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I'm having trouble processing
all this, everybody together here. I'll get over it. But it
is very good to see you. And some of you, I didn't even
know that you had mouths. So it's good to be reminded of
that. New Horizons is a ministry that
we support. We support it not only with financial
contributions, but we've had board members here as a part
of our church. We've had volunteers from our
church. We've had tutors from our church. And for the last
several years, we've had a backpack packing event. We get about,
Ginny could exactly tell me, but about 72 backpacks that we
pack full of school supplies and then bring over to the the
Super Kids Club, which is a ministry of New Horizons, and we give
those backpacks and those school supplies to the kids. And it's
kind of a reward that they get for finishing an accelerated
reading program. The kids to whom we reach out
are, for the most part, Latino kids who the school systems regard
as at risk. It's not because of any problem
of capability on their part. but because of language and culture
that they're considered at risk. Every year we invite those kids
to come and sing some of the songs that they sing. They're all Christian songs because,
after all, it is a Christian ministry. It's a Christian club.
They teach Bible memory verses alongside of the school subjects
that we tutor those kids in. And about a month ago, they sent
me a little booklet entitled, A Tiny Book of Big Prayers. And the club leaders asked the
kids to write out their prayers. And I'm going to read some of
those prayers that these young, mostly elementary school-aged
children wrote. And as I read them, I want you
to keep in mind their socioeconomic status, the people, the kids. their context. I reread them last week, and
I'll tell you that I had tears come to my eyes as I read through
these. Here's the first one here. My
special prayer is that the pandemic to stop, God. Amen. Now, that's simple and to the
point, isn't it? I bet you wish I prayed that
way. Dear God, help my mom with the
dishes. I have a feeling there's some enlightened
self-interest involved in that one. Dear God, I want to be normal
and be a good student and be a good son. That one kind of
A little proclaimed there. Thank you, Lord, for my family,
friends, and my dogs. Please help me get smarter and
help me get kind. Please. Dear God, thank you for giving
me one more day to be alive. Thank you for giving a plate
of food. And thank you for giving my family one more day to be alive. I don't
need anything, but give everything to my friends. Isn't that nice? Dear God, I
want to tell you that I want good grades and that I want to
make my mom happy. And please help people who are
in need. And please help my brothers in
school and help my mom in work. And I want to win for my soccer
team. Thank you. This is one of my personal favorites.
I pray for my cat that a car smooshed. And I also pray for the people
that are sick and for the volunteers and for the people that are doing
homeschool. That's kind of sweet. Two more. Dear God, thank you for the beautiful
day like always. Bless people that are sick. Bless
everyone and my family. Give me Let's see, what's that
word? Oh, here it is. Give me intelligence
to do my work in school and everybody else. I want to tell you that
I love you so much with all my heart. Help people that don't
know your word. I have an amazing God. I give
thanks to you because you created the animals and the trees, sky,
and so many other things. And I also give thanks to Jesus
because he died on the cross for our sins. Thank you. I love
you so much. In the name of Jesus Christ,
we pray. We say amen, hallelujah. Now, hallelujah is not close
to being spelled right. I took some liberties with that. Last one. Dear God, can you please
help my dad and brother come back to here to be with me? Thank you. Wow, that last one
got me too. Can't start on something like
that. I had to get my momentum back. Well, this is not a sermon about
justice and equity. This is a sermon about kids.
