#8: Work and Love : 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Transcription

1 Series: Never Give Up: Living in the Hope of Christ s Return #8: Work and Love : 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Dr. Matthew Cassidy 2/23/2014 We are in the books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, going through them topically at this point. Last week we looked at work and we will look at that topic further today because so much is written in Thessalonians about work. As a matter of fact, work makes it into both books. We will be in 2 Thessalonians 3 today and you can turn there. There is almost an entire chapter dedicated to work. It is a very clear chapter but it will help us to have context. Work is the means God uses to conform our character to the likeness of Jesus Christ. Of course it would be, right? Besides that we are made in His image and as His image bearers we work, but also work is one-third of our lives. More importantly, besides it being practical, it is the dignity of man and the design of man, in the image of God, to be workers. Part I: Working Hard We are all gardeners who take chaos and add work to it and they get food or beauty. Most of our work is some kind of expression of chaos + work, which yields something good for mankind and it is pleasing to God. It is the way we express ourselves as human beings. Reasons why we should work So, when we talk about work in that way, and looking at last week s passage on the screen, I want you to be looking for four ways that work is a demonstration of attributes of God or four reasons that we should work. There will be three in this passage and I will add one from the other passages in the Bible as a summary. We will look at 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 as a review and while we are reading it from the screens, you will see the bolded reasons, three out of four reasons, that we should work and enjoy that. 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more. Here s how. :11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you. So that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 1 of 12

2 All reasons for work have an outside focus, focusing on other people. They are not about selfishness but selflessness. a. Brotherly love you would love one another more and more be working. b. Respect You would earn respect from outsiders as they saw how hard you are working at the workplace or in your neighborhood. That person is industrious. They can make chaos into something beautiful or edible. c. Not a burden - You would not be a burden to other people in the church. d. Give to others - The last one is not in this passage but it is assumed in both books of Thessalonians and throughout the Bible So that you can give to other people who are in need. Some people will be making more than they need and so those get to make up the areas of need for others. All four of the reasons that are mentioned in this passage are focusing on someone else: for the lover of your brothers, earning respect from outsiders, not being a burden to other people this is why you should work. That is somewhat clear. What was interesting in this passage that is notable is the he says you should live a quiet life and work with your hands. Mind your own business. Work with your hands? Really? Why is that? Some of your study Bibles mention this because it was so pervasive in the Greek and Roman culture. Working with your hands was beneath a lot of people. It was sordid or degrading to work with your hands, or to work retail. Cicero is probably the 2 nd most famous roman outside of Julius Caesar and he made these kinds of comments. In Plato s Republic, you might remember there were three types of people: gold, silver and bronze type souls. The bronze, the lowest level, consists of the workers because they have to touch the earth. As Cicero and Plato said, the evolved person, the gold person, would be one who spent his day thinking or in the arts. So if you were a philosophy professor or an artist, you were the lucky ones. Then there was this middle level, silver, and then this bottom level, bronze people who work with their hands. Paul by saying work with your hands is teaching forget your Greco-Roman culture. Why are you getting your worldview from these guys who think the earth is bad and working hard with your hands is supposed to be repugnant? Paul is calling out the worldview and the value system of these people. Instead of saying Get a job. He says don t be afraid to get dirty. That is not the way God thinks about work. As a matter of fact, William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes this about the passage. Look at the Bible: creation, consummation, incarnation, resurrection. What do they all have in common? God with His hands in the dirt. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 2 of 12

