1st Thessalonians Part 2 – Lawson Perdue

Praise the Lord friends, and welcome to the broadcast. We are sharing from 1 Thessalonians 2, and today we’re gonna be talking about our relationship with the word. Our relationship with the word determines the place that God holds in our daily life. This church had a tremendous testimony, but it was connected with their relationship with God’s word. Stay tuned and be blessed. Open your Bible, the 1 Thessalonians we’re talking about in hope of eternal life. And last week in 1 Thessalonians 1, we talked about how that we live as examples of the gospel. And Paul was talking about how they receive the word in chapter one. And he says this in 1 Thessalonians 1:5, “Our gospel came to you not in word only, “but also in power and in the Holy Ghost “and in much assurance as you know “what manner of men we were among you for your sake.” So Paul’s like our life was a living example of the gospel. And then he said, “We were examples to you.” And he says in verse eight, “From you sounded out the word of the Lord, “not only in Macedonia and Achaia, “but also in every place your faith to God is spread abroad “so that we need not to speak anything.” In chapter two, he continues this theme, but he’s talking about the gospel and he talks about our relationship with the gospel. And he says in verse two, he says, “We were bold in our God to speak unto you “the gospel of God with much contention.” In other words, there was a lot of opposition to the gospel. How many of you know not everybody loves the gospel? And he’s talking about how religious people really attack them and attack the gospel. And then he says in verse four, he says, “But as we are allowed of God “to be put in trust with the gospel, “even so we speak not as pleasing men, “but God who tries our heart.” So we have been entrusted with the gospel. We’ve been entrusted with the message of Jesus, right? We’ve been entrusted with the good news of what God did for us and the person of Jesus when he died and rose again. And so we need to be stewards of the gospel that we’ve been entrusted with. In 1 Corinthians 4:1, Paul says, “Let a man so regard us as the ministers of Christ “and stewards of the mystery of God.” Moreover, he said, “it is required in stewards “that a man be found faithful.” So are we being faithful with the gospel? Are we being faithful with the message of Jesus? Are we being faithful with the good news of what God has entrusted us with? Praise God. How many of you know we’re all called to do different things with the gospel? And so the very first aspect that Paul talks about is we preach to you the gospel. So let’s go back up here and we’ll just begin reading in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-4 he says, “for you yourselves brethren know “our entrance into you that it was not in vain, “but after that we had suffered before.” Now, what was the suffering that Paul endured? The suffering that Paul endured it was not sickness, it was not disease, it was not lack. The suffering that Paul endured primarily was when religious people fought him for preaching the gospel, for preaching the message of Jesus, for preaching the message of grace, right? In other words, they were trying to add some, but the true gospel is Jesus plus nothing. It’s like you believe Jesus. Amen. That settles it. Jesus did it all at the cross. So if you add something to Jesus, it’s like saying Jesus isn’t enough. And so what happened in Galatians, which is really a focus on the gospel, they were trying to add circumcision or law keeping to the gospel. And so Paul basically was saying, if you study Galatians 5:1-5 it says, “Stand fast, therefore in the liberty “wherewith you were called “and don’t be again entangled with the yoke of bondage.” He calls legalism a yoke of bondage. And he goes on and says this in the first four verses, if you’re justified by the law, then you’ve fallen from grace. In other words, the law could never save you, circumcision could never save you. And people that go to the law, they don’t stop with circumcision, they add all these things to Jesus, but it’s not Jesus plus something. It’s not Jesus plus Bible reading. It’s not Jesus plus prayer. It’s not Jesus plus giving. Amen.

Congregant Amen.

I love to give, right? Because God is a giver and God lives in me, and I wanna give because he’s living in me, praise God. But it’s not Jesus plus any of those things. The gospel is simply Jesus. And when you get a relationship with Jesus, you find out he’s already done it all. So what we do really is in response to the gospel. And so he’s sharing here and he says, “We came to you and we suffered “and we were shamefully untreated”. When Paul was shamefully untreated it’s because religious people, Judaizers. People who said you needed to add something, add the law, keeping the law, different aspects of keeping the law to Jesus. Guess what? I’m not against praying. I’m not against Bible reading. I’m not against church going, I probably go to church more than anybody here.

Congregant Amen.

