What We Owe One Another

1 Thessalonians 5:14-15

First Thessalonians chapter five
verses 14 and 15. This section of scripture we
started last week and got maybe one or two more in it. Speaks
of what we owe one another. Last week we looked at what we
owe our spiritual leaders. We owe them esteem. Today we
want to look at what we owe the weak, the weaker brothers and
sisters in the church. And then in the next two weeks
we’ll look at what we owe God in worship and then what we owe
God when we hear his word or his spirit speaking to us. And
then I think there’s a benediction at the end, and then it’ll probably
be about Thanksgiving time. Time for Psalm 60-something,
I think, is on my list. And then before we know it, it’ll
be 2025. So let’s give our attention to
God’s word, 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 14 and 15. This is the
apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, and he says, and we urge you,
brothers, to admonish the idle, to encourage the faint-hearted,
and to help the weak. Be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone
evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and
to everyone. Pray with me. Our Father, we
ask that your word would do its work, that its divine errand
from being read and preached and worked on in our hearts and
minds by your spirit would accomplish all that you desire, may it reclaim
the wandering, may it encourage the faint hearted, may it save
the lost, may it sanctify the saint, and may it make all of
us ready for the coming of our Lord Jesus at his second coming. Hear us, help us, and bless us.
We pray in Christ’s mighty name, amen. Some of you probably remember
back in Sunday school when you were little, you took your hands
and said, here is the church, right? Here is the steeple. Open
the door. I can’t do it. And you see all
the people. Do you remember that? People, people make up the church. People can be problems, right?
People can be fussy. All sorts of people are in the
church. We got all sorts of people from every tribe. Every tongue,
every nation. We have people from every socioeconomic
background, every educational level. We have people from this
station or providence in life and that station. And I mean,
not only this church, but the church as a whole around the
world. You have people who have wisdom,
some that lack it. You have people with sanctification
of many years. You have people who are just
beginning in the Christian life. All sorts of people together
can make for problems. It’s true in the life of the
church. Think of some book I had to read
years ago by one of the I don’t know, one of the 19th century,
one of those weirdo writers who was probably right, though they
were pagan. He said something like this. Hell is other people. His picture of hell was being
stuck with other people. That’s probably true if you think
of the DMV line. the driver’s license office,
maybe the IRS office, something like that. Maybe there’s some
absolute truth to that. But sometimes church can be difficult. Sometimes our relationships within
the body of Jesus Christ can be difficult, but that’s not
the way it ought to be. And so we want to think today
about what Paul says about the body of Jesus and what we owe
one another. So when we come to faith in Jesus,
we are united to Jesus Christ and we are united to one another. And so yes, we may be in a room
full of people, a church full of people, and yes, people can
be difficult. But what Paul is saying and what
we understand about the power of the gospel, the work of the
spirit is it doesn’t have to be that way or stay that way. For we understand the gospel,
the good news that God made man, He made us in his image and yes,
sin entered the world. Adam sinned against God and that
bent, it broke, it bruised mankind. But Christ, Christ comes and
he makes all things new. Christ comes and if anyone is
in Christ, we are new creations. We have the work of the spirit.
And so the church is the eternal church of God. It’s the gathering
of God’s people throughout the ages. into one body, into local
bodies, and we are all works of God under construction. I think of some years ago visiting
the Billy Graham Library, and it was soon after his wife had
passed away, I guess they’re both buried there now, but on
her headstone at the Billy Graham Library where she’s buried, it
said, construction ended, thanks for your patience. Only Mrs. Graham could get away with something
like that on her tomb, on her epitaph. But that’s the way it
is in the Christian life. We are under construction, under
the construction of God, the Holy Spirit, by the power of
his word. And yes, sometimes people cause
problems because people are people. And even in the church, we are
sinful people. Well, today we want to think
about another section of Paul’s church commands, we might call
them. Last week, we looked at What we owe leaders, we owe them
esteem. Today, we want to look at what we owe troubled folks
in the church. There’ll be three categories
of people bearing up under difficulty and what we’re to give them,
what we owe them. We’ll look next week at what
we owe God and worship, and then the next week, what we owe the
Holy Spirit in response to God’s teaching or training. But Christians,
people of faith in Jesus Christ, people who are united to Jesus
Christ and live among one another in fellowship in the church,
in the communion of saints. We owe each other our gifts and
graces. We owe one another the obedience
to all the one another’s in the Bible. A friend of mine counted
up all the one another’s and there’s like 80 maybe, love one
another, bear with one another. be patient with one another,
be kind to one another, on and on and on. We owe each other
obedience to Jesus one another’s. But today, I want us to see that
we owe one another, we are obligated to one another in that we should
see and meet the needs of our weaker brethren. And so three
categories here. You’ve got the idol, not the
thing you bow down to worship, We’ll explain idle in a minute.
