1. “The ability to avoid offense” & “sensitive perception”
2. “a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others.”
• That’s how the DICTIONARY DEFINES “TACT”
• The ability to deal with others with skill & grace.
• The Bible declares:
Prov 15.23 A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, And a word spoken in due season, how good it is!
Prov 25.11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver.
Isa 50.4 "The Lord GOD has given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak A word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear To hear as the learned.
AND SO It’s a bummer when you cross a tactless person’s path.
• Words spoken out of season! Unfit words, hurtful, thoughtless!
• And it’s even doubly bad when it happens in a church, among the family… the tactless words of a believer!
CHURCH IS THE PLACE where God’s grace flows. Where sinner’s lives are changed. Where hope is available, where love flourishes.
• It’s a place where believers are living SELFLESS lives.
• Selfless? Yes. Flip over to Philippians 2:1-4
Selfish Ambition is at the very core of fallen humanity.
• It describes the person who wants his way regardless of who else is hurt or stepped on.
• It’s the very fuel of fights & wars & division.
• It’s ugly to watch in the world, but is devastating in a church.
It’s a dastardly form of PRIDE…
• AN exaggerated opinion of self.
• PRIDE is the biggest barrier in being used of God.
• The more inflated our view of our self is, the less God can use.
Romans 12.3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
NOTE: Imagine what the church & Christian community would look like as we were consistently people of love & not agendas.
• Can you see the untapped power that could be unleashed?!
• Can you see how many lives could be changed?!
Love flows when we’re not competing. Love flows when we’re not talking down on someone.
• Love flows when we’re not trying to be anything or anybody but people wanting to please our Master…
NOTE: Selfish Ambition & conceit will ALWAYS BRING God’s work of salvation to a screeching halt! Paul says fulfill my joy…
BUT ESTEEMING OTHERS BETTER THAN YOURSELF… deals IT a fatal blow.
SO Paul says… LOOK OUT… keep your eyes open
• Be careful how you treat people.
• Maybe you’re in a bad mood… surrender.
• Maybe you’ve had a bad week, you’re upset… surrender.
• Maybe they don’t dress the way you dress, or look a certain way, or drive that car, or do this thing…
• God might have sent that person that is so different your way to test you, to put your love to the test.
Deut 8:2-3 "And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 "So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
• Will accept them? Will you help them? Will you receive them?
Jesus was all about receiving the different ones. The outcasts, the sinners, the hurting, the dying, the smelly, the needy.
• Since we are His church, His BODY here on earth, He is going to bring us those people and send us to those who need us the most
Pray FOR TACT from the Holy Spirit… sensitivity, humility.
• Paul came to Thessalonica & ministered carefully, tenderly.
• At times he was soft & gentle. Other times he was stern & firm.
Now at times that word comes GENTLY & SOFTLY.
I. (2:7-8) GENTLE MOTHER
1. (7-8) We were Gentle Among you.
a. The church, being full of new believers need a patient leader to nurse them on the Milk of the Word.
A NURSING MOM can only be that as the baby is in her arms, next to the heart.
• And that beautiful picture reminds us that a nursing mom imparts her own life to the child.
• She eats the food & transforms it into milk for the baby and that baby partakes of his food straight from mom.
NOW This isn’t always easy. The baby can be demanding. The mom can be tired. But the nursing mom loves sacrificially...
• As a baby cries out in the middle of the night, the mom doesn’t yell out “SHUT UP”!
• That’s all the baby can do is cry… and in that cry the mom knows there is a need to be met and she wants to meet it.
• A mom will take that child and rather than getting angry, she takes that little baby and feeds it.
THIS IS our beloved Paul the Apostle… a nursing mom.
• Why? Because God’s grace & power can change anyone!
Acts 9.1-2 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
The NURSING MOM and the…
II. (2:9-12) CONCERNED FATHER
1. (9-10) False Teachers.
a. We worked & we toiled & we poured our lives into because you had become dear to us!
NOTE: Already there had been false teachers floating through that had been fleecing the flock. -- Paul reminds them that he worked.
• He didn’t want to stumble anyone so he would get a job making tents while he preached the gospel.
• He’d work to support himself so that the new fellowship was not burdened financially.
• Not that it’s wrong for the pastoral leadership to take a salary from a growing church, that’s biblical.
• But Paul was sensitive in the planting of churches to do what he could to help get the ministry started.
NOW: Money has become a big issue in the church today.
• So many churches and TV & even radio ministries are the modern day FLEECERS OF THE FLOCK!
• And so many folks come to the fellowship here burned out on the money issues in the church.
• You might be visiting today and you’re still waiting for a plate or a bag to be passed around. It won’t come.
NOW… I know many cringe when money is brought up at church.
• “Oh boy, here it comes… the push, the pull, the begging.”
• Past failures, misuses, abuses… have all contributed.
• But the Bible has A LOT to say about money and we need to know how to be good stewards of God’s resources.
IF YOU’VE been here for a few weeks or months, you know that we take a low key approach to money.
• We believe in tithing. We believe in supporting the work of this church. We believe in tithes AND OFFERINGS… building fund.
• But we really don’t want it to be the focus, the center.
• So we won’t have PLEDGE DRIVES and TITHING SUNDAYS.
