LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH

SERMON NOTES FROM SUNDAY 16 APRIL 2023

1 THESSALONIANS 1

Warren Wiersbe asked in his commentary “I am a Christian, why?”  Then he asked a further question – how would you answer that?  If you had to fill in as a response, what would you say?  1 Thessalonians 1 shows that the people wrote to the apostle Paul asking questions.  They were doubting their salvation.  They needed that bit of assurance.  Many today have different perceptions of what being a Christian is.  It is important we get a good grasp of our salvation to be able to answer that question.  It is not because of good works, church attendance, reading your bible or saying your prayers.  Was there a moment, a day when you knelt at the foot of the cross, seen what Christ done for you, accepted him as Saviour and Lord?  At that moment you trusted and depended on him from then on.

 

Paul speaks here of a revelation of the gospel.  It is through the foolishness of preaching that men and women are saved.  Verse 5 shows how the gospel came unto you.  The salvation of man begins in the heart of God.  In Psalm 40 the Psalmist was in the pit of despair, nothing solid for his feet to stand on, no-one cared for his soul.  He lifted up his voice and God heard him from where he was, and God lifted him from the miry clay.  God reaches down to where we are in our lostness and saves our precious soul.  Jonah in the bottom of the fish’s belly could only cry out.  Salvation is of the Lord, not of a preacher or a church.  Salvation is of the Lord.  Only he can give salvation.  He reaches to man in his sin.  Sinful man is blinded by the world.  Remember how it was for Nicodemus.  He was a very religious and devout man.  He made his way to Christ.  Everyone would have said he was on his way to heaven.  He would preach in the synagogue.  What did he say to Jesus?  “We know thou art a teacher come from God for no man can these things.”  He had begun to study the teachings of Christ.  Maybe he even followed him watching the many miracles he performed, listened to his teaching.  He was interested in hearing what Jesus had to say.  Before we can be saved there has to be a revelation of the gospel.  God’s own son came into this world, grew up among men, suffered at the hands of religious leaders, was tried and convicted by Pilate, was crucified and died on the cross of Calvary.  In Acts 17 we read the history of this church.  Paul when he came to Thessalonica entered into the synagogue for 3 Sabbath days and expounded the word of God.  That means he reasoned with them out of the scriptures.  He showed them their great need.  Paul emphasized the death of Christ not with wisdom of words less the cross of Christ be made of no effect.  After 2000 years it is still the same.  Colossians 1 verse 5.  The gospel comes to you today.  Paul says to this church that they could look back to that day when they bowed the knee and took Christ as Saviour.

 

A receiving of the truth.  The revelation of the gospel alone doesn’t save.  When they heard the gospel, it brought them to a place of decision.  They must do something with this Christ.  Acts 2 – when Peter got to his feet and preached the gospel, how Christ came into the world and died on the cross then was resurrected from the dead.  As he preached something happened.  A stirring of the Holy Ghost.  When they heard it, they cried out “what must we do to be saved?”  They knew they must do something.  1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13.  This is God and his word.  These believers heard the word and received it.  What happened in the synagogue on those 3 Sabbath days in Acts 17?  Verse 4 “some of them believed.”  Here’s this man in front of them opening up the scriptures, taking them back to Calvary.  The once for all sacrifice, warning their souls of the need to be saved.  Some believed while others didn’t.  Not all were saved.  There was a dividing line in the synagogue in those days.  There were those crying out for God’s salvation.  Those who would rise up and leave the synagogue unsaved, untouched.  Maybe they were stirred in their heart.  The devil would have persuaded them that they didn’t need to do anything.  Have we received the truth that day when we heard the gospel?  That we needed to be saved.  Did we receive that truth that came that would save our souls?  Remember the parable of the wheat and tares.  The servants told the master that tares had come up through the wheat.  The master said the enemy did this.  The servants asked what they should do, should they pull them up?  No, the master said because the good wheat might come up as well.  He told them to let both grow together and when they harvested the wheat they would separate the tares to be burned.  Have you received the gospel message?  Do you think that if you read your bible, do good works, go to church that is all you need?  Yes, we may acknowledge the truth, but do we apply it?  John Wesley was a religious and devout man, a minister in the Church of England, preached the word of God but didn’t believe that Jesus died for him.  Have we received it?

 

There is a rejection of the past.  Verse 9 – in the darkness of the synagogue they had engaged in the worship of angels and statues but when they received the truth, they rejected those idols and put their faith in Christ.  Was there a time when the gospel was revealed to you?  That you needed to be saved, did you set it to one side, or did you receive it?  These are the signs of a true conversion.  Once we are saved there is a turning.  Moses when living as the son of Pharoah’s daughter had such a good life but there came a day of decision when he refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter.  He left behind the education, religiosity, riches, and pleasures.  He rejected it all.  The woman at the well came out and met Jesus.  She left her water pot behind and went to the city and told everyone “come see a man who told me all things ever I did, is not this the Christ?”  Letting go and following after Christ.

 

A radical change of life.  They left their idols to serve the living God and to wait for his son.  “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things have passed away, all things have become new.”  The sign of a true conversion is that a person is saved by grace and has the assurance of faith in Christ.