1 Thessalonians ch. 2 verses 8-20 Lesson 3:starts here
Last time we met we referred to this part here in verse #8 where the apostle said, “ we were well pleased not only to impart to you the Gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.”(read verses 8-20) 1 Thessalonians 2:8-20 (New King James Version)
8 So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. 9 For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged[a] every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. 14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, 16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.
17 But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. 18 Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? 20 For you are our glory and joy.

These apostolic messengers, these gospel preachers were ready and willing to give their own lives for these to whom they were preaching to. They loved them that much. That is the love of God. God will give you and I a love for souls and as we give of ourselves to them and to the preaching of the Word, that love will increase, whether we are doing the preaching or supporting those who do. That is why we support missions. The Gospel of God is none other than what Paul preached, amen? It is the preaching of the cross,” Christ and Him crucified” is it not? That is the same message that works today and it is the only gospel message…..there is only one gospel and Paul said in his letter to the Galatians, believers, chapter 1 verse 8, “even if we , or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” The Jews in Galatia were being called to another gospel. Paul states emphatically that there is only one gospel, and it is the one he preached, the gospel of God. It is “Christ in you the hope of glory” Col. 1:27 1 Tim. Says, “Jesus Christ, our hope. He is our hope tonight. Our hope of eternal salvation, Amen? Our hope is in Him. It is a hope that purifies. As we hope in Him we want to live for Him. It causes us to examine our hearts. And over the next few weeks I pray that we shall do that as we look further into these epistles. These are two great epistles. The writer of these two letters said in verse 4, “we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” Haven’t we tonight been entrusted with this same gospel? As the church of the living God, the bulwark and ground of the truth? The pillar and ground of the Truth? That’s what it says in 1 Tim. 3:15 (read it) The church of God is the pillar and ground of the Truth. This church of the living God.
The message of the gospel is not some way to get rich quick, it is not to send your offerings to some televangelist to give you a formula for success. It is the message of the cross…Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, amen? That is the Gospel of God! He came to die. And we should die tonight, we should die to the desires of this old sinful nature, which we call dying to the flesh. I need to die everyday, Paul said “I die daily”
Die to the lust of the flesh…you can find all kinds of excuses for the lifestyle you choose, but if it is sin, there is no excuse. We have to die to it. Chad preached it a couple of weeks ago from Col. Ch. 3 and those first 3 or 4 verses go like so: If you then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sits on the right hand of God.2/ Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth. 3r/ For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. Then moving down to verse 5, this same gospel writer, entrusted with the gospel says, “mortify (put to death) your members which are on the earth: and he lists some of these things here; fornication(illicit, illegal) sex, to put it bluntly and I am speaking about sex outside of the marriage bonds, equivalent adultery , you can read the rest there from Col. 3.
In 1 Thessalonians verse 9, chapter 2, again Paul refers to it as “the Gospel of God. ”We refer to it most of the time as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so the reference to the Gospel of God is right because we know that Jesus is God. It is also referred to as the Word of God and he reminds the church there of the manner and the way they behaved in bringing this glorious gospel to them. He tells them here in verses 10 and 11 that they are witnesses, and God is witness also how devout they were, and they acted justly and blamelessly, in other words their behavior in delivering the gospel was above board and they exhorted and comforted and charged them as a father does his own children and the charge was that they walk worthy of GOD. The God who calls you into His own kingdom and His own glory. Hallelujah!
How important it is if we are going to share the gospel with somebody and as a Christian your very walk and talk is already sharing the gospel with them, that you walk worthy of your calling, of your Christian life. And this is the reason that we thank God without ceasing! Because when you heard the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. My dear missionary evangelist friend Dr. George Kutty looked me straight in the eye and he said, “brother Randall, I am convinced after40 years of preaching and after many years of study, that all of our human efforts, all our degrees, our personalities, our talents are as nothing.” He said I am convinced that the only way that we can change anything is as we preach the pure Word of God.” The pure unadulterated Word of God. What else is there that is different and speaks to the heart. What else can change a heart and set a life on the right course?
