Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## 1 Thessalonians 1:1

Thank you. I hope and trust that’s your prayer and expectation for the coming years. The sermon scripture is 1 Thessalonians 1:1. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The younger children will be dismissed now to go to their Sabbath schools.

We begin today actually with the first sermon in the series going directly through the text of 1 Thessalonians. We’ve had two sermons so far in Thessalonians. Of course, the first was a thanksgiving talk based on the admonition to give thanks in all things at the end of the book of Thessalonians. And last week we did a little overview of the entire book, remembering that it is an epistle. It was meant to be read originally in one piece or section. So we tried to do that and then give you the overall flow of the book.

And so today we begin to chop it up into little pieces, remembering that the scriptures are both little pieces and they’re big chunks. The equal ultimacy of the one and the many—the individual words are important, but of course the overall context and the whole flow of the book and of the whole scriptures is very important as well for determining how those pieces fit together.

With that in mind, we’re going to go pretty slowly these first few weeks, and today we’re not even going to deal with the whole first verse but just the first half of what I read. We’re going to do kind of a historic overview. Now, having done an overview of the book or epistle last week, this week we’re going to look at the historical context of the writing of this epistle and of the people involved in the writing and the reception of it.

And I guess that one of the major themes I want us to remember—and it’ll become clear as we go through this—but today is that in the calendar of many churches, the first Sunday in Advent. And so you see this banner here saying, “The king is coming.” And Advent is a time to remember the coming of Jesus Christ, his birth, but also to remember his various comings in history. And what I want us to kind of focus on and keep in the back of our heads as we go through the presentation this afternoon is that what we’re talking about is the coming of Jesus, his word, his life into Europe, which is the historical context here—the mission, the second missionary journey of Paul. And these men went into Europe by the supervision of God’s providence.

And so this was the coming of Jesus to them. And we’ll see various aspects of that coming throughout what we’re going to do now. But it’s important to keep that in the back of our minds. And particularly we’ll focus in a few minutes on the actual arrival of the missionaries in Thessalonica and the impact that it had in that particular geographic area and indeed the extended area of all Europe as well.

Now, as you said last week, what we’re dealing with is an epistle. It’s a letter. And if you write a letter to somebody today, you usually start off by saying, “Dear John,” and then you give the body of the letter and you sign off by saying, “Sincerely,” or “For the King,” or “In the King’s service,” or “Very truly yours,” and you sign your name at the end of the letter. But at this particular time in history, that’s not the way they did it.

Letters were addressed first of all. The very first thing you had in the salutation was who was sending the letter, and then you had who the letter was sent to, followed by a short greeting before you get into the body of the letter. And so almost all the epistles in the New Testament follow this very same pattern. Most of them identify who the writer is—not all of them. The epistle to the Hebrews does not identify the author, at least not explicitly. But usually they do. And then they talk about who the letter is written to.

And that’s what we’re going to do today: just talk about who wrote the letter. And it’s identified specifically as Paul and Silvanus, who also is called in scripture Silas, and Timothy. Those are the three writers of the epistle. And then who was the letter received by? Well, it was received by the church of the Thessalonians. And then we have a little addendum put on there: who are in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have the author and then the recipient lined out with some very important information about the context of the letter and the recipient in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s important before we get into this to just briefly state why I think it’s important to consider this material rather than just gloss over it. The scriptures, as I said before, are a unit, but they’re also pieces. And every word is inspired and infallibly given by God in the original manuscripts. They’re there for a reason. And so if God decides in the epistle to the Thessalonians, as we read through it, to give us information in the first verse about who wrote it, that is important that we consider that. For instance, in Hebrews He doesn’t tell us that. So here He does tell us. There’s a reason for that. And nothing happens by chance in any of the world, and certainly not in the inspired word of God. Every word is significant, and we must look at every word.

That is particularly true when we deal with names of individuals. Names are very important in the scriptures. They sum up who a person is, and they should bring connotations to our mind if we understand these names and the historical significance, which help us to understand the epistle itself. And so there’s lots of reasons to take the time to detail a study of who these men were and look at some implications of that for ourselves.