and how they learn and how they grow. We talked a few weeks ago
about prayer and how prayer is, particularly praying out loud,
is largely a learned behavior. And we learn by watching and
listening to other people. And for these kids as well, some
of them are quite articulate. Others, they just spill out whatever's
in their heart. And it's a delight to read every
one of them, even the cat that got smooshed. The reason why we're doing this
today, the reason why I started with that is because you are
kids, and so am I, spiritually speaking. And it's right in our
text in the Bible today, because we're in 1 Thessalonians 2. And
we don't have screens, so there is the scripture text in your
bulletins. Now, I've been told that I use entirely
too much paper, but I'm very big on redundancies, as Patrick
pointed out. So I like to have things in the
bulletin for just such occasions. Our electronics are a little
less than reliable. Our electronic operators are
very reliable, but our electronics are not quite so reliable. But
this is out of 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 11. You have
that 1 through 14, I believe, in your bulletins. So 2.11 says,
For you know, like a father with his children, we exhorted each
one of you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God,
who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. So here's the image
of a father for Caecilius 2.7. But we were gentle among you,
like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. Again, there is that paternal,
maternal sense that they're giving it. And the way we learn is,
yes, in part by reading and piling up knowledge. But we also, and
perhaps, shall we say, mainly, we learn by watching. We learned a lot by being kids
and learning how to conduct ourselves as human beings and later as
adults. And most of that came simply
by watching. Some researchers suggest that
up to 93% of learning, 93% of learning is non-verbal. shall we say, not written. And so the Apostle says in 1
Thessalonians 2.8, we were ready to share with you not only the
gospel of God, but also ourselves. Some translations, our very lives. Paul knew that. And he was prepared
to live in front of the people in Thessalonica. And so this
verse provides the subject matter for today's sermon. And first
on your outline, which is also in your bulletin, is Thessalonication. Now, of course, Thessalonication
is not a word. Well, it is a word, but it's
not a real word. I just made it up. But I made it up for the
alliterative quality of it. Thessalonication, intention,
incarnation, reconciliation. So you had to put a shun on there
anyway. I'm very pleased to have an extra
two hours today to be able to go over this with you. OK. Thessalonication. Thessalonication. Years ago, I had the opportunity
to become a chaplain for the Florida Everblades. I did that
by walking up to the coach's office, knocking on his door.
He came to the door. I said, coach, you need a chaplain.
And he said, what's a chaplain? I said, a chaplain is someone
who cares for the spiritual well-being of your players. And he said,
Well, if it's okay with the captain, it's okay with me. So we went
down to the hall of the locker room and there was the captain
there. He said, Captain, this man says that we need a chaplain
and that he's the man. And he said, if it's okay with
the coach, it's okay with me. So all of a sudden, I was a chaplain.
And while I was there, I taught a Bible study on First Thessalonians.
It was the first Bible study for most of those hockey players,
maybe every one of those hockey players, it was a first. And
not only was it the first, but that was the finest Bible study
they will ever hear. And after I was finished, one
of the hockey players raised his hand with a question. Now,
I thought for sure after that Bible study that it would be
something about, man, are you deep, John, or that is a theological
gem, John. His question was, say, John,
what's a Thessalonian? I shot very well, but over everybody's
head. Well, a Thessalonian, of course,
is a resident of Thessaloniki, as we call it today, Thessalonica
in that day. Thessalonica was a cultural hub
of Greece back in the day, so it was heavily flavored with
Greek culture. It's less than 200 miles from
Athens, so one would expect that it would have a heavy Greek influence. In biblical times, though, there
was also a heavy Jewish influence, and there was a synagogue in
town. And so when Paul traveled there
with the gospel, he started, as he often did, in the synagogue
with the Jews and reasoned from the Torah. It makes sense. Christianity
has its roots in the Torah. which is our Old Testament, and
it is the Jewish book. So Paul went to the Jewish synagogue,
and he got heavy resistance and pushback from the Jews who were
there in Thessalonica. He actually only spent 21 days,
plus or minus, in Thessalonica before his companions sent him
down the road to Berea for fear of his life. The Jews had become
jealous of Paul. Paul had had so much success,
and there were so many people, prominent people, who were being
converted with the gospel. And so the Jews hired thugs from
outside to come in and rough him up a little bit. Paul's posse
then sent him away. But that three-week period of
time was marked not just by Paul's teaching, but also his very transparent
life that led to for the Thessalonians, personal reconciliation. A great
number of people were reconciled with God. And for the church,
broadly, and for the city of Thessalonica, transformation. As a matter of fact, it was in
