The Model Leader, Part 3

Turn with me in your Bible, if you would, to the second chapter of 1st Thessalonians. 1st Thessalonians chapter 2, as we continue to look at the model leader, we spent the previous two weeks introducing to you chapter 2 by looking at that leader, the apostle Paul, giving you a portrait, or the portrait, of a leader.

We told you that a leader is a lover and learner of God. He's an example and an exhorter of men. He truly is above reproach and accountable to God. He's a discerner and decision-maker before men. He is also enlisted and empowered by God. Therefore, he's a reproducer and restorer of men. That's the portrait of a leader. That's what the apostle Paul gives us throughout his 13 epistles to sum up his portrait. And leadership is very important. Leadership is inspiring influence. Leadership is igniting a desire, the blaze in the life of an individual, to get them to accomplish something they thought they would never be able to do.

That's what inspiring leadership does. It's like the army sergeant who's able to rally his defeated soldiers to future victory. He's like the schoolteacher who's able to rouse the apathetic students to get them to accomplish great achievements. He's like the CEO who's able to resurrect a failing business to bring it to new heights. Or the father who's able to reignite his family to love and serve the Lord. Or the husband who's able to rekindle the relationship with his wife that they might learn to love one another all the more.

Inspiring influence. That's what leadership does. It moves people to action. Paul was that kind of person. Not necessarily because of who he was, but because of what God did in him as an individual. And there are different types of leaders. There are different styles of leadership. Different temperaments. No one leads the same way. They're all different. But there are certain priorities of godly leadership that need to stand out. So I'm going to move you from point number one, the portrait of a godly leader, to the priorities of a godly leader as we dive into the second chapter of 1 Thessalonians to help you understand what were the priorities in Paul's leadership that made him the man that he was.

Let's look at it together. Verse 1. The text reads this way. So we speak not as pleasing men but God who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her children. 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 very dear to us.

For 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. You are witnesses. And so is God. How devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behave toward you believers. Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father with his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. Those 12 verses become the best 12 verses in the Scripture giving you the model leader, the Apostle Paul.

The priorities fall in the seven words. I'm going to give you five of them this morning, because that's as far as I got in the first service, so I don't imagine I'll get any further in the second service.

But I'll give you at least five of them this morning, of the seven. We call these the priorities of leadership. You can call them the particulars of leadership, of godly leadership. But it begins with this. Every godly leader is faithful. So faithfulness is the first word.

You can use the word trustworthiness if you want to use that word. But Paul says, notice what he says in verse number one.

Our coming to you is not in vain. Our coming to you is not futile. Our coming to you is not empty. Our coming to you is not useless. There was really purpose behind our coming. We didn't come to entertain you. We came to enlighten you. So what do we do? We brought to you, notice what it says four times in the second chapter, the gospel of God.

Four times it says, we brought to you the gospel of God. He says we've been entrusted with the gospel of God. Very important. Why? Because Paul recognized that he was a steward of the gospel. He'd been entrusted with something that was very valuable. The gospel of the living God. Therefore, his coming to them would never be empty or futile or worthless or useless because he brought to them the eternal gospel of God. Listen, when you lead, you lead people toward God. And the way you do that is with the gospel of God.

That's why whenever you bring the gospel to your arena in which God has called you to live out your spiritual existence, you never do it in vain. It's always for a purpose, to bring people to Christ. And faithfulness marked Paul's ministry. It's required of a steward that he be found faithful, 1 Corinthians 4. And Paul was faithful to the gospel entrusted to him. He wasn't going to back away from that. He was going to continue to give the gospel because he wanted people to come to know Jesus Christ as Lord.

So he came and preached the truth. You've been entrusted with that same gospel. That's why the Bible calls us ministers of reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5. Ambassadors for Christ. And Tim referred to it earlier in 1 Peter 2 verse number 9 that we are a holy nation. We are a chosen people. We are God's own possession. For what purpose? To declare the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. That's what we've been called to do. That's what we do. That's who we are.

