I knew Eric would take care of
me. So if you would, open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter,
well actually, I'm gonna be looking at chapter two, but I'm gonna
read a bit from chapter one before we get started into chapter two,
but 1 Thessalonians, and I'm gonna just begin reading here
at the beginning of chapter one, and we'll read down through verse
13 in chapter two. 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul, Silas,
and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you. We always thank God for all of
you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before
God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted
by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by
God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply
with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with
deep conviction. You know how we lived among you
for your sake. You became imitators of us and
of the Lord in spite of severe suffering. You welcomed the message
with the joy given by the Holy Spirit and so you became a model
to all the believers in Macedonia in Achaia. The Lord's message
rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, your faith
in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we do not need to
say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of
reception you gave us. They tell us how you turned to
God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for
His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus,
who rescues us from the coming wrath. You know, brothers, that
our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and
been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of
our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong
opposition. For the appeal we make does not
spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you.
On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted
with the gospel. We are not trying to please men,
but God who tests our hearts. You know, we never use flattery,
nor did we put a mask to cover up greed. God is our witness. We're not looking for praise
from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ,
we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among
you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved
you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the
gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you had become
so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers,
our toil and hardship. We work night and day in order
not to be a burden to anyone while we preach the gospel of
God to you. You are our witnesses, and so
is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you
who believed. For you know that we dealt with
each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging,
comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who
calls you into his kingdom and glory. And we thank God, also thank
God continually because when you receive the word of God,
which you heard from us, You accepted it not as the word of
man, but as it actually is the word of God, which is at work
in you who believe." Well, as I heard Joe, and I'm
sure you did say it on more than one occasion, if nothing else,
we heard the scripture read. A little bit of apologies, but
I know it's been a little while since I last, I think it was
the beginning of September, we last looked at First Thessalonians
and really the background that we have in Acts 16 and 17. help
you to understand without me explaining, I'd rather have you
have the scripture in mind as the explanation, I'll add a few
words, but to understand why Paul said that he did. When I went through chapter one,
we talked about a gospel not in word only, and I think to
continue on that theme, you have a ministry that's not in word
only. I think it's important to understand
that this fits together with what Paul had said in chapter
one and really is kind of a transition here. He begins with the phrase,
you know. And if you grew up in California,
Southern California, you know was kind of an annoying thing
that people said. But in Paul's case, he was just
practicing what was considered good rhetoric in his day, and
actually isn't a bad idea now. When you're talking to somebody
about a familiar subject, if you can call them into your message
and you can point out to them the things that they are able
to discern, either through what they've read or what they've
seen, that it makes it more powerful. So Paul here, in a lot of I see
our NIV heading is Paul's ministry in Thessalonica. That's fine. I've seen Paul's defense of his
ministry in Thessalonica, and that's okay. I think the idea
here is Paul, another thing I heard Joe say a lot of, Paul didn't
want anything, whether real or perceived, to detract from the
message of the gospel. And he wanted to explain certain
things. Now, we don't have the discussion
that was going on in Thessalonica at the time, but can you imagine,
literally, everywhere Paul went with Silas and Timothy, they
were run out of town. Not kind of run out of town,
beaten, jailed, and run out of town. So if somebody were to
