Father, your word is life.
As we're going to see this morning, your word is powerful.
Your word accomplishes things.
Your word is not just doctrine and theory.
It is life itself.
And so God, as we read your word and think about your word and ponder your word,
I pray by the power of the Spirit, won't you speak to us?
Won't you birth a life in our hearts?
Give us faith.
Help grow love and hope in us, we pray, by the power of your word.
So Jesus, speak to us in your mighty name we pray.
Amen.
Today's scripture reading is taken from 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 1 to 10.
Please follow along your Bible.
If you don't have a Bible, please do still grab them from the front of the stage
or at the back near the door.
Our passage is on page 927 in the Church Bible.
Hear, then, God's word to us today.
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace to you and peace.
We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,
remembering before our God and Father your work of faith,
and labor of love, and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
For we know, brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you,
because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power,
and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction.
You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord.
For you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,
so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.
For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia,
but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.
For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you,
and how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God,
and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead,
Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
Let us believe and respond to God's true and living word.
Great. Thanks, Betty.
Do keep your Bibles open.
We're going to be looking at some of these verses,
and also some verses in the next chapter,
so it would be helpful to keep your Bible open as we look at this now.
Friends, I wonder if you have ever bought anything,
maybe at a really good price, a fantastic deal,
only to wonder afterwards whether what you bought was genuine,
or whether you were scammed.
I was recently given a pair of shoes by a friend of mine in South Africa.
I was visiting him, and he told me about this really fancy, expensive pair of Nike sneakers
that are apparently very, very rare and very expensive,
and he got them for a deal online somewhere,
and when they arrived, they didn't fit him,
and so he passed them on to me,
and he said to me,
I'll give them to you on one condition.
You must promise to wear them.
They're a little bit out there,
but I accepted.
I'm not wearing them today, in case you're looking.
Anyway, so when I got home,
I Googled these shoes to see what's so fancy about them.
I mean, what's the big deal?
And the first thing that came up was a YouTube video saying,
how do you know whether your Nikes are genuine or not?
And then a guy went through all the pros and cons,
and look at the sign, and look at the stitching,
and look at the coloring,
and I must confess, by the end of that,
I'm not so sure where my shoes lie.
They may be genuine, they may not be,
but they were a gift, and I don't particularly mind.
But what happens if you genuinely did pay
an exorbitant price for something?
What happens if you paid a very high price
and invested in something only afterwards
to find out that you were conned,
that it was a scam?
It wasn't genuine.
Maybe you bought a very expensive piece of artwork,
and you know exactly where it's going to go in your house,
and a few years later, you find out it's not genuine at all.
Well, think of the story of the Netflix show,
Sour Grapes.
I'm not sure if any of you saw that.
A charismatic young wine connoisseur
conned wealthy top auction houses and other connoisseurs
out of millions of dollars
by mixing cheap commercial wine
and then relabeling it,
putting in old corks,
making it look like vintage Bordeaux blends from France,
and selling it at exorbitant prices.
Well, I don't know how many of you
are buying Pablo Picasso artworks
or 1970s Bordeaux blends wine,
but I'm sure we all know that sinking feeling we have
when we've invested something,
maybe our heart or maybe financially or emotionally,
we've given ourselves to something,
and then afterwards you start to wonder,
was I conned?
Was that a scam?
I don't know if you've had that sinking feeling
where maybe you've invested money,
you've sent money,
you know, done a wire transfer somewhere,
and after you've thought,
gosh, I hope that is real.
I hope I haven't just sent that money
to some internet scammer.
But what about faith in Jesus?
What about our Christian walk?
What about the gospel?
If you're someone who considers yourself a Christian,
have you ever questioned the authenticity of your faith?
Maybe you've been disappointed by Christians
from time to time.
Maybe you've been hurt by the church.
Maybe you've read up about the sex abuse scandals
in the church,
and particularly in the Catholic church previously,
but even more recently in the Protestant church as well.
Maybe you've been let down or betrayed
by church leaders, church members,
and it's caused you to question
whether what you've been taught
and what you believe is genuinely true.
Whether this whole Christianity thing is real.
Maybe it's just a con.
Maybe it's all one big scan.
And if you've ever had those thoughts,
how would you know?
How would you test it?
