According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Nickels and noses, not a good gauge for success in ministry as Pastor Damian explains.

Damian Kyle: This verse certainly challenges us and challenges the modern and carnal definitions of successful ministry in our country, where so many of which the success is measured solely in terms of nickels and noses, as it's crassly put. The number of people attending a church, the size of a church's budget. Paul's work in Thessalonica was not marked by either of those things and yet it was a great success.

Guest (Male): Whether you're serving as a leader in children's church, a missionary for years on foreign soil, or maybe a stay-at-home mom, you might wonder at times if it's all in vain or a big failure. Well today here on According to the Scriptures, we're going to hear of some who are outside of the church that made that accusation of Paul's ministry, but nothing could be further from the truth. Pastor Damian Kyle will emphasize that and the fact that no God-directed ministry is in vain. Here he is in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.

Damian Kyle: So this morning we continue our recently started series through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians on Sunday mornings and a series that I've entitled "While We Wait: Living in Anticipation of Jesus's Return." We remember that the Apostle Paul had established the church in Thessalonica during his second missionary journey. He journeyed there after planting a church in the city of Philippi, and where he experienced great unlawful physical abuse and public humiliation. In Thessalonica, the time that he was able to invest there was somewhere in the vicinity in planting that church in the vicinity of about three weeks, maybe slightly more, but nonetheless a strong church was established in the city of Thessalonica.

And then all of a sudden this persecution comes up against him from both religious and secular sources and it necessitated his departure as I mentioned out of those three weeks. And that church was established and it was made up as we saw last week of Christians who were young as we noted, but were fully committed to their new Christian faith and life. And in a few short months between Paul's departure from Thessalonica, his journey to the city of Corinth by the way of Athens in Corinth, he writes these two letters.

A few months after establishing the church in Thessalonica, he writes them from there and those from outside of the church within Thessalonica began to try to attempt to undermine the Christian faith of these new Christians in Thessalonica by making false accusations against the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul doesn't delineate the specifics of the accusations that are made or were made against him by those that were attacking the new faith of these Christians. He really didn't need to. The Christians that were there in Thessalonica were fully aware of them and were able to deduce what those accusations were by simply looking at what the defense that he made of himself here in these verses.

First they accused him of preaching the gospel in Thessalonica for money, for material gain in order to enrich himself out of greed. And then second that he had done so in preaching the gospel there in order to receive the praise of men, the praise of people. He was an attention hog of some kind, needed to be needed by people. And then third they declared that Paul really didn't care about them, the church. He didn't really care or love them. He only loved himself and after all if he had really cared about them then he wouldn't have abandoned them when the persecution in Thessalonica turned violent. And of course ignoring the fact that it was the brethren of the church that asked and escorted the Apostle Paul and Silas out of the city by night to Berea and requested that they would move away from the danger that the persecution represented to their lives. And so this was an attack on the Apostle Paul's courage as well.

Now the ancient world was in Paul's day full of traveling hucksters of all kinds. They're selling all kinds of things. They would move from city to city and they'd make money off of the citizens of the cities that they would then travel to. And so maybe as you've seen movies of ancient times or the Middle Ages where somebody's got their wares in a cart and a donkey and it's being gone from city to city and they ply their wares whatever it might be. Of course today we don't really see that kind of thing. They're all on television or they're on the radio or they use social media or the internet to do that. But all of it goes on yet today in just kind of a remedial form.

And so some of what they sold was material in nature so there would be the typical snake oil kind of stuff. There would be potions. They would offer medicines that would be the cure to anything and everything. Others legitimately they sold their musical talents for instance so they'd set up shop and then announce that they'd be putting on a concert of some kind in some part of the city and then they would play music for an offering. Others would be orators or highly educated people and very charismatic. Higher education than the average person and so they would come into the city and offer a lecture on astronomy or on some aspect of nature and people would come and for a fee they would come and listen to this lecture that would be given. Others would come into the city and they would be propounding some new or old philosophy and others still would come in propounding a new or old religion.

And so a Christian missionary coming into a city would have to deal with the stigma of all of this and very likely in the minds of the population a missionary, a Christian missionary would be lumped in with all of these other hucksters and salesmen in their minds as everybody else. At least in people's minds initially. And perhaps that's one reason, certainly a secondary reason why the Apostle Paul when he would go to a city would go into a synagogue if it was available. Because there he would be off of the street. There he would be able to begin to make a dent with the gospel in the city by approaching people who had some kind of a foundation in the scriptures themselves already.

