Amen. Thank you, church. You
may be seated and turn to the second letter of the Thessalonians.
We have one more week after today, and I believe that will be done. We live in a day and age where,
as we've been discussing the last few Sundays, works and labor
and jobs are now considered curses. And we see that the scripture
teaches us that work in itself is not a curse, but a gift. But
how do we do work? Isn't it very hard? Isn't it
laborious? Isn't it exhausting when we get
through our days and we get through our weeks? Even if we're just
working around the house, whether you're doing laundry or sweeping
or mopping or dusting or weed eating, digging, changing the
oil, checking the tires, whatever it may be, replacing an alternator,
maybe you're changing diapers four and five times an hour,
picking up spills, keeping the front door from falling off the
hinges. What is it that we do that's not work? And then we
get to the scripture, and we start to think like working Americans,
and we see, I command you to do this, and I command you to
do that, and I command you to do this, and we're enamored by
constant commands of things that we should do that are laborious. As we've seen Paul close this
letter, he began a contrast here in this text, which in some sense
seems out of place. And last week, we saw that there
was a faction of this church that was not working. They were
not working. And because they were not working,
they became an undue burden on the local church. They became
an undue burden on those who then would then take care of
them. And Paul says those who are able
ought to work less or they don't eat. Remember that? That's what
we talked about last week. The trouble is, is that the culture
of the first century and the culture of 2017 are so different,
we can't even put application to this text at all. You might
say, wait a minute, you're telling me that the Bible, you can't
apply it? You can apply it, but we can't put application to this
text in lockstep. Because in our world today, everybody's
doing some kind of work. But we've got this idea that
work is work only when you get paid. And we've got this idea
that if you don't get paid enough, it's not worthy work. And we've
got this idea that some people's work is easier than our work,
and so we're better than they are. And we've got this idea
in our culture that, well, why would I have to work when somebody
else would take care of me? And some people, depending upon
what type of way they look at it, could fall anywhere in the
midst of that and possibly 25,000 more scenarios. We live in a
world today where many who profess the name of Christ frown on the
poor. They frown on the poor. And Paul's
not talking about the poor. Paul's not talking about the
widows. Paul's not talking about the orphans. And he's not talking
about people that need to get a job in some sense, because
they have a job. But it's very difficult because
if we're to put an Americanized application upon this, like I
said last week, most of our fathers and grandfathers could preach
this sermon without ever opening this text. Boy, you need to get
a job and do something with your life. And there lies another
problem. We're identified in our culture
by what we do for a living. I find it very ironic. Very actually,
let me just use the right word. I find it very irritating when
I'm getting to know someone and the first thing they want to
tell me is what they do for a living. Why is that irritating? I'm interested.
I really do want to know. I love to know everything. I
want to know what size shoe you wear. It's just interesting.
Why? I don't know. Data. I enjoy trivia. All sorts of things. But I find
it irritating because myself included, we feel like that is
how we are defined in our culture. I mean, we teach our children,
be kids, you're not an adult. Be kids, you're not an adult.
You can't do that, you're not an adult. You need to do this,
you're not an adult. Oh, you're an adult, bye. What are you gonna
do with your life? And we have a phenomenon in our
current gene pool where people have come up with the verb adulting to such a degree that now I've
got to stop being a kid and I have to do the adulting. I have to
adult. And it's a running gag. I mean,
I know a lot of hardworking millennials who use that term. It's tough
to be an adult. But I propose that if we understood
the context in which Paul is preaching and teaching this,
that we would realize that it's not about there's a time when
we start working, but that the human condition, let me change
that, the human existence in this world is an existence of
labor. And it's an existence of labor
in doing things with your mind and your hands and your body
in an effort to be fruitful in the whole of things. We live
in a society where most everyone is concerned about themselves.
And even if they have some kind of collaborative interest, the
ball doesn't really roll much further beyond the boundaries
of their individual household or maybe their extended family.
Very few people get up in the morning and go to their job or
go to their businesses or go to the things that they are supposed
to be doing and think, what I'm doing today is unto the Lord
for the sake of the glory of God, that the world in which
I live might be a better place. Very few people go to their work
and think, I want my boss to see God's, my affection for God
in what I do every day. Now some jobs might have that
mentality. Civil service jobs have that
mentality. My sister, as an EMT, she goes
to work every day with only one thing on her mind, saving people's
lives. Police officers, I want to keep
people safe. Firemen, I want to help people
not burn to death. But outside of that, we really
have a very narrow interest in the world around us, don't we?
You have a narrow interest. But see, the gospel comes into
that and exchanges that. It transforms that way of thinking.
The gospel of Jesus Christ invades a selfishness that all of us
hold. Even when in the best of days,
we're interested in serving each other. And those of you who are
believers, you as the church, we know that there is something
different with us. how we relate to one another,
how we contend with one another, and how we pray for each other
and help each other, that's different than the way the world looks.
I think most of the time in our culture, we are willing, not
we, but let's just say they, the world is willing to be helpful
and to be active and to work until it costs them something.
until it becomes an invasion of their own self-interests.
