1 Thessalonians by Mike Sullivan (2018)

The Gospel and Christian Growth

Photo of Mike Sullivan
Mike Sullivan

1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Summary

Once we've heard the good news about Jesus' sacrifice and God's grace, what comes next? It's tempting to change the gospel in order to make it more appealing to people (such as salvation through works, not faith). But when the gospel is used properly, it can be a powerful tool for serving in difficult circumstances and encouraging others to grow.

Listen Now
1x
0.5
0.75
1.0
1.25
1.5
1.75
2.0
2.25
2.5

Download Materials

Keywords

Outline

#

The central concept in our passage this morning is something called "the gospel." The word "gospel" appears four times in 2:1-9.  

"Gospel" doesn't refer to a genre of music. The word literally means "good news."E.g., When Dr. Jonas Salk discovered an effective polio vaccine, people recognized the significance. Polio, a crippling disease, would finally be a thing of the past!

In a similar way, the Christian gospel announces the global significance of a real historic event—the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Paul explains the significance of this event…

1 Corinthians 15:1 "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel… 2 by which you are saved… 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

The significance of Jesus' death is that it was "for our sins." He took the punishment we justly deserve onto himself. The significance of Jesus' resurrection is that he conquered death, which means his offer to us of eternal life is genuine.

The result of all this is that we can be "saved"—protected from the judgment of God we justly deserve for our own sins because Jesus was punished in our place and given eternal life.

So that's the gospel and its significance.

THE GOSPEL AND THE THESSALONIANS

Last week we looked at factors that led to the Thessalonians becoming Christians. This week we will focus on the message itself, the gospel, and ask: How did Paul use the gospel to help the Thessalonians know God AND grow spiritually?

Many Christians associate the gospel with coming to know God, but they forget about it after they become a Christians.

The first stage of the Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon boosted them to an altitude of 42 miles. Then, having spent all its fuel, it broke free and fell to the earth as the astronauts continued on to the moon. That's the way many Christians treat the gospel message. It boosts them to salvation, but then they move on to other things.

But that's not the way it should work. The gospel isn't just what saves us, it works in an ongoing way in the life of a Christian to help them grow. In Romans 16, Paul says…

Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ,

"Establish" (Gk. sterizo) means to secure something. He's saying the gospel can give Christians solid footing. The gospel doesn't just open up the way of salvation, it can strengthen the faith of Christians in an ongoing way.1 Thessalonians 2:1 For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, 2 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 amid much opposition. 3 For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; 4 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.

E.g., My grandfather was a tool and die maker. He owned a shop where he made custom steel pressure fittings and molds and other things. He owned lots of different industrial machines including a big lathe. When you punched the button to turn it on, it would emanate a low powerful hum that vibrated the floor beneath your feet.

One time my grandfather wanted to use his lathe to do some woodworking, to make table legs, and he took me with him to do it. He roughed out the first table leg explaining what to do and not do as he went. Then he shut off the lathe and asked me if I wanted to try.

He was entrusting this giant shop machine to me. I was young, but I knew the potential danger if I didn't follow his instructions. I had heard plenty of stories about shop accidents. But I also knew how cool it would be if it went well.

So when it was time, for my first time ever, to punch that green button and use that lathe, it was a big deal.

And it's an even bigger deal to use God's gospel in the lives of people to help them know God and grow with him. You will never, in all your life, wield something as powerful as the gospel. That's why Paul calls the gospel "the power of God for salvation" (Rom. 1:16).

So, aware of this, let's consider ways we can use the gospel poorly and use the gospel well. 

MISUSING THE GOSPEL

Let's reread the last part of what we just read, and continue through v. 6.

1 Timothy 2:3 For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; 4 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. 5 For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness— 6 nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority.

Paul mentions several misuses of the gospel here. Think of each one as jamming your turning tool into a lathe while it's rotating at high speed. Many things can go wrong when we misuse the gospel.

Misuse #1: Distorting the gospel

Notice Paul doesn't just mention "error," but "deceit." The worst thing you could do with the gospel is to deliberately distort its meaning.

In the churches that Paul planted, this was a constant problem. False teachers would come in and lead people astray with a false gospel. Jesus actually predicted this would happen. He said false teachers would "arise and mislead many" (Matt. 24:11).

Down through the years, distortions of the gospel have come in many forms. Probably the most common one is saying salvation is earned by good works. Paul speaks against this distortion in Galatians 2:16.

Galatians 2:16 …a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus…

Despite Paul's clear language, people get this wrong all the time. And this is where taking care with our use of the gospel comes in. Before we help someone grow spiritually, it is important to ascertain whether they have properly understood the actual gospel and trusted Christ.

E.g., ___ grew up attending church. He even took a two-year training class on theology. He was intrigued by the imagery in the Bible and thought it had a ring of truth to it. He had always assumed he was a Christian, but then he became busy and quit going to church for awhile.

Years later he was attending a Bible study in college and felt that old sense of appreciation for the message, but this time, for the first time, he also heard a pointed challenge to receive it, to trust Christ. Like it says in John 1:12: it's to those who "receive Jesus that he gives the right to become children of God." No one growing up had ever challenged him to do that.  

