A Biblical Model of Discipleship (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12) | Adult Sunday School

Good to see you all.

It's 9 .31. That extra minute is Daylight Savings Time minute of grace, okay? All the ones who have successfully sprung forward are here. So we're glad you're here, no matter what time you get here. And so this morning we're going to open our Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.

Why 1 Thessalonians 2 Is a Model of Biblical Discipleship

When you're asked to lead a Bible study or preach or fill the pulpit, you know, one time, it's always a bit of a challenge, at least it is for me, to kind of come up with a message and decide on what you could start and stop in just one session, right?

I mean, because you don't want to start something brand new and you don't want to finish what you haven't started. So it's always a little bit of a challenge to maybe find a passage that's sort of self-contained that you can work your way through in just one session.

And I know personally, I've always been very much edified by the biblical basics, right? No matter how long I walk with the Lord, I'm always edified when I hear the basic story of the Bible, the gospel.

And so I thought what I'd do this morning, and since there's nothing more basic to historic orthodox biblical Christianity than discipleship, I'd pick a passage that dealt with biblical discipleship. And I think this passage from 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, and we're going to be looking at verses 7 through 12 this morning, is a good model of biblical discipleship from the apostle.

Paul.

There's an outline, and if you haven't picked one up, there are some back there, and they've been floating around, so it's there for you to follow along with. I'm just going to have a few blanks for you to fill in this morning, not too many, just a few to help us on our way.

So this morning we're going to be looking at a biblical model of discipleship from the apostle Paul, or maybe you'd like to call it a discipleship model from the Bible. There are many places we could look, as you well know in Scripture, for models of discipleship.

Of course there's what we call the Great Commission from Matthew 28, 19 and 20, where our risen Lord said to His disciples, go make disciples, baptizing and teaching and so on, and many other ones throughout the book of Acts and so on as we move into the New Testament.

But I've always felt like this one from the apostle Paul really does capture what it means to disciple people. And so this morning we're going to be looking at 1 Thessalonians 2, 7 -12, a biblical model of discipleship, and let's commit our time to our Lord and ask His blessing on our study.

Our Father, we know we are totally dependent on You and Your Spirit to lead us and teach us this morning, and so as we open up Your Word this morning, Father, I pray that You would show us what You have for us, that You would be our teacher this morning, that You would show us how we are to disciple like Paul did, and Father, would You be glorified in all things through it.

Paul’s Missionary Journeys and the Thessalonian Church

In Jesus' name we ask it, amen. Well, when the apostle Paul set out on his second missionary journey, the Holy Spirit directed him and his little band, which included Silas, to visit the churches they had planted on the first missionary journey.

This is recorded in Acts 15, verses 35 -41. So when Paul and Barnabas had come full circle back to Antioch on the first missionary journey, where they had started from, they decided to go back and check the churches that they had planted.

And so it says in that passage, after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the Word of the Lord and see how they are. We are told that Paul and Barnabas then separated over the issue of John Mark.

You remember Mark had abandoned them on the first journey, and so when it came to taking him on the second one, there was a disagreement. And so they separated. And it says in verse 39 of that chapter, Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.

But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord, and he went through Cilicia, strengthening the churches. So Barnabas and John Mark went the same way they did on the first missionary journey.

They sailed to the island of Cyprus. But Paul took Silas and went the northern route, the land route. Acts chapter 16 opens with the little group moving through the cities along the northern route, and Luke records it this way.

Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer. But his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places. Remember, your genealogy was determined by your father. And even though Timothy's mother was Jewish, his father was a Gentile, so all the Jews would have considered him a Gentile.

So that was the reason that Paul circumcised him, so he would have some inroad with the Jewish people. That would have made him a proselyte to Judaism. You have a couple of different levels of converted Gentiles to Judaism in Scripture.

The full conversion would be called a proselyte. And most of them were women because it did require the men to be circumcised. The second, the little lower level with many of the men would have been what is called a God-fearer in Scripture.

This would have been Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. He was a Roman, and he was a Gentile, but he was a God-fearer in that he had converted to worshiping the God of the Jews. But then it says Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places.

