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PEOPLE OF INFLUENCE

Paul’s First Letter, Part 2

1 Thessalonians 2:1-13

January 14, 2007

Pastor Bob Sanders

1 Thessalonians 2:1-13 (Today’s New International Version)

1 You know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not without results. 2 We had previously suffered and been treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in the face of strong opposition. 3 For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. 4 On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. 5 You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. 6 We were not looking for praise from any human being, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our prerogatives. 7 Instead, we were like young children among you.

    Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. 9 Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

    10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

    13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.

From the Inside Out

Each year TIME Magazine comes out with its Person of the Year issue, and this year, as you probably know, it’s you (and me).  Not because of anything we’ve personally done, but because of the expanded role of user-generated media on the Web like Wikipedia, YouTube and MySpace.  I just lost some of you, didn’t I?  Check with your children.  Or, better yet, your grandchildren.  Get them to give you a tour.  You’re in for a big surprise. 

In the spring TIME comes out with another issue that names the 100 most influential people in the world.  Not necessarily the most powerful people, mind you, but the most influential.  There’s a difference.  Power changes people from the outside in, but influence changes people from the inside out.  Power usually means you’ve got money or government behind you, and you bring that power to bear on the outside of a person, on their behavior.  They change because they have to.  But influence means you target the inside, the heart and the mind of a person.  They change because they want to, not because they have to.  Which is the only change that really matters, isn’t it?  Change that comes from the inside out.  And that’s what influence produces.

The apostle Paul was, by anybody’s standards, one of the most influential people of all time.  He had no power whatsoever.  No money, no government behind him.  And yet he changed people wherever he went.  He went into dozens of cities and towns like Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth and preached something called the Gospel, the good news, and lives were changed forever – hundreds of lives, thousands of lives.  How could that be?  The answer is that Paul knew something about influence, about changing people from the inside out. 

Now, if Paul were here he’d say it was God who did it: it was God who changed all those people.  And of course he’d be right.  Only God can change a human being.  But still – what was it about Paul that made him such a channel for God’s work?  What was it Paul did that allowed God to change people? 

Every one of us wants to know how to do that.  Every one of us has children or parents or siblings or friends who we know need to be changed.  They’re unhappy or lonely or in trouble.  And we’d like to change them, and most of us have tried to change them – usually from the outside in.  We’ve tried to use whatever power we have to bring them around.  But it hasn’t worked.  Anybody who has a concern for other people wants to be a person of influence, wants to know how to change people from the inside out.

 Paul knew how to do it.  And here are three things he did, or, if you prefer, three things God did through Paul that caused him to be a person of influence in Thessalonica and elsewhere.  These come directly out of our text this morning.  First, he maintained his integrity.  Second, he gave himself away in love.  Third, he told the truth.  Let’s take a quick look at each of these.

Integrity

The first thing we see that made Paul a person of influence was his integrity.  The word integrity means wholeness.  All the various parts are integrated into a single whole.  What you see is what you get.  What’s on the  inside is the same as what’s on the outside.  Consistency of character.  Wholeness.  Integrity. 

If you were here last week you remember something about the events that caused Paul to write this letter.  He’d gone to Thessalonica and preached the Gospel and a number of people there believed his message, gave their lives to Christ, and a new church got started.  But there was also tremendous push-back from the rest of the town.  An angry mob came after Paul and he was forced to flee the city and leave new believers behind.  And while he was gone, his critics tried to discredit him with a smear campaign.  He’s a liar, they said, a phony, a charlatan.  A greedy opportunist who uses flattery and deceit to fleece people and then runs off when things get tough.  He doesn’t care about you, they said, only about himself.

Look at Paul’s response in verses 4 and 5:

[Our appeal] does not spring from error or impure motives.  On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel.  We are not trying to please people but God who tests our hearts.  You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed – God is our witness.

Five times in this passage Paul uses the phrase “you know” or “you remember” or “you are witnesses” (vv.1, 2, 5, 9, 10).  Instead of defending himself, he says, “You were there.  You know first-hand about my integrity.”  They saw integrity in his message: it was entrusted to him by God, not something of his own creating.  They saw integrity in his methods: he didn’t use flattery to seduce them or to camouflage his own greed.  And they saw integrity in his motives: it wasn’t about pleasing people but about “pleasing God, who tests our hearts.” 