How would you test the veracity or authenticity
of the Christian faith?
How would you know whether
what you've always thought is true
really is true?
Well, those questions kind of lead us
into the passage that we're going to be looking at today.
And today we are starting the book of 1 Thessalonians.
For the next couple of weeks,
we're going to be going through it.
And the book of Thessalonians
is a wonderful, wonderful book of the Bible.
It's very encouraging.
And the way it comes about is
it's a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote
to this young church in the city of Thessalonica.
And we find the background in Acts chapter 17.
And the story is this.
The Apostle Paul, along with two other guys,
Silas and Timothy,
traveling through the province of Macedonia,
they come to the city of Thessalonica or Thessaloniki.
It was the main city in the province of Macedonia,
this Roman province.
It still exists today, the city of Thessalonica.
You can go and visit there in Greece.
And having arrived, they go to a Jewish synagogue
and they start to reason and discuss
with the people of their day.
And they look at the Old Testament scriptures
and they show to them how Jesus,
the one who died and rose again,
is the Messiah, the Christ that they've been waiting for.
And many people, both Jews and non-Jews, Gentiles,
believe and they follow Jesus.
And there are little church forms
in the city of Thessalonica.
And so this church is brand new with new Christians.
But many people in the city don't like
what Paul is doing and what he's saying.
And so they get a mob together
and they go and they attack some of the Christians.
They drag them out of their houses.
They bring them before the authorities
and they accuse them of having started
a kind of public nuisance,
a political insurrection.
And so he has this church that's brand new,
just three weeks old,
and already they're under attack,
already they're under persecution.
And the people of that city,
the new Christians, say to Paul and Timothy,
we know what these guys are like.
They are dangerous.
You better get out of here.
And so Paul and Timothy and Silas
flee the city of Thessalonica
in the middle of the night.
They go to a nearby town called Berea
and then down to the city of Athens
and they escape.
But Paul is really worried about this church.
He'd only been there three weeks.
How's it gonna do?
Is it gonna stand?
Is it gonna be strong?
Is it gonna fall apart?
Is the suffering and the opposition
gonna disrail this church?
How are they gonna do?
And so Paul sends Timothy, his sidekick,
to go back to Thessalonica
and find out how they're doing.
And so Timothy goes
and he stays there a couple of weeks
and then he comes back to Paul
and he brings a report.
And this is what he says.
The Thessalonians are doing well.
They're standing strong.
It's hard.
There's lots of opposition.
There's lots of persecution.
Lots of suffering.
But they're doing well.
They're holding on to Jesus.
But they are a little bit discouraged.
They need some encouragement.
And so Paul, rather than saying,
whew, that's good news.
Let's move on.
Paul writes this letter
to the Christians in Thessalonica,
encouraging their faith
and strengthening them.
And his message in this book is this.
Despite the real difficulties you face
and despite the sudden departure
of your leaders,
Paul wants them not to be discouraged,
not to give up on faith in Jesus,
but to see that the Lord has been
and still is at work in them.
Even though Paul's not there,
that Jesus is at work in them
and he will continue to be so
as they continue to hold on to him.
And friends, that's true for us as well today.
That the Christian faith sometimes is hard,
sometimes disappointing,
sometimes discouraging,
sometimes leaders let us down
or the church disappoints us.
But if we will hold on to Jesus
and hold on to the gospel,
God himself will be at work in us
and through us as we continue to hold on to him.
And so that's what the book of Thessalonians
is about and our passage today.
And so let's dive in
and look at a couple of things in this passage.
I hope you've got it open with you
and let's see.
And so first thing,
Paul wants them to know is this.
Remember how the gospel came to you.
Before we look at this passage,
I want to just read to you from Acts chapter 17,
which I referenced a few minutes ago.
So in Acts, Luke, who wrote Acts,
wants to tell us how this church was born.
And look what he says here.
He says,
For three Sabbath days,
he, that's Paul,
went to the synagogue,
reasoned with them from the scriptures,
explaining and proving
that it was necessary for the Christ
to suffer and rise from the dead,
saying,
This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you,
is the Christ.
And a great many of them were persuaded
and joined Paul and Silas.
Now, when you read that,
it can give the impression that
these guys became Christians
simply because they were well-reasoned
or well-argued.
