1 Thessalonians 4 - Four Practical Exhortations for Life Until Jesus Comes
Tom Shrader continues his exposition of 1 Thessalonians 4, focusing on verses 9-12 which provide four practical commands for Christian living until Jesus returns. He emphasizes that believers should love one another, lead quiet lives, mind their own business, and work with their hands. These characteristics serve as evidence of genuine faith and provide a powerful witness to the watching world.
“By this all men will know you're my disciples if you have love for one another.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Thessalonians
Recorded: November 27, 2011
Duration: 43 min
Themes: love, work, quietness, witness, brotherhood, diligence, character, service, working professional, new believer, struggling with laziness, seeking purpose, neighbor, community member, employee, young adult
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12, 1 John 4:7-12, John 13:33-35, John 3:16, Romans 12:9-10, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, Philippians 2:19-20, 2 Thessalonians 3:10-11, Ephesians 4:29, Matthew 28:19-20
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, christian living, biblical commands, brotherly love, philadelphia, practical theology, christian witness
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. If you don't have a Bible and you raise your hand, our team will bring you one. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 641.
I think some of you know, but probably not all, that when these letters were originally written, there wasn't a chapter and verse associated with them. What would typically happen is Paul's letter would arrive at the church in Thessalonica, and they would sit and read this letter. They'd go back and discuss it, but they'd read it. In some ways, it's designed to be read in one sitting. There's obviously this connection and flow.
If you remember, last week when I finished, I said if this were a film, right now we'd go to pause, and we would put "to be continued" on the bottom. We're really looking at a two-week study of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 1 through 12. They come together, although verse 9 begins with "now, now as to the love of the brethren." What Paul's doing there is a shift, but he's making the same point. He's illustrating it yet another way.
Let's read these four verses. Then I want to do a little review so we're on the same page. Then I want to give you four things we need to be thinking about.
Here's verse 9: "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."
Connecting Today's Passage to Last Week
Those are the verses we're concentrating on, but let me remind you what we saw last week, because this is a continuation. Look back at chapter 4, verse 1. Paul writes: "Finally, brethren" - and as of chapter 4, chapter 5, the rest of this letter is more of an application and exhortation - "we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus Christ, that as you receive 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 that connection at the end of verse 1 with the end of verse 10. You see that same phrase: "excel still more." He's writing, he uses the phrase "brethren." As brothers and sisters, here's what we're encouraging you to do. It's not in a command imperative form there. What he's trying to do is say, as a nurturing mom, as a father who's leading a child, we exhort you to do this. We exhort you in how you walk as you walk.
Walking in a Way That Pleases God
Here's what he's saying: As you walk - 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're living your life, these things should be part of your life.
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, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." When we typically read that, or at least in our own mind, we hear it this way: "go, make disciples of all nations." It has over the years, I think mistakenly, taken the idea that it's a message that says "go, get out." It doesn't say that. Here's how it should be read: It's "as you go, make disciples."
What He's saying is tomorrow at school, tomorrow at the office, tomorrow morning when you go in to get that latte thing that you drink, and you get the same barista, as you're communicating, as you're going, as you're living your life, you're living in a way that honors and glorifies God. You live - what's he saying in verse 1? - to please God. Without faith, it's impossible to please God, so I'm living a life that's driven by faith, by an understanding of God, and who He is, and who I am, and how He would have me live.
Paul's Past Teaching
Interestingly enough, in verse 1, he 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." Today, in verse 11, he says "just as we commanded you" - all in the past tense.
Remember the history? Paul comes to Thessalonica, he's there three or four weeks, all of a sudden God begins to save people, and this church is established. Now he writes back to them, based on a report that he's gotten from Timothy. He said, here's the thing: four times in those 12 verses, four times he talks about in the past tense, "we already talked about this stuff." 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 kind of take for granted that everybody understands who Ben is, but Ben is the one who led our first song in here. Ben is the one you see principally - well, you used to see principally at drums, but now you'll see he and Joel lead. Ben's back there, and he said to me, "How many times do you think you've taught on a Sunday?"
