06 How to Handle Work as a Christian (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're going to be looking at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 9 through 12. This talk is the sixth one in our series on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. You can also go directly to them by going to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Thessalonians 6. I'm glad you joined me today. As always, we'll set the stage for where we are in this letter to the Thessalonians. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Thessalonica around 51 A.D. It's one of his earliest letters, and he is encouraging a very young church to continue to trust both him and the gospel he preached. Paul spent a short time in Thessalonica before he was driven out of town, and he knows that the church he left behind is facing the same persecution that drove him out. They're probably facing pressure to give up their new faith, and he's writing to encourage them to remain steadfast. In the first three chapters, he made three main points. He talked about how their own response to the gospel was evidence that they have genuine faith, and he talked about how grateful he was for that response. He reminds them how their faith became well known throughout the region and that the changes in their own lives are testimony to the fact that they believed. He also reminds them, this is the second point, that he conducted himself in a very trustworthy manner when he was with them. He did not ask for money, he did not peddle the gospel, he remained financially independent, and his preaching was accompanied by miracles from the Holy Spirit to testify to the fact that his message was true. And then the third thing he talked about is that as a church, they are facing the same kind of persecution that believers have faced throughout time. And this kind of persecution is also evidence of their genuine response to the gospel. Then in chapter four, he says, Finally, brethren, and he moves into the second half of his letter, and this is where he responds to some points of confusion that they're dealing with, some issues in the church. And in this little section we've been looking at, Paul basically speaks to two issues about what it means to live your life as a Christian. He tells them, don't sleep around and get a job. And we looked at the first of those in the last podcast. Today we're going to tackle getting a job or work. And as we look at this, we want to understand why Paul would be saying this. Because at first glance, this advice sounds like the kind of advice any father anywhere might sit down and tell his kids. So we want to ask the question: what does Paul think is at stake here? And why would he choose these two issues to talk about? So we're going to pick up the letter in First Thessalonians chapter four, verse nine, and go to twelve. Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you're 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 work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. So the first thing Paul does is commend them for practicing brotherly love. He says, Concerning brotherly love, you don't really need anyone to write you about this. You have been taught by God, you've been doing this, and I encourage you to do this still more. So as we talked about in chapter one, love here, what I think Paul means by love, is not so much a feeling where we all sit around with warm fuzzies feeling good about each other. It's how we treat each other. When it comes to loving my sister, it's how I treat my sister that counts, not how I say I feel about her. And Paul commended them in chapter one for their labor of love. Practicing love, I think, in this context is not a feeling. It's how we live our lives, it's the way we treat each other. It's being concerned for the welfare of our neighbors and seeking their good in a practical way. And this kind of love is central to being a Christian because it is central to the two great commandments love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. These two commandments capture how we ought to view the world and conduct ourselves in it. In these commandments, I don't think Scripture is concerned primarily with how we feel about God and our neighbors, but rather how we act toward God and our neighbors. This kind of love captures the essence of holiness or righteousness. Loving God is valuing him, wanting to be like him, seeking to live by what he says is true, listening to him rather than the world, and so forth. Similarly, loving my neighbor is recognizing that we are equally important before God, that we equally share the image of God, and then treating my neighbor as I would want to be treated if the tables were turned. And then on top of that, with our fellow Christians, we share an additional bond. We have a common destiny, a common father, and a common Lord. And you, my fellow believers, are my people. We belong to each other. We are going to share eternity together. If I refuse to recognize how much you and I share, it questions whether I really want those things. And this is a theme I teach on a lot because it comes up often in Scripture. We talked about it a lot in the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew, and this is a big theme in the New Testament. Love is one of those central responses of faith, not in the sense of warm feelings, but in the sense of how I live my life, how I treat other people. Love in the sense of my actions, my commitment, my service, making an effort to seek someone else's best, to be on my neighbor's side, and to help and encourage each other on this journey of faith. I may not get along with you in terms of personality. I may not know what to say whenever we're together. Maybe we're not interested in any of the same things. But if we are both believers, then we belong together in the family of God, and we have the most important things in common. So we look out for each other's welfare. And Paul described this as their labor of love in chapter one, emphasizing the effort, the commitment it takes to act on your neighbor's behalf. We exert ourselves to act on each other's behalf, making an effort to seek each other's best and care about each other, and that results from coming to faith and believing the gospel. And Paul commends them for that. This is 9 and 10 again. Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. For that is indeed what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you brothers to do this more and more. So I think Paul's recognizing that their love took the action of reaching out and meeting other people's needs. I think he's commending them for being financially generous to others who are in need, not just in Thessalonica, but in the whole region of Macedonia. They have taken actions to care for the downtrodden and help meet needs by providing financially for others. And Paul commends them for that. The problem, as we're going to see, is that some of them are not working. They are relying on the generosity of others to get by. So here you have a group of people who have proven themselves to be generous financially. It's not surprising that they have attracted a few parasites who won in on that action. They have attracted a few people who think, hey, that sounds good. I'd rather you work for my money than me work for my money. And we'll see this when we get into 2 Thessalonians, because when we get to the next letter, we can see the problem seems to have gotten worse and not better. But here, Paul commends them for their generosity, and now he's going to encourage everyone to work with their own hands and be productive. So he's encouraging a discerning love on the one hand and a responsibility to meet your own needs on the other. Let's look at 11 and 12. So in 10, he just said, But we urge your brothers to do this more and more, and then going on, and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. So that first phrase to live quietly, it's a bit contradictory. It's literally have ambition to lead a quiet life. And ambition and quiet life, they don't seem to go together for most Americans. We think of ambition as being all about upgrading, advancing, achieving, and improving. And that is seems to be the exact opposite of a quiet life. But this is what Paul says, have ambition to live quietly. Now what does he mean by that? The phrase that Paul uses gives us a clue. In other Greek literature, this phrase to live quietly and then mind your own affairs, they were used in reference to public life. Plato uses these phrases to refer to the philosopher. Living quietly seems to refer to withdrawing from political or social or civic affairs, staying out of the public arena, not causing a fuss. And Paul could have that idea in mind. He could be saying, live quietly. You're in the midst of a city that's out to persecute you, so don't create unnecessary turmoil. Be careful what you do. Loving each other is a higher priority than creating an uproar. So don't live out your faith in public in a noisy way that attracts persecution and invites more hostility. But I don't think that's really what's going on. I don't think Paul is telling them to withdraw from public life because of the next phrase he adds. He directs them toward a certain kind of lifestyle. First, remember he started this by saying everything is grounded in this brotherly love that he wants them to excel at still more. And then he tells them to live quietly, mind their own business, and work with their hands. Those three phrases taken together strike me as do what God has called you to do. Now let me see if I can explain that. We are addicted to busyness. We always want to do more. And we feel like we're never doing enough, no matter how much we're doing. And I've heard this from parents who work, parents who stay home, from students, professionals, people in ministry, and I bet many of you listening have probably said it. We have this idea that whatever I'm doing, it's not enough. And it drives me to want to sign up for something else to make that feeling go away. And it's this idea that working at Walmart isn't good enough. I have to go out and find some way to do, quote, kingdom work, unquote. Or maybe being a stay-at-home mom isn't good enough. I have to volunteer at three different nonprofits on the weekends. Or running my small business well in a way that pays all the bills and cares for my employees. Well, that's okay, but I really ought to be going on these short-term mission trips. Well, I don't see anything in the Bible that says some kinds of work are spiritual, kingdom work, and other kinds are not. The Bible does not teach that some kinds of work advance the kingdom, and other kinds of work, well, they are just about putting food on the table, and that kind of work is to be avoided. The Bible does not teach that. There's nothing wrong with trying to secure our financial situation. The Bible approves of us working and being productive and supporting ourselves. And I think that is exactly what Paul is saying here. Do what you have to do, mind your business, take that is take care of yourself and work with your hands. Go out, get a job, support yourself. It's not presumptuous or grabby or wrong to get a paycheck for a day's work. We don't always have to be doing more. God created us to work. Work is a good thing. We are encouraged to be responsible for ourselves, to