I Thessalonians 1:1-3
While
I am no longer preaching regularly, I plan to continue to maintain my
blog. I am hoping to begin with a series
of messages I preached on First Thessalonians in 2006. I have updated and repeated some of these
messages in recent years. For example,
an abbreviated version of this message appeared in September. This is the longer, fuller version. It contains much more background information
for the study of First Thessalonians.
It occurred to me the other day that mine
may be the only dissertation written for a Baptist seminary that mentions
“Billy the Kid.”
I mentioned Billy when I sketched the
historical background of the Texas Panhandle just prior to the period I focused
on in my dissertation.
Billy, the infamous murderous outlaw, and
Pat Garrett, the lawman who eventually shot him, hung out in a wild and wooly
town called Tascosa. Throughout its
active history Tascosa never had a church, the first church in the community
was established well after the once bustling town began its decline. Contrast that with the community called
Clarendon. It was founded as a
temperance community by several retired Methodist ministers. No alcohol was allowed there, prompting the
local cowboys to dub the town “Saints’ Roost.”
Today, if you happen to be traveling between Amarillo and Wichita Falls,
you’ll pass through Clarendon and you’ll see it has its share of liquor
stores.
The railroad changed things for both
towns. It bypassed Tascosa, leaving it
to shrivel and die; the railroad came
through Clarendon, making it impossible for its founders to control who could
move into the area.
The community of Dawn, where I served as
pastor before coming here, didn’t make it into my dissertation but I had a
chance to review its history when the community celebrated its centennial in
1988. I saw a copy of the original
plans for the city. It included parks,
schools, and a wide street through it called Grand Boulevard. Dawn’s streets have no
names; you just don’t need them in a village of 80 people. [Update Note: In recent years, though the
village hasn’t grown, the streets have been given names to meet the demands of
UPS, FedEx, etc.]
Someone has said “life is what happens when
you’re making other plans.” The folks in
Tascosa, Clarendon, and Dawn were all making other plans. Things didn’t happen they way they planned.
The church in Thessalonica had other plans
as well. They expected things to work
out differently.
Somehow, these new Christians had concluded Christ’s return would occur
during their lives. Some of these folks
were so confident Christ’s Return was just around the corner they stopped
working, making them a burden on there more industrious fellow-believers. Others began to worry when some of their
fellow Christians died, wondering if they had somehow missed out on God’s plan
for them.
Paul wrote to tell these Christians they would have to remain in a sometimes hostile world longer than they planned.
Paul wrote to tell these Christians they would have to remain in a sometimes hostile world longer than they planned.
Of course, Paul had to address some other
matters as well. Someone, either in the
church or on the outside, began to spread rumors that Paul wasn’t
trustworthy. Others in the church began
to fall back into the old pagan lifestyle.
And, others began to form cliques which led to division in the church.
This was truly a shame because the Thessalonian church had been a model of how
the gospel brought men and women of diverse backgrounds together in a common
commitment to Christ.
In a way, every one of these problems could
be traced to the fact things hadn’t worked out the way the Thessalonians
expected.
Even if Burns hadn’t said it, sometimes the
best laid plans of mice and men get plowed under. If that’s never happened to you or to a
church you’ve been part of, I Thessalonians may not have much to say to
you. But if you’ve seen plans changed by
events over which you’ve had no control, if you’ve had dreams die, what Paul
tells the Thessalonian Christians may be very relevant to you.
Letter to a New Church
Paul opens this letter to a new church in a
conventional way.
(1) The
sender first identifies himself.
Paul, the missionary who was venturing into Europe with the Gospel. "Silvanus" is in the Greek name
of "Silas," Paul's long-time
traveling companion. “Timothy” the
younger helper; not mentioned in Luke’s
account of the founding of the Thessalonian church but was known to those
Christians.
(2) The
sender mentions the recipient. Paul wrote to the
new Christians in Thessalonica, a prosperous trading center and provincial
capital. One ancient writer said, “As
long as nature does not change,
Thessalonica will remain wealthy and fortunate.” The population when Paul visited it was
probably about 200,000. The Jewish
population was correspondingly large.
The church Paul founded had a diverse make-up.
Jews, Greeks, men and women, all came to have faith in Christ.
Acts 17: 4.