For they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

You remember this was the issue of the Gentiles being admitted into the church. Can Gentiles actually become Christians without first becoming Jews? That was the issue. And of course the answer was yes, because salvation is by God's grace through faith.

Alone.

That includes the Gentiles. The Gentiles don't have to convert to Judaism first. And Luke records the result of that ministry that they had through those cities in the fourth of his six progress reports in Acts.

There's these series of progress reports all the way through Acts, and of the fourth one in chapter 16, verse 5, Luke says this, so the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

These progress reports are designed, they're put there to show God's success in what he's doing in the first 30 years of church history. He is building his church. Luke then records in Acts 16 that Paul wanted to travel northeast, but was redirected by the Holy Spirit through a vision to go west to Macedonia.

This is also when Luke himself joined Paul and his team. So, traveling northwest, they crossed the upper part of the Aegean Sea, and when they landed at Neapolis, they began traveling through the cities of Macedonia with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We're told that from Neapolis they went to Philippi, where they won some to Christ, including Lydia and her family. First place Paul went when he would go to a city would be to the synagogues where the.

Jews were.

This is in his obedience to Romans 1, verse 16. We like that verse, right, because it says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. I hear it quoted all the time, but rarely do I hear the whole sentence quoted.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, all, to the Jew first, also to the Greek. And if you track through the book of Acts, this is exactly what Paul did all the way through, clear to the end even.

At the end, when he was in prison, he couldn't go to the Jews in Rome, but he invited them to come to him, which is what they did. He obeyed that all the way through. And by the way, that is still in force.

The gospel must go to the Jew first. There are those that say, even in our day, they say, well, now see, because they rejected their Messiah. And when they did that, God was done with the Jews, okay? There's a little problem though, because in that verse there's a single verb that governs both those clauses.

The little Greek verb is, it's present tense, it is the power of God unto salvation. So if it used to be to the Jews first, but it's not anymore, guess what? Then it's not anymore the power of God to salvation, correct?

I don't think you want to go there, do you? It has to go to the Jews first. That's the priority. Well, when he's in Philippi, he had a little bit of a busy day. In one 24-hour period in the city of Philippi, after he led Lydia to Christ, he cast a demon from a slave girl who was saved and who then quit her practice of divination for profit, which enraged her owners, who couldn't use her to make money anymore, and who then dragged Silas and Paul into the marketplace before the city rulers, falsely accused them, which attracted a crowd, who also attacked them, and the magistrates then ordered Paul and Silas stripped of their clothes and beaten with rods, after which they were incarcerated in the innermost part of the prison with their feet locked in stocks.

But that only lasted until midnight, when a massive earthquake wrecked the jail, opened the doors, busted loose all the prisoners from their chains and stocks. The jailer thought everyone had escaped, so he was going to commit suicide with his sword.

Instead, the Apostle Paul led him and his whole family to Christ. The jailer then washed Paul and Silas' wounds, and Paul and Silas baptized him and his whole family, after which they all shared a fellowship meal in the jailer's house.

Just another day in the life of Paul. Eventually, they left Philippi, passed through the next two cities along the Roman highway, which is called the Via Ignatia, and they arrived in Thessalonica. Since its founding in 315 B .C., Thessalonica had become a very significant city.

It was not only the largest city in the province, it was also the provincial capital. And we're told by Luke in Acts chapter 17 that Paul went to the Jewish synagogue in Thessalonica, as was his habit, in obedience to Romans 1 .16, for three Sabbaths, to reason with the Jews from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah, again, in obedience to Romans 1 .16.

And in Philippi, there were many converts, both Jews and Gentiles, because he did that first with the Jews. But also, like Philippi, in Thessalonica, there was tremendous opposition. And if you read the account, you see that he, after those three Sabbaths, essentially got kicked out of town.

He had to leave.

Paul was more than an evangelist. As much as he could, before he was forced out of town, or beaten, or, you know, stoned and left for dead, he would do what he could to bring his converts to spiritual maturity in Jesus Christ.

