Sermon: "Authentic Love"

3rd in the "Authentic People" series.
Delivered May 3, 2009 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Sermon Text: 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13

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We are in an Authentic People series. We are trying to understand how to become more authentic as God's followers, and it's not easy all the time. Things distract us. I want to ask... true confessions. How many of you have ever spoken on the phone while you were doing something else? To somebody? Yep, me too... watching TV, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Right? When we really don't. When we're on the computer and we're trying to give our attention in two directions. That's not authentic.

I brought a little bit of a visual aid today to try to make a point about how important it is if we're going to grow in our lives and be the kind of people we want to be that we need authentic environments. So I brought this tree along with me, and so I'm the professor and you're the class. So what can you tell me about the tree? Gee whiz, you guys are amazingly smart. What else? What else can you tell me? It's a Dogwood. Good job! Gideon picked that up from the first service. I was going to ask that question. What else? It's uprooted. It's not where it's supposed to be, right?

Yeah, the back story to this is I planted this four years ago in my mother's front yard. This is a Dogwood... a Pink Dogwood. And it was a Mother's Day present which is a little commercial for next week for those who may forget. And it did okay. The first year actually was the year the cicadae came, the every 17-year thing. And I put netting around it, and that didn't help a whole lot. It did a pretty good number on them. But the next couple of years, it blossomed. I saw pink blossoms every time, like around this time of year because the Dogwoods are blooming.

And Tuesday when I was studying at my mom's house, I looked out the window and there I saw this in the ground. There was not a bud or a flower on it. So I went out and sadly yanked it up, and was about ready to throw it over the fence behind her house on Goucher's property, and let it decompose there. And I thought, "No, I'm going to bring it in as an illustration because it's pretty clear, and it's no great deduction, but environment is critical to growth." I mean we can't grow apart from a healthy environment.

And it's what... it's what loving parents try to do. It's what people who love authentically try to do. They try to create space in which growth can happen. An authentic love is not love until it is expressed in some way. It's not a theoretical thing. It is an expression of something. Sometimes that love has to be both tough and tender because really what we're after in authentic love is not so much whether a person feels good or not, we're after whether or not a person grows or not. I mean parents don't want their kids just to feel good, they want their children to grow. And sometimes that gets in the way of growth when we... when we maybe over-empathize with people and don't tell them what they really need to hear.

The church is designed to be a healthy family. It's designed to be a place where environments are created so that people can grow. That's what small groups are all about. We want to keep encouraging people to get into a small group, or get back into a small group, or be in some kind of environment, some kind of accountability environment where you can be encouraged in your faith.

One of the things that people on Habitat for Humanity teams do literally is try to go down and create a healthy environment, a living space for people where there was none before. When Tuesday night rolls around here, we have something called Road to Victory. It's a recovery ministry.

I don't know if any of you have struggled with a life-controlling problem, an addiction or an attachment that seems to overwhelm your life, but on Tuesday evenings at 7:00, people gather in a room like every over recovery group, and authentically try to share with each other what's going on... for real. I mean really how they're struggling, how they have been defeated and how they failed. And they... what... they come into an environment where people can listen and can support them and can encourage them. So I want to ask and encourage you to check that out if you are struggling with a life-controlling problem, to come on Tuesday nights, 7:00-9:00. It's a great opportunity to study the Scriptures together and to hear one another in a safe environment.

And it's not enough for a person just to believe in the Lord. It's great when a baby is born, but good parents don't just bring a baby home and stick it in a crib and point the way to the refrigerator or just say, "I hope things go well." There's a nurturing environment in that setting. This past week I was handed a book, a 75-year-anniversary book of the Navigators ministry.

Navigators are a para-church group like Intervarsity or Campus Crusade. They come along side the church and try to help people come to understand God's love and grow in God's love. They try to create healthy environments. And John Sackett gave me a book about 75 years of their growth.

