Everyone is familiar with the story of Paul Revere and his ride in rousing the area near Boston to arms against the British. But what if Paul Revere had decided that his ride was too risky? What if he had thought that this might get him into trouble with the enemy and their sympathizers? What if he had lacked the courage to stand for what he knew to be true and remained silent while the British forces crept into Boston harbor? We might still be sipping tea at 4 o’clock and paying our tithes to the Church of England. But he was wise enough to see the need for boldness to action so that a people might be set free from tyranny.
There is a tyranny today that enslaves many people. And that slavery is sin. Satan, the enemy, has caused people to believe a lie that if they are only good enough they will go to heaven. And if they continue to believe the lie they shall wind up perishing in the lake of fire that burns forever and ever.
The Gospel, however, the good news that God forgives all our sins only through the blood of Jesus Christ shed for us, is the only thing that will set them free and give them eternal life. Yes, Satan will put obstacles in our path as we seek to do this because he is cunning and deceptive. He knows the right bait to use to distract us. But the key idea from this passage that the Apostle Paul details to us is that God calls us to boldly speak the Gospel despite our circumstances. There are two aspects of boldly speaking the Gospel that Paul describes in this passage.
1. The Call for Boldness
The first aspect of boldly speaking the Gospel that we see is the call for boldness. And the background for this passage of Scripture is found in Acts 16 and 17. When Paul mentions his suffering in Philippi and Thessalonica there is a historical background to it that comes directly from the book of Acts. Now we are not going to look at these chapters in detail but I would like to outline what happens there because it opens for us that about which Paul is speaking. Now by a call for boldness I mean that the apostles had a necessity for boldness. There is a call for boldness in the sense that in the midst of difficulty the apostles couldn’t afford to back down. So in this I am not talking about the call that God gave to them to preach the Gospel in Macedonia as much as a call to have a confidence that what they were doing was right. And not only that it was right but that the eternal destiny of multiplied thousands of people was dependent upon the apostle’s boldness in sharing the Gospel. Why did Paul and his companions have a call for boldness? God knew that the circumstances that Paul’s group would face in Philippi and Thessalonica would test their mettle. God knew that they needed the encouragement of a clear commission for what they were doing. Let’s look at the call for boldness.
A. In Philippi
First, let’s look at the call for boldness in Philippi. What we want to notice here in Philippi is the reason for there being a call After having received God’s Word to preach the Gospel in Macedonia (16:10) ” . . . immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the Gospel to them.” When they recognized that God wanted them to speak the Gospel to those in Macedonia (that is Philippi and Thessalonica) they went immediately. They did not delay. And so what happened as they entered Philippi? First, they see a convert take hold in their very first meeting. Paul often went to the synagogues first to preach the Gospel but apparently there were enough Jews in the city to have one. The tradition of the day was that if there were 10 Jewish men you would have a synagogue. But since there was none, they found a place where some people were making prayer to God. And Lydia, a commercial trader, was saved that day. The Lord opened her heart. From there Paul went throughout the city preaching the Gospel. But when he cast a demonic spirit out of a slave girl who had been following them, immediately they were put in prison and beaten. Apparently the owners of this girl made their money by having the girl tell people’s fortunes through the demon within her. When he destroyed their business opportunity by setting the girl free from this demon, her owners had Paul and Silas arrested for interfering in their affairs.
Satan was actively at work seeking to prevent these men from sharing the Gospel. Yet what is there response? Did they get angry at these men for harming them? No! They knew that these men were merely tools of Satan who were themselves trapped by his schemes. Money meant more to them than the precious life of an individual who was being ruined by demons. Yet they were not angry at these money grubbing business men. Did they get angry at the jailer who allowed them to be beaten and secured them into the dungeon? Did they seek to get revenge against him? When the jailer tried to commit suicide later that evening, did the apostles urge him to get on with it? No they had compassion on him. And as a matter of fact, their response to this whole event caused the jailer to finally come to Christ.
What was their response? Did they sit in the jail and complain about how they had faithfully done what God called them to do but now they were suffering because of it? Did they say, “Well I’m never going to speak about the Lord again because of this?” No! Verse 25 says, “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” They were giving witness to the greatness of God through Jesus Christ and were faithfully sharing the Word of God through song to the prisoners in the midst of the dungeon. How could this be? They understood that this was a spiritual battle and that God was in control even though the circumstances seemed despicable for them. This is why they needed a call to boldness from their God. And this is what our passage in Thessalonians says, “But 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.”
