Timothy's Good News - 10

Well, as you know, the uncertainties about the church in Thessalonica caused great anguish in the heart of the Apostle Paul, who had been forced out of that city prematurely because of intense persecution and had not been able to establish that church as firmly upon the foundation of God's word as he wanted to do. And now from Corinth, down in the south part of Greece, in Achaea, he is writing back to the church at Thessalonica because he just cannot get them out of his mind. For many months he had no recent information regarding their spiritual welfare, and finally, because he was keenly aware of their vulnerability as new Christians and because of the intensity of Satan's attacks upon them, he sent Timothy, his co-laborer in the Gospel, back to Thessalonica to check on them and to report on their welfare to the Apostle Paul. Have they succumbed to Satan's temptations?

Has their faith failed? Paul needs to know. And so Timothy journeyed the 220 miles by land from Athens to Thessalonica, a journey that would have taken him at least 11 days. And he probably ministered there in the church for several weeks and then made that return trip of 11 days back, and so altogether we would suppose that he was probably gone for two months, during which time Paul was left alone and during which time Paul moved from Corinth over to Athens. Timothy had gone to Thessalonica, Silas presumably had gone to Philippi, but now both of them have returned. And now Paul writes this first Thessalonian epistle.

What he said up until this time about all of the anguish that he's endured took place before he wrote the epistle. Timothy returns and gives his good report, and so now Paul is writing with joy and exuberance and thanksgiving because of the report which Timothy brought. Everything changed with this good report. And so today we look at Timothy's good news and we see how our spiritual health affects the health of those around us in the body of Christ. We will look at the report in verse 6, the impact of the report in verses 7 and 8 and the response of Paul to this report in verses 9 and 10.

The report, verse 6. But now that Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith and love, that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us as we also to see you. You can see the significant contrast between what Paul has previously been writing and what he now writes, indicated by that initial word but, or but now, great contrast. But now, but now that Timothy has returned, but now with this good news, Paul's great anguish of soul has been removed.

Paul's concerns about satanic temptation in this church has now been dissipated. Now that Timothy has returned, everything has changed because the report that Timothy brought was good news. And the word that is used for good news here is almost always, elsewhere, only used for the gospel of Christ. The word gospel means good news and this Greek word is almost always reserved for the gospel, which is good news. But Paul uses it here for the report of Timothy and I think that tells us that Timothy's report was such good news that it caused in Paul a response similar to the change that took place in his heart when he received the gospel of Christ. Paul is not saying that this report from Timothy in any way equals the good news of the gospel. It's not that significant, but nevertheless, this good news brought tremendous change to the heart of Paul, so much so that he called it the gospel. Timothy brought a gospel. He brought good news and oh, what good news it was indeed. I've had a number of people over the years to tell me that they were saved for a number of years until they came to understand the doctrines of grace and when they came to understand the doctrines of grace, it was almost like being saved all over again. The news was so good.

It was so life-changing. It was so powerful in their souls that it was almost like the gospel coming to them all over again. Well, that's how Paul describes this news that came from Timothy.

It was so powerful that he describes it as the gospel. And Paul gives a threefold evidence of the healthy condition of the spiritual church, or maybe I should say he reports on Timothy's threefold evidence of the healthy condition of the Thessalonian church and what indicates their spiritual health, their good spiritual health. It is number one, their faith, number two, their love, and number three, their affection, and I'll describe that a little more fully in a moment. But first of all, their faith.

Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith, and of course we recognize that's where the Christian life begins. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without faith, we cannot embrace the gospel of Christ. Without faith, we cannot come into gospel blessings. And so Paul is using the word faith, but he obviously means faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the gospel of Christ, your faith in the one true God, because most of them had come from a pagan background, and all of their lives they'd had something that they would call faith that was placed in the idols of their false religions, but that had gone out the door when the gospel of Jesus Christ came in. And now Paul says, I am encouraged when I learn that your faith in Christ is still there. It's still strong. Satan's attacks have not caused it to diminish one bit.

Oh, how grateful we are. No defections. Paul, I think from the way he wrote previously, fully intended that there might be at least a few defections in the church, that he might hear a report that, well, most people are doing well, but this one has gone back into the world, and that one has defected back to idolatry, and this one no longer meets with the people of God and no longer claims to trust in Christ.

But no, the report is good. Everybody is still believing. And Paul was singing with joy, maybe the song we sing, keep them, Lord, oh, keep them cleaving to thyself and still believing. Their faith.

