A guest speaker, Rev. Dave Hinkley, spoke at Fellowship Reformed Church in Mt Pleasant, MI on August 17, 2025. Pastor Dave preached from 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16, to explain the fruits that appear in a Christians life when they have received the Word of God as the Word of God. Pastor Dave is currently the Family and Education Pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI.

The text for the sermon was as follows: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!” (1 Thessalonians 2:13-16).

In Pastor Dave’s sermon, he briefly summarized the context of the passage, and the opposition that the Thessalonian Christians were facing from unbelieving Jews and their pagan countrymen. And then Dave explained how the Thessalonians received the word, and the fruits that it was bearing in their lives.

The Thessalonians received the Christian good news, not as a message from men. But they had recognized that God’s own voice could be heard in this message. The gospel is a message from heaven. And the promises of God give a stable platform of hope and refreshment, even in the midst of persecution. The weight of glory to come is better and truer than the momentary afflictions that God’s people must endure.