\\ Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

I want to go to church where “it’s” happening – whatever “it” is.  I sometimes have a difficult time defining “it”.  But I do know one thing for sure, without mistake.  I know when I attend a church where “it’s” not happening.

Live churches are constantly changing.

      Dead churches don't have to.

   Live churches have lots of noisy kids.

      Dead churches are fairly quiet.

   Live church's expenses always exceed their income.

      Dead churches take in more than they ever dreamed of

      spending.

   Live churches are constantly improving for the future.

      Dead churches worship their past.

   Live churches move out in faith.

      Dead churches operate totally by human sight.

   Live churches focus on people.

      Dead churches focus on programs.

   Live churches are filled with tithers.

      Dead churches are filled with tippers.

   Live churches dream great dreams of God.

      Dead churches relive nightmares.

   Live churches don't have "can't" in their dictionary.

      Dead churches have nothing but.

   Live churches evangelize.

      Dead churches fossilize.

See:  Acts 2:42-47; Rev 3:1-3

Paul saw the Thessalonian church as a happening place.

We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father [1]

1.   The Product

q       A work produced by faith

People choose a product for a number of reasons.  Beauty, functionality durability, dependability – perhaps all of these reasons.  A company becomes known by it’s product.  It bears the reputation that comes from the value or the quality of that which it produces.

There are churches that are obviously spiritual in nature and others that are obviously human in their scope.

We talked last week about our ability to do wonderful things out of our own resourcefulness, things that are spiritual in nature or essence.  We know that the devil is the “counterfeit king”.  He can imitate the miracles of God but he cannot sustain them.  He has only the realm of the passing moment – this is the world in which we live.  Unlike us he can see how worthless temporal things are.  He’ll give a man any measure of success if that man can be deceived into thinking that his or her success defines life.

Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence.  Faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.

Sherwood Eddy

How do we tell the difference between a work of faith and a work of human resourcefulness and brilliance?

q       There is great blessing in the “ordinary”.  It doesn’t require the spectacular to see obviously spiritual results.

q       There is a high degree of “buy in” as opposed to programs being driven by charismatic personalities.

I was in the supermarket one day, and a lady came down the aisle whom I could barely see over the top of her groceries.  I got somewhat frightened because she seemed to be heading straight for me. She screeched to a halt within a few feet of me, peered over her load, wagged her finger, and said, "I left your church. I left your church".

So I said, "Well, if it's my church, I think that was a very wise decision.  If it's my church, I think I'm going to leave too."

She said, "Don't you want to know why I left?"

I said, "No, not particularly, but I think I'm going to find out". And I was right.

he said, "You weren't meeting my needs".

I answered, "I don't ever recollect seeing you before, let alone talking to you, let alone knowing your needs.  Did you ever tell anyone specifically what your needs were?"

She couldn't recall that she had, so I raised another question. "Can you tell me, if we have 5,000 people sitting in that church, all with your attitude, how anyone's needs are going to be met?  If you reserve the right to have that attitude, then you must give everybody the freedom to have that attitude.  And if everybody has that attitude, who on earth is going to do all the need-meeting?"

Standing her ground, she demanded, "Then you tell me who will."

Relieved, I said, "I thought you'd never ask.  This is what will work:  when people stop sitting in the pew saying, 'They're not meeting my needs' and start saying, 'Whose needs can I meet?' Then needs will be met.  When the servant spirit flourishes in a congregation, then they minister to each other as unto the Lord."

Servant, January/February, 1989

q       There is a small percentage of “burnout”.  People are released gracefully from ministry because there is a commitment to God-ordained leadership.  If a person says that they are done then they are released.

q       Evidence of joy and celebration – the people celebrate their victories together and they share their defeats as well rather than looking for personalities to exalt or to blame.

We need passion in our faith!  Instead of praying, "If I should die before I wake," we should pray, "Lord wake me up before I die!"

Tony Campolo

q       Results are disproportionate.  A little bit goes a long way.

q       There is a willingness to take risks when necessary.  God needs Joshua’s and Caleb’s.  There were 10 people – the majority that was responsible for the death of a generation in the desert.

