We are quickly coming to the end of the first of Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians.
• But there is still one message that He wants to make clear.
• That message is to make sure that these new converts live a life that pleases God.
• So Paul is giving them some final instructions.
• Paul is reminding his converts that God calls believers to live holy lives,
• To separate themselves from sexual immorality and lusts (vv. 3–8).
• He urges them to love each other and all the brothers even more than they do now (vv. 9–10)
• And he reminds them of the importance of honest work (vv. 11–12).
Read 4:1-12
The word finally, was not intended to announce the conclusion of the letter,
• It introduces the final major section of the letter.
• These chapters deal with “what is lacking in your faith” (3:10).
• Paul is reminding his readers of the words
• That he spoke to them while he was with them.
• He is moving from their present condition
• To the next stage of their spiritual development.
• They had responded to Paul’s teaching on Christian living.
• This section covers three aspects of proper Christian living:
• 1 conduct; / 2 sexual purity and / 3 brotherly love.
Key verse. 4:1: A Life worth living is a life Worth working at.
Personal application. If the world, can’t see God’s demonstrated in our daily life, Through our behavior, then God hasn’t been seen.
• We need to live lives that please God
Paul First deals with ethical behavior, in particular holiness (4:1–8)
• In life Everyone seems to live to please someone:
• Either themself, their spouse, their parents, their child, their God, or someone else.
• Paul is saying that the motive for Christian living is to please God (cf. 2:4)
• And we do this by doing His will.
• A lot of people regard the Christian life as a set of rules that we need to follow,
• or a list of things to avoid;
• But Paul saw the Christian life as how we show our desire to please God
• Because it was God who had chosen him (1:4).
• His attitude helped prepare his readers to respond positively to his instructions.
The people were already doing this,
• Paul’s purpose was to encourage them to do what they were already doing only better.
• We should never be satisfied with our spiritual achievements
• Our lives as Christians is one of never ending growth.
• There is always something more to learn, / something more to do, and / someone else to serve.
• We can find true joy in this.
• We need to view Life as a challenge,
• Because when we view life as a challenge we always have something to look forward to in the future.
• There’s always something to do.
Paul instructs them that to be able to do God’s work we must remain Holy
• It means being sanctified.
• This Christian word refers to the ongoing process of becoming increasingly free from sin and filled with love.
• To be sanctified means to belong to God and to show the same character as God.
• One aspect of holiness that needed to be stressed to the Thessalonians was,
• Complete avoidance of sexual immorality.
Paul is making it very clear that these people need to refrain from sexual sin.
• This refers to all kinds of sexual intercourse other than that which takes place within the marriage relationship.
• The morals in the Roman Empire at the time weren’t healthy.
• Immorality was a way of life;
• And, thanks to slavery, people had the leisure time to indulge in the latest pleasures.
• The Christian message of holy living was new to this culture,
• And it wasn’t easy for these young believers to fight the temptations that were going on around them.
• Sexual immorality is wrong because it involves taking advantage of other people.
• To commit adultery is to attempt to break up an existing relationship and the bond of love within a marriage,
• And because of this it can be seen and fairly described as wronging a brother.
Now part of understanding and reading the Bible is being able to put it all in perspective.
• To take the message Paul is writing and be able to apply it to our daily lives.
• At the time Sexual Immorality was running wild in the pagan community.
• So Paul was addressing this issue.
But in todays society we need to take the instructions of
• Never harm or cheat a Christian brother” and apply it to our times,
• How do these instructions fit into the world we live in,
• We need to ask ourselves what would Paul be putting in our face as a way to improve.
A few of those instructions could include
• Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in business, sales
• Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in friendship, it’s a relationship
• Never harm or cheat a Christian brother by using them for your own personal gain, whether in popularity, monetary, or power
Some instructions for Christians come through their brothers in Christ.
• They are taught to us
• But other lessons are taught by God to His children directly,
• Things that just seem right for a Christian to do.
• Loving other Christians is one of those lessons.
• When we become a Christian we quickly learn that there is a connection between believers,
• And they relate to other Christians in a way that they don’t relate to those outside of God’s family.
