Sermon Tone Analysis

*“Gospel Growth in the World”*

*1 Thessalonians 1.2-10*

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*            *This week and last we have been talking about Gospel Growth.

As we move forward as a church, it is vital that we solidify our purposes being part of God’s mission in the world.

We would all likely agree that the Gospel, or the good news of Jesus Christ is to be central for his church.

Last week, we talked about the role of the gospel /within/ the church – how the gospel changes lives and how we interact with one another.

A crucial element of this is that we continue to grow in the knowledge of God and his plans.

As we pursue a greater understanding of his attributes and how they affect us personally, our affections will grow toward him and toward one another.

As a community project our collective faith, hope and love are increased as well.

This pursuit fell primarily under our core value of “equipping.”

As a quick review, the first core value is that “We exalt the one true God.”

As Squamish Baptist Church, we are committed to regularly gather to worship God together.

And we are committed to glorify God individually in every action and all speech.

As I mentioned, the second core value is “Equip Believers for Ministry.”

We believe that all Christians are called to utilize their spiritual gifts for the building up of the Body of Christ.

We strive together to develop these gifts within the context of community.

And, third, we “Engage the World with the Gospel.”

We take seriously our privilege and responsibility to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ as the Saviour to all the nations.

We commit to maintain a lifestyle that is consistent with the message.

And this will be our focus today.

We will be dealing largely with the last core value – how we will engage the world with this gospel.

And we will do this by looking in the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 1.2-10.

It probably would also help us to recognize that these core values are inseparably bound to our Vision Statement.

As you may or may not know, several years ago we set out articulate and communicate this statement.

This would serve as a banner in declaration and also a touchpoint where we could ensure that we were being true to this vision.

The statement reads that “Squamish Baptist Church is God-centred: living to glorify him under the direction of his Word.”

We want to make sure that we maintain an emphasis of exalting God and not man.

We want to ensure that he is the focus.

And, as we know, this is done only as we recognize his Word as authoritative and sufficient for all that we seek to be and do.

So as we pursue core values, all these are derived from the Bible.

Let’s read God’s Word together in 1 Thessalonians.

*READ.*

The first thing I want to draw our attention to in this passage is our first point, *Gospel Power.

*We’ll find this in verses 4 and 5.

But first, Paul (with Silas and Timothy) mention that they thank God because of their work of faith, labour of love, and steadfastness of hope.

And we’ll get to those momentarily.

But in verse 4, Paul gives another reason for his thanking God.

He says, “we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you.”

What he means by this is that God has sovereignly chosen those in the church for salvation.

And then he will give some of the reasons why he knows this to be true.

This is found in verse 5.   

            Verse 5 tells us that the Thessalonians were presented the Gospel.

And when the message came, it came in power and with full conviction brought by the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 17 we discover that Paul and Silas came to Thessalonica and spent three weeks declaring the gospel from the Scriptures in the synagogue.

And it is recorded there that there were many who believed in Jesus and others who did not and actually began to persuade the city to persecute the new Christians.

This account summarizes the means by which people are brought to salvation.

True salvation occurs when the gospel message is proclaimed.

The Holy Spirit comes in power in order to convict the world of sin and show them the need for a Saviour.

The Holy Spirit accompanies the declared Word of God. 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 “1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in */demonstration of the Spirit and of power/*, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the */power of God/*.”

In 1 Peter 1.12, Peter indicates that it is such a miraculous phenomenon that intrigues the angels as well.

He writes that it is “the things that have now been announced to you through those */who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit/* sent from heaven.”

And Romans 1.16 speaks of the power of the gospel.

Paul writes there, “16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for */it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes/*, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

And most of you already know something about this.

Someone somewhere was obedient to their responsibility to share the message of Jesus Christ and the cross with you.

And many of you can attest to falling under the conviction of the Holy Spirit because of your sin and you desperately called for Jesus.

The message to the Thessalonians was powerful.

Time and again Paul had witnessed this power.

He helped spread the gospel to the known world and had seen its dramatic results – including in Thessalonica.

Look down at verse 9. Word was getting back to Paul that they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

This is biblical conversion in a nutshell.

In this time, Greeks were saturated with idol worship.

If we were to do a brief walk through the book of Acts, we encounter the people associating Barnabas and Paul as Zeus and Hermes in chapter 14.

In chapter 17, Paul stood in Athens in the midst of the Areopagus and observed that they were a “religious” people because of the altar to “the unknown god.”

And he used this as a transition to speak of the true and living God.

And then in chapter 19, Paul got himself in trouble when he enters Ephesus and speaks against their goddess Artemis because there was good money in the making of these idols.

And so, when confronted with the gospel, these Thessalonians abandoned all they had known and turned to serve the living and true God.

They did not merely adopt Jesus into their pantheon and become syncretistic.

They had exercised what we refer to as repentance and faith.

This is a turning from sin and idolatry and turning to Jesus Christ.

They took the radical step of abandoning those gods that were part of the worship of their family and their community.

This verse really contains the bottom line with regard to the object of faith.

There is only one God.

He is the living and true God.

Note also the definite article.

He is not one of many.

He is */the /*God.

John 17:3 “3 And this is eternal life, that they know you */the only true God/*, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

I realize that this doesn’t jive with our world of diversity and tolerance.

Oh well… And so the opposite is also true.

Idols are dead and they are not God.

So as we consider our role for /Gospel Growth in the World/, this is our message.

The gospel that contains this awesome power wrought by the Holy Spirit is the same today.

Have you thought on this lately?

The Bible says that the “gospel is the *power of God *unto salvation.”

It is the power of God!!

So let me ask the question, why do we cower in fear when we know there is a clear opportunity to present the gospel?

THAT is a good question, isn’t it?

I think two things are happening.

I’ll speak for myself.

First, I am more concerned with what a person thinks about me than my God.

Right?

Second, in this moment, I have ceased to believe the truth of God’s Word.

We think things like “I know this guy.

This one is beyond believing the gospel.

He’s been dealing drugs for years.

He’s been cheating on his wife.”

Whatever… *The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation*!