I pray this week has been a blessing
to you in the Lord. I pray that your labor and your
faith has been encouraging and strengthening. And I pray this word this morning
would be a gift to your soul. We've understood a lot of things
over the last 21 weeks. looking at this letter, and we
have a few more weeks left. Then we'll commence to starting
in the second letter to the Thessalonians, which, as typical for Paul, exposes
a little more detail about some of the exhortations that he gives
in the letter previously. But I want to remind us today
that when it comes to the preached word, that the preached word
is not your buffet. The preached word is not your
meal. The preached word is not your order. The preached word
is the bread of life to feed you that which you've already
been eating every day. It's a mistake to believe, church,
that we come on the Lord's day and gather together so we can
be fed because we haven't eaten. That's not the way it works.
We come to get more of that which we have already ingested throughout
the week. We come to then not even get
something new because if you were reading this letter every
day, which would take you about nine minutes, it fits on the
front back of a postcard, it does. If you were to read this
letter every day, this would be a reminder this morning. It
would be one of those things that impacts that which God has
already shown you, to remind you, to invest in you, to encourage
you and stir inside of you that which God has already begun to
do. In church, as I've said time
and time again, several things that I say time and time again.
One, as I often remind us, that the power of God's grace is found
only through the sufficiency of His Word. that there is no
hope apart from any investment in our lives with anybody or
anything that is not invested through the Word of God. So no
matter how much time I spend with you or how much time you
spend with me, if it is not spent in the Word of God, it is time
well wasted. Now, I do not discredit the fact
that we do other things. And when I say not in the Word
of God, I'm not always saying that we should be sitting for
three hours at a time with our Bibles open. But friends, as
God's people who are filled with the Spirit of God, who are redeemed
by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, through His life and
death and resurrection, we are always open in the Word. The Word of God is always open
to us, whether it be in our hands at this very moment or whether
it be in our hearts and our minds as we work and as we labor, as
we ponder, as we think. Because ultimately, we who belong
to God are filled with His presence and we are forever and continually
being pressed in our spirit to be driven to live for His glory
and be strengthened by His grace that comes only through the Word
of God, so that that which is in us, then we impart to others. Successful Christian living is
about living together as a body for the glory of God. It's about doing life together.
It's about investing in each other. It's about teaching the
Word of God, not only to ourselves, but to our brothers and sisters.
It is always and forever the purpose of God, through His Word,
to strengthen, encourage, grow, sanctify, and minister through
the body to itself. So that's something that I say
often. And no matter how hard I say it, no matter what emphasis
I say it, or if I break the other side of my podium off, or whatever,
I didn't do that now, it broke in the truck. But no matter what,
in what way I say it, the only way you hear it is if God's Spirit
opens your ears to hear it. And the only way He'll do that
is if I teach the Word of God to you. Now friends, there are many different
types of people in the room today. All of us. There's rich people
and poor people. There's tan people and pale people. There's bald people and not bald
people. There's young people and older
people. There's happy people and grumpy
people. There's pretty people And they're
not so pretty people. I'm not looking at anybody at
that particular time. Is he looking at me? All right.
They're spiritually strong people and spiritually weak people.
There's people that seem to float on the cloud with Jesus and people
who seem to be stuck in the mud of the world. and everybody in
between. Friends, the reason God's wisdom
is so astonishing is that it makes no logical sense in our
world and in our minds and in our flesh. It makes no sense
that God would put together a people that have no sense in common
apart from the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That is why
the Scripture laughs, I say laugh, it rebukes ethnocentric missions. We aren't called to just be a
church of Mexicans, or just be a church of Caucasians, or just
be a church of Africans, or just be a church of whatever, motorcycle
riders. Maybe y'all came in, maybe think
about it. It's not the first Baptist church of motocross.
It's not the first Baptist church of AR-15s. It's not the first Baptist church
or whatever. You see what I'm saying? I mean, there's a lot
of churches out there. This is the golfer's church.
I mean, and this is the biker's church. And this is the hunter's
church. And this is the fisherman's church. And the sowing lady's
church. And everywhere you look, it's
always an affinity group. Friends, that's not the point
of being the church. If everything else is wiped away
and all we have is Jesus, we are fine. You see? I don't have to like you, and
you don't have to like me, and you don't have to care one iota
about anything that I enjoy in life. There is nowhere in the
Scripture that teaches that that's imperative, important, or on
the radar. I don't care if you collect toenails. Are you in Christ? I might care,
that's sort of odd. We're in Christ, therefore we
are a body. And each of us have an important
role. And that primary role is that
we are together learning the Word of God. For only in the
togetherness of learning God's Word will we be empowered to
rest in the sufficiency therein. Period. And we writhe our hands
and we grit our teeth and we hurt and we worry and we debate
in our own brains what now, where to go, what to do. And friends,
It all boils down to lack of faith in the Word of God. Oh, there must be something more.
How is it that God in His mercy, giving Jesus Christ the Son to
satisfy His judgment against me, has anything to do with my
marriage problems? How does that have anything to
do with my financial setbacks? How does that have anything to
do with a toddler that won't hush? Those frustrations, no matter
how small or how big, how important or how senseless they might be,
the gospel of Jesus Christ takes them and washes them away. It
takes every fear and crushes it. It doesn't make it work.
It destroys it. Because we stop looking at the
temporal and we look at that which is unseen. We look at the
reality of the glory of God through Christ and we then realize that
what we are working for is not visibly tangible on this world
at all in any essence. So that we are absolutely certain
that one day we will receive the fullness of our reward which
is prepared for us in glory. And so we're satisfied. Well,
this pain I'm experiencing now? Light momentary affliction. This
death I'm experiencing now, light momentary affliction. This divorce,
light momentary affliction. This sickness, this cancer, this
disease, this rebelliousness, these children of mine, all these
things that I'm concerned with, this is light momentary affliction. It is not going to last, it is
not very heavy, and it is preparing me for an eternal weight of glory
that is beyond all comparison as we look to the things that
are unseen, not to the things that are seen. And see, that's
what the Word of God is to do for us this very day. It's to
prepare us for that. Paul in Ephesians chapter 4 says
that God gave gifts to the church, the teachers, the preachers,
the evangelists, and those sorts of people in order to what? To
equip the church for the work of the ministry. Every one of
us has a role today. Every one of us has a role toward
each other. Not ourselves, but toward each
other. Every one of us has a responsibility to bear the burdens of one another.
