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1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III
If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn to Paul's letter to the
Thessalonians, the first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, and
we're going to be looking at verses 1 to 12 this morning. I want to
bring to your attention this aspect of what Paul is doing in chapters 2
and 3. Paul is defending his ministry to the Thessalonians church
from charges that are being brought against him, maybe by the very
people that caused him and his church planting team to have to
leave town. Theyre saying a whole variety of things trying to
undermine his credibility to the Thessalonian Christians, and you can
actually pick up on what theyre saying about him by what he says in
defending his ministry.
PAUL EXPLAINS AND VINDICATES
HIS MOTIVES, CONDUCT, AND AIMS
Now the way he defends his ministry is interesting. In these
chapters, he recounts, describes, and then explains his ministry. He
recounts and hell say, Do you remember what I did when I was
there? And they go, Oh yeah, I remember you doing that. And then
hell say, Well let me describe to you what I was doing. This is what I
was doing. And then hell say, Now, let me tell you why I was doing
that. Let me tell you what my goal was in doing that. And in doing
this he is defending his ministry to them, whereas there are people in
and down the Ignatius Way . In a word, he's a charlatan. He's in his
job only for what he can get out of it, in terms of money, prestige, or
power, so when opposition arose and he found himself in personal
danger, he took to his heels and ran, and he doesn't care about you
Thessalonian disciples of his. He's abandoned you. He's much more
concerned about his own skin than your welfare.
Now in light of that, which Stott has just drawn from sort of reading
this passage in the reverse, just be on the lookout for these things.
For instance, when you get to verse 1 in the reading and he says,
Our coming to you was not in vain, behind that is probably the
accusation to the Thessalonian disciples that they had believed what
Paul had taught them in vain. And so he says, Actually, my coming
to you was not in vain. And then if you look at verse 2 where he
says, We had already suffered and been shamefully treated at
Philippi, you know, behind that is the charge, Look, as soon as the
going got tough, Paul got out of town. And Paul's saying, Now folks,
I'd already been beaten up in Philippi. If I were a guy that didn't want
to get beaten up, I would have looked for another line of work. I'd
already been beaten up at Philippi. In fact, he goes on to say in
verse 2, I came to you knowing it was going to be conflict. You
know, if I proclaim the Gospel here I'm probably going to get beaten
up again but nevertheless I came in boldness.
And then look at verse 3. Our appeal does not spring from error or
impurity or any attempt to deceive. So you can read that in reverse
and see, what were they saying about him? That what he taught was
in error, it sprang from his own immorality, and his intention was to
deceive the Thessalonians. And so he responds, Actually, no, what
we taught you was true, it wasn't in error. It didn't spring from base
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
proclaimed 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.
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God's holy, inspired, and
inerrant Word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
PAUL POINTS OUT THAT HE EXHORTED THEM
TO THE VERY HIGHEST STANDARDS OF CONDUCT
All of us who are communing members at First Presbyterian Church,
no matter when we joined, had to answer five questions. And the
third of those five questions goes, Do you now resolve and promise
in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will
endeavor to live as becomes followers of our Lord Jesus Christ?
And that idea of resolving and promising to live a life that becomes
prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling to which you have been called. Heard that somewhere
before? Okay, his first letters, probably 1 Thessalonians, here he is
writing to the Ephesians, same phrase. Did you notice three things in
that phrase that are absolutely like what he said in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2 verse 12? The idea of walking; it's a metaphor for living.
You know the Christian life is a journey. Were on a pilgrimage. Were
taking a long walk together, and so walking is a metaphor for how
you live, so you walk what? In a manner worthy what does
that sound like? It sounds like 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 12,
Walk in a manner worthy.
And then notice this Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to
which you have been called. Does that language in Ephesians
4:1find a parallel in 1 Thessalonians 2:12? Yes it does. Listen to 1
Thessalonians 2:12 again. Walk in a manner worthy of God who
calls you into His own kingdom and glory. So the idea of walking,
the idea of a worthy manner of life, and the idea of calling, you meet
it again in Ephesians 4:1. This is clearly very important to Paul.
Turn forward to Philippians and youll meet this same phenomenon.
In Philippians 1:27 which begins the center section of that letter, Paul
begins with a great exhortation. And inPhilippians 1:27 he says, Let
your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Notice again
the idea of living a life that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ. So
whereas in 1 Thessalonians 2:12 we're told to walk in a way that's
worthy of the God who calls us, and inEphesians 4:1 we're told to
live in a way that is worthy of the calling to which we've been called,
here in Philippians 1:27 we're told to live in a way that is worthy of
has saved them, what He's called them to, the Gospel by which He's
called them. It's a way of exhorting believers like you and me to live
the Christian life, to live Christianly.
