1 Thessalonians 2:1-12 - How To Make Disciples

Main Idea: Every believer in Jesus should be a disciple who makes disciples.

HAVE A DISCIPLE-MAKING HEART

• Boldly talk about Jesus and the Gospel, and His change in you.

• Seek God’s approval (not people’s) for your words & actions.

• Choose to reject the allure of pride, people-pleasing, and greed.

Have A Disciple-Making Head

• Know and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which saves sinners.

• Share how to obediently walk worthy of Christ’s kingdom.

Have Disciple-Making HANDS

• Be gentle and patient with those who are trying to follow Jesus.

• Share your life (meals, experiences, volunteering, trips, etc…) with those you’re discipling.

• Be generous with your time, efforts, & finances in disciple-making.

SERMON TRANSCRIPT (AUTO-TRANSCRIBED BY APPLE PODCASTS)

The message today in 1 Thessalonians 2 and verses 1-12 is how to make disciples. We reference it often around here. Jesus' last command should be our first priority.

His last command, of course, before he ascended into heaven, 40 days after his resurrection was, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always, even unto the end of the age. That was Jesus' last command to us, make disciples.

But for most of us Christians in the 21st century, we have no idea what this entails.

We've never personally helped someone go from either not believing in Christ at all to believing in Christ and now walking with him, or someone that maybe they believed in Christ, but they didn't know what forward steps to take.

Most of us have never taken someone from not walking with God regularly into a regular normal walk with God. But this was Jesus' most important command. It's those last words that he communicated to us before ascending.

And so it should be something that we value and that we want to pursue in our lives. The question is, how? How do we do that?

And today we're going to see as Paul is riding to the church at Thessalonica, as we learned last week, this church was in a port city of about 200,000 people that they got like three weeks of discipleship from Paul and Silas and Timothy.

Okay, I want you guys to pause.

I recognize, I think, almost every single person in this room and have spent decent amounts of time with you, either from the pulpit or in a variety of settings, you guys have had a lot more than three weeks of discipleship.

And these believers, they're in Thessalonica, it's not like they grew up hearing the name of Jesus, like Jesus had only been crucified and risen 20 years prior to this moment. So the news hadn't gotten everywhere yet.

And so these people are going from nothing to everything that they're supposed to know in three weeks before Paul and Silas and Timothy got ran out of town by a mob who did not appreciate them preaching the gospel.

Paul was nervous about their fledgling faith. If you have a baby and you have to leave the baby totally on its own after three weeks, you'd be like, no, that baby, it doesn't have any hope at all.

And so here Paul is going, man, what in the world is going to happen to the Thessalonian believers? Are they just going to fizzle out in their faith that had been started? So he sent Timothy to them to say, hey, check on them.

Give them some more discipleship. Even though I can't be there right now, they need some help.

And so then Timothy brought back good news of their continued belief and obedience to the Lord despite the heavy persecution and the minimal teaching that they had received. I want you to think of one thing as well.

The strength of your faith is not reliant on what you know. It is reliant on who you know. And God can sustain even that little seed of faith.

If it is held onto, God can grow that into something beautiful, just as he did here with the Thessalonian believers.

We're going to read through the passage, and then we're going to look at a few thoughts that we have for today on how to make disciples, which is going to be, you have to have a disciple-making heart, you have to have a disciple-making head, and you

have to have a disciple-making hands. And I will obnoxiously make you point to each of those as we go through those points, because it helps us remember. Let's read together 1 Thessalonians 2 verses 1 through 12.

I hope that you have a copy of God's word with you today. If you do not have a physical Bible, talk to us afterwards. We have several Bibles that we would love to put into your hands.

The scripture passage is also on the back of your sermon handout today as well. It says this, For you yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our visit with you was not without result.

When we came and we preached the gospel to you and we discipled you for 3 weeks, something amazing happened.

He says, on the contrary, after we had previously suffered and were treated outrageously in Philippi, you remember, they were jailed and imprisoned and beaten, despite the fact that they were Roman citizens and that wasn't supposed to happen.

