Please turn with me in your copies of God's word to First Thessalonians chapter two, and we'll read this morning, verse 13, First Thessalonians two, verse 13. This is the infallible, inspired and living word of our God, and we also thank God constantly for this that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God which is at work in you believers, The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. You may be seated on one of his missionary journeys, Paul spent over a month in the Greek city of Thessalonica, preaching the gospel and getting the church there established. Here in his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul recounts how this young church responded to his ministry when He was with them. Paul's ministry to these believers, by God's grace, bore fruit, and the way in which these Thessalonians received Paul's ministry was evidence of the supernatural life giving grace of God, as Paul writes to this young church, they are being pressured To reject the message that Paul proclaimed to them, the non Christians in Thessalonica were telling these believers guys, Paul is no different from those traveling philosophers and orators who go from town to town, giving their spiel, looking for money and personal gain. That's why Paul is not here anymore. Why would you care about his message? Non Christians were telling these young believers all that stuff Paul said about Jesus. That's interesting. It's fine if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not real. It's not truth, it's not from God. It's nothing you need to believe or obey or dedicate yourself to. But notice this. It's like the Thessalonians were saying, actually, that's exactly what Paul's message about Jesus is.
It is the very truth from God Himself. These Thessalonians knew there was something different about Paul's message, the nonsense that all the traveling philosophers and orators would have shared in public everything they said had one thing in common. It was all the opinion of sinful man. But when the Thessalonians heard Paul proclaim the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they knew that this message was unlike anything else they had ever heard anything else the world could ever offer. They knew this message wasn't the opinion of any man. They could hear the voice of God Himself in this supernatural life giving message, and it is a message that demanded a response, turn from your sin and idolatry and turn to the living and true God who alone can save you. That is how you and I must respond to this supernatural life giving message. It's what you see one chapter back First Thessalonians, one verses nine and 10, for they themselves report concerning us, the kind of reception we had among you, and 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. And so if you receive this message of grace for sinners, you are delivered from the wrath to come at the final judgment, and are destined for dwelling with God in glory forever. But if, however, you reject this message of God's grace for sinners, you are destined for that wrath to come at final judgment, and you have no one to blame but yourself. This supernatural message is what you and I need the most. Receive this word from God to SIV to serve the living and true life giving God of the word. And so we see, first of all, something to thank God for, something to thank God for. This is the beginning of chapter two, verse 13. And we also thank God constantly for this. So Paul and his missionary companions are grateful for how the gospel of Christ was received by these Thessalonians, how that message redeemed and changed them. They heard Christ proclaimed. They heard of Christ crucified and raised, and instead of rejecting that message they received. It for that reason. Paul and his missionary friends are constantly grateful to God. Now think about the background. Paul has suffered much for this young church. Luke shows us in Acts 17, something of what Paul endured for these believers.
Paul preaches in Thessalonica, the Jews run him out of town when he preaches the gospel. And not only that, the Jews from Thessalonica run Paul out of the next town that he fled to, in Berea. I think also, of all that Paul suffered when Christ appointed him to take the gospel to the nations, that humbling list of things in Second Corinthians 11, as Paul boasts in his weakness, so that Christ's power is manifest in him. Far greater labors, far more imprisonments with countless beatings, often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, the 40 lashes less one three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times. I was shipwrecked. A night and a day.
I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak. At Damascus, the governor under King eretis, was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. This remember is the great and learned Saul of Tarsus, the one who gave up an enormous reputation and a life of ease for the greater privilege of serving the risen Christ. How many of us would tend to think that with all this hardship, what could there be to be grateful for? But that misses the reason Paul is constantly grateful to God. Here in verse 13, there is a supernatural reason for Paul's unceasing gratitude in hardship, because he got to see with his own eyes the life changing power of God's grace, even in the midst of hardship, to see sinners turned from their sin to trust in Christ and receive all His benefits, that is something to thank God for, even though he has suffered and has been shamefully treated, Paul is constantly grateful to God in the midst of that suffering, and this is all the more evidence that Paul's message is supernatural and not from him.
Only the gospel of Jesus, crucified and raised, can replace our grumbling and entitlement with contentment and gratitude. Only God's grace can work such transforming power in sinners like us, as long as your fellow believers are walking in the truth, we have something to thank God for. And all this shows that we are not dealing with the opinions or thoughts of men. We are dealing with the Word of the living God Himself.
