The Word of the Lord Has Sounded Forth
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
We return to our study in the Word of God, the section of God's Word. We're studying verses- particularly verses 2 through 10 slowly, which is in a very real sense, could be called a Paul's paragraph of praise to God, as he thinks about those believers there in Thessaloniki. He recounts the different things which give him occasion when he seeks the face of God and thinks of the people there at Thessaloniki. He finds it easy to give thanks to God, as he says in verse 2, "We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers," remembering,”-verse 4- “knowing.”
So as we studied together; he rejoiced in remembering certain things, three, particularly three cardinal virtues, those three crowning jewels manifested in them, verse 3, and then he rejoiced because of something he knew. And we saw last week that when the gospel of Jesus Christ comes in power, it will always—always, inevitably—produce this glad, warm reception of the Word. Verse 6, "You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received"—that beautiful word, dechomai, to receive with warm embrace and welcome—the Word of God.
They rejoiced at the Word of God. They embraced the Word of God with joy in the midst of affliction, and not just affliction but much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit. And the first indication of the effectual call of God, the call of God that is more than an invitation, but is a powerful laying hold of the sinner, drawing him into a living relationship with Jesus, is that he suddenly welcomes the Word of God with delight. The Word perhaps prior to that he's regarded with indifference or with mere intellectual objectivity suddenly becomes the Word for which his soul thirsts… yearns. "Your Word came to me and I ate them."
Now when the Gospel comes in power and that Word is received, there will always be two immediate effects, Paul tells us. Always, always. No ifs and buts. Verse 6 and 7 describe those effects for us. In verse 6, "You became imitators of us and of the Lord." That's the first effect. And the second one is in verse 7, "You became a model to all the believers." When the Word is received in such a way that it is a spirit, raw reception of that Word, then men will become imitators of the faithful servants of Christ and Christ Himself.
And that word, imitators, is the Greek word from which we get the word mimic, mímos. It's the word mimic we saw last week. Literally, they became mimics, imitators. And in turns, having become imitators of the proper model, they became themselves models to others.
Now in verses 8 through 10, Paul—and this is where our focus is tonight—Paul enlarges upon that thought and tells us in telling them what it means to be a model to all the believers. Now why could Paul say that these people had become a model to all the believers? Why? Paul answers that question in verses 8 through 10. And the first thing that confronts us is this phrase in verse 8, "For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you."
So let us consider first the fact that there was a sounding forth of the Word in verse 8. And then in verse 9, we'll consider the manner of this sounding forth of the Word. And then verses 8 through 10, we'll put our arms around them. We will see some of the important lessons contained in the sounding forth of the Word. We'll see how far we will go-we will get.
So verse 8 then declares to us the fact that from that group of people in Thessaloniki, the believers there, the Word of the Lord, Paul says, "has sounded forth." And I want us to really zero in on this expression, “sound forth.” This word in Greek, exēcheō, is an interesting word. This is the only instance in which this word is used in the New Testament. And it's a word that you would use if you were trying to describe the blast of a trumpet. It has the connotation of a clear ringing sound.
Well, you remember it's a trumpet that was used even in the midst of the battle of foot soldiers, and the clanging of swords, and shields, and armor upon armor. But when one of the leaders would sound his trumpet above all the tumult and the noise of the battle, the trumpet is piercing. The trumpet could be heard, make no mistake about it. And so Paul says, amidst all of the ruckus and all of the confusion of human life, and human existence, and human conflict, from you people there at Thessaloniki, there went out this clear ringing, discernible, penetrating note of the Word of the Lord. A very strong word.
Well, the question we must ask: what sounded forth? What sounded forth? Well, he tells us. The text tells us. He describes it here as the Word of the Lord. From you people there in Thessaloniki went out, like the clarion call of a trumpet, the Word, the message of the Lord.
Now, why does he call it the Word of the Lord? Well, to put it simply, because God is the author of it. He's the Author of it. Whatever went out from them, it was His Word. It was God's Word, not man's word, not man's opinion. It was God's Word. He gave it. And it was deposited in them as a church by the Apostle. And it was a word that pointed toward Him, toward the Lord. It was a word from the Lord, and a word that pointed to the Lord. It was the Word of the Lord.
And it's particular. It's particular. It was the Word of the Lord. There aren't six words of the Lord, or seven. We can pick and choose what we like, what we don't like, what suits us best. This is not a buffet. All of that is bound up in the way Paul writes this, for "the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you."
Here's another question to ask. Well, where was it sounded? Well, he tells us again. Look at verse 8: "not only in Macedonia and Achaia"—that is, northern and southern Greece—not only in these places. It was sounded forth, as he mentioned in verse 7: you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. But also, verse 8, he tells us- "in every place your faith toward God has gone forth."
Paul is saying, wherever I go, I find that the Word of the Lord has already gone out from you people. He said, I can't go anywhere, but I hear about you people, how the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you. I go into Macedonia, there I hear about you, sounding forth the Word of God. I go into Achaia, there I hear about you. I go somewhere else, I hear about you. The trumpet apparently was blown quite loudly, very intensely. Paul could hear it all over that section as he would carry out his missionary journeys.
Now, what in particular was sounded forth—and this is really interesting—for "the Word of the Lord," look at the text, "has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place." Now, what was the particular note that was sounded? Here it is: "your faith toward God has gone forth." Amazing. Wherever Paul went, he heard the report that these people had become indeed true, genuine, authentic believers in the living and true God, and in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Paul said, from this place has gone out the Word of the Lord, and the message that you people, who were idolaters, have become believers in the true and living God, the only God. And the report was so widespread, so powerful, he concludes that verse by saying, "so that we have no need to say anything." We have no need to say anything. In other words, the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you comprehensively. I don't need to add anything to your witness, and when I come into a new town, I don't need to tell them what wonderful things God had done in Thessaloniki. The reports beat me there.
You will find several times in the book of Acts that Paul and his companions, when they were making their rounds of the churches, would report what God had done among the Gentiles. But he said, I didn't need to make a report. I didn't need to do anything like that. I go there, I stand up in the assembly, and one of the elders perhaps recognizes me, and I say, I'd love to tell you people what God has done in Thessaloniki. They say, well, sit down Paul, we've already heard it. No need to say anything. I don't need to say anything, anything. The report has preceded me. Everywhere I go, the message has gone out.
So in verse 8, you have this fact established that from the center, that center at Thessaloniki, the Word of the Lord has sounded forth like a clarion trumpet.
