2 Thessalonians 1:3-4 Growing Together

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Welcome everybody.

Glad that you're here. Happy New Year, everyone. It is now 2023 and I want to welcome you all into the new year, into this worship gathering this morning.

I'm privileged to be together with you this morning. I want to highlight one thing and just get it out of the way here at the start.

Somebody's pointing. I have a tattoo. You may have noticed it, you might not, but you might have noticed it partway through the message and then been distracted by, oh my goodness, what is that on his arm?

I wanted to explain that to you. This is about 20 years in the making.

About 20 years ago, I went to my wife and I said, I want a tattoo. She said, no, you don't. I said, yes, no, I really do.

I really want a tattoo. She said, no, you don't. No, you don't. She said, let's make a deal. If when you turn 50, you still want the tattoo, then let's do it.

I just aged myself a little bit. Now you know how old I am.

Actually turning this next month. It's significant to me. The thing that matters the most to me, and I hope you guys know this, but not everybody who meets me knows it, but everybody who meets me with a short -sleeved shirt on is going to know it.

That is that the cross is the most important. It's the most important thing to me, full stop. It is the place where my life was transformed.

It's the place where I received hope and forgiveness and grace and unearned love.

So that's where that is. And that has bought for me a desire in life to live for eternity.

So it says in Latin on the back, carpe eternum, which is in opposition to the idea that you'll hear common in our culture, carpe diem.

What does carpe diem mean? Seize today. Live for today. Do everything for today. No, no, no, no.

Don't do everything for today. If you expect to milk everything that you want out of life today, you're going to live a wild life.

I want to live with eternity in mind. So that's what this means to me, and that's why I did this. Like it or not, you can talk with me.

Hey, if you hate tattoos and you're like, talk with me about it. We can have a conversation, and that's fine. I'm a big boy.

I can handle it. And if you're even just kind of going like, hey, biblically, where are you at on that?

We can talk about that, too, and that would open up a great conversation. So with that out of the way, now let's talk about God's word.

Here at Recast, we have a tagline that says we are where faith, community, and service meet.

It says that on our website. It says that, I think I might say it on our sign out there. But where faith, community, and service meet.

We define maturity here as a church. We define it in the Christian life as continuing to grow.

A commitment to continue to grow in faith, to continue to grow in community, to continue to grow in service.

And what I mean by that is we refuse to define maturity as like a line that you've crossed that now you get to coast.

Now you've crossed this line, and you can sit back and just kind of rest on like, okay, now I'm good enough. Now I've achieved.

Now I'm mature. Now maturity is defined as motion, as process, as growth, and walking with God in love toward him.

And we show that most valuably by loving one another. This morning we're going to be looking at a one -off message to kick off this new year.

And the goal of it is really a commendation for many. I think my goal is that the majority of you will walk out of this message encouraged.

Now I say that because I think that's what the text wants. But I think a couple of us will walk out challenged, and that's fine too.

I think that probably a little bit of mix of both in all of us is a good thing. But the word of God is faithful to bring us what we need.

He knew you. He saw you. He has seen your year. He has seen where you're at today as you were driving here.

He knew what word I had prepared and studied to bring. And so he is faithful.

The very personal spirit of God knows exactly what you need this morning.

My hope is that many of you will leave here deeply encouraged and strengthened for whatever this next year has for us.

But also it's my hope that where we need a swift kick in the pants, this passage might serve to provide the boost that we need to get our heads in the game, get ourselves in the game in this next year.

So before I read this passage, let me state emphatically that this message is inspired by a text of Scripture.

Obviously, I'm going to explain a text of Scripture. This is not a topical message. Even if I'm going to do a one -off message like this, you're going to walk away with some understanding about a text of Scripture.

But we're going to be looking at a text of Scripture written by the Apostle Paul to a church that he planted. He started the church in Thessalonica.

When he writes to the Thessalonians, he's writing to people that he's met and known. And his words are so closely aligned, church, with the way that I feel about all of you, that I'm actually taking his words to express my heart to you here at the start of 2023.

You see, Paul knew, just like I do, that the church in Thessalonica was not perfect. He knew that there were theological issues.

As a matter of fact, they had some deep theological issues, enough that he had to write a letter to correct some of them. They had little to no hope in their church, because there was significant confusion in Thessalonica about the return of Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact, it went so deep that some actually thought, oh, Jesus returned and we missed it. We missed him.

