Open up our Bibles again to 1 Thessalonians,
chapter 2.
This week I've been studying chapter 2, verse
13 through 19, but I want to focus
this evening on just the first verse, verse
13.
There is so much in this text that
is so important for every one of us,
for those who are new believers, for those
who are older in the faith, for those
who do not know the Lord, and for
those who may think they know the Lord,
and yet their assurance is not a biblical
assurance.
So we need to look at this.
We need to look at it closely.
We need to read it, and we need
to pray that God will open up our
earlids, that we will hear His Word proclaimed
to our heart, that we'll see the importance
of it, that it'll move us to greater
piety, to greater devotion to Christ.
Now let's read verse 13 of chapter 2.
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.
Let's pray.
Father, I ask You that this not be
a night of only words, but that Your
Word will be proclaimed, and that Your Spirit
would manifest Himself in not only teaching us,
but moving us.
Is He not the one that when He
comes into the world will convict the world
of sin and righteousness and judgment?
Lord, that He might work among us tonight,
even those of us who are Your children,
Lord, that the Spirit might work and show
us truth, and show us areas of our
lives where the truth is not being applied.
Lord, that You would expose, that You would
reprove, that You would correct, that You would
heal and train.
Lord, we need Your Spirit, Your power working
through Your Word tonight to continue transforming our
lives.
So, Lord, multiply grace to us.
That we might hear, understand, and be transformed
in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now, let's look back at our text.
It says, For this reason we also constantly
thank God.
Now, I know this seems like just a
statement that Paul is using as an introduction
to what he really wants to say.
But if you think that, you don't know
Paul.
One of the characteristics of his life was
thanksgiving unto God.
And I want to show you something.
Look in chapter 1 verses 2 and 3.
We give thanks to God always for all
of you, making mention of you in our
prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of
faith and labor of love and steadfastness of
hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the
presence of our God and Father.
Now, here's what I want you to see.
In the first chapter, in the opening verses,
what does Paul do?
He thanks God.
He is thanking God.
He is showing us that it's a characteristic
of his life.
Now, what is he thanking God about?
He's thanking God for the radical, radical faith
and transformation that God has worked in the
heart and lives of these Thessalonians.
And when we read the rest of chapter
1, what do we see?
It's absolutely amazing.
It's amazing what God has done to these
pagan Gentiles, these idol worshipers.
God has so revealed himself to them and
so worked in their lives that what?
They turned to him from idols.
They became imitators of the Lord and the
apostles.
They became an example to everyone that heard
about them.
Even unbelievers, it seems, were carrying reports of
the magnificent transformation in the lives of these
people.
Now, you say, oh, I wish that I
was them.
I wish I was like them.
I don't see that same transformation in my
own life.
I know that's what you're thinking, because sometimes
when I read these things, I think the
same thing.
But now, in order to understand that transformation,
what do we need to do?
We need to go back to chapter 2
and look at verse 13, because Paul is
giving thanks for something.
Look what he says.
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 as
the word of God.
Now, remember, in the first chapter, Paul is
given thanks to God for what?
The great transformation that God has worked in
the lives of these people.
In chapter two, he gives God thanks for
the reason, the source, the fountain of their
transformation.
And what was it?
The reception of the word of God.
Do you see that?
Now, let's just stop here for a moment.
You hear about these great things in the
lives of the Thessalonians and you say to
yourself, I want the same thing.
Oh, how I long for the same thing.
The flesh and the devil can enter in
and even make this an accusation against God.
Why did God do that to them?
And he doesn't do that to me.
Could it be that the key is found
in chapter two, verse 13, they received the
word of God as it truly was the
word of God and not as the word
of a man?
And I just realized we're talking about an
oral transmission of the gospel here.
And even though Paul discipled them, you cannot
say that they had the full counsel of
God's word sitting in their hands every day.
But we do.
The problem is it's not sitting in our
hands, sitting on the table on the shelf.
I've heard people in counseling tell me, why
did God change them and not change me?
Well, let's look.
Here's the word of God.
They received it as the word of God.
Now, let's go back to looking at Paul
for just a moment.
He says, first of all, that he gives
thanks to God.
I think this is very important.
Notice he doesn't thank the Thessalonians for their
response.
That's very important.
Notice also, he doesn't take credit for their
response.
But whom does he thank?
He thanks God.
Why?
Anytime anyone receives the word of God is
it is a result of the work of
God.
Do you see that we are entirely destitute
without him?
We need him.
So if the word is going to be
received into our hearts, it must be a
word of God, but it must be a
work of God.