In other words, he would want to disciple them. And he understood that it involved sharing Christ and sharing the gospel, but it was more than that. It was sharing his own life in the discipling process.

We think Paul was in Thessalonica somewhere around three weeks. That's not much time before he got kicked out. But when he wrote back to them in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, he relies on his spirit-led memory, of course, to recount what he did there, but he also relies on the memory of the Thessalonians.

Having only been there for three weeks, you know, that's not much time to make an impression on people, right? But apparently he did. So, if we want to carry out the Great Commission to make disciples, this account, I think, is a great model.

It's not the only model, but it's a really good one, I believe, and it's an excellent.

One.

Give Them Tender Affection

So this morning, from the example of Paul, we're going to see this model of biblical discipleship, and we're going to see four gifts every Christian can give those he disciples, he or she disciples, okay?

Four gifts every Christian can give those he disciples. The first thing we see, this is verse 7, 1 Thessalonians 2, give them tender affection. Give them tender affection. Now it might seem a little strange to hear the Apostle Paul talk like this, okay, describing his ministry to believers in this way, but this was a man who was not afraid to express his deep concern and his care to those he ministered to, to the Roman Christians when he wrote them.

Of course, this is considered his most doctrinally profound letter that he wrote, right? But he begins by expressing gratitude to God for their faith, and then he says this, I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

Later on in that same letter, he exhorts them to love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor. And to the Christians at Philippi, he wrote this, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart. For you are all partakers of me, of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.

And as he closes that same letter, Philippians 4 .1, Paul says, therefore, my brothers, summary statement, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord my.

Beloved.

He ends that letter using the very same word, our Lord was called by his father at his baptism when he said, my beloved son. It's of course the very familiar word, agape in the Greek, which speaks of God's faithful undeserved covenant love.

Covenant love. It's not love that's just based on emotion or feeling, even though emotion and feeling are there, it's based on a covenant commitment to love that other person. Even to the Corinthian Christians.

This is the one that I would get a real kick out of, to the Corinthian Christians, okay? The apostle Paul still considered them, and the way he identifies with them, he's an apostle Paul and yet he identifies.

Now, if you didn't know anything about the Corinthian assembly, and they had some serious problems, right? I mean, they got some problems there. But listen to how Paul addresses them. This is the first nine verses of his first letter to them.

If you didn't know anything about them, but you just heard this from the apostle Paul, what would your impression be? He says, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ and our brother, Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our.

Lord.

Now, if you didn't know anything about that congregation, what would you think from that introduction the way Paul describes them? I mean, that almost reads like a soteriological study of this group of people, right?

You can almost check all the boxes of salvation. They're elect, they're gifted, they're called, and so on. And Paul is identifying with them. He doesn't say, well, you Corinthians got so many problems.

No, he doesn't do that. Your Lord and ours. They're part of the church. They're part of the whole church. This is how Paul related to people. And even though the very next verse, he begins dealing with all of the problems in the Corinthian assembly, right?

And as you walk through first Corinthians, Paul probably got a list from somebody that said, here's what's going on at Corinth. And yet when he wrote them back, he still first commends them for who they are in Christ.

But then of course he has to deal with the spiritual problems that are in that church. But even as he does later on in chapter four, verse 14, Paul says, I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

That's what he says about them. Paul discipled with gentleness and care, unlike the false preachers and teachers of his day and our day, he didn't use or abuse the sheep. And he was not afraid to express his love, his concern, like a loving parent with beloved children.

In fact, over a hundred times in his letters, Paul identifies with the Christians that God has given him to minister to. This is the apostle Paul. But no matter who they are, if they're people he's ministering to, he identifies with them.

He calls them brothers or brethren. And of course, it's not just the men, it includes the women, all believers in these congregations. He uses this term 20 times in his letter to the Romans, 10 times in Galatians.

In these two letters, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, he uses it 50 times. He calls them my brothers, you're my brothers, brethren. And in these two letters, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 28 times he refers to them as brothers.

This is how Paul ministered. He ministered by identifying with the people he ministered to. He didn't lord his apostleship over them, even though he could have, he does say that elsewhere, you know, but he identifies with them and he gave them tender affection.