Maybe Paul was a very persuasive debater,
a very persuasive orator.
And he spoke very eloquently
and they thought,
Yeah, that sounds true.
Sign me up.
I'll become a Christian.
But actually,
look at our passage in 1 Thessalonians.
Look at verse 4 and 5,
what Paul writes.
He's now reminding them
how the gospel came to them.
And he says,
For we know, brothers and sisters,
loved by God,
that he has chosen you,
because our gospel came to you
not only in word,
but also in power,
in the Holy Spirit,
and with full conviction.
Paul's reminding them here,
what is the basis of their faith?
What is their faith built upon?
And the gospel himself
is the reason why they became Christians,
because God came to them
and revealed himself to them
and saved them.
The scripture that Benson read to us earlier,
Benson's with the youth now,
Ephesians 1,
God opened the eyes of their hearts
that they saw God
and encountered him in the gospel,
and God changed them
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But, you know,
we humans are forgetful people.
We often forget
just what has happened recently.
I don't know if you've ever experienced this
in the office.
Maybe you have somebody
and you give them lots of chances
and you give them lots of opportunities
and you really help them along
in their career.
And then just a month later,
they're complaining,
life is so unfair.
Nobody helps me.
Everything's good.
Everyone else gets a chance.
No one gives me a chance.
Has that ever happened to you?
Okay, not to you.
If you think earlier in this year,
we went through the book of Numbers,
right, as a church,
and there we saw it again.
God rescues his people out of Egypt.
He saves them
by the blood of the Lamb,
brings them out of the hellhole of Egypt
on the way to the promised land,
and just a few weeks in,
what are they saying?
Oh, it was so much better there.
God is so unfair.
God is so unkind to us.
They're forgetting just the ways
that God has sustained
and carried and provided for them.
And friends,
on this journey of faith,
we need to be reminded
again and again
what God in His gospel
has accomplished in us,
especially when things get tough.
And one of the signs
that maybe we're not
in such a good place spiritually
is when we forget
just where it is
that we've been rescued from,
just how great a salvation
God has brought to us,
and how God has broken
into our lives.
And so,
look what Paul says here.
He wants to remind them
the bedrock foundation
of their entire Christian journey
does not have human origins.
It's not human initiative
or Paul's persuasion.
It's something that was entirely of God.
He says,
brothers,
we want you to know
that He has chosen you.
There's assurance and confidence
that you belong to Him.
You can know that with conviction.
Why?
Because the gospel came to you
with power,
with the Holy Spirit,
with much conviction.
God Himself was writing
and speaking to you in your heart.
It wasn't Paul's eloquence.
It wasn't the power of persuasion.
This wasn't a con job
or a bait and switch situation.
This wasn't some promise
of prosperity or an easy life.
A Christian,
says the New Testament,
is not someone who is religious
or moral or trying to be good.
A Christian is someone
who's encountered God,
the Holy Spirit,
the power of God
in the gospel,
in the Lord Jesus,
in a way that changes them
and brings conviction.
In fact,
so powerful was this conviction
that it did two things
for the Thessalonians.
I don't know if you noticed.
Firstly,
it made them embrace suffering
and hardship and affliction.
You see that?
Look at verse 6.
He says here,
for you received the word
in much affliction
with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
When God's word came to them,
the power of the Spirit,
they were utterly convinced,
even though they knew
it was going to cost them dearly.
In fact,
later on in,
I think it's in chapter 3,
Paul writes this
and he says the same thing to them.
He says,
this is 3 verse 3.
He says,
you yourselves know
that we were destined
for the suffering
because when we were with you,
we kept on telling you beforehand
you were to suffer much affliction.
Such was the life-changing power
of the gospel
that these guys encountered,
even though they knew
that they were going to suffer
and be persecuted
and be thrown in jail
and arrested
and suffer for their faith,
following Jesus
was not going to make
their lives easier
because they had met Jesus,
they had encountered God
in the gospel.
What else could they do?
They believed
and so they followed him.
It's kind of like when
in the gospels,
I think it's in John chapter 6,
Jesus,
at one point,
lots of people
are leaving Jesus
and they say,
we are done with this Jesus guy
and Jesus turns to his disciples
and says,
what about you?
Are you going to leave me as well?
