Remembering God's Work

Good morning, Frank and Luth Bible Church.

Good morning.

Good to see you.

Good to be with you.

I'm glad that you're here.

My name is Pastor Mark.

I'm one of the pastors on staff here at Frank and Luth Bible Church, and it's my delight to lead you in the Word of God this morning.

You know, I was reminded during the host moment this morning that it'll be just a few weeks and we won't be here at this time, right?

Right?

Some of you will be joining us at the 8 o'clock service.

Uh-oh.

Some of you join us at 8 o'clock or maybe 11 or 12:30.

Yeah, we'll remember the good old days when we gathered at church at, you know, our normal time, but we'll do that sometime in the future.

One of the things I've noticed that we love to do, we all engage in this activity.

It brings us joy, it makes us happy.

We love to get together with family and friends.

And when we get together, we love to reminisce.

We love to talk about old stories of shared experiences and bring those shared experiences into the present.

It brings us joy, it brings us happiness.

When we get together with our people, whether they're our family or friends, it just takes one person to say, hey, you remember when?

And boom, the door is open, and everyone in that conversation begins to share their context of the memory of that past experience, and we we love to reminisce.

We love doing it.

Matter of fact, when we are reminiscing with our friends or our family, and someone says, You remember, and we start sharing that, there's no one in the room that says, Hey, you know, we are all there.

We don't need to talk about this.

No, that's not how it works.

We love to bring up happy memories of the past.

Funny stories, happy experiences, fond memories.

We love to bring them into the present through our collective remembering of the event and talking about it.

Just like you, I have friends.

I've had friends for years.

Uh, when we get together as friends, we make new memories and we talk about old memories.

Uh, I have uh family members, I have siblings, I have a handful of siblings, uh, I'm one of five.

And uh, we get together regularly.

We all live in Michigan.

We're gonna get together in a few weeks, and I'm looking forward to that event.

We always have a great time together.

We will create new memories and we'll talk about old memories.

We'll talk about how our parents did such a terrible job and how we followed their example.

No, we we love to reminisce.

I have friends that reminisce and family that do that.

You know, and and uh I want to speak just the young people here as well.

It's not just an old folks thing.

Reminiscing isn't for the five guys that sit at McDonald's at 5 a.m.

on Saturday, you know, Monday morning and drink coffee and remember the good old days.

The young people do it too.

You guys get together and it just says, Hey, you remember last Friday night?

You remember the winter retreat that we went on?

And it opens the floodgates of memory.

There's something special about bringing up past experiences, bringing them into the present through our shared memories.

That's why we take photos.

That's why you and I take so many photos.

And that's why we take videos of special occasions.

We plan to capture the moment and bring that moment back up in the future and remember back on the good experience that we had.

Now, I realize sometimes we take pictures and we take video to show people who weren't there, but more often than not, we share those pictures and we share those videos with people who are present.

Because the best memories aren't remembered alone.

The best memories are the ones that are shared in community.

We love to reminisce.

Uh, the neuroscientists, the brain people, they tell us that reminiscing is good for our brain.

It's good for our mental health.

It it boosts dopamine and serotonin levels and it makes us feel good.

It keeps cognitive pathways open and it builds mental resilience.

I mean, reminiscing is good for our brain.

Not only is it good for our brain, but the social scientists tell us that reminiscing is good for our friendships.

It reminds us of the strong social bonds that we share.

There's a sense of community when we reminisce on past experiences.

It knits us together in a social fabric that's very strong.

It's like social glue.

So reminiscing is good for our brain, it's good for our friendships, it's good for the community.

We love doing it.

We also know that there's a benefit to our spiritual life as well.

There's something about getting together and sharing with one another what God has done.

What God has done in our life and what God has done in our community life.

I'm wondering if reminiscing is a significant spiritual discipline right up there with the ranks of Bible study and prayer.

There's something very powerful that happens when we uh reminisce, when we think through.

You know, I realize that as I'm thinking through that, the Bible does say, hey, forgetting the things that are behind, I press on toward the goal of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Certainly there are things that we ought to forget and just leave in the past.

But I also know that there are things that we ought to be remembered and things that ought to be retold and continually remembered.

Well, this morning we're kicking off a brand new sermon series.

The sermon series is found in the book of 1 Thessalonians.

If you have your Bible, if you've not done so already, I'd have you take that out and find the book of 1 Thessalonians.

If you didn't bring a Bible with you this morning, we've got you covered.

There's one on the seat back in front of you.

