Live This Day #2 - With Care (Dr. Kurt Bjorklund)

Senior Pastor Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the message series entitled "Live This Day" looking at the book of 1 Thessalonians. Christians care for others should be obvious to believers and unbelievers alike.

Message Transcript - https://www.orchardhillchurch.com/blog-post/2024/9/16/live-this-day-2-with-care

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Transcript

Let's pray together. God, as we're gathered this weekend at Orchard Hill and different places, different times, I pray that you would speak. God, I ask that my words would reflect your word in content, tone, and emphasis. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

So, there's a classic movie that's been around for a long time, making it classic. The movie I'm talking about is Casablanca. Has anybody ever seen this? So, this is one of those old movies that has some lines that maybe you've heard, and you wouldn't necessarily think were part of it. Like, play it again, Sam. Or here's looking at you, kid. Those kinds of lines came from this movie.

The idea was that these people were stuck in Casablanca before a regime change, and it showed some of their hopelessness in the choices they were making, but also their desire to get out. And the idea of living somewhere before a regime change is something that for most of us living in America seems foreign. Because for us, our country, thankfully, has been stable and we've lived in a way in which we've never had to think about what it would be like if everything we knew about stability, our currency, everything we've saved, would change on a dime. And yet this was the way that the people at the church in Thessalonica lived.

Now, it was different than Casablanca. Their hope was that the change would be the coming, the presence of Jesus Christ. And so, we spent some time last weekend talking about this idea of the parousia, which is the the coming. It's a technical word in Greek for the presence, the coming of royalty. And so, this was the idea that Jesus was going to come, and they were living with this expectation. And it changed the way that they thought about life, and the way that they thought about how they live their life.

We started a series that we're simply calling Live This Day. And the idea is, how do I live this day in light of the day that Jesus is coming even if it seems maybe distant to many of us who live in this day and age. Today we're going to talk about living with care, which is from First Thessalonians 2 verses 1 through 16. And when you think about care, caring for something, there are probably a lot of ways you could go with this idea.

In fact, if you were to talk about care, I heard somebody say that her husband was the most caring man she'd ever met. Then she proceeded to say he cares deeply about the Pirates, Steelers, Penguins, and Penn State football. And so, you can say care is this thing. But if I were to really get honest with everybody in this room, meaning if we could all just sit and talk across a cup of coffee, probably if we started to talk about what we really cared about, the list would be pretty similar and pretty short.

In fact, I heard John Tyson talk about this recently, and here's what he said. He said he thought that if you were to talk about what people want, in other words, what they cared about, you could boil it down to these things. He said most of us want some Instagram worthy events or people in our lives. In other words, we want moments where we say, wasn't this awesome? Look at how great this was. And whether we post them or not, what we want is we want these cool moments with cool people that we love. 

He said what most of us want is romance. We want to find somebody with whom to share our lives, and we want that romance to continue over the course of our lifetime. He said we want sexual fulfillment. We want to be wanted and to want somebody and to find fulfillment in that area of our lives. We want good health. We want financial security. And the way he phrased it is he says, we don't just want to be rich. We just want to have enough money to do whatever we want. Then we want varied and exciting forms of leisure, and a meaningful job. And he said if we're a person of faith, the thing that we would add to it is all of course, under the guise of for the Kingdom of God.

Now, I heard that list, and I thought that's pretty accurate, probably for most of us. Whether you're a long-standing person of faith or faith is a new part of your journey, chances are what many of us want is that list. Basically, we want to say, you know what, I've got some great moments. I've got a romantic partner, I'm sexually fulfilled, I have enough money, I've got some fun forms of leisure, and my work is meaningful. And if you're a person of faith, you'll say, and I want to do it all kind of under the guise of the Kingdom of God. And if you're maybe not a long-time person of faith, maybe that's even part of your journey toward faith is saying maybe God can help me get in on some of that. In fact, there's whole branches of Christianity that we sometimes refer to as health and wealth or the prosperity gospel, that their whole message is if you follow Jesus, he'll help you get these things.  

The question that I have is, if you really believe that Jesus is returning, then what is it that you should care about? Does it mean you don't care about those things, or does it change maybe a little bit of how you think about your days if you know there's a regime change coming ahead of you? So, in First Thessalonians 2, I believe what we see is two priorities of things that that we're called to care about in light of this coming of Jesus Christ.