And I think that to understand what Paul is trying to say here,
we have to really put ourselves in their shoes. And we have to
recognize that if we even think about it in the last hundred
years of our culture, we're going to misapply this text. There
were busybodies around this day that were eligible to work who
did not work because if we remember about those that Paul instructed
over in 1 Thessalonians, when he says that I want you to be
busy with your hands and work quietly and mind your own affairs. There was a faction in the community
of Thessalonica and other provinces there in Asia Minor where there
were a lot of what you would call benefactors. And these benefactors
were wealthy individuals who actually had a lot of money and
they were very well thought of in the community in which they
lived. And one of the best jobs, quote, jobs that you could get
was to get on their good side. I don't even know how that works
today. I don't know how that applies today. Where is that?
Because usually the rich, rich, rich of our culture, they want
to work you three times as hard and pay you half as much. Now,
that's not a fair assessment. That's a broad generalization. But for the whole corporate America,
that's the way it is. You're just a product to them. But in this day, there was a
faction of people who I guess would go out and begin to praise.
Let's just say Bob. And Bob was a rich philanthropist
and Bob was well-to-do in the community. And Bob had everything
going for him. He had a lot of money. And then
let's just say Joe, who didn't have a thing. decided that his
little menial job of sewing up fishnets was not worth his time
and effort. That he could do better by being
a publican, not a publican, that's a text letter. He could do better
by being a public mouth house for Bob. And he'd walk around
town, hey, you know Bob? Bob's a great guy. Bob's an awesome
guy. Man, Bob, you need to do business with Bob. And just they
would go around and begin to place themselves under the view
or the glimpse of these benefactors. And these people would come and
say, you know what, you're really doing a lot of work on my behalf, let me
put you on retainer. That's not the right verbiage,
but that's how we can understand it today. So these people who
had no work, who did nothing, except walk around and do good
and open doors for rich people and try to get tips, that's how
they made their living. It reminds me a lot of when you
go to certain conferences sometimes in large cities and sometimes
in the middle of the street, but always when you go to large
conferences and you're going right before you get to a valet
parking sometimes, there'll be a group of people out there and
they'll be washing windows in your cars. And all of a sudden,
next thing you know, there's somebody washing your window.
I'm like, man, this is a full-service hotel here. I mean, they're going
to shine my shoes when I step out and roll out carpet, give
me something to eat. What in the world? But these
people don't work for the hotel. Matter of fact, they're illegally
scalping work. And they'll clean your windshield,
and then they'll roll down the window, and they'll say, you
know, that'll be $10. And that's what I feel like some of these
people were like in Thessalonica. They would just run around doing
as little as possible to get the attention of those who could
continue to help them. And then all of a sudden now
that that's the practice, what happens when a benefactor becomes
a believer in Jesus? And the gospel says if you don't
work, you don't eat. You can't just keep handing this guy money
because he makes you look good in society. What happens to those
who are loafers? We call them a loafer. What happens
to those people who are working for nothing? I mean, getting
something for nothing just because they're in good graces with rich
people. What happens to them? Paul says, if they don't work,
they don't eat. So there becomes a dichotomy with the benevolence
that's commanded to us by the Lord to take care of each other
and the reality that there are some people who really don't
feel like they have to work at all because they've got it made the
way they are. But when the gospel comes, it's different. It's different. And if we went around the room
this morning, even though we're half here, if we went around
the room this morning, it would take the rest of the afternoon,
the sun would start to come down, if each of us were to give an
explanation of what all we do from the time we get up in the
morning to the time we go to bed at night and how we labor.
And some of us would say, and I make a dollar an hour. Some
of us would say, I make 10 cents an hour. Some of us say, it costs
me a dollar an hour to do the job I do, or more. And some will say, well, I'll
make this or I'll make that. But what we'll find is that each
of us individually work very hard at what we do every day.
And so understand that Paul's not talking about people who
are actually busy with their hands. He's talking about people
who are willing to do nothing and loaf on the back of the church
of Jesus Christ and say that they're entitled to that type
of help. And even then, that's not a correct
understanding because I am not living in this time. I'm not
living in this time. Many people have come to me throughout
the years and, you know, have said, well, you know, I'm not
going to let many men, I'm not going to allow my wife to work at all
in any way. And I said, well, too bad, too
late. If you paid somebody to do what your wife does for your
children in your home, you'd be in six figures. So you better
pay attention. or a woman of God shouldn't work
at all. Well, that's not what Proverbs
31 says. Proverbs 31 says that a woman
is free to do whatever she needs to do to help and benefit the
family and the church. Proverbs 31 woman owns her own
property, develops her own crops, makes her own clothes, prepares
for the winter while her husband jaws at the city gates. But he was an elder. We get the
job for a living. It's always been a joke of mine
when people ask me what I do and I just say, well, I sit around
all day, read and talk to folks while somebody else pays my bills.
What? What kind of work is that? It's
called a pastor. We make our living with the gospel.
But in this text, Ultimately, what Paul is trying to show is
that there's a contrast between those who are in who are really
living in a way that they should be living worthy of the manner
of the gospel and those who just want to sit around and do nothing.
