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Don Filcek; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12 Being Like Fathers
Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Pilsak takes us through his series, Hope Rising, from the book of 1 Thessalonians. Let's listen in.
It's interesting to note that last week and this week we see Paul using, in 1 Thessalonians, using family as a metaphor for ministry. Last week, he said he worked among the Thessalonians with loving kindness, like a mother nursing her child.
A tenderness, an affection that was there, and a gentleness that was there, and the way that Paul and his team, when they first came into the town of Thessalonica, the way that he worked with them. But this week, he now uses fathers as an illustration, demonstrating the way that a father ought to work with his own children.
And I find it helpful, informative, and even personally convicting to hear what Paul takes for granted as the role of a father in his family. So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to a shorter passage.
1 Thessalonians 2, verses 9 to 12. Again, it's 1 Thessalonians 2, 9 through 12. And if you don't have a Bible on your lap or a device, a means to navigate to the Bible, then please do me a favor and raise your hand.
And Mike has some of those just to get you a copy of the Word of God so you have it. And he's actually got them already open there. So if you would just be brave and bold to get the Word of God in your hands, to raise your hand.
But otherwise, we're going to read this together. Again, 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 9 to 12. Recast, this is God's Word to us this morning. We have the privilege right now to hear from the Almighty God.
1 Thessalonians 2, 9 to 12. For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil. We work night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers.
For you know how like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you so much for this opportunity that we have on this day to gather together and just reflect on your plan for the family. We think about moms, we think about fathers, and we think about the way that you've designed family to be a fundamental building block of human society and the way that we work together and the way that society flourishes through healthy families, where mothers are nurturing and caring and fathers are exhorting and encouraging and charging their children.
Mother, I pray that you would be working here in this body to bring about your plan for the family in each and every family unit that is here gathered together under this name Recast Church. Father, the church is the gathering of this people.
It is not the building that we meet in. It's not the building that's being built across town. It's us gathered together, and Father, I pray that you would work in us and through us to care for one another and to care for this community in a powerful way.
And Father, I pray that you would be honored and glorified as we have an opportunity to gather together to worship you right now in song. Father, I thank you for these songs that we're going to sing and the opportunity that we have to reflect back to you, the glory that we have.
We thank you for salvation in Jesus Christ. The only hope for families is Jesus. It really is the only place where we come to a healthy place of recognizing our brokenness, our frailty, our failures, our sins, and at the same time there at the cross we recognize how much you have loved us and how much freedom and you are giving us and how much joy you grant us through the forgiveness that's available to us in your son Jesus Christ.
I pray that we would praise you now out of hearts given over to you, recognizing the great thankfulness for your mercy to us in Jesus' name. Amen. Yeah, go ahead and get seated there, and I'd encourage you to keep your Bibles open to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 9 through 12.
Maybe you missed that or you weren't here when we first read it, lost your place, but if you have your Bible open to that text, then you can actually be following along and kind of seeing that the things that I'm going to say are going to come from that, and again, as I say every week, maybe even like a broken record to some of you, but if you need to get up and stretch out at any time during the message, you can go stand in the back.
I know those seats are relatively uncomfortable, and so take advantage of any more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last there, but we're marching through the book of 1 Thessalonians and kind of seeing what Paul has for us and really what God has for us through the Apostle Paul, and throughout the first two chapters of 1 Thessalonians, Paul is reminding the church there in Thessalonica and us as he is actually being inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these things.
He's encouraging us about the fundamentals of ministry using his own church planting team as an example in those first two chapters, and so now today, he's going to hold up for us more motives and a further example of the methodology of his ministry among them, remembering that last week was the crazy 18-point sermon on evangelism and really explaining to us kind of a lot of things about evangelism, about sharing our faith with others, but this text, now this week, is an in-depth lesson about the way that we should be working for Christ inside and outside the church, and in verse 9, Paul begins and speaks to us about his labor and toil among the Thessalonians for the cause of the gospel.
He says he worked day and night so that he would not be a burden to the people that he was trying to reach with the gospel. He was a hard worker. We get that impression from Paul. I think it's probably likely that this refers to what we find in the book of Acts as Paul's secondary job.
He was a tent maker. He worked with leather and with cloth to make tents on the side to help support his own ministry, and so he was a hard worker who probably worked nights in his shop and then during the day was teaching wherever he had the venue and the opportunity, and Paul worked that second job in ministry so he didn't need to be supported by unbelievers who might get the wrong idea that the gospel was for sale.
