Sermon Transcript
We’re continuing our series that we began in early September. 1 Thessalonians, we’re looking at chapter 2. If you brought your Bible, that’s great. If you have an app on your phone, that’s great. We have Bibles provided for you, and you will find today’s passage on page 836, I believe it is.
I’ve memorized the Bible for you. 836 is where 1 Thessalonians 2 is. Wherever it is, we also have it printed on your message notes. We just want you to be able to to interact with today’s passage. You know, I’ve been thinking over the last month or so, with all the stuff that’s going on, stuff that Pastor Dave was praying about, and the season that we’re in right now, how interesting it is that there can be one event or one message that 2 people can either hear or experience, and yet they have 2 completely different reactions to that.
Have you ever noticed this, that this happens in life? One thing to somebody and you have one understanding and the other person leaves with a completely different understanding. This happened on Wednesday of last week. We were having our Fusion ministry for all ages, Bible study and meal and that kind of thing, but that also happened to be the same night that the Giants were playing their wildcard game, and so I was taping the game and our numbers were down a little bit, believe it or not, at Fusion. I was wondering what was happening and then, oh yes, there’s a, There’s a baseball game, that’s okay, there’s grace and forgiveness, we’ll pray afterwards about that, but I was taping the game and I heard somebody mention the word Giants and I said, don’t say anything else, and they said, why?
I’m taping the game, I don’t wanna know anything about it. And then afterwards there were some people watching the game down in the gym at the Indifusion, I went down there and my kids saw me and they said, don’t come in, don’t come in, ’cause they knew that I was gonna go on home. Other people, were looking at their phones and they heard the word Giants, it didn’t faze them in the least. That word Giants didn’t mean anything to them. And I asked them about it.
I said, why are you here at Fusion tonight and not watching the game? They’re all like, we don’t care. We really don’t care about— like, you don’t care about the Giants? You don’t care about the Giants? It’s interesting.
You can have one thing that means different things to different people. How many of you have been watching any of the debates at all? Yeah, a few of you. You’re excited for tonight’s debate, I know. You’re pumped up.
You’re looking forward to another one of these groan-fests. You know, I watched the first presidential debate, and I watched most of the vice presidential debate this last week, and I have 2 channels on my TV, like many of you may have on your cable system, and they’re right next to each other, and they’re both news channels, but they’re completely different. And you can watch the debate and you can watch the aftermath of the debate and you might as well be watching 2 different conversations. You’re wondering, how did this one channel come away with this understanding and this channel came away with a different understanding? They both heard the candidates, right?
And it’s fascinating to toggle back and forth and back and forth to hear 2 different people have Different interpretations of the same event. About 6 weeks ago, we were reintroduced to the backup quarterback of the 49ers, Colin Kaepernick, and we were reintroduced to him because he hasn’t played in a while, but he was sitting during the national anthem, and that caused quite a stir. Well, now, 6 weeks later or so, many more athletes have come out and are either kneeling or standing or locking arms or doing something, as a sign of solidarity against what’s happening in our country right now. And all you have to do is read your newsfeed, whatever social network that you happen to use, and you find that people have all kinds of reactions to Colin Kaepernick and to what these athletes are doing. Some people have very, very strong opinions.
But the same event, different responses, different reactions to that. Right now we’re thinking about Hurricane Matthew and the devastation in Georgia and in Florida and the Carolinas. The governor’s telling these people, listen, people, you need to evacuate. You know what happened during Hurricane Katrina and Ike and Sandy and these previous hurricanes. You need to evacuate.
But inevitably, when this message goes out, what do some people do? The news knows where these people are. They find these people who say, I know that more than a million people are leaving. We’re staying. We’re staying, and I don’t mean to make light of that, but the reality is, is they’re hearing the message and they’re not hearing a tone of alert.
