I want to take from my text this morning, 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 9 and 10. 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 9 and 10. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and 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, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that he has delivered his people from the wrath to come. And we thank you for the change that he makes in the life of his people. Oh God, we ask this morning that the ministry of the word would have the same impact here that it had in Thessalonica, that it would be spoken, the true word, and that it would be received, that you would cause there to be this joyful reception of the word that changes us and makes us examples to all that believe in our area and our region. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Well, in the book of Thessalonians, Paul makes a pretty remarkable statement. In many of his letters, he's correcting various problems and issues in the churches. And so in Colossians, he's correcting issues related to the philosophy of the day. In other books, he's correcting other problems in the church at Corinth. He writes a letter to correct immorality in the church. Thessalonians, we find not a correction but a commendation. So he says to them in verse 7, you were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. So Paul in effect says to the Thessalonian church, you are In some ways, a model church. This is what the church should be. The church should receive the word. The church should send out the word. The church should be in possession of these gifts of grace, of faith and love and hope, and that should be flowing through the congregation. He says in verse 8, the word has sounded out from you and has gone to every place. And so that you're known all over the region. So he's setting them up here as an example church. And one thing that he comes to in our verses, verses 9 and 10, is to speak of the change that took place in them. The difference that there is now that the gospel has come to them. And so the gospel has come to them And it's made this great change in their persons. They're different. They're not the same that they were before. Something tremendous has happened to them. Something tremendous has happened in them. The gospel has come to them and the gospel has not left them the same. A healthy church. An example church is a church in which the gospel has impact and effect. We don't only hear the word and fill our minds with the truth, but our lives are changed. And their lives have been changed. The gospel has come to them. A drastic and a radical change has happened in them. They're not the same. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are new. And so it is with every healthy The membership of the church is to be made up of people whose lives have been changed by the gospel. It is to be made up of Christians. The church is to be made up of those who have, as our text says, turned to God and now serve God and wait for his son from heaven. the church is to be made up of Christians. But what is a Christian? What sort of a change is to have taken place in you? What is a Christian? Is a Christian someone that attends church, reads the Bible, avoids outward sins, partakes in the Lord's Supper? Is that all that there is to being a Christian? Is that all that a Christian is? Is that all the change that takes place in the life of a Christian? So that when we say Christian, all that we mean is that, well, I used to play on Sundays, but now I attend church on Sunday mornings. He used to play on his phone. play games and watch football, but now he reads his Bible. Is that all that changes in the Christian's life? Is that the only thing that constitutes change for the Christian? Is that what a Christian is? Well, this passage tells us that there's Much more included in the name of a Christian. Much more than that sort of change takes place in the life of a Christian. And that's what I want to talk to you about this morning. What sort of a change? The church is to be made up of a new, changed people with new affections. And that's our first point. A new people, a changed people. And we see that in the first place in this word turned. He uses that word. You see how you turned to God from idols to serve the living in God. The whole idea of a changed people is clearly seen in this one word. You are turned. You are moving in a certain direction, but God, through the proclamation of the gospel, has turned you. You have turned. to God to serve the living and true God. They had once been following the course of the world and the culture all around them. They were a people given over to idolatry. and all the superstition associated with that idolatry. Thessalonica sat in the very shadows of Mount Olympus, where supposedly all the gods lived and dwelled. There they were at the foot of Mount Olympus, and there they were in a culture of idolatry, and they pursued all of that superstition with all of their might. So committed to it were they that when the Apostle Paul comes to Thessalonica, and begins to tell them of the gospel, they nearly killed him. They took Jason, they put him away in prison, they said to the rulers of the city, drive them out, they've turned the whole world upside down, the entire city is in an uproar. These people were not