Give me money and I'll share the truth with you. Give me money and I'll tell you the gospel, and so that's probably why he did that. Further beyond hard work, his missionary team worked in a way that was, according to the text, holy, righteous, and blameless.
How many of you, those sound like good words? Those sound like good words to you? That sounds like, would you like those things to be said of you? Go ahead and raise your hand if you'd like to be known as holy, righteous, and blameless.
Those are good things, and he says that's the way we rolled when we came in among you. That's the, that was our M .O. That was the way that we lived there with you and showed you the gospel in the way that we lived.
Holiness, by the way, is about our vertical relationship with God. It's a relationship word about the way that we respond and live before the face of our God. They lived their lives in a way that they modeled what it means to belong to God.
Righteous is a word that is about relationship towards others. More often than not, when we see that word in Scripture, we have probably some nebulous notion about the word righteous that just means, like, really, really good or something like that, right?
But the word righteous is in, is in relationship on the horizontal. So if you think about your life in relationship to God on the vertical, that's holiness in relationship to others. The word best applied to that is righteous, and that involves honesty and business dealings and fair treatment of others around us, love and care and concern for others, serving others, putting others' needs above our own, humility, a genuine love for others expressed in our actions and our words.
And lastly, blameless is a word that is, again, a little bit more of a catch-all word that has more to do with integrity. The things Paul and company did in Thessalonica were above blame, blameless. Now, how many of you know that that word is a little bit tricky?
Like, if you'd like to be blameless, many of you raised your hand and said you'd like to be blameless, but how many of you know that everybody can be blamed, right? Did you know that? Like, anybody can bring an accusation against anybody in this room at any time.
Like, do you know what I'm talking about? Some of you, have you ever been blamed for something that you didn't even do? So, you could be completely living righteous, completely living holy and be blamed.
So, what is this blameless business here? And you know that an elder, a pastor is called to be blameless, and I'm a pastor, and I'm telling you that people could blame me for a lot of different things.
And so, what does that look like in a person's life? But just think of it in these terms. If someone brought an accusation, it would be quickly uncovered as false. That's the notion behind it. An accusation can be made, a blame can be thrown, but it doesn't stick is the idea because of the person's character or lifestyle.
And so, having reminded the Thessalonians about the way that he ministered among them, he summarizes now in verses 11 through 12, where we're going to remain for the rest of our time together, and that is another illustration of the family, another illustration using the family as a model for ministry.
Like I said last week, he talked about mothers nursing their children and the tenderness that is there and the gentleness, and he used that as a model for his ministry among the Thessalonians, but now he's going to do something different.
You see, the Thessalonians know that Paul and company worked among them like a father works with his children, and that metaphor might draw some of us up short. Like, we might not know the content of the metaphor, what it means for a father to work with his children.
What does he mean by that? What does it mean? Think about that. Get an answer in your mind for just a moment. What does it mean to work with someone like a father works with his children? What does that mean in our culture?
What does that mean in our society? Paul takes the illustration for granted that in his culture they would get it, but for us in these days of modern enlightenment where we think we have advanced so much and we're so much better than we even have kind of a chronological snobbery about those people in the past who just didn't really get it, they were kind of dumb back then, and we're enlightened now, we're smarter, we're brighter, and we have often lost sight of what the word father even means.
You agree with me on that? Many of us in our culture, many of us who are fathers have a hard time defining it. So think about it yourself. What comes to mind when you hear someone say that they worked in a community like a father works with his children?
Does that mean he was a dictator, a tyrant? Does it mean he was angry and yelled a lot and got his own way? When he came into Thessalonica, he was just boom, boom, guns blazing, and he just got it done.
Is that what it means to be a father? Is that what it looked like when Paul came in there and worked with them? Does it mean he sat on the sofa with the remote in his hand and watched a lot of football when he was in Thessalonica?
Is that what that means? Like what's the scoop there? That didn't get any laughter, and that's probably because it's unfortunately too close to home for some of us. That was the silence of conviction.
What does Paul mean to convey by this metaphor? And he's going to answer it for us in verse 12. I mean, I hope you can see it there. Verse 12 gives us insight about both an attitude toward ministry. Remember, that's the context here.
He's talking about ministry, but he's also going to say something about the role of the father in the family by using this as a metaphor, because he gives us three verbs that he considers to be at least part.
Not the sum total. These three things are not the sum total of what it means to be a father, but they're at least a good place to start. They're a launching point for fathers. Paul says, we acted like a father, so in acting like a father, we exhorted, we encouraged, and we charged you toward godly living like a father does.
