So, you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia. And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go, we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.

Have you ever thought about how you would define insanity?  Most recovery programs define insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results each time.” This definition implies that our habitual patterns of thought, when they assume a position of priority, almost aways lead failure.  

In this passage of scripture, Paul was giving the Christians in Thessalonica high praise for their witness of the gospel. Paul was so blown away by them because of their joy and because their holy living had become known throughout the region. As Paul witnessed to the people in this area, he would hear them say something like this – “Hey, we already know about your Jesus, because we have seen how His followers live and how they have turned away from idols. Rather than bartering with gods to get what they want and need, they are waiting upon Jesus.”

Before we move forward, I think we need to understand the significance of this. 

During this time, in this region of the world, idol worship was a big deal. In fact, there were pantheons of gods, all promising different things. People would pick and choose which gods to worship based on their needs and desires. As soon as that particular god no longer suited them, they would move on to the next one. The worship of these gods wasn’t out of a moral obligation or a relational commitment; instead, the worship of these gods was purely transactional. They would make an offering to a god in exchange for something they wanted. The worship of idols was done to secure what they thought they wanted or needed. 

People worshiped idols because they desired control. They thought they could seize control of their own life by bartering with a god, exchanging worship for whatever it was they wanted. If they wanted love, there was an idol for that; if they wanted fame, there was an idol for that; If they wanted riches, there was idol for that; and if they wanted power, there was an idol for that. 

In Paul’s time, idols were little statues made of wood, stone, or metal; however, now our idols take the form of just about anything you can think of, because now we build idols in our hearts. You see, an idol is something we orbit around that gives our life purpose or fulfillment. When we worship an idol, we are giving that idol our priority. When we give an idol priority, we are taking a earthly thing, such as a relationship, or a job, or money, or possessions, and turning it into something supreme. We assign it power over our lives that it was never designed to have. There is only One who possesses ultimate power and that is Jesus. Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  An idol is anything you permit in your life to occupy the place that should be occupied by God. It is something you are allowing or even giving a controlling position to in your life.

Is this not what we do when we exercise fear, or insecurity, or continue to participate in sinful behavior? Do we not give a controlling position to whatever thing we found ourselves relying on?  Is this not what we do when we offer ourselves to that thing in exchange for temporary relief, for pleasure, for a false sense of security, or for control? The things we use to deal with our hurts and insecurities facilitate our adoption of behavioral patterns of worship to whatever god we chose to erect in our hearts, a god that is not Jesus and cannot fulfil us or give us purpose.

If we return to the definition of insanity mentioned earlier of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results each time, then we will see it is a cyclical pattern. Insanity is nothing more than a pattern of worship to the wrong gods – “little-g” gods that are powerless to do anything for us other than to hold us captive to their lies. 

I was once held captive by the lie that pornography would somehow fulfill the sense of rejection and the absence of meaningful intimacy I felt in my life. I dove into a pattern of worship to my “little-g” god of false intimacy in exchange for covering up my pain. I repeated this pattern, desperately hoping to feel loved, wanted, and desired; however, the results proved the same each time. Even though I may have gotten an immediate and temporary spike of dopamine each time I worshipped at the altar of this false god, the truth is that it was robbing me of life. I was indulging in the art of insanity by thinking I would have a different result each time. My priorities were in the wrong place.

What set the Christians in Thessalonica apart? What made them the talk of the town? It was that they no longer followed this pattern of worship. They turned from their idols and worshipped God. They lived by a new pattern of worship, one of trust in who God is, and one of patience to wait upon Him and His perfect will. They believed what Jesus had said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

The Christians in Thessalonica knew their focus should be on making the kingdom of God their main priority, rather than on the “things” they wanted to be added to their lives. In other words, they made their personal relationship with Jesus the most important focus in their lives. They trusted Jesus would do what He said. They knew Jesus would take care of all the other things in the proper time, if they kept their focus on Him.  

You see, their patterns flowed directly from their priorities – a focus on the Kingdom of God. If our priority isn’t locked and focused on our relationship with the One who is Life, then the patterns we find ourselves in will only spiral towards death. I was living in a pattern of insanity because my past self was focused on my own pain and problems and I attempted to find a solution outside of a focus on the Kingdom of God, on the One who could bring Life. Many have tasted the death that comes with insanity, through the loss of our reputation, or our position, or our relationships. I want to be like the Christians in Thessalonica. I want my patterns of worship to be so evident that others instantly know I am a Christ follower.  How do I live like that?

In John 15:1-5, Jesus says, “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

A branch can’t bear fruit if it isn’t connected to the vine. Likewise, we cannot bear fruit if we aren’t connected to Jesus.

What Jesus is saying is that those of us who prioritize our relationship with Him and His Kingdom will bear much fruit.  We will bear fruit because the Gardener will cut away from our life all those old priorities of insanity. As our priorities change, those old patterns of worship to the wrong gods will also die.  This allows the Gardener to slowly nurture new patterns in our lives.  

There is a word that Jesus uses a few times in the passage. It’s an important word. It’s the word: remain. Jesus says, “remain in Me.” The word remain, in this instance, is referring to the idea of “continuing in” or “doing the same things repeatedly.”

What I find so incredibly interesting is that Jesus is using the same definition as insanity to describe what it means to remain in Him. Here is the simple truth. The difference between insanity and sanity is the subject of where we place our priority for our pattern of worship.

I can either choose to continue trying to take control of my own life by worshiping the false gods of this world, which have promised me time and time again to provide fulfillment but have failed to deliver and left me wanting; or I can choose to get connected to the Vine and to remain in Jesus. If I choose to remain in Jesus, I will be choosing to live according to a new pattern – a pattern that reflects the person of Jesus Himself and develops faithfulness in me.

What are the patterns Jesus gives us to repeat?  We find them all over scripture: “Sow and you will reap”;  “Go the second mile”; “Forgive and you will be forgiven”; “Confess and you will be healed”; “Ask and you will receive”; “Love those who hurt you”;  “Serve as if you were less important”; “Seek first the kingdom”; “Pray about everything”; “Humble yourself, and He will lift you up”.  Faithfulness is about developing a pattern – a routine of doing as Jesus did.  It is faithfulness in the routine that produces fruitfulness.

It is so tempting to seek God for only what He can give us, especially when we are hurting. We want to rush through all the painful stuff to get to the place of relief, the miracle, or the blessing.  But when we do that, we are only playing around with our old patterns and priorities.

We must fall in love with the routine – the routine of focusing on Christ and on His Kingdom principles. The routine must become the reward. We must start focusing on our “remaining in” and our “doing the same thing” as the most important and satisfying part of our walk with God. Why? Because the truth is that miracles and blessings only happen in routine. In falling in love with the routine, we come to realize time is actually our friend and the journey is our greatest benefit. All the pain, all the waiting, all the hard times of pruning have us into a new season of bearing fruit, which will always be followed by a season of harvest. 

What are your priorities?  Because the patterns of worship in your life will flow from them.