THE PATTERN SERVANT OF GOD

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

12/01/57

 

1 Thessalonians 2:1-5

 

We turn now, all of us, to the second chapter of the 1 Thessalonian letter. Paul's letter to the church of the Thessalonians, the second chapter, and we read the first 11 verses.  1 Thessalonians, second chapter, and the first 11 verses. 

Do all of us have it: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-11?  All right.  Now, let's all of us read it together: The second chapter of 1 Thessalonians, the first 11 verses.  Everybody:

For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain; 

But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.

For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile; 

But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. 

For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness; 

Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ. 

But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children;

So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.

For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. 

Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe; 

As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children. 

Now, the title of the message is: The Pattern of the Servant of God, the pattern preacher of Christ, the pattern servant of the Lord.  You have here, in the passage you have just read, a wonderful example, a picture, an illustration of the true servant and missionary and preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

And, in the text, there are several things that Paul says about himself and about Silvanus and Timothy who worked with him in that Thessalonian ministry. 

And the first thing he avows is this: That their aim and their motive and their purpose was single to God, as pleasing God, one hope, one prayer, that the Lord might delight in what they said and what they wrought. 

He says, “When we came to you, we came after we had been shamefully entreated at Philippi,” beat and placed in stocks and in an innermost dungeon. 

 “And when we came with boldness to speak unto you, it was”—and, you have it translated “with much contention,” en pollō agōni, in a great agony.  They were in persecution and trials as they preached the gospel. 

Then, there were those who said, even in the face of their privation and toil and trial, that what they did, they were doing for personal gain, for selfish reasons.  There were those on every side who locked Paul and his little group in with all of that crop of sophists and wandering minstrels and magicians and astrologers and charlatans and quack religionists who covered that Greco-Roman world.  And, when Paul, Silas and Timothy came by, they said, “Why, they're just like all the rest of them.  They live off of others.  They travel in ease. 

And, what they say is of guile and deceit.  And, it's for selfish purposes that they have come.  And, this man, Paul, has renounced the faith of his fathers.  And, he turned aside from the great Hebrew religion, just in order to make make cause of personal reward and stipend out of the message that he preaches.” 

So, in describing his ministry, he says:

And our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile; 

But as God allowed us, so we speak with the trust of the gospel; not as pleasing men, but God. 

For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness

—as though the purpose in our hearts was hidden away.  But, if you looked at it, really, it was if we might make traffic and merchandise of these who heard—

… God is our witness;

Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ—

dunamenoi en barei , when we might have been, when we might have had power, in heaviness.  As the apostles of Christ, there was authority delegated unto these preachers by the courts of heaven.  Paul said, “We didn't use it. 

When we were in your presence, we were like the dirt under your feet.  We were as those, the servants in the house who wash.  We are as those who do not command and do not seek authority.  We were slaves in your presence. 

It takes a whole lot for a minister to be able to say all that: Just one thing,  just serving God, just obedient to the Lord, just pleasing Him. 

I, one time, heard of a train master in one of those big union depots and the crowds and mobs of people that quarreled at him and grew angry with him.

And, when he tried to control all of those things of boarding trains and finding trains and locking gates and opening gates, somebody said to him, “How do you do it, with all of these people angry at you and these people displeased and disgusted and disappointed and quarreling at you and flaying you and… how do you bear it?”

And, he said, “Why, it is as nothing at all.”  He says, “I do not have all these people to please, nor is it of me what they say or what they like or dislike.” 

He said, “I have to please just one man.”  And, he pointed up there in the station to an office and to a window.  And, he says, “My master sits in that office.  And, it is he alone that I have to please.” 

That is the attitude of the true and dedicated minister of Christ.  There is just one somebody that he has to please.  That's the Lord. 

He ought to be delighted if the deacons like him.  That's the way he gets his salary raised is if the deacons like him. 

He ought to be delighted if the people like him.  That's the way he gets to stay as pastor of the church, if the people like him. 

But, if he is a true minister of Christ, whether anybody liked him or not, if he's truly dedicated, wouldn't matter—just so the Lord was pleased. 