Oh, like a father does. Exhorted, encouraged, and challenged, charged. I'd like to spend the rest of our time considering those three roles of a father that also apply to all of us in whatever ministry we are called to, because remember, Paul is using this as a model, an example for ministry, but first let me issue a caveat before we explain these three fatherly roles.
Despite the fact that these are three callings of a father, I think anybody can do these things. You look at that list, there's nothing very unique or very special about those three things that make a father, only a father can do them or something like that.
Anybody can exhort others, right? Anybody can encourage, anybody can charge others. We're going to talk about what that word, that might even be a fuzzy word to you. We'll talk about that here in a minute, but a father is not supposed to abdicate in these areas.
Hear me carefully. These are God-given roles for a father, so it's not that a mother can't do them. A mother often does them, but a father is to do them. Do you hear the difference? A father is being told to do these things.
In a family without a father or without a father that is spiritually leading, either one of those are possible, a mother can pick up those things too. She can pick up the primary role of encouraging, exhorting, charging her kids, but these are a burden that a father is designed and made to carry.
Do you hear me? It's a role that is designed in a father to do these things. He's made to carry that burden of exhorting, encouraging, and charging. A woman who shoulders her God-given load of nurturing and also adds these things on too can testify to the burden that all of these things bring to her life.
We live in a culture that will quickly dismiss the role of father as unnecessary, but this is because many of us have not seen a father who rises to the occasion and fulfills these roles as a calling from God.
I do not believe that there is a mother alive who would not welcome her husband stepping up in these roles and taking that burden off her shoulders. Well, some in our culture, there are some who are not single mothers who are quick to point to single mothers as a sign of strength of women and the lack of need for men in the family, but I have a hunch that if you were to actually pull those single moms who are being held up as the paragon of excellence and the paragon of womanliness, I have a hunch that they would welcome a man in the lives of their children to do those three things, to exhort, to encourage, and to charge their kids.
They would love some help in that realm. So this message is not meant to highlight what your children are missing if their father is no longer there. It's meant instead to exhort fathers specifically in their homes and all of us generally in our ministries, the areas that God has called us to, to consider these three things this morning.
And the first point as a father is to exhort. We don't use that word very often, right? Like you probably didn't use that often this week. Did you use the word? Anybody? Probably not a whole lot of the use of the word exhort this week.
So it needs a little bit of definition just because it gets rusty. And even though I define this word, I think every time I encounter it in the text of scripture, I'm going to define it again for us because I don't think it sticks very well.
It's a strong, strong emotional word that's being used in the Greek language that means that we point people in the direction that they should go. This word takes for granted that there is an ought in life.
There is something you ought to do. And we can know what that thing is that we ought to do, and we can point others toward the thing that they ought to do. When it comes down to human interaction, more often than not it's just groupthink, and whoever just kind of has the idea that makes the most common sense, that's the one we're going to go with.
But there is an ought in, there is a right thing to do in situations and circumstances. And so it, this is a word that is about pointing people in the direction they ought to go. A father who is fulfilling their role in the family will point their children in the right direction.
Say, this is the way to go, son. This is the way to go, daughter. This is the direction. Now this seems like a logical thing, right? Like, could you have told me that a father ought to do that? That he should be pointing his kids in the right direction?
Like, is that pretty commonsensical? Anybody? Anybody awake out there? Raise your hand if you think that that makes, it's kind of like I would have gotten that done without you standing up here and saying it.
I would have understood that a father is supposed to kind of point out the right direction. But how do we guide our children in the specifics? And I think that then it kind of gets a little bit more tricky.
You know, yeah, a father's supposed to do these things, but then when I ask you certain questions, you're going to kind of go, oh yeah, what is the right direction? What do we do? How do we guide our children regarding video game usage?
Boy, I started with a hard one right there. Like, that can be really tough with these kids. How do we point them in the right direction regarding social media? What to share, what not to share, when to share, why to share, should you share?
The limit, what about, what about this one? How are we communicating what's the right direction for your individual child when it comes to the limited, hear me carefully, the limited value of sports in their lives?
Yes, I said it. Wow, that's, darn. Oh, now those are fighting words, right? In a culture with all the travel, baseball, and everything that goes on, and if your kid isn't in there, he's not going to get the pros if he's not, you know, batting left and right at four years old.