You can’t be a person of influence without being a person of integrity.  There has to be a wholeness, a consistency between the message you say and the message you live.  We all know this.  We’ve all seen Christians who fail to walk their talk and the damage it causes – especially when it’s a Christian leader who lacks integrity.  We understand what the radical atheist Frederick Nietzsche meant when he said, “I would be more inclined to believe in the Redeemer if Christians looked more redeemed.” 

I remember having lunch with an agnostic businessman a while back and I tried to share something of the Gospel with him.  It was quickly obvious he wasn’t open to hearing it, and when I pressed him to find out why, he told me about a business associate who loudly proclaimed his faith in Jesus Christ but at the same time engaged in some highly unethical business practices.  “If that’s what Christianity is all about,” he said, “I don’t want it.”  And who could blame him?

None of us is perfect.  None of us walks our talk all the time, least of all me.  But if you want to be a person of influence – with your spouse, with your children, with your friends or professional colleagues – you have to be a person of integrity.  In your business practices.  In your language.  In your family relationships.  In your personal finances.  We’re all people in process.  But our influence will always be in direct proportion to our integrity.  It’s not the words we say.  It’s the life we lead.  Paul maintained his integrity, and the people around him knew it. 

Love

The second thing Paul did was he gave his heart away in love.  Look at verses 7 and 8:

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you.  Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.

Paul loved these people, loved them like a mother cares for her little ones.  Passionately, tenderly, personally.  He loved them so much he not only gave them the gospel of God, he gave them his heart, his very life.  You want to influence people?  You want to help change people from the inside out?  It won’t happen unless you love them, and unless they know you love them. 

Paul loved these folks and they knew it.  They knew it because he told them.  He wasn’t embarrassed to let his heart show.  A lot of us, especially a lot of us men, have a hard time with this – with letting the people we love know how much we love them.  We’re afraid of seeming weak or sentimental, and so many of us hold back expressing our true feelings.  We say “thanks” when we mean “God bless you” and “see you later” when we mean “I’ll miss you a lot.”  Marian Evans was a famous English novelist – her pen name was George Eliot.  In 1875 she wrote this to a friend:

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved.  I am not sure that you are of the same kind.  But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.  This is the world of literature and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear. 1

The people who have a profound influence on us are the people who love us and let us know it.  I remember when I was just starting out as a pastor, and I worked under a remarkable senior pastor named Bob Oerter.  He was a man of influence to literally thousands of people in the town of Boulder, Colorado – probably the most influential pastor I’ve ever known.  And I remember wondering how he did it.  At first I thought it was his preaching.  His sermons were powerful, that’s for sure.  Brilliant, pointed, convicting.  But that didn’t entirely explain it.  Then one afternoon I assisted him in conducting a memorial service for a woman who had died after a long struggle with cancer – a gentle and faithful woman, the wife of one of our elders, mother of two young sons.  I’m sure Bob preached a wonderful sermon, but I don’t remember it.  What I remember is what happened afterwards at the graveside service. 

Twenty of so of us huddled around the casket in the cold winter air, and Bob began reciting from memory the words of Jesus from John 14 – “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many dwelling places…”  But as he looked at the grieving family his voice cracked and tears began streaming down his face.  He wept with them, and he spoke so tenderly to them.  And you could see it – the great love he had for them, how his heart was breaking with theirs.  And that’s when I realized what made him a person of influence.  It wasn’t that he was such a brilliant preacher (though he was that).  It was that he was such a loving pastor.  Like Paul, he loved people, and he wasn’t afraid to let them know it. 

Who are you loving these days?  Do they know it?  Have you told them?  Your family members.  Your closest friends.  Who do you let get close to you?  Too many of us are going through life with a Teflon shield around our hearts.  We’re afraid to let others in.  Maybe we got hurt somewhere, or maybe we’ve had to relocate too many times.  We just can’t afford to let anybody get close, because before you know it they’ll be gone.  So we protect our hearts, but we miss out on what life’s all about.  And we stay desperately lonely.  The only way to be a person of influence is to get rid of the Teflon, love some people, give your heart away and let them know it, no matter what the cost.