• We won’t ask you wave your check before the Lord (and the congregation) so that all can see you give.
• When the finances begin to dip, I won’t pull out a TITHING MESSAGE so somehow by guilt and compulsion you’ll give.
• Jesus is the head of this church and so our eyes are on Him.
IN GIVING, we pray that the Lord would place it upon your heart.
• We don’t want people stumbled over money wondering if we’re going to try & manipulate or coerce you.
• Our ministry here is run by faith. We trust God to provide.
• We know and come to see that where God guides, He provides.
• The Word teaches you already that you’re to give, so obey!
• You say, WELL I DON’T WANT TO GIVE… then don’t.
• But understand, you will answer to God for your giving.
What a testimony in v10… you guys are our witnesses! You know.
• Paul was a CONCERNED FATHER by both example & exhortation!
• We challenged you, comforted you and charged you!
• Time is short, the Lord coming is near…
• And Paul’s desire was their walk, their manner of life be worthy!
NOTE: That’s my heart for you. That your walk would be worthy, that it would be steady, that it would glorify Jesus Christ!
DL MOODY was convinced that total surrender to God was the key to successful ministry. It was only reinforced in the early years of his ministry when he heard the British evangelist Henry Varley say, “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to him.” -- Moody asked God to make him that man. And so do we today!
So a GENTLE MOTHER, A CONCERNED FATHER…
III. (2:13-16) ENCOURAGING FRIEND
2. (13-14) You Heard, Received, & Imitated
a. Now he commends them, because they heard, they received, and they acted upon it.
b. They received the Word of God, not the word of men!
c. You took in the truth and it effectively worked in you.
NOTE: That’s why I believe there is an all out assault to get you away from & out of God’s Word!
• Question it. Confuse it. Water it down. Misinterpret!
• That was his tactic in the garden of Eden, in Genesis 3.
Genesis 3.1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, ’You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?"
The Bible is an awesome BOOKS. Books? Yes.
• 66 books, 40 authors, 3 languages, 3 continents!
• Yet there are no contradictions!
• One theme: God’s undying love for man and His plan for man to have his sins forgiven and his eternal life secured!
THE Bible IS THE WORD OF TRUTH.
• Not only is it about Jesus, but Jesus validated it Himself.
• You know some of the very things that man denies, Jesus affirmed?!
• For the sake of you note takers and for the CD I want to list them out for you. READY?
Jonah – Matt 12:40 Adam & Eve – Matthew 19:4
Abel – Matthew 23:35 Daniel – Matthew 24:15
Elijah – Luke 4;25 Global Flood – Luke 17:27
Moses - Luke 20:37 Sodom/Lot – Luke 17:28-29
Matthew 24.35 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
NOTE: God’s Word is truly so effective & powerful guys.
• I look around at the work God is doing here among us and I’m just in awe of His faithfulness.
• I’m just a knucklehead. What am I doing in the pulpit?!
• I’m teaching the Word and watching God do the work!
• If you read it. If you study it. If you take heed to it.
• God’s Word will accomplish His work! Stick with it gang!
And their commitment to Jesus and His word brought great persecution… v14-16
We need to be careful here. This is not an anti-semite remark.
Paul is not condemning the Jews. He’s stating a truth.
God gave them the Word and they rejected it.
They killed their prophets and their Messiah.
NOTE: You know, I killed Jesus too and so did you.
• It was my sins, our sins that nailed Him to the cross.
• There may have been Jews & gentiles there crying out against Him, but all of us bear the responsibility!
So a GENTLE MOTHER, A CONCERNED FATHER, ENCOURAGING FRIEND
IV. (2:17-20) ENDURING PRAYER PARTNER
1. (17-18) Hindered!
NOTE: Oh how Paul wanted to return but Satan hindered him.
• It’s interesting because in Acts 16, Paul knew what it was like to have the Holy Spirit forbid him.
• He could discern between whether it was from the Lord or not.
• So we ask, OK which is it in my life?
• I don’t know and many times I’m trying to figure it out.
YET I DO KNOW we have a very real adversary who can hinder you from ministry, from service, from prayer, from encouraging others.
• Often we find him throwing out all the stops to disrupt and discourage your relationship with Jesus!
• AND It’s TRUE: Times like that put us on our face before the Lord seeking Him, depending upon Him, waiting for clarity!
2. (19-20) You guys are our joy!
a. We want to see you because you’re our glory.
b. You’re our delight. We want to hang out and enjoy our sweet fellowship together.
c. A day when U stand in the Jesus’ presence & we can’t wait!
d. What a joy it is to even think about it.
For Paul, it was all about the people. He lays before us a great example of the TACT-FULL ministry.
• The type of life that puts others above yourself.
• Watching people’s lives change.
• Observing and being a part of seeing lives & hearts change by the transforming power of Jesus.
Guys, we’ll miss it if we aren’t sensitive, praying for a keen sense of perception to come alongside others & love them in Jesus name.
God, He loves to take the MESSES of life and clean them up.
• And we get to watch what God does.
• Sometimes it takes that
So a GENTLE MOTHER, A CONCERNED FATHER, ENCOURAGING FRIEND, An ENDURING Prayer PARTNER…
