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Pastor Colin Smith: It will be a barrier to faith if what you're living on, Jesus says, is this praise from one another thing. If that's really what you're feeding your soul on, it will hinder you from ever being my disciple. You will never be a follower of Jesus Christ if you live on the approval of others.

Announcer: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. Colin, I think you're probably striking a chord with a number of us who tend to be people pleasers. We want the approval of others. But as you point out here, if that's what we're living for and find our identity in, we're never going to be the follower of Christ that we could be otherwise.

Pastor Colin Smith: We're really going to get into the two main barriers that hold people back from a life of discipleship. One is the desire for comfort. I just want the easiest way out. Paul speaks to us very, very powerfully here about what it meant for him to toil and to work night and day. He pushed himself in order to serve the Lord. It's a marvelous example.

And then the other barrier is this desire for approval. I want people to like me and so forth. Paul speaks very powerfully here about how we are not seeking the approval of men; we're seeking the approval of God. So, here are two issues that are critical to a life of discipleship.

Announcer: Let's look at these a little more deeply from 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Join us there as we continue the message, "The Urgency of Disciplined Discipleship." Here is Pastor Colin.

Pastor Colin Smith: I want to emphasize today the common calling that is ours in Jesus Christ. Here's what we're going to learn: two things. If you are going to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, if I am going to be faithful as a disciple of Jesus Christ, we are going to have to overcome two impulses that run deep within every human being.

Number one is the desire for comfort, and number two is the desire for approval. They are the two issues that lie at the heart of what Paul says to these folks in Thessalonica who, being hooked on comfort and approval, felt that Paul's ministry must therefore have been a failure.

Will you look with me at these two things together? First, then, overcoming the desire for comfort. Here's what we're learning: if you would be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, you must overcome the natural human desire in you and in me for comfort. We're looking at verses five and six. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed. We're talking money here, greed. Verse six: "As apostles of Christ, we could have been a burden to you."

So, he's still talking money. The point here is simply that as an apostle, Paul could have asked the Thessalonian Christians to support him financially. When he came to the town, he didn't do that. He said, "I didn't want to be a burden to you while I was preaching the gospel." Instead, verse six, he says, "We were gentle among you like a mother caring for her little children." You get the point: a mother does not charge the kids for what she does. Hard work, not easy, no money in it. We were gentle among you like a mother caring for little children. We didn't ask you for anything; we just served. That's what he says.

The gospel of Jesus Christ will not travel far on the shoulders of Christians who are motivated by their own comfort. If comfort had been Paul's criteria for success, he would never have gotten to Thessalonica. He would have quit at the very latest at Philippi when he was thrown into jail. If he'd never gone on to Thessalonica, if you follow the trail of God's providence through Paul's missionary journeys coming to Europe, the gospel would never be here, and we wouldn't be here today.

The gospel will not travel far on the shoulders of Christians who are committed to their own comfort. Thank God that Paul didn't see that as the criteria of success. You say, "How would I know if I was motivated by comfort?" A person who's motivated by comfort tends to be asking questions like this—and I guess they've run in all of our minds; certainly have at times in mine—"What am I getting out of this? Am I really enjoying what I'm doing? Do other people like me? Do I like them?"

When you start down the road of these questions being dominant in your decision-making, you're really betraying that the fundamental motivation of your life is one of comfort. You are working with a false definition of success and likely, therefore, to make a poor decision. The whole point of what the Apostle Paul is saying here is that comfort is a false definition of success. Our visit to you was not a failure. You need to understand that. Repentance at this point means ditching these questions and us embracing a new definition of what success looks like.

What matters before God is not the comfort of my life, but the advance of the gospel through my ministry. What matters before God is not the comfort of your life, but the advance of the gospel through your ministry. This is actually a wonderful thing because some of us here are right now experiencing great pain. You're in the middle of a situation that is not easy. You are trusting Christ and you are loving God. By God's definition of success, you are a runaway success right now.

To love God in the middle of pain and to trust Him in the middle of pressure is about the greatest reflection of the image of Christ that can be seen this side of heaven. Get a new and a right definition of success. You'll be greatly encouraged and strengthened and helped for the glory of God. If we would be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, we've got to overcome the natural human impulse that's within all of us for comfort. What's true of us individually is true for us as a church. The gospel will not travel far on the shoulders of a church that is primarily motivated by our own comfort.