I would encourage you to take that out and use it.

If you don't own a Bible, take that one home with you.

We'd love for you to have a copy of God's Word.

You know, as you find your place in 1 Thessalonians, it's deep into the New Testament, you might discover that it's kind of hard to find because it's a short letter.

1 Thessalonians is a letter that was written by the Apostle Paul, Silas, and Timothy, and it was written to the church in Thessalonica.

It is a short letter.

You could sit down this afternoon and you could read the entire letter in 10 to 15 minutes max.

You might have a difficulty finding it in your Bible because it's just one page, really short.

Not only is it a short letter, it's a happy letter.

There is good experiences and fond memories between Paul, Silas, and Timothy, the authors, and the church in Thessalonica.

They had shared life together and they had fond memories.

And some of those are shared in this.

So it's a short letter, it's a happy letter, it's also an early letter.

This letter written to the Thessalonian Church was one of the first New Testament documents written, one of the first letters that Paul ever wrote.

So it's really early.

Matter of fact, it was probably written within 20 to 30 years of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension.

So the letter is short, it's happy, it's early, it's also straightforward.

If you take up my challenge today and you go home this afternoon, you sit down and you read the entire letter to the Thessalonian church, again, 12, 15 minutes, when you get to the end of the reading, you're not going to be like, What did he say?

It's straightforward.

There's nothing confusing in this letter.

You'll read it and you'll understand it right away.

Another interesting feature of the book of 1 Thessalonians is that in every chapter, now when Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote this letter, they didn't write it in chapters.

They wrote it in one piece.

We've put it into chapters for us to reference it.

But this book is divided into five chapters.

In every chapter, it references the return of Jesus Christ.

The Thessalonian Church, they were looking forward to the return of Jesus and they were living into that reality.

And as Paul writes them a letter, he reminds them of that nearly on every page, or in our Bible, it's only one or two pages.

So he reminds them significantly.

At the end of every chapter, he talks about the return of Jesus.

Another thing to notice as we begin our study through this book, we're going to notice as we read through it that in the first three chapters, so there's only five chapters.

Three-fifths of the book, Paul, Silas, and Timothy reminisce with the Thessalonians about their past shared experience.

I want to let that fall on you for a moment.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they write the Thessalonians a letter, and three-fifths of the letter are what both parties already know.

There's nothing new shared until you get to chapter four.

So when the Thessalonians would receive this letter and they were listening to it read, and then they got a copy of it and they read it for themselves.

For three-fifths of the letter, they're like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Yeah, we were there.

You're telling us our story.

You're telling us our shared experience.

That's remarkable.

No new information until you get to chapter four, no new instruction given until chapter four, no commands given until chapter four or five.

The first three-fifths of the book, it's all reminiscing.

It's quite remarkable.

Well, I take it you found your place in 1 Thessalonians.

Let's look at chapter 1, verse 1, at the very beginning of the letter.

Says Paul, Savanus, and Timothy.

This is long form for Silas.

So Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

Let's pause there for a moment, or maybe for a couple minutes.

If you were to buy a home in Frankemuth, Michigan, and move into that home, my wife and I did that last fall, last October, November, we moved here to Frankenmooth.

But if you were to buy a home in Frank and Mouth and you moved into that home, and as you're moving into that home, you're taking, you know, boxes of Christmas decorations or whatever up to the attic because you won't need those for a couple months, anyways, and you move those boxes up to the attic, you find a chest up there.

And you open that chest, it was left there, and you open that chest and you discover there are letters in that.

And you begin to grab those letters and you take them downstairs and you begin to read through those letters.

You know, the better you know the author and the better you know the recipients, the more you'll understand those letters.

Just the way it works.

Now you could bring down that chest of letters and you could begin reading through it.

And as you read through all the letters, you could begin to understand when they were written and why they were written and at what time frame and all of that.

You could you could figure out the story, but if you know the author and you know the recipient right out, you're you're greatly improved.

Well, as I said already, the book of 1 Thessalonians is a letter.

It's a letter written by Paul, Savannah, and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians.

Do we know these people?

The better we know them, the better we'll understand the letter.

So let's let's talk about them for just a minute.

We know Paul, he's the first one mentioned here as one of the authors.

What do we know about the Apostle Paul?

Well, just take a minute to think this through.

We know Paul was raised in a strict religious environment that trained him to be a religious terrorist.

We know that Paul was raised to be a radicalized adherent to Judaism.

