Sermon for Sunday October 11th, 2009

Believing the Word of God by Scott Kircher

1 Thessalonians 2:13-2:16

Believing the Word of God
The Message of the Apostles is the Word of God
The Word of God is Reliable
Because the Apostles are Reliable
The Word of God is Powerful
It transforms us as we
Receive God’s word in our minds
AND
Accept God’s word in our hearts
The Word of God is Dangerous
… for those “in Christ” , but only temporarily – opposition and persecution
…for the “enemies of Christ” possibly eternally – the wrath of God

Introduction
Slide
“Don’t believe everything you hear”
In this age of the internet where
rumors spread faster than a wild fire and
people’s opinions are presented as fact,
that is sound advice.

But while it is sound advice to be discerning in what we believe, we often take this to mean “Don’t believe Anything you hear.”

We have become a people who are extremely skeptical of all that we hear.

The simple fact is that we need to give a hearing to some of the things we hear.

Tornado warning
The other night, we heard our tornado sirens going off after 10 pm. Most of the family was in bed, but we got everyone up and went downstairs.

Now no tornado came through our subdivision, praise the Lord.

In fact I have never seen a tornado come through our subdivision in the 12 years that I have lived there.

And I can tell you that in those 12 years, our tornado sirens have gone off about 25 or 30 times.

So why would I wake my family up and move us all downstairs?

Well, I can tell you that the rains were coming down, and the wind was picking up and I don’t believe that the people who operate our tornado sirens are trying to play a joke on me or the community.

And even though I have never seen a tornado personally, I have seen the effects of a tornado and I have seen the things that accompany a tornado, the rain and the wind.

I can tell you that when those sirens went off it was raining and the wind was picking up. I don’t doubt that the threat of a tornado was real and it was the right thing to do to hear the sirens and take action as a result of what I heard.

And even though I have never seen a tornado, and none has ever come through my subdivision, the consequences of not hearing and acting could be devastating to my family if I were wrong.

So, it is wise to keep our ears open to hear the things that could change our lives and it would be good to have criteria for assessing what to believe concerning what we hear, or at least to give a hearing to, without dismissing it out of hand.

But what about in matters of faith?
How can we assess the truth claims of systems of belief?
And is it really that important that we deal with this now, can’t it all just get sorted out after we die?

Well, I would urge you to not wait until after you die, because the consequences upon you and your family could be great.

This morning, I am going to talk about the word of God as we look at 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16. (Turn there in your Bibles).
Slide

We are going to look at their belief and why it was rational to believe and consider the consequences of both belief and unbelief of the word of God.

Let’s begin.

1 Thessalonians 2:13-16
13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. 14 For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

Pray



First I want you to notice what Paul says about the message that is being spoken by them to the Thessalonians and how they receive it.

He says
The Message of the Apostles is the Word of God
Slide
He says “you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God” (v. 13)

Now, should we believe Paul when he says the message that the Apostles are speaking is the Word of God and is reliable for us to believe?

This is an important question for us to answer, because the Bible, what we know as the Word of God, is the message of the Apostles.

It is the message
of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John;
of Paul, and Peter, and James and Jude.
It is the Apostles who are transmitting to us through their writing the very word of God. Is it reliable?

Well, I can tell you that this was something that I really went through. I am a skeptic by nature and when I came to the point of really understanding what was being said in the Bible, I wanted to know if this message of the apostles was really reliable.

I can tell you that as I studied this, I came to the conclusion that
The Word of God is Reliable
Slide
It is reliable for a number of reasons and there is much evidence to support it.
This morning, I am only going to go over 1 major reason that the Bible, the word of God can be counted on as reliable and I would urge you to begin looking into this for yourself and, if you want to learn more, I want to invite you to come to our next Back to Basics Seminar in November where we go over a lot of evidence for the belief that the Bible is the Word of God.

But this morning, I want to put forth that
The Word of God is Reliable
…Because the Apostles are Reliable
Slide
As we have been studying the letter to the Thessalonians, we see that the Thessalonians trusted Paul and his companions as reliable messengers because they took the things they were saying not as the word of men, but as the Word of God.

Why did they trust them? Why would they believe such a message from these men?
They trusted what these men were saying for some of the same reasons we can trust them today.
We can trust the Apostles because they suffered and sacrificed to proclaim the Word of God
Slide
This is something they knew 100% to be true or false. It is not something they just believed was true, they knew for sure if it was true and they were willing to suffer and sacrifice to proclaim it.

Maybe they were lying.

Now we all probably know people who believe something, but just because they believe it doesn’t make them willing to suffer and sacrifice to proclaim that to others.

But I would challenge you to show me anyone who is willing to suffer and sacrifice for what they don’t believe.

