"Living As A Godly Example"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's Word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the Word of God. We brought a Bible today. We would love for you to open that Bible to Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Remember we're studying the life of the Apostle Paul. We are in his second missionary journey.

Let me give you a little background. And remember that the Apostle Paul, let's show you a map, and his team, his team is Luke, Timothy and Silas. They have crossed over from modern northwest Turkey here at Troas. They've gone across the Aegean Sea to the northern Greek town of Philippi. Here in Philippi, Paul and his team have preached for a few weeks, started a church, and then Paul split his team at this point. He left Luke and Timothy behind in Philippi while he and Silas went 100 miles to the south to the town of Thessalonica. Here in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul spent six months ministering there, starting a church there, but the unbelieving Jewish community in that town developed a seething hatred for the Apostle Paul. They finally were able to get a mob together and run him out of town. And he and Silas then left and went on to the little town of Berea, about 45 miles to the east.

Now, if you remember, we stopped there. And one of the wonderful things, friends, you know, about studying the Bible is this principle that we call comparing Scripture with Scripture. What this means is taking passages in the Bible that are on separate pages, but they all talk about the same historical event and studying them together so that we get a fuller understanding of that historical event. And we have a wonderful opportunity to do that right here when it comes to Paul's stay in Thessalonica, because about two weeks after he left town or properly got run out of town, he wrote a letter back to this church. We know the letter today is 1 Thessalonians. And in this letter that Paul wrote these Thessalonian believers, he talks about some things.

He shares some details about his stay in town for those six months that are not found in the Book of Acts. And so we're going to compare what we know from the Book of Acts with what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians. And we're going to find our lesson for today.

Now, let's look. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 2. Even though, Paul writes, we have previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, and friends, as we know, because we've been studying this, Paul was beaten with rods there and unjustly thrown into jail. With God's help, we still dare to share the message of Christ with you, despite strong opposition. Paul says, from the time I came to Thessalonica, I faced strong opposition from the get go.

There were people there who were scrutinizing me, criticizing me, attacking me, watching everything I did. And one of the key elements of criticism that was being leveled against Paul, he's going to mention next. He says, verse 3, for the appeal that we make does not spring from error or from impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. The people in town who were his enemies said that Paul had impure motives and that he was in town to trick these people.

He then goes on to say, for, you know, we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed. And what was Paul's impure motive? How was he trying to trick these people?

Well, the answer is, when it came to money. These people accused him of having as his real motive, greed. Having as his real motive, just get money using the message of Christ to just get money out of people. Paul goes on to say, verse 9, surely you remember, brothers, our toil and our labor, how we work night and day so as not to be a financial burden to anyone while we preach the message of God to you. Friends, it's obvious that one of the key accusations against Apostle Paul while he was in town is that he was just a religious huckster, that he was just a shyster, that all he was doing was trying to get money out of people and that he was not really there to care for the sheep.

He was there to fleece the sheep. Now, this wasn't even true, but his enemies love to look for any little inconsistency in Paul's life, even the slightest thing, and then blow it up out of proportion and try to use it to discredit him and to keep people from coming to Christ. Now, that phenomenon that as followers of Christ, people love to find fault with even the smallest inconsistencies in our life, this phenomenon that people will even look for things that sometimes aren't even there to try to criticize in our life, this phenomenon that people will hold us as followers of Christ to a higher standard than they would ever hold non-followers of Christ to. In fact, friends, they'll hold us to a higher standard than they would ever hold themselves to. You know what? Hey, this is just the way it is.

I mean, it's the way it was when Paul was on earth back then. It just comes with the territory. Those of us in full-time Christian ministry, we learn about this phenomenon very early in our career. We have another couple that are good friends of ours here at McLean, and the wife was telling me just the other day, she said, you know, Lon, I went out with your wife, Brenda, and we went shopping a few weeks ago over at Nordstrom, and she said we had a wonderful time. And a few days later, I was back in Nordstrom, and I ran into this other lady from McLean Bible Church. And so we got to talking, and I happened to mention to her somewhat casually that I'd been in the store a few days before shopping with Lon's wife. And she said this lady got this incredibly judgmental look on her face and said, Lon's wife shops at Nordstrom's? And my lady friend said, you know what, Lon, I never realized what you guys in the ministry have got to put up with until that moment. She said this lady standing there, it was okay for her to shop in Nordstrom. It was okay for me to shop at Nordstrom, but it was not okay for the pastor's wife to shop at Nordstrom. And you know what, friends, this kind of living in a fishbowl is not just restricted to people that are in full-time Christian ministry.