He grew up in a context that educated him and equipped him to be a religious zealot who would literally murder people who disagreed with him and disagreed with his ideology.

Nice guy, huh?

How would you like one of him as a neighbor, you know, Apostle Paul?

He was raised in this religious context, and he was raised to be a zealot, and he would murder people who disagreed with him and his ideology, and he oppressed and persecuted, and he murdered Christians.

They were his number one enemy, they were his greatest opponent.

And then he met Jesus.

God was gracious to Paul.

And Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and Jesus began to reorder his life.

Paul believed God, believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the one that the world was looking for, and Paul rolled his faith over unto Jesus Christ, and Paul the terrorist became Paul the teacher, and Paul the murderer became Paul the great missionary.

So we know the Apostle Paul.

He was the first one mentioned as one of the authors.

What do we know about Silas?

What do we know about Silas?

Well, we don't know as much about Silas as we do about Paul and Timothy, but we are introduced to him in the Bible, we're introduced to him in history.

When we are introduced to him, we discover that he was a leader in the Church of Jerusalem.

We have no idea his upbringing.

We don't know anything about his parents, we don't know anything about his family.

When he's introduced to us in history, he is a leader in the church of Jerusalem, which is significant.

It means he would rub shoulders and elbows with people like the apostle James, the half-brother of Jesus.

When he's introduced, we discover that he's this leader in the church.

And when Paul arrives there after his first missionary journey, the church in Jerusalem, they say, hey, Silas ought to travel with you and take the message of the gospel with you as you plant churches all over.

And so Silas joins Paul's missionary team, and he is a faithful minister of the gospel.

So we have Paul, we have Silas, we have Timothy.

What do we know about Timothy?

We know these authors.

Well, we know Timothy, he was raised in a mixed home, a culturally mixed home.

His father was a Greek, his mother was a Jew.

We know that he was raised in a home where his mother and his grandmother had a solid faith in Jesus Christ.

We don't know anything about his father's faith.

Nothing at all.

We know that Timothy was discipled in his home and he was discipled in this local church, the church where he was raised in Galatia.

And he was so effective in his discipleship as a young man that when Paul and Silas arrived there on the second missionary journey, the church in Galatia, they say to Paul and Silas, Hey, take Timothy with you.

He's an effective minister of the gospel.

Train him, mentor him, bring him along with you.

And that's exactly what happens.

Timothy is mentored by Paul and Silas, and he becomes a very effective minister of the gospel.

At the end of his life, he becomes the pastor in the church of Ephesus.

So we know the authors.

We know Paul, Silas, and Timothy.

What do you know about the church in Thessalonica?

Again, if you know the authors and you know the recipients, the better you'll understand the letter.

What do you know about the Thessalonian church?

Well, how well do you know Acts chapters 16 and 17?

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Because those are the chapters in the book of Acts that detail for us the birth of this church and how this church came into existence.

Let's go back in our mental thoughts for a moment.

Let's reminisce for a moment.

And let's think about how this church came into existence.

Paul and Silas, they leave Antioch and they travel off into Galatia, and that's where they pick up Timothy.

Then, as a ministry team, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they want to take the gospel north into Bithynia.

They have a good impulse, they have a good desire.

They have a God-glorifying desire.

They want to take the gospel north into Bithnea, they want to spread the gospel there, they want to plant churches there.

And you know what the book of Acts, chapter 16, tells us?

Acts 16 · chapter mention

The Holy Spirit kept them from going there.

Isn't that interesting?

Satan didn't hinder them.

The towns of Bithnea didn't close the doors on them.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they want to take the gospel north into Bithnea, and the Holy Spirit prevents them from going.

And we're like, what in the world?

Why would that be the case?

Well, we don't find out for several books later in the New Testament.

You see, we learned that Paul, Silas, and Timothy were kept out of Bithnea because a large group of Christians had scattered there as a result of persecution.

And when they scattered there, they settled there and they brought the gospel with them.

We also learn that the apostle Peter was being inspired by the Holy Spirit to write them letters.

So if you look to the back of your Bible and you look at 1 and 2 Peter, here you have Peter writing scattered believers in Bithynia, encouraging them in their faith.

So the Holy Spirit is keeping Paul, Silas, and Timothy from going there because the Holy Spirit already has a work going on there.

Christians are already there.

Peter is writing them letters to encourage them in their faith.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they're needed somewhere else.

I'm gonna pause there for a moment.