Now if you think that Paul was some kind of a wimpy weakling because he ministered with gentleness, okay, let me remind you of some of what he endured. His life was not easy. His second letter to the Corinthians gives us a little snapshot into what he went through.

He says in 2nd Corinthians 4, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our flesh.

Did you get what he said there? His suffering and the death that he had to deal with all the time was a prerequisite for him to share the life of Christ in other people's lives. That's amazing. He also told the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians 6, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, okay?

Now you might think, Paul, this is the Apostle Paul, he's going to commend himself to people,.

Okay?

Yeah, I'm the Apostle Paul, I'm a brilliant Old Testament scholar. I was trained at the feet of the foremost Jewish scholar, his name was Gamaliel, he's a former rabbi teacher, he's an expert in the Old Testament, and called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.

But he doesn't say that here. How does Paul commend himself? Every way? By great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.

How's that for expressing your spiritual bona fides, you know, to congregations, you know? That wouldn't go over too well today on social media, right? Hey, let's get this guy to speak at the next big conference.

What happened?

What's he been doing? Well, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, yeah, let's get that guy, right? But this is how Paul commended himself. And that same letter, he gives this amazing description of his ministry, 2nd Corinthians 11.

He says, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, often near death, five times I received at the hands of the Jews forty lashes less one. Now what that is, this forty lashes less one, or thirty-nine stripes, it's referred to elsewhere, in the Jewish law, and this is Deuteronomy 25, 1 through 3, one of the punishments for a convicted person for certain transgressions was being lashed, right?

But what they did in order to not make it too severe, they limited it to forty. But, you know, centuries later, the Jews had taken the law and they had built this massive structure around the law to protect the law from being broken, right?

Because they were good law-keeping people, they thought. And so what they did, they subtracted one from the forty. First lesson there, don't try to be more holy than God, okay? Don't do it, it doesn't work.

But they wanted to protect the law, so they subtracted one. So when they would beat some guy, you know, they would only whack him thirty-nine times. What this involved was, basically, they would strip your clothes off and wrap you around some immovable object, like a tree or something, and they would take a rod, you know, something like a nice green broomstick-sized stick, you know, and they would get some linebacker type, and he'd swing that thing with both hands, and he'd lay that across your back and your backside, according to them, thirty-nine times.

They took away one, you know, because when you're beating the living daylights out of some poor pilgrim, you know, and all the excitement and the blood and the gore and the screaming, you don't want to break the law and hit him forty-one times, you know, oh, that'd be terrible.

But that's what Paul's talking about here. He had that treatment five times. And by the way, if you got that from the Romans, the Romans weren't under the law, okay? They would just beat you with a cat and nine tails until you were almost dead.

So they weren't constrained by any numbers. But Paul suffered that. And then he says, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And apart from the other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Paul just didn't have one church he was concerned about, all the churches. This man was no weakling, okay?

This is one tough, salty apostle, okay? And yet he says, we were gentle among you, okay? Didn't get bitter, didn't get angry, didn't take out his frustrations on the people he ministered to. We were gentle among you.

The word gentle is actually the word for baby or infant. Very interesting sentence, the way he constructs it. Almost like a two-fold metaphor there, because we were gentle like a baby, but like a nursing.

Mother.

And of course, there is no more tender picture in life, in my opinion, than a mother nursing her baby. Even us men, if Paul could do it, so could we in the power of the Holy Spirit. All of us big, rough, tough, rugged, elk-killing, football-watching, oil-changing, tree-chopping, firewood-cutting, barbecue bratwurst-consuming, hairy-armed and back macho men, we too can and should disciple with gentleness.

So give them tender affection. The women are laughing, the men are all looking at their arms. So if the concept of discipling with gentleness describes the how of discipling, maybe we can put this second gift in the category of the what, okay?

So no matter who you disciple, make sure you give them the gospel, because that's what.

Paul did.

Give Them the Gospel

This is Roman numeral two, give them the gospel. Verse eight, so being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, stop right there, notice how the gospel presentation is within the sphere or the context of his close, gentle, caring relationship with the people he ministered.