But we must not use that as an
excuse for being passive.
If you read the word and it doesn't
seem to be entering into your heart, you
should cry out to God that he would
do a greater work in you.
And if we're preaching and we do not
feel like the word of God is entering
into people's hearts, what must we do?
Not take away from our time of study,
but take away from our time of all
other busy activities and hit our knees and
pray, because if people are to receive the
word of God, it is a work of
God.
And again, I admonish you, do not take
this truth as an excuse for you being
passive.
Well, if something's going to happen in my
life, God's going to do it.
No, you cry out to God, Lord, I'm
reading this Bible, but nothing seems to be
entering in.
Cry out to God, cry out to God,
he's faithful, he's faithful.
And always remember, these people didn't even have
probably a Greek version of the Old Testament,
yet you have the full counsel of God.
They received the word and Paul was thankful
for that.
Now, with regard to Thanksgiving, let me get
back to that.
Paul is using the present tense here, which
indicates continuation or style of life.
He was always giving thanks, T.C. Hammond
said it this way, and I love the
way he says it.
He said Paul gave thanks and there were
no gaps.
What he means, there was no gaps in
his thanksgiving.
He didn't go long periods of time without
giving thanks to God for the believers that
he was remembering.
Now, I want to say something I said
in the first sermon, I believe on First
Thessalonians, and it's this.
One of the characteristics that I have seen
in my own prayer that I'm really trying
to improve is the lack of thanksgiving unto
God.
For his work in the life of other
believers, and I've come to recognize something.
That the lack of thanksgiving for God's work
and other believers shows me a couple of
things.
One, it shows me my own self-centeredness,
how much of my prayer life and how
much of my thanksgiving revolves around me.
Another thing that I have learned that is
a strong rebuke, and it's this.
Our lack of thanksgiving for God's work in
other believers is not so much a reflection
of our lack of appreciation for other believers
as it is a lack of appreciation for
the God who is working in believers.
Remember what I said, you meet the smallest,
most immature, most fragile believer on the planet.
And that is enough for you to hit
your knees and to give thanks unto God.
A miracle has happened in this person.
I mean, you're looking at a person who
doesn't hate God by nature.
That person should hate God.
You're looking at a person that should suppress
all truth about God.
And if they accept the Word of God
rather than suppress it, that's a miracle.
And you and I need to give thanks
for such things.
Paul was the type of person that was
always giving thanks.
He not only loved God's people.
He loved.
To watch God working in God's people, do
you ever sit back and do that?
Brothers, now, listen to me, we're a body,
we're members one to another.
Have you ever looked in the mirror and
thought you were getting better looking?
Well, I'll let you continue with that delusion.
But have you ever looked at others and
thought, man, wow, they're growing.
This is pleasing.
This brings me joy.
Not just your own children, not just your
own group around you, but noticing people growing.
Oh, how important that is and how freeing
it is, because the more we're looking at
others and thanking God for others, the more
we become free from this tyrant called self
that's always saying, look at me, look at
me, look at me.
You turn those eyes inward and you obey
the voice of that tyrant, you'll be the
most miserable human being on the planet.
You turn those eyes away from yourself and
you look to Jesus and you look at
what he's doing in the life of his
church and specifically that part of church that
you're a part of.
You'll find joy, you'll find joy.
Now, look, he says for this reason, we
also constantly thank God.
Now, look, we we again, this is important.
These men prayed together.
Paul is not speaking in a majestic plurality
here.
He is really talking about his fellowship with
the other workers.
There were times when the workers just got
down on their knees.
Paul, Silas and Timothy and said, let's have
a prayer meeting and we're not going to
ask for anything.
We're just going to worship and thank God
for what he's done in the life of
his people.
You know, that's it's a good thing to
think about.
It's a good thing to do, it's a
better thing to do, but he says for
this reason, we also constantly thank God that
when you received the word of God now,
the word received Paralambano, it means to to
receive alongside or to take to oneself.
If there is any word in the New
Testament that has been sorely abused by contemporary
evangelicalism, it is the word received.
Because we have taken this magnificent concept.
Of opening our arms to Christ and turned
it into nothing more than walking down an
aisle, praying a prayer, raising a hand, getting
baptized and especially going back to praying a
prayer, the idea of the sinner's prayer, I
asked him, he came in enough said.
We need to return to an understanding of
what it means to receive the word of
God, to take it into ourselves.
And just for a moment, I want you
to hold your place in First Thessalonians and
I want you to go to Matthew 13,
Matthew 13, verse 18.