take care of our financial situation and that of our families, and that is a good thing. I think the biblical picture is something like this. God has a creative purpose and plan for each one of his children. Miriam's plan looked different than the plan God gave her brother Moses. And Moses' plan was different than the plan God gave Joshua, which was different than the plan he gave King David, which is different than the plan he gave to the servants in David's household. And as I've talked about in other podcasts and in other passages, there's a sense that that plan gives us boundaries. Some boundaries are universal, they apply to everyone. For example, the ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments apply to all believers in all ages. Other boundaries are unique to our situation. So if I'm married, my boundaries are different than if I'm single. If I'm a parent, my boundaries are different than someone who is childless. If I'm a child, my boundaries are different than if I'm an adult. Outside of the boundaries are things I cannot do without being unfaithful. Within those boundaries, I can be faithful to God. Outside, I can't. For example, I might be able to improve my financial situation by cheating and stealing from someone else, but that would be stepping outside the boundaries because I have stopped loving my neighbor as myself. To cheat my neighbor is outside of the boundaries. Now, it is true that each and every one of us have days where we stand at the border of the boundary God has given us, whatever it is, and we gaze longingly at the other side and think, oh, if I could just be over there. It sure looks good on the single side, or it sure looks good on the married side, or it sure looks good on the retired side, or it sure looks good on the going to school side, or whatever it is. But to go over that boundary would be to stop trusting God and grab and take what I want that He has not yet given me. So as people of faith, we learn to resist stepping over those boundaries. We learn to trust that what God says is best, no matter how much greener the grass appears to be on the other side of the boundary. And we are learning to say, well, it does look good to me over there, but my eyes deceive me. God says, wait, that's not for you, or no, whatever his answer is, and so I wait. It is better to wait on him and receive my future inheritance in the kingdom of God than to cheat, steal, lie, or whatever to cross boundaries and grab for what I want now. Now, this probably goes without saying, but all of us cross a boundary we shouldn't cross at some point. All of us fail and make mistakes because we are all sinners. Faith is a journey, a process that we grow in, and Jesus never says one strike and you're out, one step over any boundary and you're out of the kingdom. That is not the case. The fundamental issue is what is it we ultimately want? Who are we counting on? Where is our hope? So to live quietly is to humbly accept the boundaries God has given me and be at peace with my lot because this is the plan God has put in place for my life. I can be content with the path I'm on. I can decide not to take a certain road because to take that road would be to abandon what God says is right. Instead, I seek to follow God and I wait because I know God is a faithful, loving, generous God who keeps his promises. And again, as is so often the case, the core issue of living quietly is whether I am actually trusting that God is who he says he is and that he will keep his promises. So I would say to live quietly is to seek to live within whatever boundaries God has put in our lives and to wait and trust that God will keep his promises. To live quietly is to be faithful to the things that God has called you to do. So you want to do what God has asked you to do, and if you're doing that, you're doing enough. That I think is what is meant by calling or vocation. God has given each one of us something to do. He's asked us to play a role in his kingdom. He doesn't usually give us a detailed roadmap. Usually we have to use wisdom and discernment and maybe take it one day at a time. We make wise choices based on what we know to be true from scripture, and then we wait and see what God has for us. So if you're married, you have certain obligations that single folks don't have. If you're a parent, you have certain responsibilities and boundaries that say empty nesters don't have. You don't need to be doing more. You should be doing whatever God has asked you to do, and that's living quietly, minding your own affairs, and working with your hands. Now you might see the irony in the Apostle Paul giving this advice, because few people had as great an impact on the world as he did. But his life did follow this pattern. When he arrived in a new city, he visited the synagogue and he sewed tents. He preached when the opportunity presented itself and he trusted God for the results. And usually he got tossed out of the synagogue and then eventually beaten, jailed, or run out of the city. Living quietly doesn't mean that we don't have an impact. Paul certainly had an impact. Moses had an impact. We can look at all kinds of people in the Bible who had an impact. It just means we aren't aiming for impact. Our goal is to follow the leading of God step by step and to leave the results or the impact up to Him. Trust Him to accomplish whatever it is He wants to accomplish. And if that means nobody ever knows our name, nobody ever knows our name. If that means everybody knows our name, then everybody does. What makes living quietly hard for us is that we are addicted to impact. We think that we have done nothing unless we have worldwide global social media