Let us turn again this morning
to Paul's letter to the Church at Thessalonica, the first of
those two letters, 1 Thessalonians, as we continue our studies in
Chapter 2, particularly focusing upon verses 7 through 9 this
morning. 1 Thessalonians 2 verses 7-9 But we were gentle among you,
even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So, being affectionately
desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not
the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were
dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our
labor in trave, for laboring night and day, because we would
not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the
gospel of God. First of all, let us set these
three verses in their larger context by way of review. In
this second chapter, the Apostle Paul, particularly in the first
twelve verses, is giving to us those things that characterized
his ministry when he and his associates ministered in Thessalonica
and were the human instruments by which that church was brought
into being. Having given in the first chapter
the clear statement that the only reason for a church existing
at Thessalonica was the sovereign grace of God, the electing purposes
of God, He now, in the second chapter, indicates that those
sovereign purposes of God are realized through the instrumentality
of Spirit-directed, Spirit-filled ministers. So we're studying
this passage in the second chapter under the general theme of the
marks of a true minister and a true ministry. And minister
and ministry apply not exclusively to the pulpit in the formal sense
of ministry, but in the discharge of any God-given responsibility
as a Christian, whether it's that of a parent to one's children,
a neighbor to one's, a friend to one's neighbors, or to a work
associate, to other companions at work. Every Christian in this
sense is a minister who's been given a trust and is to discharge
that trust in the way that the apostle discharged his particular
ministry as an apostle. So that the main principle that
underlines the passage is not something exclusively related
to those whose ministry is that of an apostle or a pastor or
a teacher. The principles apply to any ministry,
regardless of what that ministry is, and Paul is simply a specific
example of these principles in a specific area. But digging
back beneath the specific to the general principle, we want
to see its application to our own lives and to our own ministry. So far we have come across a
number of these things that characterize a true minister and a true ministry
and I will not go into detail simply to mention that not once
yet have we encountered any feminine concepts. Up till now they've
been vigorously masculine concepts. He was thirsty for success in
his ministry. He feared that he should minister
in vain as he mentioned in verse 1. He mentions the concept of
boldness, of truth, of uprightness, of holiness. And then last week
we saw in verse 5, he never used flattery. He never poured it
on thick to get people to think he was a wonderful fellow. He
told them the blunt, naked truth, a very masculine concept. He
was not covetous. He didn't seek the glory of men.
And all of these characteristics, at least seven or eight or nine
of them that we've already seen, are in a very real sense powerfully,
vigorous, masculine, backbone-ish concepts. If I may coin an adjective,
backbone-ish, you don't get any of the concept that Paul was
what Brother Tozer, Dr. Tozer, called these soft-handed
preachers with the saintly flush on their cheek. Well, you don't
find any of that in the Apostle Paul, and so we've tried to see
that your concept of the ministry you have as a mother, as a father,
as a witness to your neighbor, must have these masculine qualities
of absolute committal to truth, of an inflexible, unbending,
unflinching determination never to flatter, but to discharge
your soul of its God-given responsibility. And we have seen that the underlying
principle that produces these vigorous, manly, masculine qualities
is the whole concept of the consciousness of God. Five or six times in
the first five verses we found such phrases as, God is witness. Neither did we seek to please
men, but God who trieth our hearts. So it all boils down to this.
When I minister to men, Am I primarily concerned of what they will think
or do or give to me? Or am I primarily concerned with
what my God has given me to give to them? There's the crux of
the whole matter. That's it in a nutshell. As a
parent, am I more concerned with what my children will give to
me in the way of love or praise or fear that I may provoke their
wrath? Or am I concerned with discharging my formative, instructive
responsibilities to them as given to me from God, whether they
love me or hate me? See? My neighbors, am I concerned
that they'll still love me? Or am I concerned that God has
given me a gospel to give to them? If I were to say there's
one principle that pervades this whole passage, it's that principle. Is my concern what I will get
from those to whom I minister, or is it that I shall give to
them that which God has entrusted to me? Now in that context, and
in that context alone, we put now the very feminine characteristics
of verses 7 to 9. For you see, every true minister
will have not only vigorous masculine characteristics, but will also
have these very tender feminine characteristics as well. But
we were gentle among you. Now, what a strange contrast.
