June 19, 2022
The Disciplined People of God
1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

READ: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

INTRO:

• Title: The Disciplined People of God
• The church is given many final instruction in what is one of–if not the-- oldest NT letters.
• 25 Brothers, pray for us.
  26 Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.
  27 I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.
  • Four sections:
  1. Church members & their leaders
  2. Member to member relations
  3. We need to emphasize devoutness
  4. God’s work in the Church

➀ Church Members & Their Leaders

12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

• “ask” is a little passive…
  • “ask”= to ask earnestly
  • “entreat” Hart; “beseech” KJV, ASV; “implore” BLB; “urge” NKJV; “beg” (Peshitta [phonic: Pa-she-ta]).

Urge the church to respect those who labor among them.

• ➀ "respect " ESV 6 et al = know 6x = recognize 7x
  • ESV “respect” is lit. to see, know perceive, behold “those who labor among you”
  • these same people were “over [them] in the Lord”
    • All of creation we see order … millennial kingdom order … Godhead …churches of God.
    • Walmart … name tags
    • order in the home, order in the church, order in creation, order in the universe.
  • “and [who] admonish you”
    • English “Admonish:” 1. To warn or notify of a fault … with mildness. 2. To counsel against wrong practices; to caution or advise. 3. To instruct or direct. (Webster’s)
    • admonish lit. GK: respect those who [“put in mind” LSJ]
    • Teachers and overseers are the ones challenge the thinking of those who have become spiritually unsettled or “backsliden.”
    • overseers have always supposed to be “warners” for the unbeliever and the believer who have wrong thinking.
• v. Also to 13a “to esteem them very highly in love because of their work”
  • literally “lead them over and above in love (agape)” because of their work.
  • BEAUTIFUL: we see the overseers leading and teaching, and we see the members leading in love for leaders.
  • WHY = because of their work.
  • Church leaders are not to be recognized due to their titles or talents. Leaders are not to be recognized for their degrees, temperament, knowledge, skills, or Spirit given spiritual gifts , but because of their work. (Adapted from Excell)
  • Work of God.
  • The work is spiritual
  • Leaders are supposed maintain the clear moral “imperatives of the Scriptures” in cultures that are opposed to God and to church members who quickly forget. —Timothy Whitmer, The Shepherd Leader (Quotes)

APPLICATION

• Excell said, “Hold [overseers …] in reputation as your friend, but also as an ambassador of God.”

TRANSITION
Body to Overseers > Let’s look at member to member relations

➁ Member to Member Relations

v 13b Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

• “Be at peace among yourselves”
  • Many churches are models in how not to do church.
  • Politics, personal agendas, egos, etc.
  • Infighting
  • But “peace among true Christmas is highly important, both for their own mutual improvement … and for the recommendation of [Christ] to the world …” (Patterson)
• Brothers and sisters are to admonish each other too
  • look at v. 14 >> teach to change the mind of the what the ESV called the “idle”
    • Many other translations used “unruly” instead of idle.
    • AMP = “out of line”
    • ἄτακτον, lit.: disorderly (often of soldiers ), out of the ranks, not at one’s post (LSJ
  • fits with the faith hope and love armor imagery earlier.
  • Remember v 5:8? >> “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”
  • Beautiful: warn and rebuke those soldiers of the Lord who are out of the proper formation and at their post by not being equipped with their love, faith and hope armor.
  • You are your brother’s and sister’s keepers.

encourage the “fainthearted” ESV, NASB, NKJV, BSB, BLB

• feebleminded KJV —either is good.
• If we are not thinking clearly we don’t have the right core thoughts and values.
  • not having the right core thoughts and values of God lead to anxiety, depression, despair, etc.

The church was to help the weak. COMMENT

Be patient with them all

• Christian growth is slower than it should be. COMMENT
• Ministry? Grab a chair.

15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

• Regarding, “see that no one repays anyone evil for evil” I have two quotes:
• Trapp, “Nothing is so natural to us …”
• Barclay, “It is impossible that the gospel of love should be preached in an atmosphere poisoned by hate.”

APPLICATION

• Again v 15b, seek to do good to one another and to everyone
  • Seek the good for = you want the best for the person. PERIOD
• What does ministry look like in and out of the Body?
• Blessing for cursings.
• Water to your enemy.
• Always seeking to do good to one another and to everyone.
• In the church and in the world.
• We conquer evil with good. (cf Barclay)

TRANSITION
Now that we have seen the ministry that the church was instructed to engage in, let’s now look at the church’s and personal devoutness that should compose each of our lives.

➂ We Need to Emphasize Devoutness

16 Rejoice always,

• One cannot rejoice and complain at the same time.
• What can we rejoice in? THE SPIRITUAL ASPECTS OF LIFE.
  • Jesus saved me—rejoice!
  • We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit forever!—rejoice!
  • Jesus will never leave us—rejoice!
  • We get to suffer as our Lord did—rejoice!

17 pray without ceasing,

• Prayer is one of the central practices in the faith.
• In it we worship God.
• In it we call upon God’s power and wisdom and action.

APPLICATION

• Trapp wrote, “While prayer standeth still,” so as the “trade of godliness.”
• Prayer is conversing between the most supreme being in the universe and us.
• Yet how often we neglect worshipping and conversing with God for lesser things?

