The following sermon is by John MacArthur, pastor, author, and Bible teacher with Grace

to You.

If you've never contacted Grace to You, we want to send you a free booklet by John that

unpacks fifteen Greek words in Scripture that explain a stunning paradox, how a God

of perfect justice can show mercy to sinners who deserve only punishment.

Request your free booklet titled 15 Words of Hope by writing to Hope at gty.org.

This offer is good in North America and Europe through June 2023.

And now unleashing God's truth one verse at a time.

Here's Grace to You, Bible teacher John MacArthur.

I thought for this morning I wanted to talk about the Thessalonian Church.

This is maybe not so much like a sermon as it is a bit of a Bible study, so get your Bible open to those two chapters I read earlier.

And I want to address this issue of the church from the inspired book of First Thessalonians.

I know that many of you are new. We had eleven hundred kids here last week.

One third of them had never been to Grace Church.

They were hearing the gospel, many of them for the first time.

We have a lot of new people.

I want you to know that you have never been to Grace Church.

I want you to understand what the Bible says, a church is to be.

I know you have been blessed and encouraged and you've kept coming back to our church.

But I want you to know what the pattern of Scripture is and why Grace Church is what it is.

Let me go back to the close of the New Testament era.

The last decade of the first century, 90 AD and beyond.

...