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1 Thessalonians 2:13-16, For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. [14] For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, [15] who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, [16] hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.
PAUL IS THANKFUL FOR GOD’S WORD AT WORK.
Vs. 13a, For this reason we also constantly thank God…
Paul’s heart exudes gratitude toward God! He is constantly giving thanks, especially for God’s work in the hearts of God’s people through the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see it in almost every one of his letters.
- Romans 1:8, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.”
- 1 Corinthians 1:4, “I thank my God always concerning you.”
- Ephesians 1:16, “I do not cease giving thanks for you.”
- Philippians 1:3, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.”
- 2 Thessalonians 1:3, “We ought always to give thanks to God for you.”
- 2 Timothy 1:3, “I thank God as I constantly remember you in my prayers.”
- Philemon 4, “I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers.”
And then we come back to 1 Thessalonians where he repeatedly gives thanks to God for them.
- 1 Thessalonians 1:2, “We give thanks to God always for all of you.”
- 1 Thessalonians 2:13a, “For this reason we also constantly thank God.” Paul’s “reason” was that they received his message for what it is, the Word of God. Then Paul adds one more thanks.
- 1 Thessalonians 3:9, “For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account.”
THE WORD OF MAN OR THE WORD OF GOD?
Vs. 13b, …you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God...
We are thankful to God as well as we realize how you, Evansville Bible Church, receive the Word as the Word of God. Paul contrasts the word of men with the Word of God. There’s an enormous difference. There’s an infinite gap between the two. Spurgeon put it like this.
You may know the Lord’s sheep by the fact that “a stranger will they not follow for they know not the voice of strangers.” They will not receive the word of man; it is too light, too chaffy, too frothy for them. You may put it before them in the daintiest guise, illustrate it with poetry, and prove it by the fictions of science, but they cannot feed on such wind. There is an essential difference between man’s word and God’s word, and it is fatal to mistake the one for the other.
No message spun out of the mind of man can bring you eternal life, forgiveness of sins, a new heart, a relationship with God. Many of the words of man will bring you just the opposite. Think about the major works of history that our own culture has accepted as true, although they are thick with Satan’s lies. Think of Darwin’s lies of evolution, Karl Marx’s lies of atheistic materialism and class revolution, Sigmund Freud’s lies of humanistic psychology. Plus there are many, many more fatally false and Satanically motivated human messages that do nothing but drag the listeners to hell. Erwin Lutzer in No Reason to Hide identifies the greatest lie that is our most cherished delusion, “Live by your own truth and you can be whatever you want to be.” When liberal preachers and professors deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, man’s total depravity, the necessity of the new birth, the creation of all things in six literal days, affirming same sex marriages and denying the reality of hell, they are ambassadors of Satan dressed as angels of light but spreaders of darkness.
Paul says when they came and preached to the Thessalonians, one of the great evidences of God working in their hearts was their receiving the message as the Word of God. Paul repeats “the Word of God” in verse 13. They heard it, received it, and then welcomed it into their hearts as the Word of the living and true God. The word “accepted” means to welcome and embrace full-heartedly. In 1 Corinthians 2:14 Paul says, “The natural man does not accept (or welcome, same Greek word) the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” Nothing demonstrates the reality of salvation like a heart that is transformed from unbelief into welcoming, receiving, and submitting to the authority of God’s Word. This is the evidence of a regenerated heart. Peter put it like this.
1 Peter 1:22, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
THE WORD OF GOD ENERGIZES BELIEVERS.
Vs. 13c, …which also performs its work (energizes) in you who believe.
This is the power of the Word of God. It effectually works, it energizes, it transforms the believer’s heart. We have to lay Philippians 2:13 right beside 1 Thessalonians 2:13. The same Greek word for “work” is used in both verses.
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who is at work (energizing) in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
The great power of the Word of God is to bring the life of God into the soul of man. Back in the summer of 2022 we did a series of “High View” messages and one was “A High View of Scripture.”
