Sermon Tone Analysis

The Marks of a Mighty Church

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

 

*Intro** – *This morning I would like us to take a peak into the early Christian church in Thessalonica.

I think we all remember this as a child: “Here’s the church.

Here’s the steeple.

Open up the doors and look at all the people.”

*(PAUSE)* Right now we’re looking at the outside of the building of the First Baptist Church of Thessalonica.

*(PAUSE)* That probably wasn’t the name of it.

But we would like to think it was a Baptist church.

We want to move beyond the outside, and enter the doors of the church and into the lives of the people.

We want to see the impact of Paul’s preaching of the Gospel in this city.

Was his ministry there successful?

Did Paul’s preaching stick?

Would you please open your Bibles with me to 1 Thessalonians.

While you are doing that, I would like to sort of set the stage for what is going on in this chapter (and book).

It is often our nature to open our Bibles and read what authors wrote without knowing the context of the writing.

Obviously it is not always convenient or even possible to open our Bible Dictionaries and concordances as we sit down for a few moments of devotional study, or as we sit on our lunch break at work, or in our cars, (I don’t know) wherever we spend our time in the Word.

But the more we do our homework into the background of any given book, our understanding of the passages will expand.

*(SLOW)* Everything is written within a particular context.

So, as we look at this church, we want to know certain things about it.

For example, where is this church or city located?

Is this significant?

What were the conditions where the Thessalonians heard and received the Gospel?

There are a myriad of other questions we could introduce for our background, but for our time this morning the first few will do.

I don’t want to turn this into a college course.

Well, actually we are going to begin with Geography 101.

Thessalonica is located here in Macedonia.

Macedonia and Achaia make up present day Greece.

It is very interesting to trace Paul’s movement in his missionary journeys as he appears to target certain strategic areas.

Thessalonica, for example, is the capital city of Macedonia and also stands on a major land and sea trade route.

*(SHOW ON MAP) *Paul’s strategy was to take the Gospel to locations where it would spread faster.

His practice was to enter the synagogues of major cities, preach the Good News of Jesus and allow the converts to pass on the message with others they encounter.

(You don’t need to turn there but I want to read the account of Paul’s visit to Thessalonica from Acts 17 for our background.)

Read Acts 17:1-1-8*.

*So it appears that Paul spent 3 weeks teaching in the synagogue – and with some great results.

Both Jews and Greeks believed the Gospel.

And then they were met by opposition – again!

So when we open the Letter to the Thessalonians, we are aware that many were not thrilled with the spread of the Gospel.

And yet Paul receives word back from Timothy and is encouraged.

Well, lets look to this letter.

And let’s look to the *Marks of a Mighty Church*.

But before we do, let’s first turn to our Lord as we worship in the Word.

*(PRAY)*

          Read chapter*.

*Verse 1 serves as our introduction and greeting of the book.

Here, the authors identify themselves.

Paul includes his associates Silas and Timothy, but the body of the letter is clearly from Paul.

And Silvanus is just a more formal way of saying, “Silas.”

We often tend to glaze right over the opening or greeting of these books.

But there are a couple observations worth noting.

First, Paul closely associates God the Father with the Lord Jesus Christ.

He uses one preposition to link the two phrases together.

And this is significant because this is perhaps the first epistle written from Paul – maybe only 20 years from the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

It likely precedes even the Gospels.

*(Emphasize) *This could possibly be the first inclusion of Jesus Christ into the New Testament.

And Paul associates Christ this closely with the Father.

In so doing he is highly exalting Him.

Also, he includes both a Greek and Jewish greeting at the outset (Grace and Peace) – appealing to the diversity within the church.

It is interesting to note the order  - you cannot enjoy “peace” (wholeness) without first experiencing “grace.”

Our first observation of this mighty church is that it was an *Energetic Church*.

Paul writes, (Read vv.

2-3).

He gives thanks to God for three things: their work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope.

Hmm, have we heard these words before?

Faith, hope, and love… Aren’t these words used repeatedly throughout the New Testament as *Elements of the Christian life*?

Well, we have the famous “love” chapter from 1 Cor.

13 “the three that remain are faith, hope and love;, Col. 1.4-5 reads, “ since we heard of your *faith* in Christ Jesus and the *love* which you have for all the saints; 5 because of the *hope* laid up for you in heaven…” And again in Hebrews, “let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of *faith*… 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our *hope* without wavering… 24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to *love* and good deeds…” As Christians we demonstrate our faith in Christ through our love for God and others; and our hope in Christ – both for salvation and his return for the church.

Paul also mentions the *Evidences of the Christian Life: *Work, Labor, and Steadfastness.

All of these words convey an active Christianity.

Even steadfastness, which might be misunderstood as a patient and long-suffering endurance, is better understood as a courageous and successful determination.

When we think of this work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope, we may miss something of significance in the English text.

All of these phrases are in the singular.

The pronoun “your” is plural.

In our English language both the singular and plural take the same form.

So we need to determine which it is from context.

Well, if you’re from the Southern states you might say “y’all” to communicate the plural.

Or if in New York you could say “youz”.

In the Greek language the singular and plural take different forms.

The part that I find interesting is that he doesn’t say your *works* of faith, or *labors* of love, etc.

Apparently they were unified in their task at hand.

They were laboring together as the Body of Christ.

That makes all the difference in the world.

This is the foundation of a successful church.

An article by Mike Wilkins reads, “I was at a conference a few years ago where they told the story of a church that looked as though they were really thriving: they had about 500 people attending, and had many outreach ministries reaching their community, and many people were coming to Christ and to church through their ministry.

\\ The problem was that the church was not growing in numbers – people were leaving as quickly as they were coming in.

They began to do some research on the people who were leaving and they found that the majority who left were not attending another church, they just stopped going to church all together.

They realized that although the church was great at evangelism, because of their inability to hold people, they were actually de-evangelizing their neighborhood.

Those who were leaving were almost impossible to bring back into any community of faith.

\\ The senior pastor realized that something had to be done, so he called up that last 12 people to be baptized and invited them to supper at his house.

These were all new Christians and very excited to be invited to the Pastor’s house.

(Wouldn’t we all be excited to be invited to Pastor Doug’s house ??).

After supper he sat them down and asked if they wanted to know the future.

They all said “yes!”

So he said, ‘statistically speaking in the next 2-3 years… two of your marriages will have broken up and the shame will cause you to leave the church, three of you will have a conflict with someone in the church and you will leave the church, one will have a tragedy and lose faith and leave, two will have a moral failing and leave, and two will lose interest and drift away.

In two to three years, out of this group only two of you will be attending church, and only one of you at this church.’

There was dead silence in the room.

All these wide eyed Christians were about to say “surely not I, Lord.”

When one of them spoke up and said “What can we do to change the statistics?”

The pastor said, you can get together and as a group decide that you are not going to let anyone go.

\\ That is exactly what they did – these strangers formed a small group and supported each other through the tragedies, divorces, conflicts and failings and in four years, only one had left the church never to come back.

The church went from losing 10 out of every 12 converts to losing only one.