First Thessalonians 2:3-8: Qualities of Paul's Ministry Pt. 3

So far in our mini-series on the qualities of Paul’s ministry, we have seen his desire to please God rather than man, that he came in humility to Thessalonica, and that he ministered among them with gentleness. Today we will look at the fourth quality of Paul’s ministry. Tomorrow, we will bring it all to a conclusion, which I hope you have been anticipating with me!

To the fourth quality:

Giving His Very Life

⁸ So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

Do you think Paul loves these people? He is “affectionately desirous” of them. He yearns for them. This is still connected to the imagery we saw yesterday of the nursing mother. As a mother looks at her little child with such care and love in her heart, that is how Paul looks at the Thessalonians. They had become “very dear” to him. So dear, that he not only longed to speak to them, he longed to be with them and share his life with them.

He did not come into town, shout the truth about Jesus from the roof tops and then scurry off to be alone. You get the sense that though he preached the gospel in the synagogues, he experienced normal life with them, giving himself to them. This is what people do who love each other.

Think of marriage. It is a mutual giving of each to the other. For some crazy and wonderful reasons, two sinners decide they want to share life together by living as close together as possible and bringing more sinners into their tight quarters. What was once only yours is now shared with everyone in the house. Your life is theirs.

That is Paul’s love language here, “What’s mine is yours. I give you all of me.” In a sense, a pastor’s job is a giving of one’s self to others for their sake. But that is not only for a pastor, it’s for all of us. There is a mutual giving of one to the other for the sake of the other.

It’s important to note that Paul does this willingly. He wasn’t coerced into doing this. It is a natural outworking of the love of Christ that has been poured into him. In that sense, we might say he was compelled.

As the Spirit of Christ works in us more and more, we long to share ourselves with others. This isn’t because we recognize we are so awesome and other people need us, it’s because it’s an expression of our love for Christ and his body. And at the same time, we do need each other!

What might it look like for us to give of ourselves to others? Let me name just one thing we can share with others, and three streams that flow from it.

We give our time. One of the most precious things to all of us is our own time. We don’t like to be interrupted or inconvenienced. We all wish that the Lord had made our days longer than twenty-four hours because there never is enough time! So to give our time is a giving of ourselves.

Here are three streams of our time:

We give our time in prayer. This is so simple but often so difficult. When we intercede for others at the Throne of Grace, this is time well spent and a wonderful way to give ourselves away.

We give our time in meals. When we invite people over for dinner, we spend time in preparation before and cleaning afterward. In between, we literally share life together. We tell stories, we laugh, we cry and we learn how to love and care for one another better. The time together makes preparation and cleaning more than worth it. It’s an incredible blessing.

We give our time when there is a need. Someone needs help moving or fixing something. Someone needs us to simply come, sit, talk and pray with them. Without giving the zillion examples of needs that may arise, you get the idea. We love and care for others in a way that might seem like we are being inconvenienced, but really we recognize that it is a privilege and a joy for us.

Perhaps today many think of church as a place to go and get something. Instead, what if we thought of church as a family where we get to share ourselves? In the present time, we have all been affected by our inability to share life together. Maybe a question for us is: what will it look like for me to share myself with the body of Christ after quarantine?

We share life together. And the reason we can do this, and want to do this, is because we already share someone else’s life together.

Try not to cry during this song.