If you have a God-inspired ambition, a really good impulse to do a great work for God, and you're wanting to do that, and you're finding that the door is closed and the Holy Spirit's not permitting that, it's probably because he's got work for you to do somewhere else.

That was Paul, Silas, and Timothy's experience.

They wanted to go to Bithnea, but the door was closed.

We learn that Paul, Silas, and Timothy have work to do elsewhere.

They're called by God, by the Holy Spirit, to travel into Macedonia.

And they go into Macedonia and they spread the gospel and they plant churches in five areas.

Philippi, Thessalonica.

This is the church they're writing.

Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth.

That's how the church began.

We discover that the Thessalonian church was the second church planted in that region.

I won't take you through all of Acts chapter 17, but let's read just the opening verses that tell us how that church came into existence.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

It said, now when they, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, had passed through Amphiphilis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica.

Can we pause there for a moment?

They planted a church in Philippi.

They left Philippi because the persecution got pretty intense there and they had to leave, and they traveled down to Thessalonica.

Thessalonica was a large town when Paul arrived there, about the size of Grand Rapids, 200,000 people living there when Paul arrived there.

But it says they passed through Amphiphalus and Apollonia.

How would you like to live in those towns?

Oh, there goes the gospel.

Just passing through.

There goes the church planners, there goes the missionaries.

How would you like to live there?

Well, the Bible tells us there is a reason why that happened.

So you see, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, whenever he went to a town, he would go to a large city.

He'd always go to a place where there was a Jewish synagogue because he started with the Jews.

And then he would plant a church outside of that synagogue, and he would expect those people to reach their surrounding neighbors.

That kind of sounds like what we're doing here.

We're wanting to multiply.

You're all driving from outside areas.

We we'd love for you to reach the God.

We're looking to multiply churches in your location.

That's why this is happening.

So now one day, Paul silenced to me, they had passed through Antipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, a large city, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, This Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.

And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women.

So that's how the church began.

We could look at Acts chapter 17, we could read through all their history, and we would discover that while the church was planted there and took root there, persecution also became intense and severe.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

And Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they had to leave that church for the sake of the church, for their safety, for their security.

And so they leave, and Paul later writes them a letter from the city of Corinth, and this is one of the first letters as I mentioned.

All that to say, the book of 1 Thessalonians, which we're studying now together, it is a letter written by Paul, Silas, and Timothy to believers in Thessalonica, a church that they planted, and it was written to encourage them in their faith as they waited for the return of Jesus Christ.

All right, that's enough introduction.

Let's look at the entire chapter.

We'll read it together.

I'll ask you to follow along from verse 1 down to verse 10.

Says Paul, Savanus, and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God, always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers, loved by God, that He has chosen you.

We know your election.

Why?

Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction.

You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaea.

For not only has the word of God sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, the surrounding neighborhoods, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

As I read this opening paragraph or a couple paragraphs of this letter, there are things that Paul and Silas and Timothy do with the Thessalonians.

They begin to reminisce with them and they begin to tell them their story of their past shared experience.

There are three things that they remember in particular, and I'd like to cover those three things with you this morning.

First of all, Paul, Silas, and Timothy remember the Thessalonians' conversion.

They remember their conversion.

You know, as I read that, as I think that through, it's kind of interesting because that Paul, Silas, and Timothy are literally telling the Thessalonians their own story.

But as I read this and as I'm reminded of their conversion, it makes me think hey, we know how conversion works.

We know how conversion works.

We know how it comes about.

We know that from our Bibles, we know that from our own personal experience.

The Spirit of God takes the word of God.

Spoken by a messenger of God and produces a child of God.

And it's a miracle.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they come to Thessalonica and they proclaim the good news of what God has done for the world through Jesus Christ.

They reason and they explain and they prove from the scripture that Jesus had to die for our sin.

He rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven.

He is returning again.

He's returning again to raise the dead and to restore all of creation.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy tell the Thessalonians that Jesus Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and all of creation is rightfully his.

And from the scripture, Paul, Silas, and Timothy tell the Thessalonians about Jesus that he is the promised Satan crusher, sin defeater, death destroyer.

And they call these people to turn from idols to God through trusting in Jesus Christ as God's provision for their salvation.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they preach.

And the Thessalonians hear the gospel and they're convicted.

Convicted of their sin.

Convicted of their brokenness from God.

Convicted of the fact that they are idol worshipers.

They're convicted of their sin and they're convinced that Jesus Christ is their only hope and salvation.

And they roll their faith over onto Jesus.

They're persuaded and they come to believe.