They’re not hearing a tone of alarm. They don’t seem to be as concerned as somebody else that heard the same message and says, I’m getting outta here. Other people stay, and very often you see the property damage and even the loss of life to that same message, 2 different responses. Sometimes this happens to my messages. I’ll have somebody afterwards be gracious and say something kind or God really spoke to me during a message and then another person just totally doesn’t get what it is that God hopefully was saying to people or what I had intended to say.
Somebody else comes away with something else. Same message, different responses. This happens all the time. Well, we’re going through the book of 1 Thessalonians and we’re looking at right now in chapter 2 a series of verses where Paul is talking about his own ministry and he’s talking about the fact that even though other people said it was a failure, even though other people said that Paul’s ministry didn’t result in anything, it wasn’t fruitful, he’s telling them in chapter 2, verse 1, No, my ministry to the Thessalonians was not without results. There were results, there was fruit.
There’s evidence of good things that happened in that interaction and we looked a couple weeks ago, Pastor Dave shared about how one of the markers of success of Paul’s ministry is that he said, listen, I had pure motives. I was trying to please God, not people. I preached the gospel. In the face of severe opposition, and yet I was faithful as a messenger. God gave me the word and I shared it.
And that is a sign of success, a sign of fruit. Other people might not think that that is, but Paul was faithful to the task that God gave him. But last week we took a look at the nature of the relationship that the Thessalonians held with the Apostle Paul. It was a very close relationship even though they hadn’t spent much time together. Paul was saying, listen, we had great times together.
We had a great relationship. I was like a caring mother to you. I was like a close friend. I was like a hardworking laborer. I was a person who was trying to set a godly example for you.
I was like a father that encourages and comforts their child. Just look at the evidence of that relationship. How can you say that our time together was not without results? And today we’re looking at a passage, a series of verses, and Pastor Nate read one of the verses in verse 13 that we’re gonna take a look at, and Paul’s taking not a look at himself, he’s taking a look at the Thessalonians themselves, the evidence he sees in their lives, the fact that they had a message that was preached to them, that was communicated to them, and they had a vastly different response than some of the other people that Paul spoke to. Same message, Different responses.
Why is that?
And when God speaks, and we as a church affirm that God speaks, he speaks all the time, and not just through the Bible. We believe God speaks all the time. One of the things I appreciate about some of our youth and our children’s volunteers and staff is they’re often, when I hear them teach, they’re talking with the students and the young kids about connecting the dots and about What has God done in your life this last week? What is something you’ve seen God doing? And the fact is, is God’s always speaking to us.
The question is, are we listening? What is our response to that, to God’s Word? Well, let’s look at what the Thessalonians’ response was to the Word that was spoken to them. We’re looking again at 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. We’re gonna look at verses 13 through 16, and these are the things that Paul is gonna point to as proof that his ministry to them was not without results.
He says in verse 13, we thank God continually because when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as a human word, but as it actually is, the Word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea. Which are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displeased God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.
In this way, they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. What was the fruit that came out of the word coming to the Thessalonians? What is it that the Thessalonians got that other people did not get after they had encounters with Paul? We see all throughout the book of Acts Paul going from place to place, from city to city, and some cities had one reaction and one response, and other cities had another reaction, another response.
And the Thessalonians are one of those churches that had a favorable response. What happened? Well, first of all, we see in verse 13, and this seems simple enough, but it’s very They heard the word. They heard the word. Well, of course they heard it.
He spoke it. Why wouldn’t they hear it?
If you’re a parent and you’ve ever told something to your child, does that mean that they naturally hear you?
If you’re a— yes, I heard that no. Thank you, Shannon. I heard that amen. If you’re a teacher and you teach your students and you say one thing, does that mean that they absolutely hear you and automatically hear you? No.
If you’re a spouse, listen, there’s plenty of things Shannon tells me that I don’t hear, okay? I’m getting my physical, by the way, tomorrow, getting my hearing checked. Yes, Shannon’s excited about that. No, but as spouses, there’s times when you say something, especially the older you get, it’s harder to hear. That just because you say something doesn’t mean the other person heard it.