By way of application, mark it down, beloved. You can mark it down. A transformed people, a genuinely transformed people, genuinely saved people, transformed by a saving reception of the gospel, will always become a testifying people. Always. If you know the Lord, it's in your heart to make the Lord known. You wrestle, you struggle, you become timid at times, you fight the good fight, but it is in your heart so that transformed people become testifying people.
And he says, this was on display in the church at Thessaloniki. They received the word, then they sounded forth the word. They didn't receive it and keep it to themselves. They received it and they sounded it forth. Now verse 9 answers the question, what was the manner in which this word of the Lord was sounded forth? The manner of the sounding forth, verse 9, he tells us there that their witness was demonstrative. Their witness was demonstrative. Their witness says something not only about the work of God in them, but about God's work that had come to them. It says something about Paul. It says something about his missionary theme. It says something about the legitimacy of the work that God had done in and through him.
Look at verse 9: "For they themselves report about us." They're giving a report about you, but as they give a report about you, what's also happening? They are reporting about us—what kind of an interest we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come." What had come out of Thessaloniki spoke of what had arrived in Thessaloniki.
They are an evangelistic people. They are an evangelistic people. This is an evangelistic church, and again I say, beloved, a transformed people become a testifying people, and the reality of their transformation on display in the reality of their witness, the reality of their testimony, as they're spreading the word of God faithfully, vibrantly, expansively, comprehensively, it all becomes demonstrative of what had come to Thessaloniki with Paul and his missionary team.
How do the Thessalonians testify to the legitimacy, the genuineness, the trustworthiness of Paul's ministry? By the very change that God had wrought in their lives, and I want us to see this. This is quite important. It's not just their message, the word sounded forth, but it wasn't without being accompanied by something else. It's the transformation of them, their lives, accompanied by that radical transformation.
Paul says, the message of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in word, but also by the powerful eloquence of your transformed lives as a result. For he says, wherever we go, this is what we meet. In Macedonia, Achaia, every place, your faith toward God has gone forth, not just your message about God, not just the fact that you're teaching people about Him and pointing to Him, but your faith toward God has gone forth as well. So that the manner in which the Gospel or the word of God, the word of the Lord, to use the term here in verse 8, has sounded forth from this church was not just verbal communication of the Gospel, but it was also accompanied by this powerful eloquence of transformed lives, always.
And there is a great theological or what we might call doctrinal lesson here for us, and it is this: mark it down, don't forget it, put it down, saving faith is inseparably joined to true repentance.
Let me say that again, saving faith is inseparably joined to genuine repentance, true repentance.
Notice carefully the connection, and it's here in the word of God. Verse 8, it says, "Also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth." What has gone forth was that these people had become believers in the true God. Now, how did people describe their faith? Verse 9: "For they themselves report about us what kind of an entrance we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven." Verse 8, "In every place your faith toward God has gone forth." Verses 9 and 10 describe that faith as a faith that produced something. Produced what? Look at it—a turning to God from idols to serve the Lord and to wait for His Son from heaven, indicating that in the thinking of these people, there was an inseparable relationship between saving faith, faith toward God, and true repentance, turning from idols to serve the living and the true God.
Do you have faith in God? You can sit here and say, oh, I believe in God. Do you have faith in God? You know, that's sort of—let me say this—that's a sort of an anemic phrase in our day, unfortunately. It's an anemic phrase in our day. You know, everybody, oh, I have faith in God, sure, sure, I have faith in God, of course, of course I have faith in God. Do you have faith in God? Let me say it again. Do you truly have faith in God?
Listen, if it's biblical faith, biblical faith in the biblical God, then these things will be just as true of you as they were of the Thessalonians. If your faith toward God is that faith, which is the gift of God, spoken of in Ephesians 2, then the report should go out from you that you too have turned to God from your darling idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. For true faith is inseparably joined to biblical repentance.
Conversion, true conversion, involves a turning. Always. Notice, notice verse 9, how Paul puts it—how you, what? Turned. Turned. Epistrephō is the verb, and it's a powerful word, which means to turn around, turn completely around—not just a little bit here, a little bit, no, no, it's a turning around. It means to turn around in the opposite direction. Like if you're going downtown, but you're going 404 north, you're going the wrong direction. Repentance is when you actually exit and take southbound 404 towards DVP. You can't be going northbound and say, you know, “oh, I'm so sorry, I feel horrible. I feel horrible. I'm going to be late, and I know I'm going the wrong direction. I feel terrible.” But you keep on going north. You have to exit, and you have to turn around. You have to turn around. It means to turn around in the opposite direction.
Their lives had been turned around by the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want us to see this, how the word, this word, is used in the scripture, used physically in the scripture, and you get a sense of the meaning. Mark 5:30. Mark 5:30. You remember one time Jesus was going through a crowd of people, and a man named Jairus came up to Him and said, my daughter, Lord, my daughter is at the point of death. Would You come and heal my daughter? And she will live. Jesus said, I will. I will come, yes.(Mark 5:22-24) And it was so tight, packed around Him, that He began to walk through the crowd, could barely get through the crowd of people.
And you remember how that woman with the issue of blood reached out, and just, she was desperate for the tip of the hem of His garment, and touched Him. And the Bible says, verse 30, "And immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, what did He do? Epistrephō. Same verb. turned around in the crowd and was saying, 'Who touched My garments?” Same word. So Jesus stopped in His tracks. He was going in this direction. He stopped, and He turned completely around in the opposite direction. This is precisely the word, Epistrephō.
1 Thessalonians 1:9. Use that word. Same word. Paul uses it under inspiration, when he says, how you turned. How you turned. "You turned to God from idols"—your life was dramatically changed. This verb, Epistrephō, also is in the Aorist tense. And if you're familiar with the Greek language at all, you will see that this is very precise language, and far more precise than our English language, especially when it comes to verb tenses. And this is an Aorist tense verb, which indicates that this turning was an immediate, decisive change. It was definitive. It was decisive. It was life-altering encounter. They turned.
Conversion, beloved, always involves a complete change over. Complete change. Here's the word that we can use, really, to describe this turning around. It was a radical change. Radical change. Let me put it this way: God never half-saves anyone. Never, never, never, never. Conversion is not the turning around of an 18-wheeler in a tiny area, where you can't turn completely around. Conversion is the turning around of a, maybe, smart car, where there's plenty of room for that life to be turned around.
Conversion involves the changing of the entire person at the deepest level. It involves a change of mind. It involves a change and a turning of the heart. It involves the turning of the will. All three. Not one, not two out of the three, but all three. All of me. The entirety of the person's innermost being is turned in conversion. Their mind is turned from one way of thinking, the worldly thinking, to another way of thinking, a Gospel way of thinking. Their heart is turned from simply being cold and apathetic to now being broken and sorrowful over sin. And there's a turning of the will, a decisive dramatic change of the inner person that affects a turning of the outward life. It's radical transformation.