The first, I'm just going to say is we're called to care about the people that God loves. We see this because of these two images. This image of like a mother in verses 5 through 8 and like a father in verses 9 through 12. And so, what Paul does as he's writing this, is he's talking about his own experience with the people. He says like a nursing mother, like a father, this is how I have cared about you.

Now, it's important to remember something that I said last week, and that is often when people teach on a book of the Bible like Thessalonians, they'll talk about the significance of the city. And as best I can tell, Thessalonica was not that significant. It wasn't that strategic. So, this isn't I'm doing this because this is somehow good for the mission. I'm sure there was some element to that. But this is Paul saying, at the core of my being I have seen you like a nursing mother sees her baby and like a father sees his child. We see this in verse seven. “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children.”

Now, I don't know about you, but there's probably not a more complete telling image of care than that. If you've ever been a nursing mom, been around a nursing mom, a nursing mom has a radar for that baby and that baby's needs. And the nursing mom is ready to put aside her sleep, her sense of self, everything in her life to say, my job right now is to take care of this child. And if that isn't a symbol of selflessness, then what happens is, we don't understand what he's saying because indifference isn't maternal. There's nothing about maternity being a mom that is indifferent. And here's what's also true about a mom. You can't pay a mom enough money to do what a mom does because it is a thankless job that happens over and over. The baby doesn't get up after a little bit and is like you're awesome, thank you. You delivered once again. I mean, it's not that way. It's you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

And then what he says here about this in verse 8 is, “so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” So, in the context of this nursing mom, he talks about sharing the gospel, a word that means the good news of Jesus Christ, the announcement of victory. He says we shared this message like nursing moms, and we shared our very lives.

And so, to talk about the gospel here, what he's doing is he's saying part of caring for people is caring about their eternal destiny. Now, again, if you believe that Jesus is coming and that there's a day coming, whether it's now or a long time from now, but that there's coming a day when somebody’s relationship to Jesus Christ makes a difference in their eternity, then one of the most uncaring things you can do is never talk to them about their eternal destiny, to never share what you believe to be true.

I mean, think about it. If you were part of a town and you knew that there was a victory coming and everybody who prioritized or believed in that victory, whatever you want to say, would share in it. And those who didn't, would be left to the evil regime in charge. You would be unloving to say, well, it kind of stinks for you that you're going to miss out on this. And so, there's this priority of a nursing mom.

Then he uses the analogy of a father. And here's what he says. This is verses 9 through 12, but especially verses 11 and 12. It says this, “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.”

So, he uses these three words. Encouraging, a word that means to come alongside. Comforting, a word that means to console. Urging, a word that actually means to testify. And so, the function here, at least in part of the father, was to be one who would come alongside somebody who is discouraged, to comfort somebody, and to testify to the worthiness of what somebody is doing. It's almost like the nursing mom in a sense here is the one who cares enough to say I'll selflessly serve you and points you to Jesus. And then the father comes along in this analogy and says keep going. It's worth it.

 In fact, if you've ever been a dad who tried to coach a kid in youth sports or encourage a kid, maybe just take cross-country running, what do you do when your son or daughter is disheartened with their running? Well, you try to encourage them, to come alongside them, and say you can do it. You try to console them when they're struggling and then you testify or you urge them to keep going, saying it's worth it, it will be worth it. And you do that for something like a race or youth soccer or gymnastics or football or whatever it is.

And he's saying, are you willing to come alongside people? Do you care about people enough to do this or in a sense, is your agenda to say, not my problem? What I really want is some Instagram worthy events in my life. What I really want is some romance, some sexual fulfillment, enough money to do whatever it is that I want to do, a fulfilling job, and some great leisure activities along with good health, all under the guise of the Kingdom of God. That is what he's driving at here.

But then there's a second thing that's part of his priority. And here, I believe what he's talking about is that there's a priority to care about the word that God gives. And again, there's two images that are used here in verses 3 and 4. He uses the image of a steward, somebody who's called to steward the word of God. And then in verses 13 through 16, I'm going to say he uses the image of an influencer, and I'm borrowing a little language from our own era here.

But here's what he says in verse 4. “On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” Entrusted here means to be given something that you are to keep and preserve and to pass along. In other words, you have the call to faithfully guard the word of God. If you were somebody who lived in a family whose cooking had become a source of the family business, and you had a secret recipe you had kept for generations, but it made all of the money for your family, and somebody gave you that recipe, you would have a job to do two things with it. One is to say, I'm going to preserve it. I'm not going to let something corrupt it so that it's different than what it has been. And secondly, I'm going to keep it so that it can go to the next generation so that this can continue to be passed along inside our family.