Well, Paul spoke and they heard. The Thessalonians heard. They heard the message objectively. That means that they heard it in their ears. The message that you received is the word that you heard from us.
Now, what is this word? I wanna define this for us because he speaks about this word that you received and that you heard and that you accepted. Anytime you see that phrase, the word, what does that mean? Well, we automatically think it’s the Bible is God’s word. It is, and we refer to the Bible as God’s word, but Paul here isn’t referring to the Bible.
He’s referring to the message of salvation about how people can be made right with God. He’s calling that the word too. And so in Scripture, there’s an overarching definition of the word, and it’s essentially this, is that any declaration or message that comes directly from God through divinely appointed teachers, writers, individuals. Let me repeat that. It’s the word of God, anytime you see that phrase in scripture, refers to God speaking directly, a declaration, a message, good news.
It could concern salvation, it could be a warning. Anytime God speaks and it comes through a divinely appointed person, Set-apart messenger. And in this case, it was Paul, but it can come through any messenger. Sometimes it’s directly to us through the Bible, but sometimes it’s through an individual, or sometimes it’s through a circumstance, and God is speaking to you directly. But regardless, Paul here is referring to the message of salvation that he brought to the Thessalonians, and unlike other places where Paul went, they heard it and they received it.
That’s fantastic. So what is it that keeps us from hearing God’s word? Right now, I hope you’re hearing God speak to you through his word. I hope that you’re hearing my voice. I hope that you’re responding, but the reality is, is you can sit in a service and walk away and not have heard anything or have heard very, very little of what God would wanna say to you.
Why is that? Perhaps you were up late the night before and you just had to finish watching that last episode of whatever it is that you’re watching on Netflix. Well, once you finished it, you had to watch another one. Or perhaps it’s because you had to get up early. This morning I got up at 3:30 this morning.
My son CJ went on the 8th grade trip with the LACS students to the East Coast, and I had to get him up to the San Francisco airport at 5 o’clock this morning, so I got up early. And so there’s times when we’re tired, there’s times when the room is too hot, When it’s too cold, when the sound isn’t what you want it to be, when somebody comes into the service that you, oh yes, I remember I need to say something to them afterwards, or maybe you’re making a shopping list right now, or maybe you’re on your Facebook account right now and you’re checking through things, or maybe you’re thinking about what you’re gonna do for lunch. There could be any number of reasons why a person doesn’t hear something in a service like this or somebody else in a Bible study or just throughout the course of the day. Either directly or through somebody else, listen, there could be any number of reasons. It’s our own inattention, it’s our own lack of focus, it’s our just missing it.
And how many times does God speak to us and we don’t hear it? So praise God, Paul spoke and he shared the word, the message that God had given him, and the Thessalonians heard it. Sometimes it’s our own feelings about what it is that’s being said. Sometimes we don’t wanna hear it. What God is saying to us.
Sometimes we don’t wanna hear what the teacher is teaching or what the messenger is sharing. Sometimes it’s our own feelings against that person or it’s against another person. Whatever it is, the fact of the matter is, is that this first step of receiving God’s word starts with hearing. Romans 10 tells us that faith comes by hearing. And that anytime a person hears God’s word, faith is the result.
Faith is the result. There’s always the potential for faith anytime somebody hears God’s word. Faith comes by hearing. And whether it’s a person that hears the good news of salvation directly from somebody, or it’s somebody reading the scriptures for themselves and reading a story from the life of Jesus, whatever it is, if a person hears the good news about Jesus, there’s the potential for faith. And so that’s where it started with the Thessalonians.
The word doesn’t do any good to anybody if they don’t hear it. The word doesn’t benefit you or me in any way if we don’t hear it. So when we come to church on a Sunday morning or whenever we’re in a study, we need to come attentive, we need to come ready. And in the case of the Thessalonians, they were open to what it is that God wanted to say because they not only heard the word, But secondly, as we see in verse 13, they also accepted the word. That word accepted there means to embrace.