And Peter says,
you have the words of life.
Where else must we go?
We know it's going to be costly.
We know it's dangerous
but what else can we do?
You are the Messiah
and Paul says the same thing here.
They've encountered God.
God has changed
and the gospels come to them.
What else are they going to do?
But notice the other thing here.
Look at what else happened
when they encountered
the message of Jesus.
Look at verse 9.
Paul writes here
and he says,
for they themselves report
the kind of reception
we had amongst you,
how you turn to God
from idols
to serve the true
and living God.
Now we may think,
okay,
so they gave up the Roman
and the Greek gods
and they became followers
of Jesus.
People change religion
all the time.
Big deal.
But actually in the Bible,
idols is always
about a deep-seated
security and identity.
It's what we put our hope
and our confidence
and our security
for the future in.
The idols,
when the Bible talks
about idols,
it's not just statues.
It's the idols of our hearts.
It's the things
that we look to
for a sense of self-identity
and self-worth
and security
and hope for the future.
It's why the Bible says
that when things go wrong
in our life,
yes,
it's disappointing.
But when our idols
are challenged
or touched,
it can infuriate us.
It can crush us.
In fact,
that's actually what happened
in Acts 17, right?
Paul goes
and he preaches the gospel
and some people say,
oh,
I'm not so sure.
But some people
are so threatened
that they want to kill
these guys.
Why?
Because the idols
of their hearts
have been threatened.
Well,
look what happens here.
Paul tells these Thessalonians
that when the gospel came,
it wasn't moralistic self-help.
It wasn't human persuasion.
God's predestining,
electing love,
being poured in their hearts
by the Holy Spirit
so changed them,
it recalibrated
the things that they lived for,
the things they found
their hope
and their identity
and their security
and their well-being in.
It recalibrated
everything they trusted
and what is most important to them,
even at the cost
of great persecution.
So,
here's the question for us.
Friends,
has the gospel come to you
in that kind of way?
Is your Christian faith
built on the bedrock
of the gospel
or is it just
religious moralism,
trying to be a good person,
trying to improve your life
in some way?
Friends,
it's very easy
to be religious
and think you're a Christian.
It's one thing
to come to church
and think,
yeah,
I'm a Christian,
but have you encountered
the living God
in a way
that has challenged
and dismantled
the idols of your heart
in a way
that you can say,
persecution,
suffering,
I know what I believe.
Have you encountered God
in the power
of the Holy Spirit
in a way
that has changed you
and anchored you
and solidified you?
Paul wants them
to know
how the gospel
came to them
and changed them.
But that's not all
Paul wants them to know.
He also wants to show them
how the gospel
has been at work in them.
So,
look at verse 2
and 3 with me.
Paul wants to see
how the gospel
has not only
come to them
but been at work
in them.
Verse 2 and 3,
Paul writes this,
he says,
we give thanks to God
always for all of you,
constantly mentioning you
in our prayers,
remembering before
our God and Father
your work of faith,
your labor of love,
your steadfastness
of hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now,
I hope you recognize
there the threefold
kind of foundation
Christian virtues
that Christians
have spoken about
for hundreds of years.
Faith,
hope,
and love,
right?
Okay,
the Bible talks about
these three things often.
John Calvin said
this is the briefest
definition of true Christianity,
faith,
hope,
and love.
But Paul here
isn't encouraging them
to pursue these things.
He's not saying,
right,
now that you've become Christians,
I'm sorry I'm no longer there
but let me give you
some advice.
I want you to pursue
faith,
hope,
and love.
If you can do
those three things,
you'll be a great Christian.
That's not what Paul does.
He's commenting
on the fact that
he sees this
at work in them already.
He's heard from Timothy.
Timothy has come back
and he said,
let me tell you
about the Thessalonians.
They overflow in faith.
They are bounding in love.
They are steadfast in hope.
He's commending
what he sees in them.
And the New Testament
constantly tells us
that what indicates
an authentic faith
and an authentic
Christian church
is not external
behavior necessarily.
It's not,
definitely not how nice
a building is
or how good looking
Alan and the people
in Stager
or how wonderful
the kids' ministry are,
as wonderful as they are.
What indicates
a true and authentic
church
and a true and authentic
faith
is something far more
internal.