Every one of us has a responsibility to be discipling one another,
to be encouraging, rebuking, training, and correcting in righteousness. All of these things are our responsibility
as a family. And I guess one question as I
go in, as you've heard the Word of God over these years, as you've
heard the Word of God over these last 21 weeks in Thessalonians,
what is it that God has spurred you on to? Can you tell me? Can you tell
yourself? Can you write it down? That through
the Word of God and through the sufficiency of God's grace and
His Word, God has spurred me on to and fill in the blank.
Is there nothing there, beloved? If there's nothing there, you
have not listened. You've not listened. You have
not listened to Paul. You have not listened to God
as He said, listen, you are the work of God. You are the beloved
of Christ. You are those who are suffering
for the sake of the gospel. You are encouraged. You are strong. You are adopted. You have not
heard the Word of God that said we ought to pray for one another
and love each other with all the affection of Christ. You
have not listened to the Word of God when it tells us that
we ought to be encouraging each other to not be idle, but to
work with our hands. That we ought to respect, as
we looked at last week, those who labor among us as teachers
and elders. That we ought to be at peace
with one another. These things are exhortations. These are admonitions,
these are warnings, that we ought to be about the work of the Lord,
because He is the one who does the work within us. So that we
can come up with every excuse in the book. Well, I'm sick.
Well, I'm tired. Well, I'm busy. Well, I got a job. Well, I got
a business. Well, I got a baby. Well, I got all this stuff. Well,
good, praise God, hallelujah. You're just like everybody else
in the world. Everybody else in the world, along with their
toenail collection, is too busy to serve the living God. But
by His grace and power, God can do more than a minute that we
can do in a century through us. So when we say we cannot, we
are saying, God, You cannot. You don't have the power. You
don't have the grace. You don't have the sufficiency.
Get out of my face. Get out of my mind. Get out of
my life. I refuse You. I rebuke You. I reject You. That's
what we say when we say we can't live for the glory of God. And
that's where Paul's at. Respect those verse 12. Look at chapter 5. This was last week. We'll read
it. Chapter 5, verse 12 through 14. It's almost time for two
verses. One verse today. We ask you,
brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over
you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very
highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. Remember that last week. The Word of God is labored over
for the sake of your joy, for your unity, the reflection of
the Gospel in you. And we, as those who labor, are
also part of you. We are of you. We're just as
much of the body as any of us are the body. And then in verse 14, he says,
And we urge you, brothers, listen to these three types of people.
Admonish the idle. Encourage the faint-hearted.
Help the weak. Be patient with them all. This sermon today will bring
guilt on your heart. It'll bring guilt. It'll bring
guilt in several ways. One, it'll bring guilt because
so many of us are going to say, I'm not doing all that I'm supposed
to be doing for the Lord. You're absolutely right. And
we could all turn, I could put a big mirror here and we could
all say it together. I am not doing it because we never will
do all that we can do. The better thing to say is, by
the power of God, He will work in me all these things. So that
when we see shortcoming, we then do what? We trust in God and
we say, this is what we... But what do we have to do? Sometimes
we have to take things out of our lives that trip us up. The
writer of Hebrews would say, take away any sin that so easily
ensnares and trips us. That's a paraphrase. But remove
it. Paul, throughout his writings,
continually tells us to put to death the flesh. Why? Because
it's dead already. We've been made alive in Christ
Jesus. So we don't have any dead flesh to contend with. It's dead.
Take it off. When you get your hair cut, do
you save it? Put it in a sack and just hold it on your shoulder
because you don't want to let it go? No, you throw it on the floor, you sweep
it up, you take it out. That's nasty. When we bathe, do we bottle up
that water because it's got some skin in it? No, it's dead. We
let it go. In the same way, our flesh is
dead because Christ killed it. Therefore, we are a new creation.
But the trouble is that our flesh and its reality and its existence
does fight. There is a fleshliness about
us, see? Pasty, fleshly, skin, bones. living in the world and the corrupt
body, as Paul would say, but we are incorruptible in the Spirit. And one day when Christ comes
back, He will transform us into the incorruptible, into the imperishable,
into the immutable, that we will not suffer anymore, that we will
not be tempted anymore, that we will not die anymore, that
we will not be sick anymore, that we will not fret anymore
and worry anymore. Praise God. So we come knowing that we are
to put to death those things which stand in the way of what
the Word of God teaches us we should be. How do we do that?