3 In Creation, God has His hands in the dirt creating. In Consummation, God is cleaning up after the great battle and building a city. In Incarnation, God becomes physical. In the Resurrection, God redeems the physical. So, what is Paul saying here? There is nothing that is beneath you. If you think there is some task or job description that is not for you, that you are above it then you are a little high on your horse and the issue is probably pride; you will probably get knocked off that horse. All good work is God s work. If it is ethical, all good work is God s work. It is through work that we love God and love people. We love God by showing the dignity of our nature; we are creators like God we take chaos and transform it into something that is edible or beautiful. The way we love other people is by doing what God allows us to do where they are not allowed to do that they are no good at it. Because I was studying this passage this week, this incident stood out to me. I had some trees trimmed. A few years ago, I learned that I should not be trimming trees any more. These tree trimmers came to our house, just looking for work to do. They were up about feet high, jumping from tree to tree with a chain saw in tow. After the whole thing was over, because I was studying this passage, I was thinking more about this. I said: Thank you so much. There was a language barrier, so they just said: Give me the money and we will be gone. Good for you, you creepy guy. The idea here is that you get to serve other people with the gifts and abilities that God gives you and the ability to do things other people cannot. That is how you love them. What do you do about the person who will not work? But today, we are going to talk about something that comes up in II Thessalonians and that is the problem we have with the person who won t work. What do you do with someone who won t work not cannot work but will not work? It is not like they live in Detroit and there are no jobs there. It is not like they are disabled and cannot work for some good reason. They will not work. They are self-centered enough to say: Everybody else can make ends meet for me. What do you do with that person? That is the topic of II Thessalonians. We all know stories about people who might have had a really nice job in an air-conditioned building but something happened. They end up getting a job throwing newspapers or working construction or driving a cab. They are all doing that while they can maybe find another job or that is the job they have settled into. Do you know why they did those things? Because all good work is God s work. It was not a step down but a move over. They did what they needed to do to provide for their family. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 3 of 12

4 But what do you do with the person who will not work? Let s make an example. You have a grown sister who is married to a man named Biff. You probably warned her early on but she did not listen to you. When you marry a man named Biff. Biff gets let go from his job in January and you, as family, ask: How can we help you? We have some resources and maybe we can help you make a car payment or get through this difficult time. Time goes by. Then they ask for more help and you respond: Okay, the sports camp that your kids have been going to all these years, you need help with that payment. We will help pay for some of that. Then you run into them at Thanksgiving and still there is no job. You ask: It has been 11 months now, so tell me where you have looked for a job. Tell me why you are applying for jobs that you are not qualified for? Did you know that Home Depot is hiring? They always have openings. Biff says something like: Well, I am not going to work there. You now think: Oh, okay. I am going to have to talk to my sister, your wife because that is going to change the way we do things in the future. When Biff calls later on and says: Hey, brother-in-law, can I borrow some more money because I might lose the car. You then respond: You can borrow my bike but only for a couple of months while you ride it to interviews. How long will you give someone money not to work? Will there ever be a time when you say: Wait a minute. I don t think we are part of the solution any more. I think we are part of the problem. I think we crossed the line from love to being manipulated. Do you think that is possible? I think it is. I think you can get to a place where you are causing more damage than good. That is what is happening in my story but the incident gets worse because Biff is never missing a Bible study. He is coming to everything at the church and he is mixing it up with everybody, trying to get involved as much as he can because he has so much free time, because he is not working. That is what II Thessalonians 3 is all about. We are not going to talk about that aright now. Now, we are going to take that topic that work is good, the nature of God in you, you get to take chaos and make it into something beautiful I am going to set that topic over here on Mike s music stand. Now, I am going to change the subject. We are not going to talk about loving God and loving others through work. Meaning of words in the Bible Now what I want to talk about what words mean, important words. When the Bible uses words like faith, love, knowledge, and trust. Those are very powerful words. In the Bible, whenever those words are used, there is an absolute assumption that we do not assume in our culture because we are a product of 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 4 of 12

5 a Greek / enlightenment view. When the Bible talks about words, it talks about those words having meaning and they are action words. I saw a video this past month that reminded me of a few churches I have worked in and Bible studies I have been part of where they don t think words mean what they mean. It was funny enough that I thought I would show it today, maybe even a couple of times. While I am showing this video, think about this group being a Bible study group, not necessarily people at a restaurant. * * Video: [A group of 3 men and 1 woman in business attire having what appears to be a business lunch at an upscale, crowded restaurant. One man starts obviously choking on food.] 1 st Man: Hey, isn t Jacobson choking? 2 nd Man: I would definitely say that Jacobson is choking. 1 st Man: I know exactly what to do. I have seen it in the movies. It is called the Heimlich Maneuver. You make a ball, stand behind the guy, and pull hard the action on the solar plexus. [A man from another table steps over, grabs Jacobson out of his chair, performs the Heimlich Maneuver, forcing the source of the choking out, and then sits back down at his table, never having said a word.] 1 st Man: Just like I told you. [Voice off camera: Less talk. Make it happen.] * * * Right? Less talk. Make it happen. In that video, there are three people watching a man choke. One man says he knows what to do. Another person is reminded oh right, solar plexus, I remember now. Who really knows the Heimlich Maneuver? Who believes the Heimlich Maneuver has the power to save? Who loves saving the person, using the Heimlich Maneuver? In the Bible, it would be the person at the other table who actually saved the choking man. The definition of knowledge, of knowing in the Bible, is the ability to do not to recite. In the Bible, when someone has trust, it means they act in a way that is trusting not that they have memorized about trust. You might have gone to school where you took a blue book test, reciting all the facts, but then when you went to the lab, you blew the place up. In the Bible, there are only labs. In the Bible, it is almost exclusively word problems. Can you do it? If you can t do it, you don t know it. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 5 of 12

