Stonebrook Church, Ames, Iowa, Sermons

In one of the most uplifting letters in the New Testament, Paul is overjoyed at the faith of this young church in the midst of suffering. We who follow Christ can share in a similar joy as we walk by faith and help others do the same. When Christ comes again, those whom we have helped will be our glory and our joy!

Sunday, May 10, 2020  Brad Barrett

1 Thessalonians 2:13-20

You, Our Glory and Joy

 In 2002 I went to Honduras on a mission trip with others from Stonebrook. One day we hiked up a small mountain to a very remote village.  We went with the gospel….to share with them about Jesus Christ and eternal life.  In this village, survival was a significant challenge for the residents.  Life was hard.  Their source of income was primarily growing coffee on the steep mountain slopes.  Each person needed vigorous health to survive. 

At one point, two of us pastors were called into the house of a family with several children. The oldest child, a daughter—about 10 or 12 years old—had a severely crippled foot. And in that harsh and impoverished mountainous area, her health would have made survival as an adult very, very difficult.  But the medical solutions were expensive and unavailable in that area.

So the parents were very desperate for their daughter…desperate in ways I’ve never experienced.  So one of their options was to give her up for adoption to one of us from the U.S. simply so that she could get medical help and survive.  They loved her so much they actually considered this desperate measure that she might survive. 

I was stunned.  My oldest daughter was with me that day, and though I am not a big crier, I wept and wept as I thought about life being so on the edge of survival that I would actually consider giving away my daughter to adoption for the sake of her survival.  It would have crushed me. 

For you teenagers and young children listening today, imagine being that girl, being torn away from her parents who were tortured by their options as they considered how to keep their precious daughter alive into adulthood.    

We are in the middle of  a sermon series going through a letter written by the Apostle Paul.   He wrote this letter to a church in ancient Greece.  A city called Thessalonica.  If you have a Bible, turn to 1 Thessalonians.  Chapter 2.  The background to this letter is similar to  my story…but in reverse.   Paul— in the parents’ role—was torn away from his children in the faith.  This young church.  He was forced out of the city because of violent persecution.  He loved them like I love my daughters, and he was in agony not being there, unsure how they were holding up in a city violently opposed to Jesus and his church.

Today’s short passage is quite a tender insight into Paul’s love for these people and how proud he is of them in their love and faith. 

1 Thessalonians 2

So let’s read in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2. 

Our passage this morning is quite brief.  We’ll read it in two segments

Vs. 13-16

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!

Last week Pastor Dave looked at vs. 1-12 where Paul shares his deep love for them, with the heart of a mother and a father with their children. 

Now in this section,   Paul worships the Lord for his work in the Thessalonians’ lives. 

Read vs. 13 again:

Vs. 13

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 …

In one of the most uplifting letters in the New Testament, Paul is overjoyed at the faith of this young church in the midst of suffering. We who follow Christ can share in a similar joy as we walk by faith and help others do the same. When Christ comes again, those whom we have helped will be our glory and our joy!

We all know the importance of being an example, not a hypocrite, to others—someone whose words and actions generally line up. And this becomes a noticeable and powerful influence to everyone who sees. The New Testament letter, First Thessalonians, tells us the story of Christians who believed the gospel, lived it in powerful ways, then spoke of it. What is our story?

Core virtues of the Christian life are the well-loved triad of faith, love, and hope. The Apostle Paul was concerned for the health of the very young Thessalonian church in the face of persecution. But he discovered they remained on a solid foundation with a genuine faith that led to action, an exemplary love that prompted service, and a sure hope that resulted in endurance. In our daily trials, including these strange and stressful days of COVID-19, we can be inspired by the exemplary lives of these Christians from ancient times.

This Easter Sunday we will take a look at Luke 24 and see how the resurrection of Jesus can give us hope, courage, and strengthened faith even as we are couped up at home in a time where we may be asking ‘Where is God in all this?

Over many years, the apostle Paul and the Corinthians had experienced a rocky relationship. In today’s passage we see some of the elements of how that relationship was restored, primarily through loving reproof and wholehearted repentance. We will look at what genuine repentance looks like and how it has power to resolve relational conflict.

Christ followers are called to walk in pure devotion to the Lord in our faith and actions. God’s appeal to us for this way of living, as shown in the Apostle Paul’s heart, is through his loving, fatherly relationship with us, his children in Christ.

As a minister of the New Covenant, Paul gave his heart and life to the proclamation of the good news about Jesus. He demonstrated his authenticity by his perseverance through great affliction and through his sacrificial, loving, and Spirit-filled actions. As we look at Paul’s life we can have confidence that Jesus really did appear to him, radically transforming his life. And, along with Paul, we should wholeheartedly believe in what God has one in Jesus Christ and give of […]