While others thought in the church that he was coming back so soon that they were like, don't go grocery shopping, just eat what you've got in your pantry and sit on the roof, because he's coming.

Like, he's coming soon. So soon, as a matter of fact, that you don't need to work anymore. You don't need to do this or you don't need to do that.

So they had some correction that they needed from Paul. And Paul's going to spend a good chunk of his second letter to the

Thessalonians correcting problems. But he still begins that letter with an intense, intense statement of gratitude for the work of God among them.

So let me be blunt here, Recast. I mean this sincerely.

As I was thinking about this this week, I did tear up a little bit, and I think just by looking around this room, I could get emotional.

I know of deep marital strife in this room where some are barely clinging to their marriage vows.

I know of deep fear regarding horrendous diagnoses. I know of deep sorrow over the wandering away of adult children.

I know of loss. Loss of jobs. Loss of relationships.

Loss of faith, and faith that's barely hanging by a thread. And yeah, I also know about stories of loss of life as well.

And I look around this room, and knowing all of that, I can echo what Paul says here, and I echo it to you at the start of 2023.

These words that come from my heart too as a church planter. I ought to always give thanks to God for you.

Brothers and sisters, and this is right because you are growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

About ten years ago, I had a man who may or may not be in the room. I don't know if he remembers the conversation or not.

About ten years ago, he met me at a community group. He was just starting to attend here, and he was trying to get me figured out.

And he asked me, he said, Don, what's your five -year plan and what's your ten -year plan? Where are you going to take us?

A reasonable question for a man attending a church that is just getting started up and not really knowing what we stand for and all that.

Goals and visions were his concern at the time. A reasonable question. I told him that I'm not much for spiritual goal setting in part because the spirit sets the content and the pace of our lives according to his will.

We follow him, and sometimes, if you know what I'm talking about, sometimes it's breakneck speed. It's hard to keep up with him.

And it feels like a race just to stay on his heels. And then there are other times when things get dry, and it feels like a desert, and it feels like you're crawling on your hands and knees through dry and parched places.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? And that is just as equally the plan of God for your life, to take you through some valleys.

And then sometimes it's like, boom, and you're just off to the races. And so I shared that with him, and I told him

I'm not much for setting those spiritual plans like that. But I told him, and what

I told him next still stands today. I told him that my goal, really, I do have a goal for five years from now.

I do have a goal for ten years from now. Five years from now, I hope that we're gathered together as a people who are growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

And you're never going to guess what my ten -year plan is. That ten years from now, we are a gathering of people who are growing in faith toward God, growing in community with one another, and growing in service in the gifts and skills that God has given us to bless one another.

And recast, I can say that it must have been right around ten years ago that we had that conversation. And here we are ten years later, and God, in His amazing and glorious grace, has us here in a different building, a different place, but still

His church, growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service. So let's open our

Bibles or our devices or our apps to 2 Thessalonians 1. I'll give you a second to get there.

2 Thessalonians 1, 3 -4, and we're going to consider what the Spirit wants to do through this word in our hearts.

Is it for encouragement, to keep it up? Or is it a challenge to step up into growing in faith and community together?

But we're going to read 2 Thessalonians 1, 2 verses 3 and 4. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly.

And the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God, for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

Let's pray. Father, you know exactly what we need here this morning.

I don't. I've prepared a message, and you are the one who must apply it.

You're the one who must bring it down into hearts and minds and bring it into our lives in application. Father, you know exactly that there are some people here who ought to walk away encouraged by this message that are going to go, man,

I should be doing more. Man, I should be doing better, because they feel guilty, and they have a relationship with you that feels guilty.

And they can't set their own hearts free. They can't allow you to set their hearts free, to rejoice in the good that you're doing in and through them.

So, Father, I pray that you would let those people free this morning, to rejoice and just to take on encouragement this morning.

And then there are some who have just been kind of coming in and out and just taking things in and not really connecting and not really recognizing anything more than just being a part of the audience.

Father, I pray that you would provide challenge and direction for them in this new year to get plugged in and recognize the desire that you have to grow us in community.

Father, I thank you for the opportunity we have to gather together, that we are free to do so. I thank you for your word that sharpens us.