Number two, their love. Faith is directed toward God and toward His word. Love is directed toward God and to others. Love is the inevitable result of saving faith. We love Him because He first loved us.

But think about that statement in this light, and maybe you've never thought about it this way before. That statement does not say we now can love Him. We now are enabled to love Him, though all of that would be true. But it says we love Him. We do love Him because He first loved us. It's not a possibility.

It is a certainty. When our faith is real and genuine, it causes our hearts to rise to God above, first of all, in gratitude and love, and then secondly, toward others around us, also in similar love. And that, by the way, constitutes the two great commandments, right?

What are they? Number one, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind and strength. And number two, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And Paul said, wonderful, wonderful.

I'm hearing this report. Your faith is strong, and faith can't really be seen. So how did Timothy know their faith was strong?

Well, here is one of two evidences, one of a very significant evidence, namely their love was strong. Love toward God, love toward others had not diminished but had, in fact, grown. Two of that great trio of spiritual fruits that we find in 1 Corinthians 13, 13, where we read, now abides three things, faith and hope and love, and the greatest of these is what? Love. That's an interesting text, and we could analyze that some other day.

But nevertheless, faith and love are very strong in the Thessalonian church. Why not hope? I don't know. But I do know that hope has to do with our understanding of things to come, a proper understanding of the return of Christ, a proper understanding of our eternal state with Him. And they were stumbling over some of those things. They had some questions about that. Paul deals with that in the last part of the chapter.

Maybe he wasn't satisfied that their hope was as well informed and therefore as strong as it ought to be. But oh, no problem with their faith and no problem with their love. It is strong.

It is shining. It is evident. And that assures me that all is well. Because when our love is weak, that's an indication that our faith is weak. And when our love is absent, when we don't love others, when we don't love the people of God in particular as we ought to, that's an indication that our faith is gone or maybe never was truly there to begin with. We don't like to believe that.

We don't like to admit that. We don't want to say that that's so, but that's what the Bible indicates. When faith is strong, love is strong. When faith is weak, love is weak. But there's a third evidence of their good spiritual health. He says he brought us good news of your faith, number one, and love, number two, and number three, that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us as we also to see you.

Now, I've called this their affection, which, of course, is in some ways a synonym for the word love. But it is their affection toward a particular subset of the body of Christ. Their faith was strong toward God, toward His word.

Their love was strong toward others, particularly the people of God. But then there is one particular relationship that is also of very great importance to Paul, and that is their relationship to Him. And Paul knew that the enemies of the cross had been slandering him to the Thessalonian believers.

They had been very critical of him. They were doing everything they could to pull the Thessalonians' affections away from Paul. And Paul knew that his absence from them, the fact that he had been torn away from them so quickly, so prematurely, without proper preparation and had not been able to get back for a long period of time, had also no doubt, if not did not diminish their affection toward him, at least it gave great opportunity for that to happen. And he's very concerned about that. What is the Thessalonians' attitude toward the apostle Paul?

Timothy says it's good, it's strong, you have nothing to worry about. They always have good remembrance of us, that's the missionary team of course, greatly desiring to see us as we also do see you. Paul had a great desire to see the Thessalonians, expressed earlier in this epistle, but he finds out that their desire to see him is just as great as his desire to see them. He can't wait to see them face to face. They can't wait to see him face to face. They long to see him again in spite of slanderous critics, which Paul knew existed. They long to see him again in spite of extended separation, which just tends to wear our affections more thin with the passing of time.

But in this case, that has not happened amazingly, miraculously, it has not happened. It's a good evidence of their spiritual health. Now why is this so significant? Well, because Paul was God's appointed messenger who brought them the word of God. He preached the gospel in Thessalonica.

No one else had done that before him. They had never heard the word of God before. And God sent a messenger by the name of Paul, the apostle, to preach the word of God.

And the ones that he's writing to had believed it. They'd been saved by it. They had been called out of darkness into light, called out of paganism into the fellowship of the saints of God. And the one that God had used to accomplish that in their lives was the apostle Paul. And since Paul was God's messenger to them, Paul realized that their spiritual health, in part, depended upon their having a good relationship with him.

It depended, in part, upon their having a good attitude toward him. Maybe you've never thought of it that way before, but it's as clear as can be in this passage. In other words, what Paul is saying is, if you love the message, you'll love the messenger in regard to the word of God. If you love the message, you'll love the messenger who brought it to you. And if you reject the message, you will probably also reject the messenger. That's the way it usually goes, doesn't it? We've all heard, don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the message. But that's what we tend to do. Our love, our warmth, our affection toward the messenger can turn on a dime if the messenger brings some truth that we are not willing to receive.

