1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Tom Shrader walks through 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12, examining Paul's account of his ministry in Thessalonica as a model not for professional clergy alone but for every follower of Christ. Paul's message was the gospel of God, his motive was to please God rather than men, and his method was to share both the truth and his own life with those he served. Shrader draws four negative warnings and four positive calls from the passage, urging believers to be genuine, gentle, loving, and affirming in their personal ministry to the people around them.
“The gospel is not something we give to a person who doesn't know Christ one time — the gospel is the answer to all of our questions, all of the time.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: In Light of His Coming
Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 54 min
Themes: ministry, authenticity, gentleness, gospel, pleasing god, motives, encouragement, service, new believer, mentor, struggling with pride, young adult, pastor, feeling unworthy, new to leadership, navigating conflict
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12, 1 Thessalonians 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 1:6, 1 Thessalonians 1:9, 1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 3:6, 2 Corinthians 5:14, 2 Corinthians 11:28, Acts 9:15, Acts 16:14-26, Acts 17:10, Matthew 28, Psalm 12:3
Theological Themes: missiology, pastoral care, proclamation, sanctification, biblical authority, servant leadership, evangelism, christology
Full Transcript
Introduction
Open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible, that is page 640. You should have your own Bible. It is a little like a golf club — I was at the PGA store the other day and you see people being fitted for clubs. You should be fitted for a Bible in the same way. You want to consider what translation is right for you, and Aaron and the people in the bookstore do well at helping with that, so it is a good day to make a trek over there.
This is week three of our series that will take us up to Christmas. The title of the series is *In Light of His Coming*. We are looking at a book that has a huge practical call to ministry, done in light of the fact that Jesus is coming again. Part of Christmas is to celebrate that He came — that in that process Jesus was born, subsequently lived, died, so that we can be saved. But we also understand that Jesus is coming again, and the question is: how do we live now in light of that reality?
Reading the Passage
Today, I want to read all twelve verses of chapter 2, and then we will come back and tear them apart. I will give you a couple of warnings about what I want to make sure you do not do, and then positively, here are the things I want you to do.
Chapter 2, verse 1: "For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. But after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God." If you are someone who underlines, circles, or marks in your Bible, circle that phrase — gospel of God. It appears three times in this passage. He came to speak to them the gospel of God "amid much opposition."
"For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men but God who examines our hearts. For we never came to you with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed — God is witness — nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles we might have asserted our authority."
"But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God" — there is the second occurrence, circle it — "but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you" — and there is the third time — "the gospel of God."
The reason I suggest marking it is so that when you turn to this passage, your mind triggers quickly: that is what is in here — the gospel of God. Verse 10: "You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory."
How We Approach This as a Church
Today, on all four of our campuses, we are teaching this passage. Tyler is teaching in Arcadia, Ricardo is teaching in Tempe, Luke is teaching at Gateway, and I am teaching here. I like to remind you of this so you know that if you have people at other campuses, they are studying the same passage we are.
What we do is meet roughly ten days prior for a study session — a preaching collective. All the guys who will be teaching the passage are there, along with staff and interns who are welcome to join. It is a time of training and studying together. Then each one of us prepares differently. Luke tends to be done by Thursday at noon, Tyler and Ricardo work at different points along the way, and I tend to be the last one. We each put our own touches on it, and when Luke is done, if he is feeling generous, he will send out his outline.
Three M's: Message, Motive, and Method
Luke approached this passage using three M's, which is a very traditional framework for this text, since the heading in many Bibles over this section reads "Paul's Ministry."
The first M is his **message**. As you will see in verses 2, 8, and 9, Paul's message is the gospel.
The second M is his **motive**. Paul frames it negatively first in verse 5: it is not flattery, not a pretext for greed — he is not in it for the money, he is not trying to please people. Positively, he says his motive is to be gentle, and at the end of verse 8 he says, "You had become very dear to us" — he genuinely cares about them.
The third M is his **method**. Paul speaks the gospel, but notice what he says in verse 8: he did not only impart the gospel to them, he gave them his own lives as well. This connects directly to what Jesus says the night before He died, as He is praying to the Father: "Father, the same way you sent Me into the world, I send them into the world." When we talk about Jesus, the Word became flesh —
The Purpose of Studying Paul's Ministry
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us — we talk about incarnation. Jesus lived incarnationally, and what He is saying is: now I want you to go and do the same. Their whole intent in all of this is what we saw last week in chapter 1, and look at verse 12 of chapter 2: so that you would live in a way that reflects a transformed life. You would walk — and that means lifestyle, it doesn't mean a primitive form of transportation — so that you would walk, live, and operate in a way that would be consistent with and reflect the fact that God has touched your life. So it is not an exaggeration or hyperbole to say, I should see the effects of God in your life.
