A Life Pleasing to God: Making Resilient Disciples

Pastor Fletcher preaches from 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5, read for us in German. Discussion points: Paul sent Timothy as a teacher and encourager for the Thessalonian church, we need other Christians around us to help mature us in our faith, no one accidentally becomes like Jesus.

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  Scripture reader: [1 Thessalonians 3:1-5, read in German] Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks.

  Preacher: Hi, good morning. It's good to see everybody. my name is Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor here at the church. a few years ago, the city of Somerville showed up in front of my house at least I thought it was in front of my house. It turned up it was in front of my neighbor's house and they started pulling up the concrete and I had no idea what was happening, but the next thing I knew there was a nice beautiful young sapling in the sidewalk next to my house and I was very excited about this that, you know, they planted the sapling and I don't know if you've seen this before, but they put little flyers on new trees saying, Will you adopt me? And with a QR code and so if you scan that QR code as I did immediately, I saw it out there, you know, they, they drive the truck away. I'm like, let me see the tree and I scan the QR code and they allow you to name the tree.

  It is now your tree. You get to take care of it and I, I named the tree. I named it Melissa Maple Senor after my favorite mid-level SNL, cast member. so Melissa Maple Senor and I, became quite good friends over the next couple years, and, I, I watered her. I, you know, it only took about a week and one of my neighbors backed their truck into one of the stakes that was holding her up and so then Maples, Melissa had like kind of a lean to one side and after about a dozen calls to the city they still didn't come and replace the stake. I'm like, why would you spend the time. Digging up the sidewalk and planting a tree and then you won't even put the stake back in like all it needs you come to 4 minutes anyways, I was upset. I just drove to Home Depot and I bought a new stake, put it in the ground. I loved this tree. The the the leaves started to turn brown, and I did a little googling and discovered that they were turning brown. Because of all the dog pee at that time, dogs were walking down our street every day all day long because there was a a a lot that they were using as a dog park, down the street and so they were all peeing on the tree.

  So I went and bought a nice little fence and put it around, Melissa Maple Senor and I, I continued to take care. I watered her like every week. It, it was a long summer and I actually had to buy a second hose to attach to my hose because like I said it wasn't in front of my house. It was in front of my neighbor's house. And then one day a nor'easter hit. And poor Melissa went to tree heaven. She, she got knocked out and the next thing I knew, you know, for some reason those guys who wouldn't come replace the stake, they'll come take the tree like the next day, you know, they showed up, picked up the tree, and they graciously put another tree in its place, which I think is still growing to this day, but I'm not taking care of it, OK? Melissa was my child. I'm, I'm not, I'm not taking care of the new one.

  We've been going through a series in the book of First Thessalonians, and as we've said several times over the past few weeks, Paul planted this church in a hurry. He planted it. He was only in Thessalonica for like 3 weeks and then he had to hightail it out of town because an angry mob of people were coming after him. And at this point in the book, you're starting to get his heart for the Thessalonians. He's saying, hey, I know I planted you that this church is there because of the grace of God that he shared with me, that I shared with you, but I'm a little concerned. Are you doing OK, basically? And today is his encouragement to this young sapling of a church plant about his concern for them. It seems like he feared that the church would meet the same demise as little Melissa.

  And so he was sending his disciple Timothy to encourage her. And he didn't have enough time to get this church established, so he was worried that the storms of life, the afflictions that we go through might topple the church, which leads us to the question, what causes a church to be resilient? What causes a church plant to make it beyond the church plant years into a church? What causes, and even better than that, like what would cause a Christian to be resilient. Lots of people grow up in church, and if you're here and you grew up in church, you're probably familiar with this. Lots of people grew up in church that we grew up with, many of us who are no longer following Jesus.

  What sets apart a resilient Christian from a non-resilient Christian? And how can we as Christians, be prepared for the afflictions in life, and be able to be resilient through them all. As a church here, we are a 7 year old church plant. I would still call us a church plant. We're still somewhat in that sapling stage, and we have a vision as a church to thrive for the next 100 years. Lord willing, we will continue to exist as a church long after everyone in this room is dead and gone. What causes the church to be resilient to where they can last. To the next generation. And how can we establish the roots necessary over the next 5 years to be able to be a church that is resilient for the next 100 after that? How can we set ourselves up for the long haul?