Those who don't want to be actively involved, not only in the job,
in a job or in the community, but specifically and then also
in the church. And what happens is when we see,
and in here, but I mean some of you may have seen this in
past churches, past congregations you've been a part of, we see
that there's always the one or two people that end up having
all the time and all the counseling and all the resources of the
church. But they never want to do anything in an obedient manner
to help themselves. God does not help those who help
themselves. That's not in the Bible. But yet we are commanded
to be useful and to be helpful in order that we might also receive.
See, the way it works is if I pray for you, you're going to pray
for me. If I give you what I have, then you give me what you have.
If I'm in need and you have something that I can use and you give it
to me, then when I'm not in need and somebody else has something
that they can use, then I give to them and everybody helps everybody
else. And it's a mutual benefit. And as God has given some more
than others, it's not socialism. Everybody gets an equal portion,
but no one goes hungry and no one goes without need. But when
we look at this, and we start to see people in our community,
in our culture, you really want to go to a men's barbershop and
sit around on a Friday. And just listen to some of the
men, some of the grumps. Not gramps, I'm talking about
grumps. Some of the grumpy old men sit around talking about
how bad things are. Well, when I was 40, I worked 900 hours
a day. I mean, when I was 12, I chopped
down trees with my bare hands. I mean, you know, it's always
hyperbolic. And it's always to the disdain
of this generation. Yeah, we live in a generation
where physical labor is not as valuable holistically, because
we live in a technologically driven world. And that's good,
to a degree. But yet, somebody's got to know
how to change oil. And somebody's got to know how
to change a tire. And somebody's got to know how to paint and
lay floor and put bricks up. Otherwise, we're going to be
living in our computers. And they're getting smaller and
smaller. It's really going to be a little uncomfortable. But
the old men of today look at the young men of today and they
go, these guys are wastes. They've got no purpose as they
sit there on their smartphone. Look at my great grandson. I
mean, you know, hey, that geek you're fussing about allows you
to see your grandson in Singapore that you can't go see. Praise
God. And the same thing happens in
the church. We start seeing how much we're doing, how hard we're
working, how much ministry we're accomplishing, how much time
we don't have at the end of every day. And we see others who have
more time, who don't work quite as hard in our minds, and they
end up being better off in our minds because they seem to be
taking advantage. So this is a two-way sword. Last
week, we showed that Paul said to admonish these idle folks
to get a job and work and be quiet. Don't sit around and do
nothing. But this week, we're going to
see Paul say, now don't grow weary in doing good because isn't
that what happens? We decide we're not. Well, they're
not working. I'm not working. And then nobody's working. And
that's what it looks like. And so the application then that
we need to make is no matter how it works out with what kind
of work and what we're doing and where it... If we start to
become frustrated because we feel like we're doing more than
somebody else, we need to stop and stop thinking that way and
hear the command of the Lord. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, 11
through 15. For we hear, and this is a repeat
from last week, that some among you walk in idleness, not busy
at work, but busy bodies. And there's a literary pun there. Now such persons we command and
encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and
to earn their own living. As for you brothers, do not grow
weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what
we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing
to do with them, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him
as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Let's pray. We thank
you, Lord, that this word is for our good and for our benefit
and for our joy. Lord, help us to understand it
and to apply it in such a way that we praise you and worship
you and love you all the more, that we do not lose sight of
your love for us and for the gospel's sake, we do not lose
sight of our love for each other. But even when we seem intolerable
to each other, Lord, we are committed by the power of your grace, through
the power of the spirit, to give and to love and to learn and
to go about this life as believers. and as the principalities of
darkness look upon us, there in all that you have taken out
of no people and made a people who are in unity. And we thank
you for this and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Remember what
Paul tells the church of Ephesus. Paul says, and such were some
of you. What is that? In chapter two,
when he says that You once were lost and dead. You once were
following the path of this world. You once were following the lust
of your minds. You once were. Paul doesn't say you're doing
it now, though there might have been some among them that did
walk that way, just like in Corinth. It wasn't every believer that
was involved in that. It was just the fact that the
church tolerated a lot of unbelief and a lot of sinful things that
believers just will not do continually. Paul says, such were some of
you, but not anymore. Now you have been crucified with
Christ. Now you've been raised in Christ. Now your old man is
dead and you live. Paul tells the Galatians, he
says that I do not live, but it's Christ who lives within
me. And I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave
Himself for me. So in this, When we hear these
words, Paul is not saying you believers are idle. He says,
I hear that some of you are walking in idleness. You used to be idle
all the time. And even when you worked hard,
it was for nothing. Even the good deeds that you
did was for nothing. Because if we're not careful,
we'll begin to take instruction like this and we'll start to
think, well, I've got to live better. Or I've got to obey more. But see, the doing good of Christians
is the work of God anyway, as we'll see. And when we hear these
things about doing well or being orderly or doing good, we automatically
come to an idea that Paul or the apostle that might be writing
it is talking about not sinning and getting rid of sin. That's
an obvious. And you know what? Even when
we're not sinning, we're still not effectuating righteousness
in our obedience. Do you hear that? Even when I'm
not angry, and I'm not drunk, and I'm not thieving, and I'm
not running around, and I'm not killing, and murdering, and screaming,
even when I'm not doing all these things, I'm still not righteous
in my behavior. Because to obey the law a little
bit, or to obey it a lot, if we've disobeyed it, we've disobeyed
and we've disobeyed. So obedience, even if we could
obey the law completely from conception to death, we could
not warrant justification before God. What changed in the life
of Paul after his conversion? What morally transformed in him
other than killing Christians? Nothing. What sin did Paul have that he
needed to walk uprightly in? He even says that he walked perfectly
in the law. Nicodemus in John chapter 3,
the teacher of all Israel, when he came to Jesus and confessed
that he was one from God, what did he need to be reborn for?
