Turn to 1 Thessalonians 2. If you need a Bible, just raise your hand and our ushers will make sure that you receive a copy of God's word. In the book of Thessalonians, the apostle Paul is writing, and if you've been with us in prior weeks, you know that he's writing from Corinth. So he's a bit to the south in Greece, but this is one of the first cities that he came to, really the first key city, after he went to Philippi when he went into Europe. And he's writing now between six months and 18 months after he had been there, and he's writing to this church that had become really a model church. It had really shown itself as a church, a group of people who had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. They were walking with him, and Paul had remembered with thanksgiving all that the Lord had done in them. and then that the Lord was doing through them. And here in chapter 2 we see the apostle writing and he recounts their relationship together. That's really the heart of chapters 2 and 3. We're going to be looking at the first part of this where in verses 1 through 16 he reflects back on what their relationship had been like when they were together. And then next week we'll take up verses 17 through the end of chapter three, where he talks about their relationship in terms of what it was like now that he was away from them and the things that he was desiring and that they were desiring as well. So what we read here reflects back on the time that they spent there together. We know that he was with them for at least three Sabbath days. That's recorded for us in Acts chapter 17. And it seems that he probably wasn't around for a lot longer than that. We're not exactly sure, but it wasn't a long period of time. Nevertheless, they saw a real revival in that period of time. But since he was gone, it seems that some people had come in and said, Paul took off on you. When the going got rough, he left. and they're trying to write Paul off as a charlatan. Now we pick that up because of the things that Paul writes in this letter, so you'll hear some of that, a bit of a defense against these kinds of people, but Paul reflects on much more than just that. So listen to this section of God's word as we read it. We'll pray before we do. Lord, we thank you as we're about to read here that the people who originally heard this word received the word of God, not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God. And we pray that nothing would be new in this room here today, but that we would see exactly the same thing happening, even as you would make all things new in us through this word which is read. So blessed to our hearing, we pray in Jesus' name. This is God's word, 1 Thessalonians 2. 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 to you the gospel of God in the midst of much 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 also our own selves, because you had 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. And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you brothers became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things they did from, the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved. So as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has come upon them at last. Thus ends this reading of God's holy and inspired word. We pray that he would write it upon our hearts today and forever. There are times when you take a bite of food maybe it's chicken, maybe it's beef, or something else, and you know that though you're eating that particular meat, there is one particular spice, and maybe you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is one particular spice that is infused throughout that particular bite that you've taken. And you sit there, even as you eat, and you muse upon it, trying to put your finger on exactly what that is. And that's a little bit of how this passage is presented to us here. Paul is talking all about his relationship, a very dear and close relationship that he had with the saints in Thessalonica. And yet this passage is flavored distinctly by one particular spice. I want you to take a look and count with me how many times the word God is used. in these verses. Now, again, it's all about the relationship that he has with these people. But count with me if you would. Somebody might need to just take a pen and mark down all the different times. Children, you can do this too. We're gonna count in these verses how many times is the word God used, okay? So here we go. As we look through verse one, we don't see any. As we come to verse two, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God. in the midst of all conflict, as we move into verse four, 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. Then at the end of verse five, he says, we didn't come with a pretext for greed, God is witness. And then in verse eight, he says that they gave not only the gospel of God, but also their own selves. Then in verse nine, he says, we proclaim to you the gospel of God. Verse 10, you are witnesses and God also. 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. Then verse 13, We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it for what it really is, the word of God. Verse 14, for you brothers became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus. Verse 15, these are people who displease God. And then we see in verse 16 that God's wrath has come upon them at last. How many did you come up with? 14 or 15, it may depend on your translation, right? But here we have in these 16 verses that many references to God himself in the midst of a very interesting discussion that is really substantively all about this earthly relationship. And what this shows as we look at Paul's reflection on his time with the people of God there, which he had blessed as an exemplary, as a model congregation, is this. that model congregations live God-centered lives. We see that in the first portion of our reading here where Paul