I’m not normally one that likes to be around contagious people.  I will go to great lengths to avoid colds and flu.  Taking Echinacea, washing hands, drinking water… if you are suffering with something today, I am sure we can find a way to greet each other warmly after the service without shaking hands. Who agrees? People don’t usually want to be around contagious people!

But – if they are contagious with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that’s a great thing to catch! And it’s hard to find more “contagious Christians” than the Thessalonians!  They gave Paul, Silas, and Timothy reasons to thank God continually because they were living in God through faith in Christ!  Their faith produced work, their love prompted labour, and their hope inspired endurance!  The fact they lived in God daily produced a lot of fruit!  It made a lot of noise!  The world around them noticed what was going on.  The people around them heard what was going on!  Because they were telling them!  With their words and actions!  And because they wore it on their faces!  They had JOY in their hearts.  And it showed!

Let me tell you something: You’ll never be a contagious Christian if you have a frown on your face.  The Thessalonian Christians had come through a lot of suffering, but still had JOY on their faces!  The Holy Spirit’s work in them gave them that joy!  My friends, if we are going to be contagious Christians, then we ought to look like whatever disease we have is good for us!  We ought to be, from time to time, expressing that joy that’s in our hearts!  What?  I’m Supposed to Tell My Friends?  That’s right!  Let’s learn some lessons from the Thessalonians.

Verses 5-6: “Our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.  You know how we lived among you for your sake.  You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.”  This church had 4 key elements for making an impact on others.  1. They were in the Word.  2. The Holy Spirit was working in their lives.  3. They were deeply convicted it was true.  4. And they living it out in their lives.

If those four things are going on in your life, you will make an impact for Christ wherever you go!  When you’re hearing the Word of God, When the Holy Spirit is working in your heart through that Word, When you are fully persuaded it is true, and like the Thessalonians are willing to give up everything for your faith, and when the life you are living in front of others, whether at school, at work, on your street, in your small group, teaching or mentoring young people, or whatever you are doing is communicating that joy, you WILL make an impact on others!  It will be contagious to have what you have!

You know why?  Because there is hardly any of that out there today!  You have all these people running after all these things that are supposed to give them joy, and they are all miserable!  They’ve tried it, they’ve gotten addicted to it, and it’s left them more empty than when they started!  Just like the idols the Thessalonians used to run after.  But when you find Jesus Christ, and He begins living in your heart and filling you with the joy of his forgiveness and changing your life from inside out, and you’re in the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit is working in your life, filling you with hope and joy, and there’s no way you can keep quiet about it, people are going to notice!  They’re going to be excited about what you’re excited about!

You know what?  You can’t get other people to be excited about what you’re not excited about.  Paul imitated Christ.  These people imitated Paul.  And then other people began imitating them.  Verse 7 says “and so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.” The word there means they “left a mark, a mark made by a blow.”  The example they lived was powerful!  That’s the way the Gospel is communicated.  When others see us live it out in our lives, even during affliction, they will see what God has done, and want to have that joy too!

I’m Supposed to Tell my Friends?  Yes!  Contagious Christians share the good news of Jesus!  This church sure did!  Verse 8: “The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia – your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it.”  The Gospel message came blasting out from these believers like a thunder clap or a trumpet call!  Like the ringing of bells!  They were bold and brave in their witness.  They were trumpeting forth the message of God with a clear and certain ring to it!

The Thessalonians had such a passion for evangelism that when Paul showed up at the other surrounding places, there was nothing he needed to say, there wasn’t much work to be done, because they’d already done it!  Can you imagine me going out and trying to greet and follow up on new visitors who come here, and when I try telling them of the wonderful good news about Jesus, they tell me, “Yeah – we already know that!  Your people here already told us all about it! They came and visited us and told us what wonderful things Jesus has done for us!”

Now I am going to say something that some of you might not consider positive.  But it is positive… in a negative sort of way.  Our church has been greatly blessed by God.  Praise Him!  But there can be a danger, when we receive blessings from God, that we can become self-satisfied, and sit around and put our arms around all the good things we have going on, and lose our passion to reach the people who don’t know Christ!

When was the last time you asked someone you know who doesn’t know Jesus to come to church with you?  Or brought them to one of our events?  Or did something to reach them for Jesus?  We get so busy getting all this stuff done in our own lives, and then we rush off to church to get our needs met and we go back to our busy lives, and before we know it, we realize we’ve forgotten about those harvest fields!  This church has an ambitious evangelism plan!  It’s a large percentage of our budget!  But if we let evangelism die in our personal lives, then what we aspire to do as a church is going to fail, too.  Evangelism, telling our friends about Jesus, keeps the church alive!  If we can be so blessed in our hearts, and so filled with joy as we worship the Lord on Sunday mornings, and then walk out of here and go back into our lives and not tell anybody about what’s going on here or in our hearts because of Christ, something’s wrong with that!

