1 Thessalonians 1.1–10
A sermon preached at Mbare Church of Christ on 22 February 2026
Mbare was the Soweto of Salisbury in the old Rhodesia. Today it is a busy, densely populated suburb near to central Harare. You can catch a bus here to anywhere in Zimbabwe. The service lasted from 11 until 1.30; afterwards we had lunch in the minister’s house. The minister is Chaka Mhlanga; he is a graduate of GWC. When we left the church we formed a queue. I was first out and stood at the door as the second person shook my hand and stood beside me, then the third person, until everyone had shaken hands with everyone and there was a circle around the churchyard. the only other time I experienced this was in Uganda in 1978—and at my own wedding to Lorraine.
Christianity is old. Christianity is so old people have made many changes. There are so many different kinds of Christianity now, it is hard to know what is genuine and what is false. There are Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Churches of Christ, Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, and many more. There are also New Apostolics and Old Apostolics, and Zionists, and Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even Muslims because they too believe Jesus is a prophet. Are they all right, or have some changed the message so much that it is no longer Christianity? How can we know? When I was fourteen my mother took me to the Anglican church in our town. The services were full of ritual: the pastor wore special robes, he read the service from a prayer book, he got me to help him. I had to wear a special white robe myself. Another boy and I knelt each side of the altar. There was the Epistle side and the Gospel side and when it came time to read from the Gospel I had to bring the book from the Epistle side to the Gospel side; the Gospel was more important. At Communion I had to wash the priest’s fingers. In one sermon he explained how we shouldn’t take them too seriously because they were casual letters which he never expected people would read 2000 years later. I began to wonder what Christianity was like at the beginning. I think this is the best way to discover what true Christianity is: go back and find out what it was like at the beginning. That is why the Bible is so important. It allows us to go back behind two thousand years of changes and discover the faith of Jesus and the apostles.
I spent 8 months in Germany. My wife and I attended a Church of Christ mission where the services were in English. I had a Church of Christ friend who told me some of the history of the movement. It started when the American settlers pushed west. The frontier preachers would come to a town and challenge the pastors in the other churches to a debate. What is true Christianity? That was the subject, and they would argue about what Christianity was like at the beginning—true Christianity is New Testament Christianity— and if the frontier preacher won the debate that town would become Church of Christ.
When Paul was in Turkiye, the Holy Spirit gave him a dream to cross into Europe and preach about Jesus. His mission team came to Philippi in Macedonia. He preached there and started a church, but there was strong opposition, and he was forced to leave town. He came to Thessalonica and preached there, but again there was trouble and he had to move on after only a few weeks. The Book of Acts doesn’t tell us what he preached, except that he was accused of speaking about another king, other than Caesar. We know that means he proclaimed Jesus as the Jews’ promised king and the future king of the whole world. He came to Athens and we read in Acts how he was taken before the Court of the Areopagus. This was the court that was in charge of religion in Athens; it was a serious crime to bring a new god into Athens; you could be put to death. Paul was asked to explain what he was saying to people in the market. So, Acts tells us what Paul was saying, but that was to philosophers, and we are mostly not philosophers. There are other sermons in Acts, but they are mostly to Jews, and we are not Jews. So, what did the early Christians say to ordinary people like us who are not Jews or philosophers? We can find an answer to this in the letter we call 1 Thessalonians.
When Paul was in Athens he wrote this letter to the new believers in Thessalonica. Paul feared they would not hold out against the opposition; they were such new Christians. This is the second oldest letter in the New Testament. It doesn’t tell us what Paul preached, but it tells us how the Thessalonians responded. Paul’s message changed their lives, and from the way they changed you can work out what he must have been preaching. 1 Thessalonians 1.9–10 says:
[People tell] 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.
The first thing we learn is that he talked about God, the true God, the living God, the God who made everything, the God who gives us life. This is exactly what he spoke about to the philosophers in Athens. He may have used different words, but the message was the same. Most non-Jewish people believed in many gods. They were like spirits that could help you with some part of your life. If you needed help you’re your love-life, you could go to the goddess of love. If you were sick you could go to the temple of a healing god. These were all gods that people had made up, Paul said. The true God made everything and rules over everything, and it is he we should go to for help with everything. Worship the one true God who made the world and gives us life; bring your prayers to him.
The second thing he talked about was God’s Son. God sent his Son on a mission to the world, to rescue it from its rebellion and the suffering and evil that has resulted from that. He appointed Jesus to be the king he had promised the Jews, to establish his kingdom, and to rule over the world as its Lord forever.
Before I go further, I want to point out something at the beginning of the letter.