So sitting there, he realized, I've never personally trusted Christ. So he did. And that was the day he was saved by the gospel.

Prior to meeting Christ, what was his distorted view of the gospel?

He assumed, like many people do, that the gospel is hang out in church and be saved. It's not.

He assumed the gospel is grow up in a Christian home, and you'll be saved. It's not.

He assumed the gospel is simply agree that Christianity is true, and you'll be saved. It's not.

None of those things are the gospel. None of them lead to salvation. Why? Because none of them involve personally trusting Jesus' death and resurrection to make your forgiveness possible.

Misuse 2: Using the gospel to please and flatter people.  

Paul says, when he shared the gospel, he didn't speak to please men, but to please God. And further down, he says he never used flattery. But what's wrong with pleasing people to make them happy, or flattering someone to make them feel good?"

For Paul, it was a big problem!

Galatians 1:9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse! 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul is very clear that pleasing people is incompatible with using the gospel properly. Why is that?

First, because pleasing people inevitably leads to distorting the message.

Certain aspects of the gospel are unpopular. Take, for example, the judgment of God. According to the Bible, we justly deserve to be punished for our sin. That's part of the gospel.

Think about the Steven Spielberg WWII movie, Saving Private Ryan. Captain Miller goes into the heart of France during WWII to find Private Ryan, the last of the four Ryan boys to remain alive after his three brothers were killed in action. Miller's mission is simple. He didn't fight his way through hell to be affirmed by Ryan or get something from him. He was focused on one thing—saving Private Ryan, enriching his life.

That's what Jesus did for us. He gave his life to save us. That's the gospel. And Christ wants to turn us on to that same way of life, a different, more fulfilling way of life than taking from people. A gospel-patterned life, if you will. A life where we don't have to please or flatter people to get them to meet our needs. Instead we realize in the gospel, God has met our deepest needs. Not just forgiving us of our sins, but adopting us as his children, giving us eternal life, and giving our lives meaning and purpose. Because of the wealth we have in the gospel, we can relate to others out of a place of strength and abundance instead of manipulating them to get what we want. 

Misuse 3: Using the gospel to get rich and seek glory.

Paul says he didn't come "with a pretext for greed,' or to "seek glory."

You could use the gospel to build a church into a giant platform for your self-promotion. You could use the gospel to build a base of donors who support your opulent lifestyle. That happens all the time, and we all know the damage that kind of thing does to God's reputation. Using the gospel to gain glory or to get rich or both has turned off thousands from ever considering the gospel.

So, distorting the message, being a people-pleaser, looking to get rich… that's how the gospel is misused. Enough of that! Let's focus on…

USING THE GOSPEL PROPERLY

Instead of misusing the gospel, Paul says when he shares it he, "speaks, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts."

Pleasing God—this was Paul's main objective when using the gospel.

Years ago I took a Russian language class. The professor was an older woman from Russia. She was not an "everyone gets a trophy" kind of teacher. She was very blunt. When she passed back tests she would chide students who didn't do well. When I earned a low score on the first midterm, she said to me, "you did not study," in front of the entire class! Needless to say, I was powerfully motivated to do better on the next exam. I worked hard to improve as the class went on. When it was time to pass back our final midterm, she paused at my desk and said, "molodetz," which means, "well done." I had earned a much higher score and received praise from someone who doesn't praise many people. It felt great!

Imagine being praised by God like that. That's what should matter most. Whatever we do with the gospel, it should be done with a view to pleasing him. He is God, after all. And it's his gospel. We'll answer to him for how we use it. And when all the dust settles at the end of history, whose praise will endure forever? Not the praise of people, but praise we receive from God.

So keeping the goal of pleasing God in mind, how can we use the gospel in ways that please him?

1. Couple your use of the gospel with in-depth personal investment.

1 Thessalonians 2:7 But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.

As he reflects on his time with the Thessalonians, Paul compares himself to a mom breastfeeding her baby. I don't know too many guys who would do that!

1 Thessalonians 2:8 Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

When Paul came to Thessalonica, he shared the gospel, and he kept on teaching the significance of the gospel. But he didn't stop there. He imparted his whole life to them. What did this investment involve? Lots of teaching, lots of time spent together.  

As I thought about these two verses I realized, how far I fall short of what Paul describes here. If you realize, like I often do, "I don't have the depth of love and affection Paul did, and I can't manufacture it," what can you do?

Realize first your awareness that you have a love deficit is a good thing. It's an important starting point. It's good to acknowledge you lack the kind of love Paul is describing.

John Stott, a pastor/scholar/teacher who passed away in 2011, once sharedActs 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

To find the strength to love difficult people, Stott had to go back to the gospel. He had to remember that Jesus went to the cross and died for the difficult people he despised. So, using the gospel properly is not just about YOU teaching the gospel to someone else and explaining its implications. It's about you telling it to YOURSELF, reminding yourself of what God did for you so you can find motivation to love others.