They roll their faith over onto Jesus and they are converted.

They are saved.

You see, we're reminded with this, and we know this preaching the gospel is not the presentation of an idea, it's the operation of power.

And the power isn't found in the messengers.

The power is found in the message.

And the messages about Jesus Christ.

So Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they arrive in Thessalonica and they preach and they proclaim Jesus.

And God, by his spirit, uses the word of God, proclaimed by a messenger of God, and God brings dead people to life.

And he brings sinners to righteousness, and he brings rebels to forgiveness.

And through that power of the gospel, God brings orphans unto himself, and he adopts them into his family, and he takes them on as his dearly loved children, and he gives them everlasting life.

In this letter, Paul, Silas, and Timothy reminisce with the Thessalonians concerning their conversion.

And they don't just do it in chapter one.

They circle back around to it later.

We get to chapter 2, verse 13, and it says this.

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, we shared it with you, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but what it really is, the word of God which is at work in you believers.

In chapter one, we read, We know, brothers, beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but in power and the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

So Paul, Silas, and Timothy write this church a letter.

They remember their conversion, and then they, secondly, they remember their change, their life change.

When the Thessalonians heard the gospel and humbled themselves and received Jesus as their Savior, we read here that God's word went to work in them.

And God's word began to change them from the inside out.

The Thessalonians didn't hear about Jesus and they didn't reorder their lives to earn God's favor, nor did they reorder their lives to stay in God's favor.

They received Jesus as their Savior.

The Spirit came to dwell in them.

God's work began to work, God's word began to work in them and change them from the inside out in life-altering ways.

Something new began to grow in them.

New life began to usher from them.

And it starts small and it grows slow.

But their faith in Jesus, as we read up in verse 2 and 3, their faith in Jesus began to produce deeds of love.

They began to love other people because they had been loved by God.

And they weren't looking for a reciprocal love in return.

They had been loved by God.

They were free to love.

And so their faith in Jesus began to produce deeds of love.

Their faith in Jesus produced a steadfast perseverance as they lived for the return of Jesus Christ.

They have a whole new life trajectory.

According to verse 6, they began to imitate the messengers of the gospel.

They begin to imitate the apostles.

What a change.

They have a new hero.

And that new hero is Jesus.

And they have an example to follow.

The apostles of Jesus are living among them, and they begin to imitate those apostles because the Thessalonians have been influenced by a whole new person, Jesus Christ, and a whole new audience, his followers.

And it makes their feet travel in a new direction.

It's interesting to read this first chapter and remember not only their conversion, but their change, because it says they became followers of the apostles, but then they became examples for others.

They didn't set out to be examples.

They didn't set out to be leaders.

They simply heard the gospel and began to imitate the apostles.

And as they imitated the apostles, their life was changed, and they became examples to people around them.

It's remarkable the change that was produced in them.

Probably the most clear description of the change is in verse 9, and it says this the Thessalonians turned to God from idols.

That was a former life.

Whatever that idolatry was, it wasn't, they weren't worshippers of God, but they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

God had begun a new work in them.

And Paul, Silas, and Timothy are reminding them of that and remembering that.

Finally, the third thing, Paul, Silas, and Timothy write them a letter.

They remember their conversion, they remember their change, and finally they remember their commitment.

We learn from the book of Acts that they had identified with Jesus when they rolled their faith over unto Jesus.

And as a result of that, persecution was intense and severe.

Paul had to leave relatively early.

He wasn't there with that church all that long.

The persecution was so severe they ran him down to Berea.

These Christians began to experience persecution for Jesus Christ.

It shows up in chapter 1, verse 6, where it says they received the word of God in much affliction.

It shows up again in chapter 2 where it says, For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered.

You suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved.

See, the Thessalonians' commitment, they were converted, they were changed, their commitment is revealed in what they were willing to suffer for.

They were willing to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.

They were willing to suffer for identifying with Jesus.

They would gladly give up all things for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Their commitment in this first chapter isn't revealed just in what they were willing to suffer for, but it's also revealed in their joy.

Chapter 1, verse 6 says, They received the Word of God in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

Affliction and joy.

Suffering and rejoicing.

What an interesting combination.

There's all sorts of social research going on on the fields of happiness and joy.

I don't know if you're following any of that at all, but there's social scientists, Harvard social scientists, that have been years-long studying what brings people happiness and joy, and they've studied that for a long time.

Their research always boils down to this people just do what they want to do.

People do what they think will bring them the most joy.