You say a fellow who doesn't fear the faces of men, who's
never out to get the praise of men or the glory of men, who's
utterly indifferent to whether people spit on him or throw a
nickel at him, he just couldn't care less, you say, well, that'll
produce a harsh, inflexible, feelingless kind of a person,
won't it? Well, it didn't with Paul. For
he moves from these qualities so abruptly, We were gentle among
you as a nurse cherisheth her children, so being affectionately
desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not
the gospel of God only, but our very own souls, because ye were
dear unto us. Let us consider in the first
place the disposition that Paul describes in this passage. Then
we want to trace that disposition to what it does, how does that
disposition work, and then we want to consider the roots of
such a disposition and then something of its application to us. Very
well then, Paul's description of this disposition is under
the figure of that of a nurse. We were gentle among you as a
nurse cherisheth her children. The word gentle means mild, affable,
tender. The only other place it's used
in the New Testament is in 2nd Timothy, where Paul says to Timothy
in chapter 2 in verse 24, the servant of the Lord must not
strive, that means be argumentative, bullheaded, but be gentle toward
all men. The only other place it's used
in the New Testament. Well, what then does it mean? If it's only
used in two instances, it's hard to determine its meaning. When
you've got a word that's used in many contexts in the New Testament,
you just look up all those passages and before long the meaning begins
to emerge out of its usage. Well, perhaps the Lord knowing
that he would move his servant to only use this word twice,
he gave us a beautiful description, a descriptive definition. Here
we have a picture that's worth more than a thousand formal words.
For notice what he says, We were gentle among you even as... Here's the descriptive definition
of this disposition of gentleness. Even as a nurse, cherisheth her
children. Now the word nurse here comes
from a root word which means to nourish with food. And literally
Paul is saying we were gentle among you as a wet nurse we would
call them in our day. Someone who is actually sustaining
life with her own life. Someone who is nourishing the
life of another from her own breast. In a day when you didn't
have all kinds of substitutes for the natural way of sustaining
the life of an infinite, and you could sterilize your bottles
or get your sterilized plastic bags and all the other things
that we have now. A little infant was utterly determined,
dependent upon the milk of a mother's breast, and if for some reason
a mother was incapacitated, well, you had to find a wet nurse who
would take that child to her breast as though it were her
very own. And her life was involved in sustaining the life of another
literally with her own life. But now notice what Paul says
here, and you miss it in the English, and it's so vivid in
the Greek. He says, not as a nurse cherishes a child, but it's very
emphatic in the Greek, as a nurse cherisheth the very child of
her own womb, her own flesh and blood. And here's the picture.
Any woman who gives herself to the ministry of a wet nurse must
love children, or she wouldn't be bothered. Well, she's tender
and has a soft spot for anybody's child whose life she nurses.
But oh, when she's nursing her very own child, the one who's
the fruit of her own womb. Why then the tenderness and the
cherishing attitude is all the more intense, and that's exactly
the figure under which the Holy Ghost is conveying to us this
disposition of gentleness in the life of the Apostle Paul.
You talk about a switch from the masculine to the feminine,
here it is. We were gentle among you as a
mother nursing the very fruit of her own womb. And I think
I know a little bit what that means, having experienced that
in my own privilege as a father, and then growing up as the second
oldest of ten children with a mother who nursed all of her children.
All those tender little exchanges between a mother and the child.
And then all the little indications of growth, and if there was disturbance,
and if there was an upset tummy, that awareness of the slightest
deviation from a normal pattern of growth or development or health,
all of that bond that knits together the suckling child to its mother,
Paul says, squeeze all of that into your mind, and that's the
way I ministered a month. With a gentleness pictured in
this beautiful, homey, illustration. Now that's the disposition described.
Now he goes on to amplify it and says in verse 8, so being
affectionately desirous of you, the New English Bible translates
it this way, with such yearning love we chose to impart to you
not the gospel of God, but our very selves, so dear had you
become to us. Notice what he says, being affectionately
desirous of you. What does he mean, desirous of
you? Well, he means the state of your souls, your spiritual
well-being, became the matter of absolute preeminence and importance
to us. As the state of the infant becomes
the focus of all the interest and desire and concern of a subtle
mother, So Paul says, you became so dear to us that we were affectionately
desirous of you to the extent that we were willing to have
imparted unto you not the gospel only, but our very souls, better
translated, our very lives. Now he's carrying on the figure.
