(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Title of my sermon this evening is the Church of the Thessalonians. This is a church to whom the apostle Paul wrote two different epistles, and in these epistles he gives them high praise for being a great church, a church that is an example to lots of other churches in the region. And if we look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and a few other scriptures, we're going to see why this was such a great church. What made the Church of the Thessalonians such an effective church that Paul would lift them up as such an example? And even today, almost 2,000 years later, we're still reading about them as a great example of what we should be and what our church should be even today. It says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus, unto the Church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. And then he's going to go into some of the reasons why he's so thankful for this church and why he's constantly mentioning them in his prayers. He says in verse 3, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. Now the first thing I want to point out here is when we see the word of, the word of can mean different things in different contexts, so we need to understand how the word of is being used here. For example, let me just kind of give you some basic ways that you'll see the word of used in the Bible. You can have it being sometimes pointing to an object or pointing to a subject. Like for example, let's say we talk about the love of God. Well, the love of God can mean two totally different things. In fact, it can really mean three different things. But first of all, the love of God can be where God is the subject. So it's the love of God meaning God loves. God loves us, right? The love of God. Or the love of God can be our love for God. That's where God is the object, right? But also, the love of God could also be talking about love that comes from God, right? God is the source of that love. He's the fountain from which that love springs. And so in this passage right here, the ofs here are that use of source, okay? So for example, if we said Paul of Tarsus, what do we mean by Paul of Tarsus? We mean that the source of Paul is Tarsus. Paul came from Tarsus. That's where he's from originally, right? And so when the Bible says here your work of faith, we're talking about a work that springs from faith or that faith is the source or the impetus for that work. And then when we have the labor of love, it's labor that we do because of love, right? Love is the source of that labor. And then when we say patience of hope, we're talking about patience that comes from hope, all right? Let's think about each of those in detail. Work of faith. We remember your work of faith. The idea here is that if we have faith, right, we should work as a result of that faith, right? The faith should lead to work. Now, of course, there are a lot of people out there that will teach, oh, faith always produces works. Well, if that is the case, then please explain to me why the Bible says faith without works is dead if faith automatically always leads to works. Also, I'd love for you to explain this verse to me. To him that worketh not but believeth, his faith is counted for righteousness, even as David also described it, the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed the righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, him that worketh not but believeth. You see, it is possible to have faith without works, but if we have faith without works, we are not being effective, and other people are not going to see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. You see, my faith is invisible, right? You cannot look inside my heart and see my faith. All you can do is just look at my works or listen to what I say and ascertain that the faith is there, but you cannot actually see faith, and this is why James said in James Chapter 2, I will show you my faith by my works, right? Because faith should lead us to do works. It doesn't automatically do so, but of course it should lead to works. For example, let's say that I believe that hell exists and is a real place and that unsaved people are going to go there and burn forever. Shouldn't that lead me to share the gospel with other people? Wouldn't you say that a natural work that would result from that faith of saying, I believe hell is real, would be, okay, well then I should do the work of telling people about Jesus. I especially want to tell my loved ones about how to be saved, but I just want to go out and talk to strangers and tell strangers how to be saved because I don't even want them to go to hell. Even people that I just met five seconds ago, like Jesus, looked upon the lost and loved them. He beholding him, loved him. We meet someone and love that person and want to give them the gospel because we believe that heaven is real, because we believe that hell is real, because we believe that salvation is easy, because we believe that salvation is by faith alone. We should be doing the work of preaching that to everybody. Let me ask you this. Does everyone who believes in hell go soul winning? You know what's so funny is that a lot of these people who go around saying, oh well faith is always accompanied by works, there's always works so they would say, but are often doing very little work or no work. But if you ask them, do you believe in hell? Yes they do. Do you believe in heaven? Yes I do. Do you believe that Jesus is the only way to go to it? Yep. Okay. How much work are you doing to get that message out to the lost? Now look, people who do not go soul winning, people who do not witness to anyone, people who go months or even years without sharing the gospel, without giving someone the plan of salvation, they still often do believe in hell and I don't even doubt. I don't doubt that they believe in hell. I don't doubt for one second that there are people who truly from the bottom of their heart believe in heaven, believe in hell, believe that Jesus is the only way and yet don't do anything about it. Why? Because faith is not always associated with works unfortunately. Welcome to the real world. Welcome to reality, not your little fantasy land where everyone who believes in Jesus just automatically starts living right and doing all these wonderful works. That's a wonderful fairy tale. It's not real. We have to put forth the effort to deny self, take up the cross, follow Jesus, put on the new man, put off the old man and look, it's a lot of hard work to do that and it's hard work every day and every week and every month and every year but we're not saved by works. We're just saved by faith and so there are a lot of people who are saved, have their faith in Christ, on their way to heaven doing little or no work for God. That's just the reality of the situation both in the Bible and what we see in real life. But that being said, the church of the Thessalonians was a great church because they had work of faith. He said, I know your work of faith. I know that the work that you're doing springs from your faith and this is what we want to