insinuate some of the things that Eric had read back in Acts
in Thessalonica, why are you listening to these guys, right? Why should you trust them? I
mean, forgive me for saying that they're convicted felons. Why
would you ever put any trust in somebody like that? They're charlatans. And Paul
wanted to call to account how his ministry was conducted. Now that, in and of itself, would
just be a history lesson, but I think there's a practical application
when we evaluate ministers and ministries that we are providentially
put in, I guess we were providentially put in the place of those ministers
or ministries. I think we can evaluate them,
not just from Titus and not just from Timothy, but you can also
evaluate them against what's said here. I forget the exact
title, but Joe has a message on you know, faithful preachers,
it's worth listening to, and is along the same vein as this. But he says, you know, brothers,
that our visit to you was not a failure. And again, look at
the human outward things that had happened. He goes into, And
if you took a step back and I wasn't going to ask you, Eric, to read
the Macedonian call, that would have added a couple more chapters,
and then you could have said that I gave you six pages. Paul
desired not to go west into Macedonia, but he actually, when he was
there on the eastern side of that strait, was wanting to go
into Asia and Asia Minor and preach the gospel. That was his
desire. God specifically called him in
a vision That Luke records, I believe it's Acts 15. I don't have it
handy, but God calls him specifically there and I would be, I'm being honest
with you, I'd be doubting it after the first beating, much
less after the second problem that he had there. I mean, they
were run out of town. Eric didn't keep reading, but
they went to Brea and the rabble followed them there to cause
trouble as well. So when you look at the ministry,
you could look at it outwardly and say, wow, this is weird. This is a failure. You know,
a small group of people, this guy who's been run off, jailed,
beaten. I mean, what kind of guy are
you following there? But Paul, when he says it's not
a failure, as our translation says here, he's saying it's not,
this ministry wasn't hollow. It wasn't without fruit. Yes,
indeed. We had previously suffered and
been insulted in Philippi. That was the first part where
essentially in Acts 16, they were illegally detained
and beaten for what had gone on. But he says, in spite of
strong opposition, and that would be Act 17, in spite of strong
opposition in God, and I don't like with the help of, those
are words added by our translation, I like the King James and and
the new King James in this, in God we dared or we were bold
to tell you his gospel. Paul had a call to preach the
gospel and he didn't allow, and I won't say little things, he
didn't allow anything to detract or to cause him to swerve aside
from proclaiming or being bold in that gospel. And he says, the appeal we make
or the exhortation that we make did not or does not spring, present
tense there, from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to
trick you. And again, translators have to
make decisions. There's nothing wrong with the
translation as it stands, but there's some help if I give you
some other words here. We're not confused. If you remember
back in Acts, I believe it's in 17, it said, Paul, as was
his manner, did what? Reason from the scriptures. And
what this first word could be is, Paul, you are confused. I
read my Old Testament and I'm not seeing what you're teaching.
And they were a little more strenuous than that because we know the
Jews there not just disagreed with his biblical exegesis or
study methods, but the word that is here, that's used here, Paul
says, I'm not confused. I know what the Old Testament
is saying, and the Old Testament is saying the same gospel, God's
gospel, that I'm preaching. It says it all the way back in
Genesis and all the way through to Malachi. So my exhortation
or my appeal that I'm making is not me being confused about
what the scripture says. Nor am I operating from impurity
or corruption Essentially, if you understand the idea of unadulterated,
I don't know if you were... Made to read, I believe it's
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. And there's some, it was a propaganda
piece, I guess, to an extent for the day. It's talking about
meat packers and the facilities and how dirty they were. And
I think there's a scene where he's discussing some of the things,
you know, everything but the squeal and a few other things
ended up in the sausage. That's the idea here. Paul's
saying is like, we don't have like mystery meat here. This
isn't a corruption of God's word or a confusion of God's word,
but we're teaching you this in a biblically sound, logically
necessary way. And then he says, not from cunning. Our translation here says trying
to trick you, which is a good way to put it. Paul isn't going
back to the Bible and doing like biblical gymnastics where he's
stringing together texts that don't fit together. And sometimes