So it's a turning of the mind, the emotions, the will that results in the turning of the outward life, the direction of the life, the conduct of the life, the conversation of the life. You turn the heart, you turn the life. Right? The Bible says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." The essence of any person's existence is what they are in their heart and in their soul, for out of the heart, Jesus says, "proceeds the issues of life." Conversion is a turning of the heart that in effect turns the entirety of life. The entire life is turned around.
And I want to say to us this evening that you cannot be converted without your entire life being turned. This is not perfection, but this is a complete radical change of direction. Total radical change in a person's life that turns them in a new direction.
Come with me to 1 Corinthians 6. I want us to see an example of this. 1 Corinthians 6. Oh, this is, beloved, very important. 1 Corinthians 6. We'll start with verse 9, that familiar portion of God's Word: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."
This is who you were, but you're no longer that. Something dramatic took place. There was a radical transformation. There was a turning around in the opposite direction. What this is saying is that there's no way that someone can continue down that path as a pattern—all those sins and any sin, as a matter of fact—and can say, I'm a Christian, and not have their life dramatically turn around.
You cannot come to Christ and not be changed, for if you truly come, you will be a new person. It's not a decision that's just an empty decision. It's a life-changing encounter with a living, risen person, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what conversion is.
So let me ask you before we move on tonight, has your life been changed? Has your life been changed? You say you're a Christian, has your life been changed? You see, every single one of us ought to have our autobiography in two volumes—two volumes—and volume number one is B.C., before Christ, and at the moment of conversion, that starts volume number what? Two, and you become a new person in Christ, and there's a new nature, new heart, new disposition, new ambitions, new desires, new direction.
"Behold, if any man be in Christ, he is"—what?—"He is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come." Not just the temporary laying aside for a couple of weeks where you will pick it up again later on when it fades away. No, no, passed away. New things have come.
And this is not to say that we do not wrestle with temptation. This is not to say that there will not be entangling sins and besetting sins that we have to battle with day in and day out by the grace of God, but we are fighting from victory, not for victory, because we are no longer under the dominion of sin. What the Scripture is saying loud and clear, there will be a turning.
Now, let's go back to our passage, and let's now break these things down briefly. Turning, number one, turning to the living God in faith—this repentance, this turning around, turning to the living God in faith—meant, first of all, according to verse nine, a turning away from all false gods. When you turn to God, you're turning, inevitably, from other things, and Paul says turning to the living God in faith meant, first of all, according to this verse, a turning away from all false gods.
Verse nine: "For they themselves report about us what kind of an entrance we had with you, and how you turned to”- from-” how you turned to God from idols.” When the apostle Paul went into a pagan situation, he didn't have this idea that, well, you know, we must be careful. We must not disturb the existing structures. You just can't go in and just be negative. We must go in and be positive, right? And so I'll just go in with a nice, sweet, positive approach, and I'll so enamor these people with the truth that just by some automatic process, their false gods, and the rest will just kind of drop off.
Paul didn't have that philosophy of ministry. Actually, it's not even a philosophy of ministry. That's the philosophy of much, what passes in the name of Christ in our day, but when he went into a pagan situation where there was idolatry, what did he do? Well, what did he do? Well, we know. We know from the analogy of Scripture.
Turn with me to Acts 14. Acts 14, we have a clear answer to that question, and no doubt he probably did the same thing here because that's the pattern. That's his approach. Acts 14, verse 15. Here these people were about to worship Paul and Barnabas, in fact, gave them names after several of their Greek gods, but back up to verse 14, Acts 14:14: "But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out and saying, crying out,”-verse 15- “and saying, Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, proclaiming the gospel to you that you should turn from these,”- what?- “Vain things.” mataios, empty. Puff of wind, chasing the wind, pursuing one's own shadow. That's what the word means. You should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
He came with a very negative message. He said, we have to come and tell you and to preach to you that you should turn from these vanities. Turn your back upon all of them and acknowledge the true and the living God and approach Him through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and apparently there was the substance of Paul's message to the greater body of the Gentile community at Thessaloniki. This was his message there.
Acts 17 gives us the record of his initial evangelism amongst the Jews and the proselytes in the synagogue. But here from this context in 1 Thessalonians, the text that we're studying, we see that there was this idol worship and that their faith in God, being inseparably joined with true repentance, meant in the first place a turning away from every single false idol.
So I want to ask a very simple question this evening. Have you professed faith in the living and true God? You say “yes.” Wonderful. Has your professed faith in the living and true God been attended with a turning away from every false god? Oh, but you say we aren't idol worshipers. Aren't we? What is an idol? Any person or thing that is set up in the place of the true and living God as revealed in Scripture, that is revered, that is worshiped, that is served, that is honored.
And you don't need to frame your idol in wood or jade or stone. You don't need to shape him with a hammer and chisel. All you need to do is concoct a god out of the stuff of your own imagination, a god of your own making, and out of the prejudices and predisposed notions of your friends and peers and worship that god. That's idolatry. The greatest of all of those idols is the idol itself. And I'm convinced that great segments of professing Christendom are nothing but refined idolatry.
For the moment you begin to declare what the Scripture says about God, that He is the God Who sits upon the throne of absolute sovereignty, Who does according to His will in the armies of heaven and earth, they say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My God's not like that. Well, who is your god then? The minute you begin to declare the God of the Bible, that He is the God revealed in this very passage who has reserved wrath for all of His enemies and Who will punish them with everlasting destruction in a place called hell, people say, no, no, no, no, no. My God wouldn't send people to hell. Who is that god then? Who is your god? He's an idol. He's not the living and true God.
For the God revealed in Scripture is the only true and living God. And He's the God revealed as the absolute Sovereign, the judge of the universe, and as the God who will punish with everlasting destruction those who defy His rule, who reject His Son. “I don't know, but my God is not that exclusive. You know, Jesus, I'm the way, the truth, all, there are other roads. I mean, there are sincere people all around the…”-Then you're worshiping an idol.
Have you turned from idols to the living and true God? Or is your god simply the concoction of your own theories about Him? Maybe your sweet, old Sunday school teacher's theories—who knows nothing about God, who knows about Christ, but doesn't know Christ—and the world's ideas about Him. All sort of, you know, meshed together, thrown together so that what you have is like Aaron when he gave into the demands of the people and said, "Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters, bring them to me." And they threw it all into a pot and then came out and was shaped into the golden calf and the product of all of their contribution of the people of Israel.