  Let's dive into the text. All these things we're gonna find here. Verse one. Therefore, when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone. OK, I'll do a quick run through of Paul's travels here because I find them interesting. Maybe you'll find them interesting also. Also, I don't speak German, so you know, just take in the the verses in English if you don't speak German as well, um. The history here is, and you can read about this in Acts 16:17. what happened is Paul is run out of Thessalonica by the angry mob. He goes to Berea, the angry mob follows. That's 50 miles, you know, they weren't just like going to the next town over. They were like that's like a two day journey. Three day journey for them to get to the next town. They were quite upset with Paul running him out of town and then after they get to Berea, he's like, OK, I gotta get really far away.

  So he, gets on a boat and goes to Athens, which is like over 200 miles away. and then his, his comrades, his friends, Timothy and Silas, they joined him there. Actually, I think that he goes first and then they join him later. It seems like what happens and then, he becomes so concerned with what's happening in the church. Churches that he had just planted, he sends Timothy back to Thessalonica to check on the Thessalonians. He also sends Silas away, so he's left alone in Athens. We don't actually know exactly where Silas went. Most people kind of suspect he might have gone to Philippi, but we really don't know. And then Paul does this thing in Athens, and he moves to Corinth where he stays for 3 years, and that's where Paul, where Timothy and Silas catch back up with Paul. So that's the second missionary journey of Paul in a nutshell, basically what happens.

  Verse 2, and we sent Timothy, our brother, and God's co-worker in the Gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith. So it's well known throughout scripture that Timothy was a disciple of Paul. If you have been in the church for a while, you've probably heard someone say, Who's your Timothy? Who are you discipling? Who's someone that you're pouring into that everyone needs a Paul in their life and everyone needs a Timothy in their life, and I think that that is true. But I just love the way that Paul talks about Timothy. He doesn't say, and here is my little Padowan Timothy that I've sent to you. No, he says, here is my friend, my brother, and God's co-worker, not even my co-worker, but someone that is God's co-worker in the gospel that I'm sending to you. He doesn't look down upon Timothy. He treats Timothy as an equal, someone that he loves.

  So often our discipleship efforts when we think about someone discipling us, we think that they're going to look down on us, and I actually think that prevents us from pursuing discipleship relationships in our own lives. That's a place of humility and it is a place of humility, but at the same time as people who disciple, we must not look down our our nose at anyone else that we're trying to. Disciple in the faith. In fact, if you have to be more spiritually mature than the one that you're discipling, then what, what are you doing? You're kind of making that would mean that I guess I have to be the most spiritually mature, which I don't assume that I am, because I don't want to just at at some point you're just making smaller and smaller Christians. I want to be, I want you to flourish in your faith. I want you to grow beyond where I am even.

  And if that's my desire as someone who's discipling, then I can't look down my nose at you. I have to say there's great potential in you. Anyways, this is the way that Paul looks at Timothy, he looks at him with respect, and he sends Timothy to establish and exhort the Thessalonians. To exhort in the Greek is the word percaleo, and it means to encourage. You see this word show up pretty often. And one thing that I thought I would bring out about percoleo is it's a word used to the Holy Spirit. It's used of God Himself, and of the Holy Spirit, you, you see it used more as a noun, so you see it written as paralete, which is a very kind of famous word for the Holy Spirit that means comforter or advocate.

  And so Timothy is being sent to encourage the Thessalonians as a comforter, as an advocate, as someone to give strength to them, to establish the church, the first word, establish and exhort you in your faith. He wants to see that that ground well laid, that foundation well laid. Verse 3, and no one be moved by these afflictions. So these afflictions are what Paul is concerned about why he's sending sending Timothy. He didn't have much time to be there. He wants to make sure that the stakes in the church are well placed so that it can withstand the storms of life and still resilience.

  Continuing verse 3. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass. And just as you know, So Paul says here that we are destined for affliction. Now this isn't to say that Paul is telling the future so much as to say that Paul just knows that every Christian, in fact, every person is destined for affliction. That suffering happens in our lives, and especially as Christians, we have suffering occur in our life, that the Christian life is difficult. Many of us wish that the Christian life was like the weather in sunny San Diego. You know, where its sun's almost the sun's shining. It might rain, you know, like twice a year, and you just stay inside for a day, and then the next day it's beautiful again. In fact, it's a little cooler.

  But the weather in the Christian life is more like the weather in Boston. Where you're sunny one day, the next day you're shoveling snow in in April, you know, you have to wear your your parka to go to a Red Sox game. I went to a Red Sox game this week and my the guys in my community group went we all were wearing like insulated underwear and our and our winter boots. I'm pretty sure that the guys who were playing couldn't even feel their, their fingers as they were playing at the end they were just like, let's get this game over with as quickly as possible. Which means the Red Sox were like we will just lose. You can take the win. you, you, you have it, Blue Jays. they weren't even keeping the beer in fridges, they just had it out on the counter. It was like colder there, they only were selling high alcohol stuff because it was the only stuff that wouldn't freeze, you know, it was just, I'm just kidding, I'm making things up at the moment.

