2 Thessalonians 3:6-15
Now turn in your copy of the
scriptures to 2 Thessalonians 3, 5 through 15. This is a marathon
passage that jumps us right ahead to the end of our book. We’ll
look in the next week or so at the very end of Thessalonians,
and the plan is to move into 1 and 2 Corinthians. Several
years ago, we went through Luke’s gospel account of the life and
ministry of Jesus. Then afterwards, we went through
Luke’s account of the acts of the apostles. And then the method
to our madness, minus a couple breaks in the year for different
things, has been to follow the letters of Paul through the chronological, their chronological writing and
the life and events. And so after Thessalonians comes
1st and 2nd Corinthians. In fact, Paul writes, perhaps
first Thessalonians from Athens, but probably from Corinth. And
then he writes second Thessalonians from Corinth, where he had spent
an 18 month ministry. So here now God’s word, second
Thessalonians chapter three, beginning at five. First, let’s
ask for God’s help and blessing, pray with me. Lord, unless you
open eyes and unstop ears, and unless you soften hearts, we
cannot hear, we cannot perceive, and we cannot believe. We know
that your word, it calls people out of darkness
into light. It saves people from everlasting punishment to everlasting
life. And so we ask that you would
do that today. We also know that your word sanctifies, it comforts,
and it builds up. So we ask that it would run that
errand as well. Hear us and help us as your word
is read and proclaimed, we pray in Jesus’ great name, amen. So
2 Thessalonians 3 beginning at verse 5 says, now we command
you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. that you keep
away from any brother who is walking in idleness, and not
in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For
you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were
not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread
without paying for it. But with toil and labor we work
night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.
It was not because we do not have that right, but to give
you and ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we
were with you, we would give you this command. If anyone is
not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some
among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.
Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ
to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. As
for you, brothers, who do not grow weary in doing good, if
anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note
of that person. Have nothing to do with him that they may
be ashamed. And do not regard him as an enemy,
but warn him as a brother. Amen. A tough word, but one we
need to hear. So if I mentioned to you the
name Elon Musk, emotional noise goes off in your heads, right?
His name, oh, it angers people, it excites others. I did a little
read up on him a while ago before he became famous or infamous.
As a young man in college, he said, what does the world need
that I might be able to offer? And so his passion was for the
internet, it was for renewable energy, and also for space exploration. pretty admirable. Most of us
were not thinking that way in college, perhaps not thinking
at all. As you know, he has excelled
in the world of electric vehicles. His fame started with PayPal,
I believe, the payment processing system. He’s great at satellite
communications and rockets and renewable energy, and I think
he’s even made a foray into, what is it, AI, artificial intelligence. But in the last couple years,
we have seen his philosophy or his work ethic applied to both
Twitter and our wonderful government. And those are the two areas that
have probably brought the most consternation to people. When
he bought Twitter and transitioned it to X, he laid off 80% of his
workforce. Boy, what a popular guy. I think
he forgot to read, is it Dale Carnegie? How to Win Friends
and Influence People. But he laid off 80% of his workforce,
saying there was a lot of redundancy. That means 80% of his people
were redundant. That’s not good for self-esteem.
And he’s admitted, I’m a harsh person. I’m a critical person. And you heard some things a couple
years ago. We don’t need avocado toast in
the break room. You know, we don’t need safe
spaces and we don’t need personal days for our cat to go get therapy,
that kind of business. He believes in hard work. He
believes in long hours, even 80 to 100 hour weeks. But mainly
he believes in productivity. And today as we think about work,
as we think about Paul’s command to the Thessalonians and to us
as believers, we need to think of that word productivity. God
has made us to be productive people, not unproductive. He’s
made us to be people who contribute to the world. Back in 2018, before
Musk was such a controversy and everybody loved his electric
vehicles, right? Remember those days? Oh, he’s the greatest electric
vehicles. Now you can’t get rid of one,
can you? Especially because the scratches on them. But long before
he was hated for Twitter and Doge, he said of working at his
company Tesla, there are way easier places to work, but no
one has ever changed the world on a 40-hour workweek. We live in a time, maybe the
past 100, 150 years, where we have trimmed our workweek down
to a government standard. Right? Entrepreneurs can’t do
a 40-hour workweek. If you’re self-employed, you
can’t do a 40-hour workweek. If you are working and have children
and family and a garden and all kinds of things, you know what
hard work is. You wake up before you want to
and you stay up past your bedtime. And in the Thessalonian context,
you’ve got an issue with productivity. You’ve got an issue where perhaps
current cultural trends have landed the Thessalonian Christians
in a similar context to where we are today. The people in Thessalonica
are walking in idleness. The people at Thessalonica are
out of step with Christian teaching and perhaps a Christian work
ethic. In fact, Paul’s going to call
them busybodies. Back when I was growing up, if brother or sister
called you a busybody or a busy something else, that was not
a term of endearment. But in the Thessalonian church,
there is this persistent problem with people who are idle. And
so I want us to think today about a work ethic that pleases Christ. Other places, perhaps Colossians,
Paul is going to say, we should work heartily as unto the Lord. He’ll say in the Corinthians,
uh, we should, uh, whatever we eat, whatever we drink, whatever
we do, we should do it to the glory of God. And so we need
a work ethic that pleases Christ. Yes. One that pleases the boss,
but ultimately pleasing Christ. Uh, we need a work ethic that
does not drag others down. That perhaps is the issue that
we don’t have clarity. Uh, but that perhaps is the issue
at the Thessalonian church is the, the moochers, Right? That’s a good word, isn’t it?