I thank you for these songs that we're about to sing that help guide us and direct our words towards you, that we might adopt the words of these songs and sing them to you with our own hearts engaged, recognizing that you alone are worthy.

You are the one who has saved us, who is rescuing your people, and that you desire to provide encouragement for us that we might continue to grow in faith, living for you, believing what you say is true and living it out, that we might continue to grow in community, loving one another, and applying those things that you desire for us, bearing with one another, being patient towards one another, being gentle with one another.

And then, Father, that you desire for us to grow in service, to continue to utilize or begin to utilize the gifts that you've given us to the service of your body here.

We praise you that you are here in this place, that you love us, and that you desire to meet with us.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, yeah, you can go ahead and be seated. Get comfortable, keep your

Bibles open or reopen them to 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 3 and 4, just that short little section there, but I want you to be able to reference it as I'm walking us through that really brief passage here this morning.

If at any time during the message you want to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes, those are available in the back and you're not going to distract me, so take advantage of that.

And then restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need that. But even as you reopen to 2

Thessalonians, I want to begin with a little bit of a longer summary of the way that that church began. You can actually stay in 2

Thessalonians, but just so that your reference point is, if you're taking notes, Acts chapter 16 and 17 are where that church was founded, the record of the founding of the church in Thessalonica.

And we see that church plant from the Apostle Paul there in Acts chapter 16 and 17.

At the start of Acts 17, there is no church in that city. Thessalonica, by the way, is a city in Greece, in Europe, and it's actually pronounced

Thessaloniki today. It's the second largest city in the country of Greece right now.

But at the start of Acts 17, there's no church in the city. There is no place that you can go to understand the cross, there's no place in that city you can go to find out about Jesus Christ.

There is no testimony or unity of believers in that place at all.

The public religious climate there was full of religious

Jews, that is, people who believe in God, believe in the Old Testament, and that the other half of the, or more than half of the community, would have been what were called polytheistic

Gentiles. They believe in many gods, they believe in the pantheon of gods, and worship them, including, most importantly, the emperor, who was the highest, considered the highest there.

And those two ideas of thought, monotheism, Judaism, did not mix well with the polytheistic

Gentiles, and so they kind of kept to themselves. And wherever the Jews went, they created little enclaves, they gathered in synagogues together for weekend worship and that kind of stuff.

But they didn't mix well, obviously, with the Gentile pagans, as they would call them.

Paul had received a call from God and was traveling around the area of modern day Turkey, proclaiming

Christ, and he would always go to the synagogues first, and so that was always his focus. Go to the

Jews first and see if they will receive their Messiah. If they won't, then go to the Gentiles. And so one night when he laid his head on his pillow, he had a dream.

He was in the port city of Troas that night, and had been sharing the gospel there.

It's interesting, we don't have a letter to Troas, but he probably likely left a church there. And one night he laid his head on his pillow, he had a dream.

And in that dream, a man from Macedonia, the Macedonian province of Greece, called him and said to him, come over here.

And he startled awake. But I don't know how in the world, like maybe they dress differently in Macedonia or something.

How do you know this guy's from Macedonia? And he said, hi, I'm from Macedonia, come see me. I don't know. But Paul understood that dream, and it was very clear to him what

God was saying to him, and what his next steps were. So Paul and his posse boarded a ship, made the trip across the

Aegean Sea to the Macedonian city of Philippi. Not Thessaloniki, not

Thessalonica, but Philippi. And while they were there, they met a woman named Lydia. They proclaimed the good news that Jesus is the

Messiah, and had come to be the sacrifice for her sins. She believed and was the very first recorded convert to Christianity.

The very first Christian on European soil. The very first European Christian. The pagan

Gentiles got riled up in Philippi, and eventually Paul and his friend Silvanus, his name was

Silas for short, and they were thrown in prison, and they were beaten. And even the jailer gives his life to Christ.

I mean, wherever Paul went, it just seemed like God did miraculous and amazing things, and brought people to faith in Jesus Christ through him.

But Paul and Silas, in the end, are asked by the mayor of Philippi to leave, in essence, kicked out of the town.

So they departed Philippi and headed southwest, finding a little community called Thessalonica.

And like I said, that's the second largest city in Greece today. There was a Jewish house. It wasn't at that time, but it is now.

