And we're just continuing our
journey through 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and we've come to those
interesting verses that we'll be looking at tonight. I'll just
read them for you. He says, verse 9 of chapter 4,
he says, But those touching brotherly love, you need not that I write
unto you, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one
another. And indeed, You do it toward
all the brethren which are in all Macedonia, and we beseech
you, brethren, that you increase more and more, and that you study
to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your
own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk honestly toward
them that are without, and that you may have lack of nothing. So here we come to the last of
these appeals to Paul in terms of the Christian life. As he says earlier on, it's talking
about sanctification in verse 3 and verse 4, and we've looked
at the last couple of weeks at several aspects of sanctification.
And he goes on after talking, he then goes in the next verses
to talk about the coming of the Lord and then he finishes the
letter by giving them more encouragements. And these encouragements are
couched in the gospel, they're couched in the truth. They are couched in what he says
in chapter 3 again and again and again. He talks about the
faith. He's actually proclaimed who
the Lord God is. He's proclaimed how he comes
and saves his chosen sinners by bringing the gospel and causing
that gospel to work with power and effectively in their hearts.
And he then is encouraged when he hears this news, this news
from a far country. He's down in Corinth and Timothy
and Silas have come with news from Macedonia. further up in
Greece and there come news with these people loving each other,
these people standing fast and Paul in chapter 3 verse 8 says,
now we live for him as an apostle it is life if you stand fast
in the Lord, stand fast in that faith and you stand as one, you
stand together for the hope of the gospel And that gospel is
a gospel that comes from a God who is love, and a God who is
light. And God's children are brought
out of that kingdom of darkness and they're transferred into
a kingdom of light, and we see Him. who loved us. We see him who loved us from
everlasting, and we see him who not only loves, but he loves
powerfully and effectually, and as Jeremiah 31 says, he actually
draws his people to himself. And there is a genuine real love,
isn't it? We love him because he first
loved us, and we love him, in loving him, the expression of
that love in this world is that there is a love for our brethren,
isn't it? We actually love. We really do
love our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus. He that loveth
his brother abideth in the light, says 1 John 2. And we ought to
lay down our lives for our brethren. We lay down the things that we
have of our lives in this flesh and we lay them down. We lay
them down in the service and love of our brothers. We ought
to lay down our lives for our brethren. Perfect love, cast
out fear. I love how John, the apostle
of love as he's called, he writes, He writes to the people there
and they're in the same sort of straits that the believers
have been in throughout time, aren't they? There they are in
Ephesus and in those surrounding churches and they are harassed
by false teachers. They are torn about. Who do you follow? And then he
writes in 1 John as an elder, as an old man, he writes to the
elect lady, a church and her children whom I love in the truth. And not only I, but also they
that have known the truth. for the truth's sake, which dwelleth
in us and shall be with us forever. He rejoices like Paul greatly
that I found thy children walking in the truth. He is delighted. And so Paul,
in these verses here before us, reminds these Thessalonians,
he's really reciting what is happening in their lives, isn't
he? He's reciting what happened to them when he came. He's reciting
and bringing to remembrance who he was among them. He's bringing
them to remembrance of who God was revealed to them and what
he did in their lives. And he says, and as touching
brotherly love, you need not that I write unto you. And then he has this great statement. for you yourselves are taught
of God to love one another. He reminds them again, doesn't
he, that what they see before them in terms of their experience
and in terms of their then ongoing love for each other, that it's
actually the source is God, isn't it? God sustains it. Relationships are of God. They're created by Him, they're
sustained by Him, and they're grown by Him. And they're based
on that spiritual foundation on it. God is the Father of these
people. They are His family. Christ Jesus is our Saviour and
our Redeemer and He's our Husband. And the Holy Spirit comes with
power and He takes the things of the Lord Jesus and He reveals
and He regenerates. He creates life where there was
no life. He makes known and He comforts
and He guides. And it's not for nothing. that
the scriptures are just full of encouragement for us to look
to the source of that love and then look to that love being
fulfilled amongst the people. We are brothers and sisters in
Christ. going to spend eternity together. One day soon, one day soon, eternity
is laid out before us. I love what John 13 says, a new
commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as
I have loved you, but you also love one another. And he holds
it up before the world, by this shall all men know if you know
that you are my disciples, know that you are my learners, know
that you've been taught, if you love one for another. We looked
last week, I think it was, at these commandments of God, the
commandments of the Kingdom. I love the commandments of God. Because the commandments of God
come with the power of God. He does all things according
to His will. And so when He commands, He's
revealing His will. What He commands is what He grabs. That's the New Covenant, isn't
it? I will and they shall. God will do His work. God will
do what He's done to these people. He'll come into a place of darkness
and He'll bring light and He'll bring life and He'll bring a
new creation. And that's why God's children,
Paul talks about them standing fast in the faith, in the faith,
and he's talking about a noun, doesn't he? A faith is a set
of truths about the Lord Jesus, of who he is and how he saves
his people. And John uses similar words,
doesn't he? It's love, in the truth. It's love that's founded on the
declaration of the gospel, the revelation of who our God is
and how he saves Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's love
in the truth. And there are warnings, aren't
there, in Romans 12, which says, don't let your love be unfeigned,
let love be genuine, Romans 12.9. Don't let love be hypocritical.
