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Thessalonians vs Thessalonians
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Devin. If we haven't met yet, I'm one of the pastors here at Commons, and I'm really glad to be here with you today. I always enjoy the chance to preach at Commons. And even though I enjoy teaching, today I'm a little anxious because I find the word Thessalonians so very difficult to pronounce.
Speaker 1:And even when I say it right and I know that I've said it right, it still doesn't sound right. It's just one of those words. So hopefully, everyone here can just bear with me as I fumble to pronounce this and it doesn't look like I'm trying too hard to pronounce the word. Throughout this series, we've been looking at balance and what it means to experience balance in our lives. In the first week, Jeremy walked us through the idea that balance is sort of a myth.
Speaker 1:At least the idea of balance as a myopic singular static point on the horizon is a myth. That balance really exists in our ability to lean into something for a time and then to reevaluate and correct our course. In this way, balance resembles a dance much more than it does way scales that we're trying to even out. Life has a melody or rhythm and a beat, and balance becomes a dynamic navigation of an entire dance floor rather than a direct line from point a to point b. Some of this on the dance floor are doing salsa, Others may be ballroom, and if you were part of my family, you were definitely doing polka.
Speaker 1:And we will step on our own toes. We will step on our partner's toes. We'll bump elbows with other people on the dance floor as we try to learn the dance of balance. And that's okay because we are all being drawn into the dance floor and into balance by the music of God's grace and God's peace. Will you pray with me?
Speaker 1:Father, as we've come to this place today, to open your word, to hear from your word, would you be with us? Would you help us to experience your presence? Would you help us to hear from you what we need to hear from you today? And that we exist as a community here together reflecting the kingdom of God. Would you fill us up for the week?
Speaker 1:Whatever that means, whatever, hard work, whatever joys, whatever successes are there for us. Would you just be with us in this time to maybe reset us, give us a time to breathe in this moment where we can just experience your closeness and your presence and your voice. We thank you, God, and we love you. Amen. Today, I'd like to talk about authenticity, which is tricky because it's easy to get lost in an endless chain of corny office office motivational posters, definitions of authenticity.
Speaker 1:Or to be sucked into Shia Leboeuf esque life coaching videos and trying to put your fingers on exactly what it means to be authentic. The word has been used so many times in so many different contexts that it just feels a little thin. Like so many words, it's tough to know when I use the word and when somebody else uses the word that we're really saying the same thing. Despite the thinness of the word, when we hear it or when we come up close to it, I think we're being signaled to a concept that is generally attractive. I don't think many people plan for an inauthentic self expression.
Speaker 1:There is a reason a person who collects sports memorabilia will pay more money for an authentic Wayne Gretzky signed rookie card or y e or y when a previously undiscovered painting from an old world master is found. The first task for any museum is verifying its authenticity. Because there's something inside of us that resonates with this desire to see the real thing, the genuine article. These objects are like a thread which tethers us to a specific moment or a person in history. This sort of connection carries weight, and maybe it just reflects our hope to be involved in a story that is bigger than us.
Speaker 1:Whatever the reason, forgeries just never seem to be all that interesting. With objects, it's relatively simple to determine something is genuine article or a simple recreation. In the case of the painting, an art historian can analyze technique. She can look at the brush stroke and the use of perspective and lighting. Then using technical means like x rays and carbon dating, we can figure out when and where in history this piece belongs.
Speaker 1:And then you compare it to other known authentic pieces by that artist. And for the sports card, an expert can just analyze the signatures by comparing it to another known genuine signature. And even if there's some work involved in this process, it's simple enough. We more or less can wrap our minds around the factors that need to be considered. But with people, determining the authenticity of another person or even ourselves is vastly more complicated than a master's painting.
Speaker 1:And some of the difficulty with doing this comes from the fact that our own subjective perspective on authenticity isn't always as clear as we'd maybe like it to be. The big difference with authenticity in human beings is that we aren't static like a painting. We are in a constant state of flux. I think one of the major issues with determining whether I am authentic is an emphasis on the state of being rather than a state of becoming. When we understand ourselves as being, it means that we've already achieved whatever it is we are trying to be.
Speaker 1:We've reached a plateau. All of our potential for growing has run out. So all of our energies go into maintaining the status quo, into sustaining the state of being that we have managed to already achieve. Imagine a tree in somebody's yard. There's only so much space in the yard for it to grow.
