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Well, for those of y'all that don't know me, my name is Jonathan Houston, and I've been going through a program here called, formerly called Sermon Junkies, now it's called the Expositors Workshop for men who are interested in learning to preach. And so Thomas Baber coaches us on that, and so that's why I'm standing here before you tonight.

This is the fourth time that I've done this, and I'm really thankful for y'all being here. Whether it was just to hear the hymns, or if you're here because you're interested in the sermon on 1 Thessalonians, then both of those are great. So, good to be here. So, I will start with a prayer, and then we will get into our text for tonight.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I'm so thankful that you have given us your word and that you have preserved it in the way that you have, and not just that, but that you, the perfect Lord and Master, have put it into the hands of fallible men like me to exposit it and preach it.

And I pray that you would remove every bit of me that would contaminate it, and that it would be you speaking. And I pray that the ears that hear would have open hearts that would be willing to receive your word and not just be hearers, but doers. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Emmanuel Baptist Church and the love that we have between our members here.

I pray that it would just increase all the more through tonight's sermon and as well as through the ways that we serve each other. Love you, Lord Jesus. Amen. Well, some of you might be old enough to remember a radio program that was narrated by a guy named Paul Harvey.

Anyone remember this? What was it called? The rest of the story. All right, so Paul Harvey had this radio program, and for those of you who may not be familiar with it, Paul Harvey would not reveal the identity of the person that he was talking about, and he would give a little-known history about a well-known person.

And he told it in this sort of keep you on the edge of your seat storytelling way. And at the very end, he would reveal who he was talking about, and everybody would kind of gasp and say, Oh, I never knew that before. So here's the rest of the story concerning one of the churches that was started by Paul.

And see if you haven't guessed already, if you could guess it by hearing what I'm saying now. So, planted around the year 50 AD on Paul's second missionary journey that took him through this booming economic trading city in ancient Greece, the people of this church were only in direct contact with Paul for about one month.

The city of this church boasted an enormous population for the time of 200,000 people who all woke up every day to look across the bay to the southwest and see Mount Olympus on the horizon. After a few short weeks of hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, many turned from their idolatrous worship to follow the one true God, despite Paul, their evangelist, being run out of town.

If you haven't guessed it yet, it is situated west of Philippi and north of Corinth. And the church I'm talking about is the church of Thessalonica. So please open your Bibles with me to the oldest letter that we have from Paul. That's 1 Thessalonians. So we're going to be reading from chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, and we're also going to be referencing Acts chapter 17, which has a lot of talking, a lot recorded about Paul's time in Thessalonica.

So those are the two that you can mark. I'll allow you some time to do that right now. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, and then Acts 17. And I'm hearing a little bit of page whooshing as we go, which means some of y'all are looking it up.

That's great. So if you've got, I'm going to start reading 1 Thessalonians right now, chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. And it goes like this: Paul, Sylvanus, 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. So this sermon tonight is going to be part one of a two-part series on 1 Thessalonians.

And so tonight I'm going to take some time to introduce Introduce what's going on in the context behind 1 Thessalonians. A lot of stage setting tonight. So, I'm going to kind of continue this intro with looking at verse 1 that we just read, and let's just talk about the who and the where.

So, in verse 1, it mentions three names: Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. So, really quickly, who was Paul? Well, most of you are probably really familiar with Paul. His name elsewhere in the Bible is Saul of Tarsus. He's the one who was persecuting the church as it's recorded in Acts.

And he's also called Paul the Apostle. Well, that's all we'll say for Paul now. We'll get to him more a little bit later tonight. Let's talk about Silvanus. So, Silvanus, if you didn't know, Silvanus is the same person as Silas in your Bibles. Silvanus is just the Romanized version of the name Silas, and Silvanus was probably used to help connect with the Roman audience that they were around from time to time.

Silvanus or Silas was a former leader within the church in Jerusalem. You can read about that in Acts chapter 15. And he was with Paul on Paul's second missionary journey. He shared a jail cell with Paul in Philippi, and you can read about that in Acts chapter 16.