There was a Jewish house of worship there, a synagogue, and so Paul and his guys went there for three weekends in a row, and they went to that Jewish synagogue and proclaimed,

Christ, here is your Messiah. Let's explain to you what he did, what he came to accomplish, how he was sacrificed, how he rose again on the third day.

Some of the Jews, some of the Gentiles, and a bunch of the leading women in the community, it says, were persuaded and believed, according to Acts chapter 17.

The Jews became all jealous, stirred up a riot, and they tried to find Paul, couldn't find him. They wanted to put him to death, but they couldn't find him, so they came to the house of one of the new converts, a guy named

Jason. It doesn't even sound like a biblical name, does it? But it is. A new convert named Jason, and Jason was arrested, and the believers secretly escorted

Paul and Silas out of town by night, and that's the founding of the church in Thessalonica.

We have two letters to them, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. According to that timeline, how long did

Paul have to plant that church? When we read about the church in Thessalonica, when we read 1

Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, it's important to understand how that church was planted. It's fundamental to our understanding of what's going on in these letters.

Paul swept into town, was there for maybe three weeks, proclaimed the truth with boldness, displayed and proclaimed the gospel, and these brand new believers immediately encountered hostility from their neighbors, their friends, their co -workers, their relatives, and then

Paul and company were swept out of town. How many of you would think that's really good soil to start a church?

How many of you think that he comes back a couple of years later and there's no church there? That's kind of the expectation.

It's like, okay, three weeks worth of preaching. That's all you get, and now you're kicked out and you're out of town.

So most scholars believe that the letter of 1 Thessalonians was written pretty quickly after Paul and Silas fled, and it's clear that Timothy was the courier who carried that letter.

He wasn't with them to begin with, so they wouldn't identify him as one of Paul's guys, so Timothy's the courier.

So what you need to understand is back then, there's no cell phone, there's no texting, there's no social media, so he sends

Timothy with a letter, and then when Timothy comes back to him, that's the first thing that Paul's going to hear about how things are going, so that when you get to 2

Thessalonians, you're actually getting the first knowledgeable letter back to the

Thessalonians after Paul knows how things are going. Does that make sense? So he's got to send Timothy, and then

Timothy's got to come back to him, and then he writes 2 Thessalonians with knowledge. The first one is kind of like he's just shooting from the hip.

He's kind of like, hey, I'm guessing we didn't cover some of these things, and these are some issues that I noticed were already starting to crop up before I was run out of town.

Here's some stuff that we need to address. I'm not sure if I'm hitting everything here. That's a lot of buildup, but we're about to see abundantly growing faith in the worst of environments, and I think that might be apropos to us.

That spells hope for us in our day and in our time as we consider 2023 and moving forward.

I don't mean that as a discouragement, like it's going to get that hostile and you're going to get run out of town or something, but I think that it's good for us to take on the way that faith grows in desperate and dire circumstances.

Paul sees that the church is growing in faith, and it isn't just growing, but their faith is growing abundantly, the text tells us, where he was barely able to get the gospel out of his mouth before he was run out of town.

In that place, faith is flourishing. This is like in the springtime, taking a handful of seed corn from last year, throwing it down, and in the fall, reaping a bumper crop.

Do you know what I'm talking about? It's like, how in the world does that happen? It's just like, hey, I'm just going to throw this corn out in the backyard and see what happens, and then you've got corn coming out your ears in the fall.

Paul is not taking credit, by the way, for this harvest. He's not like, look at how straight I made my rows.

Look at how I watered it diligently. Look at the fertilizer that I put down, and I used just the right mix, and boom, bumper crop, deal.

No, there's no pride in him. He acknowledges all throughout this text that thanks belongs to God for the awesome growth that has happened among the

Thessalonians. But it might be helpful to define what the text means by faith here, because we can talk about growing in faith a lot, and I mention it a lot, but understanding what is faith.

Faith is defined in relationship to what cannot be seen according to the book of Hebrews. But let me be clear that despite the fact that faith is always rooted in what can't be seen, faith is always exercised in the real world.

So the results of it can be seen. Faith is like the wind. How many of you have seen the wind?

You've never seen the wind. But how many of you have seen the effects of the wind? You've seen it blow the leaves.

You've seen dust stirred up. You've seen all kinds of effects of the wind, but you've never seen it. So can you see wind?

Well, kind of technically you can. Kind of you can. Can you see faith?

You kind of can, right? When a person is a person of faith, can you see it? Well, you better be able to see it.