lightly and loosely connected to their idolatry. They were a people ingrained in idolatry. They were committed to it and they loved their idols with all their heart. They loved them and served them and pursued all that superstition and yet Paul can say, having proclaimed the gospel in Thessalonica, you have turned. You're changed. The idolatry that you pursued, you have forsaken, and you are now pursuing God. They had a God for nearly everything that a man or woman may want in life. In short, all of their life was spent in service to their idols. And really that was just so many ways of serving themselves and to get all that they wanted and all that they valued so that if they wanted more children, well they had a God for fertility. If they wanted to prosper in their careers, they had a God for business. If they wanted to have national victories and overcome their enemies, they had a God of war that they would serve. And so in the end, all their idols were just a reflection of self-worship. Give me, give me, give me all. that I want. I want this, I want this success, or I want that blessing in life. And so they serve themselves in serving idols. And so it always has been. I'd love to tell you today that this idolatry was limited to the people around Mount Olympus and far away Greece and that culture, and that now we're so civilized and cultured that we don't have idols. And I'm sure that none of you have idols sitting on a shelf in your home, but I'm just as sure that we all have the seeds of idolatry in our heart. that we all love ourselves and seek to serve ourselves and seek to use whatever we can to get what we desire. We may not have craftsmen creating statues for us to bow down to, but we are surrounded by idolatry. Listen to what one writer says. He says, Americans will probably never encounter a shrine to Athena, or Aphrodite, Ares, or Artemis, or some more prominent Greek gods. Nonetheless, our culture is deeply involved in the worship of everything that these idols represented. He goes on to say, each culture is dominated by its own set of idols. Each one has its shrines, whether office towers, spas and gyms, studios or stadiums. where sacrifices must be made in order to procure the blessings of the good life and to ward off disasters. What are the gods of beauty, power, money, and achievement, but these same things that have assumed mythical proportion in our individual lives and in our society? We may not physically kneel before the statue of Aphrodite, but many young women today are driven into depression and eating disorders by an obsessive concern over body image. We may not actually burn incense to Artemis, but when money and career are raised to cosmic proportions, we perform a sort of child sacrifice, neglecting family and community to achieve a higher place in business and gain more wealth and prestige. Brothers and sisters, we are idolaters and we live in the midst of idolatry all around us. This is the exact direction that the Thessalonian Christians had been moving in. They were worshiping themselves through their idols. And it may be that some of you here today are moving still in the same direction of career and finance and wealth and beauty or whatever else it may be that calls for you to make great sacrifices in life. You may not bow down before a statue, but you may be pursuing all the course and pattern of the evil one in this life and in this world. Calvin says it this way, for although all do not worship idols, all are nevertheless addicted to idolatry and are immersed in blindness and madness. That's what the pursuit of the world is. It's madness, and it calls for great sacrifice. Isn't that why Paul warns us against covetousness, calling it directly idolatry? But what our text teaches us is that though that may be true, though all the seeds of idolatry may be in your heart, though all the pursuit of idolatry may be actually lived out in your life at this moment, though you may be the most hardcore idolater there has ever been pursuing your careers or your family, whatever, you may make an idol of. Yet there's hope. because these people were the same as you are or you once were. And yet through the very power of the gospel, they were turned and they were changed. You see, we're not doomed always to be idolaters, always to be bowing down before this world and the course of the world. The gospel has power to change. And it had changed these people. And Paul saying there is a radical difference in you. You were once moving in one direction, but God through the gospel has turned you. When you look around at our world, there may be a temptation to be depressed and discouraged. to flip on the news and to see all the filth of this life, all the insanity of our culture, all the things that people pursue. It seems as if there's defeat after defeat after defeat, and all that we hold dear as Christians is on the retreat, and evil seems to be gaining the day. There may be this temptation to be depressed or nearly in despair about the state of things. Maybe you look at your own children, adult children or young children who will not heed the gospel, who go their own way, who have turned their back on all that they've been taught. And there's this sense of anxiety and despair. What will become of them? To be cast down. There's a great temptation to be cast down. And yet this passage teaches