So, next, who is Timothy? So, we learn a lot about Timothy in the book of Acts as well. He's from Lystra in modern-day southern Turkey. He's the son of a Jewish mother named Eunice and an unnamed Gentile father. He has a grandmother named Lois, who taught him the scriptures, and he was picked up by Paul as a prophet.

Protege, and Paul was, or Timothy was very dear to Paul, as you can tell by Timothy being the recipient of two of Paul's letters, named 1st and 2 Timothy. So, and then obviously, where did this happen? This happened, or this letter was to the church in Thessalonica. So, next, we're going to go, now that we've covered the names that are involved here, let's talk about the secular history of Thessalonica.

And we'll get into the biblical history as well and kind of connect those together as part of this intro. So, secular history, one thing I want to say is the reason that this is important to give this background in this setting is because we're going to get into talking about why Paul wrote the things that he wrote in 1 Thessalonians.

And one of the things that is key is understanding what's going on around the person because it's very hard to separate somebody's heart and their thoughts and motivations from the circumstances that are there. So, the secular history of Thessalonica is like this. I want you to do a little hand demonstration with me.

I want you to take your hand and hold it like this in front of your face. And if you're doing that, I'm going to turn around like this so I can be like you. This right here represents the left hand, Abraham. Left hand. This represents Greece. All right, now the geography of Greece is like this.

Your fingertips down here represent all the little islands that are kind of in the southern part of Greece. Your palm represents the mainland of Greece, and Greece has this piece of land that stretches out like your thumb, just like that. Your hand is perfect for Greece. Now, here's where Thessalonica is: Thessalonica is right here in this crook.

Where your thumb and your palm meet right there. That is Thessalonica. So you can see that it's a coastal town. It's right there inside that little crook right there. So its importance is that it was the capital of a region in Greece called Macedonia. And as I mentioned earlier, it had a population of about 200,000 people, which is really, really large for a city that day.

It was a free city, which meant in the Roman Empire, a free city meant that this city had more self-governing power than other cities would have. So they had a lot more freedom to govern themselves, but that came as kind of a double-edged sword because that also meant there were a lot more forms of paganism throughout Thessalonica.

So it was heavily influenced that way. It was a heavy trade center, both by land and sea. So we talked about how it was a port city, very important port city, and it still is today. If you look at pictures of Thessalonica on Google Earth or something like that, you'll see ships coming and going with lots of cargo.

And it's considered still to this day to be the gateway to the Balkans. So if you do your geography with your hand right here, your forearm is like where Albania and Serbia and all those countries are that lead into Europe. So it's the gateway to the rest of Europe for trade that way.

It's also on a very important land route that cuts west to east. So anything coming from Rome, which is to the west of Greece over here, would cross the Adriatic Sea, it would hit the land, and then it would travel through Thessalonica, onto Turkey and Istanbul, and then continue on to China.

So lots of trade. Coming through here, lots of travel, lots of people. So that's the geography of, or kind of the trade geography of Thessalonica. Another piece of information I want you to know is that Thessalonica, again, it sits on the coast, and if you're in Thessalonica, you can look southwest from Thessalonica and you can see Mount Olympus on the horizon.

It's this towering feature, right? I mean, you can't miss it. If you're looking southwest, you'll know it's Mount Olympus because it's just this towering mountain out there. And I want to make sure that we kind of think about how that kind of geography would impact the people's minds at the time.

And to help you understand that, I'll take you back to when I was in college here at AM. And I would drive from San Antonio. So I would come in on Highway 21. As I drove down Highway 21 towards college station, you know how I knew that I was getting close?

I could see Kyle Field from miles away, right? It was this towering symbol of Texas AM. And I almost felt like as I saw Kyle Field, like I was coming into the influence of Texas AM University, and my mind started to hear the war hymn playing. And all these things happen because it's this symbol of AM, Aggie football, just traditions and all of those things.

So take that symbol of Kyle Field and think of what Mount Olympus meant to the people of Thessalonica. The symbol of the Greek pantheon, right? The Greek gods were supposed to live up on top of Mount Olympus. Would have been a visual reminder every day as they looked out across the bay that they were living under the influence, you know, this area where the Greek gods supposedly lived.