Now, having said that, let’s look then at Paul, Silas, and Timothy. Now, these names first of all—it was very common in New Testament times for people to have two names: a Jewish name as well as a Greek or Roman name. And so Paul, for instance, had another name which was Saul. And we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes and when he stopped being referred to as Saul and became Paul. And it’s not his conversion on the road to Damascus that is the place in which we stop hearing Saul become Paul. So it is not tied to the new birth. With the new name, we don’t know for sure, but the indications are that he had both names from birth. It was a common thing to have done. Really, a more common thing would be to add a Greek suffix to the end of his name. For instance, with Timothy, Timotheus—to add the Greek suffix was a very common way to give him that second Greek name.

Well, if you did that with Saul, which was a good Old Testament name—King Saul, of course, means “asked of God”—it was a very good name, the name of a king who, although he apostasized, was a good man originally in his calling and everything. And so it was a good strong name. But if you put an “os” at the end of that, the Greek word “saulos” meant something that did not have particularly good connotation to it. It meant sort of crooked or off base or something. So instead, the word was chosen: Paul. We have reason to believe that because it sounds similar to Saul. Paul actually means “little.” And indeed, in the providence of God, Paul himself apparently was a little man.

In any event, so that’s where we have Paul and Saul. Silvanus—that person is identified in other places of scripture as Silas. And so Silas is his Hebrew name. And Silvanus sounds close to Silas. And so he was given Silvanus as his Greek or Romanized name. And Timotheus, of course, is Timothy.

Well, let’s look now. We’re going to turn to the book of Acts. So turn, if you will, to Acts chapter 9 and we’ll begin to get a little picture here. Before you do that, one other thing I wanted to mention briefly—look at Galatians 1:1 as a contrast of a salutation, a different kind of salutation that Paul uses in Galatians.

Now, it’s interesting—this contrast. I’ll just read it first: “Galatians 1:1. Paul, an apostle, not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace.”

A longer, more complex salutation. Paul says that he’s an apostle. And he goes on to talk about how he was called by God and not by man. His authority comes from God and not from man. Paul used different salutations for different letters. And so the fact that we have a very simple, short salutation where Paul doesn’t even assert his apostolic authority to the Thessalonians means something to us. I think one thing it should tell us is that with the Thessalonians he was on better footing.

Remember, the reason for writing the epistle to the Galatians was to contravene error that was going on in the church and false teaching that was coming to the church. And so he immediately asserted his apostolic authority at the very beginning of the letter. And that authority doesn’t rest in whether you hear it or not, whether the man chose him or didn’t choose him. It comes from the election of God. So Paul stresses that right up front very formally.

But in Thessalonians, he doesn’t even identify himself as apostle. Now he was—they knew he was—but he didn’t need to stress it because he was on more friendly footing with the church of the Thessalonians.

Now, why do I point that out? Well, one, to show you how it’s important to look at these words carefully. It tells you something about the epistle. But two, it has application to our lives. We deal with people, with different kinds of Christians. And the Galatians and the Thessalonians were both Christians. And the way we deal with them, if we’re intelligent and wise and under the control of God’s Spirit, will be different depending on who we’re addressing and what the occasion for our talking to them is. Whether it’s formal writing to them or whether it’s speech to them. Our speech should be under the control of our Holy Spirit enough so that we discern the reason for our communication to other people and then adjust how we communicate accordingly. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And the scriptures here give us some real clear examples that this is the case.

So remember that this week when you address your children. Remember how you should address them in a particular situation. Do you need to assert your authority? Maybe not. Maybe you need to back off a little bit and instead assert coming alongside and encouraging. The way you address your wife should vary from time to time and occurrence to occurrence. And the way we address each other should change as well.

Okay. Now, going back to Acts 9 to pick up what’s going on here in the historical context. I want to do a quick overview of the life of Paul. He’s the first one we’re going to deal with. And as we go through the life of Paul, Silas will be added to the discussion. And then finally Timothy will be added. And we’ll just go through this chronologically and hopefully move through it pretty quickly.

And then we’ll go back to it, and I want to look at some specific incidents later that are indicative to us in terms of some characteristics of these men and of godly men who are used by God.