It even means to welcome. They welcomed the word. They heard it and they received it. There’s sometimes when we hear something and we say, I don’t wanna hear that anymore, and we shut it out. But they heard it, they accepted it, and they accepted it as the word of God himself.
That’s amazing. They said, this isn’t the word of Paul. We know Paul, and he’s speaking to us, but this is the word of God for me, for us. This isn’t human opinion. This isn’t consensus.
This isn’t something that’s been changed from person to person. This is the word of God for us. Well, what is it that we believe about the word of God as a church, what is it that we affirm and what is it that Paul affirmed about the Word of God? One is, is that we believe that the Word of God is truthful. We believe that the Word of God, anytime God speaks, that it’s truthful, it’s consistent, that it applies to all people, that just as it applied 2,000 years ago, it applies today, that just as it applies to you, it applies to me, just as it applies to somebody who lives in another country.
The Word of God is timeless. And it’s truthful. We also believe that the Word of God, anytime God speaks through the Bible or through a godly appointed, a divinely appointed messenger, we believe that God’s Word is potent. Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is living and active. It’s like a sword, a double-edged sword that can pierce into our hearts and into our minds.
And when we hear God’s Word, it convicts us, it encourages us. All Scripture is given to us by God. And it’s living, it’s active. It’s what changes a person’s heart. We also affirm as a church that God’s word, it’s not only truthful, it’s not only potent, it’s the final authority for all of our life and our relationships, the way that we relate to one another, the way that we live our lives and relate to God.
And this is important because when Paul was speaking the word of God, he had the same conviction. He had the same conviction that the word was true and that it in that it had power, it had life, it had activity, and it had the ability to change the Thessalonians, and they needed to be changed, just as you and I need to be changed in order to be made right with God. And as the word of God went forth, it was living and it was active, and they heard it, and they received it and accepted it, not only as the word of God for them individually, but collectively as well.
And the third level of response that I wanna point to here is not only did they hear it, not only did they accept it, but that they, the word was at work in them. The word changed their lives in visible ways. You see, the word that is indeed at work in you, you accepted it and it was at work in them in such a way that it was visible to other people. You may be familiar with the account in the book of James chapter 1 where James says, do not merely listen to the word. There’s that phrase again, the word.
Do not merely listen to God speaking and so deceive yourselves. Anytime we only listen in that we merely listen, we deceive ourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard but actually doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.
It says the Word of God is like a mirror. We said it’s like a sword earlier. It’s like a mirror. It shows us our imperfections. It shows us things that we need to change about ourselves.
When I got up this morning, I did everything completely in darkness. I got ready, I’d set out my clothes. I didn’t wanna wake up anybody else, and so what you see is what you get here today. But some of you ladies have what I would call a look-intently mirror. He says to look intently into the word.
You know the look-intently mirror? The one with like the light around it and the magnifying glass, it’s like just magnifies everything? Where if you pick it up and you see yourself, whoa, you turn it over. And hotels have it and you look intently. That’s what God’s word does is it illuminates and it magnifies things in our own life that God wants us to know and to hear.
It exposes things and you can’t hide from it, but most of us come up to it and we hear it and we walk away as if I was to see myself in the mirror and see that I’m bleeding or see a cut on my face or see something that needs to change and then I just walk away going, oh well.
So when we’re confronted by the word, we need to listen, we need to receive it because it’s the word of God for us, and then we need to apply it and do it. It reminds me of the parable of the soils in the Gospels where Jesus tells a story about a farmer who goes out, he’s sowing seed, he’s throwing seed out here and there, some seed lands on a path, gets eaten up by the birds. Some seed falls among some rocky places where there’s very little soil, and so whatever does get planted there grows temporarily, but then it gets scorched and it doesn’t really last. And then there’s some seed that falls among the weeds and the thorns, it gets choked out by the weeds and the thorns, which represent the cares and the worries and the anxieties of our life. But some seed, Jesus said, falls on good soil and it is planted, it takes root, and then it produces fruit.
