Knowing me for some time, you
realize I can take six weeks to preach one sentence, sometimes
to a fault, and then other times things could be digested a little
bit more. But by the Lord's grace, we're
going to try to look at this today in such a way that we don't
skip anything, but at the same time that we don't labor that
which shouldn't be labored. Make sense? Let's read the second
chapter, first 12 verses together. For you yourselves know, brothers,
that our coming to you was not in vain. But though we had already
suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know,
we had boldness in our God to declare you the Gospel of God
in the midst of such conflict. For our appeal does not spring
from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just
as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel,
so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our
hearts. For we never came with words
of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God
is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people,
whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands
as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you,
like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So,
being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share
with you not only the gospel of God, but our own selves, because
you have become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers,
our labor and toil. We worked night and day that
we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you
the Gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also,
how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers.
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted
each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in
a manner worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and
glory. Let me pray. Father, there are
not words to express the gravity of this reality that we see here
in this letter to the Thessalonians, not just in their lives, but,
Father, in our lives this very day. Lord, would You open our
hearts and souls to the very reality that we are not here
learning for our mind's sake or for our scholarship, but,
Father, we are hearing Your voice, we are seeing Your Word, We are
beholding Your Son, and thus we know You intimately. And by
hearing and seeing and knowing You, Lord, You have transformed
our lives to be a representation of Your power, a reflection of
Your glory, a picture of Your beauty. So help us to absorb
not just the truth, But Lord, help us to live as though we
are people of faith. Help us to see that Your grace
and Your power alone, Jesus Christ alone, is the power to sustain
us and to keep us and to seal us and to prepare us for righteousness,
to prepare us for Your presence, as one day we will stand before
You forever, perfect, immutable, eternal. We pray these things
in the name of Jesus. Amen. As we worked through the first
chapter, we saw a lot of things that Paul sort of helped us apply
in our lives. The gratitude toward God because
of the work that he does. The patience, the labor, the
outcome of faith, the outcome of the grace of God that we were
able to see in the Thessalonians, not just while they were there
among them, but more importantly, amongst the people of Macedonia,
of Achaia, of Asia Minor. Turkey, that the reputation of
Thessalonians had traveled to such a degree that everybody
knew that God had saved them through the Gospel. Paul talks
about last week that the power of the Word of God did not come
to them just to their ears, but it came to them with power, it
came to them in much affliction, he said, with the joy of the
Holy Spirit. We see that in our own way, in
our own time, I want to remind us that we are no different than
these Christians. We are no different than this
church of the first century. We are empowered by the same
God. We have been reached with the same Gospel. We have been
called to the same mission. And we have been given opportunity
for the same ministry. The difference is that in our
day, we mix up what is truly the mission of the church. We
confuse what is truly the mission of the church and the ministry
of the church. And we, in doing so, convolute the message of
the church, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ in its pureness,
in its power, in its boldness. There is nothing more. There
is nothing less. There is nothing else that the
church should be about except that the ministry of reconciliation
through the good news of Jesus be preached and lived by the
power of God. And then when we get into chapter
2, these headings and these numbers and all the things that these
wonderful scholars that helped us not be flipping 700, 800,
900 pages this morning, helps us to find these texts and these
references. But unfortunately, it stops us in our cognitive
development and our cognitive expression and our understanding
of the text. It makes our brain go, OK, we're
finished with this, we're starting something new. That's not the
case here. It's just a lot of text in chapter 1, now it's in
chapter 2, but it's not anything different. Because it begins
with the word for. It begins in the sense that Paul
is continuing this same conversation, this same idea, this same expression. He wants them to understand that
they have been delivered, that their reputation, that their
witness, as you saw twice in this 12 verses of chapter 2,
their witness has been manifest amongst the people of the area.
That they're not just Christians by voice, by profession, but
they're Christians by power. That they're believers and followers
of Christ in such a way that the Word of God has actively
gone forth from them in their mouths, in their preaching, in
their teaching. They were known to be evangelists. They were known as those who
were sharing the gospel and spreading the evangel in the midst of much
suffering, much affliction, much persecution. And not only that,
but they weren't just sharing it because of greed, as we'll
see here today, as Paul would teach the apostles' ministry
was. They weren't doing this because it was a popular thing
to do. They weren't doing this because
it was an esteemed position to hold. They were doing this because
they were compelled, because they had been saved by the wrath
of the One of God. They had been saved by the wrath
of the One who was coming to judge. Jesus Christ saved them
from His own judgment. And so, therefore, now you yourselves
know, brothers. That's what he says in verse
1 of chapter 2. This is true. For you yourselves know. Now remember in that last week,
we talked about, or Paul showed us in verse, let's see here,
he says this, we know in verse 4, a couple of weeks ago, brothers,
love by God that He's chosen you. Paul is very, very secure
and his understanding of their election. Paul is very secure
in that which he knows. Paul is very secure because God
has made it evident and has given the reality and the fruitfulness
and the power to prove that these people are indeed children of
God. And for a reminder, what power
lies in our lives this very moment? Each of us individually and collectively
as a body, where is the power of the Gospel of Christ and is
it evident in our lives? Is it evident in our lives through
our affections, through our disciplines? Is it evident in our lives through
our intimacy, through our application of the Word of God, through our
desire to stand firm in the gospel and affliction? Is the power
of the gospel as the proof of election evident in our life
and that there is nothing else in this world that matters but
Christ? Is He our eternal hope? If everything else in the world
passed away, are we satisfied and content with the fullness
of the greatest treasure that ever, ever, ever could be in
the cosmos? Jesus the Christ, the Son of
God. is that power among us today.