Now here is what I don't want us to do. Paul is very autobiographical here. He is reflecting back on a historic event that took place — he came, he encountered them, he lived with them, and he is recalling that. He says in chapter 2, verse 1: "You know this." My fear is that we study this and say, "Isn't Paul amazing? How about Paul?" I want us to look at this account for the purpose of understanding that we have a ministry — that God saved you for a reason and a purpose.
If you are a Christian, if all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, at the moment you believed, He would have taken you. But God's story, God's plan is being worked out all around us, and those of us who know Christ as Lord and Savior are key in that plan. God has decided to use people.
I want to read a commentary introduction to this passage because it says something I want to draw out. It says: "Part of the abiding value of 1 Thessalonians chapters 2 and 3 is that it gives us insight into Paul's pastoral heart. In these chapters, more perhaps than anywhere else in any of his letters, Paul discloses his mind, he expresses his emotion, and he bears his soul." Then the commentary adds: "No one who is engaged in any form of pastoral ministry — ordained or lay — can fail to be touched or challenged by what Paul writes here."
Ministry Belongs to Every Believer
That delineation is something I hate. I hate the idea that somehow there is a professional ordained person on one side and everybody else on the other. That is my fear — that as you start to look at Paul, you say, "Boy, that is really cool. How about him?" And you conclude that Paul is a role model for the pastor or the elder, but not for me. No. This is the role model for personal ministry, and we are all ministers of the gospel.
People have been asking me how I am doing, what I am going to do, and how I am thinking through life. My goal is to get through the end of the year. Susan's memorial service is this Friday at 3 here on campus, and then my brothers are in, and we will work our way through to the end of the year. When people ask what my passion is, I tell them: ice cream, college football. But if there were one thing — one thing I could say I want to change — it would be the view of the people at Redemption Church, and with God's blessing, change the whole world's view.
That delineation between professional paid ministry and everybody else — I hate it, because my fear is that it lets you off the hook. All of a sudden you are saying, "Well, I don't need to do this, I don't need to know that — they are paid to do that." No. This is the ministry model for all of us. I am not saying you are going to do it in exactly the same way, but these are the things that need to be present in every believer's life.
I don't want us simply to study the life of Paul and admire it from a distance. There is a book — it may be out of print — I believe by a man named Stalker, S-T-A-L-K-E-R, James Stalker, who wrote a book on the life of Paul. I loved it. It is not a long book, easy to get through. But why do I bring it up? Look at what we studied last week — chapter 1, verse 6. Paul says, "You became an imitator of me." I want to hold up Paul not so we can cheer him on, but so we can say: this is what Paul did, and I am going to do it in a different context. You are not going to be an apostle — all those positions are gone — but you will be used by God as you imitate Paul as he imitates Christ. That is why this passage is important. It is important to understand what Paul is saying so you begin to realize, I ought to be doing that too.
We Need People Around Us
Let me offer one more general observation that I fear does not get emphasized often enough. For us to live the life God has called us to live — to be an ambassador for Him, a minister of the gospel, engaged in the ministry of reconciliation — demands that we have people around us.
The Heart Behind Ministry
I was watching a Rockford File the other day, and there are two things I pull out from it. Number one — and this is profound — every Rockford File would be radically changed if Jim had a cell phone. You watch the Rockford Files and immediately, like 30 seconds into it, he's looking for a pay phone. The other thing is, Jim the other night is getting ready to go, and in certain instances he's going to portray somebody, appear to be somebody he's not. He's in his car printing off calling cards.
I have like three or four calling cards myself — the Priority Living card, some other cards, and the Redemption card. When I have the Redemption cards, it puts me in contact with a lot of pastoral-type people. Now I'm going to tell you, and this is probably a violation of professional courtesy, I won't give you any names, but I will tell you what I will inevitably hear in the course of almost every in-depth conversation. One of these pastoral types will say, "My job would be great — except for the people."
