For the past several weeks we have focused on a letter that missionary Paul wrote to a young church he started in the city of Thessalonica. He wrote this letter in 50 A.D. and, of all the books in the New Testament, this one was written first.
When he gets to the last part of his letter, Paul provides this church with some practical advice for conducting church life. And his words for them still have relevance for churches today.
I want to begin, though with a few words of recognition and appreciation for the two churches that Sue and I grew up in. Both of them hold a special place in our hearts. The first was a large, rural church where our parents were long-time active members and where we grew in our faith and developed our understanding that every Christian is a missionary. And it was there that we were privileged to see a growing conviction in our own parents to reach out in mission, so that eventually they, along with three other couples, all of them farmers, were serving together on an outreach committee, and felt the call of God to extend the witness of that church into a town 20 miles away.
In the summer of 1956, they found an abandoned church building and organized a Vacation Bible School in a low-income part of town. Sue and I both helped with VBS for two summers. And we helped with the Sunday school that developed right after that project.
To make a long story short, that was the beginning of a new congregation, and 50 years ago today, on Sunday, November 9, that church dedicated its new building and my dad was installed as pastor, where he served for 20 years, and Sue’s dad served as treasurer. Ours was the first wedding there. And we were the first missionaries sent out from there. This morning, they are holding a special anniversary celebration. And I’m hoping that my parents, now 90, are well enough to attend.
That new congregation grew rapidly in those first 20 years to a 100 or more as it reached out to the un-churched and also began attracting people from other congregations who wanted to be a part of a growing church. I wish I could say that it continued to increase all 50 years, but, unfortunately, while it was growing it attracted some people from other churches who came in with a different understanding of how the church should function. And soon the leaders found that some people were at odds with others in the church and some of them left.
Let me say here that it is important for congregations to do all they can to make clear to potential members what their mission is and how they go about fulfilling it. That is why at Elm Street we don’t just say, “You want to become a member? Great. Come on in.” Instead, we provide opportunities to explore the Bible and our beliefs together so we can all be on the same page. Sue and I have prayed about and hope we can begin faith discovery sessions soon for any of you who feel that God is calling you to become committed to Christ and his body. If God has been speaking to you about that, please let one of us know.
The church in Thessalonica was going through tough times. Some of them had experienced persecution for their faith. And remember that they were a new congregation made up of people from all kinds of backgrounds, so the challenge was how to worship and share in spiritual ministry together as one body. Paul addresses specific concerns in the first part of his letter, but now at the end, he provides 18 principles for healthy church life. We have read the verses that contain these principles in chapter 5. And you can find an even shorter version of that summary on the back of your bulletin. I think it is helpful to think of them in four different groupings.
Principles for church life
Attitudes toward leaders
1. Respect those who labor among you
2. Respect those who stand before you in the Lord
3. Esteem [your leaders] because of their work.
Ministry of the body
4. Be at peace among yourselves.
5. Admonish the idle (those out of step)
6. Encourage the faint-hearted
7. Help the weak
8. Be patient with everyone
9. Do not repay evil for evil
10. Always seek to do good to one another
Worship
11. Rejoice always
12. Pray without ceasing
13. Give thanks in all circumstances
The Spirit
14. Do not Quench the spirit
15. Do not despise the words of prophets
16. Test everything
17. Hold fast to what is good
18. Abstain from every form of evil
First, attitudes toward leaders. Every church has leaders, whether they are pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, board members, or something else. The title isn’t important; Paul doesn’t use any titles here. But in order for the work of the church to go smoothly, someone needs to fill various leadership roles and those leaders should be acknowledged for what they do.
I don’t know what might have been going on in the church Paul was writing to, but Paul appeals to them to respect their leaders. Maybe they thought leaders don’t really do much. You may have heard people jokingly say that pastors only work one hour a week.
So the first thing that Paul emphasizes here is the labor of these leaders. The word Paul uses here means hard work such as you would do in rigorous physical labor. Sunday school teachers can’t get by on a wing and a prayer and teach their class by just showing up. Preachers can’t provide sermons with spiritual depth by opening their Bibles on Saturday night or going to the internet. It takes time and energy to wrestle with a passage of scripture to discern what God may be saying to a congregation through it.
