Title: Things That Are True and What They Mean
Text: I Thessalonians 1:1-10
Introduction
This week I read that the police department of Bothell, WA has requested that residents stop dialing 911 to report they can’t log onto Facebook which reminded me of a phrase popularized a few years ago by a rather earthy comedian, “You can’t fix stupid.”
I ran across a couple of curious song titles this week. One is sung by a group called The Melvins, who have produced an album/CD or whatever titled, A Walk with Love and Death. Their title song is, “What’s Wrong with You.” So I went on YouTube to check it out and basically the premise of the song is, “What’s wrong with me is what’s wrong with you.”
I also happened upon another interesting song sung by Todd Grebe and Cold Country in their new album/CD, Until Tomorrow. It’s a song about a girl and they sing, “Little girl, you’re a lot of work. It must be hard being you.”
I guess I was intrigued by their song titles because I have often asked the question, “What’s wrong with you?” And I have thought it must be hard being who some people are. Neither the question nor the observation is complementary.
I was also intrigued by how differently the Apostle Paul saw and thought of the people who were the church at Thessalonica. In our text today Paul did not start out with a “You can’t fix stupid.” Or a, “What’s wrong with you?” or say, “It must be hard being you.” His observations are positive and up lifting… it is as if he is saying, “This is what’s right with you.” And he is stating, “Being who you are is a good thing.”
The first good thing our text speaks to that is true is:
I. We Belong to God
We are writing to the church in Thessalonica, to you who belong to God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. I Thessalonians 1:1
Q. What does it mean for a church and for people to belong to God?
It means our lives and our church is about God not us.
The Apostle Paul begins his letter by making a fairly unnerving statement about the church… about you and me and all who follow Christ. He is writing to, “you who belong to God.”
It is reminiscent of a comment he made in I Corinthians 6:19-20 where he wrote, “You are not your own, i.e., you do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with the high price, i.e., the precious blood of Christ, so you must honor God with your body.”
This is kind of a foreign concept for us. We are pretty sure that most things exist for us. The people at Du Page Medical Center exist to keep me healthy. The people at DXL Destination exist to clothe me. The people at Great Clips exist to keep me looking like I just stepped out of GQ Magazine. The people at the corner gas exist to keep my car fueled up. The people at DISH Network exist to keep me entertained. You get the idea. It only makes sense in a consumer culture to believe the church exists to meet my wants and needs.
So I look for a church that caters to my preferences and felt needs. Before I get in any deeper just let me say, the church does not exist to make me or you or anyone else miserable. But it, we, us, St. Paul’s ultimately belong to God. It is not a human-centered organization. The church is God-Centered. We, as the church, exist for the glory of God. So Paul wrote in I Corinthians 10:31, “Whatever you do… do it all for the glory of God.” Simply put, at the heart of it all, the church exists for the praise and glory of God. Before all the other things that happen here, when we gather it is an opportunity for us to glorify, praise and worship God.
I heard the story of a woman who had finished shopping and returned to her car. She found four men inside the car. She dropped her shopping bags, drew a handgun, and screamed, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car." Those men did not wait for a second invitation; they got out and ran like crazy.
The woman, somewhat shaken, loaded her shopping bags and then got into the car. But no matter how she tried, she could not get her key into the ignition. Then it dawned on her: her car was parked four or five spaces away! She loaded her grocery bags into her own car and then drove to the police station to turn herself in. The desk sergeant pointed to the other end of the counter, where four men were reporting a carjacking by an old woman with thick glasses and curly white hair, less than five feet tall, and carrying a large handgun.
You see, she thought it was her car, but it really belonged to someone else. We think our lives are our own, but they really belong to God. We think our church is our own, but it really belongs to God.
Perhaps a good way for us to think of this truth is, the church exists to glorify God and be a blessing to others.
A second thing that is true is this:
II. Our Ministry Matters (What We Do Matters)
…We think about your faithful work, your loving deeds and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. I Thessalonians 1:2-3
Q. What does it mean to do ministry that matters?
It means we faithfully serve God by doing what honors God and blesses others because of who we are in Christ.
• We are known for our faithful work and loving deeds. 1:3
• We are known for having an enduring hope. 1:3
It means we keep the doors open and pray for our community to come to Christ. It means we collect food for the pantry. We purchase sewing machines for women in other countries so they can make a living. It means we collect diapers for moms who have few resources. It means we collect school supplies for needy children. It means we encourage a sister church in a challenging neighborhood. It means we do Spaghetti Dinners and Oktoberfests in order to benefit others. It means we consider adopting a young missionary who serves Jesus in a third world country. It means we visit the sick. It means we befriend the lonely. It means we cooperate with other Christians and other churches because we know we can do more together than we could ever do alone. (That is why we support our Midwest Conference and the larger Evangelical Covenant Church.)
Forty-three states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, run lotteries [as of January 2014]… According to a CNN article, "More than half of us have played the lottery in the last year, although 20 percent of customers buy the majority of the tickets." In fiscal 2012, Americans spent around $78 billion playing lotteries. Since 1964, when New Hampshire launched the first modern state lottery, ticket sales have gone up every year, even during the Great Recession, when the sale of most other items declined.
What drives the popularity of lotteries? Not the incredible odds.
• You're more likely to be attacked by a shark (one in 11.5 million).
• You are more likely to die in a lightning strike (one in three million).
• The odds of winning Powerball is one in over 175 million.
• You'd have to buy 86 million tickets to reach even a fifty-fifty chance of winning.
