1 Thessalonians 4:9-12
Tom Shrader walks through 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, presenting four exhortations Paul gives believers for life until Jesus returns: love one another, lead a quiet life, mind your own business, and work diligently. He grounds the call to brotherly love in 1 John 4 and John 13, showing that love for one another is both the evidence of knowing God and the primary witness the church offers the world. The sermon closes by connecting these practical commands to the broader theme of sanctification running through 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12, with a preview of next week's study on the return of Christ.
“Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian. It evidences itself in the decisions we make and the things we do, hour by hour, day by day.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: In Light of His Coming
Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 43 min
Themes: love, work ethic, brotherly love, quiet life, witness, community, diligence, daily living, new believer, struggling with laziness, feeling disconnected from church, young adult, worker, neighbor, wanting to grow spiritually, seeking purpose in everyday life
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12, 1 Thessalonians 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 1 Thessalonians 4:7, 1 Thessalonians 4:8, 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10, 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 1 Thessalonians 4:12, 2 Thessalonians 3:10, 2 Thessalonians 3:11, Matthew 28:19-20, Romans 12:9-10, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, Philippians 2:19-20, Ephesians 4:29, 1 John 4:7-11, John 3:16, John 13:33-35
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, philadelphia, brotherly love theology, eschatology, return of christ, christian ethics, practical discipleship
Full Transcript
Introduction and Context
Open your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and someone will come down the aisle and give you one. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 641, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4.
Some of you know, but probably not all of you, that when these letters were originally written, there were no chapters or verses associated with them. What would typically happen is a letter from Paul to the church at Thessalonica would arrive, and they would simply sit and read it. They would go back and discuss it, but first they would read it. In some ways it is designed to be read in one sitting, and there is an obvious connection and flow throughout.
If you remember last week when I finished, I said if this were a film, we would pause it right now and put "to be continued" at the bottom of the screen. We said we are really looking at a two-week study of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 1 through 12, and they come together. Although verse 9 begins with "now" — "now as to the love of the brethren" — what Paul is doing there is a shift, but he is making the same point and illustrating it yet another way.
Let's read these four verses. Then I want to do a brief review so we are on the same page, and then I want to give you four things we need to be thinking about.
The Passage
"Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. For indeed, you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need."
Those are the verses we are going to concentrate on. But let me remind you what we saw last week, because this is a continuation of it.
Review of Chapter 4, Verse 1
Look back at chapter 4 verse 1. Paul writes this: "Finally, brethren" — and from chapter 4, chapter 5, and the rest of this letter, it is more of an application and exhortation — "we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus Christ that as you received from us the instruction on how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you excel still more." Right away you would see the connection between the end of verse 1 and the end of verse 10. He uses the same phrase: excel still more.
He uses the word "brethren," meaning brothers and sisters. Here is what we are encouraging you to do, and it is not in a command imperative form. What he is trying to say is, as a nurturing mother or a father leading a child, we exhort you to do this. Here is what he is saying: as you walk — the primitive form of transportation — as you walk, I want you to know how you ought to walk, meaning how you ought to live. So as you are living your life, these things should be part of it.
Walking as You Go
If you go back to the end of Matthew's gospel, Jesus says, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." When we typically read that, or at least hear it in our own minds, we read it this way: "Go, make disciples of all nations." Over the years, I think mistakenly, people have taken that as a message that says, go, get out. It does not say that. Here is how it should be read: as you go, make disciples.
What He is saying is, tomorrow at school, tomorrow at the office, tomorrow morning when you go in to get your coffee and see the same barista — as you are communicating, as you are going, as you are living your life, you are living in a way that honors and glorifies God. That you live, as verse 1 says, to please God. Now without faith it is impossible to please God, so I am living a life that is driven by faith, by an understanding of God, and who He is, and who I am, and how He would have me live.
Reminders Given in the Past Tense
Interestingly, in verse 1 Paul says "as you received." In verse 2 he says "the commandments we gave you." In verse 6 he says "as we also told you before and solemnly warned you." And today in verse 11 he says "just as we commanded you" — all in the past tense.