Is that your god? Just a product, the sum total of the contributions of your thoughts and your pseudo-Christian parents, perhaps thoughts of professing Sunday school teachers, or is He the God revealed in the Word of God? So I ask again, have you turned, apo-from. Apo- literally away from? It's a decisive turning away. Apo, of separation. Turning away of location, local separation, departing, fleeing, any kind of separation of one thing from another by which the union or fellowship of the two is destroyed, one Greek lexicon puts it.
If your faith is genuine—genuine faith—it's been inseparably joined to true repentance. And the first element of repentance, or the elements of the first elements of repentance are these: turning away from all false gods and a turning to the living God. And I love that, turning to the living and true God. You see, you turn from, but you're turning to. We're called out from the world, but we're called out too. We're holy, saints, meaning separated ones, separated from, separated unto. It's always like that.
And by the way, this phrase, turning to the living God, is pregnant with meaning. Now, here's the positive aspect of conversion, and it always, always, always, always, beloved, involves a turning to God. Allow me to state the obvious. It's never a turning to religion. It's never a turning to a reformation. It's never a turning to rituals. It's never a turning to a friend. It's only a turning to the living God, the true God.
And in the strictest sense, it's not just a turning to the Word of God, but a turning to the God of the Word through the Word of God. The Word of God points us to the God of the Word. You see, you can have the Bible and not have God, because you can read the Bible for the sake of reading the Bible, but if you read the Bible because you want to meet God, you want to see God, you want to know God, then blessed be God. It's a turning to God.
And I want to comment on this word, too, to God, found in our text. Tiny preposition, familiar with. It's that Greek preposition, pros. The expression itself is pros ton theos . It means, in many contexts, face-to-face with. Intimate relationship. Remember our passage in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Right? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was pros ton theos." Face-to-face with God. It means face-to-face with, in closest, most intimate relationship, in closest fellowship with, and John tells us that the Son of God, God the Son, was in intimate, face-to-face relationship with God the Father. Closest fellowship with God the Father.
It's the same word, pros, used here in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, how you turned pros ton theos. You turned to face-to-face fellowship with God. You entered now into an intimate, personal, loving relationship, and at that moment, you began a sweet fellowship with God. And at the very deep level of your heart, down in your soul, down in your spirit, you were face-to-face with God for the very first time in your life.
Before that, you knew about false gods, idols, and in that moment, when you were introduced to the living God, the true God, you came to really know God. John 17:3: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." That's what conversion is. It's a turning to God that enters into the deepest, personal relationship with God. Religion is external, relationship is internal, and that's what conversion does.
Come with me to the book of Acts, Acts 9, verse 35. I'm gonna be reading at verse 32, but verse 35 is what I want us to see. Acts 9:32: “Now, it happened that as Peter was traveling through all the regions, all those regions, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda, and there he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Rise up, make your bed. Immediately he rose up.”-Verse 35:- "And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, saw the paralytic,”- and now watch this- “and they turned to the Lord." They turned to the Lord.
Miracles in the New Testament serve to authenticate the message and the messengers, and not to underwrite their financial expenses. Just a side note, every conversion involved a turning. And second, it involved a turning to the Lord, a turning from, turning to.
Acts 11, verse 21. It says in verse 19, they were speaking the word to Jews only, and it says in verse 20, they were preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 21 says, "And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord." You see, again and again, saving faith is never passive intellectual acknowledgement of some facts. It's always an active, volitional choice of the will by the grace of God, whereby the sinner turns to God and embraces God by faith and receives His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when Paul says to the Thessalonians, how you turn to God, it speaks about a whole new focus in the direction of their lives. Whereas once their interests, their standards, their morals, their goals, their ambitions, were either framed by their understanding of the wishes of the false god, or by their depraved notions of their own hearts, now their ambitions, their standards, their morals, their conduct, all of life was framed because of this new directive: you turned to God.
Life was now lived in the context of face-to-face relationship with the true and the living God.
It's always one of the attendance of true faith. Your faith toward God has gone forth. Verse nine, “you turned to God from idols,”-and then he says,-”you turned with a disposition not only to receive the benefits of His salvation, but also to submit to the implications of His rule."
Look at it, verse nine: "you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God." And again, we see here very clearly, true repentance, biblical repentance, authentic repentance, repentance according to Scripture, always, always involves not only a turning away from false gods and all mental allegiance to that god, that false god, but also a turning away from volitional allegiance to the false god, and now the swearing of allegiance to the living and true God.
"You turned to serve a living and a true God." He didn't say you turned to get away from the wrath of the living God, to go scot-free, to do as you please, live your life the way you want to live it, and then at some subsequent point in time, you thought maybe it's nice—a nice idea—that I ought to begin to serve this God. No, no, this is just teaching the basic doctrine of the lordship of Jesus Christ. Being involved in the response of true faith, using different terminology, but the same concept that all true faith in God is inseparably joined to basic subjection of the will to this God.
In fact, the verb translated serve, douleuō, comes from the Greek noun doulos, doulos, which is translated means slave, which means one in this context -biblical context- one who would be willing, or who would willingly, made willing by the grace of God to serve his master. In other words, it's an obedience from the heart. The willing slave is one who could have been set free to do something else, but he chooses—by the grace of God, be compelled—to stay and serve his master out of love and devotion for the master. That's the word used here, but it's in the verb form. So he takes doulos, slave, he turns it into a verb, and he says, you now serve God voluntarily. He's your Master, He's your Lord. You belong to Him, He bought you with a precious price.
Now you serve Him from the heart. You don't need to be manipulated to serve Him. You don't have to have a pep talk to serve God. The Lordship of Christ is so real in your life, and the sacrifice of Christ upon Calvary's cross, so real that there flows out of your soul the desire from the heart to serve Him willingly and with delight. Because of what God has done for you in Christ, you find yourself wanting to invest all of you in serving Him, living for Him, in this life and in eternity.
Child of God, can you relate to that? Does it resonate with you today, the desire to want to serve God? The love of Christ constrains us. I will gladly spend and be spent. I just want to serve Him. I want to live for Him. He's my life. He's not a compartment in my life, He is my life.
It begins a dynamic relationship whereby you invest your life serving others because you serve Christ. You turn from your idols, you turn to God. It's not static position. That's what Paul is saying here, and he describes it in greater detail in Romans 6, verse 17: "But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over," and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
"But now having been freed from sin"—he says in verse 22, Romans 6—"and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life." And then he says you turn not only from the false god to the true God, the living God, with a disposition to be submissive to Him.
