The Flywheel of Faith

INTRODUCTION

Good morning! My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor of Renovation Church.

Sorry I missed you last week, I was down visiting one of our church plants called Branch Church.

So not only have we started (and are starting) multiple locations of Renovation Church, but we also start autonomous church plants

And so we want to continue to start not just locations but brand new churches as well.

Churches that will birth their own movements.

And what’s cool is that our church plant, Branch Church, which is in the Excelsior area, is growing so fast as a Bible-Teaching church down there, that they just launched THEIR second location with live teaching .

Also, two of our other church plants, Transform & Pursuit Community came together to plant a church last year as well.

My vision is that Blaine, MN becomes the epicenter of Christian renewal in the Twin Cities.

Because, if the metro is going to be changed for Jesus Christ, we need a movement

We need, not just disciples who make disciples

But churches who make churches

That’s how we change a state, amen? Amen.

All right, let’s jump into the Bible. Go ahead and grab one.

1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

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We are continuing in our teaching series through the letter of 1 Thessalonians.

It was written by one the early Christian leaders, the Apostle Paul.

And it was actually his first letter of the New Testament…

He wrote it to the new Christians in Thessalonica (which is in modern-day Greece) who had endured much persecution already in just the one year they had been following Jesus.

(1 Thessalonians 3:6-13) – NIV

6 But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. 7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. 8 For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord. 9 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? 10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.
11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 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.

(1 Thessalonians)

Okay, I want you to notice something here about the structure of Paul’s letter.

Look at verse 11 for a second.

Paul starts to pray, “Now may our God and Father Himself..”

Prayer is a common transitionary point in Paul’s letters.

Many (or most) of his letters are structured like this:

Personal Greetings

Theology

Prayer in the Middle

Practical Instruction

We taught through Colossians and Ephesians the past few years, and they both are very similar.

Lots of theology (teaching about God) in the first half.

A prayer in the middle.

Ephesians has that famous prayer “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…”

And then right after the prayer, Paul usually cuts to the chase, and gets to the practical things.

In fact, take a sneak peek at the first verse of chapter 4

Paul says, “As for other matters (now he’s getting down to business)

He says, “We instructed you how to live in order to please God.”

And so, as a church, what we’ve often done with Paul’s letters is broken them into 2 sections…2 halves.

And we’re going to do that again here.

So starting next week, we’re going to take a short, 3-week break from 1 Thessalonians for a series we’re calling:

(Ready of Not)

And we’re going to study Jesus’ teachings in Matthew chapter 25….

…which will dovetail quite nicely with where Paul is going in 1 Thessalonians…

…as both sections have much to say about the return of Jesus…and more

So don’t miss the start of that next week.

PAUL’S FAITH BRINGS THE GOSPEL TO THE THESSALONIANS

(The Flywheel of Faith)

All right, so let’s get back to our passage at hand

What do we see happening here today?

What I think this passage shows is what I want to call “The Flywheel of Faith”

If you don’t know what a flywheel is, in the mechanical world, a flywheel is a heavy spinning wheel that stores energy and builds momentum.

At first, it takes a lot of effort to get it moving. But as you keep pushing, it spins faster and faster, and once it has momentum, it can basically go on its own for a while.

A simple way to visualize one is to think of an old’ school merry go round from the playground.

(OldMerryGoRound)

Many of you broke a bone on something like this back in the day.

They took a bit of effort to get going at first…especially if you’re 5 years old.

But once you got them going, they would just fly.

And it would just go…on its own.

That’s a flywheel.

Okay, so let me tell you how the flywheel of faith works.

(Circle Slide)

The flywheel of faith is where you pour into another person, and then their growing faith pours back into you, and then your growing faith pours back into them, and so and so forth.

That’s what we see in this passage.

And it actually starts before this chapter.

It started when Paul first boldly went to Thessalonica, and spent his days making tents, so he could preach the gospel at night.

And his faith helped the Thessalonians come alive.

PAUL HEARS ABOUT THEIR FAITH AND IS GIDDY

But notice how it’s starting to come back to Paul

Look at verse 6:

“But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought us good news about your faith and love”

Paul says, “He has just now come”

Can you hear his excitement??

He basically heard from Timothy and sat down RIGHT AWAY to right them he was so encouraged in the faith (verse 7 says)

Verse 9 says “How can we thank God enough for you!”