In one story, I read about Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators that I didn't know. Apparently back in the 30's and 40's when the organization was getting started he picked up a hitchhiker, and the guy got in the car and he took the Lord's name in vain. And he said, "Blankety blank. It's so hard to get a ride these days." So that signaled... I mean it hurt him. Anybody who loves the Lord hates to hear his name taken in vain. And so he leads this fellow to understand who Jesus is, and he prays with him as they go along.

A year later, he's driving down pretty much the same road, and he picks up another hitchhiker. The guy gets in the car. It's almost like an echo of the first time. "Blankety blank. It's so hard to get a ride these days." Dawson Trotman looks over at him shocked, and realizes it's the same guy. It was at that moment that it was burned into his brain the whole concept of follow-up and environment and creating an environment for people to grow.

It's not enough to just encourage them once or twice. It's not enough to just plant a tree and say, "Good luck. I wish I knew more about Dogwoods. You know, I wish I could have done more." So that's where follow-up was born, and he went on to say... he said you know it can take 20 minutes to two hours to help somebody understand who Jesus is and to respond to him. It can take 20 weeks or two years to nurture them in their faith.

That's what the apostle's words are all about in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2 and 3. We're going to pick it up in chapter 2, verse 17. It's really clear from this text that the apostle Paul was literally, emotionally, beside himself over the nurturance and care of the people that he had come to help understand the Christian message.

He, if you want to know the back story, again it's Acts 17. Paul and Silas and Timothy go to Thessalonica. It's their first opportunity to be in Europe coming out of Asia Minor. And they are there for three Saturdays... or three Sabbath days, and they preach the good news, and a church is established. And then some persecutors chased them out. They're chased out. They're chased down the road.

And now in Southern Greece, in Athens, Paul is in spiritual agony, trying to understand whether or not, and praying against hope that the tree that he planted, the church that he planted, would thrive even in the midst of an unhealthy environment. So we're going to look at chapter 2, verse 17, and read to chapter 3, verse 2, and we'll stop there and make some comments and then we'll read the rest of it later.

Let's pray: Lord, thank you, thank you so much for this passage, for the reminder of what authentic love is really all about. We pray that your spirit would help us to understand that love acts and help us to see how that happened 2,000 years ago through the one who wrote this... wrote these verses. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Verse 17, 1 Thessalonians 2,

"But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you-certainly I, Paul, did, again and again-but Satan stopped us. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy. So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith."

I want to focus on a couple of phrases that he uses there. First, after just knowing them for a few months he calls them by a very affectionate term brother... brothers and sisters. And he says that "we were torn away from you" in verse 17. It actually means that they were orphaned. They were bereaved of them. There was this gut-wrenching feeling in their gut because they had to go from there. They were forced.

I remember the summer that I met Ellen, my wife of 35 plus years now. It was 1972. It was in June or July, and we had spent five weeks together at an institute for biblical studies much like the one-week camp, the Intervarsity camp. Only it was for five weeks, a lot of courses and 130 kids there. Slow me, just took about four weeks and six days to tell Ellen how I felt, and she reciprocated. That was the night before we left.

The next day we walked hand in hand down a beautiful, tree-shaded trail that ended at Taconic Falls. And everybody can say, "Awww," right now if you want to. And there we just had a great day. We just had an awesome day. I mean I was totally infatuated. And so we get... we come back, it's time to leave. We're all packed up. I have to go. She has to go, and I just remember the feelings in my insides, the churning mixture of sorrow and longing and love and all kinds of stuff was going on there.

And it was in a day where there were no cell phones. I mean you couldn't just keep talking as you were driving. I didn't know when the next time would be that I would be able to talk to her. I mean, we have the letters to prove it. We have letters galore of writing back and forth. I mean letters with like two-, four-cent stamps on them, if you can believe that. And you know, to call long distance was like, man that was a big deal. You had to, you know, once a week maybe you got to call and maybe talk for ten minutes because it was expensive.

So that's... that's the way it was. When I left it was like my heart didn't leave her. I left in person, but my heart was there. And that's exactly what Paul is saying. He's saying, "We were torn apart from you in person, but our hearts never left you." You know when you look at Rocco and Robin in the videos; I think it's safe to say that their hearts were not in it, right? Oh, that's because they don't have any, right? Their hearts just aren't in there, and that's... that's with the first thing about authentic love. And if I can put it two words it would be this... love aches.