I just did some quick math, and I said, "Well, 20 years. If I teach 40 weeks a year - probably not that many now, but that many before - that's 800 times. For a while we only had two services, but then at one time we had as many as seven times I taught. If we say four, then I've taught 3,200 times on a Sunday morning." Of those 3,200 times, 3,199 of them I've said the same thing. I mean, that's just how it feels.
It's not to say there aren't new things to say, but it does say that we keep coming back to the same thing over and over and over again. I think we're in good company because that's
Living Out Holiness in Daily Life
What Paul's saying here is that he's saying, "We told you about it, and you're doing it, but we want you to do this even more." So that's that phrase that you see in verse 1, the end of it, "to excel more," the end of verse 10, "to excel still more," to superabound in this.
What we said is this Christian life, this holy life, rather than removed in an isolated monastery somewhere, the Christian life 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, engaged in the world around you.
One of my things, this is just me, and I don't know that it's universally true. I think it's certainly generally true, that 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 weird now because now I've been a follower of Christ longer than I wasn't. But I remember at the time going, "God, you can have it," and I just remember all of a sudden the Holy Spirit beginning to work in my life, and I couldn't get enough study and hanging with Christians and talking and all these things through.
The Need for Balance in Christian Growth
That's good, but it needs a perspective on it 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 thing, talking about the same... Many of you have been in small groups where you've been together for 10 years, and at the end of 10 years, the same guy 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 bit of inventory.
So He said, here's what I want you to do, verse 3: "This is the will of God, your sanctification." We said that word sanctification appears in verse 3, in verse 4, in verse 7. It's the idea of God setting us apart from sin to set us apart for God.
Sanctification in Context
So He said, "This is the will of God," and He deals with something right in their life. So remember, these people had come to Christ outside of the culture, and it was a culture that was just immersed in sexual immorality. Even the religions of its day had prostitutes that served as worship leaders. So you got all this going on.
So it makes sense in verse three, when He says, "There's the will of God, that you abstain from sexual immorality." That was in the culture. So the same thing is true here. If God's doing what we hope He would do, every week at Redemption Church, all of them, but I'm worried we're focused right now on Gilbert. At Gilbert, we would have people who come in who don't know Christ. And if God saves them, what almost inevitably happens is you still have that remnant of the culture.
So He's not saying this is the only measure. He's saying, "Listen, I want you to understand, I know where you're coming from, and it's going to require some sense of dealing with that past sin." So abstain from that sexual immorality.
Look at verse seven: "For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity." Why did God call you? For sanctification, that you'd be set apart, set apart from your sins, set apart to God. "For he who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you."
The Authority Behind Paul's Teaching
So Paul's saying, "I'm going to give you these truths." Verse eight latches itself right onto verse two. Naturally, in verse two, He says, "For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ." So He said, "This is our authority, it's Christ."
Now He's saying, "Listen, if you're not responding," and we think that part of what's coming back as a criticism to Paul is that maybe, you know, he was doing this or doing that, maybe questioning his authority. Paul's coming back and saying, "The authority's not me. This idea did not originate with Paul, it originated with God. Paul was the messenger."
So when I'm disobedient, Paul's saying, "When you're disobedient to this teaching, it's not me, it's God."
Four Practical Exhortations for Life Until Jesus Comes
Now we get to verse nine, and let me give you today four, and I just borrowed this from one of the authors, we'll expand on it, four practical exhortations for life. Life until Jesus comes again.
So these people, and we'll see it next week, these people in Thessalonica thought, "Jesus is literally, He's going to be here any minute." And so there was some concern, so much so that they're going, "Wait a minute, people who are followers of Christ are dying, Jesus is going to come again, what's going to happen to them?" And that's what we look at next week.
But what should you and I be doing till Jesus comes again, or till we go to meet Him, we die first? Four things. Verse nine and 10, to love one another. Verse 11, we'll come back to each of these, lead a quiet life. The third thing, in the middle part of verse 11, mind your own business. And number four, last thing in the end of verse 11, verse 12, work with your hands.
So the first thing I should be doing is loving one another, then leading a quiet life, then minding your own business, then working with your hands.
Love One Another
Look at verse nine: "Now as to the love of the brethren, this brotherly love, 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..."
Then he says in verse 35, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
The Evidence of Our Faith
Now, for many of us, our tendency is to prove that we're Christians by our knowledge of Scripture, by our theological positions, by how many times we go to church, by how much we give. But Jesus said the evidence that you belong to Him is how you love one another. That's the distinguishing mark.
