Formed by the Gospel

If you've been at Imprint for a while, then you probably know that, especially if you get coffee and you look around that coffee station that's right here by the front door has a big arch above it, a chalkboard, and beautifully handwritten is Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3 in the English Standard Version, which says, speaking of Jesus, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. So that's where we get our name, Imprint Imprint Church.

It's from the ESV in Hebrews 1:3. Imprint there refers to an engraving or like an impression left behind from a stamp or a signet ring. Think of a king's signet ring. The kings would do this, and they would press their signet ring into wax to seal a letter that says, this is officially from the King. That's what imprint refers to.

It conveys the idea, speaking of Jesus, that Jesus himself is the perfect or exact expression of God's nature. So when you see Jesus, you are seeing exactly what God is like. He's not. He's not similar to God. He's not very close to what God is like.

He is himself, God. And the exact imprint, the exact representation or expression of God's nature, he perfectly reveals God. And so we're named Imprint Church because we believe that the gospel that is this good news of the rescuing King Jesus, who died to forgive us of our sin and rose from the dead for our salvation and ultimately to renew all of creation. This good news makes a lasting imprint on us. If we believe it, if we receive it, it should change us.

It should imprint on us. And we also believe that we want we call ourselves imprint because we, ourselves, as the people of God, the church, want to make a lasting imprint on those around us through the gospel. So this is exactly what we see happening in the church at Thessalonica, in the Greek city of Thessalonica to which the Apostle Paul is writing. It's this. A church that truly receives the gospel will be formed by the gospel.

Now, the reason I'm choosing the word receives rather than just believes, although that's part of it and is essential. Receives means, takes it in, like, absorbs it, like it really goes into them. A church that truly receives the gospel, and I pray that we become that type of church, will be formed, shaped by the gospel. It shows us the kind of imprint that the gospel will make on a church that truly is gripped by, that truly receives the gospel. It shows us the kind of changes that we will see, the kind of spiritual realities that we will see as a church community as a result of us embracing receiving the gospel with our hearts and with our minds.

And so what we're going to do as we walk through this passage is we're going to look at four ways in which the gospel forms a church that truly receives it. And so my hope, my prayer is that we will see this and we'll see the working out of the gospel in the lives of these Thessalonians. And we'll say, God, make us like that, do the same thing with us that you do in other churches like the Thessalonians, that embrace and receive this gospel, that changes them. So the first way in which the gospel forms a church is that they live differently. So I'll call this Gospel Living.

Gospel living. Now, I will always say, and I will never grow tired of saying, that what we believe is critical to our faith. Like, you can't have Christian faith apart from a confessional like confessing that the truths that are contained here, what we believe is essential, the truth is critical. But we don't want to neglect the fact that the Bible also emphasizes how we live, not just what we believe. You understand, how we live, not just what we believe.

How we behave has to be in sync with what we believe, right? So what do we call it when our belief is out of sync with our behavior? Hypocrisy. That's what we call it. So we want to be a church where there's no disconnect between what we say we believe and then how we live our lives.

How we behave needs to be in sync with what we believe. So receiving the gospel then isn't merely an intellectual activity. When I read the Book of James, he says, you believe there's one God. Good job he said, the demons believe that too, and they shudder. The demons actually have.

The devil actually has orthodox theology. The devil knows who Jesus is. Satan knows that he died for sins and that he rose from the dead and that he's coming again. He quotes the Bible now he twists the Bible. He can quote the Bible.

He knows the Bible better than you and I do. But he's not a Christian because he doesn't bring his life under the lordship of Jesus. He's in rebellion to him. So it's not just receiving the Gospel isn't just an intellectual activity, it's internalizing it. Yes, believing it, but internalizing it in our souls and our hearts to the point that through it God changes, transforms our lives.

Look at what Paul writes in verses five and six. And by the way, when I put a little A or C or a B, whatever it is, it refers to the kind of the section because I'm only taking the last part of verse five. So that's like abc. It's like the third section and I'm only taking the first part of six. So there's my little nerdy Bible reference for you there.

But this is what he says, you know, how we lived among you for your benefit and you yourselves, listen, became imitators of us and of the Lord. So Paul is writing to the church and he says, you know, how we lived, how we conducted ourselves among you. He's referring to himself and to Silas and likely his son in the faith, Timothy, who was likely on that same mission trip with him to Thessalonica. Although he's not mentioned in the Book of Acts, he's mentioned right after it. So he was probably with them.

