LOVE AND LABOR
1 THESSALONIANS 4:9-12
Now as to the love of the
brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are
taught by God to love one another; 10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren
who are in all
This is an epistle of
encouragement. Paul has been encouraging
the believers at Thessalonica. How do
you do such a thing? How do you encourage
someone? You tell them that they are
doing a good job when they are doing a good job. Paul has been doing that.
But that is not all he tells
them. He says, “You have been walking
the way in which you are supposed to walk.
Now continue and do even better.”
Finally then, brethren, we
request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you received from us
instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do
walk), that you may excel still more. (1 Thessalonians 4:1).
Paul has been writing to the
Thessalonians to excel still more. He
gives that injunction in 4:1 and he will give it again in verse 10. In the first part of this chapter, there is an
exhortation to excel still more as they abstain from fleshly lusts and from the
wrong kind of love. Now in verses 9 and
following there is an exhortation to excel still more as they demonstrate the
right kind of love — a love of the brethren.
LOVE IS TAUGHT BY GOD
Now as to the love of the
brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are
taught by God to love one another (1 Thessalonians 4:9).
Paul says, “I’m writing you
and telling you to love one another, but I don’t really need to write you about
the necessity of loving one another because you have already taught by God to
love one another and He is a much better teacher than I am.” Where does God teach us to love one
another? Where does God teach us to love
the brethren?
1. He
teaches us to love the Brethren in the Old Testament.
The
command to “love your neighbor as yourself” was an Old Testament command. It is found in Leviticus 19:18.
2. He
teaches us to love the Brethren by giving us His Spirit of Love.
God
teaches us to love from the inside out.
He not only tells us to love our neighbor as ourself,
He also gives us His Holy Spirit to empower that love. He teaches us to love by putting within us
that Spirit who loves us and who works in us so that we can begin to love
others.
3. He
teaches us to love the Brethren by His Example on the Cross.
The
cross is God’s greatest manifestation of love.
John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that He gave...” A teenager bought his girlfriend an orchid. It was the first orchid he had ever bought
and the first one she had ever received.
There was a card with the orchid that said, “With all my love and most
of my allowance.” When God acted out His
love for us, it was with all of His love and all of His allowance.
There
is a lesson here. It is that when love
is real, it gives. This is seen in our
next point.
LOVE IS PRACTICED
For indeed you do
practice it toward all the brethren who are in all
Notice that Paul doesn’t
merely say that the Thessalonians FELT love toward everyone. He says that they practice love. This isn’t merely the idea of practicing
something and not doing it for real. The
comedian said that he didn’t want to go to a doctor that only practiced
medicine -- he wanted to go to one who did it for real.
The Thessalonians were doing
it for real. They were DOING love. How do you “DO” love? You do it by doing loving things on behalf of
other people.
This is the point I was
speaking of earlier. If love is real,
then it works. Love is only seen to be
real when it goes into action.
The deacons in our church
have recently begun some extensive forays into the realm of mercy
ministries. They have been taking the
love that is described in the Scriptures and they have been putting it into
action in all sorts of practical ways.
·
Reconnecting
someone’s broken paddle fan.
·
Giving clothes to
one who had none.
·
Helping a needy
family.
To you deacons
who are doing this good work, let me encourage you. There is a divine “YES” that comes from the
throne of God. This is a good work, not
only for those who hold the office of deacon, but for all of us.
LOVE CAN BE EXCELLED
For indeed you
do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all
We are called to be people of
excellence when it comes to our love.
That is the mark of the Christian.
Jesus never said that they will know you are His disciples by your...
·
Theology
·
Doctrinal
Statement
·
Mode of baptism
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5 points of
Calvinism
He said that love will be the
defining mark of what it is to be a Christian.
It is because of this that Paul tells us to excel – literally, to
“overflow” – at love.
If love is an action (as we
saw earlier) and if we are to overflow at love, then how does that work out in
a practical sense? It is all very good
to say that we are going to excel at love, but how do I dress that up and take
it to work with me on Monday morning?
