As it happens, we've got a few working dogs at home.
They enable us to care for and to manage the larger animals.
And to be honest, working with them is one of the pleasures
of the life we live here.
If there’s a lot of bad weather, or if times are tough or
just hard going and our feet are starting to drag … not even working with them
but just taking them out in the morning for their first exercise of the day is
such a joy … they show every sign of just living to PLEASE you.
It makes you feel great!
To have a dog, let alone a person, living to please you is
an astonishing privilege, which brings joy.
How much more the Father, when he sees that characteristic
in those who were previously hostile to God but are now His loyal and loving adopted
children?
Not living out some sort of performance for what they think
they can get back … but genuinely, from the heart, living to PLEASE Him.
That’s for US, say the Apostolic team that planted the church in
Thessalonica.
THIS is the Way … now you Thessalonians, go on and imitate our example.
And for the avoidance of misunderstanding, here’s how …
I.
We Lived to please God, v. 4
“We
are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.”
A. Negatively then
- not living our life to please
people, v. 4c
“We are not trying to
please people”
Wow! Imagine that!
Not living to please other
people.
Of course, before Christ steps
into your life, you’re living to please your own ‘self’, but feeling guilty
about that and feeling the need for esteem, it’s really common then to try to
mend your perceived lack of esteem by seeking other people’s gratitude and praise.
Feeling insecure that there’s not
much praiseworthy in ourselves, it is common then to solicit the praise of
other people, and to do so by outward compliance with the standards they set
for our behaviour.
When we read the Beatitudes in
the Gospel of Luke, we find a set of blessings and woes being issued … it
reflects the blessings and the curses (or ‘woes’) from Mount Gerizim and Mount
Ebal in Deuteronomy 27 & 28 which defined the Israelites as the covenant
people of God.
Here's Luke 6:
“Looking at his disciples, he {Jesus} said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
23 ‘Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is
your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 ‘But
woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false
prophets.”
Jesus makes a NEW covenant curse
and a NEW covenant blessing around this issue.
New Covenant blessing is with
those who don’t live to please people and New Covenant woes lie in the path of
those who do.
It is WHOLLY as fundamental as
that.
The consequences for the way we
live our lives are enormous.
And yes, the consequences for the way we relate the Gospel to the world around us are enormous too.
People speak well of you when you
seem to be living to please them.
It’s very tempting … but of
course THAT is the correct word there. Jesus makes clear it really is a
temptation.
What have we DONE, what has the
church of God done, to give the unbelieving world the idea we’re here to please
them?
This is uncomfortable, let’s turn
to the positive …
B. Positively
- the point of a believer's life is
to please God, v. 4d
“We are
not trying to please people but God …”
Now look, let’s get right back down
to the basics here.
It can be a hard enough job to
please your husband, your parents or your wife.
Their standards for us set a
certain level of difficulty, no doubt, but WHO wants to suggest the standards
set by (say) Isaiah’s thrice Holy God are going to be any less stringent than those our spouse?!
Quite the reverse.
But the thing is, it’s actually
tougher than we’ve already suggested to please God.
'Emulate us in trying to live
please not so much people but God' (say the apostles) '… knowing that God doesn’t
just judge by outward appearances … He is the God Who sees right into and tests
our innermost HEARTS.'
C. Principle
- God tests the heart, v. 4e
““We are not trying to please people but God,
who tests our hearts.”
He sees us through and through - and (in case you were wondering) where daring to tell people the Gospel is concerned, He's the One we need to concentrate on pleasing.
Here’s the key to our
accreditation to serve you in the Gospel, says the team, God tests not just our
hearts’ reflection in our behaviour.
The God Who sees and knows all …
tests our hearts.
We seek to please Him inwardly,
in our secret inner life not just when people are looking.
And we do this fully aware that
He sees and judges the innermost thoughts of our hearts.
You know what we’re talking about
here.
You’re dealing – say – with
somebody DIFFICULT, and (let's say) today that person is performing at the very top of their game.
You do really well, you keep a
lid on your own emotions, you manage soft answers that turn away wrath and you
end up coming up smelling of roses.
But you know what you thought and felt, but didn’t say.
You know, and you know all too
well.
Now let's say too that someone witnessed the whole
matter and wants to support and pick you up ... they've seen the bashing you've had ... and they say ‘you handled that encounter
really well’.