If we won't accept that, then suddenly that messenger is no good any longer, at least in our minds. And so Paul understood something that a lot of people don't understand, and that is one measure of your spiritual health is the regard with which you esteem faithful messengers of God's word. And Paul was delighted to learn that the Thessalonians regarded him with as much affection as they had when he was with them. The evidences of their good spiritual health, number one, their faith toward God, number two, their love toward the people of God, and number three, their love toward the Apostle Paul. Paul says, I'm convinced things are well with the Thessalonian believers.

That's the report. What impact did this report have on the Apostle Paul, and he tells us two things that are closely related in verses seven and eight. Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, we were comforted concerning you by your faith, for now we live if you stand fast in the Lord.

What was the result? Number one, it lightened Paul's burden, and number two, it invigorated Paul's labors. This report lightened Paul's burden.

His anxieties were removed. His personal afflictions were made lighter. Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, we were comforted, we were encouraged, we were strengthened concerning you by your faith. And it's clear that Paul is not talking simply about the anxiety that he had concerning their welfare, but he's talking about the whole range of persecutions and afflictions and difficulties which he faced. And all of those were more difficult, all of those burdens were more heavy when his relationship with them was unknown or uncertain, and he feared the worst. But now that their relationship is good, the report is excellent. The encouragement is strong. Suddenly, Paul's burdens have gotten lighter.

They don't weigh him down so much. His bodily afflictions, of which Paul had many. In fact, probably it was some bodily affliction that kept him from being able to travel back to Thessalonica. He wanted to go. He said, Satan hindered.

Satan kept me from going. Now, Satan didn't keep Timothy from going, so whatever kept them from going was something that pertained uniquely to the apostle Paul. It might have been something else, but it probably was his own physical condition. He had a lot of physical problems, many of which had come upon him because of persecutions, the beatings, the treatment that he'd received.

And so bodily afflictions and persecutions that had weighed Paul down over all of the years of his ministry. Think about how he was treated in those cities in Galatia. One, in Lystra, he was actually stoned and left for dead. In fact, may have died and been resurrected.

We really don't know. Remember how he was treated in Macedonia, how he was beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, and how he was mistreated in Thessalonica and Berea. Think about how he was scorned and was ridiculed in Athens. And he tells us that when he came to Corinth, his heart was filled with fear and anxiety to the extent that the Lord actually appeared to him in a vision of the night and said, Paul, don't be afraid.

I have many people yet in the city. But he describes the great weight of his bodily afflictions and he describes the great burden of his persecutions. In addition to the weight of his ministry, he took it seriously. It weighed very heavily upon his spiritual shoulders, if I could use that term. He carried his churches, the many churches that God had allowed him to establish, he carried all of those congregations in his heart. He never let them get far from his thoughts and his prayers. And the possibility that the church at Thessalonica was not doing well just caused all of those burdens to weigh Paul down further and further and further, almost to sink him. And when he heard that they were doing well, suddenly that 10-ton boulder that was on his shoulder felt like a feather. It just wafted away.

It was gone. And so the impact of Timothy's report lightened Paul's burden. And that reminds us that our spiritual health and our attitudes have a greater impact upon others than we realize. When we get out of sorts, it affects our family, doesn't it?

You know that it does. It affects our marriage. It affects our children. It affects our friends. It affects the people that we work with. It affects our church. It affects our spiritual leaders.

It has a detrimental impact upon others around us. And conversely, when our hearts are filled with joy, when our hearts are filled with faith, when we're rejoicing in the goodness of God and His blessings in our lives, that joy, that enthusiasm, that strong faith spills over to others, it lifts our family, it lifts our friends, it lifts our co-workers, particularly those who know the Lord. It lifts members of our church. It lifts our spiritual leaders.

And that's exactly what's going on now. So the impact of Timothy's report lightened Paul's burden. And secondly, it invigorated Paul's labors, verse 8. He says, For now we live if you stand fast in the Lord. Now we live if you stand fast. If you don't stand fast, we don't live.

And obviously that's a figure of speech. Paul doesn't mean that he's going to die physically. But we live. Some translations say really live. If you stand fast in the Lord, we live with purpose that we didn't have before. If you stand fast in the Lord, we live with enthusiasm and vigor and joy that we didn't have before.