And that’s the whole point of the word of God when it goes forth. When I’m preaching, when Pastor Dave is preaching, when somebody’s teaching the word, when you’re reading the word of God, the whole point of it is to take root in your heart. The whole point of it is to take root so that then it can bear fruit. If it doesn’t bear fruit, that’s not the seed’s problem, that’s the soil problem. That’s a heart problem.
That’s an us problem.
And Pastor Dave was sharing with me as we were reflecting on this passage this last week, he was talking about how there’s some scholars, some commentators who believe that when Jesus talked about the 4 different kind of soils that exist, it’s possible that 25% of the people represent one group and 25% of the people represent another soil and 25% another soil and 25% Only 25% or only 1 out of 4 people represent soil that receives the word and it takes root and it bears fruit. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, how remarkable is it that the Thessalonians responded to the word as they did? If only 1 out of 4 people truly respond to God’s word, they hear it, they receive it, they then live it out, the Thessalonians demonstrate to us how remarkable that is.
So we’re to hear the word, we’re to receive it, and then we’re to do it. The end of Jesus’ most famous sermon, he says these words. He says, therefore anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a man who builds his house on a firm foundation. Anyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t do what they say is like a person who builds their house on a sandy foundation. When the storms of life come, and they will come, There’s no foundation.
There’s no security.
We’re to hear, we’re to act on what it is that God lays on our heart. Well, how did the Thessalonians do that? I go back to chapter 1 from a few weeks ago that we looked at and just remind you in chapter 1 of 1 Thessalonians, verses 3 through 7, it says, we remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, And your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know that the Thessalonians were changed? Well, look at their great faith.
Look at the hope that they had in the midst of suffering. Look at the love that they had for one another. And then on down to verse 6. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. So you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia.
And Achaia. He’s saying, not only did you receive the message in the midst of severe suffering, but you persevered and you received it with great joy and you became imitators of us, you became imitators of the Lord himself. There was great evidence of a changed life and in our passage for today, verses 13 through 16 of chapter 2, we saw earlier that the church became imitators of God’s churches. We saw, so they were imitating Paul, they were imitating God’s people, they were imitating the Lord, now they’re imitating God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus, you suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews. He’s saying 2 evidences of the Thessalonians here in this chapter that we see of the word being rooted in their life was their perseverance in the face of suffering.
When you obey the word of God, there will be suffering. People don’t often tell you that. When you come to Christ, you come to a saving knowledge, of the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of people don’t tell you, when you obey the word, there will be suffering, there will be hardship, there will be, at times, persecution for obedience to the word. You can expect it.
But these individuals persevered, and that was evidence of the word changing their lives, but also the imitation that they had of the others. I want you to notice, Also just the different responses here that we see here in these verses. You may not have noticed it before. We’ve already talked about how the Thessalonians responded to this message, to the word, where it took root and it was demonstrated in their lives, but Paul now starts talking about the Jews. When he’s talking about the Thessalonians, it reminds him, oh, by the way, you know, by the way, the Thessalonians received the word, but the Jews of Jesus’ time, he’s talking about Not all Jews for all time.
He’s talking about the Jews of that period that put Jesus to death on a cross, that persecuted God’s people. He’s saying one group received God’s word and accepted it. Another group rejected it. One group honored the saints, honored God’s people, imitated them. One group hindered the saints, hindered the word from going forth.
One group persevered in the face of suffering. The other group, for rejecting the word, will have great suffering in the future. And in fact, talks about there in verse 16, in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way, they, the Jews who put Jesus to death, the Jews who rejected the word, always heap up their sins to the limit. It’s this idea of a cup that is filled with liquid and You know, you just keep on filling up the cup and eventually it overflows.
Scripture speaks about sin having a limit, that there’s a point at which God says, no more. He allows it for a season, but there’s a point at which He says, no more, and all that comes after is wrath and judgment. And what’s at stake here is the fact that a person who rejects God’s Word is heaping up judgment for themself. They’re heaping up sins. In anticipation that the wrath of God’s gonna come.