And then of course this would be why a miracle or two done by God through an apostle within a city would quickly distinguish that missionary or that apostle from everybody else. Revealing him to be utterly unique in terms of who he was speaking about and the power of the one that he was speaking about. And so it would have been very natural for Paul's enemies to try and attempt to make him guilty by association with all of these others in an attempt to discredit him, to discredit his character and also to discredit his message.

Satan knows that if you can't discredit the message of Christianity, and he can't, he knows that the next best thing is to attempt to discredit the messenger in the hopes that people will, as they so often do, then conflate the two things and reject the message as well as the messenger. And so that Paul was hit with these false accusations reveals to us that no leader, not even a leader as blameless as the Apostle Paul, is immune to false accusation. Not then and not now.

But in responding to these false accusations as Paul did in an effort not so much as it relates to his own character but his own character being now tied to Christianity, tied to the gospel, tied to the God of the Bible himself and an endeavor to protect the young faith of this church there in Thessalonica, the Holy Spirit works all of it together for good in that Paul provides us with this wonderful in verses 1 through 12, this wonderful description of the kind of minister and the kind of ministry that is most effective in rebutting false accusation. And so the Holy Spirit works it for good and that he Paul is forced to do what he might not otherwise do and that is to give us a very transparent look into his ministry heart.

Paul didn't wax eloquent or wax autobiographical very often in his letters. And in this passage I think in terms of the transparency, what he reveals about himself, what he reveals about his priorities, his heart, his mind, his relationship with God, why and how he served God is probably second only to 2nd Corinthians where he is at his most vulnerable and transparent in all of the New Testament. And so you think about this morning what we would give to have a physical portrait of the Apostle Paul. To have a picture of him on eBay to buy and know that's what he looked like. And yet the more valuable thing is to have a glimpse and an understanding of his heart and of what it is that made him tick. And so here the Holy Spirit gives us a glimpse at his ministry heart.

Now how to apply this to our lives. Because someone immediately, don't raise your hand, you might be thinking I'm not an apostle, I'm not a missionary, I'm not a pastor and I'm not a leader in a local church and so how in the world does this passage apply to me at all? Well in some respects a congregation's understanding of these things is almost as important as a pastor or a leader's understanding of these things for understanding a leader's calling. It certainly helps inform our prayers for them and it certainly can help us temper or even enlarge our expectations of leadership within a local church and specifically a pastor.

Additionally each one of us as Christians has a call of God upon our lives. Some area in life in which we are endeavoring to be the moral and the spiritual leader in that environment. So we're all in a position of leadership as Christians. As Moses put it in the law in Deuteronomy, I think it's chapter 18, he declared God's people, declared us to be the head and not the tail. We're never to follow in this world morally and spiritually. We are to lead morally and spiritually in this world. And so we do so through the ministry that God has called us to. I won't be able to apply it to every single calling of God that is represented in this room, but I'll leave it to your rich preacher-like minds to be able to apply it to your particular calling. It certainly applies to any position of leadership in our life whether it might be in a marriage or in raising children or in a workplace or wherever it might be.

Now before we dive into this passage in earnest, and you see why we're only going to get through three verses, just allow me to give you a heads up on the form that the study is going to take. First I'm going to read a verse, then I'm going to attempt to give you the meaning of the verse and then finally I'm going to bring forth an application of the truth that comes to my mind. And I think it would be best this morning if you pretend that it isn't me that is saying these things. Pretend that I'm a guest speaker from some other church so that you can consider the applications without your thinking becoming complicated wondering if I'm being self-serving in what I'm saying or you find yourself wondering if I'm aware of how far short I fall in regard to what it is that I'm saying.

You notice in verse one the first thing that we learn is that no God-directed ministry is in vain. Again verse one: "For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain." And it appears that some outside of the church within Thessalonica they declare the Apostle Paul's work in Thessalonica to be in vain, to be a failure on the basis of the persecution that it was met with and then on the basis of the shortness of his visit there. But Paul and Silas and Timothy's ministry had not been in vain in Thessalonica. It had not been fruitless despite all appearances. It had borne tremendous spiritual fruit. Miraculous spiritual fruit.

People had heard the gospel. They had heard God's offer of salvation presented to them. People had then received that invitation, been born again and then their lives demonstrated as new Christians the marks of repentance as they turned from idolatry to serve and to worship the true and the living God. The church that was planted though so young became influential for the gospel in the entire central region of ancient Greece. And the accusations that Paul was a traveling charlatan or someone on the level of a traveling minstrel or a snake oil salesman simply didn't match the facts.

