Over the next few weeks we will be spending time with the
letter that Paul wrote to the new church in Thessalonica.
This letter is almost certainly Paul’s first letter and
the earliest Christian document that we have. It was written about 15 years
after Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is very close. It is a bit like
someone writing today about the impact of something that happened in 2000.
It is a letter which does four things. First, and this is what we look at today,
Paul gives thanks for the Thessalonian church. Second (chapters 2 and 3), he
reaffirms the authenticity of his ministry and his love for the Thessalonian
believers. Third, he urges them on to sanctification – to live a holy live
(that is chapter 4.1-12); and finally he reassures them about those who have
already died (chapter 4.13-5.11)
So in chapter 1, Paul gives thanks to God for the
Thessalonian church.
He had been worried. We are told about the founding of
the church in Acts 17.1-8. He had gone to Thessalonica and preached in the
synagogue for 3 weeks. His message is all about Jesus. He teaches that Jesus is
the Messiah, that he died and rose from the dead. Some of the Jews believed but
the majority rejected the message. So he starts to preach to the Gentiles. They
hear and they respond: 'they turn to God from idols to serve the living and
true God' (v9).
So Paul remains. And a small congregation is established.
But then trouble comes. It usually does when God is at
work. Several of the believers are arrested and accused of treason, of saying
that there is another king to Caesar, namely Jesus. They are released on bail,
but it is felt that it would be better for the church if Paul moves on.
Paul fears that this new church will be crushed. So after
a few months he sends Timothy back to find out what is happening. Timothy
returns with bad news and good news. The bad news is that the persecution
continues. The good news is that the church has not been crushed. On the
contrary, it is flourishing.
Paul writes immediately and he gives thanks to God for
them. V2: ‘We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in
our prayers’ – and he particularly gives thanks for their faith-inspired works,
their love-inspired grit, and their hope-inspired perseverence.
So what relevance does this letter have to
us?
We live in very different times. We are not a new church.
We are not persecuted for our faith. We are not in a community which worships
idols.
Or are we? We do not live in a world which worships stone
gods, but we do worship other gods, gods we have made.
It is easy to identify what those current gods are. Look
at our biggest and most impressive buildings. Look at Canary wharf, at our
shopping centre cathedrals, at the amazing science and research facilities of
the pharmaceutical and technological companies. They are the cathedrals of our
current gods. Today we worship the gods of money and material prosperity and
possessions and power.
What saddened me in the debate about Scottish
independence was that at the end it all seemed to come down to whether people
would be better off in an independent Scotland or one that remained part of the
union. It was finance, big business, markets and personal wealth that decided
the result: not vision or ideals, not principals of history, or of shared
cultural values, or of the relative values of autonomy or interdependence. And
elections we are told are always won or lost on the economy, on how well off people
feel.
We have forgotten God and so we live for the only thing
we can live for: the here and now. So it is obvious that our gods will be the
things of the here and now: the economy and capital, science and technology,
education, military might, health and fitness, possessions and entertainment.
It is not wrong. Of course we want to live in a
prosperous safe society, have the highest standard of health care possible, and
do the absolute best for our children in our education system. When the people of
Israel were in exile in Babylonia, Jeremiah urges them ‘to pray for the welfare
of the city in which you live’.
The problem comes when we forget God and put those things
in his place.
We’re like the beloved who has been given a ring by the
lover. Our lover has made it for us, because they love us. It cost them a great
deal. It is a most beautiful ring, with intricate detail and design. It is
priceless and it has been shaped for us. But as we gaze at the ring, we fall in
love with the ring, we live for the ring and we forget the one who has given us
the ring.
And when we forget God and fall in love with the things
he has given us, we allow those things to control our lives and to become our
gods.
And the tragedy is that we become like our gods. So if you
make science your god, cold clinical analysis that is supposedly value free,
you do end up with Dawkins saying that if science tells you that your baby is
going to be disabled, you abort it and try again. If you make racial
superiority your god, you do end up exterminating those you think inferior. If
you make the economy your god, then it really doesn’t matter how you make money
– whether gambling, selling drugs or sex, charging excessive interest rates on
pay day loans: you become like your god - cold and hard and calculating. If you
make yourself, and your freedom to do what you want your god, then it is all
about you and in the end what happens to others does not matter. If they die of
ebola in Liberia it is tragic, but it does not really matter - until, of
course, it might come here.
And when we worship the ring rather than the giver of the
ring; and when we make things that are not god into god, into our idols, then
as night follows day, disaster will happen. Paul speaks of it here as the wrath
of God.
So what can we learn from this small church to whom Paul
wrote 2000 years ago?
How did the
Christians of this small church live for God in a world of idols? How do we
live for God in a world of idols?
1. This was a church which welcomed the Word
of God.
Paul writes, ‘You became imitators of us and of the Lord,
for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy
given by the Holy Spirit’ (1.6)
And in 2.13, he writes, ‘When you received the word of
God .. you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of
God’
These were people who heard the message not only with
their ears, but with their hearts.
As Paul spoke to them of Jesus something happened. They
didn’t just hear it here. They heard it here – in their heart.
The message came to them with power, with the Holy Spirit
– and I’m not sure that here that is talking about signs and wonders, although
it might be – but the evidence that it came with power and the Holy Spirit is
that it came to them ‘with full conviction’ (v4).