registered impact. People go to certain universities and work for certain companies to change the world. And we all want to see ourselves as key players in the history of the world. We all secretly, or maybe not so secretly, want to be the person at the center of things. And I think we are taught to want to change the world. And maybe part of the problem is in that desire is the desire to be God. We might want to stop and consider the question: do we care more about the world being changed, or do we care more about being the one who does the changing? And when I ask myself that question, all too often I conclude that really what's important to me is I want to be at the center of the action. I want to be the one that impacts the world. I think Paul's instruction to aim for a quiet life and make that your ambition is an invitation to let God be God. It's his kingdom, it's his world, he is changing it, and each one of us has a part to play, a role that he asks us to do. That role may have impact, it may not, but it's the role he's asked us to do. So it's not up to us to change the world, it's up to us to love the people he has given us to love and be faithful to our calling. So my advice would be instead of aiming for impact, aim for faithful obedience to God's plan, whatever God's plan is for you. And again, the fundamental issue here is similar to what we talked about in the last podcast, and that is how do I deal with my desires? We all desire to prosper. We all want to prosper, and we'd like to prosper with as little effort as possible. I would rather take care of my needs without a hardship, without having to work long hours and so forth, than with it. So there's a sense in which all of us desire to work in the sense of doing something fun, creative, and fulfilling, but very few of us desire to work at the things that we need to work at to take care of the needs of our families. It's easy and tempting to seek to fulfill my needs in a way that's convenient and easy for me. Of course, I'd like to fulfill my financial needs in a way that doesn't cost me any time or effort at all. And that has led some in Thessalonica to say, you know, I'm in this group of people who are generous. They are willing to help out those in need. So I'm going to kick back and give them an opportunity to be generous and support me. I'm going to let them do for me what I really ought to be doing for myself. And it seems like some people in Thessalonica thought, well, Jesus is coming back soon anyway, so why bother working? And they're just kicking back and waiting and letting everyone else support them. The problem with that is loving my neighbor as myself demands something different. God has called each of us to take care of ourselves and to take responsibility for our own welfare. Read what Proverbs has to say about the sluggard, the lazy person who doesn't work. Let me give you a flavor of it. This is Proverbs 6, 6 through eleven. Go to the ant, O sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in the summer and gathers her food and harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. And then this is Proverbs 21, 25. The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. And then here, this is Proverbs 24 30 through 34. I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns, the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it, I looked and received instruction a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. Again, echoing those verses we saw from chapter six. And we could go on, but even without reading more verses, we can see from the principle of loving my neighbor as myself that it is unloving to be a financial burden to someone else when I can avoid it. Not only is it good for me to take care of my own welfare, it is unloving to be lazy such that I must rely on the generosity of others. Reverse the coin. What if someone said to you, you know, I don't want to bother taking care of myself anymore. I want you to take care of me for the rest of your life. Would you think that person is loving you? Is that loving my neighbor as myself? Now remember, there's a difference between recognizing that person over there is in a tough spot and I want to generously help them. That's different than someone who is being irresponsible and I am enabling them to be irresponsible. It is not loving for them to be irresponsible in that way. It is not obedient to our calling to be lazy and refuse to work or refuse to contribute to my own needs or my family's needs. Now there are times when financial need is real and unavoidable and nothing to be ashamed of. Emergencies and disasters happen to everyone. In fact, if we have the means, we might be ashamed for not meeting that kind of need. But if we have been lazy and financially irresponsible, spent every dime we have, refused to work, gotten ourselves in debt, then when that kind of need happens, we can't help anyone. We don't even have the opportunity to be loving because we have been irresponsible or lazy. So there are times when financial need is real, when disaster hits or something happens that makes it impossible for me to care for my family. I'm not talking about those situations. I'm talking about situations where I have that ability to work and I refuse to work. If I am simply not stepping up where I ought to step up, if I can and ought to participate in meeting my own needs and I'm not, then it's not loving of you to enable me to continue. And as we'll see in the next letter, Paul's going to say, if you don't work, you don't eat. Because in those situations, it's not loving to support me and enable me to continue down the wrong path because I'm being disobedient and irresponsible. Now, we'll