us that we have every cause to hope because the gospel still has power. If it can turn these idolaters, it can turn your wayward relatives, it can turn a culture. He has done so before. He has done so in the past. He's done so in church history. He's doing so today. The gospel has power. Such idolatrous people are not unchangeable people. God can conquer the heart. God can turn wayward hearts. Do you yourself struggle with various sins? Are there sins that easily beset you? So that even when you look in your own heart, you say, God, how long? How long will I wrestle and struggle with this particular sin? How long will I be defeated and beaten by it? How many times will I have to confess this sin? How many times will I feel that I'll never have the victory over it? And our passage says, victory is yours in Jesus Christ. God himself, through the power of the gospel, can give you the victory even over those besetting sins. God can change you. God can turn you. God can make you new. God can recreate you after his own image. You are not a hopeless case. Whoever you are, you are not a hopeless case. You're not doomed to always go on in the same struggle, in the same sins, with the same issues in life. The gospel can impart the grace of Jesus Christ to you and form you anew and make you a new creation. And this brings us to consider just what sort of a change it is that Paul speaks of. I would define it as a radical, a drastic, and a tremendous change. To become a Christian, you see, and to be a Christian is not a small step or another step in natural maturity so that when you were younger you were foolish with your money, but now you've matured and you're a little more wise with your money. It's not that you were younger and you were a little more foolish and so you stayed up half the night, but now you're mature enough to go to bed early and be a little more consistent in reading your Bible. Those things can be done by the natural man. The natural man or woman reaches these natural progressions in maturity so that there's a change in them from childhood to adulthood. That's not what makes a Christian. is far more drastic and radical of a change than that. And I don't mean to imply by the term drastic or radical that it's always accompanied by these outward manifestations of despair over sin. It may be drastic and radical, it is that, but it may not always be dramatic. It might be the very quiet turnings of the heart of someone who's been raised in a godly home, who has lived a moral life, who has hit those milestones of natural maturity, but yet quietly, nevertheless drastically, their affections and their heart have turned away from themselves and away from the world and to the living and true God. And so I'm not saying that it's dramatic. It may often be quiet and imperceptible, but it is nevertheless always a total change, a complete turning, a forsaking of one way of life to live in a new way of life. It is a radical change in the whole person. And we see that again in this word turn. Sometimes we describe repentance, and it can be translated this way, it's an accurate way to translate the word that Paul uses for repentance, to say a change of mind. Sometimes you'll hear preachers say it's a 180 degree change of mind in the way that you think about sin. And to be sure, that is one part of our turning to God. We must have our minds changed. We must turn. 180 degrees in that way, that is one part of it. The change of mind is part of our conversion, our turning to God. But it is only one part of our turning. You see, Paul doesn't use that verb here. He doesn't use the verb that is translated repentance here. He uses a verb that is far more comprehensive. It's a whole person change. It's not a change in your theology. It's not a change in the way that you think only. It's a changing of your whole being, all of your affections, all that you are, your whole being. And so he uses it, this same verb is used in Luke chapter eight and verse 55, where Jesus raises a young girl to life again. And this is how it's translated. Then her spirit returned and she immediately arose. You see here, there's no mere changing of her mind. All that made her, her. returned again into her physical body. When Paul says you turn to God, he doesn't mean merely that you have a new interest in theology or even a change in your theology or even a change in the way that you think. The girl's entire spirit, her whole soul came back into her body. When he says you have turned to God, he says all that you are. The whole being, all of your affections and emotions, your mind, your heart, your whole person in every way has shifted directions and has turned to God. It's more than a theological shift. It's everything that you are. So the word almost always has a connection to the whole person being changed. So he uses it sometimes, even in connection with repentance, to show us that there's more than repentance here at stake. So he will say, repent, change your mind, and turn your whole being. Repent and turn and believe. That is, change your mind, change your whole person in the direction of God. This is what he's done. Why do I belabor this point? Because I think too often I run into people who think Christianity is, to be a Christian, is just the addition. of a new way of thinking about life and sin and politics and the culture and so they