Remember the history: Paul comes to Thessalonica, he is there three or four weeks, God begins to save people, and this church is established. Now he writes back to them based on a report he received from Timothy. Four times in those twelve verses he refers in the past tense to things already discussed. These are the basics of the faith.
I was in the back getting a little something to eat this morning before we started, and Ben was back there. We tend to take for granted that everyone knows who Ben is, but Ben is the one who led our first song in here. He and Joel now lead worship together, and you will see them up front. Ben asked me, "How many times do you think you have taught on a Sunday?" I did some quick math and said, well, twenty years — if I teach forty weeks a year, that is 800 times. For a while we only had two services, but at one point I taught as many as seven times in a day. If we say four on average, then I have taught approximately 3,200 times on a Sunday morning.
Of those 3,200 times, 3,199 of them I have said the same thing. That is just how it feels. That is not to say there are no new things to say, but it does mean we keep coming back to the same things over and over again. I think we are in good company, because that is exactly what Paul is saying here.
Holiness in Everyday Life
Paul is saying we told you about this, and you're doing it, but we want you to do it even more. That phrase appears in verse 1 at the end — "to excel more" — and again at the end of verse 10 — "to excel still more," to superabound in this. What we said is that this Christian life, this holy life, rather than being removed in an isolated monastery somewhere, is lived out in our daily life. Chuck Colson writes this: "Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian. It evidences itself in the decisions we make and the things we do, hour by hour, day by day." Our tendency when we read something like that — holy living — is to all of a sudden create this one mega moment, and it's not that. It's every day.
Another author writes, "Any idiot can face a crisis. It's day-to-day living that wears you out." It's that day-to-day process of being faithful to God, being engaged in Him, engaged in the world around you. As people come to know Christ, especially as adults, there's a tendency — a flinch — to go, "I need to make up for lost time." God saved me when I was 30, and I just remember at the time going, "God, I've had this life for 30 years, good luck, you can have it." It's strange now because I've been a follower of Christ longer than I wasn't.
I remember all of a sudden the Holy Spirit beginning to work in my life, and I couldn't get enough study and time with Christians and conversation through all of these things. That's good, but it needs perspective, because out of balance all of a sudden all I'm doing is taking in and taking in and taking in — sitting with the same people, talking about the same things. Many of you have been in small groups where you've been together for ten years, and at the end of those ten years, the same person is struggling with the same thing and the whole group has to experience it again. Now there's an appropriate place to encourage one another, but if we aren't making some progress, we need to stop and take a little inventory.
Sanctification and Sexual Immorality
Paul says in verse 3, "This is the will of God, your sanctification." That word sanctification appears in verse 3, in verse 4, and in verse 7. It carries the idea of God setting us apart from sin in order to set us apart for God. He deals with something right in the life of these people. Remember, these people had come to Christ out of a culture that was just immersed in sexual immorality — even the religions of the day had prostitutes who served as worship leaders. So it makes sense that when Paul identifies the will of God in verse 3, he says, "that you abstain from sexual immorality."
The same thing is true today. If God is doing what we hope He would do every week at Redemption Church, we would have people coming in who don't know Christ, and if God saves them, what almost inevitably happens is they still carry that remnant of the culture. Paul is not saying this is the only measure of holiness. He is saying, "Listen, I know where you're coming from, and it's going to require dealing with that past sin." Look at verse 7: "For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity" — but for sanctification, that you would be set apart from your sins and set apart to God. "For he who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you."
Paul is saying, "I'm going to give you these truths," and verse 8 connects itself naturally back to verse 2, where he says, "For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ." That is the authority — Christ Himself. Part of what seems to be coming back as a criticism to Paul is a questioning of his authority, and Paul is responding by saying the authority is not him. This idea did not originate with Paul; it originated with God. Paul was the messenger. So when you are disobedient to this teaching, Paul is saying, you are not being disobedient to me — you are being disobedient to God.