We got the faint hearted and then we have the weak. So the
idle, we owe them our admonishment. The faint hearted, we owe our
encouragement. The weak, we owe our help. And in all these categories and
in all these functions of life in the church, we are to be patient
with one another. That’s the catch all. So let’s
think through together admonishing the idle, encouraging the faint
hearted, helping the weak, being patient with them all, and then
not repaying evil for evil, but seeking to do good to everyone.
So there’s five commands, three groups of people. So let’s think
first about admonishing the idol. As we minister one to another
in the life of the church, we are called to admonish the idol.
Now, idol is probably not a great translation here. Better word
might be disorderly. If you’re a police officer, and
we have a couple in the room, you’ve probably written up citations
for being drunk and disorderly, right? Maybe some of you have
served in the military, and hopefully it wasn’t you, but maybe one
of your comrades in the military was written up or reprimanded
or disciplined for being out of order, out of line, or conduct,
unbecoming a person. who is enlisted in the United
States military. So we understand what it means
to be disorderly. We understand what it looks like
to fall out of rank, to not be walking in a manner worthy of
the gospel. And in the life of the Thessalonian
church, and I’m sure many of us have seen it in the life of
the church we belong to from time to time, you will get idle
people. You will find disorderly people.
You will find people who are takers and not givers. They are
busy bodies, but they are doing nothing to edify, but only to
drag down the church. Now, don’t be writing down a
list of names and that sort of thing, but you get the idea.
These are folks who disrupt the church. Just like a person out
on the street is drunk and disorderly, or in the military, someone is
walking out of rank or acting in a way and becoming an officer,
that sort of thing. You find Christians not walking
in a manner worthy of the gospel and living out of step with the
spirit. Now, you know, from time to time,
Paul either runs off into athletic illustrations or military. And
very often when he uses a military rank, it’s a word like this.
An idle or disorderly person is not walking in rank or in
step with the army of God marching to the city of Zion. And you
get that picture, don’t you, from the Old Testament, you Wednesday
nighters. We’ve been thinking about Book of Numbers and Israel
and their 12 tribes. When the trumpet blows, they
pack up the tabernacle, they pack up the Ark of the Covenant.
All the right people do all the right things. And the people
of God march and rank and in order to the promised land. And
you remember when Jericho was locked up tight, Israel was camped
outside. The people were afraid of the
army of God. And we still should keep that
picture of God’s church, his church militant as an army, as
a mighty army of people making their way to the heavenly city.
And if we see one who is out of step, if we see one in the
body who is out of accord with the gospel, we are to admonish
them. Now, last week, we looked at
what we owe leaders. Leaders are those who labor in
the gospel among us. Leaders are those who have spiritual
oversight over us. But the one verb it used about
leaders is they are the ones who admonish us. That’s the word
that is a strong command to stop doing the wrong thing, do the
right thing. And so, yes, our leaders are to do that within
the context of the church, but we’re also to do that with one
another. You know, make your list in your sermon notes today,
and as soon as service over, go stick your finger into my
chest and say, you idler. Unless, of course, you know,
the shoe fits, right? But we are to do that. And we
do that in the context of friendships. We do that in the context of
relationships. Not everybody in the church knows
each other well, but some of you know each other well from
friendships or common things. Maybe you get coffee together,
you have something you do. And so that friendship, that
relationship and that trust is built. And so you can minister
to one another in this way. And that’s a great, good and
mighty thing when that does take place. So we’re to admonish the
idol. Next, we’re to encourage the
faint-hearted. And so as we minister one to
another, yes, admonishing the idol, we are also to encourage
the faint-hearted. Remember, Christianity is a team
sport. We live in a world that has isolated individuals. We’re ripping individuals out
of the family context. You don’t need a mom. You don’t
need a dad. You don’t need a nuclear family, especially to tell you
what to be and what to do, right? That’s bad in today’s culture.
