Luke #19: The Work of the Word (8:1-21)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 8:1-21
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Happy Mother’s Day and good morning! Welcome to Family Worship with the church body of Eastern Hills: People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus this morning. I’m senior pastor Bill Connors, and I’m grateful for this church family and the blessing of gathering together in worship and fellowship.
If you are visiting with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to worship with Eastern Hills! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.
Thanks Kids Ministry Shepherds for what you do for our children. And thanks for that focus this morning.
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Announcements
Mother’s Day Offering Goal $4,500
VIDEO
Opening
Opening
In the past, I’ve started my messages on Mother’s Day with a bit of a disclaimer, and I’m going to start with a shorter version of that today. However, my message today isn’t really a “Mother’s Day” message. We’re going verse-by-verse through the Gospel of Luke this year, and this morning I’m preaching the next passage. It more connects to womanhood than it does to motherhood. And while we absolutely honor the moms in the room, I want to acknowledge that Mother’s Day can be a difficult day for many, and your church family understands that.
When it comes to motherhood, there are many reasons that some of you ladies might be in pain this morning. You might be one who wants to have children, but for some reason you cannot do so, and we pray for you in your pain. If you’re a mom who has lost a child through miscarriage or tragedy, we join you in your mourning. You might be a mom with a wayward or struggling child, and we hurt with you and pray for your child. There are those of you whose moms have passed away, maybe in just the last year. We pray for you as well.
Our focal passage today comes from the eighth chapter of Luke: the first 21 verses. So let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we are able to do so, and turn in our Bibles or Bible apps to that section of Scripture:
1 Afterward he was traveling from one town and village to another, preaching and telling the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary, called Magdalene (seven demons had come out of her); 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward; Susanna; and many others who were supporting them from their possessions. 4 As a large crowd was gathering, and people were coming to Jesus from every town, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the sky devoured it. 6 Other seed fell on the rock; when it grew up, it withered away, since it lacked moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns; the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 Still other seed fell on good ground; when it grew up, it produced fruit: a hundred times what was sown.” As he said this, he called out, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.” 9 Then his disciples asked him, “What does this parable mean?” 10 So he said, “The secrets of the kingdom of God have been given for you to know, but to the rest it is in parables, so that Looking they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. 11 “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 The seed along the path are those who have heard and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the seed on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy. Having no root, these believe for a while and fall away in a time of testing. 14 As for the seed that fell among thorns, these are the ones who, when they have heard, go on their way and are choked with worries, riches, and pleasures of life, and produce no mature fruit. 15 But the seed in the good ground—these are the ones who, having heard the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it and by enduring, produce fruit. 16 “No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a basket or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in may see its light. 17 For nothing is concealed that won’t be revealed, and nothing hidden that won’t be made known and brought to light. 18 Therefore take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.” 19 Then his mother and brothers came to him, but they could not meet with him because of the crowd. 20 He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” 21 But he replied to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear and do the word of God.”
PRAYER (Moms, those who want to be moms, moms who have lost their children, moms who have wayward children, and for the ladies who are waiting to become moms or do not plan on becoming moms, also for those who have lost their moms...And NMBCH)
There’s a part of my testimony that sometimes comes across as shocking to folks: I came to faith out of atheism at the age of 17 (almost 18). I don’t know why, but people tend to assume that pastors grew up in Christian homes, were always a part of the church, and that being a pastor was something I always wanted to be. Truth be told, when I was in high school I wanted to be a surgeon—a heart surgeon, specifically. I look at my life, and find that it’s almost poetic that God has chosen to put me in the position that I am—where I still get to be a part of His working on hearts, just not in the way I thought I would.
But growing up, I went to church only when I visited my grandparents (both sets). Both were Catholic, and so when we visited, we went to mass together. I have very few recollections of times when I was in mass as a kid. The truth is that I didn’t see much point in all the “God-stuff.” Church was kind of strange, mostly uncomfortable, and extremely boring. I didn’t understand what they were talking about, and conversations about things of God didn’t ever happen in my family, or with my grandparents. I honestly believed that the Bible was just a big book of rules and regulations: the thou shalt’s and the thou shalt not’s, and that it didn’t really have anything to do with me, my life, or my future.