Oh, no. If you go public in your school, if you go public in your workplace, if you go public in your family, if you go public in your neighborhood with your faith in Jesus Christ, I can promise you that there are going to be people there, your co-workers, your neighbors, your relatives, your schoolmates, your roommates who are going to start watching you. And as soon as they see behavior that they believe does not qualify as true godly behavior, they are not only going to judge you, but they're going to try to take that judgment and lay it on Jesus Christ and use it to justify their own unbelief and to try to keep other people from coming to Christ by pointing at you and going, see how that person's living, that's supposed to be a Christian. You don't want any part of that. That's the way it really is. You say, well, Lon, that's kind of a big burden for us to have to carry as followers of Christ, don't you think?

Well, I'd like to suggest to you the opposite is true. I'd like to suggest to you that instead of being a burden, this is a wonderful opportunity. To have people watching our lives that carefully, evaluating everything we do, scrutinizing us, just think what an opportunity that is to defang people's unbelief, to defang people's criticism and cynicism, to help people, help create a platform for people to consider Christ, what an opportunity it is if you and I really live the kind of lives that are above reproach that people can see.

See, it all depends what we do with this, whether it's an opportunity or a burden. Listen, Peter said, he knew this, listen to what he said. He said, Dear friends, I urge you to live such good lives among the pagans that even though they want to accuse you of wrongdoing, and they do, they will see your good deeds and be forced to glorify God. Then the next verse, verse 15, I want to show you says, For this is the will of God, that by doing right, we may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

Now, the Apostle Paul understood this. And so he set out to turn the accusations of his enemies into a spiritual platform, into a spiritual opportunity. He set out to put to silence the ignorance of these foolish critics and to create a platform for people instead to consider Christ. How did he do it? Watch, he did it by living above reproach when it came to the deceit and the trickery and the hucksterism people were accusing him of. Look what he says, 1 Thessalonians 2, 9. He said, We work night and day so as not to be a financial burden to anyone.

How did Paul handle and turn these critics accusations into a great opportunity? Friends, what he did is he worked for a living. He went out and earned all the money he lived off of. He didn't take one thin dime from anybody when he was in town. Look what he says, 2 Thessalonians 3, We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it.

On the contrary, we work night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. The Bible tells us the Apostle Paul made tents for six months during the day when he was in Thessalonica. And then he went out and preached Christ in the evenings and on the weekends. The point is during his six months in this town, he did not ask for one dime.

He did not accept one dime from anybody in that city. And by doing this, the Apostle Paul did exactly what Peter said. He reduced to nonsense the accusations of his critics. He put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. I mean, think about it. How can a man who spends six months in town and doesn't take one thin dime, how can he be a shyster?

Or to put it another way, if he was a shyster, the Apostle Paul was definitely the dumbest shyster that ever lived in the history of the world. Why would he spend six months there and work for his own living if his real motive was to take money from these people? Do you see how he did it? Now, we want to stop there because we have a question to ask.

You all know the question, don't you? So everybody ready? Okay, I just want to make sure. All right, ready? Here we go now. Nice and loud.

One, two, three. So what? Yeah, right.

You say, Lon, so what? Say, I really appreciate Paul. I admire the man. I think that's wonderful. I think it's great what he did.

Big whoop. What difference does that make to my life today? And my answer to that is, friends, I believe in what the Apostle Paul did in this town. We find an enormous spiritual challenge for our lives today. Let me show you what it is. He goes on to say, 2 Thessalonians 3, watch, Paul says we did this. That is, we supported ourselves, not because we don't have the right to be supported by you. Stop for a second. You understand what Paul is saying here? Paul is saying, when I came to town...