Boldness

Through the summer, we were busy looking at different minor characters in the scripture and today marks a shift for us. In that now we're going to begin a journey in which we look at from Sunday to Sunday. What it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and what it is to disciple others in Jesus Christ. Now, we're going to do this work through the coming weeks by looking at the second chapter in particular of the letter to the Thessalonians 1st Thessalonians, and we're going to look that over carefully. Methodically and try and find some of the characteristics of what this discipleship means. Now when I talk of being a disciple, there's a chance that in your mind, as well as my own, a thought comes to mind a particular Focus. Perhaps you are thinking of the 12 disciples those who follow Jesus. Or maybe you're thinking of that larger group of people, the whole crowd that seem to follow Jesus around kind of his groupies. Or maybe you're thinking about what it is to be a disciple. Or what it is to maybe disciples someone else, you know. Whichever thought is in your mind. The chances are there are additional thoughts that come along such, as if you were thinking of the 12, those who follow Jesus, chances are you're thinking about how they made a greater sacrifice and maybe we're not up to that level of sacrifice. Sometimes we excuse those, thoughts by telling ourselves. Well, some of those guys nothing was going well for them in life anyways, so they just discarded the life they were on and went after this or maybe well they needed a life change, so this was a good choice for them. Or maybe you'd rather fit into the crowd. That larger group, that kind of came and went unnamed. It's kind of the way sometimes we like to play it in the church. You know, I follow Christ and I'll sit this one out till I see something that really fits me in what it means to follow Christ. Or if you're thinking about that idea of being a disciple of Christ, maybe you're up to a challenge. Maybe you're asking yourself. What's next. And, and like we do here in this American culture, we're ready to consume the next opportunity and decide whether or not it works for us. Discipleship. Has a lot of different meanings. As well as the idea of discipling someone else. Truly challenges us. So, my hope is that as we look through 1st Thessalonians, chapter 2. That we will be encouraged as well as challenged to look at different characteristics of discipleship. Today will be looking at boldness. So, let us take time now to hear God's word to us. Let us pray.

O Lord,

Help us.

For in this moment. We are about to Journey centuries back in time. We are about to take in a portion of a letter written to a people. Who are in the early days of following you. Help us to hear. Why your spirit thought it important than these words would be preserved for us today. That somehow in Your Divine will able to see all of history at once. You knew that in this moment at this time. We needed to hear what you have to say.

So, may you make our hearts open to this this word of yours. And may our minds turn over your words reflecting upon them. And growing deeper in love with you. We pray this, Jesus, in your precious name. Amen.

We're reading just two versus today from 1st Thessalonians chapter 2. Paul writes: for you yourselves know, brothers and maybe you see the little footnote there. That could mean brothers and sisters for you yourselves know, brothers and sisters that are coming to you was not in vain. But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Phillipi as you know. We had boldness in our God, to declare to you. The gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Now, as We Gather here this morning, We Gather to hear God, and to be challenged by what God has to teach us. But we also gather having gone through a really difficult week in our culture. Our news stories have been flooded with all the struggle and strain that is going on in Afghanistan.

Our news this morning and over the last few days has also been preparing us for a hurricane that is within just a few hours, going to devastate our Southern States.

In addition, we walk in here this morning, having gotten an email that says we have to wear masks again. And I got to be honest with you. I don't care where you are on that opinion. I have not met anyone who likes the idea. So we're all unhappy.

And there's a part in the midst of all of that Afghanistan, and and a hurricane coming, or even thinking back to what's happened in Haiti and, and looking over the overall climate of our lives. We sometimes come and ask ourselves whether we want to admit it out loud or not. What will today, this morning, what will God's word really have to do with any of that?

The world's problems seem too great, too big, to large. And so we almost have a sense that it's all in vain.

And it's in that concept of in vain that we meet the Apostle Paul. As he writes to the church in Thessalonica.

And as he reminds them that when he had come to them sometime earlier.

That amidst all the struggles and strains that his coming to them. Was not in vain. That amidst all of life's troubles, all of life's struggles that it still had a purpose for him to come. That delivering the word of God. Changed lives. Now, I want to say a little bit about those struggles. Paul references it this way. He says you know how we that is he and Silas and others who were with him had already suffered. How they've been shamefully treated.

And how even when he was at thessalonica, that it was full of conflict.

Now, I'll just remind you a little bit of your own Bible History. Paul and Silas when they went to Phillipi before thessalonica. They went to that Roman city, a city that didn't even have a synagogue. They discovered Lydia the dealer in purple cloth, outside the city by the river and they began a church. He stayed in Phillipi sometime and as he gathered more and more people and shared the gospel with them, the good news of Jesus Christ. The good news that God had brought the love of God to this world through his son, Jesus Christ. As he shared that he found himself also being followed by a young woman.

We're told that that young woman in the book of Acts were told that she had a spirit of divination. Which means, she was able to foretell the future.