Follow it through, it's beautiful. the mother who's nursing her
own child, unlike when she's just being a wet nurse to someone
else's child. She gives of life sustenance
to someone else's child, but it's doubtful she'd give her
very life but awe for her own child. She gives not only something
she can give, she gives her very self to her own flesh and blood
and that's what Paul's saying we were so desirous of you that
we were willing to impart not just the life-giving gospel as
a wet nurse imparts her milk to someone else's child but she
doesn't impart herself but we were willing as that same nurse
would to her own children to give our very lives you will
become so precious to us that's the picture here We were willing. Now the English word here is
weak. The word willing means we were delighted. It's the same
word used when the father spoke from heaven and said, this is
my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now what did the father
mean when he looked down upon his son? My soul delights in
him. Paul says we were delighted.
We counted it a privilege. to impart not the gospel only,
but our very own souls, our very lives. And what's your life made
up of, Paul? Well, it's made up of energy.
It's made up of hours. It's made up of time. It's made
up of words. It's made up of potential work
and labor. And I was willing, he says, to
have imparted my life to you in all these practical ways,
as we shall see as the thought unfolds. Now you see, there's
a difference between imparting something I possess and imparting
myself. When the postman comes and delivers
a letter to you, whatever that message is, he faithfully delivers
it, but he doesn't give himself. In that letter might be some
heartbreaking news. He couldn't care less. His job
is simply to deliver that message to you and leave it there in
your mailbox. And when he's done it, he's done his job. Now Paul
says, you see, my ministry as a gospel minister was not simply
to take this letter, the gospel that was entrusted to me, and
stick it on your doorstep and go my way without being involved. Oh no. He said, I became so desirous
of you that I was willing to not only give you the letter,
But come through the door, and if it brought bad news, to sit
down and weep with you. And if it brought a situation,
the only way it could be resolved was for me to lay down time and
effort and energy to help you out of that predicament. I was
at your disposal. I was willing not only to deliver
the letter, but to give myself to help you out of any dilemma
which the letter conveyed. That's the whole concept, to
switch the figure from the nursing mother to a postman. What a beautifully,
and in the holiest sense, a beautifully feminine disposition to find
in the heart of every true minister, whether he's in the pulpit, whether
it's a parent, whether it's a neighbor, whether it's a work associate.
In every area that we minister, what a beautiful disposition,
and it's one of the marks of a true minister and a true ministry. The gentleness of a nursing mother
to the fruit of her own womb. Now, where in the world do you
ever get this? What is the root of this disposition? We've looked at the description
of the disposition. Now, where did it come from?
Paul, where did a disposition like that ever find its way into
your heart? I can understand how your boldness
had its roots in your consciousness of God. He gave you a ministry. He tries your heart. He will
judge you someday. Paul, I can understand how your
consciousness of God and your fear in the right sense, the
fear of God, the acknowledgement of His sovereignty and the fact
that He will one day hold you to account. Paul, I can understand
how that consciousness could produce boldness. unflinching
adherence to truth, but Paul, this feminine characteristic,
this disposition of gentleness and tenderness, Paul, where'd
that come from? Well, he tells us, notice the last phrase of
verse 8, because, this is why I had this disposition, because
ye were dear to us, better translated, You became and are still dear
unto us. And he uses a tense in the writing,
in the original, which has the connotation of something that
happened at a certain point in the past and continues to this
day. He said, ye became and are yet
dear to us. Now, when did these people become
dear to him? Well, if you read back in the
record in Acts 17, he came to Thessalonica, now follow, he
came to Thessalonica with no previous deep affection for these
people. He came because he had a commission
from his Lord. And as he came to them in the
way of obedience, now follow me, and in the way of obedience
got involved in the context of involvement the Holy Spirit produced
love that was abiding in his heart to this very day when he
writes. Now see if you get the idea that
Paul sat back somewhere on a couch praying that God would somehow
send a big glop of oozy love into his heart for the Thessalonians
and then he would come with that love just eking out of his pores
and come to Thessalonians. No, no, that's not the concept.
He got chased out of one town in persecution, and God had told
him, bonds and imprisonment follow you everywhere. You're going
to suffer for my sake, but take the gospel to the Gentiles, and
so next in line from Philippi is Thessalonica. So in obedience
to his commission, he comes to Thessalonica. He begins to preach.
