Aiming at the Right Target

Intro

In order to introduce our scripture today I want to read a clipping from a newspaper called The New Yorker. This article is called Dealing with Olympic Failure and was written in 2012 by Reeves Wiedeman.

“Running down the list of twenty-six sports in London, none requires less athleticism, as we typically define it, than the shooting events. (Archery demands at least one muscular arm.) Yet there is no sport that requires more mental precision. Rifle shooters are trained to fire between heartbeats. Medals are won by millimetres. It’s a sport whose top competitors are expected to be so accurate that we have a hard time believing that they could actually miss.

The London Olympics will feature ten thousand five hundred athletes, give or take a few rhythmic gymnasts, but it’s possible that none are more compelling than American air-rifle shooter Matt Emmons. At the 2004 Games, Emmons competed in the three-position event, in which participants shoot from their stomachs, knees, and feet at a target fifty metres away. Going into his final shot, Emmons was in first place and needed only a mediocre score for gold. Instead, he shot at the wrong target, one lane over, and got no score at all. He finished eighth.”

Dealing With Olympic Failure | The New Yorker

When it comes to our faith and practice, what should we aim for? What should we strive for? Paul identifies the target in 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8.

1 Thessalonians 3:6-8: Paul is encouraged by their faith

1 Thess. 3:6-8 “But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.”

Let me take some time to remind you of the historical context (Acts 17 is where you can find the story). Paul, Silas, and Timothy are going from city to city on a missionary journey to share the good news of Jesus Christ. While they are in Thessalonica, riots force them to leave the city early. Christianity is viewed with extreme jealousy by the Jews and suspicion by the population at large. The Christians are accused of being the “men who turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).

Think about that for a moment. This small group of Jewish men who went into hiding after their Messiah was killed as a criminal are being led by a Jew who was previously tying to kill them. These men are “turning the world upside down” not because of their great intellect, or their political prowess, or their economic philosophy, or their righteous judgment, but because Jesus died and rose from the grave and empowered them with the Holy Spirit. The disruptions to the pagan social order is not a testimony of how great Paul is, but it is a testimony to the power of the gospel.

Do you want to turn our world upside down? It does not depend on politics, it does not depend on the education system, it does not depend on our social activism. Are all these things good and important? Sure. But if we don’t first bow our knee to Jesus, all these things are in vain. Our job is not to win people to a system or a political party or a mere philosophy, but to a person, Jesus Christ. That will turn the world upside down.

Paul, being torn from these people too early, or as he put it in the previous passage, being “orphaned” from them, desired to see them. He has a great concern for them. Why? Because he knows they can place their faith in so many different things, so many different idols. The city itself placed its trust in Caesar. That’s reflected in the mob’s accusation against the apostles, “they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus.” (Acts 17:7) The Thessalonian mob was uncomfortable with the fact these Christians were pledging a higher allegiance to Jesus than anything else. They were going to use any means at their disposal to convince this Christians to get back in line. The mob rioted, appealed to their governing authorities, and kicked their leaders out of the city.

Paul had good reason to worry for these Thessalonians who claimed to believe in Jesus. Their friends, family, and city officials were all turning up the pressure, causing them affliction to turn away from Jesus and get back to “normal” life. So while Paul was unable to come visit them himself, he sent Timothy in his place. And when Timothy returned, Paul was greatly encouraged by Timothy’s report about these Thessalonians. These believers did not deny their master who bought them; rather, they continued in faith and love and remembered the apostles fondly.

The Thessalonian’s “faith” refers to the fact that they kept Jesus first and did not trust anything else to bring them their ultimate hope. This faith was constantly being tested in the face of the cultural pressure to conform (and sometimes physical affliction as well). This faith in God has a direct impact on how they treat one another. And Timothy proclaims that their behavior is marked by love. Just as James tells us that faith without works is dead, we could say the same thing about faith without love. Paul tells us in the great love chapters, 1 Cor. 13:13 “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” And in 1 Cor. 13:2 “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Genuine faith results in love.

Paul commends the Thessalonians for remaining faithful.

Let’s consider a point of application here:

We must remain faithful to Christ first in the face of cultural pressure.

The Thessalonians faced constant pressure and affliction to conform to their culture. We too face constant pressure to conform to our culture. In new, radical ways we face cultural pressure to conform. Now, it is the month of June, the month that many of us have come to dread.

You open your phone, you now have rainbow colored apps. You drive down the road, and various business fly the LGBTQ+ flag. You turn on your TV and your immediately bombarded with various LGBTQ characters. The culture is screaming at you, “bow the knee! bow the knee!”

Several Christian denominations have already fallen. They’ve said this behavior is okay, there’s nothing wrong. Denominations are operating in clear violation of scripture. And I’ll tell you, the issue did not start now, the issue started when these denominations decided God’s word was not really God’s word.