Thessalonica where it was said that these people, these apostles,
have turned the world upside down. Such was the effect of
three weeks of Paul in Thessalonica. It's a remarkable thing. Nowadays
when you get ready to start a church and you begin by raising funds
and you go to people who fund such operations like the Florida
Church Planning Network of which we're a part, They tell you to
figure on a three-year budget because they say it takes at
least three years now to start a church, to become established. In Thessalonica, it took them
three weeks, and their budget was a little thin. So Thessalonication,
it was Paul living a transparent life and preaching on the Sabbath. There was some gospel intention
there. A large part of Paul's success,
of which success the Jews in Thessalonica were jealous, was
the gospel itself. The gospel is a product that
really sells itself. There's so much about it, and
I have to tell you that the more I understand about the Bible,
the less I understand about the processes that make us who we
are. There's a mystery involved. There's a certain mystic piece
of the puzzle that I don't understand. Now, I used to know everything. Now there's much less that I
know. And so that mystery becomes a little bit more. But the gospel
sells itself. You could explain to your neighbor
this much of the gospel, and they may say, that's what I want. I embrace that. Or you may tell
your neighbor this much about the gospel, and they may say,
you're full of beans and walk away. It's a mystery. It's God's spirit working in
his way, in his time, with his message. And so the gospel is
a product that sells itself. God uses his word to invade the
lives of people and bring them life. So Paul says, we brought
you the gospel to the Thessalonians. The gospel is about redemption.
Now, redemption is a word that is a compound word in the original
language, the Greek language of which the Thessalonians had
their roots. Now, if we had had our screen,
I would have put up on the screens the word exaggerazo. E-X-A-G-O-R-A-Z-O. Exaggerazo. And that's the Greek
word for redemption. And it's a compound word. The
first part of the word, ex. If we're reading the Bible, we
come to the book of Exodus. What does Exodus mean? The way
out. Someone said the way out. Hadas
is the word that means out, and ex means excuse me, the way and
x means out. The way out is the book of Exodus.
If you go and check into a hotel room, you go to your room, you
look down the hall to see where the exit is. Or if you go to
the hospital and they excise something, that means they cut
it. Out. So, x means out. Agorazo. It comes from a Greek
word, agora. The agora was the outdoor market. You could still go to Greece
now and go to an agora, an outdoor market. It's like the farmer's
market next door on the weekends. It is an agora. So, x agorazo
means to purchase in the market out. to buy out, if you will. So redemption is the purchase
out of. Out of what? Well, our condition
is that of moral and spiritual disrepair. Sin bent something deep inside
of us. So now we have something and
the depths of our being that is bent or even broken, we might
say. That may even be a better word.
Now, if anyone should have had it right, it would have been
the Apostle Paul. But when he talks about brokenness, this
is what he says. It's in Romans chapter 7, verse
15. The Apostle Paul, the one who
writes, who wrote most of the New Testament, says, I do not
understand my own actions. I do not know what I, I do not
know what I, excuse me, I do not do what I want, but I do
the very thing that I hate. Isn't that interesting? From
the guy who wrote most of the New Testament, he says, I do
not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want to, but
I do the very thing I hate. Why? Because Paul has something
bent, something broken inside of him. Romans 7, 18, for I have
the desire to do what is good, but not the ability to carry
it out. I really wrestled with whether
I was going to say that. I'm short on time anyway, but
I'm going to go ahead and tell you anyway. Every now and then I bump into
a video by a guy named Ron White. Ron White is not a guy that I
particularly endorse. He's a comedian, and he's foul,
and he's profane, and he's funny. But he has one thing where he's
talking about he was driving under the influence, and he was
pulled over by the police. And the police said, OK, get
out of the car. And he got out of the car. And
he says, now in that moment, I had the right to remain silent,
but not the ability. So that's a non-endorsement of
Ron White. But that's what Paul was saying
here. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the
ability to carry it out. Something deep inside of us is
bent, is broken. And what do we do in our culture
with things that are in disrepair? Well, typically, we throw it
out. So we have disposable dishware,
disposable plastic cups, disposable spoons, disposable knives, disposable
forks. We got some of those disposable
utensils back there in the kitchen. We have dispensable cups that
we use. And we have disposable tablecloths
and cans and bottles and jars and cartons and wrappers. We
even have disposable Tupperware parties. You ever been to a Tupperware
party? You'd spend a lot of money at those things. Well, now they're
disposable. They throw them out. And we have
disposable coffee filters, cupcakes, containers, diapers, community
cups, wet wipes, paper towels, handkerchiefs, cotton swabs,
surgical kits, dental instruments, razors. We have disposable combs. And we have disposable toothbrushes.