I pray and I plead with you this very day, beloved, that if that
is missing from your life, if your joy is incomplete, that
you would cry out to the mercy of God, that He would give you
the joy of your salvation, that He would return it to you as
David cried in Psalm 51, that you would find a place where
this world would no longer have a threshold where you continued
to cross, to go back into it. that this world would no longer
have a choke hold over you. That there would no longer be
opportunity for you to love anything of the world or want to be part
of anything in it. and that you would find satisfaction
in the Christ who has been raised to life and His resurrection
from the dead is evidence of His deity, evidence of His power,
evidence of His truth, evidence of His life. He is that which
He claimed to be, who is the God of heaven that spoke and
created all things by the word of His power and He sustains
them by His own word, by His own will, by His own mere pleasure.
And beloved, He sustains you and He sustains me. by His own
will and by His own good pleasure, because of the great love with
which He loves us. What else do we need? Nothing. As a matter of fact, what Paul
would teach not only to the Thessalonians, but as we journey through Philippians,
what Paul would teach the Philippians is that everything is worthy
of loss. Everything is worthy of trash.
Everything, compared to the priceless gain of knowing Christ. I often
envision how this looks. Before we get into this, I often
envision how this looks in our world today. Now imagine a community
of people, much like ours, 20, 30,000 people, maybe more. and that everyone has been hungry,
everyone has been naked, everyone has been displaced from their
homes. But then all of a sudden, through a united effort, someone
comes in and brings food, brings clothes, brings tents, brings
medicine. Now imagine the celebration that
would take place with such a gift. Is it not worthy to celebrate?
Yes. Now think about those who have
a heart for those who are really starving, for the children, for
the widows, for the orphans, for the destitute, for the impoverished,
who have starved and starved and starved. And imagine the
celebration of these people as they piled food all over the
tables and they said, come all who are hungry and eat and celebrate. And they played games together.
They had so much that there were months and months of leftovers.
No one would ever go hungry again. They played, they sang, they
enjoyed sport and entertainment, they napped, they flew kites,
they told stories and taught the children things, wisdom,
truth. They made some clothes. They
made tents. They made knives. Much was glorified
about the joy that they had over the provision given to them and
their hearts were grateful that their reward had come and everyone
had all they needed and would never want. Can you picture that? And everyone who was celebrating
just rejoicing the fact that they loved all people and they
were glad that everyone had everything they needed. Now that's a good
picture of the body of Christ and the metaphor of that which
we need truly is Jesus Christ, that we've got it all. But friends,
let me tell you what the American church does. They celebrate in
that way. They say that they love the lost.
They say that they have a heart to give that which is most needed.
But they celebrate a worldly gift inside a wall while the
multitudes look over the top wondering when their food will
come. That's what our culture looks
like. And that's where Paul is about to unload on us the reality
of their ministry. It unsettles me when I hear people
talk and they share with me how righteous they are. Can I just
admit that? At the same time, sometimes we
as Christians, especially us Reformed Baptist people, we are
so self-deprecating to the point that God's grace isn't strong
enough. Yes, we are unworthy, we are
evil, we are wicked, we are depraved, but most importantly, we are
dead. But God has made us alive in Christ. He has raised us alive. We have died with Him. We will
be raised with Him. We are not perfect, but we are
absolutely justified before Him by faith alone. And then God
works out in us our salvation as we work it out with fear and
trembling, trusting in Him. It's a really troubling dichotomy
every turn. But as we see I didn't know where
I was going now. As we see our own lives, and as we grow in our faith,
that's where it was, I don't know that there's ever
a place for the Christian to come and say, look at me, I'm
the picture of perfection. Does that sound wrong? It sounds
wrong to me. Now, I'm a picture of the grace
of God? That's okay. He has really brought
me a long way. I'm really now free from some
of these things. There's a lot that God is doing,
and so on, and so on. That sounds better. Well, that's
not what Paul said. Paul... It says, our appeal does not
spring from error, impurity, or any attempt to deceive. That's
okay. Look, I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not lying. I'm
telling the truth. There's no wrong in that. But just as we've been
approved by God, so we speak not to please man, but to please
God who tests our hearts. For we never came with flattery.
As you know, with the pretext of Greek, God is witness. Nor
did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others.
Though we could have made demands as the apostles of Christ, we
were gentle among you. And so when we think of those
things, we thought, that sounds okay. What's really wrong with
that? Well, when we start seeing people
say, we stood in perfect righteousness, we came in this way, it ought
to make us Pauls for a moment. Why was Paul doing this? Let
me get this out and then we can move through this text a little
bit differently. Maybe it never even occurred to you. That seems
odd. It's just like sometimes when
Paul says, glory only in Christ, but then he says, I glory in
you. It seems like a contradiction. When he says, I am nothing, but
Christ is everything. When he says that I do not live,
but Christ who lives within me. But yet, I live for the glory
of God. So it seems conflicting. But it's not when you understand
the reality of the Apostle Paul and his life, and not just he,
but the apostles who were with him and Timothy as mentor, as
mentee, is that these men were not playing both sides of the
fence. These men were not actually living
double lives. They had nothing but Christ. So that any boast they had was
in Christ alone. And the reason for this part
of this text is that if you understand the premise of what's really
happening in this city, there are people coming and beginning
to thwart the theology or the teaching of the second coming
of Jesus Christ. There are many who are now purveying
a different gospel in such a way that it's confusing the sheep
of Christ, who were infants For they only had four to six months
of the apostles to get them established and to get elders appointed.