If you stand fast in the Lord, we feel alive. If you don't, we feel dead. We feel lifeless. We feel numb. We feel like we're walking around, but there's just no joy, no life, no energy, no vigor. We're just numb. We're just almost lifeless.

We all know that feeling. And Paul said, Timothy's report of your good spiritual health has caused us, the missionary team, and Paul in particular, to have new life, new enthusiasm, new joy, new vigor, new energy for the work of the Lord. Now we feel alive and able to do far more in the work of the Lord than we could have before.

Because anxiety and difficulties drain enthusiasm from our lives, but encouragement energizes our enthusiasm for life. Which raises the question, if we're feeling drained, as Paul was until Timothy came, how do we address that? When we're feeling lifeless, when we're feeling numb, when we're feeling like Paul was before Timothy came, how do we deal with that? Well, we have to ask God to help us to rise above our circumstances. As long as we're focusing on our circumstances alone, there's no way to lift that burden until the circumstances change. But, but, if we can raise our focus above our circumstances to God above and begin to think about all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ, which don't depend a bit upon our finances, they don't depend a bit upon our health, they don't depend a bit upon the relationships that we have in the world around us. Yes, those all affect us detrimentally at times, but our relationship with Christ is unaffected by those things. Our salvation is unaffected by those things.

Our hope for the future is unaffected by those things. And so ask God to help us to rise above the circumstances. When you know somebody who's down, who's depressed is the term we as generally use today, a mere little pep talk isn't going to do them a lot of good, but if you can help them spiritually, you can help them. So what we have to focus on is primarily two things. Number one, a right relationship with God and number two, a good relationship with others.

It's simple, but it's difficult. Right relationship with God beginning, of course, with salvation. Some people are depressed and will never be otherwise until they come to understand their need of Christ and come to Him for salvation when they lay their burden at the foot of the cross, then it's gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone. Yes, my sins are gone. Now my soul is free and in my heart's a song buried in the deepest sea.

Yes, that's good enough for me. I shall live eternally. Praise God. My sins are G-O-N-E, gone. Salvation.

Sometimes even saved people have a defective relationship with God. We get defiled by our sins and by the world in which we live. It's like the dust that got on the feet of the disciples who were wearing their sandals from place to place. And so Jesus washed their feet in John chapter 13. And Peter said, oh, not just my feet, all of me, Lord. And Peter said, no, you don't need to be washed all over. You've already been cleansed.

You're saved, but your feet need to be washed daily. And if we're not keeping up a good relationship with God, if we're not going to Him daily to confess our sins and to ask Him to inspect our heart and to reestablish fellowship with Him, then it's very likely that we will get into bad condition spiritually. We may get very depressed. And so first of all, we need to help ourselves. We can't really help others out of their doldrums if we're in the doldrums. But then when we are in a good place spiritually, if we can help somebody else to understand why they're feeling that way and how to take that need to God and allow Him to deal with it, that will help them.

And then, of course, if there are broken relationships with others, we need to learn how to repair those relationships, and that will address the need. We move on number third to the response. How does Paul respond to all of this? We see the report. We see the impact that it had upon him.

So now how does he respond to all of this? In verse 9 says, For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God, night and day, praying exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith. A threefold response, joy, thanksgiving, and prayer. Joy, for all the joy with which we rejoice. Paul's joy was now greater than his anxiety was before.

Amazing. Their well-being produced great joy in his heart. Their good spiritual health affected his disposition and filled his heart with joy. And Paul's filled with joy, not because of material blessings, but because of spiritual blessings and the spiritual blessings of others for whom he had a great concern.

And he focused upon God. The reason for all of his joy came from God. We are filled with joy before our God. That's the ultimate source of joy.

So number one, joy. Number two, thanksgiving, which is directed to God, of course. What thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we rejoice for your sake before our God?

What thanks can we render to God for you, thanksgiving directed to God and appropriate for the circumstances, and a vibrant thanksgiving. And Paul is saying, whatever thanksgiving I give is insufficient to the greatness of what God has done. It's not possible to give God as much thanks as he deserves. It wasn't possible for Paul.

It isn't possible for you or for me. But that shouldn't keep us from doing it. In fact, that should spur us on to do it all the more. Give him thanks regularly, again and again. The simple act of giving God thanks goes a long ways towards resetting our attitude and getting things back in proper order.