Of course, we all face pressure in many ways from our culture. We face the pressure to believe there’s no such thing as sin, that God does not exist, that we can solve all our problems through government, that the education system can teach “neutral” facts, that the church is just a building or an event, that the gospel is not powerful, and on and on the list grows. Don’t be thrown by every wind of doctrine, but remain faithful to Christ. He is our anchor, our solid ground in the midst of these immense cultural currents.

Secondly, Paul commends the Thessalonians because of their love.

We must love one another as Christ loved us.

The world is constantly trying to redefine love. The world wants you to define love as agreeing and celebrating other people’s life decisions no matter what they are. If you shame someone or disagree with him, then you can’t really love him. Or, the world redefines love as a romantic feeling in your belly that you cannot control. We use phrases like “swept off our feet” and “fell in love.”

Jesus didn’t just “fall in love” with us. He wasn’t “blinded” by love for us. No. Jesus knew exactly what he was getting into. He know everything. He knew exactly how messed up we are, but chose to come anyway. When he saw people in their affliction, we was moved with compassion. When it took sacrifice by excruciating death, he went all the way for the joy that was set before him.

Love involves what we believe

about someone. We don’t believe lies about them. We don’t believe sin is ever good for anyone no matter what the culture has to sat about that sin. We don’t believe that people “aren’t really that bad.” We believe what the Bible teaches: people are enslaved by sin and the greatest need that they have is to repent and trust in Jesus Christ.

Love involves what we feel

toward people. By the way, you can control and train how you feel about people. A lot of times we don’t train our feelings about something consciously, rather, it’s conditioned by how our influences feel about something. I remember back in the day in one of my Chick-fil-A training sessions we watched a video put out by the company called “everyone has a story.” The video went from person to person eating or working in the restaurant and put up words about the situation they are going through, whether just graduating with their masters or battling stage four cancer. The point was to train how we felt about people, and not treat them with rudeness.

The greatest thing the Holy Spirit will use to train your feelings toward other people is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Humans are the only creatures made in God’s image with dignity and worth. God only decided to become one type of creature in the universe in the incarnation. He did not become a dog, or an angel, he became a human being. There is only one creature in the universe for which the eternal Lord of glory died: human beings. It was to humanity that Christ condescended, lived with, died for, and redeems. And you’re going to hold contempt in your heart toward another human being because of how much money they make, their life choices, or the color of their skin?? Who do you think you are you wretch? What makes your sin or life status so much better than someone else that you can look with disdain upon others? Why should Jesus love you so much more? What have you done to deserve his affection? NOTHING!

I speak so harshly, not to you, but because this wretch lives deep down in me. I’m not claiming to be racist or homophobic, I think it’s silly to make up sins or claim to have commited a sin that you have not willfully commited. But there is a tendency in me to not recognize other people’s great need of Christ.

Do you know that it was said of Robert Murray McCheynne (Scottish pastor in the 1800’s) that he would burst into tears just walking past a lost person on the city street? Oh that the Spirit would work such a compassion in me, the wretched man that I am.

Love involves what we do.

Jesus did not believe truth about us, have compassion toward us, then sit back idly, twiddling his thumbs. He sacrificed his very life for us. Love demands self-sacrifice. Maybe that’s something drastic, like Lottie Moon allowing the native Chinese to eat as she starves to death. Maybe its something minor like letting someone over in traffic even when we are running late. Love means we put other’s needs before our own. But this also means we know people’s greatest need. What is the greatest need that people have? People’s greatest need is Jesus Christ.

Only when we believe the truth about people, are moved with compassion, and put their needs before our own can we truly say we love others. And there is a sense that we will never fully and perfectly love in this life, I fail in many ways to love, even those closest to me, in the perfect way that Christ love. But the Spirit works in us constantly that we may be complete and mature in our love toward others. The Thessalonian behavior was not perfect, but Paul could still characterize it by the term “love.” And I would say the same of all of you in here. You’re not perfect, but you certainly are loving.

At the end of verse 6, Paul commends the Thessalonians for “always remembering him kindly.”

We should remember Paul with kindness

You ever listen to someone who is kind of confusing? I’m sure you all are like, “yes, we are right now!” Peter, the good ol’ fisherman writes this about Paul. Remember Paul is the author of 1 Thessalonians, the letter we are walking through right now. Peter says, 2 Pet. 3:15-16 “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”

Notice a few things Peter says. Sometimes Paul writes some things that are difficult to understand. But notice something else. Peter claims that ignorant and unstable people twist what Paul says, “as they do the other Scripture.” Did you notice what Peter is claiming about Paul’s letters? Peter is claiming, in the first century, in the very decades that Paul is writing these letters, Peter is claiming that Paul’s writing is Scripture.

We could spend this hour together doing so many things. We could be singing songs, having a fellowship meal, playing games, having a talk or lecture on so many different things. Why are we spending our time in 1 Thessalonians? Because we, like Peter, that these are God’s very words written down by Paul. This is scripture. The scripture has the ability to make a spiritually dead man alive again! The scripture has the ability to search our soul. Through the Scripture, we know how to please God.