I mean, imagine just coming in, never heard the Gospel, planting
a church, appointing a few guys to give some shepherding, and
then the people who did it just leave town. Now what? The Lord
was faithful. And so Paul comes to this position
not to brag before the Thessalonians, but Paul comes to this position
to show the fruitfulness of the labor of the gospel and the fact
that the power of God was rested upon them. The word blessed or
approval of God means that they are indeed in Christ. That God
sees their lives and approves of them. because He is at work
in them and through them. God sees the message that they
preach and approves of it. Friends, there is a time when
we ought to look in the mirror and ask, is what I say and where
I go and what I do in the name of ministry, in the name of Christ,
really something Christ is applauding, that gives Him honor? Not for
our own accolades, but for His own glory. And if it's not, we
probably should cut it as far away from our flesh as if it
were a tumor. And throw it away from our lives
as far as we could ever throw it. And then run the opposite
direction. And then set the ground on fire
behind us. And then put a bunch of evil dogs and dragons in front
of where we... You know, just keep on going. These people who were teaching
falsely, who were hurting the sheep of God, who were twisting
Scripture, they did not live a life that proved their election. They did not display the power
of God in sanctification. They did not display their affections
even for the people of Thessalonica. So Paul then gives a contrast. He's already said, you imitated
our lives. because the Word came to you
in power with much affliction and with the joy of the Holy
Spirit. Now He is going to show us what real ministry looks like. So if I were to entitle this
message, I used to labor over this kind of stuff. I don't really
care much anymore. But if I had to give a title for this message,
I could entitle it maybe a comparative study on ministry. That would
be good. Or a defense of the ministry
of grace. That would be good. So you entitle
it whatever you want. The bottom line is this, Paul's
about to show us what the gospel ministry looks like, what we're
supposed to be doing, and to what end. And now we're going
to hear it, and we're going to look at our own lives. We're
going to look at the lives of those around us, the lives of
many congregations, the lives of the churches that most of
us have even come from through the ages. to see that there is
only one truth, there is only one way, there is only one message,
there is only one mission for the church of Jesus Christ. And
that which we do here is equally and able to be done on the continent
of Africa, on the continent of Asia, in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean, whatever island you might bump into, the Atlantic. or in
Alaska, or wherever you might be. If you happen to take a trip
to the moon and there are other people with you, evangelism is
there. You can entitle this message,
What is Biblical Evangelism? What is it that we are supposed
to do in the context of sharing the faith of Jesus Christ? Well,
let's look at it. For you yourselves know, brothers,
Paul is reminding us, you know, brothers. He's not saying, I
want you to realize. He's saying, I know, you know.
You know. He's calling them brothers. He's
not speaking to the apostate. He's not speaking to the false
teachers. He's not speaking to the unbelievers. No letter in
the New Testament was ever written to anyone who was not born of
God. It does not happen. God does
not give instruction, worship, love, affection, and knowledge
to dead people. He first gives them life. And
then they can hear. Well, how do they get that life?
Paul says it very clearly in Romans 10, by hearing that which
was written to those who have life. It's very simple. If your car runs out of gas,
You don't sit there and tell it that it should have had gas.
You should have gas. This is a bottle of gas and this
is what it looks like. Can you muster some? Can you
find some? Can you go get some? You can't
go get gas if you have no gas, if you're the car. Terrible metaphor. What do you do? You pour it in
the tank. God pours life into dead things
by the hearing of the Word that is life. That's what he does. Maybe it is, good. Better than
the movie Cars. So, brothers, you know. What is it that we know? He says
that our coming was not in vain. Now let's think about the word
vain for a moment. The word vain, by definition, means empty. And
connotation means worthless, has no value, Devoid, whatever. The car is vain when it has no
gas. Just crank up, push it, do whatever
you want to do. It will not operate. He says,
we did not come to you in vain. Our coming was not in vain. Now
look at what he says in verse 2. But though we had already
suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, We had boldness in our God to
declare the Gospel of God in the midst of much affliction.
So, here is Paul reminding these Christians that they are not
like those who are among them. They are not like those who are
causing them trouble. They are not like those who are
teaching a bad Gospel. They are suffering. And on the
contrary, the charlatans, the false teachers, those who are
teaching and purveying a false gospel for their own benefit. What's more beneficial than dealing
with prophecy? Nothing to the preacher. Nothing. Nothing's more beneficial than
dealing with end times and prophecy. It's the most lucrative message
in the world. False prophets have produced
more books in the last ten years than all of history. and they're making millions of
dollars on them. And then they're wrong. And you know what? A multitude
of people go, these are false prophets. And then there's five
times that many that will follow them for the next book. The blood
moons, the end days, the coming of Christ, the Antichrist, the
beast coming out of the ocean. This sounds like a pretty good
movie. It sells. Friends, it sold in the day of
the Thessalonians too. And people were coming into these
towns and into these cities and they were saying, Jesus has already
come. Some of them were saying, Jesus isn't coming. Some of them
are saying, if y'all die, it's over. Those who have died already,
you missed it. You better listen. Don't want
to miss it, do you? See how the urgency is? That's a sales pitch.
