Sermon from June 2005

When Pastor Mark Smith spoke two weeks ago, I was encouraged and moved by what he said about our being influencers for Jesus Christ. Something else happened, when he began to speak, to remind me of the drama that goes on here every Sunday.

I had an uncanny unawareness of the congregation, as we settled back as one person to hear Mark’s message. I have to use words I didn’t think at the time in order to express the emotion I felt at the time.

I experienced from that side of this exchange the unwritten, seldom-spoken covenant between a pastor and the congregation. On that side of the covenant I sensed courtesy, hope, kindness, and cautious expectations of something good. It made me want to say, “Go, Mark, you can do it. You gotta do it!” And he did it.

Of course, the pastor’s side of that covenant came rushing over me with fresh force. Preaching for me is a childlike eagerness to share with you a new discovery that I have made in the Land of the Trinity. I hope you will share my quiet excitement about it and experience the same discovery. 1 Thessalonians 3:1 offers a case in point of what I mean. So, I hope you will turn there and let me show you.

Pauline Angst
So when we could stand it no longer . . . . Look at the beginning of verse five: when I could stand it no longer . . . . When was the last time you were so sick with worry that you blurted out, “I can’t stand this any more!”? Hold on to that emotion. It gives you access to the emotions of an apostle and a pastor.

1 Thessalonians is intensely personal. Paul cared about his success in planting a church. He cared about his integrity and his reputation. He cared about the well-being of the little congregation of new Christians he had left behind in Thessalonica.

Two concerns about that congregation nagged at Paul. One was the pressure they were under for their faith in Jesus Christ. Look back at 1 Thessalonians 2:14. You, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered.

The other frustration was his inability to be with them in their time of trial. Look at chapter 2:17-18. But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you – certainly I, Paul, did, again and again – but Satan stopped us. He wanted to go back, but circumstances prevented him from going.

Those concerns got the best of Paul. The first three verses of chapter three tell us how he felt and what he did. So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials.

Paul did not sugarcoat the dangers that lay ahead. He had warned them about hard times to come. Look at the rest of verse three and verse four. You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.

But talk is cheap. What mattered was how they responded when push came to shove. Paul couldn’t find that out in person. He hadn’t heard. He imagined the worst. This went on day after day. Maybe Timothy offered to go back. In any case, says verse five, for this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.

Paul’s Relief
Verse six offers the next best thing to being there. But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. They were standing firm in the face of hostility. Their faith in Jesus Christ was intact, and their love for one another showed no evidence of abating, including their love for Paul. He (Timothy) has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you.

Imagine the scene! Timothy returns after many days away. Paul drops what he was doing to hear the news. The news is all good. They cheer and embrace and give each other a high five. While the news and the joy are still fresh, Paul writes to them this highly personal letter, which made its way into the New Testament and has preserved for many generations down the centuries the warmth and passion and, yes, the anxiety of a pastor for his people.

Bible scholars have often pictured Paul as a brilliant and controversial theologian, debater, and church planter and not much else. It is a distorted picture of the man. This letter corrects our mistake by preserving evidence of his tenderness and transparency.

You can see it in the next four verses. Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. We think of Paul as the toughest of the tough, but the prospect of the Thessalonian church’s dissolving in the face of persecution had been eating his lunch. Timothy’s news about their steadfast faith encouraged the great man and lightened his load.

Verse eight is astounding. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord. You see what he was saying? You Thessalonian Christians are my life. If I lose you, part of me dies.

Then, in verses 9-10 Paul returns to the default position of his soul: thanksgiving and prayer. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.

By the way, there is a hint in 2 Corinthians 1:16, another of Paul’s letters that he may have been able to revisit the Thessalonian church. I hope he did. It would have been good for them both.

Paul’s Benediction
The highly personal part of this letter comes to an end in verses 11-13. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. That is Paul’s prayer request, which he would ask Hue Cooper to put on the BVBC prayer request list and e-mail to everyone.

Verses 12-13 are benedictions, which are also Paul’s prayers for the Thessalonian church. First: may the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. Have you noticed this recurring theme of love? In chapter 1:3 he complimented them on their labor prompted by love. In chapter 2:8 he said the Thessalonian churchhad become dear to him. Here he prays that their love will increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else. Nearly a quarter of chapter four instructs them about brotherly love. And in chapter 5:13 they are to hold their spiritual leaders in the highest regard in love because of their work. People who stepped inside the Thessalonian church encountered a pervasive good-will toward each other and outsiders. How does the spiritual put it? “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

Verse 13 gives the second benediction. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. May he strengthen your hearts. The strength we need is always inner strength, isn’t it? That is especially true if our calling is to be blameless and holy in the presence of our God. What does it mean to be holy and blameless? It is surprisingly within reach, as Paul will show in the last two chapters of this letter.

The Tie That Binds
Across 20 centuries, the family likeness between the experience Paul has described and that of BVBC is plainly visible. I cannot make too much of this family likeness. God created it. As with everything else He does, He acts with embarrassing generosity.

My concern for you, the Brandywine congregation, is not for suffering inflicted on us by hostile outsiders. My concern arises within the inescapable context of North American culture. I have seen something in our culture that is defining the character of the Church in North America. It is the unprincipled pursuit of liberty. It poses this question to the Church: “Can you Christians be people of integrity in a world where you are free to do anything you can get away with?” The fire for American Christians is staying true to our Lord, when all around, one allurement after another entices us away from Christ, especially when no one is watching.

You know quite well that we were destined for this particularly American temptation. In fact, you know how often I bring to your attention this challenge of being people of integrity in a world where you are free to do anything you can get away with.It is right for me, as you well know, to pray for you as Paul prayed for the Thessalonian believers: May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

What encourages me is your steadfastness. I see remarkably few casualties in this conflict. I do see people who have violated their integrity by abuses of liberty, but they don’t run. They acknowledge their failures and seek Christ again and seek counsel and support from fellow believers, who in turn receive them with understanding and compassion and a determination to restore them to strength and dignity.

There are occasions when that doesn’t happen, and they are among the hardest moments of pastoral ministry. For example, many years ago, I learned that a Christian man (no one here) was about to leave his wife and teenage children for another woman. I don’t remember what the children knew at the time, but his wife told me what was going on. I arranged to meet him for lunch.

I hate meetings like that, because I start at a terrible disadvantage. I entered the picture perhaps years after the man had given up on the marriage. I did not know the history. I had no particular leverage with this man. I appealed to the only motivation that might cause him to reconsider his actions.

I said to him, “You are a Christian man. You have a calling to honor Jesus Christ with your life, and He will hold you accountable some day for leaving your wife and children. Won’t you reconsider what you are doing?”

He did not get angry, and I will never forget his answer. He said, “Well, I’ve got to say, that’s a different approach. But, no, I’m not going to change my mind.” We spent an hour together, but we never got beyond that impasse.

His refusal jolted me, and I went away battered emotionally. I took it very personally. The tie that bound us bound our hearts in mutual trust. To tear that tie tore at my sense of justice and hope. The man had been a believer in Christ for years. Why did his relationship to Jesus Christ have so little influence over the great decisions of his life? But that has been the exception. Your steadfastness has been the rule.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
I have brought along with me today three powerful instruments of pastoral ministry. This one is our BVBC Pictorial Directory. This one is our BVBC phone book. This one is a compilation of people who have been to my house for a newcomers’ dinner, and also of the newest of the new people who have visited BVBC and received a call from Brenda Wilson, Beth Truax, Barbara Lekates, or someone else here.

Routinely, I start on page one of the Pictorial Directory, cover up the names below each picture, and try to identify everyone in the picture by name. Learning your children’s names is particularly important. When children’s choirs sing, I love the music, but I am going down each row: “There’s Rachel, there’s Yanni, there’s Hannah. Who is the boy beside Drew? Who is that girl beside Amanda?”

When I finish reviewing a page of the Pictorial Directory, I open up the BVBC phone book, and I read the names of everyone else in that part of the alphabet, whose photo is not in the Pictorial Directory. I call their faces to mind, tell myself stories about them, and ask about the ones I can’t remember. Or else, I go back to the lists of newcomers to fill in information about the people I can’t remember.

Conventional thinking discourages pastors in churches our size and larger from trying to remember names. There is wisdom in that counsel, but I remember names (I can’t help myself), and I want to remember names. Your name is my entrée into your confidence, and I serve a God of whom it is written: He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name (Psa. 147:3-4). I want to be like Him. I want to represent Him to you.

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? You know, we don’t ask much of people in this congregation, just everything. What engages me deeply is to watch you, as the years go by, learning to get your life around the idea that Christ asks you for everything.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t get it at first, or if you think you are a slow learner, or if you are a slow learner. What comes through as the “years lie thicker than leaves” is that you don’t give up. What matters is that Christ is worthy of all you are and all you have, and even if you do it in fits and starts, you’re going to figure out how to live your life in a way that is worthy of Him. I wouldn’t miss being at your side for that journey, for all the tea in China.