So that's our secular history of Thessalonica. Let's talk about the biblical history a little bit. So the question comes up of when this was. So this is really neat. Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they set up the church in Thessalonica on Paul's second missionary journey probably around the year 50 AD.

And 1 Thessalonians is likely the earliest letter that we have from Paul. And he likely wrote it in the year 51 or 52 AD. Now, how do we know all this? Well, this is really neat because if you've ever studied Luke, you might know that he wrote the Gospel of Luke, but what else did Luke write?

He wrote Acts. Luke wrote Acts, and he's an excellent historian. And Luke records the name of a Roman official named Gallio in Acts chapter 18. Now, this is important because it overlaps with some evidence that we have that Gallio actually was in that position. So there's an inscription called the Delphi Inscription.

Delphi, for those of y'all that want to look that up later, it's D-E-L-P-H-I, Delphi Inscription. And on this inscription, or sorry, the inscription was discovered in 1905. And it's dated about 52 AD, and it's by the Roman Emperor Claudius. And Claudius' reign was. From 41 AD to 54 AD.

So it includes that range that we're talking about of 50 AD when Paul established the church in Thessalonica. And this inscription from the Delphi, this Delphi inscription, mentions Gallio as the proconsul or the official. That's exactly the same as what Luke mentions in Acts chapter 18. And Acts chapter 18 is right after Paul is in Thessalonica.

So all of these things are lining up, and not just the biblical history, but grounding it and corroborating it with the secular history and real artifacts that we can find. So this, one thing to know about this that's really neat is this date, this 51 AD to 52 AD, this is the most accurately known date that we have of Paul's missionary work.

And it becomes the anchor point and the benchmark for everything that we date as far as Paul's missionary work among the Gentiles. So now to kind of wrap up our biblical history, we're going to go to Acts chapter 17. And as you prepare to read this, I want to give you kind of three things to look for, because Acts chapter 17 is a little bit long.

We're going to read verses 1 through 13. And since it's a little bit long, I'll give you a couple things to look for while we go through it. So one is, I want you to pay attention for how long Paul, Silas, and Timothy stayed in Thessalonica. How long he stayed.

Two, who they lived with. And three, what made them leave? Those are the three things to pay attention for. How long they stayed, who they lived with, and what made them leave. So as we read this, look for those things. Here we go. Verse 1 in Acts chapter 17.

Now, when they, that's Paul, Silas, and Timothy, had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on the Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures. Sorry, 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. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out of the crowd.

And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.

And the people in the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived there, I'm sorry, when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.

Now, these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them, therefore, believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.

So that concludes our stage setting. So hopefully you were paying attention to those three things. So did anybody catch how long they stayed in Thessalonica? Three what? Sabbaths. Three Sabbaths. Now, depending on how you're counting on either side of those Sabbaths, this could have been anywhere from about two weeks to about four weeks.

So for simplicity during the sermon, I'm going to say it was a month, right? But it could have been anywhere between those two. Who did they live with? Jason. That's going to come up again. And what made them leave? The mob. That's right. There was a mob there in Thessalonica stirred up by the Jews.

So, okay, so now that we've done our stage setting, here is the outline for the rest of the sermon on 1 Thessalonians. Thessalonians. So I want you to see two themes. One is Paul's love for the Thessalonians. Paul's love for the Thessalonians. In other words, the heart of a true minister.

And the second is, I want you to pay attention and see the example that the Thessalonians set. In other words, the fruit of a true ministry. And I'm hoping that these will motivate you to love each other more deeply and be encouraged by the example that the Thessalonians set.

So let's get started with theme one: Paul's love for the Thessalonians. So let's read verse one again. It says, Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians, and God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. So, based on the context, and this is really important when looking at a letter, if you want to know why the author of the letter write what he wrote.

So, the first thing is kind of obvious. Paul is just self-identifying himself as the writer and his companions. And he's also saying that in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is a little bit of reading between the lines, but I think it's interesting that he uses the word in here.

