The Right Investment
SUMMARY
In this sermon from the series Faith in Real Life, Karl Ihfe draws from 1 Thessalonians 2 to show that real faith isn't just something we believe — it's something we live out in genuine, personal relationship with others. Just as Paul didn't simply preach to the Thessalonians but shared his very life with them, Karl challenges the congregation to move beyond surface-level connection and intentionally invest in the people God has placed around them. Faith, he reminds us, is formed best not in rows, but in circles — in the kind of community where people are truly known, loved, and encouraged to grow.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, it is good to be with you. We're continuing on in our series Faith in Real Life. So if you have your Bible with you, invite you to turn over to First Thessalonians 2, the passage that Sarah read for us just a moment ago as we think together about what it means to be people who live our faith out in real life. Some of you know, if you've been to Broadway before, I like to begin and end my sermon time with prayer. And last week, several of you came up afterwards and said, I didn't really hear what you said because there is this sound coming from behind you.
Did you hear the water rushing sound? Anybody else hear that? Just a handful. A couple of folks, you know, want to let you know it's okay. It's all right.
Our Baptistry was we have a jet in there that sometimes we have the little tablet thing that floats around and keeps it chlorinated and all that. It got stuck in the jet. And so what you heard was the water rushing over. It wasn't the sound of the Lord returning, though that would have been a neat way to do that. But just several of you asked and I just was thinking about that.
I want to invite you now, just for a second, to stop and think about how you spend your time on an average day. Now, I think we could tell a lot about ourselves, our lives, who we are, by the kind of time that we spend. In fact, I would be remiss if I didn't say, if people looked closely at how you spent your time, what would they say matters most to you? I've talked a couple of weeks ago about how much time the average person spends on their phone. I went looking for some research this week online and came across this Data.
It's from 2024. It's from the Bureau of Labor Statistics where they break down the different amounts of time that we spend on an average day. Pretty interesting Numbers. Personal care, including time that you're asleep. The Average person spends 9.8 hours a day working on that.
Eating and drinking a little over an hour, not quite an hour and a half. Household activities. I couldn't find a lot of definitions. That sounds kind of an interesting one. Household activities, two hours a day.
Purchasing goods and services, not quite an hour. Work and related activities, 3.43 hours a day. How many of you average 3.43 hours? Yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting. Leisure and sports, a little over five hours a day.
Where do you spend your time each day? You know, isn't it true we make time for what we value, what matters most to us, what we think is of first importance. We make time, and if we're honest, many of us are incredibly busy. Several of our young families are involved in sports on the weekends, baseball right now, baseball season, and how much time it takes at the field. It was interesting to have those conversations, to think back to how much time we spend doing things.
And yet, if we also look at our busy lives, how many of us are deeply connected to other people, share deep and meaningful relationships? You know, we live in one of the most connected generations that has ever existed, and yet we also live with a culture that is incredibly lonely and isolated. I was coming across some research from the Harvard Medical School in their journal this week. They put an article out about this, but they had just a little intro paragraph that I wanted to read for you that I thought encapsulated it pretty well. Research shows they said about one third of all Americans report feeling lonely.
And this loneliness epidemic in the US Is taking its toll on people's physical and mental health. Mental health problems linked to loneliness include higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, anger and violence. Loneliness also affects physical health, contributing to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, infection, diabetes, dementia, and early death. One effective way the journal wrote, to cope with loneliness is to strengthen your existing relationships and reconnect with friends and family who may have drifted apart. I think it's fascinating that the medical community is identifying and recognizing and speaking Biblical truth, whether they know it or not.
This is actually how God created us. He created us to be connected to other people because the truth is you can know a lot of people and not really know them. Isn't that true? You can attend church with people for years and not know or much less help carry one another's burdens, which Scripture challenges us to do. We can attend worship services and consume all kinds of spiritual content information and yet never help another person grow spiritually.