And she had some handlers, some men who controlled her, and we're making a profit off of her. Come have your fortune told have your future told that type of thing. Well, in her spare time, she followed Paul around yelling out, that they were followers of the Lord most high.

This went on and on and it really got under Paul's skin. The scripture says that Paul was annoyed. So if you ever feel annoyed, just know that one of the Apostles also was annoyed. He finally turned around and he orders that the Spirit come out of her. Which, of course it did. Which meant that this woman was no longer able to fortune tell. And the man who her where handlers were very upset. They hauled Paul and Silas into the middle of the central Courtyard lobbied their complaints in front of the magistrates and all the people gathered.

And the magistrates ordered them stripped. And beaten with rods.

And then thrown into jail. And had them locked up. With stocks. It's from this that we get our passage where we read that Paul and Silas were there in jail, Singing, hymns. Who among us would have been able to sing Under such circumstance?

They were shamefully treated.

Well, there's a lot more to that story, including the fact that there's an earthquake and the Jailer becomes a Believer etc. And when there's time for the Magistrate's to release them Paul says no, no, you just treated Roman citizens this way. You see in that world in that time to be a Roman citizen was to have enormus power. Over everybody else. And you couldn't just beat a Roman citizen, which is what had happened. And he uses that as leverage and the next thing, you know, they ushered him out of the city, far more graciously.

But his troubles follow him when he comes to Thessaloniki. He's there just 3 weeks and the Jews in the synagogue begin to rebel as well. And the next thing, you know, he's thrown out of thessalonica as well.

He's been, he's suffered. He's been treated shamefully and he's experienced much conflict. Why does Paul write about these things? Why does he remind the Thessalonians of what he experienced? You see, we suffer a great deal to be in the faith. Maybe we don't suffer like Paul did. But we know how to keep our head down. We know how to be careful how much we express because we have a culture that really doesn't want to hear it.

Paul is writing to this church because his own character among the other things is also under attack. There are others who come to ask about his motivations wondering why he came in the first place. He makes a defense about that and among his defenses to say look, I didn't do this of my own will. I came by God's will.

And he starts to speak. About boldness. Boldness. It's hard to think of boldness, as a characteristic of being a disciple of Christ, or a characteristic that you share in helping disciple someone else. When I think of boldness. Maybe you're like me. You think of someone who's maybe full of a little bit of pride.

The boldness usually come from one of two places. What is usually bold when they know their own abilities?

You know, the ability to do things really well. You might boldly enter into a situation when you know, you're really good at handling that situation. You might boldly step into uncertainty. When something is broken, when, you know, you know, exactly how to fix it. I like being a dad, there's times where there's recognition for my children, wow Dad is great. He knew how to fix that. You're right. I'm really good at taking a light bulb out and screwing another one in. I do so boldly. I know my abilities. I've done light bulbs before. I've got this.

Boldness has a certain self-interest, a certain understanding that hey, I'm capable. It's an assessment of self. There's another form of boldness though, a boldness in one's position. Now, we're not talking so much about one's abilities, but one's position. Where one's position allows us to have a certain level of boldness? I remember years ago. When Pastor Suzanne and I first started ministry a small country Church.

They're in the Catskill region of New York. And we went into the office. Our first day of work. There was no secretary in this church. There was no one else on staff and we went and it turned out on the day that the church's thrift store was open. Now I had heard about the thrift store, but I had not seen it in action. I've been shown the room in which everything was stored. But I had no idea that on the day of the thrift store that that room literally threw up into the rest of the church. That that room, suddenly spread everywhere and, and garments, and clothes, and hangers. And it was everywhere for the community as they came into the church. There was very little that told you it was a church because of all the thrift store. And as we made our way up the stairs, looking probably like anybody else who's come to buy clothes in the thrift store. We went to, where we knew the office was only, there was now a, a wonderful hanger display of dresses, right in front of the door. And so we began to move that away. So we can sneak in behind and go in the door and we were challenged. What are you doing?

And there was an older woman. Who had all the authority on heaven in Earth.

What? We're just we're just going in the office. You can't go in there. Only the pastor can go in there.

Honestly, I almost thought about going home.

But my wife, she was a little more bold than I And she said, we are the pastors.

It was amazing how much everything suddenly changed? We didn't have to move the clothes. They suddenly moved for us. The door was graciously opened. And in we went. The boldness of position that one is in a position to be able to be bold to to walk with authority and certainty. To be able to go forward with confidence.

The boldness of position allows us, this I know you've been in a position where you've been mistaken before and you can throw out that card of who you are and suddenly you have access. The boldness of position allows us to walk forward and confidence. And Paul writes about this bulnes. He says not that he is bold in himself and believe me. Paul has plenty of reasons to list his own attributes, he even does so in one of his other letters. Plenty reasons to say why he is confident. Because of his training. But even as he lists that in another letter, he also says that it's rubbish compared to this. Compared to his position.