Who of us replies, ‘Don’t say that, you
don’t know what I was thinking, man I’m struggling, my inner heart went really
haywire back there!’
See? Not many of us say that! But that would have been to tell the absolute truth.
Funnily enough this isn’t purely
hypothetical, I once knew a man who did just that … and he’s a quite
exceptional servant of the Lord, with a powerful ministry of service.
You see the point?
We live NOT to please people but
God, and we live conscious that this God sees our HEARTS.
So the team is saying ‘imitate
our example here, we were amongst you as those who were not trying to please
people but God … who sees us right through to our very insides.
Sounds great?
But in reality what does that
mean?
In vv. 5-7 the team point out the
things that they did to put flesh on these bones in v. 4
II. How we
did that, vv. 5-7
A.
Negatively, vv. 5-6
“You know we never used flattery, nor did we put
on a mask to cover up greed – God is our witness. 6 We
were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even
though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.”
That’s what living to please God and not people is always
going to look like, say the preachers.
Let’s break it down.
1.
Flattery, v. 5
“You
know we never used flattery”
First Paul & co appeal to the
Thessalonians on the basis of their own experience of the team to bear
testimony to their good character with regard to flattery.
What did the Thessalonians know
about how this apostolic team spoke like people approved by God to bring the
Gospel …
Not with FLATTERING words did we
come to you …
The Greek word κολακεία means flattery, flattering
discourse
You get a lot of that in Graeco-Roman oratory and
addresses … it was normal and expected … check the opening of Acts 1 … but
Paul, Silas and Timothy writing in the sort of Greek that was the business
language didn’t get into all that flattering nonsense.
They got down to
business with the Thessalonians and were business-like in the way they set
about it.
Why WOULD you flatter people you were bringing the Gospel to? The Gospel that starts at the point where we are all sinners and need the mercy of God?!
You wouldn't think it starts like that if you listened to some contemporary approaches taken to outreach and evangelism in Wales!
'We didn’t come
flattering you to get inside your skin', say the apostolic team. 'We came with integrity: we didn't use flattery.'
The implication
is that the Thessalonians should themselves imitate this.
2.
Masking greed, v. 5b
“nor did
we put on a mask to cover up greed – God is our witness.”
Secondly,
the apostolic team calls not the Thessalonians but GOD to witness they weren’t
covering up an underlying GREED.
οὔτε |ἐν| προφάσει πλεονεξίας
Greed
The Greek word for greed there (πλεονεξίας) is just pretty straightforward.
It means desire to have more,
covetousness or avarice.
But Paul says he had refused
gifts from the Thessalonians, working night and day not to be a burden to
anybody.
What's going on here?
In other places Paul writes about the importance of 'not muzzling the ox when it's treading the grain', and about rewarding those ministers who work hard at preaching and teaching ... so quite what is going on here?
You need to recognise that our
culture is REALLY different from Paul’s … we are used to the idea that both his
Hebrew and Greek worlds were patriarchal societies (although by the first
century there was reaction against that) but we don’t reckon on the way that
both those backgrounds were steeped in a patronage culture.
Patrons and clients were clearly
established as part of the infrastructure of Graeco-Roman society – it was ethical to give protection to a people who lacked it … to
be their ‘roof’ or their ‘shelter’ from life’s storms.
Similarly clients were considered
to be behaving ethically when they gave respect, honour and rendered help to
the patron whenever they asked for it.
Why was Paul so keen to say he’d
made tents on his missionary travels, and spoke of not being a burden to
anybody?
It’s because in that sort of culture taking their money
put him in a client relationship to his donors, and whilst he insisted you shouldn’t
muzzle an ox that was treading your corn (indicating preachers should be paid
and those who worked hard at preaching and teaching should receive a double
honour). Paul needed to remain independent of patronage obligation as an Apostle
and servant of Christ because of his priorities in the Gospel and his travelling, itinerant. Church planting,
pioneering ministry.
He had to remain independent because being any church's 'client'meant they could call him to them at any time, and he had to remain free from that as the servant of Christ.
Gupta suggests that
whilst Paul didn’t ask for money, he may nonetheless have accepted small gifts on
the quiet with no strings, as Philippians 4:15 suggests.
