Transforming Lives

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I love September in New York City: bright blue skies, fresh crisp air, all of which often reminds us of the beginning of new things, like going back to school or starting a new grade. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that the excitement about school often motivates children to organize and clean their rooms without even having to be asked, so we should take advantage of that where we can. And within the life of the church, this is the time when we launch a new ministry year, and I personally am about as excited as a second grader when I got a brand new Trapper Keeper. Do you remember those? Those are probably one of the greatest inventions of the 1980s — not your average, everyday, ordinary three ring binder. Someone should really bring back the Trapper Keeper. But on a serious note, this is an exciting time in the life of our church as we relaunch our Community Groups and our Men's and Women's Bible Studies, our various volunteer opportunities and our mission initiatives. There are so many new, amazing people who have started attending our church in recent months, and I can't wait to get to know you and to see the ways in which God will use you in the life of our congregation.

As Andrew mentioned a few moments ago, we've now graduated two of our first two pastoral residents — Abhishikth and Alan — and have seen God place them now in remarkable churches, one in Palo Alto and one right here in New York. And later this month, through Resound Project, we'll welcome three new ministry interns and one new pastoral resident. So I can't wait to see what God has in store for all of us as we enter into this new ministry year together.

And as we start the fall, we're going to engage in a new sermon series focused on the apostle Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. This letter has become a favorite of mine, not least because Thessalonians 1:8 is the theme verse for Resound Project.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you, but your faith has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

This letter, however, is not necessarily one that people know well, and so there's a certain freshness to it. But one of the reasons why I love it so much is because this letter, in an unusual way, expresses clearly, practically, and even in a somewhat challenging fashion the explosive power of the gospel to change our lives, whole communities of people, and even an entire society. And isn't that what we want to know? How can the gospel change me? How can the gospel build up our church? How can the gospel impact New York? And so over the next couple of weeks, we'll find out.

Now, if you were here six years ago, back in 2018, you might recall that I preached a series of sermons on I Thessalonians chapter 1 as part of our Sound Forth series. So what I'd like to do is very quickly retrace some of the ground that we covered back in 2018 and then spend the rest of the fall working through new material as we cover the entire letter.

Background

Here's what you need to know. This letter was written by the Apostle Paul to a fledgling church that at this point may have only been a few months old. And at first it may not seem like a brand new church located in ancient Greece in the first century has much in common with a 200-year-old church located in the heart of New York City in the 21st century. They were living in a pre-Christian culture, and in many ways you could say we live in a post-Christian culture. A post-Christian culture like the West might be all the more resistant to the message of Christianity, for once having been so deeply shaped by it.

But here's what our two churches have in common. We're living in a time where there are a large number of people who might be indifferent or even hostile toward the message of Christianity, because they view Christianity to be either ridiculous or perhaps repressive. Some people think Christianity is ridiculous because it just seems absurd, preposterous that you would believe that God became a man in the person of Jesus. But others are a little antagonistic toward Christianity because they think of it as repressive. They think Christianity and Christian values are the enemy of freedom. So on the one hand, there's people who might be indifferent or hostile toward the message, but yet, at the very same time, there's an increasing number of people who are curious and open toward spiritual things — and Christianity in particular — perhaps because they found through experience that all the other paths they pursued in order to try to build a meaningful life for themselves didn't pan out the way that they expected, and those other paths failed to deliver what they promised.

So here's what's fascinating to me. In our world today, on the one hand, you've got people that are indifferent or hostile and others that are curious and open toward Christianity. And you know what? The exact same thing was true in Thessalonica 2,000 years ago, in the first century. We find that same combination of attitudes. Some were hostile toward the message of Christianity, so much so that a man named Jason got roughed up and arrested. Now this is the only time the name Jason appears in the Bible, so I’ll take this as a personal warning. Some were so hostile, they roughed up this guy, Jason, but others were so disenchanted with the paganistic worldview of the ancient world — the only worldview that they knew — that within a few weeks or months, they embraced Jesus for themselves and literally turned their backs on idols and put those idols aside forever.

So what that all shows us is what happens when the gospel is communicated in a way that people can understand and experience. It transforms lives, it creates a new kind of community, and it catalyzes a mission. That's what I'd like us to explore together during this fall season.