It's these foundational values.
It's genuine faith
and trust in God.
It's steadfast hope
in the midst of
opposition and persecution.
It's an authentic love
for those that are
different from us,
maybe even those
that rub us the wrong way.
But notice these virtues,
these characteristics,
they aren't in a vacuum.
They're not just random
faith, hope, and love.
What does Paul say?
He says,
I remember before
our God and Father
your work of faith,
your labor of love,
your steadfastness of hope
in the Lord Jesus Christ
or by the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the result of knowing
and encountering Jesus
and trusting and loving
the Lord Jesus
that these things
will be birthed in them.
Belief in the Lord Jesus
that doesn't grow faith
and hope
and love in us
is questionable at best.
But notice something else here.
These virtues
are productive virtues
or they are outward focused.
They do something
in the people
who inhabit,
in whom they inhabit.
These aren't just
philosophical ideas
or religious ideas.
No one went to a Bible study
and said,
how should we learn
to have more faith
and hope and love?
These virtues
actually do something
in the people.
They are gritty.
They are earthy.
They are practical.
Look at what Paul writes here.
He says,
he commends them
because their faith
has resulted in hard work.
They're not being lazy.
Their faith has actually
propelled them
to work hard.
He says,
your love
has prompted them
to labor
or serve
those around them.
And their hope
has led to endurance
and steadfastness
even in the midst
of persecution
and hardship.
And Paul's point here
is,
see what the gospel
has done in you.
Jesus Christ came to you.
This wasn't just
religious teaching.
It's done something
in you.
It's produced work in you.
It's changed your hearts.
See how differently
you love one another.
See how you serve
one another.
See with what perseverance
and endurance you have
because God's word,
the gospel,
has done a work in you.
And Paul actually says
the same thing
in chapter 2.
If you've got your Bible,
look at verse 13.
He says,
and we thank God
constantly for this,
that when you received
the word of God,
that's the gospel,
which you heard from us,
you accepted it
not as the word of man,
but what it really is,
the word of God,
which is at work in you.
The Greek word for
at work there
is the word
where we get our
English word energy.
I don't know how
to pronounce it in Greek,
but it's the same root word.
We get our word energy.
This gospel has a power,
a dynamic to it
that is an energy
that actually does
something in us
and works in us.
And Paul says
to these Thessalonians,
how do you know
your faith is authentic?
Well, it's actually
changing you.
It's making you
more gracious,
more loving,
more faithful,
more steadfast.
And all this
without the founders
of the church.
You know,
the church was started
and three weeks later,
the planting founding pastor
said,
we're out of here.
You know,
Tobin Miller started
Watermark 16 years ago
and was here for
five and a half years
and did a great job
and then moved back
to the U.S.
Laid a wonderful foundation.
But imagine Tobin came in.
Who was here
when Watermark was started?
Okay,
Asken,
Celeste,
the Laos,
I think,
Brian and Grace,
yeah,
Soda.
Imagine,
Henry,
imagine three weeks
Tobin says,
okay,
we've got to start
this church,
Watermark Church
and then three weeks later,
okay,
best of luck guys,
I'm out of here
and leaves.
And without the founders,
without the pastors,
without the leaders,
here is a church
that is abundant.
Why?
Because the church
wasn't based on the leaders
on any human wisdom
but God,
the gospel,
was at work in them
because even in their absence,
the gospel continued
to work in them.
Yes,
their initial acceptance
of the message of Jesus
was an act of faith
but even now,
in the midst of opposition
and persecution
and prison,
they continued in the faith
as the gospel
did its work in them.
One scholar called Gene Green
writes this,
he says,
this Christian faith
was not a philosophical discourse
on the way
to the virtuous life
or self-help seminar
on how to overcome
personal issues
as it is in our day.
This was the word of God,
the power of God,
the presence of God,
the person of God
in verbal form,
powerfully transforming
their lives.
So friends,
can you see the gospel
at work in you?
Have you seen God
by the power of the Spirit
changing you,
being at work in you?
Do you see evidence
of growing in faith
and hope and love?
Is your faith productive,
causing you to love others,
serve others?
Are you growing
in steadfastness
and perseverance
in the midst of difficulty
and opposition?
