Marks of A Disciple Maker
1 Thessalonians 1:1 - 2:16   6 May 2007

Andrew Lim

When I was growing up as a young lad / living in my original homeland
I was fascinated by the martial arts / especially karate and kung-fu
I didn’t get a black-belt or anything like that
but we boys would listen to great stories
of the great Shaolin kung-fu masters
- how the masters were revered
where they lived / the mystery that shrouded their lives
and had great and ardent followers
- what disciples have to go through to be like their masters
- what discipline they must endure
the rigors / the death-defying moves / the bruises they endured
All in all / most fascinating to us young boys

But no matter which kung-fu school you talk about
there were always the distinction between the disciples and the masters
And to this day / the two are as different as chalk and cheese
you never confuse them / you don’t / you cannot afford to

Reading this passage / I ponder a little about this
Here is a letter Paul / as a master / wrote to his disciples

The first two chapters are fascinating and revealing to us
about what was going on in that master-disciple relationship

The first chapter reveals who the disciples have grown to be
The second chapter reveals what kind of a master he was

Let’s pick this up in its logical order
First / who this group of people called the Thessalonians
have grown to be / since they began following their master Paul


Thessalonica was then a major city in the north of Greece
It was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia
- extremely fiercely loyal to Rome

That city survives to this day / Today we call it Salonika or Thessaloniki
And believe it or not this city has something in common with Palm. North
Thessaloniki is one of the most important university centers
in Southeastern Europe
The city is host to a large and vibrant student population
coming from all over the country

Getting back / Paul planted this church about 50 years after Christ died
It was a successful church plant / Jews / proselytes / and Greeks
together with some “noble ladies” / were all converted
and this aroused the Jews to a fury of envy
They gathered a mob together & agitated the whole city to turn against them

They got into the home of one called Jason
discovered that Paul wasn’t in there / dragged his host to court
charged him with harboring traitors
granted them bail / and let them return home

That night they arranged for Paul and his team members
to be smuggled to Berea

But Paul remained concerned for the spiritual welfare of the Thessalonicans
He sent Timothy back to check on them
When he received Timothy's report / as a true master to his disciples
he writes this letter to them from Corinth
to encourage / instruct and equip them in their walk with Christ

And from his letter / just see for yourself
what an enthusiastic and dedicated disciples these people were
Just look at all this accolades that Paul lavished on them
The gospel changed the lives of the Thessalonians
They turned to Christ / they blossom / they suffered / they endured
they became a vibrant witness to the gospel

This is the most eloquent to the radical power of the Gospel / changed lives
They did not simply subscribe to a new philosophy
They didn’t just make some external cosmetic changes to their lives
They have been turned inside out / radically transformed
as a result of receiving and following the spiritual truths of Gospel
In short they each became an imitator of Christ Himself

As I’ve said / just listen to this remarkable accolade / Paul lavished on them

1:2 We always thank God for all of you / we mention you in our prayers
1:3 We remember before God
your work produced by faith
your labor prompted by love
your endurance inspired by hope / in our Lord Jesus Christ

Faith / love / hope / three absolutely vital Christ-like qualities
of a life of victory and fruitfulness

Their work is produced by faith
their labor prompted by love / their endurance inspired by hope

You can’t work without faith / and labor without love
And if an area of ministry is becoming such a stress to you / could it be
that your work isn’t produced by faith / labor isn’t prompted by love
your endurance inspired by hope

Someone has said / “We run out of breath
when we carry burden we’re not meant to carry”

Then Paul goes on to commend them / he says

1:4 We know / brothers / that God has chosen you
1:6 You imitated us / You imitated the Lord
You suffered severely / and yet you welcomed the message with the joy
1:7 You became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia

I believe 1:9 is the key
to their making such a radical transformation in their lives

v.9 “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God
and now you wait for the return of His Son from heaven”

“You turned to God from idols”
The verb “turned” is epistrepho / “to turn to one's self about”
“to turn back” / “to return”

It speaks of a total and absolute change of mind
Previously they worshipped idols
But when they heard the Gospel / they turned away from idols
with its all their false hopes and perversions

They didn’t just add Jesus Christ / to their existing pantheon of idols
They came to see Jesus as God’s Son
They understood His distinctive claims
to be the way / the truth / and the life
and that salvation comes only through His death and resurrection

And understanding that
they placed their faith on God / v 8
they turned away from idols / “to serve the living and true God” / v. 9

I believe the Word addresses us all here

Paul Tillich once said that there is / in everyone of us
an all-consuming passion
- something which preoccupies you all your waking hour
- something into which you pour all your time and energies
- something you believe / that if you should have it
will makes you deliriously happy

Tillich calls it your “ultimate concern”
And then he adds saying: “Your ultimate concern is your god”

But long before Tillich said it Jesus had put it in his own inimitable way
Very calmly he simply said: “Tell me where your treasure really is
and I will tell you where your heart is

Ever wonder where your heart is ?