Paul picks up on this theme throughout his writings. In Romans chapter 12, verses 9 and 10, he writes, "Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor."
So here we go—we've been talking about sexual intimacy, and now I've turned this a bit. Now I'm talking about this idea of consideration and love for one another, being kindhearted toward one another, gentle to one another. Love the brethren.
Understanding Spiritual Family
In the original references, this idea of love deals with blood love—they share a chain of DNA. In Scripture, we take it and add a little something to it and say you have a spiritual DNA that you share.
My daughter felt, however long ago, that I needed to be on Facebook. Now I'm not sure why, but she felt that I did. I check it every day. I don't really post much—I'll answer a few things briefly. But I enjoy looking at the people who are now my friends. Interestingly enough, I don't know them, never met them, but they're my friends. So I can't wait for Christmas to see what my friends give me for Christmas.
There are pictures, and I like looking at Facebook in terms of the pictures. I go, "Okay, I remember them, I saw them," or whatever. Then there's a profile. Under profile, I have different things—books you like, movies, whatever it is—but I will say religion. Most of the ones that are friends of mine will say "follower of Christ," "disciple of Christ," "Christian."
Here's exactly what Paul is saying: If on your Facebook profile you put "follower of Jesus," then you are to love one another.
The Source of Our Love
Let me take you to 1 John chapter 4 to unpack this and make sure we get it. In verse 7, John writes, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." There's that relational thing. When we said last weekend that I can please God, I can know God, I have this relationship, this intimacy.
Verse 8: "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 for our sins."
He says God is love. The love that you have is a result of the fact that God loved you. Because He loves you, now you can love Him. What John is saying here is if you really love God, you will love one another. They're inseparable. It's evidence of it.
God's Demonstration of Love
God demonstrated His love this way—John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." That's what John is saying here. God is love, and the demonstration of His love, biggest picture, is that He sent Jesus.
It's the whole point of not just this series, but especially now of the season we're in. In light of His coming, physically coming here roughly 2,000-plus years ago, Jesus was born so that He would be, verse 10 says, the propitiation for our sin.
That word "propitiation" is not a word we use often, but here's simply what it means: propitiation means to satisfy wrath.
Our Need for Propitiation
When I was born, November 28th, 1949, I had a variety of problems already in my DNA—certain height, certain characteristics, droopy eyes like my dad, just all sorts of things. But my overriding problem was I was a sinner separated from God. If I lived in that state and died in that state, I would experience God's wrath, God's judgment.
Those that say, "Oh, God's a God of love, He's never sent anyone to hell"—right in the context here of John talking about God as a God of love, he talks about His wrath, His propitiation. Jesus came and died so that we might have eternal life. Jesus came for a specific reason, specific purpose: to redeem His people from their sin.
He says God is love, and because God loved us, now we can love. He gives an illustration of God's love in that He sent His Son. Verse 11: "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also 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."
There's that connection. Because we love God, we will love one another.
Jesus' Final Command
The gentleman John who wrote this book also wrote the Gospel that bears his name. In John chapter 13, the setting is this: Jesus is about to be betrayed and then scourged and beaten and put on trial and then crucified. He has the guys together. He tells them in John chapter 13, verse 33, that He's not going to be with them much longer.
Then He says in verse 34: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." He said, "Here's My commandment—this new command: love one another."
You've read this so often that you're probably already immune to the verse. Some of you—and this is cool—are reading it for the very first time. But understand that as Jesus speaks these words, He's got a blank slate, an empty palette. So He could have said "by this all men will know that you're my disciples" and He could have put anything in there at that moment.
He could have spoken about all sorts of activities, and frankly probably most likely the kind of stuff we would have put in there: "By this you will know that you're my disciples—that you go to church, that you're in a Bible study, that you pray." You know the list—the spiritual disciplines and all the things associated with it. But He doesn't do that. He doesn't even give us one specific thing to do in the sense that we're going to do it and accomplish it and be done with it, as though it's once and for all. But He said, "Here's what I want you to do: love one another." This is how the world's going to know. They're going to look at us and they're going to see that there's something very different about the way we live.