I’m not against giving. Amen. I’m not against… I do all these things, but I do it as a response to my relationship with Jesus. Amen. And it was these Judaizers that said, you have to keep the law in addition to Jesus that attacked Paul. So as legalistic people as a whole that attacked Paul and that’s when he’s talking about suffering and being shamefully attributed. He says, “As you know in Philippi we were bold in our God “to speak unto you the gospel of God “with much contention or much opposition.” So people came and they attacked Paul. But the reason they attacked Paul is because of what he preached. When Paul was a pharisee of Pharisees, they did not attack him. In fact, Paul was the one doing the attacking. But he went from a persecutor to preacher when he got a revelation of who Jesus is and got a revelation of the true gospel. In fact, he says this in Romans 1:16-17. He says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. “I’m not ashamed of the good message of Jesus, “the message of what Jesus has already done for us “in the person or what God did for us “in the person of Jesus when he died and rose again. “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, “the good message of what Christ has already done.” News is about what’s already done. Jesus said three beautiful words on the cross in John 19:30. He said, “It is finished.” And so Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ “for it’s the power of God, “or it releases the power of God “to salvation to everyone who believes it.” You see what makes the gospel work is you’ve gotta believe it. If you don’t believe it, it’s not gonna work for you. So he says, “I’m not ashamed of the message of Jesus.” He says, “Of the gospel of what God did for us “and the person of Jesus when he died and rose again “for it’s the power of God to salvation.” What is salvation? If I study the Greek word for salvation, it means wholeness. It means wellbeing, spirit, soul, and body. So if I study that out, in fact, if I go to the Strong’s Concordance and look up the word for salvation, which is soteria, it says something like this, forgiveness, healing, provision, peace and protection, freedom. That’s all part of salvation. It’s wholeness, spirit, soul, and body. Isaiah said this, looking forward to Jesus dying on the cross. He said in Isaiah 53:5, “He was wounded for our transgressions. “He was bruised for our iniquities. “The chastisement of our peace was upon him. “And by his stripes or with his stripes, we are healed.” And if you look at that and begin to understand it, Jesus paid for our forgiveness. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our inequities. It says the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Jesus paid for our emotional turmoil. So not only when Jesus went to the cross, he took stripes on his back for our physical healing. He says, “And by his stripes you are healed.” He shed his blood for our forgiveness, right? You know, he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Before Jesus went to the cross, he went to the garden of Gethsemane. The scripture says that he sweat as it were great drops of blood. Now, I didn’t realize this, but only people in the most mental torment will sweat blood. I actually had a lady that came to our church. In fact, she was here I think last Sunday. She lives in Haswell, Colorado, and her husband was going through a really hard time when we lived in Kit Carson. And he actually sweat blood. But that’s from serious mental torment or anguish. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane suffered serious mental anguish and torment. But he did that so that we don’t have to. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Jesus paid for our sin. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Jesus paid for our mental health, mental wellbeing, and Jesus paid for our physical wellbeing. By his stripes, you, we, are healed. It says in Isaiah 53:5, in 1 Peter 2:24 says, “Who his own self bear our sin “and his own body on the tree “that we being dead to sin “should live under righteousness “by whose stripes you were healed. So Peter looks back on the cross and said, it’s already done. Jesus already finished the work. Then he says, now we’ve returned in the next verse, verse 25, to the shepherd and the bishop of our soul. So that’s talking about, so he’s again talking about spirit, then body, then soul. Isaiah, he talks about spirit, right? Wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, spirit. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, soul, and body. By his stripes, we are healed. So when we talk about salvation, and you study that Greek word for salvation, Soteria, the word for save is soso in the Greek, it’s actually talking about forgiveness. It’s talking about healing, it’s talking about peace. It’s talking about freedom. And it’s also talking about provision because Jesus not only made provision for our physical wellbeing, but also our financial wellbeing. So you can read that in 2 Corinthians 8:9. The scripture says, for you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, even though he was rich, Jesus had everything that heaven had to offer. He created the universe yet for our sakes, he became poor. When did Jesus become poor? When he came to earth and specifically when he died on the cross. Jesus left everything on the cross. It means to come to absolute poverty, right? He became poor that we through his poverty, through his death on the cross, through his identification with us, might be made rich so that we might have full provision. So Jesus provided for us wellbeing, spirit, soul, body, physically, financially, emotionally, every realm he wants us to be well. Praise the Lord friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching the program today. I’ve been teaching live in church on a Wednesday evening service sharing about the hope of Christ coming. We have all of these teachings available to you in downloadable form, free of charge on our website, and many more at CharisChristianCenter.com.

I came kicking and screaming because I thought if I came to a word of faith, church, I’d find people puffed up with pride saying, look at me, I’m full of faith. And when I got here, I found humility, real people that were going deeper. They knew the word. They loved Jesus. And it was an amazing experience for me. I just feel like I’m in family.