Secondly, let's look now at accepting God's word, accepting God's word. And that's the next part of verse 13, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God. This, again, is why Paul is constantly grateful to God, even in the midst of his hardship, the Thessalonians accepted the living, life giving Word of God. They were redeemed in accepting it, and they were standing firm because of it.
This is a rich statement here in verse 13, and it shows us two important things. It shows us what the Bible is, and it shows us what preaching is. Let's look at those two things. Verse 13 shows us what the Bible is. The Bible is not the word of people.
It is not the religious opinions of people. It is not backward, oppressive moral teachings of people. It is not ancient stories, not a fallible, contradictory, human witness to spiritual feelings or experiences or events. Rather, the Bible is the Word of God Himself. Think of those other important passages of Scripture talking about itself, second, Timothy, 316, All scripture is God breathed.
The Bible was written by God.
Paul affirms there God used men to write his word. But the Bible is not the word of God and man.
The Bible is not God and man breathed. It is God breathed.
Paul there in second, Timothy is talking about the origin of the Bible, it came from God, both the 66 individual books and the collection of those books into one, into the canon of Scripture. It is all the product of God and not men. It is of divine origin, and therefore has divine authority and power. I. I think also of Second Peter 120, and 21 no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So Peter there is affirming the Bible is not the result of human investigation into things. The Bible is not a religious journal or autobiography. It is not the product of man's religious experience or thinking. No aspect of the Bible originated with man. It all originates from God. The Bible is from God, not men. God used men to write his word, Moses and Isaiah and Matthew and Luke and Paul and Peter and John. And as God uses these men to produce his word, he uses the personality of all these men, their backgrounds and education and style and vocabulary and in God's providence, the different books of the Bible all bear the characteristics of the men who wrote them down. Paul writes differently from Peter, who writes differently from John, for example. But for all this, the Bible is not the word of men. It is the word of God Himself. God is the ultimate author, and he has used various secondary authors to produce his word and no one else's. It was God who produced his word by means of human authors. And when Peter says, there in Second Peter one that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. That is the same language that Luke uses in Acts 27 as he tells us how Paul's boat was driven along by the storm. That imagery helps us to appreciate that in the writing of Scripture, God is active, the one producing it.
And men are passive, the ones who are used to produce it. So the Bible is word for word exactly as God wishes to say it because it is God's word. Think also of Proverbs. 30, verse five, every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. So because God is the truth all that he has spoken in His Word is true in its overall teaching and in every single word, the Bible is true because the Bible is the Word of God. So here Paul is emphasizing these things to the Thessalonians. Our message to you was not our opinion, the word of men. We weren't making things up. Our message is the word of God himself. It all came from him. It is all about him, and it is all unto Him for His glory. Paul, as an apostle, is an ambassador of Christ, and as that Ambassador, he says only what is given to him to say, he proclaims only what Christ reveals to him for the churches.
And because the proclamation of the apostles is from Christ, it must be received as Herman ritterboss puts it as apostolic tradition. It is the Word of the living Lord, the authoritative word from Christ, about Christ.
Notice again, how Paul puts it there in verse 13, when he says, You accepted it as what it really is, the word of God.
That's what the Bible truly is, the sufficient, necessary, authoritative and clear voice of the Triune God, as our confession summarizes so well, chapter one, paragraph four, the authority of the Holy Scripture for which it ought to be believed and obeyed depends not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God, who is truth itself, the author thereof, and therefore it is to be received because it is the word of God. So this passage shows us what the Bible is. It also shows us what the preaching of the Bible is. We must have a high view of the Bible. It is the word of God, and for that reason, we were to have a high view of preaching the Bible as well. Maybe you think of preaching as that time when an oppressive man gives his backwards opinions to manipulate people into living in authentic lives. Maybe it's the part of the sermon of the service when you can take a nap. Whatever your view of preaching, do not miss the fact that something supernatural happens in the proclamation of. God's word.
Just as the Bible is supernatural, the preaching of the Bible is supernatural as well. Don't misunderstand, preaching is not receiving new revelation from God, now that Christ has come the final deed, revelation of God, now that he has accomplished redemption, now that now that his kingdom has come, now that his apostles have taken that message to the nations, and he has told us in the New Testament the significance of his coming. The days of new verbal Revelation are over. So again to say that something supernatural is going on in preaching is not to say that new revelation is coming to us, that we need to take out our pens and add to our Bibles.