Moochers. Y’all know what a moocher is? Many the moocher. Moochers,
they mooch. Right? That’s a verb, isn’t it?
They sponge. Isn’t that the other one? Sponge
off of other people. And that drags the morale of
the congregation down. It drags the unity down. And
so we need a work ethic that does not drag others down, but
lifts them up. It encourages. We need a work
ethic that allows us to provide for family, support the church,
and help the poor. From time to time we’ll have
prayer needs for someone who needs employment. And we don’t
say simply, dear God, give them a job because they need money
and we’re tired of giving them grocery money. That’s not how
we pray. We pray, dear Lord, give so-and-so a job that uses
their gifts. and that it exercises their abilities
to your glory so they can provide for their family, support the
church, and help the poor. There’s multiple bottom lines
in vocation. Now, today we don’t have time,
but the doctrine of vocation that came out of the Protestant
Reformation, particularly through Martin Luther, and even persists
today in Lutheran circles, but also Presbyterian, Reformed,
and sort of Calvinistic circles as well, the Protestant work
ethic is a wonderful thing. If you want to read a good case
study, look at Swiss watches. Calvin’s Geneva produced a great
work ethic that has lasted to this day. If you have a Swiss
timepiece, you’ve got something. And so we want to think about
these things related to work ethic. This passage tells us
five things. One is it tells us to shun the
idol. Okay, that’s an odd one. It tells us that we should imitate
Paul. It tells us no work, no food. Kind of harsh, right? And
then it refers to such persons, right? That’s kind of a you people
statement, right? Bad way to start a sentence. You people,
such persons, but Paul does it. And then finally he says, don’t
grow weary in doing good. So let’s think about these as
we consider a good Christ-pleasing work ethic. So first in verse
six, we’re told to shun the idol. Now we command you, this is Paul,
Silas and Timothy writing, we command you brothers in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from any brother
who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition
that you receive from us. Now the back half of the passage
also speaks to this. So verse 14 says, if anyone does
not obey what we say in the letter, take note of that person and
have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Now, some of y’all have read
your, Early American literature, the scarlet letter. You know,
you get the letter around your neck in the Puritan community.
You know, you’re a this or a that. You know, maybe we need a big
B, busybody, right? Or a big I for idler. And that
way we’ll know who to shun, right? Boy, I mean, I thought the church
was about unity. I thought the church was about
being friendly and nice. And he’s saying, shun the idol. Now think back through your whole
Bible. And if you’re a Wednesday nighter
and you’ve been going through the Old Testament with us, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, we’re in numbers. We’re going to get through Deuteronomy,
hopefully through the summer. What is there supposed to be
inside the camp of God’s people? Holiness and righteousness. And what gets you put out of
the camp? unholiness, unrighteousness, disobedience. And you fast forward
into the church. Paul says this a lot in the Corinthians
letters. You live holy, righteous lives,
you get to be in the church. You live holy, unrighteous lives,
you get to be out of the church. Now, what does it take to get
put out of the church? Well, it takes being confronted about
your sin, not going to do anything about it. Take a brother, still
not going to do anything about it. And so you tell the church,
and if the church can’t win them over, then they get put out of
the church. It’s the same in the old as it is in the new.
But this is like just a step before getting put out of the
church. Let this person know their shame because you sort
of steer clear of them. Now, how does this work out if
we were to say, you know, seven steps to shun people the right
way? I mean, boy, talk about church growth. We need somebody
to name too, don’t we? So we can say had a son, so no,
we don’t need to do that. But you see how serious the problem
is. Paul has spoken about it while
he was there. When they got run off by the
angry Jewish population because they were preaching Jesus as
Messiah, sent Timothy back. What do you think Timothy said?