I mean, think about this for a second. It's important. And
in the next few weeks, I'm going to preach specifically on this
issue. But what is it that Nicodemus' life transformed that Jesus would
say that he loved the darkness? What darkness was in Nicodemus?
Unbelief! Unbelief! He looked at Jesus.
He looked at his own life like, why do I need this man? I'm walking
with God. So the same thing is true after salvation. Yes, some
of us have been freed from grave sins, from incredible malicious
and worldly fleshly sins, but some of us have not because we
didn't have them. Some of us have not struggled
with addiction. Some of us have not struggled with sexual sin.
Some of us have not struggled with lying and stealing. But
some of us have. And for those of us who have
struggled with these really heinous things, we can say, man, look
what the Lord has saved me from. And some of us who have not struggled
with those go, you know, I've always been a pretty good person.
And when we're born again as the pretty good person, what
really changes morally? So here Paul is not talking about
a change in morality or ethics. He is talking about living out
your life productively for the gospel of Jesus, for the sake
of the glory of God. Do all things, everything you
do, whether in word or deed, do it for the glory of God. Because if we could measure ourselves
based on the world's standards or even the law, can not an unbeliever
be ethical? Can not an unbeliever be moral?
Can not an unbeliever walk in the path of righteousness from
a physical point of view? Yes, but those works of righteousness
are unrighteousness. So we have to be very careful
that we don't fall prey to straightening our life up. and thinking that
that warrants some satisfaction salvificly. It's not what Paul
is saying here. Paul, matter of fact, never gave
one jot or one tittle of condemnation to the church of Thessalonica.
He did not say anything that they should stop doing. Matter
of fact, he says, as you are loving, continue. As you are
growing, continue. As you are praying, continue.
As you are striving, continue. For I am confident that God has
done this work. And he says here in this last
letter, just a few weeks ago, that we know he will help you
stand. So what is this doing? What is
this command? Friends, remember as we go through
this, faith alone pleases God, and everything that is not of
faith is sin. So if we walk in a manner worthy
of the gospel and it's not done in a way that we are believing
and trusting on Christ by faith as we do it, we're trusting in
the works. We must trust alone in Jesus
Christ. And I have come across people in the last six months
who have condemned me as demonic for preaching such things. But
that is the freedom that comes to the gospel of Christ. No one
in their right mind says that when we fall into sinful behavior,
that it doesn't come with consequences. And no one in their right mind
who understands the gospel says that we should not practice church
discipline. That's not what we're talking about here. See, the
doing well is not even commanded. Look at it. As for you brothers,
do not grow weary. So what's the command? Don't
grow weary. The command of the others were,
get a job and work and pay for your food. Now the command to
the rest of the brothers who are not idle is, don't grow weary
in doing good. The doing good is implied, not
commanded. It's commanded other places, but it's not commanded
here. The doing good is implied. The command is that they do not
grow tired. So in the general order of life,
Paul is saying, do your life well. Do so well. Be productive. Do what's necessary. You hear
people talk about being a steward. You see the parables that Jesus
teaches in the gospels. And there's one particular parable
where it teaches about this master giving his servants talents.
And in some sense, that's like an investment amount of money.
A little bit of money, take it and work with it. And we see
the picture of two servants that do well, and one of them makes
more than the other, but they're both rewarded equally in the
sense that they bear the fruits of their work. This has nothing
to do with salvation, and this particular parable is not necessarily
equal to the point that Paul's making here, but it's something
we need to keep in mind. What does the wicked servant
do? Nothing. Nothing. He doesn't do a thing. He takes the gift, he holds it
tight for the master, and he gives the master his stuff back
when he comes. He's a good steward of what he's been given. But
is he? Are we a good steward of the
life we've been given? Or are we wasting it? Are we a good
steward of the gospel, the good deposit that's been entrusted
to us? Or are we wasting it? See, do not grow weary in doing
good because the world is not doing good or the church is not
doing as good as it is. Don't grow weary just because
we might be serving more than everybody else so we feel like
we can just take a break on it. The command is do not grow weary. Do not become exhausted. The draw of leisure, I believe,
could be brought into play here. I mean, think about our culture.
