What do people see and experience when you first enter their lives with the gospel? Drawing from 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12, this message explores Paul’s “entrance” among the Thessalonians as a model for how believers should approach evangelism and relationships with unbelievers. We see the integrity of the messenger—boldly proclaiming the pure gospel without deceit, manipulation, flattery, greed, or a desire for human glory, all under the searching eye of God who “trieth our hearts.” Paul’s manner shows that what we refuse to do as we share Christ is just as important as what we say.

The sermon then unfolds Paul’s deep affection and clear aim. Like a nursing mother and a caring father, Paul was gentle, sacrificial, and personally invested—imparting not only the gospel of God, but his own soul, laboring night and day so as not to burden them. His goal was not merely a momentary decision, but that they would “walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.” Listeners are challenged to embody the gospel they proclaim: entering unbelievers’ lives with integrity, genuine love, and a long-term aim for their salvation and growth in a life worthy of God.

***first 33 minutes no audio - sorry for the inconvienence

In this message, Pastor Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher, walked through 1 Thessalonians 1:5 to show how the gospel first came to the Thessalonians and what that means for us. He highlighted that Paul’s “our gospel” arrived “not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” The gospel is not mere religious talk or human wisdom; it is the very power of God unto salvation, carried by weak vessels but effectually working in those who believe. It came to Thessalonica through great distance, in the midst of persecution, and it overturned their thinking—turning them from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. This same message is distinct from all other words, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and able to penetrate to the heart and conscience.

Pastor Strelecki exhorted us to remember how the gospel first came to us and to recognize what it has produced: a work of faith, a labor of love, and a patience of hope. The Thessalonians received the word “in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost,” becoming followers of Paul and of the Lord, even under pressure and opposition. We, too, have been entrusted with this powerful gospel; our task is not to dress it up with flattering speech or human technique, but to proclaim it plainly and confidently, trusting its inherent power. Rather than letting Scripture become competing “content” alongside our devices and distractions, we are called to open this book, believe what it says, and allow its power in the Holy Ghost to renew our minds, shape our relationships, and anchor us with much assurance in what God has done and will yet do in Christ.

In this introductory message to 1 Thessalonians, Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher, surveys the historical and biblical background of the church at Thessalonica. He traces Paul’s movements from Philippi to Thessalonica in Acts 16–17, highlighting the city’s strategic importance as a major Macedonian seaport and crossroads, and explaining how Paul’s customary practice was to begin in the Jewish synagogue with the Scriptures. Over three Sabbaths, Paul reasoned from the Old Testament that Jesus had to suffer and rise again, and many Jews, Greeks, and chief women believed—forming the nucleus of the Thessalonian church. Due to ensuing persecution, Paul was forced to leave quickly for Berea, then Athens, and finally Corinth, all the while burdened with concern over how these young believers were faring under affliction. He sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to establish and comfort them, and when Timothy returned with a strong report, Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians from Corinth (around Acts 18:5).

Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher, then outlines the primary purposes and themes of the letter. Paul writes to encourage the saints in their steadfastness, defend the integrity of his ministry, comfort them in suffering, exhort them in their daily walk (including diligent work), correct misunderstandings about prophetic events, and address relational tensions within the assembly. A key structural lens for the epistle is found in 1 Thessalonians 1:3—their “work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope”—which he uses to frame the letter’s flow: faith expressed in gospel reception and proclamation, love expressed in serving the living and true God and one another, and hope expressed in waiting for God’s Son from heaven. The coming of the Lord Jesus is woven throughout, not as mere prophecy charts, but as a practical motivator for holy living in light of the judgment seat of Christ. The aim, as presented, is that this “lovely epistle” would not remain a distant historical document, but actively renew our minds and shape how we walk, suffer, serve, and abound more and more until Christ’s return.

What anchors your life when everything familiar can change in a moment? This message launches part two of the series, “That Which May Be Known,” shifting from how God reveals Himself to what He has eternally purposed—the “determinate counsel of God.” Beginning from Acts 2:23 and tracing through Romans, Ephesians, Proverbs, Isaiah, and Colossians, the sermon defines “counsel” biblically, contrasts God’s immutable, wise, and eternal counsel with the unstable, dark counsel of men, and shows how all of God’s planning before the foundation of the world centers in Christ. We see that God did not create or redeem on impulse; He acted according to a deliberate, eternal purpose formed within the Godhead itself.

This overview of divine counsel is not just theological “academia”; it is meant to ground believers in something that truly cannot be shaken. While our possessions, plans, and even our lives are uncertain, God’s counsel “shall stand” and He “works all things after the counsel of His own will.” The sermon presses probing questions: Do you know God’s counsel? Which counsel are you actually trusting—His or your own? Are you resting in the certainty of His purpose in Christ? As the series continues, the teaching will unpack the specific substance of that eternal counsel and what God has predestined as the believer’s everlasting end.

Drawing from Deuteronomy 10 and other key passages, Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher, highlights that God is utterly unique as the “God of gods and Lord of lords,” possessing incommunicable attributes such as eternity, aseity, immutability, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. These belong to God alone, showing Him to be self-existent, unchanging, beyond time and space, and limitless in power and knowledge. In contrast, communicable attributes—like wisdom, holiness, goodness, justice, and love—are reflected in humanity in a faint, dependent way and are brought into proper expression and growth in believers as they are conformed to the image of Christ.

He stresses that real spiritual change does not flow chiefly from practical instruction or behavior tweaks, but from beholding the glory of the Lord in His Word by faith. As believers gaze on Christ—the perfect image of the invisible God—the Spirit transforms them “from glory to glory,” so that ordinary spheres of life (marriage, family, work, citizenship, church) become the very places where God’s character is displayed. Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher, urges Christians to stop chasing worldly greatness and instead rest in God’s unchanging promises and eternal purpose in Christ, allowing His attributes to be formed in them and expressed through them in the seemingly small, everyday details of life.

Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher, explains that while humanity cannot discover God on its own, God has graciously revealed Himself through both creation (general revelation) and Scripture (special revelation). From Isaiah 46, he emphasizes that God alone is God—there is none else and none like Him—who declares the end from the beginning and has both the intention and the power to bring His counsel to pass. Strelecki underscores how Scripture unveils God’s eternal purpose in Christ from before the world began through eternity future, and urges believers not to take this revelation for granted but to “get into the Book,” learn God well, believe what He says, and order their lives accordingly.

Strelecki then turns to God’s existence and attributes, showing from passages like Psalms, Romans, and Isaiah that denying God is the height of folly, even as creation, human dependence, and the order of the world all testify to a first cause and sustaining Creator. He highlights God’s incommunicable attributes—His eternity (from everlasting to everlasting) and aseity (self-existence, “I AM THAT I AM”)—as realities that set God utterly apart from idols and from His creatures, and yet this high and lofty One chooses to dwell with the humble and contrite. He closes by pointing to Christ as the perfect image of the invisible God, through whom believers not only come to know God savingly, but are also transformed into His likeness in those communicable attributes that reflect the family resemblance to their Creator.