It did happen. And so coming from there, then to Thessalonica, they say, as you know, we were emboldened by our God to speak the gospel of God to you in spite of great opposition.

Can I ask you, are you bold to be able to share the gospel with those around you? I know our automatic posture is, yeah, yeah, I'm bold enough. I'd die for my faith.

But are we living for our faith? When was the last time that you told a neighbor the gospel? When was the last time that you had a conversation about Jesus with your family member?

May we, Paul and Silas and Timothy, they were going through all sorts of stuff. They would physically have still been carrying the wounds from Philippi as they walked into Thessalonica.

And Paul says, what I had when I came there was boldness to speak the gospel of God. He says, for our exhortation, that's encouragement, didn't come from error or impurity or an intent to deceive. So error is, I didn't come trying to trick you.

I didn't come telling you something that was incorrect. Impurity is, I didn't come to try and get, you know, like a cult following, that, okay, everyone loves Paul, and you have, you know, all of those drink the Kool-Aid type people.

He says, I wasn't trying to do any of that. There was no intent to deceive. He says, instead, just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please people, but rather God who examines our hearts.

Now, a whole fantastic message could be preached on just verse number four there.

If you know the gospel, and not just know the facts of the gospel, but if you have experienced the gospel of Jesus Christ, that God is the creator and maker of everything, including you and I, that all of us as humans have abandoned God's path of

goodness and righteousness, we have embraced sin and death and the ultimate destruction of our souls forever in a place that the Bible calls hell. As each of us have rejected God, we are headed down the path of destruction.

But God, having made us, having loved us, said, I do not want them to have to suffer the consequences of their own actions. And so, in the person of Jesus Christ, God came down 2,000 years ago. He lived a perfect, sinless life.

He died on the cross in our place as our substitute, taking all of our sin on himself so that he would be punished.

And he took all of his sinless perfection, his righteousness, the good things that he did, and he placed it onto the account of everyone who would call on him for salvation.

And scripture says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That it doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are, it doesn't matter how you have failed in your life.

Everyone that will say, God, I recognize you love me. I have sinned. I've gone way far away from you.

And yet Jesus came and died for me. I believe that and I'm choosing him as my savior, my source of forgiveness before God. And I'm going to follow his way now, not my own.

Every person that does that, repenting of sin and believing in Jesus, will experience salvation. They are made a part of God's family, something that is eternal and that is secure.

If you have experienced that, you have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. Sam and I have B who is six, and Evie who just turned four yesterday. You guys know me.

I'm smiling. I love lots of people. It would only be a very particular set of people that I would entrust my children to.

They are my most valuable possession. God has given you, if you are a Christian, God has given you His Son and the message of salvation, and His Holy Spirit.

There is nothing more that He could give you that would more ennoble you, that would say that you have greater worth or value or importance to Him.

If He has given you His Son and His Spirit and His Word and His Body, there is nothing that He will not give you. That's what Paul talks a lot about in Romans chapter eight.

If you've been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, we have to share it. We have to give it out to other people. We are not simply approved by Tabernacle to give the gospel.

You do not have to come to me or to Kathy or to Marla and be like, hey, is it okay if I share the gospel with someone this week? Is it okay if I invite them to church with me?

No, we have the gospel and God has commanded us, go share it with other people. It says, we've been entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please people, but rather God who examines our hearts.

Even the gospel message that we must say no to our sin, that is something that is offensive to the natural person. All of us want to say, I'm totally fine in everything that I do.

Everything I do, I have a good reason for why I do it, and so I am right in everything that I say and do and think. But God tells us what is against his character, his nature, his law, and that is sin.

And so as we proclaim the gospel, as we encourage people to walk with Jesus, sometimes that means that we have to communicate hard truths to say, you are not always right. This or that was sin, it was wrong, and we need to change.

And so in those times when we're having to speak hard truths, we could be dissuaded from continuing to share the gospel because we want to please people. We want everyone to like us, but God says, don't do that.

You're not living to please people, you're living to please me. Says, for we never used flattering speech, as you know, or had greedy motives, God is our witness.