  Verse 5. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. I wonder if Paul, as he's writing this, has the par wool sewer in his mind. Because that's what I think of when I see this. I wonder if he's worried he's thinking about that famous story of Jesus, and Jesus tells this parable of a farmer that goes out and throws seed, and the seed lands on 4 different types of soil. The first soil it lands on is the path, and then on that, soil, the, the bird comes and takes away the seed immediately.

  And Paul knows that the church at Thessalonica is not like the path. Because the path is where it doesn't even sprout up. Instead, he's concerned that maybe the church in Thessalonica, it might be like the seed that fell upon the rocky soil or the the seed that fell upon the thorny soil. And on the rocky ground, the the plant shoots up quickly, but then the cares, but then the afflictions of the world cause it to die. It's becomes scorched and it dies. And so Paul's probably thinking of this, saying, Church in Thessalonica, I hope that you're not like the seed on the thorn on the rocky ground. He's probably also saying Church in Thessalonica, I hope that you're not like the seed that fell on the thorny ground where it sprouts up, but then the cares of the life suffocate it and it dies. And the, the temptations of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke out the word and it proves unfruitful. That's what he's saying when he's saying that he had feared that the tempter might tempt them and their labor would be building the church in vain.

  Our church is surprisingly like the church in Thessalonica, in a few different ways. When people ask me, did you start the church? I usually say, yeah, sure, because it's like a half truth, honestly. I did not start this church, it in the most true sense of the, the term starting the church. Instead there was a Paul, his name was Claude Ocho, and he started a, a church here called it had a totally different name. It was called Redeemer, and at that time I was the executive pastor over at City on a Hill in Brookline. Redeemer was meeting across the hallway, a great band of of folks there might be a few Redeemer-ites around here, still, oh there we go, yeah, a few excite a little bit of excitement around here and Claude, wonderful preacher, great guy, good friend, he's a published author.

  We wanted to plan a church in this area and but we didn't want to plant on top of Claude because we're friends with him and so we said, hey, would you guys want to become part of the city on a hill network of churches? And he said, yeah, I think, I think that sounds good. So he led the church through the transition and then a couple of months later he moved to Memphis and since then he's moved again and he's planted another church he's doing well. But after he moved, I came and and led the church at that point, and I think that you could easily say that the church was not established. In fact, if we had not been able to step in, that the church could have met the same demise that Paul fears here, because at that point there were no elders, there were no deacons. There was no membership process.

  It was just like a great group of people meeting in this building, which is fantastic and with a little bit of money in the bank and so we were able to see the church become established and be able to be more fruitful for years to come as a result of it. So we're looking at the next steps that we need to take. How can we be an unignorable light? In in the city for years and years to come. God has been so faithful, but we want to become even more resilient. What does it look like to be a city on a hill? What does it look like to be a church that can reach people in our community with the gospel to be a force for good and flourishing? We want to be a church that can plant more churches that can be healthy enough that you can take, you know, a, a, a little portion and put it in a jar and, and get it, rooted up again and be able to plant another church from where we are.

  We want to be a church that can send out missionaries. We want to be a church that can be established for the next 100 years, and that's what we're. Praying about and it's gonna take a lot of different things to get us there. We're gonna have to continue to do the normal stuff the gospel has to be at the core of what we do. We have to be continued to be discipled in who Christ is. We have to continue the the life of sacrificial service. We have to continue all the normal things that a church would do raising up leaders, having a healthy membership process, all that type of stuff. But we're also looking at things like hiring another staff member. We're looking to hire a second full-time staff member this year, Lord willing.

  And we're it's going to take things like money, it's going to take things like prayer. We would love one day in the next 5 years to be in a place where we could own a building, whether it be this building or another one in the Somerville area. We would love to be in the place where we could own a building because I cannot imagine. Renting a building for the next 100 years, that doesn't seem like a good stewardship of God's funds. And so we're praying about what the Lord would have, but the most important thing for us to be a church that is resilient is to be a church that's filled with resilient disciples. Because you can't be a resilient church unless you're filled with resilient Christians, Christians who are not moved by the afflictions and temptations of the world.

