Unshakable Commitment

has been made possible by the generous support of viewers like you. Welcome to All In With Pastor Jordan Easley. Today's message is about to begin and we invite you to prepare your heart and mind to hear an inspiring message from God's word. We hope and pray for God to speak to you today as you seek to live your life. All In For Jesus Christ. And now from First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Tennessee, here's Pastor Jordan Easley. I'm so excited to be in the house of the Lord with you today 'cause we're continuing our series. We're walking through the book of First Thessalonians. If you have a copy of God's word, I'd encourage you to go ahead and just open it up, get your notepad out. Let's just dive in today because this has been an incredible journey already. You know, this book right here is really challenging us as believers to be committed. And that's what we're talking about today. What does commitment really look like? And are we truly committed to Christ? You know what I've realized about me and about most of us in this place? I've realized that we're really good at starting things. It comes pretty naturally to start things, but it's the sticking with things that's a little bit harder. You know, here we are and we're a few months into the year

and I can already tell some of you guys that you started the gym membership in January and you started the eating plan in January. You started some of those disciplines in January and you're like, yeah, those things aren't really happening anymore. And that's natural for a lot of us, right? We're good at starting things. It's sticking with things that's a little harder. And maybe for you, I started a Bible reading plan in January and I'm gonna read chronologically through the Bible or I started a new spiritual discipline or I started serving in a ministry or I started giving generously or I started something, but then what happens is it stops or it stalls out and then you're back to square one. You know, this week I came across a story that is familiar to most of you probably, but it's new to me and it came out of World War II. So there is a guy in World War II that is from this area, his name is Desmond Doss and he was a young army medic in World War II. I also found out that he was a committed Christian. He believed in the Bible. He lived his life according to the scriptures and so he took it very seriously. But because of his convictions, he refused to carry a weapon even in war. But he still enlisted, still participated. He just didn't carry a weapon.

In fact, he was quoted saying, "I can serve, I just can't kill." Well in 1945, his unit was sent to Okinawa and they had to take this cliff that the soldiers called Hacksaw Ridge. Maybe that's familiar to some of you. But it was a nightmare, Hacksaw Ridge was horrible. I mean it was described as machine guns going off everywhere in mortars exploding and there were bodies everywhere that the eyes could see. And the Americans were pushing forward but then the counter attacks came and it was overwhelming for our troops. The order was then given for everyone to retreat and when the order was given, all the soldiers began climbing back down the ridge but Doss didn't. This young man decided I'm gonna stay. I'm not going to retreat. I'm going to stay on top of this ridge in the dark. He's got enemy soldiers still searching the battlefield all over the place. There's gunfire still happening on the ridge but he stayed. Why? Because wounded men had been left behind. So all night long, this young man from Udoa, Tennessee under gunfire was crawling from body to body. And when he found someone that was still breathing, he dragged that person to the edge of the cliff.

He tied a rope around that person and lowered them down the ridge to safety. And every single time he would lower another soldier, he would pray the exact same prayer and this is what he prayed. Lord, help me get one more. Help me get one more. And then he would return to the battlefield and he'd find someone breathing and repeat that process over and over again and he would cry out, Lord, help me get one more. By the time the sun rose the next morning, he had saved 75 wounded men, 75 men. He didn't start the battle alone but he refused to abandon his post when everyone else was gone. Hey, let me tell you something. That's commitment. When I read this story as a man, that is commitment. It's not loud, it's not flashy. It's not built in emotional hype. It's just steady and it's faithful and it's staying in the fight and it's crying out, Lord, help me get one more. In church, that's exactly what we're gonna be talking about today from God's word. And once again, turn with me, if you will, The first Thessalonians chapter two. as we walk verse by verse through this letter. And as you're turning there,