One of the things
that I love
about this church,
the very best church
in the whole world,
it's not our nice venue,
as nice as it is,
except the mom's room
is a little bit full
at the moment.
Sorry, Annabelle.
It's not the fancy leaders.
One of the things
we've said again and again
is we're not trying
to be a fancy church.
We're not trying
to be a mega church.
We're not trying
to be a popular church.
We want to be
an authentic church.
I look around the room
and I see faces
of people who,
over the last nine years,
God is at work in you.
I see your love
growing more and more.
I see your faith
holding on to Jesus
when it's been hard.
I see your steadfastness
and your perseverance
when it would have been
so easy to give up
and walk away.
God is at work in you.
It may not be fancy.
It may not have a billboard.
Your name might not be
on lights.
God, by the gospel,
is at work in us.
See what the gospel
has accomplished in you.
Well, there's one last thing
that Paul wants us to see
and he wants us to see
how the gospel
is continuing to work
not just in us
but through us.
The gospel comes in us
and then works through us.
And so look at this.
Paul has this final encouragement.
Look at verse 5 to 8 with me.
He says here, verse 5,
Our gospel came to you,
then verse 6,
and you became imitators of us
and of the Lord
for you received the word
in much affliction
with the joy of the Holy Spirit
so that you became an example
to all the believers
in Macedonia and Achaia.
For not only has the word
of the Lord
sounded forth from you
in Macedonia and Achaia,
but your faith in God
has gone forth everywhere
so that we need not say
anything about you.
Now, notice two things
in this section.
Notice how firstly
the gospel came to them,
they received it,
and then the word of forth
sounded forth.
Okay, so the gospel came,
they absorbed it,
received it,
it did a work in them,
and then it went out
from them.
And that's the way
it always is.
The gospel came,
but it didn't stop with them.
They didn't say,
Oh, it's so nice.
We saved.
Wonderful.
We're going to go to heaven.
Actually, it came to them
and then it went out.
And God worked through them
to others.
And so that all the believers
in Macedonia and Achaia,
these two Roman provinces,
heard about their faith
and were encouraged
and strengthened.
Their faith was a witness
to others.
But notice something else here,
that each time Paul speaks
about how the gospel
came to them,
there's an example there.
So he says,
our gospel came to you
and you became imitators of us.
You received the word
and then you became an example
to the believers.
The word sounded forth from you
and your faith
or your witness,
your example sounded forth
and went forth everywhere.
So as the gospel came to them,
it changed them
and then it went out from them.
And every time Paul speaks
about the word,
the gospel came,
it did something in them
and they became examples
or worthy of imitation.
Now, what does that tell us?
Friends, it tells us
that genuine, authentic faith,
it may be deeply personal,
it's my faith in Jesus,
but it's never private.
It never just stays
with me and Jesus.
It's one, it's communal.
So my faith in Jesus
hopefully is a blessing
to you and everyone else,
but also to the city out there.
Our faith in Jesus
doesn't just stay with us.
It comes to us
and then it goes through us
to both our community,
our family,
to our city
and to the ends of the earth.
And just think about,
think about this in the Bible.
Think about in Genesis 12.
God says to Abraham,
I will bless you.
Five times.
I will bless you.
I'll bless you.
I will bless you.
And then he says,
and you will be a blessing
to the whole world.
Now, of course,
he's talking about how
Jesus the Messiah
is going to come through him,
through his descendants
and that will bless
the whole world.
But God's blessing to Abraham
didn't stop with Abraham.
It went through Abraham
to the whole world.
Well, think about
what God says to Israel.
Israel, you are my chosen people.
I have set my love upon you.
I have elected you
from before the foundations
of the world.
Now you go be a light
to the nations,
to the ends of the earth.
Bring my light
to the Gentiles.
Well, think about
what Jesus says
to the disciples
in Acts chapter one.
Wait here in Jerusalem
for the Holy Spirit
to come upon you,
the promise from my Father.
And you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria
to the ends of the earth.
When God works in us,
it's never meant to stop with us.
It goes through us.
God's work through us.
And so what does that look like?
Friends, maybe it means
opening up your home,
inviting a student
or a youth
or a young adult
that maybe doesn't have family
in Hong Kong
around for a meal
and just loving them,
blessing them.