when you read this, you know, air impure motives or whatever,
you're thinking about his personal conduct. And he does talk about
his personal conduct elsewhere. But here I think he's specifically
addressing this idea, when I preach the gospel of God's sovereign
grace and the gospel of his suffering savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
I'm not twisting scripture. I'm giving you unadulterated
truth from the testament that you read from. And then he says,
on the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted
with the gospel. That's a pretty strong claim
to make, but I think anyone who stands up before you, any man
who stands before you who preaches the gospel and who doesn't do
anything contrary to the gospel ministry, no matter what other
oddities or personal differences you might have with that individual,
If they're there and they continue in that ministry over time, you
can say that they are approved and entrusted with that. They've
been examined is the idea of the Greek word there. Paul would
even say elsewhere, I don't examine myself. Essentially what he's
saying is I just preach, I do what I think is according to
God's word, and I let the chips fall where they may. In fact,
he goes on to say that we're not trying to please men, but
God. And ultimately, any man who stands
up to preach any ministry that you come into contact with, that's
what you want. You don't want a. people pleaser
in the sense that Paul is using it here, and we'll talk about
that here in the second part, he expands on it, but somebody
who says to God, you know my heart, you know my failings,
you know I am a sinner, but you know my desire, a desire that
you've given me in the spirit is a desire to preach the truth
that God has declared. Paul says, you know, we never
use flattery, and sometimes we think of flattery in the sense
of, don't you look nice, right? Or the infamous, you know, do
I look, how do I look in this dress? The answer is fine, no
matter what you might think, The answer is always fine. That's
not the sense that it's used here. It's more, and I will be
very thankful when the election season is over, but it's more
like politics. It's more like, hey, I'm in this
town. Which town am I in? What's their
big issues? No matter what somebody believes,
they shade the truth. to fit the audience that they're
talking to. That's what Paul, that's what
the Greek term means, that's what Paul's talking about. We
never shaded the truth. When we came into your town,
we told it like it is. I think of, Paul's letter to
Titus, he didn't say, you Cretans are a really great bunch of people.
If you remember, he says you're slobs, liars, evil beasts. What is it? Something about the
belly. I'm thinking King James. But
he didn't shade the truth. He's like, you know, You know
what the character is of people here. That's the place you don't
go after dark. That's what it's like. Paul was
not the type to shade the truth to suit his hearers, but rather
he was one who was interested as being approved and entrusted
by God with the gospel to teach exactly what God had laid on
his heart. And that boldness that was spoken
of earlier, that daring that he had to teach the gospel is
in opposition. I was bold to say things that
were controversial. I was bold to say things that
were getting me beaten in other towns. I was run off, yes, but
I didn't let that change the message that I taught you. And
he's calling them to recall all these things. And he said, nor
did we put on a mask or an appearance, a sheen, it's almost like makeup,
to cover up greed. I didn't have any hidden motives. I wasn't using the ministry to
enrich myself. No, God is our witness. You're
our witness. God is our witness. And he repeats
himself. He says, we weren't looking for
praise from man, not from you or anyone else. So Paul is, to
the best of his ability as a sinner, is saying, you saw my actions. I'm telling you my desire, my
motives were in line with my actions. He's like, I'm not trying to
please you. I know where I stand before God, but you judge. You
know these things. As you know, we had these things
happen. But Paul not only talked about
his motives in ministry and of Silas and Timothy, he made it
a point to say, And you need alliteration if you have an outline.
So I have motive, and now we have maintenance. So the only
reason I have that there is just years of people saying, having
something you can remember. So looking down here in verse six, or actually 6b. I have a paragraph division in
the NIV that I have here, but he says here, as apostles of
Christ, we could have been a burden to you. What is he saying here? And unfortunately, double-sided
page, I have it on the other side, half of what I have. Essentially
what he's saying is, scripture says you don't muzzle an ox while
it treads out grain. Paul says that elsewhere. And
Paul says, did the Old Testament, did the scripture mean that only
about animals or did it talk about me? And I believe in Corinthians
he says, don't I have these rights? Paul did not assert his rights
in the ministry. And that's what he means here.