let me go ahead and remind you and kind of set the scene related to this chapter in verse. You know, Paul is writing to believers who are learning how to stay faithful when everything around them was trying to pull them away. He's speaking to people that are living in a culture that I believe is very similar to the world that we're living in today. And so because of that, I wanna challenge every single one of us. As we read God's word and as we listen to Paul's challenge, I want us to personalize that and think about our own life, our own testimonies, our own ministries, our marriages, our relationships. I want you to think about how you respond when you walk through some of these seasons. And I want you to wrestle with this question. You ready? Ask what would it look like for me to live with an unshakable commitment to God? Like if you were to look at my life right now, if I were just to flip a switch and now I am fully committed to God, no questions asked, what would it look like? I think it's an important question because, I mean, you can't just commit to Christ when it's convenient. We can't, that's not biblical Christianity. You see, according to scripture, true Christianity is a covenant. If you just committed your life to Jesus

and you didn't enter it into a covenant, you got it wrong. This is way more than a commitment. This is way more than a contract that you signed with God. This is a covenant relationship and covenants require complete unshakable commitment. You say, well, what does that look like? And here's what we're gonna see Paul show us in the next few verses. Unshakable commitment is really built off of two primary places in our life. Number one, we're gonna have to have a commitment to the word of God. And number two, we're gonna have to have commitment through suffering. So the question we're jumping off this cliff with today is this, how can I live with an unshakable commitment to God? I need to know that for me personally. And I'm gonna give you two points to jot down today and hopefully we can adopt those points and be challenged by God's word today. Point number one is this, unshakable commitment means we are committed to the Bible. We are committed to the Bible. Paul says in verse 13, this is why we constantly thank God because when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it. Not as a human message, but as it truly is the word of God, which also works effectively in you who believe.

Now, before we move any further, I wanna back up just a moment and remind us who it was Paul was writing this letter to. These were not seasoned believers. They didn't grow up in the Bible belt. They hadn't heard about Jesus their whole life. These weren't people who grew up in church. They were brand new Christians living in the first century. These are some of the first believers in all of Europe and they're living in a town called Thessalonica, which don't forget, this wasn't a small little town. This was a large influential city that was really one of the hubs of the Roman Empire. It was a busy port city. It was a commercial hub, kind of a crossroads of culture. It was also very pagan. It was pluralistic. It was also politically loyal to Rome. And the majority of the people who lived in this city, they worship multiple gods. So you can imagine there's temples and idols and all sorts of things where people would go and worship, gods that were not alive. They honored Caesar as their Lord. They lived in a culture where the truth was being shaped by power and tradition and popular belief. And that was the environment in which Paul showed up in Thessalonica, preaching Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. He showed up preaching Jesus and he started telling people

that salvation and forgiveness and freedom was now available because God sent his one and only son to the earth to live a perfect life and to die a brutal death, but he raised from the grave and he's alive today. Man, can you imagine living in first century Thessalonica, hearing the gospel for the very first time? And yet the Bible says, as Paul showed up and started preaching, that men and women in that city began turning from this life of worshiping false gods and idols and now they began serving and following the one true God of the universe. And if you look back and you read Acts chapter 17, you'll see that that's exactly how this church began. Paul entered the synagogue, the Bible says, and for three Sabbaths, he reasoned with them from the scriptures. In other words, he took the Bible and he exploded. for God to send his son the Messiah and the Messiah had to suffer. He had to rise from the dead. And that's why we can be saved. In fact, in verse three, this is what is in verse three of Acts 17, this is what we read. This Jesus, I am proclaiming to you, is the Messiah. So he's preaching the truth of the gospel here. And it goes on to say, some of the Jews were persuaded. It says a large number of God-fearing Greeks believed. It even says some prominent women in the city came to faith. But in just a short time, a church was born.