Now, here's the second great challenge that I think comes out of this passage of Scripture. It's really come freshly to me studying this during these last days. If we're to be faithful as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must overcome not only the impulse for comfort that runs deep within us all, but secondly, the impulse for approval. That again is like a deep river, a deep stream that runs within all of us. It is part of our humanity. We want to be thought well of, liked, appreciated, and respected by other people.

But what we're going to learn, again from this passage of Scripture and the example of Paul, is that if you would be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, you have to overcome the impulse, the desire, to live on the approval of others. Look at verse four where Paul makes this very clear: "We are not trying to please men." He continues into verse five: "You know that we never used flattery," he says. Flattery, of course, is telling someone else how great they are so that they will think how great you are.

I forget who gave this definition, but it sticks in my mind. I think it's wonderful: Flattery is saying to someone's face what you would never say behind their back. Think about that. Flattery is saying to someone's face what you would never say behind their back. Paul says we didn't do that kind of thing. We weren't into trying to manipulate other people so that they would think well of us all the time. Verse six: "We are not looking for praise from men, not from you nor from anyone else."

Very simply, if Paul's definition of success had been that everyone should think well of him, he could not have been faithful as an apostle. This issue of looking for praise from other people runs so deep. We all want others to think well of us. But if you allow that to be the driving motivation of your life, bottom line: you cannot be a Christian. I take that directly from the words of Jesus in John chapter 5 and verse 44, where Jesus was speaking to some folks who never came to faith.

He said this: "How can you believe?" He's saying it's impossible; it won't happen. "How can you believe if you accept praise from one another and make no effort to seek the praise that comes from God alone?" It will be a barrier to faith if what you're living on, Jesus says, is this praise from one another thing. If that's really what you're feeding your soul on, it will hinder you from ever being my disciple. How can you believe? You will never come to radical Christian faith. You will never be a follower of Jesus Christ if you live on the approval of others. It cannot happen.

Announcer: What a word of warning. You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called "The Urgency of Disciplined Discipleship." We're going to continue in just a moment. Our message is part of a series from the book of 1 Thessalonians called "Living Like There's No Tomorrow." If you ever miss a broadcast in the series or you want to go back and listen again, you can do that at our website: openthebible.org. Or you can listen through the Open the Bible app, which you'll find for free in your App Store. Let's get back to the message. Here is Pastor Colin.

Pastor Colin Smith: A while ago, I saw a poster that, for some reason, has just stuck in my mind. It was a picture of a cuddly tiger cub. Beside the furry tiger cub was the slogan: "I am wanting to be loved." It's exactly the kind of poster that you would expect to see in a teenage girl's bedroom. A cuddly little tiger: "I am wanting to be loved." Think about that with me, because that poster will sell really well because it taps into one of the deepest rivers in a teenage girl's heart.

Not just a teenage girl, but frankly the rest of us as well: "I am wanting to be loved." But what happens to a teenage girl if she allows that to become the driving motivation of her life? "I am wanting to be loved." Where will that take her? What will she do to fulfill that desire? Once you give way to wanting to be loved as the fundamental driver of your life, you will be kept from being a follower of Jesus Christ, and you will end up in a life of manipulation to gain what you desperately crave.

The gospel takes that poster down. It replaces it with another one that says: "I am loved by Jesus Christ." I think that's what every teenage girl needs to know more than anything else growing up in this world, don't you? It's what all the rest of us need to know if we are to be true disciples of Jesus Christ. Let me apply it not only to teenage girls; let me apply it to parents. Let me put it simply this way: you cannot be an effective father or mother if you are driven by the need of approval from your children.

If you're coming to being a dad or a mom with a fundamental mindset of saying, "I am wanting to be loved and I'm going to get that fulfilled out of my children," then all of your decisions will be skewed in the direction of whatever pleases them, and you will not be able to be an effective father or a mother. The gospel takes that poster down. It puts you in a position, as you embrace it with faith, where you can be a more effective father and a more effective mother because you know that you are loved by God and you are not driven by the need of the approval of your children.