18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

• don’t you wish for the word “some circumstances”?
• ALL = the inclusion of “all” and “always” makes our minds almost ignore the verse altogether.
• Moffatt declared that “To comment adequately upon these diamond drops would be to outline a history of the Christian experience in its highest levels.” (41)

ILLUSTRATION from Thessalonica
  ☑ Mob violence all around for Christians.
  ☑ Christians are being run out of town.
  ☑ Christians are being beat up badly.
  ☑ One or more may have been killed via mob violence.
  ☑ Were instructed to rejoice, pray, give thanks in all circumstances.
  ☑ Were instructed to accept life’s events rightly as the will of God in Christ Jesus for them.

APPLICATION from Texas
  ☐ Mob violence all around for Christians.
  ☐ Christians are being run out of towns.
  ☐ Christians being beat up badly.
  ☐ One or more Christians killed via mob violence in our town.
  ☑ We have been instructed to rejoice, pray, give thanks in all circumstances.
  ☑ We have been instructed to accept life’s events rightly as the will of God in Christ Jesus for them.

Josephs and Daniels in Conroe, New Waverly, Huntsville

Marks of a church in tune with God:

1. Rejoicing in persecution.
2. Praying without ceasing.
3. Giving thanks in all circumstances. (cf. Barclay)

TRANSITION
The church was told to rejoice, pray, and be thankful. Now let’s look at God’s work in the Church.

➃ God’s Work in the Church

19 Do not quench the Spirit.

• Quench = to put out a fire. DO NOT QUENCH
• We may quench the Spirit.
  • We may also grieve the Spirit.
  • Walk with the Spirit. COMMENT
  • We have choices. COMMENT
  • We may stop the work of God in our lives firstly, and then in the church. WOW. HOW?
• 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.
  • The prophets were the equivalent of what we would call today preachers. (cf Barclay)
  • Preachers talk, A LOT.
    • Don’t despise sermons!
    • Eat the chicken, spit out the bones.
    • Trapp said it this way: “Hast thou found honey? eat it.”
  • We fail to eat the Word at times.
• 22 Abstain from every form of evil.

  • [McCracken observed,] In today’s world, “holy” is the most offensive of all four – letter words. It’s far more acceptable to say, “My life is so messed up,” than it is to say, “I am striving to be holy.” For many, Christianity’s seeming obsession with holiness is one of its most distasteful qualities. Why is holiness so reviled? One reason is simply that the pursuit of holiness also involves the acknowledgment of sin and the necessity of repentance.

  • COMMENT
  • Appearance of evil.

ILLUSTRATION
“God commanded the Jews to abstain from swine’s flesh; they would not so much as name it, but in their common talk would call a sow dabbar Achar, another thing.” (Elias Thisbit; cited by Trapp)

APPLICATION

• Our part is abstinence from sin.
• Let’s look at what God does!

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

• It is God you sanvtifies us.
• Sanctify = ἁγιάζω = to dedicate, separate, set apart for God (LSJ)
• COMMENT
• God of Peace sanctifies to completion.
• Result in v 23b = blameless
  • Why can we love well?
  • Born again? He has made you blameless.
  • Join the peace of God.
• AGAIN: v. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

ILLUSTRATION

Jerry Bridges. He wrote the book Pursuit of Holiness. which sold over 3 million copies. People were inspired by the “Just do it” words of effort, but they found themselves incapable. Jerry had to start saying, “Well, you know, it’s by the grace of God that you’re enabled to do what He says.” The second follow-up book, Transforming Grace, which focuses on God doing the work, sold 300,000 copies. (adapted from Chapell)

APPLICATION

• God does the work. He is making us blameless.
• We stay away from sin.
• How well we do here is up to our willingness to get relationally closer to God.
• Nevertheless, God He will finish the work He began in us: setting us apart completely.
• Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
• 28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Bibliography and Works Cited

NOTE: Please see the following web-page for most of the works cited: https://insidecrosspoint.org/sermons/2022/june/bibliography.html. Works cited on this web-page correspond to the verses they are are grouped or outlined with.

OTHER WORKS CITED

Chapell, Bryan. Preparing and Delivering Christ-Centered Sermons II: Communicating a Theology of Grace. Lexham Press. As quoted by The Pastor’s Workshop, https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-2/sermon-illustrations-holiness/.

Darrell, William. Moral Reflections on Select Passages of the New Testament. W. Pickerton, 1736, 265. Public Domain. Sourced from Google Books.

McCracken, Brett. Uncomfortable. Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2017, 58. As quoted by The Pastor’s Workshop, https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-2/sermon-illustrations-holiness/.

Moffatt, James. The Expositor’s Greek Testament. Vol. 4 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967). As quoted from Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible, sourced from Studylight, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/bcc/1-thessalonians-5.html?print=yes.

Patterson, A. S. Exell, Joseph. The Biblical Illustrator. Baker Publishing Group, 1978. Sourced from the Bible Portal, https://bibleportal.com/commentary/the-biblical-illustrator (quotes located with their corresponding verses).

“Quotes on the Church.” Ministry 127, https://www.ministry127.com/resources/illustration/quotes-on-the-church.