And Paul says, I am a faithful minister of the gospel. Our coming to you was not in vain. It wasn't empty. It was very purposeful. You say, well, I'm not a preacher. You don't have to be a preacher. You're to go into all the world and make disciples. But think about it this way. Every one of us who's a believer wants to be like Christ, right? Down deep we want to be like Christ. And over in Luke's gospel, in the fourth chapter, it says in verse number 43, Christ said, I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also for I was sent for this purpose.

Christ says, I need to preach the kingdom. I need to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Why? Because I was sent for this purpose. So in John 20, verse number 21, he says, As the Father has sent me, so send I you. You're sent with the same purpose. What's that? To preach the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of God. I like how Paul says it. He didn't call it the gospel of Christ, although it is. He calls it the gospel of God because God's the author, right? God's the author of the gospel. And so you can't change what the author has already written because he's the eternal, infinite, holy, impeccable God.

It's his gospel. And Paul says, I came to give you the gospel. We've been entrusted with it. He said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of God. It's the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first, also to the Greek.

And he had seen the effects of the gospel in their lives, how they had turned to God from idols in order to serve the true and living God. If you're a mother, you have the same responsibility. Look at Lois and Eunice, the grandmother and mother of Timothy.

They brought the gospel of God to Timothy. How about Ammon and Jacob in Hebrews chapter 11? They made sure that their son, Moses, understood the truth about the coming Messiah so that he would not be afraid of the king's edict when the king came down with his decree because he was taught by his mother and father. You see, as parents, as teachers, as coaches, as nurses, as doctors, as CEOs, as presidents, no matter what our profession may be, no matter what our calling in life may be, God has put us in a particular arena, and not me, and not someone else, just you.

Just you. Because God designed the eternity past, the place you would work, the school you'd attend, the family you'd be a part of, and the relationships you would have. Why? Because someone has to be the light in those arenas. Someone's got to speak the gospel in those arenas. So God strategically, sovereignly placed you there. And Paul knew that God had called him to be a missionary. God had called him to preach the gospel. So he went to Thessaloniki, he says, we didn't come to you in vain. Oh no.

Because we've been entrusted with the gospel. We brought to you the gospel of God. We exhorted you. We encouraged you. We moved you in that direction. Why? Because that's what leaders do. Inspiring influence. They're sold out on what they believe in, and they believe in God, in the gospel of God. So faithfulness is number one priority.

Number two, boldness. Boldness. Look what Paul says. He says, Wow, what a statement. Boldness in God. I could spend a month of Sundays just on that phrase. Boldness in God. Now, don't worry. I'm not going to do that. But I could. Because it's so important. Boldness in God. Paul says, you know, that when we left Philippi, all you've got to do is read Acts 16. They were imprisoned. They were put in stocks. They were mistreated. They were sentenced without a jury. They faced public degradation. They were humiliated.

All kinds of difficulties came upon them. But notice what he didn't say. He said, look, we faced all this hardship at Philippi. So when we came to you guys, we kind of fine-tuned the message. We kind of changed it up a little bit. We didn't make it as offensive or as harsh. We kind of softened up the message a little bit. We kind of sugar-coated it and candy-coated it so that you wouldn't be so hurt when we gave it to you. No. He never changed his tactics. Never changed his presentation. In fact, when he got there, they gave him the gospel.

He says, amid much opposition, all you can do now is go to Acts 17 and read what happened when they went to Thessalonica because the whole city went into an uproar. And they said, those men that turned the world upside down, they've come to our city. We've got to get rid of them. And they began to persecute the believers there in Thessalonica. And Paul had to leave in the middle of the night because they were so enraged with him. See, Paul, I like how one author says it, his objective was not to minimize the conflict but to generate the conflict.

Did you hear that? Leaders don't minimize conflict. They generate conflict. Why? Because he's presenting the gospel. And when you present the gospel, what do you do? You expose sin. When you expose sin, you expose God's wrath against sin. And then you expose the consequences of sin, eternal hell, and people who don't want to respond to that by repentance rebel against it and become angry and become furious. So Paul wasn't going to change the message because he faced some opposition. He wasn't going to change his presentation because people persecuted him.