see. This is what James is talking about. This is what we're all talking about every Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night as we get up and preach to people and try to get them to do something for God. Just because works don't save us, that does not mean that we don't care about works or that we don't want to do works. Because if you believe certain things, that should prompt you to do some works. If you believe that Jesus loved you and died for you and went through all of those horrible things for you at the cross, then shouldn't that prompt you to want to serve him, love him, obey him, keep his commandments, tell other people about him? It should, but does it automatically? Unfortunately it doesn't, but it should. And so the church of the Thessalonians was a great church because of their work of faith. Because they didn't just believe the Bible, but they actually did the work. They put what they believed into practice. They weren't just hearers of the word. They were doers of the word. And we need to be doers of the word. We need to work until Jesus comes. We need to be out there doing the labor in God's vineyard. And that's what the Thessalonians were doing, and that's what made them a great church. Number one, the work of faith. Number two, it says in this verse, the labor of love. And of course, work and labor are kind of the same thing, aren't they? Well, you know, when God repeats something this way, it's because he's emphasizing it. He's repeating work because work is important. You see, the seven churches in Asia that are addressed in Revelation 2 and 3, what's the first thing he says to the church at Ephesus? What's the first thing he says to the church at Smyrna, the church of Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea? What's the first thing he says to all of them? I know thy works. It's the first thing. When Jesus is evaluating churches, he doesn't say, that's quite a building. That is quite a music program. That was quite a homily. That was quite a sermon. That is quite a facility. That is quite a campus. That was quite a PowerPoint. No, he says, I know your works. Apparently, Jesus Christ, when he thinks about churches, is work-oriented, works-oriented. He wants to see production. He wants to see work being done. In fact, he gave us pastors, teachers, apostles, why? For the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. And so Jesus Christ is interested in work. The apostle Paul here is praising the Thessalonians because of their work, number one. Number one is work. Number two, that's work, too. You know what I like about you? I like your work, and I also like your work. Now here's the thing. You say, well, work and labor aren't quite the same, right? It's like work and hard work. What is labor? If I said, I'm going to go do some work, you know what that means, but if I said, I'm going to go do some labor, you'd say, okay, he's going to work, but he's actually going to do something difficult. He's going to work hard, but they're both work, right? Labor is another word for work. These are synonyms, and it's being doubled for emphasis, okay? So work springs from faith, but work also springs from love, right? Have you ever heard people just say this in their everyday speech, like, oh, well, it's a labor of love, and people that aren't even Christians, they use this expression. A lot of expressions in our everyday speech come from the Bible. Even atheists who've never read the Bible use them because they're just a part of our language now. They're just a part of the culture because the Bible, especially the King James Bible, has had a tremendous influence on our language. And so you could have some woman somewhere who doesn't even go to church or read the Bible who's breeding puppies or something and says, well, hey, it's a lot of work breeding these puppies, but it's a labor of love, right? Some baker somewhere is baking cookies, saying, well, it's a lot of work. I get here at 3 in the morning, but it's a labor of love. What does that mean? It means that the labor is coming from a heart that says, hey, I want to do this because I love what I'm doing. And so there's the work of faith, meaning that faith leads us to work. Then there's the labor of love where love leads us to labor, right? Because we love God and because we love our fellow man. We're going to work hard for the Gospel and getting the Gospel out and edifying our brothers and sisters in Christ and ministering to the needs of the saints. So we've got the work of faith, we've got the labor of love, and then we've got patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. What about patience of hope? Well, just as faith produces work, just as love produces labor, well, hope produces patience. Why? Because hope is that confident expectation that God is going to come through. And if we have a confident expectation that God is going to come through for us, then this allows us to be patient in tribulation, right? We're going through a hard time, we're going through difficult things, but we know that weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. So that hope of knowing that God is going to come through and that any day now it's going to get better, having hope like that allows us to patiently endure. So this is what this church has going for them, the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope. All three of those of's are grammatically being used the same way, referring to the fact that the source of these things is following the of. Patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Of course, we talked a lot about election this morning, but just know that in the New Testament, the word elect or election is always referring to saved people, right? Saved people, whether they're Jew or Gentile, whether they're bond or free, red, yellow, black and white are the elect in the New Testament. That's what we're talking about. And so knowing your election is equivalent to saying, knowing that you're saved, knowing that you guys are actually God's people and that you're actually saved and going to heaven. How do they know that about the Thessalonians? Well, he explains why in verse five, four, our gospel came not unto you 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 and you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. And so what the apostle Paul is saying here is that he has great confidence in the fact that the Thessalonians truly got saved when he came through and preached the gospel to them because the gospel came not unto them in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. Much assurance of the fact that God was really working in their hearts that they truly did get saved. What are we talking about here? The power of the Holy Ghost is necessary for people to be saved, right? The Holy Ghost is the one who quickens the lost when they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously the preacher in the Bible or the prophet in the Bible is often filled with the Holy Ghost and he's preaching with boldness because of the power of the Holy Ghost. And we as Christians, when we go soul winning or