Paul answers that in the next two verses.
LOVE LABORS
But we urge you, brethren, to
excel still more, 11 and to make it
your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work
with your hands, just as we commanded you; 12 so that you may behave properly toward
outsiders and not be in any need. (1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12).
At first glance, this passage
seems to be speaking of two separate and distinct topics that are placed
together, but which have no relationship between them. Verses 9 and 10 speak of how we are to love
one another and then verses 11 and 12 speak of how we are to work and mind our
own business.
What
have love and labor to do with one another?
I’m going to suggest that they have everything to do with one
another. We’ll see in a few minutes how
your very attitude and actions that you take in work will be reflective of the
love that you have for God and the love that you have for your fellow man.
But
first I want you to know and understand that Paul is speaking here because of a
real life situation that is going on.
When we come to 2 Thessalonians, he has this to say...
For even when we were with you,
we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat. 11 For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined
life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. 12 Now
such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet
fashion and eat their own bread. (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12).
We must clarify that this is
not speaking of people who want to work but are unable to find a job. Rather this describes those who have both the
ability and the opportunity to work but who were merely lazy. Paul says of these, “God has designed a
wonderful educational tool on their behalf that will stimulate their motivation
to work. It is called hunger.”
When he comes to 2
Thessalonians, he will address the problem in the negative, but he has not yet
gotten to that point. Right now he is
addressing it in the positive.
You parents understand
this. You tell your child to clean his
room. Then you wait a bit and you go and
check and there is no cleaning activity going on. So at that point you take further action --
instead of merely a repetition of the same command, there is now with it some
information regarding what will take place if the room is not clean.
Paul is still in that first stage here in 1 Thessalonians, so don’t read these words as
if there is a rebuke implied. I don’t
believe there is. Yet.
What Paul is doing here is
linking the principle of work with the idea of love. That is going to take some examination. We all know about Christianity and love. Paul already said that regarding love, you
have no need for anyone to write to you.
But work is another story. What’s
the deal on work? There are several
things that we ought to say about work.
1. Work
Comes from God.
Way
back in the book of Genesis when Adam was still eating pears and pinapples, God have him an injunction to work.
Then the LORD God took the man
and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it
and keep it. (Genesis 2:15).
That
was before the fall. Adam had a job to
do. He was to cultivate and keep the
garden.
Now
it is true that after the fall, work took on a tiresome drudgery so that the
land that he would cultivate and keep would now fight him with thorns and
thistles. But you remember that work preceded
the fall.
2. Because
of the fall, there is a secular view of work that stands in opposition to the
Biblical view of work.
|
Secular View of Work |
Biblical View of Work |
|
I work in order
to get status or to get money to do the things that I really want to do |
I work because
God has designed me for a labor of service to Himself and to my fellow man. |
You
see, the first mention of work in the Bible actually comes before the Garden of
Eden. It comes in the first six days of
creation. It comes in the creative work
of God as He creates and makes everything that is.
At
the pinnacle of His creative work, God makes man in His image. What does it mean to be made in the image of
God? It means several things, but I’ve
come to believe that one of them is that man was made to work.
3. This
creation pattern provides for me a fitting definition of work.
·
God created.
·
Man’s work
involves a measure of creativity (some forms of work more than others).
·
God’s creation
was a gracious service to man
·
Our work is also
designed to be a work of service to others.
In what way is your work a service to others? The immediate
thing that comes to mind is that you work in order to support both yourself and
your family. But that is not all. Your work is not only a means to an end. Your work itself generally provides some kind
of service to others. It might be that
you are in sales and that people need to purchase what you make available to
them. Or it might be that your work is a
service to others and, as such, can be viewed as a ministry.
Why
is this important to know? Because unless you understand the true nature of work, you well
never really be able to rest. You
see, there are some of you here who are workaholics by nature. We came to this passage and you started to
drool because you saw here a justification for your placing work to an
inappropriate level.
