Petaluma Valley Baptist Church

 

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A couple of years ago, I read a remarkable little book called, The Priority of Kingdom-Focused Prayer. I was so impacted by that book that I invited the author, Rick Astle, to lead our 2nd Annual Prayer Conference this past spring. While Rick was with us, I asked him over breakfast one morning for a list of prayer-minded authors and speakers with whom I should be acquainted. He quickly identified several people and I was well acquainted with all but one of them—Richard Owen Roberts. So, when our Prayer Conference ended, I decided to find out what I could about Richard Owen Roberts.

I discovered that Richard Owen Roberts has traveled the world for the last 50 years preaching a message of spiritual awakening and revival born of repentance, holiness and prayer. I found recordings of a handful of his sermons and quickly decided that I wanted to hear him in person and that I should do so quickly because he wasn’t getting any younger. It took some doing but I eventually discovered that he was going to be leading a prayer conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You can imagine my delight when I discovered shortly thereafter that the prayer conference was going to be hosted by my good friend, Rick Astle.

So, that’s why I was gone last week. My buddy Bob Hope and I attended that prayer conference and it was awesome. What an amazing experience to hear Richard Owen Roberts preach. This slight, frail, elderly man who spoke so quietly in casual conversations in the car and over meals that we had to strain to hear what he was saying was absolutely transformed into an unstoppable force when he preached. And when he preached…he preached. An hour and a half at a time, stopping not so much because he was finished but because it was getting so late…and because he had already preached through the scheduled break…and, because we were coming back after the break to hear the second half of his sermon. It was truly a remarkable experience.

And, as if meeting and listening to Richard Owen Roberts wasn’t blessing enough, we were doubly blessed to reconnect with and stay in the home of Rick and Donna Astle. It was our first chance to meet Rick’s wonderful wife, as well as his son, John, and I cannot imagine a sweeter time. I came home excited, uplifted and refreshed.

I also came home rejoicing that Petaluma Valley is my home. I am so glad that God has called me here because in the midst of all of this outpouring of blessings, there were also some genuinely sad moments.

–As Rick drove us around Myrtle Beach, I was not surprised to see one grand church after another everywhere we went…after all, we were in the buckle of the Bible Belt. What did surprise me was Rick’s commentary about so many of those churches, namely, “This church split 5 years ago. This church split 3 years ago. This church split 2 years ago. This church is in the middle of a split, right now.” On and on it went. One church fellowship after another torn apart by all manner of in fighting. It just broke my heart.

–What’s more, as I talked about the wonderful spirit of unity that God has grown and continues to grow among the churches of Petaluma…specifically the 14 of us who are the churches of City Ministries…Rick told me that there was nothing even mildly approaching that spirit of unity between the churches in his area. In fact, he said that on those occasions when he’s able to get several of the local pastors into the same place for some function, they immediately break up into little clusters and have nothing to do with the pastors outside of their little clusters. Again, it just broke my heart.

–And as for the place of prayer in all of this? Rick is directly connected in a vital working relationship with 70 churches in Myrtle Beach. All 70 of the pastors of those churches were encouraged to attend the Prayer Conference this last weekend and to bring their members with them. All totaled, 6 of those 70 pastors came to the Prayer Conference and they brought a grand total of 70 of their members. That’s 1 member from each church and fewer than 10% of the pastors who felt led to participate in an incredible conference on prayer. Again, it just broke my heart.

–But it also filled me with incredible joy to know that I was coming home to this church family.

–It filled me with gratitude to God, because the fellowship that we have together at Petaluma Valley is a precious gift from God.

–And it filled me with a sense of urgency to speak to you, today, about the vital importance of nurturing and protecting the sweet spirit of unity that holds our church family together.
So, my prayer, today, is three-fold:

First, I’m praying that we will leave here this morning grateful to God for the sweet, sweet fellowship that we have with one another in the Petaluma Valley Family;

Second, I’m praying that we will leave here this morning renewed in our commitment to God and to each other to nurture and protect our fellowship and;

Third, I’m praying that we will leave here this morning with a clear understanding of some very practical and specific things that each of us can do to nurture and protect our fellowship.

And the text that’s going to guide us, this morning, is 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12 where it appears that some of Paul’s detractors had launched such slanderous accusations against him that he has felt the need to defend himself by describing the nature of his conduct among the Christians in Thessalonica…in the very that church that he had planted. And what I’m hoping we’ll see, this morning, is that Paul’s conduct within the fellowship in Thessalonica serves as a wonderful model to show us some of the things that we can do to protect the fellowship that we enjoy in Petaluma.

Now, let’s read the text.

1You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. 2We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. 3For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. 4On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. 5You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. 6We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. 8We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 9Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. 10You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

So, Paul is responding here to a slanderous assault on his conduct among the Christians in Thessalonica. And he does a number of things to correct the record, the first of which is this: he repeatedly reminds the Thessalonian Christians not to be swayed by what others are saying about him but rather to remember their own personal experience with him. Verse 1, “You know” the truth. In verse 10, “You are witnesses” to the truth. And, again, in verse 11, “you know” the truth. So, don’t be swayed by these scurrilous reports.