Okay. So we have an inspired history here. And actually, of course, the story of Saul or Paul begins in Acts 7 and 8. And in Acts 7 or 8, we have him persecuting the church of Jesus Christ. He is very vicious in this persecution of Christians, as we probably all are aware of. And then in Acts 9, Paul becomes converted. And that, of course, happens on the road to Damascus. In the first few verses of chapter 9, light from heaven surrounds him. He falls to the ground and he hears a voice saying, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” This is a very important incident. Of course, this is a conversion of Saul.

Saul, or Paul, is blinded and remains in that condition. His eyes are open but he can’t see, and he has to be led by the hand into Damascus, then into the house of someone, and wait for God to send somebody to him who then prays with him and his sight is restored. He becomes baptized, then later in chapter 9, and begins to preach.

And notice he does that in verse 19 and 20. “He took food and was strengthened after being baptized and regaining his sight. For several days he was with the disciples at Damascus. Verse 20: And immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, He is the Son of God.”

And so Paul, or Saul, takes on a very active evangelical role here by immediately proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And he then begins to prove to all the Jews in the verses that follow that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah—that is, the anointed one who they were waiting for. But the Jews don’t like this going on here. And later in these verses, they seek to kill him. And Saul escapes from the city of Damascus by being led out through an opening in the wall and being lowered in a basket out of the city walls. Of course, most of the cities then had walls. And so Paul, or Saul, was delivered.

And they then take Saul to Jerusalem. Verse 26: “When he had come to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples, but they were afraid of him. So he goes to Jerusalem. They’re afraid. Isn’t this the guy that persecuted the church? Yes. We’re afraid. We don’t really want to talk to him.” They probably thought it was some kind of conspiracy going on. You know, he’s just pretending to be a Christian. It’s really a conspiracy.

Well, this is where Barnabas, who will be Paul’s companion for a goodly length of time, comes alongside of Saul and then gives him entrance into the brothers of Jerusalem. And so Saul then begins to proclaim the gospel in Jerusalem as well. But again, there he runs into persecution. In verse 26, it says that while he was there, “he spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord and he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, but they were attempting to put him to death. When the brother learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus.”

So here’s the first little section the scriptures tell us of Saul’s life: persecuted Christians, converted clearly by the grace of God—a big change in his life, big conversion experience, big testimony if you want to look at it that way. He immediately has to rely upon other people. And then as his sight is restored, he begins to preach the gospel in Damascus. He has to leave Damascus under persecution. He goes to Jerusalem. He again preaches the gospel there and again has to be led out of Jerusalem and taken to Tarsus because his life is threatened.

Well, we leave Saul, Paul, then for a while. And notice he is still called Saul. We leave him for a while, and it’s a couple of chapters later that we pick back up with what Saul is doing in chapter 11.

Chapter 11:19 is kind of interesting going through this. “There was a scattering because of the persecution that arose in connection with Stephen.” And that’s the persecution that Saul had originally been part of. This scattering then produces a dispersion of Christians into other areas, and one of those areas is Antioch. And in Antioch, Barnabas is preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and conversions begin to occur. And so Antioch becomes a very important city for the next length of time here in the scriptures and historically as well.

Of course, Barnabas is ministering in Antioch. And in verse 25, “he leaves for Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it came about that for an entire year, they met with the church.”

So here what happens is we don’t know how much time has elapsed. Estimates range from one year to nine years that Saul was off in Tarsus, probably certainly preaching. We don’t know exactly what he was doing there. What we do know is that Barnabas begins to work with the Antioch church, remembers Saul—remember, he had befriended Saul in Jerusalem—goes to Tarsus looking for him. He’s not easily found. He finds him and brings him back to Antioch. And Saul then ministers there with Barnabas for a year.

So we have Saul moving from Damascus to Jerusalem to Tarsus and now to Antioch. And in Antioch, in chapter 13, a critical juncture in his life occurs. They were at Antioch still. The church was there.

