1 Thessalonians 2:7-12 - Picky Toddlers And Sharing Life

Well, we're a good part of the way through the week already, and I'm excited for today's episode of Tabernacle Talk.

We've been journeying through the book of First Thessalonians, letter written from Paul, Silas, and Timothy to a little baby church in a port city in Greece, a place that had about 200,000 people.

It was a brand new church that had recently lost its founding pastors because the people of the town ran them out. And after the church had been planted, they had experienced some discipleship for a little bit.

And then after Paul and Silas and Timothy had to leave and go to the town of Berea, and then a few weeks, an amount of time later, Paul sent Timothy back to the church to check on them, to make sure they were okay. They were.

Timothy comes back with the good news, and now Paul and Silas and Timothy are writing this letter over to them. And that's where we pick up in verse number seven. Paul's been rehearsing, here's how we interacted with you guys.

Last episode, we saw a bunch of ways in which he did not interact with them, not with greed, not with error, not with impurity, not with an intent to deceive, not with flattery. He says, but here's how we did interact with you.

Verse seven, although we could have been a burden as Christ's apostles, instead we were gentle among you as a nurse nurtures her own children. I want to get out of the way right away.

When he says, although we could have been a burden as Christ's apostles, he's not saying, oh, you guys are lucky you didn't get John or Peter. If they were there, they would have been a burden to you.

No, he's saying even though with the authority that we have from being messengers from Jesus Christ, the Lord and King of all, he says, even though we have that authority and that right to come in and say, hey, you better, you know, the old adage,

you better turn or burn, you better get right or get left, you better get sanctified, you're going to get chicken fried, better get with the Lord or drive him forward. Some of those goofy things.

He says, although we could have come in swinging, we came in gently, like a nurse, like a mother holds her own children as she feeds them. That's not, and I'm not here talking about toddlers.

Toddler moms know that you feed those ones differently than when you're nursing your kids. If you've got toddler kids like I do, you know, there's not a whole ton of like gentleness about the feeding process.

It's as they're running around and being crazy, and you're trying to grab them and be like, hey, no, come back to the table. You got to eat food. You need food to survive.

And then whenever you don't have food for them to eat, that's when they do want to eat. Toddlers are fickle creatures. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

He says, we treated you gently. We treated you like infants in the Lord. How do you treat new Christians?

How do you treat people that are just beginning a walk with God? Whether that's maybe with adults, sometimes it can be easier.

I think about for our church that we've got some teens, we've got some kids that they, from various different backgrounds in their lives, they are coming to assemble with God's people, to hear God's word. And it is such an encouragement to my heart.

But I know just as when I was a kid, when I was a teen, I didn't do everything right. I didn't always say the right things. I didn't always know what the right thing to do was in every circumstance.

Do you have a love and care for teens and kids that you can put up with some flaws?

You can put up with some failures knowing, hey, if Paul and Silas and Timothy, if they could deal with these idolatrous Thessalonikans, if they could deal with them gently, man, I can deal with these kids who, man, they're going through all sorts of

things in their lives. I can deal gently with them. Verse number eight, 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.

Here, this is Jesus' call of discipleship, that when he had the 12 disciples, he didn't just give them like a letter of, hey, here's all the things you need to believe, here's all the things you need to do, here's what you need to avoid.

He actually spent time with them. He lived his life with them. And there were times where he sent them out to do different missions.

There were times when he would go away by himself to pray or to rejuvenate. And you can absolutely do that as well. But I'd encourage you.

Last episode, we talked about giving people the gospel. You've been entrusted with it. It's precious.

It's God's gift to you to give to others. But don't just give people the gospel. Give them your own lives as well.

Be pleased to share your life with other believers. Be pleased to share your life with new believers that people would spend time with you. That's the way that God intended the world to work.

Our world today is set up so that we would be in kind of isolated pockets. During kind of 2020, many of us experienced that type of thing.

And I think for those of us who might be more introverts or ambiverts, that it might have motivated in us something slightly less than healthy.

We were not created to just work online and to go to church online and to door-dash food to ourselves and not have to go out. You were not made to be alone. You were made to do life with others.

That doesn't mean that you have to do life with like enormous crowds all the time.