But let me tell you what happened next. Revival was immediately followed by resistance. What started as revival quickly turned into resistance. In fact, Acts 17 tells us that jealous Jews gathered a mob from the marketplace and they formed a riot. Have you ever seen a riot? Well, imagine you're one of the few believers in town and this riot was focused on getting you. That was the picture we see in scripture. Said that this riot in this mob attacked Jason's house. The home where Paul and the believers were meeting. And then it says they dragged these believers before the city officials. And listen to the accusation that they made about them. They say in verse six. These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too and they are all acting contrary to Caesar's decrees saying that there is another king, Jesus. These people are upset. Like these believers, these Christian people are claiming that there's another king and his name is Jesus. Did you catch that? They were just preaching religion. They were declaring the new king. And in a Roman city where allegiance to Caesar was everything, man, that was pretty dangerous. But what was the result of it? Here's what scripture says. The city was thrown into all kinds of turmoil.

The believers were being pressured and Paul himself had to leave in the middle of night. So when Paul writes this letter that we call first Thessalonians, I want you to understand, he's not writing to comfortable Christians who are sitting in safety. No, he's writing to young believers who were born in revival, but were then quickly baptized into opposition. Can you imagine what that must have been like to be one of those new believers? You grew up in this town, you have the same friends and now all of a sudden your neighbors don't understand you. They think you're weird. The culture that you live in was opposed to you. The allegiance that you've had is shifted from Caesar to Christ and now all the people who know you from growing up, they think you're crazy. And now they're trying to live for Jesus. They're trying to stay committed to Christ in a world that's actively against what they believe. They're trying to stay committed to Christ, even though, man, they're in a storm in this season of suffering and opposition and everything in their life seems to be going horribly and yet Jesus is saying stay committed. They didn't treat the gospel like it was an opinion or an option. They didn't preach God's word like it was just giving advice that you could take or not.

They didn't hear God's truth and just shrug their shoulders and be like, well, that's a possibility, but I'll kind of do my own thing. No, Paul said, when you received it, you welcomed it. And you welcomed it, not as a human message, but as it truly is the Word of God, the Word of God. And honestly, church, let's go ahead and just make that our starting point today because the truth is that's where unshakable commitment begins. You will never be unshakable if the Word of God is optional. I'm gonna say this again, you gotta get this. You will never be unshakable if the Word of God is optional. But the truth is for a lot of people right now, even people in good churches, if we were to really look at our hearts, the Word of God is somewhat optional for many people. Sometimes we try to change what God's Word says in order to fit our lifestyle. Sometimes we try to alter what it says in order to align with our preferences. Sometimes we soften what the Scripture says in order to avoid some sort of suffering. But let me just say on behalf of what the Word says, that is not an option for any of us. It never was an option. God never gave humanity the right or permission to edit His Word. God's never given us the right just rip out this page 'cause we don't disagree with what it says.

No, He tells us what, He says, stand on the Scripture and submit to what it says. You say, Jordan, why would I submit fully and be completely committed Let me tell you why. It's because it is unchanging and it is holy and it is reverent and it is God-breathed. And it is relevant in all seasons and all nations and in all cultures and in all environments. Listen, God's Word wasn't given for us to adjust. It was given for us to obey. And that is especially important for us to grasp today because we live in a world, we live in a culture that loves to talk about this is my truth and that is your truth. Have you heard that? Listen, people say all the time that may be true for you but that's not necessarily true for me. Well, yeah, it is. And let me tell you why. The Bible doesn't talk about your truth and my truth. The Bible says there's only one truth, God's truth. Truth isn't personal, it's positional. And the Bible says Jesus is the truth. His Word is the truth. And when you build your life on that truth, the Word of God won't just inform you with better information, it will transform you from the inside out. But let me give you the second thought here