In fact, all you've got to do is read through the epistles and realize how much he was mistreated, imprisoned, persecuted over and over again. That was his life. But never once did he shy away from the gospel. Listen, if you're a godly leader, you're going to face opposition and conflict when you present the gospel. You stand for the truth. Boldness is a requirement. Notice it says, his boldness was in God.

His boldness was not in his ability. His boldness was not in his education. His boldness was not in his intellect. His boldness was not in his athletic prowess. His boldness was only in God. Because that's where your strength comes from. That's why he would tell Timothy in 2 Timothy 1, excuse me, 2, verse number 1, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Because that's, Timothy, where your strength's going to come from. That's why he tells him in 2 Timothy 1, verse number 7, God's not given us the spirit of timidity, but of love, power and self-discipline, Timothy.

Don't be shy. Why? Don't be ashamed of the gospel. Don't shrink back from presenting the gospel. Stand strong on it. Why? Because God has given us the power through his spirit. He would say over in the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse number 7, that we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. He said, we're nothing but clay pots, earthen vessels. But the power you see is not us. It's God. His boldness was in God.

Over in Ephesians, chapter 3, Paul says this. He says, this was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and confidence. See, our strength comes from the Lord. Our confidence comes from the Lord. Our courage comes from the Lord. Paul never lacked confidence because his boldness was in God. And if you're going to be a godly leader, a priority has to be boldness and it comes only from God. You got to be strong. You can't be weak and be a godly leader.

Those terms are incompatible. Godly leaders are strong in and of their own right because of what God has done in their lives. So as fathers, we are bold in Christ. We're strong in Christ. And as fathers, we are faithful to do what God's called us to do, to present the gospel to our families, to our children, to model the way to Christ so others will see that. And wherever God's called you to your place of employment, I don't know where that is, but you're there for a specific reason because you've been entrusted with the gospel just like Paul was.

And although you might not be a preacher or an apostle or an evangelist, you are an ambassador for Christ. You're a minister of reconciliation. You've been entrusted with that gospel. And God holds us accountable with what we do with the gospel, with those we come in contact with, with those we love, with those we serve because he wants us to be true to him. Paul says in Colossians 1, we proclaim him admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom so we may present every man complete in Christ.

For this purpose also I labored, striving according to his power which mightily works in me. There's always going to be pressure. Always going to be the pressure to compromise. There's always going to be the pressure to soften the message. There's always going to be the pressure to stand back, stand down. Paul says, can't do that. Our boldness was in God. And even though we faced opposition, even though there was persecution, even though there was conflict, we just kept doing what God had called us to do.

That's the mark of a godly leader. Faithfulness. Boldness. Number three, truthfulness. Truthfulness. Listen to what he says. He says, Verse three, for our exhortation, does not come from error. That's a great word, error. Explanase. It's where we get our English word planet. Our presentation, our exhortation to you is not like the planets that are just wandering around in space. No. Everything that we gave to you is knit together, nailed together by the truth of God. In other words, what we gave you is the truth.

And we spoke to you in truth. Because truthfulness marks the man of God, the woman of God, who serves the God of truth. And so we didn't come to you in any kind of error. We didn't come to you in any way to deceive you. We live in a world where there are all kinds of hucksters and charlatans in the pulpit today. All around the world, right? There are pretenders in the pulpit. There are pretenders in the pew. They're everywhere. Who want you to think that they're speaking the truth, but they're not.

And Paul would say over in 1 Timothy 6, these words, If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words. Out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.

So Paul tells Timothy at the end of 1 Timothy 6, Guard what has been entrusted to you. Protect it. Keep watch over it. 2 Timothy 1, verse 3, Retain the standard of sound words. Verse number 14, Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you. He says, be not ashamed of the gospel. Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Why? Because what we do, we do in the realm of truthfulness.