There's some opposition, some problems again, but a little
nucleus who begin to respond to the word, and after he wipes
his hands of the Jewish community and begins to labor amongst the
Gentiles, The Spirit of God, in that context of involvement,
begins to produce this love that so knit his heart to this people
that though he is miles away, he says a little bit later, If
you stand fast in the Lord. He said, oh, I've got to know
if you're going on with God. I've become so involved with
you. I'm like a nursing mother who's taken away from her child
after she's nursed him for four or five months. And I'm providentially
separated. Oh, he said, my heart yearns
over you like that mother would yearn to hold close to her bosom
again that little life. Now, she doesn't feel that before
the child comes. She may not even feel it the
first couple of weeks. I've talked with some mothers who really
had a terrible sense of condemnation that they didn't have this deep
overpowering love for that little shriveled up thing that they
saw an hour after the child was born. And I've met some fathers
who felt maybe there's something wrong with them, they didn't
have much love. No, you're not strange if you didn't. But you
see, the love developed as you were, what, involved with that
life. And as you saw that life dependent upon you, when you
began to pour yourself into it, then the love ties deepened and
strengthened until now, separated from that child or that loved
one, is deep pain. Now that's the root of this disposition,
the grace of God producing divine love in the context of involvement. I don't want to labor the point,
I'll come back to it in my application later on. Well, let's consider
very briefly now the disposition expressed. We've seen the disposition
described, the gentleness of a nursing mother. The roots of
that disposition, ye were become dear to us, the grace of God
working love in our hearts for you. Now how was that disposition
expressed? Verse 9, for ye remember. I'm telling you people that you
were dear to us. Now is that just a lot of smooth
talk? Am I just talking off the top of my head? Have I put my
hand on my heart here and felt a little warm glow when I say
Thessalonica? Oh yes, it feels so nice and
warm. I just love you people. No, no, he says, for ye remember. You think I'm just talking? That
I had the attitude of a nursing mother to you? That you were
dear to me? Oh no, he said, I'm not just
talking. You want a living proof of why I'm talking the truth? Here it is. Ye remember, brethren,
I call your conscience to witness. Our labor and travail, for laboring
night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto you, we
preached unto you the gospel of God." What's he talking about?
Well, he explains it more fully in his second letter. Will you
turn to 2 Thessalonians for just a moment? Chapter 3, where he goes into a little bit
more detail about this expression of this disposition of gentleness.
Chapter 3, verse 7, For yourselves know how ye ought to mimic us,
follow us, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you.
Neither did we eat any man's bread, for naught, we weren't
freeloaders, but wrought, we weren't, with labor and travail
night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you,
not because we have not power or right, but to make ourselves
an ensample unto you to follow us. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 clearly
establishes that every apostle, every preacher had the right
and the privilege of living of the gospel. They that preach
the gospel should live of the gospel. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians
9 that many times he bypassed that legitimate right and here
was one of the places where he did. There wasn't a person at
Thessalonica who could say, well at Paul he's a sponger. He's
just in it for what he can get out of it. He's got a nice, easy
racket. Goes around preaching, doesn't
have to put in a day's work. Gets his food on his table, clothes
on his back, and a little wad for his wallet. He's got it made. Paul says, oh no, nobody can
say that of me. For he says, when I was with
you, you remember that after I'd finished preaching and you
tried to get in touch with me and you came to my place where
I was staying, you'd find me burning candles into the wee
hours of the morning, working with my hands, making tents in
order that nobody would say I was a freeloader. Now what was the
expression then of this gentle love of the nursing mother to
her child? This disposition expressed itself,
follow closely, in taking a course that meant self-denial. Paul had to cast aside leisure
convenience, ease, effort, even in areas that were legitimately
right, and deliberately take a course that meant difficult,
arduous, physical toil and labor, that between his preaching he'd
be found working with his hands so that no one could say he'd
been a burden to them. Now, that's but one specific
expression of this disposition. Paul making tense, behind it
is the principle that where this disposition of gentleness, this
deep affection of the nursing mother to her child, it will
always lead the one who has it to take a course of self-denial
in order to minister to its object. Paul said you became so dear
to us that we literally trampled underfoot not only sin and evil. Oh no, that's not even the thing
in question. But we trampled underfoot our own rights and
privileges and ease and convenience. We trampled it all underfoot.