What do we live for? Friday. Why? My time. Turn on the TV, nothing but leisure. Commercial after commercial after
commercial after commercial. If it isn't leisure, it's medicine. If it isn't leisure, it's something
to help us feel better or keep us through the next day. Leisure is alluring, and I believe
it's a detriment to the church of Jesus Christ. I believe that
we feel that our labor is due some type of time off. I do not
understand it, and I do not comprehend it, that Christians love leisure
more than service. I don't get it. And that's all
I'm going to say about that this morning, but I want you to carefully
pray about that. because leisure by definition
is idleness. Do you hear me? It's idleness. Where is that shown in the command
of God? Where is it shown in the example
of Christ? When did Christ get away to pray? When did Christ take time out?
Some of you tell me my vacations are sinful. They could be if
you waste them. If you waste them, I don't mean
you got to get up every day that you're off and plow the back
40 either with a spoon. But what are we investing in?
To what end eternally does it have value? What is the product? What is the outcome of what we
do with other people? It's easy to become complacent
in life. It's easy to become complacent in work and in ministry
because so many others are complacent. So many others are apathetic.
So many others are walking through the motions and not doing a thing
and just saying, you know, I don't have to pray. Because everybody
else, I know pastors praying for me. I don't have to pray. I don't have to serve. I don't
have to worry about it. Somebody will take care of it. We feel
entitled to have our personal joys, all the while these personal
joys are actually idols that fight against our affection for
Jesus Christ. Oh, Lord, what does John say?
Beloved, keep yourself from idols. What shall I do? What do I do
when I see idolatry in my heart? We trust in the gospel of Jesus
Christ. We know that He never committed spiritual adultery.
And so His righteousness is ours, and God will put us in a place
where we are able. Remember what I talked about
earlier about how we compare other people's labor with our own?
And I've always heard this ever since in the ministry, especially
some of the older men in my church through the years. They'll say,
well, Pastor, what do you do with your time? Well, I read
six books this week. And they weren't comment books.
What do you do with your time? And I remember a young brother
in California who called and said, I'm having trouble. People
are on me and they're always constantly asking me what I'm
doing. Now I've got to fill out a time sheet. I said, well, fill
out the time sheet and show them. They will never ask you again.
And I'll never forget when I was asked to do that in 2003. Would
you keep a log of everything you do? And I even have a separate
log of the times I had to log. And after two weeks of turning
that in, they said, we'll never bother you again. God help us. We don't want to know what you're
up to. every phone call, every email, every text message, every
meeting, every prayer, everything I read, the reason I even sent
notes, I sent copies of my journals, and they're like, okay, we get
it. If people didn't study, then
where would there be knowledge? If people didn't work with their
hands, then where would there be things to live in and things to behold?
It's not just the software engineer that builds the iPhone, there's
also people that have to put it together. And friends, I want
us to know that we need to be careful not to become complacent
or apathetic or just frustrated or discouraged because somebody
else seems to have an easier plight in life than we do in
our labor, in their labor. Command does not grow weary.
Do not neglect the responsibility of your life. Do not neglect
the responsibility of your home. Do not neglect the responsibility
of your work and your job. And do not specifically and surely,
beloved, do not neglect the responsibility you have to your local church. Do not grow weary in being helpful
and supportive because of the laxity of others. Because it
is really the flesh that works in the disorderly, isn't it?
It's not the work of God. God is not a God of disorder.
He's not a God that purposes or that sits there and brews
in us disorder. He's not the God that takes his
children and says, you know what, I want James to just not do anything
for a couple of weeks and just waste it. God doesn't put that
in me, I put that in me. Our flesh does that. Just like
Jesus would say to the disciples, to the inner three, when he goes
into the garden of Gethsemane to actually pray, because he's
about to be arrested and wrongly and actually acquitted and then
murdered anyway. He says, pray, my spirit is grieving,
I am in anguish. and they fall asleep. He comes
down and he says something to them. He says, the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak. Beloved, our flesh is weak in
every way. Even in believing on Jesus Christ,
our flesh is impossibly weak. We must trust in every breath
that Jesus Christ alone is our righteousness, that He alone
is our salvation, that He alone is our King, and that He alone
has satisfied the judgment of God against us, no matter when
we're faithful or faithless. We must trust in Christ all the
time, period. And even in our trusting, we
must trust that Christ is the author of our salvation and our
faith. Idleness breeds itself. The old adage, misery loves company,
is something that's never been truer when it comes to idleness
in the faith. Because if we can get two or
three to walk around doing nothing with us, we feel perfectly at
home. And we love to call it fellowship
in our day. It is easy to become complacent,
especially when we feel entitled. And so if I labor over this too
much, I think I would give it an emphasis that Paul did not
intend. Do not grow weary. That's the
command. The flesh grows weary. But when we warn, look at verse
14. We then stand in contrast. Beloved,
we don't grow weary. We continue to do that, which
we are to do and be faithful in what we can be faithful in
by the power of God. As we've already seen in house,
I'll close this service out showing you. We're going to go back up
to the first part of chapter three, but we don't want to be
hypocrites. We don't want to say you need
to work. You need to serve. You need to get busy as we do nothing. If anyone does not obey what
we say in this letter, verse 14, take note of that person.