get into that in 2 Thessalonians. We don't have to say that in a condemning or judgmental way, but in a loving way that calls them to accept their responsibility. There's an attitude today that claims I'm foolish to settle for a job that is less than stellar and rewarding every moment of every day. I see this in young people a lot today. There's this attitude that I couldn't possibly start at the bottom of the totem pole as the admin assistant or whatever and work my way up because my job should be rewarding and fulfilling and recognize my full potential and creative insight. I want to have the kind of a job that is a sheer delight every moment of every day, and all my coworkers are constantly commending me for how brilliant I am. And if I can't have that kind of job, well then I'll move back to my parents' basement and let them take care of me. Because you couldn't expect me to get a job like that where I have to work the night shift or wait on tables or something. If you can find a job that is rewarding and that you would do it even if you weren't getting paid to do it, great, go for it and thank God that He gave it to you. But if you can't find such a job, if your only opportunity is to find a job that you will only do because it puts food on the table, then you ought to do it. It is better to be responsible and put food on the table. And if that means cleaning floors or making coffee or waiting tables or whatever, if that is your best option at this season in your life, then do it. Say this is what God has given me for today, and I will do it for his honor. I will do it in a way that brings glory to his name, and then you wait and trust and see what God has in mind for the future. I think Paul really set an example for this. He traveled all over as an evangelist, but he didn't rely on the hospitality of strangers. He still worked at his tent making at the kind of job that just paid his bills. In the beginning of the letter, Paul reminded the Thessalonians how he worked when he was with them. He didn't want the Thessalonians to think he was spreading the gospel in order to get their money, so he worked while he preached to them. He set an example for them. Would it have been easier to give up that tent making stuff and preach full time? Well, absolutely. But Paul wanted to teach them a lesson of love and responsibility, and that meant in his situation, working while preaching was the best way to do it. We might look at this kind of advice Paul's giving here and think he's just explaining basic morality, like maybe he's being moralistic or giving us practical rules to live by. And you might say, well, he's just coming to the same conclusions many thinkers and theologians have come to. While this is good advice, I think Paul is concerned with something more fundamental. I think he's telling them, look at where your heart is. We are called to be holy. We are called to pursue the things of God. When we embrace the gospel and come to faith in Jesus Christ, we begin to look at the world the way God does. We begin to want to be like Him in our values. Now, of course, we're going to fail and we're going to struggle in that pursuit, but that's still where we're headed. The bottom line is do I believe God or not? Do I believe that salvation is to be found in becoming like Jesus and wanting that from my heart? God has promised us that one day we will fully reflect his holy character. And today I ought to be able to recognize that the path of the world is different than the path of God. When it comes to my sexual behavior, there's a way to live that reflects God's values and a way that doesn't. When it comes to my finances, there's a way to live that reflects God's ideas and a way that doesn't. And these things matter. These choices I make not only make a difference in my daily life, they reflect who I'm trusting, what I'm counting on, if I genuinely have faith or not. I think Paul's motivation here, or at least the motivation behind these commands, is not get your act together. The motivation is believe the gospel and live like what God says is true. Believe what your real problem is and where the real solution is to be found. Sexual immorality and financial irresponsibility are damaging. They have serious negative consequences. But the bigger question behind those issues is rejecting or accepting the God who says, this is what's right and this is what's wrong. That has eternal negative consequences. That's dangerous to my soul. Yes, there is mercy for the one who fails both sexually and financially and repents. There is grace for those who recognize their folly and turn and repent. There is grace and mercy and forgiveness for those who seek God, overflowing grace and mercy. The crucial important question is: do I really want what God wants? Do I want the promises of God or all the goodies this world has to offer? Am I content with the boundaries he's placed on my life because I trust that he will grant me a place in his kingdom? So Paul's concern here is not the moral reformation of society, but the personal transformation of my heart in the truth of the gospel. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. This is the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. All the previous episodes in this series are on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There's no charge, no spam, and no ads. It's all free to help you improve your understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe. Leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, because that really does help other people find the podcast. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope I see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.