Here, then, the parable of the sower, when
anyone hears the word of the kingdom and
does not understand it, the evil one comes
and snatches away what has been sown in
his heart.
And this is the one whom the seed
was sown beside the road.
Now, what is this referring to?
A person who sits under the hearing of
the gospel and it just glances off the
moment it hits their forehead, the moment it
hits their chest, it doesn't enter in, it
glances off.
They do not understand.
Now, don't get the scriptures wrong.
So many people say, well, if they don't
understand, it's not their fault.
They rejected it.
No, they don't understand because they don't want
to understand.
They suppress the truth and unrighteousness, they could
care less.
They don't want God, they don't want his
truth.
And then we go on, verse 20, the
one on whom the seed was sown on
the rocky places.
This is a man who hears the word
and immediately receives it with joy.
Now, look at this.
It even uses the word receives and with
joy.
This is not just I pray to parents
done, OK, can I go home?
This person apparently showed outward joy.
And yet what do we see?
The one who received really did not receive.
And how do we know that he did
not receive?
It says in verse 21, yet he has
no firm root in himself, but is only
temporary when affliction or persecution arises because of
the word immediately falls away.
Whenever there's persecution, affliction, he's gone.
He's gone now, notice that the Thessalonians received
the word in the midst of much affliction,
and they continued in the word in the
midst of much affliction.
Now, here's the problem in the modern day
evangelical church, what is it?
There's not a whole lot of persecution, at
least in the West.
And from the pulpit, there's not many demands.
There's no radical call to discipleship and there's
no church discipline.
So what can you do?
You can receive the word and yet not
receive the word, be totally superficial, just like
this person, and yet sit in church every
Sunday and every Wednesday.
Do you realize that?
This person would have looked saved if there
had been no persecution, if there had been
no tribulation, they'd be sitting right there on
the front row every time the doors were
open.
And see, that's the problem in the evangelical
church.
There's not much persecution.
There's not much preaching about sin, about righteousness,
about the call to discipleship.
So what happens?
You just sit there and you think you've
received the word when, in fact, you have
not received the word.
It is a superficial faith and it will
be proven one day.
Either when persecution arises and you flee or
just simply back off or on judgment day.
Now, let's go to the next one quickly,
verse 22, and the one on whom the
seed was sown among the thorns.
This is the man who hears the word
and the worry of the world and the
deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it
becomes unfruitful.
Here's the problem in evangelicalism today.
This guy can stay in the church.
Because so many people who call themselves Christians
and sit in church, they're filled with the
world, the world is wrapped around them, their
whole life is strangled by the world, but
they're still Christian.
Why?
Because one time they prayed a prayer.
Do you see how we've lost the idea
of what it means to receive the word
of God?
Now we go on, verse 23, and the
one on whom the seed was sown on
the good soil, this is the man who
hears the word and understands it, who indeed
bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold,
some 60 and some 30 hundredfold, 60 fold,
30 fold.
Now, I want you to look at something.
First of all, of the four people who
heard the word from Christ, three of them,
one of them rejected it outright, three of
them are said to have received it either
directly or by context, and only one of
them actually did.
And how do we know that one that
did?
He bore fruit.
Now, I want you to look at this
by saying 30, 60 and a hundred, he's
saying that some believers will bear more fruit
than others.
But notice this, the smallest of the number
is 30 fold.
Christians will be marked by fruit bearing.
Now, I don't want anyone here, especially the
fragile saints, to fall into any sort of
condemnation.
Don't walk out of here saying, well, I'm
looking at my life, there's not 30 fold
fruit, I must be lost.
The idea here is fruitfulness.
Fruitfulness.
Not necessarily a percentage or multiplication, but fruitfulness
and not just looking at your life at
one point in time, because that can be
deceiving, but looking at the full course of
your life, is there any fruit?
Because if there has been reception, there will
be fruit, there will be changes.
Another way of saying this is if we
put you beside a worldly person who denies
Christ, will we see anything different in you?
Now, let's go back to our text, I
just wanted to hit on that now.
Let me say this again, because it's so
important, the evidence.
That this one in the parable of the
sower received the word is fruitfulness, the evidence
that these Thessalonians had received the word, what
is it?
Fruit again, we see that in chapter one.
Now, let me ask you a question, I
want everyone to listen to me, especially the
youngsters who claim to know Christ.
What is the evidence of your conversion?
What is the evidence that you're truly Christian?
Think about this.
Preaching is not entertainment, it's to go into
your heart.
What is the evidence there?
Think of this.
It's very important.