Four Practical Exhortations for Life Until Jesus Comes
Now we come to verse 9, and here are four practical exhortations for life — life until Jesus comes again. The people in Thessalonica believed Jesus was literally going to return any minute. There was so much concern about this that they were asking, "People who are followers of Christ are dying — what is going to happen to them when Jesus comes?" That is what we look at next week. But what should you and I be doing until Jesus comes again, or until we go to meet Him in death?
Four things. First, verses 9 and 10: love one another. Second, verse 11: lead a quiet life. Third, the middle part of verse 11: mind your own business. Fourth, the end of verse 11 and verse 12: work with your hands. So the four things are loving one another, leading a quiet life, minding your own business, and working with your hands.
The First Exhortation: Love One Another
Look at verse 9: "Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need of anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, for indeed you do practice it toward the brethren who are in all of Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more." This brotherly love — this is the first and foundational exhortation. They were already practicing it toward believers throughout all of Macedonia, and yet Paul's charge to them is to superabound in it still more.
Taught by God to Love One Another
There is a phrase in verse nine that appears only here in Scripture, in this particular situation in the New Testament: they are taught by God. God Himself, in His Holy Spirit, teaches that we are to love one another. Paul writes in Romans chapter 12, verses nine and ten, "Let love be genuine and abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor." So having spoken about sexual intimacy, the focus now turns to this idea of consideration and love for one another — being kindhearted and gentle toward one another. Love the brethren.
In the original references, this idea of love deals with blood love — people who share a chain of DNA. Scripture takes that concept and adds something to it, saying that believers share a spiritual DNA. If on your Facebook profile you put "follower of Jesus," then you are to love one another. That is exactly what Paul is saying.
Unpacking the Command to Love: 1 John 4
To unpack this fully, we turn to 1 John chapter four. This is a recurring theme in the New Testament, introduced first by Jesus and carried through the teaching of Paul and Peter. First John, chapter four, verse seven: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." There is that relational connection — knowing God, having this relationship, this intimacy with Him.
Verse eight continues: "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins." God is love. The love we have is a result of the fact that God loved us first, and because He loves us, we can love Him. What John is saying here is that if you truly love God, you will love one another. The two are inseparable — in fact, love for one another is evidence of love for God.
God demonstrated His love in the most decisive way. John 3:16 states, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever should believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." God is love, and the greatest demonstration of that love is that He sent Jesus. That is the whole point — not just of this series, but especially of the season we are in. In light of His coming, physically coming here roughly two thousand years ago, Jesus was born so that He would be, as verse ten says, the propitiation for our sins.
What Propitiation Means
The word propitiation is not one we use often, but its meaning is straightforward. Propitiation means to satisfy wrath. When a person is born, the overriding problem is that they are a sinner separated from God. If someone lives in that state and dies in that state, they will experience God's wrath and God's judgment. So those who say God is a God of love and would never send anyone to hell should note that right here in the context of John speaking about God as a God of love, he also speaks of His wrath and of propitiation. Jesus came and died so that we might have eternal life. He came for a specific purpose: to redeem His people from their sin.
God is love, and because God loved us, now we can love. He sends His Son as the illustration of that love. Verse eleven: "Beloved, if God so loved us, then we ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us." Because we love God, we will love one another.
Jesus Issues the New Commandment: John 13
The same John who wrote that letter also wrote the Gospel that bears his name. In John chapter thirteen, the setting is this: Jesus is about to be betrayed, then scourged and beaten, put on trial, and crucified. He has His disciples gathered together and tells them in verse thirty-three that He will not be with them much longer. Then He says in verse thirty-four, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you love one another." Here is the new commandment: love one another. And then verse thirty-five: "By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
Love as the Mark of Discipleship
Some of you are immune to this verse, and some of you — and this is remarkable — are reading it for the very first time. Understand that as Jesus speaks these words, He has a blank slate, an empty palette. He could have said, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples," and put anything in there. He could have spoken about all sorts of activities — frankly, probably most likely the kind of stuff we would have put in there: that you go to church, that you are in a Bible study, that you pray, the spiritual disciplines and all the things associated with them.