The Early Church's Witness of Love
I looked all over for it this morning—I cannot find this illustration—and it's 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." And it's completely foreign to the culture around them.
Because the culture says, "Listen, look out for number one. There may be a number two down the road to take a look at, but look out for number one. If somebody deals dirty with you, you deal dirty with them. Whatever it is—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, care for other people even more than you care for yourself." That's what God did—it was unselfish love for God so loved the world that He gave.
Let me read to you Eugene Peterson in The Message, his paraphrase of First Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Verses four, five, six, seven and eight, and he's talking about love. Here's what he said: "Love never gives up. Love—and this may be the essence of it right here—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 when others grovel. Doesn't take pleasure in the flowering of falsehood, but does take 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 limit, but love goes on and on. Love never dies."
Timothy: A Model of Genuine Care
Turn to the right—we're at page 637. It's Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, so it's Philippians. We're going to look at about the middle of the second chapter. As you turn, let me remind you Paul is writing this letter much like he did in all of these that have a city associated with them—back to a community that he had visited and in most instances had established a church as the founding pastor or the founding group. He'd come into a town, he'd preach, people would come to Christ, a church would be established, and Paul's writing back to them.
There's the same guy who's a character here that's a character in the book we're studying—there's Timothy. And apparently Timothy is providing for Paul in Philippi what he didn't in Thessalonica, and that's reconnaissance information. So Paul is writing them and he says this in chapter 2, verse 19: "But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition."
So he said, "I'm going to send this Timothy to you, and this Timothy is going to come there. He's going to do a report for me. He's going to tell me what's going on." And then he says in verse 20—and in my Bible I got this circled, I got most of it underlined, I just come to this verse again and again and again—so he said, "For I have no one else of kindred spirit"—literally "same-souled"—"I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus."
Paul says, "I'm going to send Timothy to you and I got nobody else like him." Now in our economy, we'd probably get all excited about it and say, "Boy, I'll bet he can really preach!" That becomes almost the—and this is probably too strong a statement, so I'll back off the minute somebody pushes on it—but one of the things that really concerns me about the high-profile preaching, teaching, writing guys is that when you push, they have almost no association with the people in their church. And I can hear, "No, you're all wrong, I'm saying—they didn't have anything—no, I preach and I teach, okay, I'm alright, I guess." But let me tell you the danger in that: you quit caring about people and you care about messages.
Paul says, "I got nobody like this Timothy. We're same-souled." What connects us together? "He cares about you." Because everybody—literally what he's saying there, he's saying everybody else has a problem they're struggling with—they care about themselves, they care about their own interests. Paul is making the point through all of his writings that if we know Christ, we should care about and care for one another.
Back to Our Text: Excelling in Love
Now let's go back to the text. We got about 17 minutes, and let me develop this. So we're obviously developing the first point. First Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 9: "Now as for 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 practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more."
Still more literally to let it super abound in you, so there's never that point at which we say "nailed it, done." Here's what he's saying: you are loving one another, everybody knows you're loving one another, but you got 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 characteristic, remember what we saw at the very end here. This section in verse 12 He said the whole world's looking. Jesus has told us when they see this, here's the characteristic: that they love one another. So here's the first thing till Jesus comes or till you die to the end of your life or time here: number one, love one another.
Make It Your Ambition to Have No Ambition
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's the problem with that as you hear that: "Oh okay, that's just a call to not have any incentive, any drive." It's kind of the rap on Christians - they're so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. I've shared with you before from my personal experience, most of Christians I know are so earthly minded they're no heavenly good.
But He said, "Is the crew all they think about is the sweet by and by and now they don't work, they don't work hard?" No, because He's going to come back and tell us we need to work hard. Here's what He's saying: lead a quiet life, literally strive to be silent, to not speak out inappropriately, to live a tranquil, restful life.
I've had an interesting couple of weeks and that I've over the last two weeks connected or reconnected with a lot of people I knew a lot, or a lot of people I knew a little but had some kinship with. If I were to step back and look at most of those conversations, what I heard on the other side almost always is "I'm so busy. Life is so loud. All this noise."
So that's not new. Paul's dealing with it 2,000 years ago and here's what he's saying: You shouldn't be living that way. You should be leading a quiet, tranquil, peaceful life as far as it depends upon you.