and that is this, unshakeable commitment also means that we hold steady through suffering. We hold steady through seasons of suffering. Look at verse 14, for you brothers and sisters became imitators of God's churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. Since you have also suffered the same things from people in your own country. Now, I don't want you to miss what he just said. He's emphasizing the fact that these people are suffering. He's emphasizing the fact because remember, these are new believers. They're probably like, where is God? Why am I doing this? What is happening in my life? He's saying, here's the thing, you are suffering, yes. But then he connects their suffering to the suffering of believers in Judea. In other words, he was telling them in that moment, you're not alone in this. You're not alone in your suffering. You're not the first people to suffer because of me or my name. You're a part of a bigger story. And he says, you know, the same gospel that transformed Jerusalem and the same gospel that stirred all Judea is now stirring in Thessalonica. You are living in a moment of revival. God is working in you and through you and among you. But you know what? Every time God moves, it brings about the same response

for the church. You know what that response is? It's suffering. Look at every revival that's ever taken place. Look at every great movement of God. You'll see a common theme throughout and that is the people of God will suffer. When we suffer in this life, sometimes I believe we misunderstand why it is we suffer. In fact, sometimes I think we look at our own suffering or our pain or our persecution. Maybe it's just a season of difficulty or a season where we don't really understand what God is doing. And I think in our mind, we think that something must be wrong. Like we must have really messed up somewhere along the way. Like if God's gonna allow this to happen in my life, then I must have blown it somewhere. And I think that's a normal human thought, which tells me that these believers in Thessalonica most likely thought the same thing. Like, man, we must have really messed up. But here's what I believe Paul was showing them in their response. That he's showing them their suffering didn't mean something had gone wrong. Their suffering was actually a testimony that something had gone right. You see, they had aligned themselves with Jesus Christ. And when you align yourself with Christ, you also align yourself with his story.

And when you look carefully at the story of Jesus Christ, you can't help but notice there was a lot of rejection. There was a lot of pain. There was a lot of opposition. There was a lot of persecution. He walked through a lot of seasons that none of us would sign up for. So Paul right here, he's writing to this church and he's saying, hey, the unbelievers in your city are just like the unbelievers who crucified Christ. They're reacting in the same way. In fact, in verse 15, this is what he said. They killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and they persecuted us. That's not emotional language. That is a theological perspective. You get that? Listen, the gospel wasn't born in comfort. The gospel was born in conflict. And sometimes I believe that we forget our Genesis. We forget how all of this stuff started in the first place. Jesus Christ was not crucified because he was irrelevant. He was crucified because he was Lord. And when believers declared that there is another King and Caesar's not King, Jesus is King and he is alive right now. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You understand that message threatened every false allegiance in Thessalonica. You know what?

That message still changes everything today. But when you look at the backlash, listen, it wasn't a personal attack. It was spiritual resistance. he said, "They were keeping us from speaking "to the Gentiles so that they may be saved." He's like, "Man, think about the evil "that's working behind the scenes "to prevent us from being faithful to God." He said, "We can't even speak to the Gentiles "about Jesus because they're keeping us from speaking." Do you see the strategy of the devil here? Lost people wanted to, lost people to stay lost. Well, guess what? That's been true since the very beginning. The devil uses lost people to keep the lost people lost. And right here, listen, these people didn't wanna hear about Jesus and they certainly didn't want anybody else talking about Jesus. They did everything in their power to prevent other people from hearing the gospel. And let me tell you why. It's because if the enemy can't stop the truth from being true, he'll stop the truth from being heard. Think about how important that is for his mission because he knows if people don't hear the gospel, they can't believe the gospel. And if they don't believe the gospel, they won't be saved by the gospel. But here's what I want us to see from the church,

this message to the church today. When they experience suffering, I'm talking about a world of hurt, a moment in their journey that they didn't sign up for, that they didn't have to, that they didn't want to have to endure. They didn't retreat. They stayed focused on the mission. And like Paul says in verse 14, he says in verse 14, they became imitators of God's churches in Christ Jesus. You think about that, they're in their worst moment, the most pain, the most persecution they'd ever experienced. And yet how did they respond? They imitated the church. You know what that does for me? It makes me ask myself, when you experience suffering, who or what are you going to imitate? When you walk through a season that you don't want to walk through, when you're in a situation that you didn't sign up for, how are you going to respond and who are you going to imitate? Or in other words, what does your commitment to Christ look like when suffering shows up at your door? What does your commitment look like to Jesus Christ? You see, as you read through this text, it's pretty clear that they responded