We hold the truth in our hand. We speak the truth to others, that they might know this truth is objective, it's authoritative, it's not my opinion, it's what God himself has said. Therefore, truthfulness must always mark the godly leader. Paul says at the end of his ministry, Not only have I run the course, but I've kept the faith. Not that he's been faithful, but the faith is the body of doctrine which is the truth about the gospel. I've kept it. I haven't waived from it. I haven't trifled with the truth.

I haven't toyed with the truth. I haven't tampered with the truth. Why? Because I treasure the truth. And because I treasure the truth, I want to make sure I tell the truth. And if I tell the truth, I need to translate the truth through daily life so that I can transfer that truth to other people. His whole life was about the truth. A life of truthfulness. That's the way it should mark every godly leader. Living a life that explains and expounds on nothing but the truth. In 2 Corinthians 2 verse 17, Paul said, For we are not many corrupting the word of God.

Wow. Many people corrupt the word of God. We are not like many corrupting the word of God but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ, in the sight of God. What we give to you is not confusing. It doesn't breed chaos because it's the truth. It's very clearly presented and therefore you need to understand that. So faithfulness is number one.

Boldness is number two. Truthfulness is number three. Number four is pureness. Look what he says. He says, For our exhortation does not come out of error or impurity or by way of deceit. That's a powerful statement. And the word impurity deals with sexual uncleanness. When we get to chapter 4, he's going to spend 8 verses talking about the purity of the church. The purity of every individual in the church. Why? Because immorality was rampant in Thessalonica as it was in that entire region. It was everywhere.

And Paul could have been accused of being just another pagan religion had he been engaged in any kind of sexual favors from others. But our gospel did not come in impurity. He goes on to say these words, which is very important, by way of deceit. That's a phrase that means to catch with the bait. You dangle some kind of bait out there to win people over to your side. In this case it would be some kind of sexual favor or sexual advantage that would win them over to you. He said we didn't do that. Why?

Our ministry was marked by pureness. Pureness of heart, pureness of soul, pureness of mind. Why? Because we represent a pure and holy God who demands that we be holy as He is holy. Listen, we live in a society where you can't read on the internet, read somewhere on social media, of some religious leader falling because of their sin. I read an article this past week about a worship pastor in a church in the Midwest who had set up cameras in the bathrooms of the church to videotape people. What kind of church is that?

I mean, you want to go to a church where you're safe and secure and you're protected. But every week there's another article about another pastor who has done this or done that and committed some kind of immoral sin or been unfaithful to his wife or abused someone in the church or, pray tell, some kind of child abuse or pedophilia. It's just rampant everywhere. It's all over the place. Paul says, no, when we came to you it was all out of pureness of heart, soul, and mind. There was nothing impure about our coming to you and our presentation to you simply because we came to bring you the truth of the living God and we are representatives of that truth and therefore we can't represent Him in any form of impurity.

Leadership is always marked by its pureness, its integrity, its holiness. That's the way it should be. If you want to destroy your family as a father, live in immorality. Live in sinful behavior. Want to destroy your church? Same thing. Want to destroy those relationships close to you? Live in the realm of impurity and your credibility is gone like that. It's gone. That's what marks John MacArthur's ministry at Grace Community over 55 years and not one hint of a scandal in 55 years. It's not the books he's written or the sermons he preaches, although they're pretty good.

It's the purity of his life that marks a testimony of his ministry. That's the way it should be with every pastor. Pureness. Truthfulness. Holiness. Faithfulness. Boldness. Let me give you another one.

I'm going to call this one genuineness. Verse 4, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men but God who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Genuineness. Listen.

If you're not genuine, you are not genuine because you want to please men. If you're a man pleaser, you'll never be genuine. You'll always be a hypocrite. You just will. You can't be a leader, a godly leader, and seek to please men. Paul said, we make it our ambition, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5, verse number 9, to please God. This is our sole ambition. We're here to please the Lord. When we came to you in Thessalonica, we didn't come as pleasing men. We didn't come to please you. We came to give you the truth.