This is the flywheel of faith spinning back around toward Paul now

Listen, Paul’s life is HARD. Super hard.

He’s been persecuted, slandered, and often suffering with discouragement

And so this report from Timothy is SUCH a breath of fresh air to him!

And this is so true for Pastors and church leaders.

Ministry can be hard, it’s burdensome, it’s heavy.

But the greatest encouragement we draw is from the growth of believers…who stay in the faith and grow.

And there’s no guarantee.

Let me give you an example of this:

People always ask me about our new believers, “Do they all become serious disciples of Jesus?”

I mean we try. That’s why we disciple all of them 1-on-1.

But listen, even a decent amount of Paul’s converts didn’t become serious disciples of Jesus”

Many of them fell away.

Some, like those in Corinth, fell into deep sexual sin.

Others, actually became heretics and then even opposed Paul and led some of his other disciples astray.

Discipleship, in many ways, is much like the “Parable of the Sower” that Jesus tells in Matthew 13.

Jesus says discipleship is like a farmer sowing seeds in his field.

One group of people hear the Gospel but the devil snatches away the seed from them that was sown in their heart before it can really grow

Another group of people get excited about it at first, but since they have no root, when trouble or persecution comes, they too, fall away.

Another group of people also get excited, but the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth stop them from really growing in their faith

And finally, the last group, really grow and matures, and produce a crop of more disciples.

They are disciples who make disciples

That is the context behind verse 5 (which we did last week) Paul says, “I was worried that the devil had tempted you and you had gone astray”

He was worried that the seed was snatched!

And so when Paul hears the report from Timothy, he is just simply OVERJOYED that the Thessalonians are still in the faith and thriving.

Because it’s hard to stay walking with Jesus…and there’s no guarantee.

But when people do, and we get to see them grow, there is no greater joy.

One of Jesus’ 12 disciples, John, says this about people he’s led to Christ in 3rd John

(3 John 1:4) – NIV

4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

And this is true even as Christian parents, is it not?

There is no greater joy than seeing them walk with the Lord.

And so I want to ask you two questions:

One: Who is helping you grow in your faith right now?

Can you think of someone who’s encouraging you, challenging you, and helping you to follow Jesus more faithfully?

And secondly, “Whose faith are you encouraging?

Can you think of someone whose faith you are helping to strengthen?

And if it’s hard to answer either of those questions…then what God’s Word is calling you to today is to take a step deeper into Christian community.

That means some of you need to sign up for a House Church before you leave today…so you can be in community with other Christians.

For others of you already in House Church, it’s to get together with a friend in House Church, OUTSIDE of House Church for the first this this week.

For some of you, it’s to show up to Youth Group this week for the first time.

It’s hard to be encouraged by other believers if you’re not a part of their lives.

We have to stop believing this lie that our faith will be better if we just keep living it by ourselves…and keeping it private. It won’t.

I was thinking this week about a small biography I read a few years ago about the evangelist Sundar Singh (we have the YWAM Youth version of it in our library)

He once took a journey to Tibet to share the Gospel, where he walked from India to Tibet.

And while walking down the Himalayan mountains, for a day or so, he began journeying with another stranger he had met along the way.

But the journey was perilous.

It was bitterly cold and their trail had narrowed to a foot-wide, slippery ledge.

And they still had miles to go to the next village.

While they were walking, they came upon a man laying down in the snow almost dead because the winter conditions were so cold and so brutal.

The evangelist Sundar said to the stranger he had been walking with the past day, “We should pick this man up. He’s almost dead…and bring him to the village.”

But the other man walking by said, “No you fool, if we do that, we’ll use up our energy, and we will all die out here in the cold. I’m going on to the village!” (and the man ran on ahead)

But Sundar, refused to leave the man in the snow behind, so he picked him up and started slowing making his way to the village.

His biography says that “the extra weight of the man on his back caused Sundar’s numb feet to bleed and throb, and he began leaving bloodred stains on the snow with each step…wondering if he was ever going to make it to the village alive.

And when he got about 300 yards from the village, he came upon the man (who had left him earlier) lying dead on the road. He didn’t make it. It was too cold.

But Sundar lived, and he said he realized later that the only reason he did so, was because of the warmth and body heat from carrying the other man.

This is an illustration of how faith in community works.