Now, he says, for this reason, we also
we also constantly thank God that when you
received the word of God, which you heard
from us now.
I want you to look at a few
things here that are very, very important.
First of all, he calls in this specific
context, the gospel, the word of God.
But we have to also realize that Paul
was also teaching them many things of discipleship
and all sorts of things about the Christian
life.
So he calls it the word of God.
Now, if you look in verse eight of
chapter one, he calls it the word of
the Lord.
If you look at chapter two, verse two,
he calls it the gospel of God.
If you look in verse eight, again, the
gospel of God.
If you look in verse nine, again, the
gospel of God.
And what are we talking about here?
We're talking about the gospel and we can
apply this in a greater context to the
full counsel of God's word, all of the
scriptures that these people had recognized that it
wasn't the word of a man, but it
was the word of God.
And they responded appropriately.
Now, I want to put this in our
context tonight.
We have the scriptures, church, and you must
make a decision if you believe they are
the word of God, you must act on
it.
You can't ignore something like this.
You can't set it aside for a week
or two.
You can't just get what you need from
a preacher.
You must tonight, I plead with you with
urgency, make a commitment in your own heart
to renew your devotion to the study of
God's words.
I'm calling you out and asking for you
to marvel at some truth here tonight.
I'm asking you to recognize something.
You know, this is the Bible.
It is the word of God that recommits
your life to knowing this book, to knowing
the God of this book, to knowing his
will for your life, recognize that it's the
word of God.
Now, I want us to go on.
He says you receive the word of God,
which you heard from us, oral transmission.
The oral transmission of the gospel and in
a wider context, the oral transmission of the
full counsel of God's word, Paul is talking
about preaching.
We have already seen in chapter one and
chapter two, we have seen the prominence, the
important place that Paul gives the preaching.
And so as the other side of the
coin, the first side of the coin was
you personal discipleship.
You need to be reading the words, meditating
upon the word, feeding from the word.
But the other side of that coin, you
need to sit under preaching, biblical preaching.
Spirit filled preaching and God help us, those
of us who are preaching to do our
part to not make this church something that
you visit on Sunday morning and not any
other time.
Do not make this church something you come
on Wednesday and not on Sunday.
You need the proclamation of the word.
You need it.
And so do I.
It's absolutely necessary, it's one of the ways
in which God moves among his people corporately
is through biblical preaching.
Now, I want you to notice something else.
When God wanted to take the greatest message
that has ever been spoken to man, to
man, he did not have an angel write
it in the sky and he did not
send out books and tracts or even videos
on YouTube.
He sent out living, breathing preachers.
I want to read a quote right here
from Stevens and he writes this, it's very,
very interesting.
During 30 years or more after Christ's ascension,
the teaching of all nations was done by
the living preacher, not by the circulation of
apostolic books among the heathen.
Now, of course, Stevens wrote that in a
book, so he's not saying that books aren't
important.
Books have always been involved in revivals and
reformations and everything, but they do not eclipse
preaching.
And for some of you who want to
be in the ministry, some of you young
men who are studying, look what the world
needs today are not strategists, it's not facilitators,
it's not movers and shakers.
What the world needs today are preachers.
And they don't need preachers, but preachers who
are going to spend time alone with God
that are going to study.
So when they open up their mouth, they
can honestly say with full conviction, thus saith
the Lord.
We don't need your fancy illustrations.
We don't need your brilliance.
We need to hear word for word and
line by line what this book says, don't
come to me with clever social ideas on
how to transmit the world in the 21st
century.
I don't care.
We need preachers.
We need preachers, we need preachers.
Now, he goes on and he said, the
word of God, which you heard from us
now, here's another thing for preachers, for me,
for Anthony, Mark, anyone else.
By saying you heard it from us, he's
connecting the message to the messenger, and that's
what he did all throughout chapter one, is
it not true?
He said, you know what kind of men
we were.
It is better if you're not going to
take seriously the requirements of integrity and godliness
and holiness and the seriousness of your calling,
it is better that you not open your
mouth.
Because the preacher and the Christian has the
great opportunity to adorn the gospel or.
Be a cause for blaspheme among the unbelievers
and ridicule at the weakness of the gospel
because of the weakness of the people who
claim to know it.
Do you see that now?
Don't get me wrong, the gospel has its
own virtue and does not depend upon the
virtue of the messenger.
It stands alone on its own.
That is true, but also it is equally
true.
That people become more open to the gospel
when they see the power of it manifested
in the life of the preacher or the
life of the church or the life of
the individual Christian.
These two things go hand in hand.
Now, let's go on.
