The Manifestations of a Good Church: Part 5 - 1 Thess Lesson 9

1 Thessalonians 1:8

Sounding Forth the Word of the Lord

 Let’s go back to our verse by verse study of 1 Thessalonians again this morning. We will be looking at verse 8 today but I want to keep this in context so let’s stand together and read all of Chapter 1 together. 

 All of what I have been sharing since the beginning of our study of 1 Thessalonians are the elementary matters of the faith. In the last few weeks as we have looked deeply into verses 6-7 we have talked about imitating Christ, receiving the word of God, and living as examples. These are not the deepest theological concepts, but they are important aspects of the basics of the Christian life. I am honored to get to focus on the basics. Basics and fundamentals are essential to a sound and genuine faith. Vince Lombardi was a good coach. They name the NFL championship trophy after him. After one particular run of poor play by his team he walked into the dressing room before practice and announced that his team was going to go back to the basics. He held up the ball in front of them and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” For a professional football player, you can’t get more basic than that. For a church, you can’t get more basic than the things we have been studying.

 I will not apologize for focusing on the basics. I need them reinforced in my own life often. We all do. We have a number of new people here that I haven’t taught the basics to before and I have a responsibility to make sure all of you understand them. There are some young people here who are just maturing to the point that they need to understand the basics. It will be vital to their understanding of the gospel call on their lives. If we are all honest, we would probably all admit that we know the basics better than we practice the basics. 

 The truth is, the measure of your spiritual maturity, or the test of the genuineness of our faith, is not our ability to articulate the deep theological insights revealed in Scripture. You may be able to articulate well the details of your eschatological viewpoint, or the difference between transubstantiation or consubstantiation, but if you do walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, your words ring hollow. The measure of your spiritual maturity, and the test of the genuineness of your faith, is your faithfulness in the basics of the Christian life. If you say you love the Lord, live in a way that demonstrates love for Him. Do you demonstrate your faith by your deep and abiding love of your neighbor, especially the one you live with? And do you obey the commandments of our Lord? These are basics we must master.

 In 1 Thessalonians we are getting to look deeply into a church that was doing a very good job with the basics. They were doing such a good job that Paul commended them in verse 7 as having become an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. I used those words of Paul to the Thessalonians as an opportunity to challenge and encourage all of us to look at our own lives, and to honestly assess whether or not we are the kind of examples we should be as Christians. We don’t want to just be an example of a Christian. Those are everywhere and all of them are not good examples. We want to be examples as Christians. We must be the kind of Christian that others can follow and know they are going to become more like Christ if they are like us.

 As we come to verse 8, we see how their example was revealed. Paul tells us what they were doing to become good examples. Because of their example, “the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.” The best example we can be is an example from whom the word of the Lord is sounding forth. As we will see, the sounding forth of the word of the Lord was coming from people whose faith toward God was going forth. They were examples because their message and their manner of life was consistent.

 It is God’s plan that His people sound forth His word. This is God’s design. This is seen throughout the New Testament. It is seen here in this chapter. In verse 5 the gospel (the word of the Lord) came to the Thessalonians. It did not come in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. It came from men who proved to be faithful men of God. Then, in verse 6, the word was received. We learned what that means. It wasn’t just heard. It was received into hearts of good soil and it produced much fruit. Having been received, it then was sounded forth from them. It is inevitable that when the word of God comes in the power of the Holy Spirit, and it is received into the heart of man, it will sound forth from those whose lives are transformed by it.

 It is easy to identify the cycle of proclamation, transformation and proclamation. This is how the kingdom of God has been built since the days of Jesus and the Apostles. Paul preached the gospel and proved himself to be an example of the power of the gospel to transform a life. God used that to transform others, who themselves became those from whom the word of the Lord sounded forth. Guess what? We are also links in the chain. We are those who have heard the proclamation of the gospel. We are those who have been transformed by the word of the Lord. We are those from whom the word of the Lord is to sound forth.

 This is simply another of the manifestations of a good church. We saw the marks of a good church, the making of a good church, and we have been seeing the manifestations of a good church since verse 6. A good church is a church full of genuine Christians who imitate Jesus Christ, who are receiving the word of God, and are living as examples as Christians. The church in which these things are true will be a church from which the word of the Lord is sounding forth.

 The word will not just be sounding forth in its proclamation from the pulpit. I’m excited about the church’s new website. It gives us another avenue to effectively proclaim the word of God. But the word of God will not only be proclaimed from the pulpit or the church’s website. It will be sounding forth from the people within that church. It will be sounding forth in every place your faith toward God is going forth. This is so much more than just speaking the word of the Lord with your lips. It is speaking it with your lips and confirming its truth with your life. By all means, if your lips are speaking the word of God to others, please make sure your life is confirming and not contradicting its truth.