But we remember God made the family. He put children into
the context of the family. And we don’t ever want to rip
children out of the family. We want to keep them in the family
because that’s where you learn the fear of the Lord and how to live
well on your own two feet in this world. But we’ve pulled
the individual out of the family. And the next thing we’ve done
is we’ve tried to erase the church. So really all you have left are
the state and the individual. Don’t y’all see that in the way
the school systems have gone? Don’t you see that in the way
culture has gone? You see that in children now. I believe two things importantly
have changed in the lives of children. One is that I believe
when you’re 13 years old, you can declare yourself to be your
own healthcare power of attorney. Your parents have no right to
your healthcare information after like age 13. The other thing
is we get kids in school sooner and sooner and we try to indoctrinate
them. quicker and quicker on what is a person, what’s a male,
what’s a female or lack thereof. Human sexuality, all those worldview
essentials they should be getting at home are being given in the
schools and then they’re given some wacky non-biblical view
that’s actually dangerous, deadly and demonic. And so we have isolated
the individual. And so when we are ministering
to one another as a team sport, one of the hurdles we have to
get over is that Individuals belong in a group. Individuals
belong in the church. Individuals belong in the company
of saints. Get this picture in your head. The Christian life is a marathon
and we run together. We encourage one another. We
have the hall of saints in heaven, like Hebrews 11 tells us. The
great cloud of witnesses cheering us on, but we have one another
as a church. Remember the book of Hebrews
says, while it is today, Let us encourage one another not
to forsake the assembling together, as some are in the habit of doing,
but let us all the more gather. And so we want to be in the context
of the family for sure, and in the context of the church, no
doubt, so that we can participate in our team sport and be encouraged
in this marathon. Another picture to have is the
pilgrimage, not just the pilgrimage of Israel through the wilderness
into the promised land, But you think of the pilgrimage that
the saints of old had as they made their way to Jerusalem for
the various year round feast. You think of baby or little boy
Jesus going to the temple. When the parents left and were
headed back to Nazareth, they couldn’t find him and he was
in God’s house. But that sacred gathering, that
sacred throng of people singing those sacred Jerusalem songs,
I was glad to hear them saying, let us go to the house of the
Lord. Let us go to Jerusalem and worship. So as Christians,
we’re in the church together, making our way to the heavenly
city, but some of us get tired. Some of us get fainthearted.
Some of us get, really, the literal meaning of fainthearted is small-souled. We can’t bear up under the pressures
of life in this world. And so our call is to encourage
the fainthearted. And that’s generally as a speaking
encouragement. We see someone who is gasping
for breath. We see one whose step is faltering. We see one whose faith is weak,
or they say, I can’t make it. We see one who needs a word. And so we who are weak need to
help the strong. We who are weak need the strong
to help us. And there’s a mutual encouragement. Yes, it’s hard to take admonishment.
It hurts, right? But faithful are the wounds of
a friend. And sometimes it’s hard to take help. We don’t want
to admit we’re weak. We don’t want to admit we have
slipped. We don’t want to admit that the weight of life has bent
us over. I think of Christmas coming and,
you know, we’ll zip through our regular singing of Christmas
hymns from the ages. And I think of that song, beneath
life’s crushing loads, forms are bending low. And we all come
into the church weak and wounded and sick and sore for sin and
its effects have dealt us blows. And yes, we are pardoned in Jesus.
