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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Friday, 06 March 2009 09:56 |
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1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Oct 26, 2008 - Lindsborg Cov.
“The M’s Must Match”
(Integrity)
Sermon
Let me ask you a question this morning. Let’s say that you have decided that you want to lose some weight. Would you listen to a weight-loss guru who weighs 478 lbs? Would you seek assistance from a personal fitness trainer who cannot do a single push-up? Probably not. If you knew someone who served seven years in federal prison for fraud and tax evasion, would you hire him to figure your personal income taxes? I doubt it. Would you consult a professional marriage counselor who has been divorced three times and is struggling in her fourth marriage? Not likely.
Why not? Because in all of these cases these people lack credibility. In many instances we cannot separate the message from the messenger. No matter how true or helpful the message, the messenger can invalidate it by his own behavior, attitude, or lifestyle.
We all know this is true. There are many people out there making all kinds of claims and offers, and we know that we have to be careful because not everyone can be trusted. Can this person or business be trusted? What is their real motive for wanting to help me? There are all kinds of scams and con artists out there, so we always have to consider the source.
This is true in almost every arena of life, and it is certainly true when it comes to religion. There are all kinds of groups and individuals out there making all kinds of truth claims, teaching all kinds of doctrines, and espousing all kinds of theologies and philosophies. We also know that some of them are cults and some of them are just religious hucksters out to make a quick buck or a name for themselves or both.
Things haven’t changed that much in 2,000 years. Back in the first century, when Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians, there were religious charlatans with the same motives and methods. They were often traveling speakers who would blow into town with impressive rhetoric and flashy showmanship, deceive and manipulate the people by telling them just what they wanted to hear, bilk the gullible of their money, and disappear just as quickly. This was perhaps even more common in Paul’s day than in ours, and it tended to make people cynical and jaded. It cast a shadow of doubt over all religious leaders and teachers, including Paul.
This brings us to our passage today. We are in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. In order for us to get a better understanding of what Paul wrote in this passage, I think it would help to take a look at why he wrote this passage. So, let me fill in a bit of the back story for us from the book of Acts.
In the book of Acts, Paul went on a series of four trips which came to be known as his missionary journeys. On the second of these journeys, Paul was traveling with several other companions, including another apostle named Silas. Paul and Silas were traveling through the region of Galatia when they reached a port city on the Mediterranean Sea called Troas. While there, Paul had a vision one night of a man standing in Macedonia saying “Come over here and help us.” Paul and Silas concluded that God was calling them to preach the Gospel in modern day Greece, so they immediately set sail across the Mediterranean Sea for Macedonia.
One of the first cities they visited was called Philippi. It was Paul’s custom to take the Gospel to the Jews first, so he began to seek them out. There was not a large enough Jewish population in Philippi to have a synagogue, so they had to look around a bit to find a place where the handful of Jews did gather.
They found it. Outside the city by the river was a place where Jews and God-fearing Greeks gathered for prayer. This particular group was mostly women. So, Paul and Silas shared the good news of the Gospel with the women there, explaining what Jesus had done in His death and resurrection and showing how He fulfilled the Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament. Several of the women, both Jews and Gentiles, believed the Gospel and put their faith in Jesus. Among them was a Jewish woman named Lydia, who invited the apostles to stay in her home while they visited the city of Philippi.
One day, on their way to pray by the river, Paul and Silas encountered a young girl who happened to be a slave. She also happened to be demonized, which means that a spirit of darkness controlled her mind and soul. This particular demon gave her the ability to foretell the future, or, at least she appeared to be able to predict the future. She was famous throughout that region for this ability, and so she made a fortune for her owners who used her as a fortune teller.
For some reason, this little girl, or perhaps the demon within her, became fixated on Paul and Silas. She began to follow them around everywhere they went. Not only that, but she would call out in public places, “These men are servants of the Most High God. They are telling you the way to be saved.” She would yell out things like this every day, and it really started getting on Paul’s nerves. I think it may have bothered him that a demon was testifying about Jesus. So, one day, when he had had enough, he looked straight at the girl and spoke to the demon within her, “In the Name of Jesus Christ come out of her right now!” And, of course, the demon did come out. It left her immediately. But it also left her without the ability to foretell the future.
When her owners found out about this they were not at all happy (as you can imagine). Paul and Silas seemed to have killed their cash cow. Enraged, they seized Paul and Silas and drug them into the marketplace and presented them to the city magistrates. Then they began to make up lies and false accusations. They said, “These men are advocating customs and practices that would be illegal for us as Roman citizens to accept or practice. The city officials simply took their word for it and had them arrested. Then they had them publically tortured. It says that they received a severe beating. Then they threw them in the deepest, darkest dungeon in the local jail.
I wish I had time to tell you what happened in the jail that night, as it is one of the most remarkable stories in the New Testament. But I don’t. You can read about it in Acts chapter 16 if you want to. To make a long story short, the next morning the city officials let them go. It was not safe for Paul and his companions to stay in Philippi, so they left.