Says, Paul says, when I came, I wasn't like, listen, you all are the most beautiful crowd in Thessalonica. You're all the smartest individuals. And so I just know that God has picked you.

And so if you just invest a seed of 29.99 pence into our ministry, then you'll be good. He says, no, that's not the way that we lived. He says, I didn't flatter you, and I wasn't trying to fleece you.

He says, and we didn't seek glory from people, either from you or from others.

You know, every Sunday, I don't have, you know, a crowd of people putting me on a chair or something, and like bringing me in, and everyone goes, oh, hell, elder, like overseer, bishop, Bryon. We don't do that.

We're not seeking glory or pride from people. And this is what Paul says, too. Paul went through so much stuff.

I encourage you guys read through the book of Acts. He went through it. He says, I wasn't seeking accolades from any of you.

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Paulʼs Nurturing Example

He says, although we could have been a burden as Christ's apostles, instead, we were gentle among you as a nurse nurtures her own children. He says, because we are sent on a mission from Jesus himself, we could have asked for financial support.

He says, but we didn't do that because we were like a mom nursing her baby that says this baby can't handle steak right now. And so even though steak is good, amen, even though steak is good, it's not good for the baby.

And there are some things in our Christian life that we have to grow into certain graces and patterns that we have to grow into maturity before we're able to embrace fully.

And so here Paul says, listen, we didn't even ask from financial support for you guys because we wanted to care for you recognizing where you were at.

He says, we cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives because you had become dear to us. I hope and pray that this verse would describe my ministry.

I pray that it would be the description that each of you have for the disciples in your life. That you say, I'm not just going to share the gospel with you. I'm not just going to share this building with you.

I'm going to share my own life with you because you are dear to me. Then he says, for you remember our labor and hardship, brothers and sisters. Working night and day so that we would not burden any of you, we preach God's gospel to you.

Here, Paul says, so that we wouldn't need financial support from you. Paul was doing his work. He was a tent maker by trade.

And so he was making tents and selling them so that the Thessalonians wouldn't have to buy Paul's food or buy him. I don't know what they had as far as like hostels or something like that, to be able to house him.

He says, we worked night and day so that you as the people of God would not be burdened. He says, you are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly, righteously, and blamelessly we conducted ourselves with you believers.

He says, you know how we acted. You know that we were serious about God, that we treated people right, and that there's nothing that someone could go, well, Paul was really trying to get this, that, or the other.

He was just trying to build a giant name for himself. He says, you know how we acted.

He says, as you know, like a father with his own children, we encouraged, comforted, and implored each one of you to walk worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

I want you to think today of this truth, that yes, God has saved you, and that is a wonderful free gift that is done because of him, not because of you or I. But as we are now citizens of the kingdom, the call is act like a citizen of the kingdom.

Right now in our Tabernacle Talk Bible Study Podcast, we're walking through the Sermon on the Mount together.

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Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tabernacle-talk-a-bible-study-podcast-with-pastor/id1725589302

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And it is Jesus saying, here's how the citizens of the kingdom of heaven operate. And I want to encourage you, have in your mind this week, I want to act like a citizen of the coming kingdom of heaven.

In the Lord's Prayer, we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and may that begin in each one of us. So here's what Paul says. If you will, his thought is not necessarily, how do you guys make disciples?

He's saying, here's how we made disciples of you. And to an extent, you can hear him saying, here's the kind of leaders, the kind of pastor elders that you should be looking for, the same types of people that we were with you.

Find someone that models our behavior towards you.

But now, as 2000 years later, we're looking back, I can see the encouragement in this passage to say, if you and I are going to make disciples of Jesus Christ, here's a wonderful blueprint of how that occurs.

Now, the main idea that we have for today is this. Every believer in Jesus should be a disciple who makes disciples. Every believer in Jesus should be a disciple who makes disciples.

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A Disciple Heart

How do we do that? We're gonna start off first with have a disciple making heart. Okay, everyone, point at your own heart.

Have a disciple making heart. In having a disciple making heart, that's who you are on the inside. It's your motives, it's your affections, your intentions.