We have done it in Christ Jesus. It is done already. That's like
saying, there is a lizard that weighs a thousand pounds in my
backyard. And animal control kills it and
takes it away. But you keep saying, there's
a lizard in my backyard. And you live as though there's
one there. You don't let your children go out. You don't look
out the window. You don't think about it. Somebody tries to walk
around the house. No, no, no, no, no. There's a lizard back
there. It's a terrible example. It just popped into my head. But that thing is not only dead,
it's gone. Our flesh is not only dead, it's
gone. But yet it's at war, isn't it? and no longer has control
over us. We no longer live as a slave
to sin, but as a slave to righteousness. Friends, none of us are free
as kings. We are slaves to either one or
the other. The flesh or to Christ. So as I teach this today, some
of you will feel guilty. Some of you in your flesh will
start to say, oh, woe is me, I'm a horrible church member,
I'm a horrible Christian, I'm a horrible friend. Well, join
the club. Thank God we're not graded by
our own critiques. But we are graded by the grade
of God as He looks upon us through the lens of the Son who made
us righteous in Him. And even in our sin, God sees
us righteous because Christ took it away and the judgment of our
sin has been taken. So though our intimacy, though
the consequences therein may come, friends, we are forgiven
and there is no condemnation for the Christian. So therefore,
this morning, as you see shortcomings, and you will, all, we will all,
we will all see shortcomings. We are not condemned. But also
as we see ourselves in these three areas, as the church, we
also see ourselves as those brothers and sisters who are to encourage
and strengthen and warn as well as those who ought to be strengthened,
encouraged, and warned. So let's get started. And we
urge you, verse 14, brothers, let's just emphasize this, urge
you, as it also relates to verse 12, we ask of you, we urge you
to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord
and admonish you and esteem them very highly in love because of
their works. Be at peace amongst yourselves. Remember last week
I spoke for about six minutes about work. And work, in Genesis
chapter 2 verse 15, God gave work as a gift. Work is part
of the imago dei. Work is part of the image of
God in us. We are to work because that is
why we are created. We are workers. If you believe
that work is a curse, you've misunderstood work. And to hate
work is to hate the gift of God. Now, I hate the consequences
of sin as I work, whether I'm hanging sheetrock, falling on
the ground, like I did last week, whether I'm digging a ditch,
whether I'm painting, whether I'm writing a paper, whether
I'm on a phone call, whether I'm counseling, whether I'm preparing
for a sermon, work is hard. It's hard because my mind has
changed in the last ten years. Why? Because of the fact that
the world is in sin and now my mind will not work as good as
it did ten years ago. I cannot function with six thoughts
in my head at one time. Heads. See, I even think I have
more than one. That's the problem. I don't have one. It doesn't
work the way it used to be. It's harder because of sin. Not
because I'm sinning while I'm working, which could be true,
I don't know, maybe. Maybe there could be some pride
there, maybe there could be some laziness there, maybe there could
be something. Animosity. Why do I have to read this? But it's hard. If it weren't
for my hands, I mean, ten years ago I competed. Athleticism,
martial arts, rock climbing, mountain biking. Fifteen minutes of swinging a
hammer, I've got to go sit down. Injury. Work is hard. It hurts. And it's 153,000 degrees
outside. It's worse. It's awful. Work is a gift though. It is what God has intended for
us to do. Those who do not work, as we'll
see as we start in 2 Thessalonians, are not even allowed to benefit
from the ministry of the church when you're hungry. If you're
able to work and you don't work, guess what? You don't eat. That's an exact quote from 2
Thessalonians. The only ones who eat without working are orphan
children under the age of 10, 11, because when you were 12,
you worked. You don't get to play? That's
wicked. It hurts our worldview, doesn't
it? And widows who are taking care of children who can't work. Everybody else works, but they
don't eat. The deacon ministry of the first church in Jerusalem
They had a list of qualified members of the church. Those
who said they were in Christ. Those who followed the ordinances.
Those who submitted to the elders. And those who said they wanted
to be in fellowship and receive the benefits of the ministry
of the church. They were qualified on that list.
They had to be a certain age. They had to be below a certain
age. I mean above a certain age as a widow. It wasn't even just
your 20 year old widows either. They could work. But it was your
older widows. It was your widows with a lot
of younger children. And it was your elderly, older
men that could not do anything. They were tended to. They were
doted over. They were taken care of. Everybody
else, if you received, you gave back. And we looked at that. We looked
at that a week or so ago as the Scripture reminded us to, hey,
work with your hands. Today, he's telling these elders,
he said, listen, you're equipping the work for the church or the
ministry, and each part of the body is essential to the body. So, this reality then, as the
church respects and honors and loves those who lead them through
the teaching of the Word, they are to strive for peace with
each other, because that is really one of the main... I don't know,
what's the word? That's a smooth sailing position.
Peace. The church shouldn't work out
every day, start every Monday in turmoil and in the middle
of a typhoon. We ought to be at peace with
one another. We ought to be forgiving one another. We ought to be working
through our differences. We ought to be encouraging each
other. We need to strive for peace.
And when we see people rocking the boat, we are responsible
for going and fixing that. When we see people failing to
be a part of the body, not showing up for church, being arrogant
over their lives, over their wealth, over their money. We're supposed to do what is
right because we love them. It is not wicked or evil or mean
to tell someone that they're not honoring Christ. It is wicked
to say nothing. But at the same time, as we'll
see today, we need to know how to discern that. Just because
something looks like a spade doesn't mean it's a spade. We
have to look at the fruit of it. So He's saying, I urge you. He's telling them, urge you. I'll order you. I command you.
Those who labor among you, I urge you. to do these things. Peace must be among you. This is sort of a review, but
I didn't really get a chance to expand on this much. Let's go
through it this day. Peace. I believe peace is threefold
in the sense of the gospel. Peace, of course, with God through
Jesus Christ, the Son. We have peace with God the Father
through Jesus Christ, the Son. Paul even starts that, to the
church of the Thessalonians, and God the Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. If you go back in those
sermons, you'll see we spoke about that peace. That peace
which is the good news of God that comes through Jesus Christ
the Son, who substituted Himself for us that we might be reconciled
to God while we were still sinners, enemies, and haters of God. God saved us in love through
Jesus Christ the Son. So we have peace with God, and
that peace with God then, the first part, then secondly, we
have peace with each other. If we are reconciled to God,
then there is no sin that could cause you and I to not be reconciled. There is no sin in the world
that could cause each of you or either of you to be non-reconciled
with one another. You have peace with God, therefore
you can have peace with each other. We can have peace with
each other. To say we can't have peace is
to say God is not sovereign. To say that there is no peace
between us is to say that there is no peace with us and God.
For if we are indeed in Christ and have peace with God, therefore
we are forgiven. And if we are forgiven, we can
forgive. For he who is forgiven will forgive. And we know the story Jesus told
in the Gospels. About the master who had a slave
who could not pay his debts, and he gave him time after time
after time, and he goes and he brings the man to him, and he
tells him, you owe me this hundred denarii, or whatever it was.