To be a hypocrite is to put on a mask, to pretend to be something
that we are not. In Colossians chapter 4 you have
a long list of admonitions and encouragements in the Christian
life and one of the strongest in the Greek in terms of command
is don't lie to one another. Real love, real love is a love
that is unfined. Now the end of the commandment,
now the goal, now the purpose of the commandment is love out
of a pure heart. How do you get a pure heart?
God purifies the hearts of His people by faith. Love out of a pure heart and
a good conscience. How do you have a good conscience? You can read about it in Hebrews
9.14, a conscience that's been cleansed, a conscience that has
been washed. Sorry, it's Hebrews 9.14. How
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered himself without spot to God, Purge, purify your
consciences from dead works to serve the living God. Purified consciences. That's the end of the commandment.
That's the goal. Does God achieve his goals? He does. Pure hearts, good conscience,
and faith unfeigned, unhypocritical. So he commends these Thessalonians. They're not hearing anything
new. in these admonitions. They're just hearing a reciting
of what's happening around them. He says, their labour of love,
their work of faith and their patience of hope in the sight
of God. And he tells them again why.
Why does this happen? Because you are taught of God. Oh, what a great teacher our
God is. He teaches in ways that are extraordinary. He teaches
in ways that bring His people to an experience of that truth. We know the truth in fact and
we experience the truth in reality. When God teaches, people get
the lessons. The Lord Jesus quotes Isaiah
54 twice. in the New Testament and he quotes
it in Jeremiah again, this idea that God's children are taught
of God. I love how Isaiah 54 puts it. For the mountains shall depart
and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart
from me, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, said
the Lord, who has mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with
tempest, and not comforted." These Thessalonians went through
serious trials. They were afflicted, troubled,
and Paul was anxious about them. O thou afflicted, tossed with
tempests and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair
colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make
thy windows agates, and thy gates carbuncles, and thy borders of
pleasant stones. And all thy children, all thy
children, Zion, shall be taught of the Lord, and the result of
him teaching is, and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be
established, for thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou
shalt not fear, and from terror for it shall not Come near thee. Behold, they shall surely gather
together, but not thy me. Whosoever shall gather against
thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith
that bloweth the coals in the fire, and bringeth forth an instrument
for his work. And I have created the waster
to destroy." And then he finishes that passage by saying, No weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord. And then he finishes with
these wonderful words, And their righteousness Their righteousness
is of me. Their righteousness is of me. Love unfined, love founded in
the truth, love based upon the Gospel, love that joins His people
together. And as we saw in Colossians some
considerable time ago, He actually knits them together, doesn't
He? They're knitted together. They're rooted and built up in
Him and they are knitted together. This whole body, by joints and
bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases
with an increase from God. The Lord Jesus will see his commandment
fulfilled. He will see the fruit of his
great suffering. brings his ambassadors to teach
his people, to remind his people of what's happened to them, remind
his people of who their God is, and remind his people, as ambassadors
of Christ, remind his people of what he's doing amongst them.
