“Gifts of the Spirit” 1 Cor 12: 1-13 Acts 2: 1-4

One of the first songs that I remember singing in children’s choir went something like this, “I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together. All who follow Jesus all around the world, yes, we’re the church together. The church is not a building. The church is not a steeple. The church is not a resting place, the church is the people.” For a child, this was pretty succinct. I understood what the church was not – the building we gathered in, a mark on the landscape, or a place to sleep. And I understood what the church was – the people.

But as we grow up, the simple answers of what the church is and what it is not, seem to raise more questions then anything else. Chiefly, what people? Only those who look like me? Talk like me? Have my same education level? Those people that I am comfortable around? Only the people that believe what I believe religiously and politically? Those who have the same type of family that I do or make a similar income?

Further, we seem to stop believing in the simple things that the song states that the church is not. We really have come to like our church buildings and steeples. Our bells and banners. And some of us really find church to be a resting place – a place to sit with our family or gather and talk with our friends. A place to rest our eyes or a safe place of respite from the concerns and responsibilities of the rest of the week.

So we are left struggling with not one but two big questions. The first, what is the church and the second, why does the church even matter? Perhaps today’s scripture passage can give us some insight to help answer these two questions.

What is the church? We are told that on the day of Pentecost, the day that church was created, all of the people were together in one place. While we aren’t expressly told what this place is, we can assume it is a house, a common gathering for people throughout Jesus’ ministry and following. Houses in Ancient Israel were not like our houses today with many rooms. They were essentially one room that became expanded as the male family members married and brought their spouses into the dwelling place. While the room expanded, the number of rooms did not necessarily. So we have a group of people, all together, in this one room. Perhaps it was crowded and sticky; maybe they were discussing the teachings of Jesus. Whatever they were doing, they were together. Our spirit needs to be connected to other human beings in a meaningful way, and when we are in such authentic relationship, even when we are not talking directly to each other, but worshiping together (even online!) we are changed. 

The Holy Spirit also marks the church. The Holy Spirit is the often discounted member of the Trinity – this relationship that is internal to God’s very being. It is hard to picture the Holy Spirit, even though there are numerous different images for the Spirit – the most common being a dove. But in this passage the Holy Spirit is described as a violent wind and tongues of fire. But maybe our very difficultly in defining the Holy Spirit, even symbolically, is to the church’s benefit. The Holy Spirit grants different people different gifts, we are told in the 12^th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. I also believe that there are different manifestations of the Spirit in different churches – this is why we have so many different denominations. So people can find the place to worship that best touches their spirit in a way that moves them to be Christ’s embodiment in the world. But in order for people to be moved in this way, they Spirit must be present. We must individually invite the Spirit to be present in our hearts each and every day. We must corporately ask the Spirit to move in a mighty way when we gather together, and above all we must trust that the Spirit moves when we ask.

Third, the church is diverse. We are told in our passage that there were Jews from every nation gathered in Jerusalem, and that each was bale to hear the message being spoken in their own language. Revelations 7:9 describes the Kingdom of Heaven as a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the Lamb. Brothers and sisters, the church is the image of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. The church is filled with people speaking different languages, and people understanding those languages. This diversity is celebrated! It is not about making people fit into our way of doing things or those who look and sound like us. It is about letting each person celebrate God and everyone knowing that they are rejoicing in the same Holy and Risen Christ!

As the story of Pentecost continues, Peter and the eleven disciples stand amongst these people who mock them because they do not understand what is happening, those who are saying that their diverse gifts are marks of intoxication instead of worship and started to preach. He tells the people that God will pour out the Holy Spirit upon the people of God, and that those children will prophesy, see visions, and dream dreams. And why do these things happen? So that people will see God, call upon the name of the Lord, and be saved. So why does the church exist? Because the life and teachings of Jesus Christ matter. We believe that it not only matters to us as individuals, but to the world. We believe that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection changed history and give us hope both in this life present and in the life to come, eternally. Do you really believe that? Or do we gather together just to fill ourselves without a purpose? We are filled by the Spirit as the church, so that we can preach good news to the captives and free the poor. We are filled so that we can serve the world in a way that was modeled by Christ – marked with compassion and grace. We are filled so we can make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Do you believe that?

