1 Thessalonians 1.4-5a (Part Deux)

Words are powerful.

Words are expensive.

And, ignoring or rejecting words can lead you to the wrong destination.

Because words are powerful and expensive, a good translation or translator really does matter. 

Professional translator Nataly Kelly tells the following story about what journalists have called the “$70 million word.”

In 1980, 18-year-old Willie Ramirez was admitted to a Florida hospital in a comatose state. His friends and family tried to describe his condition to the paramedics and doctors who treated him, but Willie’s family only spoke Spanish. They told the hospital staff that Willie was intoxicado. The word is what translators call a “false friend”—it doesn’t mean what you’d assume it means. 

In Spanish, intoxicado refers to a state of poisoning, usually from ingesting something toxic to the system. Ramirez’s family was trying to say that Willie was suffering from food poisoning—literally, “he is poisoned.”

But when the doctors grabbed a hospital staff person to translate for the Ramirez family, the staff worker said that Willie was “intoxicated.” The doctors treated him as if we were suffering from an intentional drug overdose. Willie was misdiagnosed and, because of the wrong course of treatment, became a quadriplegic. 

The hospital finally settled in court with the Ramirez family for $71 million.

Words are powerful.

Words are expensive.

And, ignoring or rejecting words can lead you to the wrong destination.

The word that the Ramirez family was using had the power to communicate the truth of Willie’s situation and therefore, the power to get him the help and healing that he needed.

However, due to the lack of care and concern for the word being shared, the word became expensive.  First, the rejection of the word cost Willie his ability to use his torso and limbs for the remainder of his life.  The ignorance and rejection of the word ultimately cost Willie Ramirez his life.

Second, the rejection of the word cost the hospital $71 million dollars in payments that could have been avoided.

In this morning’s Biblical text, we are returning to our very slow crawl through the the deep and wide grace of God found in the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians.  (For more information on how we got here, please see the previous sermons now at home on my blog www.sinnerandsaint.blog). 

All you need to remember, or know, this morning is that 1 Thessalonians is a letter written by a few of the first Christian leaders to one of the first churches that was gathered in the Greek city of Thessalonica.

In the verses that we will hear from now, we hear that the Word of God is powerful, the Word of God is expensive, and depending on your response to the Word of God, the Word of God can lead you to the wrong destination or the right destination.

1 Thessalonians 1.4-5a says this:

[4] For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, [5] because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction…(ESV)

Last week, in this series through the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians, we received other-worldly comfort from the first half of these verses as we were washed in the Good News that God has chosen to love us (yes, stubborn and disobedient us), God has chosen to forgive us (yes, stubborn and disobedient us), and God has chosen prepare a place for us in His Kingdom of Heaven (yes, stubborn and disobedient us).  

God has chosen to do all of this for you and for me through choosing to die on the cross in the God-man, Jesus Christ

This morning, we are going to move on to the second half of these verses, specifically verse 5(a), and hear how we can be confident in the truth that God has chosen us because of the changes that occur in our daily living when we recognize that we are sinners and that Jesus Christ is our loving and forgiving Savior.

More than 20 years ago, I was at a Lutheran Brethren Youth Conference in Seattle, Washington.

One of the presenters, the then President of our Lutheran Brethren Seminary, shared about assurance of salvation.

In answering the question, “How can we know and trust that God loves us, forgives us, and has a place waiting for us in His Kingdom of Heaven?,” the pastor and professor shared a verse that has taken up permanent residence in my heart and mind ever since.

The Apostle John, the one who is known Biblically as, “the disciple that Jesus loved,” shared the reason he was writing his first letter to a group of Christians in Asia Minor during the 1st Century AD when he said,

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13, ESV)

This statement does not just pertain to this letter that John was writing.  

This statement pertains to the entirety of our Bible.  

All of Genesis 1.1 through Revelation 22.21, all 66 Biblical books, all 31,102 verses, are written to you hearing this message today so that you can be given exactly what you need to be made wise for salvation being confident in God’s never ending love of you.

This happens because the Holy Bible is not some dead text.  The words contained within The Word of God, are not just ink on paper.

Hebrews 4:12–13 sums this up when it says:

[12] For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. [13] And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (ESV)

The Word of God is powerful.

The Word of God is expensive.

And, ignoring or rejecting God’s Word can lead you to the wrong destination.

Eleanor Turnbull, a veteran missionary to Haiti, shared a few of the simple prayers that Christians in the Haitian mountains prayed in her presence.

One prayer shared went like this:

Our Great Physician,
Your word is like alcohol.
When poured on an infected wound, it burns and stings,
but only then can it kill germs.
If it doesn’t burn, it doesn’t do any good.

Another prayer like this:

Father,
A cold wind seems to have chilled us.
Wrap us in the blanket of your Word and warm us up.

