Imagine a group of men who enter a town. They settle in, finding work that will meet their needs. They find a group of like-minded people who gather regularly. One of the three is given permission to speak (remember, these three are outsiders to the community). For three weeks these three have an opportunity to address the assembled people – who share a common worldview, a common faith, and a common revulsion to the existing authority.
Acts 17:2–3 HCSB
… on three Sabbath days r[Paul] easoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and showing that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead: “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.”
For a community of Jews, whose day began and ended with these words:
Deuteronomy 6:4 ““Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
Now, these three began to speak of Jesus – now just a few years after death, resurrection and ascension has created a significant following across the world of the mid-section of the Roman empire.
They claim that this ‘Jesus’ is not just a miracle working teacher. This Jesus is ‘the Messiah’, the Promised One spoken of in the Law and Prophets.
It didn’t take long for results to be seen:
Acts 17:4–5 HCSB
Then some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a great number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and they brought together some scoundrels from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city. Attacking Jason’s house, they searched for them to bring them out to the public assembly.
The rabble/scoundrels from the marketplace, made three specific charges against these three outsiders:
Acts 17:6–7 HCSB
When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too, and Jason has received them as guests! They are all acting contrary to Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king—Jesus!”
A. these men stir up trouble wherever they go…
B. these men act against Caesar…
C. these men are traitors – calling for loyalty to a king other than Caesar
You can read the rest of the account in Acts 17.
Several months later – after travelling – Paul pauses long enough to write a letter to these believers.
READ 1 Thess 1:1-10
The first section of his letter (ch 1:1-5) shares three key themes a church living in the midst of cultural, governmental, and religious oppostion needs to hear:
God is and has been at work
Paul’s self-introduction is similar in most of the letters we possess. There is a smal, but important, difference in this letter:
1 Thessalonians 1:1 “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy: To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace.”
Paul begins by indetifying the roots of this gathered group of believers as having their existence ‘in’ God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a continuity of God’s work seen in the lives of those who came to faith in Jesus. This is not a ‘new’ work, but God’s continuing work.
When pressure builds, when the world around us dismisses us, and even aggressively persecutes us we are reminded:
GOD IS STILL AT WORK!
Paul also links the activity of God with that of Jesus Christ, our Lord. To a mixed group of believers – Jew, Gentile, God-fearers, those from a pagan background – Paul wants to stress that this new community is grounded in the work of God – not human beings.
God’s grace and peace are ours
This is probably the earliest letter of Paul, written during his second missionary journey.
Grace is the predominant theme of God’s work and word from Genesis onward. When Moses, the great Jewish leader, encountered God on the mountain this is how God Himself described Himself:
Exodus 34:6–7 HCSB
Then the LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
Those believers from a Jewish background, and those who were God-fearers (gentiles seeking after God’s truth) needed to be reminded – as do all of us – that God’s grace is the very reason we live.
The gift of peace Paul offers over these people is an expression of his understanding of the OT concept of peace. Paul recognizes that conflict is always the lot of believers. In the midst of conflict we have assurance that God’s presence sustains us, that God aims for us to live fully and completely.
God’s Choice Secures our Assurance
Paul reminds these men and women (see Acts 17:4) of several things:
a. He regularly gives thanks to God for them.
When others offer to pray for you, as others give thanks for you receive their prayer as a true generous blessing.
b. He recalls the power and presence of God among them
The evidence of God’s power and presence is summed up in the word translated ‘election.’
In vs 3 Paul ‘remembers’ the faith of these believers – their full commitment to Jesus as Lord, not Caesar; their lifestyle of faithfulness to the gospel;
he also mentions their ‘labor of love;’ – their immediate response to care for these three by insuring their safety – even at cost to their own;
and finally he remembers their hope, rooted in the assurance confidence that Jesus is coming again; that Jesus has not forgotten nor abandoned them.
c. He recalls the powerful demonstration of the Holy Spirit
Earlier this week in My Utmost for His Highest, a devotional work by Oswald Chambers he shared this observation:
The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house, He invades everything. When once I decide that my “old man” (i.e., the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals.
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: Classic Language (A Daily Devotional with 366 Bible-Based Readings) (p. 128). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Those in Thessalonica who trusted in Jesus as the Messiah, the fulfillment of all God promised were significantly changed – their lives gave immediate evidence of a new birth.
REFLECT AND RESPOND
It is often easy to forget what a radical difference Jesus makes in a life. We are prone to settle and adjust to the way things are. We often want to wait till we are more prepared, more assured, more confident.
What Paul offers those believers – and by extension all who read his words today – is this:
God is never absent
There must have been days and even weeks after Paul’s forced departure when these believers may have felt alone. This letter affirms what they knew in their hearts but needed to be repeated to their minds:
GOD IS STILL AT WORK
The Gospel still changes lives
These believers were clear evidence of the gospel. Jesus’ presence changes everything. It is often easy for us to become accustomed to the status quo. Paul’s letter reminded those believers that the power of God is as effective now as it has been in the past.
We are never alone as believers
Read any of Paul’s letters to the churches in the NT. He begins almost each one of them assuring them of his prayers. Often the way Jesus assures of His presence: the prayer and concern of believers regardless of their physical distance.
Paul was not able to visit the believers as he wished, but absence never translated to forgetfulness.
Let me invite you to
-respond to the promise of the gospel:
Romans 10:9–10 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.”
-recall the ways in which God is making Himself known:
1 Thessalonians 1:3–4 “We recall, in the presence of our God and Father, your work of faith, labor of love, and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing your election, brothers loved by God.”
-remember those who have and are praying for you – right now…
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