Oh, one other thing I should mention, but we’ll come back to it, I guess, later: in chapter 13, he was still in Antioch with Barnabas, and God instructs the church. The Holy Spirit instructs them to set apart for God, Barnabas and Saul, for the work which I have called them to. That’s verse 2 of chapter 13. And this is the beginning of the first missionary journey of Paul, or Saul.

So at Antioch he has come to work with Barnabas. The Holy Ghost sets him apart for missionary work, and the church does that through the laying on of hands and selection. And so then they go off and they begin to preach in the various cities. And I mentioned that there is a specific location where Saul starts to become Paul. And that is in chapter 13, verses 6 and following.

“There is a proconsul there named Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician—for thus his name translated—was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the truth. But Saul, who is also known as Paul, the Holy Spirit fixed his gaze upon him—this is upon Elymas the magician, which is what the name means when translated—who was opposing the work of Saul and Barnabas.”

Verse 10, Saul tells him: “You are full of deceit and fraud. You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time.” And immediately a mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand.

“Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord.”

And from this point on, Saul is now referred to as Paul. Why is that? Well, there’s been various conjectures put forth. I don’t know why it is. Perhaps one reason—there’s also another change that occurs here. From now on, it’s not Barnabas and Saul. Now it’s Paul and Barnabas. And so Paul has become preeminent in terms of authority and rank in reference to Barnabas here as well.

Additionally, at this particular turning point, he’s converted this Roman proconsul, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that he very distinctly, within the context of this missionary visit, becomes designated as the apostle to the Gentiles, the missionary to the Gentiles. And so if that’s what his primary calling is, then you can see the transfer from the Hebrew named Saul to his Roman named Paul would make sense in relationship to that.

So those are some of the critical factors in the change of designation. But it doesn’t mean Saul is a bad name and it doesn’t mean Paul is a good name. It simply means a differentiation in terms of his function and calling now and what happens in his life.

Okay. So they go. They proceed on with the missionary journey after this event, and they eventually come back then to Antioch. Chapter 14, verse 25 or verse 26: “When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, from which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished. When they arrived and gathered at the church together, they began to report all things that God had done.”

And so here they returned now at the end of the first missionary journey. Acts 15 then immediately following this is the Council of Jerusalem. And you remember that here the Judaizing element began to trouble the Christians at Antioch. And so Paul then goes to Jerusalem to seek a resolution to the conflict that has come up.

So men are now trying to teach the Antioch believers that you have to keep all of the law—works righteousness—to affect salvation. Now, this is important because it’s here at Jerusalem. Paul has already gone through his first missionary visit. He’s been converted, preached the gospel, moved around, settled in Antioch, gone on a missionary visit back to Antioch. Now he goes to the Jerusalem Council on behalf of the Antioch church.

And in Jerusalem, we come across the name of Silas for the first time. We find that the Jerusalem Council puts together a note to be sent to all the churches. And of course, we’ve talked about this before in this church. The Council gives specific instructions that believers are not to do certain things. We’ve talked about this before without going into detail. Remember, I believe that this points us back to Leviticus 17. They pick up with the beginning of the holiness code in Leviticus 17, the law of God.

And so this letter is prepared essentially telling the Christian churches, “No, you don’t have to be circumcised to be a Christian. Salvation is not by works. It is by grace. But also, you should keep the law of God. Not toward salvation, but as a result of you being saved. Not the sacrificial law, circumcision or replacement, baptism. It says you’re still to keep the law of God, picking it up with the holiness code.”

And that letter then goes out to the churches. Well, Silas is one of the men at the Council of Jerusalem. In fact, we are told that he was one of the leading men there. And we’re also told in the context of Acts 15 that he was a prophet. And so he then is one of the ones that are sent out to take this message, this letter, to the churches to encourage and strengthen them in the faith with the letter.

Okay. Now, at the end of chapter 15, we see the preparation for a second missionary journey. And what happens here is the first missionary journey had some controversy attached to one man named John Mark. And Barnabas wanted to take John Mark back again in the second missionary journey, even though he had bailed out on them early in the first missionary journey. He wants to give him a second chance. Paul says no. He doesn’t want to take John Mark along.