• The Thessalonians had already learned to love each other
• Even though they were new Christians.
• Paul pointed out that God Himself had taught them this.
There are 3 lessons that we can learn from this chapter
First thing we have to understand is that Paul
• Didn’t have to teach the Thessalonians this
• He didn’t need to write and tell them to love one another,
• But he did need to write and urge them to do this more and more (cf. v. 1).
• The evidence that they had learned the lesson of brotherly love was obvious
• Through their deep, selfless, giving affection for Christians in others parts of their province of Macedonia.
• Yet there was still room for improvement, perhaps in the persistence and consistency of their love.
• A Christian who strives to be at peace with himself and with God will be a source of peace to his brothers.
• Such quietude constitutes a practical demonstration of love for others.
The Second thing we notice is, Paul recommended minding our own business.
• This is something that the world has lost control of
• We are constantly sticking our noses into other peoples business
• We do it at work / home / with our friends / our spouses
• We do it with our parents / our children
• Basically with anyone who will listen to us and some that won’t
But when we stick our noses in other peoples business
• What we are really doing is judging them
• What we are saying is that We don’t like the way they are doing something
• And we feel that they should be doing things more like us
Mt 7:3 And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?
Mt 7:4 How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?
Mt 7:5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
• Jesus is telling us that we can’t tell someone else how to do something when we ourselves have so many faults.
Because Christians belong to the same family, and we have the same Father,
• We should love one another.
• In fact, we are “taught by God to love one another.”
• God the Father taught us to love each other when He gave Christ to die for us on the cross.
• “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19, NIV).
• God through His Son taught us to love one another when He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another” (John 13:34).
• And the Holy Spirit taught us to love one another when He poured out the love of God in our hearts when we trusted Christ. (Rom. 5:5)
Have you noticed that animals do instinctively what is necessary to keep them alive and safe?
• Fish do not attend classes to learn how to swim (even though they swim in schools),
• Birds don’t have to learn how to fly
• It’s nature that determines action.
• They just put out their wings and flap them in order to fly.
• Because a fish has a fish’s nature, it swims;
• Because a hawk has a hawk’s nature, it flies.
• And because a Christian has God’s nature (2 Peter 1:4),
• he loves, because “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
Faith, hope, and love
• Were the distinctive characteristics of the Thessalonican Christians from the beginning .
• Timothy had reported the good news of their love (1 Thes. 3:6),
• So Paul wasn’t correcting them to teach them something they already knew.
• He was encouraging them to get more of what they already had and enjoyed.
• You can never have too much Christian love.
• Paul had prayed that their love might “increase and abound”; and God had answered that prayer.
Finally the third lesson we see here is
• Working with one’s own hands demonstrates love for our brothers and sisters
• Because someone who isn’t afraid of working with their hands is a self-supporting person
• And they aren’t a burden to others.
• Paul himself set the example by working with his hands when he was in Thessalonica.
• Living a to restful life can be a problem / Laziness can be a problem
• And Paul was warning them to avoid this kind of lifestyle.
• The reference also suggests that many, perhaps most, in the church came out of the working class.
• The Greeks hated manual labor and made the slaves do as much as possible.
• But the Jews held it in esteem;
• Every Jewish boy was taught a trade regardless of his family’s wealth.
• Work itself is a blessing, and working with one’s hands should never be despised by Christians.
• A man who is willing to work with his hands shows his love for his brothers and sisters by being willing to humble himself.
• Nobody in the church is beyond or to good to work with their hands
• This verse shows that we all are called to manual labor.
So what does this mean for the church of today
• It means that nobody is to good to do God’s work
• We all have been called
• We all have been called to preach, / teach, / serve.
• We all have been called to evangelize the lost.
• Some feel that these jobs fall on the shoulders of just 1 or 2 people
• That it is the Pastor’s job to go out and make a difference / or the Elders / or the deacons
• But what we have to understand is everyone is called to do these things
Closing
• The transition from holiness to love is not a difficult one.
• Paul made this transition in his prayer at the end of chapter 3
• Just as God’s love is a holy love,
• Our love for God and for one another should motivate us to live holy lives.
• The more we live like God, the more we will love one another.