preach a sermon, we want to be filled with the Spirit. We want to pray for God's power to work through us and that the Holy Spirit would embolden us and empower our words as we preach. But there's also a component of the Holy Ghost working in the listener. So the Bible says here that our gospel came not unto you 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 he's saying on the one hand we know something about you and on the other hand you know something about us. Why? Because this is a two-way street. You could be filled with the Holy Ghost and preach the word of God in power, but if the word of God is being sown on bad soil, there are not going to be results. Even the Lord Jesus Christ himself went to certain areas that were unreceptive to his message and it says that he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. When people are unreceptive, then a great work for God just isn't going to happen. It doesn't make you a bad soul winner. It doesn't mean that you're not filled with the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean that you're not right with God. It means that the people that you're preaching to are unworthy of the message. They've counted themselves unworthy of the kingdom of God. They are not receptive and so the Holy Ghost is not able to do a work in their heart. Why? Because they're resisting the Holy Ghost. Isn't that what Stephen said? You do always resist the Holy Ghost? There are certain places where you could take the ultimate soul winner, whoever that is or if there is such a thing, you could take the greatest preacher of all time, the most right with God, spirit-filled, knowledgeable, skillful, faith-filled, love-filled preacher and you take him soul winning in some Mormon neighborhood, there's not necessarily going to be revival there, my friend. Send him over to Tel Aviv, Israel. He's not necessarily going to just turn the place upside down with the Gospel because salvation, yes, happens through the power of the Holy Ghost but this is a two-way street because there are two people involved. There's the person who's preaching the Gospel and the person who's listened to the Gospel. On the one hand, the one who's giving the Gospel, the one who's preaching the Gospel needs to be saved. They actually have the Holy Spirit even indwelling them, let alone being filled with the Holy Spirit but the person who's listening also has to be receptive and actually open to what the Spirit is saying through the Word of God because it is possible to resist the Holy Ghost. It is possible to be stubborn, stiff-necked, hard-hearted or just simply not to care. Whereas with the Thessalonians, the Word of God came unto them in power. Why? Because Paul's a powerful preacher? Absolutely. But this is not just him congratulating himself here. Man, the reason I know you're saved is because I'm such an awesome soul winner. Of course you guys are saved. Don't you remember how powerful my preaching was? That's not what he's saying. He's talking about them actually receiving the Word of God and that the Holy Ghost's power was evident as the Holy Ghost moved upon their hearts as they received the Word of God being preached. So the Gospel came not unto them in word only but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. Could that be said of every person that the Apostle Paul preached to? No, because there were other times when the Apostle Paul preached, people are hard-hearted, rejecting it, not receptive, not interested. That's life. But no, no, they were receptive. And then not only did they believe the Word of God, not only did they get saved and receive the Word of God, but also it says that they became followers of Paul and Timotheus and Silvanus and those types, right? He says you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. So what does this verse say? Well, number one, it's saying that they're willing to follow man of God and the Lord. You know, today, people just have this extreme individualism to the point where they just say, like, I'm not going to follow any man. I can only follow God. And they think that this somehow makes them more spiritual or more mature, like, I don't follow man. I only follow God. I only follow Christ. Well, you know what? You're just showing how immature you are. Because the Bible over and over again teaches us that, yes, we follow Christ, but we follow men of God as they follow Christ. You know, hopefully you can follow your parents as they follow Christ, right? Hopefully you can follow your pastor as he follows Christ, right? You can follow elder brothers and sisters who are following Christ, right? This idea that says, well, I'm not going to follow any man is just showing how immature you are that you're not willing to be humble and submit to anyone or listen to anyone or follow anyone because you just always have to be in front, you know? This reminds me of children and their attitude of just always having to be in the front. You know, you go hiking with them, they have to be in the front. You go on a bicycle ride, they want to be in the front. They don't want to be in the back. They don't want to be in the middle. They want to be in the—and they're fighting for the front and they're fighting for the preeminence, right? Sort of like when Jesus' disciples are arguing about who's the greatest among them and so forth, right? This is a sign of immaturity. And when Jesus asks them, so, what were you guys talking about while we were walking? And they are super embarrassed because they realized how stupid it would sound. Oh, we were just arguing about which one of us is the best. As soon as Jesus asked them, so, what were you guys talking about, they instantly felt bad about it and realized that was a stupid conversation. And it is a stupid conversation. Humble people, mature people, they're not worried about, hey, I got to be out front all the time. I mean, look, you think that if we got a bunch of adult men out on a hike from our church and we went and climbed Camelback, you think people would be fighting over who's in the front? I mean, you guys have gone on hikes with me and gone on hikes with Brother Reggie and other people, and is there just always a big, like, get out, I'm in the front, I want to be in the front. No, why? Because we're not little kids. But, you know, kids will fight over that. I can't even count how many times I've seen little kids fight over that. Okay. Well, you know what? You're spiritually immature when you can't follow anyone. It sounds super spiritual, like, I only follow Christ. I only follow God. But you know what I hear when I hear someone say, like, well, I only follow God. I'm only going to follow Christ. I won't follow any man. Here's what I hear. I hear, well, I'm better than every human alive today. The only person who's better than me is God. That's the only person I can follow, because he's the most high and I'm the close high, you know. That's what I'm hearing. You know, that, like, well, of course I can follow God. Of course God's better than me. Of course God's more knowledgeable than me. Of course God is an authority over me, but nobody else is an