It says the wrath of God has come upon those individuals at last, or completely. The wrath of God has come upon those individuals. This is not an insignificant word here, church. This is significant. What’s at stake here is eternal life.
What’s at stake here is eternal separation from God. You have the opportunity to say yes to God’s invitation, and that’s what happens when you say yes to his word, and we hear it, and we receive it, and we take it into our life, and we follow him. But rejecting God’s word is essentially rejecting God himself, and you’re saying no to his invitation, and there’s only a limit at which God will allow that to happen. Eternal separation awaits those who reject his word. Reject God’s word, but God offers the invitation to any to hear his word, to receive it, and to put it into their lives.
What are ways that we can welcome the word and embrace the word in our own lives? What are some ways that we can do that? I would start with being expectant whenever you come to church. Start with being expectant. When was the last time you came into church with expectation?
Expectation that God’s gonna move. I’m excited. About being here, I’m excited about hearing God’s word, I’m excited about my Bible study today, I’m excited about hearing God’s word, and if you don’t feel that anticipation, listen, there’s plenty of times that I don’t feel that, and we have to repent of that, and we have to say, God, change my heart, ’cause John Piper says rejecting the word of God, or lack of interest in the word of God, is lack of interest in God himself.
And so we come with great expectation. God, what are you gonna say to me today? We’re not just hearing from Steve, we’re not just hearing from Pastor Dave, we’re hearing from the word of God. What do you have for me here today? And we give it our full attention even though we may be distracted, even though there may be things going on.
No, we’re talking about important matters here. But there are a couple things that we can do also to welcome the word. One is we pray for a deeper appreciation of the word. If the word bores you, if the concept or the idea of reading God’s word doesn’t excite you in any way, Acknowledge that and ask God to give you a deeper appreciation for his word. Pray that he’ll help you to see what’s at stake because again, this is a matter of the heart.
But on top of that, pray for your Bible teachers. Pray for your leaders here at the church. Tom Ranier, who’s the president and CEO of Lifeway, wrote an article recently where he said, a congregation that regularly prays for its leaders and its teachers will be a better-fed congregation than those who do not. So pray for us. Pray that when the message goes out, that we as the messengers would be faithful, that we would have the conviction in our own lives that we’re speaking the word of God and that we would handle it well.
But then the responsibility is on you all as the hearers to hear the word of God. Sometimes after I preach a message, some people will say, well, how’d you feel about it? Or how did it go? And sometimes I don’t know how to receive that ’cause I don’t know what to say other than I preach the word of God. The responsibility on us here is to receive it and to give our attention to it.
But pray for us as leaders. Pray for us as teachers. You know, in this season in which we live right now, we are in a time where people are putting a lot at stake and a lot of energy and a lot of time and even worry. I had somebody after the service come up and talk to me about this. A lot of interest in what’s happening right now politically in these debates.
And there are people who don’t like what the future looks like right now, people who feel a lack of hope, people who feel discouraged, and that may be you here today. And I just want to remind us that as necessary as laws are, as necessary as policy is, As necessary as leadership is, that our hope is not in that as followers of Jesus. Why? Because laws can’t change a heart. Policies don’t change a person from the inside.
You can outlaw racism and bigotry and all the nastiness, violence in the streets, but that doesn’t change what’s inside. We need to be changed from within, and only the Word of God can do that. When the Word goes forth, It does not return to God void. It goes forth and accomplishes what God desires it to do, to take root, to bear fruit in our lives. And that’s where we need to place our hope.
Faith comes from hearing. You need greater faith. Hear the Word of God today. God’s Word changes hearts. God’s Word changes lives.
And that’s where we place our hope. The message of salvation is available to any. Scripture says whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, and anytime that message goes out and we reject it, we’re saying no to God himself. You simply have to say yes to God’s invitation. But the Word of God changes lives, and it can change yours.