What's that mean? Very simply, I could actually
now take a segue and speak for about 30 minutes on the authority
of Scripture, which would be very, very beneficial for us.
Because in our day, the reason people are apathetic in the faith
and in life, and the reason so many people can say that heinous
people are Christians is because they are in the normality of
the comparison. What do I mean by that? Well,
when we look at someone who is loud and boisterous and prideful
and arrogant and bigoted, and we say, oh, that person's a Christian. How? Because he looks like every
other normal Christian. Because he goes to church. And
he says that he is. And he prays every now and then.
I love illusionists. I've been studying The art of
illusion since I was a little, little kid. Little kid. Back
when Max Maven was very popular. And if you don't know who Max
Maven is, he has the devil's point. He looks like the devil,
or what we would think is the devil. And I'll never forget
the first Pressman magic kit that I got had his caricature
on the front of it. My grandmother was like, nah,
you're not getting that. So we put stickers on Max Maven's face. But I've been studying that for
a while. And I've kept up through the years of a lot of nobodies
that are really geniuses when it comes to the art of manipulation.
I'm not like manipulating people, but card and coin, there's just
a skill to that. And I'm friends with a lot of
guys who are Christians. But it's funny because the world
would think that there's a few that are Christian that aren't
Christian. Because in their presentation, they call on the powers of darkness
to give them the ability to do the illusions they do. And then
you'll see them behind the scenes praying to God. We don't mix
that light and darkness to that. So people will swear they're
Christians because they pray. Friends, what is up with that? Why is it so easy for the world
to think everybody who says Jesus every now and then when they're
falling down the stairs is a Christian? Because the normality is very
low standard. walking in a manner worthy of
the calling that God's given us, and that we should see, as
Paul says, to imitate me as I imitate Christ. That means in our affections,
in our walk, and all these things, there is something that God has
decreed that His church will look like, and the picture of
that is forever ebb and flow. We'll have bad days and good
days and good days and bad days and bad weeks and bad years and
bad seasons, but ultimately, There'll be something there that'll
show, and it's not evidence and it's not proof of salvation,
but there's got to be something there that shows a contrast to
the world, is there not? What John says is that do not
profess light and walk in darkness, because you lie and you don't
practice the truth. Why? Because actually we're telling
God he's a liar, because God works in us everything for good. The Word of God is authoritative
and I believe that most of the time people can't see who and
who are not at least genuinely professing the faith of Christ
because the Word of God is no longer the foundation. It's no
longer the source. Culture is the source. Tradition
is the source. History is the source. And because
the scriptures, I mean there's a guy that just posted an article
yesterday or the day before that the substitutionary penal atonement
of Jesus Christ is not true. Now if you don't know what that
means, substitutionary means that Jesus died in the place
of something. Penal means that it's actually
punishment in place of something. Atonement means that it actually
makes us one with God. It brings us back to God. So
the Bible teaches, Paul would even say, that God put forth
Christ as propitiation to satisfy His own judgment because He forgave
so many people before Christ died that if He did not kill
Jesus, He'd be unjust and unrighteous and wicked. That's the truth
of the Gospel. But yet there are people today
that say that can't be because God is a loving Father and God
can just say, ah, don't worry about your sin. That's not good,
y'all. Two million people read that
article yesterday. Yet if I wrote an article on
the substitution of Jesus Christ on the cross for me, I'd get
about five. People don't wanna hear the truth.
And the crazy thing is, is that by what source are we even knowing
that God is a loving father? The same source that we say that
he's killed his own son. God killed the son of his own
will, his own decree that he might be just and the justifier
of all who have faith in Jesus Christ. So why is it then that
we are able to pick and choose what we want out of the scripture?
Well, here's a part that many people would choose not to agree
with. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take
note. Now, how do we take note of someone
disobeying Paul? We see. Do we not? If a bird
flew over my head like a big old buzzer or something and screwed,
nobody would ignore it. It's like, did y'all hear something?
No, everybody's going to like... If it dropped a plop on you while
you were sitting there, you're not going to ignore that either.
Right in the middle of your New Testament. You're not going to
ignore that. You're going to take note. A
bird just flew over the pastor's head. If we aren't walking, As
stewards, if we're walking in idleness, the Bible says to take
note. How do we take note? Because we know what Paul said
for us to do and we can see those who aren't. Is that so high-brow
thinking that we can't grasp it? But that's where the world
would have us believe that it doesn't matter what we are and
how we live amongst each other. We cannot be a hypocrite and
ask others, take note of what others do or don't do, while
we are also doing and not doing likewise. But he says not just
to take note, to have nothing more to do with them, that they
may be ashamed. But in verse 15, he gives a caveat
there. This isn't like permanent church
discipline in order to wait for restoration. This isn't kicking
him out of the fellowship. It's warning him while he's in
the fellowship. It's warning this idle person
that's becoming a burden to be careful while he's here. And the context where Paul was
talking is that they would get together every week and have
a fellowship meal. And he's saying, these guys walking in idleness,
when we go to serve everybody, make them sit in time out and
don't let them eat. Let them sit over there and everybody's
going to go, why is Bob sitting over there? Oh no, it'd be Joe,
wouldn't it? Why is Joe sitting over there?
