Thessalonica: the Impact of the Plain Gospel

Each of these books has a different aspect of the gospel that it emphasizes. But when it comes to the church in Thessalonica, whom Paul addressed twi letters to, I and II Thessalonians, we see that the gospel had a tremendous impact on that city. And so that's what we're gonna look at in this class.

A. The Holy Spirit Powered Gospel

1. The gospel is more than mere words.

²We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; ³constantly 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, ⁴knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; ⁵for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.
- I Thessalonians 1:2-5

Paul says here that the gospel is not a matter of just words only. There's more to it than that and he commends them. Notice how positive he is here, just like he was with the church in Philippi. He says, "I'm just so proud of you."

He talks in verse 3 about their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope. In I Corinthians 13, Paul talked about how these three remained, faith, hope, and love and here he commends the Thessalonians for having all three of those.

He talks about their being chosen by God in verse 14. This gospel is more than just mere words.

2. We proclaim the gospel out of a strong conviction by the power of the Holy Spirit

We want to preach the gospel with a conviction about this. I'm convicted. This is right. This is true. And that conviction will come through in your presentation of the gospel if it's truly there. But we also want to understand we have the gift of God's Holy Spirit, and we're preaching by the power of that Holy Spirit.

3. The Holy Spirit Powered Gospel must be preached even during adverse conditions.

¹For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, ²but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. ³For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; ⁴but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.
- I Thessalonians 2:1-4

Paul was boldly proclaiming the gospel there in Thessalonica. And if you're not familiar with Acts 17, you may want to stop and read the first half of that chapter to see how the work went in Thessalonica. It was not easy. He faced a lot of opposition. He preached the gospel there in the synagogue and some liked it, some responded, many obeyed the gospel, but there were many who did not. And so this, this gospel that we preach draws opposition, but even in the most adverse situations, we need to make sure that we continue to preach the gospel.

There's a suffering that comes as a result of our dedication to the gospel that we need to be aware of.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,
- II Timothy 1:8

Now, just for context, we're studying I Thessalonians, which was written to a church. II Timothy was not written to a church. It was written to an individual, Timothy. And Paul is telling him, if you preach the gospel, sooner or later, there is going to be suffering and opposition to what you're preaching. But Timothy, you keep preaching the word.

B. Not Only the Gospel

I think you'll understand the heading in just a moment.

⁵For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness— ⁶nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. ⁷But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. ⁸Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.
- I Thessalonians 2:5-8

Paul first starts off by talking about this embellishment. I brought this out in the very first class that we did when we were talking about I Corinthians where Paul is trying to remember who all he baptized,

¹⁶Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. ¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.
- I Corinthians 1:16-17

That's where our title comes from, the plain gospel.

¹And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. ²For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
- I Corinthians 2:1-2

There we have it again, just the plain gospel.

and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
- I Corinthians 2:4

Over and over again, Paul is emphasizing it's not about the eloquence that we have as presenters. It's not how good you are or how smart you are. It's about the gospel. Just present the gospel. That's all we really need to do, but we present not only the gospel.

2. Don't just share the gospel with people; share your life with them as well.

Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.
- I Thessalonians 2:5-8

I've mentioned several times during this series the cohesion and closeness that comes about from people who are of like mind sharing the same gospel, working together. I was just talking with a colleague of mine just a little bit ago about how lighthouses don't compete. They work together. You have a lighthouse and you're shining the light, and I've have a lighthouse and I'm shining the light. We're not in competition with each other. We're working together to save sailors. That's what lighthouses do. They they protect the sailors from bashing their ships against the rocks. We're spreading the light. We're working together, and we have a fellowship as a result of our prayer and sharing the gospel.

But we don't just share the gospel, we share our lives. We get involved with people. We talk to people.

but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
- II Timothy 1:10

What brings life? The gospel. What brings immortality? Our understanding. I know more about life and immortality since I became a Christian. And the more I've learned about the gospel, it teaches me about life, about living. That's what the gospel is supposed to do. You see, it's not only the gospel, it's our lives as well.

3. We have been called into God's kingdom to proclaim the gospel of God.

⁹For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. ¹⁰You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; ¹¹just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, ¹²so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
- I Thessalonians 2:9-12

This is our calling, whether we understand it or not. And maybe this wasn't explained to you when you first got baptized into Christ, but it's not too late to make this correction in your theology and understanding. You're called to proclaim the gospel, regardless of what age you are, regardless of what talents or abilities you have or don't have, every single Christian is called to proclaim the gospel of God's kingdom.

4. We were destined for the proclamation of the gospel of Christ.

¹Therefore when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone, ²and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith, ³so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this.
- I Thessalonians 3:1-3

Paul says in this proclamation of the gospel and as we're going about what we need to do as a church, as the Lord's body, there's going to be some some hardship. There's going to be some affliction. Don't let that discourage you. Don't let these afflictions discourage you. Realize this is what we're destined for. We're doing the right thing when we proclaim the gospel, the plain gospel to others.