Though Satan desired to see Paul and Silas hindered from sharing the Gospel, because they were able to see this spiritual side of this battle they were still able to rejoice in the Lord. And because they were able to rejoice, God was able to use them to share the Gospel with people with whom they might not have had opportunity had they responded wrongly to Satan’s attacks. Can you picture Paul trying to share the Gospel with those in the prison if all they had done was to gripe about being there? Can you imagine what those people would have thought when two conflicting messages were being presented to them? Here is Paul trying to speak about God’s gift of salvation and it being a cause to rejoice when all they had been hearing from them was complaints. They wouldn’t have responded to the message of the Gospel because certainly their lives would have been saying something completely different than their mouths. Yet God gave them the boldness to act and to speak as they should have.
B. In Thessalonica
Next we see the call for boldness in Thessalonica. In chapter 17 of Acts Paul came to Thessalonica. They find a synagogue and begin to preach the Gospel there. The amazing truth of the matter is that they continued on their journey, they continued to do what God had called them to do in spite of what had just taken place in Philippi. Did they believe that no more trouble would await them here in Thessalonica? Did they think that somehow by being in another city they wouldn’t have to put up with trouble or opposition? Of course they didn’t. But they knew that whatever trouble they encountered it would because they were seeking to obey the will of God. Somehow many Christians have the mistaken impression that if they do what God wants us to do there will be no trouble or difficulties or trials. And if they experience trouble or difficulty in doing some work for God then they think it is an evident sign that they should stop. The problem with that kind of thinking is that the Scripture seems to indicate (and my personal experience seems to back this up) that right before God is about to break through with some amazing work we encounter the hardest difficulties. Satan seems to know when God is working in people and at that point his tactics more ferocious.
I can remember when I was in Minnesota and a friend of mine and I went out sharing the gospel with people door to door. At one house, when we mentioned the name of Jesus, the gentleman went ballistic on us. He screamed and shouted and cursed the name of Jesus. We concluded that he didn’t want to hear the gospel. We were a little dejected and thought about heading home. But we decided to press on. And at the very next house at which we stopped we had the opportunity to lead someone to Christ. What if we had failed to continue our effort in sharing the Gospel? We would have missed the opportunity to be blessed by God in seeing God save them. What about you? Have you felt like not wanting to continue to share the Gospel because of opposition? Don’t allow Satan to trick you out of persevering in this area. It is sad that at the first sign of difficulty many Christians want to flee.
And so Paul says, “After we had 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.” Though they were experiencing great difficulties also at Thessalonica they had the boldness to keep on speaking the Word. And this was the example of Paul that the Thessalonians had picked up on. They wholeheartedly followed Paul’s example and God calls us to follow this same example.
There is a call for boldness today among Christians. Satan wants to destroy any desire on our part to speak the Gospel clearly and effectively. He will try to do this by putting pressure on us to be quiet or by ruining our testimony around those with whom we work that he might demolish our chance of sharing the Gospel with those around us. Satan wants to put us into a place where we give up in our quest for seeing others saved. That is why it seems so difficult sometimes to keep on fire for seeing people come to Christ. In Jesus’ final words to His disciples (and we know that final words have a special air of authority) He commands them to do one thing until He returns. Make followers of Jesus. And Satan knows that if he can put pressure on us to keep quiet or ruin our testimony he has effectively kept us from being obedient to Christ’s last and most important command.
How can we neglect Jesus’ command to carry out His work while He is away? There is a call for boldness today among the Christian population. Have you given up seeking to speak about Christ to others because of pressure that has been put on you? Have you given up seeking to speak about Christ to others because you have not been living for Christ like you should? If you are in either group then you should look to God for His strength to be able to share the Gospel with others. The apostle Paul continued to call upon the churches to pray for Him to have boldness to share the Gospel. I think that this is an example for us. If Paul needed to pray for boldness to share the Gospel with others then so should we. How can we expect that if great men of the faith like the Apostle Paul needed prayer for such that we should be able to carry out God’s command to boldly share the Gospel with others without it? Let us pray and then let us speak.
There is a call for boldness among Christians today. But let me carefully say that by boldness I do not at all mean brashness. We can mistake a spirit of aggressiveness and arrogance for boldness. Boldness is simply having the backbone to speak when we ought. The Scripture makes it clear that when we should speak it must be with gentleness. Peter says in his letter, “Be ready to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.” We can speak the truth without screaming. We can speak the truth without being upset at others. Let us boldly speak the word but let us not be brash. If our Savior described Himself as gentle and humble in heart, how much more should we be so?
The Apostle Paul says the very same thing at the end of Colossians, “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.” Paul says that our speech should be with grace toward those around us so that the good news of God’s grace will be adorned with words of grace.
Therefore let us speak boldly as we should. Let us not back down when we see opportunities to speak for Christ but let us pray for courage and speak boldly but with gentleness.