But notice verse 10, the first part of verse 10: "and to wait for His Son from heaven." And in order to exposit that, you have to also wait until next week, Lord willing. Let's pray.
So as we studied together; he rejoiced in remembering certain things, three, particularly three cardinal virtues, those three crowning jewels manifested in them, verse 3, and then he rejoiced because of something he knew. And we saw last week that when the gospel of Jesus Christ comes in power, it will always—always, inevitably—produce this glad, warm reception of the Word. Verse 6, "You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received"—that beautiful word, dechomai, to receive with warm embrace and welcome—the Word of God.
They rejoiced at the Word of God. They embraced the Word of God with joy in the midst of affliction, and not just affliction but much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit. And the first indication of the effectual call of God, the call of God that is more than an invitation, but is a powerful laying hold of the sinner, drawing him into a living relationship with Jesus, is that he suddenly welcomes the Word of God with delight. The Word perhaps prior to that he's regarded with indifference or with mere intellectual objectivity suddenly becomes the Word for which his soul thirsts… yearns. "Your Word came to me and I ate them."
Now when the Gospel comes in power and that Word is received, there will always be two immediate effects, Paul tells us. Always, always. No ifs and buts. Verse 6 and 7 describe those effects for us. In verse 6, "You became imitators of us and of the Lord." That's the first effect. And the second one is in verse 7, "You became a model to all the believers." When the Word is received in such a way that it is a spirit, raw reception of that Word, then men will become imitators of the faithful servants of Christ and Christ Himself.
And that word, imitators, is the Greek word from which we get the word mimic, mímos. It's the word mimic we saw last week. Literally, they became mimics, imitators. And in turns, having become imitators of the proper model, they became themselves models to others.
Now in verses 8 through 10, Paul—and this is where our focus is tonight—Paul enlarges upon that thought and tells us in telling them what it means to be a model to all the believers. Now why could Paul say that these people had become a model to all the believers? Why? Paul answers that question in verses 8 through 10. And the first thing that confronts us is this phrase in verse 8, "For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you."
So let us consider first the fact that there was a sounding forth of the Word in verse 8. And then in verse 9, we'll consider the manner of this sounding forth of the Word. And then verses 8 through 10, we'll put our arms around them. We will see some of the important lessons contained in the sounding forth of the Word. We'll see how far we will go-we will get.
So verse 8 then declares to us the fact that from that group of people in Thessaloniki, the believers there, the Word of the Lord, Paul says, "has sounded forth." And I want us to really zero in on this expression, “sound forth.” This word in Greek, exēcheō, is an interesting word. This is the only instance in which this word is used in the New Testament. And it's a word that you would use if you were trying to describe the blast of a trumpet. It has the connotation of a clear ringing sound.
Well, you remember it's a trumpet that was used even in the midst of the battle of foot soldiers, and the clanging of swords, and shields, and armor upon armor. But when one of the leaders would sound his trumpet above all the tumult and the noise of the battle, the trumpet is piercing. The trumpet could be heard, make no mistake about it. And so Paul says, amidst all of the ruckus and all of the confusion of human life, and human existence, and human conflict, from you people there at Thessaloniki, there went out this clear ringing, discernible, penetrating note of the Word of the Lord. A very strong word.
Well, the question we must ask: what sounded forth? What sounded forth? Well, he tells us. The text tells us. He describes it here as the Word of the Lord. From you people there in Thessaloniki went out, like the clarion call of a trumpet, the Word, the message of the Lord.
Now, why does he call it the Word of the Lord? Well, to put it simply, because God is the author of it. He's the Author of it. Whatever went out from them, it was His Word. It was God's Word, not man's word, not man's opinion. It was God's Word. He gave it. And it was deposited in them as a church by the Apostle. And it was a word that pointed toward Him, toward the Lord. It was a word from the Lord, and a word that pointed to the Lord. It was the Word of the Lord.
And it's particular. It's particular. It was the Word of the Lord. There aren't six words of the Lord, or seven. We can pick and choose what we like, what we don't like, what suits us best. This is not a buffet. All of that is bound up in the way Paul writes this, for "the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you."
Here's another question to ask. Well, where was it sounded? Well, he tells us again. Look at verse 8: "not only in Macedonia and Achaia"—that is, northern and southern Greece—not only in these places. It was sounded forth, as he mentioned in verse 7: you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. But also, verse 8, he tells us- "in every place your faith toward God has gone forth."
Paul is saying, wherever I go, I find that the Word of the Lord has already gone out from you people. He said, I can't go anywhere, but I hear about you people, how the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you. I go into Macedonia, there I hear about you, sounding forth the Word of God. I go into Achaia, there I hear about you. I go somewhere else, I hear about you. The trumpet apparently was blown quite loudly, very intensely. Paul could hear it all over that section as he would carry out his missionary journeys.
Now, what in particular was sounded forth—and this is really interesting—for "the Word of the Lord," look at the text, "has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place." Now, what was the particular note that was sounded? Here it is: "your faith toward God has gone forth." Amazing. Wherever Paul went, he heard the report that these people had become indeed true, genuine, authentic believers in the living and true God, and in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Paul said, from this place has gone out the Word of the Lord, and the message that you people, who were idolaters, have become believers in the true and living God, the only God. And the report was so widespread, so powerful, he concludes that verse by saying, "so that we have no need to say anything." We have no need to say anything. In other words, the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you comprehensively. I don't need to add anything to your witness, and when I come into a new town, I don't need to tell them what wonderful things God had done in Thessaloniki. The reports beat me there.
You will find several times in the book of Acts that Paul and his companions, when they were making their rounds of the churches, would report what God had done among the Gentiles. But he said, I didn't need to make a report. I didn't need to do anything like that. I go there, I stand up in the assembly, and one of the elders perhaps recognizes me, and I say, I'd love to tell you people what God has done in Thessaloniki. They say, well, sit down Paul, we've already heard it. No need to say anything. I don't need to say anything, anything. The report has preceded me. Everywhere I go, the message has gone out.
So in verse 8, you have this fact established that from the center, that center at Thessaloniki, the Word of the Lord has sounded forth like a clarion trumpet.
By way of application, mark it down, beloved. You can mark it down. A transformed people, a genuinely transformed people, genuinely saved people, transformed by a saving reception of the gospel, will always become a testifying people. Always. If you know the Lord, it's in your heart to make the Lord known. You wrestle, you struggle, you become timid at times, you fight the good fight, but it is in your heart so that transformed people become testifying people.
