As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
9For
they are reporting concerning us what manner of entrance we had toward you and
how you turned toward the God from the idols to serve a living and true God, 10and
to await His Son out of the heavens, whom He raised out of the dead ones,
Jesus, the One rescuing us out of the coming wrath.
There are two things I find particularly noteworthy from
these two verses. The first is Paul’s observation of the Thessalonians that
they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” In the
context, Paul is recounting all the reasons he (and the world) know that his
labors were successful among the Thessalonians. Paul preached the Gospel to
these people and how did they respond? They “turned to God from idols to serve the
living and true God.”
This is so important. The words are not just Christian clichés.
These people really did “turn to God from idols.” They really did do it “to
serve the living and true God.” I fear that so much of what goes on even in
supposedly Biblical Christianity, even as a result of real Gospel preaching, is
ultimately for other ends than these. What do I mean? I have known so many
people down through the years who tell how they responded to a Gospel message and
so they went home and threw away all their tobacco products, poured all their
alcohol down the sink, and started going to church. And to that we all shout, “Hallelujah!”
Right? Hmmmm. Based on I Thess 1:9, shouldn’t the answer to that be, “Well …
maybe?” If all those things are a genuine expression of someone “turning to God
from idols” then that’s great, but there can be a lot of other underlying
motives for those actions. I fear in a LOT of the people who’ve told that
story, they were just turning over some kind of moral leaf. They’d been raised
with some sense of Christian morals, had strayed from those morals, and now
they’re just “going back” to being the moral people they were taught to be. In
other words, the Lord isn’t in the middle of it at all! And the proof of that
was that, though such “Christians” appear to be moral, there is nothing at all “Christ”
about them.
I think too many people respond to the Gospel and “turn to church from idols to ‘serve’ day and night
at their church.” Once again, Christian
culture just loves someone who “gets saved” and then suddenly volunteers for
every “ministry” available. But, again, my question is, “But is God really in
the middle of it all?” I don’t doubt people do the same in Jewish cultures and Hindu
and Moslem and Buddhist and all the rest. They turn over some new leaf and get
head over heels involved in their local “whatever.” And is that any different
than the person who gets tired of being “out of shape” and joins the local gym?
Gospel preaching is (and should be) powerfully persuasive. It is a message of
repentance, a call to major change. But, and I guess this is my point, the
question still remains what “change” is really going on?
May I remind us all of Jesus’ warning in Matt 12:43-45, “When
an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking
rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’
When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then
it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they
go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the
first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” “Change” though
dramatic may not be real.
And what is real “change?” It is to genuinely “turn to God
from idols to serve the living and true God.” It is all about God. Not anything else. It’s not about pouring your booze down the sink or “going
to church” or anything else. It’s about God.
It’s about spending our lives living for a million other things and suddenly
realizing it’s all about Him … and
then turning to a life that’s all about Him.
And it’s not just about turning to some sterile “belief” in “God,” but actually
to enter into a relationship with “the living and true God.” Living. It is about a real relationship with
the living God. It’s about Mary, not Martha.
God didn’t sit in Heaven and wish the best for us. He came
to earth and “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He came to live here
because He is a living God. He didn’t
just leave us the written Word. Jesus came here to be to us the living Word. Our God is the true God and
the true God is a living God, a Person who invites us into a living
relationship. To genuinely respond to the Gospel is in fact to enter into a
real, personal relationship with that living and true God.
I remember when I was first saved -- there was no question,
from the instant “the lights came on” that I was suddenly in a real
relationship with the living God. I wanted to know Him. Not long after I was saved, I ran across JI Packer’s book “Knowing
God” and literally inhaled it. I observed Jesus’ words in John 17:3, “…for this
is eternal life, that they might know
Thee…” and I could see how true it all was. But then I remember being “at
church” at some kind of meeting and realizing in my heart “what’s going on here
and what’s going on in the Bible are two different things.” I could see that
somehow the “church” was really about some kind of religious “busy-ness” and
not really about knowing God at all. Unfortunately, I disregarded that red flag
in my heart and just went ahead and joined the “busy-ness.” Fortunately for me,
I continued studying the Bible on my own and having a personal relationship
with God, so that, over the years I got more and more uncomfortable with just
being caught up in that religious busy-ness, finally saw it for the complete
sham that it is, and extricated myself from it. I deeply fear that, at least in
America, church is not about encouraging people to really know God. It’s about
getting them to volunteer more time to whatever programs we want to be “successful.”
It’s about raising up a lot of Martha’s, not encouraging them to be Mary’s.
What does it really mean to be saved? What does it really
mean to repent? What is genuine Christianity really all about? It’s about “turning
to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” It’s all about Him. If He isn’t in the center of it,
then it simply isn’t real.
The second thing I think worth noting is that verse 10 is
almost a complete summary of real Christian faith: “and to await His Son out of
the heavens, whom He raised out of the dead ones, Jesus, the One rescuing us
out of the coming wrath.” Note we’re not just talking about “getting religious.”
We’re not talking about some Deistic, bald acknowledgment that “there is a God.”
We’re talking about the true and living God, the One who sent His Son, the One
who is “coming again,” the One who raised His Son from the dead, Jesus, the One
rescuing us, the One rescuing us from a coming wrath which is real.
As I look at each phrase of verse 10, I’m tempted to write a
volume. But then again, that is, in a sense, what the entire rest of the Bible
is about! – this Son out of the Heavens, this One raised from the dead, this
One rescuing us, about a coming wrath.
Once again, it’s all real.
It’s not about clichés. It’s not about whatever we want it to be about. It’s
not about whatever everyone else seems to think it’s about. It’s not about what
seems like it will make other people “happy” with me.
It’s all about a real
relationship with a real God.
Paul knew his work in Thessalonica was successful because
the change that happened was real.
God do real work in our world today. There’s been too much
of everything else. God do a real
work in me.
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