And so what he's talking about is like, you know, we lived among you with obvious integrity. When you read through 1st Thessalonians and you read into 2nd Thessalonians as well, you realize that Paul is consistently pointing to the fact of how they live their lifestyle so they would be a model and an example to them. You find out that he and his companions, he says, we weren't self seeking, we're not trying to squeeze money out of you. We're not hucksters. In fact, we worked with our own hands and worked hard so that we wouldn't be a burden to anyone.

We didn't eat anyone else's bread. He says, we didn't ask anyone for food. We just worked as hard as we could. So that we could earn our own keep and we wouldn't be a burden to you. And so we're doing this so that you also will work hard and you'll follow our example.

So they live these godly lives of integrity, hard working before them so that the Thessalonians will follow their example. And that's what we find out. They did follow Paul and Silas and Timothy's example. They followed their lifestyle. And the Thessalonians here, Paul says in verse 6, became imitators of them and of Jesus.

That is to say, they were looking at their lives, Paul, Silas and Timothy, and they're patterning their lives after them. They've just come to Christ. All this stuff is changing for them. The whole new lifestyle has to come into being and they're learning something through imitation. So Paul is highlighting that the Thessalonians lives are being transformed now that they're in Christ.

So you see, when the church is taken hold of by the Gospel, it shapes people's lifestyle, it shapes their lifestyle, how they actually live. And Lord willing, there are always going to be mature believers in a church fellowship who serve as an example, as a model for those who are younger in the faith to follow after them. Now, if you've been a Christian for a while, I would ask you, who was it in your life that modeled to you what it looks like to follow Christ, whose life was worthy of imitation? Somebody who was maybe a mentor to you, somebody that you looked up to and you said, I want to be like them. Do you have that person in mind?

Then thank God, because they didn't just necessarily sit down with you and teach you doctrine and teach you Bible. Maybe they did that, but hopefully they also were modeling what it looks like to live a faithful life and in Jesus. My first mentor in the faith was also my first boss. I was working in college ministry, just freshly graduated from college, and he was the director of our campus ministry. And I remember he was always impressing on me in our conversations because we met regularly, weekly in fact.

And he was always impressing on me the importance of spending time with unbelieving people, non Christians, people who haven't met Jesus yet. And I think that is so valuable. Not only did he talk to me about it and continually ask me, who are you meeting with? Like, who do you have in ministry? Like, who are you spending time with?

He modeled it. He. He had this gift and this knack for spending time with the guys who were on the college basketball team because he himself enjoyed playing basketball. And he would hang out at the gym, in their practices. And he was always meeting the players.

He was taking them out to lunch. He in fact, led a Bible study for the guys on the basketball team. Many of them were non Christians who were showing up at this Bible study. So I'm so thankful that God gave in him an example for me that left a lasting impression. He made an imprint on my life.

It affected the way that I lived. And I think probably some of what I carry today in my conviction to try to get out of my Christian bubble as a pastor comes from him and his modeling a life worthy of imitation, to spend time with those who don't know Jesus yet. And I praise God, praise God for the people in our lives who have lived lives worthy of imitation. This idea that they imitated gets at this discipleship principle that many of us, we know intuitively. We've heard this, and I think it's good to bring it up and re emphasize it.

So much of what we learn is caught, not taught. You've heard this, right? And it's so true that we don't just need in the faith teachers who speak with words, which obviously we value, because I'm here every Sunday and I'm trying to do this right. But we need people who will live godly, Christlike lives who serve as examples to us so that we catch how they live. There's a beauty in that.

There's a beauty in catching how people live for Jesus. And so then I think a place of intersection for our own lives is to ask this question, is my life worthy of imitation? You ever ask this question, is my life worthy of imitation? Like parents, Like, I think as a parent, can we say parents to our kids? What Paul said to the Corinthian Church in First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 1, he said, imitate me as I also imitate Christ.

Imitate me. Can we say that? This is something we want to be able to say. Whether you're a student ministry leader and hopefully the students that you're leading can say, you could say to them, imitate me in my lifestyle, or you're working in kids ministry. Can you say to the kids, like, imitate me as I imitate Christ?

We give each other a pattern of life to follow. If we truly receive the gospel, if it gets deep into us, then we will want to live a life, a new kind of life, rather than me being up here externally or somebody else saying, hey, Christian, you should be different. I think if the gospel gets into us, we don't need people to tell us that we might need encouragement. But internally we're gonna say, I want to live differently. Because Paul says, before we were in Christ, we lived in malice and envy and we hated each other.