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel,
- II Timothy 2:8

I was at a a gospel meeting not long ago. I was sitting with a dear brother and we were listening to the sermon and when it was done, I thought the guy did a really good job with the sermon, but I looked over at my friend and he had this scowl on his face. Like, I dare you to make me smile kind of look. And I said, "what did you think of the message?" He says, "well, I didn't hear the gospel preached." Now what this brother means, and I know because I've talked to him about this before, the brother in his sermon did not mention the death, burial, and the resurrection of Christ. And in this guy's mind, that means it wasn't a gospel sermon.

I want to challenge that because I've heard it before where people think if a sermon doesn't mention the death, burial, and the resurrection, it's not a gospel sermon. Think about this with me. Did John the baptizer preach the gospel? Or better yet, how about Jesus? Did Jesus Christ preach the gospel?

Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
- Matthew 4:23

Do you know what he was doing in the next chapters, Matthew 5-7? He's preaching the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached. Was that a gospel sermon? You know where I'm going with this. He never mentions the death, burial, and the resurrection. And you might say, well, Curtis, that's not fair because that was before the death, burial, and the resurrection. I know, but the point is the the Bible says he was proclaiming the gospel, Matthew 4:23. And then He preaches a gospel sermon without mentioning the death, burial, and the resurrection. There's more to the gospel than that. I hope you've caught that already.

If you look back at II Timothy 2:8 it says "descendant of David." Do we have to mention every time we preach a sermon that Jesus was a descendant of David? Well, obviously not. That's part of the gospel as well as the death, burial, and resurrection. Don't get me wrong, that needs to be preached frequently from the pulpit, and that is of first importance (I Corinthians 15:1-4).

It is the core of the gospel, but it is not the whole gospel. And just because we don't mention that in every single sermon doesn't mean it is not a gospel sermon. I hope I've stated that in a general yet firm way that we have got to make sure we're clear in our thinking and what we challenge and what we're calling wrong that may not be wrong at all. When good news is being preached, the good news of salvation, that is a gospel sermon regardless of whether it mentions the death, burial, and the resurrection of Christ.

C. The Gospel of Salvation

1. A king is responsible for maintaining the safety of his kingdom.

⁵This is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. ⁶For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, ⁸dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, ¹⁰when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed.
- II Thessalonians 1:5-10

Back in biblical times, if you joined a kingdom, if you moved in to be part of a kingdom, you fully expected to be under the protection of that king. If you were attacked and you're by another nation and your family was harmed and your your possessions were taken and you went and told the king and he said, "Meh, so what, big deal, that's nothing." Well, that's not a very good king.

A king is responsible for the safety of his kingdom. And I mention that because I've heard people talk about God and how cruel He is because here He talks about eternal destruction in verse 9, "away from the presence of the Lord, that's talking about hell."

How many have you ever heard somebody say, "I can't believe a loving God would actually send people to hell?" Well, how could a loving God not protect His own kingdom, not defend what is right and true and just?

Look back at verse 6 again. It's just just. God is a loving God, but He's also a just and fair God. This gospel that we're proclaiming is a gospel of salvation.

2. The gospel is something which must be obeyed in order to escape the punishment of God.

dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
- II Thessalonians 1:8

So if you want to escape this punishment, this retribution of God, you need to know Him and you need to obey the gospel of God. What does it mean to obey the gospel of God? You're going to have to wait for our next chapter to get the answer to that because that's what the whole chapter is going to be about. We'll answer that very thoroughly.

3. You were chosen from the beginning for salvation.

We've encountered this several times in the New Testament, but we see it again starting in verse 8,

⁸Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; ⁹that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, ¹⁰and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. ¹¹For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, ¹²in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

¹³But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. ¹⁴It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- II Thessalonians 2:8-14

You were chosen for this. He says that in verse 13, God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation. God is not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to eternal life. I said this in so many different ways, but this is really what we are destined to do. God made you for the purpose of proclaiming the gospel to others. First, receiving it yourself and obeying the gospel, which again, we'll talk about here in the next chapter, but also in the proclamation, in the furtherance of the gospel. You were chosen to be saved. God wants you to be saved.

Now you can reject your destiny just like any of us can. You can say, "well, I'm not going to do that." But as you're going to spend your life doing something that God didn't intend for you to be doing. You're going to waste your life pursuing other things when you could be pursuing what you were really created to do, and that is to receive salvation and to share salvation with other people. Talking about the gospel of salvation.

4. It is through the gospel that we receive salvation, the glory of our Lord

¹³But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. ¹⁴It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- II Thessalonians 2:13-14

Through the gospel, we receive salvation, and that is to God's glory. Your gospel, once that gospel is proclaimed, I think about what we see here in I and II Thessalonians and tying this back again to Acts 17. Once that gospel was preached in Thessalonica, that city was never the same again. The gospel had an impact on all these first century communities. There's really no reason why it can't have the same impact today on your community in the 21st century. The gospel hasn't changed. It's still the plain gospel, the simple, truthful word of God, and it can have an impact on you and on your community if you will allow it to.