  The Barna group is well known and well respected, Christian surveying and research group, and they have put together a lot of different studies on faith, culture, church life, and a few years ago they put together a study on 4 different kinds of exiles. I have the slide for you. So this was in 2019, I believe, so six years ago now. So it says 18 to 29 year olds who grew up in as Christians and so you can just add 6 years to that because that's who it's still talking about and maybe the statistics are different now, but I think that it's somewhat similar, so you might be talking about 24, 23 to 34 year olds, who grew up as Christians, which is, you know, the, the majority of people in our church, honestly.

  And so they tend to fall into one of these four categories as they get older and the first is prodigals so these are people who have left the church who no longer are interested in what the church is doing they they de-churched or they they've deconstructed their faith, thank you. the second one is the nomads, and these are lapsed Christians. These are people who would still call themselves Christians, but who are no longer going to church at all, not really practicing their faith, but they would still say, yes, I'm a Christian. The third one is the habitual churchgoers, so these are people who go to church at least once a month, but it is not the most essential or most important part of their life anymore.

  And the fourth one is the resilient disciples is what they've called it. And they have 4 different parts of what it means to be a resilient disciple. We have another slide for that. And a resilient disciple is someone who attends church at least monthly and engages with their church more than just attending worship services. They trust firmly in the authority of the Bible. They are committed to Jesus personally and affirm he was crucified and raised from the dead to conquer sin and death, and they express a desire to transform the broader society as an outcome of their faith.

  So let's just compare that with someone who might not be a resilient disciple, a non resilient disciple. What are they like? A non resilient disciple does not attend church at least monthly and engage with their church more than just attending worship services. A non-resilient church, a non resilient Christian thinks that they can do the Christian life by themselves, that all that they might need is the energy to be able to listen to good sermons that but they're missing out on these essential aspects of what it means to be in the church. They're oftentimes isolated, not committed to a church body, not having someone intentionally disciple them and not having a pastor.

  It was important for Paul to send Timothy because he knew that they needed a leader, that Christians need to have a pastor, that they need to have a leader to establish them. This passage shows us if nothing else that we need the church and to make mature disciples that we need to have other Christians to walk alongside us. Resilient Christians also trust, non-resilient Christians also might not trust firmly in the authority of the Bible, so they probably don't read it very often. Non-resilient Christians are. Not committed to Jesus personally and affirmed that he was crucified. They probably affirm that he was crucified and raised, but they probably don't have that intimate relationship with Christ that you might see in a resilient believer. And they also might desire to transform the broader society, but it might not have anything to do with being an outcome of their faith. It might just be something that they want to do themselves.

  And so as resilient Christians, we want to be like these people, like, like these deeply rooted trees that we can withstand the storms of life. We want to encounter Jesus and God on a regular basis. In fact, I think this is the number one thing that differentiates resilient Christians from non-resilient Christians is that resilient Christians don't just believe the gospel, they encounter the gospel. Resilient Christians don't just believe that Jesus is who he says he is, but resilient Christians experience the goodness of who God is on a personal level. They have experienced the sweetness of the resurrection. They have experienced the unity with Christ and the joy of fellowship. The spirit, they've experienced who God is, that they look to God, and they can see that they are a sinner in need of a savior, and they can trust that He is enough for them. And so they have those moments of quiet stillness in the morning or in the evening as they read their scriptures, and they're encouraged by what they read. But they also have this regular rhythm of experiencing the grace of Christ. And it keeps getting deeper and sweeter and they also have spiritual practices to support their walk of faith they're committed to a church. These are all things that resilient disciples have.

  So I actually have a little bit of a chart here for you of how someone become goes from vulnerable to resilient. And so if you look at this passage, this is kind of the way, the direction it goes that the church in Thessalonica, they were vulnerable, and then and then Timothy was sent to establish and encourage them, and Lord willing, they become resilient as a result of that. And then I think the next step that we oftentimes neglect is this co-working or planting aspect we want. Believers to not just be, be a consumer of what the church has but to turn and and contribute as well. And so they become co-working with God, planting, and how does it all happen but through the teaching and discipleship that Timothy offers and through just the regular suffering, they become strong and resilient.

  This is all very similar to the process that I think that Brooke mentioned this earlier in the announcements with the practicing the way course or maybe it was Anneke, mentioned this, sorry. Anneke mentioned this talking about the, the meal ministry, but with the practicing the way. Of course we're we're introduced to this chart of Christian growth, and I think that this is the goal of the practicing the way course and I think that I would like to share it with you here. First, he shares this is all from John Mark Comer. I didn't make this stuff up, but he shares unintentional spiritual formation looks like this. The stories we believe these are the things that control and that shape us and so the things that we are controlling are the stories that we believe in the environment where we are with our habits and our relationships.