You don't want to miss it. Your friends have missed it.
You don't want to miss it. You better listen. You better
buy what we're selling. You better take care of us as
we preach to you the truth so you don't miss it. Who wants
to miss it? See, there's an urgency in your
spirit. I'm not even talking about anything tangible. I don't
want to miss it. What is it? We did not come to you in vain.
Now, it could mean specifically that we didn't come to you and
God not produce the fruit. But friends, that doesn't make
any sense. Paul's not saying we came to you and fruit was
produced because there is no such thing as vain preaching. Except that it's false now. If
you teach the gospel, it is never empty. Even when people refuse
it, God has done that. You hear that? God has closed
the ears of some that they may not hear. The Word of God goes
forth and does exactly that which it was intended to do. That's
not what Paul's talking about. Paul's not defending the power
of the Word. Paul's saying, we just got locked
up. We were stripped of all of our
personal possessions. We were beaten. We were in chains.
God delivered us from the jails of Philippi. Many people came
to faith through God's miracle, through God's message, through
God's men. And then we came to you. And
we suffered here as well. And though we came with nothing,
we had so much. That's what He's saying. We did
not come to you in vain. We did not come to you empty-handed.
We did not come to you with nothing to give you. We came to give
you everything that you could ever want. We came and we gave
you that which is the message of the gospel of God. We came and our coming was in
power, our coming was in life, our coming was for the glory
of Christ, and it was not empty. You see that? Now friends, there's
something for us to learn. See, that can preach for the
next 30 minutes. I don't want to get us through this whole
example. We can see our lives and we can tell God, if I just
had this, if I just went there, if I just knew them, if I just
was able, if I just understood, if I just did that, then we could
do something. Friends, we don't need anything
but our mouth and our Bible to be full. And we don't need anything
but that to give everybody everything they could ever imagine. There
is no such thing as vain coming in the gospel of God. Ever. Ever. And I would suggest to
you that some of the greater ministries that we see in our
world today are the most fruitless. Because they don't even give
the gospel. It is not a brag to say, look
how many have come through. It is not a brag. It is almost a shame when we
see the numbers of people that interact and bleed into these
so-called ministries who never have anything, but seem to have
everything. It's as though we suffered shame
and imprisonment and harm at Philippi. This shame did not
cause us to lose our boldness. This shame as we suffered there
and as we suffered here. You remember the story? When
they went to Thessalonica, they got them out of town because
their lives were still being threatened. But yet they went
there knowing, as Paul would remind us, I do not know what
lies ahead or what's going to happen, but I know this, the
Lord has told me that no matter where I go, no matter what time
I go to, that imprisonment and affliction await. We don't know. But yet we've
got ministers who won't come without an honorarium. We've
got evangelists who won't go without certain types of bottled
waters. We've got people who won't travel to teach the gospel
unless they get a first class plane ticket. I say put them
on a boat and send them somewhere else. Anywhere. Let them minister to
seagulls. By the power of God, we came
with the message of the Gospel of God in the midst of such affliction. See this on this point, church.
We came to you, Paul says, with nothing, because we'd suffered
greatly and lost it all. But we were not empty-handed,
for we had the Gospel of God, which was life and power and
hope. And friends, if nothing else
you get out of today, that's worth preaching. Nothing else
in life. If you were to die this moment,
celebrate that. You know what that means? Your talent, your ability, your
exposure is not necessary to be full and have everything that
everyone needs. The Gospel of God of Jesus Christ
is all that we need. We don't even need to overcome
our sin in perfection. We don't even need to have a
perfect discipline. Now what are you saying? I'm saying, friends, there are
some things that will rise their ugly heads. And when they're
habitual and they've caught us, we are disqualified and we deal
with those and repent and pray and God will deliver us from
that. But if you are waiting until you are sinless to serve
God, you will never serve God. If you're waiting until you are
educated, you'll never serve God. As a matter of fact, when
the apostles were arrested and whipped, it says they let them
out and they charged them not to preach in the name of Christ
anymore. And what did they do? They left
the gates of the prison and preached in the outer gate of the prison.
We cannot help but preach Christ. We cannot do anything else but
preach Christ. They were wrongfully arrested.
They were wrongfully beaten. They were wrongfully charged.
They were just destroyed in their bodies. And they went out and
they warned, if you do this again, we're going to beat you again.
What's worse, the beating or being beaten again? On top of
the beating? I don't know. I don't want to
know. And the Bible says that those
that looked upon them were amazed. Why were they amazed? Number
one, because they're foolish enough to preach for the very
thing that just about killed them. But what does it say specifically?
That they were amazed that unlearned men had such wisdom. I'm not saying we don't learn.
I'm not saying that those called to be disciples of Christ should
not grow, for Pete's sake. Teaching is good. Learning is
great. But what if you can't? What if
you don't have opportunity like some? There was no seminary for
Saul. There was no seminary for Peter. There was no seminary for John. It was three years with Jesus. And then that's it. So, let's
follow that model. Three years with Jesus. Go! And if you only get six months,
like the Thessalonians, go anyway. You're not empty-handed, church.