disposable cameras, disposable batteries, disposable pans, disposable
cigarette lighters. In fact, if you go to your computers and type in Google disposable,
you'll find at least 30 million hits. We are kind of a disposable generation,
but God's intent is not disposal. You know, sometimes we get involved
in things that we shouldn't have gotten involved with. To this
day, there are times when I shudder, physically shudder, at some of
the things that I did maybe as a youth. And I go back and I say, am I
disposable? But God's intent is not to dispose. God's intent is redemption. And
the vehicle for us is the gospel. That is that God took bent and
broken people, and he redeemed them. He bought them back. He
bought them out of our bentness and our brokenness. Isaiah tells
a story in Isaiah 42, verse 3, a bruised reed. He will not break. You are the
bruised reeds. I am the bruised reeds. And He
won't break us. And a faintly burning wick He
will not extinguish. You are that faintly burning
wick. And He loves you and will not
extinguish you. Redeemed means that he brought
us out of our brokenness and what was the price, what was
the purchase price of that? It was the blood of Jesus. What
you need to know is that the gospel is God's big issue. We pray, we prayed a lot of things,
those kids, they prayed a lot of things too. But God's big
issue is the gospel. There are other things in the
orbit of his purposes, but the big issue by far is the gospel
and redeeming that which is bent and broken. Jesus tells a story
in Matthew. It's Matthew 13. He says, the
kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man
found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and
sells all that he has, and he buys that field again. The kingdom of heaven is like
a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl
of great value, went and sold all that he had, and he bought
it. The field is the gospel. The gospel is the pearl. God's principal purpose and intent
in the world is the gospel. And whatever is in second place
is not materially close. Becky Pipper wrote a book entitled,
Hope Has Its Reasons. And I want to read for you just
a section. I'm just going to read a paragraph.
I was going to read two paragraphs, but that clock is fast. Hope has its reasons. She experienced
relief, joy, and gratitude. She no longer felt condemned.
She felt free. Why? Because there's nothing
others can do to you. When you have seen the worst
about yourself, and it has been forgiven. Sin always seeks to disguise
itself, but nowhere is it more unmasked than at the cross. That is the reason, that is the
intent of the gospel, to expose our hearts and then to forgive
us. That's God's intent to heal the
bentness and the brokenness of us. Thessalonication, number one. Number two, intention. Number
three, incarnation. Another thing that our scripture
text tells us that Incarnational ministry is effective. You know, we read before of Paul's
use of the metaphor of father and mother. That is incarnational
ministry. Within the Christian realm we
have a tendency to label things. And years ago, I would have described
my ministry style as MBWA. M as in Mary, MBWA. Now what does that mean? Some people who have been in
management and business might know this, which is management
by walking around. I call it ministry by walking
around, or simply hanging out. That was my ministry style, just
hanging out. I think it was A.B. Bruce who said, more is caught
than is taught, which makes the point that we made earlier about
nonverbal communication. So my hanging around ministry
style went on the shelf as I departed the ministry for 14 years. When
I came back into the ministry, someone asked me what my ministry
style was, and I said, hanging around. And they said, oh, you're
incarnational. I like that better than hanging
around. Yeah, I'm incarnational. That sounds pretty sophisticated.