There is no doubt that the apostles really believed what they were proclaiming and the really amazing thing is that they just didn’t believe it, they knew it as fact because they were eyewitnesses.

This is why I believe that the Apostles had to suffer so much and be killed for proclaiming the Word of God, so that we could believe their message today. Because if they would have benefited or gotten rich, we would have a hard time thinking that they were reliable messengers of the Word of God.

These men were willing to proclaim the Word of God and are reliable because they suffered and sacrificed because they knew the truth of what they were saying because they saw it with their own eyes.

They saw Jesus alive, they heard Him speak and teach about what He was going to do, they saw Him die and they saw Him rise from the dead.

They trusted His promise of eternal life for those who believe the gospel message and believe in Jesus for their salvation so they suffered and sacrificed to proclaim it because they knew that Jesus had promised to receive those who believe to Himself, whether upon their death or when He returns at the rapture, and they kept their eyes upon Him and His promise.

We can believe the Word of God that we read because this is
the message of the Apostles,
the same message that the early churches heard from Paul and the other Apostles,
the same message that still is the word of God
and is reliable because the messengers were reliable.

Not only is the Word of God reliable and we can trust it, but we can trust it because
The Word of God is Powerful
Slide
Just like we can see things that accompany a tornado, rain and powerful winds, there are things that accompany a belief in the word of God.

Paul tells the Thessalonian believers the word of God is at “work” in their lives at the end of verse 13.

What is the word of God at work doing?

It is powerfully transforming them.
Back in chapter 1 of
1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 - For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power…

The word of God is powerful in our lives to change us, to transform us, when we truly believe it.

I want to look a little closer at verse 13 and see how this powerful word of God begins to transform us.

Notice that it says they ‘received the word of God”
The word translated ‘received’ is “paralabontes” and it means “to receive something transmitted” or “to receive with the mind” (from Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)

It is something that we learn or know with our minds.

So this powerful word of God begins its transforming work as we
Receive God’s Word in our Minds
Slide
These Thessalonians were willing to listen to what the apostles were saying. They didn’t just dismiss it out of hand without giving a fair hearing to it

Often when Jesus was teaching something he would say,
“He who has ears, let him hear." (Matthew 13:9)

There are some who don’t even want to listen and think about what is being said.
Their mind and ears are closed to what is being said.

These Thessalonians who would believe, were receiving and hearing and giving thought to what Paul was saying as he proclaimed the message of God.

Application
Are you willing to Receive God’s word with your mind?
Are you willing to hear and give thought to something that is perhaps different from what you believed in the past or were taught as you were raised?
Or do you just dismiss it out of hand without even considering if it could be true or false.


Conversations about Baptism
I had several conversations this week in regards to baptism and how we practice it here. They were great conversations because the people I talked to were really trying to understand and know why we practice it the way we do and what the Bible had to say about it.

They were receiving with their ears and in their minds what was being said.

To have the power of the word of God transform us we have to be willing to hear it and receive it, but it cannot stop there for true transformation to occur.

Transition to next point
Look with me again at verse 13. It says “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” (v. 13)

Now there is a difference in the words received and accepted.

While the word translated ‘received’ means ‘to receive something transmitted’ or “to receive with the mind,” the word translated as “accepted” means to ‘embrace’ or ‘make one’s own’ (from Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)

Some versions translate the second word as “welcomed” (NKJV) and Warren Wiersbe says that while
the first word means the “hearing of the ear”
this second word means “the hearing of the heart.”
(Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Vol. 2, p. 168)

So to have the word of God powerfully transform us, we have got to receive the word of God with our minds, AND
Accept God’s Word with our Hearts
Slide
I want to tell you that the difference in what occurs between
receiving God’s word with your mind and
accepting God’s word with your heart
is the difference between heaven and hell.

Don’t believe for a second that you can just be open to hearing the message of the gospel with your ears and receiving it in your mind and you will have salvation.

It is when you accept God’s word in your heart that God begins to transforms us.
But we can’t accept it without first receiving it.

We must accept it, we must believe the truth about what the Word of God says about Jesus.

Romans 10:9 - if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
We need to believe the Gospel message, believe who Jesus is and what He has done, in OUR HEART to be saved, to receive salvation from an eternity apart from the Lord.

Peter tells us to “love one another deeply, from the heart.” Because when we accept God’s word in our heart, we have “been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:22-23)

When Paul preached the gospel to the women in Philippi, it says this about Lydia in
Acts 16:14 – “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Apply
Maybe you have been raised going to church and have heard the message of the gospel with your ears and received it in your minds, but have you accepted it with your heart?

When we welcome the Word of God into our hearts, we also welcome the Living Word of God into our hearts and have a oneness with Him, a relationship.