When Arthur Rubinstein, the famous concert pianist, was in New York, someone invited him to attend church.  His answer: "Take me to a church that will challenge me to attempt the impossible."  Great people are attracted to great challenges, and that's why we as Pastors need to dream great dreams.

q       People pray in a community of faith and believe that it is absolutely necessary for survival.  They pray more than they talk about praying.

q       Openness to new means and methods

2.   The Process

q       Labor prompted by love

Some time ago, I was chatting with a man who consults with some of the largest U.S. companies about their quality control. Because ministry is a form of human quality control, I thought I'd ask him for some insights.

 He said, "In quality control, we are not concerned about the product."  I was surprised.

But then he went on to say, "We are concerned about the process. If the process is right, the product is guaranteed."

How relevant to our Christianity.

We tend to be more oriented to the "product" of our faith than the process.

As American Christians, we tend to desire and demand products of righteousness, but give little attention to the process.

   -- Joseph M. Stowell

The reason that we do what it is that we do makes all the difference.  When people serve God because they love Him it is extremely appealing – when people do spiritual things out of a sense of obligation it is deadening.  One is alive and the other is putrid.  One has a sweet aroma and the other smells like the embalmer’s chamber.  One is warm with life and vitality, the other is lifelike, Madam Tussaud’s wax museum.

Possible Illustration – gray sweater knit by the seniors group in Moncton.

What are the chief components of a labor of love?

ð     It’s more personal than it is perfect.  There is more of the giver in the gift.  It is not the easiest option.  Normally it requires more than cash to procure this sort of gift.

ð     It is designed to touch the heart of the receiver not to reflect the values of the giver.  Therefore it requires more thought and preparation.  One must study the person that he/she wishes to bless if they are to be most blessed.

ð     There’s no tag.  L.L. Bean puts a tag on their sweaters but in all likelihood, they have nothing to do with the construction of the sweater that I showed you today.  They just sell it.  Take the tag off that sweater and it would lose it’s significant value.  The other sweater has not tag.  If it did it would say “Karl’s Designer Collection” or something like that.  It’s mine totally.  I am the sole proprietor because when it was given to me it was given away.  There was no effort made to remember the giver.  Let me ask you if you truly give tyourself away to God or do you have the perpetual desire to tag the things that you give.

Form of godliness – but no power.

Do you understand that the people who tested the love and grace of God incarnate as He walked on the topside of this earth were those who were religiously astute and spiritually destitute.  Religion can never save us.  It more often blinds us.  Is this a religious institution?  It is an organization that is religious in form, but spiritual in nature.  Religion is man’s effort to reach God and relationship is God’s efforts to reach man.

3.   The Performance

q       Endurance sustained by hope

Don’t you want to know that the things that you give your life for will survive you?  The ultimate worth of what we do will be determined by it’s ability to stand the tests of time and trial.  If it does not endure then it was not worth what we thought.  There are many fads and fashions and fancies that come and go through life.  I am hoping that “faith” is more than a passing fad or fashion or fancy for us today.

HOPE

Hope opens doors where despair closes them.

Hope discovers what can be done instead of grumbling about what cannot.

Hope draws its power from a deep trust in God.

Hope "lights a candle" instead of "cursing the darkness."

Hope regards problems, small or large, as opportunities.

Hope cherishes no illusions, nor does it yield to cynicism.

Hope sets high goals and is not frustrated by repeated difficulties or setbacks.

Hope pushes ahead when it would be easy to quit.

Hope puts up with modest gains, realizing that "the longest journey starts with one step."

Hope looks for the good in people instead of harping on the worst.

I am hoping that my children can look back at my life one day and say several things:

ð     He meant what he said because he lived it consistently without turning, through his entire life.

ð     He taught me that the most spiritual thing that I could do was to love God and to love people and that the two were inseparable and that there was never a situation or time when the primacy of love did not apply.

One commentator noted that you can tell what a man's relations with God are by looking at his relations with his fellow men.  If a man is at variance with his fellow men, if he is a quarrelsome, competitive, argumentative trouble making creature, he may be a diligent church attender, he may even be a church office-bearer, but he is not a man of God.  If a man is distant from his fellow man, it is good proof that he is distant from God; if he is divided from his fellow men, he is divided from God.

