Sunday Sermon Manuscript – October 18

When the Gospel Becomes Life

1 Thessalonians 1:1–10

1. A Hope Kept in a Freezer

On October 9, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that this year's Nobel Peace Prize would go to Navi Pillay, a jurist from South Africa. Her name may be unfamiliar to some of you. She was born in 1941 in Durban, South Africa, into a poor family of Indian descent, the daughter of a bus driver. Under apartheid, she faced discrimination even inside the courtroom simply because she was a woman of color, and yet she became a lawyer. Later she served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. There she helped bring about a historic ruling that sexual violence in war can be an act of genocide, an attempt to erase an entire people. After serving as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, she went on to chair the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry investigating Gaza.

One of the cases her commission investigated was this. In December 2023, Al-Basma, the largest fertility clinic in Gaza, was shelled. The clinic had been caring for 2,000 to 3,000 patients every month. In an instant, about 4,000 embryos and more than 1,000 samples of sperm and eggs stored in its freezers were gone. A clinic employee testified that the dreams of couples who had waited twenty, even thirty years for a child were kept there. The commission stated that it found no evidence the building had been used for military purposes. It judged the destruction to be an act intended to prevent births within a community, which is an act of genocide. In an interview this week, Pillay said the attack reminded her of Rwanda.

People may come to different political conclusions. But as I listened to this story, I had to spend a good deal of time thinking and asking questions. Let me ask you: how far does human dignity reach? These were possibilities of life sleeping in a freezer. They were not yet born and had no names and no faces. Yet international law did not treat their loss as mere property damage. It declared that the life and future of a community had been violated. In other words, human dignity does not belong only to those who are breathing right now. It reaches the hopes a person carries and a future that has not yet arrived.

This made me think again about what the gospel is. What is the gospel? I believe we can say this: the gospel is God proclaiming, in the very place where dignity has been trampled and destroyed and nothing seems left, "No, you are still precious. There is still the possibility of salvation for you." Seen this way, I think today's passage, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, can be read in a whole new light.

2. The God Who Chose the Nobodies

Thessalonica was the capital of Macedonia. The Via Egnatia, the great highway linking Rome to the East, ran right through the middle of the city, and the city was known for its loyalty to Rome. Worshiping the emperor as a god was patriotism, the path to success, and a way to survive. Acts 17 tells us that Paul preached in this city for only three Sabbaths before a riot broke out. Jason and some of the believers were dragged before the city officials, and Paul had to slip out of the city by night.

Most of the members of the church founded there were not Jews. As verse 9 says, they were people who had "turned from idols to God." In the eyes of the Jewish community, they had been outside God's covenant. In the eyes of Rome, each of them was just one more nameless subject in a conquered province. And yet Paul says to them: "Brothers and sisters loved by God, we know that God has chosen you." (v. 4)

The word for "chosen" here is the Greek eklogē (ἐκλογή). What is interesting is that Paul does not use this word often. He uses it most in Romans 9 through 11, where he speaks of God choosing Israel. The only other place Paul talks about this choosing is today's passage. In other words, Paul takes that glorious word, which belonged to Israel, and hands it directly to Gentiles who used to worship idols.

This is the gospel. To people no one thought precious, God speaks first and declares their dignity: "You are the one I love. I have chosen you." But Paul does not describe this choosing as a privilege. In verse 6 he goes straight on to speak of "much affliction." Paul binds being chosen and suffering together in one place. God's choosing is not a certificate guaranteeing comfort. It is a declaration of mission, a calling for the sake of God's purposes.

3. Not in Word Only

"We did not bring you the gospel in word only, but with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with great conviction." (v. 5)

Beloved, I wonder if there has ever been an age as flooded with sermons as ours. Open your phone and you can listen to ten sermons a day from famous preachers. Strangely, though, we hear everywhere that the power of the gospel is not what it used to be. People come to church with certain expectations, and when the church they actually find does not match them, more and more of them leave disappointed.

Then should the church work hard to become the kind of church people like? Should we just make it more polished, more comfortable, more entertaining? No. I don't believe that is the essential direction of the church. Maybe people are disappointed in the church not because it lacks polish, but because the gospel we proclaim stays only in words.