He says, I cannot pay, I need more time to pay. And lo and
behold, the master or the king, or whatever his title might be,
said, I forgive you the debt. And he gathered up his soldiers
to go get his wife and children, sell them into slavery, take
his house, his animals, and everything he owned, sell them to pay the
debt off and to put him in prison. And he forgave him. And it tells
about this servant that then goes out into the community,
having been forgiven much at the cost of everything, and finds
the one guy that owes him five dollars and says, where's my
money, man? And another servant sees what has happened and goes
and tells the master. And the master then takes everything
this man has and sells everything. Takes his children and his wife
and everything. He says, how wicked are you who
have been forgiven much to not let that man that owes you be
forgiven of little. We have peace with God, so we
can have peace with each other. There is no explanation. for unforgiveness, except that
you not be in Christ or that your obstinate rebellion won't
let you forgive, to which the Holy Spirit will eventually break
your spirit of unforgiveness. Be at peace. And the third thing
to think about, about being at peace with each other, is that
peace comes through Jesus Christ with the Father, and it comes,
as Paul teaches in Romans, through the hearing of the Word, salvifically
and then relationally in the same manner. Through the hearing
of the Word. So as we are Every day, in the
Word of God, we have peace through the admonition of the Word. So
elders are to admonish the flock to be at peace with each other,
and then we are to admonish each other to be at peace with each
other. So the elders and the body are
then to be actively involved in doing these things in verse
14 and beyond. The elders teach it, we teach
each other. If I preach it, I also have to live it. You also have
to teach me. Admonish me. You know, Pastor,
you preached on this a couple of weeks ago. Why don't you live
in it? Hopefully it never comes to that. So we are to be at peace. We
are to strive for the unity of peace. Relationally, with intimacy,
as a witness to the gospel. Not salvificly, but a reflection
of the image of Jesus Christ. That's what this ultimately is.
Whose body are we? Who do we look like? Well, let's
look at these three areas. There are three peoples and three
actions that are given here for the elders and the body. Because
we do the same job, we just have different roles. Admonish the
idol. Now, let's talk about the idol
for a minute. Now, all the parents in the room with children, teenagers,
young adults, everybody, you know that millennial, what is
it, Jordan, everybody keeps getting on the millennials? Yeah. It's
always a joke around the dinner table with dad or some of the
uncles and all, and they rag that generation. You're entitled
to everything. It might be true for some, but
it's not generally. Certainly for those who are in Christ,
it's not. But the idol. Everywhere we look, in every
generation, there's always been the idol. You know what idol
is? Anything that comes between me
and God. Anything. But I'm talking about idol, as in standing still. Yeah. Admonish
the idol. The non-working, out of step,
standing still, stagnant, worthless slackers. There it is. So we see the word idol. Paul
is saying admonish these slackers. What's admonish mean? Warn them
sternly. Sternly. Slackers have no benefit
to anybody but drain resources from everybody. Alright? Can we say that? And I mean,
I'm not running for president, I promise. I mean, you know,
this is always on the tongue of people. We're going to put
jobs back here, we're going to get people working, blah, blah,
blah. Slackers have always been a problem. Solomon even talks
about slackers. He calls them the sluggard. He
said the sluggard is starving to death, but he's so slack,
he's so lazy, he's so idle, that his hand falls in the bowl of
food, but he's too worthless to pick the food up and put it
in his mouth. Worthless. The sluggard. The
idle. These people who just have no
desire to do anything productive, but yet they live for themselves
and the satisfaction of their flesh. And friends, we've all
had those moments. We just didn't get dressed that
day, put on our slippers and just say, nah. But how often? And that's really not the point
Paul's making here. He's not talking about a good day of rest.
Let the grass grow a few inches higher and we'll get it tomorrow."
He's talking about people that just have no desire to work at
all, and worse, feel like they don't need to be working. And
what we need to understand is he's not talking about a job
in the community. He's talking about their work and labor amongst
the church. Now, we've made it easy in our
culture and our so-called congregation, our so-called gospel churches,
and our so-called gospel ministries, to create an opportunity for
someone to be assimilated in every aspect of all of their
ideals. Oh, you like to make... What are those things? Paper? Origami! We'll set you up an origami ministry. And you can make little crosses
and we'll hand them out. And say, you see this cross? We love
you. You know, Jesus loves you. Does He? God loves you in this
way that He gave the Son. If you don't receive Christ,
you can't receive the love of God, therefore God doesn't love
you. God only loves through the giving of the Son. No other way,
the Bible doesn't teach us in any other way that God loves
anybody, any created person, except through the giving of
the Son. So if the Son is not what you
want, you can't have the love of God, and if you don't have
the love of God, you have the wrath of God. There you go. And because we've been given
the grace of God, we are those who are producing the fruit of
God. We are busy about the work of
God. There are those who are idle,
and Paul is saying, warn them sternly. These are the people
who are not carrying the weight to support the church. to support
the ministry, the fruit of redemption. Many reasons could be given.
I thought about them. I thought, well, what are some
reasons? Well, some people give up because of fatigue. They're
just tired. There's an impending doom. They're
depressed. The return of the Lord was an
issue. Some people were like, well, He's coming back tomorrow.
Why do I want to do anything? He's coming back tomorrow. Why do
I even want to provide for my family? Because Christ is coming back.
We'll just starve to death and wait for Jesus. Oh, we've got
to serve the Lord. Why should I cut my grass and
paint my house? Why should I worry about changing the oil in my
car? That's not gospel ministry. We're just going to let everything
go to pot. Well, there's also a reality of stewardship. And
friends, God's not on anybody's timetable. A thousand years to the Lord
is like one day, and one day is like a thousand years. So
we're not going to give up that which we've been given responsibility
over, working, just because we're waiting for the Lord to come
back. The question is, why are we working, and to what end,
and to where are we putting most of our time, treasure, and talent?