And if you're paying attention, it says in, and it doesn't say Thessalonica. It says, in God and the Lord Jesus Christ. So, this could be Paul talking about how you. Guys, have changed your citizenship. You guys are not really members of Thessalonica anymore. You guys are citizens of heaven.

And then he goes on to say, grace and peace. And these words, grace and peace, I don't want us to gloss over these because, in the light of all of the context that's going on of the anti-Christian mobs that they're experiencing, the pressure from the Roman imperial cult and government, and the pagan Greek god worship of Mount Olympus, a wish of grace and peace is very meaningful.

And we'll talk more about this in a minute. So, continuing with this theme of Paul's love for the Thessalonians, let's move on to verse 2. It says, We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers. Okay, so again, why did Paul write this?

Well, obviously, Paul's love for the Thessalonians shows through his thankfulness for them. But what is this based on? Well, again, thinking back to our context, the length of time that the Thessalonians had Paul with them was about how long? About one month. The Thessalonians are a missionary's dream.

They are a missionary's dream. And I want to compare this to a famous missionary that you guys might have heard of. Her name is Elizabeth Elliott. She spent a lot of time ministering to tribes in Ecuador. And if you don't know, it took her about two years before the fruit started to be born from the tribe that she was.

Ministering to. That's 104 weeks. The Thessalonians, four weeks, and they were responding to God's Word. So Paul loves them as a result of their responsiveness and their openness to God's word. Now, I wish that Paul was a little bit more obvious about the rest of this, in these verses that we're looking at tonight, but we are going to kind of pull forward some of the verses from the rest of 1 Thessalonians to support this point that Paul loves them very deeply.

And he's gushing with excitement and love for the Thessalonians throughout the rest of this letter. So you can see Paul's heart for them as a true minister by looking, if you were to jump ahead to chapter 2, verse 17, he says, We were torn away from you too early.

And remember, they had to leave by night. We were torn away too quickly from you guys. In chapter 3, verse 3, it says, he's concerned that afflictions might discourage them in their faith. So he's, even though he's been torn away, he's thinking about how all of the discouraging things that are going on might impact the Thessalonians.

In chapter 3, verse 5, he says, he's concerned that they're going to be tempted and wants more time with them so that he can minister to them more. So, as part of the rest of the letter, you get to a point where you read in chapter 3, verse 2, he basically says, Timothy, go check on the Thessalonians.

Go see how they're doing. I just can't get them out of my mind. Go and see them and see what's going on. And when Timothy gets there, you might wonder how the Thessalonians were. Thinking about Paul and Silas and Timothy because of the way that they were run out of town, they kind of stirred up trouble.

And Jason, if you were paying attention, Jason had to pay a fine in order to protect Paul, Silas, and Timothy from the authorities. What are they going to think? Well, Timothy brings back a report saying that the Thessalonians remember Paul kindly and they want to see him again.

In chapters 2 and 3, it says, Paul says, You guys, Timothy says, you guys are persevering despite affliction. In chapter 3, verse 6, he says, your faith and love is evident by what you do. And all this after only four weeks with y'all. All this, despite the fact that there's a Thessalonian mob running around that ran us out of town and you're still having to deal with while you're there.

And all this in the face of Mount Olympus being on the horizon every day when you wake up. This reminder of your Greek past, of your Greek god-worshiping past. And all this in the face of the Roman law and the government that says you can't acknowledge any other king except Caesar.

Paul just seems to be gushing here throughout this letter to the Thessalonians. Like, I love you guys. I am so proud of y'all. Even though I didn't get to spend much time with you. He goes on to say, I want to see you again. He talks about how they poured themselves out and that it was not in vain.

And he says, we boast about you. We boast about you. In other words, when I see somebody, I brag about the Thessalonians. Hey, Did you hear what the Thessalonians are doing up there? Did you hear about their faith? We only were there for one month, and these guys are just on fire.