And the dispute becomes so intense that Paul and Barnabas then separate. And Barnabas takes John Mark and sails off in one direction to go back and encourage these churches. And Paul picks up a different apprentice, a different person to attempt the second missionary journey, and that’s Silas. Silas, who was there because he had gone out to give these letters to the churches from the Jerusalem Council, ended up in Antioch.

Paul chooses Silas, and as a result of that, Silas now accompanies Paul in the second missionary journey. And that’s how Silas gets involved in all these churches. He goes back to the churches that they had already planted, and then additionally, it’s on the second missionary journey they go into Europe and plant the gospel there.

Okay. So that’s where Silas comes on board. In the very next set of verses, in chapter 16, verses 1 and following, they go to Derbe and to Lystra. Now, these are two cities where they had already planted churches on the first missionary journey. “And behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. And he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted this man to go with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts. For they all knew that his father was a Greek.”

Okay, so this is where Timothy comes into the story. Having picked up Silas to begin the second missionary journey, one of the first cities they go to, they find Timothy. Apparently Paul had converted Timothy, or God had converted Timothy through the agency of Paul in the first journey. And here in the second missionary journey, he comes across Timothy, and the language seems to indicate he wasn’t really expecting to find him in Lystra. He finds him, and then Timothy then accompanies him as well.

So now we’ve got the three—Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy—all together.

In the chronology that God has given us in the book of Acts, they then deliver, and it’s very important here in verse 4, to recognize that “they were delivering the decrees which had been decided upon by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.” So this second missionary journey, and the very next verse says, they strengthen the churches. They go back to the churches, part of the reason being to deliver this decree of the Jerusalem Council, instructing them to go back to the law of God and the holiness code and to live in obedience to it. So they strengthen the existing churches.

But then in verses 6 and following, we have an incident related in which Paul is led by the Spirit of God through several different mediums here to go into Europe and not to go where he had wanted to go. He wanted to go one place. The Spirit of God wouldn’t let him go there. The Spirit forbade him to preach the gospel in Asia, it says specifically. And then it wouldn’t let him go to another region. And then finally, a vision appears to Paul of a Macedonian man saying, “Come help us over here.”

And so in very direct ways, God directs Paul to leave off his normal course and instead go into Europe. Now, this is very critical for the Thessalonians because that’s where they are. They are part of that Macedonian area.

The next thing that happens then is he puts off immediately in obedience to God. And we go to Philippi in verse 12: “From there to Philippi, which was a leading city of the district of Macedonia.”

So these three men now, in their evangelistic tour, come to Philippi. And probably you remember in Philippi we had the conversion of Lydia, the seller of purple, and her household. And we also in Philippi had the conversion of the Philippian jailer. They are thrown into jail and beaten, persecuted in Philippi. And in the middle of the night, when they’re in jail, what are they doing? They’re singing songs to God and they’re praising God and praying. And a great earthquake happens, and the earthquake breaks off the chains they’re in, opens the doors.

The Philippian jailer wants to kill himself. They say, “No, no, don’t do that.” They preach the gospel to him, and he converts. And the next day they are released from jail. They could have walked out that night. They didn’t do it. They stayed in jail. The next day they’re released because they were Roman citizens. Well, they didn’t leave Philippi. The leaders of the city say, “You can get out of jail, but please get out of here. Don’t bother us anymore.” They move on. Philippi has now been established. They’ve got a strong several households there. They’ve established that church. They move on then, and they move on to Thessalonica.

And this is where we run into the specific group that this epistle is written to.

Okay. They came to Thessalonica. Now, a couple of words here about these three cities. From Philippi, they go to Thessalonica. It’s about 100 miles away. From Thessalonica, they’ll be persecuted there as well. And they move from Thessalonica then to Berea. And from Berea, where again persecution sets in, Paul is sent off to Athens by himself. And Timothy and Silas stay in Berea.

Paul goes from Athens to Corinth. And then he is rejoined by Timothy and Silas in the city of Corinth. And that’s when the epistle that we’re now making reference to is written. So this is one of the very first epistles that Paul writes. It might be the very first one. Some people think Galatians came first. Some people think 1 and 2 Thessalonians came first. This is one of his first epistles written from Corinth and written after he was rejoined by these two fellows who had accompanied him on the missionary journey—Silas and Timothy—back there.