Speaker 1:So after the tree reaches its predetermined size and shape, the goal for the landscaper is just to keep the tree in its current condition, in a permanent state of arrested development. The tree achieves being and is no longer becoming. Whereas if the tree was allowed to grow, say in a forest, adding new branches and new leaves season after season, it really is in the state of becoming a tree. It would grow until it died, and this constant growing means change. And this is true not just for the tree, but in our lives as well.
Speaker 1:If we are going to embrace this idea of becoming, then being, it means we will be different day to day, year to year, and decade to decade. So we have to reframe what authenticity looks like if we are constantly growing. And this change can be just a product of time, or it can come from shifts in our environments. Think about the change of moving out of your parents' home, or meeting your partner or spouse, having children, a new career, finishing university, moving to a new city, the death of a loved one, or a newfound friend. These events, along with others that come with being a person, have a shaping influence in our lives.
Speaker 1:And sometimes amidst these changes, we experience a liminal space, a space where we don't recognize ourselves, or our words and our actions feel foreign, feigned, and forced. Now imagine, all of that change happening at once for a community like the church in Thessalonica. This church was a community comprised of men and women who were either previously Jewish or Gentile. Culturally and religiously, they had practices and prayers, feasts and fasts and convictions about what a person ought to and ought not to do. And suddenly they find themselves swept up in the story of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:They find truth in the gospel messages that they can't ignore and they become among the very first Christians. And at this time, Paul is amongst them, teaching them, praying with them, and modeling what this new faith looks like. Until he, along with Silas and Timothy, are chased away by the authorities. Imagine the difficulty in recognizing who you are when the person who is showing you that is left. Talk about not knowing what authentic looks like.
Speaker 1:I'd like to suggest that in these times of not knowing who our authentic selves are, we tend to have two responses, two ways of trying to figure out authenticity. The first is to define and interpret authenticity solely from our subjective perspective. We think we can figure out ourselves by only looking inside. As proof, listen to these thinkers and artists have to say. Socrates wrote, to find yourself, think for yourself.
Speaker 1:The ancient Greeks wrote, know thyself on the Temple Of Apollo. One of Shakespeare's characters says, to thine own self, be true. And probably the most profound and definitely the most modern, a BuzzFeed writer wrote, you do you. Throughout history, we have looked for authenticity within ourselves. And in our modern culture that prizes individuality so highly, the drive for authentic becoming usually stops at our physical boundaries.
Speaker 1:This quest never leaves our own heads, our hearts, or even our own bodies. But listen to the writer Gretchen Rubin as she highlights the problematic nature of this posture. My first commandment is to be myself. It's very hard to know myself. I get so distracted by the way I wish I were or the way I assume I am that I lose sight of what's actually true.
Speaker 1:Maybe you have a strong commitment to be yourself. Maybe you've even worked hard to find out who you are. This may have involved times of solitude and meditation, times of personal reflection and challenging yourself. Perhaps you've been able to develop authenticity in your life. But then in a time of change comes to you, and you begin to question who you are becoming, as if things you do and say feel out of step with your own imagination of who you are?
Speaker 1:When this happens, if your search for authenticity has ended at your own boundaries, what do you do? Now, this is where I should come clean and confess something. Recently here at Commons, as a staff, we did the Enneagram personality profile. Not unlike the Myers Briggs personality profile, the Enneagram is essentially a test that seeks to identify some personality and behavioral patterns that can help someone navigate life with a better understanding of themselves and others around them. In almost all of these kinds of tests, the results come in the form of some kind of named or numbered categorization.
Speaker 1:And according to the Enneagram, I'm a number four or an individualist who at my core is motivated by the desire and the need to be authentic. Which means, I do not like hearing people's input into who I am. I do not like belonging to clubs. I dislike being defined. I'm uninterested in people's thoughts about my choices and behaviors.
Speaker 1:I don't believe anyone can truly understand me, and I'm instantly suspicious about any person's or tests attempt to categorize me. But other than that, I'm generally pretty easygoing. That last part might have been a stretch. But what this does mean is that when I'm unhealthy, my need to be authentic can manifest itself in navel gazing self absorption. I can become so focused on understanding myself from my own vantage point that I become unable to hear what somebody outside of me may have to contribute.