Remember Paul, always with kindness. Paul has sometimes been forgotten. There’s a tendency from some people to say, “well, it’s not the red letters” in order to pick and chose what they will believe from the Bible. We don’t get to pick what God wrote! One common cliche you’ll sometimes hear preachers say, I will echo here: “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it!”

In verse 7 of 1 Thessalonians, Paul gives the main verb. If you like to mark in your Bible, the main verb for verses 6-7 is “comforted” in most translations (“encouraged” in NIV and CSB). For even in the midst of Paul’s afflictions and tribulations he is facing, knowing about the Thessalonians has brought him great comfort.

In verse 8, Paul gives further definition to how he is comforted. 1 Thess. 3:8 “For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.” When Paul says, “we live” he is using a figure of speech. Paul’s life won’t suddenly end if the Thessalonians stop being faithful. The commentator Charles Wanamaker says of this passage, “If the Thessalonians had renounced their faith, Paul appears to imply, this would have called into question his “life’s work,”

Charles A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990), 136.

Think about a famous artist whose magnum opus is kept in his basement, or an author whose greatest novel is unpublished. Is that person really “alive” so to speak?

So let’s make this figure of speech a little more clear: Paul is saying that the Thessalonians’ faithfulness gives him joy, comfort, and in someway sustains him through the midst of tribulation. This is what Paul means when he says “we live.”

He finishes out the phrase “if you are standing fast in the Lord.” “You” here, of course refers to the Thessalonians to whom Paul is writing. The idea “if” ties Paul’s heart, his desire for what he wants his labor to accomplish with what the Thessalonians are doing. And what are the Thessalonians doing? What is the aim of Paul’s labors? “standing fast in the Lord” or simply faithfulness.

Paul’s heart desire was to produce faithfulness. This was Paul’s target.

We should focus our efforts to produce faithfulness in ourselves and others.

If you were to take a poll of pastors as to what their goal is

Three in 4 U.S. Protestant pastors (75%) say apathy or lack of commitment is a people dynamic they find challenging in their churches.

Apathy in Churches Looms Large for Pastors - Lifeway Research

If we took a poll of our local area and asked, “What are you looking to get our of a church?” What do you think people would say? The Pew Research center did such a study in 2015 and here are the answers they got, listed in order of greater to lesser percentage: number 1 on the list: quality of sermon, feeling welcomed by leaders, style of services, location, education for kids, having friends/family in the congregation, availability to volunteer.

Where is the person who says, “I joined this church because I know it will help me grow in faithfulness to Christ. I know I will have to sacrifice a little on how I like to sing, or how I like to run a program, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I join this church I will better ‘stand fast in the Lord’”?

I don’t put the blame for this solely on the congregants, but the pastors themselves! Somewhere down the line someone switched the target. Paul’s target was faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ, that was his aim, why should ours be any different?

Some pastors aim to make people happy. Some pastors aim to make people comfortable. Some pastors aim to help people feel useful. Some pastors aim to line their pockets. Some pastors aim to get more people in the door. Some pastors aim to build a bigger building.

The problem is not that these pastors aren’t accurate, the problem is their aiming at the wrong target! What do they sacrifice? Church membership is seen the exact same as membership at a local country club! Some country clubs have more strict policies for their members than churches do! What a scandal!

What’s the difference between a church and a movie theater? For a lot of church members in America, there’s not that much of a difference. You pay money for people to get up on a stage and perform. In some churches you don’t even have to meet the pastor or any other church member and can become a member on the spot!

No wonder people are apathetic! If a pastor’s goal is just to make people happy, many of us would be happy just sitting back in our pew watching what goes on the stage. Pastors switched the target of Christian living, not maliciously, nor were they trying to play into the devil’s hands, but the result is obviously disastrous.

We must refocus our lives, our efforts on being more faithful to Christ. What can we do to promote faithfulness? Paul will explain that more in the following passages of 1 Thessalonians. But for now, I just want us to consider one thing: What is our target? I oftentimes find myself aiming at the wrong target. I have a drive to be successful in the eyes of men and I then find myself aiming at the target of pleasing man rather than pleasing God, or flattery, or making people feel good about themselves.

So I have to remind myself often, my goal when I prepare my sermons, have a conversation with someone in the hallway, or answer a question in Sunday School, my focus has to be the same as the Word of God: standing fast in the Lord.

I want you to reflect as well: What is your target? Why are you in church? Or, why are you listening online? Is it to hang our with your friends? Is it to show face? Is it to make you feel like your relationship with God is okay, even though you know you’ve been giving into sin more and more? Is it to make you feel like God is in favor with you even though you spend 99% of your time building your kingdom and 1% of your time building God’s kingdom?

What is your target? I pray it’s the same as the target found in 1 Thessalonians 3:8 because now I live if you are standing fast in the Lord. Not for any other reason other than you are standing fast in the Lord.