Now, Thessalonica was a major city. It was the capital city of Macedonia, and Philippi was a major city as well, and so was Berea. And Paul seemed to deliberately choose these major cities. The Thessalonians lived in a city that had been named after a daughter of Philip II of Macedonia. Easy way to remember this is Philippi is named after Philip II. Philippi = Philip the Second of Macedonia. And then Philip II has a daughter, Thessalonica. And this second town, Thessalonica, is named after her. So they both have reference to Philip II of Macedonia.

And it’s just important to remember that Thessalonica was a capital city in Macedonia, the capital city. It was a very centralized area then to evangelize. It had a synagogue of the Jews there, which is one of the reasons Paul stopped there and preached. And it became then an important base for the church in Macedonia. And remember, we said last week in the overview that the Thessalonian Christians become then an example to all the area around them by preaching the gospel in all of Asia.

Now, just a little overview, real quickly, of the missionaries and then of the city that they come to finally and how they ended up getting there.

Now, the scriptures tell us that the letter is written from these three men to the Thessalonians, but it designates the Thessalonians in a very specific way. It says specifically that the epistle was written to the ecclesia, the church. Now, Paul later in some of his letters will refer to churches in various areas as saints or as faithful brethren. But here he refers to them as the ecclesia.

And even when Paul writes epistles and refers in the salutation to a church as an ecclesia, he doesn’t normally do it the way he does here. Only in 1 and 2 Thessalonians do we have the letter written to the church of the Thessalonians, which is how it reads. In other epistles, it says “the church at Galatia” or “the church in Galatia.” It recognizes a geographic region instead of the group of people known as the Thessalonians.

Is that important? Well, I think it is. And I think it is for the reason of the central element of what happened in the Thessalonian churches. If you remember—and it’s easy for me to remember because our oldest son Elijah, I gave him the middle name Jason—the controversy that happened to Paul at Thessalonica ensues when the Jews called Jason. They were meeting in Jason’s house at the time the church was there, and other members of the church, before the city magistrates. And they tell the city magistrates, according to Acts 17, that “these men who are turning the world upside down have come here also, saying that there is another king, Jesus, in contradistinction to Caesar.”

Okay, that’s the core message of what was going on at Thessalonica. That’s what they were charged with, and they really were doing it. The missionaries were turning the world of Europe upside down by proclaiming another Caesar, a greater Caesar, King Jesus. And saying that His decree is the ultimate binding law in the land and He is the source of salvation.

Now, you’ve got to remember, and you should know this, that Augustus Caesar was a false Christ. The Caesars—the word was a religious title that meant lord of everything and able to bring about salvation. And so indeed, they were proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, under whom and through whom only salvation can come. And they were then, in a sense, turning the world of the Caesars upside down.

Now, what does that have to do with this term “ecclesia”? Ecclesia is a technical term. It can mean any gathering of people. But specifically, it meant in the Greek of that day the people that were called out of the city to rule and to make decisions in terms of public policy for a city. And so when Paul writes to the Thessalonians—where the Gospel, the form of Gospel had really taken hold early on in the church’s days—he reminds them that they are an ecclesia, the called-out assembly. They rule, as it were, in that city. And he does it related to a specific geographic region.

He doesn’t say “the ecclesia, the called-out rulers in a particular area.” He says “the rulers of the Thessalonians,” the ecclesia, the council, those who rule and govern the affairs of men of the Thessalonians. Now, we know that the ecclesia is only comprised of believing members in Jesus Christ, the church, that is. But I think what Paul is hinting at here rather strongly is that history flows in relationship to the church of Christ.

And so when a church is planted—as it was in Thessalonica—with the form of Gospel preached and understood that we’re talking about the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, who reigns over Caesar, then that church must realize that history in that area, in terms of the Thessalonians in general, Macedonia, would flow in terms of how that church functioned.