Speaker 1:And this is a problem because we need other people's input into our lives. Other people that see us from perspectives we do not have. They see they see things that we miss, and sometimes that means when we are being hard on ourselves. They can encourage us by reminding us that they see something good in us. While at other times, they might have to point out something that needs correction because we are not aware of how we are affecting ourselves or the people around us.
Speaker 1:At the same time, we all feel the need to fit in. And trying to fit in, sometimes it drives us to simply conform our language and personality, so that it becomes indistinguishable from others. Here are comments, for instance. When I teach, I edit my sermon, and I find myself using Jeremyisms. I notice that I try to sound like Jeremy.
Speaker 1:My own communication style goes out the window. Now this isn't because Jeremy is standing over my shoulder as I write, making sure I don't deviate too far from the way he sounds. In fact, here at Commons, we celebrate the diversity of voices on our teaching team. But I've listened to Jeremy for so long, and I've seen how the community responds to his teaching, and it just sneaks in there. And it's not helpful to anyone.
Speaker 1:It's not helpful for you to hear a watered down version of Jeremy, and it's not helpful in my development to try to fit into his mold. But it's a fine line though because following someone or trying to be like someone else that you trust isn't a bad thing. We gravitate to some people to do the things they do because they are good things. But in the end, we always need to make those good things our own. After all, everyone in this room is being called into the imitation of Jesus Christ to look the way that Jesus loved, to forgive the way he forgives, and to imitate the way he brought grace and peace to the people he met.
Speaker 1:And to do those things, allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us, not to override us as we pursue the most authentic imagination of who we are becoming. At the end of the day, both of these extremes are needed in our lives. Doing the work of introspection so that we can figure out who we are and why we do the things we do, along with seeking healthy people that can look to imitate without losing ourselves. Throughout this series, we have used the language of leaning in and then evaluating and making course corrections as the model for balance. I want to suggest that in balanced authenticity, your own subjective perspective about who you are is the leaning in piece of the equation.
Speaker 1:That there are times where you just need to do the work of who you are becoming. You need to trust the sense of self that comes from inside of you, and that as you act in the world, ensure that your actions align and make sense with this intuition that you have. While at other times, it might be necessary to step back and invite others into the conversation to try and attempt to understand who you are becoming really is, at the end of the day, you. But there are risks that come with inviting somebody to speak into your life. Namely, how do we know we can trust somebody to do this?
Speaker 1:Not everybody has our best interests at heart. Unfortunately, in our world, some people are very willing to exert control and influence over others without any thought of what is best for that person. Imagine a boss who coerces an employee to work unpaid overtime pay by suggesting that hardworking people stay and lazy people go home. Maybe it's a person who tells another person time and time again how generous they are, so time and time again they can ask for money. Or perhaps it's a scene where somebody strips away the confidence of another person so that they end up codependent and they never leave that relationship.
Speaker 1:Whatever the case, we can see that there's good reason to be suspicious when somebody tries to speak into who we are becoming. So how can we tell if someone really has a best interest at heart? This is where we can learn something from the Thessalonians and Paul. Paul finds himself encouraging the Thessalonians about who they are becoming. He's speaking into that place of confusion that the Thessalonians are experiencing in light of their new faith and his absence.
Speaker 1:Think back to early in this series when Jeremy describes that this scenario would be like if comments had just been planted, and then a month later, the entire pastoral staff left. Now with this in your mind, listen to what Paul says to the church. Friends, do you realize that you followed in the exact footsteps of the churches of God in Judea? Those who were the first to follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ. The church in the midst of this disorientation got busy becoming an authentic expression of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:In this chapter, Paul is encouraging them and confirming that they are on the right track, that they should just keep going the way they are going. The Thessalonians might have been so relieved to read this letter. It may not have chased away all of the anxiety, about what it meant to be in this process of becoming the church of Christ, but I imagine it took the edge off. I bet it gave the Thessalonians a sense of confidence, a sense of understanding about what authentic Christian faith looked like. But how did they know Paul could be trusted?
Speaker 1:If you read this chapter, Paul emphasizes the things he, Silas, and Timothy have done for the Thessalonians. Listen to just a few of the things he says. You're guaranteed that both the message and we are free from error, mixed motives, or hidden agendas. We didn't use words to butter you up. We took you as you were.