Whether or not he means apostle in the technical sense that he
was one of the apostles, or if he means it in the less technical
sense of sent ones, and he's including Silas and Timothy,
it doesn't matter. Either way, he could have imposed,
as it were, and said, hey, you're having me do these things. I
have rights that scripture outlines on your support for me. But as
we know, or as you may read later elsewhere, Paul said that, to
the Corinthians, I robbed other churches so that you wouldn't
have to pay. And apparently in the same thing
here, and Paul will talk about it in a verse or two, what he
did to support himself. But he's saying here, when it
came to me, Know this bring this to mind when people say I'm here
and I'm just some sort of charlatan If indeed that was the background
to to what was here Understand this I had every right we had
every right to expect certain things but instead we were gentle
like a mother caring for her little children and And when
you think of it in the picture here is of a nursing child and
a mother. Mother's not a, hey, you got
milk, go clean your room, right? There's no expectation there.
And that's what Paul is saying is like, I ministered to you
just like a mother would to her infant. I had no expectations
of you and When we were here, that is how we acted among you. And then he goes on to talk about
really a very self-sacrificial love. We loved you so much that
we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God,
but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. Surely you remember Again, he's
calling them as witnesses. Our toil and hardship. We know
elsewhere that Paul had a trade of tent making, and he says,
we work night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone
while we preach the gospel of God to you. And he's saying,
look, no matter what anybody might say, How does your experience
of how I acted and lived among you fall? Does it fall to those who
say, hey, some sort of flaky, you know, he's looking, he's
looking for something, you know, he's got some sort of angle,
he's like a politician. Can't wait to take your money
and do something with it. No, he's just saying, my defense
is what I did, how I lived. A lot of people can say, we love
you. But not many people can say,
we love you so much that we did these things. And that it's self-evident
to everyone, the sacrifices that occur in order to provide the
gospel to a people. And I can't help standing up
here of thinking of Joe and all the sacrifices that he did. Nobody,
and probably including now if Joe could communicate with us,
and nobody would say Joe was perfect, but Joe did a lot. And he did it out of love for
people here. And I think of that as a model. When I think of passages like
that, I think not only of the apostle, but I think of somebody
like Joe and some of the other brothers and fellow churches
who work and or have worked in the past so that they could preach
the gospel to really a small group of people. Well, we had the motive, we had
the maintenance or the lack thereof, and we have the manner, how he
lived his life. So he says, you are witnesses,
verse 10, and so is God of how holy, righteous, and blameless
we were among you who believed. Eric and I were talking a little
bit about the passage before church, and this is another one
of those, I wish it was a little bit different because you would
think, well, count me out, right? I mean, how holy, how righteous,
in my flesh? What Paul is saying here is not,
and again, translations can cover a range of things. He was saying,
I'm devout. Right? The idea of holy, of I
set myself apart to this. Paul wasn't saying everything
in my conduct, you know, think of Romans 7, the good I would
do, I don't do, and the evil I don't want to do, that I do.
He's not saying everything in his life was perfect. He was
just saying, God set me apart. I was devout to do these things. I couldn't do, woe is to me if
I don't preach the gospel. Paul said, essentially, I was
compelled to do this. And you're a witness of how compelled
I was. how I dealt with this rightly. When he talks about righteously
and blamelessly, I believe it primarily, not exclusively, but
primarily it was how he conducted himself in the preaching of the
word and how he spoke with people. And we had the mother example
before, now we have the father example. And for anyone who hears
this whose father isn't the type that's here, take it as God the
father as your example. But he's saying, like a loving
father here, like a loving father here, we
dealt with you as a father deals with his own children. Encouraging. and comforting. Now, again, I
think of my own children and how much they've had to suffer
with a imperfect fleshly man, but my desire has always been
to want to encourage them and to comfort them. And really that
should be the role of a father, but also of a minister in a ministry
of the gospel. It's not to beat up on people.
We need more people here. If you're going along with a
program of the church, how could you abstain from coming every
Sunday or every workday or giving sacrificially? Yes, there's urging,
and Paul talks about that in a minute, but a nursing mother
and a encouraging and comforting loving father rarely coincides with ministries that
I've come across. There's a lot of fear and intimidation
that's used. There's a lot of holy language
to try to encourage people to knuckle down and do what's right.