I love the Thessalonians in spite of everything that they were dealing with. And so back to that wish of grace and peace, I think, is very meaningful here because he's wishing them grace and peace despite all of these obstacles that they're having to deal with. He's wishing that they would, hoping that they will have God's grace with them, that God will continue to make them steadfast despite the extreme circumstances.

And that word, peace, that they would have peace despite all of what's going on around them, a peace that transcends all understanding. So the application of all this is: are you ministering to anyone? And if so, what is your heart towards them? For instance, do you want to be with them like Paul wanted to be with the Thessalonians?

Are you concerned with their safety? Are you concerned with the state of their faith? Do you concern yourself with what they might be tempted by? Do you check on them when you have a chance? And, you know, in a physical sense, but also in a spiritual sense as well.

Do you check on them? And I think another application we can draw to this as well is: look at the way that Paul talks about the Thessalonians. And his encouragement to them. I want us to think about who are we encouraged by? Who are you encouraged by and thankful for?

And there's probably somebody that you can think of right now. I want you to think of that person who has encouraged you spiritually. And I want you to do what Paul did. I want us to apply this, and I want you to tell them. Make some time to tell them how they have encouraged you.

Be specific about what they did to encourage you. And use the same kind of emotion that Paul expresses in 1 Thessalonians. Let them know how you would boast about them. Now, I have kind of a neat example about this because last year, my family and I went to Honduras for a week with some other people here from Emmanuel.

And we spent one week with these brothers and sisters in Christ in Honduras. And while we did that, we were laboring with them by doing physical labor. We were serving the members of their community with them. We were worshiping in church with them, singing songs, going to church services with them.

And it was just a sweet time of bonding and just developing ties together. And the one thing that we had in common was we were submitted to God. We all loved God, and that was what brought us together despite the language barrier. But we were bonded by that faith.

And sitting here right now, I want to see them again. I cannot wait to see Jorge again. Might be when we're in heaven, but I cannot wait to see Jorge and Roni and Kenny. I cannot wait to see them because of that short week while we were together where we got bonded.

That is probably something like what Paul had with the Thessalonians. Think of the people that you have that bond with, that bond through faith in God that connects you in no other way. And let them know how you have been encouraged by them. Okay, let's move on to the second theme, which is the fruit of a true ministry.

Right? The example that the Thessalonians were setting. And we're going to read verse 3 to introduce this one. So, verse 3 says, Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. So, this is kind of nice because Paul breaks this down into some chunks, right?

It's like work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope. Let's look at each one of those. So, those works of faith, again, what would Paul have had in mind with this? Well, as we read in Acts chapter 17, a work of faith, part of that is belief.

Paul preached the good news of Jesus Christ to the Thessalonians, and they believed. That's a work of faith. They turned from idols. You can read about this later in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 9. They turned from their Greek pages. Religion and began to worship the one true God.

Work of faith. And again, this is in Thessalonica of all places, a teeming economic trade city with the influence of Greek and Roman paganism against culture, against national religion. And I'll foreshadow a little bit and say that part two of this two-part series that I'm putting together on 1 Thessalonians will cover how the church of Thessalonica wound up impacting the rest of Greece, the rest of the country.

So that's work of faith. Let's look at labor of love. What would Paul have had in mind? Let's think back to how Paul, Silas, and Timothy came to Thessalonica. When they arrived, they didn't have anywhere to live. Who did they live with? Jason. Jason opened up his home.

That's a labor of love. They sheltered Paul, Silas, and Timothy while they were there for that month. And then, upon their departure, there's another labor of love going on there because Jason was called out by the mob, but Paul, Silas, and Timothy weren't there. And Jason took the heat for having housed them.

And if you remember what the mob was saying, they're saying, bring us those guys. And eventually, Jason gets them to settle down and they make him pay a fine. It says in the language that he uses in Acts 17, it says they made him pay a security. And the brothers that were with him, so it was Jason plus a group of Christian brothers, they all had to pay a fine to get themselves out of there, protecting Paul, Silas, and Timothy from.

This mob that wanted to get their hands on them. That is a labor of love. Can you imagine how Paul must have felt that they had to pay a fine on his behalf? I would have felt really guilty knowing that anybody had to pay to keep me out of trouble.