They traveled to a nearby city called Thessalonica. Here they found a synagogue. We are told that for three consecutive Sabbath days they met with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks in the synagogue and proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ there. They reasoned with the people and proved from the Old Testament that Jesus was indeed the prophesied and long-awaited Messiah who had come to save His people from their sins. Some of the Jews and many of the Greeks, both men and women, believed the Gospel and gave their lives over to Jesus. And so, Paul and Silas started a church there in Thessalonica, probably meeting at Jason’s house, where they were staying.
Well, this made the Jewish religious leaders there jealous. Paul and Silas were beginning to attract a following, so just as they had for Jesus in Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders became jealous and opposed Paul and his message. So, they went into the market and rounded up some no-good rabble-rousers, formed mob, and started a riot in the city. The mob stormed Jason’s house in an effort to grab Paul and Silas and force them into the public square. But Paul and Silas were not home, so they grabbed Jason and some of his friends instead and drug them before the city magistrates.
They said, “These men are foreigners, Jews, who have traveled all over the world causing problems. Everywhere they go they incite riots and cause an uproar, and now they have come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house! They defy the rule of Ceasar and claim that there is another king, one called Jesus.
The city officials were alarmed and confused, so in the absence of Paul and Silas they had Jason and his friends arrested. They had to post bond to get out of jail that day. That night they met up with Paul and Silas and said, “Brothers, you gotta get out of town and you gotta do it now! You are in a lot of danger here.”
So, that night, under the cover of darkness, Paul and Silas snuck out of the city. They traveled to another nearby city called Berea, where they did the same thing. They met with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks in the synagogue and shared the good news of Jesus with them. Many of them placed their faith in Jesus and a new church was formed there as well.
When the Jewish leaders back in Thessalonica heard that Paul and Silas had shown up in Berea and were spreading their message there, they rounded up the mob and followed them there to stir up trouble for them. And they did. The crowd got so worked up that Paul had to run for his life. He fled a long way this time, all the way to Athens.
This formed something of a pattern in Paul’s ministry. It seems that almost everywhere he went he encountered fierce opposition and sometimes intense persecution from many people simply for talking to people about the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, let’s go back to Thessalonica and keep in mind what happened there. Paul and Silas came into this town and started preaching and teaching about Jesus. They had enough converts to start a new church. They were only in town for about a month at the most, teaching and discipling the new converts in the ways of Jesus. When the Jewish leaders incited a riot in the city and arrested some of these new converts, it was no longer safe for Paul and Silas to stay there, so they were forced to flee, effectively abandoning this new church.
So, get the picture. Here is this tiny little church filled with brand new baby Christians in a hostile city. At the same time that they were trying to figure out what it meant to follow Jesus as Lord they were under a siege of slander against their leaders, Paul and Silas.
We can infer from the things Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians that the Jewish leaders were accusing Paul and Silas of being con-men. They said, “Paul and Silas don’t really care about you. They only told you whatever you wanted to hear. They manipulated your emotions with flattery, which was just a cover-up for their greed. They deceived you with fancy rhetoric, took advantage of your vulnerability, bilked you of your money, and when they got caught they skipped town. You can’t trust them. They don’t really care about you and they are deliberately spreading lies.”
These brand-new baby Christians are left all alone trying to make sense of what has just happened to them. So, from a distance, Paul writes a letter, the letter of 1 Thessalonians to give them some much needed encouragement and instruction. In chapter two of that letter he responds to the accusations and charges that are being brought against them. And in the process Paul teaches us some things about what a genuine and authentic ministry looks like.
This is where the sermon outline picks up, so if you would like to follow along you can fill in the blanks as we go. There are five M’s, if you will, that Paul says must match. These five M’s must match if we are to be authentic ministers of Jesus Christ.
The first M stands for Mission. Paul says that the mission must be From the Father. Look with me at verse four. “we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” Paul is saying, “We are not making this up. This is not something that sprung from some fertile human imagination. This is a mission from God.” So, if it is to be a legitimate ministry, the mission must be from the Father.
Second is the Message. Paul says that the message must contain no Falsehood. If you would, look with me at verse three. “For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you.” Paul says there must not be any falsehood, and there are two kinds of falsehood in this verse.
First of all, the messenger could be mistaken. It is possible that the messenger might sincerely believe that what he says is true, but in fact, it is not. This would be a message that springs from error.
The second kind of falsehood is that the deliverer could be a deceiver. The leader could be a liar. In other words, the messenger could know good and well that what he is saying is not true, but he says it anyway. This is the “trying to trick you” kind of falsehood.
Again, Paul says that the message must have no falsehood. If the mission is from God then the message must be true - 100% true.
Then Paul says a word about the messenger’s motives. He says there are two kinds of motives to avoid. First, he says that there must be no financial gain. The guide must not be motivated by greed. Look with me, if you will, at verses 5-8, and I will be skipping through this passage a little bit.
“You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness . . . As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you . . . we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”
Paul says, “we could have been a burden to you”. What is he talking about? Well, to understand his reference here you have to know some of his other writings. In 1 Cor 9:3-18 and 1 Timothy 5:17-18 Paul teaches that God intends that the spiritual leaders of the church should receive financial support from the church. So, the pastors, the evangelists, the missionaries and apostles were to receive a salary from the members of the church because they devoted their full time to caring for the spiritual needs of the flock. This is the way God set up the structure of the Church and how He designed it to work.