So today, we'll turn to the opening eight verses of I Thessalonians, chapter 1. And as we do, I'd like us to consider these three questions: 1) What Happened? 2) How Did It Happen? and 3) What Happens Next?

¹Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

²We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, ³remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. ⁶And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, ⁷so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

⁸For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

What Happened

First, let's ask the question, “What happened?” During Paul's second missionary journey, together with his companions Silas and Timothy, Paul travels to the large seaport town of Thessalonica that was located 200 miles north of Athens. Now this was a city that was filled with people from all different backgrounds and perspectives, and a large number of people from a Jewish background, and even a larger number of people from a Greek pagan background, experienced something they least expected. Now we can read more about this in the Acts 16 and 17. Prior to traveling to Thessalonica, Paul visits Philippi, and he presents the message of the gospel there, but he meets with opposition. He's beaten up and thrown into prison, and so he knows that when he makes his way to the neighboring city of Thessalonica, the people there also may regard his message as being crazy, offensive, perhaps even threatening.

Most people had never heard anything like this. Think about it: The message of Christianity is not only that God became a human in the person of Jesus, but when Jesus was killed brutally on a Roman cross, God raised Him up on the third day, and now he is Lord of all, and the resurrection of Jesus was just the beginning of the new creation. God is at work even now to make all things new, to usher in a new heavens and a new earth. Now imagine hearing that for the very first time. That would sound a little far-fetched, and yet Paul recounts that some of the Thessalonians were so gripped by this message that they completely reordered their lives around it.

Now in Romans 1, Paul says that the gospel doesn't just contain power, it doesn't just reveal power, it doesn't just give power, but rather the gospel of God is the power of God, meaning that if we dare to let the gospel out of its cage, it unleashes God's power in the world. It lifts you up and it changes you. And that's what happened to some of these Thessalonians. As they hear the message of Jesus, they realize that it took hold of their hearts. Suddenly it seems to make sense of their life experience. It changed their lives, and it filled them with this inexpressible joy.

And what's perhaps even more remarkable is that Paul tells us in verse 6 that they receive this message in the midst of much affliction and hardship. Now Acts 17 makes it clear that the message aroused opposition. After Paul proclaims the message of the gospel, a mob attacks this guy named Jason because they think that Paul and Silas are there (because Jason had been housing them). But when they don't find Paul and Silas in his home, Jason and his friends are arrested, they're brought before the magistrates and released on bail, and then Paul and Silas are smuggled out of the city under cover of darkness.

But looking back now on those early days, Paul recalls the response to the Thessalonians, even in the midst of this affliction, and he remarks on the conviction with which they receive the message. To Paul, this is proof that God has chosen them. In other words, their faith in Jesus is not an accident. No, God has placed his hand on them because he wants this fledgling community of Christians to become a beacon of light to the whole surrounding region. And that's precisely what happens. As a result, people from hundreds of miles around to the north and to the south have heard this news, and they've reported it now back to Paul the surprising story of how these people from Greco Roman, pagan backgrounds have received and welcomed Paul and his companions and have given their whole lives now to this gospel message. Therefore Paul says he doesn't have to say anything to anybody about their faith, because everybody already knows. The word is getting out that something was happening, changing people's lives forever. So that's what happens when the gospel is brought into the heart of an individual life, or the life of an entire community of people. It happened in Thessalonica in the first century, and something similar happened here in New York at the beginning of the 21st century.

Now, if you're relatively new, you might think, “Well, it's always been like this.” But let me assure you that Central has not always been like this. In fact, if you really knew the story, you would know that it's a miracle that we're here at all. So here's the quick back story.

Central was founded in 1821 by a young, energetic pastor, and the church grew quickly during those early decades in both size and influence and moved locations a number of times in order to keep up with rapid demographic changes in the city. Central moved into this building in 1929. This building was originally constructed in 1922 by John D. Rockefeller Jr. It was originally called Park Avenue Baptist Church, and it was nicknamed by the New York Times “The Little Cathedral.” So Central moves in 1929, and despite this great legacy of ministry in the city, and despite this prominent location in the heart of New York, Central entered a period of substantial decline through the back half of the 20th century. So that by the early 2000s, the number of attendees had dwindled down to a mere handful, and the church had reached the very brink of collapse as a result of significant theological drift and financial mismanagement, and the building had been left to fall into disrepair.