He says, and then God saved us and he changed us. The way that Paul the Apostle talks about new life in Christ, he says this in 2nd Corinthians 5:17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, and circumstances, the new has come. So becoming a follower of Jesus is not simply about getting new information that you're like, oh, I believe that that's part of it.

That's a first step. But something fundamentally has happened to us where we become new creatures, new creations. And so if we are new creations, why would we live like we once formally did in the old way? No, we want to live in a new way, like Christ. So the first way the Gospel forms a church is in living.

Gospel, living. And the second way that the Gospel forms a church is in joy. And we'll call this Gospel joy. Now, this observation comes from the last part of verse six, but let me read the whole verse for context. And you yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord when, in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the Holy Spirit.

In spite of severe persecution, you welcome the message with joy from the Holy Spirit. The Christian's joy is fundamentally different from the non Christian person's joy. Now, the Bible does speak in Acts, chapter 14 of Unbelieving People experiencing joy that comes from God. But that's still different than the Christian's joy, because specifically, the Christian's joy is. Comes from the work of the Holy Spirit producing something inside them.

It's a gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. And one of the chief marks of joy, Christian joy, is that it's not dependent on circumstances. Our joy can exist and flourish even independent of good, favorable, pleasing, comfortable circumstances. Did you see that word, that phrase? In spite of their persecution, they had joy.

In spite of their persecution, who can say we're getting severely persecuted. People are throwing rocks at us, people are cursing us, people are beating us, people are threatening to kill us. And I have joy.

So in a real way, seems to me that joy, Christian joy in a real sense, is supernatural. It's supernatural. And I say that because that's just not natural to have joy when life is painful, when you are suffering. It is not normal or natural to feel joy in a painful place.

But the Holy Spirit works in his people to help them see, to help us Feel and see the reality of what we actually have. Christ. In Christ, if you're in Jesus, you have something and I have something more valuable and more lasting than anything or anyone in the world can offer us. Like, think about what you have in Jesus, that you now have forgiveness of all your sins, of all the things that you look back on. You're like, oh, I can't believe I did that.

I can't believe I said that I'm forgiven for that. Have forgiveness. I know that when I sin next week that the Lord will forgive me. The Lord has cleared my debt. You have forgiveness of all your sins.

You are reconciled to God now. You no longer stand under his condemnation for your sin, that you are actually declared to be in right relationship with Him, a loved son or daughter of God. Reconciled to Him. You now have eternal life. He has promised that to you.

Your name is written in heaven. Do you remember when the disciples come back from their mission trip? Jesus sends out the 72 disciples in Luke chapter 10, and they come back and they're reporting to Jesus, Lord, even the demons are subject to us. They're casting out demons. They're healing people.

And Jesus says, don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but rejoice what? That your names are written in heaven, to be moved by the fact that you're saved. I take it for granted. I wake up and I'm like, I'm saved. But like, Jesus is like, don't lose your.

Don't lose your wonder. Don't lose your joy over the fact. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven. That means you belong to him. That means being with God is your future.

It is your future, no matter what happens here, that is your future. What else do you have in Jesus? He promises he's always with you, so that you are never alone. His spirit is always in you. His spirit is always working with you.

And in you. You will always have Jesus with you. You have a hope. You have a hope because you know that you have a beautiful and glorious future, no matter what happens here. So, friends, when you take this foundation and all these gifts, the riches that are in Christ, and the Holy Spirit helps you see that and feel that he produces joy, because none of that can be taken away.

None of it can be taken away. So even in spite of persecution, even in spite of suffering, even in spite of pain, there is a promise of future joy. And this is what Jesus gets at in the Sermon on the Mount. Remember when he says this in Matthew 5:11, you are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. So stop right there.

That's insane, guys. Unless there's a because coming. And there is a because coming. You're blessed when you're insulted, you're blessed when you're persecuted. You're blessed when people say all kinds of false things about you because of Jesus.

Be glad and rejoice. Wait, what? Jesus, this is insane. Be glad and rejoice. And then here's the reason.

Because your reward is great in heaven. You see how important a future minded orientation is that the promise of blessing and reward and joy in the future is what fuels us today. And the Holy Spirit uses that to produce joy in us, even in spite of persecution, suffering and pain. This gladness and rejoicing that Jesus is talking about is gospel joy because of all the promises that we have in Jesus. And we will experience this joy in spite of any opposition to our faith, in spite of any suffering when we're gripped by the truth of the gospel and all that we have in Christ.