So that might have been on Paul's mind as a labor of love in their departure from Thessalonica. Let's look at the steadfastness of hope in Jesus. What would Paul have had in mind here? Well, Paul makes an interesting statement later in 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 14. He says that the Thessalonians have suffered like the churches in Judea.

Now, I think this is interesting because this gives us a clue as to what the Thessalonians were experiencing in terms of their suffering. And it doesn't say a lot here in Thessalonians, in 1 Thessalonians what that would be, but there are other parts of the New Testament that you can go to to find out exactly what kind of suffering the churches in Judea were experiencing.

And there's more than just these, but I'm going to say that you can look in 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Acts to find some really good examples of what the Christians and the early church were suffering in Judea, and then we will know what the Thessalonians were enduring that Paul is referring to.

So, just as some quick examples here from 1 Peter, 1 Peter 4, verse 14 says, If you were insulted for the name of Christ, you were blessed. So, the church was being insulted for their faith in the Lord. In 2 Peter 3, verse 4, it says that people will say, where is the promise of Jesus' coming?

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. So people are basically saying, you guys, this is hopeless. Jesus is not coming. They're being discouraged for their faith. It intensifies when you look over in Acts. In Acts chapter 4, it begins this sort of series of events that builds up and builds up in the persecution that's being experienced there in the churches of Judea.

So in Acts chapter 4, verse 3, it says, And the Sadducees arrested the apostles and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. So they're being arrested and put in jail. We're beyond verbal abuse here. Acts chapter 5, 40, it ratchets up again.

It says the apostles were beaten when it says, and when the Sanhedrin had called in the apostles, they beat the apostles and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. So we're ratcheting up from verbal abuse to arresting and imprisonment. Now we're at beatings, and it's going to culminate in Acts chapter 7, verse 58, where it says, Then the Sanhedrin cast Stephen out of the city and stoned him.

And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. Saul. So now we have execution, and we know who is presiding over this execution. It's the same man who's writing this letter to the Thessalonians, telling them you guys are enduring the same stuff that the churches in Judea endured, and what better person to have encouragement through that persecution than the man who was presiding over the executions himself?

Paul knows better than anybody else what kind of persecution was happening in Judea because he did it at his own hand. And you can read descriptions about how he was running around, dragging people from their houses and taking them to jail. What better person, who better than Paul to encourage the Thessalonians amid persecution like they were experiencing?

So part of the fruit of a true ministry is believers who are fully submitted to the Lord. And in the Thessalonians case, not just fully submitted to the Lord because life is easy, but even when life is hard, even when they're suffering the same kind of persecution that Paul in his former life, in his old creation, was executing.

Now, I want to kind of pause here and just Make sure that we all understand that what Paul is encouraging the Thessalonians through here is not a works-based faith. This is not about doing things so that you can earn your salvation. This is not about doing things because you think you can please God enough so that He will let you into heaven one day.

In fact, in one of his other letters to the Ephesians, in chapter 2, verses 8, 9, and 10, he would say, For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith. And this is not of yourselves. This is the gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

So it's not, Paul is not telling the Thessalonians, good job and all your works, you're going to earn your way to heaven. This is Paul saying, Your faith is showing so strongly through your actions. Your actions are demonstrating your faith, not the other way around. So Paul expands on this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 4 through 10.

And again, more on this in part 2 of the series. But there's a sequence of hearing the word, believing the word, and then having the actions and the deeds that demonstrate your faith. So the application here is being. Encouraged by the faith of the Thessalonians and take stock of your own lives.

So think about this. If you were like Paul and spent only four weeks with someone, what would their takeaway be from you? Would they know that you love God above everything else? Would they see a heart that wants to serve? Would they see a heart that's easily discouraged in the face of difficulties?

Would they want to imitate you? Or you can flip it around and say, instead of imagining that you're like Paul spending four weeks there, imagine you're like a Thessalonian who had a minister with you for a short time and left and then came back unexpectedly. What would they find?