God teaches. That's the first lesson in these
verses. Brotherly love is incredibly
important. It's just the natural outworking
of a God whose spirit works in the people. And that's exactly
what he says in the next verse, doesn't he? And indeed you do
it. He's just commending them. for
what is actually happening in all their lives. And this is
a love towards all the brethren, it's a love towards the brethren
in the church, and it's a love that reaches out into that whole
region of Macedonia. And that's what's come back to
Paul, hasn't it? That this gospel that he planted there in much
affliction and brought with it much affliction into their lives,
has resulted in these people, in spite of all that opposition,
being knitted together, and the fame of this church has gone
out to all of Macedonia. And now it's reached all the
way down to Paul in Corinth. And no doubt he would have been
talking about it in his messages to that Corinthian church. It
reached out. He commends them for their evident
love and he reminds them that with the commands from God comes
the power from God. It's all the evidence that all
these promises of God, all these promises, can we take all of
the promises in the New Testament. Can we take all of the commands
of the New Testament and can we read them as promises? Under
the New Covenant we must read them as promises. That is the
is the sea in which they swim and swim delightfully and live. It's the air in which they fly
like birds. It's how they work in the lives
of God's people. They are yes and amen in Christ
Jesus. He says to them in 1 Thessalonians
2.13, he says, this word of power works effectively in you who
believe. Our God reigns. Our God reigns. Our God is the
preserver and he is the sanctifier of his people. And he goes on
to say that you increase more and more. This faith of theirs
towards God is spread abroad. He wants it now to echo out. as the words indicate, that many
more may be encouraged and strengthened in the faith because of the Lord's
work in their lives. How does it increase? How does
it excel? It increases as God's children are growing together,
just like those bones and those ligaments and sinews in a body
as its exercise grow and they become stronger and stronger
and stronger through the exercise of faith in their lives. We grow
together, we excel, we increase. We become more knowledgeable,
don't we, of the lives of our brothers and sisters. We become
more knowledgeable of the struggles they have, more knowledgeable
of the joys they have, more knowledgeable of the trials that they're going
through. We become more understanding. As God works in our lives, we
don't have a problem seeing our brothers as better than ourselves. We see ourselves, like Paul,
as the chief of sinners, and we become, as God exercises us,
more and more able to bring the Gospel to each other, to cause
our brothers and sisters, by God's Spirit working amongst
us, that we actually stand firm, like a little baby has all the
joints and the ligaments and everything is there in a little
baby. And it takes them 6 or 8 months
before they can crawl. It takes them 12 months or more
before they can walk. And it takes them years before
they can run and play football and be strong. And that's what's
happening in the lives of these people, isn't it, as they exercise. Those things that are evident
there are grown by God, knitted together. We bear one another's
burdens. No one suffers in the family
of God alone. We suffer together. We are led
by God because of his great forgiveness of us, to be forgiving. Love delights in overlooking
and forbearing the sins of our brothers and sisters. It may
mean that we are exercised to say words of admonishment in
love. I love what Galatians 6 says
about a brother. It says, brethren, if a man,
Galatians 6.1, if a man be overtaken in a fault, You which are spiritual, restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness, and you then consider yourself. When you see your brothers and
sisters struggle and fall, you are seeing the evidence of the
weakness of your own flesh. You're not immune and you're
not above those things. Considering thyself, lest thou
be also tempted. Bear one another's burdens and
so fulfil the law of Christ. Christ laws, His commands, His
will. is fulfilled and we stir one
another up to love and good works and we come before that throne
of grace with our brothers and sisters on our hearts and we
carry them there to that place where we can obtain mercy and
we pray for the Lord to work in their hearts increasing more
and more more and more. I love the way
the Lord likens himself and likens his people to vines. The one thing that vines can't
do is support themselves. The best they can do on their
own is crawl along the ground. They know when they support each
other they actually grow in blackberry bushes. Many of you have seen
them as big and as high as this building almost. And how do they
get there? In and of themselves they are
weak. We are a vine. We are like sheep. And he sees
these people standing together in the truth of the Gospel, standing
as one, and he rejoices and he encourages them as he always
does. He sees God's work in their lives
and he encourages them and says, the Lord is at work. He's begun
a work, he's promised to sustain and to finish that work. He will
do it. So firstly we see that it's God
who works and God who teaches, and this body of God's saints
is grown together. In verse 11 he says, and that
you study to be quiet. It really means to be ambitious
or labour for peace. or it can also be translated
as love the honour to be quiet or rest and live in silence,