Think rather of Romans 10. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him whom they have never heard. And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News Romans 10 makes clear, the preaching of the Word of Christ is ultimately Christ confronting sinners through His Word. Romans, 1014, states clear, clearly that it is not the preacher who ultimately proclaims Christ. It is Christ through his preacher who proclaims himself preaching is not Christ speaking new things to us. It is rather Christ speaking through His written Word, as the minister, his poor servant, proclaims it, we confess larger catechism 155 look sometime at larger catechism 160 which says this, what is required of those who hear the word preached, it is required of those that hear the word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation and prayer, examine what they hear by the scriptures, receive the truth with faith, love, meekness and readiness of mind as the word of God, meditate and confer of it.
Talk about it with others, hide it in their hearts and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives. Think about this answer.
In a sense we could say this answer is emphasizing you have to be just as active in the preaching of the word as the preacher is, you have to prepare for it. You have to pay attention to it. You have to discern what you're hearing. And one thing that catechism answer drives home to us is that you must receive the truth of the sermon how as the word of God.
That's because when the sermon is biblical. It carries biblical authority. As Christ's Ambassador applies biblical wisdom, principles, ways of thinking, implications to various matters that carries biblical authority that we are obligated and privileged to practice, as long as the pastor is not making things up, giving his opinions, if he is applying biblical reasoning to any area of life, it must be received as biblical. It must be practiced as such. Biblical preaching carries biblical authority and power. Now, what did Paul preach to the Thessalonians? Luke records that in Acts 17, 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, saying this, Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. It is this message the Thessalonians heard and accepted. It is this message of how Jesus suffered and has been raised from the dead that the Thessalonians recognized as a message, not from Paul, but from God Himself. It was Paul's proclamation of Christ that God used to convict and convert the Thessalonians, and it is no different for us. You are destined for God's wrath because of your sin, but Jesus Christ suffered in your place to pay your penalty. He was raised from the dead to bring you to God.
Therefore believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Every time we hear the word of Christ, faithfully preached, we hear the voice of Jesus Christ himself, as he tells us in John 10, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. So every time you hear the word of Christ. Faithfully preached, LISTEN to His voice, follow Him and do not go after the voice of anyone else. Thirdly, and finally, let's look at the power of God's Word. The power of God's word. This is the end of verse 13, as Paul says, The Word of God, which is at work in you believers. Paul is emphasizing that the word of God continues to have an effect in the lives of God's people. That is how powerful the Word of God is. It has an ongoing supernatural energy about it. Energy is basically the word Paul uses here. Paul is speaking here in the present tense. It is at work ongoingly. The Bible is not a dead book that doesn't do anything as soon as you close it. The sermon is not a lifeless speech that dissipates as soon as it's over. Jesus Christ speaking through his word, this carries an ongoing, continual energy and powerful working in the heart of the believer and the life of the church. The word can do what nothing else can do.
It can go to work with the energy of God himself. In the recesses of your heart and life, there is an operative, effective power that comes from the word, because it is the word of the omnipotent god. I remember when I was an apathetic young man with no desire for the things of God. I don't even remember why I read this, but I came across Deuteronomy 3239 and was convicted to my core when God says, see now that I even I am He and there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand, and I beg God for mercy in reading his threats, I remember a sermon at a dark and difficult time in my life in First Thessalonians, 523, and 24 was God's instrument of healing and persevering peace and grace.
What he says there, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, He will surely do it. I'm sure we all can share special portions of God's Word or his sermon that God used to grow each of us the Bible can do what no picture can do, what no show or movie can do. It can go to work in the depths of our hearts, transforming us to Christ's likeness, equipping us for every good work. Heidelberg Catechism, 1998 says it very well may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people, no for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have his people taught by mute idols but by the lively preaching of His Word. Go look sometime in Calvin and see how he criticizes the use of images in the churches. When Calvin says in so many words, there would be no use for images, if pastors did their jobs, proclaiming the riches of the living and life giving Word of God, the God breathed scripture, which carries the life giving energy of God himself, as it is proclaimed by Jesus Christ through his ambassador, when God has given us This means of grace, how dishonoring it is to God to make use of impotent images instead. So you see the point, unlike anything that man can come up with, the word of God is so powerful that it even transforms and changes sinners into the likeness of the risen Savior. Commentator, Jeff Weymouth, says, very well, much more than a fancy message, fancy human message that caught their fleeting attention at one brief moment in time, the Gospel, instead, is an ongoing source of divine power in the lives of these Christians. So conclusion, let us appreciate two things.