 Let me give you a few details from my study of this passage that will be helpful in understanding what was going on with the Thessalonians. The meaning of the “word of the Lord” is easy to understand. This was the truth of the gospel and the truths essential to the Christian life. This is what Paul brought to them. The word “sounded forth” is a strong word. It is “execheo” (ex-e-ke-o) in the Greek and it is used only here in the N.T. The basic meaning is to sound out or to sound abroad. Here it is intensified to mean “to blast” or to sound forth intensely. The word is sounding forth with maximum impact. It is sounding forth loudly. The word of the Lord is blasting forth with intensity and having maximum impact. They were boldly proclaiming the truth. I don’t think they were standing on the street corner screaming at people. I don’t think they were shoving the word down people’s throat. But it was being proclaimed by the Thessalonians everywhere they went.

 Another interesting detail is the tense of the verb. It is a perfect tense verb which denotes completed action with finished results in the present time. This means they were continually sounding forth the word of the Lord. It is an indicative mood verb which is the mood of certainty and reality. This was an undeniable reality. The word was blasting forth with intensity. It is impacting others. But it isn’t just coming from their mouths, so how is it sounding forth? The answer is clear. Their lives were sounding forth the word of the Lord. They were living epistles, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Cor. 3:3)

 Their lives were Exhibit A. They were not preaching as much verbally as they were living examples of the power of the word of the Lord to save and sanctify. I’m sure they were using words to share the word of the Lord. But it was the way they were living that made the impact. We should use our lips to share the word of the Lord. But we must make sure that our lives confirm the truth and never contradicts the truth of the word of the Lord. The impact of the gospel is always multiplied when it is shared from the lips of one whose life is an example of its power to save.

 This is exactly what was going on with these believers. This verse shows us that their example was as important and impactful as the word itself.  See the dependent clause, “not only in Macedonia and Achaia?” That is telling us where the word is sounding forth. We don’t do an injustice to the meaning of this verse if we skip over this clause for a moment. If we skip the clause, we can also skip the first two words that follow the clause because they are connected to the clause. We do not butcher the word of God by reading this verse as follows, “For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you in every place your faith toward God has gone forth.” I wanted you to see this verse in this light because it reveals to us the parallel thoughts. The word of the Lord has sounded forth…in every place your faith toward God has gone forth.

 This just reinforces this truth. The word of the Lord sounds forth as our faith toward God goes forth. Our faith towards God is the confirmation that the word of the Lord we share is capable of changing lives. If our faith towards God isn’t going forth, if it is not out there as evidence, then the word of the Lord we share from our lips are at risk of being empty, meaningless, powerless words.

 This is the exact point of the last point of verse 5. The gospel went to the Thessalonians, not in word only, but also in power. What was the source of that power? It was the Holy Spirit. What was the confirmation? The confirmation was the kind of men that Paul and his companions proved to be among the Thessalonians. Paul preached the word of the Lord with his lips and confirmed its power with his life. He preached the life changing power of the gospel and his faith toward God went forth. His manner of life confirmed the message. The result was this good church being born and then carrying on the same work.

 The manifestation of a good church is that the word of the Lord is sounding forth and the message is convincingly verified by the way those who proclaim the truth live. One thing the Thessalonians realized is that everywhere they went forth, they were going forth as ambassadors of Jesus Christ. The details of this verse are important. “In every place…” Paul writes. Everywhere they went, their faith toward God went forth. The same is true for us. Everywhere we go we go as a representative of Jesus Christ. Everywhere you go you go as a representative of Grace Bible Church. When you go to work or Walmart, you go as a representative of Christ. If you go to those places where Christians should not go, you go as a representative of Jesus Christ. If you go, in the privacy of your own home or office, to inappropriate sites on the internet, or channels on the tv, you go as a representative of Jesus Christ.

 Your faith toward God goes forth. It goes everywhere you go. If “your faith” is not consistent with “the faith” once for all handed down to the saints, your faith is a faulty faith. Whether it is faulty or genuine, your faith toward God goes forth. It follows you wherever you go. One thing to be understood from this verse is that the truth about your faith goes forth wherever you go. If I go home and treat my wife like garbage, if I belittle her, or am critical of her, or hateful to her, does that not speak the real truth about my faith? If I go to my office and flirt with an attractive co-worker of the opposite sex, does that not speak the real truth about my faith? If I go to a restaurant and treat the waitress with disrespect, does that not speak the real truth about my faith? Our faith goes forth. It goes forth everywhere we go. If your faith toward God is not like the faith of the Thessalonians, please tell people you go to church at the Mormon church or somewhere. Don’t tell them you attend Grace Bible Church.