love to discuss and debate all these sort of conservative ideas and there's a new thinking that's been added to their life and Paul uses it in a completely different way. It's not the addition of something new, it's the dying of the old and the birth of something altogether different Christianity is not a new way of worship. It's not a new liturgy. It's not the observance of a new calendar. It's not a new habit on Sunday. It's not a new philosophy. It's the turning of all that you are to all that he is. You have turned. to God. It's not just a new interest in theology so that we once cared very little for the truth and now we want to study it and debate it and discuss it. Christianity is far more radical than that. It's a radical reorientation of the entire person. It's something that involves the whole soul of a person. It's inward and spiritual. It's not merely the changing of the mind or the outward forms of your life. As one writer said of true religion or true Christianity, he says that there is an inwardness and a spirituality to it. It is far removed from a mechanical routine of duty. It's no cold and careful task work. They are greatly mistaken who imagine that it is something sacerdotal and sacramentarian, that is, going through the motions of the Christian life. It is, he says, the outgoing of the soul which God has touched and which God inhabits. It's not ritual. It's not behavior. It's the outgoing of the soul to God. It's a turning of all that you are to God. Now, God can touch and inhabit the soul of a person. Can God inhabit and touch the soul of a person? And all that changes is the way that you think, the actions that you take. Can God touch and inhabit your soul and the whole of your being, not be radically, drastically reoriented in all of life? Surely it's more than theology. Have you experienced such a change? Has God touched you in your soul and changed all that you are? Is all that constitutes your Christianity a love for the finer details of theology and to discuss them with others and debate them? and tweak your theology here and there? Is all that your Christianity is a going through the motions, a partaking of the Lord's Supper, a little reading of the Bible in the morning? New habits? The natural man or woman can do those things. What I'm asking you is, Is all that you are different? Has God changed you in your inmost being so that you now love that which you once hated and you hate that which you once loved? Bunyan describes it in The Pilgrim's Progress when he's gonna step away from the old man and he says, the old man lay such a hold of me that I thought he'd actually rip me in two, my very being ripped in the fabric of his being. Yeah, that's a Christian. One who has turned from that which he loves so much that he felt as if his very life would flee out of him. Only to find that he has a new life in God. Are you tinkering around the edges? Or have you been radically changed? Now this whole soul change consists primarily and flows out of at its very base, at the very fountain of it, in new affections. Just what I'm saying. You love what you once hated and you hate what you once loved. You see, the Christian is not one who's just committed to a new life, even totally committed to a new life. To put it in the words of the previous quote, it's not a careful task work or a mechanical duty. The Thessalonian Christians, they had not just forsaken the rituals of idolatry and taken on the rituals of Christianity. They had a new affection for God. They had hated him with such a passion and such a fierceness and ferocity that they had sought to kill Paul, bound up Jason and locked him away in prison, took security, took bond, basically saying Paul's not allowed back in the city unless Jason's gonna go to prison for him. We hate the man. We hate his message. We hate his God. Drive him away from us. And now they found that through the power of the gospel, what they had once hated with such ferocity, they loved and couldn't live without. They had to have him. They had to have God. They once hated and spurned God, but now they have an affectionate, loving attachment to God. Do you have an affectionate, loving attachment to God? Can you live without him for a moment? Do you sense when you've grieved him and he's drawn away from you for a period of time? Can you live without God for one moment? Are you attached to him? They turned to God. Everything else flowed out of this. Yes, there was a change in the way they worshiped. There was a change in their rituals. There was a change in their ethic and morality. That's all true, but all of that came out of a new affection for God, an attachment to God. That's what had changed in them, and that's what had led to all the visible change that all the other churches could see. It was because they loved something that they had not previously loved. It was the very being of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost that they had come to love, with all that they were, with their whole soul. Yes, with imperfections, but in sincerity, with their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, they had loved him. And we see that this change is primarily a change of affections in the word in our text, serve. They turn to God to serve the living and true God. Now, when we read and hear the word serve, I don't think the first thing that