There's three things that I see in the passage of how Paul says to have a disciple making heart. He says, boldly talk about Jesus and the gospel and his change in you.

Just as he said, when we came, we were emboldened by God to speak the gospel of God to you. If you and I are going to make disciples, we have to make the choice to step outside of our comfort zone to interact with others.

It will always be easier to just keep to ourselves. In our restaurant, in our neighborhood, in our family, in our friend group, it will be easier to not talk about the gospel. But that is not what God has called us to.

So boldly talk about Jesus and the gospel. We also want to encourage you, simply talking about your views on politics or your preferred Christian denomination is not the same as boldly talking about Jesus and the gospel.

It doesn't matter if you convince someone to adopt your particular immigration stance or to be a Baptist, if they are still headed for a Christless eternity afterwards. Recognize the main thing, which is the gospel of Christ.

This will also mean that we need to be willing to be open about our failures, our fears, and God's victories and changes in us.

If we never level with other people, and let them know the ways that we have failed and the ways that we struggle, we will not be as effective in sharing the gospel.

You can think of the man that's called the Maniac of Gedara in Mark chapter five, where he was, as I've heard preachers say it before, a rude, nude dude in a crude mood.

He was a demon possessed man that was crazy, and he was living off in the mountains and in the tombs and wailing, cutting himself. All sorts of horrible things were happening to this man.

Jesus made him whole, cast the demons out of him, and he was sane and in his right mind, and he even put on some clothes. And as he did that, he asked Jesus if he could follow him and be with him, be one of his disciples.

And Jesus said, no, not because he had been demon possessed, not because he didn't want someone like that on his team. He said, go and tell people what great things God has done for you.

And can I tell you, that man's testimony was so much more powerful, saying, here's who I was before. Here's the stuff that I did before. Here's the people that I hurt before.

But now because of Jesus, I'm a different person. I've experienced new life. You can think of the Apostle Paul, that is, he gives his testimony even in front of kings.

He talks about how he persecuted the believers. He persecuted Christians and even went to nearby countries to try and bring more believing Jewish people back to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to have them put on trial and imprisoned and killed.

But it was through the testimony of who he had been that God was able to bring about wonderful churches and new disciples, because they boldly talked about Jesus in the gospel and his change in them.

Secondly, seek God's approval, not people's approval, for your words and actions. He says this over and over again. He says, we were approved by God.

We seek to please God, not people. He says, we weren't in it for the glory of people. Choose to be more concerned with helping someone walk with God than you are that they will like you or stick around.

Some people will reject God, and those same people should dislike your attempts to invite them to follow the Lord.

This doesn't mean that we should be un-Christ-like, unkind, rude, or off-putting, but it should mean that if someone has no interest in Jesus or the Bible, that they are not going to want to have a deep connection with you.

This will also mean that both the religious and the irreligious will be displeased with you at times. Those that loved sin, greed, and immorality did not follow Jesus, as well as the Pharisees and scribes whose lists of extra rules Jesus didn't keep.

Choose not to pursue people's approval, but God's. And may we also recognize that just because we have personal disapproval of others' words or actions doesn't necessarily mean that God disapproves of them.

If we recognize that people need to be seeking God's approval, not people's approval, it means that our approval does not automatically equal God's. Then he says to choose to reject the allure of pride, people pleasing, and greed.

He says this over and over again. He goes, we didn't want to be a burden to you. We supported ourselves financially so that you wouldn't have to.

He says we didn't do this for human glory. As you invest in people, they will often be appreciative of your investment, and that can lead to compliments, gratitude, and even gifts at times.

But part of making disciples is an intentional rejection of serving and discipling as a status symbol.

People may love you for teaching them things, for preaching, for spending time with you, but you do not own them, and you do not need to have their praise.

Serve and disciple and care for people so that they will love God, not so that they will love you.

We should never serve because the notoriety, because of the notoriety of a title or a position, because people like us, or because of how we can financially fleece those in our care.

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A Disciple Head

So we're first called to have a disciple making what? Next, we need to have a disciple making head. First from this passage, I see that we need to know and share the gospel of Jesus Christ, which saves sinners.

