Sunday, August 30, 2015
[prior to reading the text]
Last
week, we received spiritual prescriptions that contribute to us living
spiritually healthy lives in relation to God as disciples of Jesus and as a
church that stands on the foundation of faith.
The first prescription is to read 1st Thessalonians, 2nd
Thessalonians, and Acts 17.
The
second prescription is to the welcome the madness that is in the world, and we
do this by creating an environment of love and grace as we invite broken people
to come to faith in Christ.
This
morning, we receive additional guidance for a spiritually fulfilled life. Our Bible passage is 1st
Thessalonians 2:13-20.
13 We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you
received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human
word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you
believers. 14 For you, brothers and sisters,[d] became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that
are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as
they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord
Jesus and the prophets,[e] and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone16 by
hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they
have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has
overtaken them at last.
17 As for us, brothers and sisters,[g] when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being
separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to
see you face to face. 18 For we wanted to come to
you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our
way. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of
boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 Yes,
you are our glory and joy!
In 1st Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says the people in
Thessalonica received the word of God not a human word but as God’s word, which works in us. Note, Paul did not hand out Bibles – the New
Testament had not been written and bound books were not available. We hear the phrase ‘word of God,’ and we
think Bible. Paul meant his
preaching. When he went to Thessalonica
and preached to the Jews in the synagogue, he felt that his sermon was the word
of God.
Something
similar should happen here. When you
come to HillSong or to another church, here is what should happen. The experience should be one in which you
encounter the living God. I don’t say
this because my words are necessarily the Word.
I do my part. I study. I pray.
I try to write a sermon that is interesting, well-informed, and includes
a message that meets a need people have.
But, you receiving the word of God is not contingent upon my competence
as a preacher. Some weeks I do well, some
weeks, I really stumble and stink.
Some
weeks, I finish, and I sit down, and I think, “Boy, I am glad that’s over
because my preaching was just awful.” Inevitably someone will come and say
through tears, “That’s the best sermon you’ve ever preached.” Do you know why that happens? God was at work in that person on that
Sunday. They need to express the
overwhelming sense of the holy they have had.
How do they express that? They
don’t know. So they complement me.
Sometimes
people listen very carefully and give me feedback that is directly tied to
something I said and I am grateful in those moments whether the feedback is
critical or affirming. But sometimes,
people have actually been dealing with God and did not really hear me at
all. They have to react and the easiest
thing to do is say something nice to me.
I’ll
admit it does feel good to hear affirmations and ‘attaboys.’ But, this morning, I think the word in 1st
Thessalonians is calling us to go beyond the easy and immediate reaction. We need to step toward a more life-changing
engagement with the word. And by the
phrase “the word,” I mean the sermon, the Bible, and the voice of the Holy
Spirit speaking into hearts as we go through the entire Sunday morning exercise
of worship at church.
We
need to fully receive the word and that requires full engagement of each of
us. Be aware of your life – the good,
the bad, the ugly. Be aware of your
spirit. Are you happy, in a good place
right now? Are you going through
difficult times? Is your life kind of
inert, it feels dull, boring? Is this a
season of radical change? Does all the
new that’s pouring to your life leave you feeling unsettled and unsure of
what’s next? As we sit together as a
community of faith and encounter God’s word, know yourself, your emotions, your
dreams, your situation. Bring all of it
before God.
When
Paul preached at the synagogue in Thessalonica, obviously Jews were
present. Greeks were too. Non-Jews attended because they found
something in the Jewish faith to be attractive.
It was a world of Roman power, Greek culture, and Jewish religion. Many there knew that the tense situation in
Jerusalem. Certain groups were intent on
using military force to evict the Romans.
It would be a suicide mission as Israel was a meager force in the face
of the might of the Roman army.
The
Jews and Greeks who gathered at the synagogue in Thessalonica knew of
this. They heard Paul claim that Jesus,
who was crucified, a shameful, loser’s death, had been raised and was the
Messiah. They knew this message was way
outside of anyone’s expectations, whether they be Greek, Jewish, or Roman. How could Paul, a Jew, make such a
far-fetched claim? Yet, he did. A few Thessalonican Jews believed him and
wanted to become disciples of Jesus. So
too did a few Thessalonican Greeks. Many
others got so mad they kicked Paul out of town.
In
writing the letter 1st Thessalonians, Paul picks up on this ongoing
story of struggle and persecution. When
he says, “You received the word as God’s word,” included in this is the
acknowledgement that to follow Jesus is to suffer. Verse 14, “[You Thessalonians] became imitators of the churches of God in
Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own
compatriots as they did from the Jews.”
Please remember, in both churches, the Thessalonican and the Judean,
many of the Christ-followers were Jews.
Bible scholar Calvin Roetzel writes how suffering brought
“the suffering churches of Thessalonica and Judea together into a community of
shared suffering.” In this passage,
“Paul emphasized the bond between himself and his readers.”[i] He suffered.
They suffered. Christians in
other cities suffered. And ultimately,
God can identify with all of this because on the cross, Jesus suffered.