God has been so good to us!  Can we just sit back and enjoy the benefits of knowing Him without sharing it with others who need that so desperately!  Or should there be in our hearts a burning desire, like the Thessalonians, to RING FORTH the Gospel?  Are we “bells” today, ringing out the message of Jesus in our neighbourhoods?  Every Sunday, we should have people here who don’t know Jesus because we have folks going out into the highways and byways compelling them to come in!  Let’s ask God to help us be the kind of people He wants us to be!

“But Pastor, I don’t know how to share my faith!”  Yes, you do.  You know what Jesus has done for you.  Tell about it!  But you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to ask anybody to come to church!  You don’t need huge amounts of training to say, “I’ve found something good here – why don’t you come with me?”  We’ll even make it easier by making this an “invite-able” place to come.  By holding events like the October 28 Celebration of Life, with Steel Drum Concert and a feast.  It isn’t hard to invite someone to something like that.  Do it!

You know what motivated the Thessalonians to share their faith? They were always waiting for Jesus to return! (v. 10)  “They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.”

If you thought Jesus could come back tonight, and that tomorrow everyone you know that’s lost would never have a chance, wouldn’t it affect the way you think?  Wouldn’t you go home tonight, and instead of watching “Let’s Make a Deal” and eating pizza, wouldn’t you make a call to someone you know and say “There’s something that I really need to talk to you about now… I believe Jesus could come back tomorrow and I don’t know if you’re ready to meet Him should He come!”  The Thessalonians believed Jesus could return from heaven at any moment, and so they just had to tell their friends about Jesus!

They knew two things were going to happen.  One, Jesus was coming to bring his believers to heaven.  Two, wrath was coming from heaven to punish those who rejected Jesus.  That’s what motivated them.  Do we talk about Judgment Day enough?  Some people say it isn’t “relevant.” … Let me tell you what: Five minutes after Jesus comes back, it’s going to be relevant alright.  It IS going to be relevant!  And for a person who doesn’t know Jesus as their Saviour, it is going to be the most relevant moment they’ve ever had in their life!  Your life is your time to come to faith.  On the last day, that chance is gone.

The Thessalonians were waiting for Jesus to return and that motivated them.  But they were also confused about something.  Some of their loved ones had died, and they thought they were going to miss the coming of the Lord.  So in Chapter 4, Paul clears that up.  Those who died in Christ weren’t going to get left behind!  They were actually going to go first!  God hadn’t forgotten them!  Isn’t it a wonderful thing to know your loved ones who have died in Christ are in heaven, and one of these days their bodies will be resurrected so they can go up first?

The Swiss-German Theologian, Oscar Cullman, gives us a great analogy. He points out that in every war, there is a decisive battle that determines the outcome of the war.  After this battle, there’s no question what the future holds.  The battle establishes defeat or victory.  Gettysburg was such a battle in the Civil War.  Waterloo was such a battle.  And in WWII, it was the battle on the beaches of Normandy.  When these battles were over, everybody knew how the war was going to end.  After Normandy, there never was a question as to what the outcome of the war was going to be.  Once the Allies had established a beachhead allowing troops and supplies to pour into the Continent, the fate of the Nazis was sealed.

But listen carefully: It should be noted that more Americans died in battle following that victory than died in battle prior to it!  Listen carefully: That victory that was so decisive did not immediately end dying among the Allied forces, or suffering among the European people.  The decisive battle had been fought and won on D-Day, but it wasn’t until V-Day, which was a long way off, that the end of the suffering and death would come!  Now listen carefully:  The Death and Resurrection of Jesus was the decisive victory that wiped away all doubts about how history would end!!  Isn’t that true?  After the resurrection, Christians could yell “Christos Victor!”  Christ is triumphant!  The forces of darkness were defeated!  Satan was overcome!

But how many of you know that between God’s D-Day on Easter morning and His V-Day when Christ returns, there’s going to be suffering, pain, and death?  But as we continue the struggle, we can go on as people of HOPE, because this is what we know - we know that the decisive battle has already been won!!  The war is over as far as any future concern is!  We struggle against the forces of darkness with the full realization that victory is inevitable for us!

D-Day assures us that one day there will be a V-Day!  And that’s what these people were all about.  It wasn’t that their problems were over.  They lived in great affliction and severe suffering.  But in their hearts they knew this: The victory had been won at the cross!  Their sins were forgiven and they were at peace with God!  They participated in that victory while they were still going through some “losses” between D-Day and V-Day.  They were waiting patiently for the Lord.  And that changed their whole outlook on life.  If we don’t have an attitude like that, we can look around at some of our troubles and losses and be discouraged, right?

The next time Satan starts to beat you up about the things you have done in your life, the next time he tries to discourage you, you just remind him that the war is over!  We’re just waiting for the celebration!  Someone said, “When Satan tries to tell you about your past, you tell him about his future!”  You just tell him what God has in mind for him!  Because we already know that, don’t we?  We have read the last chapter!  We know what God is up to!  We know how the story ends!  And because we do, we can wait with patience, and with excitement, and we can be contagious about our faith!  Yes, we can tell our friends!   Amen.