So people give up because of those things, sometimes because
life seems futile. The hope of eternity is just
so beautiful, but anything else is just worthless. Why do we
even work? Some people fail to thrive as a new believer. They fail to thrive because they've
got in their minds a different idea of what it means to be in
the ministry, or be in the church, or to work for the Lord, or to
serve God. And it's like I said last week, there is no such person
who is called of God who is not serving God right now. None. There's no such man who's called
to preach the gospel who is not preparing to preach the gospel.
At best, he's struggling with the call. But when he knows God's
called him, he will begin to teach the Word of God well before
he's recognized as an elder, as a teacher. You don't appoint
teachers and then they start. You recognize those who teach
and then you affirm them. There's some people who've forgotten
that they are part of the body. And there's some people who've
forgotten that they're essential to the body. Some of us in here
today have forgotten that you're important to each other. Well,
I don't even know these people. Well, that's a problem. The group that's in here, with
probably two exceptions, ought to know the first name of everybody
else in here. Why? Because you're in here at least,
at least, six out of every nine Sundays. Together. You ought to know your first
names. You ought to know what city you live in. You're thinking, oh no, it's
a test. Let me get some name tags. If it helps you, do it. We ought to know each other.
At the minimum, because we hang out together for 90 minutes a
week. We forget that we're essential
to each other. We're important. Our role here is not a spectator.
Our role here is a preparer. We are to be preparing to work
for each other as we hear the Word of God this morning. The
reason we're here is to be worshippers engaged with life. No, you can't
be engaged in everybody's life here. And we're missing about
30 people this morning. But ultimately, you're only going
to be able to invest in maybe a family or two. Because you don't have 17 days
in the week. You can't emotionally deal with
everything. And you can't fake it. You can't
say, well, I'm just going to make these people my friends.
You may not. But you can serve them. You can
be invested in them. What's the greatest need of service?
We'll look at that in a minute. There's some people forgotten
that they're essential to the rest. God has put the body together, according
to Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, as he sees fit. And every blessing that he's
given the body of Christ only comes through each other. So
if there is a need in our church, it's because somebody's not being
obedient. Somebody's not being obedient.
Somebody's making an excuse as to why they can't provide for
that need. Somebody's making an excuse as to why they're not
actually worthy. None of us are worthy. None of
us are completely worthy. None of us are ever worthy. None
of us are completely qualified. Moses wasn't qualified. David
wasn't qualified. Paul wasn't qualified. Samuel
wasn't qualified. You just keep on going. Just
name anybody in the Bible, none of them are qualified to save
Christ. And he wasn't qualified to become sin, why would he take
sin? That's just what the Father wanted.
When I say qualified, you know what I mean. He didn't deserve
the judgment, in other words. So you are part of the body,
you're important. And God has a purpose for you as a part of
this fellowship. Paul says, warn these people,
admonish them, warn them that it's not fitting, that they're
out of order, that they're rebellious. Remember what he said in chapter
4, verse 9? He says, now concerning brotherly
love, you have no need of anyone to write to you, for you yourselves
have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed
is what you were doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.
But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more. and to
aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to
what? Work with your hands as we instructed you so that you
may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent of no one. And friends, we ought to be about
supporting the body with our giftedness. What is my giftedness?
Well, I have boxes and boxes and files and files of, what
do you call those things? Batteries of things that you
can take and scan and we can find your spiritual giftedness.
And they're baloney. They're baloney. But the physicist and the statistician
in me loves that. I love to see data. I love data.
It's just, wow, that's great. Look at there. And I realized,
the older I get, the more I realize just how ridiculous that stuff
is. That there's no data necessary for us to serve. There's no data
necessary for us to know where to serve. There's no data necessary.
There's no polls. And yeah, I'm punching holes
in many missions organizations. Good, I hope they sink to the
bottom of the sea. I hope they sink. Because they're
working off of data rather than investing in the lives of the
body of Christ with the gospel. The greatest thing that ever
could happen in mission is people go and share the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and then when people come to faith, they disciple
them and continually disciple them and hold them accountable
to be not idle, but be about the work of God. Or support the body with our
giftedness. We are all gifted. We all have abilities and talents.
We're to support the body in prayer. Can we not pray? How often every day do we find
ourselves praying? I think we ought to be praying
a lot more than we play. One of my brothers opened an
idol up for me this past week when he asked me about a game
that I played last year or the year before. And I'm like, a
game? I hadn't thought about that in
forever. Let's check. And I was like, Fifteen minutes, I'm thinking,
oh, I need to do this. I'm like, this is terrible. Let's
don't do this at all. Let's delete this and forget
he ever mentioned it, and then let's go write a post about it.
I didn't publish it because it was too fresh. I'll wait. But
we ought to pray more than we play. We've got time to check
Facebook, and we're not checking on people. We're looking at people. Oh, what's so-and-so doing? Oh,
what's so-and-so saying? What's so-and-so thinking? What's
so-and-so sharing? I love the fact people will like
and share things they've never read. I've a lot of messages,
I'm like, dude, do you know what you just liked? Do you see the
name over there? Oh, I didn't even see that long
string of profanity at the top of it. I just thought it was
cool-looking. Like, share. That's from an atheist website.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was scientific. We're drones. We're just doing
whatever the world tells us to do. Like it, share it, love it,
bump it, poke it, whatever. Tweet it. I just don't have time to pray.
You got 450 likes today. If that took one second, how
many minutes is that? And none of it's really worth
liking. Gyms. Not James's who called him. I
do like that and Brother James is like, what? But I mean, little
gems that you earn, they pop up on your feed, y'all. We're
playing a game. Man, I got bejeweled or I got
16 cows in the field and I got 9 acres of corn and 3 a.m. We see what you're doing when
we wake up. And those emails are in there.
James raised 40 cattle this morning at 3.30. And then I'm going to
stand there and go, I just don't have time to pray? Baloney. Baloney. Videos, memes, laughs,
jokes, whatever it might be. Friends, we live in a day and
age where there is no disconnectivity. You know what you should do with
your phones? Do like I do. Plug them in, and when you're
at home or you're working, put them on your desk and leave them
there. In 1991, I got my first cell
phone. I was still in high school. My
dad told me no, so my choral teacher got it for me. Here you
go. And it's been a plague ever since.