Which goes some way to explain
what on earth is going on in the next statement …
Masking it
Gk. πρόφασις
1) a pretext (alleged reason, pretended cause)
2) show 2a) under colour as though they would do something 2b) in pretence,
ostensibly
Now look, Paul had refused full scale patronage support from
the Thessalonians, which everyone in the church would have known about.
This would cause confusion in such a culture as to why he
was doing that.
What’s going on?
'What is WRONG with our money?' (some might have asked).
Well, Ambrosiaster writing in the fourth century helps us
understand what is going on in this phrase about hiding greed behind a
better-looking mask.
Ambrosiaster suggests an opinion grew in the church Paul was
refusing these patronage gifts because he thought they were too small and he was
pretending to not want such gifts in order to hold out while hoping for bigger
ones ... and that would make sense in that sort of culture.
So the suggestion arose that Paul was refusing small gifts
because he was greedy for bigger ones, and held out for those by his refusal of
the public patronage-inducing gifts … thereby cloaking a hurt pumping with pure
greed.
We did NOT do that says Paul.
How could the young church at Thessalonica be assured of
that?
Paul says ‘You DON'T know this isn’t true about us, but GOD knows and I call Him to witness between you and me.
'We did NOT put on some cloak to cover up greed' says Paul. 'That is NOT what all this was about!'
The Apostolic teams refusing their money the way no
contemporary Greek travelling philosopher or visiting rabbi would have done,
was NOT a play-acting way to get more.
We lived to please God and not to please ourselves, they
said.
So we were not looking for MORE money from people, furthermore neither
we were looking for human praise ... we couldn't afford to get into a patronage situation with you, because of our commitment as apostles of Christ.
3.
Seeking praise from people, v. 6a
“We were not looking for
praise from people, not from you or anyone else”
The whole patronage system which helped their society function was based ENTIRELY on this … the desire to get a
good name bolstered by LOADS of social capital … and giving money and
hospitality to get it.
In fact, the Greek word φιλοτιμια (literally ‘love of honour’) was a
word used for ‘public benefaction’. It was all done to 'get honour', to get PRAISE FROM PEOPLE, and in this revolutionary way the Apostles are saying here 'we live to please God and not people'.
So this boils down to the apostles saying in v. 5 they stood away from a client role and now in v. 6 that they stood away from the patron's role too because they lived to please God and not people.
There’s a stunningly good example of how it works in the recent
political history of Afghanistan.
In 2015 Abdul Dostum, an accused warlord from North Afghanistan,
became Afghanistan’s Vice-President.
An article in the New York Times (‘Full
Bellies Are the Measure of Afghan Influence and Hospitality’)
on 23rd August 2015 began “It is an unassailable truth of Afghan
politics, particularly after the advent of a democratic system here, that
influence is gained one stomach at a time.”
Basically, Dostum was apparently an absolute warlord, but his style mingles
hospitality and patronage to gain and maintain power.
Every day he feeds over 1,000 guests in his sprawling palace and in return receives honour, praise and support.
Now, in 2001 Dostum’s militia allegedly tortured and killed several hundred
Taliban soldiers.
But when questioned about this by reporters Dostum took great offence:
they gained weight here, I put them up in nice rooms, I fed them bananas, I fed
them oranges. But they said ‘Dostum did this to me, Dostum did that to.’
The guest is supposed to receive hospitality and speak highly in
return, you see?
The apostolic team is standing apart from that same sort of
hospitality/ patronage system.
We didn’t act like clients (taking food and money), nor did we act like patrons seeking praise
from people (say the Apostles) … not
with you nor with anyone else.
“We were not looking for
praise from people, not from you or anyone else”
But we sought to live to please God.
And that also meant not living to wield the authority that creating a patronage relationship would have brought us.
4.
Not wielding authority, v. 6b
“even
though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.”
The New English Translation is
fascinating here:
“although
we could have imposed our weight as apostles of Christ;"
(throwing our weight around as the apostles of Christ - we didn't do that)
instead we became {Or “were,” or “proved to be”} little
children among you”.
These were the negative things that characterised them, that they made sure had no place in their lives ... and this lay at the heart of the power and the effects ... the influence of their ministries and their lives.
B.
Positively, v. 7a
“Instead, we were like
young children among you.”
What was the place of children in their society? What does it mean: we were like children among you'?
