1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 - Tender Love

For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

Target Date: Sunday, 29 May 2022

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Gentle - ἤπιος –

The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. – 2 Timothy 2:24-26

Among – mesos – in your midst

For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves. – Luke 22:27

Nursing mother – used only here in NT. – implies caring for a child who is too young to care for themselves.

Taking care – cherishing –

for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church - Ephesians 5:29

children – teknon – used to denote a young child, in this case, an infant.

Affectionately desirous - ὁμείρομαι – used only here in NT.

Thoughts on the Passage:

Gentleness is related directly to meekness and humility, both of which have been demoted from virtues in our modern age.

Sermon Text:

This morning as we look at the last verses in this section, verses 7 and 8, I call your attention to the first word in most of our translations – but.

What we find in this word is a turn in the whole discussion.

He turns from the bad things they did not do

To the positive things they did.

And in most things dealing with behavior, we need both of these things to understand what we should do.

Remember, he is telling the Thessalonian church these things not simply as a reminder of how the apostles acted while they were there,

But to continue to give an example for this young church to imitate.

Many of you may remember when you were young, or when your children were young, you had to teach them the right way to do things.

When you began eating at the table, and for many, for the rest of your life, you heard rules in the negative:

Don’t slurp your soup.

Don’t put your elbows on the table.

Don’t begin to eat until everyone has been served.

Or other rules like these.

Every one of them tells you something to avoid doing.

But in addition, there are rules of table manners that must be taught in the positive way:

Hold your utensils properly.

Sit up straight.

Put your fork down between bites.

And the like…

And while we may be lax on these rules in everyday practice, when we are in formal surroundings, we have these rules to inform us how to act.

Because these are just questions of manners, to the point they can be changed as some manners fall out of fashion.

But what Paul and Silas are teaching this young church in this epistle is how to live life in Christ in sanctification.

That is – in growth in holiness.

And while he will reach teaching on the commandments of Christ in chapter 4, the first pressing problem he deals with is how they are carrying the gospel.

And you can see how this is important.

Once your testimony is established that you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Particularly in the midst of those who would love to see you fail in that testimony,

Your conduct toward those very opponents has very great ramifications in their reception of the gospel.

The world is filled now, just as Thessalonica was filled in that day, with people who would love nothing more than to see the followers of Christ stumble and fall.

And your enemy, the devil, will do everything in his power to tempt you to sin,

Working through your flesh to bring you down,

and when you fall, compromising your testimony in Jesus Christ.

Even this week, we have seen paraded before everyone’s eyes the sins of scores of men and women of the Southern Baptists who were servants of the gospel, lured to the destruction of their lives, ministries, and testimonies.

And as horrible as these sins, and the ensuing apathy by the people who should have been overseeing them, are,

These accusations and indictments represent only perhaps a tithe of the true extent of the problem.

Because for every tried or convicted offender on that list, there are perhaps a dozen more who avoided serious prosecution, received technical acquittal, or committed no crime recognized by the state because their affair was carried on with someone who consented and was of legal age.

The heartbreak of this list is not that it was disclosed,

nor is it what the world will say.

The heartbreak of this list is that these men fell so low, some in a single moment.

I weep for the victims of their crimes; I pray for the repentance of the offenders.

Not just the offenders who have made this ignoble list, but for all those who have been lured into grievous, habitual, and unrepentant sin.

And I work and pray for us all that we shall not go their way.

These men and women, as teachers, have certainly incurred a stricter judgment for their sins.

And the gospel of Jesus Christ has been dishonored.

So in opening their letter to the Thessalonian believers, Paul and Silas open their hearts to them as well,

Revealing their motives for preaching the gospel, the difficulties they encountered and overcame through the Holy Spirit,

And the things the Thessalonian believers can and should emulate as they carry the gospel.

And what we see them instructing the Thessalonians today is to be gentle.

But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

Gentleness is tough.

It is tough when people are opposing you.

Gentleness is tough when you KNOW the truth and people still fight against it.

Gentleness is tough when you are outnumbered by the opposing crowd.

Unfortunately, the hero of many modern believers has become the Elijah of Mount Carmel.

We want to post boldly to our social media accounts great indictments of the world, and we call it gospel.

We do not consider Jeremiah or Hosea quite so worthy of emulation.

They shed tears.

They pled with the people to whom they preached.

Often we don’t esteem gentleness.

And, I think, mostly because we don’t think gentleness is bold enough.

Because we like boldness.

“Jesus turning over the tables” boldness.

“Jesus opposing the Pharisees and calling them hypocrites” boldness.

We skip over or explain away everything else in the gospels, particularly:

Turn the other cheek.

But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. – Matthew 5:39

So many say we cannot live this way today.

Not in our evil world that will take advantage of us.

Really? Is our world in this country so evil they will crucify you for following Jesus Christ?

Has anyone in this city been arrested or imprisoned here for carrying the name of Jesus Christ?

No! In the world Jesus preached this in, this was a REAL possibility.

And yet, they only had two cheeks then also (as I have heard many sinfully say).

And even to the point of losing their lives, they replied to hostility with gentleness.

Love your enemies.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? – Matthew 5:43-46

Notice why Jesus tells us to love our enemies:

so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven

A child of God does not undo the work that God has begun.

God causes mercy on the evil and the good now,

Sending rains on the righteous and unrighteous.