And, that's what Paul says, “As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, who searcheth our hearts.” 

So, the pattern minister, first of all, is one who has a single motive, an aim and purpose.  And, that is that he might please the Lord, faithfully delivering the message God hath committed to his care. 

Now, the second thing here in this letter, in the pattern minister, this model of a preacher: He was steeped in prayer.  And, the message that he brought was in the power and unction of the Holy Spirit. 

Do you ever hear Dr. Fowler and catch a little phrase at oft times that he will pray?  “Now, Lord, bless our pastor.”  Then, he will pray sometimes my mind may be clear.  And, he will pray sometimes that my heart may be warm.  And, then, oft times, he will pray, “And, may the Holy Spirit indict his message.” 

Do you ever listen—catch that “Indict his message?”  You will never hear that word “indict” any other place in this earth, except in Dr. Fowler's prayer. 

That's the only place you will ever find it: “And, may the Holy Spirit indict his message.”  Well, there is no ministry that is possible in the power of God without great intercession on the part of the people and the preacher. 

In these few pages of Paul's first letter, written to that church at Thessalonica, how many times will he revert to an appeal of prayer?  “We give thanks to God always for y'all making mention of you in our prayers.”  Turn the page: “For your sakes before our God.”  “Night and day praying exceedingly.” 

Turn the page: “Praying without ceasing.”  Next paragraph: “Brethren, pray for us.”  Turn the page: “Finally, brethren, pray for us.”  There's no ministry of power possible without it: Steeped in prayer, the intercession of the part of the people and of the preacher. 

And, there is no ministry of power possible without that indictment of the holy, quickening, moving Spirit of God: “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit.”  That's the difference, I think, in a true minister and servant of Christ and the religious philosopher and the ecclesiastical mechanic and maneuverer and the social worker. 

You don't have to be in a pulpit and you don't have to be in a church in order to give your life to social amelioration.  Well, you can get out here and just organize you a club.  You can go join a civic betterment association and you can try for better legislation and you can try for slum clearance and you can try to help juvenile delinquency and you can work in order to beautify your city and to lift up the body politic.  You don't need God for that.  You don't need Christ for that.  You don't need to be in the church for that. 

But, my brother, that's the difference between the social gospeler and the true servant of Jesus Christ.  I could not conceive of Paul turning aside from his great worldwide retentive message of salvation and wasting his time with those trivialities that concern these little things of a better piece of legislation there and a better housing project there and a finer slum clearance yonder or some other thing than a Rotary Club or a country club or a Parent-Teacher’s Association might do just as well as the preacher of Jesus Christ. 

Let me show you the difference between the social gospeler and the man who preaches in the power of the Lord.  This is the social ameliorative program. 

They're in the river channel, digging out rocks and digging out snags in order that the little boat of humanity might pass by.  But, the minister of God is looking to heaven and praying to the Lord to send the floodtide and lift up the little boat of mankind above the rocks and above the snags, and following the great channel of the Lord down to its infinite destiny, the illimitable sea. 

I, one time, read of an engineer who was given a problem of raising a boat that had sunk in a harbor.  All of the other people, in making bids about raising that boat, used astronomical sums in saying how they could lift it up.  But, this wonderful engineer, who knew the power of the mighty hand of God, made a bid for almost nothing.  And, in amazement and wonder, the people of the city went down to the harbor to see him raise up the boat for almost nothing.

You know what he did?  He got great chains.  And, with platforms and logs, he tied those logs and wooden platforms with great chains to the hook of the boat in the mire and on the bottom of the sea.  And, then, he waited for God's tide to come in.  And, the Lord moved His ocean and the ocean filled the bay.  And, the waters lifted up, with great power and strength, that boat on the bottom of the sea. 

That's the power of the Son of God.  You don't need to worry about the governor.  If he's a great, devoted Christian man, you can turn your back.  You can go deer hunting.  You can go about your business.  And, the office of the governor will honor God and be true to the highest aims and purposes of the people.  But, if he's a crook and if he's disloyal and untrue, and if he's not a Christian, all of the bonds that he signs in the world and all the tokens of legislative corralling and circumscription you can put around him won't keep him straight and true to the people. 

