So, 10 Thessalonians 2: 9-14… Before we went away, we were speaking first of all in chapter one really about the genuineness. How do you know you’re genuinely saved or chosen by God? In Chapter 2 has to do with the genuineness of ministry. How do you know you’re dealing with a genuine Christian or Christ like ministry? See one of the challenges that we face as in our modern-day society is that you have a tremendous amount of churches out there and church leaders who, in fact, actually aren’t genuine. They’re not true orthodox church. In actual fact, the term church, by the way, is a term for a gathering of people, Ecclesia, and in fact in the book of Acts you had Ecclesia, a Church of unbelievers gathering at times. It was later emphasized more towards it should be those who are truly saved and…. But the point is we dealing with a tremendous amount of people who are claiming to be Christian, authentic ministers. And the question is… how do I know that this is true? Solid, authentic, Christian ministry or not? And you may ask, well, why is that important? Because people’s souls depend upon it, because people’s obedience to God’s word depend upon it. Because Jesus dined for the church and Jesus is very serious about the purity of. Church and 1 Timothy 3:15. Paul describes the church as the Church of the Living God, a pillar and a buttress of the truth. It’s supposed to be an entity where you have a place where you hear in God’s truth preached in a clear manner because the church should be a pillar and a buttress of truth. But sadly, what we’re seeing is many are making a mockery of God’s word. Many are what Jesus warned about. False prophets outwardly looking like sheep, but inwardly are ravenous wolves that Matthew 7:14 Paul called these false teachers fierce wolves in Acts 20: 29, Peter called them false prophets and false teachers. 2 Peter 2, Jude calls him hidden reefs, shepherds that feed themselves, waterless clouds, wandering stars, grumblers malcontents, loud mouthed boasters. John, in in Revelations 29 spoke of them as a synagogue of Satan! Pretty serious words when you hear this kind of statement! The point is, the warning in Scripture is there, and that’s why Jesus spoke about the narrow gate and the and the wide gate the narrow way, and fewer honour that leads to life. And then there’s a wide gate. And let me tell you that wide gate is has on its heading going to heaven. Meantime it’s going towards hell. That’s just the reality is, Jesus warned. We should take heed of that warning. We shouldn’t be surprised about that reality. And so, you and I need to ask this… Question how do I know I have true ministry, true authentic ministry, genuine biblical Christian ministry?
Our passage this morning continues to serve as a proof that the ministry that Paul and his team had and the church and Thessalonica was, indeed, genuine, authentic Christ, -like ministries and think we can learn from that. Remember in first Thessalonians1 the focus was on the genuineness of the salvation of the Thessalonian believers. In Chapter 2, the focus shifts to the ministry’s genuineness of or the ministry teams genuineness in terms of their ministry versus one and two, which we preached about. Like 3 weeks ago, revealed the ministry’s boldness. That was a good indication they were boldly proclaiming the gospel despite persecution. Versus three and four revealed their motives, where they were, they weren’t seeking to please men. They were seeking to please God. I think that’s a good characteristic of Christ-like ministry. Am I concerned about your viewpoint or my concerned about God’s perspective? And there’s always one person that I’m most concerned about in every sermon I preach… and that’s God! Because he’s sitting in our audience. Versus 5-8, we’d learned that a ministry that’s characterized by gentleness and love is also an indicative of genuine Christ, like ministry, and in verses 9-16, Paul continues to describe the characteristics of genuine, authentic Christ like Ministry. The reason? Because remember, Paul had been ministering in Thessalonica for maybe 3 weeks and he had to up and out because of persecution. And so those persecutors after that fact went around, spreading all sorts of rumours. Paul and his team, they are not genuine Christian ministers. They are heretics. They are out for the money. They are out for some greed or… or pretense or seeking fame. And you see how they fled that night. Yeah. You gotta watch these cars. Dodgy eyes. Watch them. And so, Paul is having to defend that as he writes back to the Church of the Thessalonica, you may remember he had seen Timothy and Timothy had come back and reported that it’s going well at the church. in Thessalonica and Paul is now writing in response to the reports that he’d gotten from from Timothy. So, let’s pick it up and 1 Thessalonians 2, 9-16.