You might be here today, or watching online right now, and you feel the same way. It’s not that you hate the Bible. It’s just that you don’t believe that it could possibly have any real impact in your life. But thinking through this brought me to an even deeper question:
I wonder how many people who claim to be Christians actually view the Bible in essentially the same way: Like, it’s fine to come and spend an hour and a half every week coming to service, because it’s what we should do. And I like the music. Sitting through a sermon isn’t so bad. But I’m not really sure the Bible has anything much to say to me outside of this context. I don’t really want to read it on my own, because I don’t see the point. I’ve tried it, and it just didn’t do anything for me. It’s mostly just rules, sometimes dressed up as moral, or sometimes miraculous, stories. Jesus is great and all, but I’m just not into reading.
Maybe this is you?
Even for those of us who read the Bible regularly, I guess the question is: what are we doing when we read it? We enjoy it, and we can check off the box that we read our Bible because we know that’s what good Christians do. But do we see the Word of God as having an impact in every area of our lives—that instead of us sitting down and reading it, through it, the Holy Spirit is reading US and telling us about what He sees, about what our priorities are and should be, and about how we should live?
This is what our passage today reveals.
1: Support for the Word
1: Support for the Word
As I said earlier, this isn’t really a passage for moms. One reality of the Gospel of Luke, however, is his depiction of the lives of women in first century Israel. More so than any of the other three evangelists, Luke shows women in very high regard—not that others don’t do so, but Luke, possibly because of his writing to a Greek audience rather than a Jewish one, spends more time positively speaking about the women who were a part of Jesus’s ministry. The first three verses of our focal passage is one of the clearest places for this:
1 Afterward he was traveling from one town and village to another, preaching and telling the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary, called Magdalene (seven demons had come out of her); 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward; Susanna; and many others who were supporting them from their possessions.
We’ve just come off of what we looked at last week—the record of a formerly sinful woman who had received the incredible forgiveness that God offers in Christ, who then came out of love and gratitude to her Savior and poured out her tears, her perfume, and ultimately her heart to the Lord. In that study, we saw that she was lifted up as having been restored to a right relationship with God, while the legalistic Pharisee Simon was not, because he didn’t think he needed forgiveness. Her faith was commended. Simon’s was non-existent.
In Luke’s mind, that passage prepared us for this one, because this seems like a short interlude that connects women in the ministry of Jesus and the message that He preached. And in turn, this passage and the very positive reflection of the women we see in it prepares us for the truly massive importance of the testimony of some of these same women later on, as they were the first to declare the truth of the resurrection:
9 Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. 10 Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things.
They were also instrumental to the beginnings of the church, as recorded in Acts 1:
14 They all were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
So one side note that I want to point out (which really isn’t a side note, but is probably the most important reason for Luke’s writing of verses 1-3) is that Christianity isn’t anti-woman. In fact, even though women were considered inferior in the first century in both Hebrew and Greek (or Roman) thinking, Christianity doesn’t share that same perspective.
Consider how important these women were. As Jesus and the Twelve went from town to town, continuing the ministry of preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, these women supported the ministry though their finances. We can only guess as to how Joanna had extra resource for supporting Jesus’s ministry: her husband, Chuza, was the highest-ranking servant in the house of Herod Antipas.
Regardless, Luke wrote that these three: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, and many others supported Jesus and the Twelve from their possessions. They were all cheerfully sacrificing financially in order to support the work of the Word. The Bible tells us that this is something that we are to do as well:
7 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.
Giving is both a spiritual response AND a spiritual discipline. We should want to give for the support of the work of the Word because of how that work has occurred in our lives, and we should will to give because we love God and want to glorify Him with our obedience. We should cheerfully give a sacrificial amount of our income to the church to glorify God and invest in His kingdom work.
Doing so helps to support the preaching and telling of the good news of the kingdom of God—the work of the Word—so that others might hear about God’s incredible grace. And as that Word is preached, we are called to listen.