And I want to say: you self-righteous moron, your job is the people. If that is truly an undercurrent — this would be great except for the people — the people pick up on it. Here's what can happen: the people God has called you to minister to, the people in your neighborhood, the people at school, the people at the gym — if you're not careful, you're going to see them as obstacles rather than as a calling.
If you don't love them, then sharing the gospel is just going to be routine. "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but you're a sinner — did you know you're a sinner?" That's exactly how it feels sometimes. There are people who don't share our belief in Christ, who aren't followers of Christ, who — if our doctrine is true, and it is — are on the way to hell. Even if things seem okay in an incremental way, it ought to break your heart.
It's going to affect you differently with different people, but you have to love these people. Whatever ministry is — and at its core, ministry means to serve — whatever it's about, it's about people. Whenever you're dealing with people, it's painful and sloppy and hard and difficult. But you're not doing it for any reason other than the love of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:14: "It is the love of Christ that compels us."
Paul's Ministry as a Model
Here's what Paul is saying, and this is a powerful story for these people, because he's going to say: you remember this story — you were in it, you're a key part of it. Don't go, "Wow, Paul." Go, "Wow, this is what the Spirit of God does in a life." The same power that Paul had — didn't we see last week? — he said when he came to them he wasn't particularly articulate, he wasn't particularly profound. His physical appearance was probably not even neutral. I was thinking about myself the other day — I don't think I'm ugly, but I sure don't think I'm good looking. I think I'm neutral, a solid four. I wouldn't ask me out for coffee. Paul was like a one.
So he didn't have any of those things going for him. What made him so effective? He had the gospel of God as his message, and he had the Spirit of God in him. That's the big deal — and so do you. That's the whole point here. Don't go, "Wow, Paul," and walk away. Look at Paul, be an imitator of him, look at these characteristics, and then bring them to your own ministry world.
Verse One: A Ministry That Was Not in Vain
Here's what he says in verse one: "You yourselves know, it's a fact, that our coming to you was not in vain." That word *vain* means empty. There's a subtlety in the Greek as well — it means empty, useless. In other words, the ministry produced fruit. But also, subtly, it had direction to it.
That's what we saw last week. Remember, Paul and Silas are coming — we give thanks in chapter one, verse three. Someone said to me today that you can find the idea of come, learn, and serve in there, though you have to stretch it a bit. In chapter one, verse three, this church had the work of faith, the labor of love, and the steadfastness of hope. Drop down to verse nine and you see what those were: their work of faith was that they turned from idols, their labor of love was that they served a living God, and their steadfastness of hope was that they understood Jesus was coming again.
So here's what Paul is saying: you know there was fruit, because you are the fruit. And you know that it had direction and purpose to it. Paul is saying his ministry was targeted, focused, deliberate, premeditated. And as we will see, it was done with gentleness and kindness and sincerity — it was genuine and it was meaningful.
Results Belong to God
He is not talking about results here. He is saying there were results, but those have nothing to do with him. You don't need to turn there, but some of you may want to make a note. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, there is a discussion in the church at Corinth. In chapter 3, around verses 4 through 6, people are saying, "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos." There are always these people —
Suffering Before Thessalonica
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:6, "I planted, Apollos watered, God caused the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth." He is saying this is not an A-plus-B-equals-C method with a guaranteed outcome. This is simply part of the process. There were places where Paul ministered, where he taught and people heard, and he walked away and they never responded — but later somebody else came along, and that is what God used.
Paul's point is this: be deliberate, not conniving, but calculating. Think about what you are doing and do it in the right way for the right reason. God may bless it and bring fruit, or He may not. You may share the gospel and live it out and pray for somebody in your family or among your friends for many, many years, and they never respond. That is not because your prayers were weak, not because you did not have enough faith, not because they were not smart enough — it is because God, for whatever reason, did not desire to cause growth there.
The First Convert in Europe
Now Paul says in this passage that "we did not come in vain, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated at Philippi." To understand that, turn to Acts chapter 16, verse 14. This is the story of the first convert in all of Europe. Recently we were going through some pictures and there was a photo of my daughter Haley — she was the first person to be baptized here at the church, which is a cool thing. Well, this is like the first convert in all of Europe, which is really cool, except your name would be Lydia.