Otherwise, that suggests to you that you're not seeing faith if you can't visibly take it in. So faith for Abraham looked like wandering around on this earth without a settled home because he believed that God had a more permanent home in store for him, the text of Hebrews tells us.

Faith looks like David seeing past the size of the giant to the mighty power of the invisible

God. Faith looks like Peter ignoring all of those years of experience with water.

Have you ever considered that he who walked on water with our Lord knew water really well? He was a fisherman by trade.

His entire life was around water. He knew that what happened to a body when they step out of a boat, what happens?

You sink or you swim. Not that day. By faith,

Peter watched his Lord and said, me too. Let's go. He stepped out on those waves.

How many of you think that day you could see faith? That day you could see it.

And that's what God is calling all of us to, church. That's what we mean when we talk about growing in faith here as a church.

The same is true for us. Faith will always be in some way taking what is invisible and true and making it visible in the real life.

It will be accepting the truth of scripture over what seems to be immediately real. So in the immediate realm, let me use a couple of illustrations here that seem to be in our culture.

I'm not picking on anything in particular. It's just these are illustrations that came to my mind. So in the immediate realm, sex before marriage seems pretty normal.

It's routine. Why wait if you love each other is the battle cry of our culture. But the word of God says, wait.

So which will we choose? Faith drives us to take that which doesn't make sense and live according to it.

The word of God tells us to let no unwholesome speech come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building each other up.

How many of you know that's one of the hardest commands in scripture? Only what is good for building others up.

And so faith is taking that over the immediate gratification of fitting in with the boys at the shop.

Scripture says, do not be drunk with wine. It says, do not lie. It says, do not gossip. Do not commit adultery.

Do not be a glutton. And on and on and on. And faith says, I will take God's way over the easy way.

The easy way of self. When we talk about growing in faith, church, we don't mean disconnected spiritual life of piety in our hearts as we spend our quiet time with the

Lord. A man or a woman of faith can be seen. They will stand out.

The growth is visible as he or she makes tough decisions to honor God above self.

Paul received a report that this very young fledgling church was growing abundantly in this visible form of faith.

And recast, I've seen it here. Let me just say that I'm not excluding those who are struggling.

I mentioned earlier that I know a lot of the struggles that are in this room. And some people aren't here today. And I know the struggles that are going on.

But it is specifically among those that I know are struggling that I would commend your faith.

We are all living real lives together. Hardships are real in marriage.

Hardships are real in relationships with children and adult children. Hardships are real in work situations and health issues.

And yet I commend all of you who are wrestling with God on these things. Faith is only grown as we are challenged and impressed as we see in verse 4.

You can look at it there. Without persecutions and afflictions, our faith cannot be proven to be steadfast.

Can you say your faith is steadfast if it's never been tried? If it's never been pressed? You don't know that it's real until it undergoes pressure.

Whenever a couple comes to my office to talk about their struggling marriage, it happens frequently, I give thanks to God, not that they're struggling, but that they're coming to church.

I give thanks to God that they're seeking out a pastor's counsel. And I give thanks to God that they're still concerned enough for what

God thinks to be coming to me to talk to me about it. Walking away from a marriage is easy.

There's everybody advertising for how easy it is and how you just sign up and pay the money and go do the thing.

Trusting that God is doing something in you through your miserable relationship with your spouse is faith. It takes faith to do that.

But further, the Thessalonians are not only growing in their faith, but they're growing in their love for each other, the text tells us as well.

The way this is stated is that every individual that makes up the church is increasing in their affection for every other individual.

Every one loving all of the other ones. They're increasing in their love for one another.

Real people in real relationship. And you can look around this room and I guarantee that every single person has a person in this room that you would least get along with.

True? It'd be funny to know what that was, right? You could just see a green light over this and a red light over that one.

And it's like, oh wow, they wouldn't get along at all. Do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, it's true. In your workplace, in your family, in all contexts, there is a person that's going to rub you the wrong way.

There is an anti -personality for every personality, right? And God is gracious to have brought us together.

He is gracious to bring us together with those who will indeed try our patience.

Who we will have to bear up with one another. So they're growing in their love.

What is love if it's not a commitment to one another? That both receives help from the other and offers help to the other.

Even those we don't get along with. The church is a community.

We're a community. A community established by Jesus Christ. A community based on unity in Jesus.