I miss the days where you had the tape. Hello, we're not available. Leave a message. You know. And it may or may not
work. And when people got home and
got through brushing their teeth, they checked their messages.
They weren't brushing their teeth with their messages. Or using the bathroom with their
phones. Or going in the shower with a Ziploc bag. Yes. I know
you. What's the point of all that?
Friends, we've got time to support the body in prayer. At a minimum. The difficulty is though, is
do we want to? What about other places? What
about ministering to the body? What about people who are hungry?
People who just need encouragement? You know what a nice... We got
time to Facebook stuff. Send a message to somebody and
encourage them. Send a text message to somebody. Pick up the phone
and say, I only have three minutes, but I just want to tell you I
love you, I'm praying for you. And if they don't answer, leave a
voicemail. And if you don't have a voicemail set up, don't set one up. Because
when there's twenty in there, you're not going to check them.
And then you get that, I'm sorry, this voicemail is full. You know,
that one. But we can encourage, and even if we can't get in touch
with them, we can minister to people. We can see what's happening
amongst our... Man, look around the room. Everybody
in here could have a complaint. Everybody in here has a need.
Everybody in here has some kind of burden on their shoulders
that they would love for somebody just to touch them and say, it's
okay. Christ will see you through it.
And I'm here if you need me. And on the flip side of that,
if you've been asked about your need, tell it. Tell it. We can teach each other. We can
encourage each other. We can rebuke each other. We
can correct each other. We can strengthen each other.
We can give to each other. We can give to the needs of our
church. A few questions. What part of the work of this
body have you invested in? With your talents. With your
money. And with your time. Do you not receive benefit from
this ministry? Are you not growing in grace
through the Word of God? Then by all means, invest it
in the body. Take that which you receive and
bring it back into the lives of each other. Be the body. Have you invested in the work
of the ministry? How do you support the body? How do you support
the gospel? How do you support the ministry
of this church? Are we idle in our growth? Are we idle in spirit? Are we idle in body? Are we idle
in support? Are we idle in helping? Are we
idle in ministry? You're a part of this family.
Invest herein. Don't be a slacker. That's what
Paul said. Warn the slacker. Paul is saying,
get to work. Friends, we've got work to do.
Jesus calls us to holiness. Jesus calls us to righteousness.
Jesus could have very well come to earth and said, I'm just going
to teach you how it should be and leave you to yourself. Repent
and be holy, for the Lord God is holy. See? And you know what? Everybody
would be condemned. Jesus didn't just do that. He
warned the slacker. He warned the idle. He warned
the slumbering. He warned the dead. And through
His warning, many came to life. Are you alive in Christ today?
Are you indwelt with Christ today? Are you alive because of the
gospel that God has come to you and He warns you with the truth
and then gave you the good news of Jesus? Are you alive with
joy because of the Word of God that is preached to your ears
by the glory of His grace? I pray that you are, and I pray
that your heart is moved to invest in that purpose and to serve
for that calling. One, the idol. Admonish the idol.
Secondly, encourage the faint-hearted. These two won't be as long. Encourage
the faint-hearted. Paul tells the Thessalonians
in the second letter, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish
you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence
in the Lord about you, that you are doing 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.
Can you hear that? I just want to go in there and
preach that right now. That's an encouragement. Paul's saying,
Don't worry. Don't be downtrodden. Don't be
depressed. Don't be stuck in this pity. Because God will establish
you. He will guard you against wickedness.
He will do all the work. We are confident that He will
direct your hearts to the love of God and that you will do all
that we command. How can Paul say such things,
talking to such a diverse and fallen people? Because those
diverse and fallen peoples have been saved by God and His power.
And God will do the work that He began in them. And He will
produce the fruit that He promised to produce in them. Now what I'm not preaching here
and what Paul is not saying is he's not looking for a sinless
perfection. He's not looking for Pelagianism. He's not looking
for some of this Westernism type stuff of we can be holy completely
in this life. He's not looking for that. He's
not looking for everybody to have the same equal expression
of zeal and passion. Everybody's expression is different. I had a friend named Morris back
in 1996 that I worked with for just 91 days. And there's a story
behind how I know that. But 91 days. It's because I got
terminated on that day. We would always laugh at Morris
because he would get very angry with the sales manager, just
like I would. Except I spoke my mind, hence
I got a pink slip. Morris would come sit down, he'd
sit at the table, and he'd just stare. He'd always stare like
this. He'd be talking. He was a fun guy. He'd just say,
what's going on, Morris? He'd smile and say, I am really,
really mad. I'm like, really? He said, I
could just punch that guy. I'm just, man, I'd love to just
punch him. I'm mad. And we just got a tickle
out of that. When I come back in, I said,
oh, I hate this guy. Oh, I thought you We're a Christian.
Well, I am. I hate him and love him at the
same time. People could tell I was mad. So my expression and
passion of anger was a little different than his, but we were
just equally angry. We're different in our expression.
We're different in our zeal as it's seen, as it's visible. And
a lot of times we get downhearted. We get discouraged. And there's
two types of responses when we're discouraged. Oh, some of us are
like, let's go take that bull down. There's a tornado, get
my rope! And I'm going to lasso that thing.
That's some of us. And some of us are like, I'm
done. I quit. I give up. And there may be some
in the middle. But I doubt it. A lot of people
just give up. A lot of people are persecuted
and they just can't handle it. A lot of people are overcome
with guilt and they just forget it. And there's good and there's
bad on both ends. The guys that face the bull in
the face, that take him by the horns, they get prideful. They're
like, look what I did! And then the bull slams them
again. They're like, no, God did that. Ha! You keep on trying,
I'll show you. And then those that give up,
sometimes they don't want to stand up anymore. They're faint-hearted. Are you faint-hearted? Paul says
to encourage these people. You notice he doesn't say, warned
them. You pathetic, faint-hearted, disheartened person. How dare
you be sad? It's wicked. It might be production
of wickedness. It might be the fruit of the
flesh and unbelief. But that's not what Paul says
we do with the faint-hearted. Friends, it's a real thing to
be downtrodden. It's a real thing to be discouraged.