To.

You might say, well, first step of discipleship, share the gospel. Well, it's important to share the gospel, but Paul did it within the context of his relationship, his care and his concern for the people he ministered to.

But he did share the gospel from the earliest days of his ministry. Paul proclaimed the gospel, the good news that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die as a substitute on the cross, full substitute, full payment for all of the sins of all who would ever believe in him.

And then Paul would always call those he preached to turn from their sin and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This was his message. His gospel message included calling people, urging people to repent of their sins.

In Acts chapter 20, when Paul met with the Ephesian elders at the end of his third missionary journey, remember he spent three years in Ephesus. And so when he was headed back to Jerusalem, he didn't travel up to Ephesus, but he called those elders to come meet him at a town near the coast called Miletus, because Paul had to get back down to Jerusalem.

And when he did that in Acts chapter 20, he said this, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Later in verse 27, Paul said, I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. For Paul, sharing the gospel included calling people to repentance. The whole counsel of God had to include urging people, encouraging people to turn from their sin.

Paul preached repentance. And it's an amazing thing to see in some circles of evangelical Christianity today, that message is carefully avoided. They don't do it. Even though the biblical definition of the gospel includes calling people to repentance.

Maybe they think they're going to offend people by the sharp tone of the message or a message that indicts them in their sin. But that's like inviting somebody to come to the hospital and just sit in the waiting.

Room.

Right?

Never be seen by a physician, never be diagnosed, never be treated. You can't do that. In Luke 24, which is the Luke's version of the Great Commission, you know, we have Matthew 28. But the end of Luke's gospel, the resurrected Christ is meeting with his disciples on the road to Emmaus.

And listen to what it says. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

Those are clear instructions from the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Savior, to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. Even in his own ministry, recorded by Mark, in Mark's gospel, the first chapter, right after he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Mark records this, verse 14 of chapter 1.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Jesus preached repentance.

That's a definition of preaching the gospel, okay? It's there. And this is exactly what Paul did as well. And if we are to obey our Lord's command, follow the example of Paul and our Lord, we must proclaim the good news, the gospel, and call people to repent of their sins.

Because when he comes back, he's going to come back as judge, and he's coming back here to this planet to judge. It's exactly what Paul did with everyone he ministered to, including the Thessalonian Christians.

And how did they respond? Well, we're told in chapter 1, verse 9, and he's commending them for their faith, even though he was only there for three weeks or so. He commends them for their faith, for their walk with Jesus Christ.

And he says, not only has the word of their salvation gone forward, in verse 8, for not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything.

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. That's repentance right there. Repentance is something that you can see, right?

If somebody says, yeah, I know the Lord, well, that's a statement of their internal spiritual status, right? But what the Bible does, it talks about that, but then it gives you something that you can verify objectively.

And this is what Paul's talking about here. You turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and that was something that was visible, something that was obvious. The repentance was something that you could actually see.

Paul's message, his gospel message was always the same, clear, bold, pointed, Christ-centered, and uncompromising. Listen to what he says in chapter 2, verses 3 through 6 of 1 Thessalonians, and he describes his own gospel preaching.

This is a passage that's right before the one we're looking at. He talks about how he preached the gospel and that he was absolutely true to it. He said, Our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 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.

For we never came with flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, God as witness, nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.

He says a very similar thing to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4. He said, We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Unlike the fakes, the phonies, the frauds, the charlatans of his day and of ours, Paul didn't preach the gospel designed to appeal to the flesh to get a big following. He preached the truth. He was not a flatterer or a man pleaser, and he did not preach to take their money.

Paul didn't come to the Thessalonian Christians to get, he came to give, to give them the gospel because he knew it was and still is the power of God to salvation. So, give them tender affection, but in the process of that relationship, give them the gospel as well, and call them to turn to Jesus Christ.

Give Them Yourself in Authentic Spirituality

Well, there's a third gift we can all give those we disciple, and this one is really personal. How personal is this? Well, Roman Numeral 3, give them yourself in authentic spirituality. It doesn't get much more personal than that.