It can change yours, ’cause God speaks every single day, and it doesn’t just have to be on a Sunday morning. Heard a story earlier this week about a young lady who is named Violet Clark. She was part of a youth group in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. There was a Gideon speaker. Some of you are familiar with the Gideon Ministry where they hand out the Word of God around the world for free and puts the Word of God in people’s hands and there are lives that are changed as a result.
And this Gideon speaker, somebody representing the Gideon Ministry named David Kipp, I believe his name is, came to this church in Pennsylvania, shared a message, told people about this specific resource that I brought here today called The LifeBook. I have a few copies of these in my office, and when I read the article, it reminded me, oh yeah, I have this. This is a book that’s put out by the Gideon Ministry that is specifically for students, and it’s changing students’ lives. There are over 10 million in print, and it’s free of charge. And the youth pastor heard about this LifeBook.
It’s got the Gospel of John, it’s got a summary of the Old Testament, it’s got questions and answers that students often have. And this youth pastor heard this Gideon speaker talk about the LifeBook. He says, I wanna get my hand on that. So we ordered 600 of those. And then he went to his youth group the next week and he told the youth group about it and he said, do any of you want any copies?
And he had one young lady, Violet Clark, who’s 18 years old, say, I’d like some copies. He said, how many do you want? She said, I’ll take 100 of them. He said, okay. And he gave her 100 copies of the LifeBook.
And she, for 6 weeks, distributed every single copy of the LifeBook to people in her public school. And as a result, people read this and they came to faith through Violet’s example, through her sharing the word with them, She didn’t preach to them, I’m sure, but she simply presented them with an opportunity. She was faithful with what she had been given.
6 weeks after she received these and she passed them out, just a couple days after that, she was in a serious car accident leaving school. This was just in April of this year, and the school held a prayer vigil for her, a public school. Held a prayer vigil where prayer is not promoted. They held a prayer vigil for her, but she passed away 3 days after the accident.
More people came to a saving knowledge of the Lord as a result of Violet’s example. More people came to faith as a result of her life and her death, and that school is not gonna be the same. And you see the power of God’s word through one individual who had heard the word herself at some point. I don’t know when she became a Christ follower. She heard the word herself, she received it, and then she acted on it.
She shared it with others, they received it. I’m sure that there were some who rejected it, but she must have been a girl of influence. And right now, she’s in heaven with the Lord.
But that’s what God desires for you and I to do with His Word. We don’t know exactly where that may take us, but it may just simply be that today, God’s Word for you is to receive His Word today and repent of the fact that you’ve lost interest in His Word. It may be that God’s Word for you today is that you are to take action in some way. In your own life, with a family member, with a neighbor, with a coworker. I don’t know what God’s word for you may be, but when God speaks, listen to it and obey it.
Let’s hear God’s word, let’s receive God’s word, and let’s do God’s word. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word as it, Lord, comes to us, that you are a God who speaks. You’re not a— you’re not a God who’s distant. You’re not a God who is ambiguous.
Lord, you speak.
Reminded of the first words in Scripture, Lord, how in the beginning you spoke and the world was created, the universe. Lord, when you speak, things happen. And you sent your Son Jesus here to the earth, the Word of God himself, who lived among us.
And people at that time, and even us, Lord, today, have beheld him, Lord, and we’ve seen him. We found grace and mercy.
Lord, we thank you that your word changes lives, and your word is potent, and it’s living, and it’s active. And I pray that your word would take root in our hearts today, that we would receive, that we would hear, that we would give our attention to it, and that we would never be the same. Lord, help us to follow Paul’s example, the example of the Thessalonians, and Lord, the example of Violet Clark. I pray that we would be bold, and I pray that we would be doers of the word. Lord, we commit our ways to you, and we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
I’m gonna invite up our worship team. They’re gonna close us. I’m gonna be over here to the side as I customarily do, and just after the service, if you’d like to pray in any way, I’d be honored to do that with you. Thanks for your attention today.