We are the body of Christ, brothers and sisters! We are the church! Let’s celebrate that! We need not be ashamed of our message or our presence. I would challenge each of you to write down the three things you think church is. Then on the other side of the same paper that you write your three things, I want you to complete the following sentence. If Grace or Ohio or Sanborn didn’t exist tomorrow it would matter because… What makes us a church? Who are we touching in the community? What are we offering the Kingdom of God? And how are we marked by the Holy Spirit?

“Death Swallowed in Life” 1 Cor 15: 1-26, 51-57

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Then the saying that it is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Words from the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth that are often read at committal services. Proclaimed when we are saying goodbye to the people that we love. Stated at times when it seems that death has won.

Last week we talked about some of the struggles of the church in Corinth and how Paul was reminding them that they needed to get back to the practice of love. The non-optional piece of living out the faith because of the love that God has shown us in Jesus Christ.

When you read this section of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians it would seem that it is completely separate from everything that he was saying just a few chapters ago. Why did Paul jump ahead and start talking about the power of the resurrection? Because for him it is deeply connected. 

If love is the praxis or practice of what we believe, resurrection the theological or God talk behind it. Resurrection is the most important theologically point for Paul. It is the connective tissue that holds everything in the past, present, and future together and gives us hope. 

I get a little frustrated when Christians only talk about Christ dying on the cross as that which gives us hope. Christ’s death for us was powerful, but it was brought to completion through the resurrection. Our faith, dear friends, is tied together in the resurrection.

Why is the resurrection so important to Paul? Because Paul believed because Christ was raised, we too will be raised. When we say together week in and week out during the Apostle’s Creed that I believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting” we aren’t just talking about what Jesus did. We are talking about what Jesus offers to us - new life. A resurrected life. 

The problem that Paul was facing in Corinth wasn’t just in how people were treating each other in the body of Christ, it was also in what they were being taught. What they were believing. Some people amongst them were spreading misinformation about the resurrection. Some may have denied that there was life after death. Others thought the resurrection already happened and wouldn’t happen again. Still others thought there wouldn’t be a bodily resurrection. For Paul this poor theology put their very faith at risk. If you don’t believe in a resurrection from the dead, then what hope is there to offer. 

Probably the lie that was being spread the most was this idea that the body wouldn’t be raised from the dead. In ancient Hellinistic society the body was at best just something that you needed to deal with and at worse evil. But Paul is proclaiming that bodies have value to God. That God created us in a body for a reason. 

I think we can probably understand a little bit where the ancient Greek society was coming from, can’t we. In America today we are either hyper-fascinated with bodies - trying to get to be what we think perfect is, or we are turned off by bodies -they make us squimish. We don’t know what to do with them. Especially as it seems that bodies start to fail - how could God create these fragile vessels. 

Paul proclaims though that even that which we think is fallible will be redeemed. Even these bodies that make us feel uncomfortable at times and fail will be restored. For Paul it is connected to this profound statement that nothing is beyond the redemption of God. 

In fact for Paul, it goes even deeper than that - no one us beyond the redemption of God. He tells the Corinthians just to look at him! He mistreated people horribly before coming to know Christ and now God is using him to preach the Gospel. God is at work in our lives in a way that we often cannot even begin to understand. And if God can redeem and work through the likes of Paul, then Paul says that no one is beyond redemption. 

For Paul, this hope of redemption through resurrection isn’t just some hope way out there. It’s a manifestation of the power of God right here and now. The power of God saved us and the power of God allows us live. The power of God can change us. 

1 Corinthians is always a book of the Bible that will be dear to me. When I was in seminary I took a class inside of the walls of a women’s state correctional facility on this book. There were some “outside” seminary students that met week with “inside” students. If you want to talk about the power of the Gospel to change folks hearts and lives you needed to look no further then these amazing women, many of whom were serving long prison sentences, but who wanted to study God’s word because they had experienced a powerful change in their lives. They had experienced a resurrection, my friends, that lead them to believe in THE resurrection. 

When Paul says that our hope rests in Jesus, that is the type of hope that he is talking about. Not just something yet to happen, but redemption from sin here and now. New life through forgiveness here and now. Paul fully understands the spiritual death of sin, but because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we have a hope that things can and will be different. 

Church, Paul is trying to tell us that Jesus’s story is part of our story because Jesus changed everything for us. When we tell our story, we cannot help but tell the story of Jesus. When we live out our life of faith in practice we cannot divorce it from talking about God. 