Paul is calling them to remembrance. He's like, hey, I never did that
among you. I always approach this and really
the gospel demands that you approach people like this. The gospel
demands that we encourage them. Jesus died to save us, we live
under grace, you're gonna sin. The flesh is still here, but
the right thing to do, and he says this, he urges them, it's
not just patting them on the back and saying it's okay. Yes,
you've fallen short, we're all falling short, but you need,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live a life that's worthy
of God. You know how you do that? It's
not, and I probably heard this sort of phrase a million times
from a million different people, but I heard it again, is like,
if you're talking about any deed that any non-Christian religious
person can do, that's not what he's talking about. We're talking
about deeds only that can be done by the Spirit. And what's
the most important one? It's to have faith in God and
to stop having faith in yourself. Yes, be good, do good, but when
he says live lives worthy of God, the primary call in that
is stop thinking what you do is gonna amount to a hill of
beans in the sight of God in your flesh. Stop trusting in
that. You want to live a life worthy
of God, start trusting in Him. Or continue to trust in Him.
Trust in Him more. Something comes up and it really
vexes your soul and you're looking for any way out of it that you
can and you, if only, no, don't do that. Live a life worthy of
God and place your trust in Him. And why is it that you would
want to do that? He says here that they're summoned
to salvation. God is the one who calls you
and is literally summons you into his kingdom and glory. God
isn't asking, you know, it would be nice if you believe. He summons
those people into his kingdom and into glory. And Paul throws
in a word here again that fits with the message. That was my other M here, so
I'm falling behind on my alliteration. After manner, there's a message.
But they receive the message. When you receive the word of
God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word
of men. but as it actually is the word
of God which is at work in you who believe. So when it comes
to a ministry that's not just words, if there's some actions
behind it, when you look at that ministry or you look at that
minister, you look at that under shepherd, you see that they are
those who are willing to live lives consistent, that don't
detract from the gospel message. And that's not just polishing
up the outside and hiding sin, that's living as if grace is
something not only that you receive but that you extend. not looking
to please people, not looking to shade their message, not looking
to demand their rights, not twisting scripture, not as somebody who
would try to berate you or guilt you into obedience, but like
a nursing mother and like a loving father, are those who care for
you and love you. Well, what is that gospel word? And I really love the fact that
in First Thessalonians, you have this continual emphasis, and
it may be that that Paul, in dealing with things, crafted
it this way. Certainly the Holy Spirit was
behind it. But if you remember from chapter
one, verse 10, actually halfway through verse
nine, you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true
God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the
dead Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath. And I know
with the table here, one of the things that we're calling to
remembrance and reminding ourselves of is what Jesus did in order
to rescue us from the coming wrath. And if you turn over a
few pages to chapter four, in verse 14, after saying he didn't want them
to be ignorant, in verse 14 of chapter four, he says, we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will
bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him, that blessed
hope. that we have is due to the sacrifice
that Jesus made on the cross, that he died for sinners like
you and I, that he paid for sin, and that we have a hope to live
Not a hope so, a solid hope to live with the Lord forever. And then finally in 1 Thessalonians
5, 9, just thinking about Paul's message to the Thessalonians. For God did not appoint us to
suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through
our Lord Jesus Christ. And really, that is the message
of the table. What we're calling to remember
is a gospel remembrance. We're calling everyone here who
has professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to come up, or not to come up, to
receive the Lord's table to receive the bread and the wine to remember
all that Christ had done to deliver us from our sins. So Eric, do we have people picked
out here for the Lord's table? Am I messing it up? I know you
need to come up here and sing, otherwise I will empty the building.
But as we think about it, as you contemplate what Christ has
done, contemplate what we have. So if we can have whoever's going
to come distribute the elements. And Eric, you're going to lead us
in the psych course book number eight. I can handle it that far.