The message of Christ is to the heart.  It's to the souls of men.  We address ourselves to the man in the great fountain deeps of his life.  If we can get him to Jesus, if we can get him to Christ, put him anywhere in the bank, put him in the legislative assembly, put him in the committee room, put him anywhere, he'll honor God, for the purposes of his life are hid with God in Christ.  He's a servant of the King. 

That's what Paul says about his ministry.  He had a great gospel, one that included the whole earth and time and the soul and life.  It was addressed to the saving of the heart and the changing of the life, the pattern minister of Jesus Christ. 

A third thing he describes here about himself: “For ye remember, brethren”—and, three times he mentions this—

For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail; for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. 

There, he disavows mercenary motives in what he did.  And, in that, he said: “Laboring night and day.” 

That was before they had a five-day week or a four-day week, much less, or an eight-hour day.  A man's labor in that time was a full day, from sun up to sun down.  And, for a man to labor all day long and at night, too, was an unthought of, indescribable burden.  Yet that's what Paul did.  In order not to be chargeable to those idol-worshiping pagans in Thessalonica, he worked with his own hands all day long to support himself.  And, then, publicly and from house to house, preached the gospel of Jesus, pleading repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Now, Paul did not mean by that that the ministry is not to be supported by the people.  In the ninth chapter of the 1 Corinthian letter, he said, quoting the law of Moses:

For thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn… 

Even so, it is ordained of the Lord that they who preach the gospel, shall live by the gospel. 

In the same words of our Savior: “The labourer is worthy of his hire.” 

Paul does not mean that we are to dismiss our ministry, these who have forsaken all secular work, that they might devote themselves wholly, completely, to prayer, to the ministry of the Word, to the preaching of the gospel, to the shepherding of the flock.  But, what he does say is this: That in no wise and in no place and in no case is ever the gospel ministry to be dependent upon a mercenary, physical, material, pecuniary, stipends and emoluments, never, never, never. 

Whenever our people—and, so many of us, even in our church here, so many of us have the persuasion: “I have now given my life to Christ wholly; therefore, I must quit my job.  I must lay down what I am doing and I must be supported by a church somewhere or by a people somewhere or otherwise I cannot fulfill God's call in my life.” 

Now, listen to me: Whether you're paid or not is incidental.  If God wills for somebody to support you and you give all of your life and time to the ministry of the Lord, that is wonderful.  That's fine, if it's in God's will.  But, if there is not a cause, if there is not a people to support and to help and to pay your salary, then that is no sign that God hath not chosen you for a place of service.  You're not dependent upon salary and upon money for the ministry of the work of God. Wherever you are, wherever your place, however your place in God's lot and choice, there you can be a great and noble servant of Christ. 

And, in no sense is our devotion to the Lord and our service to the Christ to be dependent upon our being paid to do it.  Do you realize that Daniel was a politician?  He was a statesman.  All the days of his life he was in the government of his country—all of his life.  He died as an honored leader in his nation.  He was never what you call a preacher, a paid minister.  But, he was in the government: Secretary of State, Prime Minister.  He was always a layman. 

Do you realize Nehemiah was a layman?  He was the cup-bearer to Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians.  And, at no time in his life did he ever depart from those political appointments.  Nehemiah was a layman.  A

Aquila and Priscilla were tent-makers, and their home was a fountain of blessing and a lake in the dark, dark world.  But, they were lay people all of their lives. 

It was Mr. Moody, all of his life.  When Mr. Moody, as a young man, joined that church, when he moved as a shoe salesman to Chicago, they had pew rentals in that day.  And, he bought every pew that was available and went out on the streets and filled those pews with people that he had brought in to listen to the Word of God. 

They organized a little Sunday School.  And, he got people to come to Moody's Sunday School, there to teach them the Word of God. 

And, it was only when his Sunday School got so big and the people came to be taught the Word, that Moody finally gave up selling shoes, in order to give all of his time to the ministry of the Word.  But, he was a layman all of his life.  He was “Mr. Moody.” 

