The Desire To Do Good

The Desire to do Good

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

“It is a loss, perhaps, to give to a man who wastes, but it will be a greater loss not to give at all!”

Charles Spurgeon

Jesus told believers that “from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). When we count our blessings and name them one by one are we not blessed beyond all measure? As redeemed masterpieces of His grace who have received every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 2:8-9, 1:3) and divine comfort of inestimable value (2 Corinthians 1:4), surely Christ’s command to take care of the widows, feed, and cloth the poor of this world are the least we ought to do in His name to please Him (Matthew 25:40)! And yet there is a hesitancy even in the “eminently peaceable, honest, upright, gracious and Christlike church” to give out of their abundance to a world that is steeped in sin. While we know it is through our generosity that we not only fulfill Christ’s command to love our neighbor but also point them to God’s love (Matthew 22:37-40), is it right to provide for the necessities of life such as food, water, clothes, paying a hydro bill, or buying a tank of gas for someone who in the past used our generosity as the means to free up funds to buy drugs, alcohol or other frivolous items of great pleasure? And if the person is not receptive to the Gospel message through our giving, are we not casting our precious pearls of hard-earned treasures before the swine of indifference (Matthew 7:6)?

Does Christ really want us to give to the “takers” of this world who can work but refuse to do so to support themselves? But on the flip side if we only give to those “we deem worthy” are we not judging them harshly and even hypocritically when we won’t offer others an ounce of grace when we have received from our Master the unmerited, eternal, and unspeakable grace of our salvation? The following sermon is going to review Apostle Paul’s words to the church of Thessalonica concerning how to give in a God honoring way that is both generous but at the same time as good stewards of all that we have received from our Lord!

The “Takers” at Thessalonica

In his letter to the church of Thessalonica Apostle Paul wrote concerning what to do with those who could work but instead chose to “live” off the generosity of the church. There arose within the church a “class of people” that were “idle” refusing to work for a variety of reasons. For some they were simply lazy and preferred to be taken care of. Others felt the Day of the Lord was rapidly approaching so why work? Some were influenced by Greek culture that saw manual labour as demeaning and yet others refused to work because they wanted to spend all their time promoting the spiritual welfare of the church. While the last reason seems to have some merit the fruits of their labor proved that their motives were not holy for Paul called them unproductive, irresponsible, “busy-bodies” (verse 11) that were disrupting the body of Christ while “feeding off of their generosity.” Paul told them if they truly wanted to promote the spiritual well being of the church then they ought to follow his example and do so without compensation from the body of Christ to prove that they were indeed not motivated by avarice (1 Thessalonians 2:5). Paul is not saying that ordained servants of the Lord were not worthy of being paid (1 Corinthians 9:4-14) but merely that those wanted to be busy-bodies and get paid for doing so should not be compensated but disciplined. Paul instructed the body of Christ to neither “eject or excommunicate the minority nor to admire them secretly and adopt the same practices” but instead to warn those “brothers and sisters” and to no longer associate with them to bring them to shame and repentance (verses 14-15).

“In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” and with a ring of authority like that of a military commander, as God’s servant through Christ Paul commands the church of Thessalonica to discipline those who refuse to work. This command did not come from the “cold rule of an autocrat” but from the warm affection of a friend who truly desired the church to embrace their “corporate responsibility” as one body to do what they could to get the fallen to conform to Christian moral teaching in this matter (Matthew 18:7; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13). Paul did not want the church at Thessalonica to become bitter at the “takers” and excommunicate them, or become envious and join them, or become frustrated or bitter and stop giving to anyone at all; but instead Paul instructed them to do all they could to bring the offenders to repentance. The process of correction in the Bible is called discipline. We are shown we are part of God’s family when the Father in love “puts on spiritual braces” in our mouths, hearts, and minds to realign our character to reflect His glory. Since it was a necessary part of their spiritual development Paul recommended the church to be God’s arm of discipline by reading his letter publically to shame them, refuse to give to them any money of food and to have limited contact with them. This discipline was not to be done to be harsh or in a sense of presumed holiness but was to be humbly applied to the offenders to spur them on to repentance and subsequent restoration. Since the “identity of a person was bound intimately with the group to which he or she belonged to” public shame and little interaction with the body of Christ was in Paul’s mind sufficient to discipline and promote the repentance of the “takers.”