So if you walked through those doors 20 years ago, let's say in 2004, you would have walked into a very dead church. You wouldn't have ever heard a baby cry. You wouldn't have seen a high school student. You wouldn't see a young professional. In fact, you wouldn't see anybody under the age of 70. One person quipped back then that if you shot a cannonball through the sanctuary, you wouldn't hit a soul because there were so few people attending at that time. You wouldn't have heard Spirit-filled, inspiring worship, and as to the sermon, I really don't know what you would have heard from this pulpit, but I don't think you would have heard the gospel. Despite the challenges, despite the fact that it seemed as if this church had no future, there was a small group of people who began attending in the hope of turning this church around. Now in my experience, when a church dies, it stays dead, but despite the odds, by God's grace and through the faithful prayers and the enterprising efforts of a small but dedicated group of people, we've seen God raise this old, dead church back to new life again, exceeding even our wildest dreams. So that's what happened.

How It Happened

The question then that we need to ask ourselves next is, “How did that happen?” How did the church come to life for the first time in Thessalonica? How did an old, dead church like this come back to life here in New York City? The answer is simple. The answer is through the gospel. What Paul reveals here is that the gospel brings the church to life, and then the church in turn spreads the gospel. That's how it's supposed to work. That's been God's mission from the very beginning. From the very beginning of the Christian movement, the gospel brings the church to life, and then the church in turn spreads the message of the gospel. So how did it happen? Paul breaks it down for us in terms of three steps based on verses 5, 6, and 8. He says: 1) the word came to you, 2) you received it, 3) then it sounded forth.

Came

First he tells us that the word came. How did the word come to the Thessalonians? It didn't just drop out of the sky. No, it was brought to them. It was brought to them through people. It was brought to them through Paul and Timothy and Silas. And they brought the message in both word and power.

Now that's important for us to focus on, because I think a lot of people today, perhaps because of the pressure of living in the post-Christian context, we tend to play down the importance of words. A lot of us like to quote St. Francis of Assisi who said, “Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words.” And I understand that. I understand the thought behind that is, of course, our life should exemplify the gospel, and we should communicate the gospel through our life so much so that we don't even have to use words. But sometimes that could be used as a little bit of a cop out for ever having to put the gospel into words.

So there's really just two problems with that saying: “Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words.” The first problem is that St. Francis of Assisi never said it. The second thing is that the gospel contains specific content, and therefore it has to be verbalized. It has to be articulated. You can't just watch someone's life and hear and understand and receive the fullness of the gospel because the gospel is an announcement. It is a proclamation. And that's why I'm often fond of saying that the gospel is good news, not good advice.

Good Advice

Now think about the difference. If I were to sit across the table from you and tell you, “You know what, I've got some really good advice for you,” what are you expecting? You are waiting for me to tell you something that very well may be good for you, it might benefit your life in some way, but it's also possible that it's just a reflection of my own subjective opinion. So there's a take-it-or-leave-it quality to advice. But let's say it is genuinely good advice, either way, if I'm offering advice, you know that the onus is on you to have to do something. You have to take that advice to heart. You have to put it into practice in order for that advice to become operational and effective in your life.

Good News

But if I were to come up to you and say, “Look, I've got some really great news,” that creates an altogether different expectation. You're not waiting for me to tell you what you need to do. You're waiting for me to tell you something that has been done. Something has happened that now changes your situation for the better. Now you might need to respond to that good news in some way. Let's say I came up to you and I said, “Guess what? You've gotten into graduate school!” Or I said, “Guess what? We're giving you the job!” You have to respond. You have to show up for the first day of class. You have to show up for the first day of work. But the important thing is that something has happened that was outside of your control, but now it fundamentally changes your situation for the better.

The problem is that I think often people think of the message of Christianity as nothing more than good advice. We think that Christianity is just giving us advice about how to be a better person or how to live a good life, and if we follow this advice, if we take these steps, then God will bless us and make our lives go well. But the message of the gospel is not advice. It's not about what you must do for God. No, it's news about what God has done for you in and through Jesus, and that's what makes this a message of grace rather than a message of merit. So the gospel has to be articulated. It has to be verbalized.

