To Whom It May Concern

When is the last time you received a handwritten letter? A note of encouragement? What are some of the most important letters you have received, a word that came right when you needed it?

It feels rare to receive a handwritten letter these days. Paul wrote a lot of letters and we call these his epistles. If we ordered his letters in order from the first to the last, scholars think that he probably wrote 1 Thessalonians first.

So Paul was a persecutor of the church transformed into a church planter and he and Barnabas planted this church in Thessalonica. Paul leaves to help plant other churches and gets wind that the Thessalonians are being persecuted. You can imagine: a church in a town where lots of other gods are worshiped and you have this new church that sprang up claiming to worship the one true God. It made room for lots of mocking and ridicule, isolation and exclusion. So Paul sends Timothy to check in on them and gets such a great report back that Paul decides to write them his own letter of encouragement which is where we find our passage this morning.

Right off the bat, what we take as a basic greeting is where Paul begins to make some deep statements about the identity and purpose of this community of faith. Paul starts by grounding them as a church in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, no matter what everyone else may lay claim to, you are a community gathered by and around your affirmation of God the Father and Jesus as Lord. This is your statement of faith. This is your identity as a people of God.

Then Paul gives a greeting that becomes unique to him: Grace and Peace to you. Why is this unique? Later in this letter in 5:3, Paul will refer to “peace and security” which is a political slogan befitting the Roman Empire. In chapter 5, Paul is looking ahead to the day in which the peace of God will shatter our false sense of peace and security in the empire. So when Paul simply adds the word grace here instead of security, it is Paul’s way of claiming Jesus as Lord and Prince of peace over against the emperor. Grace and peace becomes Paul’s signature greeting that is also a a statement of his hope and faith in God.

Then Paul launches into thanksgiving for these Thessalonians? But what precisely is he thankful for? This portion reveals to us the marks of this early Christian community.

Paul gives thanks for their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfast hope in Jesus. Paul then takes this letter one step further in calling them brothers and sisters. That seems a bit extreme to us perhaps, but to Paul they were family. Adalyn has a habit of naming everyone as her friend or family. She calls her neighbors her sisters. Then if she doesn’t know someone’s name she will call out to them and say “hey friend.” And if they don’t respond, of course she yells louder “heeey, friend.”

Family was everything in this culture, especially the relationships between siblings. So to call them brothers and sisters in Christ was to take their relationship to a new level. It was the formation of new family ties in Christ that suddenly went beyond one’s family tree. This language of kinship continues further as Paul says they are beloved by God. They are chosen by Him. Not only are you my brother and sister in Christ, you are God’s very own chosen ones.

Paul doesn’t credit himself with the faith of this church but claims the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit. Their spirits were stirred. This is like when John Wesley called his heart being strangely warmed. This experience of the Holy Spirit. But listen to what happened here. Although this community of faith is brand new and already challenged, they received the gospel with joy. Joy. And Paul says in their joy, they became imitators of the Lord in spite of their persecution, in spite of their isolation, their rejection, their mockery, their sorrow. Meaning in the face of all that gave them reason to give up, to return to their old ways and their old routines and their old gods, they had joy. Meaning that they didn’t lose their joy in circumstances that tried to squash it or rob it or drown it out. Their joy in the Lord remained.

Have you ever known someone with deep joy in the Lord? I’m not talking about faking it till you make it. I’m not talking about someone who will tell you their life is fine and dandy. I’m talking about someone who has walked through the best and worst of life and still takes time to rise and praise God. I have known some of these saints. I have watched them sing in the choir only days after chemo injections for bone cancer. I have watched them take time to lead children in Vacation Bible School even when it meant they had to hobble up and down the stairs. I have watched people come and worship with broken hearts, estranged families, and long distantly held dreams. People would say, you would never know what they’re going through. And you wouldn’t know not because they don’t share it, but because of their joy. This is the kind of joy Paul is talking about with the Thessalonians.

What an encouragement it must have been for this church to receive this letter, to hear someone say “I have heard about your joy in the Lord and I have heard about how it has spread.” And what happened in this church is that their joy became contagious. The word of the Lord poured forth from their lives not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place their faith in God became known, such that Paul said so that we don’t even have to say anything.

What would it be like to have a reputation for imitating the Lord, for having joy in the Lord? What would it feel like to be encouraged in the midst of hard times? Last week we heard the word of Davidask “of whom shall I be afriad,” encouraging us to take heart and wait on the Lord. This week we hear Paul talking to one his early church plants affirming them in how they kept their joy even early on amid persecution.

Have you ever received a word when you needed it most? I remember my mom used to put notes in my lunchbox every day. My mom was a bit extra and would even go so far as to draw smiley faces out of the mustard on my bologna and cheese. Over the years her letters continued. From my mom. From my grandmother. From friends.From my husband. From others whom I may not have known very well but who nevertheless wrote me as if I were a sister or brother.

I know a lady who keeps every letter of encouragement she receives and she hangs them in her office on her wall, to remind her of who she is. The past few years haven’t been a cake walk for any of us. Things have been difficult. Maybe we started strong but then at times it can feel like one hit after another after another. And it is tempting to feel isolated, alone, and defeated at times.

But you see, I saved these old letters. These old words that were written by other precious people to encourage me. I have cards from my grandmother who wrote me every week in college. Letters from other members of the Emmaus community encouraging my walk of faith when I was a teenager. Letters from those I visited or prayed with. Letters from those who encouraged me when I was at my wit’s end or the end of my rope. I used to have sticky note from my husband that stayed on my office desk for years because it reminded me that we could get through anything together. What I have learned from these old letters and the word of the Lord is that it is never too late to encourage one another. It is never too late to be one who lifts another up in the Lord.

So today, no matter where your soul is at I want you to read these words from Paul written so very long ago, this ancient letter of encouragement and take heart. Let us together receive the word of the Lord with joy. Let it be the fount of our blessing and the source of our strength. Let it overflow from within us and spread beyond us to everyone we meet.