When I hear the name Lydia, I think of Groucho Marx — "Lydia, Lydia, my dear old Lydia, Lydia the tattooed lady." That is not the spiritual dynamic we are going for, and I need to be more spiritual than that. But this Lydia is a great woman, a businesswoman, a seller. Ladies, if you are looking for someone to model yourself after, Lydia is a good one. Paul comes, the gospel begins to take root, and any time that happens, opposition follows.
Paul and Silas in Prison
In verse 16, as they are going to the place of prayer, they encounter a slave girl with a spirit of divination. She is being used by men to prophesy and tell fortunes — she is a cash flow for them. She follows after Paul and his companions, crying out, "These men are bondservants of the Most High God, and they are proclaiming to you the way of salvation" — which, by the way, is true. But after a while Paul is annoyed and says, "I command you in the name of Jesus to come out of her," and the spirit leaves. Now these men have lost an entire profit center, and that is a serious problem for them.
So they stir up the people and drag Paul and Silas into the marketplace before the Roman authorities. Verse 22 says, "The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods." This is a violation of Paul's rights as a Roman citizen — they beat him without a trial. They struck them with many blows, threw them into prison, and commanded the jailer to guard them securely. The jailer threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
There were layers to this prison, and they were taken to the very center — the most secure place — because the jailer understood that if he lost these prisoners, it was his problem. He did not merely lock them in; he chained them in. Then at midnight, verse 25, there is an earthquake. Paul and Silas are in that prison, beaten and bound, and they are doing exactly what you would do — singing hymns and praising God. The earthquake comes, they are freed, the jailer is terrified, and Paul and Silas tell him not to be afraid, that they are still there.
Boldness in the Face of Opposition
Now go back to 1 Thessalonians, because that is the incident Paul is referring to. He says, "From there we came to you." As we looked at last week, when they arrived in Thessalonica there was more opposition — and in Acts 17:10 it says they slipped away by night. In verse 2 of our passage, Paul mentions both suffering and mistreatment: suffering implies physical torment, while mistreatment points to public verbal abuse. He is saying they beat us and they abused us. Their goal was not only to stop the preaching but to humiliate — stopping them was not enough.
So Paul says: you know when we came, you know the treatment we had already received, and you know the treatment we received while we were among you — but here is what we did, we had boldness. Now Paul is not claiming personal bravery; he says plainly that the boldness came from God. It is the same strength available to you. They came in boldness and, in verse 2, spoke "the gospel of God in the midst of this opposition." As you begin to live this out, it is unlikely anyone will drag you out, beat you, and throw you in jail. But you will see opposition from all sides.
Boldness in Proclaiming the Gospel
You move boldly — but why? Because you're courageous? Paul probably had some sense of trepidation, and he was certainly cautious, but he wasn't paralyzed by it. He preached the gospel of God. God is the one who gave him this gospel; the source of it is God. God is calling now to share it with us.
He starts the story from the very beginning: in the beginning God created, we sinned, God's redemption, God's the source of this, God's the one who saves us, God's the one who reveals this. So he said, this isn't our story — we didn't cook this up, God gave it to us. So in verse 3, as we proclaim this — and that means to cry urgently, or make an appeal — it doesn't have error or impurity, and we don't do it by way of deceit. There's no error in this because it's God's gospel, so it's true. There's no deceit in it, and by deceit he's saying it's not like we're giving you some imagery and doing a bait and switch — it's just straight up the truth.
Entrusted with the Gospel
But we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak. Here's our motive: not to please men, but to please God who examines our hearts. Our whole call was to understand that this gospel has been entrusted to us.
By the way, it has been entrusted to you as well. When God saved you, He called you into the ministry of the gospel of God, into the ministry of reconciliation. He gave you the word of reconciliation, and now He says, you go and be an ambassador. My friend Larry Wright used to say it this way: our title is very impressive — Ambassador of Christ. Job description, not so impressive — bondservant. But this is what you're called to. That's your tool, the Scripture; the power is in the Holy Spirit.
In Acts chapter 9, God is in the process of saving Paul, and He is sending Ananias to Paul to say, here's the call. Acts 9:15: "Go, for Paul is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles, the kings, and the sons of Israel." And I would say to you, God said to you: you go. It's Matthew 28 — go make disciples of all nations as you go. You go and you're a proclaimer, the gospel has been entrusted to you, and you're a steward of this word.