Maybe it means
coming to church early,
looking for who's
who's had a tough week,
coming and just encouraging them,
sitting with them,
praying with them.
I saw a few months ago
a lady came to church
who had just lost a daughter.
Absolute tragedy.
Came 15 minutes early,
was sitting by herself.
Traumatic experience
of having had to bury her daughter.
And someone else
in the congregation
wasn't serving,
wasn't on duty,
just came and sat next to them
and spoke and prayed with them.
What an amazing blessing.
Just coming to church early
to serve and bless
those around them.
Friends, maybe it means
reaching out to somebody
in the community,
getting to know them,
praying with them,
meeting up with them.
Maybe it means
serving in kids ministry,
joining the army
of kids ministry
or youth ministry
or students ministry,
shaping the faith
and the lives
of the next generation.
Maybe it means
serving with our mission partners,
sons and daughters,
inner city ministry,
adopting a compassion
to national child.
At the very least,
praying for the members
of your CG,
blessing them,
that God's work in you
can flow through you
to those around you.
As we come to a close,
I want to just tell
one brief story.
Something that happened
this week.
A couple of years ago,
we had a wonderful member
of Watermark.
His name was Dave.
And Dave left Watermark
six years ago
to move to Taiwan.
And he married
a fantastic lady,
Julie.
They had a child
and they moved back
to the U.S.
and Dave was a great member
of the Watermark Church.
But Dave tragically
this year passed away.
A tragic accident
and he passed away
in the U.S.
And some members
of Watermark,
particularly Sam and Joe
and Henry and Carla
and Edie and Joyce,
decided we're going to
arrange a memorial service
for him here in Hong Kong.
I know he doesn't have
any family here,
but he's got other friends here.
Let's arrange
a memorial service.
And they arranged
a memorial service.
And not only that,
they raised some funds
for his wife
and his son.
And just really blessed
and remembered Dave.
Well, the family of Dave
was so touched
that they wrote
a letter to us
at Watermark this week
just to thank us
for the love and care
that we had shown to Dave.
And I want to just read
a couple of lines from it.
This is what Dave's father wrote.
It's a bit longer,
but he just says this.
A few quotes.
Ultimately,
I think we are grateful
for one primary reason.
Watermark was being
a true church
in ways that we really see
in today's world.
We saw the kindness
of Christ
in ways that surprised us
through the body of Christ
in the time
of great personal darkness
and loss.
You saw Dave.
You cared for him
as a church.
You pointed him
to his Savior.
You appreciated
his role in the body
and you made him know that.
As much as sometimes
he struggled,
he still had worth
and was welcomed
into your fellowship.
We're particularly grateful
for Chris Thornton
who showed such great love
and care for Dave.
Dave always said
he had never met
a truer Christian man
than Chris.
We hope that all of you know
that your love
and care
was not in vain.
It's one of those rare things
for which we can be
eternally grateful.
Friends,
the mark of a true
and authentic church.
Friends,
do you ever question
your faith?
Do you ever have doubts
arise?
Does persecution,
opposition,
difficulty,
disappointments
make you have a question
whether this whole
Jesus thing is genuine?
Authentic faith
is not necessarily fancy.
It may not be popular.
It may not be big.
You don't need to save
the world or plan a church.
You don't need to have
a certain type of personality.
You don't need to be outgoing.
Authentic faith
is faith in the true
and living God.
It's the gospel
being at work in you.
It's the gospel
being at work through you
to bless and serve others.
May that be true of you.
May that be true of us.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus,
we look at this passage
2,000 years old.
This letter from a man
to a church
and simple church
in Thessalonica.
God,
we want this to be true of us.
We want,
Lord,
for the gospel
to come to us
in power,
in the Holy Spirit
with much conviction.
We want to be
the kind of church
where you, God,
are at work in us
but not just in us
and work through us.
Lord,
we want our faith
to resound forth
all across Asia.
We pray.
Help it to be so.
May that be true of us.
Pour out your spirit
upon us.
Lord,
I pray for those of us
that have doubts
and questions,
those of us
who have faced
disappointment
and wonder
whether our faith
is genuine.
Oh, God,
reach out to us.
Pour out your spirit
and pour out your love
into our hearts.
We pray
in your wonderful
and gracious name.
Amen.