So Paul says, I’m not ashamed in Romans 1:16 of the gospel of the good message of Christ for the gospel is the power of God to salvation, to wholeness, to wellbeing, spirit, soul, and body to everybody who believes it. So you gotta believe it to receive it. If you don’t believe it, you’re not gonna receive it. He says, for therein in verse 17, in the gospel, the righteousness of God, right? Standing with God has been provided, has been revealed from faith to faith, from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile, according as it is written, the just shall live by faith. So Jesus provided everything in his death barrel and resurrection for us, but we’ve gotta believe the gospel to receive it. So Paul says right here in verse two, I preach to you the gospel of God, but with much contention or much opposition. And who was opposing him? It was religious people that were fighting him, preaching the gospel because they said, hey, you’ve gotta do something in addition to Jesus. You’ve gotta keep the law. But the law couldn’t save you before Jesus. And the law can’t save you since Jesus. So he goes on, “Our exaltation, “our encouragement was not of deceit, “nor of uncleanliness, “nor in disguise or deceit, “but as we are allowed of God “to be put in trust with the gospel even so we speak.” So God entrusted us with the gospel, and we’re speaking not to please men, but God who tries our hearts. Paul said this in Galatians 1:10. He’s talking about, I marvel that you’re so soon removed from Him, from Jesus who called you into the grace of God to another gospel, which is not another, though there be some who trouble us. And he goes on in verse 10, and he said, if I yet please men, I would not be the servant of Christ. So we’re not here to please men, we’re here to serve Christ. Amen. And so Paul looks at this and he says this, he says, “We were put in trust. “We were entrusted with the gospel, “even as we speak, not as pleasing men.” We’re not here to please men. Really, you know, I figured this out pretty quick when I pastored my first church. So if I preach a message and it steps on Larry’s toes and it makes Herb happy, right? And if I try to please Larry, then I might make Herb mad. If I try to please Herb, I might make Larry mad. So I can only really please one person. So I made up my mind when I was young, I’m gonna do my very best to please Jesus. And I might step on Larry’s toes and Herb might be happy, and Alan might be okay with it. The next week I might preach the same message and I might make Alan happy, and Larry happy, right? I’ve gotta live. And Paul says, “This is the decision I’ve made. “I’m not here to please men. “I’m here to please God.” He says, “If I yet please men, “I would not be the servant of Christ.” So he said, “We preach the gospel, “we were entrusted with the gospel not to please men, “because if we did that,” he said, “I wouldn’t be the servant of Christ.” He says in verse five, “For neither at any time “we use flattering words as you know, “nor a cloak of covetousness, God is our witness.” In other words, Paul said, we didn’t come and tell you what you wanted to hear so that we could receive financial gain from you. And if you really wanna make people mad, in most realms, right? In most religious realms today, all I’ve gotta say is two words. Number one, preach on healing that’ll make religious people mad. And number two, preach on financial prosperity, right? And there’s over 2000 scriptures in the Bible. I believe God has a lot to say about financial prosperity. In fact, the Bible says this in Proverbs 10:22. It says, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich “and he adds no sorrow with it.” And what rich means is rich, okay? ‘Cause people tell you all these different things, right? So I can give you scripture after scripture after scripture that tell you, but a lot of people don’t care what the Bible says, they wanna preach and make people happy. So Paul says, listen, we didn’t use words to do this as a cloak of covetousness to make you happy. We’re doing our very best to live, to please God. And so he said, neither anytime we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness. In other words, I’ve had people come and use flattering words on me, and they say all these things and then all of a sudden they’re saying something completely different because they weren’t saying it because they really meant it from their heart. What they were doing is they were saying things, flattering things, trying to get favor with me, to gain favor with other people. But it wasn’t that they meant it from their heart, they were saying what they wanted to say as flattery. And there’s people that do that. I don’t try to do that. I try to just be honest with people, right? Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don’t. But I really do my level best to be honest. And everybody’s not straight up. I try to be pretty straight up, so what you see is what you get. Amen. Most of you know that if you’ve been around here very long. So number one, Paul said this, “We preached the gospel, “we were bold to declare the gospel.” There was a lot of opposition to the gospel, but it was primarily religious people who were fighting the gospel because they thought Paul needed to add legalism or keeping the law or other things to Jesus. And Paul said, the gospel is not about keeping the law. The gospel is not about doing all these other things. The gospel is simply about believing Jesus, because Jesus changes everything. So Paul said, number one, we preach the gospel. Secondly, he said, not only do we preach the gospel, but we live the gospel. Let’s read on down. So he says in verse five, “We didn’t use flattering words as you know, “nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness. “Nor of men did we