But of course the problem is that words can be disregarded. They can be misunderstood. They can go in one ear and out the other. Blind eyes and hard hearts may not appreciate the words that are spoken, and so our blind eyes have to be opened, our hard hearts have to be softened. And that's why Paul says that the gospel came to them not only in Word but also in power. Because that's the role of the Holy Spirit: to take the message of Jesus and to drive it home to our hearts with power so that it sinks in and it electrifies us. It transforms us. It changes us. And that's what happened to those living in Thessalonica. They received the gospel in Word and power and with full conviction.

Received

So secondly, Paul tells us that despite the fact that people were not expecting it or looking for it, they received the gospel, but they received it in the midst of affliction with joy in the Holy Spirit. Oftentimes people will say, “We live in this post-Christian world, and therefore people don't want to hear the gospel. They're resistant to the message of the gospel.” But you know what? That's always been the case, and that was true in Thessalonica as well.

Why is that? Why is there inherently, intrinsically resistance to this message, this announcement? I think the reason is because the message of the gospel is an affront to our pride. It deals a blow to our ego. For starters, it's offensive to our pride because the gospel tells us that we need a savior. And if you're a smart, capable, sophisticated New Yorker, you don't want to be told that you need to be rescued from anything, right? If we've got problems, we'll figure it out. We'll fix it ourselves. We don't want to be told that we need a savior. But more than that, I would suggest that at an even deeper level, the gospel is an affront to our pride precisely because it's a message of grace. Grace deals a blow to our ego because the message of grace tells us that God's love for you and me is not conditional. He doesn't love you because of who you are or because of what you've done, but his love is even better than unconditional love. He doesn't merely love you as you are. In addition to that, His love is contra-conditional. He even loves you despite who you are and despite what you've done. His love is an expression of His grace. But we don't always like to hear that.

I remember when I was working as a campus minister at Northwestern University years ago, I met with a young woman who was hearing the message of the gospel and of grace for the very first time, and she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. And you know why she didn't like it? She didn't want to be told that God loves her even despite who she is and what she's done, and he showers his love and favor and acceptance upon her because of who Jesus is and what he's done for her, despite her rebellion and failure as a human being. She didn't like it because she wanted to earn it. She wanted to earn his love and acceptance for herself.

You know what the problem is? We could never earn it. Let's say you decided, I want to be good enough. I want to be ethical enough. I want to be religious enough, devout enough, observant enough to win his love. Or if I make mistakes, or if I fail, at least I could be sincere enough, remorseful enough to win his love for me. But what would ever be enough? What would ever be enough for a perfectly holy and righteous God? See, we have to be saved by grace or not at all.

So the message of the gospel is an affront to our pride, and that's what often creates opposition to its message. But the Thessalonians received this gospel, not only in much affliction, but with joy in the Holy Spirit, despite the suffering that they experienced. The gospel filled them with a joy that transcended their circumstances, and that's what changed their lives. The gospel transforms our words, our thoughts, our actions, our relationships, our priorities, our commitments, our values. It changes everything. And if the gospel hasn't changed you, well, then it suggests that you haven't really heard it, you haven't really understood it, you haven't really experienced it. Because when the gospel strikes home to our hearts, everything is absolutely revolutionized. But when you do receive it for yourself, what's impossible to keep to yourself, the gospel will sound forth.

Sound Forth

And that's what Paul lays out for us then in verse 8. He uses this rather unique expression to sum up the effect of the gospel on the Thessalonians, and this phrase was not only the source of the name for our Sound Forth series but also for Resound Project. Paul writes,

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything to anyone about your faith, because everybody already knows.

And so this unique phrase that he uses is actually one word in the Greek, and it's the root for our English word echo. It's a word that's suggestive of the blast of a trumpet, the sound of a bell, or maybe the boom coming out of an organ pipe. And the idea is that our faith is supposed to make a sound. It's supposed to ring out, to sound forth, to resound, to echo and reverberate among the people around us, pointing them to the reality of the living and true God. That's what happened in Thessalonica. People from hundreds of miles around were talking about this extraordinary thing, that people who had been completely at home within the paganistic worldview of the ancient world had now turned to the God who had revealed himself in the person of Jesus. That's what happened in Thessalonica, and something similar happened here in New York.