Over and over again in the passage, she talked about the gospel of God. I was entrusted with the gospel of God. I was emboldened to preach the gospel of God.

The gospel is what saves people. The gospel is not a political party's platform. The gospel is not a list of social programs, however wonderful that they might be.

The gospel is not general morality or good things. The gospel is not church attendance. The gospel is God's design of our world is very good.

He made us in his image to walk with him. Mankind, each and every one of us, from our first parents to us today, we have all fallen short of the glory of God due to our sin, and we are headed for a Christless eternity.

However, Jesus came, he lived a perfect sinless life, he died in our place, he rose again triumphant over the grave, and he now calls on each of us to respond to him in faith. That is the gospel.

If you're going to make disciples, you have to be a disciple. And you are not a disciple if you haven't placed your faith in Christ for salvation and repented of your sin to follow him as your Lord. That's something that you need to do today.

I would love to have a conversation with you, or if you're sitting with a friend or a loved one or family member, ask them about knowing Christ as your Savior today.

So in having a disciple making head, this is that we have the correct beliefs about the Lord and His Word, first and foremost the gospel, but then we need to share how to obediently walk worthy of Christ's kingdom.

He says, we proclaim the gospel, and then in verse number 12, he says, I want to encourage you so that you would know how to walk worthy of the kingdom.

As Jesus gave that commandment, making disciples, baptizing them, then he gave the instruction, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. Disciples of Jesus don't just say they want to go to heaven when they die.

Disciples of Jesus want to obey and follow Jesus more every day.

This can be unpopular in today's day and age, because everyone wants to know that God loves them and that they can be forgiven, but very few people want to be told you gossip about others all the time.

You have a really bad attitude of anger and unforgiveness, or you're being sexually immoral, but we need to know those things about ourselves too.

May we have the courage as disciples of Jesus both to hear those hard truths from others and to share them with those we love out of the heart to see them be worthy citizens of Christ's kingdom.

I was thankful even earlier this week that I got a call, I'll tattle on you a little bit. I got a call from Owen and he said, hey, last week we had this conversation and this was going on and you got like really heated, you got really intimidating.

And I told him, I am so sorry. I knew in the moment as it was happening, I shouldn't have done that. Like I could feel it was all flesh.

It was anger. It was fear that was rising up in me. Wasn't walking in the spirit.

And so I was thankful that he went, you weren't walking like a citizen right then. And the Lord gave grace in that moment that I was able to be like, yep, absolutely, you shouldn't have done that. Desire not to do that again.

May that be what we do as brothers and sisters in the Lord to say, I love you. And because I love you, I want you to be the best citizen that you can be. And I want you to help me be the best citizen that I can be.

But that has to come through humility and a head that says, I know and believe the gospel, and I know and believe the word that gives me my path each and every day.

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A Disciple Hand

So we're supposed to have a disciple making heart, a disciple making head. And then lastly, we're supposed to have disciple making hands. And here, these are the actions that we take in care for others.

First, be gentle and patient with those who are trying to follow Jesus. I love the way that Paul described it with the examples of a mother, a nursing mother caring for her infant. I also loved the picture of a father instructing his children.

He says, we were your parents, and we recognize that you couldn't handle everything three weeks in. Have gentleness and patience with those who are trying to follow Jesus.

Someone who's only been following Jesus for a year or two is going to have some more glaring spiritual problems than someone that's faithfully walked with Jesus for decades. And that's okay. Well, we should never call sin good.

We can and should gently, faithfully work with people as they overcome sin over the course of their lives. Here's where this could be practical for you today.

Someone can sin and fail, but unless they've given up the fight against that sin and are simply choosing to say their sins against God are actually morally good, if a person's not at that point, choose to pick them up time and time again, encouraging

them to obey God without berating and judging them. I love this quote that I saw last night. Sanctification is real, but it is often messy.

There are fits and starts, there is suffering, there's weakness, there are failures, there's repentance, there's the father's discipline.