talks about everything that he and the other leaders who did and proclaimed God's word was all before the face of God. And the way in which the congregation, the people who heard this word responded was that they responded as though they were hearing God himself. And this shows us what it means for us to be a congregation that pleases God. To be a healthy congregation means that we will have a God-centered orientation in every way. Now, that's easy to say in a sense. What does it mean to do that? Well, I think we learn how it is that we do that as we look at these two sections. First of all, we'll see it in verses, in verse 3 through verse 12, the messengers, the leaders, those who took responsibility for bringing the word of God, how they lived before God, and how every congregation's leadership, and whether that be formal or even informal leadership should operate, and then the way in which recipients respond in verses three through 16. But it's all set up for us here in the first couple of verses. Paul says to the Thessalonians, you remember, you know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. It was not purposeless. We didn't come with no idea of what should be accomplished, but they came with a very specific purpose. And you see the contrast here, not in vain, but then in verse two, but though we had already suffered and men treated shamefully at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. far from being purposeless, they were overwhelmed as they came with a sense of calling from God, that they had a message of good news to bring to these people. They had been beaten and treated shamefully. You know what it's like to receive wounds. Some of you no doubt received wounds as you worked here on the property for workday. You can look down at your fingers, you can see little cuts, you can see things that hurt just a little bit. Well, this is just a couple of days really after Paul had been in Philippi and he had been beaten with whips. He had been imprisoned. You can imagine what his back must have looked like. Some of you perhaps had sunburns that were so bad that you got blisters, and then you're wearing a shirt and the blister pops, and you know the mess that that is. You don't get things taken care of, all of a sudden your clothes are sticking to you because of those wounds that haven't been treated. This is what Paul came like. He was visibly a mess. When people met him and when he brought good news, he probably didn't want a big slap on the back. wouldn't have been very comfortable. This is the reality of how Paul came. And if you turn back, keep your fingers in 1 Thessalonians there, turn back to Acts chapter 17, where we see that he went. You see the boldness that he had to declare the gospel of God. What does he mean by this? What was that gospel, that good news of God that he brought? Acts 17 verse three says that they were explaining and proving, reasoning from the scriptures on these Sabbath days, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead, saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. Now think about how powerful that would have been to have the preacher there that day bearing on his back painful, not even scars, but open or barely healing wounds. When he says it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and to die, to take away the sins of people, to bear the wrath of God there upon the cross. This is how Paul came to them, so that ultimately he was saying, this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ. He is the anointed one from God. He is the one who is here to bind up your wounds. He's the one who is here to heal your broken hearts, which cannot be healed in any other way. And the final result of all of this, of course, in addition to the city being turned upside down, is that the people there in Thessalonica were accused of saying, as we see in verse seven, of Acts chapter 17, that there is another king, Jesus. These people in those short weeks had heard this gospel and they had believed that there was another king on the throne, not Caesar, but Jesus. You notice how their orientation had changed. This city that was so proud of its civic standing as a Roman city, they were servants of Caesar. They're no longer thinking of serving Caesar now as king. But their whole orientation has changed so that they're saying, there's another king on the throne and his name is Jesus. And the rest of the city knew that because their thinking had changed that much in maybe just three short weeks. Has your thinking ever changed in three weeks? So radically? that the people around you would look at you and say, we're not exactly sure what happened to this man or to this woman or to this child, this boy or this girl, but they're not thinking the way they were a few weeks ago, and their lives are totally different. And it was bothering the conscience and the life of the people around them. This is the burden that Paul came with. He came with this kind of passion and this kind of message that caused their lives to be changed because Paul had boldness in God to proclaim the gospel of God to these people. And we see then Paul showing that this was his character as one who came as a teacher or as a preacher, as an elder. And we need to be thinking how it is that we as leaders ought to be more and more God-centric, more Christ-focused as we think about leading. This would be true for those who serve as elders in this congregation and as deacons, but the reality of the matter is we're not like the Apostle Paul. We are those who minister in his shoes. And so it is that the rest of the congregation as well, wherever you find yourself in a position of leadership, you ought to be asking, what does my life look like as a husband who leads in the home? As a teacher who teaches children? As a physician or a nurse who ministers to other people? What is it that other people would look at my life and say is true of me and the way in which I operate? the way in which I care for others. Well, we see Paul addressing this in three different ways. First of all, here in verses three through five, he said, we came not man-pleasing, but God-pleasing. Look at verse three. He says, our appeal doesn't spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive. We didn't come with something that was untrue. We didn't come with impure thoughts and motives and desires. And we also didn't come trying to deceive you and pull the wool over your eyes. Now all we have to do is look at the headlines of this last week, and we see that this is what so many leaders, even in our nation, do. Take the example of Harvey Weinstein. I get it confused. It's Einstein, but it's Weinstein. Anyway, we work on these pronunciations. Here's someone who, when he was in leadership in Hollywood, he was seeking impure things for his own gain. He was seeking to be a leader of others and promise a future in acting to others, but always along the way saying, I'm here to take from you. This is what leadership in the world too often looks like. And Paul says to these people, when I came bringing the gospel of God, you know this wasn't what I did. there was no error or impurity or an attempt to deceive. But he says, we weren't trying to please man, but he says, just as we've been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, and there's this period of entrusting of the gospel and proving that the apostle Paul had gone through in the early years after he had been converted, he says, having gone through that, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. And there at the end of verse 4, that word tests is the idea of a continual testing. God tests the hearts of people in leadership. He continually tests. He continually examines. He's asking. He's looking to see. Are you speaking from error, from impurity, or out of deceit? And we need to gain more and more of this sort of God consciousness as we live our lives. The Apostle Paul had it. and we need to have it as well, so that we're able to say, as the apostle says here in verse five, that we never came to you with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. You saw it with your own eyes. But he's saying God himself knows, because we're the kinds of people that even when other people aren't looking, are living consistently before the face of God, because we're aware that the living God is the one who looks down on us. This is how we, in our various positions of leadership, must live before God. We must live as those who seek to please God and not to please ourselves or other people. How do we grow in that? Well, like the Apostle Paul, he keeps writing with reference to God. His thoughts are peppered with the Lord Himself and with this kind of language. And that's the way our speech needs to be flavored as well, seasoned with grace, so that not only are other people reminded of the truth that we proclaim, but so that we ourselves are also. Second thing the Apostle Paul says here is that he didn't seek glory from other people, but instead of that he sacrificed like a mother. We see this in verses 6 through 8. He says, nor did we seek glory from people, here's the negative, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles. In Paul's day, orators would come into town, and of course they didn't have on-screen technology like we have today. They were stuck with live entertainment, and so their choices were somewhat limited, and people loved great orators. And these were sort of their rock stars of the day. And these characters, according to historians, would come into town with their little group of followers, and they would seek a larger group of groupies, trying to gain fame and glory for themselves. And they understood that appearance was really important. And not only did they practice their speaking skills, but these people would work out, right? They would lift weights, and they would give their speeches shirtless. And they would shave their chests and they would grease themselves up. And these were people who lived in the airbrush age before there was airbrush. And you look around at the people who are celebrities in our culture, and really nothing's changed. It's all the same sort of thing. It's all about the public appearance that you put on, and the purpose was so that they would get more followers, more likes on Facebook, more followers on Twitter, and so on and so forth, right? And this is the way these people would go from town to town. They would go on tour. We don't know that they had t-shirts with the names of all the cities, but you get the idea. It's just like bands in our day. And so now the people who were trying to dissuade the Thessalonians are saying, yeah, Paul, he's just like these speakers of your day. And he skipped town when things became difficult. Paul says, that is not the case. He says, we could have made some demands on you as apostles of Christ, but what did we do instead? We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. Most people don't try to become rock stars, public figures by becoming mothers. Those of us who are mothers can probably explain what this is like. Now, this verse is memorable to me personally because many of you know Dave Long was my mentor. And when I was at Purdue University, he's leading a group of us through Thessalonians 6.30 AM on Thursday mornings. And on Wednesday nights, he was doing the same thing with a Bible study group of people. And so Thursday morning, he asks us the question, what are the qualities of a nursing mother? Those of us in the dorm room, well. She loves him. At which point he began to yell at us and tell us we were a bunch of turkeys because he'd just been in a Bible study the night before and he'd asked what were the qualities of a nursing mother and all the women in the group came forward with all of the ways in which a mother serves. She's up at night. She's feeding. She's clothing. She's hearing the cries. She's patting the baby on the back. She's changing diapers. She's putting up with sickness. She's taking the child to the doctor and on and on and on the list goes. But here's this imagery, right? The Apostle Paul says, this is what I was to you, like a nursing mother, not caring for my own needs, but I cared for the needs of others. And he says, so being 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. Notice here, he's not saying, I am the gospel, or that the works I performed among you were the gospel. The gospel was a word that was proclaimed to the people, but it was accompanied by this kind of love. And all of us who are in positions of leadership in various ways need to be asking, how do we exhibit this? Well, we look at nursing mothers. We look at the ways in which they're willing to go out of their way for their children, knowing that they're not going to gain in return. Often there's not even a word of thanks. But nevertheless, this mother loves her child, her children, and she's willing to pour herself out. And so if our lives are going to be God-centric as we look at others, we're going to have to take the mind of Christ for ourselves. to look around at other people and say, I'm going to be willing to sacrifice sleep. I'm going to be willing to sacrifice my own desires so that the people around me can get more of Jesus. So that the people around me can know God more deeply. And the beautiful thing about all of this is Paul didn't have to work to convince the Thessalonians of this. They had known it. They had experienced it. And there is a blessing for us as the people of God when we grow to love each other this kind of way. It's impossible for us to not be more God-centric when we're looking with these kinds of eyes, the eyes of a nursing mother, at the people who are all around us that we have the privilege of ministering to. Well, he goes on, though, and he gives us another illustration here. First of all, a negative and then a positive. He says in verse 9, you remember, brothers, our labor, we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you. So we were not a burden, but on the other hand, he says, you know, in verse 11, how like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you in a manner worthy of God. who calls you into his own kingdom and glory." He's used the illustration of a mother, now he uses the illustration of a father, and he says, we worked hard among you. They worked with their hands. Their ministry came over the leatherworking that Paul and his companions did. They were working night and day and they were proclaiming the gospel of God in all of these things. This is what it means to be a true servant of Jesus Christ. In any sort of position of leadership, it doesn't matter what else you're doing in life, there's an orientation that says, I've got to make sure that the people under my charge or the people that I'm working with or playing with come to know the Lord in fuller and deeper ways." And he says, our conduct was holy and righteous and blameless. And then he goes on to describe how it was that they related to these other people who are around them. What did this God-centric orientation look like? Well, it was like a father. And what does a father do? He exhorts, he encourages, and he charges. Now, you all have been exhorted and encouraged and charged by your earthly father, or perhaps someone who is a father figure to you, and we all know this experience. In our home, we're reading this book called Bud and Me. It's a story about the Abernathy brothers who, a little over a century ago, made several adventurous trips across the country. Their father was a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, and President Roosevelt had met this man because he had heard that this man caught wolves with his bare hands. And he said, I've got to see this. So he went to Oklahoma and witnessed the man that he labeled the catch-em-alive Jack Abernathy, actually do this and send wolves to zoos across the country, but he'd catch them with his bare hands. And so he appointed a US Marshal for all of Oklahoma. He had six children and two of them were sons and one at this stage was five years old and the other was nine years old and they'd heard about their dad going to Santa Fe and they'd heard the stories and so they went and they said, Dad, can we go on horseback to Santa Fe? And he figured, well, he really couldn't deny them that, so they went. And then they said, you know, Teddy Roosevelt's out of the White House now. We're ten and we're six. We're a little older. We got some experience. Can we ride horseback to New York City to welcome him back? And the dad said, sure. So they took off on their horses at ten and six years old, a grand adventure. And when they got to New York, their father met them there by train and had these wonderful adventures. And one of the things they had seen going across the country was automobiles. And they thought, we'd really like an automobile. And so they talked their father into letting them purchase an automobile to drive back at 10 and 6 years old, the stuff kids love to do. So they found an automobile that was the right size for them and was small enough for them to handle. And they got going. But but very early on they had a little problem where the younger one Temple jumped out of the car before it was stopped darted in front of it His brother hit him and then ran over him now. Fortunately, there was no serious damage done his clothes were ruined, but that was about all and His father got a hold of him and he writes this he says then dad gave a real serious lecture about cars and safety and There's a responsibility that goes with driving, he said. We're going to obey the rules. Tim, never jump out of a car until it comes to a complete stop. And whoever is driving must be cautious and pay attention to everything. Above all, don't take any unnecessary chances. Bud and I were afraid that Dad would call off the whole adventure, so we were very quiet. We quickly agreed with everything he said. You've had the same experience, haven't you? But what's great about this example is you see their father, Jack, doing all of the things in an earthly manner that Paul describes. He encouraged, he exhorted them. They knew this was serious, but he encouraged them too. He was not stopping them on this great adventure because there was something he wanted his sons to become. There was something he wanted to see them do. He knew the desires of their hearts, and so he exhorted, he encouraged, and then he charged them what they were supposed to do. And this is what good leaders do as they deliver the gospel of God. We don't hold people back from the growth to which God is calling people. But there are exhortations and encouragements and charges. that must be given as a father. And even women are called to give these kinds of charges, just as men are called to have a heart like that of a nursing mother. To say, it's time for you to get out of bed. There's something you need to do because God has something greater for you. And so, we're called, as the people of God, to continue studying the Scripture, and to charge and to exhort others under our charge. And look at their charge. It was to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. Paul had this rich relationship with them, but at the end of the day, he knew he was going to die, and they were going to die, and what he wanted them to have was a rich and deep relationship with the Lord, where they would be walking before God, who had called them into His own kingdom and glory. Well, how did they respond? Well, again, very God-centric. Look at verse 13. There are two ways in which they responded. First of all, Paul says he was able to thank God because they received the word of God when they heard it from Paul and his companions. They accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. They read these words and they said, this isn't some interesting, writing. It's not simply the world's bestseller, though it is. They understood that these are the words of the living God, and they embraced them as such. And their change that came about even in just three weeks was not because they had been convinced by inspiring speakers. It was not as a result of simply seeing the example of the Apostle Paul. But the reason that they were changed and the only way in which you will be changed and I will be changed is if we receive this word for what it really is, the word of God. And we've got to submit ourselves to it. And in the next three weeks, of life, even as we submit ourselves to this word, other people ought to be able to see the difference in us. It may not be radical changes, but if we're reading, if we're hearing, if we're thinking, if we're meditating on this word, people will be able to recognize those kinds of changes. because that's what happened in the life of the Thessalonians. And then we see a second response that came here for the people of God. Verse 14, they became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. Those churches had been persecuted by their Jewish brethren. Paul's making the parallel here. He's not being anti-Semitic, of course. His heart was for the Jews, but he's simply saying, you're persecuted by your own countrymen as well. This is what it means to have a God-centered orientation in life. It's to recognize we're going to be persecuted. Jesus was persecuted. Other churches have been persecuted. We're going to suffer as well, but we're going to suffer well. Because we recognize that we've come to know someone greater than anyone we've ever known before. And we've received a word that is flawless, that we've never received before. and it is a word that is at work within us. And so this is how we as the people of God are called to respond when we come to hear the preaching of God's word. When we have devotions in our homes day by day, personally or as families, we don't simply go through the motions, but we hear the living God speaking to us. Do you respond in that kind of way to God's word? And if you had met someone three weeks ago for the first time, would they be able to look at your life right now and the way you speak, the things you talk about that you've been thinking about over the last three weeks, would they notice any difference in you? This is what a model church looks like. A model church has leadership that's so God-oriented that everything that that leadership does smells and tastes like God himself. and the people who receive these words and who think about how they're gonna live their lives, they're willing to go even to the point of death so that the Lord might be honored and so that his people might be blessed. This is our calling, brothers and sisters. It's simple to live lives that are oriented around God as we are united to Jesus Christ by faith, receiving his word, and living our lives on its basis. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the great adventure of life that you have called us to live, for the way in which you have called us to serve you. And we thank you, Lord, that it is not a boring calling or existence, but that it is one that is rich and it is relational, it is filled with friendship, it is filled with challenges, it is filled with being able to labor side by side with others. We thank you that that was true for Paul and the church there in Thessalonica. We thank you that it's true for us here at Second RP. And so, Lord, we pray that as we would have opportunity to recount what it is that you're doing here in our midst, that we would have the same sort of perspective that the Apostle Paul did. That we would be so taken by the gospel of our God. and so filled with love for the people who need to hear and to receive and to grow in this message, that everything we think and do as we relate one to another would be flavored with you and with your word. We pray all this now in Christ's name, amen.