But He doesn't do that. He doesn't even give us one specific thing to do in the sense that we accomplish it and are done with it, as though it is once and for all. Instead He said, "Here is what I want: love one another." This is how the world is going to know. They are going to look at us and see that there is something very different about the way we live.
I looked everywhere for it this morning and cannot find this illustration, but it is from one of the early church historians. He is commenting on the culture watching the church, and he said the culture is bewildered by the church: they love one another, they care for one another, if one dies and has no resources for burial they bury one another. It is completely foreign to the culture around them, because the culture says look out for number one. If somebody deals you dirty, you deal dirty with them — I don't get mad, I get even.
Along comes biblical Christianity and it says: we want to introduce a new concept to you — that you care for other people, even more than you care for yourself. That is what God modeled. "For God so loved the world that He gave." It is unselfish love.
The Nature of Love: 1 Corinthians 13
Let me read you Eugene Peterson in *The Message*, his paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 — the love chapter — verses 4 through 8. This is what he says:
"Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love does not want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swollen head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always me first, doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel in other people's trouble, but takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. Love puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back but keeps going to the end. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over someday, praying in tongues will end, understanding will reach its limits — but love never dies."
Timothy: A Man of Kindred Spirit
Turn to Philippians, about the middle of the second chapter. Let me remind you as you turn that Paul is writing this letter, much like he did with all of his letters that have a city associated with them, back to a community he had visited. In most instances he had established a church as the founding pastor or founding group — he would come into a town, preach, people would come to Christ, and a church would be established.
There is the same character here that appears in the book we are studying: Timothy. Apparently Timothy is providing for Paul in Philippi what he did in Thessalonica, and that is reconnaissance information. Paul is writing back to the church and says this in chapter 2, verse 19: "But I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I may also be encouraged when I learn of your condition." He says, I am going to send Timothy to you — he will come, he will do a report for me, he will tell me what is going on.
Then he says in verse 20 — and in my Bible I have this circled, most of it underlined, I come back to this verse again and again: "For I have no one else of kindred spirit" — literally, *same-souled* — "who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ." Paul says, I am going to send Timothy, and I have nobody else like him.
In our economy today we would probably get excited and say, boy, I'll bet he can really preach — and that becomes almost the measure. This may be too strong a statement, so I will back off the moment somebody pushes on it, but one of the things that genuinely concerns me about high-profile preaching, teaching, and writing figures is that when you push, they often have almost no real association with the people in their church. They preach and they teach, and perhaps they do that well enough, but the danger in that is you quit caring about people and start caring only about messages.
Paul says, I have nobody like Timothy. We are same-souled. What connects them is that Timothy genuinely cares about those people — because, as Paul says, everybody else is struggling with caring primarily about themselves and their own interests. Paul is making the point throughout his writings that if we know Christ, we should care about and care for one another.
Back to the Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10
Now let us go back to the text, and let me develop this further. We have been developing the first point. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 9, Paul says: "Now as for love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God." And this is entirely commending them. Verse 10 continues: "For indeed you practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more" — literally, to let it super-abound in you — so that there is never a point where...
Love One Another Without Ceasing
You are loving one another — everybody knows you're loving one another — but you have to keep on loving one another. You don't take a break. You don't take a sabbatical from loving one another. This is the draw, this is the characteristic. Remember what we saw at the very end of this section in verse 12: the whole world is looking. Jesus told us that when they see this, the characteristic is that they love one another. So here is the first thing, until Jesus comes or until you die — to the end of your life or time — number one: love one another.
Make It Your Ambition to Lead a Quiet Life
Number two, look at verse 11: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life." It could be rendered this way: make it your ambition to have no ambition. Now here is the problem with that. As you hear it, you might think, okay, that's just a call to have no incentive, no drive. That is the rap on Christians — they're so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. I've shared before from my personal experience that most Christians I know are so earthly minded they're no heavenly good. Some think all they need to think about is the sweet by and by, and so they don't work hard. But Paul is going to come back and tell us we need to work hard.