authority. No, no. Why don't you be humble enough to submit to some other authorities in your life or to learn from some other people that are knowledgeable in your life, right? Or to submit to and learn from and follow just good Christian men and women who are ahead of you. Right? And you say, well, no one's ahead of me. Well, it sounds like you have a pride problem, because you know what? Even if you're ahead in certain areas, they're probably ahead in other areas. Okay, how about this? Let's say you're ahead of everyone. The real humble servant of God doesn't know that. See, if we were to somehow know who the greatest Christian in the world is, if we told that person, you know what? We just asked the Lord and he just told us, you're the greatest Christian on the planet right now in 2024. I guarantee you the person would be super surprised. They'd say, no way, man. Why? Because they'd be a humble person and they don't think that way about themselves. They'd be like, no, man, there's no way. There's been a mix up. It's not, I have a common name. It isn't me. You know, the real servant of God that's actually a great person wouldn't know it. They don't have this attitude. I can't learn from anyone. I can't follow anyone. I can't submit to anyone. You see, the Thessalonians, they said were willing to follow the Apostle Paul. We're going to find, we're not just going to follow Paul. We'll follow Silvanus. We'll follow Timotheus. We'll follow men of God who are leading us. That's a sign of maturity and humility and godliness when you're willing to follow leaders and not just have this attitude. I can't listen to anyone. I can't follow anyone. Throughout the Bible, God's always using leaders. If you think about it, here's a fancy word for you, Kaisergeschichte. That's a German word, but it's a word that people use in English a lot. It's this view of history that focuses on leaders, great men. That's kind of how the Bible is. The Bible is a lot of Kaisergeschichte because of the fact that throughout the Bible, what do you see? Just these really powerful characters where you're reading Genesis. If I were to say, hey, sum up the book of Genesis, you're going to start listing people's names, am I right? You're going to say, well, it's about Adam and Eve, then it's about Cain and Abel, then it's about Noah, and after the part about Noah, it's about Abraham, then it's about Isaac, then it's about Jacob, then it's about Joseph, and this huge chunk is what? The story of Joseph. What's Exodus about? It's about Moses, right? You have Moses being this super prominent, super important character that is mentioned in the Bible just hundreds of times, right? Then you have the book of Joshua. I wonder why it's called Joshua. Is it because we're never supposed to follow men because God doesn't use leaders and men to do things? God doesn't ever have us following humans. Is that why? No. And then you get to judges. You're not going to believe this. The judges are human. They're people, right? And then you get to Ruth. She's not a leader. She's just a nice lady who did some nice things. But then you get to 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, right? And what do we read about in 1 and 2 Samuel? We read about Samuel, and then we read about Saul, and then we read about David, then we read about Solomon, right? And then you get into the poetic books, right? But then after the poetic books, you get into all these prophets, and they have names like Isaiah, Jeremiah, that's a person, Ezekiel, that's a guy's name, Daniel, right? And when you read Daniel, you read about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Joel. Oh, I don't know. Is God using leaders prominently throughout the Bible? Absolutely. All the time when we're reading in the books of the kings, we've got Elijah, we've got Elijah. The Bible is a kaisergeschichte in that sense that it is a story about God using great men and women to do certain things. Obviously it's usually men because men tend to be in the prominent roles. Obviously men are designed to be leaders and so forth, but it's about following leadership. It's about people being used greatly by God, not just, oh, every man for himself, every woman for herself, right? And we just all do our own little thing. No, man, we're supposed to be a team. And Paul said you became followers of the Lord. No, he said you became followers of us and of the Lord. So there's nothing wrong with having role models, people to look up to, people to follow. You only follow them as they follow Christ, right? If your leader, if your role model, if your mentor ends up getting backslidden, going a wrong direction, you don't follow them off the cliff because ultimately you follow Christ. You follow them as they follow Christ, but you still follow them. It's important that we don't lose sight of the fact that God has given us pastors, teachers, evangelists. We need to take advantage of those gifts and not just say, well, I can't follow anyone because I'm second only to God, so that's the only person I can follow. And so he says you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction. This ties in with the patience of hope. They were going through tribulations, trials, afflictions, persecutions. They received the word in much affliction. It was no picnic when the apostle Paul was preaching the word of God to them. I'm not going to turn there for sake of time, but if you go into the book of Acts, there's a really, really famous verse that says these were more noble than they in Thessalonica. You remember that verse? Why were they more noble? Why were the Bereans more noble? Because they searched the scriptures daily, right? They received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scripture daily whether those things were so. You know what that verse is about? It's talking about opposition that Paul faced in Thessalonica, right? And that when he went to Berea, those people were more noble than who? Than the people in Thessalonica that were resisting the truth. And so the idea here is that they received the word, the good ones in Thessalonica, the ones who actually got saved and believed the gospel, they received the word in much affliction because of those less noble people, right? And typically we're talking about, of course, the Jews that tended to persecute Christians in the book of Acts, but there was much affliction there. And of course, in chapter two, it's going to be made explicit that there are people in their country that the Thessalonians are dealing with who are persecuting them. And so they received the word in much affliction. So even though they're being persecuted, even though they're going through trials and tribulations, they still got saved, followed the apostle Paul, followed the Lord, and got involved in the work and the labor, and they had patience because they had hope that it was all going to be worth it, that God was going to reward them and see them through. It says they received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. You see, you can even be happy even when you're going through trials and tribulations. You can be in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. And then, you know what, there are other people who aren't going through anything, and they're sad. They're upset. They're depressed. Everything's great in their life, right? And they're just down and gloomy. Why? Because getting everything that you want doesn't necessarily make you happy. The Holy Ghost is a reliable source of joy. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. So even though they're going through much affliction, they still were receiving the preaching, receiving the word of God with joy of the Holy Ghost. And what use of of is this? Does this joy that belongs to the Holy Ghost? No. It's joy that's coming from the Holy Ghost, right? It's that source again. So that you were in samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia, right? So that's the modern day nation of Greece. The northern portion of modern day Greece was called back then Macedonia. The southern portion is called Achaia. And so we're talking about the nation of Greece, Thessalonika, of course, is still a city to this day, Thessaloniki, it's called. And so this is saying that the Church of the Thessalonians was an example church to their entire nation, right? The whole nation of Achaia and even the neighboring nation of Macedonia, all of those regions could all look to the Thessalonians as an example of a church that's working hard in the face of persecution, in the face of tribulation, and they're doing it with a good attitude, with joy and love in their hearts. It's a great church. And it says, for from you sounded out the word of the Lord, verse 8, not only in Macedonia and Achaia. I mean, that would already be big because those are some pretty big regions. But also in every place, your faith to God were to spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. He's saying, look, we go places and we start to tell them, hey, man, the Thessalonians, whoa, we already know. And then Paul's saying, I go to foreign countries, I'm going to places other than Macedonia and Achaia, and they're telling me, hey, have you heard about the Thessalonians? Hey, have you heard the great things that God's doing there? Hey, have you seen about the works that they're doing? And he says, they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you. It's like they're telling us the story back to us, even though we were there. Because your faith to God word is so spread abroad that you've been an example to Macedonia, Achaia, and even all these other far flung places. And they have all heard the wonderful story about 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, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Of course, this is a Gentile church, so they started out as being pagans. They're worshiping idols, right, because the Jews do not worship idols. The Jews have other problems. The Jews just worship Satan. But they're not, you know, they're not worshiping idols. They don't have graven images or statues they bow down to, but the pagan Greeks did. And so these pagan Greeks 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, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. And of course, he goes on in this epistle and teaches them and commends them. We're just going to look at just a few quick examples for sake of time. Look at chapter 2, verse 13. It says, For this cause also, thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. You see, if you would have gone to the church of the Thessalonians, here's what they're not going to tell you. Old man wrote the Bible. Well, the Bible's written by man. Well, hey, what about this verse here? You know, shouldn't we be following this? Well, you know, the Bible's written by man. So, you know, not everything in it is necessarily right. No, my friend, everything in the Bible is exactly right. Why? Because it's not the word of men, it's the word of God. The Bible is the word of God, therefore it is always right about everything. That's the way the Thessalonians looked at it. Sounds like they were pretty fundamental. They don't sound like they were very liberal in their interpretation of the Bible. They believed that it was the word of God. They believed that the things that the apostles were preaching to them were the word of God, and of course they were. Verse 14, for ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. And look, frankly, the church of the Thessalonians sounds a lot better than the churches of Judea. I mean, if I were going to be in the ancient world, I'd probably rather go to the church in Thessaloniki than the church in Judea. Yet the Thessalonians, they're humble enough to follow the churches of Judea in the areas where they can follow them, and in the things that they can learn from them, even though objectively they're probably the superior church, based on what we read in this passage and elsewhere. But yet they became followers of the churches of God, which are in Judea, are in Christ Jesus. For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets. And this is what many countries have made it illegal to even say that the Jews killed Jesus. And now there was even some stupid law in the United States that was, you know, if you really interpreted it literally and technically, you know, has made it supposedly illegal in the United States. Obviously, the reason I don't like it when people necessarily say like, oh, it's illegal to preach this in the United States, is because obviously we will never be arrested for this. We can say whatever we want. I've gotten up consistently for the last 18 years and preached everything the Bible says from this pulpit and will continue to do so. And there's no way I'm going to get arrested for saying that the Jews killed Jesus. But obviously I'm not against those who are calling out our government for passing the stupid law because it literally does say that, hey, if you say these antisemitic things, you're breaking the law and, you know, here it's delineated on this website or this group has defined it. And then you go look at what that group says. And one of them is saying that the Jews killed Jesus. So if you interpret it literally, they're saying that you can't say this. Thank God in America, though, we're protected by the Bill of Rights. So any law that's repugnant to the Bill of Rights or the Constitution is null and void. That's why it's not accurate to say, oh, it's illegal to say that the Jews killed Jesus. As long as the First Amendment is there, it will never be illegal to say that the Jews killed Jesus because we have the right to freely exercise our religion. And obviously what religion were the founders thinking of the most when they wrote the Constitution? They're obviously thinking about Christianity. They're obviously thinking about the Bible. And so we will always be able to read every Bible verse publicly in America, as long as there's a First Amendment. Thank God for our freedoms that are given to us by God but enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Now, Facebook and YouTube, they will give you a strike for literally just quoting certain Bible verses. Why? Because they're