2: Listen to the Word
2: Listen to the Word
Luke now moves from his explanatory interlude to share about what these women were supporting: Jesus’s actual ministry of preaching and telling the good news of the kingdom. Jesus often chose to use parables in order to make a point, or as the case may be, to obscure a point:
4 As a large crowd was gathering, and people were coming to Jesus from every town, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the sky devoured it. 6 Other seed fell on the rock; when it grew up, it withered away, since it lacked moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns; the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 Still other seed fell on good ground; when it grew up, it produced fruit: a hundred times what was sown.” As he said this, he called out, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”
As we have seen throughout the past couple of chapters, as word about Jesus spread, more and more people were coming to Him. Jesus decided to teach them using this parable of four soils. Jesus described something that would have been extremely familiar to them: a farmer sowing seed. At that time, seed was usually sown before plowing, and the seed was then plowed into the soil. This is why each of the four soils seems unprepared for the seed (likely of wheat) to penetrate it.
The first seed falls on or along the path. The path wasn’t the place where the farmer was walking—you might remember from my message back in the beginning of chapter 6 that I mentioned the fact that at the time, when people needed to get from one place to another on foot, they just walked the direction that seemed best, even if it took them right through someone’s field. It was expected. This farmer’s field had been so traversed that it had a hardened path through it, where no seed could settle. The birds came and ate it.
The second fell in the shallow rocky soil next to the path. It was enough for a plant to sprout up, but not enough soil to maintain moisture for a plant to survive. After it sprouted, the sun withered it due to a lack of water.
The weeds were a type of plant that closely resembled wheat as it grew, which made it extremely difficult to separate the two. The third seed fell in a place where these were prevalent, and so as the wheat grew up, so did the weeds, and they sapped the soil of what the wheat needed to thrive, and entangled the plants in their thorns so that they couldn’t be extricated.
The final seed landed in the good soil, grew up as it was meant to, and produced a 100-fold crop.
Jesus closed this parable with a call to listen, if we have ears to do so. This is the point, in a way. Parables are stories with a spiritual point couched in an earthly tale or illustration. This parable was in the context of agriculture, but that wasn’t what Jesus was actually talking about. He was calling those who had spiritual ears to listen to the spiritual meaning behind the agriculture. Everyone around Him could hear the parable. Few would obey the command to truly listen, and thus, understand.
His disciples wanted to understand, so they asked Him to explain. This is the only parable that has its explanation recorded in the Gospel of Luke.
9 Then his disciples asked him, “What does this parable mean?” 10 So he said, “The secrets of the kingdom of God have been given for you to know, but to the rest it is in parables, so that Looking they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. 11 “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 The seed along the path are those who have heard and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the seed on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy. Having no root, these believe for a while and fall away in a time of testing. 14 As for the seed that fell among thorns, these are the ones who, when they have heard, go on their way and are choked with worries, riches, and pleasures of life, and produce no mature fruit. 15 But the seed in the good ground—these are the ones who, having heard the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it and by enduring, produce fruit.
The disciple have ears to listen with, because they desire to understand the parable. So Jesus tells them that they get to know the mysteries of the kingdom (especially since Jesus explains the spiritual meaning of the parable to them), but that parables are also a way of obscuring spiritual meaning from others. To explain this, Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah:
9 And he replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. 10 Make the minds of these people dull; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.
In his commentary on this passage, Grant Osborne explains that in context, Isaiah was given a message that Israel was sure to reject, because it was apostate at the time. So Jesus is saying that the Jews of His day were exactly like the people in Isaiah’s time in their hardness of heart. In so comparing them, Jesus gives His disciples (then and now) insight into both the state of the hearts of those who will not listen, as well as the meaning of the parable itself, since the soils are actually four types of hearts.
The seed being sown is the Word of God, and the four soils are all different responses to the Word, and for each soil, or heart, there is a particular enemy that works to prevent the penetration of the Word.
Jesus explained that the enemy for the first heart, the soil of the path, is the devil. These are people who have already hardened their hearts against the message of the Gospel, and so approach with a prejudiced perspective, having already rejected the good news of the kingdom of God. Their ears “hear,” but the seed does not penetrate, and the devil easily turns their attention to other things. The Scriptures tell us in 1 Peter 5:8 that he is our adversary, and is prowling around like a lion, looking for someone he can devour.