Now does that mean that we know all of the details? By no means. Paul doesn’t offer any of that here. But he does say that the resurrection is trustworthy because there are people alive who bear witness to it. He believes in the resurrection, because despite who he was, Christ chose him. 

Friends, our lives bear witness to the resurrection as well. For the last several months I have had you collecting small rocks and now is the time to put them to use. Each of you should have picked up one of those rocks on the way to worship today. If you didn’t let us know and we will get one for you. We are going to take a moment to pass out markers and I want you to write on one side of the rock something that was dead inside of you and on the other, what new life Christ has brought to that area of your life. Any words that come to mind, friends. 

Because as we wait for the resurrection, we also believe that Christ resurrects and changes pieces of us here and now. We are witnesses to that fact with our lives. We have hope because of it. But that isn’t ours to hold on to in secret. Paul tells us to go forth and share it. And not let anything distract us from this work we have for the Lord. Let us take a moment to be in prayer before thinking of the areas in our lives where Christ has brought new life and new life abundantly. Amen. 

“Faith, Hope, and Love” 1 Cor 13: 1-13

In the past ten years of ministry, every single wedding I have officiated has picked this particular text to be read as part of their service. In fact, that’s probably where we best know this passage from - hearing it read at wedding ceremonies or on the front of bulletins for the special day. 

But if we just relegate 1 Corinthians 13 to wedding ceremonies, we miss what the Apostle Paul is trying to communicate. We miss the teaching that can be held for the church today. 

The thing about this passage from 1 Corinthians is that it wasn’t written by Paul primarily to make people feel good - it was supposed to be a word of challenge to a church in disarray. If you read just one chapter earlier in the letter you find that members are acting in ways unbefitting of being the body of Christ. Some were claiming that they were more important because of the spiritual gift that they had. They aren’t sharing. They are abusing the freedom that they have in Christ. They are trying to seek their own recognition first and foremost, no matter what the cost to their neighbor of the church. 

It is right after Paul speaks about the mess that the church finds itself in that he speaks about love. 

Whenever I teach confirmation classes I like to make a distinction between spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit. We read about spiritual gifts throughout the New Testament in places like 1 Corinthians 12. A spiritual gift is a particular gift given to a particular person in order to benefit the body of Christ. It is unique to that person. But Paul goes on to warn us that no gift is better than another. They all are meant to come together within the body to compliment one another for the sake of the mission that we have through Jesus Christ. 

In contrast, we find words about spiritual fruit in Galatians. Spiritual fruit should be seen in all Christians and grow in us as we grow in Christ. It’s not for a particular person. It is a manifestation of our relationship with Jesus. 

Love falls into the second catagorey brothers and sisters, which means that it is not optional. There are not some of us within this body that are equipped to love through the Holy Spirit and others that are not. Paul is trying to remind the church in Corinth that love isn’t a spiritual gift, its a practice. Another way to say this would be that love isn’t a virtue, it’s simply who we are in Christ. It is a state of being. 

The love that Paul is talking about isn’t even possible without Christ. Because it is based on the presence of God’s love in our lives in the first place. Paul isn’t talking here about how we feel about one another. He is talking about agape love - the absolute highest form of love - the love that God has for us and we have for God.

Pastor Jason Micheli wrote in his book Living in Sin: Making Marriage Work Between I Do and Death that he tells every single couple that he does premarital counseling with that he will not preach on 1 Corinthians 13 at their wedding. They can pick any scripture but that one. But he almost always ends up preaching this passage anyway, because it shows us how to love one another. To love another as Christ loves us.

The problem comes when we think that the love of 1 Corinthians 13 is only relegated to that particular relationship in our lives. When Paul was writing this section of his letter, he certainly wasn’t thinking that. Instead, he is speaking to a church in conflict and calling them to account for their behavior towards one another. Why? Because they are to be reflecting God’s love in the world. 

When we think about the circumstances that the church in Corinth found itself, it is really easy to say that we as the body of Christ aren’t that bad. But the whole reason Paul had to write them in the first place is that we are often blind to the lack of love in our own lives. We think we are doing an okay job, when really we are hurting the people we share this call and mission and ministry with. 

In other words, when we look at the type of love that Paul is talking about here, we should realize that we aren’t there yet. But that doesn’t give us an excuse to not try. Sometimes we will fail to live into the type of love that Paul is talking about, but we keep trying because we want others to know the love of a Savior. 