not America. Because they apparently hate America and hate our freedom and want to turn us into some kind of a left-wing socialist crap hole. But my friend, it will always be legal to read and preach the Bible as long as the First Amendment exists because the right of us to freely exercise our religion is protected. And the right of us to have the freedom of speech is enumerated in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. But let me tell you something. This is real in other countries. There are people who literally went to prison. This isn't just a theory, but in Canada, there have been people arrested for simply saying on a radio program, the Jews killed Jesus, and reading these verses from 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. These type of things really are illegal in other countries. We just assume that everybody has freedom of speech. We're so spoiled in America growing up in a free country, we just assume everybody has freedom of speech. We just assume Europe has freedom of speech. You just assume that, yeah, I mean, of course, because why these rights come from the Creator. I mean, didn't God create Germany, too? But apparently the German government has forgotten that Germany was created by God, and that Germans are created by God, and that therefore they've been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that it is the job of governments to secure those rights, not to trample on them and infringe upon them, and say, oh, you can't say that the Jews killed Jesus because that's anti-Semitic. It's Bible. It literally says in this verse, the Jews who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets. The Jews killed their own, they killed their own prophets and they killed Jesus. Now look, you do whatever you want with that information. You can interpret that however you want. We can argue about what that means or what the relevance of that is, but here's one thing that no one who actually cares what the Bible says can deny. The Jews killed Jesus period. That's what the Bible says. In this verse, the Bible says the Jews killed Jesus. If you say no, they didn't, you're either A, unaware of what the Bible says, B, aware of what the Bible says, and you don't care, and you are defying what the Bible says, and you are just wickedly refusing to submit to God's word. It's that simple. Is this the only verse that says this? No, because we could go throughout the book of Acts and you will find that the apostles are constantly saying to the Jews, you killed Jesus, and they're not talking to the Romans. Now, did the Romans kill Jesus too? Absolutely. We participated in it, but it wasn't the Jews, it was the Romans, is to defy scripture. All you're doing when you say the Jews didn't kill Jesus or, well, you know, wait a minute now, hold it there, buddy. When you say the Jews killed Jesus, it's like, no, they just killed Jesus. All you're doing when you argue with that is just show that you either don't know the Bible or don't care what the Bible says. Of course, we do know what the Bible says and we do care what the Bible says at Faithful Word Baptist Church, and so we believe that the Jews killed Jesus just like the Bible says. You say, why does that matter? Who cares if the Jews killed Jesus? Why does it matter? Well, I don't know, it kind of is a blight on Judaism. Why would I want to be a part of a group that killed Jesus? Why would I want to support a group that killed Jesus? Why would I want to donate money to people that killed Jesus? Why would I want to? And you say, well, they didn't actually kill Jesus, it was the Jews back then that killed Jesus. Right? But why would I want to be part of a group that's carrying the torch of the people who killed Jesus? Everybody understand what I'm saying? See, there's Christians. You know what Christians are? People who believe in Jesus. Then there's Jews. You know what Jews are? The people who killed Jesus. And then there's Hindus. You know what Hindus are? People that were far away and didn't have anything to do with it one way or the other. They're idolaters, like the Greeks, that need to turn to God from idols and serve the living and true God. That's what Hindus are. But today, of course, there's this delusion upon Bible-believing Christians that says the Jews are God's chosen people and they're special and we've got to support. No, they're the literal killers of Jesus, according to the Bible. You say, well, how can they have killed Jesus when they weren't even alive back then? Well, here's my question. How did the Jews of Christ's day kill Abel? Can you explain that? How did the Jews of Jesus Christ's day kill Zacharias? Now you say, I don't think the Jews killed Abel. I think that was Cain. You're like, I don't think that the Jews of Christ's day killed Zacharias because he died hundreds of years earlier. And yet what did Jesus say? Jesus said, upon this generation is going to come all the blood of all the righteous prophets from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias. It's all going to be required of this generation. Why? Because you're the children of those who killed the prophets. He's not talking about ethnicity. He's talking about, he's saying you're the spiritual children of those who killed the prophets. And they're like, we're the children of Abraham. No, no, no. We're the children of the people who persecuted people like Abraham, because the children of isn't talking about a blood relative. And you know what? This whole antisemitism nonsense is trying to make it out like the Jews are a race of people. Jews aren't a race, my friend. The Jews are a religion, a false religion. Is Mormonism a race? Is Catholicism a race? Is Christianity? Oh, you're racist, because you're against Hinduism. That's not true. I'm against anybody who worships Goro from Mortal Kombat. I don't care what color they are. Look, the bottom line is that Judaism is a religion. Jews are people who follow that religion. Jews can be black. Jews can be white. Jews can be brown. Most of them are white. So if I'm racist against Jews, then I'd be racist against white people. And I, myself, happen to be white, so that'd be a little weird, although you do sometimes run into black people who are racist against they-selves, and you do run into sometimes strange people like that. But you know, and actually, you do run into a lot of white people that are racist against white people these days. You think that's out there, self-hating whites? It's out there, my friend. And so here's the thing about Jews, is that Jews are people who don't believe in Jesus, rejected Jesus, and have joined up with a religion that is the religion or the group that killed Jesus, that hated and rejected Jesus. Judaism is, by definition, a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. You know, right, the definition of Judaism, on the back of a postage stamp, it is the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. That is what Judaism is. There's a rabbi that we interviewed in our film, Marching to Zion, his name was Leo Abrami. And here's what Leo Abrami explained to us. He said to us, the reason that