As a pastor, every week on our prayer channel and slack and some of you are on our prayer team, you just know that the suffering is non stop in people's lives. Prayer requests every week. And there are some people whose sufferings it's so prolonged and so sustained that that we wonder how in the world are they joyful. There's one family in particular I can think of who their suffering is just beyond what any of us can even imagine enduring. And they're faithfulness.

I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture, but there is an evident joy inside them in spite of their suffering. That can be. There's no explanation unless the Holy Spirit is doing something in them. And it's supernatural and it's amazing.

So first, a church that's gripped by the gospel is going to be formed in its living, it's going to be formed in its joy. And the third way that we see the gospel form in the church is through its impact. We'll call this gospel impact. So when I say impact, I'm thinking of this in twofold terms. Like the gospel does something to people.

Like the gospel does something impacts us in a way and it also impacts through people to and through. So look at verses 7 and 8. As a result, he says now contextually, that is as a result of welcoming the gospel with joy from the Holy Spirit. He says, you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia, in Achaia, for the word of the Lord rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place that your faith in God has gone out. So do you see this repetition, this pattern?

Paul, Silas, Timothy, they're living an exemplary life. And then the Thessalonians begin to model their lives after them. And then other people and believers are seeing them and how they're proclaiming Jesus in the midst of persecution. And they're following their example. They're becoming an example.

So Paul's an example. The Thessalonians follow that example, and the other believers are following their example. You see, this is a beautiful pattern of passing on. Paul is explicit that they become an example. They became an example for others to follow through through their bold witness to the gospel.

He says, for or because the word of the Lord rang out from you. That word rang is like a gong or a thunder. It's like a noise that goes out. So it was obvious they were preaching Jesus. They were proclaiming their newfound faith in Jesus.

They're proclaiming the gospel. So their impact, their gospel impact is twofold. First, in one sense, their bold witness is an example. So they're impacting other believers. Their bold witness is an example.

And secondly, non Christians who are hearing the gospel from them are being impacted. Did you see this? So the impact is on the unbelievers. But there's also an impact to other believers who are watching their example. And when we truly receive the gospel, it's going to lead us to impact other people around us.

I remember some time ago, one of our imprint brothers was sharing in our small group. He had said, hey guys, I'd love to have your prayer for a conversation I'm going to have with a co worker. This co worker of his was secular and more progressive than as progressive and secular as you can imagine, and just a completely different worldview. Asked to sit down and talk with him because she was curious about what he believed, because he was curiously different. I mean, how awesome.

A non Christian person who has no faith in the God of the Bible notices a Christian that she works with and says, you're different. I would love to know what you believe. And so we prayed for him as a group and then he came back and he was able to sit down with her for a long time and share the gospel with her, explain what he believed. And I think, like, that kind of thing inspires me. Like that was an example to me of just living faithfully in the workplace to the point where you can be a witness.

And so that impacted me. That's what's one fold of the impact. Right. And the second fold of the impact is on her life and what the Gospel may do in her life. You see a similar kind of impact of proclaiming the gospel.

But then. And so you're impacting the unbelievers who are hearing the gospel. But there's also an impact on the Christians and how it encourages them. This is when Paul's in prison. He's writing to his letter to the Philippians and he says this in chapter one.

It has become known throughout the whole imperial guard. So that's the Roman guard that's. That's guarding him, and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the Word fearlessly.

Do you think that Paul's imprisonment could have led the believers to be fearful to share the Gospel? Absolutely. Why might the believers, the Christians, be afraid to share the Gospel because they don't want to end up in prison like Paul. Right. But just the opposite happens.

Everyone. I mean, if you're like the guard stationed to guard Paul, do you think you're going to hear about Jesus? You bet you are. He's there in chains because of Jesus and he's like, well, I'm already here, so I'm gonna, I'm telling you about Jesus. And instead of believers being more fearful that they're gonna get arrested and imprisoned, it fills them with confidence.

God uses Paul's bold proclamation to fill the believers with confidence, to even speak it more fearlessly. That's amazing. And I think about the church in Thessalonica. They are suffering severe persecution and yet they're proclaiming the Gospel boldly. And so they became a model for other Christians to follow them.