not to be noted or to be noted. Let the world pass by. We live
in this world where there are so many things that exercise
the mind of people and this last week or so I got a sort of, someone
sent me a video from a a church in another part of this country
and there was the pastor telling people that there's no one in
the world that's got to support some movie that's coming out
at the moment and they've got to stand fast in this stuff and
we've got to deal with abortion and all these other issues. The
church's one issue is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There
are environmental things and God's children need to care for
this creation because it belongs to our Creator. We're not to
trash God's creation and we are to care about what happens in
our society. But there is a world out there
that's entangled in all sorts of things. God's people are to
be entangled in the Gospel. We're not to just get ourselves
tied up in all the issues of the world. Let the world pass
on by before you as you keep your eyes on the high calling
of Christ in His new creation. It's an honour, says Proverbs
20 verse 3, it's an honour for a man to cease from strife. But every fool will be meddling. Paul says in 1 Timothy 6.6, he
says, Godliness with contentment is great gain. Let the world
and let the religious world fight their little battles. Our job,
we have our eyes fixed on a city whose builder and maker is God. He's on his way back. Abraham
had all of that land of Canaan, and he says there is no building,
there's no foundation here, there's no city here. He was caused in
faith to be involved and to look for a city whose builder and
maker is God. So study to be quiet, he says. Be ambitious for peace. And do your own business. Do your own business. Mind your
own affairs. 1 Peter 4.15 says, but let none
of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer
or as a busybody in other man's matters. We are called upon at
times to be involved when they come into our lives, to be concerned
about the affairs of others. and especially our brothers and
sisters. But there are things that come into our lives and
at that time we are to give ourselves and to care about it and to do
it. But our doing and our suffering
and our standing together ought to be kept in the sphere of our
calling. We have a high calling. We have
a spiritual calling. Paul warns Timothy as he's about
to meet his end. He says, you be as a good soldier
of Jesus Christ and no man that's involved in a war gets entangled
in the affairs of this life. that he may please him who has
chosen him to be a soldier." We're called to the Gospel. Let the Gospel issues, the things
that matter to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus be the things
that we make our business. And let's be quiet. And let the
world and especially the religious
world, go its way and fight its little battles and win its little
wars and make its noise. Our job is about the Gospel. So we have a teacher, we have
a body that grows, we have a new kingdom and in that new kingdom
That's what matters, there's one thing that matters, and that's
our Saviour. You see, He enjoins them to work
with your own hands as we commanded you. In 2 Thessalonians we find
that these people had possibly misunderstood, which is why they
misunderstood the second coming of the Lord Jesus. And some of
them are down tools. I thought, if he's coming back
tomorrow, if he's coming back next week, why do anything? What's the point of working?
Everything I'll do is going to be burnt up and destroyed. There's only one thing that matters,
and I'll wait for him. I'll sit on my haunches and wait
for him. Paul reminds us again in 2 Thessalonians. He says, Even when we were with
you, we commanded you that if anyone would not work, neither
should he eat. It's pretty simple. For we hear
that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working
not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command
and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they
should work and eat their own bread. And you, brethren, do
not weary in doing well. Do good towards all men, and
especially to the household of believers." who find themselves without things
before them to do will find themselves in the hands of meddling in other
people's affairs. And it's not our job. It's not
our task. It's not caring for and loving
our brothers. And also God's children, God's
children seek opportunity to proclaim the Gospel and they
seek opportunity that we proclaim that Gospel and we adorn that
Gospel with our lives, that you may walk honestly, you may walk
decently toward them without those who are on the outside,
those who are outside of the Church. And that doesn't mean
anything about monastic isolation, that somehow if you separate
yourselves from the world that you will be purer and you will
be more holy by doing so. The problem's not there, the
problem's in the hearts of people. But it's a spiritual, not that
sort of isolation. It's a spiritual heart devotion
towards the things of the Lord. We don't want for the Gospel
to be spoken ill of. We don't want for the Lord Jesus
to be spoken ill of by the way we conduct ourselves with the
people outside. It's simple, isn't it? It's simple
and it's what God does in the lives of His people as He brings
them together and He knits them together and He grows them in
the Gospel. You walk honestly that you may
have lack of nothing that you won't be a beggar, that you'll
be a giver, that you'll have things to share with others. Our God feeds the sparrows and
He sustains His own and often through those He blesses abundantly. The Church of God is not in need.