Conversely, when we read this list of the characteristics of love, we should also see glimpses of hope. Yes, we realize that we are still growing in love, but we also have seen this love manifested through us and in us as the body of Christ in a way that binds us together and changes us. 

I think Paul urges us to ask ourselves some hard questions about love. First, what is most important? Paul is telling the church in Corinth that the things they think are most important - their gifts, even their spiritual gifts. What’s most important is faith, hope, and love. And above all love. 

The leadership we show as the Church should be done in a spirit of love. In fact, everything that we do as believers should be done in a spirit of love. But when folks who do not yet know Christ hear stories about Churches fighting or when we talk poorly about one another, it does not make people want to come. Pastor Max Lucado was on the podcast For the Love a few months ago and he said something that has stuck with me ever since - “who wants to join a table where everybody’s squabbling?” When faith, hope, and love are the most important things everything else fades away. 

On the same podcast episode, Max was sharing the story of being a young seminarian and  being asked what the most important things are to the Christian faith. And everyone shouted things out. But then the professor asked a question very similar to what is the most important thing - what is the core, what is essential. And it was death, burial, and resurrection. Friends, that is the summery of John 3:16, is it not? That is what Christ did in love for us, so are we sharing that love with the world?

The second question that Paul has for us about absolutely everything that we are doing is “are we doing this in love?” And if the answer is no, then stop! But this question also requires us to be so very honest with ourselves. Perhaps a better version of this question for us to wrap our minds around is “how can we be showing greater love?” Because if love is the greatest of that which is the center of our faith, then we need to keep getting better and better at showing it to a hurting world.

Friends, I deeply believe that our world needs to know the love of a Savior. But I also am honest enough to say that sometimes as the Church we have not done the best job over the years. Let us move into the week examining our own blind spots of where we can love better and evaluate whether love really is the center of our faith life. Let us be a people who bear the love of Christ into the world. Amen. 

The Church in Corinth - Acts 18:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Have you ever been in a disagreement with someone? We would probably all agree with that statement. Have you ever been in a disagreement with someone else in the body of Christ?

Many folks do not like to engage in conflict, but to me it seems like disagreements and divisions can be even more pronounced when it is with other believers. Maybe because we expect more of each other. Maybe because Christ is calling us to unity. Whatever the reason may be - disagreements within the Church are so painful. 

The Apostle Paul took three missionary journeys to plant church and build up the body of Christ. The most in depth account of these travels can be found in the book of Acts. But the picture it paints is anything but rosy and easy. He was often chased out of towns. Threatened. Beaten. Imprisoned. But he kept going. Why? Because for him the Gospel was worth it. He wanted folks to have an opportunity to hear this life changing Good News. 

Whenever Paul entered into a new place he had a pattern that he followed. If there was a synagogue he would go there first and tell people of how Jesus came as the fulfillment to their scriptures. If there wasn’t a synagogue, or in most cases after he got kicked out of the synagogue, he would go anywhere and everywhere else to proclaim the Good News to all who would hear it. Including the gentiles - nor the non-Jewish folks. 

In Corinth, we are told in Acts, that Paul found a Jewish man named Aquila and he stayed with him and his wife because they had the same trade - they were both tent makers. But every Sabbath, Paul kept going back to the synagogue to preach about Jesus. 

There was no set formula for Paul when it came to leading a new faith community beyond always starting at the synagogue. He stayed at places for varying lengths of time. But he would move on and leave the new communities in the hands of people who had come to believe in the Good News. 

The letters that we find in the New Testament came after Paul left a place. Paul would often hear about what was happening in these new fellowships, in one way or another, and would write letters in response, trying to teach and lead them from afar. Sometimes he sent representatives with the letters to be in mouth piece. And these letters would be read, out loud, so that folks could gather in and hear what Paul was trying to convey. 

1 Corinthians is a letter that Paul is writing out of a deep sense of distress. The news that he was hearing about this gathering was not good. Right off the bat, in what we call chapter one in our Bibles, he is talking about people being divided. And what are they being divided over - who baptized them of all things. 