There are as many beasts waiting outside the door of our hearts
knocking / seeking residence there
- as many as men would care to invent them
- there's the beast of wealth / the beast of fame
the beast of pleasure / power / knowledge
They rage and they churn within our breasts turning it into a den of thieves
They deafen our ears / with words / that are alien to the Word of God
They deafen our ears with their seductive pleadings
and like it goes in the line of a song / "We're torn between two lovers”

And tragically / scores upon scores of Christians
who've defected from the Temple of God
defected because they have succumb to the lure of the Golden Calf

Our hearts are too divided
We want to worship God but we want to bow before the Golden Calf as well

We forget that the Word of God says / that no man can serve two masters
When you serve two masters:
- you will always be half-hearted
- you will always be pulled apart by two conflicting loyalties
- you will always hear two voices

The second commandment / “You shall not make an idol”
reveals one of our most alarming tendencies in the human heart
The tendency of human people / to make gods of their own choosing

We carve an idol for ourselves / because we want a God we can control
Joy Davidman / the wife of C.S. Lewis in her book Smoke on the Mountain
makes this firm assertion:
“The essence of idolatry is its attempt to control and enslave the deity
he can bribe it / he can drive a bargain with it
By certain rituals and sacrifices / he can compel it to grant his wishes”

The first commandment says “You shall have no other gods”
But it doesn’t stop there / there is a second commandment
And in essence / it says: “YOU SHALL HAVE ME ONLY”
What’s that? / In essence it is saying:
“You should love me with a singleness of heart”

The genuineness of the faith of the Thessalonicans was tested
on the point of their readiness and willingness
to destroy the idols in their lives / and they did!

If you can get yourself to forsake the gods and goddess
that made those empty promises to you
- that all will be well / that you’ll never have to suffer lack / grief
that everything will turn out well for you financially
that your children will not have to suffer
If you can get yourself to forsake the gods of those promises
and be prepared to say “Lord whatever you want of me / I gladly accept”
even if for that / I should have to suffer grief and deprivation”
you have turned from idol to serve the living God

You see the subtle lie of idolatry
Not only are you hoodwinked by an idol to bow before it
but by doing so / you’ve missed out on all that God has in store for you

Joy Davidman again/ she says:
“The real horror of idols is not merely that they give us nothing
but that they take away from us / even that which we have”

But perhaps the greatest curse of idolatry / is that in a spiritual sense
idolatry is nothing less than spiritual adultery
You become idolatrous / when you turn away from your true God
and exchange Him / for someone else

When God’s people forsake him and worship false gods
their infidelity to God is described in scripture
as prostitution and adultery / Jer. 3: 8-9 / Hos. 1:2; 3:1

God is symbolically their Husband / By forsaking Him
they are unfaithful to their covenant vows made to h Him

You search the whole Bible through / and you will not find one sin
that God has more pursued more relentlessly with plagues than idolatry
The Jews have a saying / that every time an evil falls on them
there is an ounce of the Golden Calf in it

This morning as God looks down into your heart is he saying
“There is a rival you are harbouring in your heart”
John says “Little children / beware of idols”

Could it be that the grief you are now bearing in your heart
is due to the presence of an idol you’re harbouring

I believe that by turning away from idols
the Thessalonians put themselves in a place where they just blossomed
and I believe they were able to be all that Paul commended them for
because they took that first step to cutting off all ties with their idols

So / what a picture we get there of the Thessalonicans
- a portrait of what true discipleship is all about
- a high standard for us all to follow but nevertheless God’s rule for us all


We want now to make a shift / and ask the question:
“If they werer able to turn around like that so amazingly
what were their masters like?
The changed lives of these Thessalonian believers is an eloquent witness
to the ministry of dedicated masters who walked with their disciples

Who were these people? / Just what were they made of ?

Chapter 2 is one of the most inspiring chapters in the entire NT
it circumscribe for us how as disciple-makers / we should live

We are talking here of Paul and his team members
These are people / totally sold to the power of God’s Word
They rest in the power of His Word
They are willing to give their lives to the Lord
in preaching and teaching this Word

The way you live / speaks engagingly and powerful
to the reality of your belief in the gospel
There is no running away / our conduct / our lifestyle
speak volume of the validity and authenticity of our beliefs

Paul says / “You have a personal knowledge of my character and work
Six times / Paul says “You all know the way I have lived”
Six time / he appealed to their knowledge of his life
(1:5; 2:1, 2, 5, 11; 4:2)

His life / his walk was above reproach
This is why he can even appeal to God to be his witness / 2:5

He is prepared to suffer for them
2:2 / We had suffered / we had been insulted in Philippi
but with God’s help / in spite of strong opposition
we were bold / and we dared to preach His gospel

The word “mistreated” “hubrizo” / in the original languages
speaks of “abuse” and “shameful treatment”
they were victims of insulting and outrageous treatment
treatment calculated publicly to insult and openly to humiliate

Now / it is right before such people / that Paul shares the Gospel of God

What boldness!