Truth

Paul was a person of influence because, first, he maintained his integrity.  People could see the consistency between his words and his actions.  Second, he loved people and made sure they knew it.  And there’s one more characteristic of influence I want you to see: Paul loved them enough to tell them the truth.  Look at verses 11 and 12:

For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

We’ve already seen in verse 7 how he loves them like a mother – tenderly, patiently, gently.  But now in verse 11 we read he loves them like a father – urging and encouraging them to live lives pleasing to God.  A person of influence is both: tender like a mother and truthful like a father.  Paul loves them – but he loves them enough to tell them the truth.  Last week we saw him tell them the truth about what they’re doing right.  He affirms them.  But he isn’t afraid to tell the truth about what they’re doing wrong.  We’ll see this clearly when we get to chapter four, where Paul gets right in their faces and talks about stuff like their sex lives and what they do to earn a living.  That’s what a person of influence does: loves people enough to tell them the truth – the truth about God and, when necessary, the truth about themselves. 

I’m not talking about brutal honesty.  Some people use truth like a baseball bat.  They clobber people with honesty, often as a way of venting their own anger, and they leave people bruised and bloodied.  But a person of influence, someone who really loves us, can speak a word of wisdom, even a word of warning, and it changes our lives from the inside out.  Aristotle described it as speaking the right truth to the right person at the right time in the right way for the right reason. 2  The Bible calls it speaking the truth in love. 3

It’s hard to do that.  At least it is for me.  I love to tell people the truth about what they’re doing well.  That is, I love to affirm people.  But I find it much harder to tell people the truth about the areas they need to work on.  And I know I’m not alone.  Most of us are afraid if we tell the truth to someone we love we’ll lose their friendship.  We’ll lose their approval.  So we say nothing.  We figure it’s better to let them go on hurting themselves and possibly hurting others than run the risk of telling them the truth and upsetting them.  In other words, we don’t mind if people are unhappy, as long as they’re not unhappy with us.  But Paul was different.  Paul loved these people – so much, in fact, that he really didn’t mind if they were unhappy with him, as long as they were growing into healthy, mature, Christ-like people.  So he told them the truth.   Like a father, he challenged them to lead lives worthy of God. 

A few months ago, one of our men took me aside for a private chat.  I knew this guy cared deeply for me and my family.  I knew it because over the past couple years he’d shown his love by his actions and through his words.  He’s been a real encourager to me.  But on this day he had a concern for me, and he took me aside to tell me about it and to challenge me to do some things differently.  He even offered to meet with me and help guide me.  It was risky business on his part, the kind of thing that can ruin a friendship if it’s not handled rightly.  But what came through was his love for me – how he cared enough to tell me the truth.  And it was something I needed to hear, even if it stung a little.  What he did, you see, was speak the truth in love.  And for that he will always be a person of influence in my life.

Getting Connected

Have you got people like that in your life?  People of integrity – trustworthy people.  People who love you and let you know it.  People who love you enough to tell you the truth when you need it.  Have you got some people like that in your life?  Obviously, I’m not talking about superficial relationships.  I’m talking about deep friendships, the kind you can have with really just a few people.  People you invest time in.  People you share your heart with.  People you let get close enough to know what’s really going on.  People of influence.  You and I need them so badly, and they need us. 

Take some time this week to write a note of thanks to the people of influence in your life.  Let them know what they’ve meant to you.  And if you’re looking to find some people like that, if you want to work on getting past that Teflon shield that keeps you so alone, I invite you pray with me now and ask the Lord to make that happen.  I’m convinced God wants us to have people of influence and to be people of influence, and I don’t think it happens apart from his supernatural influence. 

So, let’s ask God to change us from the inside out and help us get connected.  And then let’s be willing to take some practical, maybe even risky steps to get things started.  In your Church Alive insert this morning are all kinds of opportunities: new classes and seminars, a new men’s group, a women’s retreat, a chance to join a small group.  Lots of great opportunities for a new year.  Let’s pray.

1. As quoted by Alan Loy McGinnis in The Friendship Factor (Augsburg, 1979), p.48.
2. As quoted by Donald W. McCullough in “White Lies, Hard Truths,” Christian Century (Sept.9-16, 1998), p.820.
3. See Ephesians 4:15.