How many times is that inserted? Sometimes just in passing in scripture. I'm thinking of Paul's words in Philippians chapter four where he says, be anxious for nothing.

Here's this anxiety again. But in everything with prayer and thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. We pray to God, but with thanksgiving. There's a certain attitude in prayer that makes it beneficial. There is this giving of thanks constantly and regularly that is so important to having a right relationship with God. And so Paul's response is joy.

Paul's response is thanksgiving. And Paul's response, not surprisingly, therefore, is prayer. Verse 10, night and day praying exceedingly, that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith. The practice of prayer and the petitions of prayer are dealt with here. The practice of prayer should be regular, night and day. The practice of prayer should be earnest, exceedingly. That's an idea that has the idea of earnest prayer, serious prayer, intense prayer, not a just zip, zip, zip, I'm done prayer, but engaging in earnest prayer regularly. And there are a lot of petitions in prayer that are appropriate, but here Paul prays for, number one, personal fellowship, and number two, fruitful ministry. He prays that we may see your face. That's what he's been longing for all along. And once again, we're reminded of how important is this matter of face-to-face fellowship.

Nothing can completely replace that. Paul is writing a letter to them which, by the work of the Spirit of God, turns out to be inspired. It is the Word of God.

It is an inspired letter. It is Scripture. Paul is sending them a portion of Scripture. But Paul says, that's not enough. I'm praying that I can see you face-to-face.

Wow, that must be pretty important. Paul thinks so. Do we agree with him about that? He prays that their personal fellowship may be renewed. It wasn't for several more years, but we think eventually Paul did get back there.

He prays for fruitful ministry, that I might be able to come and perfect what is lacking in your faith, to perfect, to supply, to complete what is lacking in your faith. Now Timothy told them they had strong faith, but it wasn't perfect faith. Paul knew that they still needed to be taught some things. His teaching had been interrupted. He'd been cast out of the city prematurely. He needed to get back and teach them some things.

It was clear they didn't understand what they needed to about the second coming of Christ. And Paul teaches some of those things in this epistle. But Paul said, I need to get back.

I need to strengthen your faith. I need to instruct you some more. He desires to complete what he had started in instructing them, which suggests to me that Paul had a particular basic curriculum in mind that he wanted to teach to every church that he established.

But he hadn't gotten all the way through it before he got kicked out of town. Now I don't know what he had, whether he had a church planting syllabus. These are the doctrines that I must teach them. I cannot leave until I've taught them those. And then if the Lord raises up pastors to follow me and preach the word of God, they can take them on to other things. But I've got to teach them this. Paul got interrupted.

He wasn't able to do that. And he's longing to get back and to teach them what he had not taught them before. What this tells us about our faith is no matter how strong our faith may be, it needs to be strengthened. In fact, no matter how strong it is, it is going to be weakened if it is not continually strengthened. Our faith is like a muscle. If you neglect your muscles, they grow weaker. If you exercise your muscles, they grow stronger. That's a simple fact of life. Now I have learned, I've learned a lot of things, I've learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content.

So I say what I say next with that background in mind. But nevertheless, I have learned I will never again strengthen my muscles to be like they were when I was 20 and 30. It ain't going to happen. I try.

It ain't possible. But I know this. If I don't exercise at all, they're going to be a whole lot weaker than if I do. I may not be able to bring them back to that peak level of yesteryear, but I can, by God's help, make them as strong as they are able to be at this point in my life. That's not the same point as they were 20, 30, 40 years ago.

But if I don't exercise, they're not going to be what they're capable of being now. And it's the same way with our faith. If we're not continually exercising our faith, if we're not continually adding to our faith, if we're not continually growing in our faith, then our faith is going to get weaker. I don't care how long you've been saved. I don't care how strong your faith is.

If it isn't continually being renewed, it is going to be weakened. Furthermore, no matter how much we know, we need reminders. An awful lot of what I preach is what I preached before. I hope it doesn't sound exactly the same, but God's Word is written that way. I keep running across truths that I have preached from other passages of Scripture. Now we come at them a little bit differently, a little bit different wording, a little bit different perspective. But if you boil them down, in many ways it's the same thing again, the same thing again.

Why is that? Because we need reminders. We forget. Paul said, I've got to get back to you. I've got to preach God's Word to you. I've got to make sure you haven't forgotten what I have preached to you before. Well, there are a lot of lessons in this passage, but let me conclude with two, and they both have to do with our relationships in the body of Christ, the first one more general and the second one more specific. But this reminds us that brotherly love is a fruit of genuine faith, and therefore we can check the health of our faith by the health of our love. Let's not deceive ourselves into thinking our faith is strong if our love is weak. It's not.