Let me try and apply it thirdly to leaders, pastors, missionaries. You cannot give effective leadership in ministry if you are driven by the need to be loved, liked, and approved by everybody else. What would Jesus have done? The faithful church is never led by people who put their finger in the wind and say, "What does everyone want?" The gospel never advances that way.

Indeed, it applies to the whole body of the church. If our fundamental question is, "Does everyone else who doesn't believe like us?" we'll never advance far with the gospel. This was the problem: there were a whole group in Thessalonica who said, "It caused a lot of trouble, this gospel coming to Thessalonica, so it must have been a failure." Wrong criteria for success.

If we are going to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, what we're learning from the Scriptures this morning is that we have to overcome these two deep impulses that run like strong currents within every human life: the desire for comfort and the desire for approval. You say, "I see that, but how is it going to happen? How do I do that?"

Paul models for us a life that, rather than being driven by the approval of others, is lived under the approval of God. Rather than being driven by comfort, it is one that is entrusted with the gospel. Look at verse four: "We speak as men approved by God to be entrusted by the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts." We speak as men approved by God. It's knowing that we have the approval of God that frees us from being driven by this craven need of the approval of others.

How could Paul, who had been a blasphemer and a violent man, say in the face of great opposition that he lived under the approval of God? That's the gospel right there, isn't it? Not because of his merit, but because of God's mercy. Not because he's a perfect man, but because he has embraced Jesus Christ and Christ has cleansed him from all the sin of his life and now he lives with a clear conscience towards God. God knows his mind; he says God tests our heart, and God knows that he is a man in Christ living with a clear conscience before God.

Not only does he know this wonderful approval of God, but for that reason, he is able to move forward with the work of the gospel. Because when you know that things are right between you and God in the mercy of Jesus Christ, then you become someone who can be trusted with this gospel. That's what sets a person free to serve.

There's no more beautiful picture of this, I think, than from our Lord Jesus Christ on the night that He was betrayed. You remember the story well, that ahead of Him, as He gathered with His disciples, was the betrayal by Judas, the desertion by His friends, the arrest, the scourging, and then that awful crucifixion on the cross. Jesus knew what was coming.

He gathers with His friends. If ever there was a moment where the disciples should minister to Jesus, this was it. You know they blew it completely because they're all into the comfort-approval kind of a thing—who's the greatest and who's the best, and each one wanting to be more affirmed than the rest and so forth. As they are totally insensitive to the struggle of Jesus, Jesus incredibly gets up, takes off His outer clothing, puts a towel round His waist, and goes and ministers to them by washing the feet of the disciples.

He's able in that most uncomfortable of situations to minister and to serve and to portray the very spirit of the heart of the Father. How was He able to do that? John tells us in John's Gospel, chapter 13 and verse 3. Here's how Jesus did that: "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God." Jesus knew something. He was secure in His relationship with the Father. He knew He had come from God; He knew He was returning to God. He knew something.

Now look at the next word; this is so important. Jesus knew that he'd come from God and that he was returning to God, *so* he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel round his waist, and then he pours the basin and he begins washing the disciples' feet. He was able to do this because of the security that He had in the knowledge of His relationship with God the Father. He came from God, He was going to God. He did not need, therefore, to depend on their ministry to Him which failed.

He was able on that basis to get up from the table and to minister to them, and then to go out from there and into the garden of Gethsemane and go to the cross so that there should be a gospel. To those who live under the approval of God, they can be entrusted with the gospel.

If you were to measure the ministry of Jesus by the criteria of comfort and approval, you would have to say that Jesus' visit to this planet was a failure. There wasn't much comfort on a cross, and at that moment He didn't even have the approval of His 12 closest friends. But Jesus is operating with a different definition of success.

He says, "As the Father has sent me, so I'm sending you." As He had that approval of being the beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased, as on His shoulders and on His cross the gospel is forged, He says, "As the Father has sent me, so I'm sending you." That's why Paul says in verse 12 of our passage here, "Therefore we're urging you to live lives that are worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and into his glory." That doesn't mean a life that is driven by comfort and by approval, but one that lives on the approval of God and therefore carries the gospel.