We can be in relationship and not really know one another. Too often faith in our, especially our individualistic society like the US Is seen as this private and personal thing that we don't share. And we might not ever say it out loud that way, but faith is kind of our thing and we don't necessarily do that in the midst of relationship. But when you come into the New Testament and you begin to read letters like Paul's writing to the church in Thessalonica, what you discover is that's not the way that Paul did his ministry. He didn't just preach sermons or plant churches and Then, well, see you later.
Adios. He loved people deeply. In fact, if you read through his letters, you're going to hear him say things like, I'm worried about you, or, I care deeply about you. I've been thinking about you. I'm constantly remembering you in prayer.
I care and I want to share my life with you. When he writes to the Thessalonian Church, as we heard some last week, we see it on every page. In fact, this epistle is one of the most private. It's a window into Paul's heart for how he feels about the churches that he's planted. This section here in First Thessalonians may be one of the most personal that we get into Paul's heart as a pastor.
What Paul shows us is that real faith, faith in real life actually invests in people, the things, the people that matter most. Not with words or good intentions, but, he says, with our lives. So I want us to think together this morning. What does faith in real look like when we choose to invest our time, the things that matter most in people? Because in real life, faith isn't just what you believe.
A lot of people talk about things that they believe, but how do they live? How is it demonstrated, their lives? How do you invest your life in someone else? I was thinking this week about a Christian artist that came out when I was a young man. But he wrote a song called Life Means so Much, a guy named Chris Rice.
But the verses are this. It says, every day is a journal page Every man holds a quill in ink and there's plenty of room for writing in and all we do and believe and think so will you compose a curse or will today bring a blessing? Fill a page with rhyming verse or some random sketching Every day is a bank account and time is our currency Nobody's rich and nobody's poor we get 24 hours each so how are you going to spend? Will you invest or squander? Try to get ahead or help someone who's under?
Paul begins with this reminder that his ministry among the Thessalonians, it begins by being genuine, by being real. You know how we lived among you for your sake, he says in Chapter one. They weren't just preaching sermons. He wasn't just coming to teach them something new, maybe, that they'd never heard before. He was teaching them how to live out their faith.
And the Thessalonians got that message. In fact, so powerfully. We heard last week that all those in Macedonia and Achaia, other believers, had heard about the way that God had not only captured their hearts, but how they in turn had started living differently in their city. So as chapter two opens up, Paul reminds them again about he and Silas and Timothy, those that had gone to Thessalonica, how they treated and lived among them. He said, for we appeal for the appeal sorry we make does not spring from error or impure motives.
We're not trying to trick you. In fact, later in verse four, we're not trying to please people. We're trying to please God. Verse 5. You know, we never used flattery.
We didn't put on a mask to cover up greed. Verse 6. We're not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else. Instead, he says, like young children among you, like a mom nursing her child, how she cares for her children. That's how we cared for you.
I mean, surely you remember, brothers and sisters, how hard we worked our toil and hardship. We worked night and day not to be a burden, but to be a blessing, he says, because you were witnesses. You know how we lived among you. We didn't come with tricks. We didn't come with flattery or trying to manipulate you or get you to think something about us that wasn't true.
Instead, he says, we worked hard, we invested, we cared. In fact, we toiled not to be a burden, but so that we could be a blessing to you. Because Paul wasn't trying to build a platform here. He wasn't just trying to build a name for himself or his ministry. Instead, he was building people.
Because people, as Paul will show us, aren't projects. Have you ever had that friend that kind of treated you like a project? They were trying to help you become the best version of you, and they were trying to manipulate and make sure that you knew and were who you were supposed to be, at least in their mind. We've all felt that before. When someone loves us genuinely for who we are versus someone who loves us because of who they think they can make us see.
You can't build real relationships with fake motives. We live in a world that's full of ways to connect, and yet we live in a world where people are starving for connection. In fact, that's been our heart of why we do so much of ministry that we do here at Broadway. You'll hear us talk about one of our values, our core values is building community. Because we recognize that when someone visits our church, they're not just looking for friendly people.
