Message Received
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Introduction:
Well, tomorrow is Valentines Day. Hopefully you remembered and have gotten your sweetheart a special gift or are doing something to show them you love them. If you don’t have a sweetheart, there’s no shame in getting yourself a little something special either.
You know Valentine’s is the holiday where people like to make those ransom looking letters with conversation hearts glued to the page.
It’s a holiday that is all about communicating love to the people you care about.
Getting messages to people, or things, is important for us as a human race.
Did you know:
In the early 19th century, Austrian astronomer Joseph Johann Von Littrow earnestly proposed that humans dig trenches configured in vast geometric patterns in the Sahara desert, fill them with kerosene and light them ablaze. The idea was to send a clear message to alien civilizations living elsewhere in the solar system: We are here.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/messages-sent-to-aliens.html
That’s pretty extreme to try to get a message out to creatures that don’t even exist.
But did you know that God has traveled across the galaxies more light years than our minds can comprehend to communicate with us? He has specifically given us information about who He is and what He has done for us in creating this world as our home and specifically in rescuing us from our sin.
This morning, we want to talk about that message and what it does for us. Turn in your Bibles if you will to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.
13 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.
14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,
15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind
16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!
Pray
1. Receive the Bible As God’s Word (v.13)
1. Receive the Bible As God’s Word (v.13)
The Bible is not just any book. It is a special book. It isn’t just special because it is a holy book. It isn’t just special because it is the Bible. It is special because it is the Word of God.
2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV)
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
You see, we don’t worship the Bible. The Bible is not a means to an end in and of itself. It is the conduit that God has used to transmit His Word to us throughout the generations.
A lot of people think that God inspired the writing of the Bible and then just left it in our hands. However, we need to realize that God has not only inspired the writing of the Word, He has also guided it and preserved it to distribute it around the globe in accordance with His divine plan.
God also has continued to use the Word to speak to you and me.
A.W. Tozer puts it this way,
“The man of real faith believes the Word, but it has been illuminated so that he knows what the Word means…The illumination is what matters and the Word of God is a means toward an end, just as roads are a means toward destinations. A road is nothing in itself. Nobody ever built a road and fenced it in at both ends and planted posies along it and beautified it and said, ‘This is a road.’ They said, ‘This is a way, a means toward somewhere.’ The Bible is a whole series of highways, all leading toward God. And when the text has been illuminated and the believer of the text knows that God is the end toward which he is moving, then that man has real faith.”
The Attributes of God, p. 19-20
No matter the fault with the messenger, there is no fault with the Word of God. This does not excuse us from a poor presentation, but we need to know that the Word of God goes out and it does not come back void.
2. Let God’s Word Work in You (v.13)
2. Let God’s Word Work in You (v.13)
KJV Rendering
1 Thessalonians 2:13 (KJV 1900)
13 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.
3. Obey God’s Word No Matter the Cost (vv.14-16)
3. Obey God’s Word No Matter the Cost (vv.14-16)
Following Jesus meant leaving everything behind. It meant losing friends, jobs, even their lives.
Paul compares them to a long line of Christian martyrs.
-They are compared to the churches in Judea that suffered at the hands of the Jews
These Jews killed:
-Jesus
-The Prophets in the Old Testament
-Drove Paul and his companions out of the country
They represent all of those who stand in the way of the gospel. These people displease God and are enemies of the cross.
Paul says that they are filling up the measure of their sins.
4. Preach God’s Word So that Others May Hear (vv. 15-16)
4. Preach God’s Word So that Others May Hear (vv. 15-16)
The biggest problem with these opponents was that not only did they not believe themselves, but they also prevented others from hearing the gospel.
The church has been given the responsibility to preach the gospel, no matter the cost.
There is a guarantee that if we preach the gospel to others, they will be saved. Not everyone will believe, but all that God has called.
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
In Romans, Paul says,
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
15 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!”
And in verse 17 he says,
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
So you see, we can know that God, who works out our salvation in us, will bring those that He is rescuing to the gospel ship. Our job is to cry out to those who are perishing that they may be saved.
Conclusion:
Story of Titanic life boats coming back to collect survivors. They were too late for many.