Living a Quiet Life in Practice
I look back - obviously I'm still just processing all Susan's stuff - but I listened to an interview that 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 girls, I mean the best part of the memorial service for me was listening to the girls talk about their mom. The girls were awesome. What they talked about is 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."
So here's, and I don't mean this, I know it could be misunderstood - 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 this, you're nuts. 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. Because it's much more important for us to knit together as a family and have a quiet time together. By that I don't mean sitting around studying the Bible. It can mean watching TV or playing cards or swimming just to be together. Our lives need to be quiet.
I'm telling you, the world's going to push you. Work's going to push you. God gave you something to do. I love this: And if He did, He gave you the time to do it. So if you're too busy, you either are misappropriating your time, wasting it, or you've misunderstood what He'd have you do. You think it's this big and it's just this big.
The Problem of Busyness
If there's something I see and I think - I didn't talk to Brian and Jake and Jim - but if I talked to the guys and said "What do you hear from people in small groups?" I think we would hear over and over again, "We're too busy." Okay, that's your fault. Fix it. That's your burden.
I understand demand. I got it. I understand demands. I understand work. I'm not naive. I understand a lot of companies are right-sizing and therefore there's more for you to do. But that family, that's up for you to control. He's saying, I want you to live a quiet life, a peaceful life.
Now I also understand that's not - listen, if you're in the jewelry business, you're not leading a quiet life in December. Okay, I got it. There's seasons of it. There's times in a life. But Paul seems to me to be very clear. He said, "I want you to lead that quiet life."
Mind Your Own Business
Here's the third thing. It's in the middle of verse four: attend to your own business. We can say this another way: mind your own business. You know, it's the only reference here in the New Testament that we have, that apparently it was either a problem with some specific people or it was a problem in general with this church. So much so that when you flip to the next letter, 2nd 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're in everybody else's life.
If I have kind of one of my pet peeves that I see among Christians, it's there. They're in everybody else's lives. Now if I'm going to love them, I'm going to be engaged in their life. I'm not saying don't be engaged in people's lives, but what he's talking about here is things that are meddling.
So I will tell you over the years, we have had people who've been big sources of problems within this church, not because they had a problem, but they all of a sudden were going to champion somebody else's problem, which wasn't a problem at all. He said mind your own business, and that's really easy when you can be at home in your bedroom on your laptop and be engaged in everybody's business and everybody's stuff.
He said, "Listen, you need to mind your own business. Quit wasting time." Doesn't mean don't be associated with people. We just said got to love one another. We got to be in community with another. Got to be spending time together. What He's saying...
The Danger of Being a Busybody
With that, there's an appropriate investment. So to be listening to somebody or engaged in somebody, there's an appropriate time and place for that, but there's also something that's inappropriate, and we love that. We love, for whatever weird, sick, odd, stupid reason, we love getting in other people's business. People we know, people we don't even know.
It just amazes me to look at the whole industry and magazines and TMZ and all these shows. What do I need to know about who so-and-so's baby is? What do I possibly care? How is that going to enhance? And then I can't wait to tell somebody else about it. So mind your own business.
The Antidote: Work with Your Hands
Now here's the antidote to that. It's 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." So He said, here's what we want you to do. We want you to work.
There apparently was something going on, and there's a variety of reasons perhaps. It could be that they thought Jesus was coming again, because that's a real - we'll see it next week. That's really driving this now, is they're going, Jesus is coming again. So they're kind of going, if Jesus is coming again, why would I work? Why don't I just pray more, study more, hang out with Christians more?
So it's like that last goofball that had the date, whatever it was, October 12th. Wasn't it October 12th, Jesus is gonna come again? They do. People, this happens all the time. People liquidate everything and all this stuff. The minute I read it, I knew, here's what I knew. He ain't coming October 12th, because nobody knows the day or the hour, and this clown certainly didn't. So Jesus is coming again. That's not an excuse to quit working. That's an explanation or reason to redirect why we work.
Some perhaps had gathered the idea, many of the Greeks had the idea, that work or labor was beneath them. So they weren't working at all.