Truth in Love, Not License to Offend
He said, in this process you can't be terribly concerned about pleasing men, because the truth in and of itself is offensive to some. It's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18 — it's foolishness. Now, I want to be careful here. I think some people look at this and think it's a badge to be obnoxious and offensive — "I'm just going to tell it like it is." That's not what it said. It said tell the truth, but do it in love. This is not a license to be a jerk.
I feel like I see a lot of people going, "I just tell it like it is, and they can't handle it." Well, no — you didn't even get to the point where they rejected the gospel. You were such a jerk that they never even got to hear what you had to say. So I want to be careful about that. We do care about people, and it does matter how we respond to them.
We don't sugarcoat it. We don't take the truth and make it less than it really is. We're not so afraid that somebody's going to reject it that we present the least possible version, sort of hedging, hoping it might get through. That's not what we do. We proclaim the truth, but our desire is to be approved by God, not just men. And you have to fight that all the time. Unless you have some unusual condition, you want people to like you.
Seeking God's Approval Over Audience Approval
One of the things I learned early on — and I've told the guys this — the fastest way to get better at this, humanly speaking, is to do a lot of away games. By that I mean, go into places where they don't know you. With the same crowd over and over again, they're going to cut you a lot of slack. What I discovered is this: I don't want to walk away and have them think, "What a jerk." I want to be light, but it's more important that I have God's approval than the audience's approval.
That's what happens with a lot of people — they will say things they think people will like, and they'll take solid doctrine, get it to its lowest common denominator, water it down, and wrap the gospel in something softer than it really is. It's a little like trying to swallow a pill by chewing it instead.
The only time I've gone overseas — India, Thailand, a bunch of places — they had to take malaria pills, and they were these big pills. I couldn't swallow a pill, so I would chew it instead. I did it three times and thought, "I don't know how bad malaria is, but it can't be worse than tasting this pill," and I gave the rest to some guy in Calcutta and said, "There you go, good luck."
As I got older I realized I needed to learn how to swallow a pill. So when I turned 50 I spent two weeks asking people, "How do you do it? What do you think about? Where do you put it?" They said, "Put it in something and it'll pop right down." I tried putting it in a hot dog — I mean, I can eat a quarter-pounder in three bites — but that quarter-pounder would go down and the pill would pop right back up every time. Eventually I got it. When I finally did, I called my mom. I'm 50 years old, and I called my mom and said, "Guess what happened today?" She was probably thinking someone had a baby or something. I said, "I learned how to swallow a pill." And she said, "Shouldn't that have come a little earlier in your life?"
The Motive Behind Ministry
The process is not about taking the gospel and wrapping it up in something palatable so people will swallow it. There is a real tension here: you want to be liked, but the audience is not the people in front of you. The audience is God. That is what Paul is saying. You want to be approved by Him.
So in verse five, Paul says they did not come with flattery. That flattery is not merely puffing someone up — it carries with it the idea of baiting or deceitful talk. There is a verse in Psalm 12, verse three that speaks directly to this: "May the Lord cut off all flattering lips." Paul is clear: we did not do that.
He goes on to say they did not come with a pretext for greed. That word "pretext" means cloaked. In other words, they did not take what they were doing and cloak it, while really being motivated by greed. What Paul seems to be saying is that we can find ourselves in a situation — or even a mindset — where we are doing ministry to seek the approval of man or for financial gain.
Paul says, as he does in other places, that when he was with the Thessalonians, he worked hard so he would not take money from them. He is clear elsewhere in Scripture that those who teach and lead — pastors and their staff — are more than worthy of pay. But in the early stages of a work, he chose not to take it.
A Personal Illustration of Motive
This is a difficult illustration to share, because it will make the point in a way that reflects well personally, and that creates its own tension. But there is no other way to illustrate it. When this church started, no salary was taken. The church compensates in some other modest ways now, which is appreciated, but a salary was not taken — and the reason was simply not wanting to be a burden. Twenty years ago, when it was all beginning, there were no people, no building, no money. Taking money was not going to make the work succeed, and that was never the motivation.
This is not setting a paradigm. It is not saying churches should never pay their pastors. Paul himself accepts payment in other situations. The point is the same one Paul is making: the motive for coming among the people was not to be liked and not to get money.
Verse six continues this thought. Paul was not seeking the glory of men. He had the authority as an apostle, but he did not come in and use it to hammer people. His style of leadership was not authoritarian.