But you should have people that are in your life, that are a part of your life, that aren't just maybe stuck with you as, you know, family members in the same house with you. Make friends. Why?

Why would I encourage you to do that? Because it's what Jesus did. It's how God designed it from the beginning.

He was the one that created the nation of Israel and had times every single year where the people would come together and they would worship the Lord together, that they had responsibilities for one another, to care for them, to provide for the

widows and the needy and the foreigners. All of that was in God's plan because God created us to be communal people, that we would interact with one another.

So here Paul says, we were pleased not just to share the gospel with you, that's a wonderful thing. He says, but we loved you.

And so we were pleased to share our lives with you, to share meals with you, to talk about the Lord with you, to have fun with you, to laugh, all of those things.

Verse number 9, 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 preached God's gospel to you.

He says, as he will mention in other places, 1 Corinthians, other locations, sometimes Paul would say, okay, I can make tents and I can sell the tents, and that will get me enough money that I can buy my food, maybe I can pay for lodging, I can do

what I need to based on this work that I'm able to do on the outside, and then I don't even have to ask these new believers for any financial assistance. One way that that helped his ministry was during that time, you would have these public speakers

that would go around and they were great orators, and so they would go and it was deemed impressive if you could convince people of something that they knew wasn't true, but through your persuasiveness as a speaker, like you wowed them enough that

they go, yeah, I know that's not really true, but hey, this guy makes me want to believe it, and they would receive funds from people, and it was kind of a, it wasn't quite like acting, but in somewhat of a similar sense, that it was like hey, this

is entertaining, this is enjoyable to hear guys do this, and so we'll give money to them. And so Paul wanted to kind of separate himself from that, and so often, especially when he was planting a church, he would work, he would make tents, he would

sell the tents, and that would provide for all of his needs, and then he could just encourage the church. Now, the one thing that he did do was, when he was going to leave, or when he was sending letters back to the churches, what he would tell them

was, God made it during the Old Testament so that the people that were working the sacrificial system of Israel, working in the temple, working in the tabernacle, that they existed, they lived, they had food, they had shelter, they were able to have

clothing through the generosity of God's people and through the sacrifices that were brought to the temple, all those things that we learned about in Leviticus. He says, God put it that way in the Old Testament and he often uses, God even put in the

law, you should not muzzle the ox as it's treading out the corn. So as the ox is stepping on the corn, breaking it down to where it needs to be for people, some people would put a muzzle on the ox so that way he wouldn't eat any of the corn and so

then they would be able to have even more. But God specifically outlined in the Torah, don't do that because as he is benefiting you, it ought to bring some benefit to him as well. So Paul would write back to the churches, say, hey, here's how it

worked in the Old Testament. And I want you guys to take care of your spiritual leaders, that you wouldn't leave them hanging, that there wouldn't be, you would just take care of them. 1 Corinthians 9 deals a lot about that at some point. We'll be

going over that either in sermon or in podcast. So he says, you remember, we were working night and day so that we wouldn't be a burden to any of you. And we preached God's gospel to you. He says, you know that we were hard workers.

Verse number 10, 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 treated you. He says, we treated you devoutly.

There was a seriousness and an earnestness with how we interacted with you. When you interact with other believers in particular, do you view it as something meaningful, something devout, something to be pursued and taken seriously?

Here, Paul says, you guys weren't just a distraction. Once you got saved, you were more than just a, you know, a number, a notch in our spiritual belt. He says, we treated you, we treated our interactions with you devoutly.

We really cared about it. It was important to us. View your interactions with other people, with other believers as important.

Give it weight, spend time with them. And he says, we were with you righteously. We conducted ourselves righteously with you, that we did what was right, that there weren't off-color things, there weren't rude things, there weren't unkind things.

He says, we treated you righteously. We conducted ourselves righteously with you.

Have that heart for your interactions with other people that you'd be able to have the same testimony as Paul and Silas and Timothy that would say, hey, you know, when I interact with you, like I do right by you, I do right by God in how I interact

with you. It's a great motivation then to be able to show others, this is how you live life. Here's how you do right by God and others and how you interact with people. So come along with me, see how I treat people.