And, still, another prayer like this;

Lord,
We find your Word like cabbage.
As we pull down the leaves, we get closer to the heart.
And as we get closer to the heart, it is sweeter.

What these Haitian Christians are professing in their prayers is the good news that the Word of God, the Bible, is not a dead word but a living and active Word.  And, that being true, the living and active Word of God always does God’s work when it is read and preached.

One more verse about God’s Word, the Bible, tells us that there is never a time that the Bible is read or preached that God remains quiet.  God always does some sort of work in the lives of those that hear His Word.

Isaiah 55:10–11 says:

[10] “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

and do not return there but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

[11] so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (ESV)

1 Corinthians 1:18 addresses the power and conviction of sin and salvation brought to us by God’s Holy Spirit whenever we read or hear God’s Word.

1 Corinthians 1.18 says:

[18] For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (ESV)

2 Timothy 3:14–17 addresses the expensive side of God’s Word when it says:

[14] … as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it [15] and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. [16] All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [17] that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (ESV)

The Word of God is powerful.

The Word of God is expensive.

And, the Word of God leads you to the right direction to the right destination.

After two years without a vacation, Edward Gamson, an American dentist, was excited to board his plane and do some site seeing in Granada, a province in Spain. But some nine hours later, he landed in the Caribbean island of Grenada (not Granada), 4,000 miles from his intended destination.

Mr. Gramson told a newspaper, “I made it absolutely clear to the booking agent I wanted to go to Granada in Spain. Why on earth would I want to go to Grenada in the Caribbean if I was flying back to America from Lisbon? It’s just so sad.” He’s suing the airline for $34,000. The judge refused to throw the suit out and then added, “This case proves the truth of Mark Twain’s aphorism that ‘the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.’ Except here only a single letter’s difference is involved.”

The Word of God is expensive for you if you ignore it or reject it.  By ignoring and rejecting the Word of God that God has graciously and mercifully given to you, you are led away from God and toward many false hopes that can never satisfy you.  By ignoring and rejecting God’s Word, you are led in the wrong direction to the wrong destination.  There are only a few letters separating Heaven and Hell.

The Word of God is also expensive for God because for those of you that receive and accept it, the forgives and eternal life and righteousness it provides you with was purchased with the body and blood of His One and Only Son, Jesus Christ on the cross.  The price for your sin had to be paid and God’s love for you does not want you to pay the cost so God, in His love for you, chose you to be brought back into His family through the atoning substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross.

The Word of God is powerful.

The Word of God is expensive.

And, the Word of God leads you in the right direction to the right destination.  By following Jesus Christ you are lead joyously into the Kingdom of Heaven today and forever.

Someone once said, “You cannot tells a hungry children that you gave him food yesterday.”  In the same way, you can’t tell your hungry soul that you gave it some hope through God’s Word yesterday.  You need to go to God the Father, in His Word, daily so that He can feed you faith, hope, and love.  It is God’s will that you be filled daily with the food of the Gospel that only He can provide.

There is a plaque on the wall in my office with a quote from the late pastor and theologian R.C. Sproul.

The quote from his book, Knowing Scripture, says, 

“The power of the word is not in the people’s being able to summarize a message they’ve heard.   Rather it is the power of God’s Word piercing the soul.”

Knowing this all to be true, that there is power in God’s Word to change us and give us hope for life with God on our side, I began to make it as easy as possible for you in this congregation to be exposed to the life-altering and world-changing Word of God on a regular basis.  

That is why I send an almost-daily email (and Facebook post) with a piece of Scripture and a few words of explanation to you.   It is always my hope that you are opening your Bible without my help, but I provide the help in getting God’s Word to you because I know from own personal experience how hard it often is to find a few uncluttered moments during the day to do so.

When we began today, we heard the truths that words are powerful and that words can sometimes be expensive for those that ignore and reject them. 

As you have heard and hopefully experienced, the Word of God is powerful.  The Word of God is able to penetrate the deepest recesses of your heart and mind to lay out your ungodliness before your eyes to convict you of your sin and your need for a Savior.

The Word of God has the power to reveal the darkest parts of who you are, the parts that you try hard to hide and have never spoken of before.  But, the Word of God also has the power, by the working of the Holy Spirit, to take what is in Heaven with God and deliver it directly to you where you are at any given moment in time.  By showing you Jesus, your Savior, the Word of God has the power to give you rest and peace in the finished work of Christ on your behalf.

This morning, God does not leave you alone to figure things out.  God gives you His Word.  In His freely gifted Word to you, God is always speaking to you, God is always leading you, and God is always assuring you that He has chosen to love you so that you can rest today.

The Word of God is powerful.

The Word of God is expensive.

And, the Word of God leads you to the right direction to the right destination.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Reverend Fred Scragg V.

May 24, 2026.