Can you hear Paul’s grief, dear friends, in what he is trying to say to the church in Corinth? Essentially he is saying - you are supposed to be better than this. You are supposed to be the embodiment of a new type of community, a new society, functioning under a new covenant. But instead you are just acting like everyone else around you. You are acting like the city of Corinth, not the Kingdom of God. And if you aren’t acting like those who belong to the Kingdom, how in the world is anyone else going to come to believe?

In Greco-Roman society, there were all sorts of divisions in society, but they all existed with one purpose - to say who the elites were. Who deserved the most honor and glory and power. And Paul is not having any of that within the body of Christ. Because people aren’t valued off of who they are, and certainly don’t find their value because of who baptized or taught them. They find their value in Christ alone. 

When people find their value in being the most elite, when they define themselves by the ways of the world, a lot of things boil over. Folks become boastful. They focus on their own interests - on what can get them ahead. What can make them look the best. What makes them the most well-known and powerful.

Paul turns all of that on its head by saying that as believers, we have value because of what Christ has done. Specifically, we find life, because Christ gave up his for us on the cross. And because of that gift we are new creations - who need to put away the things of the past, in order to find the full power of the Kingdom of God. 

Ouch. 

Yet, this letter is so relatable, is it not? Do we not still have disunity and quarrels and disagreements amongst ourselves today? Amongst different denominations? Within denominations? Even within local churches? What would Paul say to us about this today? 

First, I think that Paul would appeal to us to have Christian unity. Now, does unity mean that we always agree or all think the same way? Absolutely not. But it does mean that we realize that we are representatives of Christ’s love and Kingdom in this world - not our own. And as such, we need to be praying to Christ to renew our minds and guide our steps. 

Now here’s the thing about unity - especially Christian unity - we can’t just demand it of one another. That’s not how unity works. The question is what are we unified around? And for Paul that is the love of Christ shown on the cross. That is who we are following. That is who we are proclaiming. That is what binds us together. You have to understand what you are unified around before you have any hope of actually being unified. 

Two, we need to learn how to have different types of conversations about what divides us. Friends, lets be honest, we’ve been sitting so long in some of our disagreements that we don’t even know what being united looks like.

Earlier this year I took a class about having courageous conversations in churches - conversations where we are deeply honest, but we keep first and foremost in mind what unites us. Conversations that we have not to try to convince another person or argue them into our way of thinking - but holy conversations that focus on honoring God by how we treat each other. Even if we disagree. Or maybe most importantly when we disagree. 

The world around us knows what disagreement looks like, Church. We are living in a polarized society. You are either with me or against me. But the Church is a place where we are united around the fact that we belong to Christ - and because of that we should be able to show the world what united actually looks like. Because we are brothers and sisters in the family of God. 

Church, there is a lot that threatens to divide us today, just as it threatened to divide that church of Corinth so long ago. But that isn’t the end of the story. When we give our hearts and allegiance to Christ, it isn’t just me and Jesus. It’s me and the body of Christ. Of which I am a part. Of which I am united by my love for Christ alone. 

How could our witness in the world change if we actually believed this? How could we deal with divisions and quarrels in a meaningful way? How can we be sent forth to transform the world? Amen. 

“The Church at Thessalonica” Acts 17: 1-9 1 Thess. 1: 1-10

The apostle Paul is often a very misunderstood person. Or at least his story is misunderstood. We can tell of how Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and struck him blind and through that experience he came to believe in Jesus. We can tell of how prior to that experience he was pursing Christians with a single-minded focus. We can tell how after that experience he had a call upon his life to go and preach the Good News, first in the synagogues and then to the Gentiles, planting church after church. 

It’s what happens in the church planting that we can get a little mixed up on. 

Some folks think that Paul only stayed in communities for a short time, others think that he was in every place that he went for years. The truth is, Paul was in each place for a different amount of time. But we know about some of the places where faith communities came to be because of Luke’s stories in the book of Acts and the letters that Paul wrote to church when he was apart from them. 

During seminary I had a spiritual practice of writing letters. Most of my journal entries were letters that I wrote to God. Every week I would try to send out at least three to five letters to friends to serve as notes of encouragement. But here is the thing about all of that writing, it was personal. It was for the person for whom it was intended. 

So it was with Paul. Because the letters he wrote to churches are part of the Biblical cannon, we assume that everything in them are for all of us, throughout the ages. And it is true that there is much for us to glean about being the body of Christ from what he wrote centuries ago. But when Paul wrote them he wasn’t intending for them to be read by you and I all these years later. In fact, Paul wasn’t even intending for them to be read by other faith communities. He penned these beautiful, personal, pastoral letters that were meant for a particular people he was in relationship with. In his absence he wanted to keep preaching the Gospel in a way that would be meaningful and connect with them personally. 

