- Point out the inadequacy of this mornings image
of the Christian life.
Two problems:
- It left the impression that we feel desperate
and trapped upside down half-way out the plane. It doesn't look
like a peaceful or calm image of the Christian life.
- Nor does it picture us as very free for others,
but totally wrapped up in saving ourselves.
- But we know Paul is interested in our calmness
and peace right to the end of this letter.
3:16 -- Peace in every way and in all circumstances.
Knowing that the cable will hold (objective assurance), and that
we have been chosen for salvation and called to obtain glory (subjective
assurance), gives us peace, even though there is still struggle
at times to believe as we ought.
- We also know that God does not want us so wrapped
up in our own struggle for salvation that we cannot serve others.
2:16-17 -- The truth is that the unbreakable cable
of God's truth has a grip on us as well as we on it, and that
there is comfort -- eternal because unbreakable -- and there is
hope -- good because certain and glorious -- which God fully intends
to empower us for good works and good words.
- How does this work -- how does the sanctification
of good works come from eternal comfort and good hope?
This morning I stressed the way the desperate clinging
to salvation makes other claims upon our allegiance seem utterly
insignificant.
But there must also be a positive impulse -- not
loving money will free you from the need to accumulate it, but
what will move you actively to work for the good of others --
it's one thing to become a hermit who needs no money and another
to become an evangelical entrepreneur to fund the fifty aspiring
missionaries at Bethlehem.
How does saving faith produce that?
2:17 says it does: comfort and hope establish our
hearts in good works.
Four ways hope in God produces good works:
- Our admiration of the mercy of God as the goal
of our hope creates a conflict of soul in us now if we do not
do those works of mercy which show that we truly love and delight
in this character of God. We feel an impulse to rid ourselves
of this conflict and act in a way that shows how we are truly
in love with the way Christ really is: we really do "love
mercy" (Micah 6:8). See 1 John 3:1ff.
- Our sense of joy at having experienced the grace
of God and our anticipation of knowing it to the full in the age
to come gives us an impulse to feel the thrill of overcoming obstacles
to goodness by the power of God's grace now. All humans like
to overcome finitude. Humanists like to do it in their own strength
as a way of confirming the greatness of their own ego. Christians
like to do it in God's strength to confirm his reality in threir
lives.
- Hope in God is confidence that he not only is
powerful and good, but also that he is wise and therefore knows
the best future for us. Therefore if we trust him, we will follow
his counsel and do the works of mercy that he commanded.
- The joy we have in knowing ourselves accepted
and forgiven and commissioned to glory by God is enlarged and
deepened when we share it with other people. So we have a built
in impulse to share the pope we have that it may be better.
- 3:1-2 illustrates this principle that eternal
comfort and good hope frees and empowers for concerns that are
wider than our own private salvation.
Paul wants them to give themselves to prayer for
the wider progress of the gospel. And he seem to appeal to their
own experience as the impulse: "as it has with you."
The mark of a healthy Christian is enlarging vision
for the cause of the Gospel.
- Note that this verse (3:1) also serves as a corrective
for those who might take 2:1-12 as so pessimistic that they basically
develop and survival mentality and withdraw from the battle for
the allegiances of men.
The gospel is going to triumph and the "full
number of the gentiles is going to come in" (Rom. 11) and
"this gospel will be preached throughout the whole world
to all the nations, then the end will come" (Mt. 24).
How we should pray together in the manner of "Prayer
87."
- Paul really believed in the cruciality of prayer
for the preservation of gospel ministers.
3:2 -- See Rom. 16:31 and Phil. 1:19.
This verse implies the willingness and ability of
God to intervene in the lives of unbelievers to hinder their hostilities
toward Paul as he pleases.
- But now in verse 3 Paul illustrates the principle
of love in his writing as he quickly returns to their concerns
for his. What does the faithfulness of God guarantee for us?
1 Thess.5:23-24; 1 Cor. 1:8-9; 10:13
He will see that his elect are brought to glory with
the necessary holiness. His faithfulness is his commitment to
his call -- see 1 Thess. 2:12 and 2 Thess. 2:14.
NOT that God will keep them from suffering as chapter
one showed. Just from that suffering that they will not be able
to endure in faith!!!
- This confidence in God's faithfulness gives Paul
confidence in the obedience of the Thessalonians.
. . .which shows that his faithfulness is a pledge
to sanctify (2:13).
- And this confidence in God's working in them
the obedience he pleases (Heb.13:21; Phil. 2:12f) leads Paul to
prayer for them.
Confidence in God's work does not eliminate prayer;
it strengthens it and encourages it. God intends to use prayer
for our preservation.
- What does it mean to have your heart directed
to the love of God and the endurance of Christ?
It means that God sanctifies us by the Spirit (2:13)
by focusing our attention on the love of God and the steadfastness
of Christ so that we will have the eternal comfort and good hope
that he prayed for in 2:16.
- Verses 6-15 deal with the problem of undisciplined
living, and in particular idleness. This may well relate to the
near expectation of the coming of the Lord.
Verse 11 states the problem:
- There are really two issues.
- How to live as the world ends: what is the role
of work?
- How do you relate to those who won't follow Paul's
instruction in this?
- First, What do you do with those who will not
work, but mooch off the others?
- Admonish him as a brother not an enemy (v. 15).
- Don't hobnob with him and act as though there
were no problem (vv. 6, 14).
- Don't feed him if he won't work (v. 10).
- Second what does God expect of us as the world
ends in relation to our work?
- Work in tranquillity and eat our own bread (v.12).
- Not to burden other people (v. 8).
- To deny ourselves legitimate rights if it will
do more good for others (v. 9).
- Is there a Protestant work ethic in the Bible?
Yes. But it is very different from the secular work
ethic?
It is not to prove my self-reliance but my affirmation
of God's order of creation (Adam, work!) and my reliance on God
for the power to earn (Deut. 8:18).
I must constantly have a view to the world and not
putting any stumbling block in the way of the gospel (1 Thess
4:11-12)
- Conclusion: In the face of a gathering storm
in chapter two the instructions of chapter three are remarkably
domestic and ordinary.
Perhaps that will be the best testimony in those
days -- a strong hope in God, a warm love for Jesus, a productive
life in the service of others, with peace in every way and all
the time (v. 16).