And he says, this was on display in the church at Thessaloniki. They received the word, then they sounded forth the word. They didn't receive it and keep it to themselves. They received it and they sounded it forth. Now verse 9 answers the question, what was the manner in which this word of the Lord was sounded forth? The manner of the sounding forth, verse 9, he tells us there that their witness was demonstrative. Their witness was demonstrative. Their witness says something not only about the work of God in them, but about God's work that had come to them. It says something about Paul. It says something about his missionary theme. It says something about the legitimacy of the work that God had done in and through him.
Look at verse 9: "For they themselves report about us." They're giving a report about you, but as they give a report about you, what's also happening? They are reporting about us—what kind of an interest we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come." What had come out of Thessaloniki spoke of what had arrived in Thessaloniki.
They are an evangelistic people. They are an evangelistic people. This is an evangelistic church, and again I say, beloved, a transformed people become a testifying people, and the reality of their transformation on display in the reality of their witness, the reality of their testimony, as they're spreading the word of God faithfully, vibrantly, expansively, comprehensively, it all becomes demonstrative of what had come to Thessaloniki with Paul and his missionary team.
How do the Thessalonians testify to the legitimacy, the genuineness, the trustworthiness of Paul's ministry? By the very change that God had wrought in their lives, and I want us to see this. This is quite important. It's not just their message, the word sounded forth, but it wasn't without being accompanied by something else. It's the transformation of them, their lives, accompanied by that radical transformation.
Paul says, the message of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in word, but also by the powerful eloquence of your transformed lives as a result. For he says, wherever we go, this is what we meet. In Macedonia, Achaia, every place, your faith toward God has gone forth, not just your message about God, not just the fact that you're teaching people about Him and pointing to Him, but your faith toward God has gone forth as well. So that the manner in which the Gospel or the word of God, the word of the Lord, to use the term here in verse 8, has sounded forth from this church was not just verbal communication of the Gospel, but it was also accompanied by this powerful eloquence of transformed lives, always.
And there is a great theological or what we might call doctrinal lesson here for us, and it is this: mark it down, don't forget it, put it down, saving faith is inseparably joined to true repentance.
Let me say that again, saving faith is inseparably joined to genuine repentance, true repentance.
Notice carefully the connection, and it's here in the word of God. Verse 8, it says, "Also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth." What has gone forth was that these people had become believers in the true God. Now, how did people describe their faith? Verse 9: "For they themselves report about us what kind of an entrance we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven." Verse 8, "In every place your faith toward God has gone forth." Verses 9 and 10 describe that faith as a faith that produced something. Produced what? Look at it—a turning to God from idols to serve the Lord and to wait for His Son from heaven, indicating that in the thinking of these people, there was an inseparable relationship between saving faith, faith toward God, and true repentance, turning from idols to serve the living and the true God.
Do you have faith in God? You can sit here and say, oh, I believe in God. Do you have faith in God? You know, that's sort of—let me say this—that's a sort of an anemic phrase in our day, unfortunately. It's an anemic phrase in our day. You know, everybody, oh, I have faith in God, sure, sure, I have faith in God, of course, of course I have faith in God. Do you have faith in God? Let me say it again. Do you truly have faith in God?
Listen, if it's biblical faith, biblical faith in the biblical God, then these things will be just as true of you as they were of the Thessalonians. If your faith toward God is that faith, which is the gift of God, spoken of in Ephesians 2, then the report should go out from you that you too have turned to God from your darling idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. For true faith is inseparably joined to biblical repentance.
Conversion, true conversion, involves a turning. Always. Notice, notice verse 9, how Paul puts it—how you, what? Turned. Turned. Epistrephō is the verb, and it's a powerful word, which means to turn around, turn completely around—not just a little bit here, a little bit, no, no, it's a turning around. It means to turn around in the opposite direction. Like if you're going downtown, but you're going 404 north, you're going the wrong direction. Repentance is when you actually exit and take southbound 404 towards DVP. You can't be going northbound and say, you know, “oh, I'm so sorry, I feel horrible. I feel horrible. I'm going to be late, and I know I'm going the wrong direction. I feel terrible.” But you keep on going north. You have to exit, and you have to turn around. You have to turn around. It means to turn around in the opposite direction.
Their lives had been turned around by the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want us to see this, how the word, this word, is used in the scripture, used physically in the scripture, and you get a sense of the meaning. Mark 5:30. Mark 5:30. You remember one time Jesus was going through a crowd of people, and a man named Jairus came up to Him and said, my daughter, Lord, my daughter is at the point of death. Would You come and heal my daughter? And she will live. Jesus said, I will. I will come, yes.(Mark 5:22-24) And it was so tight, packed around Him, that He began to walk through the crowd, could barely get through the crowd of people.
And you remember how that woman with the issue of blood reached out, and just, she was desperate for the tip of the hem of His garment, and touched Him. And the Bible says, verse 30, "And immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, what did He do? Epistrephō. Same verb. turned around in the crowd and was saying, 'Who touched My garments?” Same word. So Jesus stopped in His tracks. He was going in this direction. He stopped, and He turned completely around in the opposite direction. This is precisely the word, Epistrephō.
1 Thessalonians 1:9. Use that word. Same word. Paul uses it under inspiration, when he says, how you turned. How you turned. "You turned to God from idols"—your life was dramatically changed. This verb, Epistrephō, also is in the Aorist tense. And if you're familiar with the Greek language at all, you will see that this is very precise language, and far more precise than our English language, especially when it comes to verb tenses. And this is an Aorist tense verb, which indicates that this turning was an immediate, decisive change. It was definitive. It was decisive. It was life-altering encounter. They turned.
Conversion, beloved, always involves a complete change over. Complete change. Here's the word that we can use, really, to describe this turning around. It was a radical change. Radical change. Let me put it this way: God never half-saves anyone. Never, never, never, never. Conversion is not the turning around of an 18-wheeler in a tiny area, where you can't turn completely around. Conversion is the turning around of a, maybe, smart car, where there's plenty of room for that life to be turned around.
Conversion involves the changing of the entire person at the deepest level. It involves a change of mind. It involves a change and a turning of the heart. It involves the turning of the will. All three. Not one, not two out of the three, but all three. All of me. The entirety of the person's innermost being is turned in conversion. Their mind is turned from one way of thinking, the worldly thinking, to another way of thinking, a Gospel way of thinking. Their heart is turned from simply being cold and apathetic to now being broken and sorrowful over sin. And there's a turning of the will, a decisive dramatic change of the inner person that affects a turning of the outward life. It's radical transformation.