Their boldness. And if we friends, are gripped by the Gospel, that's going to lead us to gospel impact, that's going to lead us to impact non Christian people by sharing Christ with them. And as we do, we're going to encourage one another and other believers as we see the boldness and the effect of sharing Christ with others. So how are we formed by the gospel in our living, in our joy and our impact? And all of that's possible because fundamentally the Gospel brings what I'm just calling a total reorientation of our lives.

So I'm just call this gospel reorientation. I know it's kind of a mouthful, but this is what I mean by reorientation. The Gospel reshapes us, it reshapes our thinking. It reshapes our lives, it changes the direction of our lives, and it changes the allegiances of our hearts. Listen to what Paul says happened when the Thessalonians received the gospel.

Verses 9 and 10. For they themselves report what kind of reception we had from you. How you turned to God from idols. Now notice the verbs here. Let me slow down.

You turned to God from idols to serve the living God, living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath. So you turned to serve, to wait. So before receiving the good news of Jesus, their lives were headed in the wrong direction. Where were they headed toward? They were headed toward idols.

They were serving other gods who they thought would get them what they want. If we serve these gods, they're going to give us things like fertility and crops and prosperity, and we're going to go after these things. So their life is headed in a direction away from the true and the living God. But when they hear the gospel, when they encounter the Spirit of God convicting them in their hearts about the truth of the gospel, what do they do? Their life direction changes.

They're going one way to the idols, and they turn and they turn to God in Christ and they go. Their life goes in a different direction. It's a fundamental change of life direction, which is what the Bible calls repentance. This is what happened in my life, where my life was just going. I know what I was doing.

I'm 21 years old and I'm just doing my thing. And God, I encounter God through his gospel and the conviction of His Spirit in my life completely takes a completely different turn. So that I end up a Christian, I end up in campus ministry. So that U turn is fruit of repentance. Like repentance is when your mind changes about who God is and who's really in charge.

And you turn around and that's repentance. And then faith is then moving toward God through faith in Christ. This is what happened to the Thessalonians. So that fundamental change happens to us, friends, when we turn away from idols and the false worship that we were involved in. And Romans 1 says we're all worshipers.

The question is, what are we worshiping? But now, as believers in Jesus, there is still a warning to not turn back and go to those things. And let me show you some contemporary idols so that you don't think that we're not in danger of idolatry. First, John 2 gives this warning against the idols of pleasure, greed, and pride. This is what it says.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride in one's possessions is not from the Father but is from the world.

Some people orient their entire lives around these things. If you think about what people are pursuing, what they're living for, their hearts are devoted to the lust of the flesh. That's pleasure. Whether it's sexual pleasure or physical, bodily appetites, food, gluttony, people's lives are oriented toward pursuing those things, devoted to those things. Or the lust of the eyes speaks of the desire, covetousness, more greed, money, power, possessions.

And then what the CSB has here as the pride in one's possessions literally can mean your actual possessions or your achievements. It's stuff that you have that's the pride of life, the stuff that you have, boasting in what you have, self reliance, arrogantly just going to status, power, these things. And when you look at the world around us, don't you see people orienting their lives around that? Don't you feel the pull of those things? If that's not a pull, I don't know why he's warning Christians, friends, this is us.

He's like, don't go after it.

And if you keep reading, he says these things are destined to pass away. Meaning why would you pursue these things when they're just going to vaporize, they're not going to produce anything. So he says, Thessalonians, you were pursuing these things and they were worthless and you turned away from those things to pursue and have faith in the true and the living God.

The way that Jesus describes people who orient their lives around the pursuit of idols is lost.

Lost. The Son of Man came to seek and save that which is lost. Now imagine you're lost in the woods and you have no clue where to go. You need a compass. You need a compass that tells you what true north is, right?

So that you have, you can get your bearings. And what the gospel does is it gives you bearings for reality. You realize, I've been going all over the place, I need to go to true north. I don't want to be lost anymore. And what the gospel does is it orients us, points us to true north, to Jesus Christ, who's the only way out of the lostness.

That's what the gospel does for it leads us away from idols. It turns our life in a fundamentally new direction. And not only is this reorientation a change of life direction, it's a change of allegiance, a total heart reorientation. So by allegiance, I mean this is that before the gospel, before we knew Jesus, our hearts were devoted to pleasure, greed, pride, to the things that 1 John 2 was talking about. Those are the things that our hearts were like, yes, that's what I want.

That's what I'm going after. But through the gospel, we realized that our hearts were devoted to the wrong things.