The Church of God was remarkable. In the Roman Empire, 50% of the
Roman Empire were slaves and they lived in cities, huge cities
in abject squalor. And it was said of the Christians
by Tertullian in the 3rd century that not only did they look after
all of their own poor, but they fed half the poor of the Roman
Empire. And Christianity spread in remarkable
ways as God's children proclaimed the Gospel and lived that Gospel
in a world that's incredibly difficult. Our God feeds the
sparrows, sustains the sparrows, and he looks after his own. The Church cares for its own. We want to walk honestly with
them without. We want to walk without hypocrisy
with them without. We don't want to walk before
them with some sort of feigned self-righteousness and some sort
of mask of love as it's proclaimed in this world. Christian love
is strong love. Christian love is a love in the
truth. Christian love is a love that
moves God's children to stand like these people did, like Paul
did. He got bashed around in Philippi, and he comes straight
to Thessalonica, and he suffers there, and he's kicked out, and
he's sent to Berea. And Christian love, love for
the glory of God, and love for the children of God. He suffers
all things, he says, for the sake of the elect. And for their
sakes, he lived before them, as we saw in chapter 1. He lived
before them in a way which would give them an example. And then
he sees this happening in their lives. How is he sustained? He says, I am what I am by the
grace of God. God creates, God joins together
and creates bodies of believers and God sustains them. And even our struggles and our
difficulties and even our sins give us opportunity for the Lord
to reveal His grace. Think of our brother David, that
great sin. But what great grace was revealed
to David. What a great word from God to
David when Nathan came to him and says, the Lord has taken
away your sin. What a great word of the Gospel
to bring to our brothers and sisters when we stumble and fall. Our struggles and our difficulties
give us opportunity to proclaim the grace of our Lord, to proclaim
His faithfulness. He's faithful. He'll carry you. He'll sustain you. I love the
way this letter finishes. It says, The very God of peace, sanctify
you. This is chapter 5, verse 23.
The very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. Sanctify you perfectly,
it means. Sanctify you completely. And I pray God, your whole spirit,
soul and body, be preserved blameless. unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. When I was studying that verse
in the Greek today, I love the way that sentence is structured
in the Greek. It gives all of those words that
we have read there, and then at the very end, the last word,
the last word is preserved. I love the way God has written
these scriptures. Preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus. And look what he says next. Faithful
is he that calleth you. Where does this power come from?
Who makes you to differ? What have you earned that you
haven't received from him? Faithful is he that calleth you
who will also do it. God is the source and the sustainer
of all grace. And Paul encourages these believers
to look to Him. Just come back to chapter 4 and
we'll just look at some of the character of our God that's revealed. He has a family, verse 1 of chapter
4. He has a family which are brethren. He is a God who's pleased, is
a God who really feels. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. I take it that that means that
he's incredibly pleased with faith. faith that He gives, faith
that is the gift of Him, faith that He operates. He is, in verse
3, a God of purpose, isn't He? The will of God. This is the
will of God. Even for your sanctification,
He's a God of purpose. In verse 5, The Gentiles don't
know him, but he's a God who is known. He's a God of relationship. He's a God who reveals himself,
his character in the Gospel. He reveals himself in the Lord
Jesus. He reveals himself in the Lord
Jesus and him crucified. He reveals himself in the Lord
Jesus and those ascension gifts that he pours out on his church. And he's known. This is eternal
life. The people know him. He's a God. who speaks in verse 7. A God who speaks and His word
is a word of power, isn't it? He calls us. He calls us. What a remarkable thing. A God,
at the end of that verse, who is holy. A God who is holy calls
His people to Himself. In verse 8, He's a giver. And when God gives, His people
get the gift. Otherwise it's not given. It's
not offered. It's given, isn't it? Who has
given unto us His Holy Spirit. He gives of Himself to His people. Verse 9, as we looked at earlier,
is a God who then teaches. What a God we have. What just a short life we have
to live in this world, before Him, and with Him, and with His
people, for His glory. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you again that we can be gathered together