Ever met someone who “always had their head in the clouds”? Understood so much theory, they could never actually put it into practice? Ever met a Christian who was like that, maybe about a certain theological position?

It’s like the old Johnny Cash song…

You’re shining your light, and shine it you should
But you’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

That kind of person may spend lots of time reading/studying the Bible, but they’re missing the point. The Bible is our God-given guide to the entirety of life—how we should think, and therefore the way we should act. Yes, it’s deep, intellectual, talking about the realities of the universe, but then it immediately applies that knowledge to the realities of everyday life.

That’s what’s happening here in chapter 4.

…we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God—as you are doing—do this even more.

1 Thessalonians 4:1

Living to please God… what a wonderful thought, but what does it actually mean, Bro. Paul? Well, he covers three areas of life, all issues we all face.

LAST WEEK: Sex

Keep away from sexual immorality, anything outside of God’s design of one man, one woman, covenant for life.

End of verse 5, we shouldn’t be dominated by lustful passions, like those who don’t know God.

NEXT WEEK: Grieve (w/ hope)

Is that not a huge part of life? (The older you get, the more it will be.)

Let’s read God’s Word together.

About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded yoo that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.

1 Thessalonians 4:9–12

Doesn’t get much more practical than that, does it?!

It seems in the greater context that Paul is addressing some group in the church at Thessaloniki that had given up on working, perhaps because they thought Jesus’ return would be any day. working.

Verses 9–10

About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more,

1 Thessalonians 4:9–10

“brotherly love”

philadelphia, word was used to refer to your actual family only. The Bible uses it over and over… because ==we are actual family.== It’s not a metaphor.

”taught by God”

If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar.

1 John 4:20

That’s a pretty bold statement.

”do this even more”

Bible translation is good work, but it’s hard work. New Testament Greek sentences can be way longer than English sentences, so you have to break them up if you want it to make any sense.

Because of those differences, it’s easy for us to mistakenly think that it’s the end of a thought when it’s actually the thought continues. This is a great example of that.

It seems at first glance that verses 9–10 are about love, and then in verses 11–12 Paul move on to talk about work. It’s actually the opposite—it’s all one sentence in Greek. It’s going from the theoretical to the practical.

”seek to live a quiet life”

It’s irony is lost in translation. It’s a bold contradiction of terms, could be rendered in English “make it your ambition to have no ambition!”

So let’s talk about work for a little while.

Ever heard of the Protestant Work Ethic? It’s a phrase coined in the early 1900s, but it’s a real thing.

But it’s really just a name someone gave for nothing more than rightly applying what the Scriptures say about this topic. And it actually says way more than most people think.

There’s a lot of talk about work in our culture right now, isn’t there?I hear all the time about how people don’t want to work, hard to find people, even harder to keep them. There’s lots of complicated societal reasons for that that we won’t get into.

But what is clear is that we need to recapture a biblical understanding of work.

Why are you going to work tomorrow (assuming you are)?

Why do we need this? Unless you have a biblical understanding of work, you will never find the rest that you need.

Biblical Truths about Work

1. Work is an act of love.

The functional reason you should do any job is because it helps other people.

This whole chapter on how to please God is other focused.

  1. Sexual purity is about loving/serving your spouse like only you can, as well as protecting your bro/sis from this sin by never going near it.
  2. Work is about loving/serving others
  3. Grief is about how to have hope when you lose someone you love.

The British pastor John Stott put the point this way:

Christian morality is not primarily
rules and regulations, but relationships.

John Stott

Relationship with God and relationship with others.

Did you have electricity this morning?

By doing his job and doing it well, Mike has served the hundreds of churches in southern Illinois. Thousands of kids in Sunday School rooms learning about Jesus where it’s warm and light.

Did you vote last election?

By doing his job and doing it well, Greg insured that we have free and fair elections. He’s serving all of us when he does that.

God says, “Love people.” How? Work.

2. All work is valuable.

Last week, talked about the Greek philosophy that dominated the day, that the mind and spirit are a much higher level of existence than the body.

So when Paul says to glorify God with your body, that God cares about our bodies, and that He’s going to redeem our bodies, that’s the polar opposite of everything the culture believed.

If you think that the spiritual is good and the physical is bad, what do you think they thought about manual labor?

We see the same thing in our culture. Even just the way people are depicted in TV and movies. It all shows the underlying assumption that people who deal in ideas, people who go to college, people who work an office job are smarter than people who work with their hands.

I feel the change coming, but for now that’s the way it is. And it’s wrong. He tells them right here, “Work with your own hands.”

You’re going to drive home on roads today that someone built. Painted it. Patrols it. Plows it. Inspects it.

You ever make a joke about someone’s profession before you knew that’s what they did for a living? ==Claude & slow men working!==

Motivations Behind Our Work

We don’t work for money (alone).

We don’t work for identity.

But it’s so easy for it to sneak up on us.

My identity is not found in being a pastor, being a good preacher. But can I be honest? It took me until Wednesday to get over how last Sunday’s message went. Ironic that God would have this message next for me. “Hey you, your identity, value, self-worth is not supposed to be in how well you communicate.”

If you do work just for money or status, work will always become either ==too important or too unimportant== in your life.You’ll either be a workaholic or not care at all.

A. We work to reflect God’s image.

When I’m writing sermon, communicating well, reflecting God’s image that he communicates truth in effective ways for life change.

When Jena & Tammy teach, reflecting a God of knowledge and order, not chaos. And a Savior who said, “Let the little children come, and don’t you stop them, and if you want to be a part of the Kingdom, you have to come the very same way.”

No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth.

Dorothy Sayers

Reflecting his image to the world

I like the way the NLT puts it.

Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.

1 Thessalonians 4:12

B. We work to please God.

Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people

Colossians 3:22–23

Christian, you don’t work for your boss. You’re not a slave to your market segment, not to your supervisor. You’re working for him.

That changes things, doesn’t it? If God is my supervisor, I can’t scratch my lunch break lunch break out. The boss on vacation, do things you wouldn’t think about doing in a normal week. God does not go on vacation! (thank goodness!)

==There’s a big difference between living to please god and living to appease God.==

Conclusion

Are you working to please God, or appease Him?

If you’re an employer, are you making it easy/possible for people to do this kind of work?

Walmart Pickup, 100 items an hour

Would you describe your life as quiet? Would your family?

If not, what needs to change, in your heart and in your actions?

Are you minding your business?

Don’t be so concerned about what everybody thinks. Even the Jones’ can

Don’t be so concerned about making sure everybody knows what you think.

Are you putting in the effort to do work that you’re proud of?

Retired or not, still have things to do.