my name is Abrami is because I am from France, and I am descended from French people, but a few generations back, my great-great-grandparents that were French people decided to convert to Judaism. And because they converted to Judaism, they were issued this new last name that says, oh well, you know, you don't really have a tribe, you know, you're not really of Naphtali, Issachar, Simeon, Zebulun, Judah. You don't have a Jewish lineage or Jewish genealogy, so we're going to give you this name Abrami, meaning of Abraham, because you're a son of Abraham spiritually. Everybody getting this? So that rabbi in Marching to Zion, you know, the old IFB would say he's God's chosen people. Why? Because his French ancestors decided to reject Jesus Christ. Now their grandson is one of God's chosen people. How does rejecting Jesus make you God's chosen people? You know, and then over here we got Faithful Word Baptist Church teaching that accepting Jesus makes you one of God's chosen people. That accepting Jesus makes you a son of Abraham spiritually. I'm Stephen Abrami up here, right? We got Michael Abrami here. We got Varon Abrami right here. Stephen Abrami, wow, I'm a son of Abraham spiritually. It's not rejecting Jesus that makes you a son of Abraham, it's accepting Jesus. And look, the devil, he's able to get people to look at things backwards. He'll make heaven hell and hell heaven and people will believe it. It's crazy. You ever seen any other Jews with a name like, I don't know, Abrams? Isn't there like a Star Wars guy named J.J. Abrams? How did he get that name? I don't know anything about the guy. I'm assuming he's Jewish. I don't really have to check the early life section. I'm just assuming that. Does anybody know for sure? Anybody can confirm real quick that J.J. Abrams is Jewish? Anybody know? Anyone? Anyone? Thank you. All right, well then it's settled. One person gave me a thumbs up. It's settled. Well, here's the thing about that. You know why he has that name? Probably the same way Rabbi Abrami got that name. Because his white ancestors decided to reject Jesus. But you think that only people with Abrami are in that situation? All these other Gazinsky, Pekowski, Kapowski people, they all just when they moved to Israel in 1948 just changed their names. Right? A bunch of just Russian people, Polish people, Hungarian people that just changed their names. They didn't all choose Abrami, but they should have because that's what they are. They're just a bunch of white people that decided to be Jewish. Now maybe they didn't decide to be Jewish. Maybe their ancestors decided to be Jewish 300 years ago or 500 years ago or 700 years ago or 1,000. They've had 2,000 years to do it. No, no, it's an ethnicity. It's an unbroken chain all the way back to Abraham, blah, blah, blah. It's nonsense. Okay, that was a little off topic. But I'm just kind of going wherever the Bible leads me. The Bible took me on that rabbit trail. But the point is that the Jews killed Jesus. They persecuted the churches in Judea. The Thessalonians were also persecuted by their fellow Greeks, by their own countrymen. There was some Jewish persecution as well. But then the Jews would sometimes stir up the locals, and the Greeks ended up persecuting them in Thessalonica as well, but yet they had patience in tribulation. Just real quickly, I'm out of time, but let me just touch on 2 Thessalonians. Because 2 Thessalonians 1 and 1 Thessalonians 1 are both really similar chapters. They're both really short. One of them's 10 verses. The other one's 12 verses. If you look at the first verse of 1 Thessalonians 1 and 1, and then if you look at 2 Thessalonians verses 1 and 2, you'll find that the wording's almost identical. The first two verses of 2 Thessalonians are almost identical to the first verse of 1 Thessalonians, and so both of them are just giving high praise for the Thessalonians. It says in verse 3 of 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, we're bound to thank God always for you brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth. So in the first book, he says, man, it's the work of faith. It's the labor of love. That's what's so great about you guys. And then he says in the second epistle, he says, you know that faith and love that you had in the first epistle? It's increased. It's abounding. It's even better. You guys are even doing better than you were before. So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. Sound familiar? Right? Some of the same themes from back in 1 Thessalonians are still present in 2 Thessalonians, and then he goes into the tribulations and trials and so forth. The idea here is that the church of the Thessalonians, not only did they have faith, but they put that faith to work. Not only did they have love, but that love led them to have labors. Not only did they have their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, but that led them to patiently endure tribulation. When they heard the word of God, they didn't treat it as a suggestion. They didn't take a liberal interpretation, but rather, they accepted that it was the word of God. It was authoritative for them. And because they had the faith, the love, the hope, the respect for God's word, the humbleness to follow the apostle Paul, to follow other men of God, to follow other churches and learn from other churches, then we find them at some later date, I don't know how long it is between 1 and 2 Thessalonians as far as when they were written, but a period of time passes, boom. They're still going, still growing, still increasing, still doing great things for God. This is what we want to do. We as Faith Lord Baptist Church, we need to make sure that we're doers of the word, that we love God, love one another, love the lost, and that our love actually leads us to action in our community and under the uttermost part of the earth, preaching the gospel to every creature. We want to make sure that we have a proper respect for the word of God and that when we read that the Bible says something, even if it's something unpopular, something that Congress is passing resolutions against that aren't even worth the paper that they're written on since we're protected by the First Amendment, you know, if the Bible says the Jews killed Jesus, we just say, yes, sir. Ah, that's impossible. You know what? Nothing's impossible with God. Whatever the Bible says is what happened. The way God looks at things is the right way to look at it. If you disagree with the Bible, you're wrong. If I disagree with the Bible, I'm wrong. Folks, these are examples for us, even today, what kind of a church do we want to be? A church that says, thus saith the Lord, that settles it. Whatever the Bible says, that's the boss right there, right? And if it gets us persecuted, so be it. If there's tribulation, trials, affliction, so be it, right? A church that is Spirit-filled, filled with the Holy Spirit of God, preaching the Word of God with boldness, preaching to the lost through the power of the Holy Spirit, seeing people saved, seeing people reached with the Gospel. And I hope that Faithful Word Baptist Church is also, like