I mean, how's he, so are we communicating, what are we doing about pointing our kids in the right direction about the limited role of sports in their lives? Is there any limit to that, fathers? Is there anything in you that would, that would encourage your kids to just kind of have a governor on that kind of thing, or is it just, I mean, would we lead them into worship of that?
What's the, maybe by default, maybe just by not doing anything, or by our, by our tacit communication that when they get a home run, that's the best thing they've ever done. Oh, you know what I'm saying?
How are we communicating these things, and what are we pointing them to? These things, these things get, and I can't stand up here and tell you the answer for your child. I can give you principles, and that's the beauty in Scripture, is that it's a, there are principles that can be applied, but fathers, you need to be exhorting your kids in the right direction.
What about their academic success? They do in regards to that. Is there any limit to that? Well, hold on. I mean, they've got to get the best grades that they can, and of course you'd encourage your kids to get great grades, right?
You want them to be diligent and hard-working, but how do you think about these things, and what is the right direction to point your kids, and how do you help them? Are you doing your home, are you doing their homework for them?
There's some projects that I've seen at the high school that I'm going, I don't think a teenager made that. Do you know what I'm talking about? And I'm going, who did this homework? Dad's an engineer, I don't know, but, and my kids got a little pile of something over here.
The words are good, the words are good, but the project isn't quite stable, you know, whatever, so that's just the way it is. That wasn't again, that wasn't about my kids, that was about, whatever. No, I don't do my kids homework for them.
And then of course, obviously, exhorting them in the direction that they're to go with God. That's the ultimate thing, right? Their spiritual walk with their devotion to God. How are we helping and assisting in pointing them in the right direction to the gospel, to the cross, to the cross, to the cross?
Or are we pointing them towards good behavior? I mean, you know, that's actually, that's second fiddle to the gospel. Like, that's dangerous. I mean, it's outright dangerous. Have you ever thought about that?
It's outright dangerous to teach your kids to do good without the gospel, because that's how we raise religious zealots who have no heart. To tell them only, the only thing they ever hear dad say is do good, do better, do good, do good, do good, but they never hear that they can't do good, they need a savior.
That's pointing them to the cross, pointing them to a savior, pointing them to Jesus. And then how do we point them in the right direction regarding friendships, dating, college choices, and the list goes on and on.
And as our children get older, we find more and more that if we're going to be able to steer them in the right direction, we must be able to steer ourselves in the right direction. And right direction implies that there's a right and a wrong way to go, and how do we know for even ourselves the right and the wrong way to go?
And let me just suggest to you that exhortation, a primary role of a father, requires us to know God's Word. That's where we go to know the right direction. Fathers, we must be studying the Word of God to be able to exhort our children.
Our fundamental task as fathers is to know the way of the Lord and to point our children in that direction. And unfortunately, many consider that to be a mother's job, right? Isn't that often what our culture, our culture has kind of moved into that realm where children are the role of, are in the realm of women, right?
Do you know what I'm talking about? Am I alone in that, or does that feel that way? I feel like maybe it was that way in the 50s. Anybody, and some of you were alive in the 50s, some of you were raised in the 50s, you know that, but the stereotype is that in the 50s, it was just very much father came home and mom had the kids all clean and prim and proper and everything was all just nice and, you know, make sure that dad, you don't ruffle dad's feathers, and that was it, right?
So now this pendulum kind of swings, but I feel like there's still this general idea that the kids are the realm of mom, training the kids is the realm of mom. For decades, our culture considered the training and raising of children to be the work of mothers, but the exhortation of a father pointing our kids in the right direction is a powerful tool that God wants to use in the raising of children, and so Paul and his team exhorted the Thessalonians, like a father, is to exhort his children, and as a strange application on Mother's Day, let me encourage us all to pray for the fathers in this church to truly take up this God-given responsibility to exhort their children, and I believe that this would be a huge gift to moms on this Mother's Day, if men would do that.
Second, the second verb Paul applies to his ministry and to fathers is to encourage, the word encourage. Paul and his team encouraged the Thessalonians, like a father, encourages his children. Huh? Unfortunately for many of us, we assume we get that.
Oh, so Paul encouraged them like a father encourages his kids, so he criticized their efforts and told them to try harder, do better. You know, that's encouraging. Well, you'll get it next time. You'll do better next time.
This text is convicting to me and probably to many of us in this room. Fathers and otherwise, encouragement is often not the first response of many of us. Some of you are bent towards that. That's a great thing.
Praise God for that, but some of you are bent towards criticism. It's very, it's very natural and flows quite quickly off the tongue to criticize or to identify what they could improve on, what they could do better at.