His position of now being in Christ or as he writes here.

We had boldness in our God. Paul is reminding us that to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Is to have a boldness in our God. Our position. Our position is in God. Not in who we are, not in our abilities, not in our capabilities, but in God. Paul writes about this again and again throughout his many letters he writes about what it is to be in Christ.

To be in a position in which we are no longer journeying through this life on our own abilities. But because God has chosen, and this is the good news.

By sending his son into this world to take our place. In other words to walk our shame, our reasons for being judged, according to our sins, for Jesus, to take all that on himself in place of us. So that we might be lifted out of that place of shame and lifted up into a place of Glory such that we can be In Christ that we can enter into the throne room of God. Our ticket has been punched. We have full access. Not only access to kind of come in and sit or stand somewhere on the periphery in the throne room, but access now to be children of God. That our position is such that we no longer walk this world in our own abilities, but rather walk this world. Now as sons and daughters. Of God. Or Jesus says, brothers and sisters. Of Our Lord.

This is a living reality for what it is to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. It is more than a heady understanding that if we fill out a quiz we say, yep. We're in Christ or we're in God. It is a change in the way. We think and approach life.

I joked that I was ready to turn around and go home when I was challenged about going into the office. But my wife was bold. She understood, who she was in relationship to God. She was the pastor. And therefore, she had access.

You are children of God through Jesus Christ. And because of that, you are now in God. This is the boldness from which Paul operates. This is the boldness that he is now challenging the church, the people in thessalonica to also operate. For he's not writing in a vacuum, where everything is just normal. No, they are struggling.

They have chosen to follow Jesus Christ. They have accepted that Jesus has come and died for their sins. They have abandoned their former ways and we'll talk about this in coming Sunday's about abandoning their ways of following other gods. Did you know that following the other gods of the time was more of a kind of quid pro quo thing, you approached, the other gods in this way. I'll do this. If you'll do this for me.

It was just a magnification of what we already live in life.

Already part of what we do with one another all the time. I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine.

And Paul was bringing a message that freed them and us. From finding our value in others, and in what we've done for others and what others will do for us. But finding our value in the love of God.

So Paul comes and speaks to them and to us about boldness being bold. In God. Now, that's our strength. That's a place of comfort. That's our fallback as Paul writes. There's nothing in his letter to the church in Romans. There's nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Now that Christ has done this for us. There's nothing that can take that away. Nothing. That's our strength. Confidence that this ticket that has been punched cannot be removed at our access.

That's our strength. But that strength, that boldness. Is also with a purpose.

There's a purpose.

There's a purpose by which Paul is reminding us that we are in God and that is so that as he writes. It was in the boldness of God. To declare to you, the gospel of God. In other words because we are bold in Christ, because we we are bold and God. We now have the confidence. The share the good news. The love of Jesus Christ.

Incredible gift that God has given us. To share that with everyone to anyone who will listen. And to share that it with others who want to grow in Christ as well.

As I mentioned earlier, there's a whole world out there eager to hear. As well as there's a whole world out there. That doesn't want to hear. Because it means to change.

It means things might have to change.

And were resistant to change.

Paul is referencing, I came. And I delivered this, I was bold and giving this to you and amidst all this suffering, amidst, all of this, shame amidst the ongoing conflict, we experience together. And you've got to ask yourself. Why did I do this?

He did this because he had every confidence. That it was not his abilities that help others to come to know of the love of God. It was God alone.

It's his job alone to share the good news. Just as it is ours. To encourage one another as well. To be a disciple of Jesus. Christ is also to disciple, one another

That His son has died for us and that His spirit is with us and amidst our suffering, and our shame. And even in the middle of our conflicts, that God is here with us through his spirit. Driving us forward.

It's one of the first steps in our discipleship journey to realize, the boldness that we can have with one another through our Lord Jesus Christ? To God, be the glory. Let us pray.

Oh, mighty God.

We struggle.

We struggled and what it is to truly. Abandon The Lies We were created. And give ourselves fully over to follow you.

Help us four in one way. We know that our strength fully is in you.

But I'm so many measures. We still depend on the foundation's, we have built ourselves.

And in a time where we see foundations crumbling around us around the world.

Places. And

Systems. That was provided us strength and comfort.

As we see those Falling Away.

Help us to be reminded that our only hope is in you. Help us to rekindle within ourselves that basic understanding. That you alone are our strength.

And that our value is completely in you.

How much do return to the confidence? That comes from, knowing that we are in you.

And that is more than enough.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Let's join together and our him.

Can I Garden?

In the dark.

Wawa Wawa Wawa.

How many ties and offerings are done in the narthex as we come and go as well as for those of you online, you can send those in all, you'll see the address on the screen. Let us give praise to God. You in this morning's doxology.

Let's take time to pray together.