It's nice to see and meet friendly people. But what people are looking for are friends, people who will love them and care about them, who will recognize and know when they're gone. But the challenge on our side is we also know it's so much easier to attend something than to invest in someone. It's so much easier just to come and receive and then leave than to think God, what might you need me to do? Who might you need me to talk to?
So we have to ask ourselves, how do we invest in people? How do we learn to put what matters most, what Jesus said matters most, loving God and loving others. How do we learn to put that at the forefront of our lives? And what Paul, I think, will show us this morning is that if we are trying to be people who love Jesus really well, that we got to love others really well. Did you notice Paul's shift here in the language that he used?
Because faith in real life as it's lived out, not only is it genuine and real, but it's also really personal. He says, we were like children among you.
Like a mom cares for her nursing children. That's how we were among you. If you drop down to verse 11, he says, like a father watches over and deals with his own children. This isn't strategy language, this is family language, saying, this is personal to me. In fact, he'll say in verse nine, one of the most powerful verses in all of his epistle, and even, I would say, argue in the New Testament, he says, because we loved you so much, we didn't share just the gospel with you, but our very lives.
It wasn't just a message we were bringing, it was our life. We were sharing all of who we are. Because faith in real life is formed in the context of community. Real faith lived out in real life. It's communal, it's connected.
It's not just about sermons or Bible classes or church attendance, which those things are important, but they're not where real life change happens. You see, we believe that faith formation happens best in the context of communities. And so that's why we're always talking to you. Faith formation happens best in circles, not in rows, meals around a table, where real conversations happen, over a cup of coffee, talking about the true things in our lives, time spent face to face, being known and knowing others, being loved and loving others. Paul says, because we loved you so much, we didn't just preach a sermon.
We didn't just teach you a new way to understand who you are and who God is. He did all of those things. He says, but we shared our lives with you. We opened up our hearts and invited you in. We found ways to connect in meaningful ways because we believe the Gospel travels best in relationships.
And so here's a challenge for us this week, Church. We've been thinking some about the Broadway challenges, living out our worship together. Last week was gratitude. This week it's service. Maybe you picked up the card in front of you off the back.
But how can we live lives of service where we invite someone into our real lives, where we don't just serve, we don't just preach, we don't just teach, we don't just share, but we actually open up our life, we live out our faith with someone you know, Discipleship is less of a download and it's more of a shared journey of learning together how God is at work in our world and what he's calling and who he's calling us to be. So as chapter two in fact ends and chapter three opens up here in Paul's letter, he talks about the circumstances of the relationships and how sometimes life gets in the way and things get really challenging and really hard. Even so, he says they persisted. In verse 17 of chapter 2, he says, Brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated 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 back to you. Certainly I, Paul did, again and again, but Satan blocked our way.
Paul says we were separated. He uses the word that literally means orphaned. I think it's fascinating. Paul doesn't say you were orphaned from me, he says we were orphaned from you. It felt like we were torn away, ripped apart.
Not of our own accord, only physically, not mentally. I was still thinking about and praying for you and loving you. I desired to want to be with you. And so I tried to get back, but I couldn't. And that didn't stop him.
Right? Because faith in real life, it's also adaptive. It adapts to the world around us. So what does he do? He doesn't disengage.
So verse one, chapter three. So when we couldn't stand it any longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves. In Athens, we sent Timothy, who is our brother and co worker in God's service and spreading the word, spreading the gospel of Christ. We sent him to strengthen and encourage you in your faith so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are 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. As you well know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain.
Why does Paul send Timothy to strengthen and encourage them? He wouldn't let distance be a reason to disconnect. Now, I don't know about you, that's been a challenging word for me this week as I've thought about some of the relationships in my life. In fact, I got a call last week from a dear friend of mine who was asking me a question about something ministry related. We're both in the ministry field, but in the midst of that conversation, he said, man, I'm sorry we've disconnected.
I'm sorry we've lived apart so long and I have not invested the time to stay connected to you. A friend of mine was asking me, who are the people in your life that mean so much to you? And the Lord brought you to mine and I just was convicted. I'm sorry I've disconnected from you. Could we work to stay in connection?