pops into most of your minds is loving, affectionate attachment. We think of slavery and drudgery and sweating labor and grinding for the boss. Or at the very least we think of it as some sort of work or action. Surely we may put that even in a positive light so that we like to serve. It's a good thing to do. But rarely do we read the word serve and think of loving relationship. And even here, we have a litmus test for how we view Christianity. Do we view service to God as a drudgery that must be endured so that we can get to heaven? Or do we love him and therefore serve him and we view it as a loving attachment? Or is it merely the performance of duty? but that we are to read this word in our text as loving affectionate attachment is clear from the way the word serve is used in another passage in Matthew chapter six in verse 44. Listen to how it's worded. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate, there's an affection, he will either hate the one, or what's it say after that? He will love the other. For no man can serve, no man can have affections divided in that way. You see, when he says they are serving the living and true God, he says, They hate their old master, and they love the new master. They love God, and therefore they serve this God. You see the connection? To love God is to serve God. To serve God aright must flow out of love to God. The Thessalonians turned to God in deep affection. They hated the old master, and they loved the other. And therefore they served him. They couldn't be indifferent. They couldn't have two masters. They must despise the old. They must love the new. Oh, they were a new people with new affections. Everything had changed in their life. Everything was made new. They were not even nearly the same as they once were. It wasn't just the addition of new ways of worship. They must have looked up to the heights of Mount Olympus and despised all that it stood for. And oh, how they looked to the Lord with gracious affections for what he had accomplished in them. Let me give you a little bit more of that quote that I gave you earlier. Christianity is the outgoing towards God in love, and in life of the soul which God has touched and which God inhabits. It is the motion of a hidden fire, trembling in the breast, warming the heart, consuming in its ardent flames the dross of our sins, cleansing and energizing and transfiguring us until, miracle of miracles, even we are heaven's fine and burnished gold. is the implantation of an affection for God that drives out all other affections for sin, that transforms us into fine gold, removing the draws, because our new affections have driven out all those old affections for the world and the ways of the world. Is that your Christianity this morning? Is that a description of you? Does that describe your walking with God each day? Is your life marked by such affection and such love for God that it consumes and eats up all those evil affections and evil desires and sins that remain and beset us? Is there a hidden fire of love and affection for God trembling in your breasts, warming your hearts, and consuming sin? That's a Christian. There's a definition. There's the answer to our question at the beginning. What is a Christian? A Christian is one whose love for God consumes all other affections, cannot stand for there to be rival affections, and drives them out, out of deep-seated affection for God. Or is your religion this morning a cold and nearly indifferent participation in outward duties, a lifeless, loveless, and cold thing? As Jonathan Edwards says, that religion which God requires and will accept does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes raising us but a little above the state of indifference. God in his word greatly insists upon it that we be in good earnest, fervent in spirit, and our hearts, that is the whole of who we are, vigorously engaged in religion. Be ye fervent in spirit. serving the Lord. Oh, listen, we must be changed in this way. This is what a Christian is. God does not accept less. God implants in us a new affection that must grow until all that is left of us has been driven out but God. What did God say when the Israelites professed that they would obey him? Oh, he says, oh, that they had such an heart in them. One chapter later, he commands this very affectionate attachment to him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might. The whole person, all that you are, the innermost, deepest part of you must love and attach itself to God. He doesn't accept less. He commands that. and he gives it to us in Jesus Christ. What was it that was lacking in the Ephesian church? Listen to Jesus' rebuke in Revelation chapter two. Notice, it wasn't their work. He said, I know your works. I know all that you're accomplishing. It wasn't their labor. They were laboring. It wasn't their orthodoxy. He said, I know about you that you hate false teachers. I know you hate false teachers. They had rejected the false teachers and the false teaching. All the outer things were in place in the church at Ephesus. What did they lack? Why is it that Jesus threatened to take their candlestick away if they would not turn? He said, you've left your first love. If anyone came into the Ephesian church, they would say, what a church. They have the truth. They love the truth. They proclaim the truth. They're