There’s a saying that was a person is saved with is what they are saved to. The rocky soil or heart is excited about the message of the Gospel, but their excitement only lasts as long as the high from the moment, because they didn’t really believe it—they were just swept up in the moment. They were actually responding to their excitement, not to the Gospel. When the excitement wears off, so does their “belief.” This second enemy—the flesh—was just pretending to trust Christ, and when being a believer isn’t fun any more, they reject Christ. Paul described this in Romans 8:
5 For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
The third soil represents those who hear the Gospel, but who cannot follow through on it because of the concerns that the world says are more important. Their worries, concern for riches, and pursuit of pleasures stand between them and the kingdom. These are thorns that entangle them. Jesus spoke of these kinds of worries in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:
31 So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. 34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The final soil are those who receive the Word by faith, those who receive it as it is: as the authoritative Word of God… these produce a crop of righteousness.
The Bible tells us that it is only through faith in Jesus that we can be saved, because Jesus took the punishment that we deserve because of our sins. “Sin” is a word that means to miss the mark—in this case, the mark of God’s perfection. We could never be perfect because we’re all broken because of sin, but Jesus lived a perfect life so that He could pay the debt that we owe from our sin. He died on the cross for us, and then beat death for us by rising again. And if we will trust in His righteousness instead of our own, believing in Him as Savior, surrendering to Him as our Lord, then we will be forgiven and have eternal life according to Scripture, because He deserves it, and He provides it for us through faith.
The picture Jesus is painting in the parable in Luke 8 is that those who believe should live in a way that lines up with God’s Word, because it is the Word (the seed) that is bearing fruit in them:
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.
8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
We should be growing in the Word. Growing should produce being. Being is shown in the choices that we make that line up with the Word of God. Do our choices reveal that our identity comes from Christ alone—not from ourselves, our accomplishments, or what others might think? Jesus reinforced this idea by saying that we are to be a light that shines the truth of the Gospel brightly, where others can see it in the next passage, which brings us to our third point:
3: Ministry of the Word
3: Ministry of the Word
Each of us is called to bear the fruit of the Word in our lives, and so for each of us, we are given a role of ministry to fulfill through where God places us in the church body, the giftedness He chooses to give us, and the opportunities that He brings our way to minister to others in His name, as His ambassadors and representatives. This is why Jesus continued:
16 “No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a basket or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in may see its light. 17 For nothing is concealed that won’t be revealed, and nothing hidden that won’t be made known and brought to light. 18 Therefore take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”
Do you know the children’s song, “This Little Light of Mine?” It’s illustrating verse 16. We have a light—the light of the good news of the kingdom of God—to shine wherever we go. Our faith is to be put on display so that it can be seen by everyone around. Jesus said that He is the light of the world in John 8, 9, and 12, but He also said that we are the light of world because of our reflection of Him in Matthew 5:14-16:
14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Jesus has chosen to use us in the spreading of the light of the Gospel. We are plan A, and there is no plan B. The people who come into our lives should be able to see the light of Christ radiating from us, because we ourselves are standing in the light of Christ. We can’t hide from the light of the Word, which is why Jesus speaks as He does in verse 17 of our focal passage. You can’t trick God. Either you belong to Him, or you don’t. The Word will reveal the truth:
12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
So the ministry of the Word is two-fold: through the applying hand of the Spirit, the Word both shines out to others while it also sheds light on who we really are, making us aware of the areas in our lives where we need to experience heart transformation.
Jesus offers a command in verse 18 for us to “take care” of how we listen, because how we listen often determines what we hear. How do we approach the Word in order to hear it? Do we come in faith, expectantly watching for what God might say? Do we come with preconceived doubt, expecting nothing from our reflection and study? Do we come with a bias against the supernatural, rejecting the miraculous or the divine?
We should come in submission to the Word, not in judgment or condemnation of it. God didn’t ask for our opinion about what His Word contains, and we are in no position to judge how He should do things. If we will submit to the ministry of the Word, we will find that it becomes a delight, a joy to study and consider. But if we come to it with a lack of faith, then not only will we not enjoy reading it, but we will be less and less effective at applying it to our lives.