Then, he builds his case further by identifying a whole series of things that he did not do while he was with them.
Apparently, these were the specific charges being leveled against him and he ticks them off one after the other to say, “You may have heard this, but you know that it’s not true.”

VERSE 1: You know that our visit to you was not a failure because you were blessed by our ministry.

VERSE 3: You know that we didn’t try to trick or deceive you.

VERSE 5: You know that we weren’t in it for the money.

VERSE 6: You know that we weren’t in it to have our ego’s stroked by the praise of people.

VERSE 9: You know that we were not a burden to you.

You know that none of those things are true.

Then, he builds his case further still by reminding them of what he did when he was with them, and it’s at this point that we begin to find some examples of things that we can do proactively to protect our fellowship.

VERSE 7: “We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children.” Do you want to nurture and protect the fellowship that we enjoy within the Petaluma Valley Family? There’s the first thing to learn from Paul’s example: be gentle in your dealings with one another. You can be firm without being harsh. You can stand strong in your beliefs without being callous or unkind in the way that you express them. A gentle spirit nurtures fellowship.

VERSE 8: We shared our lives we with you. We didn’t just share the gospel with you. You became so dear to us…we loved you so much…that we shared our lives with you. Folks, do you want to nurture and protect the fellowship that we enjoy within the Petaluma Valley Family? Then don’t stand aloof from one another; and don’t hold each other at arms distance; and don’t be superficial in your relationships with one another. Get real, take a risk, open up and share your lives with one another.

Don’t put on a happy face and pretend that everything’s great in your life if it’s not. Share your life with us…and let us be family to you.

Let us in to the victories and the struggles. Let us in on the joys and the sorrows. You’re not burdening us. You’re inviting us to be family. You’re making it possible for us to experience real fellowship.

VERSE 10: “We lived holy, righteous and blameless lives (when) we were among you.” Do you want to nurture and protect the fellowship that we enjoy within the Petaluma Valley Family? Then remember this general principle: sin is a fellowship breaker; holiness is a fellowship builder. No church ever split because of the holiness of the people. Churches split every day because of the sinfulness of the people. If you want to protect the fellowship of our church family, pay serious attention to the purity of your life.

Finally, look with me VERSE 12 where Paul says, “(We) encourag(ed), comfort(ed) and urg(ed) you to live lives worthy of God…” Paul is saying here that the whole time he was among the Christians in Thessalonica his constant desire was to help them live the life to which God had called them and he never lost sight of that goal. Do you want to nurture and protect the fellowship that we enjoy within the Petaluma Valley Family? Then let that same desire guide your behavior every time you’re among us.

Don’t just come to worship…men’s group…women’s group…youth group…prayer meeting…choir…Bible Study for your self. Come to church…whenever you come to church…for the sake of others. Don’t just come to get a blessing. Come to be a blessing to someone else. Come looking for every opportunity to help someone else live the life to which God has called them.

And our text gives us 3 ways to do that in the words, “encourage, comfort and urge.”

The first of those words is the easiest to understand. Every time you get together do so with the specific intent of encouraging each other to keep moving toward the goal of becoming like Christ. Through your example, through your positive words, through your prayers encourage each other to keep pressing in and pressing on.

The second way we move each other toward godly living is by “comforting” each other. It’s very close in meaning to the previous word but it conveys this additional nuance of meaning—you can do this. Yes, it’s a high standard. And, yes, in your own strength you couldn’t do it. But you don’t live in your own strength. You live by the power of Christ in you. So stop struggling and let Christ win this victory for you. You can do this.

Finally, the third way we move each other toward Godly living is through “urging.” It conveys the idea of helping each other see how important it is to meet this goal. Living a life worthy of God is not a side issue for us. This is not something we get to when we get the important stuff done. This is the important stuff.

So, we’ve seen four things that we can do to nurture and protect the sweet spirit of fellowship that God has created among us. We do so (1) by treating each other gently, (2) by sharing our lives with one another, (3) by guarding against the sin that can so easily creep into our lives and (4) by meeting together with the intent of encouraging each other to keep pressing in and keep pressing on.

And what’s our motive for doing all of this? I mean, this seems like an awful lot of extra work. Shouldn’t it be enough to God that I attend to my own spiritual health? Why do I have to be concerned with the health of the church?
Real simple. Because, as VERSE 4 says, we’ve been “entrusted with the gospel.” We are gospel people and we know the gospel story.

Jesus died so we could have our sins forgiven and have a right relationship with God. So, yes, it’s critically important for us to be serious about nurturing and protecting a healthy personal relationship with God. That’s an important part of the gospel story. But it’s not the whole of the gospel story.

Jesus also died to draw us into God centered relationships with one another. He died to draw us into the family of God. And the local expression of the family of God is called, “church.” And Jesus loves the church. He gave up His life for the church. He’s the head of the church. So, it’s also critically important for us to be serious about nurturing and protecting the health of the fellowship that we share in the church.