People do what they think will bring them the most happiness.

People do what they want to do, and people are far more committed to their feelings than we like to admit.

Affections.

Affections of the heart are way more influential than the reasoning of the mind.

Desires, emotions overrule rationale almost every time.

So if you want to change behavior, you're gonna have to get to the level of desire.

See, the Thessalonians have been changed.

They've heard the gospel, they were converted, they've been changed.

Now they're committed.

Where does that commitment come from?

Did it just come from gritting their teeth and thinking through the no, it comes from joy.

Joy that the Holy Spirit is producing in them.

The Thessalonians hear about Jesus, they roll their faith onto Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in them, and the joy rises up in them, a joy in Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit provides that results in a steadfast commitment unto Jesus Christ.

Paul and Silas bring it up in their letter.

They remember the affliction.

They don't discount that.

They're like, we know what you guys have suffered for the name of Jesus Christ.

We know what you have suffered for identifying with Jesus Christ.

We're not unaware of that.

We remember the affliction, we also remember the joy.

So here, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they remember three things.

1 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

They remember their conversion, they remember their change, and they remember their commitment.

From that opening chapter, we learn something very significant about the church.

And this is what we learn.

The church is a chosen people, changed by the grace of God, joyfully committed to Jesus Christ.

It was true of them, and it's true of us.

This is the work that God does.

This is the work that God brings about.

The church is a chosen people, changed by the grace of God, joyfully committed to Jesus Christ.

You know, we began this sermon this morning and we were reminded that we love to reminisce.

We love to get together with family and friends.

We love it when someone says, hey, remember when, and the stories just begin to flow.

We love to bring up happy memories of the past, bring them into the present through collective sharing.

Reminiscing is like good medicine.

It's good for our brains, good for our social life, strengthens bonds of friendship.

And we're learning from this chapter that reminiscing on the work of God, Paul, Silas, and Timothy do it for three out of five chapters.

Reminiscing on the work of God, reminiscing on the work that God has done in your life and in my life and in our collective life is a significant, highly valuable spiritual experience.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they give the majority of their letter to reminiscing.

We're gonna get into chapter two next week.

Read it.

Look at how many times Paul, Silas, and Timothy say, you know this, you know this, you know this, you know this, and they're talking about their past experience.

So here's the big idea this morning.

Remembering past grace energizes faith for present obedience.

Remembering what God has done in other people's lives and pointing that out.

If you and I would remember what God has done in someone else's life and we point that out to them, what's it gonna do for them?

It's gonna energize their faith.

You know, it was mentioned earlier this morning, last Sunday night, we had you know nearly 40 people baptized with a band shell.

You know what?

Three months from now, three years from now, 30 years from now, we ought to go to them and say, you know what?

I remember when you were baptized.

You remember the work God was doing in your life then?

What's God doing in your life now?

See, reminiscing is a big deal.

Remembering past grace energizes faith for present obedience.

So here's the challenge for you this morning.

Who can you do that with today?

I'm being serious.

We don't want to just hear this, we want to actually do it.

So, who can you reminisce with today or this week before next Sunday?

And you can meet with them and you can point out evidences of grace that you see in their life.

Things that God is doing in them.

Man, if you point that out to them, their faith will soar.

And you know what will happen to you and me if I do this same?

Not only will their faith soar, but we'll be humbled.

Because we'll remember it's God doing the work.

And he does it through the power of his word.

So let's do that this week.

That's my challenge for you.

Reminiscing with people about God's past grace in their life is significantly valuable.

It's a spiritual discipline.

We ought to do it more.

We learn that from this first chapter.

Let me close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we are reading a letter that was penned 2,000 years ago between three authors and a church.

And we read the letter and we read how they just simply remind the church of how the gospel came to them and changed them and the commitment it resulted in them.

What a fascinating letter to read.

We thank you that it was written to them then, but by way of your Holy Spirit's power, it was written for us today.

We benefit from this letter.

We learn from it, we're challenged by it, we grow as a result of it.

I pray that we would pick up this letter and read it and be influenced by your Spirit who authored it, and that we might be changed by it.

Father, I pray that we'd pick up the challenge and this week meet with someone who would be encouraged as we point out God's grace in their life.

And may we be humbled by it.

Father, we thank you for your love for us.

Thank you that the gospel came to us many years later and has opened our eyes to the glory and value and beauty of Jesus and caused us to trust in Him.

Father, I thank you for all this grace and kindness to us in Jesus, and I pray in his name.

Amen.