1.
Children in their society
In Jewish and Greek society,
children were people with little or no status.
They were not the little Emperors
of the Far East and China.
They did not have legal rights or
redress.
They might be cute, but they had
absolutely no rights to stand on at all.
That starts to change in the
early church because of what we hear Jesus teaching …
2.
Children in Jesus' teaching
The passage to sum up most of the Lord’s radical
attitude to children might be Mark 9:33-37
“They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he
asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ 34 But
they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and
said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant
of all.’
36 He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking
the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever
welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever
welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.’
This gets us straight to the heart of the matter of
the attitude the Apostles are claiming for themselves, and which they’re urging
their sermon-deprived Thessalonian converts to imitate.
3.
Status in God's upside-down Kingdom
Mark 9:35 puts it totally clearly:
- “Sitting down”
Adopting the position of a Teacher in first century rabbinical Judaism.
He is taking authority to teach. - “Jesus called the Twelve and said,”
Now Jesus calls those supposed to be sitting under His teaching, who have acknowledged His authority to teach them.
The servant is NOT above His Master … and Jesus is about to TELL them the way that it is.
(And by the way the relationship Jesus is activating is a personal one – He sat down to teach, and called THEM )
So Jesus eyeballs THOSE people and says: - “‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the
servant of all.’”
That’s a totally upside
down view of the world for anyone who hasn’t come to Christ.
And it still calls for a
REMARKABLE re-set of values and aspirations for every single one of us every
day.
Everyone WANTS to be
first.
But no-one wants to get
to ‘first’ by putting themselves last ... but that's the way to win the race, says Jesus.
Athletes notoriously only
succeed if they’re selfish … putting their training and regimes mercilessly
above everything and everybody else … they say you have to do it if you want to come
first.
Go on, dare to imitate our
example, say the apostles: “we were like
young children among you”
C.
Principle, v. 7b-8
The principle of what the apostles have been saying about how to live to please God and not people, now gets spelled out with one of Paul’s classic rich mixes of metaphors.
He's been talking about taking up the lowest status, the low position of a child.
And then he says but we gladly went lower.
He says this is the principle ... get this:
“Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you.”
That's astonishing!
Who is the person that puts themselves second, so the lowest in society might come first?
It is the nursing child's mother.
Time and again putting herself second to the lowest in society's 'standing stakes' is the mother of the very small child.
Conclusion
The apostolic
team’s intention in these verses is to explain the reason that accounts for how
1 Thessalonians 2:2b “with the help of our God we dared to tell you his
gospel in the face of strong opposition”
How did you dare to tell the Gospel at Thessalonica after Philippi in the face of such strong opposition?
The team is laying bare the foundations in their lives
that made this possible, and here they say that it was their commitment to
pleasing and serving God and not people (whether themselves, the Church or
outsiders) … and they give examples from their own lifestyle and spiritual
lives which indicate what living to please God and not any people looked like.
And that team is
saying ‘Come on then, imitate us ... this is the way!’
This is how to
resiliently sustain a Christian life and witness, faithfully serving God and
the Gospel in spite of the strong opposition you will meet as a citizen of
God’s upside down Kingdom in this run-away world.
How come that
after taking a beating in Philippi the Apostolic team journeyed to Thessalonica
and there, in spite of strong opposition, dared to tell the Thessalonians also
the Good News of God?
It’s about
the strength of an integrity driven inner life.
But it’s ALL about
who you’re living to please.
And in an age such
as ours where wooing goats is more common than daring to declare God’s Gospel
to rally sheep to the call of the Shepherd, there’s a desperately urgent
message for us here.
What example are
the Apostles displaying to us here?
Theirs.
And what is the
appeal that they make on the basis of what they've been saying?
Last time they
urged us to tune our heart strings to the song of our God.
This time they
are urging us to live only to please the One Who plays for us and gives to us our song.
It was because
of the attitude of children without status in their society … the attitude which
the Apostles adopted … that they lived to serve God and not people.
And that life-choice
bore fruit in their daring to declare the Word of God boldly to the
Thessalonians, as self-sacrificially and caringly as a mother with her fresh
new-born infant, putting herself below the one with the lowest status in her society.
‘Watch and
learn’, said the Apostles.
‘Watch and learn’.