It's much different than being lazy and idle. And sometimes
our discouragement can make us idle. So how do we discern the
difference? We better spend some time with somebody. We better
not look on the outside and call the book what we think the cover
says. Well, there's Slacker James. How about I might be depressed?
How about my life might be coming to an end on my side of the fence?
How do you know? You've got to know me. Somebody's
got to know me. All of you can't know me. But
somebody's got to know me. Somebody's got to know you. I
can't know all of you intimately that way. Somebody's got to know
somebody and spend time together to such a degree that we actually
strengthen each other, that we encourage, to faint hearted,
remind these people. of the gospel. Remind these people
of the promises of God. Remind these people of the attributes
and the person of God in His mind and His heart. Remind these
who are downtrodden and disheartened and fainthearted of the power
of the gospel of truth, that you may sit at the door of death
and it is coming through your threshold, but God is mighty
and Christ is victorious and nothing will separate you from
His love. I mean, just those words should
encourage your heart, beloved. Just hearing that sentence, several
phrases from Scripture should empower you to stand a little
taller, to put your chin a little higher, to stand before the throne
of grace not cowering, but thankful. Encourage each other. Encourage
the faint-hearted. How should we do that? Pray for
them. Pray with them. Face-to-face
time with them. An example of that is when Saul
and his hatred of David. Get this picture in 1 Samuel
23. Saul hated David so much that he made David's life miserable. But who was David's most beloved
friend? Jonathan. Who was Jonathan? Saul's
son, problem. The Scripture talks about the
love that David and Jonathan had for each other was equal
to the passion of the love of a husband and a wife. Now, that
doesn't mean anything sexual. That's about a covenant, because
that's what husband and wife is, a covenant. When it's awful,
I'm dying for you. When it's great, I'm going to
enjoy dying for you. Still dying. The Scripture teaches
that when Saul continually persecuted David, that Jonathan, because
of the love he had for David, encouraged David. And how did
Jonathan encourage David? He spent time with him. And he
taught him the Word. He reminded him, in chapter 23,
16 of 1 Samuel, the Scripture said he strengthened David's
hand in God. What does that mean? He told David, don't worry about
what my Father is doing to you. Don't worry about what this world
is saying about you. Don't worry about the threats
of your life. Don't worry about the negativity. Don't worry about
all these things. Because God, in His Word, has
promised to prosper you. He will put you on the throne
of Israel. No matter what everything looks
like, my Father in heaven is greater than my wicked father
on earth. That's what a friend does to encourage the downtrodden. David, even a man after God's
own heart, could not suffer alone. We cannot suffer alone. We must
take time in the Word, face to face with people, and this right
here, though encouraging it may be, is not enough for you. It's not enough. And it's not
enough for each of you to not have each other in your lives. For encouragement. For building. For strengthening. Take time
in the Word with people. Ask questions genuinely about
what they're dealing with. And give answers genuinely about
what your needs are. Encourage them to be downhearted
no longer. After all, Paul said over and
over and over and over again, we do not lose heart. Always in the context of great
persecution and suffering. You didn't lose heart. You just
about died, Paul. Everybody hated you. Demas deserted you. What are
you talking about, not lose heart? If my right hand God, the only
man that loved me, left me for dead and left me in prison, I'd
be downhearted. But the Word of God encourages
us apart from what is rational, logic, and visible. Jesus encourages the downtrodden.
Is it not Jesus who said, come to me all you who labor and are
burdened? Come to me. all who are burdened,
and I will give you rest." That does not mean He takes away the
burden. It means He picks it up where it no longer suffers or
suffocates us. The Word of God strengthens and
encourages the faint-hearted. Brethren, sisters, you need encouragement
every day through the Word of God. For that one moment, that
one hour, that one 90-minute session of sin or temptation
or doubt or fear or discouragement, and the Word of God is not there
for you, you will fall into faint-heartedness. Churches of America need to repent
on their faces, and pastors in pulpits need to tear their clothes
and put ash on their heads at all of the disease-ridden, worldly
instruction that they continue to give people about how to be
encouraged in the world, about how to have joy, about how to
strengthen each other. It is only through the power
of the Gospel of Jesus, given through the grace of God, provided
through the instrument of the Word of God, that any of us ever,
who ever lived in life, could truly be empowered and strengthened
in times of downtroddenness and faintheartedness. There is no
other way. And any other offering is the same offering that Satan
gave Jesus as He looked out over all of creation and said, if
you just bow down before Me, I'll give it all to you. Friends,
when we believe the lies of psychology and psychobabble preaching and
good feel stuff, we actually are hearing the voice of Satan. And if anyone ever wanted to
debate that, I would do it in the public square. gently, with
respect. It is a wicked evil, a darkness,
who teaches people that they are worthy and able to birth
in them joy. Only God can give us joy, and
only joy comes through Jesus Christ. Finally, help the weak. Help. What's that mean? There's
granny, can't pick up her groceries. Yeah, that's helping the weak.
You get that picture? She can't pick it up, so we pick
it up for her. See someone getting out of the
car, and they've got a load, and we go and help them. What
do we do to help? We take hold of something. The word help there
actually means to lay hold of. And it's not saying lay hold
of anything. It's saying lay hold of the weak,
of the person. So we're to lay hold of someone
who is weak and not let them go. Well, what is weakness then? Well, it's pretty obvious. There
are those who are weak in faith. There are those who are weak
in body. There are those who are weak in temptation. There are those who are weak
in substance. And the list can go on and on. But friends, I will tell you
right now, there are those who are weak. There are those who live
in adultery because they just cannot get over sexual sin. And
we preach and we do. Some of these people, if they've
not rejected the gospel of Jesus, we have to lay hands on them.