driving out all the false teachers and false teaching. Look at all the labor that they do and all the works that they perform. What a church. And Jesus says, I'm looking for your heart. I'm looking for all that you are. I'm looking for your affections. Have you loved me? Oh, he says, repent and turn, or I'll take your candlestick away. I'll do away with your church. He's not interested in all their outward things. They could be all in place and all right, but their heart must be right, and your heart must be right. How about you? How about us? What about Heritage Church? Is our affection for God or is it all our? God this morning is calling you to change in your affections. Well, this change creates a longing and a craving and an affectionate desire for Christ and to be with Christ. That's our third and final point this morning. We see it in verse 10. They had turned to God to serve God with all their affections and to wait for his son from heaven, even Jesus. Now this is the first of five references to the second coming of the Lord Jesus in Thessalonians. And I'm not sure what's running through your mind when you hear a reference to the second coming. Maybe already your mind is spinning on all the various end time scenarios and positions and amillennialism and postmillennialism and premillennialism and you're thinking maybe wonder what the pastor's theology of the end times is. It may be that when you hear of the return of Christ, you think, oh, yes, this world is so awful and so miserable. I hope he does come soon and set it all straight and make a correction. Or maybe you think along another line. Maybe you think, well, I'm so weak. Physically feeble I'm tired of being sick, and I'm tired of the doctrine Oh, I'm ready for the second coming that I might be made whole I Might go home where I have no more illnesses certainly the world is bad and God will set it straight and Certainly we suffer physical infirmities, and we will be made whole but what I want us to notice in this passage is that for the Thessalonians and and it ought to be for you as well. The longing for the return of Christ was no escape mentality. They weren't waiting for the return of Christ to set the world straight. They weren't waiting for the return of Christ so their bodies would be made whole. They were waiting on a person that they loved and longed to be near. Notice, they turned to God, you see, they turned to a being, and now they wait for his son. They love the Lord Jesus Christ. so dearly that they longed for him to come and receive the glory that was his. It wasn't an escape mentality for them. It wasn't a free ticket to get out of trouble. They wanted and craved and longed to be with Jesus Christ. They were waiting for a person. It wasn't about them. They weren't idolaters anymore. They weren't worshiping themselves anymore so that Jesus Christ will come to make my life better. That's idolatry. They wanted to see Him in all His glory and splendor, and they wanted to be called up into the air to be with Him and near Him, and so shall they ever be with the Lord. They weren't idolaters anymore. They weren't worshipers of self anymore. It wasn't an escape ticket. It wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free ticket. It was, let me see Him in all of His glory who died for me and freed me from the wrath to come. Did you catch that in the text? Are you waiting on a person, not an event, not an escape, not a free ticket out of jail? Are you longing, craving for him? Is your desire for the second coming for your own troubles or that you might see him lifted up and exalted in all of his glory and all of his beauty? There's much debate that could be had about the outline and layout of the second coming and much debate is had about the how and the when and the where of the second coming. But that's not what's debated in our passage right here. What they're doing is saying, let me see. I've seen him with the eye of faith and you've promised he's coming and you've promised he'll receive all this glory. Oh, God, let me see it. Let him come in my day that I might see it. Let him let him be glorified. There's no doubt that when he comes, he'll put down all of his enemies and all of our enemies and the world will be set straight. There's no doubt about it. We'll be glorified. Our bodies will be glorified. We'll never have an ailment again. He'll wipe away all our tears. Thank God we'll not do without those things. But let's not be idolaters and pursue him for those things. Let's not worship ourself for all those things that he can do for us. Let us long for his coming because we love him. more than anything else in this world. And it may be that it's just here at this point that we see more clearly how much idolatry remains in us, you see. Because if our primary focus is on all these other issues, that the second coming will make our lives better. Well, isn't that just another way of making an idol out of Jesus Christ? Not worshiping as we ought to, but merely reflecting a self-love back at ourselves. We love him so that we can get all these things from him. That's idolatry. Let's not treat Jesus as just another idol to make us better, to make our life better. Who's coming for us at the last day is just so much of an event whereby we get health and wealth and joy and see all our enemies put down so that we're sort of the