We think we will be better by ourselves.

We think it will be too much work to help carry along another person.

But in reality, when we pour into other people, God often uses that process (to keep us alive), to strengthen us.

And soon enough, those people are growing and pouring back into us…

It’s the flywheel of faith.

But you will be tempted to walk on alone.

It’s hard to reach out to your sibling you know is stuck in addiction.

It’s hard to reach out to your coworker you know is struggling, but you also know they just don’t even know the gospel.

It’s easier to just walk on to the village alone.

But alone…often doesn’t bring glory to God, and often it’s not what brings heat and life to us.

PAUL WANTS TO RETURN AND SUPPLY WHAT IS LACKING

So Paul pours into the Thessalonians…

Their growing faith deeply encourages Paul…

And what’s next?

Look at verse 10 again

1 Thessalonians 3:10

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1 Thessalonians 3:10 - NIV

10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.

Paul is so encouraged by the Thessalonians that he says, “Now I want to pour back into you!”

(Circle Slide)

I want to supply what is lacking in your faith.

They were still just getting started as new Christians, and Paul wants to continue to build them up.

And doing so is what REALLY, REALLY excites Paul.

And by the way, this flywheel of faith, it’s not a transaction.

We don’t pour into people just so we can get poured back into.

We love because Christ loved us.

But, yes, there is a deep joy you can experience when you pour out and build in to other people.

A couple of years ago, I read a holocaust survivor story called “Eva’s Story,” it’s the story of Anne Frank’s stepsister.

It’s not a Christian book necessarily, but it’s a powerful story.

And one of the things I always remember in that book is when the Nazi’s fled their concentration camp because they heard the Russian Army was only Kilometers away…

…the Jews started to come out of their bunkhouses, scarcely believing it was true (that their captors were gone).

And Eva walked right into the storehouse, and she sees a whole room full of bread.

And she said, it was one of the most thrilling moments of her life…seeing all of the bread.

But she said, what thrilled her even more was the idea that she was going to get to be the one to go back to the bunkhouse and tell everyone about the room of bread!

And I’ve always loved that picture.

It’s thrilling to pour back into other people.

To tell them the good news.

To help disciple a new believer.

To get someone unstuck in the faith.

To pray for someone in a tough spot.

Don’t let yourself off the hook here by merely mentally assenting to what I’m saying.

Some of you are going, “Yeah, he’s right about that,” but you’re not actually thinking about how YOU could do this.

And so my question is: How can you supply what is lacking in someone’s faith?

Would you pray about that this week?

Pray, “God, who do you want me to pour into?”

“Who can I encourage?”

“Who can I offer to pray for?”

“Who could I disciple? Or do a Bible study with?”

Too often our prayers are too self-focused.

“Help me find someone to date”

“God, help me get a promotion.”

“Help me feel better.”

…and on and on.

Those are things we can and should absolutely pray for, but when was the last time you prayed, “Lord, who do you want me to encourage this week?”

Because listen if the flywheel of faith is going to work in your life, you’ve got to pour into other people.

And watch what Paul is praying about for the Thessalonians in verses 12 and 13:

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

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1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 - NIV

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 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.

Now, I want you to notice something important here.

What's the goal of all of this?

Is it just that we would have more Christian friends?

Is it just that we would feel more encouraged in our faith?

I mean those things are good, but God’s story is even bigger than that.

Look at what Paul prays in verse 12.

He prays that their love would increase and overflow.

And then in verse 13, he prays that God would strengthen their hearts so that they would be blameless and holy when Jesus returns.

So the goal isn't JUST that we would encourage each other.

The goal is that through the flywheel of faith, we’re helping each other grow in love, become more like Christ, and that we keep following him until he returns.

And this requires trusting the Word of God…trusting that the flywheel works.

Because you’re going to be tempted to think, “Nah, I don’t want to go to House Church this week. I’d rather just stay home, and sit on my couch, and binge watch The Office for 9th time.

But the reality is, I think we all feel that way sometimes.

But when we go, God often uses other people to encourage us in our faith.

And when you go, guess what, God can use you to encourage someone else too.

And the Christian Faith, and the Glory of God goes forward.

The Flywheel of Faith starts to move.

We become disciples who make disciples who makes disciples.

So get in the flywheel, and let’s go!

Let’s pray