At the end of verse 5, Paul adds: "You know how we conducted ourselves among you and for your sake." Paul does not talk about how brilliant his preaching was. He talks about how he lived among them. The gospel had become Paul's life, and when the Thessalonians saw that life, they received the gospel. The gospel is not passed on by words alone. Only when it is carried by a life as well can it be fully delivered.

4. Joy in Affliction: The People Who Left Their Idols

"In spite of much affliction, you received the word with the joy that the Holy Spirit gives, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord." (v. 6) The word for "affliction" is the Greek thlipsis (θλῖψις). It describes being pressed and crushed from every side, like grapes in a winepress. When the Thessalonian believers gave up their idols, they did more than change religions. Staying away from the emperor's festivals and refusing to take part in the sacrifices of their trade guilds probably meant giving up their neighbors' trust, their jobs, and their livelihoods. Yet in the middle of that crushing, they received the word with joy. That joy did not come from good circumstances. It was "the joy that the Holy Spirit gives."

Let me ask you: what idols do we need to give up today? They are not statues of wood or stone. Perhaps our idols today are the size of the church, the numbers, comfort, and the anxious need to please people. The Thessalonian believers gave up what the world demanded they worship and turned to "the living and true God" (v. 9). That turning came at a cost, but it was precisely that turning that gave them dignity.

5. Work of Faith, Labor of Love, Endurance of Hope

"And we always remember before our God and Father your work of faith, your labor of love, and your endurance that holds fast to the hope you have in our Lord Jesus Christ." (v. 3) When Paul remembered the Thessalonian church, three things came to mind. Their faith had become work (ergon, ἔργον), their love had become labor (kopos, κόπος), and their hope had become endurance (hypomonē, ὑπομονή). "Labor" here does not mean ordinary work. It means toiling to the point of exhaustion. "Endurance" literally means "to remain under." It is staying under a heavy load without running away and holding on to the end. Faith, love, and hope did not stay ideas in their heads. They became hands and feet and sweat. In other words, the gospel had become life.

Beloved people of Yeolin Church, I believe we are standing in this very place right now. We are in the middle of a great season of change. We have relocated and prepared a new home for our church, and the building in Oakland that we used for so long is now nearly sold. Until now, some of you have labored so that building would never stand empty. Year after year you tended the garden, cleaned, and kept the fire of worship from going out. I believe that was exactly what Paul called a "labor of love." And in this very season, God has sent us a new pastor. I believe this is no coincidence. It is a sign that God still has work to do in this community.

When change comes all at once, weariness comes along with the expectation. But as the saying goes, the ground grows firmer after the rain. God is using this season of change to shape us into a stronger community. So let us find the strength one more time. Let us take one more step toward the place where faith becomes work, love becomes labor, and hope becomes endurance.

And this labor is not just for ourselves. One New Testament scholar observes that Paul saw the church's problem as a lack of connection. People lose their dignity where relationships are broken. Think of someone struggling to break free from addiction, or someone who cannot find work because of a past record. Think of a neighbor whose status in a foreign land is uncertain, or someone who has no one to share a meal with. The church must be the place that offers connection to people like these again.

6. A Church People Talk About, a Church That Waits

"And so you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For the word of the Lord rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but news of your faith in God has spread everywhere. So we have no need to say anything more about it." (vv. 7–8)

This is truly remarkable. Paul says, "We have no need to say anything more." The Thessalonian church did not advertise. Their life itself became the news, and that news became the gospel. In the end, the church people talked about was not the one that tried hard to please people. It was the church that lived out the gospel.

In the final verse, verse 10, Paul tells us what this church was waiting for: "They tell how you wait for his Son to come from heaven, Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming." Our hope is the God who raised life out of death. God remembers even the hopes that vanished in a freezer and begins life again where dignity has collapsed. The church is the community that waits for this God.

Beloved people of Yeolin Church, the changes before us are by no means small. But just as God chose those nameless people in Thessalonica, God has chosen us today. God did not choose us to make us comfortable. God chose us so that we would live out the gospel. The gospel does not come in word only. When our faith becomes work, our love becomes labor, and our hope becomes endurance, the gospel will become our life. And our life will become good news for someone else.