focal point of all that's taking place. Let us love him in the first place for who he is. Let us love him in the first place because he's already given us the greatest thing that he could give us when he saved us from our sins, when he laid down his life for us and spared us from the wrath to come. It's not merely what he can do for us now. Jesus is not a means to an end. He is the end. He is the goal. All that we are should terminate on him and not terminate on us. We love him and therefore we long to be with him and long for him to come again. Is this how you wait for him? Is this how you eagerly wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or have you made an idol out of him? Do you need to repent of making an idol out of Christ by which you get all that you want? Or are you waiting for him because you want to see his glory? How could we not love him with this great affection and longing and this attachment to him when he has delivered us from the wrath to come for nothing that we've done when we didn't deserve it? You see, there is a day of wrath coming. It is only the believer who can look to the second coming of Christ with longing. It is for us that he returns as a friend and a brother, a Lord and a Savior. For everyone else, it'll be a day of trembling. It'll be a day of great wrath and the outpouring of his wrath. It'll be an awful day for all that are outside of Christ. For everyone else, he comes as a judge with his holy angels taking vengeance on those who do not obey his voice. But for us, he comes as a brother and a friend. He comes to be glorified in us. For those who do not have this affection, who have not experienced this turning, this changing, there will surely be a dreadful day. It will be an awful thing. The day of grace will then be over. and only judgment and wrath will be left. The Bible everywhere pictures it as an awesome and awful and dreadful thing. But Christ has so loved His elect that we are delivered from this judgment. So that with great joy we look forward to the second coming, waiting for it. We who have been changed, who have this affection for Christ and have longed for Him, are delivered from the wrath to come. Is this not cause to stir up your affections for him? To love him more and more and more? To long for him? Doesn't this cause to love him more consistently and continuously? Doesn't it cause us to want to serve him as these Thessalonican Christians did? To eagerly, with great expectation, wait for his return. I tell you this morning that only the hardest of hearts could refuse to love a Savior like we have presented for us in our text, who delivers us from this great and dreadful wrath. Only the hardest of hearts would refuse to serve and attach himself to him, to have warm affection to him. Only the hardest of hearts could serve him with this indifference as if it were some drudgery to do his commandments. Christians, we love him because he first loved us. Has your love for Christ grown cold this morning? Let this truth that He has delivered you from the wrath of God rekindle and re-flame that love and affection and attachment for Him. Let it draw you to Him in warmth and affection. Let it be a whole soul turning to Him so that you Sort of walk around looking to the sky, looking to the east. When will our Lord come? When will I see him in his glory? Be warmed again by this love. Oh, think of how he has delivered you. Think of what he has done for you. Think of his affection for you. There on the cross, you personally were on his heart and mind when he endured all the sufferings of this life. You were on his mind. He did it for you because he loved you. And he set his face towards Jerusalem that he might go to the cross, that he might accomplish all the Father's will for you because of a great love for you. And what an awful thing it is not to return that love to him. We ought to repent of our coldness, repent of our idolatry, repent of our lack of affections for him. See how he has loved you. Consider how he has loved you. Plead and cry out to him that he might turn you yet again to him to serve him, that he might give you renewed affections where they're cold and drawing back, that he might again fill you with those affections. As the Apostle John says, Speaking of Jesus, speaking through the Apostle John says, surely I am coming quickly. And everyone who has the affections that they ought to have towards Christ says, even so Lord Jesus come. Let us see you in all your glory. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, You have done a wonderful thing in giving your son that whoever comes to you will receive eternal life. Whoever believes in him shall not perish. I thank you, God, that though the day of wrath is as sure and as certain as the ground under our feet, you have made a way of escape. You have loved us. God, let us now love you. Turn us in our whole being and cause us to serve you not as slaves under drudgery and difficulties, but through the difficulties to serve you with joy and affection. And give us that great hope so that we long to see the Lord Jesus Christ coming in glory. because he is our Lord, he is our Savior, he is our brother and friend, and we long for nothing more than to see him exalted and lifted up and all that you have promised to him come to fruition. Give us that sort of an affection. We pray in Christ's name.