You know, yeah, yeah, son, you got a bunch of A's, but what about this right here? It's very easy to identify those things, but in ministry and in the family, encouragement is an essential component of working well together.
You see, exhortation is pointing others in the way they should go, but encouragement is commending them when they have gone the right way, when they've done the right thing, and this implies that we should be looking for the good in our kids.
Encouragement motivates people in the right direction by positive feedback, and certainly a mother can encourage, co-workers can encourage, but there's nothing like the encouragement of a father. Many of us, even in this room, would rightly confess that we have some daddy issues, and those daddy issues stem from a father that was unable or unwilling to encourage us, and I find it interesting that Paul specifically identifies encouragement as the role for fathers.
It's not a new need, but even centuries ago, way back in Paul's time, the need for a father's approval, the need for a father's encouragement was woven into the fabric of the human heart. It's a part of our hunger and our desire.
The fact of the matter is, we all have many things we would like to change in our kids. All of us, all of us that are parents, all of us here in the room that are fathers, those of you that are mothers here that we're celebrating today, all of us have things we would like to change in our kids.
Would you agree with that? Yeah, and even if they're a baby, you just like their sleep pattern to be different or something, you know, I mean, there's things we would like to change right from the get-go, but if all we ever do is exhort and tell them what to change, tell them how to live, tell them what to do different, without encouragement, they will begin to resent us.
They will begin to resent us. Without encouragement, fathers turn into a man who is never pleased, and it will sow seeds of bitterness in the lives of our children, or even generally in those we minister to, for that matter.
A church without encouragement or a family without encouragement both end up likely in a similar place. I would call it legalism and performance loops with a constant cycle of trying to please the one who cannot be pleased.
Paul encouraged the Thessalonians and took for granted that fathers would be encouraging their children, and again, this would be a great Mother's Day gift if fathers would take seriously their calling to encourage their children.
I personally have a lot of work to do on this front. This is the point that hit me right in the chest, and I'm going to be consulting with my wife before we pray each morning to offer thanks for the good things that we see in our kids.
It's a challenge to me, letting them know those good things that we are seeing in their lives. I think I just am realizing through this text the power that is available there to encourage my kids. Lastly, Paul and company charged the Thessalonians to walk in a manner worthy of God.
This is kind of the opposite of encouragement, and it's still the role of a father, and so these are things that have to be held in tension and in balance. There's a time for exhortation, there's a time for encouragement, there's a time for charge.
Remember, exhorting is pointing the right way for them to go. Encouragement is commending them when they go the right way, but charging is warning them when they go the wrong way. Charging even involves the clarification of consequences for disobedience.
It's obvious that Paul, when explaining the gospel to the Thessalonians, let them know that there was an eternal glory awaiting those who trusted in Jesus Christ, but equally he let them know that there's a negative eternal consequence of condemnation for those who reject the right way.
Many fathers may think that they have this one down. Well, at least I'm getting one of them right. I'm warning my kids left and right, but charging our kids to walk in a manner worthy of God is not just doling out discipline, taking away their cell phones, or cutting off their internet, or their video games, or whatever.
Charging them means we gently but firmly correct them with consequences as they veer away from the way that God wants them to go. To do this in a measured way is maybe one of the most challenging things that faces a father.
It's far too easy to fly off the handle, or it depends on your personality. Some, it's very easy to fly off the handle. Others, it's very easy to abdicate, just not even address it, just don't even deal with it.
But God is calling fathers within the household and all of us generally in ministry to step into the role of charging others with words of caution when we see them going astray. And I think for mothers, fathers, and anyone involved in ministry in any way, shape, or form in this room, it is good for us all to remember this calling to exhort others, pointing them in the right direction.
We are called to encourage others, commending them when they go the right way, and we are to charge them, warning them when they are on the wrong path. And all of this is to be done to lead others to live their lives in a manner worthy of the God who is calling us.
Calling us? We pray prayerfully, calling our children into his own kingdom and his own glory. What a great reminder here at the end of verse 12 that all of this has to be done because he is calling us to his kingdom and to give him all the glory.
The centerpiece of all history, the centerpiece of all of this, is the cross of Christ. We exhort others to go to Jesus. We encourage them when they turn to Jesus, and we charge them and warn them when they turn away or refuse to go to Jesus.
And at the end of the day, we're not driving our kids or others we work with toward being just merely good people. We should be driving them toward being godly people who consider their lives as under the king and living for his glory.
And that requires that we lead them to the gospel of Jesus Christ.