

So parents, please make sure

that is in your calendar.

And I know that was a lot of information

that you just had thrown at you.

There are.

Uh, little half sheets out in

the foyer that have all the dates

of everything that we're talking

about, so you can keep track of it.

And Miss Debbie has an announcement.

Yes, I do.

I do.

Um, I would like to, um, introduce you

to an opportunity for, um, anyone who is

five years old to 18 year olds or have,

uh, families that have those, um, ages.

Um, it is the National Bible Bee.

There are flyers in the

back that look like this.

Um, I'm a host, a registered host with

the Nationals Bible Bee, and would like

to invite you to join me this summer.

We'll be doing a bible study.

Um, it's an eight week, or actually it's

a 10 week Bible study with eight units.

We will be, um, learning how to

study the Bible by using keywords,

um, cross references, 11 tools that

teach your child how to, uh, study

the Bible and memorize the Bible.

We'll be memorizing verses.

Um, there's a second.

Part to that, which is a national

competition, which takes place,

um, starting in the fall.

But this is kind of a,

a pre preface to that.

So, um, this bible study is just for the

10 weeks of the summer for, to give you

something fun to do and to learn together,

um, and to learn how to study the Bible.

Um, this week is pre-registration,

um, an early registration.

So there's some perks to that.

So you can go to National Bible

be.org to get that information.

If you're interested, please see me.

I have a QR code that will give you some

extra perks for, um, registering early.

We'll be meeting once a week throughout

the summer to encourage each other and

have fun and just share with, um, you,

you can participate as individuals, you

can participate as families, but, um,

we're gonna have a lot of fun and we're

gonna learn how to do this together.

Thank you, Debbie.

That's all.

Good morning.

Have a great afternoon.