2. Their Cause for Boldness
So we have seen the call for boldness. Now in verse 3 we see the second aspect of boldly speaking the Gospel. And this is their cause for boldness. Why were they able to boldly speak the word amid much opposition? Paul says in verse 3, “For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit.” What was Paul’s cause for boldness? It was his message. And Paul describes three key characteristics of their message that caused them to be bold in sharing the Gospel.
A. It was true (without error)
The first key characteristic of their message that caused them to be bold in sharing the Gospel was that it was true, that is, it was without error. Paul said that his exhortation to believe the Gospel did not come from error. The word “error” that Paul uses here means that which causes someone to be lead astray or to wander. It’s the word from which we get our English word, “planet.” To the Greeks, the planets were stars that did not follow the regular pattern of rotation around the earth that the other stars followed. They were called “wanderers” or “planetes.” They didn’t fall in line with the others. And so something that would lead someone astray, or off the right path, was called a “planetes” or a wanderer.
Paul said that his message did not lead anyone astray. It was a message of truth. It was a message worth proclaiming and worth listening to. He wasn’t hawking cheap trinkets with no value. He was bringing a message of eternal importance.
And just as we looked at last week, it was every other message that was leading people astray. The Thessalonians had turned from their idols to serve a living and true God. What Paul declared unto these Thessalonians he understood to be without error because He had seen the risen Christ face to face.
But what if he was merely lying? What if he was going from place to place to start a following for a guy named Paul? What if he was carrying out a phony message to show his power over others?
Chuck Colson, former aid to President Nixon, who was led to Christ by the president of Raytheon answers this so well. He says this:
When I am challenged on the resurrection, my answer is always that the disciples and 500 others gave eyewitness accounts of seeing Jesus risen from the tomb. But then I’m asked, “How do you know they were telling the truth? Maybe they were perpetrating a hoax.” My answer to that comes from an unlikely source: Watergate.
Watergate involved a conspiracy perpetuated by the closest aides to the president of the United States—the most powerful men in America, who were intensely loyal to their president. But one of them, John Dean, turned state’s evidence, that is, testified against Nixon, as he put it, “to save his own skin”—and he did so only two weeks after informing the president about what was really going on—two weeks! The cover-up, the lie, could only be held together for two weeks, and then everybody else jumped ship in order to save themselves . . . The disciples, 12 powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Even political zealots at the pinnacle of power will, in the crunch, save their own necks, even at the expense of the ones they profess to serve so loyally. But the apostles could not deny Jesus, because they had seen him face to face, and they knew he had risen from the dead . . .(Colson says) You can take it from an expert in cover-ups, nothing less than a resurrected Christ could have caused those men to maintain to their dying whispers that Jesus is alive and is Lord.
Why was Paul bold to share the good news of God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ? Because he knew that it was true and it was too good to keep to himself. He said that his exhortation was not from error that it was true.
B. It was pure (without immorality)
The second key characteristic of their message that caused them to be bold in sharing the Gospel was that it was pure. Paul notes that, “our exhortation is not from impurity.” That is, their message was without immorality.
Paul mentions this because he was distancing himself from the other religions of the day. Many of these idolatrous religions would have immorality as part of their worship. Temple prostitution was rife in that day and Paul wanted to make sure that they understood that any of their enemies who would accuse them of such debauchery were mistaken. The Thessalonian believers knew that Paul and his companions conducted themselves in a morally upright fashion. This is why Paul continues throughout his letter to use the phrase, “Just as you know.” The Thessalonians had seen their conduct and Paul was reassuring them that they were continuing in the way that they had proclaimed.
Christianity has always been a counter culture religion. Whenever Christianity becomes an adopter of culture instead of a transformer of culture it loses its power. And morality is one characteristic that biblical culturally transforming Christianity has always proclaimed.
God has given sexuality as a gift to mankind from the creation. It was part of that which God called very good. But Satan continually tries to pervert this gift. I think that there are three clear aspects to godly sexuality. First, God’s Word says that it is exclusive. God has made it clear that sex is to be practiced within the confines of marriage. Everyone else is to be excluded from it. If you are not married you are not to be practicing it (Paul discusses this later in chapter 4 and we will too). Sex is not a prelude to marriage, and it is such a powerful bond that we must take seriously this admonition from God that it is exclusive. God says it for our good, not because he wishes us harm.
Secondly, sex is to be limited. That is, marriage is to be maintained between one man and one woman for life. It is limited in that there are not to be three nor shall both be called “he.” The Scripture says, “For this reason shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” God’s creation has made this natural and right for mankind.
Thirdly, sex is to be giving in nature. Both people in the marriage are to use sex as a means to please their spouse. It is not a means of self-gratification. It is not a means of exerting power over your spouse. It is about meeting the needs of your spouse. And it is not until you realize this that can truly enjoy it benefits.