The New American Standard Bible / puts it most clearly / it reads: 2:2
“after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi
as you know / we had the boldness in our God
to speak to you / the gospel of God / amid much opposition”

I am not talking of the kind of boldness or courage / you see in Fear Factor
which incidentally / some social critics have dubbed / “a new low on TV”
I am not talking of the boldness that’s rewarded with a huge sum of money
for successfully facing their biggest fears
I am talking about being bold for the cause of the gospel

I’ve come to see that people who have godly boldness aren’t ashamed
Paul said elsewhere “It is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not
be at all ashamed / but that with full courage now as always
Christ will be honored in my body / whether by life or by death” Phil 1:20

And Paul wasn’t ashamed of the Gospel

Further / that if you have godly boldness
you will not be timid or guarded in your speech

You will be hated for it
but you will speak directly / openly / frankly / forthrightly and plainly

You know you are endowed with God’s boldness when you find yourself
no longer speaking indirectly / vaguely / obscurely
but speaking with the conviction
that there are things that fester in the dark
and of all places / people in church should not play that game

When a bold person speaks people know what he means
his cards are on the table / he doesn’t try to safeguard himself
with obscurities or subtleties or euphemisms or generalities

He is frank and plain and straightforward
He is not political / not cagy / not slippery

I want to put it to you that / if you are bold / it will show in your speech

John Piper offers two reasons why we are often not bold
one / the love of human acceptance and praise
two / the love of the comforts and securities that money can buy

Paul wasn’t one to allow the need for the praise of people to derail him

2:4b / “we speak / not as pleasing men but God / who examines our hearts”
2:6 / “nor did we seek glory from men / either from you or from others”

Many of us suffer from this incurable addiction
to be accepted and recognized / and praises / and that paralyses us
"The fear of people / brings a snare" / Prov 29:25
"Be not afraid of their faces" / Jeremiah 1:8

We love the praises of men / more than we fear the displeasure of God

I find it helpful / although sometimes annoying
to have to periodically ask myself / three questions
“Is there something I know should say but I’m afraid to say it?”
“Who is it that I'm afraid of?”
“Why?”

Isn’t it a travesty to our Christian faith
that we're seeing fewer and fewer people / whose lives are marked
with a spirit that shows neither fear nor favour

The second thing we need to break free from / is the love of money
and the securities and comforts it promises us

2:5 / “We never used flattery / nor did we put on a mask
to cover up greed / God is our witness”

Paul was not after their money / that didn’t interest him
Therefore he could speak with boldness / without mincing his words
- he depended on no rich friends
- he knew that that would only impede his ministry

In fact he goes to great length to tell us how careful he was
in ensuring his own financial freedom: “You recall brethren
our labor and hardship / how working night and day
so as not to be a burden to any of you
we proclaimed to you the gospel of God” / 2:9

Quite intentionally / Paul he insisted on a measure of financial freedom
so that he might be free / to be bold in his speech
In fact he could openly tell them
“We never came to you for any personal gain”
We are not here to fulfill any personal ambition
or pander to our pride / greed or popularity

In fact because he was free and secure
he need not have to put up an unreal cardboard cut-out of himself
he need not have to scheme and invent strategies to try to be accepted

And today / these are still the two demons / we need to break free from:
One / the need of human acceptance and praise
Two / the comforts and securities that money promises us

And the way to break free from those demons is quite simple really
Learn to receive your acceptance / and praise from God
Learn to get your comforts and security from God

That / is the thrust of 2:4 / “Just as we have been approved by God
to be entrusted with the gospel
so we speak / not as pleasing men but God”

What an idea to strive for / I remember Jim Elliot once said
he was working for his AUG / Approved Unto God

If we had God’s approval / we shall not need human approval
Only His approval
can break our incurable addiction for human approval

We all need to be careful
that we don’t take too seriously what people think about us

If I / as a minister / begin to listen to what people say about me
I would either become too big-headed / or too depressed

I need to stand stout in my own personal conviction that
- I will seek the applause of One only
- I live and work to the audience of One
- I will resolutely not let my peace be rocked by what people say

Os Guinness talks about some leaders who are always worried
about people who are only two weeks away
from leaving for another church”

If you are a leader / you need to beware
the leadership that is codependent on followership

Be careful
that you are looking only for the approval of God and not of men

Verse 2 again / “After we had already suffered
and been mistreated in Philippi / as you know
we had the boldness in our God / to speak to you
the gospel of God amid much opposition”