the Thessalonians, an example to other churches. I hope that other churches would look at Faithful Word Baptist Church and say, hey, here's an example of soul-winning. Here's an example of fearless preaching. Here's an example of proper respect for the Bible, because we want to be an example to other people. We want to let our light shine. Some of the things that I've done over the years and some of the things that we've done as a church over the years have been specifically intended to be an example for other churches. We want to model the way. We want to show them how it's done, amen? And I'm not saying that in any kind of a prideful way, because I want to learn from other people. I want to learn from other churches. I want them to show me how it's done. But I want to at least try to be the best example that I can be to other pastors, and I want our church to try to be the best example we can be to other churches, so that if we do something like knock every door in our county, that that could be an inspiration to other churches to knock every door in their county. And that if we can knock every door in our state with a clear presentation of the Gospel, they can knock every door in their state. That's what I mean by being an example. Or how about this? When the persecution comes, we don't issue an apology, right? We don't say, oh, I just want to apologize to the LGBT computer. Let me just tell you something. If you ever see a video that says, Pastor Anderson, apologize to the LGB community, you're about to get Rick-rolled. I'm just telling you right now. If you like that song, then go ahead and click on it. Because I'm telling you, you're getting Rick-rolled. If Pastor Anderson goes soft on the homos or something, yeah. Never going to give you up, never going to let you down. That's what's coming. Just take it to the bank, my friend. You're getting Rick-rolled when you see those kind of headlines. Because I'm trying to be an example of, I'm going to get up, preach hard against the sodomites, let her rip, preach exactly what the Bible says, and then just say, if you don't like it, tough. You know what? Don't you wish that every athlete or every actor or every preacher who says something that's right would stop apologizing for telling the truth? I mean, they spoke from the heart and then they apologized. You know, I saw something over the last few weeks, some Catholic guy. This is so funny. A Catholic athlete stands up in a Catholic university and is preaching a bunch of Catholic stuff and, hey, we're all good Catholics and Catholic this and Catholic that. Oh, and by the way, he said, you women, the most important thing that you do in your life is to get married and have children, and my wife's been such a great support to me. I mean, wouldn't you expect that these Catholics would follow their own doctrine or believe their own doctrine, but they all got offended over something so basic and simple as just, hey, women are designed by God primarily to be homemakers, to raise children, to be supportive wives and mothers, and all the little feminists got all upset about it and, you know, you know, but I just, I just hope that this guy doesn't apologize for saying that. And look, I'm not Catholic. I don't appreciate his Catholic religion or the stupid Catholic school where he said these things. But I will say this though, you know, that part of what he said was correct and it wasn't even like that strong of a statement, you know, but is he going to back down? Is he going to apologize? Cause last time I checked, wasn't it like the NFL apologizing for him or something? Didn't you, I thought you, did the school apologize? The nuns apologized? Oh, the nuns got mad. The nuns got offended like, yeah, we know that you nuns aren't reproducing. But the thing is, you know, people, people were issuing all these statements and, you know, and they're all doing damage control and in an uproar because some guy just kind of states the obvious. The guy's like getting choked up talking about how much he loves his wife and everybody's mad at the guy, like, like get a rope. Let's hang this guy because he's telling Catholics who supposedly following Jesus, they claim to be following Jesus. They claim to be following the Bible. Of course, that's a joke, but they claim to, don't they? Doesn't the Bible say that women should marry, bear children, guide the house, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands. I mean, this guy didn't even get up and say, Hey, women should obey their husbands. Amen. If he would have said that, if he would have got up and said, Hey, the Bible says women should obey their husbands. Amen. Wouldn't you expect Catholics who are supposedly a Christian faith to say, well, yeah, that's what the Bible says in Titus chapter two. It's what the Bible says in Ephesians five, first Peter three, but no, we're living in a day where you can't even in a religious school, you can't even say religious things at a religious school because of who you're going to offend. You know, I hope he doesn't apologize. You know, if they come after him and you know, he's probably getting persecuted just for, just for saying, I mean, nowadays you just, you just say there's two genders or something and it's like, it's on man, because it's crazy out there. He's actors and actresses, see here's the actors, actresses, athletes, they're not allowed to have normal opinions about anything or they get in trouble, but aren't you sick of people apologizing when they told the truth, when they did what was right. You know, you hear these epic clips from people like Tim Hardaway, epic, epic clip. And then you're just crushed and heartbroken as you read about him apologizing, going to classes about how to love faggots more and going to this like remedial faggotry school and taking pictures posing with faggots. What is that Tim Hardaway? You know, you're my hero. Sad man, but you know what? The Church of the Thessalonians, man, they went through the affliction, they went through the persecution and they just still believe the word of God. They just still preach the word of God. And that's what we're going to do too. Why? We want to be an example of a guy, well, okay, Tim Hardaway apologized, but Pastor Anderson didn't. You know, this guy over here apologized, but Pastor Jimenez didn't. Pastor Shelley didn't apologize. Pastor Persis didn't apologize, right? We want to be examples of people who didn't apologize for speaking the truth as found in the word of God. We want to be like the Thessalonians. We want to have love, faith, works, patience, endurance, and respect for the word of God and total submission to God's word and its teachings, and also the willingness to follow others and be humble, and also to be followed by others by being an example. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this patterned church. Help us to be like the Thessalonians. Help us to put into practice whatever it was in the message tonight that we each individually need the most, and collectively as a church, Lord, help us to be like the Thessalonians. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.