Why? Because you had become very dear
to us. You'd become very dear to us. I trust you see the principle. What does this say to us this
morning? We who by the grace of God would be true ministers
to our children, to our neighbors, those of you whom God may be
speaking to regarding some formal kind of ministry, you Sunday
school teachers, how are you going to be a true minister?
How will this thing work out in your life? What does this
passage say to you? What does it say to me as a pastor?
My heart's been searched out. I couldn't face a passage like
this. without having the barbs of conviction fix themselves
in my own breast. First of all, it brings out a
principle that I trust God will burn into our hearts, and it's
this. In the outworking of the purposes of salvation, the eternal
love of God for his people and the demonstrated love of his
servants are inseparable. Paul uses basically the same
word. He says in chapter 1, notice,
knowing brethren, beloved of God, your election, for the gospel
came in power. Paul, how do you know that God
has a peculiar love for people at Thessalonica? Why, he said,
it's obvious. Those whom God has loved in eternity, he draws
in time by the mighty efficacious work of the Spirit. Now he says
in chapter 2 at the end of verse 8, because ye were dear, better
translated the same Greek word in its root, because ye had become
beloved to us. Beloved of God from eternity,
beloved of the Apostle Paul in time, and that twofold channel
of love issued in the salvation of the Thessalonians. And though God in His sovereignty
may sometimes bypass the second and draw some of His beloved
ones, beloved in eternity, may draw them through a heartless
cold ministry or through an impersonal tract or something else, for
we cannot box up our sovereign God. The general principle is,
just as surely as no one is saved unless he's beloved of God, he
doesn't get saved unless he becomes beloved of one of God's servants. And someone then experiences
the involvement of love, the sacrifice of love, the self-denial
of love. And that's the way the elect
of God are called out. And that's the mark of a true
minister and a true ministry. As I told the ladies in the ladies'
class, when my grandmother who'd prayed for me for years, With
tears in her eyes, took me by the shoulders as a 14-year-old
fellow, fighting God and fighting the scriptures in my heart and
fighting God's prickings in my conscience, rebelling against
light. When the involvement of love
led her to take me by the shoulders and look me in the eye with tears
covered down her eyes, saying, Oh Albert, be true-hearted, whole-hearted. I knew somebody was involved
in love with me. Those of you who have heard Mr.
Reisinger's testimony, you remember how Elmer, his work companion, who had witnessed Ernie week
in, week out, tried to get him to come to church and he turned
him off with a thousand different lies. And after Ernie was saved,
he met Mrs. Elmer, forgot Elmer's last name,
And she said, oh, so you're this fellow, Riesinger. She said,
you know, I got to praying that God would either save you soon
or move you to another job, because you were ruining our house. She
said, well, that's a strange way to greet a stranger. What
do you mean? I was ruining your household. She said, well, when
Elmer would come home from work every night, he'd walk right
by the kitchen table where I had put his supper. It was hot and
all ready for him, and he'd walk right by, and he'd go into his
bedroom, and he'd shut the door. I'd go by sometimes a half an
hour later, and the door was still shut, and if I'd stand
on the outside, I'd hear him on the inside, crying to God
with tears for somebody named Ernie Riesinger, that God would
save him. That's the involvement of love! You see, Ernie had become dear
to Elmer. So that Elmer was willing not
to impart the gospel only. He did that at work, day in and
day out, by life and by precept. But he was willing to impart
his life. What's life made up of? Appetite
and a like for food. He said no to it. To pray. To eat. To cry to God. There's a story that comes out
of classical mythology that illustrates this beautifully. a certain sculptor
who, in the mythology, made a statue of a woman. And when he was done,
it was so beautiful that he fell in love with the marble statue.