seek glory. “We weren’t seeking the glory from men, “neither of you or others. “When we might have been burdensome “as the apostles of Christ, “but we were gentle among you, “even as a nurse cherishes her children.” So what he’s saying here we were gentle among you. And when he said, we did not seek the glory from men, he says, in the modern English version, which I like, Queen Elizabeth had it done, it’s kind of done like the King James version, but the modern English version says we might have made demands, but we were not demanding. Paul talks about this in other places, we could have put demands on people to pay us but we didn’t do that, because we weren’t looking at the men for our supply. But he says, “We were gentle among you “as a nurse cares for her own children.” Guess what? A nurse not only cares for other people, a nurse really cares for her own children, right? And so Paul says, “We cared for you like you are.” This is a true apostle. A true apostle isn’t somebody who says, “You do what I tell you, I’m an apostle.” A true apostle cares for people, right? A true apostle is like the thumb on the hand, they work with all the other ministry gifts within the body of Christ. Because they are trying to help build everybody. Amen. We’re not looking for what’s wrong so much. Sometimes we have to address some of that. But we’re looking for what’s right and we’re trying to pull the thing together. Amen. So he goes on, “We’re gentle among you “as a nurse cherishes or cares for her own children.” David said this in Psalm 18:35. He said, “Your gentleness has made me great.” Gentleness is fruit of the spirit. As we go on and read in verse eight, he says, “So being affectionately desires of you, “we were willing to have imparted you “not only the gospel of God “but also our own souls, “because you were dear to us, we cared for you. “For you remember brethren, “our labor and for travail for laboring night and day “because we would not be chargeable to any of you. “We preached unto you the gospel of God.” So when we read this, Paul says, listen, we worked. We worked night and day. We did it because we loved you, we cared about you, and we didn’t want you thinking that this is what it was about. And so he says, he goes on and says this, you remember our labor and travail and we preached the gospel without charging you. He says in verse 10, “Your witnesses, and God, how holy and justly “and unblameable, we behaved ourselves among you “that believe as you know how we exhorted and comforted “and charged every one of you as a father does his children, “that you would walk worthy of God “who has called you unto his kingdom and glory.” So Paul says, number one, we preach the gospel. Number two, we live the gospel. But then he talks about in verse 13, I’ll go through it really quickly, you receive the gospel. He says this in verse 13. He says, “For this cause we thank God without ceasing “because when you receive the word of God, “which you heard of us, “you received it not as the word of men, “but as in truth, the word of God “which affectionately works in you who believe’ “For you brethren became followers of the churches of God, “which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus. “For if you’ve suffered like things of your own countrymen, “even as they have of the Jews “who both killed the Lord Jesus in their own prophets “and have persecuted us, “and they please not God and are contrary to all men”. He says, listen, we’ve been persecuted and you’ve been hanging around a bunch of people, they killed Jesus, they killed their own prophets and they persecuted us. They’re not pleasing God. We’re here to please God. And we don’t care what these legalistic people say. He says, “They forbid us to speak to the Gentiles “that they might be saved to fill up their sins “always for the wrath that is to come to the uttermost.” You know, Romans two talks about this. The modern English version in that verse says, they are piling up their sins for judgment that is to come. Romans 2, talking to religious people that need Jesus says this, in Romans 2:4. “They treasure up wrath against the day of wrath “and the righteous judgment of God.” Guess what Paul says, these religious Judaizers, these are persecuting us for the gospel, they need Jesus. Because they’re saying to keep the law, but they through breaking the law, he says in Romans 2:27, dishonor God. He said, guess what? Gentiles need Jesus. They’re caught up with philosophy, idolatry, lust, all kinds of sin, but he says, Jews need Jesus too. They’re caught up in legalism and they break the law and they dishonor God, because nobody’s ever kept it except for Jesus. Amen. So he goes down… We’ll finish up really quickly here. He says this, “But we brethren being taken from you “for a short time in presence, “not in heart endeavored the more abundantly “to see your face with great desire. “We wanted to see you. “Wherefore we’d have you come to you, “even I, Paul once again but…” How many sometimes you wanna do some things, but the devil hinders you. And so he goes on and says this, “For what is our hope, our joy, “or our crown of rejoicing are not even you “in the presence of Jesus, “at His coming for you are our glory and joy.” What he’s saying is, guys, you receive the gospel and you live the gospel. Friends, I trust that you’ve enjoyed the broadcast today. We’ve been sharing about our relationship with the word of God and how that affects our daily lives. If you need prayer, we have trained prayer ministers, they’re ready to receive your call. If you need to receive Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit or receive the promises, just give us a call today we’d love to hear from you, and thanks to our partners who make this available.

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