ð     He trusted God when God obviously blessed and he trusted God when things were not so good and the trials took over.

ð     He gave his life as an imperfect offering to a perfect God and an imperfect church.

So the bottom line is to nurture hope and keep it alive in you because without it our time is short.

I always felt that I would retire a youth minister.  Actually I have come to wonder again if that might not be true.  I remember Elaine and I for 15 + years, spending Friday evenings in a youth center with 100 teens.  I remember taking kids on choir tours one year two SMT buses – 95 people.  We’d dress the kids up, line the kids up and have them sing pretty songs.  They seemed to sing so much better than they lived.

Keith Miller puts it this way:

It has never ceased to amaze me that we Christians have developed a kind of selective vision which allows us to be deeply and sincerely involved in worship and church activities and yet almost totally pagan in the day in, day out guts of our business lives and never realize it.

Then one day I began to look at what I was doing and really wonder if I was making any “lasting” difference in their lives.  I couldn’t see that I was and then I began to ask myself why I was giving every Friday night of my life for something that would not endure.  I began to die as a youth pastor from that point on – I was terminal.

The loss of hope that I was doing anything that would matter over time spelled the end for me.

It is hope that sustains the Christian. 

Hope for:

ð     a better tomorrow.

ð     An answer to prayer

ð     An opportunity

ð     An end to pain

ð     A significant relationship

ð     A better season of ministry

ð     The realization of a vision

ð     The salvation of a loved one

ð     Words of commendation from God – “well done”

ð     An end of dark days

ð     A new focus

How do I keep hope alive?

ð     I refuse to allow my focus to be shifted from God to people or circumstances.

ð     Based on my faith in a limitless God, I choose to believe the best in people and circumstances.

ð     I monitor my spoken words.  I deliberately banish gloom and doom from my speech because I recognize that in the end it will do nothing but diminish my ability to experience vital hope.

ð     I do not allow myself to develop deep relationships with people who see the worst in life because ultimately I will become like them.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. [2]

Climb Till Your Dream Comes True

Climb till your dream comes true

often your tasks will be many,

and more than you think you can do. . .

Often the road will be rugged

and the hills insurmountable, too. . .

But always remember, the hills ahead

Are never as steep as they seem,

And with FAITH in your heart start upward

And climb 'till you reach your dream,

For nothing in life that is worthy

Is ever too hard to achieve

If you have the courage to try it

And you have the FAITH to believe...

For FAITH is a force that is greater

Than knowledge or power or skill

And many defeats turn to triumph

If you trust in GOD"S wisdom and will

For Faith is a mover of mountains,

There's nothing that God cannot do,

So start out today with Faith in your heart

And "CLIMB "TILL YOUR DREAM COMES TRUE"!

-          Helen Steiner Rice

I BELIEVE

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.  That myth is more potent than history.  I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts.  That hope always triumphs over experience.  That laughter is the only cure for grief.  And I believe that love is stronger than death.

Robert Fulghum

There was a farmer who had three sons: Jim, John, and Sam. No one in the family ever attended church or had time for God. The pastor and the others in the church tried for years to interest the family in the things of God to no avail. Then one day Sam was bitten by a rattlesnake. The doctor was called and he did all he could to help Sam, but the outlook for Sam's recovery was very dim indeed. So the pastor was called and appraised of the situation. The pastor arrived, and began to pray as follows:

   "O wise and righteous Father, we thank Thee that in Thine wisdom thou didst send this rattlesnake to bite Sam. He has never been inside the church and it is doubtful that he has, in all this time, ever prayed or even acknowledged Thine existence. Now we trust that this experience will be a valuable lesson to him and will lead to his genuine repentance.

   "And now, O Father, wilt thou send another rattlesnake to bite Jim, and another to bite John, and another really big one to bite the old man. For years we have done everything we know to get them to turn to Thee, but all In vain. It seems, therefore, that what all our combined efforts could not do, this rattlesnake has done. We thus conclude that the only thing that will do this family any real good is rattlesnakes; so, Lord, send us bigger and better rattlesnakes. Amen."

   --James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 187-188.

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[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids

[2]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids