Now we're going to read from the scriptures. This morning we're reading from First Thessalonians chapter two, verses one through eight. For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness. God is witness. nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. This is the word of the Lord. Today I wanna look at how through the gospel, we become mothers. Do you remember that old children's book, Are You My Mother? In that book, there's this hatchling baby bird. The baby bird emerges from an egg, but when the egg hatches, the mother is not there, the mother's away. And so the baby bird is searching for his mother. He wonders if a dog, if that's his mother. He wanders further, he wonders if a cow is his mother. He wanders more and he wonders if a steam shovel is his mother. He is looking for the only one, the only one who is suitable and capable of giving him a mother's care. Now in this passage, in verse six, the members of that congregation, they've been following the example of their spiritual parents, of Paul, of Silas, and now, Paul is expanding on the example that they've been following. Paul says to this newly planted Thessalonian congregation, he says, now you've been imitating me. He says, imitate, imitate us even further. We became mothers to you. We became as mothers to you. Follow this example. Now you be mothers to one another. as you deploy the gospel. So we see three things. We see a mother's sweetness, a mother's sweetness. And then secondly, we see a mother's motives, and then we see a mother's donation. A mother's sweetness, a mother's motives, and a mother's donation. First of all, a mother's sweetness, this is in verses one and two. In verses one and two, you see this sweetness emerging out of suffering, a sweetness out of suffering. Verse one, he says, remember, when we first came to you, something real, something substantial happened between us, but then Paul reminds them of the condition in which he and Silas arrived at Thessalonica. Verse two, he says, we had suffered before. Before we got to you, we had suffered before, and we were spitefully treated at the previous place, at Philippi. So before coming to them, before coming to Thessalonica, Paul and Silas brought the message of Jesus. They had brought it to Philippi, and at Philippi, They had great success, but they also endured great suffering. They endured spiteful, vicious treatment. You can read about it in Acts 16. In Philippi, some of the people, in Philippi, they beat Paul and Silas with rods. They imprisoned Paul and Silas. They put them in stocks. They put them in stress position shackles. And all of that was in Philippi before they came to Thessalonica. And Paul highlights the difficulty of ministry. Paul highlights the pain of ministry. Ministry was hard. Ministry was resisted. And Paul says, that was the condition. That was the condition that we were in when we came to you. We were stressed. We were beaten. We were publicly misrepresented. Out of all of that suffering, you see a sweetness and you see a boldness. Verse two, Paul writes, even after we had suffered before, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. And then later, more of the sweetness, verse seven, we were gentle. We were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children, we affectionately longed for you. So in spite of terrible treatment in Philippi, in the previous city, Paul and Silas came to Thessalonica with gentleness, with affection, cherishing the people like a mother cherishes her nursing children. It was like honey out of the rock of suffering. Now think about that. When you endure, when you endure your own suffering and you are under all kinds of stress, does sweetness come out of you? Maybe someone sends you a nasty note. Maybe someone disrespects you when you're in traffic. Maybe you get criticism at school or criticism at work and people just dump more work on you, dump more projects on you, and you come home How do you feel when you come home? How do you come home? Do you come home grumpy about all of that? Do you come home short-tempered and self-pitying because of all the suffering and stress that you've been put through? Or does sweetness come out? Do you have sweetness and gentleness for the kids who may run up to you with all their questions at the end of the day and all the words that they want to tell you and demand that you listen to? Do you have compassion and care for the other people around you, the people whom you live with when you return, even if your day was lousy? For Paul and Silas, and it wasn't that his, you know, he was a small business owner. It wasn't, for Paul and Silas, it wasn't that his small business was hard, that people, you know, he was making tents to support his ministry. It wasn't that Paul had underquoted, underbid a tent project and now he realized, I'm having to eat all this financial loss. And it wasn't that he had had an overly demanding tent customer who was just driving him up the wall and he's coming home all pressurized because of that. Paul and Silas received terrible treatment in the course of ministry, in doing work to build up the church, the afflictions and stress that accompanied gospel ministry, that's the kind of That's the flavor of the suffering and affliction that they arrived in Thessalonica bearing. In ministry, that's what happens. There are afflictions, there is stress in gospel ministry. People will complain. People will complain about your attempts to do good, to build up and to bless the body of Christ. People will attack. out of jealousy when you attempt to use your abilities and your God-given gifts to serve the Lord. Ministry is costly. Ministry will attract complaints. People will resist ministry. People will even bite at you as you try to fulfill your ministry. When that happens, when you suffer, do you turn sour? or when you suffer, will sweetness flow out of you? To some extent, mothers are fabulous examples of this showing sweetness in spite of their suffering. Mothers endure long hours with little sleep. Mothers serve and dress the children and feed, and more often than not, mothers receive just as much grumbling as gratitude, maybe they receive more grumbling than gratitude. The Bible tells us that Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary, her motherhood ultimately would end up being like having a sword run through her. Now imagine that, Mary, the mother of the perfect child, and even for her, the experience would still entail terrible suffering. How much more? How much more for mothers whose children are not sinless? How much more? You will find that along the course of being a mother, you sometimes get knifed by your child's cutting words or by your child's heartbreaking needs. But isn't it the case that mothers, in spite of all that suffering, they still show more sweetness, more forbearance than everyone else in the room? Well, the context here for Thessalonians, the context is the community life in the church. It's the community life in the church. And so church, do you have a sweetness and a kind affection for one another? And even if you have your own suffering, and maybe it's a silent suffering, it's a private suffering, do you have a gentle love for the people in this place? Do you have a nurturing concern for fellow members here? And in the places where you do serve, where you're serving, doing ministry, whether it's with children, whether it's in trying to help people who are in need, some of the outward facing ministries of the church, the places where you serve, do you have a soft heart? Do you have a compassion for the people whom you are trying to serve? Now some of you here are carrying incredible weight on your shoulders. You've got crushing pressures in your own personal situation. Is it possible? Can you show goodness to rude people? Can you show goodness to ungrateful people who receive your ministry, who receive your food, who receive your help, and they've got nothing but more demands and more complaints, no thanks? To someone, if the Lord has put you in ministry, maybe in this community, and he's put you in company with someone who is entirely self-regarding, in company with someone who is self-regarding and sulky, can you still speak to them with sincere kindness? Years ago, I knew a pastor who was undergoing intense pressures. And at that time, there was a group of people who had joined together and they were attacking him. They were accusing him, attacking his character. And in those days of his suffering, I was present and I was there. in an unrelated matter, I was there when someone had a complaint about something that he said in a sermon. It wasn't related to this group of people that were piling on him. I was there when someone brought a complaint to him about something that he said in a sermon. And if you know anything about pastors, we live and die on the sword of our own sermons. We will cut ourselves up for stupid things we said if someone compliment something, it can just make our day, or if they point out something that we did wrong, we just fall through the ground in shame. I don't remember the details, but in this particular case, the listener contacted him and said, you made a mistake in that sermon. You said something that seemed theologically incorrect. How did he respond? I was surprised at how he responded. Under all of the other stress, all the other pressures with the pylon from this other group of people, that pastor responded to the sermon complainer, you're right, I misspoke, I'm sorry, please pray for me. I will try to be better in the future. It was a soft word that turns aside anger, sweetness out of suffering. We've looked at a mother's sweetness. Next, let's look at a mother's motives, verses three through six. In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul rehearses his example, and it's his example for their Paul went out and he went out and served under affliction. The Thessalonians go out, they go out, and they serve in their own affliction. Now, Paul is going to go a little bit under the surface and reveal what his motives were, what his approach was, both negatively and positively. So negatively, verses three through six, Paul enumerates several bad ministry motives, several incorrect approaches. the wrong reasons to be serving, the wrong ways to be engaging with people. Now, this is a big concern that we all have. Even if you're just looking at our political leaders, sometimes we look at our political leaders and we suspect that they're not doing what they do. They're not serving for the common good. Instead, we suspect that they're using their position to increase their own estate. We suspect that they're trying to fulfill maybe some kind of narcissistic hunger. It can be the same with church leaders though. We can look at church leaders. How many of us, how many people suspect that church leaders, the reason they're doing what they do is that they're pursuing an agenda of sorts, a personal agenda for greed, for sex, or for power. Paul says, in life you are surrounded by many voices and you wonder if you can trust the people who are speaking and the people who are in leadership. So here's one bad ministry motive, serving for personal gain, verse five. Paul says, we came, we planted a church, and then here's his motive. not as a cover for covetousness, God is witness, nor did we seek glory from men. So one bad ministry motive, serving for personal gain. Paul says we weren't doing that. We didn't come because secretly we were coveting what you had. We didn't come because we were trying to get glory from people. He said we work and we spread the message of Jesus, not for covetous, not out of covetous, not because we want your stuff. Not so that we can get into your will as beneficiaries. Not so that you will pay me money for trips and for a comfortable house. Not so that we could use your platform to promote our identities and our agenda. Not using others to advance ourselves. In other words, he's saying, don't come to church to get more clients. And not for glory from men. Not serving in church opportunities Not serving in church so that I get respect, so that I gain more credibility in this little community. Not to build for myself a group of admirers. It's not, he says, it's not for personal gain. Now isn't that true for, isn't that true about mothers, what you see in mothers? Mothers do not serve. for personal gain. A mother does not care for her child for her own personal gain. A mother does not care for her child in order to get money from the child, to get praise or thanks from the child. Isn't it the case that mothers serve their children expecting nothing? Isn't the case that mothers serve their children expecting no gain for themselves, no salary, no respect. A mother serves for the well-being of the child, not for her own well-being. Paul says the same must be true for you. The same must be true for you and how you volunteer in the ministries of the church, for how you participate in relationships with one another in the church, not for personal gain, not to build a circle of fans and supporters, not to have something that you can push out on social media to publicize your own good deeds, not to promote yourself, and not primarily to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You come into ministry not as a taker, but as a giver. Not as a taker, but as a giver. When you participate in the relationships in this community, are you taking or are you giving? When you serve in the volunteer opportunities, whether it's with food preparation or whether it's with cleaning up after the food, whether it's with evangelism or missions, are you giving or are you taking? Is it about benefiting yourself or is it about building others up and promoting the name of Jesus? If you come as a taker, if you come as a taker and not as a giver, you will always have complaints about the people in the congregation. You will always have complaints about the ministries of the congregation. These people here, They just don't understand me. They don't get me. These people do not take enough interest in my opinions, my thoughts, and my agenda. This church does not do music or worship or prayer the way that I prefer. These people are too happy. These people are too depressive. These people are too clumsy. These people are too polished. These people are too immature. These people are way too serious. The church will The truth is the church will always be full of people who are spiritually young, spiritually young, personally broken, weak, in process of the sanctification that Christ has started. But when you are a taker and not a giver, you become impatient with that perpetual presence of spiritually young people. When you're a taker, not a giver, you become intolerant. of those who are spiritually young. Now, another bad ministry approach, serving from error, serving from deceit or flattery. Verse three, Paul says, our exhortation, he says, our public teaching, our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. Verse five, it was not with flattering words. And here we return to the nursing mother analogy. Paul has been using this. Verse seven, he says, instead we came as a nursing mother. Now what does a nursing mother feed her child? The nursing mother feeds her child the pure, wholesome, unpolluted mother's milk. There is nothing safer to drink than that. Paul says, I brought you truth. not error. And we can do that. We can do that when we tell one another the truth in love. Lies, deceit, they are out of the question, right? And especially especially if and when we bring the words that are absolutely without error, the scriptures, when we are able to make the effort to bring Bible to find and to share with each other, there is nothing that's more true, nothing more wholesome to give each other. I mean, it needs to be rightly applied, it needs to be timely, in season, but there's nothing more true that we can give to one another. Now, in addition, Paul says, what I spoke to you, it was sincere, it was not flattery. It was sincere, it was genuine. And so the question for us is, are you sincere in your communication? When you speak to one another, when you transact words and messages, are you trying to manipulate people? Are you trying to craft and control how they will draw an image of you in their minds? Do you give praise to people, and do you give genuine praise? Genuine and sincere encouragement to build each other up. Like, can you honestly say to another person, I like being with you. Your attempts to serve here have added something to this community. Or can you sincerely say to someone, when they open up a little bit, about some of the things that they face. Your struggles are hard, your struggles are complex, and they are beyond me. So Paul here, he goes over some of these bad motives, some of these approaches that are unmotherly. If you're a person who takes any kind of lead, if you're a person who takes any kind of lead at home, or in some kind of task, maybe in the congregation, this is a call to check your motives, to check your approach. Is it for God or is it for personal gain? Now, what are some of the good motives? What are some of the good approaches that should fuel our participation and our ministry? Well, first of all, it needs to be for God. It needs to be for God. Verses one through five, there's this very strong God focus in the text. Six times, Paul mentions God as the focus. So for instance, verse two, he says, we do ministry, we were bold in our God. We do ministry, we were bold in our God. He's saying we play, just a part in God's goals. We have a place in God's goals. That's why we're serving. Verse two, he says, we speak the gospel of God. It's his message. It's his grace. It's his mercy. on people that we're promoting and talking about. Then verse four, he says, we are approved by God. The work has been entrusted to us by God. I do what I do because God has required it of me. God has told me. I serve where I serve because God tells me. God tells me to spread the gospel, to serve here. It's the will of God. that I enter into depth relationships with the people in this community. Then verse four, he says, God tests our hearts. Verse five, he says, God is witness. We're not serving to please people, but to please God who tests even our innermost motives. Whatever people say, about the things that you have tried to do in love and in serving people, whatever people say about your efforts, whether they praise you or whether they complain about every little thing you say or do, you do what you do for God's opinion. And even if you get no gratitude from people, no mentions from people, if God is pleased, that's enough. You may spend your days investing in maybe just what seems like the smallest, most insignificant place in the life of the community. You may spend your days investing in just a few people in the church or in the community. It's like maybe two people, maybe three people. And you'd say, well, how does that matter? That's hardly a movement. But you open your life. You open your life to someone. You share your struggles, your own struggles that you have with God. You share that with other people. You share your victories over the flesh with other people. And you willingly take on your own shoulders their burdens. You give your time. You pray for them. And then you wonder, did any of that matter? God sees and God is so pleased. Think of Jeremiah 45 verse five. Do you seek great things for yourself? Do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them. And isn't that so much of being a mother? The day in, day out little things. Finding the next size of shoes. Finding space for late night listening to your kid when you can barely keep your eyes open. Maybe deferring a personal purchase for yourself in order to improve your kid's childhood. Did any of that matter? Of course it did. We've looked at a mother's sweetness, a mother's motives. Finally, a mother's donation. And this is in verses seven and eight. Verse seven says, but we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. Verse eight says, we affectionately longed for you. We loved you so much, you became very dear to us. So implicit here, there's this call to get outside of ourselves. There's a call to look outward, to love outward, to look outside of ourselves and our self-preoccupation, to look outside of our self-interest, outside of our self-love. Paul, like a mother who is holding the baby that she loves, she has a tenderness. She has a tenderness for these people. And so the question I have for you, church, is this. Who is dear to you? Who is dear to you? Who here in this little community, this congregation, who is dear to you? When you look at the people here, are you becoming fond of them? Is your heart growing more tender towards them? Are you moved by the things that move them? their fears, whether it's about their bills or about their immigration status, their fears, you fear for them. Or their sorrows, their sorrows over a wandering child, their sorrows, your heart is heavy for them. And their joys and their successes, they're your joys, you rejoice with them. Paul says, you became so precious to us. We shared the gospel of God with you. And not only that, he says, we shared our lives as well. He says, we gave you the gospel and we gave you ourselves. Isn't that what mothers do? They hold that baby, and as they hold that baby and they feed that infant, the mother looks into the infant's eyes, and implicitly, the mother says, I'm giving you this milk, and I am giving my whole life for you, little one. It's the self-donating love of a mother. Paul says, I love you people so much, we gave you the gospel, and we donate ourselves to you. Brothers and sisters, this is how the world will know that we are Jesus' disciples, that we love one another. So two closing questions. First question, well how do we get, how do we get this self-donating love for one another? In the gospel, Jesus donated himself for us. It was his life for ours. Our sins donated to him, his life for us. His righteousness donated to us. It was all our bad, we gave it to him. And all his good, he gave it to us. And so you could say that the cross in some ways is a double cross donation. We did nothing to earn it. We were like infants who contributed nothing yet to the household, and yet the mother gives her whole life for that little child. When you embrace the gospel, or maybe it'd be better to say when the gospel embraces you, you realize at depth, he must really love me like a mother donating himself for me. And only then, only then can you truly love. We love because he first loved us. And if you don't know his love, your own efforts to love a difficult person, if you don't know his love, your own attempts to love a difficult person, they will be cut short. They will ultimately be shallow. The second question. Well, what do we do when we run out of love for the other person? What do we do when our love tank is drained to the bottom and we've run out of love for the other person? These are hard words, but I think they're true. The way that you love God is the way that you will love people. The way that you love God is the way that you will love people. As your love for God, so your love for people. For instance, if you are suspicious of God, ultimately, you will be suspicious of people and how you view them and interpret them. If you ignore God, you will ignore people. And if you give little thanks to God, you will give little thanks to people if you have little love for God. You will have little love for people. And this is what the scriptures teach us. How can you love your brother whom you can see if you do not love God whom you can't see? But love will drain you. And sometimes you're gonna encounter, you will encounter people, someone who wants more love from you than you could possibly give. They want more love. They might demand more love from you, but you're just tapped out after a time. You're just empty. Sometimes you encounter people whose need and their hunger for love is so great and you may pour into them and still they need more. still they want even more. It's not enough. Sometimes you can encounter people who have a suffocating neediness. And you realize after enough time with them, you realize you will never, you will never be able to satisfy that need and that hunger in another person. But Jesus can. Jesus is the one. who says, feed on me. No mere person can ever satisfy another person's suffocating neediness, only Jesus. And Jesus is the one who says, take, eat, drink. Only Jesus can feed 5,000 people and still have surplus. When you understand that it's Jesus, not I, who supplies a person's need and hunger, then then you can love, then you can help without taking on yourself the impossible demand of filling a cavernous neediness. And you can pour a cup, like the cup of water, in Jesus' name, but know that Jesus is the stream, Jesus is the well of living water. Jesus is that rock. in the wilderness which Moses struck. It was symbolic of Christ's death. Jesus is the rock in the wilderness that Moses struck and from that rock, water gushed forth enough to quench the thirst of two million men and women. I want to close by reading a quote. It's a slightly longer quote. It comes from the Trinity Journal somewhere in the 1990s. It's written by Dr. Jeffrey Boyd. He's a psychiatrist. He was the chairman of the psychiatry department of Waterbury Hospital affiliated with Yale Medical School. This was written in the 1990s. It's the story of Leslie Dickerson. Leslie Dickerson. Leslie Dickerson had a devastating childhood. She felt unloved and unlovable as far back as she could remember. Emptiness, inner deadness, lack of self-worth, and painful rejection. These were the feelings she experienced in her soul at the deepest level. She suffered rejection by her parents as well, and their rejection was the picture of them that she carried within her soul. As she grew up, she began to attempt suicide and to abuse alcohol and drugs, She was torn by rage, depression, and anxiety. Eventually, Leslie fell into the mental health treatment system, and she failed to improve with every known treatment. Long-term intensive psychotherapy, family therapy, every known medication, an electric shock treatment. She suffered from the most untreatable of psychiatric conditions, borderline personality disorder. For a decade, she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. One time, she spent three years continuously in a state mental hospital, misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. Her therapists all gave up on her as untreatable. One day she gave birth to a daughter and suddenly knew that she had a choice of either changing her life or losing the baby. If she didn't reorder her life, the state social workers would intervene. The dilemma motivated her to search more desperately than ever for a solution to her problems. Finally, she turned to Jesus Christ for the first time in her life and prayed for forgiveness. And for the first time ever, she felt accepted, she felt lovable, and peace such as she never had experienced, and it flooded her heart. From that day forward, Leslie never again attempted suicide. And as she took root in this new soil, a profound psychological reorganization occurred. It was based on the experience of feeling forgiven and accepted at her core. As bad as she thought she was, it had all been overcome at Calvary. Her badness, she said, had been washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Leslie has now been happy and free of psychiatrists for 10 years. She works as a transcriptionist and is devoted to her two children and to her church. Leslie speaks of inviting Jesus into her heart. for more than an hour every morning. Before her children wake up, she sits alone in a room and talks with Jesus, whom she calls her best friend. The conversation, she says, goes both ways. She prays something, and a specific Bible verse then occurs to her. Reading this verse, she interprets it to be Jesus' reply to her prayer. I asked Leslie how she can tell that a certain idea is what Jesus wants her to do rather than her own thought. She said there are three criteria. The idea is consistent with what the Bible says. The idea fits her life circumstances. Peace and tranquility come into her life after the decision is made. Leslie speaks of taking Jesus into her heart so that he dwells inside her. Jesus brought Leslie such a feeling of being accepted that she finally relaxed. Jesus, she claims, also healed her self-esteem. I used to be a mouse, she says. Now I roar like a lion. In all my years as a psychiatrist, I have met only one person who ever truly recovered from borderline personality disorder. Her name is Leslie Dickerson. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you have come to us. You have loved us as a mother. You have donated yourself as our savior. We pray, Lord, that we would know the love of God in Christ and that we would be givers of the love of God in Christ. Would you satisfy us? Would you secure us? We pray in Jesus' name, amen.