Gentleness as the Model
Here is the contrast Paul introduces in verse seven: "We proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children." That is the imagery. You do not see a mother swinging a baby around. When children are small, you caress them. There is a gentleness, there is a tenderness to it. You might roughhouse with an older child, but not with a baby. Paul says: that is how I was with you. There is tenderness, there is respect. It is a picture of love.
In verse eight, Paul says he had strong affection for them. They were well pleased to — and here the word "impart" means to share — share not only the gospel of God, but also their own lives. Literally, they gave up their souls. They set their goals and desires aside because serving these people required genuinely loving and caring for them.
This is the model for ministry Paul is laying out: to share in both word and deed, to share the gospel of God and also to share your life. The only reason you would minister to someone you do not love is out of duty. But when you truly love and care for people, both inside and outside the body of Christ, there will be a long, long patience and kindness and understanding and gentleness. That does not mean avoiding the truth — the gospel of God is the truth — but it means not simply dropping your load on someone and walking away.
The Gospel and How We Carry It
There was a season when it seemed like Christians commonly used little gospel tracts. A tract is a small booklet that explains the gospel — the idea being that you are a sinner, you are lost, you are going to hell, and you need Jesus. Some Christians would leave these in restaurants as a kind of tip.
Now, to be fair, that is a valuable message. But it misses something. Talking with many servers over the years — and genuinely trying to know them, especially when they understand what you do — you hear a consistent thing. Almost every server will tell you what they dread seeing walk through the door: a large group of Christians who want separate checks and will each leave fifty cents. That matters.
Giving Your Whole Life to the Gospel
All of a sudden, if you are really concerned about the gospel, it matters what you tip. Especially if people understand who you are. I have one place that I go in particular, and they know exactly what I do. There is, to my knowledge, maybe one follower of Christ in there, but I am very sensitive to how I behave, very sensitive to how I pay, and very sensitive to how I tip, because it is a reflection of that.
That is what Paul is saying: we did not just give you this message, we gave you our whole lives, because it really mattered to us, ultimately, whether you believed or not. That is a huge deal.
Labor and Hardship for the Churches
He says all this, you recall, in verse nine: "You recall, brethren, our labor and our hardship, and how we were working night and day, so as not to be a burden to any of you." Let me read from 2 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul is reminding them of the hardship he himself has faced. He said, "Five times I received 39 lashes from the Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times shipwrecked. A day and a night I spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, danger from my countrymen, dangers from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger in the sea, danger among false brethren. And I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, and often without food, and clothes and exposure."
Many people will stop there. Listen to verse 28, 2 Corinthians 11:28: "Apart from such external things, there is a daily pressure on me of the concern for all the churches." That is what you are reading in 1 Thessalonians. He planted this church, he went away, and he is saying, I cannot wait, I do not know what is going on. They cannot just text or call. So he sends Timothy to encourage them and to bring a report back.
This is what he cares about. He says, I care about you, I care about people — that is what this was all about for us. It was not about material gain. It was not even about checking notches on a belt for converts, because he says, I understand that God alone can do that.
Exhorting, Encouraging, and Imploring
"So you are witnesses, verse 10, so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we have behaved toward you believers. Just as you know, we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring." Let me give you each of those words. Exhorting means to come alongside, or to call alongside. Encouraging carries with it the idea of comfort and consolation. Imploring is this idea of testifying or witnessing.
So Paul is saying: as we called you alongside, we came alongside, we exhorted you. We did it with comfort and kindness and gentleness. We did it as we implored you to testify. That is what we did — you know this. And he adds, "imploring you, as each of you, as a father would his own children."
A Father and a Mother
In verse seven he says we are gentle like a mother. In verse eleven he says, as a father should be, we hold those children. I am in a reflective season, looking at pictures of my girls growing up, and I am thinking — what kind of a dad was I? What did I do? Well, I tried to come alongside, I tried to encourage. I did not move the standard for them. I did not say, you are never going to get there. We are going to hold this standard, we are going to discipline accordingly and live accordingly, but always in love.
I have two daughters. Haley is very much like her mom. Sarah is very much like me. To raise Haley — she is a Chia pet kid, you just add water and time and she grows. Haley could have raised herself. Sarah is like me. She is going to want to ask, well, why would we do that? Really? I don't think that is a good idea, particularly, Dad. Never disrespectful, but I had to be firm with her. And there were times I am afraid I punished her in anger rather than disciplined her in love.