Now what does that mean then, specifically? Let's keep drilling
down. What does it mean to live a life worthy of the God who calls
you? Well I think the two words that Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2 verse 12 tell you what he's getting at. Look at that verse
again with me, 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 12. Walk in a manner
worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. What
are the two words? Kingdom and glory. Live in a manner that is
worthy of the God who calls you into His kingdom. What's Paul
saying? He's saying, Live life knowing who your King is. Live life
knowing who your King is. You've been called out of this world and
into His kingdom. You are under His Kingship now. He is Your King
and Lord. What was one of the early Christian confessions of faith?
Jesus is Lord. Now what similar saying would they have heard all of
their lives in the Mediterranean world? Caesar is lord. And Paul's
saying, No, actually Jesus is Lord. He's the King. Youre in His
kingdom.
Now what practical impact would that have had on the
Thessalonians? Well for one, it would have gotten them ostracized
and eventually persecuted. Why? Because in the Roman world there
was something called the Emperor Cult and at various civil, public
ceremonies, sacrifices would be offered to the living spirit of the
emperor, and people would have worshiped the emperor as god.
And Christians, because they believe there is only one King, He is
God, the Lord Jesus Christ is the King of His Church, Christians
would not participate in those ceremonies. And it got them ostracized
named after the church. Falls Church gave its name to the town. The
church existed before the town. It's two hundred eight-seven years
old. Now John Yates, the pastor, is a wonderful evangelical man. He
has a high view of Scripture, a high view of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and is faithful to the Gospel. He has four thousand members in his
congregation. And two weeks ago the Episcopal diocese of Virginia
and the courts turned that congregation out of their own church and
locked the doors and changed the locks behind them. And they
walked away because John Yates and ninety percent-plus of his
congregation were not going to worship any other god but Jesus and
they were not going to have any other rule but the Word of God
directing how they did ministry and what they preached the
proclaimed. And they lost everything.
And let me tell you, just thinking about that made me wonder how I
would respond if that were the case here. I mean, I love every brick
of this facility, every brick. And if you told me that I was going to have
to walk away from it because either I was going to follow King Jesus
or I was going to be able to stay in that building, it would be an
enormous thing to walk away from. But that congregation walked
theyre worshiping in a middle school this morning. I got to talk with
John Yates this week and I said, John, how are you doing? What
was that like? And he said, Ligon, I counted it a privilege to be able
to lose something dear to me for my Lord. And he said, I felt like I
had just a tiny inkling of what it must be like for so many of our
brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who really know what
it is to be persecuted and really know what it is to lose things
because of their allegiance to Jesus. I only got to talk with John for
five or ten minutes this week but you know what? It was worth the
whole week long. It filled me up. Because there was a believer with
joy in his heart but with bold firmness of purpose and principle that
refused to let anybody tell him, No, we tell you here how you live
and minister. No, he said in response, No, Jesus tells us how we
live and minister. Nobody else gets to do that but our King. And if it
means we lose the building that my congregation has been in for two
hundred eighty-seven years, so be it, because Jesus is King here.
You know, we face those kinds of things all the time where anybody,
whether it's the government or whether it's a denomination, tells us
that they get to decide how we live and minister. The only response
we have as believers is, Um, no you don't. Jesus tells us how we
live and minister and out of fidelity to Him, we will live in a manner
worthy of the God who called us into His kingdom. But let me say,
most of the fights we fight are not somebody from the outside telling
us that they want to be king; most of the fights we fight come from
the inside where we're saying we want to be king. You know it's
usually us who want to be king instead of Jesus, rather than
somebody on the outside wanting to be king rather than Jesus. You
know, we get up to hard things in our lives that the Lord has called
us to do. It's very clear in our Word that we're called to do them, but
theyre hard and they hurt and we don't like them. And a lot of
professing Christians do what when they run into that? They say,
Well, I'm the exception to the rule. I don't have to do that. We want
to make up the rules as we go along. We want to be our own king. It
can happen on Friday and Saturday night, it can happen at recess, it
can happen at the fraternity or sorority house, it can happen in
business, it can happen in our marriages, in our families where we
run into hard things that we know that the Lord has called us to do or
to not do and we know that it's going to cost us if we do them or don't
a life that fits the Gospel; to live a life worthy of the God who has
called us. He's called us into His kingdom and therefore we need to
live in such a way that we always remember who our King is. And
He's called us into His glory so that we remember where our glory
really is.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. Work it into our hearts by
Your Spirit, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now if youll take your hymnals and turn with me to number 495.
Were going to sing the fourth and the fifth stanzas, the last two
stanzas of No, Not Despairingly.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.