You see, Satan wants us to think selfishly about this gift that God has given. He wants us to do this whenever WE want, with whomever WE want, only because WE want. This is simply following the flesh. And the Scripture says that the mind set on the flesh is death.
The Apostle Paul wanted to be unequivocal about this matter. The Christian message of God’s forgiveness did not include the indulgence of sin. He says it best in Titus 2 when he notes, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.” God calls us to a pure life in rejecting the world’s warped values that ruin a person’s life and make them miserable.
Oh, God has come in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to die for our sins that we might overcome them and live in the joy of Jesus Christ. For He said, “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it to the full.” Paul was able to be bold in sharing the Gospel because there was no perversion in the message for which he had to be ashamed. This is why in Romans 1 he declares, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
C. It was genuine (without other motives)
The third key characteristic of their message that caused them to be bold in sharing the Gospel was that it was genuine. In other words, it was without other motives. Paul was bold in sharing the good news because he had no ulterior motives in going. He wasn’t trying to gain in a worldly sense from his travels. Everything about his missionary journeys spoke just the opposite. Who would hike thousands of miles in dangerous territories in order to allow himself to be beaten and threatened and mistreated unless what he was doing was desperately important?
Paul wasn’t trying to profit financially or in prestige. He wasn’t looking to seek to win some popular election. He was genuinely interested in presenting the truth of God’s Word to people who were lost and dying without it.
The word, “deceit” that Paul uses was originally employed to describe someone who used bait with which to catch fish. And so it was later descriptive of anyone who used trickery to deceive. So Paul is saying that he was not baiting anyone with an ingenuous message. He wasn’t going to tell them a message of God’s free grace and how He saves people apart from works and switch his message later saying that if they do not measure up to some other standard that they will lose their salvation. Paul’s message wasn’t going to change because he had nothing to hide in bringing the message to the world. He could be bold in sharing the Gospel because its message was genuine and unchanging.
Before my final exhortation this morning let me close with a wonderful example of how someone in their own workspace boldly presents God’s Word to others.
A pastor named, Timothy Johnson, wrote this. He said:
Earlier this summer, I took a few days to reread the book of Acts and was amazed at the boldness of the disciples as they shared their faith. The settings in which they did this were not quiet, where they would wait for the right opportunity to speak about the resurrected Christ. They were often in crowds and in places that were bubbling over with hostility against them. Yet they spoke up.
I encountered this very situation at BWI airport in June. Along with everyone else moving toward a gate in order to catch a plane, I went through the security screening. I was asked to stop so that a screener could look carefully at every inch of my carry-on bag. The screener politely asked me to step back and to resist my urge to reach out and “help” him. As he poked, unloaded things, unzipped pockets, and felt the linings of my bag, I noticed the ring on his right hand—a silver ring with a cross on it. I mentioned it. He looked briefly at me.
Then, as he continued searching my bag, he said something like this: “Yeah, the ring. It means I’m a follower of Jesus. You know, in my job, one of the things we worry about is dynamite. But do you know where that word comes from? It’s from the Greek word dunamis, which means ‘power.’ As a Christian, I know that all of the power belongs to God. That’s why he sent Jesus. So while I’m doing my job, I know that he is doing his job. That’s where I put all of my trust. It all belongs to him, and he’s here with us. Well, Mr. Johnson, have a great trip,” he said before moving on to the next person.
I walked away with a smile, thinking about how this man had so naturally risen to the opportunity to share his faith. It certainly wasn’t the place for an extended conversation. There was a long line of people behind me, and he had plenty of work to do. But in less than 30 seconds, he spoke about his faith to a total stranger—calmly, confidently, and without hesitation.
What about you? Have you recognized that there is a call for you to be bold in sharing the good news of God’s forgiveness of sins apart from the works of the law? Can you see ways in which Satan is trying to keep you from being focused in sharing the Gospel? Has he distracted you from sharing the message of salvation because of suffering or conflict? Has he kept you from being bold in proclaiming the Gospel? Have you allowed yourself to be turned away from the necessity to proclaim the greatness of the message that God loves us and wants to deliver us from our sin?
Have you lost your boldness because you have forgotten that our message is true? I mean really true? True in that people who will not accept the message of God’s grace will be lost forever in hell.
Have you lost your boldness because you have forgotten that our message is pure and calls us to be pure? Have you failed to continue to confess your sin to God and have allowed built up sin in your life to cause you to become callous to those who need to be saved around you?
Have you lost your boldness because you have other motives in coming to church than to be built up in the faith?
Let me encourage you today to put off that which is causing you to neglect your need to be bold in sharing the Gospel of salvation. Put it out your life and begin to ask God to give you the boldness that you need to share His good news message with others.