Why? Because what matters most are the things that we invest our time in. Real investment in people doesn't stop when proximity does. Love finds a way, even when presence so again, church invite you this week as you're thinking about how do I live my faith in real life? How can I serve others?
How can I make what's coming out of my mouth match the life that I live? Might we think about would you send a text? Would you send a note, a card? Maybe pray intentionally and not just say I'll pray for you, but pray for them and then follow up, how'd it go? How did that circumstance turn out?
How that situation going? What else can I be praying about for you? Stay engaged even when life gets busy. Because faith in real life, it adapts to the circumstances that not everything goes great and wonderful. Paul says, you know that we told you we're going to face some persecution, we're going to face some opposition.
We're going to face some obstacles in our life that could threaten to disconnect us us. Don't let that happen. See, Paul says we need to invest, be intentional about how we live. I love Paul's response when Timothy brings back his report after sending him out to talk with the church. He says, but Timothy has just now come to us from you and he's 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 long to see you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution, we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live. Since you are standing firm in the Lord, how can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day, we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what's lacking in your faith.
I love this response. Paul is so excited and so thankful to God. He rejoices. Not because they like him. You like me.
You really like me. No, no, he says, I'm encouraged because I hear that the tempter tried to tempt you, tried to dissuade you, tried to persecute you or make you struggle or ask questions about, is this really real? And instead, you pushed through. You were willing. You were willing to stay strong in your faith.
And that's the goal. See, our ultimate goal about building community is not just that we would be friends. We want to be friends, but our hope is that we would become more like Jesus. That Paul's great desire in pastoring this young church is not just that they would. He wants them to be believers.
Not just that they would be community, he wants them to be community. But even more than that, he wants them to become God's people, his witnesses in the world, who recognize that persecution does actually mean you're going in the wrong direction. That means you're going in the right direction. It means you're starting to threaten the status quo around you and that you're headed in the right direction and that you need to pull and hold on to one another. Because we recognize that even things like death aren't the end of the story.
In fact, next week we're going to hear, Paul's going to jump right into the middle of that because this young church is being persecuted and they're losing believers. Folks are dying, and the church is beginning to wonder, oh, man, this is costing us everything. What about those who have fallen asleep? Was kind of the terminology of that day. But that's a euphemism for those who have died.
Paul's going to spend a lot of time. In fact, next week we're going to dive deep into our. What does he say? How does he encourage a young church in the midst of persecution to stay connected, to live out their faith in real life knowing it's costing them something? I love how he talks about that.
Paul's response to Timothy's report is this great encouragement not that they believe something, though he's really glad they do, but that they're becoming something. Becoming who God is has created them to be. You see, faith in real life is not just about getting people into heaven when they die, but it's actually about getting heaven into people before they die. That we would invest our time and our energy in the two things that Jesus said mattered most, loving God and loving other people. And so, as we close this morning, I just want to invite you to think about the investment of time that you'll have this week.
Your energy, your resources. Would you be willing to make the right investment? In fact, as I close, I'm going to close in prayer and just invite you right now. Would you stand? And the team's going to come up and lead us in the closing song.
They'll make their way up here. But as they're coming up and as we pray together, just invite you to close your eyes and think. Allow the Holy Spirit to bring someone to mind, ask you these questions. Who are you intentionally investing in right now?
Who is stronger in their faith because of you and your love and your care and your support and your encouragement? Or maybe where have you allowed distance or busyness to create disengagement? Maybe the Spirit's inviting you to just think of a person, a name of someone.
Now, Father God, Lord Jesus, would you clear for us the way to reconnect this week with those that you have put us into relationship with? May you, Lord, make our love increase and overflow for each other here at Broadway and for everyone else, just as your love does for for us, God, would you strengthen our hearts this morning so that we'll be blameless and holy in the presence of you, that when Jesus returns with all of his holy ones. O God, may this prayer be true of us. This week we pray in Jesus name. Amen.