Leaders in the church are not heavy-handed rulers telling people what to do. The words “have charge of” in v. 2 refer to “those who stand before you.” They have been chosen as servants and their responsibility is to lead. Sometimes that requires that they teach; sometimes it requires admonishment if people have strayed from the path. The Bible makes clear that whatever the leadership role, deacons and leadership team members included, they should lead with humility.
The second group of principles has to do with the way church members minister to each other. Number 5 is an interesting one. It seems there were those who thought Jesus was coming back soon and decided they don’t need to work any more, so they were just sitting back and soaking up what they could get from generous people around them. And, if you look in II Thessalonians 3, you will see Paul’s work ethic. The strongest statement he makes there is in v. 10 “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”
Behind the word idleness in #5 on our list is the idea of carelessness, the idea that if you are not pulling your share of the load, you are out of step with everyone else. In a healthy church, everyone is working together to fulfill the mission God has given them.
Look at numbers 6, 7, & 8. The faint-hearted are those who may be pulling back because they are suffering persecution. They feel intimidated and their faith is not as robust as it should be. The weak are probably those who are ill or grieving or have experienced a moral failure. Paul asks the church to encourage and help those in such a situation.
The call to be patient may not be easy when so many people around you need attention for their hurts and their weaknesses. Last Wed. night, when we studied this passage, everyone seemed interested in a definition of patience that I found. Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping the gears. (Harold L. Fickett, Jr. Keep on Keeping On! 1977) I think all of us could identify with that.
The third group of principles has to do with worship. These come immediately following all the challenges of ministry that take lots of divine energy. But engaging in ministry doesn’t have to wear you down completely. A congregation gets its inner life renewed through worship and then through the empowering of the Spirit.
Here are three principles of worship: rejoice, pray, and give thanks. We engage in these acts of worship whether we are having private devotions or in corporate worship. I find it amazing how often the word rejoice is used in Paul’s letters. He’s not talking about happy circumstances. He is talking about cultivating an attitude, an orientation, a fruit of the Spirit. Remember, he was in prison when he wrote many of his letters and yet he tells the churches to rejoice.
Prayer is another of those attitudes we need to develop. Paul often said, “I am praying for you.” And he recognized the need for prayer for himself as well. In 5:25 he says, “Beloved, Pray for us.” How are we doing in the prayer department? I hope we are all praying for each other. Prayer is one of the spiritual disciplines we’ve emphasized. We’d like this church to be known as a church of prayer.
Paul says to give thanks in all circumstances, even the difficult ones. He does not say to be thankful for all things. There is a difference. We live with the awareness that no matter what the devil throws at us, we can hold out because God is present.
Finally, he mentions the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. We don’t know exactly what concerns Paul had about their worship, but he provides some guidelines in the exercise of spiritual gifts. If you think of the Holy Spirit as a fire as we read in Acts 2, we should not do anything that will douse that divine flame. Don’t quench it, he says. The Spirit needs freedom to work in the congregation.
Paul reminds them to discriminate among the gifts. God has provided checks and balances for the life of the church. Keep in mind that whatever the gifts are, they are given to strengthen the church.
We have gone over these are 18 principles rather quickly, even as Paul did at the end of his letter. If I asked you to mark two that really seem important for us, which ones would you mark? Last Wednesday evening, I asked those at Bible study to mark the ones they thought were important. I found it interesting that their marks were spread all through the list. None stood out as more important than the rest. I think that means they are all important.
God desires a balanced and healthy church life. Leaders and members need to work together. The whole congregation needs to be active in ministry. Worship is at the heart of what we do. And God’s Spirit guides our decisions and activities.
This past week, Sue and I sent a letter of greeting to the church for their anniversary celebration. The closing paragraph said, “As you reflect on and cherish God’s work among you, we urge you to stay focused on Christ as revealed in God’s Word as the foundation of your faith and (quoting from Eph. 4) to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4:1-3)
Take a minute to share with your neighbor which one or two items you marked as important. Then we will pray.