Yes, our sin is subdued in the Holy Spirit. And yes, we can
live the Christian life, striving to live after the spirit and
not the flesh. But physical and spiritual things
do assault us and weigh us down. And so we are to encourage the
faint hearted. Some will argue here is a spiritual
encouragement or physical. I think it’s both. You know,
we pull up to church and, you know, we have handicap spaces.
You go down the hall in the Benny Hinn room, right? Y’all know
what that is? It’s the room full of crutches and wheelchairs and
if you ever need one, but we call it the Benny Hinn room because,
you know, somebody got healed and doesn’t need it anymore.
All that’s there. That’s the joke. If you hear
the Benny Hinn room. He’s not here. Don’t worry. We’re
not into that sort of thing. But anyway, there’s plenty of
stuff if you want to borrow it. But we make, you know, handrails
and wheelchair ramps. And if we see somebody pulling
up and we help them get out of the car, we make accommodations
for that, don’t we? How about spiritually? Do we
look at people and say, you know, so-and-so looks tired. All these
months of joblessness, all these months of sickness, all these
months of depression, all these months of strained relationships
in their extended family, whatever you know, can feed into how you
encourage the faint-hearted. And that leads us to the next
thing. We help the weak. And so as we minister one to
another, yes, we admonish the idle, we encourage the faint-hearted,
but we help the weak. Some people lag behind. Some
people physically, some people emotionally, some people in matters
of health or finance or upbringing or lack thereof, or just the
knocks and blows of life are weak and they lag behind and
they need our help. And so the idea here as Christians
is we look with discernment on one another. You know, one stretch
of my ministry, I was in a church that was, I don’t know, it was
rather homogenous. Is that the right word? Everybody’s
the same kind of? It’s kind of rich, upper middle
class, you know, waspy, whitey, you know, professionals, wives
didn’t work, everybody, you know, wives had yoga, men had their
jobs and, you know, a couple of new cars, three car garage,
somebody cut the yard. And I remember thinking pastorally,
where would a weak person fit in this church? Where would a
faint hearted person fit in this church? Where would someone who
had taken more body blows And of course you realize spiritually,
not everything that glitters is gold, right? You know, just
a happy looking life doesn’t necessarily mean it’s happy.
But the church ought to be a many and varied group of people. I
know birds of a feather flock together. And sometimes we go
to church because, you know, it’s our kind of people. A church
ought to be wide, right? It ought to be full of people
at different ages and stages. the Christian life at different
places in life, different backgrounds. And that’s where you can obey
these commands a little more. We can help the weak. We can
minister to the one who is lagging behind. And there’s all kinds
of ways this happens. Sometimes people go through protracted
family difficulties, or protracted illnesses, or long-term joblessness,
or ongoing financial burdens, or they go through spiritual
things that weigh them down. And that leads us to the next
command that I think is really a great coverall for church life. Be patient with them all. So the first three had a target,
right? You admonish the idle. You encourage
the faint-hearted. You help the weak. But be patient
with them all is a Kind of a catch-all, isn’t it? We are to show or minister
to others with a long fuse. We’re to be long-suffering. Blessed
are the merciful. Blessed are those who have patience. There’s plenty of opportunity
in life to exercise patience if you’re married with your spouse,
if you’ve got children with your kids, if you’re a grandparent
and the grandkids come over. If you are in the workplace and
maybe you’re the boss or the supervisor or you’re in customer
service, wherever you go, you get to practice patience or sometimes
people get to practice patience with you. Think of that, right? You’re the object lesson. But
as we minister to one another in physical or material ways,
as we minister to the hungry and to the hurting and to the
needy and the sick, or those without resources, as we are
the church, as the church, the support system of those bent
and bruised and broken by the fall, we have the privilege of
seeing and understanding and discerning and meeting needs.