So it's a turning of the mind, the emotions, the will that results in the turning of the outward life, the direction of the life, the conduct of the life, the conversation of the life. You turn the heart, you turn the life. Right? The Bible says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." The essence of any person's existence is what they are in their heart and in their soul, for out of the heart, Jesus says, "proceeds the issues of life." Conversion is a turning of the heart that in effect turns the entirety of life. The entire life is turned around.
And I want to say to us this evening that you cannot be converted without your entire life being turned. This is not perfection, but this is a complete radical change of direction. Total radical change in a person's life that turns them in a new direction.
Come with me to 1 Corinthians 6. I want us to see an example of this. 1 Corinthians 6. Oh, this is, beloved, very important. 1 Corinthians 6. We'll start with verse 9, that familiar portion of God's Word: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."
This is who you were, but you're no longer that. Something dramatic took place. There was a radical transformation. There was a turning around in the opposite direction. What this is saying is that there's no way that someone can continue down that path as a pattern—all those sins and any sin, as a matter of fact—and can say, I'm a Christian, and not have their life dramatically turn around.
You cannot come to Christ and not be changed, for if you truly come, you will be a new person. It's not a decision that's just an empty decision. It's a life-changing encounter with a living, risen person, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what conversion is.
So let me ask you before we move on tonight, has your life been changed? Has your life been changed? You say you're a Christian, has your life been changed? You see, every single one of us ought to have our autobiography in two volumes—two volumes—and volume number one is B.C., before Christ, and at the moment of conversion, that starts volume number what? Two, and you become a new person in Christ, and there's a new nature, new heart, new disposition, new ambitions, new desires, new direction.
"Behold, if any man be in Christ, he is"—what?—"He is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come." Not just the temporary laying aside for a couple of weeks where you will pick it up again later on when it fades away. No, no, passed away. New things have come.
And this is not to say that we do not wrestle with temptation. This is not to say that there will not be entangling sins and besetting sins that we have to battle with day in and day out by the grace of God, but we are fighting from victory, not for victory, because we are no longer under the dominion of sin. What the Scripture is saying loud and clear, there will be a turning.
Now, let's go back to our passage, and let's now break these things down briefly. Turning, number one, turning to the living God in faith—this repentance, this turning around, turning to the living God in faith—meant, first of all, according to verse nine, a turning away from all false gods. When you turn to God, you're turning, inevitably, from other things, and Paul says turning to the living God in faith meant, first of all, according to this verse, a turning away from all false gods.
Verse nine: "For they themselves report about us what kind of an entrance we had with you, and how you turned to”- from-” how you turned to God from idols.” When the apostle Paul went into a pagan situation, he didn't have this idea that, well, you know, we must be careful. We must not disturb the existing structures. You just can't go in and just be negative. We must go in and be positive, right? And so I'll just go in with a nice, sweet, positive approach, and I'll so enamor these people with the truth that just by some automatic process, their false gods, and the rest will just kind of drop off.
Paul didn't have that philosophy of ministry. Actually, it's not even a philosophy of ministry. That's the philosophy of much, what passes in the name of Christ in our day, but when he went into a pagan situation where there was idolatry, what did he do? Well, what did he do? Well, we know. We know from the analogy of Scripture.
Turn with me to Acts 14. Acts 14, we have a clear answer to that question, and no doubt he probably did the same thing here because that's the pattern. That's his approach. Acts 14, verse 15. Here these people were about to worship Paul and Barnabas, in fact, gave them names after several of their Greek gods, but back up to verse 14, Acts 14:14: "But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out and saying, crying out,”-verse 15- “and saying, Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, proclaiming the gospel to you that you should turn from these,”- what?- “Vain things.” mataios, empty. Puff of wind, chasing the wind, pursuing one's own shadow. That's what the word means. You should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
He came with a very negative message. He said, we have to come and tell you and to preach to you that you should turn from these vanities. Turn your back upon all of them and acknowledge the true and the living God and approach Him through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and apparently there was the substance of Paul's message to the greater body of the Gentile community at Thessaloniki. This was his message there.
Acts 17 gives us the record of his initial evangelism amongst the Jews and the proselytes in the synagogue. But here from this context in 1 Thessalonians, the text that we're studying, we see that there was this idol worship and that their faith in God, being inseparably joined with true repentance, meant in the first place a turning away from every single false idol.
So I want to ask a very simple question this evening. Have you professed faith in the living and true God? You say “yes.” Wonderful. Has your professed faith in the living and true God been attended with a turning away from every false god? Oh, but you say we aren't idol worshipers. Aren't we? What is an idol? Any person or thing that is set up in the place of the true and living God as revealed in Scripture, that is revered, that is worshiped, that is served, that is honored.
And you don't need to frame your idol in wood or jade or stone. You don't need to shape him with a hammer and chisel. All you need to do is concoct a god out of the stuff of your own imagination, a god of your own making, and out of the prejudices and predisposed notions of your friends and peers and worship that god. That's idolatry. The greatest of all of those idols is the idol itself. And I'm convinced that great segments of professing Christendom are nothing but refined idolatry.
For the moment you begin to declare what the Scripture says about God, that He is the God Who sits upon the throne of absolute sovereignty, Who does according to His will in the armies of heaven and earth, they say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My God's not like that. Well, who is your god then? The minute you begin to declare the God of the Bible, that He is the God revealed in this very passage who has reserved wrath for all of His enemies and Who will punish them with everlasting destruction in a place called hell, people say, no, no, no, no, no. My God wouldn't send people to hell. Who is that god then? Who is your god? He's an idol. He's not the living and true God.
For the God revealed in Scripture is the only true and living God. And He's the God revealed as the absolute Sovereign, the judge of the universe, and as the God who will punish with everlasting destruction those who defy His rule, who reject His Son. “I don't know, but my God is not that exclusive. You know, Jesus, I'm the way, the truth, all, there are other roads. I mean, there are sincere people all around the…”-Then you're worshiping an idol.
Have you turned from idols to the living and true God? Or is your god simply the concoction of your own theories about Him? Maybe your sweet, old Sunday school teacher's theories—who knows nothing about God, who knows about Christ, but doesn't know Christ—and the world's ideas about Him. All sort of, you know, meshed together, thrown together so that what you have is like Aaron when he gave into the demands of the people and said, "Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters, bring them to me." And they threw it all into a pot and then came out and was shaped into the golden calf and the product of all of their contribution of the people of Israel.