  So these are the things that we can control, but then over time through experiences we're shaped into the people we become. This is how you become who you become. And this is how it happens in almost everyone's lives. It's unintentional. It's just the habits we develop, the relationships we have. And so the next page that we have here is this intentional spiritual formation. Where in an intentional spiritual formation, the environment that you're in actually the environment's supposed to say Holy Spirit right there so you can just imagine that says Holy Spirit. you have the, the teaching of the word and then the practice of following after Christ, the practices of the the way of Christ, along with the community that God puts around you. And so those things are the things that you control, sitting under the teaching, being with regular practices and community. And then over time, through suffering, we become more like Christ.

  And so here's the deal, guys, I think sometimes we really overcomplicate this Christian life thing. If you do this, you're doing, you're you're going to be shaped into a resilient Christian. Over time, if you're doing the practices, if you're under good teaching, if you're experiencing community, and then you're weathering the storms of life well, that's going to shape you like Christ. And we can overcomplicate it and our Christian lives can be so filled with guilt, can they not? Like we're just never doing enough is what it feels like. Just take a step and just remind yourself, Jesus is enough. You don't have to prove yourself with God. You might want to be shaped more like him, just do the simple things. Do the simple things. And take one step closer to him, sit under the teaching of God, be in your church community, practice the spiritual practices, even if it's a simple one. Open your Bible, set a timer for 10 minutes. Open your Bible, pray for a minute or two in that time. Take a moment to practice it. And hopefully that becomes longer. I want it to be longer, but if you're having a hard time just spending any time in the world, just time or 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Where you're going to give it some focus.

  Start those practices and right now the Practicing the Way course has been great for us. It, it gets a lot deeper than that. You can do many more things with the practices, but I just wanna take the guilt off. I just want to say that if you wanna become a resilient disciple, that you just need to be intentional with your spiritual formation. A resilient church requires resilient disciples. And so here's my question for you today. Are you a resilient disciple? Are you someone ready to weather the storms of life? Are you being shaped more by the Holy Spirit, or by the environment of the world? What steps do you need to take toward resiliency?

  For some of you, it could be that first step of praying with someone today, saying, hey, I'm, I'm in a church, I'm in a community, I would love to pray with someone, there's people in the back to pray with you. And that would be a great step for you to take, potentially today. For some of you, you might need to take that next step of saying, hey, I'm gonna enter into a community and commit to being a part of a community group, and actually let people into my life in that time. For others, it might be a renewed commitment to the practices of following after Jesus. I, we have lots of resources we can give you if that's something that you're interested in.

  But guys, take a step out of the unintentional spiritual formation, and we have to step into the intentional spiritual formation, because no one unintentionally becomes like Christ. You had to take a step into intentionally following Christ and following him so that you can become more like him, because the storms of life, they'll turn you into a colder, harder person unless you're regularly encountering the good news of who God is and seeing the world from his point of view, because God has a different perspective on the world than we do.

  Each week we participate in a sacred meal, and it's one of the ways that we remind ourselves of what Christ has done for us. It's one of the ways that we are shaped in his image. It is a spiritual practice for us to take of this meal, and it's different traditions call it different things. We call it communion or the Eucharist or the Lord's supper, whatever you may call it. this is a meal that Jesus initiated on the night that he was betrayed. He said, this is my body broken for you. He took a loaf of bread, and he said, this is my blood shed for you with a cup of wine and. As we do this, we're remembering what he's done. We're also being drawn near to him and being reminded of what he's done for us on a personal level.

  So over the next song you're invited to come forward, make your way through, and go to go back to your seat. You can take it just right there or walk back to your seat if you would like. I invite you to stand if you're able, and we will, prepare our hearts to, to sing in response.

  Father, as we prepare ourselves to receive this meal, we pray that you would be honored, magnified, that you would create in us a resiliency, a seeing and savoring of the things of Christ. That our practices would match our beliefs, that our lives would follow after your way. God, we pray that the gospel would become sweeter and more rich, that our lives would be more dedicated to you because we want nothing more than to be near to you. And help us to see life from your perspective, help us to weather the storms of life and to become stronger over time as a result of weathering the storms over time, and we ask that you would bless us in this time. I, I pray for anyone here who needs to take the next step to become a more resilient disciple. I pray that you would meet them in that moment. And that they would be committed to following after you, that they would receive your grace and experience it anew. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.