These evil, these unrighteous, HATE God, and He responds in merciful gentleness.

do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? – Romans 2:4

There are others as well, but time would easily fail us if I went into detail for them all:

Go and sin no more.

Allow the little children to come to Me.

Every single one of these things happened in the ministry of Jesus, but our application of them has often become skewed.

So many times, the “bold” teachers we hear treat these gentle events in the ministry of Jesus as the exception,

When they were the rule.

The hardest words and actions of Jesus in His ministry were reserved for the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes and those who were profiting off the worship of the faithful.

He knew what was in their hearts, and He met them when THEY tried to set traps for Him.

But His normal conversation was gentleness.

In Matthew 12, Jesus healed the man’s withered hand on the Sabbath in the synagogue.

If you look at the story, the man did not approach Jesus – he was brought BY THE PHARISEES:

He went into their synagogue. 10 And a man was there whose hand was withered. And they questioned Jesus, asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse Him. – Matthew 12:9-10

We all remember the story:

Jesus declared it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath and told the man to stretch out his hand.

When he did – his hand was completely healed.

But then, see what He did next:

[READ MATTHEW 12:15-21 – NOTE: Gentiles=Nations]

a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, - Matthew 12:20

The opposition of His opponents did not stop Him from having compassion.

He saw the hurting, the sick, those who needed His help, and He healed them.

Not just one hand on one Sabbath, but many lives, many souls, on that one day.

And He did that again and again.

We must never be guilty of “kicking someone when they are down”.

We are not the reed-breakers;

We, like the example of Paul and Silas, are the nursing mothers, particularly to those who are not in the faith or are weak in the faith.

We are not the enforcers or judges of the Law;

We are the workers our Lord has sent out to find His lost sheep.

Brothers and sisters, the gospel is not “You are a rotten sinner!”

The gospel assumes that as a fact.

The gospel is “Because you are a rotten sinner, God has made a way through Jesus Christ for you to be saved.”

It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict;

It is the church’s job, our job, to declare the good news of Jesus Christ.

It is our job to develop, disciple, believers into maturity, sanctification.

It is our job to do this in gentleness.

But some may still have concerns about gentleness. It sounds so weak, so, forgive me, “girly”.

I think Paul would agree with you, since he compared himself and Silas to “nursing mothers.”

We, the church, are not here merely to speak the words of the gospel or “coach” people to sanctification;

We are here to nurture them to maturity.

To watch lovingly over them.

To care for them.

But make no mistake: gentleness doesn’t mean being a pushover.

It is like mistaking meekness for weakness – they are not the same thing.

Paul and Silas were coming off an undeserved beating and imprisonment, and yet they were gentle here even with those who opposed them.

We can be gentle and still be solid in our faith.

It just means that we look with compassion and love, even wisdom, upon someone who is not as mature,

And allow for their imperfection, working to correct it in gentleness.

I remind you of the church in Ephesus, where Paul had spent a great deal of time teaching and training disciples, among whom were a husband and wife names Aquila and Priscilla.

And after Paul had departed, a younger convert came in preaching in the synagogue about Jesus, but not quite right. His name was Apollos.

We are told in Acts 18:26:

he [Apollos] began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

They could have called him out, confronted him, shut him down.

But instead of breaking this bruised reed, they took him to the side and taught him.

Their gentle, understanding action helped develop a powerful teacher:

He [Apollos] greatly helped those who had believed through grace, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. – Acts 18:27-28

To treat people with that kind of gentleness and compassion requires something:

You have to give yourself to the task.

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have talked about the fact that these apostles declared in the prior verses that they did not want anything FROM the Thessalonian believers.

Here, he tells them: we wanted YOU.

We loved you so much that we wanted you to be in God’s kingdom as well.

That is love as expressed by Jesus on the night He was betrayed:

that where I am, there you may be also. – John 14:3

They didn’t just preach the gospel out of duty or calling;

They brought the gospel to them because they loved them.

That is what that phrase “very dear” means – beloved.

It is a word with agape at its heart – they loved these young believers from the very start.

Like a mother seeing her baby for the first time, their hearts were captured in love for them.

Not simply loving them in theory or in principle, as many would say today – “I love everybody”.

But loving them enough to invest their lives in them.

Loving them enough to have their hearts broken if these Thessalonian believers stumbled.

O church, love like that transforms people,

Reaches cities,

And turns worlds upside-down.

Let the world keep their rhetoric, debates, and arguments;

Paul begins 2 Corinthians 10 with the following statement:

Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ… - 2 Corinthians 10:1

And what follows this is the proclamation of the spiritual battle we are all engaged in.

But instead of choosing these worldly things to fight God’s battles, he tells us:

the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful - 2 Corinthians 10:4

Church of the Risen Lord, the weapons of [your] warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful - 2 Corinthians 10:4

Let us live faithfully in the knowledge that God’s church is built:

Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. – Zechariah 4:6

We see in this same prophecy the promise of how this will be accomplished:

What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!” – Zechariah 4:7

For the great works of God, we must use the great tools of God,

Because the works of God will not be achieved by fleshly means.

Grace, compassion, mercy, and gentleness – these are our great weapons.

Not because they are mighty in themselves,

Nor are we mighty who wield them,

They are mighty through God because He has given us this way to conquer,

Tearing to pieces the works of the devil by bringing this great word of forgiveness and hope to those he has held captive in sin.