We have the opportunity to show compassion. And yes, you may
say, It’s the umpteenth time this person has done this. You
may say, when are they ever going to get it? Right? You may say,
golly, gee, here we go again. Same song, a different dance. Whatever it is we say in our
mind. And the privilege and the obligation we have in the church
is to keep on serving, to keep on helping, to keep on lifting
up those who for some reason under the bruises and the bentness
and the brokenness of the fall within the church body need our
patience. And so we see needs, we analyze
them, we assess and understand needs and we are merciful and
we show compassion. I wanna tell you, if you are
living in the church and you are seeing and meeting needs,
it’s probably a terrible way to put it, but I think there
is an encouraging rush There is a spiritual high when you
know in your head and in your heart that a need was met for
that person through your hands or perhaps through your secret
gift or through your patience or through your coming alongside
that person and saying, I see your need and I want to walk
with you through it. What an encouragement that is for the
person. But I want to tell you, if God gives you that privilege,
you will never have a greater one in this life. Not to mention
the crowns and the rewards in heaven that you will lay at Jesus’
feet. And so there is all the reason for us to see and meet
needs within the life of the church and to use your gifts
and to use your abilities. Now there’s another catch-all.
Seek to it that no one repays evil for evil. Seek to do good
to everyone. You know, we like to repay evil
for evil, don’t we? Especially on social media. So-and-so
said something not too nice about me. So I’m gonna say something
nice, not nice back, right? I’m gonna get a little dig in,
give a little jab. You know, somebody’s tailgating
us, we’re riding down the road, so we tap the brakes. I was somewhere
the other day and I heard an older guy said, yeah, I had a
big spike put on my trailer hitch. So next time somebody rides me,
it’s gonna put a hole right through their radiator. It’s like, boy.
And he was a Christian. I said, well, that’s a great
idea, but I probably wouldn’t do that. But remember the little thing,
you know, here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the
doors and you see all the people. And sometimes people aren’t nice.
You know, we peck at each other. You know, we’re like a kennel
full of dogs nipping at each other. We’re like horses kicking
at each other for the hay or whatever image you want to put
in your mind. And, you know, if it weren’t
for the people, church would be easy. My job would be easy.
The elder’s job would be easy. But no, God has put us together
as a congregation of people on the pathway to redemption. And
yes, sometimes it’s difficult. But if it weren’t for Jesus,
if it weren’t for him setting his affection upon each of us,
loving us from eternity past, leaving the riches of heaven,
thou who was rich beyond all splendor, who for our sakes became
as poor, We sing that, Paul says it in the letter to the Corinthians.
He became poor that we might have the riches of heaven. If
it weren’t for Jesus seeking not to repay evil for evil, but
seeking to do good, where would we be? Where would we be without
the suffering servant who came in this world And he was despised
and he was rejected by men. He was spat upon. He was kicked. He was beaten. He was bruised.
He was speared in the side. He was nailed to a tree. And
yet he did not open his mouth. He did not repay evil for evil. The scriptures tell us that in
Jesus earthly ministry, he saw people under the burdens of sin
in this world. And he didn’t say, you know what?
they had their chance back in the garden. He didn’t say, you
know, this is the umpteenth time. He didn’t say all the stuff we
do. He had compassion on them and he served them richly. And
that’s what he calls you and I to do within the church body.
He calls us to see and to understand and to meet needs. And we have
a heavenly father who’s taught us well. He knows our frame. He does not treat us as our sins
deserves. He remembers that we are dust. but he sends his son to seek
and to save the lost. And it’s our job to seek and
to save, yes, save those in the church who are hurting. Let’s
seek his face now for his help and blessing. Pray with me. Our
Lord and God, we thank you that you have gently treated us. You’ve
given us a yoke that is easy, a burden that is light. And we
who have plenty, out of those rich stores of spiritual growth,
of maturity in the faith, and even earthly resources, may we
submit them to you so that we can help others, and grab the
hand, help the heavy heart, dry the tears, and comfort with the
comfort with which we have been comforted. Help us to see these
opportunities and to shine brightly as your under-shepherd, your
bond-servants. Perhaps you have ordained that
we be a gift to others. And so help us to see and meet
that need in the name of Christ. We pray it in his name. Amen.
We want to respond to God’s word by singing another rendering
of Psalm 24. Rejoice. I believe that’s the
one. Rejoice, you pure in heart. Let’s stand to sing together.