Speaker 1:We cared for you. We loved you dearly. We wanted to give you our hearts, and we did. Paul isn't just trying to highlight how great he is. Paul was chased away after three short weeks with these people.
Speaker 1:He missed the community. In verses seventeen and eighteen, he says, out of our intense longing, we made every effort to see you for we wanted to come to you. And I imagine the Thessalonians missed him too. But I can also imagine that for some of the Thessalonians, they did feel abandoned by Paul. Or maybe some others saw an opportunity to gain influence in the community and they started to slander Paul, Silas, and Timothy.
Speaker 1:They were suggesting that Paul was untrustworthy, that he had in fact abandoned them. These dissenters stepped into that same confusion that Paul stepped into, but instead of bringing clarity, they brought chaos. So Paul here is making the case for why he's different from those dissenters, why he can be trusted to teach and minister to the Thessalonians. Paul here is giving us a profile of what somebody who has our best interest at heart looks like. He speaks about mutuality and care, love, sincerity, and hard work.
Speaker 1:And I think we can see this play out in this book. Paul is the consummate pastor. He loves these people, deeply desires that they walk into what it means to be an authentic expression of a Christ follower and the church. So if Paul thought that this was important for the Thessalonians, what it looks like to be a trusted mentor, then I think it's important for us to look at as well. So, with the remaining of our time, I want to explore briefly three things that I think will help us find reliable, trusty mentors in our lives.
Speaker 1:And we're gonna look at Paul's own language that he uses. The first is, we didn't use words to butter you up. We all love to be encouraged, and that's not a bad thing. It's a healthy part of any relationship. But sometimes, we also need to hear harder truths, the things that sting, the things that we would rather just ignore.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we've had our heads down for so long, we've lost sight of where we are going, who we're becoming. And if we surround ourselves with people who value false peace over our well-being, it is very likely that they will watch us walk from pitfall to pitfall over and over again. And that's just not healthy. So find people who love you enough to tell you the hard things. Not because they enjoy it, but because they care for you and they want to see you flourish.
Speaker 1:The second is this. Well, we took you as you were. Loving someone for who they are and challenging someone to grow are not mutually exclusive practices. We need people who can recognize and love who we are today in this moment, while at the same time inviting us into a healthier, more vibrant version of ourselves. These people must be able to set aside who they need us to be and make room for the beautiful and dynamic person that God imagines you can be.
Speaker 1:The third is we cared for you. Paul emphasizes his care for the Thessalonians, and any healthy relationship has give and take. There are seasons where you need more care and other seasons where you have more energy to care for someone else. This is just built into the natural rhythm of life and relationship. But there needs to be reciprocity.
Speaker 1:If someone only takes and is never willing to share. And that's not good. We need to be able to identify those people who put in time and energy. We need to recognize those people who work for our good every day. So as we close today, it's my hope that you already have people in your life that look and act like Paul.
Speaker 1:People that are walking alongside you in your journey of becoming, it's also my hope that if you're missing someone like this in your life, that somebody will come alongside to be a Paul to you. And that you will recognize them when they do. Because in order to be in healthy community that reflects the kingdom of God and the body of Christ. We need people like Paul in our lives. While simultaneously, we ourselves need to be Paul to others around us.
Speaker 1:So as we close, would you pray with me? Father, in a room like this, I imagine that there are some of us here who have been asking big questions about who they are. What does authentic becoming look like in their own lives? And that they've just buried their head, and they've tried to do that work, and it's exhausting, and there's no clarity in that. Well, for others here, we're very happy to fit molds that we think are good, that will be celebrated, that people will love, and we've lost sight of the of the uniqueness that you are calling us into, and that you have an imagination for them.
Speaker 1:So father, today, I ask that you minister to every one of us here. Would you help us discover the health of the middle way? That in fact, both of these are necessary if we are ever going to discover who our authentic selves are becoming. So I ask that you bring people into our lives who can be Paul to us, that can share hard truths, but who can also recognize us for who we are today and that who can care for us today. And that in our relationships that we already have, help us to look for ways to be this to other people, to help support and build up the body of Christ in this way.
Speaker 1:So, father, I just wanna thank you for these things and say that we love you. Amen.