He became so enamored with it that he prayed to the gods that
it might be given life. Then he embraced the statue,
and as he did, he noticed a twitch in the nostrils and a little
heaving of the breast. until color began to come into
the cold marble slab and the cheeks flushed and the flesh
became soft. In answer to his cry to the gods
and the embrace of his own warm body, the statue came to life
and he took this one to be his wife. That's what we're talking
about. You see, that thing that was
cold and lifeless became very dear to him and he got involved
in love. And life was the result. That's
the principle. But let's move away from Elmer
and mythology and look into the heart of God. God got involved
with these people. So involved that it meant that
our Lord Jesus, according to Philippians 2, emptied himself. laid aside deliberately, willingly,
all his prerogatives as the unbounded second person of the Godhead,
and took upon him all the weaknesses and limitations of true humanity,
subjected himself to scorn, to spittle, to the ignorance and
to the vile pourings forth of the human heart in all of its
wretchedness. What? Not for what he could get,
but for what he could care. And, O beloved, my heart yearns
that in this day, when nobody wants to be involved, we might
by the grace of God be made true ministers. For just as the God
of truth must communicate his truth through a messenger who
speaks it, so the God of love must communicate his love through
a vessel that knows the involvement of love. That's the first thing I'd like
to say by way of application. How have we passed the test of
the first five verses? We say, yes, by the grace of
God, my witness is not of error, it's rooted in the truth. Wonderful,
wonderful. I don't fear the face of man,
I want to please God. Wonderful. You see, unless you can say we
were gentle among you as a nurse, cherishing through children,
The masculine marks of a true ministry will harden men and
drive them away unless they are joined with the feminine marks
of the gentleness of a nursing mother. Now the reverse is true.
The gentleness and tenderness of a nursing mother, divorced
from truth and uprightness, will merely disgust and sicken any
thinking person, maudlin sentimentality. But all put the two together,
and you have a biblical ministry. That's what Paul had. And in
that order, if there's any order in which God generally works
them, I think it's this. For people who get on the love
bug, before they're ever concerned about truth, it seems like you
never get them away. They just can't be concerned about truth.
They just want to have their general ooze. But woe be unto
us if convinced of the truth. and convinced that we must discharge
our debt in regard of the eye of God and not the eye of men,
we do not cultivate, for these two things are inseparable. Could
it be, beloved, and I ask myself this question, and here is where
I stand smitten, could it be that the reason from the human
side More of our own young people are not sitting here this morning
as monuments of the grace of God. More of our neighbors are
not joining us in worship, but can sit down with their feet
up on the hassack, one eye on the TV and another on the Sunday
paper this very morning, not because we've not exposed them
to truth, but because we've refused the involvement of love. at the cost of denying ourselves.
Could it be? This is what I ask myself. I've
had to ask myself the question this week. I've known what it
is a few times to splash a few tears on my Bible as I've been
preaching, but too few times, too few times. Do we know what
it is as parents, not just to point out our children's faults,
but to weep over those faults in secret? Well, so much for
that first principle that I see by way of application. Now the
second thing that I want to enlarge upon, and I've already touched
it, is that love demands involvement. In the course of fulfilling duty,
Something happens. When Paul came to Thessalonica,
in the course of duty, he would know what we call deep love for
these people particularly. He had a general love for all
men, as any Christian will have. But he had no peculiar love for
the Thessalonians. He didn't know them. He hadn't
been involved. Now once he began to get involved, one of two things
happens. As people begin to show what
they are, and their burdens begin to slough to the surface, and
you see that to minister to them, you're going to have to deny
yourself. That's what Paul recognized. If I'm going to minister with
an uncondemned conscience and give no grounds for anyone to
despise my ministry, here it means, once again, late nights,
burning the candles till the wee hours of the morning to win
these people, I've got to say no to Paul, and yes, to the path
of self-denial. And once you see that, one of
two things happen. Either you embrace the cross
afresh and the principle of denial of self, reckoning yourself to
be dead to the screaming cries of your flesh, or that you might
give yourself to minister, or you back off and say, no, that
person's need is not worth my denying myself. Therefore, I'll
drop a letter on the doorstep, but I won't come through the
door and get involved. I'll give him a tract, I'll invite
him to church, but I'm not going to get involved. Now Paul made
his choice by the grace of God. When those needs began to emerge,
and though it meant self-denial, they had become dear to him,
and he chose the course of self-denial, the involvement of love. You and I know, we've read it
in our papers, it's amazed and astounded sociologists and psychologists,
they can't understand what's behind it fully. When someone
can walk down 8th Avenue in New York City, an old woman, unable
to defend herself from a child, and two thugs will come up and
grab her and snatch her pocketbook and beat her to the ground, and
people will stand 20 feet away and they'll watch. They don't
want to get involved. Why? Because involvement might
affect them. I might come away with a bump
on my head. Her need is not worth running the risk. I might come
away with my pocket picked. The risk is not worth it. They
don't want to get involved. Isn't that the cry? They can't
understand it. Sociology is something entirely unique in the history
of our own nation. And so when someone does respond,
it almost hits the first page of our newspapers that somebody
was mugged and somebody came to their defense. And that attitude
is crept over into the Church of Jesus Christ. That ties in
with the two messages on the ministry of the open door, hospitality. You see, once we begin to get
to know people, sooner or later, we're going to get involved.