In a sense, what Paul is talking about here when he talks about being entrusted with the word, with the gospel, is he's saying there's a sense in which caring about the word of God understands that you have been given the word in such a way that you say, I am going to guard this very meticulously.

One of the things that we talk about here at Orchard Hill frequently is this idea that as a church, we want to be culturally relevant and theologically pure. Meaning we want to speak in terms that our culture can say we understand, but our message should be the message that has been passed down from generation to generation and is not new or novel. There shouldn't be anything that comes from this stage or out of any of our classes or places that isn't something that can be found and verified in the pages of Scripture because we're not coming up with our own message, but we've been entrusted with a message that we want to pass along. And part of the job of the whole community is to say we're preserving that message together. It's not something that we merely are saying we just want this to be something that we get a little quick kind of hit from. But this is something that we preserve, that we steward.

Last night I wasn't here for the service and Nick Hettinger gave the message and did an outstanding job. And I had a chance to listen to him give the message when I was driving home from an event I was at. Nick cited a study in talking about the word of God in this passage. He said that there were some 40,000 people whose lives were studied to see their Bible reading habits and how it changed their lives. And he said that what they found is if people were exposed to the Bible one time in a week, so maybe a setting like this, maybe they read their Bible, that they had a little impact, maybe almost none. If they had a second exposure, so maybe a small group, a daily reading, something that they did just two times a week, they would have another slight increase, but not a lot. Third exposure was another increase. But what they found in the study was that when they hit day four, so in other words, when people had four exposures to the Bible in a week as opposed to three or less, that there was an exponential climb in results in terms of how the Bible impacted them.

Here's what Nick cited in this study. He said that loneliness went down by 30% when people had a fourth exposure in a week. Anger went down by 32%. Bitterness went down by 40%. Alcoholism went down by 57%. Spiritual stagnation went down by 60%. And that sharing people's faith or discipling people went up over 200% in their lives. In other words, it’s saying this word is precious. It's something to take in and to guard. I'm entrusted with it. And it isn't just the structure of the church, but it's for anybody who's a follower of Jesus is significant.

Then we see this influencer piece. This is verses 13 through 16. He says this, “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” So here he talks about hearing, receiving, and accepting the word.

And then in verse 16, he says this, “in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.” So, there's this notion that they speak the word. So how do you act as an influencer? And why do I choose that word? Well, I choose that because in our day and age, the idea of being an influencer is much more compelling to most of us than the idea of being a herald or a mouthpiece in some way because that feels archaic. But everyone understands this idea of being an influencer that you do something that might go viral if you have a good moment.

I saw a video just this last week. It was this kid who had seen his dad working on part of the house. And when his dad was out, he wanted to help his dad. So, he went in, and they had a time lapse camera, I guess, on there, and so they saw him putting down floorboards just like he had watched his dad do it. And the thing blew up and went viral. And the interviewer asked the little kid, how does it feel that you went viral? He's like, I don't know. But his older brother understood the significance of it, and they asked how do you feel about this? He’s like, well, I guess it's cool.

So, what is it that you are known for or want to be known for? You see, if the word of God is the priority because Jesus is coming back and it's something you've been entrusted with. If what you're known for is Instagram worthy events, your romantic relationship, job, wealth, leisure activities, good health, those are good things that God does care about. But what he's talking about here is that the message is so significant because of this idea of Jesus coming back that it is what it is for most in terms of how these people's lives were marked.

How does that happen? Well, it certainly happens individually, meaning that people spoke about it. But it also happened in Thessalonica because the people gathered. I mentioned this word for church that's used in First Thessalonians where it says they're the ecclesia of God. It just simply meant a gathering, and it could have been a gathering of anything. But when it becomes the ecclesia of God, basically it's saying this is a gathering of people who are concerned to know and study and love the Scriptures. And one of the ways that you participate in the influence of the word of God is by gathering with other people to hear the word of God.

You see what's happening in our day and age, to many people as they've gotten to this idea, and I get this, by the way, where it's like, well, if I get the message, it doesn't matter where or how I get it. And it's better to get the message remote by yourself than it is to not get it. But this is not a consumer item. And what I mean by that is it isn't something where you just go, I can click on this, get it on my time, my way, and that's all there is to it. There's something about having it in community that brings an influence to a region where people say, why do all those people gather at Orchard Hill in different sites all over the city of Pittsburgh? And what is it that they're affirming when they come together? When people see that, what happens is they start to say there's an influence, and I want to know what that's about. And it points people to something that takes them to maybe another level of consideration.