Some of the Jews believed Paul and Silas and joined them. In the
synagogue there were many Greeks, known as “God-fearers” because they worshiped
the true God. Many of these believed.
There were also many important women. They joined Paul and Silas,
too. Some were converted out of rank
paganism.
Luke makes special mention of the
women. In Acts 17 they are described as
women of the first rank--prominent women, high women, leading women. Williams: "gentlewomen of high
rank". Luke doesn’t say whether
their husbands became believers.
The gospel appealed to all. The gospel offered a view of women which was
unique in the ancient world.
But the Jewish leaders became jealous--this
led to trouble for the church from almost the beginning. After no more than a few weeks, Paul and
Silas had to flee the city, leaving behind a infant church which was not fully
grounded in the Faith.
(3) Usually the writer says something
nice to or about the recipient.
This could be an occasion for a lot of
flattery. Not here.
Paul “Christianizes” this opening.
--His wish for them to have “grace and
peace” was no mere convention. He
genuinely wanted God’s best for them.
--He reminds them of God’s involvement in
their very existence as a church. They
were a spiritual community.
--He let them know how thankful he was for
their lives and testimony. His statement
probably means that every time he prayed for the Thessalonian Christians, he
expressed his thanks for what God was doing in and through the congregation.
Why Paul was Thankful:
Verse 3 summarizes why Paul was thankful for
the Thessalonian church.
William's translation: “… for we can never for a moment before our
God forget your energizing faith, your toiling love, and your enduring hope in
our Lord Jesus Christ.”
"your
energizing faith"--something
about their faith kept them going through the tough times. Such faith kept them busy working for the
Kingdom; nothing--not trial or
difficulty--shut them down.
This was a faith which allowed God to work
in them and through them.
"
your toiling love"--their
love revealed itself in hard work. The
word “work” suggests it was intense and exhausting.
Love is not merely felt; love is something you do.
"your
enduring hope in our Lord Jesus Christ"--the passing of time and the increase of pressure did not change
their hope, hope focused on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul doesn’t specify the object of their hope
but it was in what Jesus had done and would do.
It would have had a view toward a better future.
It may point to their experience of trial
and persecution for the faith. There’s no reason to believe the trouble the
Christians faced ended just because the evangelists left town.
Thomas comments on this quality of
endurance: “This is an aggressive and
courageous Christian quality, excluding self-pity even when times are
hard. Difficulties endurance must cope
with consist of trials encountered specifically in living for Jesus
Christ. Endurance accepts the seemingly
dreary ‘blind alleys’ of Christian experience with a spirit of persistent
zeal…and goes forward no matter how hopeless the situation.”
This may have been the first time Paul
brought together the familiar virtues:
faith, hope, and love.
What does this say to us?
What should we take away from this first
look at a church which had to face an unexpected future?
A church’s identity grows out of its relationship
to God through Jesus Christ.
The
word Paul uses for church was ecclesia.
We get ecclesiastical from it, a word referring to things related to the
church. But ecclesia wasn’t a religious
word. It simply referred to an assembly
of people who had come together for a purpose.
The Christian assembly at Thessalonica
wasn’t just any gathering of like-minded people. It was “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.” Its unique character and
purpose was rooted in that relationship with God.
If we don’t keep that in mind, we risk
losing our identity. Our worship, our
ministry, our prayers ought to be shaped by that reality.
Teamwork
is crucial to a church’s health and prosperity.
Even though Paul was a powerful leaders, he
didn’t build the Thessalonian church on his own. He needed the help of others.
If our church tries to break out of the
inertia which grips us, there won’t be any superheroes arriving to do what we
all must resolve to do.
Even
when a church isn’t perfect, there are usually reasons to be thankful for what
God is doing in and through it.
As we’ll see, the Thessalonian church had
problems. Still, Paul and the others
were thankful for it.
Shortly after I arrived here a woman
attending the church at that time explained that she never invited friends to
our church because we weren’t doing some of the things other, bigger churches
were doing.
Poor woman.
She didn’t see the great things our church had to offer. But I’m afraid her spirit was
infectious. I’m afraid the fact we don’t
offer some of the same programs others churches offer, has made some feel we
have nothing to offer.