Understanding What "Working with Your Hands" Means
Not to be careful, because working with their hands. Is He saying that literally? I think we need to be careful there, because Brayden the other day, so Brayden 6. So Brayden had a ball the other day, and it says on it, "Made in China." So Brayden said to his mom, Haley, "How come nobody makes anything in the USA anymore?" That's pretty good.
So very few of you are making, we're in kind of an information type of a thing. Very few of you, I've never been good at that. I was telling Tim Maughan the other day, I did laundry the other night, and I'm telling you this, I digress here a bit. I put in six socks and I got five out. And it drives me nuts. I used to say to Susan, "How can this be? How can it possibly be?" But I'm telling you, I put five, six socks in, I got them out, so I'm checking. I don't know.
But that, like when I do things with my hands, they don't work out well, including laundry. But I do it, okay. We don't necessarily make, let's not isolate it to you need to make a table. Let's just say you need to work.
The Purpose of Work
And He said, I want you to work. Why? Because I don't want you to be idle busybody. And He also says, there's two things here, so the people outside will see us, and so you won't be in need.
So here's what He's saying to you. He said, listen, if you're a follower of Christ, you love one another, that that's going to be an important thing for you to do. I want you to lead a quiet life. I want you to mind your own business, and I want you to work.
Now, I also understand that unemployment's at 8.6%, and so He's not saying here that if there's no jobs, then that person shouldn't eat. Though He makes this point, by the way. Go to the next book, in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 10. He said, "If anyone's not willing to work, they should not eat."
The Principle of Working Hard
So here's what He's acknowledging. By the way, I see it in the church all the time. People who somehow feel that the body of Christ, or the world, owes them. Here's this principle. If you can work, work and work hard. So that, two things, you'll be able, I guess, three things. You'll glorify God, you'll be able to feed yourself, and you'll be able to help those that can't work.
This is really touching now, because I understand. Here's what I'm saying now. So we got a bunch of people that's underemployed. It's better to be underemployed than unemployed. I think He would say something. Look at, if you're a guy and a gal, let's say you don't care, you're not married, you don't care, you're going to live together. You each get unemployment, you each get access, you each get food stamps, you're making 40, 50 grand a year. I don't think that's a good thing. And He would be, He would condemn that. Here's what He's saying. He's saying, if there's a job, take it.
But He also understands that that's why the whole thing of brotherly love. He also understands there's situations where people can't work, and in those cases, the church and the Christians need to come along and to support those people the best they can. So that the world will look at it and say, wow.
Putting It All Together
So here's what we saw the last two weeks. Paul said, I want you to understand this. And we've already told it to you over and over again. I want you to understand that based on what God has to say, you are to be sanctified, set apart from sin, set apart for God. That's gonna manifest itself in a variety of ways. First, there'll be sexual purity. Then there'll be this care for one another. There'll be this brotherly love.
I think this is pretty good common sense advice. What would God have me do? Love one another? Lead a quiet life? Mind your own business? Work hard? It's not a Protestant work ethic. It's what God says. It's how God would have us live. That's the practical side of all of that doctrine.
That even in our interpersonal relationships, let me just give you this, because I was gonna go there, but we don't have time. Ephesians chapter four, verse 29. Paul talks about our tongue, and he said, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only as good for edification that those who listen may..."
In our tongue today, I would express this as: in all our interactions with one another, they should be positive and constructive, and they should benefit the person that we come in contact with. 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 could tear them down, but I should be about loving them, which is building them up.
What About Jesus' Return?
Well, against this backdrop, Paul gets a question. What are we supposed to do until Jesus comes? And if He's coming, what's that going to look like? Because we have people who have already died. What happens there?
So next week, we're going to look at verses 13 through chapter five, verse 11. That's a big chunk of scripture dealing with the idea of Jesus' return. So we'll talk about that next week.
If you're in the conference center, Brian will be there in a second, and he'll close the time. Brian will be here now in the chapel to lead us in communion, to lead us in worship, and then to what really is just a sweet time, a time to pray corporately. And then if you need somebody to pray with you, there'll be people here in the front of either the conference center or the chapel who would love to pray with you when the service is over.
So let me pray as Brian and the team comes. Father, thank You for these amazing truths. We pray that we would indeed love one another and that we would mind our own business and 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 life? We ask that of You in Christ's name, amen.