We are committed to a high view of Scripture (Sola Scriptura) because Jesus told us we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. His prayer to the Father for His people was, “Sanctify them in Your truth; Your Word is truth (John 17:17). Peter assures us in 2 Peter 1:3-4 that God’s promises (His Word) and power are sufficient and all we need to grow and glorify God.
Paul’s heart rejoiced that God worked in these Thessalonians’ hearts to receive and welcome the Word of God for what it really is, the Word of God, which was powerfully energizing them to live their Christian lives in the midst of opposition. Let’s look for a bit at the character of God’s Word which powerfully works in our lives.
THE CHARACTER OF GOD’S WORD.
The Spirit of God “has not only inbreathed the written word and given it but also accompanies it and makes it operative in the hearts of believers. While it is centuries old, God’s Word remains fresh and eternally young. It’s as if it was written yesterday, ‘as if the ink was not yet dry.’” (Eric Sauer, From Eternity to Eternity).
God’s Word is God-breathed and without error. One author described the character of the Scriptures like this. The Scriptures are inspired by God, or “God-breathed,” (2 Timothy 3:16). Second Peter 1:20-21 says, “No prophecy was ever made by an act of the human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” That means the Scriptures are without error and infallible. No promise of God will ever fail. Scripture contains infinite truth, truth we can’t fully understand. Do you understand the trinity? Or the hypostatic union of God and man? Isaiah 55:9 says God’s thoughts are high above us our thoughts like the heavens above the earth.
God’s Word is incisive. God uses it to do spiritual heart surgery on us.
Hebrews 4:12-13, For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge (kritikos) the thoughts and intentions of the heart. [13] And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
The word “judge” is the Greek word kritikos meaning the critic of our deepest thoughts and motives. Unbelieving scholars criticize the Bible as mere myths or the mere works of humans, not knowing that the Bible is actually criticizing them!
God’s Word is inescapable. The words in the Scriptures are inescapable. You cannot escape God’s truth. Jesus warns the rejector of His Words in John 12:48, “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.”
This is the glorious character of the Word of God. It is powerful. It energizes the heart of the believer. Jeremiah describes it as fire that burns out sin and a hammer that breaks hard hearts.
Jeremiah 23:29, “Is not My word like fire?” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock?”
It’s also a mirror to expose our sin, a light to dispel darkness, a sword to pierce the evil, and milk, bread, meat, and honey. David called it sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb (Psalm 19:10).
Paul says the Thessalonians heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, they embraced it, they welcomed it into their hearts, and the Word powerfully energized them.
EVIDENCE OF THE POWER OF GOD’S WORD IN YOUR LIFE.
1 Thessalonians 2:14, For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,
Paul knew God’s message was working in their hearts for one big reason. They became imitators of other believers, and especially of those churches over in Judea. They endured persecution and suffering from the people around them just like those believers in Judea did. While there are many evidences of God’s power working in your life – the fruit of the Spirit, hunger for God’s Word, fighting your sin and pursuing after holiness, loving and serving one another – a key evidence is enduring opposition and trials without turning back.
God’s Word energizes us to hang in there even when people around us make life difficult. James 1:2-3 says the trying of our faith works endurance. Christ said, “If they hated Me they’ll also hate you” (John 15:18). “Blessed are you when men insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil because of Me. Rejoice and be glad. Your reward in heaven is great. (Matthew 5:11-12). Enduring suffering and persecution from the world’s hatred of God has been the story of the church through the centuries. We need to read a few pages from Foxes’ Book of Martyrs occasionally for a spiritual reality check. It’s not bedtime reading.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE JEWS.
1 Thessalonians 2:15, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men.
Why does Paul go back to the Jewish opposition starting in Judea? For one obvious reason – this is where persecution of the churches began. We need to remember that Paul’s words here about the Jews and their murdering Christ and persecuting the church are not a basis for anti-Semitism. God never cancelled His promises and plan for Israel. The time is still coming when God will convert many Jews from all the tribes of Israel and Christ will set up His throne in Jerusalem. Plus, Paul loved his fellow Jews. He expresses his love and concern for them in Romans 9:3-4, “I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” In Romans 10:1 he assures us, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.” Warren Wiersbe notes, “There is no place in the Christian faith for anti-Semitism.” Today we hear anti-Semitism in the news every single day, often on college campuses. Some woke left-wing progressive so-called Christians are joining the chorus of hateful anti-Semitism. Instead, we should pray for the Jews like Paul did.