God can use you, no matter where you are or how you are employed.  The rod of Moses, the ox goad of Shamgar, the needle and thread of Dorcas, the loom of the Apostle Paul, the washtub, the kitchen sink, the receptionist's desk, the clerk's office, wherever you are, there you can be as true a minister of Christ as your pastor.  There that consecrated girl can be devoted to Jesus as much as if she were a missionary out there in a rescue home.

Ah, we have it turned around.  We have it wrong when we think that, if I'm not paid for this, and if it's not my appointed, secularized job, and if I'm not given a stipend, therefore I am not God's servant and I am not doing God's work in the earth.  No, no, no. 

Paul says, “Labouring day and night, day and night…not to be chargeable unto any of you,” he preached the gospel to them.  I say, he mentions that so many times: “Neither did we eat any man's bread, but wrought with labour and and travail night and day that we might not be chargeable to any of you.” 

You heard me tell this.  I didn't intend to mention it tonight.  But, it seems that I sound like a hypocrite, standing up here, preaching to you like this and receiving the salary I do from this church.  So, I'm just going to pause and tell you something that has been a comfort to my heart all the years that I have been a preacher. 

When I first started out to preach the gospel, I preached on the street corners and on the courthouse square and in the jailhouse and in the poorhouse, and then in little schoolhouses.  And, I had two little churches to start off with, and one of them met in a schoolhouse.  The first time that I was taken to a church, to a pulpit to preach, I got on the train there in Waco, and went up to a little town by the name of Mount Calm, and got off the train there. 

I was just about 17 years old.  And, the deacon in the church there—it didn't have a pastor, but they'd already called one and he hadn't come, and, so, the fellow who was to come up to Mount Calm to supply got sick.  And, in desperate need, why, he looked around for somebody to attend at the last minute.  And, I was the only little insect that he could find. 

So, he said, “Would you go up there?”  And, so I went up there, about 17 years old, and I got off the train.  I was the only one that got off the train.  And, that deacon looked to the north and looked to the south and he looked to the east and he looked to the west.  He'd gone down there to meet the preacher who was to preach for them that Sunday.  And, I was the only poor, alone critter standing there at the depot. 

So, he walked up to me and with great, great qualm and askance and unbelief, he said, “Are you a preacher?” 

I said, “Yes, sir.” 

Brother, I really was in them dark days.  “Yes, sir.”     

He says, “Have you come to preach for us?” 

I said, “Yes, sir.  I have come up here.  I have been sent here to preach for you.”     

Well, he never said it, but I could see.  Under his breath, he said, “Lord, have mercy on us today.” 

Well, I went there to that church and I did my best.  And, if I didn't do real good in theology, brother, they all could hear me, every one of them present that day.  And, then we went back and we had a service that night and God blessed us. 

You know, I had my first response there in a church.  A fellow came down the aisle and gave me his hand and he said, “I've been called of God to preach the gospel and I'm going to give my life to be a minister.” 

I said, “Well, glory hallelujah!  That is wonderful.  You will make a wonderful Baptist preacher.” 

He said, “Now, wait a minute.  I'm not going to be a Baptist preacher.  I'm going to be a Presbyterian.” 

I'll never forget that fellow: “Going to be a Presbyterian.” 

Well, anyway, after the service was over, why, that deacon who had gone to the train to meet me, he said, “We want you to come back next Sunday.” 

I said, “I'll be right here.” 

Then, he said, “I am sorry.”  This is in the midst of the Depression, when the farmer was selling his cotton for five cents and less a pound, and the people were barely able to live.  The senior deacon there in the church said, “I'm sorry this is not more, but this is all we can give you.”  And, he held in his hand a ten-dollar bill. 

I said, “Listen, fellow, I wouldn't take money for preaching the gospel.  I don't preach for money and I won't take that.” 

Well, he nearly fainted.  He nearly fell to the floor.  He said, “Why, you paid your way up here and you're going back.  Why, we're glad to do it and should do far better than this.” 

I said, “Not so.  Not so.  I don't preach for money and I refuse to take it.”  And, I wouldn't take it. 

 

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