And so the application and there's a couple of them. First that no God-given ministry is in vain. Nothing that we ever do for God is ever done in vain. Everything that we do in our Christian life within our calling, everything that we do in obedience to God's word within that calling, it spiritually reverberates into the entire world around us, revealing the presence of the kingdom of God in this world and making manifest that kingdom.

I bring it up maybe three times a year though we might have clustered here recently, but a saying that meant a lot to me early on as a Christian in this regard where somebody declared that God's kingdom is an invisible kingdom made visible by the obedience of his people. And I think it's a wonderful way to think of our Christian lives and our Christian service and obedience because so much of the effect of our Christian lives can't be seen. We will never see it this side of heaven. We will never know what God has done with our obedience within his call upon our lives and it's known only to God. But it is happening. No ministry done in obedience to the Lord is ever done in vain.

And then second as an application, this verse certainly challenges us and challenges the modern and carnal definitions of successful ministry in our country where so many of which the success is measured solely in terms of nickels and noses, as it's crassly put. The number of people attending a church, the size of a church's budget. Paul's work in Thessalonica was not marked by either of those things and yet it was a great success. And the Apostle Paul could not deliver on some of the expectations that are placed upon ministers today within churches to produce numbers and to produce money. It is the wrong definitions of success. They are unbiblical definitions of success and they will drive the best out of the ministry and they will keep the best from entering into the ministry. I'm inclined to believe that when Paul declared the work there to be not in vain, he's employing sanctified understatement there in this for effect. It had been a great success and the saints in Thessalonica knew it.

Second, in verse one, the Apostle Paul reminded the Christians in Thessalonica that they were witnesses of all of this. Again verse one: "For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain." Now this is interesting in the face of all these slanderous accusations against him that the Apostle Paul called on these Christians themselves as defense witnesses on his behalf. In other words, not only did Paul need to make a strong stand against these false accusations for the reputation of the gospel in Thessalonica, but the congregation needed to have the backbone to do the same thing as well. Or at least not to believe the accusations and then to be stumbled by the accusations being made against Paul.

When Paul wrote that word "you know", "for you yourselves know" there in verse one, the "you know" is emphatic in the Greek text. It means you know in all caps. And throughout these 12 verses he would repeat the same thing over and over. In verse 2 "as you know", in verse 5 "as you know", in verse 9 "as you remember, brethren", in verse 10 "you are witnesses." And Paul was endeavoring to protect their faith but they needed to play a part in the protection of their own faith as well.

All pastors and church leaders are going to be falsely accused even when they're completely innocent. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. It's just part of the calling. But never throw away what you know to be true of the godly character and conduct of a leader from your own experience solely on the basis of an unsubstantiated rumor or accusation against them. And it's very, very easy in our culture where slander and false accusation is a currency within our culture. And they're so commonplace and they're so accepted uncritically and at face value where saying the worst about other people is financially rewarded with ratings, with subscriptions and coming onto a particular website. And there is such a low level of trust in any leader in our country today that we can start even as Christians to believe every accusation and slander uncritically.

Accusations are very easy to make but they are much harder to prove. And accusations against leaders within the body of Christ should be carefully investigated for their accuracy and only then if they're proven true to move me from my own convictions and my own personal history with the integrity of that leader. So vulnerable are pastors and leaders in a church to the destructiveness of this that in the scriptures God himself supplies them with special protection in this regard. And Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, "Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three eyewitnesses." That is do not embrace and accept as fact any accusation against a leader unless it can be substantiated. And so leaders must continually exhibit backbone in the face of slander and false accusation as Paul does here, but Christians need to exhibit it as well.

Guest (Male): We'll break away from the message right here, but come back next time when we'll pick up from this spot. This is According to the Scriptures. Pastor Damian Kyle is developing his series called "While We Wait." It's designed to help us live in anticipation of Jesus's soon return.

If you're interested in a CD copy of today's message or the While We Wait series, reach out to us at 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. You can also access our programs online at accordingtothescriptures.com or oneplace.com. Look for us wherever you get your podcasts as well. To financially support According to the Scriptures, simply log on to accordingtothescriptures.com and then click on Support According to the Scriptures right there on our home page. And thank you very much.

You know it never grows old hearing from our listeners, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing on the radio. You can email us at atts@ccmodesto.com and include your prayer requests as well. Again, that's atts@ccmodesto.com. According to the Scriptures with Damian Kyle is presented by Calvary Chapel Modesto. We'll catch you back here next time when we'll get back to our series, While We Wait.