You're not empty-handed to be able to handle not only the gospel
ministry, but you're not empty-handed to be able to handle the conflict
in your own home, the conflict in your own heart. the conflict
in your neighborhood, the problems, the frustration that settles
within your spirit, that seems to put your fire out, you are
equipped to handle it, for you have everything in Christ. You
have the power of God in your mouth, and in your heart, and
in your hands. Our coming was not empty because
we preached the gospel. Something else we should learn
from this text. He says there, we are not those who what? For our appeal does not spring
from error or impurity or attempt to deceive. We're not motivated
to come here so that we can do something underhanded. We're
not motivated so we can gather some things for ourselves. That's not what ministry is,
Paul is showing. Our ministry is pure. It's true. He says we are not in error.
Our coming was in purity, our coming was in love, and our coming
was with gratitude. Does that sound like the ministry
of the world today? Purity? Friends, purity is a big word
in every aspect of Scripture. And it is just, I don't know,
it's ineffable. Because I think it rightly describes
the essence of God's character, holiness, righteousness. And
if we can't really fully grasp the reality of that, how are
we ever to understand the reality of the application of such things
in our own lives, such as purity? Now why was the word purity used? Why would he say that? I'm not
coming in impurity. I'm not coming in error. We can
understand the issue of error. We didn't come speaking falsely. We didn't come lying. But what
produces the false teaching? What produces the false ministry? Impurity of heart. Impurity of mind. Impurity of
motive. What challenges us to do that
which we do is our motives. What speaks to our motives is
our affections. What speaks to our affections
is our conscience. What speaks to our conscience
is our flesh. except we be in Christ and the
Spirit speak to our conscience. We put to death the flesh and
the Spirit speak. Do you see how that works? So those who came preaching differently,
those who came doing differently, those who came with flamboyance
and twisting, they came in deceit. They are lying. They are tricking
you because their hearts are evil. They do not love you, and
they do not love the Lord Jesus Christ, and they do not love
the church. That's what Paul is saying. They
love themselves. They love the sound of their
own voice. They love the prestige of standing before men and being
heralded as something perfect and honorable and worthy. They
love being followed and pressed upon in the public way. Wow,
we better see. I want to ask a question to this
guy. I need to find out what's up. They love that esteem. Paul says, not us. evidenced
by the fact we came in suffering. Nobody threw us a parade. Nobody
gave us an honorarium. Nobody, you know, patted us on
the back. Nobody did anything except try
to kill us. People trying to kill us. These
people aren't being killed because the gospel they preach is not
harmful to the culture. It's no gospel. We come and preach
Christ and we suffer for it. We live for Christ and we suffer
for it. We pray and we depend upon Christ and we suffer for
it. We lose all things. Our honor, our privileges, our
rights, our wealth, our families, our friends, those who used to
love us, our very faith, our society, our culture, it's all
gone. We have nothing. But we weren't nothing. We're
not in error, we're in truth. Others teach lies, we teach truth. We did not come with impurity,
but we came with pureness. We came with the right desires
because we have been made holy in our hearts by the Lord and
we want to share that reality with you. Our hearts are with
you. We are not deceiving you. Others came to trick you. Others
came to do that which they wanted to do. They wanted to impress
you. We're not coming to impress you. Paul would say to the church
of Corinthians, the church in Corinth, what would he say? I
did not come to you with eloquence and with boldness, or not boldness,
but with barely able to stand or speak. I came to you frail, trembling, stuttering, worried,
burdened. so that I could preach Christ
and Him crucified. For if I came in my power, the
cross loses its power." That's what Paul says. It's like a chapter
and a half paraphrased into one. But there is no different here. Paul came in weakness, humility,
gentleness, not twisting. Why did he do this? He goes on
to teach all that. He goes on to show us that they
were gentle, that they loved them. They did not do this because
our coming or our love for Christ compels us to preach the truth
of Christ. They did not do that because the power of Christ empowered
them to preach truth and to endure suffering. Paul tells Timothy
several times in his letters about endurance, but one specifically,
he actually says, endure what? Suffering. How? By the grace which is yours in
Christ Jesus. How do we do that? How do we
get the grace of Christ Jesus? Through the words of Christ.
Paul's letters, Peter's letters, John's letters. The grace of
God is given through the writing of God. Don't forget that though
these men wrote these letters to others, God wrote these letters. Don't forget it. The grace of God empowers us
through His Word. I think I jumped on this too
long last week and went 16 minutes over the hour. But it is the
only hope we have, beloved, that Jesus' words empower us to preach,
to love, We're not deceiving because we love Christ and He
compels us. His power compels us. And we
did not come for ourselves. We came for you. To give our
lives away, as you'll see in a minute. Not just to teach you
something so we can say, we taught these guys a lot of doctrine,
a lot of theology, had a good conference. See you later. We came to die
for you. We came to preach Christ, and
if we had died, we have not lost anything. If we lose everything
this world has to us, we have gained everything. See how ridiculous
that sounds? As Americans, that is counterintuitive
to the very way of life that we have established. That's what makes Jesus hated
so much in our country. And that's why evangelicalism,
as it is today, is unbiblical as a whole. Because there's no
good news in anything most churches do. They certainly don't preach
it, much less give their lives away for somebody in order for
them to hear it. We are approved by God. This
is the evidence that we are truly true and pure. Now that's a bold
statement. God approves of us. Someone recently
told me that they were going to run for public office because
God told them to. How did He tell you to? What
chapter and verse? Confused him. Brother, you better be careful
what you say God said. And you may feel like you're
led, but even then, you'll be led by the Lord through His Word. Be careful. We didn't come for
ourselves. We don't want any credit. We
don't want to be gloried. We don't want to be esteemed.