Love aches. It hurts. It aches for the person that is being loved, the object of being loved. I hate to admit this, and I can't believe I'm telling you this, but on Friday, and this tells you how much I love my wife... what I do for Ellen. We went to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, okay. With Matthew McConaughey and everybody, and I'm sorry to admit that, but I don't want to ruin the movie for you, but basically it's about a guy who didn't want to risk being loved. And just was hurt.

And so I think about those who come here today. How loved do you feel? You know, I mean or do you feel like you'll ever be able to love like we're talking about here? Well with Christ it's possible. We have to get ourselves centered in him. But see I told you of my 21-year-old love angst, but what about other situations? What about spouses of POWs? What about people that don't know whether their loved one's going to make it or not? Remember Apollo 13 when the capsule was reentering the atmosphere and the spouses were there looking at the TV? They didn't know whether it was going to explode or what, and they're just on edge, just wondering about their loved one.

That's exactly where Paul and Silas and Timothy are. And he says, "We could stand it no longer," in chapter 3. He wanted to come to them again and again. He tried as much as he could, but he said, "Satan stopped us,"... the enemy of our souls that gets in the way of every loving and thriving relationship. Whenever there's a problem in relationships let's figure out who the real enemy is. It's not the person you're in the relationship with. The real enemy is the person who tries to thwart healthy living and healthy communication.

So Paul said, "Look, we didn't let that happen. Authentic love not only aches for the object of that love, in that ache, there is sacrifice." So chapter 3, verse 1, Paul says, "I was willing to ache twice. I was not only aching for you because I couldn't be with you, I was also willing to be bereft again..." That's the word that he uses. Again, like losing someone to death. "... by sending Timothy so that he could encourage you in your faith. I was willing to ache twice and commit myself to my own pain over here so that we could know more about your faith."

Don't miss this because here's... here's the purpose, and this is chapter 3, verse 2. "For the building up... " Why did I do all this? "For the building up of and the development of the whole person in God." Right there, we wanted to strengthen and encourage you in your faith. We wanted to build you up. That's what authentic love is. It's... it's for the growth, it's... it's an expression of efforts and commitment that builds up another human being and encourages and strengthens another human being.

The word strengthen has to with establishing roots, and the word encourage has to do with what the Holy Spirit... the paraclete, the same word that's used to describe... to define the Holy Spirit is the same word that Paul uses when he says, "We wanted to come and encourage you. We wanted to come along side of you and build you up."

How much are we doing that here? How much are you feeling encouraged and built up alongside? Somebody's coming along side of you. This is why we want to emphasize the importance of small groups. We cannot grow in a vacuum. You know... I mean even to grow for a couple of years and then stop is not enough. You know, I wonder about people who come, and they... maybe they hang around for three or four years, but something happens. They don't feel that support and that love.

And again, I know that's a two-way street. At the 10:00 service somebody came up to me afterward and she says, "Well I just want to encourage you, I was an international student back in the 70s and I came for three or four years and now I'm a deacon at my church up in Massachusetts, and I'm just doing well with the Lord. I just wanted you to know that so you would be encouraged." I said, "Well, thank you. That's great to know."

And I wonder about others though. How... how... how together are you feeling with people even in the church? That's why we want to encourage small groups and encourage small group leaders. You know small group leaders, you are the most important people in the church, I think. In so many ways, whether it's children's ministry, student ministry, adult ministry... people who take the plunge and are willing to be small group leaders are people who are nurturing and encouraging and building up other people's faith. You cannot grow in a vacuum.

I want you to hear how one couple in our church was encouraged recently. Actually, Julie and Spencer Capp presented their little boy, Luke, for baptism at the 8:30 service last week. When we were in our pre-baptismal counseling session, they were effusive in their words about how much so many of you encouraged them as they took an incredible step of sacrificial love. I want you to hear their testimony and how love not only was expressed, but how it affected faith. Let's look at it.