First, notice how Paul describes what the Thessalonians did with God's word. They didn't just hear it. They accepted it. You can hear the word, articulate what it says, but so can the evil one. Don't be a hearer, only be a doer of God's Word. Do what it says. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn from your sin and trust in Him and walk in his ways. Accept God's word, receive it in your heart, live in light of it. Psalm one, nine. 18. How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word? I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Jesus in his high priestly prayer. In John 17, says, Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. This is why we need that continual working of God's word within us to put remaining corruption to death and to grow in the grace of God.
Paul in Philippians 216 makes reference to the word of life.
It is a word that gives life.
This is how God's word can be at work in God's people continually. It is a word that gives life. And what Paul says in Second Timothy three that we mentioned earlier, All scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching reproof, correction, training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Without God's word, you are stuck in the darkness of your sin and misery, but with God's word, you are set free to walk in the light of life. Think of David's sin with Bathsheba. David is at home when he should be out at battle with his army. He sees Bathsheba bathing. He commits adultery, first in his heart, then outwardly with her. He attempts to cover up his sin by having Bathsheba husband, Uriah, come home, and when that doesn't work, David commands that Uriah be put at the forefront of battle to be killed. Why does David do this? Because he's a sinner. Well, yes, could he not help? It was Bathsheba worth the mess that he caused. The prophet Nathan, as he confronts David, gives us the reason from Second Samuel, chapter 12. Nathan said to David, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.
And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah, the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of your ride, the Hittite, to be your wife. Did you catch what God says to David, there one verse, you despise the word of the Lord, and then one verse later, you have despised me.
David's sin, we could say, came from his despising and disregard of God's word, as Calvin says, If faith turns away from the word, it falls. Therefore take away the word, and no faith will remain. But more than that, to despise the word of the Lord is to despise the Lord Himself. God puts his word on par with himself as he confronts David, showing that our attitude toward the Bible reveals our attitude toward the God of the Bible.
Secondly, we want to put the word to work in our life. We are to read the Bible. Read the entire Bible, praise Psalm, 119, 18, before you read, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. Choose one book of the Bible that you will master over the course of your life, write down parts of the Bible by hand. Memorize portions. Listen to it read as you brush your teeth or do the dishes. Talk about it. Think about it. Pray through it. Do what it says. One of the reformed scholastics of the 17th century, Petrus van Maastricht, he shows us how we are to have affection for God's word. He says we are to have an affection toward the scripture, and affection so inclined that we honor Scripture as we would God speaking to us with his own mouth. That is, we should honor its commandments with such great submission, its prohibitions with such great pains and aversion, its promises with such great delight and desire, and its threats with such great fear and concern, all as if we had God speaking such things in our presence.
Then Maastricht goes on to explain the the.
Power of Scripture, as we see in this passage here, one attribute of Scripture is its power, on account of which power is attributed to it, by which it is called able and active and is said to work effectively. For this reason, is compared to various things that excel in power, like water, fire, a hammer, a two edged sword, a sharp, double edged sword, and thunder. The Word and Spirit are united to one another, and the gospel is said to be the ministry of the Spirit and its power is not in word alone, but also in power and the Holy Spirit, since the Spirit acts through the word, this power penetrates into the inmost heart, uncovers the secrets and hidden recesses of the heart, afflicts, pierces and crushes a person's spirit, illumines the mind, regenerates and converts.
The Heart Kindles faith, sanctifies the whole person, strengthens that one might overcome the word world consoles and saves eternally. And that quote I read band master includes about 30 scripture passages. Now, please don't take this as a guilt trip to shame you into being a dutiful, self righteous Bible reader. Rather, this is an opportunity to taste and see afresh we confess in shorter catechism too. What does that say? The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. So what does the Bible do?
The Bible directs us how to glorify and enjoy our God in the friendship of his covenant, which is why we exist. It is God who works by means of His Word to draw us to himself, to make us like himself, to give us more of himself till we finally arrive at our heavenly destination, when our master will welcome His servants into His dwelling place. As the psalmist cries out, I long for your salvation O Lord, and your law is my delight. Let my soul live and praise you. Let your rules help me. Psalm 119, 174, and five, More to be desired.
They than the rules of the Lord.
More are they to be desired than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Psalm 1910, this is why the word is precious. The Word of God will get you more of communion with God Himself, your highest good, your blessedness and reward. What Paul told the Thessalonians on his missionary journey, let us reiterate, it was necessary that the Christ suffer and rise from the dead, and this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. This is not my opinion. It is the word of God. Receive God's message of grace for sinners. Let his powerful word be at work in you as you serve him and as you wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come, and may God add his blessing to the preaching of His Word. Amen.