Hey, idlers, get to work. Then Paul writes a letter. What
does he say in the first letter? Get to work. What does he say
now in the second letter? get to work. And if they persist,
you are to shun them. Why does he ramp up his commandments? Why does he speak in the name
of the Lord Jesus? This isn’t just as a Paul saying,
Hey, we’re tired of sin and help. No, why does he speak in the
name of Jesus? This has apostolic weight, apostolic authority.
He’s ramping it up because it’s creating disunity in the church.
Now, we don’t know exactly what’s going on in the Thessalonian
context to make some people idle. Couple guesses. One is they say,
well, Jesus is coming back soon. So why work? And y’all know there
have been Jesus coming back soon cults. And what do those people
do? They sell all their stuff. and they do weird cult things.
And then Jesus doesn’t come back. And so, you know, they live in
poverty, waiting for the next time, that kind of thing. So
at the church coffee pot, you can imagine, you know, church
member A, church member B talking about church member C. Well,
they just won’t work. They’re just mooching, right?
What do we do? So Paul is addressing a bad Christian
ethic. These people, by being idle,
are not pleasing Jesus. They are unruly. They are out
of rank, and their idleness is affecting the unity of the church
and the witness of Jesus Christ. Now, maybe that they’re second-coming
folks, you know, Jesus is coming, why work? It could be that some
are just professional moochers you get entitled, you get some
handouts, and it just becomes a way of life. But it also could
be, and this is probably the best. guests, educated guests,
there’s just doggone lazy people in the church, right? Laziness. I just read Proverbs. That’s
only a few of them. What does the Bible say about
laziness? Bad. Why is it? Why is it address
it? Because we’re sinners. And so in some way, shape or
form shun the idol. The second thing is Paul says,
and this, this is positive imitate us. So imitate Paul, Silas and
Timothy. verses 7, 8, and 9. You yourselves
know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle
when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without
paying for it. But with toil and with labor
we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any
of you. It was not because we did not
have that right, but to give you and ourselves an example
to imitate. So a lot of places in the Bible
positive people we’re supposed to imitate them. Should we imitate
Jesus? Of course we should. In fact,
Thomas Akimpas wrote the famous work, The Imitation of Christ.
It’s a spiritual duty. In fact, we just sang a song
right after the confession of sin and assurance of pardon.
And didn’t it say, Jesus be my sort of my template for life?
Did y’all catch that? towards the end of the verse.
It also said, may I see what you do, Jesus, and imitate that
in my life. So imitate’s a pretty big deal,
but Paul says it a bunch too. He says, insofar as I imitate
Christ or I live a righteous life, you should imitate me.
Now, We speak in ministry terms about a person who is bivocational. They do ministry for a living,
but it doesn’t make ends meet, so they have a secondary job. We call them bivocational or
we call them Tent makers. You ever heard of a tent making
Christian? That comes from the apostle Paul. That was his skilled
trade. Paul was a man who could work
with his hands in sewing probably heavy material and leather. And
throughout the Roman empire, this was a pretty significant
trade. As the empire was building, people were on the move, certainly
an army to outfit. And so Paul’s job as a bivocational
apostle missionary of the early church was to make tents. And
in several of the places where he dwelled for a time, like at
Corinth, he was there 18 months, lived with Priscilla and Aquila,
and guess what they were? They were tent makers. And so
it provided. But he also speaks in these verses
about his right. his right to earn a living by
the word of God. You go to first Corinthians chapter
nine, I think it is. And Paul gives this long, it’s
a whole chapter, I think, on telling the Corinthians, which
is where he’s writing this letter from, you ought to be paying
me, right? Because I’m laboring in the word.
You ought to be paying me because it’s an old Testament practice.
And he gives the example, don’t muzzle the ox. While he treads
out the grain, you put a bag of feed on the ox, and he gets
to eat while he works. And, you know, what do we call
it? Soldier’s pay? The one who churns
the ice cream? What do they do? They get to
lick the batter, the beater, right? Soldiers pay, we call
it. There’s this principle in the Old and New Testament. Paul
gives it in 1 Corinthians 9. We should pay the preacher. We
should pay the pastor. We should pay the missionary. But here
he said, I’ve not taken that right. So this couple of weeks,
three or so weeks, they were at Thessalonica. They lived with
Jason. And what does Paul do? He pays
for his own bread. He works night and day, probably
works during the day at some sort of job, could have been
tent making, and then at night he preaches the gospel. So night
and day working, night and day working. What’s he saying? Night
and day, you should do what I do. Idlers, those who are out of
accord with the doctrines of scripture. He’s given up his right to show
these folks, not just with his lips, but with his life, what
it means to work and to toil. And so he says, you should imitate
us. Now then he gets the harsh again,
showing the evil one or the not working one, imitate us. Now
he says, no work, no food, pretty brutal. Verse 10, for even when
we were with you, we would give you this command. If anyone is
not willing to work, let him not eat. Now, I know every one
of you, because you’re good American historians, you think this is
Captain John Smith from Jamestown, right? Remember the whole colony
experience? It happened up in Massachusetts
Bay. It happened in Jamestown. It happened in a couple places.