So why do we people keep playing the lottery? Maybe because it lets us live in a fantasy world. As Rebecca Paul Hargrove, president of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation, puts it, "For $2 you can spend the day dreaming about what you would do with half a billion dollars—half a billion dollars!" Psychologist Dr. Stephen Goldbart suggests the lottery appeals because "it lets you believe in magic: that you will be the one who spent a little and got a lot" and that the money "will give you a respite from the conflict, complexity, and angst of everyday life." Journalist Adam Piore writes, "[The lottery] is a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale."
In our text today we are reminded that our lives and our existence as a church here at St. Paul’s is:
• To be known for our faithful work and loving deeds. 1:3
• To be known for having an enduring hope. 1:3
And our enduring hope is not to win the lottery but to fix our gazes on things that cannot be seen, or purchased at a Quick Shop but rather, on a glory that will last forever. II Corinthians 4:18
Third thing that is true is:
III. God Loves Us and Has Chosen Us to Be His People
We know… God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. I Thessalonians 1:4-7
Q. What does it mean to be chosen by God?
The word “chosen” is important here in that the points that follow are evidence of our having been chosen by God. What does chosen mean? Election?
There is a passage in Ephesians 2 that reads like this: “Even before he made the world, god loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Ephesians 2:4-5
“God showed his great love for us in that while we were still sinners, he sent Christ to die for us.” Romans 5:8
This means our worth or value is rooted in God’s love for us. It means who we are has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the grace of God.
It means that because God chose us:
• We heard the Word and the Holy Spirit convinced us of its truth. V. 5
• We received the message with joy despite suffering. V 6
• We are an example to others. V. 7
One of the most beloved songs of the Christmas season started out as an advertising gimmick. In 1939 Montgomery Ward tapped advertising executive Robert May to write a poem that their store Santa Claus could give away to children who came to visit him. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" first appeared in a little booklet published by the department store chain. More than 2.5 million copies were handed out. And by 1946 more than 6 million copies of the poem were distributed.
Rudolph's story came to musical life in 1949 when May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, wrote the music. After it was turned down by Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, singing cowboy Gene Autry recorded it. Today "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is the highest-selling Christmas carol, at more than 25 million units.
What makes this little carol so loved? Some people might say that it's the pluckiness and courage of Rudolph, the alleged hero of the story. But the real beauty of the story focuses on grace. By grace, Santa chooses Rudolph despite the fact that he's a clear outsider and "reject." He has a defect—his big, annoyingly shiny red nose that has usually disqualified him from getting chosen for other reindeer games. But despite all the other available candidates, who did Santa choose (or "elect") when the fog rolled in? That's right, the one with the weird shiny red nose. The "weakness" that was considered a liability by Rudolph and his fellow reindeer became the "strength" that Santa used to accomplish his mission.
And so it is, God loves you (Us. His church here at St. Paul’s) and has chosen you (Us. His church here at St. Paul’s.) to be his own people to accomplish his purposes in the world.
The fourth truth is this:
IV. We Have a Reputation to Live Into
Wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. I Thessalonians 1:8-10
Q. What does it mean to be known as people of faith?
It means to live in the present in anticipation of the future.
• We serve the living and true God. V. 9
• We are looking forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.
Rebecca Sabky, an undergraduate admissions counselor at an Ivy League School, reads over 2,000 college applications every year. She writes: "The applicants are always intellectually curious and talented. They climb mountains, head extracurricular clubs and develop new technologies. They're the next generation's leaders. Their accomplishments stack up quickly." But she's always on the lookout for one rare quality: kindness, as exemplified in this true story:
[A student from a large public school in New England] was clearly bright, as evidenced by his class rank and teachers' praise. He had a supportive recommendation from his college counselor and an impressive list of extra-curricular activities. … But one letter of recommendation caught my eye. It was from a school custodian.
Letters of recommendation are typically written by people who the applicant thinks will impress a school. This letter was different. The custodian wrote that he was compelled to support this student's candidacy because of his thoughtfulness. This young man was the only person in the school who knew the names of every member of the janitorial staff. He turned off lights in empty rooms, consistently thanked the hallway monitor each morning and tidied up after his peers even if nobody was watching. This student, the custodian wrote, had a refreshing respect for every person at the school, regardless of position, popularity or clout.
Over 15 years and 30,000 applications in my admissions career, I had never seen a recommendation from a school custodian. It gave us a window onto a student's life in the moments when nothing "counted." That student was admitted by unanimous vote of the admissions committee.
And so it is, we too have a reputation to live into. It is reputation that will follow us and be said of us. It is a reputation for having lived serving the living and true God. It is reputation of being people with one foot firmly planted in this life and the other in anticipation of the next life.
Conclusion
Over the years I have evolved from being very critical of the church to being convinced that imperfect as we may be, we are the body of Christ in this world and we are the people through whom God works in the world. I know we are not perfect but I also know we are better than we think and our influence in the world is greater than we know.
Earl Palmer, an author and former pastor, once countered critics who rail against the church for its hypocritical, scandalous, and often irrelevant footprint in the culture. "When California's Milpitas High School orchestra attempts Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the result is appalling," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if the performance made old Ludwig roll over in his grave despite his deafness. You might ask: 'Why bother? Why inflict on those poor kids the terrible burden of trying to render what the immortal Beethoven had in mind? Not even the great Chicago Symphony Orchestra can attain that perfection.' My answer is this: The Milpitas High School orchestra will give some people in that audience their only encounter with Beethoven's great Ninth Symphony. Far from perfection, it is nevertheless the only way they will hear Beethoven's message."
As flawed as we may be as people and as a church, Palmer is pointing out that the only way a starving, thirsty, deluded, and suffering world will ever hear the music of the gospel is through the body of Christ.