6 If you can t do it, you don t believe it. If you can t do it, you don t trust it. Ladies, if you are in the Bible study, there is no contradiction in: Faith without works is dead. It is supposed to be: Faith without works is dead --- duh. Because that is the way they think. At the table, one man is choking, two people don t know the Heimlich Maneuver, one person is being informed about it. The person who loves, who trusts, who has knowledge, is the person who gets up, comes over, jerks the choking man out of his chair, wraps his arms around this stranger, and punches him as hard as he can in the solar plexus. That man believes in it. That man loves the other man. That man has a knowledge of it because love is hard. This is hard love. A person who believes in hard love knows that sometimes you have to hurt someone to help someone. Hard love is the belief that you have to hurt someone to help someone. Bible study groups that sit around tables and just talk about the Heimlich Maneuver are not Bible study groups. Those are like public school classes learning about the Bible as a history book. They just meet on a church campus. They are not learning how to obey. From a conceptual idea, that group is not a Bible study but an information download but it is not for knowledge, faith, belief, or love. What I am trying to do now is establish terms about what it means to believe and obey trust and know. Part II: True Love Hurts Now, back to our original topic work. It is not just that work is an expression of our majesty, that we get to be like God and love other people and God, and that we get to love our brothers, that we get a good reputation from outsiders, we are not a burden to other people, and we get to share our wealth. That is all true. What about the person who will not work? The reason we showed this restaurant definition of what is true is because today s passage is not vague. That will not be the problem. Today s passage is clear and that is the problem. Today s passage is not - what should I do? It is about whether or not I actually will do it. Today we are going to talk about some words towards a person who will not work and whether or not we will get up, pull them out of a chair, and punch them from behind to save their life. A good Bible study where you have relational connectivity and relational discipleship, is so that you can save a life. It is more important than a Heimlich Maneuver. Your body is less important than your soul. We get together as a group so that if something were to come up where intervention would be beneficial, 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 6 of 12

7 another person would love you enough and know enough to do something action words to stop it. That is why there is an entire chapter dedicated to this. Part III: Hardly Working I have broken up this 2 Thessalonians passage because he gives the command three different times. Then he gives explanation. So, we will hit the commands first. Paul is coming after them. 2 Thessalonians 3:6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. :10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat. :14 If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. :15 Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. So, the issue was these people who were not working. Paul, as an example because this was so prevalent, said: I came as an interim pastor to you. I had a right to take an offertory and live off that offering, but I did not. I work night and days for you, just to give you an example of me carrying my own weight. That is the context of verses 7-9. :7-9 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling [with our hands] so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. Paul did not want to neglect his responsibilities. He did not want to become a burden on this young church. Instead of what he could have done, take an offering for the pastor as he was passing through town, instead he was going to work nights and days as a tent maker and he has callouses on his hands and he is showing up to the pulpit sweaty because he had been working so much. He says, that is what I did as a role model to you because work is so important so that you can love God and love others, so that you will not be a burden to other people, so that you will have a great reputation from people on the outside looking in all of those reasons. This is a serious issue. Apparently, this is pervasive in a number of churches because some thought Jesus was coming back and they were like Good, I quit then. Or the church was known for being generous and they thought Fine, I can live off of them. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 7 of 12