in the way the church should have responded. They pointed their life to Jesus and they said, "I trust you Jesus." Because right here is the truth. Suffering has a way of exposing what we truly believe. They believed in Jesus and it was completely clear when they walked through this season of suffering. When you walk through a season like that, it's gonna reveal whether Jesus is a preference in your life or if Jesus truly is the priority of your life. Now most of us won't face mobs in our journey. Praise the Lord for that. But I'll tell you what we will face. We'll face moments. We'll face those moments that are hard to face. Some of you have been there. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've had those moments where the phone rings and it's really bad news. You've had those moments where you hear the diagnosis and it's scary. You've walked through those moments of betrayal from someone that you trusted or those moments of setback, whether that be physically or relationally or even financially. You've walked through those seasons where nothing makes sense and you're wondering how could a loving God allow something like this to happen to me? Ever been there before?

And let me just say, that's where true commitment is tested in our lives. That's where true commitment is revealed. What are we imitating in those moments? You know, I think this is always a challenging message for those of us who struggle with this kind of commitment. But that's what Paul's describing in this text. He's saying unshakeable commitment's not proven when life is easy. And an unshakeable commitment to God is really revealed when life is hard. And you see that in that story. I mean, his voice changed, his platform changed, his ministry changed, but his faith didn't change. And I think that raises a question that all of us are gonna have to face at one point or another. And that is this, like what happens when suffering takes something from you? How will you respond? How will you respond when life interrupts your plans? 'Cause I can promise you it's gonna happen if it hasn't already. Or how about when the tool you thought God would use is no longer available to you? Man, are you gonna drift from the Lord? Or are you gonna lean in and move closer to him? In this letter, I think that's what I hear Paul saying to these believers. He was saying, church, you have suffered. And yet even through your suffering,

you have remained faithful. And he said, because you have, I thank God for you. Suffering may change your circumstances, but it doesn't have to change your commitment. Your commitment doesn't have to change. Church, life is going to shake. Life is going to happen. Pressure is going to come and suffering's gonna find its way to our door. So the question isn't if the storm's gonna come. The question is whether your life is rooted deep enough to stand when it does. - One of the greatest gifts God has given us is the promise that we never have to carry the weight of life on our own. In Philippians 4, 6, the Apostle Paul writes these words, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God." Hey, what an incredible invitation. God doesn't tell us to ignore our worries. He tells us to bring our worries to him. That's why the all-in prayer ministry exists. Our team prays faithfully and intentionally over the needs of people just like you. Needs for healing, direction, restoration, salvation and peace and so on. Listen, no matter what you're facing right now, you're not alone. We would be honored to stand with you

and to lift your needs before the Lord. If you have a prayer request, big or small, I wanna encourage you to take just a moment right now and follow the instructions on the screen and share with us your prayer need. And I promise you this, our team will pray for you by name, believing that God hears you, God loves you and God is already at work in your situation. So don't carry that burden by yourself. Let us pray with you and let us pray for you. We're all in and we're here for you. - Hey, we never wanna end our broadcast without giving you the opportunity to know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. If you'd like to make the decision to trust Jesus and wanna know more about what it looks like to follow Jesus, get in touch with me right now. Follow the instructions at the bottom of the screen so that we can pray for you and also put information in your hands right away. Today, we celebrate your decision and look forward to being a part of your personal journey of going all in with Jesus Christ. - This episode of All In With Pastor Jordan Easley has been made possible by the generous support of viewers like you. We hope today's message encourages you as you strive to live your life fully committed to Jesus Christ. (upbeat music)

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