That's me, incarnational. Now the text for today, the mother
caring for her children, parallels yet another passage that makes
the same point, and that passage is in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians
4, 15 and 16, 4, in Christ Jesus, I became your father through
the gospel. Therefore, I urge you to imitate
me. Paul had that transparent life
that he lived in front of the Thessalonians. He said, I'm a
father, I'm a mother, look at me, watch me, be imitators of
me. And the Thessalonians watched
and they learned. As a child, my daughter Paige
picked up a great many things from me. Our personalities are
very similar. She does a lot of things the
way I do them slash did them. In fact, one might say that she
was self-consciously trying to imitate me, if you didn't know
better. She doesn't really self-consciously
imitate me, but my behavior patterns are buried deep in her psyche. I can remember when she was maybe
three or four years old, She was pulling something out
of the bottom drawer of the dresser. She pulled it out and she got
ready to close it. She contorted her body in a certain
way and she took her foot and she closed the dresser drawer
with her foot. Now, she could have just pushed
the drawer closed, but what do I do when the bottom drawer of
the dresser is closed? I take my foot and I kick the
drawer and get it to close that way. I'm not going to bend all
the way down for that. I've got better things to do
with my time. But you see, she saw that. I didn't tell her,
OK, Paige, now when you close the bottom drawer, you kick it
shut. I didn't tell her that. She picked up by herself. I'm wondering by a show of hands
how many people here taught their children to be bad. Probably none. And yet, I would
bet someone said that your child at one point in their life, maybe
only once, but they were bad. And as I think about my own life,
I think of how closely I mirror my father's mannerisms, the way
in which my father did things. We learn so much by watching. You might learn something by
walking, too, but watching is what I meant to say. So Martin
Luther said this. He said, as our Heavenly Father
has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely
to help our neighbor through our body and its works. And each
should become, as it were, a Christ to the others, that we may be
Christs to one another. How did the Father come to our
aid? Incarnation. If you're a carnivore and are carnivorous,
you eat meat. If you went to Spain and you
said, I want chili con carne, what are you asking for? Chili with meat, right? Don't say frijoles, say carne.
So someone who is incarnational is someone who is in flesh. There's a fleshness to it. Incarnational,
the enfleshment of the gospel. Now, we're not quite there yet.
We have six months to go before we get there. But you remember
this little number. Christ by highest heaven adored,
Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time behold him come,
offspring of the virgin's womb, veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
hail the incarnate deity. That little Christmas song, my
favorite. Hail the incarnate deity. How
did God come to the aid of broken and bent people? Incarnation. How did the apostles come to
the Thessalonians? Incarnation. How does the Bible
encourage us to flesh out the gospel? It's right there. The
answer is in the question. Incarnation to flesh it out. incarnational ministries, how
we change the lives of those around us. Christ veiled in our
flesh. Paul said elsewhere, be imitators
of me even as I am of Christ Jesus. Of all people, it was Karl Marx
who said, philosophers have only interpreted the world differently
The point, however, is to change it. And so that first Thessalonians
passage tells us, these are the people who have turned the world
upside down. How did they do it? They started
with the incarnated Godhead, the incarnated deity, Jesus Christ. And they themselves lived in
an incarnational fashion so that others caught what they were
teaching. Change can be accomplished through
incarnational ministry. OK, that's it. And I'm already
over. Thank you for being patient,
but I have another 20 minutes to go. What do we take away from
this in this ever so brief glance of First Thessalonians? First
of all, incarnation is about friendship. When Jesus' ministry was almost
complete here on earth, he met in a private room, and he engaged
in some of the most intimate and explicit teaching he would
give. It was to his 12 apostles. Fully
one quarter of the Gospel of John has to do with a few hours
on Thursday evening. Jim Diller is teaching that on
Thursday evenings, this very same passage. But there in that
upper room, Jesus said, I no longer call you servants. I have
called you friends for everything I have heard from my father I
have made known to you. Now suppose if it were me and
I was going to start a worldwide ministry and I wanted to reach
the world with the gospel, I would have maybe rented some time in
the Coliseum. and say, can you just stop with
the blood and the lions and the guts and just give me an evening
there? Much like maybe Billy Graham
would have done. I would have chosen to be born in Rome and
gotten some time in that Colosseum. Maybe I would have gone to a
little bit more urban environment than Jerusalem. Maybe I would
have gone to Rome or Athens or something a little bit more cosmopolitan.
