I gave my first sermon eight thousand miles from my home, through a translator, to a room full of pastors twenty or thirty years older than me in Vijayawada, India. The text, I’ll never forget, was
1 Thessalonians 1:4–6. I was the rookie, the intern, on a team of more veteran teachers — and I was sweaty nervous.
The message got off to a rocky start. I was going too long without a break for translation, and I was clearly using words the translator either didn’t know or couldn’t translate. After a few long minutes (which felt something like a benevolent wrestling match), the poor guy had to quit and ask an older, more experienced brother to step in. The tap out certainly didn’t help my young nerves. Fortunately, I had run out of sweat by that point.
The second translator and I slowly found a rhythm together. His confidence and patience gave me greater peace and courage, and, by God’s grace, I survived the message. And the brothers, I believe, were encouraged in their faith and ministries. (As yet another mercy, preaching a sermon back home in English suddenly felt far less intimidating.)
I’ll remember that day for many reasons, but as much as anything, I’ll remember their eyes. We had been told for months leading up to the trip about all the obstacles these men were facing where they served — intense opposition, even malice; little training or support; false teaching even among Christians; grave poverty. Then we got to witness, firsthand, just how hard it was for some. And yet their eyes told a different story.
Smile of Genuine Revival
Standing in that pulpit so far from home, I began to read the sermon text: “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you.” How could the apostle Paul possibly know that these people had been chosen by God? He doesn’t leave us in the dark:
We know . . . that [God] has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5)
He feels confident in their election because he’s seeing the signs of true revival — of God coming with supernatural power by his Spirit, through his word, to inspire sincere conviction and heartfelt worship. But how could he see the Holy Spirit? How could he know that God himself was actually moving in this church?
Paul says more in the next verse: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). He sounds the same warm note in Romans 14:17: “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” What gave Paul such confidence that the God over heaven and earth, without beginning or end, who created all things and will judge the whole world, had reached down and actually chosen this little group to be his children, his ambassadors, his future kings and queens of glory? Their extraordinary joy, especially through hardship. This joy was like a sun rising over all the dark horizons around them, declaring that they now belonged — body, soul, mind, and delight — to Jesus.
This joy wasn’t just any joy, though. The apostle goes on to sketch something of a portrait of Spirit-filled joy for us — a joy that gladly submits, that stubbornly endures, that steadily spreads, and that eagerly waits.
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