And so we devoted ourselves instead, rightly so, to King Jesus, who is the risen King of all creation, whose word stands, whose hope stands, who gives us a future that will stand and not vaporize like the idols of our day. So this gospel orientation brings a change of life direction. It brings a change of allegiance in our hearts. And thirdly, it brings a change of where our hope lies. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1:10.

Again, he says, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead. Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. This is one of five times in this short letter that he explicitly points out the second talks about the second coming, the return of Jesus. Now, when you read wait, that can sound passive, right? Where you're not really doing anything.

Like when you are waiting to board a plane, you're doing nothing. When you're waiting for your Uber, you're doing nothing. So it sounds very passive. But we shouldn't think that this waiting for God's Son from heaven is passive. It's anything but passive.

They're not twiddling their thumbs, just passing the time, biding their time in this world until Jesus comes again. Because it's just kind of worthless what we do here. And really, we're just waiting for Jesus to come. That's not what they're doing. How do I know that?

Because last week, you remember he says in verse three that he mentions their work produced by faith and their labor motivated by love. We talked about that if you were here last week, right? Active faith, sacrificial love. They are actively living out their faith in Jesus in service to God and to one another. So what wait, the word wait does here is.

It describes their mindset that they are still laboring in faith and laboring in love as they await the coming of Jesus. Their minds are set on that reality. They're eagerly anticipating it. So let me give you an illustration of what I would consider active waiting. So one of the best days of my life to this day, was in the summer of 2003.

When I drove from Marion street in Salem, Oregon, 633 miles over 10 hours straight in a non air conditioned car in the summer to 20 Woodland Avenue in Kalispell, Montana, to Mary Lindsay Ogle in my 1985 Honda Accord with For you young people, do you know what this refers to in the car? Anyone know somebody who's older? Tell me what this refers to. Rolling down windows because I got no AC and I am in a maroon Kentucky Fried Chicken shirt that was like my favorite and it was my driving shirt because this was sleeveless. I cut the sleeves out because I had no ac.

And when I got to Kalispell, I was grimy because the windows are down the whole time. It's like 90 degrees in Salem. I drove through the Tri Cities. It was like driving through hell at like 110 degrees. And so I'm the groom and my fiance, wife to be, is waiting for her groom to show up.

But she was anything but idle because anyone who's been a part of a wedding knows you're not idle before a wedding, are you? There's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of important stuff to get done before that day. That's active waiting. And so the Bible says that Jesus, it likens Jesus to a groom and it likens the church to what the bride.

The bride of Christ. It says when Jesus comes. Think Revelation 19 with me, that there is a marriage supper of the Lamb, where Jesus, his groom will be united to his bride, us, the church. So we're not twiddling our thumbs as if we're in active. No, we are giving ourselves actively to live out our faith.

Sacrificial love, active faith, enduring hope. The things that we talked about last week, waiting for God's Son from heaven. And the gospel is actively forming us. It's forming our living, it's forming our joy, it is forming our impact. Because the gospel has also totally reoriented us in our lives around Jesus Christ.

This Jesus who died for our sins, who rose bodily from the dead, who ascended to heaven and as Paul says, is coming again, is coming again. So in closing, my thought is an exhortation to invite us to pray as a church that the Lord would make us a compellingly joyful and countercultural people formed by the gospel so that we would make an impact for Christ on those around us. Would you pray toward that? Because when the world looks at you and sees that you are suffering and you have this inexplicable joy in you and this inexplicable peace in you, this inexplicable hope in you. They'll realize it's not inexplicable when they sit down and they ask you and you explain it.

That's beautifully, compellingly countercultural. It's a different vision of life. May God form us in these ways. Let's pray to that end right now, God. So I do pray for that.

I thank you for these words of scripture. I do pray that you would make us form us, God, into a joyful and countercultural people formed by the gospel, so that we would make an impact for Jesus Christ, those around us. God, I believe that what you have called us to do in this life, it's meaningful. It's like we are in preparation for the wedding day where we wait eagerly expectantly for your return, Jesus. And until that time, let us be found, faithful and actively working, laboring in love for one another and for the sake of those around us.

So would you help us to absorb these things? Would you help us to lay our hearts out before you and say, God, do with us in our hearts, in our lives and change us how you want to change us. And may we then walk in step with you through the Spirit, so that when we see this living, when we see this joy, and when we see this impact, we don't take credit for it, but we know that it's because you're working in us and shaping us by your good news. Jesus, pray this now in your name for your glory and our joy. Amen.