For this reason, we also constantly thank God
that when you receive the word of God,
which you heard from us, you accepted it.
Now, why do I bring this this next
word into it?
We've already talked about receiving.
Well, it's because Paul does it.
And Paul uses two different words in the
first one.
It's paralambano, which means to just kind of
take alongside or to receive alongside.
But this one is decamite.
And it carries with it the idea of
reception, but also the idea of approval, of
welcoming, of embracing.
Now, let's say that you were dying of
cancer.
And you had a few days to live.
And a doctor walked in with a bona
fide 100 percent cure and announced that cure
to you.
What would you do?
You would approve it.
You would welcome it.
You would embrace it with the greatest joy.
You would call your family and your friends
and you would tell them of the great
deliverance that has been wrought.
It would be the best news.
And yet this is far greater.
It's the reception, not of some news that
you can add to your already good life
to make it a little better.
It's the reception.
Of pardon to a man condemned to die
in the gallows.
It is the greatest of news when we
receive the gospel or when we sit under
preaching or when we're studying the word of
God or even hearing the word of God
from a friend.
We should not, our reception should not be
impersonal and detached and sluggish and unconcerned.
There should be a hunger, a real reception,
and my dear friend, you need to cultivate
that.
You say, Brother Paul, how do I cultivate
it?
Well, have you ever taken an art appreciation
class?
Do you know what they're for?
They're to teach you how to appreciate things.
It's to cultivate appreciation for fine things in
your life.
We can cultivate the same thing in our
own lives with regard to the word of
God.
The more we wean ourselves away from the
garbage of this world and the more we
give ourselves to the study of God's word
as the spirit of God illuminates our minds
and shows us more and more beauty, we'll
begin to appreciate more and more what God
has said in his word and we will
welcome it.
Also, the more you give yourself to studying
the God's word, the more.
You'll be privy to special insights that he
will give you some time, I'd like to
preach on Job 28, I've preached on it
before about how the miners go down into
the rocks, swinging dangerously, precariously in dark places,
trying to mine one tiny jewel.
That's the way we should be in our
study of the scriptures, knowing that what is
found here is greater than gold.
It is greater than silver.
To accept the word of God, and then
he says you accepted it not as the
word of men, but for what it really
is, the word of God.
Now, the word but here is the strongest
adversative that we have in the Greek.
And Paul is drawing a gigantic contrast between
the word of men and the word of
God.
The two things don't meet.
They are mutually exclusive.
They are not two sides of the same
coin, they are in two different polar, they're
different worlds, different universes, and this is seen
throughout all of scripture in the scripture in
the Old Testament.
We're going to look at a few passages
where we see this mighty contrast between the
word of man.
And the word of God now look with
me, I'll just read them to you, because
we don't have a lot of time.
Numbers 23, 19.
Listen to this text.
God is not a man that he should
lie.
Nor a son of man that he should
repent.
So what do we know about men?
Two things that they lie and even those
who tell the truth at times must change
their story.
They don't have all the information, even the
most sincere man.
And he says, God is not a man
that he should lie nor the son of
man that he should repent.
Has he said and will he not do
it or has he spoken and will he
not make it good?
Everything he said he'll do, he'll do everything
he has spoken, he'll make it good.
And then in 1st Samuel 15, 29, also
the glory of Israel will not lie or
change his mind, for he is not a
man that he should change his mind.
Most of the women here just right now
are saying amen.
But this is generic, man, it includes all
of us, including you, that even the best
change their mind.
But God does not.
Now, why is this important?
God in his character is absolutely, pristinely, perfectly,
infinitely faithful, higher than the heavens, deeper than
the seas.
So is his word.
Now, if his word is this faithful.
Should it not be believed, should it not
be believed?
You say, well, I believe, no, no, the
whole thing.
Everything it says about what's right and what's
wrong, what's good, what's bad, what is healthy,
what will kill you.
The end of the righteous, the way of
the wicked, everything it says, is it not
true?
It is, then it should be followed.
It should be believed, correctly interpreted.
Voiding fanaticism, avoiding legalism, avoiding absurdities and all
the other things that come from exegetical fallacies.
But still holding on to the word of
God, believing it, living according to it, but
if it is faithful, should it not also
be obeyed?
Obeyed, that's where faith puts on shoes and
walks on the road.
That's where it gets real.
As a matter of fact, the greatest expression
of faith is obeying what God has said.
He believed God and because he believed God,
he did this, he did what God commanded.
Now, to bring this part to a close,
I just want to say this to you,
not only should he be believed, not only
should he be obeyed, but he should be
feared.
