God's words, not our own

Paul, in writing wise truth to the church in Thessalonica, said this: "^... 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. ⁶ We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. ⁷ Instead, we were like young children among you."

There you go. Here we come.

These are the highlights.

Paul is approved by God. Paul has been entrusted with the gospel of our Lord, Jesus. How many of us have gotten that bit wrong to begin with? Paul tells us this of the gospel in chapter one, "And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. ⁸ The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, ⁹ for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, ¹⁰ and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath." In other words, the truth about faith, the believers faith in God, was so strong that the message grew to be known apart from Macedonia and Achaia." A model to all believers. That's what all of us should hope for with our churches.

Second, Paul wasn't trying to please people, but God himself.  And he had God himself as a witness. Imagine that. When Paul passed the word along about the Thessalonian church, he did so with no regard to the people's impressions. No, sir. He worried only about what God thought. "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 people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. ⁷ Instead, we were like young children^[a] among you.' "
That's, again, what we should hope and plan for with our churches. Our worship should be the praise that patters from our mouths. Our design should be what worship is like. Our music should be the gasps from our lips.

Finally, Paul suggests we be humble, like children among you. Paul writes, "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. It's not human word at all. It is the word of God. Paul has latched on, plugged in, got a message from the word. And he is humble enough to understand how God is using him, as a child, to get his message across.

It's God's word. Paul understands that simple message more than all the rest of us. We are blessed with that goodness,