Robert Stein, in his commentary on this passage, shares this:
The person who has listened carefully to God’s word will understand it even more clearly, but the person who does not pay heed to how he or she hears God’s word will lose even that which they think they know.
—Robert H. Stein, New American Commentary Series, Volume 24: Luke
Are you engaged both in the ministry of the Word to others, and in having the Word minister to your heart? The Word is God’s main vehicle for revealing Himself to us. And through our joint fellowship in obedience to the Word, we grow closer and closer to one another:
4: Family in the Word
4: Family in the Word
This last passage is one that bothers some people, because in our language it can feel as if Jesus was somehow rude to His human family members. But that’s not what is happening here:
19 Then his mother and brothers came to him, but they could not meet with him because of the crowd. 20 He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” 21 But he replied to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear and do the word of God.”
Jesus isn’t saying that He doesn’t care about His earthly family. What He is saying is that there’s a unity that is deeper than the unity of family relationship. The foundation of that unity is hearing and obeying the Word of God by faith. Again, Robert Stein is helpful:
The gospel must be responded to in faith, but saving faith is more than mere intellectual assent. True faith endures. It perseveres. It puts into practice the teachings of that faith. Luke believed that we are indeed saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. This faith is accompanied by action (Jas 2:17), expresses itself through love (cf. Gal 5:6), and puts God’s word into practice (Luke 8:21).
—Robert H. Stein, New American Commentary Series, Volume 24: Luke
For Jesus, hearing and obeying went together. The two confirmed each other: hearing was made evident by obedience, and obedience proved that one had heard. This is the foundation of the family of God. The Bible tells us that when we are saved, we are saved out of sin, but into the family of God:
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.
This is why we intentionally use the word “family” all the time here at Eastern Hills, and why “Authentic Family” is one of our core values as a church. We belong to one another. We have fun and encourage each other through life’s ups and downs. We’re not called to do the Christian life on our own—we’re called to a community of faith that should have an impact in our lives because we both belong to it, and it belongs to us.
It’s not that we love our blood families less. It’s that we love our church family all the more because of the depth of what we have in common, the impact of the Word in our lives, and our shared experience in walking with God together. In the church family, we can take the risk of not trying to create the impression that we’re doing better than we really are. We can go even deeper in our relationships, intentionally engaging in accountability with another brother or sister who knows the truth of what we’re struggling with and will help us apply biblical solutions. We can be ambassadors both inside and outside the family, helping others feel known, seen, and a part of the church family inside, and inviting others to attend with us because we can’t help but share our love for the church outside.
Moms (and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles): realize that when your family members (like your kids) come to faith in Christ, then they are doubly family! This is something that we should be intentional about in their lives—the sharing of the Gospel with our kids. We want them to hear, to believe, and to obey. It is on us to tell them. Share the Gospel with your kids constantly, even if they’re already saved. We all need to hear the truth more and more.
Closing
Closing
Jesus’s ministry was defined by the fact that He is the Word of God incarnate, and thus spoke the Word of God when He taught or preached. And through the Holy Spirit, we have the Word of God in the Bible, and we have the blessing of getting to read it, meditate on it, and understand it. Do we see how far reaching the Word should be in our lives?
The questions that we have to ask ourselves are: Do we HEAR? Do we LISTEN? Do we BELIEVE? Do we OBEY?
It starts with hearing. It says in Romans 10:17 that “...faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.” You’ve heard the message about Christ today. Have you heard? Have you listened and understood it? Have you come to a place where you have surrendered to Jesus in belief, trusting His righteousness to save you?
Baptism, like Aspen.
Church Membership
Prayer
Offering EHBCGIVE to 888-364-GIVE
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Mission statement
Bible reading (Zech 12-14, Ps 124… Start Malachi tomorrow, finishing OT on Tuesday, then two “catch up” days, and starting the NT on Friday!)
No evening activities tonight
Prayer Meeting Weds (Nehemiah 5… had to skip this past week)
Instructions for guests
Mother’s Day gifts for all ladies
Benediction
Benediction
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.