Why?
Because if his promises are true, then so
are his warnings.
Do you see that?
Do not take them lightly.
So often, let me put it this way,
I don't want to say that we've exaggerated
grace, that's impossible, but I can say this.
We've neglected personal righteousness, that grace is not
a license for sin.
Grace is not a pass card for you
so that you can just be careless and
neglectful in what God has commanded.
Our personal, our righteousness before God is not
dependent upon our personal righteousness or our obedience,
we praise God for that every Sunday, every
Wednesday, hopefully every day and every hour.
Yes, we are saved by grace.
But those who have tasted grace should take
obedience seriously, should they not?
And take his warnings seriously.
There are warnings.
Yes, believer, even for you, there are warnings.
Do not trespass them.
Do not skip over them, go under them,
work your way around them or ignore that
they are there.
Charles Leiter says this, that even in the
Grand Canyon, he says the great majority of
the people, if not almost all of them
who go there, have no intention of jumping
off.
Yet there's signs everywhere that says, stop, you've
gotten too close.
Even those who have no intention of destroying
themselves can destroy themselves through neglect and through
ignorance.
You need to know that.
And there needs to be a healthy fear
in your life with regard to God's word.
There needs to be.
And again, that needs to be cultivated.
How's it cultivated?
By studying the word of God and by
sitting under biblical preaching and by fellowshipping with
saints who are also doing the same thing.
Now, let's go on here, we come to
the end, he says, well, there's one part
here that I want to show you, he
says, you accepted it not as the word
of men, but for what it really is.
Now, this is real important.
Why?
This is not just some superficial statement Paul
is throwing out in order to connect some
ideas together.
Here's what's going on.
First of all, I want you to I
want you to know who Paul was.
Paul was a scholar.
In the Jewish context, he was a scholar
studied in the best school under the best
teacher.
Even after years, the kings knew of his
learning and said, all your learning has made
you mad.
They knew he was a scholar.
Now, he also could have stood toe to
toe with any Greek philosopher out there.
And many times he did.
What I'm trying to say is this.
This is important, especially for you university students
who are under being bombarded constantly.
And it's this Paul understood legend.
He understood myth.
He understood that he understood wives tales, even
warned against wives tales, myths and empty philosophies
of men.
All right.
This is a scholar speaking who could stand
toe to toe with the best of them
today.
So when someone comes around and says, yeah,
Paul was just preaching myth.
No, Paul knew what a myth was.
Paul was preaching something he believed with all
his life, I don't say his heart, I
say his life.
Why?
Because he gave it and so did the
other apostles.
And the whole point is Paul saw Jesus
not as a myth, but a historical reality,
a real man from Nazareth.
Who is the incarnate God who suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, was raised again on
the third day, ascended into heaven and is
now seated at the right hand of God
and is king of kings and lord of
lords.
That was not a myth for Paul.
Say what you want, but don't ever.
Ever bring in that nonsense that Paul was
proclaiming a myth.
He said, no, it really is the word
of God.
He based his life on it.
Men don't die for myths.
They don't.
Men die for what they know to be
historic realities.
You say, well, lunatics can die for myth.
If you make that accusation, then I challenge
you to stand toe to toe intellectually with
Paul, the apostle, and then tell me he's
a lunatic.
Now, let's go on.
Oh, one other thing about the word of
God and its reception that is extremely important,
and I overlooked it, but I want I
want you to hear this.
Just listen in James one twenty one, just
listen to what James tells us, therefore, putting
aside all filthiness and all that remains of
wickedness in humility, receive decamites, the same word
as except receive the word planted, which is
able to save your souls.
Now, notice there's two things here.
One is putting aside all filthiness and all
that remains of wickedness.
Don't expect to hear from God if most
of the time you have your ear to
the world.
Don't expect to hear from God if there
are sins you refuse to let go of.
Now, I'm not talking about hidden things.
I don't mean go home tonight and try
to figure out what's wrong with, you know,
I'm talking about things in which, you know,
this is not pleasing to God.
Let go of that.
Repent of it, let go of it and
open yourself to the word to receive it
humbly, humbly.
Humbly.
No arguments with God.
No explaining away what he said.
Humbly, Lord, you said it.
And I believe it, I'll do it and
realize that in this commitment, we all struggle.
But it is it is the struggle in
which we are participating.
What do I mean by that?
I'm struggling to do this.
Not 100 percent there.
I fail many times.
That's not the point.
The point is there's so many calling themselves
Christian that aren't even involved in the struggle.
