13th September 2026 (pm) - 1 Thessalonians 2: 13 - 16

Well, have you ever wondered why we spend half an hour, um, sometimes longer, sometimes a little bit shorter, but often it's most of our time together, isn't it? Listening to someone preach.

Listening to one person at the front, uh, preach God's Word.

What, what, what's the purpose of it? Why do we do it? Is it just to learn more information about the Bible? Is that what, is that what it's about? Is it just a, an interesting lesson about the history of the Bible and, and, and, and, and the meaning of these words? Is that, is that all it is? Or is it because God works powerfully in us as his Word is preached faithfully? Is that why we do it? Well, one way to answer that question is, is to look at these events and, and think about the theme that, that brings them all together.

Here they are.

3,000 people are added to the church on one day, on the day of Pentecost.

A new church is planted in Thessalonica.

William Haslam, a, a vicar in Cornwall in the 19th century, was converted while he was in his own pulpit.

A young man visited John Flavel's chapel in Dartmouth in the 17th century, and when he was an old man, he remembered the sermon that he heard all those years ago.

And in America, after making his money, he was converted when-- while sitting on his front porch, thinking back to the sermon he heard as a young man in Dartmouth, Devon.

Adoniram Judson, uh, felt the call to be a missionary as he read a sermon that was preached and then written down.

And subsequently, he, he, he felt the call to be a missionary.

He, he went to Burma.

He preached Christ for almost 50 years and translated the Bible into Burmese.

And what is the thread that, that runs through all of these events? People being converted, people being called to the mission field.

Well, the thread that runs through them all is God's Word was preached.

It worked powerfully in those who heard it or read it.

And, uh, and, and, and the results are what we've just seen there.

Now, in our passage, we see the Apostle Paul is, is rejoicing about the way the Thessalonians, the Christians in Thessalonica, ha- had received the preached Word of God and how that same word was working in them.

Now, in chapter one, if you, if you've been with us for a few months as we've been going through this letter together, you'll see that the Apostle Paul has already started his letter with thanksgiving, and he has thanked God for their conversion, the way that God worked in the Thessalonians, how they, they turned from their false gods to serve the living and the true God.

But now he returns back to the, the theme of thanksgiving.

He's just been defending his ministry against maybe people who were questioning his sincerity.

And now he, he's returned to his theme of, of thanksgiving.

And we see here that he is overjoyed at the way that God's Word was preached among these people and the way that they received it.

And in this thanksgiving, he contrasts their, uh, reception of God's Word, the way they welcomed it and believed it, and he contrasts that with the, the way that the Jews, particularly the religious leaders, had, uh, had rejected it and actually persecuted those who had received it for themselves.

And so the Apostle Paul here is thanking God for the way the Word was preached and received among the Thessalonians and contrasting their reception of God's Word with the rejection of the Jews.