They tried the communism thing, right? Just communalism. We’ll all put our stuff in the
same pot and we’ll share. Well, how does that always work?
Not too good, right? Because some people love to share
your stuff, right? That’s how that works. And so
in Jamestown, when it came down to surviving, and don’t we know,
What is it we have in North Carolina, the lost colony? What happened? They didn’t survive. They all
died. So in Jamestown, Captain John Smith brought out the principle
from Second Thessalonians, if a man won’t work, a man won’t
eat. Could you imagine being the leader
of a colony today? Well, sir, I need my safe space. I need a day off for cat therapy,
whatever. Where’s the avocado toast? That
wouldn’t fly. But in those days, what were
they doing? They were trying to survive and not die. They were
trying to make it another year, make it through winter. I don’t
think that’s the case here at Thessalonica. Paul’s on a second
missionary journey, though, and he’s been back through Galatia,
said hey to all those churches. Forbidden by God, the Holy Spirit,
to go to Asia, but he lands here in Macedonia, preaches Troas,
Philippi, ends up in jail, lands at Thessalonica, stays a month.
Off to Berea, off to Athens, off to Corinth. And in all these
places, he is hosted by various people, lodges along the way,
but he reads the room. And at Thessalonica, he read
the room, it probably wouldn’t be good here, even if they’re
willing, probably wouldn’t be good for me to take a paycheck.
And so he pays his own way. He works, and then what does
he do? He eats the bread he paid for. That’s why he’s able to say imitate.
But he gives the harsh command, if you don’t work, you don’t
eat. Now we know natural law, right? We know cause and effect.
We know that if you jump off a building, gravity will take
force. And if you deny gravity and deny God and deny natural
law, eventually you will find out that, no, it really exists.
And the same with don’t work, don’t eat. I’ve never really
missed a meal and I could probably stand to miss a few. And, you
know, we can do, what is it? Intermittent fasting. We don’t
last long, right? Head starts hurting. tummy starts
growling. But you don’t work, you don’t
eat. We could, we could scrounge up a meal, couldn’t we? We could
mooch if we had to, to use that word. But very harsh language
here within the covenant community, within the church community,
you don’t work, you don’t eat. You got persistent idleness,
you should shun them. And that’s what he speaks of
in this fourth thing. He refers to such persons, in
verses 11 and 12. So he’s told us, shun the idle,
imitate us, don’t work, don’t eat. Now he’s going into such
persons. 11 and 12, we hear that some
among you walk in idleness. We hear that some among you are
not busy at work. And then it gives a sort of a
funny here, but you’re busy bodies. So you’re not busy at work, but
you’re busy at something. It’s just not. productivity. Then it goes on, 12, now such
persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do
their work quietly and to earn their own living. So back to
the Protestant work ethic. Martin Luther was known for saying,
when we pray in the Lord’s prayer, give us this day our daily bread,
we’re praying for the cow. Right? That the cow will give
milk. We’re praying for the milkmaid. We’re praying for the dairyman.
You know, today’s terms, we’re praying for the Harris Teeter
truck driver. Right? We’re praying for the supply
chain. We’re praying for Louis, was
it Louis Pasteur? You know, we like our milk pasteurized
so we don’t die. Or we don’t. But we’re praying
for all the people that get the milk to the doorstep or into
the cupboard or into the fridge, that sort of thing. And so think
about this. If you don’t work, perhaps you
have knocked a chink out of the supply chain. So if you don’t
work and glorify God by your labors, perhaps you have removed
yourself from that providential supply chain. Have you ever thought
of that? You know, I don’t work, I don’t eat, I don’t work, I
don’t get money, I don’t work, I can’t pay my Netflix bill.
I don’t work, what else? Can’t have the stuff I want.
Okay, what do you do about that? You don’t work, you’re not pleasing
Jesus. You don’t work. You’ve taken a chink out of the
supply chain. And what if it’s for your family?