There are those who are weak in faith who play with their
faith and play with the body of Christ as though it's some
club to be a part of. We need to lay hold of them and
strengthen them and help them, not slap them around. But they
can look to be what? Lazy. They can look to be idle,
but sometimes they're not. We have to know the difference. The strangled, those who are
continuing to fall prey to sinful temptation, to the pressures
of the world, to substance abuse, to idolatry, to adultery, who
are weak in their faith, who are overburdened with the concern
of sin, who seem to be unforgiven. These are the weak. Those are
the ones who are lowly. Also, Paul tells the church in
Corinth that there are those who are weak, and he uses that
same word to emphasize those who are of not high wealth or
not high value socially. Those who seem to be frowned
upon by the world. These are the weak. Those who
are despised. Those who are broken. Those who
are hated. Those who are poor. Those who have no voice. We are
to lay hold of them and not let them go. Sometimes to the place of social
action, but never at the cost of gospel proclamation. Never
at the cost of discipling. And no matter how weak and frail
one might be, if they reject the gospel of Christ, there is
nothing else for us to do but pray that God would grant them
repentance and bring them to life through the hearing of the
Word. Friends, all of us at times are weak. Some of us in this
room very well are weak today. We're weak and we don't know
what we're going to do. Friends, we need each other to
encourage each other, to strengthen each other, to bring peace into
our lives. Open your mouths to the needs
of your soul that the Word of God would be refreshing, empowering,
and encouraging. Now, it's real easy for us to
see how we might do this. and with what attitude and with
what tenacity and what approach. But Paul gives us very clearly
a very myopic and even stream. Laser precision, he writes. Be
patient with them all. Man, all my plans just went out
the window. We're going to have an intervention with a bat. I
mean, you know, water hose, waterboarding, Loud music at night from neighbors.
They're not going to let you sleep. Rubber bands on the wrist. That's
not the point. The point is we're to be patient. How are we to be patient? We're
to tolerate each other with affection. Our children are cute and lovable,
so we don't kill them by the grace of God. For if they were
ugly, hideous, and repulsive, they'd been gone a long time
ago. We need to look at each other
in those eyes. We need to look at each other through those eyes.
We need to look at each other through the eyes of Christ, who
looked into the eyes of humanity, who looked into the eyes of His
people who had rejected Him, who looked into the eyes of those
who were sinners and dead. veered back into His face with
disdain, He died for us. As God throughout all of history
has been patient and long-suffering with those who are lost and dead
for them to come to faith, so must we be patient and long-suffering
with those who are weak, who are discouraged, and yes, who
are idle. It's easy to be patient sometimes
with the weak because, oh, they can't help themselves, but the
idle, get a job. We need to be patient. Repentance sometimes does not
come fruitfully in every aspect of our lives immediately. Though
the power is there, the flesh is strong against the Spirit. Jesus would even tell His most
trusted three when He says, stand, watch, and pray, for I am troubled.
To the point of death, I am troubled. And they slept. And He comes
and He says, what is it that you cannot even pray? Can't you
see my anguish? The Spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. Friends, our flesh can be weak.
We must be patient with each other. As I shepherd the flock,
as the elders teach and pray, and shepherd and oversee, For
the sake of the joy of the flock, we must be patient. You must
be patient with us. We must be patient with each
other as we continually work together. How can we be patient
with those whom we do not love? How can we love those with whom
we spend no time? How can we spend time with those
that we are not willing to be vulnerable with? And if we're not willing to be
vulnerable, How are we one body? We must discern these needs.
Spending time in busyness is not the point of this text. Spending
time together encouraging one another is the point. Being long-suffering,
compassionate, caring, concerned, sympathetic, empathetic, tolerant,
enduring, standing together in the midst of some of the darkest
moments and some of the greatest praises. We stand together. As Paul promised, no one can
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. In the same way, there is no way that any of us can
be separated from each other's love. For our love is only empowered
by the affection of Christ for us. As Paul would say to this
very church just some chapters ago, I love you with all the
affection of Christ. The patience of God through Jesus
Christ is incomparable. Can we not have that same peace
with each other? Can we not learn to love and
to live together boldly, intimately? We gather for that reason. That
is the outcome to the praise of His glorious grace which produces
these works in us. Worshipping together is not for
our individual celebration of our individual salvation. Worshipping
together is for the work of God, celebrating the grace of God
who works in us and causes us to work out His will, which is
a people, not individual persons. A body, not a bunch of different
bodies. How are you invested in the body
of Christ? How are you involved in the life
of this body? Beloved, I pray that as we continue
in this letter over the next few weeks, you'd be encouraged
to ask that question. You'd be encouraged to pray that
God would give you the answer. And that you would invest in
a great way in each other's lives. Let's pray. Father, we praise You for Your greatness,
for Your goodness, for Your love, for Your mercy, for all that
You have given us through Christ. We thank You for this Word, Lord,
that would shock us into seeing and considering where we are
and then satisfy us knowing that Your will is done in our lives,
that through the hearing of this Word this day, You will purpose
in us to strive to be intimate more and more, to love more and
more, just as we are doing, more and more, and more and more and
more every day. Lord, give us clear answers as
to how we might be actively laboring together from the gospel and
for the gospel and to the glory of the gospel, to the praise
of your name and the name of your Son, Jesus. Father, how
we might labor for those who are not even with us today. And
though the prayer requests may not come, Father, we can pray.
Though the needs may not be actively known, we can ask. Though the
teaching may be fine for us, we might teach others. Father, help us to invest, to
give our lives, to give our treasure, to give our giftedness for the
sake of your call for this body. Help us to labor among each other
for each of our joy, for each of our needs, for the continued
ministry of teaching, in equipping this flock to do the work of
this ministry, as we share the gospel to a dying world, that
they may see and behold and be part of this beloved, intimate
work. We praise you for it, in Jesus'
name. Amen. Let's sing.