What he is saying is to lead a quiet life — literally, to strive to be silent, to not speak out inappropriately, to live a tranquil, restful life. I've had an interesting couple of weeks in that I've connected or reconnected with a lot of people I had some kinship with, and if I were to step back and look at most of those conversations, what I heard on the other side almost always was: life is so busy, life is so loud, all this noise. That's not new — Paul is dealing with it 2,000 years ago. And here is what he is saying: you shouldn't be living that way. You should be leading a quiet, tranquil, peaceful life as far as it depends upon you.
I'm still processing all of Susan's passing, but I listened to an interview I did with her four years ago on a hot summer night. I listened to her and I see almost all of these characteristics there. The best part of the memorial service for me was listening to the girls talk about their mom — the girls were awesome. They went right back to 2071 East La Jolla Drive, and Sarah said, "I can still see it, feel it, smell it" — it was a home that mom created.
I know this could be misunderstood, so please don't misunderstand it. If your life is busy and noisy, I'm guessing that's your fault. If you're running your kids from ballet to soccer to basketball to speech to all of this, you're out of your mind. You're running the house, not the kid. They don't need to be in everything — they'll be fine. We gave our kids one activity: pick it, you get one. It is much more important to knit together as a family and have quiet time together. By that I don't mean sitting around studying the Bible — it can mean watching TV, playing cards, or swimming, just to be together. Our lives need to be quiet.
The world is going to push you, and work is going to push you. But God gave you something to do, and if He did, He gave you the time to do it. So if you're too busy, you are either misappropriating your time, wasting it, or you've misunderstood what He would have you do. You think it's this big and it's really just this big. If I talked to the guys and asked what they hear from people in small groups, I think we would hear over and over again: we're too busy. That's your fault — fix it. That's your burden.
I understand demands. I understand work. I'm not naive. I understand that a lot of companies are right-sizing and therefore there is more for you to do. But the family — that is up for you to control. He is saying He wants you to live a quiet life, a peaceful life. Now, if you're in the jewelry business, you're not leading a quiet life in December — I get it. There are seasons of busyness. There are times in a life. But Paul seems very clear: he said he wants you to lead that quiet life.
Mind Your Own Business
Here is the third thing. It is in the middle of verse 11: attend to your own business. We can say it another way: mind your own business. This is the only reference in the New Testament to this, and apparently it was either a problem with specific people or a problem in general with this church, so much so that when you flip to the next letter, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 11, it says, "For we hear that some among you are leading undisciplined lives, doing no work at all and acting like busybodies." They are in everybody else's life.
If I have one pet peeve that I see among Christians, it is there. Now, if I am going to love someone, I am going to be engaged in their life — I am not saying don't be engaged in people's lives. But what Paul is talking about here is meddling. Over the years we have had people who have been big sources of problems within this church, not because they had a problem themselves, but because they suddenly decided to champion somebody else's problem — which wasn't a problem at all. He said, mind your own business. And that is especially easy to forget when you can be at home in your bedroom on your laptop, engaged in everybody's business and everybody's stuff.
He is saying you need to mind your own business — quit wasting time. It doesn't mean don't be associated with people. We just said you have to love one another, be in community with one another, spend time together. But with that comes an appropriate level of investment. There is a difference between truly listening to and being engaged with somebody, and meddling in their affairs.
Working with Your Hands
There is an appropriate time and place for certain things, but there is also something that is inappropriate. For whatever weird, odd, stupid reason, we love getting into other people's business — people we know, people we don't even know. It amazes me to look at the whole industry of magazines, TMZ, and all these shows. What do I need to know about who so-and-so's baby is? How is that going to enhance my life, and then I can't wait to tell somebody else about it?
So Paul says: mind your own business. Here is the antidote to that. It is found at the end of verse 11: "work with your hands just as we commanded you so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need." Paul is saying, here is what we want you to do — we want you to work.
There were apparently several reasons this needed to be said. It could be that the Thessalonians thought Jesus was coming again — and we will see next week that this is really driving the issue. They were thinking, Jesus is coming again, so why would I work? Why not just pray more, study more, and hang out with Christians more? It is like that last person who set a date — wasn't it October 12th? — declaring that Jesus was going to return. People actually liquidate everything when this happens. The minute I read something like that, here is what I know: He is not coming on that date, because nobody knows the day or the hour, and that person certainly does not.