What if it’s for those close to you that you’re responsible
for? And so to walk in idleness is
really to live in a way that you weren’t made. Thought of
that? What did God make the world and
everything in it for? He made it for mankind and he
put Adam in a garden. And what’s Adam’s first thing
he’s supposed to do? He’s supposed to work. and then keep the garden. He’s supposed to make it productive
and he’s supposed to protect it. He’s the first, what do we
call him, taxonomist? He names the animals. God gives
him a helper suitable. And so we should be productive.
We should be busy. We should be doing things that
please Jesus and meet the needs of others. But he says there
are some that persist walking in idols. There are some that
persist in unproductivity. They’re busy bodies. And as my
mother would say, you’re hindering progress. She’d tell us when
I was a kid, get out of the kitchen unless you’re helping. Kind of
practical, isn’t it? And you can imagine this is tiring
on the congregation. This is tiring on this new little
church that perhaps by now is a year old. And so he’s taught
them, shun the idol, imitate Paul, Silas, and Timothy. No
work, no food. He’s talked to them about such
persons. You people, right? Fifth thing he’s gonna say in
verses 13 and 15 is, don’t grow weary in doing good. So speaking
to the larger congregation, you know, you got the Moocher Society
of the church. He says, as for you brothers,
do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what
we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing
to do with him that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as
an enemy. So you’re not gonna say he’s
an unbeliever, throw him out. but warn him as a brother. So it
can get wearying being maybe in a culture, in society, or
in this case, a church where you got the committee on mooching
and lots of members, right? And so what is Paul saying? He’s
saying, press on. Don’t you grow weary because,
you know, not working is contagious. Have you ever noticed that? Not
working is contagious. I went the other day to a store
to pick up something I had ordered. And I walk in, I said, I’m here,
so and so, it’s already paid for, I’ll leave my order. I stood
around, stood around, stood around. And the lady at the front receptionist
said, we can’t find our workers. And I said, have you looked out
back? Follow the cigarette smoke. I worked for the family furniture
business. Believe me, I knew how to take longer on a delivery
or whatever. We’re good at it, right? Sin
nature makes us good at it. But they were fussing and complaining.
We can’t find our folks. And so let that not be so of
Christians, but don’t grow weary in doing good. Don’t say, well,
I guess I don’t have to either. Right. They’re going to be lazy.
I’ll be lazy with them. Now, we want to be obedient in
the New Covenant community. We want to be obedient in the
world God has made and put us in charge of. And so we ought
to have a Christian ethic. And that ethic leads to unity.
In Jamestown, right? Leads to unity in the church.
It leads to unity in the company you own. It’s a wonderful thing
to be with other productive people. And so don’t grow weary in doing
good. Let me end by just saying a couple
things about work. Work gets old. It does, it gets
tiring. But if you’re pleasing the Lord,
it’s not so much. And so maybe you got a rotten
job, you got a rotten boss, you know, you got some thorns and
thistles in your job. Think about pleasing Jesus and
maybe the rest will, maybe you just won’t think about it. That’s
a helpful thing. Second thing is you need to work
to live for God’s glory and provide for other folks. We live in a
day where we work for retirement. You know, we work so we can quit
work. Quitting work is really not in the Bible. Now, if you’re
retired and you’ve got funds, you know, serve your family,
serve your church. Many of y’all do those things. You’re freed
from having to earn income. But as John Piper says, you’re
not free to go pick up seashells. and count them for your whole
life, right? That does not glorify God. Maybe
once or twice a year. But life is not a beach. Adam
and Eve are called to work. We’re called to work. But think
of this with your work. Ultimately, you want to please
Jesus. And then secondarily, you want to support others, make
money. Yes, save for retirement, meet some goals, and go to the
beach a time or two. And yeah, it’s OK to pick up
seashells. Just don’t do it your whole life. But work. We work for the glory of God.
Think one last thing. What did God do in the space
of six days? He worked. And what did he do
on the seventh day? He rested. But God gave us in
his own example. So yeah, imitate Paul. Imitate
God. God is a worker bee. But God
also rests. Let’s seek his help and blessing
now in prayer. Lord, we’re Weak and sinful,
and we can be idle, we can be busybodies, we can not want to
work. And so change our hearts and our minds today to have the
mind of Paul. Yes, to have the mind of God,
but also to have the mind of Christ, whose work it was to
seek and save the lost. And he was resolute to that goal. And as we come to the table now,
remind us of what faithfulness in Christian duty looks like. never quit and saved saved us
from ourselves and from sin and darkness and so bless us now
as we prepare to come to the Lord’s table we pray in Christ’s
name amen we want to