There is a point I want you to see concerning the rapture or the catching away of the church and the fact that it is the first part of the second coming of Christ our Lord. In the first chapter of the first epistle of Thessalonians, the tenth verse, it says, “and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus (notice he takes great pains here to identify that it is Jesus),who delivers us from the wrath to come Then when you look ahead to chapter 3 verse 13 it says, “so that He may establish your hearts before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with His saints.” Now if these folks, like us, are told to wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to come from heaven to deliver us from the wrath which is to come, which we believe is the great tribulation period, and over in verse 13, of chapter three it tells that He is coming “with His saints… something has to take place in between! It is the rapture of the church, amen? And we shall be caught away, caught up into heaven. We see the rapture taking place in the book of the Revelation in chapter four just after Jesus has sent the message to the seven churches. Verse 1 “After this I looked, and behold a door standing open in heaven! As I read these verses in Rev. 4, all of them, I realized that I was diverting some from the text of tonight’s lesson, but I could not help myself… it will be a wonderful day! These apostles were willing to give up their very lives for the Gospel and for the Thessalonians’ And it is all because of that wonderful day that lies just ahead. So pray for your loved ones, pray for all men everywhere. We are talking about the Gospel of God and that is what the Gospel is preached for …to prepare sinners for heaven, isn’t it? To offer God’s plan of salvation to all men and women and young people? And verse 13 declares this to be true,” For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. The Word of God will work effectively in those of us who believe it today also. I think the problem in standing upon the truths of God’s Word is that there are so many distractions leading us in to various burdens and we get our eyes off the Bible, or if we read it we have all these preconceived notions and ideas that keep us from prayer and that is an unacceptable thing.
The Bible says to abstain from the very appearance of evil. We are preparing for heaven and we want to see others there that maybe you have influenced there too.
And so it is of utmost importance that we walk worthy of God, who calls us into His own kingdom and glory. Verse 12. And so Paul charges them as a father does his own children. Verse 11. You can tell quite quickly, a person’s upbringing can’t you” Even if they are not serving the Lord you know they have been reared properly, amen” Remember your report card when you were in grade school? There was a place or a line called deportment? And it had several spaces in which to grade your deportment.
I always wondered what it meant but never bothered to look it up. So I did the other day and it is the behavior , the conduct of the individual that is graded. By definition it is the conduct or behavior of a child in school as graded by a teacher. H’mm as graded by a teacher…the Holy Spirit, maybe?
Is He grading our conduct, our behavior? Paul says, “as a father charges his children.”….”that you would walk worthy”….
So Paul says in verse 13, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it, not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God…”in other words they were walking worthy of the calling to serve God. We have that same calling, praise God.
This church is a good example of what a church preparing for the rapture should be. He says here in verse 13 how readily they accepted the Word of God and how effectively it worked in them. Verse 14, If only we could realze how effectively the Word will work in us then maybe we would reach a greater level in our walk of faith. In the 15th. Verse the apostie said you have become imitators of the churches of God. Look at what he says to them about the churches of God. Verse 14. “For you brethren became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus” see here he qualifies them by adding “in Christ Jesus”…For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans”. Who can identify with persecuted and suffering people better than those who have suffered in kind? (read verses 15&16)
Then we catch a glimpse of the apostles heart for these dear people. Read verse 17 through the end of the chapter. We were taken away from you for a short time in presence….in other words we had to leave you for awhile (because of the tremendous persecution) in presence, not in heart…but that separation only made him more eager than ever to see them and to see their faces, he says with great desire….with great desire. Have you ever been separated from a loved one, perhaps your family or your husband or wife…I remember being separated from Judy for three days one time …didn’t think I would be able to stand it, so I quit the job I was on and drove home through a blizzard to be with her. What rejoicing there was that night in my heart when I saw her! And it has never changed! (Ithink she thought I was crazy to quit the job and drive all the way from Brookfield, N.S., just outside of Truro in a blinding snowstorm, through the Wentworth valley and got home sometime in the early morning hours long before daylight. Young and in love.)
“Therefore we wanted to come to you(verse 18) even I, Paul, time and again---- but Satan hindered us.” That’s his business…that’s his job. It is his intention to hinder you and to hinder me in our Christian walk Satan hinders us from seeing what God will do and is doing to discourage our spiritual progress, our walk with God.And the onlyway to combat him is by submitting yourself unto God and that means spending time in this Word, I don’t care who you are, you’ve got to spend time in the Word… it is not a secret in the bible that those who live godly lives will experience persecution and Paul alludes to it here in this chapter 2 verses 14&15
Let’s look at the big reason that Satan hinders the people of God…Paul asks the question in verse 19, “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing” ? This is the reason for every trial and every bit of persecution that Paul faced and the answer I shall read from the Amplified Bible, “For what is our hope or happiness or our victor’s wealth of exultant triumph when we stand in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? Is it not you?” And verse 20 “ For you are [indeed] our glory and our joy!” There’s going to be great rejoicing when Jesus comes, not only because we are saved but because of others who are there because someone told them how to be saved. Once again the apostle emphasizes the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and that is the reason for Satan hindering the people of God…he does not want you and me to be ready when Jesus comes. He does not want you to go to heaven. And never let us think we are ready just because we were saved 40 or 50 years ago. How is our standing in God right now? Are we still walking in the light as He is in the Light” Are we pleasing Him? What is the state of our soul? Are you living the way He wants you to live, am I living in His light?
These last two verses 19&20, For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?