A community practicing the command to grow together in the challenges of our sinful hearts together.

A community that practices our gifts together for mutual up -building. I want you to do a practice, and I ask you to do this occasionally, but I want you to really do it.

I want you to look around for just a minute. Just go ahead and take in the room. Make that awkward. Somebody's going to connect eyes with you and it's going to be weird.

This is where I pray that the Spirit divides us into those who ought to receive encouragement from this message and those who ought to receive some challenge to step it up this year.

This is a diagnostic question for you that ought to help you to land on one side or the other. Look around.

What are you a part of here? Is this an audience? Did you join an audience to take in a show this morning?

Or do you see your brothers and sisters at arms? Now I recognize some of you are new here and you're getting things figured out and it's like that's not a fair question.

Well, if you're satisfied to just stay there, that's a problem. Do you see brothers and sisters at arms who are in the battle with you?

Are you fighting together for love? Are you fighting together for faith? In real life, are you fighting together for obedience enough that you would look around this room and say, well,

I would be open to them rebuking me and they might need my rebuke at some point too? Are you fighting together for patience, for bearing with one another?

Or do you look around this room and really basically have no relationship with anyone? See, the only thing you have in common is that you're sitting in chairs facing the same direction, basically.

You see, church, this is my concern for this next year. And it really is my concern for the next five years.

And my concern for the next decade in the church in America at large and this little slice that we call recast here.

In its very worst form, this church will become an audience. Just an audience.

Maybe some good teaching from time to time. I don't think it's every week. Maybe some good songs.

Maybe a couple prayers that speak to your heart and then you just go about your way and do your week and then come back and take in the show the next weekend.

We are not made to grow alone, church. Our faith grows in the soil of community.

If we're never challenged to faithful acts of patience, we will never be challenged to faithful acts of patience without someone to try our patience.

I will never be able to grow in faithful acts of service without others to serve. I will never grow in the command to bear with one another if there's no one to bear with.

You hear what I'm saying? You can't even apply some of these commands without doing life together.

But the Thessalonians got this early. And Paul says it's reasonable for him to thank God for them always.

He is in awe of what God has done among them. And I, church, I mean this sincerely from the bottom of my heart,

I'm in awe of what God has done here with us. Fourteen years ago, there was no recast church.

And faith is sprouted up in the soil of His word. A word preached, a word taught, a word believed, a word obeyed.

And love is sprouted up where there was none, among people. A love that lifts up one another in times of burden,

I've seen it. Prayers offered, meals given, time spent listening. Yes, indeed, even rebukes offered, patience increased, self -control developed, and glory to God given.

I've seen it. And I commend you, church. I commend you for your acts of love and faith.

And where God frees you in your heart to gratitude for the things He has done in you and through you, I encourage you to let the application roll in your heart for encouragement and rejoicing.

God has used you. Rejoice in that. Here at the start of 2023,

I want you to receive encouragement, church. I ought to never cease giving thanks to God for all of you.

Because your faith is growing abundantly and your love is increasing. And so, I thought you all ought to know that I boast about you.

I am going to let you in on a little trade secret. When pastors get together, I'm guessing you already knew this, but we talk about you.

We do. I never sit down with another pastor. I hardly even brush shoulders with another pastor.

They don't ask me, how's your church? By the way, that's not the building. They're asking about you. How's your church?

And we talk. And I share. And I talk from my heart and they talk from their heart.

The question always comes up, how are things going? And I'll be honest, the conversations that I hear from others are not always pretty.

I talk with pastors who are burned and burned out. And you can tell by the way they speak about their churches.

Eugene Peterson in his memoirs reflects on one such conversation with a fellow pastor and he actually records the conversation.

I'm not going to quote it here because it uses some foul language. But he literally cursed about his church in answering to Eugene Peterson about the church.

How's your church? And he cursed. He literally swore. Literally cursing and saying, in effect, that ministry would be great if it wasn't for so many people.

And I share this. And it's meant to just show you a taste of how adversarial things can become between a pastor's heart and his congregation.

And I share it because I want to convey as much as possible from what I would just identify to you openly and honestly that I have a pretty,

I have a quite calculating and measured heart. I think that's where I'm not a hugger comes from. I mean, honestly,

I don't know how you guys experience me. But there are times when I have an assumption that I might come across as a little aloof.