God—we read it in this psalm. Here, the responsive reading, Psalm 74, talks about the great revolt that happens when people rebel against God, and it asks for God’s arm to awake and to come. “God, how long shall the adversary reproach?”

And see, what was happening here in Macedonia was God was planting a seed, and the source of history for Europe from then on would flow in terms of those churches that have been established by Paul, who had turned the world upside down. He says in verse 19 of Psalm 74, “Deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked.” You see, the church is the turtledove of God.

The term ecclesia is also used in the Septuagint whenever the term “congregation” that we read in Psalm 74 is going to be translated. Ecclesia shows continuity between the congregation of God in the Old Testament and the church of God in the New Testament in Jesus Christ. It becomes then the focal point of God’s history.

And so what these three men and the Thessalonian believers did in turning the world upside down was to understand their calling as an ecclesia, as a called-out group through whom all of history flows in relationship to, in terms of that particular geographic location. So they constituted the ecclesia and specifically the ecclesia of the Thessalonians.

And then he goes on to say that the basis for all this, of course, is inclusion in the Trinity. And specifically, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul had established a new capital city. He had taken the capital city and turned it on its head, as it were, and actually brought it right side up in relationship to obedience to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This phrase is also somewhat unique in the epistles, and it’s worth dwelling on just for a moment. He uses the term for God. He says, “God the Father.” Remember, later in Thessalonians, as we pointed out last week, Paul pictures himself as a mother and as a father to the Thessalonians—as a mother nurturing them and caring for them as one would care for someone that they nurse, but as a father exhorting, encouraging, and admonishing to righteousness.

And as a father in the epistle, he gives them instructions or further commands to build in the sanctification that was begun with the leading of that decree from the Council of Jerusalem. That’s what they were doing. Remember, strengthening the churches with that council decree. And he then gives them more instructions as a father. And so the very use of the term “God the Father” re-emphasizes the ruling nature of God and the command nature that He has to His person.

And of course, the full title “the Lord Jesus Christ” emphasizes that as well. “Lord” was the term that was used to translate Yahweh in the Old Testament in the Septuagint. And so Jesus Christ was described as Yahweh, controller of all things, absolute Lord over all things. Jesus means salvation. “He’ll call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” Christ means Messiah or anointed one—prophet, priest, and king. King of Kings, king over Caesar.

And so Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they had a tremendous God whom they worshiped. And it was because they were in Him that they were the called-out ruling council in the city of Thessalonica. Because they were in God the Father, who had created all things for purposes of bringing Himself worship and glory, and He was going to do that through this church. And He was going to do it not just restricted to Thessalonica but to all of Europe as well.

Now, this has tremendous implications for us as a church. Obviously, we can barely touch upon the implications. But the point is that God has established churches, and they should understand their calling as ecclesias, as foundation points for the government of particular areas and asserting the crown of King Jesus over every area of life. The coming of the King is the basis for reversing world trends and directly restoring the reign of God in a visible fashion to specific areas and geographies.

Now, one other thing about being in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly, they should call to mind Jesus’s words in John 17:21: “That they all may be one as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.” Jesus had prayed that there might be unity between the Father and the Son and unity between the believers and the Father, the believer and the Son, that the believers might be one in Us.

And indeed, here Paul is saying that indeed this has come to pass. They are unified in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, that term in there—there’s one term in that: “God the Father, Lord Jesus Christ.” It puts them on equal footing—a claim of deity for the Son. Obviously, the point here is that the verse goes on to say that Jesus prayed they might be one in Us “that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.”

How will they reign in Europe? And how will they reign in Thessalonica? By building on this unity with God the Father and as a result with each other, that the world might know that God has sent them and believe. It’s an eschatologically optimistic prayer that Jesus utters here. And it has come to pass in the lives of the Thessalonians. They understand and assert the crown rights of King Jesus. They assert that men should be brought into union with God the Father and the Son. And the end result of that is that the world does indeed believe, comes to conversion in repentance, and comes to obeying the King of Kings.