Now, here's my guess, as I've talked about this, there's a couple of different reactions. Some of you are saying, yeah, okay, love people that God loves, which is everybody selflessly like a mother or a father. I get that. Hard to do, but I get it. Love the word of God. Like a steward. Like an influencer. Yeah. Okay. I kind of get that. But if I'm honest, what I really want are some Instagram worthy events, a romantic partner, fulfilling sex life, good job, enough money to do what I want to do, some good leisure, and good health. That's what I really want. Yeah, I get that I should care about these things, but if I'm really honest with myself, that's what it is that I that I kind of want. And yeah, I want the kingdom of God, and I'd love to bring some people with me and make the world better along the way. But that's what I want. And me talking about this passage doesn't necessarily make you go, oh, okay, now I get it. Now, that's what I want. It doesn't change your desires. It doesn't change my desires.

So, what changes desire? Well, on one hand, we could say kind of what we talked about last week –conviction. And conviction comes not when you say I'm going to be convicted about something, but when it just is and when you have conviction that will lead to what you care about. That is true. But there's another way that we grow in caring about something, that we grow in conviction. Sometimes what we do is we do the thing that we believe ultimately is the right thing, even when we don't necessarily feel like it, and then we start to feel like it. 

So, I've used this analogy before, but my guess is those of us who have jobs that every day that you get up, you don't go, oh, I can't wait to go to work. I'm on board. But there's at least a handful of days where you wake up and you say, you know what, there's something I'd rather do today. But you go to work most of the time. Why do you go to work? Is it because you don't have conviction, that it matters, or that you do have conviction? You go to work because you have a conviction or a care that says I want to be the kind of person that an organization can count on. I want to be the kind of person who has a paycheck, and my family can count on. I want to be the kind of person who contributes. And so, I show up even if I don't feel like it. You are actually acting in accordance with your conviction. What you're doing is you're saying I am choosing to act in a way that is in accordance with what I ultimately believe or want to believe, even if I don't feel like it today.

And so, how do you grow in conviction if you're honestly saying today what I really want are some of these other things and God can be thrown in? You start by saying, how can I live a life that loves the people God loves right where I am? Is there somebody that God has brought into my relational network who needs somebody to walk alongside them, encourage them, comfort them, and urge them on? Can I be that person? Is there somebody who needs to hear the gospel in a gentle, loving way that I have a unique place to share? Because if so, by simply saying I'm going to choose to do that, you will grow in conviction. And when you choose to say, and part of my role is to be a steward of the word of God and an influencer with the word of God by individually speaking about it, by coming together corporately, by safeguarding it, what I'm doing is I'm acting in accordance with what I really want. And what will happen is you will see your convictions start to grow in those areas.

But every time you say today, I'm living for this, that conviction wanes just a little. Go back to the dad and this kid who's running cross country. So, what happens if you're running cross country and it's a training day to run hills, and you say, I don't feel like it? And the dad says hills, you don't need it. Well, what happens is nothing too significant that day. But a few days later, when it's time to run in a race with hills, you don't have the same bandwidth. And so, it's actually the conviction to say, I'm going to do what I don't feel like doing so that I can achieve what I actually want to achieve comes to fruition.

And for some reason, when it comes to spiritual things, that seems remote to many people because they say, well, if I don't feel like it today, it's not genuine, it's not authentic if I do it differently today. When the reality is it's actually completely authentic to say I'm choosing to do. And the phrase Paul used in this passage, to please God rather than people, to say if Jesus is the one coming back, I'm going to arrange my life for his priorities even more than mine until my heart continues to grow in response. So, Paul’s word is live this day in light of that day, by caring about pleasing God, doing what Jesus has called you to do, loving the people He loves, and supporting and loving the Word that He gives.

God, I ask today that you would help each of us who calls Orchard Hill Church home to be honest about what it is we desire, to bring it to you because you care deeply about our lives, about what matters to us. But God, I pray that in the mix of that as well, that you would help each of us to understand fully that this world is a regime that will not last forever, and that as a result there are things that we can do that transcend this world, this time, this space, and will be to your glory and our good. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.