They realised that they had been serving idols: they had
made things that are not god into God. And they ‘turn from their idols to serve
the living and true God’ (v9)
What we are talking about here is triple listening. There
is the listening of the ear. I’m good at this. I can listen to Alison telling
me something, but if she then asks me what she has said, I don’t know, because
I have been thinking about something else! That is the kind of non-listening
that gets you into trouble. The second listening is when you listen and you
listen. So this is when Alison says, ‘Have you listened to what I have said’,
and I’m able to repeat back to her what she has said! But there is a third kind
of listening. It is when we listen with our ears, with our mind and with our
heart. It is when we listen to the bible and know that this is for me. It is
when we realise that what is being said is not what the preacher is saying, but
what God is saying.
And that kind of listening is not something you can
choose to do. We can put ourselves in the right place, but in the end it is
gift and it happens to you. The fact that you are here today – if you are here
for God - probably means that it has begun to happen to you.
And I pray, and I ask you to pray, that God would speak
to the hearts of men and women in our town. That we would have the courage to
speak of Jesus, of his death and resurrection, of the forgiveness of sins, of
the fact that he is Lord – and that God would take those words and apply them
to the hearts of those who listen.
On the day of Pentecost as Peter preaches and tells them
that they have rejected Jesus – and they hear with their heart. They are, we
are told, ‘cut to the heart’.
We can argue, we can persuade, we can plead - and we need
to do that, but in the end it is only God who converts the human heart. It is
only God who shows us our sin, our idolatry. It is only God who begins to show
us our need for him and for his mercy and for his strength and for his hope.
So pray. Pray for your friends, your colleagues, your
neighbours. Pray that God will open the ears of their hearts to hear him. Pray
that they may see through the idolatry of the ring which tells them that now
they have the ring, they do not need the lover. The idolatry of science or
knowledge which says, 'I'm all you need if you want to live in paradise'. The
idolatry of money which says, 'Get me and everything will be OK'. I heard the
story Friday morning of the couple who were about to go on holiday, forgot to
buy their ticket with their usual lottery numbers and missed out on £2m. Please
don't make winning the lottery your hope. The idolatry of the individual which
says, 'It's all about me being who I choose to be'.
God has made us unique individuals; he has given us
amazing stuff; and he has given us minds to think and reason and to imagine.
But don't forget him. He has also given us his word to shape how we use those
gifts, how we hold them together. And we need to bring them under his Lordship.
This was a church which had heard the word of God and
received it.
2. This was a church which looked to the men
and women of God of the past.
I don't know whether you noticed how important the word ‘imitate’
is in this passage. The Christians in Thessalonica became imitators of Paul,
Silvanus and Timothy. In turn they were imitators of Jesus Christ (v6).
And in turn, they become an example to others: 'so that
you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia'.
And in particular Paul is thinking about their
faithfulness to God in the face of suffering. Just as Jesus was faithful to God
in the face of the cross, so they are faithful to God in the face of
persecution. In 2.14, Paul writes, 'For you became imitators of the churches of
God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from
your own countrymen as they did from the Jews'.
And so Paul says, v8, 'The Word of the Lord sounded forth
from you in Macedonia and in Achaia, [and] your faith in God has gone forth
everywhere'.
I wonder who are your Christian role models?
Other traditions in the Church speak of saints. In one
sense each person who has turned to Jesus is a saint. But in another sense,
some people are so much further on that journey, and we can look to them as
examples of godliness, of courage, of perseverance. And we can seek to imitate
them.
So I think of a man called Ken Hooker, who was a retired minister
in his 80's in a village near Cambridge where I was on placement when I was at
Ridley. 60 years earlier he had been president of the Cambridge CU - and his
love for the Lord and his desire to serve him was as live at 80 as I suspect it
had been at 20.
Or I think of another 80 year old in Russia, Fr Kyrill. I
saw him regularly but didn't really know him. But I knew his story. Sentenced
on three occasions to 10 years in labour camps for being a priest, he was now
the father confessor of the Orthodox seminary where we were living. He could
have been so hard, but he was one of those people whose face shone.
And in turn, would it not be wonderful if people spoke of
the Christians in Bury St Edmunds, as Paul speaks of the Christians in
Thessalonica. 'Look at them, at their faith-inspired works, their love-inspired
grit, and their hope-inspired perseverence. Look at how they faithfully speak
the Word of God. Look at how they love one another. Look at how they are
prepared to go on listening to the Word of God even when they suffer because of
it. Look at how they live different lives, with a different perspective. They
don't live their lives centred on themselves; they don't put their ultimate
trust in science or education or possessions. Instead they seek to serve God,
and they long for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.'
How do we live for
God in an idol obsessed world?
It is very simple.
1. We listen to the Word of God. We allow the Word of God
to penetrate through our ears, through our minds into our hearts.
One of the desert fathers asked: 'What is harder - this
water or this rock?' 'Obviously the rock'. But the father said, 'Imagine water
dripping from this jar on this rock, day after day, month after month, year
after year. Eventually the rock will be broken.' And he said, 'In the same way
the human heart is hard. And the Word of God is soft. But allow it, day after
day, month after month, year after year, to drip away at your hard heart. And
it will break it'.
2. We imitate the example of Jesus, of Paul, of the
Thessalonian Christians, of the men and women who have suffered for their faith
– and who are today suffering for their faith - as we consciously choose to
turn from our idols to serve the living and true God.
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