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
These new Christians are “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a strange idea; what does it mean? How should Christians think of themselves? First it means Christians have the closest possible relationship with God and with Jesus; this is why Paul spoke about God the Father and his Son, the Lord Jesus, so they could have a relationship with them. When I went to church as a teenager, no one told me I could know God, and have a relationship with Jesus; it was just ceremonies. But Jesus said we needed to be in him, like a branch is attached to a vine. “I am the vine, you are the branches; if you are in me and I am in you, you will bear much fruit.”[1] We are attached to him and draw our life from him. That is the first thing it means to be in him.
A second thing is this: before we come to Christ we are all of us “in Adam.”[2] God made Adam to be the first father, the original ancestor, the head of the human family. We all belong to him; we are all “in Adam.” You can think of it like this: God deals with us as part of a great family; we are all hanging on Adam’s belt. When he rebelled against God, he took us with him. We are part of his fallen kingdom. But God is making a new world with a new king. Paul tells us God’s plan is to bring the universe under a new human head, the Lord Jesus Christ.[3]
When we surrender our life to Jesus as our king, he takes from Adam’s belt and attaches us to his own.[4] God treats us not as a single individual but as a person in Christ. One thing this means is that Jesus’ death on the cross becomes ours. We were in him when he died, and the forgiveness he won belongs to all who are in him. This is a big truth and we cannot explore it all today. Just remember that when you come to Jesus, everything he has done belongs to you, especially his death and resurrection; also his life flows into you and through you. You become attached to him in the closest way. I like to think of a little kid who is bullied at school. But his older brother comes along and puts his arms around him, and says, “If you want to fight him, you must fight me.” That is what it is like to be in Christ.
The third thing we learn about the message Paul preached to these non-Jewish Thessalonians is that he must have spoken about Jesus’ second coming. “They turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven…” Jesus came from heaven and lived for a while on earth. He then returned to heaven where he is busy building his kingdom. When his work is complete he will return to us and rule forever. That is the time when all enemies of God will be destroyed and all evil and suffering brought to an end. Paul preached hope. The first Christians were people who looked to the future; they did not see what this world offers as enough, they wanted a new world where everything would be right, and God’s king would be known and loved.
So just observe in passing in verse 3 how Paul thanks God for their “work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” The first Christians were people of faith, hope, and love. Their hope in Christ’s coming made them patient and willing to suffer persecutions.
But how is it possible to believe that Jesus will come again? It sounds like fantasy, especially today, 2000 years later when it still hasn’t happened. The fourth thing Paul talks about is Jesus’ resurrection. “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 …” Paul told the philosophers in Athens: “God has given proof to all people by raising Jesus from the dead.” This is one of the ways God convinces people about the truth of Jesus. If you are not sure whether Christianity is true, this is what you must look at: Did Jesus come alive after he was crucified and buried? If you don’t believe this you are not a Christian, and let me tell you, there are many church people in many different churches who don’t believe Jesus rose again, and therefore they have no hope that he will come again. They are nothing like the first Christians—they are not true Christians at all. Christianity without the resurrection is not true Christianity.
But it’s not just a matter of “you just have to believe!” How can we be sure of something which happened 2000 years ago? The answer is that God provided witnesses. The resurrection is God’s proof to the world, and he has provided witnesses to assure us that it is real. Examine the Gospels! Read the letters of Paul and Peter. Ask yourself, “Did they make this up?” God’s Holy Spirit will help you find the right answer. And if Jesus rose, he is alive today, and we can be confident that he will come again.
The fifth and last thing Paul mentions is judgement and salvation. “You turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who saves us from the wrath to come.” God is going to judge the world—he must—and the most important question for us all is how we will fare. Once again, we find this in Paul’ message to the philosophers: “God has set a day when he will judge the world by a man whom he has appointed …”[5] That is why it is important that we believe and repent. Those who do have God’s promise that they will be saved through the judgement to live forever in Christ’s coming kinddom. It seems like God’s message to the giraffes in Athens is the same as his message to us ground-feeders today. The true God who is alive and active has sent his Son, who became a man and died for our sins, but God raised him up, and seated him in the highest place in the universe, and will send him back to judge us, and to save all those who have trusted, loved, and hoped in him. This is how Christianity began; this is true Christianity.
We can measure ourselves by this. Do I have faith in the Father God and his Son, Jesus Christ? And does it make me want to serve him? Do I pray “Your kingdom come,” and long for him to come and make himself known in the world. Am I prepared to suffer for his name? Do I believe that God raised him from the dead?
If this is you, it doesn’t matter which church you belong to, it doesn’t matter what wrong things you may have done in your life, it doesn’t matter if you are a giraffe or a warthog, you can know that you are in the Father and in his Son: safe in the arms of the one who calls us to himself and promises eternal life to everyone who comes.
[1] John 15.5.
[2] 1 Cointhians 15.22.
[3] This is what Paul explains in Ephesians 1.
[4] This is how F.F. Bruce explained being in Adam and being in Christ.
[5] Acts 17.30–31.