What a place to stand / “we had the boldness in our God”
But they were not just bold / they were gentle at the same time
What a combination / bold on one hand and gentle on the other

2:6 We were gentle among you / like a mother caring for her little children
2: 11 We dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children
v. 12 / encouraging / comforting and urging you
to live lives worthy of God
2:8 We shared with you not / only the gospel of God / but our lives as well
2:9 We went through toil and hardship
We worked night and day / in order not to be a burden to anyone

Now all that speaks of incarnational preaching
We do not just preach / we live right before you

Then Paul makes some of the most daring and unpretentious claims
you’ll hear a person make

He says / 2:10 You are witnesses / and so is God
of how holy / righteous / and blameless we were among you

First / Paul says / you are witness / and so is God
of how holy we were among you

I am jumping ahead but in / 1 Thess. 5:23 / Paul says
“May your spirit / and soul / and body be preserved blameless”

God wants your spirit consecrated / your body cleansed
and your mind dedicated / to God’s purpose alone
- and that / is holiness
consecrated spirit / dedicated mind / and a clean body

If you could see God / exactly as He truly really is
you will cancel certain appointments in your diary
If you could see God / exactly as He truly really is
you will make a firm decision / to stop seeing someone
whom you’re now seeing

God’s holiness / is a truth we neglect to our own health

Holiness is the one sure mark of a true disciple-maker
“This is the will of God / your sanctification
that you abstain from immorality” 1 Thess 4:3

Jesus died for our holiness
“Jesus Christ died for us to redeem us from all iniquity
and to purify for himself a people of his own” Titus 2:14

Dr George Campbell Morgan says that
“there are men within the four walls of our churches
to whom we are doing incalculable harm
by allowing them to remain there
We allow them to remain
and they imagine that they are in a place of safety
when they are in the place of death”

Murray MaCheynne:
"A holy man is an awesome instrument in the hands of God."

Many times the only difference between a sermon preached with unction
and one that is the run-of-the-mill
is simply because one man has a clean heart / the other sullied

It was said of a French court preacher:
“Sire / your sermon terrifies me / but your life reassures me”

You might not be a preacher / but all the same / as a disciple-maker
if your hands aren’t clean / your word will be shorn of its power

Let us all aspire to be holy / Speaking of John Owen / John Piper says:
“Not many leaders today / state the goals of their lives
in terms of holiness”

Second / Paul says / you are witness / and so is God
of how righteous we were among you
The word “righteous” / “dikaios” stresses your relationship to people
in a manner / consistent with the teaching of God

It is getting us to think about our dealings with people around us
It is getting us to think about honestly / truthfulness / fair-play
purity / goodness / acts of love etc.

Paul was willing to live in such a way
that evidences the depth of his love for the people

He says in chapter 1:5b
“You know how we lived among you for your sake

There are times when we must we choose to live
purely for the sake of other people

The message we preach / of course / is all important
But so is the life of the messenger

Yes / Paul preached a Spirit-empowered message
but he also lived an unselfish life one fully consistent with his message

Augustine said / “Lord let me die lest I die”
But can I be so brazen as to rephrase Augustine
“Let me die lest they die”

Yes / you might not like to hear this / but contrary to Cain
you ARE your brother’s keeper

Third / Paul says / you are witness / and so is God
of how blameless we were among you

The word “blameless” / “amemptos” refers to someone
who is totally free from any charge or blame
someone uncensurable / lamblike / innocent / unimpeachable

Not faultless in the sense of sinless / but free from blame
Of course Paul and his team were accused of doing wrong
but those charges could not stick / they were blameless

You want to be a disciple-maker / you need to be blameless

Is it any wonder why in 1:5 / Paul says “Our gospel came to you
not simply with words / but also with power / with the Holy Spirit
and with deep conviction

Why would their preaching not be engaging
They were holy / they were righteous / they were blameless

It is tragic that many Christians feel the need
to resort to man made techniques / and manipulation

If we would only aspire to those same attributes
it would be such a cleansing breath of fresh air for our work

And it is no wonder that the disciples they made / became totally transformed
Because being holy / and righteous / and blameless
they could see God and communicate God’s Word

He says in 2:13 When you received the word of God you accepted it
not as the word of men / but as it actually is / the word of God

Paul dared claim for himself that he spoke the very words of God
because being holy / and righteous / and blameless
they could see God and communicate God’s Word

It was Tozer who said / “Listen to no man who does not listen to God”

But there is another way to find out
whether what we hear preached / spoken / or shared from any platform
are the words of God and not of men

The key question is this: Does he say what God says
And anyone who speaks for God must ensure
that what he says / is what God says

In fact that is the basic job of the preacher
In fact that is preaching / homolego / “say what God says”

And your responsibility as a listener / is to double check what I say
with the teachings of Scriptures

The Bereans did that / and they were commended as “noble”