[video]

Julie: And Julia called from Colorado, and her daughter Jamie who was 31 and pregnant had suffered a terrible stroke in September, and was paralyzed on her right side and lost the ability to speak and think cognitively, and she... Jamie also has a six-year-old autistic daughter named Nicole. Jamie was staying with her grandmother and Nicole was staying with Julia and David, and the family had no ability to care for a child when it was born.

And Julia was just telling me how difficult the situation was and how sad it was and they mentioned they were going to be looking for an adoptive family for Luke. And I told her that we would take him. And she said, "Don't you have to ask your husband?" And I said, "No. I don't have to ask him. I know what his answer is going to be."

Spencer: It seemed very obvious to me that God's will was definitely involved. He was driving the whole thing.

Julie: The response from Central at the beginning and all the way through the process has just been overwhelming. The prayer support, the plane tickets, the money, meals, caring for my husband while we were gone, caring for my daughter when she came back, and I had to stay in Colorado, little comments on our family blog of support and Scriptures to support us... it's just been overwhelming.

Spencer: Once I came to realize this really was God's will, I basically laid it at his feet and said, "I cannot do this by myself. Our family... this is... this task is too big for us, so we really need your help and you're really going to have to take the reigns and make things happen."

Julie: I have always struggled with my faith. I believe in God. I know there's God. I believe in Jesus. I believe he died for my sin. I believe there's forgiveness, but I've never quite been able to get over the hurdle of saying, "God will care for me. God will... if you ask God, God will answer your prayers and you can have 100% faith in God.

Spencer: I don't know how we could have survived without the body of Christ and believers that have really rallied around us, so...

Julie: ____??____ (20:39)

[end of video]

So you should feel encouraged because of how your faith... and well, many of you encouraged Spencer and Julie.

Now I want to read from 3:3, and I'm not going to read the whole thing. I just want to read certain passages that I want to wrap up with on this. Okay? So Paul is... he's wanting to encourage and strengthen them in their faith, and so then he picks it up in verse 3, and he says, "So that... " Here's what I want to encourage you. "So that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way."

And then he comes down to 6, and he says, "But now Timothy has now come and brought good news about your faith and love." And they reciprocate his love. And then in verse 7, "Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith." You see how the mutual nature of this encouragement is? And now we really live because you're standing firm in the Lord.

"How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?" And he goes on and he prays for them. He says, "Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith." And then he prays more, "Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones."

And so he tells us that the way that hearts get strengthened, and that's what he ends with in verse 13, that your hearts will be strengthened, that you'll be rooted well. The way that happens is when love increases for God and for each other. And so... and here we are to this point. "I want to be with you. I want to encourage you. I want to do that because that's what love really does." And nothing hurts... listen to me... nothing hurts more than the opposite. Nothing hurts more than, "I don't want to see you." Nothing hurts more than, "I don't want to help you."

Have you ever had that kind of rejection? Has anybody ever been that way toward you? It hurts like hell. Actually that's what hell is. I don't want to help you, and I don't care to see you. It's just like being your isolated little world. That's what hell is all about. So here are a couple of things that Paul did, and I have to go quickly. Love tells the truth. Here's how authentic love builds up and makes an environment. Love tells the truth. Remember in Ephesians, speaking the truth in love we grow up? Love tells the truth. And he told the truth positively to them, and he told the truth negatively to them.

Number one, he told them, he said, "You guys are my crown and my joy, and everything to me." He said, "When I get to be with the Lord, and we're standing there before Jesus, it'll be like somebody who's standing on an Olympic... getting an Olympic medal and he takes off his medal and he just holds it up." Like somebody... and that's what he says, "You're our crown."

It's like the victor's wreath. It's like the hockey winner going around the ice with the Stanley Cup held up. It's like the Lombardy trophy lifted up by the winning quarterback. It's like the Kentucky Derby jockey yesterday, who was going crazy because his horse came from behind, and he was jumping up and down for five minutes.