Yet Jesus befriended. a group of 12 and proceeded to
incarnationally pour his life into the 12. And after three and a half years,
he let it go. utilized incarnational ministry. Not only was he incarnated, but
he used incarnational ministry. Paul had a ministry of friendship.
First Corinthians 10.14, my dear friends, flee idolatry. Second
Corinthians 7.1, since we have Those promises, dear friends,
2 Corinthians 12, 19, and everything we do, dear friends, is for your
strengthening. Philippians 2, 12, my dear friends,
just as you have always obeyed, Philippians 4, 1, stand firm
in the Lord, dear friends. Peter picked up on the same theme.
Dear friends, I urge you. First Peter 4.12, dear friends,
do not be surprised. The Apostle John, not surprisingly,
joined in. First John 2.7, dear friends,
I'm not writing you a new commandment. Seven other times did John use
that construction of dear friends. Jude. used that same construction
three times. An incarnational ministry is
a personal ministry, a mentoring ministry, a ministry of friendship
and relationship. It's modeled after Jesus, Paul,
Peter, John, and Jude. It is the master's plan of evangelizing
the world. First. Second, incarnation is
costly. For Jesus, incarnation was costly
in two senses. First of all, his birth. Jesus,
in one sense, is not like us. We're created. Jesus is eternal. His throne was in glory. His throne now is in glory. So in that sense, Jesus' incarnation
was a bit of a parenthesis. For Jesus to be incarnated, it
cost him for a time his glorious throne. He left his throne in
glory in order to become what? A baby who needed his diapers
changed, who couldn't even feed himself. It cost Jesus glory to become
a human being. Instead of being the righteous
judge, he was judged righteously. It cost him in his birth. It
also cost him in his death. John 15 verse 13, no greater
love has any man than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends. For Jesus, the ultimate act of
friendship was the ultimate act. Incarnational ministry for us
as a ministry, as a church, will cost us also. It takes resources,
having a friend come over for dinner, sitting with someone
so that they're not uncomfortable in church, using God-given skills
to help plug holes in other people's lives. In 1973, a young man who was
really not a very bright person, and he had limited talents, but
he had a load of unfounded self-confidence. He went a long way from home
to start a life for himself, and then his confidence wavered
and his world began to crumble when another man, who lived a
few doors down, brought him a Bible and got up early six days a week
to read the Bible with him. this floundering young man, and
of course that floundering young man was me. I'm a product of
an incarnational ministry, and I see its value in reaching and
changing a bent and broken world. Those New Horizons kids are the
product of an incarnational ministry where people are modeling their
lives in front of them by tutoring them and caring for them. Those kids will understand as
they grow about being incarnational. Third and final takeaway. Remember
we talked about the pearl of great price. We talked about
the gospel being that pearl of great price, that field with
the treasure. Well, there's something more
about that. Because you see, you are the
pearl of great price. And you are the field. And God
gave everything. God gave what he valued the most
to redeem and keep that pearl of great price. Would you pray
with me? God, thank you that we were that
pearl of great price, that you saw our value bent though we
were, broken though we were. You came to us in Christ. You paid a heavy price so that
we might be redeemed. And you bought us out of our
brokenness and our bentness because of your great love for us. Thank
you, God, for that great love. Thank you for the ministry of
incarnation that my guests affected one way or another, most everybody
here in this room, so that now here we are, incarnational, looking
for others with whom we can perpetuate the gospel, which is your big
deal. Hear us, God, we pray in Jesus'
name. Amen.
The Gospel of God and Our Very Lives
Series A Trip Through The Bible
| Sermon ID | 51721209406352 |
| Duration | 1:19:15 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | 1 Thessalonians 2:1-13 |
| Language | English |
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