We came to please God because He's our witness. We're doing this before Him. He is our audience of one. We came to please God. That should be all of our ambition. That's where a genuine heart is seen. Because listen, if not, you'll have a manipulative heart because you want people to respond to you, affirm you. You want to please them. So you'll compromise somewhere to please them. You're not genuine. But a genuineness comes from a heart that truly is set on pleasing God and not even worried about pleasing men.

The Bible says that when your ways please the Lord, you make even your enemies to be at peace with you.

That's what Solomon said. So the question comes, are we men-pleasers or are we God-pleasers? There are many illustrations in the Bible of this. Saul is one of them, right? You remember Saul. He was told to wipe out the Amalekites. Destroy them all. God gave the command. So Samuel says, this is your responsibility. You got to do this. Saul says, okay. But he doesn't do that. He spares the king. He spares some of the livestock. Does not wipe out all the men, all the women, all the children. Doesn't do that.

God says, this is what you got to do. He doesn't do that. So Samuel rebukes him and told him, rebellion is as a sin of divination and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being king. Why did Saul do that? He tells you. Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned. I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and listened to their voice. He was a man pleaser. He wasn't a God pleaser.

I was more afraid of what the people thought. So because I was afraid of what they might say or how they may view me, I listened to their voice instead of God's voice. That's what made him a very ineffective leader. Certainly not a godly leader. And therefore, you must remember, you must listen to what God says in His Word.

But let's bring it really close to where every one of us lives. Let's look at a father in the Scriptures who had a position of leadership in the church.

Well, not the church, Israel. He was a priest. His name is Eli. That's what it says. Now, the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. Eli had two sons, Hothni and Phinehas. They did not know the Lord. It says in verse number 17, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord. Great sin before the Lord. Verse 22 of chapter 2 of 1 Samuel. Now, Eli was very old. It's very important to the text, by the way. So remember that. He was very old. He wasn't a young man. He was an old man.

And he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel and how they lay with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting. He said to them, Why do you do such things? The evil things that I hear from all these people. No, my sons. For the report is not good, which I hear the Lord's people circulating. If one man sins against another, God will mediate for him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him? But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to put them to death.

What I'm hearing about what's going on with you guys, that's not good. Not good at all. Shouldn't be doing that. That was Eli's response to his sons who laid with the women at the meeting door of the temple. And God wanted to kill them. Eli just said, What are you guys doing? First of all, he says, What are you doing that I hear circulating among the people?

In other words, he had to hear it second hand. How come he didn't know what his sons were doing? That's on him. He should have known first hand, not second hand.

He wasn't involved enough to know what his sons were doing. That's a problem. So God sends a man of God to them to Eli to tell him the consequences of his sin. Now listen to what he says. This is very, very important. Why do you, and the you there is plural, okay, so he's referring to Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas. Eli is not sleeping with the girls in the doorway to the temple. But Eli and Phinehas are. I mean, Phinehas and Hophni are, excuse me. Okay, they are. But he says, you, plural, kick at my sacrifice and at my offering which I commanded in my dwelling and honor your sons above me.

He includes Eli in the sin because Eli did nothing to his boys about the sin. Why do you do this? Why do you honor your boys above me? Why do you value your sons more than you value me? My friends, that happens in families 99 out of 100 times. We value the relationship we have with our children more than we value the relationship we have with God. That's a problem. That's a huge problem. And God made it very clear. You valued them more than you valued me. You honored them more than honoring me. So he says these words.

Therefore, the Lord God of Israel declares, I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father should walk before me forever. But now the Lord declares, far be it from me, for those who honor me, I will honor. Those who despise me will be lightly esteemed. In other words, you despise me. When you value your children and that relationship more than you value God, you just said, Lord, I despise your name. That's what it says. That's what Eli did. You despise me, Eli. And you're a priest in my kingdom.

You should be living for me. But instead, you're living for your boys. Now notice, Eli was old. He didn't say, I know you're old, Eli. I know you're getting up in years. It's okay. You know, you forget things. You're old. No, no. No excuse for being old. None. In fact, the older, the wiser, the smarter he should have been, the clearer he should have been about what God's commands were. So God doesn't let him off the hook because he's an old man. Grandparents, God doesn't let you off the hook because you're old.