God help if your name is Joe, I'm sorry. because he is idle. And Paul
told us to not let him eat with us. That's what it looks like.
It's time out for big guys. Now how embarrassing is that?
How embarrassing would it be if somebody came up to you and
said, you need to go to time out. And that, like, here's a
time out chair right here. And you just sit back here while
I'm preaching. Now see, for a child, that makes sense. I remember
being a child and being in preschool and elementary school and all,
and when you got in trouble in class, they didn't have the dunce
caps like my daddy talks about, putting the wizard hat on, sitting
there in front of the room, but they made us sit in a stool and
face the wall in the corner. And then they got real hard-nosed
by the time I was in about the third grade. You just stood in
the corner and you touched your nose to the brick. And so, you
know, here's recess and there's James with his nose to the brick.
And everybody goes, oh, James got in trouble. And the next
thing you know, somebody's standing in the other corner. Because they tattled
on, or they picked at you. And then people learn to keep
their mouth shut and to not be prideful. That's the kind of
shame that Paul's talking about. Why? Why? Because what Paul wants to see
happen in the church is a supernatural affection and a supernatural
unity that nothing's going to disturb. So when people stop
working and everybody's getting disgruntled, the disgruntledness
is sin in itself. But if we don't correct it, how
can we continue to be disgruntled? If we don't correct problems
in our relationships, You know, when you bite your toenails at
the dinner table, if that really bothers somebody, they need to
say something. Where do you come up with these
things? Who knows? I'm just thinking about the most horrific thing
that I could probably see while I'm eating lunch, and that would
be it. Some dude pull off his sandal and just start chewing
on his nails. You know, and what's going to happen? The way we work
on it is he's just not going to say anything. So we just stop
fellowshipping all together. And this poor guy is like, what's
wrong? Why is everybody sort of standing
off? Why don't we say, brother, if you don't stop that, I'm not
eating with you anymore. Matter of fact, you're not even
coming with us. Stand in the corner until you stop doing that, John. What do
we want? We want him to correct the behavior
so that the intimacy is not destroyed. And I know that's making light
of something that was a little more serious here. But friends, the application
is the same, that we need to be careful. and take note of
those who aren't walking, and lovingly not treat them as an
enemy, but as a brother, as a sister. Hey, straighten that up, man.
Can I pray with you? Can I fix this thing? Can I help you? And
it goes beyond, that practice goes beyond just idleness. It
goes into sinfulness and other things that are unbecoming of
Christians. Those who would just refuse to
hear the encouragement of the Word of God and the admonition
of the Lord through Scripture, The word of God is authoritative
and the commands are given here to the idol. And if they do not
heed them, discipline begins. Take note and have nothing so
that he might be ashamed. He's not an enemy. He's just
a lazy brother. He's just a lazy brother. And
then this begs the real grand finale of then how is this really
work? What are we supposed to do? Because
you're telling us that our work is not effectual to righteousness,
but yet you're showing us that Paul is making some commands
and in other places we see commands. Put away sexual immorality, put
away greed, put away malice, put away these things. If we
see this, if we see these things continuing of you, you know,
bring discipline, bring that brother, bring that sister before
the church so that they may be corrected. How do we handle it? How do we
walk? Peter would say that God's divine power is all we need for
life and godliness. So that God works in us. God
works in you, beloved. God is working in you today and
you are able to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel because
God, through His word and by His grace, through the Holy Spirit
and through the intimacy of the local church, there is a continual
effort by the Lord Jesus to keep us in the faith. And keeping
us in the faith is not getting us to walk rightly. Keeping us
in the faith is to keeping us into believing on His right walking,
His right living, His righteousness. And when we feel like we've failed,
we recognize, wow, it is only by God's divine power, our trust
in Christ alone. And supernaturally and powerfully,
as we continue to hold fast to the confession of our hope in
Jesus Christ, God works us out of these sinful situations. He
works us out of them. But as long as we're trying to
take the bull by the horns, we'll always stay a slave. Christ took
the bull. Christ took the horns. Christ
took the cross. So God's divine power is all we need for life
in godliness. God's divine power draws us to his love and the
perfection of Jesus Christ as we saw last week. God's spirit
is the one who draws and effectually works in us and God has prepared
us for good works to be carried out by God we see in John 3 and
Ephesians chapter 2. In chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians,
verse 13, it says, But we ought to always give thanks to God
for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you
for Himself from the beginning to be saved through sanctification
by the Spirit and belief in the word of truth. To this He called
you through our gospel that you may obtain the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ. See, that's a done deal, church. We are in Christ,
and God has certainly secured it, and we will not be cast away. So then, brothers, sisters, we
stand firm by holding to the traditions that were taught by
the apostles, either by their spoken word or letter, by the
word of God. Now, the praise and the doxology there, may the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father who loved us and
gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, may the Lord
Jesus Christ comfort our hearts and establish them in every good
work and in every good word. And then Paul would go on to
say, as we looked last week, that the Lord is faithful. He
will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And
we have confidence in the Lord about you, brothers, that you
are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord
direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness
of Christ. You see that? It's too easy. We want to hear something a little
bit more stringent. Matter of fact, if you've ever
studied church history, And you understood asceticism where people
would manipulate and destroy the body as a way of penance
or endurance. It makes sense. I used to always
think that's odd. Man, if I could punch myself
in the face and stop sinfulness, I'd be bruised up. It doesn't work. The gospel is
effectual even if we sin. Paul would say, so should we
just keep on sinning? No, let it not be. It cannot
be. Why? Because God works out those
things. What has the Lord not done in
you that you can't see him as faithful? But let's put that
in the positive. What has the Lord done in you
that you can see him as faithful? Is God faithful in your eyes?