So what is Paul saying? All the apostles and the first believers in Acts were Jews. Not until Acts 10 do Gentiles get the gospel at Cornelius’ house. Paul was the greatest missionary in church history, and he was a Jew. And never forget, our Savior is a Jew. He was born as a Jewish child into a Jewish family in the line of David, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He wept over Jerusalem in Luke 19 and repeatedly warned the Jews of their fatal rejection, aligning themselves with Satan. They said, “We’ll not have this man to rule over us.” Those Jewish leaders wanted a military deliverer, not a spiritual deliverer.
Luke 19:41-44, When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, [42] saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. [43] For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, [44] and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Verse 15 is the one place where Paul lays the murder of Christ at the feet of the Jews. He also says they murdered prophets, probably thinking of Old Testament prophets. We can trace this persecution of Christ and His followers through the Gospels and into the book of Acts. When Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost he brought the charge directly to them but always letting us know this was part of God’s plan. In Acts 2:23 he preached, “This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.” Three thousand Jews were saved, but the Jewish leaders didn’t appreciate this message. These Jewish leaders seized John and Peter in Acts 4:3 and put them in jail. In Acts 5 as more and more people were getting saved, including priests, the leaders were filled with jealousy and in Acts 5:18 they threw them in jail again. The next day the Jewish leaders sent for them and guess what? The officers reported back, “The doors were locked, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” Where were John and Peter? They were back in the temple preaching. This is when Gamaliel said, “If this movement is of God you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be fighting against God.” In Acts 7 Stephen gave that powerful message before the Sanhedrin on Israel’s history and at the end he charged them with betraying and murdering Christ (Acts 7:52). In response, they drove him out of the city and stoned him to death.
We can trace this Jewish opposition right through the book of Acts. Over and over the Jews tried to kill Paul, driving him out of city after city. When he finally gets to Rome in Acts 28, Jews gather to hear him and again some believed but many turned away. Through it all, never forget, Paul preached to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles. He went to the synagogues when he entered the villages on his missionary journeys. His heart was for his Jewish kinsmen.
FILLING UP THEIR SINS AND WRATH TO THE UTMOST.
1 Thessalonians 2:16, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.
When a person or people like these Jews continue to rebel and reject God and His truth, there is a measure to their sin, a saturation point, before wrath drops on them. The reality is that God brought severe judgment on the Jews in that first century and in every century since. In AD 70 Titus, a Roman general given the task of ending the Jewish rebellion, took his 60,000 soldiers and demolished Jerusalem and its temple. Jews who survived were sold as slaves or were saved to die in the Roman arenas for sport. In AD 130 the Jews revolted again, the bar Kochba rebellion. The Romans again conquered them and 580,000 Jews died in fighting. So many Jews were auctioned off as slaves that they had little value; a Jew was sold cheaper than a horse.
The history of the Jews through the centuries is pitiful. Spain, France, England, and others evicted them. The Jews were blamed for the Black Plague and forced to live in ghettos and wear distinctive clothing. Paul says in verse 16, “But wrath has come upon them.” This may be how they have been mistreated as a people, or it may be the wrath of God against the Jews who refuse to repent and trust Christ. They don’t get a pass into heaven just because they are Jews. And neither will Americans just because it was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. “Unless you repent,” Jesus said, “You will all likewise perish.” John 3:36 says, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
SO WHAT?
Let’s return to verse 13. Paul thanked God for how the Thessalonians not only received the message but welcomed God’s Word into their lives and knew the inner working or energizing of the Spirit of God. And we thank God for every one of you here who know and love God’s Word and the Christ of that Word. Has God energized your heart to love and obey and worship Him through His Son, Jesus Christ? Have you welcomed God’s Word into your life and is it making a difference in how you live? If you have, Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you.”