They don't care.
They don't even think about impurities in their
life, hidden sins in their life or any
other thing.
But you're different.
You've been born again.
Now, lay aside wickedness, lay aside these things.
And receive the word implanted in your heart.
Now, let's go on.
He says, but for what it really is,
the word of God is the last phrase,
which also performs its work in you who
believe.
It performs its work in you who believe.
Now, this is extremely important.
Performs its work actually comes from one single
Greek word.
And you're going to kind of get an
idea of what that word is the moment
I say it.
Energeo, energeo.
It means to operate, to work, to perform,
to to manifest power.
The Greek scholar Mounts says that above all
things, it denotes.
Now, listen, energeo, it denotes energy.
And efficiency, a word theologians will use, it's
efficacious.
It does what it sets out to do.
Remember what God said in Isaiah, my word
won't return to me void.
Now, every believer has that word abiding in
them.
Now, this is an encouragement.
This word is in us and it is
performing, it is doing, it is completing God's
will, and that is a great encouragement.
But it does not lead us to being
passive.
It leads us to feed upon the word.
Now, I want to say some things about
this, first of all, he says, which also
performs its work in you who believe.
This is, again, present tense.
It's just ongoing, continually performing its work.
You see, that's why the believer is going
to be fruitful.
Yes, we can pass through times of slothfulness.
Yes, the true believer can pass through times
of fruitlessness.
Yes, that can happen.
But overall, you're going to see fruit in
the life.
Why?
Because this supernatural, this powerful word is constantly
working, the gospel working, working, taking ground.
Yes.
Taking ground.
Making you into something you were not before,
taking ground.
Now, in whom does the word of God
effectually work?
OK, in whom does it do this?
He says, which also performs its work in
you who believe.
Again, I'm sorry, but present tense, continuous action.
What does he talk to those of you
who go on believing the Christian life begins
by faith, it continues on by faith, it
ends in faith.
You say it ends in faith.
Yes.
When you step over and you see him
as he is, faith is no longer faith,
it's sight.
And that's our glorious hope, the parousia, one
day when he returns or one day when
we go to him.
But right now, in the course of our
entire life, it is faith, not the kind
of faith that these word of faith people
are talking about.
Not the kind of faith that you hear
these TV evangelists, many of them speak of
no faith in the word of God that
he has spoken faith in the gospel specifically
of God and its power to work in
you.
You must believe.
I encourage you.
I exhort you.
I urge you.
I beseech you.
Has he ever given you reason not to
believe ever?
Then go on believing, abound in believing, believe
more.
Believe more, but you can't do that.
You can't do that if you're going to
neglect the foundation of faith, which is the
word of God, not some prophecy from a
self-proclaimed prophet, not some dream or vision
that you had faith in the written word
of God, the inspired, inerrant word of God,
faith in the word of God.
Now, how does the scriptures.
Effectively, effectually work in the ones believing, you
know, here we could we could sit for.
We could sit for days and not even
come close to exhausting this.
But I want to give you four things,
four things that will be helpful for you,
I believe, because they were helpful for me.
I want us to just go quickly, we're
going to go to four different places and
we're going to do it quickly.
I want you to go to first Peter,
chapter one, verse twenty three, first Peter, chapter
one, verse twenty three.
For you have been born again, not of
seed, which is perishable, but imperishable, that is
through the living and enduring word of God.
Now, what does this say?
If you are Christian, if you have been
born again, the word has been implanted into
you supernaturally by the spirit of the living
God, the word of the gospel.
And it is it is the same idea
of the father implanting a seed into the
womb of the mother.
Conception and the breaking forth of real life,
that's what happened to you.
You see that.
I mean, this was not of you born,
not of men, not of the will of
man, but of the will of God.
He implanted this seed, his seed in you
and he made it conceive and bring forth
life.
You see that if you had a part
in this, I would be frightened for you
and me.
The fact he did it and it was
a super natural work.
And that's why you're here.
This is why you believe.
Now, I want you to look also at
first Peter two to.
Like newborn babes long for the pure milk
of the word so that by it you
may grow in respect to salvation, then he
says, if you have tasted the kindness of
the Lord.
God did it, didn't he?
He made life in you spiritual life.
But again, I'm so tired of these great
truths being used as an argument for being
passive.
If he's done this in you, then what
are you and I to do?
We're to continue to feed upon the word.
Our nutrition, our strength, people tell me, well,
brother Paul, I just feel so weak spiritually
now is my first question is, well, talk
to me about your time in the word.
Talk to me about your genuine fellowship with
other believers.