So yes, Jesus is coming again. But that is not an excuse to quit working. That is a reason to redirect why we work. Some, perhaps, had gathered the idea — and many of the Greeks held this view — that labor was beneath them, so they were not working at all.
What "Working with Your Hands" Really Means
Now we have to be careful about what Paul means by "working with your hands." Is he saying that literally? I think we need to be careful there. Brayden — he is six years old — had a ball the other day that said "Made in China" on it, and he said to his mom Haley, "How come nobody makes anything in the USA anymore?" That is pretty good. Very few of us are actually making physical things anymore. We are in more of an information-based economy.
I was telling Tim Moore the other day — I did laundry the other night and I put in six socks and got five out. It drives me nuts. When I do things with my hands, they do not always work out well, including laundry. But the point is, let us not isolate Paul's instruction to mean you need to build a table. Let us simply say: you need to work.
Paul says he wants them to work for two reasons. First, so they will not be idle busybodies. Second, so that people outside the church will see them living properly, and so they will not be in need. If you are a follower of Christ who loves one another, leading a quiet life, minding your own business, and working — that is what God calls you to.
Work, Need, and the Responsibility of the Church
Now I also understand that unemployment has been at 8.6%. Paul is not saying that if there are no jobs, a person should not eat. In fact, if you go to the next book — 2 Thessalonians 3:10 — he says, "If anyone is not willing to work, they should not eat." Notice the distinction: not willing to work, versus unable to find work.
I see it in the church all the time — people who somehow feel that the body of Christ or the world owes them. Here is the principle: if you can work, work, and work hard. That accomplishes three things. You will glorify God, you will be able to feed yourself, and you will be able to help those who cannot work.
There are also a lot of people who are underemployed right now, and it is better to be underemployed than unemployed. If there is a job available, take it. But Paul also understands — and that is why he raises brotherly love in this passage — that there are situations where people genuinely cannot work. In those cases, the church and Christians need to come alongside and support those people as best they can, so that the world will look at it and say, "Wow."
Putting It All Together
So here is what we have seen over the last two weeks. Paul says he wants the Thessalonians to understand — and he has already told them this repeatedly — that based on what God has to say, they are to be sanctified: set apart from sin, set apart for God. That is going to manifest itself in a variety of ways. First, there will be sexual purity. Then there will be this care for one another, this brotherly love.
I think this is pretty solid, common-sense guidance. What would God have us do? Love one another. Lead a quiet life. Mind your own business. Work hard. This is not simply a Protestant work ethic — it is what God says, and how God would have us live. That is the practical side of all of that doctrine.
Our Words and Our Interactions
Even in our interpersonal relationships, I want to leave you with this from Ephesians 4:29. Paul talks about the tongue and says, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only what is good for edification, that those who listen may benefit." He is saying that in our words — and I would extend this to all our interactions and actions with one another — they should be positive and constructive, and they should benefit the person we come into contact with.
Loving One Another
They shouldn't be destructive. I shouldn't be in everybody else's business. I shouldn't have the idea of tearing somebody down, even if I know something about them that would tear them down. I should be about loving them, which is building them up.
Looking Ahead
Against this backdrop, Paul gets a question: what are we supposed to do until Jesus comes? And if He is coming, what is that going to look like, because we have people who have already died? So next week we are going to look at verses 13 through chapter 5, verse 11 — a big chunk of Scripture dealing with the idea of Jesus' return. We will talk about that next week.
If you are in the conference center, Brian will be there in a moment to close the time. Brian will be here now in the chapel to lead us in Communion, to lead us in worship, and then into what really is just a sweet time — a time to pray corporately. If you need somebody to pray with you, there will be people here at the front of either the conference center or the chapel, and we would love to pray with you when the service is over.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for these amazing truths. We pray that we would indeed love one another, that we would mind our own business, that we would lead a quiet life, and that we would work hard — work hard for Your glory, God. Will You do that in our lives? We ask that of You in Christ's name. Amen.