There are times when I feel like maybe I ought to be less distant. So let me just say emphatically here at the start of this year, church,

I love you. I do. I love you from the bottom of my heart. It sounds like an ending speech and it's not.

I'm not going anywhere. But you have been a pleasure to serve for these 14 years, going on 14 years.

And I have no reason to believe that the coming years will be any different. We've had our highs.

We've had our lows. We've had everything in between. But I love you. And I share with everyone who will listen how

God has formed a community here in Matawan that is growing in faith. And I will boast about what

God has done and continues to do in increasing our love for one another. So like Paul said,

Paul would have said this and I really think that's what he's getting at in verse 4 at the start there. He was walking around talking with other pastors and talking with other churches and going from city to city.

And on the tip of his tongue regularly was, you're not going to believe what God did in Thessalonica.

You've got to hear this story. It's amazing what God did there. Three weeks in, boom, there was a church.

Glory to God. And he boasted about what God was doing there among them. And I will add to the story of God's work in this world.

Regularly and routinely, you're not going to believe what God has done in Matawan, Michigan.

Part of that same story, church. Connected to that same story of the

Thessalonians, us in 2023. Him growing us in faith.

Him growing us in community. Him growing us in our service to one another. He has taken we who are not a people and by faith in his word formed us together into one body.

A body learning to work together. A body learning to walk together in faith.

Learning to love each other. Learning our individual roles in serving one another. So here at the start of 2023,

I want to give you all an unmitigated, unqualified encouragement. My soul is thankful to God for what he has done, is doing, and what

I believe will do in us and through us in this next year. And if God has some level of encouragement for you through this message, that's up to him.

It's my goal. My goal is that there's encouragement. As for me, from my perspective,

I will boast about you in the churches of God. For your steadfastness and faith in all persecutions and afflictions.

And for most of our history, I believe that we have faced something that's more akin to afflictions than persecutions here in America.

We'll see if that stays the same in the coming year, but that's up to him. But I'm confident that come what may, whatever this next year brings toward us, church, we will be found in this next year growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

I love you, church. And I consider it a privilege to take communion together here. I think of Christ, as we should, when

I take communion. But I also think of you. We remember

Christ together. We don't take the cracker and the juice to remember his body and blood in isolation.

We don't do this in our living rooms. There's a reason for that. We do it here together. We must discern the body is the way that Paul describes that.

We must discern the gathering of people when we participate in the celebration of what Jesus did for us.

And I say that regularly with intention. I don't know if you catch it. I don't want you to think of this.

This is not a for me thing. This is not a for you thing.

It is an us thing. Do not give in to the temptation to personalize your communion time as if it's just this little thing that God has for you to do with him.

Take a moment to lift up your eyes and take in your brothers and sisters this morning. And if you've asked

Jesus Christ to save you, then remember what he has done to rescue us to this life of togetherness.

A life of growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the encouragement of your word.

It's been encouraging to me just to reflect here at the start of this new year on the things that you have done in our midst.

I ought to always give thanks for what you have done here in this place. It's been awesome to see.

It's so glorious. So many good things to talk about and to pass along and awesome stories of faith and hope, love.

Awesome stories of service rendered. People just putting their nose to the grindstone for years.

Thankfulness to you. So Father, I pray as we have an opportunity to take communion, I pray that you would help us to do so in a way that discerns the body.

That is not self -centered or just about our relationship with God or just confessing my sins, but lifting my eyes up to look at my brothers and sisters around me who are just as needy of your sacrifice as I am.

That you have done this to redeem us together. I pray that for anybody here who sees this and really they look around and they go,

Yep, legitimately this is an audience. I'm part of an audience today. I don't know hardly another person here. I pray that you would move them in this next year into community.

Move them into relationships. Move them into a place of service. Move them into a place where for their benefit and for their joy, they are increasingly growing in connection to you.

Father, and then I pray for those who ought to be encouraged by this message, that they would be encouraged by this message.

That they would see with joy and delight the things that you've brought them into. The way that you've helped them to open up.

The way that you've increased their patience. The way that you've helped them to bear with one another. Even those whose personalities don't mesh great with theirs.

Father, we thank you for the work that you have done in our midst and will continue to do in this next year. We rejoice in the opportunity now to reflect deeply on the thing that matters most and unites us most, and that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.