But we urge you, brethren, to excel
still more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life
and attend to your own business and work with your hands...
Those
words to you are like trigger words. But
notice the dichotomy. You are to...
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet
life
Labor to rest
This
isn’t the life of a workaholic who lives only for the prestige that his career
will bring to him. The purpose of this
labor is quite different. It is so
that you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. (1
Thessalonians 4:12).
Do
you see it? Instead of being a drain on
outsiders (society), you are to behave properly toward society. You are called to serve others through your
work.
That
is why Paul has put this concept into a passage that started out dealing with
love. He had been speaking of the
necessity of love when he said...
But we urge you, brethren, to
excel still more (in love), 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and
attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you; 12 so that you may behave properly toward
outsiders and not be in any need. (1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12).
The
service of our work is one of the ways in which we love. It is one of the ways we show our love for
outsiders and it is also one of the ways we show our love for the Lord.
With good will render service, as to the
Lord, and not to men (Ephesians 6:7).
Whatever you do, do your work
heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men (Colossians 3:23).
4. When I
realize that my earthly work is a service, not only to men, but also to God,
then it takes on eternal consequences.
That
is good for me to know. I worked a lot
of years as a fire fighter. There are a
lot of buildings and structures and ships that we have saved. There are a lot of lives that we have
saved. But apart from the eternal
perspective of the Scriptures, there is a measure of futility in all that I
have done in that career because every building and structure and ship that I
saved will eventually be torn down and sold for scrap and every life that I
saved will eventually grow old and die.
Apart
from this principle, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that only
work that is done in some sort of full-time Christian ministry is of any real
consequence. We get to thinking that
folks in ministry are paid to be good and the rest of us are good for nothing.
That
isn’t so. Paul calls you to work with
your hands, just as we commanded you (4:11). But this can lead us to an opposite error. We can find ourselves looking at pastors or
teachers or seminary professors or even business executives and note, “They
aren’t working with their hands. They
must be out of the will of God.” Not so.
Paul
includes this in his injunction for a reason.
It is because the Greek society to whom he is writing this letter looked
with disfavor on manual work. They
thought that was only fit for slaves.
Paul
points out that there is a creative nobility to manual
labor. Work, if it is in the good
service of others, is ordained of God and is good and acceptable. There in a nobility in work, even if it a
work involving manual labor.
5. A
Biblical View of Work brings a sense of Rest.
We
have a tendency to strive for that which will give our lives meaning.
We
look in all sorts of places:
A Career
A position
Power
Esteem.
If
we use any of these things to gain our sense of esteem and identity, we will
ultimately be doomed to a sense of restlessness.
That
is why retirees often have a difficult time.
You’ve utilized your career as your sense of identity and then one day
you retire and you get the sense that you have no identity. But if your identity is in Christ and your
labor has been in His service, then you retain your identity throughout all
eternity.
Jesus
said the same thing. He said, “Whoever
works to keep his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake
and the gospel’s shall find it, not only in this life,
but also in the life to come.” You find
your identity in Him, and you will find yourself both today, tomorrow and
forever.
We’ve been speaking of love
and labor. We saw how we mirror the
image of God when we work and labor creatively in the service of others. God worked and then He rested.
Jesus also worked. His work was accomplished upon the
cross. This was the work for which He
came to the earth to perform. It was a
labor of love. His work involved dying
upon the cross in my place. My sins were
nailed to His cross. The anger of God
that I justly deserved was directed against Him. His body was broken. His blood was shed. For me.
He is our great high priest
who offered, not a sacrifice lamb, but his own body and blood as the ultimate
sacrifice. Then, once he had risen from
the dead, He ascended into heaven and did that which no high priest was ever
able to do. He sat down. That is where He is today -- seated at the
right hand of the Father. A place of rest.
There is an invitation for
you to enter into that rest. It is an
invitation to partake of Christ. He
calls you to trust in Him as your Lord and as your Savior. He calls you to enter that perfect place of
rest.
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