What would they find in your life? Would they find you being a steadfast servant? Would they find you being tempted and backsliding? For the young children in the room, when your parents leave the room, do you still obey what they said? For the teenagers in the room, same thing, but also with friends.

Are you nice when friends are around and then gossiping about them when they leave? For the teenagers in the room, how are you with adults versus how you are with friends and around other adults? Do you change the way that you are? Do you change the language that you use based on the people that you're around?

For college students and young adults, this is an interesting one because your ministers, for example, your parents, they actually do go away for about four weeks at a time and come back to check on you like Timothy did with the Thessalonians. So, what will they find when they come back to see you after roughly a month?

Are you hiding things that you don't want them to see when they come back? Do you go to church with them for the first time in four weeks because you weren't doing it while they were gone? Do you tell your friends to be on their best behavior while your parents are in town because you know that that would be offensive to them?

Do you hide all the evidence of how you really live? Parents, including myself. What do you watch when your kids go to bed or read? What are we putting before our eyes when our children aren't around? What if they got up and saw you? Would it be consistent with what you have taught them, how you've ministered to them?

So, the question is: how do you become this steadfast servant that is consistent over four weeks of time? One victory over temptation at a time. One victory over temptation at a time. You won't be perfect, right? Jesus commanded us, be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. That is the standard.

None of us can keep it, but that is the standard. And we should be striving after that all of the time. Knowing, like it says in 1 Corinthians, that there is no temptation that is not common to man. And God always provides a way out. And grace is not a license to sin.

By no means, Paul says, by no means is grace a license to sin. Because your new nature, if you were truly in Christ, your new nature, that spiritual nature is now at war with sin. It's not a license to sin. You're now at war with that. And all of your actions should demonstrate that.

So, in conclusion, we looked at the context of what was going on in Thessalonica, the location, the importance, the history, both secular and biblical. And remember this takeaway: that these events that are recorded in Scripture are grounded in real history, right? Like the Delphi Inscription. They corroborate each other, they line up.

This is not just disconnected from what acts from real historical events, they are historical events. We looked at Paul's love for the Thessalonians, his heart as a true minister, and how it shows in the way that he remembers their good works that are indicative of their faith. So, as a reminder, be moved to love your brothers and sisters in Christ the same way.

Who can you encourage? Who can you boast about? Boast to others, but then boast to that person. Give them that honor of being encouraged by you because you were encouraged by them. Because as 1 Thessalonians indicates, you might not get another chance, you might have to leave quickly.

Also, be encouraged by the example of the Thessalonians, their tenacious perseverance amid obstacles, and look at your own life. Are you true? Is your faith real? Test yourself. Are you acting like a citizen of the world around you, or are you acting like a citizen of the one true king?

Kingdom that he's going to establish one day. Ask yourself: Are you relying on works to save you? It's a fool's errand. And then, I want to draw a connection here with Revelation. You know, Paul, through Timothy, he comes back to visit the Thessalonians. And this is, I want this to remind us, too, of how Jesus makes a similar promise.

He is going to come back as well. He's going to come back and establish his everlasting kingdom. What will he find when he comes back? My prayer is that he would find faithful servants, that I would be found as a faithful servant. So I hope this has enriched your knowledge of 1 Thessalonians, giving you solid biblical examples of a true minister and Paul and true fruit borne by the Thessalonians and their faith.

And I hope you'll join me later for part two when we look at the wider impact that the Thessalonians were having on the whole country of Greece. Let's pray. Lord God Almighty, you made all things and you were so patient with us. You are so merciful. You give us time.

You give us your word. You convict us. And I pray that you would help. Me and the others in this room to look at your word and understand what is being said by the people that you spoke through. Help us to understand the lessons that are there. Help us not just to understand them, but to apply them as well to our own lives.

Lord Jesus, I pray that everybody going forth from here would express their brotherly and sisterly love for each other, that they would encourage each other through this, that they would be motivated by the Thessalonians' example of faith. And help us to operate that same way in the circumstances that you have put us in.

Thank you, Lord, for your scripture. Help us to be hearers and doers of your word. Pray all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.