Their burdens are going to become our burdens. Their problems are
going to become our problems. It costs to be a true father
and a true mother. It means I've got to give time
to my children until they feel enough confidence in me to share
their problems. And then when they do, it means
I've got to wrestle through those problems in my mind, in my brain. to get involved with my neighbor.
Oh sure, they're very curt and cold, but why? Why? Why? And so I'm going to deny myself. I'm going to cultivate interests
that are their interests to establish rapport. And then when I do get
beneath the surface, their burdens are going to become mine. Involvement
and involvement always leads to the demands of self-denial. You've got to say no to yourself.
You're not going to have so many evenings to sit watching your
television. You're not going to have so much time to spend
doing nothing. And even legitimate things, such
as Paul's earning a living by the gospel, will have to go by
the board because the involvement of love will drive you on to
the course of self-denial. But we don't know too much about
that, do we? Do we know much about that? I
don't like it. I told the men in our prayer
meeting last night, I said, you pray for your pastor. I said,
there's an area I've never told you that I need prayer desperately.
And this was the very thing. And my mind was moving in these
lines, so I couldn't help but bear my heart to them. There
are times, and my wife will bear this out, it happened just this
past Friday night, when I just don't want anybody else's problems.
I just don't want them anymore. I say, God, I've got enough of
my own. I don't want anybody more. And when someone calls
with a problem, I just feel like saying, keep your old problem.
And I know it's wrong. I've had to confess to God that
attitude to me. Why? Because it means self-denial.
I've got not just to give some pat, little answer. You start
just giving little answers and turning out Bible verses like
a machine gun when people come for counseling and you've had
it. No more. Nobody will be coming to your door. But when people
sense when they come with a problem that you throw yourself into
the midst of that thing and feel with them and weep with them
and pray with them. That's the crying need. My flesh
doesn't like it because it means saying no to myself. And your
flesh doesn't like it either, does it? We don't like it. But beloved,
if we're to have a true ministry, that's what it's got to be. Let
me get very personal. Is there one person that you're
really involved with? And the involvement is such that
it's costing you something. Some of you aren't even involved
with your own children. Oh yes, you give them their meals and
provide. That's all the rest. You can do all of that. You see,
like the nursing mother, the wet nurse who can impart her
sustenance, her milk, to somebody else's child, but she doesn't
get involved. Doesn't get involved. Paul says,
we gave you not the gospel only. Oh, to be able to say as a parent,
I've given you not your bread and your food only, and your
devotions only. You know, you can have family
worship and still not get involved, but I've imparted my very soul,
my very life, my very blood. Oh, may God help us as parents.
God help us as Sunday school teachers. We can impart the lesson
and never impart ourselves. Oh, we can give that lesson.
There it is, right down, correct, nice, perfect, wonderful. But
we don't know a thing about that kid's real problems. What's really
making what he is? We haven't taken time to try
to find out and go to him and latch on to him and kid of ourselves
until he opens up and bares his heart. See? Involvement demands
self-denial. We don't want it. Are you involved?
Is there anybody that you're really involved with as you sit
here this morning whose burden is your burden? Whose problems
are your problems? Let me make the question more
searching. Anybody outside the circle of your own blood relations?
You see, my involvement with my children can have some area
of selfishness in it. By involving with my own family
can have some area of selfishness. Leap beyond the boundaries of
your own flesh and blood. Is there anybody you're really
involved with? Anybody? Beloved, every one of us who's
a child of God ought to be able to say yes. Poorly, feebly, but
thank God there's somebody. There's an Ernie upon my heart.
See? You're an Elmer to some Ernie. You're a sculptor to some cold
slab of stone. And you're seeking by the grace
of God to love it into life. You folk know how I long that
we be known as an assembly that is unflinching in its commitment
to the truth of God. that stands unembarrassed in
a wishy-washy evangelical scene and declares, thus saith the
Lord on any truth of the scripture, no matter how distasteful to
human prejudice whatsoever. And I hope that that will ever
mark us. But beloved, if it isn't joined
with this, that feminine characteristic of the tenderness of a nursing
mother, we will never be used as God would delight to use us. But you say, Pastor, where in
the world do you get this? Well, let me tell you right off
the bat, I know one place you won't get it. If you stick the
ladle down in there in your own heart and hope somehow to scratch
around and pull some up, you just better save your dippin'.