Now, I want to kind of go back over a few things here. Now, what I’m trying to sketch out here is that what we’re dealing with in this epistle—both in the writers and the recipients of the epistle—are men who changed the world. They’re world changers first because they acknowledge the sovereignty of Jesus Christ in every area of life and thought. His sovereignty over king, His sovereignty over church, and certainly His sovereignty over our lives and our families as well. On the basis of that, they were world changers.

Let’s look—and we go back now over a couple of these incidents in Paul’s life—to look at the characteristics of world-changing men here. And I’m going to do this real quickly, but I think it’s important to show us that if we consider ourselves to be called to be world changers, we should be seeing ourselves in the same way as Paul saw himself and was prepared in that way.

Remember, I talked about how in Acts chapter 9, Paul’s conversion experience—a critical experience. What happens to Paul or Saul? Jesus comes to him and says, “Why do you persecute Me?” Was Paul persecuting Christ? Well, he didn’t think so. He was persecuting Christians. But God says, and one of the first lessons He teaches Paul is that if you touch Christians, you touch Me. Remember what Jesus said: “If you don’t do it to Christians, you haven’t done it for Me. And if you hurt Christians, you’ve hurt Me.”

And so Paul, in his first lesson from God, was taught the unity of the church of Jesus Christ with the God they worship. Now, remember, we talked about Paul’s great love for the people that will be demonstrated throughout the book of Thessalonians—over and over, how much he cared for you, how dear you were to me, I wanted to see you, and I wanted to help you and encourage you. Paul’s great love. Why did Paul have that great love? Because he loved God.

There’s a guy, Doug H., up in Seattle preaching a sermon—he preached here a couple months ago on “Knowing God.” I thought that first sermon of his was tremendous in its implications for our lives. If we somehow forget that the basis for everything we’re doing is a knowledge of and a love for God, then we’re not going to love each other. If we don’t love God, the scriptures are real clear. We’re not going to end up being able to love each other. If you’ve got a problem loving believers or loving members of your family, focus on getting to know the person of God more. Read the scriptures. Love God first. Be brought to a position of appreciation and gratefulness for what He’s accomplished in your life. Paul knew it.

Now, you had Paul and Timothy—two completely different experiences, right? Paul with a big conversion experience. Timothy raised in the faith from the time he was a young child. But both of them had a great love for the church of Jesus Christ. Both of them demonstrated thereby a love for God.

You don’t need a big conversion experience. And God’s pleased if you may have one. But first of all, I want you to realize that world changers love God. Recognize the connection between God and His people. That was what Paul was brought to.

What else happened to Paul then in that first critical experience? He had to depend upon other people. He was shown grace by people who led him about by the hand because he couldn’t see. He was humbled. Remember the requirements: “Walk humbly with God.” That’s one of the requirements of man. World changers have a humility in relationship to God and acknowledge their need for help from other people. And if you’ve not been brought to a position of needing help from other people, well, that’s too bad, because you do need people. You do need the body of Christ around you as Paul needed them here. And that’s what a world changer knows—his need for the body of Christ.

Okay. So first of all, he needs to have humility with God and acknowledge his need for others and love God and as a result of that love others. Second incident: we said that Paul, after his conversion, spoke out boldly. World changers speak out boldly the name of the King, Jesus Christ. And Paul did that from his first element of conversion—after his eyes have healed and he’s prayed and been baptized and been brought into the covenant community. He immediately began to speak out boldly in the face of known persecution. He knew how bad the persecutors were. He was one of them. But it didn’t stop him. He was bold.

But notice in this boldness there was not foolhardiness. When they found out that there was a plot to kill Saul, did Saul say, “That’s okay. I want to die for Jesus”? He did not. He consented to being let out the wall in a basket and scurrying away to some other place. Why was he doing that? Because Paul had an optimistic eschatology. He knew that it wasn’t supposed to be our goal to die for Jesus. He knew it was supposed to be our goal to bring other people to conversion in Jesus Christ. As long as we’re obeying the word of God, we should seek to obey that word in whatever ways God has given us to do, to accomplish the ministry He’s called us to do. Paul was no coward. He knew he wasn’t because he was bold to proclaim the truth in spite of beatings and everything else. But he also knew that his death would accomplish nothing for the kingdom.