8 Paul writes this to his young Patawan [young Jedi apprentice in Star Wars], Timothy who had a church going with the same trouble. 1 Timothy 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Paul is saying that faith and works have to go together. If this person is not even providing for his own family, he does not have faith because faith is an action word and this person is idle. Again, this is a person who will not work it is not that he cannot work. This person is not in Detroit where there are no jobs. This person is not disabled, therefore unable to work. Instead, this is a person who says: You guys pay my bills because I don t want to work. What is the church to do? Paul is answering what is a church to do. The reason I say, what is a church to do, if you look at this passage, it is harsh. 2 Thessalonians 3:6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, Paul throws in all of the titles that he has in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you, brothers. Sometimes around here people go off the rails and they might say to us: Why aren t the ministers dealing with this? Do you know what our answer is? You are the ministers. This is not a letter to the elders or leaders or pastors of this church. This is a letter to the church. Paul will talk to Biff a few sentences later. But he is talking to everyone saying: You guys, what is the church to do? A. You do not associate with them. 2 Thess. 3:6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. This is the final step in a 4-step process. Biff is in your home group or Bible study and one person says: Hey, Biff, it has been a couple of years now. Have you been to the career stuff we have at the church? Okay. There is a job at Home Depot. You are doing all these things and then it is becoming clear that it is a matter of they will not work. Now two of you go to Biff. Third step, the whole groups goes to Biff where you are getting other people involved. But it starts with you individually. There is a point where a Bible study or Sunday School class might make an announcement: You don t associate with them anymore. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 8 of 12

9 It is not too harsh. You would do this with your children. You can t watch cartoons until your room is clean. Is your room clean? No? Then you can t watch cartoons. I am not putting you in time out because I am being mean; I am just trying to get you to be responsible. What is good enough for little Biff is good enough for big Biff. [I need a new name.] B. You do not feed them. 2 Thess. 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat. If you feed the person, you are feeding the problem. Put another way, there is nothing quite as motivational as a growling stomach. How hungry are you hungry enough to get a job? No? Okay. C. You hurt them with love. 2 Thess. 3:14, 15 If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, That includes everyone who is helping take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. So, this is positive peer pressure. You are saying: Instead of coming to the men s Bible study/ women s Bible study/ the Sunday school class, why don t you stay home and work on getting a job. We will just keep helping you do this one thing right because your reputation is ruined, you are not helping the rest of us, you are taking from the rest of us, you are not loving the rest of us. So, you need to focus on that one thing. If you are being vindictive or mean-spirited, you are doing this wrong. You are to treat them like a brother (like an insider, not an outsider). Most churches do not teach this entire chapter. They act like there are only two chapters in 2 Thessalonians. A lot of churches do not deal with this type of thing because they do not want to be judgmental or they do not want to deal with conflict. But what is the alternative? To watch a man choke while we talk about knowing the Bible but we do not know it. We are not trusting; we are not obeying; we are just throwing words out and they have lost their value. The words are meaningless. So we will not be a church that watches people choke because love does not do that. Love does not make it easy to continue to sin. Love makes it easy to repent. I will use non-church words. Love makes it difficult to continue to do wrong. Love makes it easy to start doing right. That is what love is. I will make it harder and harder for you to continue to do wrong and when you stop doing wrong and want to do right, I am going to make it easy for you to come back. That is what love is. Otherwise, you are enabling and you are part of the problem. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 9 of 12

10 I cannot find a more secular example of this. This is example is as low as possible in order that the church can rise to that. When I was in school at the University of Texas, I had a friend in the finance department where I was getting a degree. He was talking about his being the treasurer of a fraternity and the fraternity could not pay their bills. I said: Let s make it our little project to figure out why. We figured out that it was not because of the expenses but because of income. It turned out, they had a 65% collection rate of their dues. I said: There is your problem. You have all kinds of potential income but you are not getting it. Why don t you just put on butcher paper the names of everybody who is past due and how many months and post that at the monthly club dinner. Let the brothers positively encourage them to pay. No one was missing meals and no one was missing their fraternity parties. They were just missing paying for them. So, he put up the butcher paper and the treasurer stood at the front of the dinner line and said: You can eat when you get your name crossed off this list. It was news to everybody. Some fraternity brothers response was: Wait a minute. You haven t paid your dues in four months? You are drinking a lot of other people s punch. In two months, they went to a 96% collection rate. Here is the funny part. One of my daughters is down at U.T. and going to her, I went by this fraternity house. Their door was open and on their wall, the butcher paper is still up there 25 years later. Here is what would happen. Other fraternity brothers would make it hard for them not to pay but then when someone would pay, they would ring the bell at the cafeteria and cheer. Welcome back. See you at chapter meals and meetings. So, if it is good enough for a fraternity house at the University of Texas when we are really talking about beer money here Paul is saying that is how you love people. That is how you care for people. These are action words. At Grace Covenant Church, if there is ever a time when you hear in a Sunday School class or someone comes and talks to you in a small group, or sometimes we do it from this podium where we will you that someone is in time out. We are asking them not to come to this church any more or for a period of time, I want you to know that it was not a simple process. It did not happen immediately. It took a very long time with multiple conversations. It was extremely difficult for everyone involved. If we failed (and this has been in the last few years anyway) it was because the process took too long. It was past hurting people and it was hurting way too much. We want to err on the side of grace and sometimes grace is trampled on. I want to tell you that because it happens here. We are a church that wants people to be the types of people who pull a person out of a chair and grab them from the back and punch them to save their lives, right in the solar plexus. Look at what Paul says now that he has talked to the church. Now Paul is talking to Biff. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 10 of 12