Can you think of someone difficult in your life? Keep them in mind as you soak in this next verse… 

Romans 5:3 "…the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."

A while back there was a news story about a baby who was discovered alive after being buried for nine hours. It was a terrible, hopeless situation. Fortunately, rescuers managed to save the baby. That's a good picture of just how helpless we were before knowing God. We were hopelessly mired-down in our sin, but God stepped in to rescue us. Think about that. That's where the motivation comes from to dearly love someone. It comes from remembering you were and are dearly loved by God.  

2. Live above reproach in a hostile environment.

1 Thessalonians 2:9 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 the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers

Many people in Thessalonica were hostile to Paul and his message. But Paul was persuasive and won quite a few of them over to the truth of the gospel. So how did Paul's opponents oppose a persuasive messenger with a compelling message? By destroying the messenger!

If you read between the lines in this chapter, you can tell Paul's enemies described him as a deluded people-pleaser with impure motives who uses flattery to get rich and glorify himself. To keep people from discrediting him and from discrediting the gospel, Paul worked very hard to live an upright and blameless life.

For example, Paul's critics said he was out to take people's money. Paul responded by working night and day to avoid being a burden to anyone. He is very specific about this in 2 Thessalonians:

2 Thessalonians 3:8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you;

Paul didn't want anyone to say he was a mooch. So, apparently, if he was invited over for a meal, he insisted on paying for it. He'd get up from the dinner table, put down a $10 dollar bill, and say, "thanks for dinner!"

Paul's critics also said he was out for glory. But Paul took a menial job, probably sewing tent fabric. Imagine Paul, the highly educated Rabbi, working late into the night with his needle and thread. That's not something a glory-seeker would do.

By living an upright and blameless life, Paul's goal was to give the gospel the best chance possible to take root. That's what mattered.   

Some of you work and live in environments where someone is hostile to Christianity—maybe among your circle of friends or at your job. If you are around someone on a regular basis who knows you are a Christian and doesn't like it, what should you do?

It would be easy to close your heart and shut down. But God wants you to roll up your sleeves and do whatever you can to give the gospel the best chance of sinking in.

What if, in a hostile work setting, you work harder than everyone else? What if you show up not looking to take, but ready to give? What if your goal is to leave your workplace better off than you found it, not to please our employer or to validate the things they do that are wrong, but because it pleases God? If you do all that while we share the gospel, it will be more likely to take root.

Of course, you'll need some inspiration to live that way. And for that, we can go back again to the gospel. Jesus entered a very hostile environment when he came here to earth, and he responded by humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. He did it all out of love to give the gospel the best shot possible of reaching us.

3. As the basis for everything we do.

1 Thessalonians 2:11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, 12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

Throughout this letter, Paul exhorts, encourages, and implores the Thessalonians to do a variety of things—to share their faith, to love each other, to esteem their leaders, to rejoice and give thanks, to pray without ceasing.

But as they listened to Paul urge them to live the Christian life, where was their motivation supposed to come from? Simple obedience to God's commands? Paul provides the motivation right here in v. 12. He urges them to "walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

Paul reminds them, "Your future is set. God found you and rescued you and one day will bring you into his kingdom and share his glory with you." What is that? That's the gospel. The gospel should be their basis for following God. Not just here but again and again in all of Paul's letters, he holds out the gospel as the basis for everything we do.

Paul used the gospel to do more than bring the Thessalonians into a relationship with God. He used it to provide them with a whole pattern of life to follow. That's why Paul pointed them back to the gospel, explained the implications of the gospel, exhorted them to live consistently with the gospel, and helped them draw motivation from the gospel. The gospel contains the grace and love we need to give away to each other. It provides the motivation to love others that should drive our whole Christian life!!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Is the gospel the only thing Christians need to know to grow spiritually?

Of course not. As you will soon see, in the very short time Paul was with the Thessalonians he taught them way more than just the gospel. If you want to grow, you should strive to learn as much Bible as you can.

But don't forget the Bible has a central message, a theme, a main idea that we must emphasize and continually focus on. That message is the gospel.

Are you willing to personally invest in someone?

God wants to see people come to Christ and be established in their faith. But how will that happen? It will involve YOU—at least, if this church is healthy, you will be involved! Serving others is not the exclusive role of trained clergy. The New Testament describes the church as a body with many parts. And just like no human body will ever be healthy unless each organ is performing its function, the church won't be healthy unless we are all using gospel to reach people and help them grow. That's how God designed the church to operate.  

What one step is God calling you to take toward this end?

Is it to explain the gospel to a coworker? Or to invite them out to a meeting like this?

Is it to reflect on the gospel more often to warm your heart toward loving other people?

Is it to offer more of your life to help someone grow?

Is it to help people understand how the gospel provides motivation for following God?

Are you leaning into the gospel to help you invest in people?

"God did not give us His gospel just so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps giving to us everything we need to grow to spiritual maturity.  The wise believer learns this truth early and becomes proficient in extracting available benefits from the gospel each day."