It's just not there. It's not there. There's only
one place it comes from. The fruit of the Spirit is what? Love. What kind of love? God's
love. Well, what's that like? It's
love. that leads to involvement. God so loved that he gave. Christ so loved that he gave. Paul so loved that he gave of
himself. And so we are once again shut
up to our Lord Jesus Christ, that gazing upon him, the selfless
love, who could say greater love hath no man than this, that he
give what? The gospel to his friends? No,
that he give his what? That he give his life to his
friends. Greater love no man has than
that he give his life for his friends. And so the same grace
that worked in the heart of a self-centered rebel Pharisee like Saul of Tarsus
and gave him such compassion for the Thessalonians is the
love that can work in us. But you say, how now will I get
that love? Let me encourage you now, I want
to close on a very practical note. In the course of obedience,
get yourself involved. And in the context of involvement,
God will impart his love. In obedience, Paul went to Thessalonica
as it were in cold blood. But he wasn't there long before
it became warm blood. And as he got involved and the
needs began to come to the surface, he faced that critical period
where either he bowed his neck to the path of self-denial or
he backed off in self-indulgence. You pray that God will just give
you somebody to set your sights on and you just start getting
involved, even though you may not feel one fiftieth of an ounce
of love for them. You just start getting yourself
involved. of involvement, God will impart
His love. If you've got no burden for souls,
let me ask you to do something. Go on down next Friday night,
right in the middle of Newark, and just stand there on the street
corner, and just watch people go by. Watch them. Hollow-eyed, empty-faced, pouring
into the cheap movies, some other buying this, buying that, hoping
to somehow assuage the thirst Then just have enough courage
to go up to one who just seems to be standing around doing nothing
and just start talking to him and say, say, what's life all
about? And as you begin to see the emptiness and the burdens
that crush them for which they have no answer, you know what
will happen? You'll come home saying somebody began to become
dear to me. You see, love comes in the context
of involvement. If, as a parent, God has spoken
to your heart this morning and you see you've failed, that you've
not been involved with your kids, sit down with them. Tell them.
Tell them! And say, now look, I've goofed, but would you please
just tell me what you think about me? It may hurt, but where do
you think I failed as a father, as a mother? Do anything to get
the channels of communication open that you might get involved. Get involved. Get involved. I must not labor the point, but
I leave these two principles with you, and I hope I've shown
you the way whereby you might know this. The disposition described,
we were gentle among you as a nurse cherishing her children. The
root of that disposition, the grace of God producing love,
ye were become dear to us. The expression of that disposition,
ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail, the course of self-denial. And as we face that, we must
recognize in whatever ministry we're involved, These two things
are inseparable. The love of God reaching out
to men and the love of another human being reaching out to that
man. And it's going to demand involvement.
If you don't want to get involved, then you don't want biblical
Christianity. It's just that simple. But I believe many of
you do. And by the grace of God, may
we be shut up to the God of grace for that love and that involvement,
which is the mark of a true minister and a true ministry. Let us pray. Gracious Lord, we stand smitten
before the searching light of thy holy word. We confess that
by nature we don't want to be involved. We want to coddle ourselves,
walk the course of self-indulgence. Have mercy upon us, Lord, when
we've made an idol of our own whims and allowed men to slip
by unloved without really knowing that anybody cared. Lord, we
know that it's not in us to have this kind of love. Give us the
grace to say no to ourselves and look to thee for the grace
and for the infusion of that love by the Holy Spirit. Give
us, who have no one that we're really involved with, give, Lord,
someone that can become, in a very real sense, a proving ground
of this truth of thy word. Lord, we cry to thee that as
a church we may be a body not only of worshipping people, of
people who hear the word, but a body of involved people. Not
involved with all kinds of carnal schemes and all kinds of unsanctified
activity in the name of Christ, but involved with people to whom
we may communicate thy message and not the gospel only, but
our very lives. Hear us, Lord, in our cry. Purge
us by thy precious blood, and quicken us by thy Spirit. For
Jesus' sake.