I have apologized more to Sarah than to any other person on this earth, other than Susan. I know that I did things to her that people have done to damage their kids. But here may be the difference: she knew I loved her. She was not even guessing. The fact that I would come back and say "I screwed up" to an eight-year-old told her that I loved her.
That is what Paul is saying here. We exhorted, like a dad in his right role, like a mom in her right role. We came alongside. We were gentle and kind and encouraging. And the reason is verse 12: "so you would walk in a manner worthy of the call of God who calls you." Our whole end game was this — that you would hear this gospel of God, you would respond to this gospel of God, and your life would be changed. That is Paul's call, but it is your call as well.
Four Things to Omit, Four Things to Include
Chuck Swindoll deals with this passage and identifies four things to omit from your ministry and four things to include. They are all from this passage, and we have touched on them all.
Number one, verse three: do not be deceptive. As you are sharing, you are sharing the truth. You do not come in with some slick approach — here is the gospel, give it a whirl, money-back guarantee. Number two, do not be a people pleaser — that is verse four. You need to get along with people, but ultimately my objective is to play to an audience of God, not to an audience of people. Number three, from verse five: do not be greedy — greedy for either money, or greedy for accolades or power. The church, by the way, is not exempt.
Ministering Without Pride or Greed
There are ways to go about ministry that Paul warns against, and one of them is seeking glory from men rather than from God. When you meet someone at a pastor's conference wearing a lanyard — Redemption Church, Gilbert — the first thing they ask is how big the church is. If you say thirty, the response is essentially, "That's really cool," and then they move on. It works the same way in every area of life: how many sales did you make, how big is your territory, what are your numbers? If that metric is what ministry is all about, that is a form of greed, pride, and idolatry.
Paul identifies a fourth way to do ministry wrongly: the authoritarian way. In verse six he writes that they did not seek glory from men. They had authority in their position, but they chose not to wield it that way.
Four Ways to Minister Well
Verse seven introduces the first positive way to minister: be sensitive to needs. By and large, the people around you will tell you what their needs are — but that means you have to listen. Listening is not always easy. Someone comes and says, "I need to talk to you, Tom," and within about thirty seconds they begin laying it out. The temptation is to think, "I know where this is going — let me take a breath, because I have something brilliant to say." But if you are going to build people up according to their needs, you have to take the time and make the investment to understand what their need actually is. Paul's picture here is of sensitivity like that of a nursing mother — gentle and attentive.
The second way is to love the people you serve. Verse eight speaks of having a strong affection for them, of genuinely caring. Real ministry is expensive, because people call at awkward times and come to you when they are in need. If you resent people, or if you are only doing this out of duty, you will wear out fast. That is true whether you are on a church staff or simply ministering to the people in your office.
The Importance of Authenticity
The third way, drawn from the second part of verse eight and then verses nine and ten, is to be authentic. Paul does not mince words here. He does not present himself as someone without need, hurt, or pain. If you live among people in ministry while pretending to be something you are not — projecting the image that you have no hurt, no need, no pain — you paint a picture that simply is not real.
This connects directly to the gospel itself. The gospel is not merely something you give to a person who does not know Christ one time. The gospel is the answer to all of our questions, all of the time. When there is no reason to be afraid, the answer is that God is in control, and we work that through. The gospel applies to every situation, not just the moment of initial faith.
Encouragement Like a Father
The fourth way Paul describes is affirmation — he says he encouraged them like a father. At a little league game recently, Yale was four years old and Braden was five. There cannot be many things that matter less in this world than that game; they do not even keep score. But there was a play at first base, and the call went against the wrong kid. The instinct was immediate: "He's not out — who is in the replay booth? I want justice." In a healthy way, you become your child's cheerleader, their advocate.
A few years ago, watching a videotape from 1999 of a cheer routine that led to a state championship, the camera was positioned up high over the crowd. There is one section of that routine — difficult, and they did not always get it right — where, if they execute it, they are very likely going to win. As they approach that section, one head rises up out of the entire crowd, because that person knows exactly what is coming. That is what Paul is describing. That is who you are for the people around you.
At a church event downtown, watching Tyler and Luke speak, the absolute highlight of that day was listening to them and feeling a deep pride in being able to say, "I work with these guys." That kind of affirmation is not beyond anyone. Paul's point is that what he did in his ministry was not something extraordinary or super-human — it is what you do too. You have the gospel of God, and you are to give that gospel, and yourself, to the people around you.