A Profile in Loving Spiritual Leadership: 1 Thess Lesson 12

A Profile in Loving Spiritual Leadership

1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Welcome back to 1 Thessalonians. We have come to chapter 2. In Chapter 1 we saw the marks of a good church, the making of a good church and the manifestations of a good church. As we come to chapter 2 we gain insight into the ministry of the man who was responsible for this church. I am excited about chapters 2 & 3. They tell us more about the nature of the relationship between Paul and the church than any other epistle.

The results produced at Thessalonica were due to the redemptive work of salvation. But they were also the result of  the relationship between the people and Paul. I want to read chapter two chapter and I want you to focus on the details of Paul’s approach. 

1. Qualifications and Qualities

a. 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 give us the qualifications of an elder/pastor.

b. Read 1 Tim. 3:1-7.

c. Unless the spiritual leader possesses the qualities we just read which were possessed by Paul in 1 Thessalonians, the spiritual leader will not be an effective spiritual leader.

i. The qualifications are important. They are non-negotiable. A major problem in the contemporary church is that these qualifications are largely ignored.

ii. Spiritual leadership in the church must be carried out by qualified men who also have these qualities.

iii. It isn’t hard to understand the difference between qualifications and qualities. A woman looking for a husband needs only to find a single man. A single man meets the qualifications. But it isn’t meeting the qualifications that make him a good candidate for a husband. She must know if he has the qualities that will make him a good husband.

iv. From this chapter 2:1-12 I want to develop this profile of loving leadership. There is the title for this message. This is a profile in loving leadership. We know Paul met the qualifications of a spiritual leader. But here he gives us enough insight into the way he went about his ministry that we can identify the qualities that made him especially effective in what he did.

2. What is the value of this to us?

a. For me, I am using this as an opportunity for self-assessment. I want to measure my own qualities against the backdrop of the qualities on display in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul. I know I fall short. I know I will be convicted, and hopefully convinced of things I need to do differently, and will change. That is what we intend to have happen every time we come to the word of God, isn’t it. We should come expecting to be challenged, convicted, convinced, and committed to change.

i. I never want to stop growing as a person, or a partner, a parent/grandparent, or a pastor. If we stop growing that means we are dead. As long as we are alive we should seek to keep growing.

ii. I know that as I dig deeply into the qualities that existed in Paul, I am going to recognize some areas where my own leadership is deficient. I want to grow. I will be better for it, and this church will benefit from it as well.

b. For you, I want to encourage you, especially the men who are the spiritual leaders of your families, to follow my example and do the same. These qualities are necessary for effective spiritual leadership whether that leadership is happening at church or in the home. It is even of value to those of you who are parents, both moms and dads. Moms have a duty to provide spiritual leadership to the children as helpmeets to their husbands. You will find value in this.

c. Even you older children, especially those of you who have younger siblings, this can be helpful to you as well.

3. So, lets get into this profile of loving leadership. Again, we won’t be going deep. We are just going to scratch the surface. We are hitting the highlights as we develop this profile of loving leadership.

a. A loving leader will demonstrate an unwavering commitment to the ministry which God has given him to carry out. Verses 1-2.

i. His coming to them was not in vain. It is never a waste of time to do the work of God. Paul never wavered in his commitment because he knew it was always profitable to go somewhere and preach the gospel of God. (You will notice the term “gospel of God” several times through here.)

ii. Paul never allowed unfavorable responses or opposition of any kind to keep him from doing what God had called him to do.

1. His ministry is marked by suffering, mistreatment, opposition, attacks, arrests, shipwrecks, beatings, scourging, and all kinds of unfavorable circumstances.

2. At Philippi he and Silas were seized by an angry mob, dragged into the marketplace, falsely accused, stripped of their robes, beaten with rods with many blows, and thrown into the inner prison and their feet were put in stocks.