However, Paul and his companions did not always take advantage of this right. Sometimes they refused to receive any payment at all. We know for sure that in both Corinth and Thessalonica Paul and the other apostles voluntarily denied themselves this right. They probably did this for two reasons: 1. So they would not be a financial burden on these new fledgling churches and 2. To avoid any suspicion of greed.
But Paul and Silas went a step further. Not only did they not ask for any money, which they had a right to do, but they actually shared their resources with the others. Paul was a leather worker by trade. Among other things, he made tents, which is where we get the term tent-maker. We are told that Paul worked hard, night and day at his craft in order to support himself and the other apostles, and he generously gave to the financial needs of the church as well. In other words, if they were con men, they were lousy cons. Paul and his companions were so careful with their finances that no one could accuse them of greed, or if they did, the charges simply couldn’t stick.
The second motivation Paul instructs us to avoid is fame. He says there is to be no Fame, or rather, that fame cannot be our motive for delivering God’s message. Look with me, if you will, at verses four and six. “We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts . . . We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.” Paul is acknowledging that one of the key temptations of preachers and teachers is to cater to our audience, to speak and behave in such a way that we will earn approval and praise from other people. Paul warns us against this and insists that the genuine minister of God will have pure motives coming from a pure heart that seeks to please God, not people.
So, the mission must be from the Father, the message must be true, and the motives must be pure, no greed, no glory. Now Paul speaks a word about the Methods by which we spread the message.
Paul says there is to be no flattery. Look with me, if you will, at verses three and five. “For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you . . . You know we never used flattery . . . God is our witness.”
Think of flattery as emotional manipulation. Flattery is a form of coercion, it is an attempt to please people by telling them just what we think they want to hear. To borrow a biblical phrase, it is to tickle itching ears. But Paul says there is to be no flattery. There is to be no manipulation. As messengers of God our speech is to be honest and straightforward.
Elsewhere in the Paul’s writings he compares the Word of God to a sword. He says that God’s Word is like a sharp sword that has two edges. It is a very effective weapon. Paul knows that sometimes when we swing the blade of God’s word people get hurt. The Gospel of Jesus can be hard to hear and sometimes people will take offense. Paul acknowledges that one of the great temptations of the preacher or teacher is to dull the blade. Modify the message just enough that it is not quite so sharp, not quite so cutting, not quite so convicting.
But Paul never did that. He was a straight shooter. He spoke the truth of God straight up and he expects other messengers to do the same.
Finally, the Messenger must be faithful. This is just a way of summarizing the whole thing. The messenger must be faithful. He or she must be a person of integrity and sincerity because again, we cannot separate the messenger from the message.
I don’t think this point can be over-emphasized. Paul was deeply concerned that if people did not trust the messenger, they would not trust the message either. This is certainly true of us as well. As we go out from this place to represent Jesus to a lost world, as we speak to people about who Jesus is and what He has done, if the world looks at us and sees that we lack credibility, then they are going to ignore what we have to say. The world will not separate the messenger from the message. If they reject the messenger they will also dismiss the message. So, we must pay very careful attention not only to what we believe and preach, but even more importantly to how we live. It is possible to preach the truth of the Gospel with great courage and clarity only to invalidate it with our own lifestyle, heart attitudes, or motives.
Listen to what our Lord Himself said about this in John 13:34-35. I think this is remarkable. He said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The reason I think this is remarkable is because Jesus throws out a kind of litmus test here. He says, “Here is how the world will evaluate what you have to say. It is not so much that they will be evaluating your message as they will be evaluating the messengers. The only way they will know that the message is true is if you love one another.”
I think that is astounding, and sobering. If this is true, then it is difficult to overestimate the significance of our influence over His message. It is hard to overestimate the significance of our influence over His message. As followers of Jesus, you and I are the single greatest influence to draw people to Jesus. At the same time, we can also be the single greatest obstacle to keep people away from Jesus. The world simply cannot and will not make a distinction between the messenger and the message.
So, I want to close today with a few simple questions. You and I are the messengers. We are the messengers of God. What kind of messenger am I? What kind of messenger are you?
Do you speak the truth of God to others? Do you talk to people about Jesus? Do you tell them about who He is and what He has done for you in your life and what He has done for them at the cross and in the resurrection? Do you tell people the truth about God?
And if so, why? Why do you tell people the truth about God? What is motivating you to do that? Do you speak the truth in order to please God or to try to impress people? Do you long for and look for praise from other people, or are you living for an audience of one?
Do you ever try to manipulate people’s emotions by telling them just what they would like to hear about God? Do you use your ministry as an opportunity to make money? Do you take advantage of ministry opportunities as a pretext for profit?
In short, do practice what you preach? Do you walk what you talk? Are you a person of integrity? Are you an integrated whole? Are the things you say the same as the things you do the same as the motivations for saying and doing them?
The message and the messenger must match. You are the messenger. So, how is the message?
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Last Updated on Friday, 06 March 2009 10:21 |
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