Is God faithful in your eyes to keep you from idleness? Is
God faithful in your eyes? What if I'm idle tomorrow? Then
you're idle tomorrow. Get up, eat a new breakfast the
next day. I use this relationship with
food because we have to have it. With water, we have to have
fluids in our bodies or we will die. And I've never missed a
meal and been so discouraged by the fact that I was so busy
that I couldn't eat or so down that I couldn't eat that I just
never ate again. Walking by faith is that when
we fail today, it's not our not failing that makes us right with
God to begin with. So we trust in Jesus Christ and so we get
up and we feast on the gospel today. The mercies of God are
new daily. The grace of God is forever effectual
in us. And the word of God is our source
for that grace. And the people of God together
as the church is the place and the people where we walk together
in harmony and disunity at times for the sake of forgiveness and
forbearance that God has praised. Because what's the ultimate outcome?
What's the outcome when God allows us to overcome certain sins in
our life? We thank him. We praise him.
That's what he wants. That's what he deserves. What's
the outcome when we're at odds with a brother or sister and
we heal the relationship? Intimacy, and then we praise God for it.
What's the outcome when we're aggravated by somebody who just
didn't pull in their weight, and all of a sudden we warn them
and they go, man, I'm sorry. There's praise and thanksgiving
to God. See, we're fighting a good fight
of faith. We're running as though we want to win the prize. We're
laboring, but not in vain. It's toil, it's hard, it's difficult,
but it's not exhausting. We pray with confidence and we
stand firm with confidence in Jesus Christ who is faithful,
not ourselves and certainly not each other. And because Christ
stood firm and endured on our behalf, we are standing firm
today. Now, it begs me to go ahead and
start to preach verse 16 and 17 and 18, but I want to save
it to next week, but let's look at it in closing. Now may the
Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all. See,
that is the source of our strength. That is the source of our labor.
That is the source of our faith. That is the source of everything
that we are in Christ because we are his workmanship. I've never seen a sculpture rearrange
itself. I've never seen a painting change
its color. I've never heard a song rewrite
the score. The master, the creator does
that. And beloved, you and I are the work of his hands. And the
palette on which he painted us is the cross of Jesus Christ.
And that may not be as theologically accurate as it appears to be
in my mind right now. But friends, he created us in Christ. He made
us at the cross. He caused us to be born again
to a living hope. And we sit here this day forgiven
and justified. And that is a powerful truth
that should take us forever, forever in joy. And no matter
what we face tomorrow or when we walk out this door, if the
whole world in which we know falls upon our heads, we have
assurance to know that it is a gift of God and that nothing
can separate us from his love. Nothing, nothing. And I pray
that you understand and that you know the grace that is yours
in Jesus Christ and that by faith alone, you're trusting in Him
every second. Not a point in history, not something
you'll do tomorrow, something that you are doing this very
moment that you are believing on Christ. And I pray that if
you cannot and that you cannot find it in you, I pray that God
would open your hearts and eyes to see the beauty of the gospel
of Jesus. Let's pray. We love you, Father. We thank you, Lord, for your
grace, for your mercy. For your love. Lord, we thank
you for this text that we just, it's difficult because it seems
such a simple but not so simple thing. And Lord, I pray that
I have done justice to the intention of Paul here. And Lord, where there may be
misunderstanding, Father, teach us all things that we might grow
in our understanding together as a people. Lord, help us to
see idleness in our lives and help us to exhort and admonish
one another to stand fast in the hope that is only in Christ.
Lord, I pray for our brothers and sisters who are sporadic
in their fellowship with us. Lord, that those that feel that
they just can't get together with the church, Lord, would
you just empower them to be a part of who we are, that we might
love them and encourage them and that they might minister
to us. Father, those that are laboring
emotionally and physically cannot be here, cannot leave their homes.
Let our prayers forever be on our hearts for them and for the
sake of their joy that they did not lose sight of the gospel
of Jesus. And as we're able, let us serve one another with
gladness and rejoice Let us be able to do all that we are able
to do by your grace and for the sake of your glory to thanksgiving
and praise to you. And we pray these things in the
name of Jesus, our king. Amen.