We're approved by God, evidenced by our joy in the midst of suffering,
evidenced by the power of what we do and how we live. You want
to talk about living morally? Living righteously? Let your
life be a lucky charm, happy-go-lucky. Listen, as a church-going Baptist,
you could live correctly in the eyes of the world. And when everything's good, church
life's good, the music was on key, pianist didn't tear anything,
guitar didn't break a string, life is good, hallelujah, praise
the Lord. When your house burns down, are
you praising the Lord? When your children die in a car
accident, are you praising the Lord? I'm not trying to be macabre,
I'm trying to be real. Well, that's what happened to
the apostles. That's what was happening to the Thessalonians.
Their children were dying of starvation and being orphaned
because they were being arrested. Probably being sold into slavery. Well, my shoes hurt. Okay. Violins up. I mean, you know.
In comparison, friends, we don't suffer. No suffering at all in comparison. But yet we suffer greatly in
the way that God has caused us to suffer. I'm not making light of it. We just
need to compare it. And chances are, if we boldly proclaim the
gospel at every turn, oh, we'd suffer a lot worse. We're approved by God because
we continue to have joy He knows our hearts. We're not sitting
here trying to prove to you that we're holy. God has declared
us holy through the blood of Christ. And we are. There is no other
joy in our lives but that. And so, if you see the approval
of God upon our lives, it will be evidenced by the fact that
our joy is full in the midst of death and suffering and persecution
and defamation and everything. Friends, one of the hardest things
that I'm still trying to learn to deal with in life is when
people talk ill of me for no reason. Or assume something. Assumption is... I could just
break a wall down when I hear about some people assuming things
about others. It hurts! You know what I mean? Get over it. Because people are
never going to speak well of you as a whole when you follow
Christ. And Paul was not worried about
his well-spoken life. Paul wanted people to speak not
well of Paul, but well of Christ. And they didn't do that either. We're approved by God, evidenced
by our loss, evidenced by the gain of the Gospel. We're approved
by God, evidenced by our mouths. We have the Gospel, so we speak.
We preach. And that's what we've come to
do. We've come to give you the truth of the Gospel. We're approved
by God, evidenced by our motives. This is why we do. We do what
we do because we're not looking for men to clap for us. We're
not looking for you to say, well, we love the apostles, let's have
a party for them. You know what never happened
in the first century church? A public fellowship. During this
time, nobody just said, hey guys, let's just have an after church
social, pray and worship together in public. Didn't happen. Not
in this place. But then the authorities are
like, what's that singing? Come thou fount? I've got a fountain
for you. We'll lock you all up. How's that? They didn't have time for it.
They didn't have the opportunity. They fellowshiped around the
Word with prayer, with much lamenting, but the fullness of joy. They
pursued Christ in such a way that they willingly, what does
Hebrews say? Willingly and joyfully accepted
the plundering of their property, for they knew they had an abiding
award, a better award, a better reward rather. I don't know about
you, if somebody comes to take my stuff and my house and displace
me and my family, it's going to be a little aggressive. Yeah,
we like this house, we want to have it. Sorry. And right now in our culture,
our government that's established by God gives us the right to
defend our home. It wasn't so for the Thessalonians. And you know what? They never
lost their joy. The apostles' ministry was approved
by God, and evidence that it was approved by God, because
of their mission, because of their motives, their mouths,
the preaching, the laws. We will not please man, we will
please God, and He alone knows our hearts, they said. It goes
on to say that in the ministry there, that the coming of the
apostles was in power, it was not empty, It was impurity, love,
and gratitude. And the coming of the apostles
was in truth as they spoke and thus proved. He said, we do not
come to impress with words of flattery. We do not come to gain
anything. We didn't come here to get something.
This is going to shock you, but I've recently had a conversation
with someone who wanted to get me involved in a public event. A tent type revival type thingy,
type thing. Couldn't really define it. But
in that conversation, I'm like, well, what do you want from it?
Well, I want people to hear the Word of God, the worship. I said,
well, we don't need a tent and a thousand people. Just start
knocking on doors. I should have said, I've got
a brother to meet up with you on Tuesday. You can hold his cross. Just go preach the gospel if
you want people to hear the gospel. There's nothing wrong with organizing. But at the end, finally, he said,
I think we can probably make $3,000 in offerings. And just think what we could
do with that in the community. Now we see. So you see the deal? I'm not coming to get anything
from you. I'm not coming like these people were coming, Paul
says. We didn't come in here to take up your offerings. We're
not preaching to scare you into submission and to hold you bondage
and then to say, Malachi 3! Malachi 3! I mean, you know,
that's a really good thing to preach in today's world. We didn't come to do that. We
didn't come to gain anything from you except that which God
would do in you, the fruit of the Gospel. That's what we gain.
We gain you. Not what you have. We want you. Friends, in our interpersonal
relationships in the body of Christ, we need to be very careful
that that's how we operate in our hearts. That we engage with
each other in such a way that we are looking to not gain from
each other, but to give to each other. And I know many of us, we know
what it costs to minister. And I'm not talking about money.
Money is the easy way if you got it. If you don't got it,
it ain't so easy. I'm talking about giving of yourself. Everything that you thought you
had planned is just railroaded, just derailed, gone, so that
somebody else could get the gift of your ministry. That's what
we came to do, he says. True gospel ministry, biblical
ministry is proven because no one seeks to gain when they minister. They seek to give. We speak the truth. God is our
witness. He knows our hearts. He knows
that His righteousness dwells within us. See this, Paul would
say. Our motives are pure. We came
with the Gospel, not emptiness. We came with boldness and with
truth, not a worldly ministry. And finally, as we see this text,
the apostles' coming was in humility. They were nothing in order that
Christ was something. They became nothing that Christ
would be glorified. We salt no glory from anyone.