But before we jump into the letter, let’s focus our attention on the passage from Acts this morning. For Acts tells us the story about how this faith community came to be in the first place. 

Several years ago this parish studied the book of Acts in our weekly Bible Study. There were several things that struck us during that study and this passage is no different - in his journeys Paul went to the synagogue first, if there was a synagogue in the community. 

Paul and Silas arrived in Thessalonica, a port city,  and head into the synagogue. In fact, they went into the synagogue and stayed for three Sabbath days. In other words, Paul stayed for three weeks and talked with them about the scriptures. He took texts they already knew, maybe those like Isaiah 53, and used them to explain why the Messiah had to suffer and be raised from the dead. He then took those familiar text and connected them to Jesus. 

Some people listened and they became believers. 

But then the disagreements started. And they were a plenty in Thessalonica. First, the Jews became jealous and stirred up crowds in the market place. It is easy for us to villianize the religious establishment here, but they truly thought that Paul was preaching heresy and leading people astray. Remember, they didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They thought Jesus was a trouble-maker who had been dealt with, and now here is Paul, miles from Jerusalem, continuing to preach about Jesus and try to say that their holy texts pointed to Jesus as the suffering Messiah. It simply wasn’t how they understood the story of Israel, their story. And they couldn’t let Paul continue to preach what he was to the crowds, especially in the synagogues. So Paul faced opposition from the religious establishment. 

But in Thessalonica, it wasn’t just threats from the religious folks. It was also threats from the government and other pages who thought that Paul had come in to over throw their way of life as Jesus was proclaimed to be King. Paul was being attacked from both sides. So much so, that the people became indignant and the city was thrown into an uproar. 

Something people will often say to me is “never in all my years.” “Never in all my years do I remember the world being like this.” “Never in all my years do I remember things being this much of a mess.” Well, friends, in Paul’s years it was. It was a mess. And it wasn’t just a mess for Paul and Silas. The crowds went and attacked Jason’s home as well, where Paul and Silas were believed to be staying as guests. Things were so bad that Paul and Silas had to sneak off in the middle of the night, aided by the believers in the area, leaving this young, small group of believers behind. 

But that wasn’t the end of the story for Thessalonica. Out of those riots, out of that mess that Paul had to escape from, a church was birthed. A group of believers, who I think unsurprisingly to us, faced persecution and grief and suffering. Paul was writing them with a message of encouragement. Keep doing what you are doing, even when its hard. Even when it costs you a lot. Remember that your life is in God now. Remember who you are - you arrest people who turned from idols, serve God whole-heartedly, and are waiting for Jesus to come back. Your life is a witness for Jesus. 

While Paul wrote this letter specifically for the church of Thessalonica, as I stated before, I do think that there are things for us to glean, both from the story of the birth of this church and the letter that Paul wrote to them later. Specifically, I think we can ask what binds us as believers here and now today, together with the believers in Thessalonica?

We are bound together by the belief that God is here today. That the power of the Spirit is moving through this congregation with a purpose. To make the name of Jesus known in this community and beyond. Does that mean that it will always be easy? The church at Thessalonica would tell us no. I know, friends, that we long for the days when we could simply open up our doors and people would come. Thessalonica did not know of that time. They, too, had to work to spread the good news of the Gospel. But they believed that it was worth it. Do we believe that it is worth it as well? Worth it enough to leave what makes us comfortable so others can know the power of Jesus?

We are bound together by the belief that God loves this congregation. We aren’t a church because we meet in a certain building at a certain time. We are a church because we are brought together by the love of God. And it is that same love that we want to go out and share with the world, being imitators of the Lord. 

We are bound together by the call of God. We, like the Thessalonians, are sent forth into our communities to be be bearers of the Good News. In fact, as the body of Christ, our lives are so bound up with the life of God and the story of the Gospel, that we cannot help but go forth.

Friends, we are bound together across the centuries with other believers, other local bodies of Christ, but the call reminds the same. The mission remains the same. To go and preach the good news. Let us, like the Thessalonians, go boldly in the name of Jesus to anyone who will listen. Amen.