Is that your god? Just a product, the sum total of the contributions of your thoughts and your pseudo-Christian parents, perhaps thoughts of professing Sunday school teachers, or is He the God revealed in the Word of God? So I ask again, have you turned, apo-from. Apo- literally away from? It's a decisive turning away. Apo, of separation. Turning away of location, local separation, departing, fleeing, any kind of separation of one thing from another by which the union or fellowship of the two is destroyed, one Greek lexicon puts it.
If your faith is genuine—genuine faith—it's been inseparably joined to true repentance. And the first element of repentance, or the elements of the first elements of repentance are these: turning away from all false gods and a turning to the living God. And I love that, turning to the living and true God. You see, you turn from, but you're turning to. We're called out from the world, but we're called out too. We're holy, saints, meaning separated ones, separated from, separated unto. It's always like that.
And by the way, this phrase, turning to the living God, is pregnant with meaning. Now, here's the positive aspect of conversion, and it always, always, always, always, beloved, involves a turning to God. Allow me to state the obvious. It's never a turning to religion. It's never a turning to a reformation. It's never a turning to rituals. It's never a turning to a friend. It's only a turning to the living God, the true God.
And in the strictest sense, it's not just a turning to the Word of God, but a turning to the God of the Word through the Word of God. The Word of God points us to the God of the Word. You see, you can have the Bible and not have God, because you can read the Bible for the sake of reading the Bible, but if you read the Bible because you want to meet God, you want to see God, you want to know God, then blessed be God. It's a turning to God.
And I want to comment on this word, too, to God, found in our text. Tiny preposition, familiar with. It's that Greek preposition, pros. The expression itself is pros ton theos . It means, in many contexts, face-to-face with. Intimate relationship. Remember our passage in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Right? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was pros ton theos." Face-to-face with God. It means face-to-face with, in closest, most intimate relationship, in closest fellowship with, and John tells us that the Son of God, God the Son, was in intimate, face-to-face relationship with God the Father. Closest fellowship with God the Father.
It's the same word, pros, used here in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, how you turned pros ton theos. You turned to face-to-face fellowship with God. You entered now into an intimate, personal, loving relationship, and at that moment, you began a sweet fellowship with God. And at the very deep level of your heart, down in your soul, down in your spirit, you were face-to-face with God for the very first time in your life.
Before that, you knew about false gods, idols, and in that moment, when you were introduced to the living God, the true God, you came to really know God. John 17:3: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." That's what conversion is. It's a turning to God that enters into the deepest, personal relationship with God. Religion is external, relationship is internal, and that's what conversion does.
Come with me to the book of Acts, Acts 9, verse 35. I'm gonna be reading at verse 32, but verse 35 is what I want us to see. Acts 9:32: “Now, it happened that as Peter was traveling through all the regions, all those regions, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda, and there he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Rise up, make your bed. Immediately he rose up.”-Verse 35:- "And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, saw the paralytic,”- and now watch this- “and they turned to the Lord." They turned to the Lord.
Miracles in the New Testament serve to authenticate the message and the messengers, and not to underwrite their financial expenses. Just a side note, every conversion involved a turning. And second, it involved a turning to the Lord, a turning from, turning to.
Acts 11, verse 21. It says in verse 19, they were speaking the word to Jews only, and it says in verse 20, they were preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 21 says, "And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord." You see, again and again, saving faith is never passive intellectual acknowledgement of some facts. It's always an active, volitional choice of the will by the grace of God, whereby the sinner turns to God and embraces God by faith and receives His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when Paul says to the Thessalonians, how you turn to God, it speaks about a whole new focus in the direction of their lives. Whereas once their interests, their standards, their morals, their goals, their ambitions, were either framed by their understanding of the wishes of the false god, or by their depraved notions of their own hearts, now their ambitions, their standards, their morals, their conduct, all of life was framed because of this new directive: you turned to God.
Life was now lived in the context of face-to-face relationship with the true and the living God.
It's always one of the attendance of true faith. Your faith toward God has gone forth. Verse nine, “you turned to God from idols,”-and then he says,-”you turned with a disposition not only to receive the benefits of His salvation, but also to submit to the implications of His rule."
Look at it, verse nine: "you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God." And again, we see here very clearly, true repentance, biblical repentance, authentic repentance, repentance according to Scripture, always, always involves not only a turning away from false gods and all mental allegiance to that god, that false god, but also a turning away from volitional allegiance to the false god, and now the swearing of allegiance to the living and true God.
"You turned to serve a living and a true God." He didn't say you turned to get away from the wrath of the living God, to go scot-free, to do as you please, live your life the way you want to live it, and then at some subsequent point in time, you thought maybe it's nice—a nice idea—that I ought to begin to serve this God. No, no, this is just teaching the basic doctrine of the lordship of Jesus Christ. Being involved in the response of true faith, using different terminology, but the same concept that all true faith in God is inseparably joined to basic subjection of the will to this God.
In fact, the verb translated serve, douleuō, comes from the Greek noun doulos, doulos, which is translated means slave, which means one in this context -biblical context- one who would be willing, or who would willingly, made willing by the grace of God to serve his master. In other words, it's an obedience from the heart. The willing slave is one who could have been set free to do something else, but he chooses—by the grace of God, be compelled—to stay and serve his master out of love and devotion for the master. That's the word used here, but it's in the verb form. So he takes doulos, slave, he turns it into a verb, and he says, you now serve God voluntarily. He's your Master, He's your Lord. You belong to Him, He bought you with a precious price.
Now you serve Him from the heart. You don't need to be manipulated to serve Him. You don't have to have a pep talk to serve God. The Lordship of Christ is so real in your life, and the sacrifice of Christ upon Calvary's cross, so real that there flows out of your soul the desire from the heart to serve Him willingly and with delight. Because of what God has done for you in Christ, you find yourself wanting to invest all of you in serving Him, living for Him, in this life and in eternity.
Child of God, can you relate to that? Does it resonate with you today, the desire to want to serve God? The love of Christ constrains us. I will gladly spend and be spent. I just want to serve Him. I want to live for Him. He's my life. He's not a compartment in my life, He is my life.
It begins a dynamic relationship whereby you invest your life serving others because you serve Christ. You turn from your idols, you turn to God. It's not static position. That's what Paul is saying here, and he describes it in greater detail in Romans 6, verse 17: "But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over," and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
"But now having been freed from sin"—he says in verse 22, Romans 6—"and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life." And then he says you turn not only from the false god to the true God, the living God, with a disposition to be submissive to Him.
But notice verse 10, the first part of verse 10: "and to wait for His Son from heaven." And in order to exposit that, you have to also wait until next week, Lord willing. Let's pray.
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