11 2 Thessalonians 3:11, 12 We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. They just look busy. They are going to everything, looking busy. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. There it is again, an absolute command with the urge on top with the titles the Lord Jesus Christ this is not typical of Paul where he uses all three the Lord Jesus Christ I command urge you to settle down and to earn your own bread. Wow, it is almost like what he told the church. You need to help them settle down and earn their own bread. I think it is telling if you have been involved in this in any way, if you have had tough love in your own family with a relative, or if you have raised teenagers, if you have been in church work where they do this, then you know this verse 13 is for you. 2 Thessalonians 3:13 And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right. Compassion fatigue is a real thing. I think he is talking about two things: (1) You continue to care for the people who are in need, who are legitimately needing financial help, emotional help, and spiritual help. That will wear you down. (2) Then there is this other group over here that is obstinate. They will drag this thing out and do everything they can except get a job. That is going to wear you out. I think that dealing with these discipline issues is probably the single biggest reason or influential reason on why we wear leadership out around here. You wish there would be a happy ending and rarely is there a happy ending. Paul says: Don t grow tired of doing good. Keep it up. God is watching. He is trusting you. This is a church where we believe in words. We believe words like obey, love, faith, and trust are action words. Watch this video again. Look at the guy who is choking and he looks left and right, looking for someone in his church to help him live. [Repeat of video] So, make it happen. I love how he looks around like nobody at this table is going to help me. Be a person at a table who will help. It might be clumsy or reckless but treat them as a brother or sister but be the person who is willing to grab someone out of the seat, wrap your arms around them, and then punch them as hard as possible in their solar plexus to free them from the thing that is killing them. These are action words: faith, belief, trust, and obedience. 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 11 of 12

12 People come to our church sometimes from other churches. When they visit, they sometimes give us one of the better compliments we receive and it has happened on more than a few occasions. It is like when some of your parents come here for a baby dedication. It is parents of adult children (20s, 30s). Generally, a dad will come up to talk to me or Ray or another person in leadership. They will say: Thank you. I can trust my kids with you. They went through a very difficult time where the husband went crazy or the wife went crazy or there were addictions and your church held them to it. You made them make choices. They quit listening to us and I thought: if they were just going to come to a church and fill their calendar with Bible studies that never had to apply anything, that is what I feared. Then they came here. I feel like that is one of the greatest, deepest, most integrity-oriented compliments that a church can receive. I think that is how God works. I think a lot of you are here because God brought you here because God trusts us because we believe in the Heimlich Maneuver. You are no different. You will let your children play at the house down the street where they discipline their children. But the house two doors from you, that is closer, where their kids get to do whatever they want, you won t let your kids in their house. You can those kids in your house but you don t let your kids in their house. I think God is the same way. Some of you have been brought to Grace because God said: They do the Heimlich Maneuver here. They know what love, faith, trust and obedience mean. These are action words. That is why God led you here. We are going to continue to be that but I just wanted you to know that when we find difficult passages the difficulty in this is not what it says because that is clear but whether we are going to obey it or not --- and we will. I think it was Mark Twain who said: The Bible passages that bother me are not the ones I don t understand but rather the ones I do understand. That is what love is. That is what a church is. That is what Grace is. Let s pray for courage, for God s insight, and for God s volitional will to do what He calls us to. Lord Jesus, We ask that you bless our church and bless it indeed. That You would call us to be people of action, of compassion, of love but also of fortitude, of understanding. Some people need an extra push to help them do what they were called to do, what they were meant to do so that they might be God s image bearers in their choices. So, God, continue to bring people to our church and let us learn how to kindly love people in the way that reflects what your Bible clearly tells us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen 8.1 Thes.Cassidy.web.docx Page 12 of 12