Sometimes the very thing we would interpret as evidence that sanctification is failing is being used by God as part of his sanctifying work. The humbling itself can be part of the sanctification.

So be willing to have some patience with your brothers and sisters and the Lord that don't have it all together. Neither do you. And may we be faithful to bear with one another as we seek to become more like Christ.

Then I loved this thought from, I can't remember offhand which verse it was, Share your life with those you're discipling. Share your life with those you're discipling.

This is something I personally got to experience a lot in high school and college, both with my youth pastors and with many brothers and sisters in the Lord throughout the years.

It's something I want to be doing more and more in my life as a Christian. If the only time you're with someone is in a learning environment, they will only learn what's in your head in theoretical situations.

To truly make a disciple, have meals with them. Go enjoy a baseball game, or go to a restaurant, or hang out together at the house. Jesus spent almost every day for three, three and a half years with his disciples.

And we think seeing other Christians for 75 minutes once a week is us fulfilling our Christian duty. It's not. Here's the other wonderful benefit of sharing your life with other Christians.

You get to grow more and be discipled more. Others can see your imperfections and encourage you to walk with Jesus.

You can notice that you are lacking in boldness, or that you don't know how to simply be with people when they don't have to listen to you. You get the opportunity to be encouraged, to pray for them and be prayed for.

You get to laugh, make memories, and increase your bond as the body of Christ.

That's why even this past summer at Tabernacle, we did a cookout, we did a mini golf activity, we watched a Christian movie together, we did a game night, we had an Iron Birds game, as well as our regular worship services, Bible studies, the monthly

book study, and vacation Bible school. We need to share in life together what are ways that you are pursuing sharing your life with other believers so that you can help them in their discipleship and you can be discipled yourself.

And then lastly, with having disciple making hands, I noticed that Paul says we need to be generous with our time, our efforts, and our finances in disciple making.

If you want to make disciples, it will require time, effort, and finances on your part. As a side note, this is one of the reasons we encourage those that are a regular part of Tabernacle to give to the Lord's work here.

Every printed resource, our website, and its thousands of hours of online resources, our staff, our men's and women's ministries, our outreach events, all of it requires financial support.

In Paul's life, when he was planting a new church, he didn't take offerings from that baby church, but instead he made tents and sold those, and that was how he lived.

Then when he would leave to go start new churches, he would encourage the believers at the now established church to support his ministry financially.

For many churches today, if their local congregation is unable to support their pastor at a livable wage, the pastor will work a second job in order to provide for his family. Even within our local area, we have guys that do roofing and flooring.

We have some men that serve as teachers at local schools. It's not a bad thing, as even the apostle Paul did that.

But do you realize in your life that your faithfulness to support Tabernacle's ministry is immensely important and we are beyond grateful for every person that invests in disciple making through our church.

You might not think it means much when you give a dollar, when you give five bucks. It absolutely makes a difference for the kingdom of God. You are investing in the future.

Can I ask you personally, when was the last time that you got together with someone to talk about Jesus or the Bible? When was the last time that you personally went through a book of the Bible or a right now media study with someone else?

Who have you been inviting to a meal or a drink or to your home so that you can invest in their spiritual life? Who are you putting effort into getting to know that you don't currently know? How do we make disciples?

Well, from Paul's example, we have a heart that boldly shares the gospel, seeking to have the approval of God, not just to be popular with people, rejecting pride and people pleasing and greed. So that's our motivation.

We have a disciple making head that knows the gospel and knows the word of God so that we can help people become worthy citizens of the kingdom of heaven. And then we have disciple making hands. We're gentle and patient with others.

We share our life with them. And we are generous with the time that we invest in them, the effort we put into them, and the finances that we devote into the Lord's work, both corporately and personally, in caring for others.

Can I ask you today, are you currently a disciple who is making disciples? Are you caring for someone else? That someone else might be your spouse.

It might be your kids or your grandkids. It could be your neighbor. It could be someone else at this church.

There are so many people who need to walk with Jesus more and more, and God can use you to be a part of that. Will you take these disciple making hearts, heads, and hands, and make more disciples of Jesus even this week?