That's a deception. And we need to beware of becoming disaffected, and that's a word that we don't often use, but it's used in this context and needs to be understood. What does it mean to become disaffected?

Well, it means that our affections have been damaged or destroyed. They have become disaffected. Disaffected with what? Well, I'm thinking about disaffected toward the people of God. And what is the evidence of that? The evidence of becoming disaffected is that we don't want to be in the presence of those people anymore. You see, Paul was very concerned that the Thessalonians might not want to see his face again, but that might be the proof that they didn't love him like they used to, that they had become disaffected toward him. And he was thrilled to overflowing joy when he found out that they desired to see him just as much as he desired to see them, because Paul knew good and well that if they didn't, that was an evidence that they had become disaffected. Are you listening to me?

We've all had the experience of getting into some kind of a bad relationship with somebody else, and what's one of the first things that happens? I don't want to see them. If they're coming this way, I'm going that way. That's right. That's the way it works, isn't it, Thelma? But that's an evidence that something is wrong, and we deceive ourselves into thinking that whatever is wrong is all what's wrong with the other person. We've got to acknowledge that at least part of what's wrong is what's wrong with us, and we've got to be aware of becoming disaffected. Our unwillingness to see people is an evidence that something is not right with our faith. It's not as healthy as it can be.

It's not as healthy as it ought to be. When we get to the place where we don't want to be in church with the people of God, that's an evidence that something is weak in our faith, and I'm not talking about those who because of health are unable. I'm not talking about that. Many, like Paul, desire, longingly desire to see your face again and just cannot, and for such people, our hearts go out to them and we pray for them. We know that their condition is not what I'm talking about now, but when you get to the place where you just don't want to go to be with your Christian friends again, you need to realize Satan is telling you the problem is with them, the problem is with the church, the problem is over there, and God's word is telling you, start here. That's right, in your heart, start here.

That's where you need to check it out. And you see our disaffection is augmented by two things that Paul mentions in this passage. Number one, separation, and number two, slander. He knew the critics were slandering him, and he was afraid that that disaffected the Thessalonians toward him, and he was so thrilled to find out that they had resisted that.

And his long separation from them that he did not desire but had been forced upon him, he was afraid that that was causing disaffection, and he was delighted to find out that it had not. But again, when we are separated a long time from the people of God, it tends to bring a weakening of our affections. And if we get into that nasty habit of gossip and criticism, it's going to affect our love for one another.

So you've got to cultivate good relationships with the people of God, then the same principle, but now more specifically with spiritual leaders, with pastors. You need to realize how important your relationship to God's messenger is to your spiritual health. Separation from God's messengers will damage your health. It contributes to your problem. Your criticism of God's messengers will contribute to that problem.

Are they perfect people? No, but if they're faithful, you should be honoring and upholding them and not criticizing them. Everybody knows what it means to have roast preacher for lunch when you have roast preacher for lunch when it's not a matter of impure doctrine or something that really needs to be confronted, in which case you need to go to them. But roast preacher for lunch affects your family. Roast preacher for lunch affects other people. Roast preacher for lunch affects you. And I'm not saying that because I'm the preacher.

I'd be tempted to. I feel justified. I feel compelled to say it because of what Paul is teaching us here.

I've had things like this happen a number of times, but I'm thinking of one specific instance. Many years ago, a couple came to our church with some children. And when they came in, they were just so enthusiastic, so excited. Why, we've never been in a church like this before. It is so wonderful. We have never heard preaching like this before.

It is so wonderful. And in the passing of a few months and maybe a couple years, they were hot to trot. They were ready to leave. Talk to them. What's wrong? We just don't get anything out of this preaching anymore. You've changed. You've changed. Somehow I didn't succeed in getting them to understand that possibly, just possibly, they'd changed. I'm not saying it's impossible for a preacher to change, but it's more likely that he's preaching just like he did before.

So if their perception is entirely different, I wonder where the source of that change is. And I say these things again because I'm trying to help you with your spiritual health. If I don't help you see these things, then you can get in bad spiritual health and you attribute the reasons to it to all the wrong things.

And this will help you. So we need to learn from this passage and become wise because our spiritual health and the health of others depends on it, shall we pray. Father, teach us Your ways and show us Your paths. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.