Don't think he's letting you off the hook because you're old. Oh, no. If you value any relationship more than your relationship with God, you despise God. That's why the Lord said, if anyone comes after me and loves father or mother more than me, he's not worthy of me. Or son and daughter more than me, he's not worthy of me. Or even his own life, he's not worthy of me. Why? Because I demand all your affection, all your adoration, all your attention. I want every bit of it. I want parts of it. I want all of it.

And I demand that. He's the king. He's the most high God. Would you give to him what he demands? Or would you hold back from him because you favor a relationship with your children? How sad is that? But you see, people don't see it that way today. But they should because it's right here in the text. God gives us a living illustration of this. So God said Samuel to Eli. The man of God told him, you're losing your kingdom. You're losing your boys. It's going to happen that way. And the Lord said to Samuel, chapter 3, verse 11, Behold, I'm about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.

In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning this house from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity that he knew. He's responsible. He's the leader. He knew. Because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. That's the problem. He could have gone back and said, Okay, you know what? I'm going to rectify this whole thing. I'm going to rebuke them. He doesn't do that. He should have done it earlier when God said, Hey, this is wrong.

He should have rebuked his sons. But he didn't do that either. He said, shame, shame. Why do you guys do that? You shouldn't do that. Come on. You know better than that. As a parent, that's not how you talk to your children. When they sin against God, you rebuke them. Because that's what God says.

But because you want to be their friends. You don't do it that way. Eli wanted to be his son's friend. He didn't want to be their father. He wanted to be their friend. And it cost him. It cost him his kingdom. It cost him his life and his son's lives. Because he valued their relationship with him more than he valued his relationship with God. So, it says in verse 11, The Philistines came. They went to war and the ark of God was taken. Two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were killed. Eli hears about it.

The Bible goes on and says in verse number 18 that he heard about it, fell over backwards, broke his neck, he died. Phinehas' wife was pregnant. She was about to have a son. She was dying. About hearing about her husband dying, her brother-in-law dying and her father-in-law dying, she goes to labor. She gives birth to a son. She called the boy Ichabod. Meaning, the glory has departed from Israel. What is the glory of the Lord? It's the presence of God manifested in brilliant light. In other words, what happens in so many families is the manifestation of God's presence is no longer seen in that home.

Because parents have chosen to value the relationship they have with their children more than they value their relationship with the living God. And the glory of the Lord has departed. How sad is that? So Paul says, when I came to you, I didn't come to please you. That was never my ambition. That was never one of my goals or objectives. I came because I have one ambition in life and that's to please God. That's it. I want to please the Lord. How about you? Is that your ambition in life? That's the genuineness of leadership.

That's the realness, the transparency of leadership. Why? I'm not trying to manipulate you, coerce you, flatter you, anything. Paul says, I'm here to show you my life. He goes over and over again, as you recall, as you know, you are witnesses, you saw this. We didn't come for any other reason but to please God. That's why we're here. We love the Lord. That's all we care about is the Lord and your relationship to that Lord. So we brought you the gospel of God. We did it faithfully. We did it with holiness and pureness.

We did it with boldness. We did it because we want to do nothing but speak the truth. And we did. And you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Your life is so great, he says, everybody else knows about it. We have nothing else to say about you. That's in chapter 1. And that's why it's so important for us to understand 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, that we as parents should be model leaders to our children. When we go to work tomorrow, we're model leaders because we're faithful to the gospel.

We're true to the word of God. We're bold in our presentation because we're going to work tomorrow to please God. You don't go to work tomorrow to please your employer, to please your employees. You go to work tomorrow to please God with your attitude, your words, your character, everything about you. That's what God wants for us. May God give us the grace to accomplish that. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, for today. The opportunity you give us to be in your word. Truly, Lord, you are a great God.

May we live in light of your word until you come again, as you most surely will. In Jesus' name, amen.