 Look at the last thing Paul says about the Thessalonians in verse 8. “so that we have no need to say anything.” In other words, the sounding forth of the word of the Lord and the faith of the Thessalonians toward God having gone forth said enough. Paul didn’t need to affirm anything because their lives were affirmation enough. Paul didn’t need to offer excuses because their walk didn’t require excuses to be made. He could simply say nothing. Their lives and their examples spoke for themselves.

 Their faith has spoken so loudly and convincingly that everyone who heard their words and saw their lives were talking about what had happened to them. All who heard the word of the Lord and saw their faith toward God were saying good things about them.

 Here is a hard question for you. This part of 1 Thessalonians has lent itself to hard questions. What would those who know you best say about your faith toward God? Can they say, as Paul said about the Thessalonians, “I don’t need to say anything about their faith toward God. Their faith speaks for itself.” What it says is that it is real. Their faith toward God was proof that they have believed and embraced the word of the Lord.

 Listen my friends. Our faith speaks for itself, doesn’t it. False faith speaks for itself as loudly and clearly as genuine faith. False faith is confirmed as false faith because the claims of faith are nullified by the obvious evidence of a life that has not been transformed. If the walk does not confirm the talk, the faith towards God has spoken for itself and it has clearly pronounced itself to be a false faith. Our walk speaks louder than our words. Which one gives the most reliable testimony, our words or our walk? Your walk is telling the truth.

 Genuine faith also speaks for itself. If our faith is a genuine faith our lives are producing the fruit and the fruit speaks. The fruit speaks loudly and its message is that this one’s faith is real. False faith speaks for itself. Genuine faith speaks for itself. 

 You might say that you know your faith is genuine but it doesn’t always go forth looking like faith what faith toward God ought to look. Maybe you would call it weak faith. Weak faith also speaks for itself. It say, “Help my unbelief.” “Help me grow stronger.” It pleads for strength. It yearns for progress. I say that because if it is the product of true spiritual life, it will grow. All things alive grow and spiritual life gives birth to faith and faith will grow in the lives of those who are truly spiritually alive.

 Because your faith speaks for itself, those who know you best hear what it is saying. If you look ahead to verse 9 you will see that those who saw the faith of the Thessalonians were able to give a report about what they saw. They saw how the Thessalonians had received Paul and his missionary team. They saw the evidence that the Thessalonians had turned to God from idols. They saw the Thessalonians as those who lived with a confident expectation of Christ’s return. The point here is that those before whom our faith toward God goes, they see, and they can give a report.

Here’s the thing. The most reliable reports come from those who know you best. If those who know you best were to give an honest report about your faith toward God, what would they say? Your faith is speaking for itself. You can modify what it says somewhat, depending on the setting. Most of you do a good job of showing the people at church a really good version of your faith toward God. But I don’t think the real message about your faith toward God is determined by what it says here. The real message about your faith toward God is determined by what you say and do when you are alone, or in the home with those who know you best. What would the report of those who know you best be concerning your faith toward God?

I think it is safe to conclude, based on what Paul writes to the Thessalonians, that their walk was consistent with their talk all the time, and everywhere they went, and in all circumstances. The word of the Lord was sounding forth. They were like ripples formed on a smooth pond when a rock is thrown into the middle. The ripples spread in every direction and impact the water all over that pond. The Thessalonians faith toward God was going forth and its impact was reverberating throughout the region. Their city was a hub of travel and trade. It was a port city and on the Egnatian Highway. They were surrounded with opportunity as their paths crossed with others.

They took advantage of those opportunities to sound forth the word of the Lord. Those opportunities impacted others because in every place they were sounding forth the word of the Lord the evidence of their faith toward God was going forth. Their faith was speaking for itself. The message of their faith was that this is genuinely life changing. The power of the gospel to transform a life is real. It was obvious in them. It must be just as obvious in us.

We must sound forth the word of the Lord. Our faith toward God must also go forth. The real impact of a good church will be seen when the lives of those who sound forth the word live as examples of the power of that word. Sound forth the word of the Lord and impact the lives of those who hear that word by the way you live. Show them your faith toward God. Share the word, and show them it is real.

Let’s pray.