May 13, 2007 Sermon

The Word at Work
I Thessalonians 2:13-20

People around here believe in all sorts of gods. Quite a few believe in no god at all. Ghosts and wizards dominate the best-seller lists and the show ratings. The death-spiral of the industry that once employed hundreds of thousands in the region has chilled our economy. Yet many continue to move here—often without employment. Life was not so hot where they were; why not start over in a cool place to live? We have seen an escalation of threatening behavior on our highways and even in our schools. Local politics has become a cycle of personal revenge taking.

In our church we face the nice problem of fitting new people into our already-existing circle. We must teach them, and re-teach ourselves, what it means to serve Jesus together. We have to make room for expanding programs. We must constantly take care that our ministry fits God’s will as revealed in Christ. As people come to us from an ever-growing list of other religions (and don’t forget those who come from no religion at all), we have to balance being the church God has called us to be, remaining theologically pure, with accepting them as they are.

Northern Lakes Community Church in Traverse City in the year of Our Lord 2007? Well, yes, but each of the observations listed above applied also to the brand-new Christian church in the small Greek city of Thessalonica in the mid-first century A.D. The letters the Apostle Paul wrote to this and other young churches of the New Testament speak to us because we find ourselves in similar circumstances. The lessons Paul teaches in I Thessalonians can have extra relevance for us. Today’s lesson certainly does.

In the second chapter of I Thessalonians Paul strongly states that the Word of God has the power to change lives. “We also thank God continually,” he wrote, “because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” The Word which Paul and his fellow traveling evangelists preached came from God. They did not imagine it, nor did any other human being. The Holy Spirit planted it in their hearts and minds. When they preached, they preached what God gave them to preach.

Paul never got over the idea that God had chosen him to preach about Jesus. He knew his own guilt. He had spent years trying to get rid of Christians. A zealous Jew, a Pharisee who knew his Old Testament, Paul had believed that Jesus could not possibly have been the Messiah. He had suffered and died on the shameful cross. Plus, the Jewish religious establishment, Paul’s superiors, had condemned Christianity. But as he walked to Damascus to root out Christians there, Jesus appeared to Paul in a vision, struck him blind and ordered him to find a Christian named Ananias, who restored his sight. Paul became every bit as fierce a follower of Jesus as he had been an opponent.

Paul accepted Christ. This filled him with wonder and with joy. But the thankfulness he expresses in our passage springs not from his own conversion. His joy here comes from the fact that the Thessalonians have accepted Christ. They have accepted the words Paul preached about Jesus. They have accepted these words as the Word of God. They have believed in Jesus as the Messiah and they did not need a vision, getting struck blind, and getting healed to do it. The Word has used its power on them. Their lives have taken a new direction.

The faith of the Thessalonians proves again for Paul that the Word of God has power. According to Genesis God created by speaking. God creates by speaking still. God spoke through Paul’s preaching and created faith in the Thessalonians. This may sound prideful; does Paul really think he is that great a preacher? He does not, and that is precisely the point. Elsewhere Paul actually makes fun of his preaching. He mocks his own appearance. Paul wants to emphasize not his own magnificence but God’s. God’s Word has power, the power to create, the power to save, the power to sustain followers of Jesus through whatever that world out there throws at them.

Paul references the suffering the Thessalonians experienced “at the hands of (their) own countrymen.” Just as Jesus’ own people, the Jews, hounded and conspired against him to the death, so the Thessalonians must endure destructive treatment from their own. You know how it goes. When we leave a group, that group tries to pin the blame on us. When a romance breaks up the former partners often tell stories about each other. When a family leaves a church occasionally they try to justify their action by telling “stretchers” about the congregation. Meanwhile, the church occasionally roughs up their image. We feel loss when people leave us. Sometimes we even feel betrayed. We lash out.

The Thessalonian Christians received abuse because they had become followers of Jesus. The former Jews in the church got it from their fellow Jews. The former pagans got it from their neighbors. But these Christians held onto their faith in Jesus. The Word of God kept working on them after they started believing. It gave them the courage and the patience to keep on believing, come what may. They accepted Jesus. By the power of the Word of God, transmitted through the words Paul preached, they became and remained Christians. That is why he can conclude, “You are our glory and joy.”

If the physical and spiritual setting of Thessalonica can apply to us, so can the power at work among them. God’s Word still works. I love emphasis on power in the old translations of I Thessalonians 2:13, which referred to the Word of God “at work effectually in you.” But in order for the Word to work on us we must accept it. How can we accept the Word of God? First we must accept it in the sense of hearing it. Then we must accept it in the sense of making a conscious decision to believe it.

First we must hear the Word. Do you read your Bible? The Bible is the Word of God in which God speaks to us about Jesus Christ. How can you know Jesus if you are not reading the Bible? Pray, and listen in prayer for God to speak to you. Come to Sunday School. Do not feel sheepish or cynical about it. Hear the Word in the sermon and the music of the worship service. Hear the Word in the wisdom of your brothers and sisters in Christ. Hear the Word any and every way you can.

Then make that conscious decision to accept Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as your Lord and Savior. If your first prayer is to listen for God to speak to you, your second prayer is to accept Jesus Christ. There is nothing technical or complicated about it. If you have not already done so, ask Jesus Christ to fill you with his Holy Spirit and it will happen. You may or may not immediately feel it, but that does not matter. It will happen. Bruce Metzger taught New Testament at Princeton. He chaired the committee that produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. (The Princeton bookstore shelved Bibles under Dr. Metzger’s name in its “Faculty Publications” section. A little scholarly humor there.)

Bruce Metzger knew the New Testament by heart in English and in Greek. (Though he would usually say with real humility that he had not memorized all the variant texts of the various books.) He was a brilliant, dedicated scholar. And Bruce Metzger constantly warned his students that unless they had accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior they would injure the church once they got out into it as pastors.

If it was good enough for Bruce Metzger, it is good enough for me and for you. Listen to the Word of God. Accept Jesus as your Savior. Let the Word of God go to work on you.