And Paul says, "When all of that happens, I'll be pointing at you. You're the crown. You're the glory. You're the joy." Do you ever feel that way to other people? Do you ever tell other people that? That's what love does. It affirms. But then he also told them the truth in a negative way. He said, "Look, don't think that when you come to Christ it's all going to be great because it's not." He said... he says right in the text, he says, "I told you again and again that we're destined for persecution. If you're going to follow Jesus, they're not going to like him. They're not going to like you. Be prepared that it's not always easy." So true love tells it like it is. Sometimes you have to say things out loud and tell the truth. But we also know his love and his joy as a result.

And then finally, love doesn't just tell the truth, love guides into the truth. He rejoices that they're standing firm. He rejoices that they're... not standing firm in Paul and Silas and Timothy... that they're standing firm in the Lord. He says, "Now we really live to know that you're really trusting Christ. You're not trusting human beings." And he says, "And we want to come to you so that we can supply what is lacking in your faith."

The word supply there means to mend a net. It's where we get the word equipping from. It's... here's what happens in... with a fisherman. And I could preach a whole sermon on this, but I'm just going to give you in a nutshell. Thessalonica was a seaside town. Everybody who heard this word, "We want to supply what's lacking in your faith," would completely understand what he's talking about because when somebody took nets, the first thing they did was they cleaned them, right? You got to clean the nets.

The first thing that people need to know in starting a relationship with Jesus Christ is that they can be cleaned... cleansed of all their sins, that their guilt can be taken away. Then the nets have to be mended. Holes get in the net. We have lots of holes in our relationships, lots of holes in our minds, our hearts, we have broken places. Paul wanted to mend those up.

And then what do they do with the nets after they mend them? They fold them over each other. That's small groups. That's the fellowship... folding together. And then after all that's done, cleaning and mending, and folding, what happens then? Casting out again. It's only through that strong, connected net, that others can be brought in to know the Lord.

That's what Paul was all about. He was all about developing disciples. If you want to be well grounded, if you want your faith not to look like this, it's about loving as God has loved us. I asked you a minute ago if anybody had ever said, "Well, really I don't want to help you, or really I don't care to be with you." You know hurting people might say that, but this table that we're about to gather around tells us that the Lord will never, ever say that to us. This table tells us that Jesus says, "I do want to be with you. I want to be with you forever, and I do want to help you, and I died for you so that you might be strengthened and established in me as you come around this table with other believers."

Anybody who participates in the sacrament is saying, "Hey, I really know that I can't make it on my own. I need the Lord's strength." And so in a minute we're going to consecrate these elements and come around this table, but what you saw and when you came in on the chairs today... this is going to be a way to respond to the Word today, is these note cards... note cards and envelopes... are there so that you can apply what I've been talking about and what the Scripture's been saying... to write a note of encouragement to someone that's encouraged your faith.

While we're doing communion, while you're waiting to come and gather around these tables and take communion, use this as an application to encourage somebody who has encouraged you. Or, you can just use it to encourage somebody's faith. Write to somebody and give them a good word. Tell them that you're praying for them. Tell them something that will build them up and encourage them in the Lord. That's how we can apply that.

And when we come around these tables here, some of you may feel awkward as you come around and serve each other communion. We're going to demonstrate for you in a minute, but it's a way of emphasizing again that we can't make it by ourselves. We're not just individualistic Christians. We need each other, and so we're going to serve each other the sacrament today.

Let's pray: Lord, we thank you for your love and your grace demonstrated... demonstrated in this holy meal. And we pray that you would help us understand how deeply you loved us, that you were torn away from heaven. You were bereaved. You came so that we might be connected back to our heavenly father. For all who put their faith and trust in you, Lord, we enter a family that's forever.

And so we pray that you would remind us of this grace and love through the Holy Spirit, that as we partake of the sacrament we're really saying, "Lord, just like we cannot live without eating or drinking, so we can't make it through life now or forever without you." So come upon us in these gifts so that they might be to us nothing other or less than the body of Christ as we partake in faith. It's through his name that we pray, Amen.

© 2009, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org