3. Most of us would look these circumstances and decide that this was God’s way of telling us that we were on the wrong track.

iii. But, you see, Paul, back when he was Saul, and was converted on the road to Damascus, was given a warning. Remember from that story how God told Ananias to go to Paul. Ananias was understandably a little hesitant, given Paul’s reputation. But the Lord said to him in Acts 9:15, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

iv. Listen, a loving spiritual leader will be marked by an unwavering commitment to do what God has called him to do, regardless of the responses, regardless of the opposition, regardless of the suffering that results from doing the will of God.

v. We need the courage of Paul as we carry out our duties as spiritual leaders. We are preaching the word of God to an increasingly hostile world. We see how the world is responding to the truth of God’s word. We see how the church is becoming more and more like the world, so we can expect the church to begin to respond like the world. Loving spiritual leadership will not stop proclaiming God’s truth, no matter how much opposition the loving leader encounters.

b. Loving spiritual leadership will manifest itself in an uncompromising commitment to the truth of God’s message. Verse 3.

i. Paul was exhorting them from the Scriptures. All of Scripture is an exhortation, an admonition, an encouragement for the purpose of establishing and strengthening the believer in the faith.

ii. There is never any room for error, impurity, or deceit. Loving leadership requires a devotion to the accurate handling of the word of truth. 

iii. If error is introduced into the word of God it is no longer the word of God. It becomes the stuff of which dangerous heresies are made. If impurity is allowed to taint the precious truth of God’s word it is no longer a reliable source of light. If deception is employed in the teaching of God’s word the credibility of the messenger is destroyed.

iv. There is nothing more important than an uncompromising commitment to the precise, accurate, in-depth, exposition of God’s word.

v. Why? Because there is nothing the church needs more than exhortation from the word of God. This is what changes lives. Psalm 19 tells us what the word of God does for us. It restores the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, and endures forever. This is why the truth of God’s word is more desirable than much fine gold.

c. Along with an unwavering commitment to the call of God and the ministry to which God calls the loving leader, and the uncompromising commitment to the word of God, there will also be clear focus on the leader’s accountability to God.

i. Paul says in verse 4, “just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel…” He recalls again in verse 4 that it is “God who examines our hearts.” He reiterates again in verse 5 that “God is witness.” He says again in verse 10, “You are witnesses and so is God…”

ii. The loving spiritual leader remembers that he is tasked with keeping watch over the souls of people and he will give an account to God. As long as we remember that God is the One to whom we will give an account, we will be able to do that with joy because it will always be the Lord Christ whom we have sought to please. We do what we do for the glory of God and the good of His people. This is the motivation of the loving spiritual leader.

d. And as long as he remembers that his motivation is his accountability to God, the next part of this profile will be evident. A loving spiritual leader avoids the temptations aimed at destroying his credibility. See verses 5-6.

i. He will not be tempted to resort to flattering speech designed to  impress men. Men do not need to be flattered, they really need to be shattered with the law of God so they come to see their need for a Savior. If the spiritual leader flatters the sinner with a false picture of his spiritual condition, he may actually be preventing that person from realizing how desperate he is as a sinner.

ii. He will avoid the temptation to become greedy and seek financial gain. This was an accusation Paul faced regularly. We will see in the verses ahead that this certainly was not the case. He worked night and day to provide for himself and those who were with him.

iii. He will not seek glory from any man. Any glory the spiritual leader seeks for himself is glory he is attempting to rob from God. God alone is worthy of glory.

iv. These are not so subtle enemies of the spiritual leader. If we resort to flattery it is only because we care more about what others think of us than what God says is true of them. If we seek financial gain we are guilty of loving the world and the things of the world. If we seek glory from men we have our reward now, and it comes at the expense of true eternal reward.

e. If we stopped here, you might be inclined to conclude that the loving part of our profile hasn’t really been revealed yet. So far Paul has been all about doing the job, preaching the truth, being accountable to God, and not caring what people think of him. He sounds like a machine.                     I would argue that everything we have seen so far is consistent with loving those we serve. When we stand consistently committed to the ministry to which we have been called, we are doing what God has called us to do on their behalf. When we refuse to compromise the word of God we are loving them enough to give them truth. When we remember we are accountable to God we assure them of our consistency and dependability and credibility as a spiritual leader. This gives them assurance and confidence to follow our lead. But if you want to argue that Paul has not yet shown himself as a loving leader, it will be easy to see the evidence as we move forward. The next quality we see in this profile of a loving leader is humility. See verse 6.

i. Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ. He could have asserted the authority associated with that position. It was rightfully his and he could have used it to require so much more from these people. He would not have been unrighteous or unjust in doing so. But he treasured humility over authority. He understood the teaching of Jesus that greatness in the kingdom of God is measured in an attitude of humility that willingly lays down one’s rights to become the servant of others.