Now you may be interested to know that this building once housed the largest carillon in the world: 53 bells that had been cast in England, and they were so large, so impressive, that the King and Queen of England visited the foundry before they were shipped to America. But when Central purchased this building in 1929, Rockefeller took the bells with him. He had them transferred up to Riverside Church, and so for nearly 90 years, our bell tower stood empty and silent. This building was also referred to as the Carnegie Hall for organ music because the organ that was installed in 1950 was one of the finest created in New York after World War II. The only problem with our organ is that in recent years it became completely inoperable. But we took the empty and silent bell tower and our inoperable organ as a symbol for the decline of our church. It captured the whole idea that the gospel was no longer ringing out from this place. But now that we've seen the gospel renew this community, we wanted to put bells back in the tower, and even now, work is underway to install a completely renovated organ in this organ chamber. And now we want that to be a sign that the gospel is sounding forth. It is resounding from this place once more.

And that's why we launched Resound Project. We're so grateful for the work of renewal that God has done in our midst that we want to do everything that we can to share people and ideas, relationships and resources to help strengthen other churches and other places, beginning with ourselves. And that's why we want to launch our Emerging Leaders Program in order to raise up more leaders to serve the church so that the gospel might resound to the next generation.

What Happens Next

The logical question, then, that we need to ask after considering what happened and how it happened is, “What happens next?” Well, what happens next is you. What happens next is me. What happens next is us. So the first question you need to honestly ask yourself is have you received the message of the gospel for yourself? Maybe you've been around Christianity for a while. Perhaps you might even agree with Christian ethics and values. You might have some familiarity with the message. You know the basic outline of the gospel. Maybe you're even a little hostile toward it because you do see the gospel is an affront to your ego and to your pride. Or maybe you are curious — you're just a little bit curious because all the other paths you've pursued to try to build a meaningful life have let you down. Well if so, then the question is: Have you received the gospel for yourself? Have you allowed it to transform and change you?

C. S. Lewis once said that, “If the gospel is false, if Christianity is false, it is of no importance. But if Christianity is true, it is of infinite importance, the one thing that it cannot be is moderately important.” But that's how we often treat it. We treat it as moderately important. But no, if Christianity is true, then it's not just an additional tack on to our lives. No, it has to form the hub of the wheel, the center around which everything else revolves. And once you receive it, once the penny finally drops, it will change your life forever.

So the second question you need to ask yourself is, if you have received the message of the gospel, is the gospel sounding forth? Is it resounding from your life? Once we receive the message, we have to share it. We can't keep it to ourselves. We have to let it echo and reverberate among the people around us, pointing people to the reality of who God has revealed himself to be in the person of Jesus. And that is why, especially at the beginning of this ministry year, we want you to get involved. We want you to sign up for one of our Community Groups, to participate in our Men's and Women's Bible Studies. We want you to volunteer as an usher or a greeter with our Hospitality Team, with our Children's Ministry. We want you to get involved in our mission initiatives like Reading Buddies, like Safe Families for Children, like the Bowery Mission. Now is the time for our faith to make a sound, to ring out in all that we say and do and think, at home and at school, in our neighborhoods, in our places of work, within our areas of responsibility and spheres of influence, so that we might become beacons of light, individually and corporately as a church, signaling to the people around us that no, God is not dead. God has not abandoned the cultural centers of places like New York. No, he's very much alive. He's on the move, and he's at work even now.

So this fall, when you hear those bells and when you start to hear these pipes, let that inspire you to put your faith into practice with passion and integrity and joy. Let's let the gospel resound from our lives so that everyone everywhere knows that God is on the move here, so much so that we don't need to say anything to anybody about our faith, because everybody already knows.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we thank you that you are the God who brings life out of death. We thank you that through your gospel, you bring churches to life, and through your church, you spread the gospel so that others might experience it for themselves. And therefore, as we enter into this new program year, we pray that the gospel would sound forth, that it would resound from our lives, individually and corporately, so that all those around us might discover the living and true God revealed in the person of Jesus, and it's in his name that we pray. Amen.

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What Happened

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