You see that? It's real easy for someone to
say, I don't care what people think about me. But yet they work real hard to
gain favor in the eyes of their local church. You know what? We don't need... I can't say
you know what. Why did I start saying that in the last four
minutes? You ever say stuff like that and it just runs in your
head? It drives me insane. We don't have to earn each other's
favor. We don't have to earn each other's
affection. We don't have to earn each other's
forgiveness or trust. We are the children of God, paid
for by the blood of Christ. We have been redeemed and set
free from the bondage of sin. And we've been united intimately
by the power of the Creator. And nothing can tear that apart.
Just as no one can pluck us from the hand of Christ, no one can
pluck us from our intimacy with each other. If anything gets
in the way with each other, friends, someone is not living in accordance
to the Word, or someone is not filled with Christ. Could be
both. Could be one. Could be the other. Nothing separates us from God's
love. Nothing separates us from the
love of each other. We don't earn favor. We give it. And friends, that's difficult.
Because none of us hardly ever, I don't, maybe you do, I don't
ever really even think about what it means to try to earn
somebody's favor. For those of us who do, that's
a good thing. We should probably think. For
those of us who don't, it's either because it's just not a problem
for us or we just do it naturally and don't think about it. I want
someone to like me. I want someone to love me. Friends,
we love each other because we are in Christ. No matter how ugly, I'm not looking
at anybody right now, smelly, smart, or dumb, rich, poor, tan,
clear, whatever. We love each other. We endure
and carry each other's burdens. And we're approved by God. We came to you not in this glory.
We were the apostles of Christ. We could demand of you certain
things. Some people argue we could demand of you support.
Which they could have, but they didn't. We could have demanded
this. They said we did not even do
that. We came... Some scripture says infants.
We came as infants. Some translations that want to
really work into the context use the word gentle. The word is infant. But we came
as infants, as mothers. We came in an infant way. We
came with the demeanor of babes. We came gently, like a mother. So being affectionately desirous
of you, we were ready to share with you not only the Gospel
of God, but our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
You hear that? We came to you gently. Now, when they came to the Thessalonians,
were they Christians? No. They were not. Friends, this is where we've
got to pay close attention to the Gospel and not pundits. To truth and not tradition. To
the power of God and not the practice of men. Because Scripture
everywhere, even with those who purposely try to split the church,
we ought to be patient and firm. but never rude, never ugly, never
demeaning. There is no such place for that
in the cause of Christ. Christ, who is God, did not demean
those who crucified Him. Peter would say He did not even
speak on His own behalf. But yet we saw all through the
Gospels, Jesus, with just a sentence, could confound the wisdom of
men. He could take those accusations
and those charges and just turn the shreds. What do you say,
teacher? The Pharisees would ask. This
woman was caught in the act of adultery. And I know this is
not canon. It's not in the oldest manuscripts.
It's a scribal entry. We believe that it really happened,
but it's not apostolic in John's Gospel. But it doesn't contradict
other things where Jesus was and how He would speak, and I'll
show you that in just a second. But what do you say? By the law,
Moses says she should be stoned. What do you say? He who has no
sin, start throwing. From the oldest to the youngest,
they dropped their stones and left. Was the woman guilty? Yes. But was Jesus rude? Condemning? Who was Jesus rude to? The religious. The self-righteous. Those who brushed themselves
off and went, I'm glad I don't have that stank on me no more. Jesus would say, no, you've got an eternal stink of
your condemnation. That man goes home condemned
because he thanks God for his righteousness. This man who would
not even look toward heaven, help me God, I'm a sinner, forgive
me, is righteous, justified. We see the reality where the
apostles were walking with Jesus, and there were large crowds,
and the woman came and she began to cry for Jesus to heal her
daughter. Remember that? A Samaritan woman. And the disciples
said, get her away! Get away! Jesus, would you send her away?
Tell her to leave you alone! And Jesus looks at the woman
and says, Woman! Why would I take the bread that
belongs to the children and throw it to the dogs? Why do you ask
this of me? Why would I throw the bread of
my children to the dogs? And she says even the dogs get
the scraps from their master's table. Your prayers are answered. Unclean, half-bred, pagan. Crying out and lamenting over
the feet of Jesus. Please, do my daughter! And all
these good righteous Jews walking with Him, doing the great ministry. And Jesus doesn't condemn her. In every opportunity, Peter would
say, give a reason for the hope that you have with what? Gentleness
and respect. I know I'm laboring this point. But I watch Facebook and I see
the polemics and I see the degradation of the soul as it starts with
good intentions and then falls into the prey of the flesh. as we began to say that's not
quite true to you're an idiot and this is ridiculous. And I'm just talking about Christians
talking to each other. I'm not even getting into politics,
culture, pop music, whatever. We were gentle among you. We
need to be gentle among the lost. For once we stood just as they
stand, dead, unable to see. And someone filled with the power
of the Gospel came to us and gave us that truth. Gently. Whether it be preaching that
you heard, whether it be a friend, a neighbor, a crazy guy on the
street, a child, There was gentleness. Most importantly, Christ comes
in gentleness as a lamb. In verse 9, in closing, I'm going
to run through these real quick. The affection of Christ creates
desire for the lost and much, much more desire for the brethren.