I don't mean sitting around talking about football
and talking about Christ and tell me about
the preaching you're hearing.
And almost every every time those are lacking
at least one of them, usually all three,
you see that.
Well, why are they so much stronger than
me?
Why do they seem so much more healthy?
Maybe they're more desperate and they recognize their
weakness and they're feeding upon the word, feeding
upon the word.
Oh, I know, I know, I know your
lives are busy.
I know that some of us in God's
providence have been given the privilege of spending
a great deal of our time every day
studying the word of God, and I know
that many of you have a different calling.
But my dear friend, make a priority, make
a priority, sit down, what is most important?
You know, you must eat, you know that,
don't you?
You wouldn't think of going days without eating.
Don't think of going days without the word
of God.
I plead with you, don't, don't.
Now, another thing that the word of God
does, it not only births life in us,
it not only feeds us, but Romans 12
to just quickly run over there.
I do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind so that you will so that you
may prove what the will of God is
that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Now, the word of God is not mentioned
here, but in the context it is understood,
it is the chief way in which our
mind is renewed, the spirit of God, using
the word of God to change our thinking
and to conform our thinking to the thinking
or the mind of Christ, this renewal is
necessary for what?
I could say transformation, but I'm not, I'm
going to say metamorphosis, because this Greek word
is actually where we get that word to
show you the power of the change.
How is a person changed by the renewing
of their mind?
What is the great instrument of that renewal,
the spirit of God, using the word of
God transformation, isn't that isn't the greatest pain
of your heart?
It's not affliction.
It's not trials.
It's not things like that.
Isn't the greatest pain of your heart the
same as mine, a lack of transformation, a
wanting to be more like him?
Well, it begins here.
I'm sorry.
You can't go to some meeting somewhere and
get touched by somebody and get jumped up
10 notches.
You can't just sit around and put your
Bible, as I said, under your pillow and
hope it seep through your head.
No, and you can't just listen to sermons,
you, you, you must take the word of
God to heart.
And lastly, and maybe most importantly, just Hebrews
four, just quickly Hebrews 412, 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 the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
You know, it is a common maxim among
men.
It is a it is a wisdom that
everyone agrees with, that we can see so
many faults in other people and we can't
see them in ourselves.
Is that not true?
Then we can spot it, we can spot
parents doing wrong, other kids doing wrong, other
people doing it, we can just spot it.
And yet it is also a common maxim
that we are blind so often to our
own maladies, to our own errors.
Jesus, remember, get the log out of your
own eye.
Now, how can we ever see hidden sins?
How can we see intentions that at this
moment we are blind to them as we
study the word of God?
What does the word of God do?
Remember, when the spirit of God comes, he'll
convict the world of sin.
He used the word of God to do
that in the life of his people.
And as we're reading the word of God,
what does it do?
It cuts through our veneer.
It goes down into the deepest part of
our heart and it exposes, it exposes, it
exposes.
And you have to be brave because you're
going to see things when you study the
word of God that you do not want
to see.
He will cut you to the quick.
He'll show you things about yourself, but it
is out of love that he does this.
Hidden things that no one can see, not
even you.
The word of God is faithful to expose
those things, not to lead us to some
repentance unto death or condemnation.
No, but to lead us where?
To freedom through repentance.
Through confession, through crying out to God, oh,
dear people.
It is no mystery, is it?
Why we struggle so much, are we neglecting
the word of God?
Are we neglecting?
Not the word of men.
But the word of God, let's pray.
Father, in the quiet of this moment, I
pray, I think of all the times in
my own life, the busyness that I have
neglected the word.
I pray for my brothers and sisters in
Christ here.
Lord, just tear down.
Just tear down any veneer.
Show us if we've neglected your word.
And Lord, by your good spirit.
Woo us back to you.
I don't really know how to pray, Lord,
except grant grace.
That that I, my brothers and sisters in
Christ would not neglect your word.
In Jesus name.
Saints be encouraged.
Now, don't you don't you take this word.
Home with you and allow it to twist,
allow the devil to twist it.
So that you're sitting in a corner somewhere.
Know that grace, grace has been given to
you in Christ.
To start again in the word and if
you fail again, start again.
And if or when.
You neglected again, repent and start again.
Please, I beg you for your own sake,
for my sake and encourage one another, encourage
one another, encourage me, encourage Anthony, encourage Mark,
encourage all.
Now, with some pharisaical critical spirit, hoping to
find that someone's doing worse than you, just
lovingly and gently, it's be about encouraging one
another to be in the word, God bless
you.