ii. There cannot be sacrificial love unless there is first genuine humility. Although Jesus existed in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped. So He humbled Himself. He set aside the glory of heaven and took upon Himself the form of a servant. As a servant He went to the Cross in the greatest expression of love mankind has ever known. 

iii. The love of Christ was preceded by the humility of Christ. This is why we see this expression of humility on the part of Paul followed by the gentleness and affection described in verses 7-8.

f. Verses 7-8 bring us to the next quality in this profile of loving leadership. In the loving leader there will always be a balance of truth and tenderness. We have already seen Paul describe his commitment to the truth. Now he describes how he proved to be gentle among these people as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. See verse 8.

i. The truth must be shared. It invariably must be followed up with some tenderness. We must never apologize for sharing the truth, but we must also realize that the truth sometimes cuts deeply and when it does there is the need for some tender, loving care.

ii. I recently told someone that the role of the pastor is as a shepherd to the sheep. The sheep belong to God. Pastors are God’s shepherd with the responsibility to lead, feed, and protect the flock. We feed God’s word. We lead the flock to follow Christ. We protect them from doctrinal error. We protect them from the dangers of sinful behaviors. Sometimes the work of the shepherd involves going after straying sheep. If a sheep continually strays, sometimes the shepherd has to break the leg of the sheep. This keeps the sheep from wandering away. But it means that the shepherd ends up carrying the sheep and caring for the sheep until it recovers. This is often when the deepest love develops between the shepherd and that sheep.

iii. I think that is the idea we find in verse 8. “Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become so dear to us.”

g. The next quality in this profile of a loving leader is his devotion to work tirelessly on behalf of those in his care. See verse 9.

i. Paul worked night and day. He was laboring in hardship. He was careful that he was not a burden on those to whom he ministered. He was working and proclaiming the gospel of God.

ii. It wasn’t that Paul didn’t have the right to receive support from them. The Scriptures teach that the workman is worthy of his wages. The Bible tells us not to muzzle the ox while it is doing its work. The spiritual leader is worthy of double honor. But Paul did not believe that these new converts were ready for that burden so he did what he had to do to survive. He worked and preached. He had a bi-vocational ministry.

iii. Anyone who thinks the ministry is an easy way to make a living doesn’t understand the ministry.

h. A loving leader will also live transparently and walk in integrity. See verse 10.

i. Paul’s life was devout. His walk was upright. He was blameless in his behavior toward the Thessalonians.

ii. He wasn’t one kind of a person in one place, and another kind of person in another place. He was the same in private as he was in public. This is why he could say, “You are witnesses and so is God.”

i. Finally, a loving leader knows the goal and shows those whom he leads how to get there. See verses 11-12.

i. The goal is to help those he leads to walk in a manner worthy of the God who called them into His own kingdom and glory. This is what the loving spiritual leader wants for his followers.

ii. The loving leader will be exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one as a father would his own children.

These are the qualities of a loving spiritual leader. He is committed to the ministry to which God has called him and he will not be discouraged or distracted by opposition or suffering. He will not compromise God’s truth. He will never loose sight of his accountability to God. He will not become concerned with what others think of him. He will be humble. He will demonstrate a balance of truth and tenderness. He will work hard and sacrifice for the good of those he leads. He will walk in transparency and integrity so others see that he is genuine. He knows the goal is to have those he leads walk in a manner worthy of the calling of God and he shows them how to achieve that goal.

Now, go back to the beginning of the chapter. Look at Paul’s first words. “You yourselves know, brethren…” The word “know” is the same word used in verse 4 which is translated “knowing.” The root word is “eido” which means “to see.” The word doesn’t mean “know” as in simply having knowledge of something. The word means “know” as in understanding intuitively.

 Everything Paul goes on to say isn’t something he tells them for the purpose of sharing facts. Everything we just saw is something Paul says they already knew. They intuitively understood these things to be true because they saw the reality in the life and ministry of a loving leader.

 The challenge to me in this passage is that it is going to paint a portrait of the qualities we are to have. And the reality is that those who know us best already know whether these qualities are true of us or not. The real challenge will be to conform my life to the portrait in those areas where I need to become more of a loving leader. I think we will all see the need to do the same.

 Let’s pray.