The affection of Christ, in verse 8 rather, gives them the desire
to not just preach, He says, but be affectionately desirous
of you. We were ready to share with you
not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves because you
had become very dear to us. Now think about that for a minute.
They had become very dear to Paul and the apostles, the Thessalonians
had, because they loved them and desired them affectionately
before they were even the church. And then when God saved them,
they became even more desirable, more affectionate. So that our
heart toward the lost ought to be a heart of pity, a heart of
passion, Not to the neglect of the body.
Those things are not mutually exclusive. So often times we
see congregations all about reaching the lost. To heck with anybody
in the church. And quite honestly, Christians
reach the lost. Congregations love each other.
We're talking about three men here.
Not a congregation. Paul, Silas, and Timothy. The affection of Christ gave
them this desire not just to preach, but to die for the sake
of the testimonies, to give their lives away. You remember, brothers,
verse 9, our labor and our toil. Remember what we did. Remember
how we worked day and night, not just for the gospel, but
for our own meals. so that we would not be a burden
to any of you. Remember that we proclaimed to you the Gospel
of God while we did that. We preached the Gospel to you.
We taught the Word of God to you while we worked and worked
and worked and labored and slept for an hour at a time so that
we could continue to do that which God had caused us to do.
Friends, there's the example of living our lives for someone. This is what evangelism looks
like. This is what I see as the truth
of the heart of many people who are really called of God to do
ministry. Some of you in this room, just
like this, costing you much to teach people
the Gospel. You are witnesses, verse 10,
And God also is a witness how holy and righteous and blameless
was our conduct toward you believers. Think about that. Can people
say that about us? Can people say that about us?
That our conduct and our words and our affection and our operations
around each other is so holy and righteous that we're above
reproach in all things? Paul and the apostles say that
theirs were. For you know, verse 11, how like a father with his
children. He's already said, like a mother nursing its child. Now a father with his children,
what did they do? Verse 12, we exhorted each of
you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy
of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. Recap
that. Our ministry was one of great
toil. Our ministry was one of great
labor. Our ministry revealed the righteousness
of God in our lives. Our ministry cared for your joy
as we exhorted you, taught you, discipled you, preached to you. Our ministry pointed you to the
ultimate end of all things, which is the glory of God of whose
kingdom you are a part. And I pray, church, that we probably
will look at some of these verses in more detail in the weeks to
come. But don't take this and go, okay,
verse 13, here we go. Take this and look deep at the
nature of gospel ministry, of the evangelistic efforts of the
apostles. And when you see, get this picture in your mind and
in your heart in such a way, and when you see anything else going
out in the name of Christ, ask yourself, is this it? Is this the gospel? Is this biblical
ministry? Is this power? Or is this just
worldly fodder? It's just people doing their
own thing. It's a scary reality to know
that people pray for suffering. But I pray for suffering. Because it's not going to stop.
So I pray that as the suffering in my life comes, that God will
use it for His glory. And I pray that for you. even in the times of suffering,
as we pray for God to lessen it and to get you through it,
that it might move on. Friends, you're just going to
step out of this one into this one. Pothole, pothole, pothole. The only time you're not in the
pothole is when you're going into the next one. Mid-air. That's the reality of our Christian
faith. And yes, sometimes we find a road and we're walking
like, alright, and the minute we look up thinking, this is... The gospel ministry is power. And anything else that does not
line up with the reality of what we've just seen. Friends, as
we looked at last week, is an idol. Do you see that? I'm not talking
about good things. I'm not saying we don't do benevolent
things. I'm not saying that some of you
may just go through your neighborhood and clean yards for people who
can't. That's good. That's a Christian response to
a need. I'm talking about taking the
gospel to a lost world. There's a big difference. And if we do one without the
other, we should never have done the first. If we serve people in their fleshly
needs without hard, powerful, pure, passionate gospel preaching,
we've not given them anything. Nothing. A kid having a nice set of clothes
is great. but he'll stand naked before
God with full exposure and one day be given an account to the
Creator of the cosmos who will say to him, depart from me, you
worker of iniquity. Except he hear the Gospel and
trust in Christ. Beloved, that's my prayer as
we continue through this. You're not going to miss the
second coming of the Lord. But friends, what will you have
in the context of your lives that would show His glory until
He does come? May the Lord be faithful in preserving
His church and empowering us to labor as God has called us
to labor. Let's pray. We thank You, Father, for this
Word, for the strength of the Gospel, for the power
of Your Spirit. Father, there's a lot there.
A bunch of stuff that's in those 12 verses. It's too much. So Lord, help to work it in us.
for us to see it, to evaluate ourselves against
it, and to live in it. Knowing that even when we do,
we are not doing it rightly, but You are doing it rightly
through us. Father, I pray that as Your people,
we would begin to daily, every moment, think how we're praying
for each other, and for opportunities for each other to witness in
this world, to continue to do the work of
love and the labor of love as we take care of other needs,
as we reach out to those in our world who are suffering, and
most importantly, Father, as we pray and as we proclaim that
Your Word would go forth to bring to life those who are dead. And as we finish our time of
worship through song today, Lord, help us to really see that there
is no condemnation. We are not standing here guilty
before You, for Christ has taken our guilt. We have been exonerated
by the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. And we have been
raised to life because Christ is alive. And it's in His name
we pray. Amen.