That’s just wrong. Ours isn’t a perfect church but we can be
thankful for its strengths. And we can
pray that those strengths will enable us to work together to make a good church
better.
When we
face the reality of an unexpected future, we need to foster the qualities of
faith, hope, and love.
We need a faith which will keep us going.
Let me be frank, this isn’t a faith which
says, it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as your sincere. It isn’t a faith which says, you believe one
thing, I believe another, who know who’s right or if anyone is right. Nor is it a faith which says there is only
one way to believe—mine.
It is a faith which unites us in common
agreement on the foundational elements of the Christian faith.
In an age when all human problems are
reduced to psychological, economic, or biological issues, we had better stand
ready to affirm the biblical teaching that the great human problem is
spiritual—our broken relationship with God.
In an age which denies the significance of
Jesus Christ, we had better make him the central feature of our message. We need to affirm his deity and his role as
the God-appointed way to salvation.
In an age which scoffs at the church, we had
better remember we are called to be salt and light in a dark and corrupt world,
to be world-changers, to be the heralds of good news, the best news humanity
has ever heard.
That kind of faith will bring us out on
Sundays. It will prompt us to rise
censure and embarrassment to speak out for Jesus Christ. It will shape a world-view which will
challenge the culture around us.
We need a love which gives us an outward
vision.
Several years ago, I heard a retired pastor
tell about his experience as an interim pastor at a dying church. Nothing he said could prompt the church to
think outside its four walls. He said
that during his service there, the only significant decision the church made
was voting to cut a foot off the inside ends of each pew. The goal was to make it easier to push a
casket down the aisle.
He realized most people saw the church as
somewhere to wait until they died and then have a nice funeral. It was an ingrown community.
Love, the love Jesus Christ longs to inspire
within his people, will keep a church from being so self-centered it becomes
deaf to the cries of a lost world.
It’s a love which will keep a church going
when many say give up, quit, the people you’re trying to change aren’t worth
the effort.
It isn’t really a tireless love, it’s a love
that keeps going despite being tired.
Do you remember The Man of LaMancha? Its best-known song is called The Quest. It may not have been the author’s intention,
but the song expresses the vision of one motivated by a God-inspired love.
To dream the impossible dream, to fight the
unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where
the brave dare not go,
To try when your arms are too weary, To
reach the unreachable star:
This is my quest, to follow that star, No
matter how hopeless,
No matter how far, to fight for the right,
without question or pause,
To be willing to march into Hell for a
heavenly cause.
And the world will be better for this:
That one man scorned and covered with scars,
still strove with his last
Once of courage to reach the unreachable
star.
We need a hope which endures.
The Thessalonian church needed a hope which
would help those Christians endure in the face of persecution. It’s not as easy to be a Christian in America
as it once was, but right now most of our churches face more urgent problems
than hungry lions.
When a church realizes it has a problem,
whether that problem is caused by division, by indifference, by inertia, or
whatever, the caring members of that church wish the problem could be fixed in
a week or two. That doesn’t happen. Problems which are years in the making take
a while to fix.
We need a hope which will let us see beyond
the now.
Conclusion
When I first came to this church, this
building was new. Several people told me
how you had planned it to be just the first phase of the building program, that
you’d planned to build a new, bigger sanctuary in just a few years. Unusually high attendance while you waited
for the building to be finished prompted plans for a grand future.
Somehow, something changed. The plan didn’t materialize.
It
probably isn’t fair to try to lay the blame on anyone. Lots of things happened in those days.
Some were disappointed when a change they
supported failed to become policy; some
were disappointed the change was even considered.
A beloved pastor moved on to another
church. Another pastor with a very
different personality and temperament replaced him. A change of pastors will sometimes attract
people but more often, it will give people permission to leave.
Early on, one of you told me that, after the
sanctuary was built, some seemed to take the “Field of Dreams” approach to
church growth, an approach which focused on the new building. These folks said, “If we build it, they will
come.” That didn’t happen. But a more realistic approach to church
growth didn’t replace the failed approach.
I don’t know how these things happened, but
I do know that what happened to our church happened while many of us were
making other plans.
When the plans change, a church has to go
back to the beginning, back to the place when we trusted God for our very
existence, sought God for direction, allowed God to form our character, and
praised God for what he does in and through us.