So he says, we conducted ourselves devoutly, righteously, and blamelessly. That no one could have maybe a handle to put on Paul to say, hey, you know, he's real greedy or man, he's just trying to get some power over you.

Paul says, no, there's nothing that anyone could hold on to. There could be obviously always accusations made, but there's no handles. There's nothing to actually hold on to to say, yeah, that's that.

I think that's factual. He says there was none of that. Verse 11, as you know, like a father with his own children, we encouraged, comforted, and implored each one of you to live worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

So he says, like a dad training his kids in the way that they need to go, first we encouraged you. Are you an encouragement to other people? Is talking with you an emotional death sentence for people?

Do they know, man, if I talk to that girl today, my whole day is going to be ruined. If I talk to this person, I'm going to be down in the dumps. Man, I know this person is always angry at someone.

I don't really want to talk to them today. Are you encouraging other people? There's a verse in Proverbs, this heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop.

That sadness just drags you down in your heart. It says, but a good word makes it glad.

God wants you to encourage, to build up other people that, as Paul has done this whole way through the letter, where he's like, hey, you're accepted, you're chosen, you're brothers and sisters, you're beloved, your ministry, your testimony is going

out to everyone, and it's accomplishing amazing things. As he's encouraging them, he says, that's what we did when we were with you. I'd like to encourage you today. Encourage someone else.

Just shoot him a text. Say, hey, been thinking about you. God brought you to mine.

I prayed for you this morning. Hey, I'm thankful for how you are raising up your kids. I'm thankful for the way that I see you loving this person.

I know they're going through a lot right now, and it really lifts me up to see how you're treating them and how you're benefiting their life. Hey, I love how I've seen you sharing Jesus on your Facebook.

I know that you've been praying for this grandmother, and I just want to encourage you, like that's a worthwhile thing to do, and you're gonna be glad that you did that. Just do something to encourage someone today.

So he says, we encouraged, we comforted.

A lot of times, we can just kind of crack the whip on people and say, hey, you need to do this better, you need to be accomplishing this, you need this, and sometimes we just need comfort, that we'd say, hey, life is not good, and I don't have to

pretend like it is. Life is often filled with heartbreak and sadness and wickedness and all sorts of terrible things, but God sees you and He loves you, and He is walking through you in this valley of the shadow of death.

God is the one that knows what it's like to be forsaken. He knows what it's like to have family turn his back, turn their backs on Him. He knows what it's like to have His closest companions betray Him and abandon Him.

Let's give comfort to other people to say, hey, eternity is coming. Jesus will return. God sees your hurt and your brokenness.

He has promised that His Spirit will be with you, that He's not going to leave you or forsake you.

He has promised that anything that He brings into your life, good or bad, will work out in the end for your good and for God's glory so that you would be more like Jesus. Let's comfort other people. So He says, we encouraged, comforted and implored.

This is that begging. It's that challenging to live worthy of God, that you are a Christian, you are a child of God, you are a joint heir with Christ. You have been approved to be entrusted with the gospel.

So I want to challenge you, live like a Christian. There are ways that Christians do not live. And I want to challenge you, don't live that way.

Live the way of Jesus. Live worthy of God, because he is calling you into his kingdom. Pardon me, I have like a hiccup thing going on.

I'm imploring you, live in a way that's reflective of the fact that you're a citizen of a heavenly kingdom. Live in a way that shows that you are a child of God.

And so he says, we encourage you in all of those things like a father with his own children. That, you know, many things in Bee's life, I have taught him and teaching him, you know, potty training.

One day teaching him how to ride a bike, teaching him how to treat his sister or his mother. And I do those things so that he would be able to do them and be able to teach other people, to teach his friends, to teach hopefully one day his kids.

Are you looking to pass on what God has given you? The things that God has taught you, the things that God has brought you through, are you looking to pass that on to anyone else? Are you looking to disciple anyone else?

That's what Paul did. And that's the call that we have for our lives as well. Gonna end there today.

Thank you for tuning in.

And I pray that you would have a desire to love people, to be around people, to share your life with them, to disciple them, to be genuine, to view your interactions with them as meaningful and serious and that you would live your life worthy of God

who has called you into his kingdom and glory.