It is the accepting of Him and His word into our hearts that begins that relationship. Otherwise, we are just going through the motions of some religiosity that has no power to transform us or to save us from an eternity apart from the Lord

Matthew 7:21-23 - "Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ’I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

They never knew Him. While they may have known about Him, while they may have received with their minds the word of God, they never accepted it into their hearts and came into relationship with the only One who could save them from an eternity in hell.

Accept the message of God’s word in your heart and
Accept the Living Word of God into your heart by doing what the Word of God says, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and
believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and
let the powerful word of God transform your life.

I want you to be thinking about this during the next few minutes and ask yourself if you have every really moved beyond receiving the message of the word of God with your mind and accepted it in your heart. At the end of the message, I will give you an opportunity to confess and accept it in your heart.

But I want to look at one final point about believing the Word of God, the message of the Gospel.

We have seen that the Word of God is reliably given by apostles who are reliable and that the word of God is powerful as it transforms our lives as we receive it with our minds and accept it in our hearts, but we also see that
The Word of God is Dangerous…
Slide
Dangerous? How is it dangerous?
Look at
1 Thessalonians 2:14-15
14 For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

The word of God is Dangerous in 2 ways.
First, the word of God is dangerous…
… for those “in Christ”, but only temporarily
Slide
For those who believe the Word of God and receive Christ and accept the word and it begins to transform you in your living, you are going to face persecution and suffering on this earth.

Jesus said that, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:34-35)

On this earth, those who trust in Jesus Christ and follow the Word of God are going to face times of suffering. Probably more than if you did not believe in Jesus.

“Wait, I thought believing in Jesus and accepting Him in my heart would make my life better? That guy on TV said I could be healthy and strong and rich if I follow Jesus and the Bible.”

I will tell you clearly that there is no promise of wealth or perfect health in this life as someone believes the Word of God and follows Jesus.

But there is the promise of suffering and persecution.
Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12 says “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”

Jesus says in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble.”

Believing the Word of God is dangerous in this life, but while it doesn’t make life easier, it makes life better.

That thing that each of us is really looking for, that peace and joy in life, is available in Christ Jesus, and we can have that joy and peace in this life despite any suffering or persecution we face.

The whole verse of John 16:33 says, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Jesus overcame the world and when we trust in Him and receive His word in our hearts as the word of God and receive Him in our hearts, we can have peace, joy and be secure in the fact that our eternity will be one of overcoming the world and entering heaven where we will spend eternity with the Lord and then be free of pain and suffering for all of the rest of eternity.

Believing the word of God is dangerous for those in Christ only temporarily in this world.

But the word of God is also Dangerous…
...For the Enemies of God, possibly for eternity
Slide
It says of those opposed to God that “They displease God and are hostile to all men 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16)

Those who do not listen to the word of God and in fact seek to suppress it from being spoken, face God’s wrath.

Now it is not clear what Paul is speaking of here when he says the wrath of God has come upon them at last, is it the eternal or is it the wrath that we all faced before we trusted in Christ?

Because Ephesians 2 tells us that we were all objects of God’s wrath before we believed in Christ.

Ephesians 2:1-3 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

It goes on to say that “you were separate from Christ… without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:12-13)

We were all objects of God’s wrath when we were outside of Christ, so it could mean that God’s wrath is on them as it is on everyone who doesn’t believe, but they still have opportunity to receive and accept God’s word and trust in Jesus for salvation to escape God’s wrath.

I know that God “is patient…not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

But even amid the patience of God, there are those who persist in their unbelief, who even turn hostile to God and His word, and seek to stop others from believing.

They heap up their sins to the limit and I believe that as they have rejected the leading of the Holy Spirit in showing them the truth of God’s word, they have turned away and become hostile to God and all men and not only has “God’s wrath come upon them” now as He gives them “over to the sinful desires of their heart” (Romans 1:24), but they will face God’s eternal wrath as they enter an eternity apart from Christ in Hell where it is the very word they rejected that will condemn them.

Jesus says in John 12:47-48, that “the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. 48 There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.”

The word of God is dangerous for those enemies of God for eternity if they do not believe the word and accept it into their hearts and believe in Jesus in their heart.

Conclusion
Have you believed and accepted the word of God, by hearing and accepting it into your heart and believing in Jesus as Lord, as Savior of your life?

The word of God is a reliable and powerful word, but it is also a dangerous word, but is dangerous only temporarily for those who accept it, and even in the midst of the suffering and persecution, you can have peace and joy.
But for those who reject it, the danger can last for eternity.

If you have received the word by hearing it and contemplating it, then I ask you, are you ready to accept it with your heart by
confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and
believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead?

If you are, then I ask you to pray along with me as we close and confess to God your heart belief and to ask for strength for those who do believe that we will be able to experience and express peace and joy to others amid suffering so others can believe the Word of God as well.

Let’s pray.