Suffering of course is not the heart of the faith Paul
taught; just the opposite. In 1st
Thessalonians he is moving to show that God welcomes suffering people. If you are having a tough go of it, that is
not a sign that you’re cut off from God.
Sin cuts us off. If you’re
suffering, God understands and so too do all God-followers. The answer to the cross and to your pain and
mine is the resurrection. We are united
in that we are broken and that we have hope that God will clean up our mess,
fix what is broken, heal what’s hurt, and make us new.
We won’t receive the word fully unless we attend to it
fully and that means bring everything before God when we come into the
worship. The preacher stand to preach
and we’re all here – with all our junk.
Our hearts are fully present and so too are our brothers and sisters in
Christ around the world. Our challenges
are linked to those who languish in poverty just a few miles from here. Our story is a part of the story of the
faithful believe drowning in a sea of apathy and atheism in post-Christian
Europe. We are connected to the
Christian starving in solitary confinement in a North Korean prison. It is all connected.
When Paul told the Thessalonians they were receiving the
Word as they heard Him speak and when I say here that God’s word is spoken
during my sermons, there is a lot more going on than just a guy as microphone
offering commentary on the Bible. God is
bringing us all together in Christ.
N.T. Wright says it this way. “I believe [Paul] regarded [his own] work as
being to set up cells loyal to Jesus as Lord across the world where Caesar was
lord, raising small but significant flags which heralded the dawn of a
different empire, a different sort of empire.”[ii] We see several things happening. One is we, in our brokenness are invited in
to find what we need, whatever it is, in a community that is based on faith in
Jesus Christ as the Savior of all and Lord of all. Our hope is in Him.
A second thing at work in this Word of God is the unity we
have with one another, with churches and with people from almost 2000 years ago
– Thessalonia, Jerusalem, Paul, Silas, and with churches around the world
today. We who have our hope in Christ
are connected to all others who have their hope in Christ because we’re all
broken and we all have hope of healing from the same source: the crucified, resurrected
Lord.
A third thing in Paul’s letter which Dr. Wright so astutely
observes is that we who are healed and connected through the Word we have
received are commissioned to announce that Jesus is Lord. We are to look at the governments of today
and the situations of the lives we lead and we are to be today’s heralds of a
new kind of empire. The word we have
received heals us and then propels us just as it did Paul to announce the
Gospel, the good news of life in Christ.
I preach this same message just about every week. I use different words and the themes vary,
but the idea that we meet God in Christ, are healed and made whole, and then
are sent into the world in His name is at the core of what I think the Bible
says we are to be as His followers. So
discipleship and proclamation is always a part of what we do and say.
Last week we received a prescription of 3 Bible readings
and one orientation – an orientation of welcome to all people.
This week the word is in the form of exercise or spiritual therapy. I got to doctor in hopes a magic pill that
will my shoulder pain disappear. No, he
says, you don’t get medicine. You have
to go through physical therapy. It takes
time and commitment and it is hard work.
But I can tell you, it is worth it!
I didn’t like the exercises, but 6 weeks later, my shoulder was working
properly again.
This spiritual version of physical therapy is
demanding. (1) We need to come to
worship with the family of God – the church.
We need to come every week. (2)
When we come – whether here or elsewhere, whether with me preaching or with
Heather or Nathan – we need to be fully present. This doesn’t mean we hang on every word Rob
speaks. We need to come fully present to
God.
To be fully present, we have to give God our
attention. Distractions happen, but we
keep our minds and hearts open to God as the Bible is read and the preacher
speaks. Fully attentive, fully open,
prayerfully waiting, we are ready to receive what God has for us. In that moment, when we sit fully ready and
the Holy Spirit awakens us to new truth and revelation God has for us, that is
when we receive the word as God’s word.
It may be directly related to the preacher’s sermon; it may not. Either way, we have received God’s word.
Finally (3), we carry what we have received into the world
so that we are ready to share the healing and to invite the lost and hurting
world around us to the hope that we have in the resurrection of Jesus.
Come, be fully present, and carry with you what’s been
received. These three spiritual
practices need to be done regularly for spiritual health and the transformation
of the heart.
N.T. Wright marvels at this message we proclaim. He’s amazed that it actually does
anything. He says, “I have often
reflected on the strangeness of the task to which Paul devoted his life:
telling pagans that there was a single creator God rather than a multiplicity
of gods was bad enough, but adding that this God had made himself known in a
crucified Jew, who had then been raised from the dead was bound to cause hoots
of derision and, if Acts is to be believed, sometimes did. Yet
Paul found that when he told this story, when he proclaimed that this Jesus was
indeed the world’s true Lord, people (to their great surprise, no doubt) found this
announcement making itself at home in their minds and hearts, generating the
belief that it was true, and transforming their lives with a strange new
presence and power.”[iii]
Yes, it is strange.
Come every week. Listen so
presently and intently you meet God. Go
out and share that God in Christ is the answer to the world’s problem. We don’t have to participate in this exercise
to breathe or have a heartbeat. But to
truly live, we do this. And, as the
apostle says, we have joy.
AMEN
No comments:
Post a Comment