Please take your bibles and turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and to refresh memories of those of you who've been with us for the past couple of weeks anyway. We've been looking at what difference it makes to be a Christian and the Apostle Paul says we are very different. He says, first of all, we're to live a holy life. That's God's will for us. He said that in the beginning of chapter 4. And it affects our relationships. If we're single, it means that we're celibate. If we're married, it means we're faithful to our husband or wife. And the reason is because God is faithful to us and our sexual life demonstrate the character of God. And therefore we must be different from the pagans because they have different gods. And then it goes on to say that when we face life's toughest trial, which is our death or the death of someone we love dearly, we grieve indeed. We do not grieve as those who have no hope. We do not grieve like the pagans. He's saying to this little fledgling church in Thessalonica. He's saying, yes, we grieve, but we grieve not as those who have no hope. We grieve differently. And we've seen why that is. When we studied the second coming of Jesus Christ at the end of chapter 4, we saw that Jesus Christ has absolutely defeated death for all of our loved ones in the Lord who've gone before us. There's nothing to fear on their behalf if they are in Christ. They'll see him before we do. They'll be the first ones up. And second, we saw that Jesus Christ defeated death for all of us who are alive and in Christ. That we have nothing to fear, but everything to look forward to. And then last week, on Easter Sunday, we studied the text chapter 5, 1 through 11, and we saw in answer to the question, when's this all going to happen? Paul says you're actually asking your own question. Here's what you need to know. That he is coming, that no time is a good time for those who are not in Christ as we saw in those early verses in chapter 5. And he explains why. But every time is a great time for those who know Christ, and it would be wrong for us in any sense to dread or to want to postpone his coming, that his coming represents the fullness of our joy, joy unspeakable and fullness of glory. And so we've seen the great destiny for the people of God and the awesome destiny for those who reject Jesus Christ in his gospel. And that leads us to verse 12 where we pick up today. And it might look as though what he's talking about in these coming verses about relationships is disconnected from what he said before. But I want to suggest you that is not the case. I really believe that one of the underpinnings for the proper understanding of the church and how we are to participate in live in her is to understand the acetone the entire. If there is a shortage in our thinking is Christian people about the church today, it is that we do not press our minds into heaven. We do not understand that we are people on the move. Now we often understand that when we look at ourselves as individuals, we always say, well, I'm not what I used to be, but I'm not what I'm going to be. And we understand that we're people in progress. But sometimes people try to take the church and concretize it in one period or one experience I've had in life or one denomination or one national church. And I think that's it. That's what that's God's idea of church. No, it never is God's idea of church until we see him face to face where people in progress. And therefore constant optimistic repentance in relationships is what is demanded for an aschatologically motivated church. And I suggest to you, he talks about the church now very intentionally writing right upon his comments about the great day that is coming. Why do I say that? You remember the preposition that we looked at briefly perhaps last week when we looked at the end of chapter four in the beginning of chapter five, the preposition with several times. We fear not for our departed loved ones in Christ because we shall be with them and they shall be with the Lord and we shall be with the Lord forever encourage one another with these things for these words. And so we saw that it's this withness, this great family reunion with big brother Jesus, the Lord of the church there at the head and on the throne, worshiping him this great reunion. Now we're going to talk about what a family looks like who knows they're headed to this grand reunion together very soon. We're right on the precipice, right on the edge of this reunion. What must we look like? The Apostle Paul will give it to us here and it is our duty and privilege to say, Lord help me be a healthy, functional family member the way that you have envisioned your church. Let us pray to that end. Gracious Father, thank you for your divine word, an authoritative word, a powerful word, a healing word, an encouraging word, the word given to us, your people. Holy Spirit, please enlighten our minds, illuminate our souls and spirits that we may believe, grasp, seize and put into practice the very things you want us to know into obey. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 12, hear the word of God. Now we ask you brothers to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other and we urge your brothers warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. All men are like grass and all their glorious like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. There's a man who is a minister and also a newspaper columnist named George Crane and he had a woman come to him one time and she said, faster, I'm so fed up with my husband, I not only want to divorce him, I want to hurt him. Well, you know, that kind of typifies, doesn't it? The way that a lot of us feel and we get angry at somebody, especially someone who's close to us, has access to our hearts, can rip them out of our chest in a moment sometimes with just a word, they know exactly which one to pick to do it. And you have this vengeance that rises up and you desire to destroy people rather than to love them. Well, it's true with all humanity, it's the human condition because of the fall of humankind. The great philosopher Schopenhauer said that humanity is like a bunch of porcupines on a cold winter's night. We're cold, so we want to get together to warm up and then when we get together, we prick each other with our porcupines and that's a fall away from each other. Again, it's just a maddening life that we live in, fall in humanity. But what the apostle is saying is that by virtue of the resurrection, we are children of the light. And he's saying that we've been brought into a new community where there's a new power, a new standard for living together. And you can look into the scriptures and you'll find several descriptions of this new humanity at the church. And the most common description of the church in the New Testament, you'll find five times in the verses 12 through the end of the chapter. And it's simply the word brothers. That's the most common description of the church. Now those of you with brothers are going, oh no. But the good news is this, that we are given a family tie, a common nature, and we have a common father. And we are held together just like God did it with his people in the wilderness. He would not let them break up and get away with this unity. He forced them together. He was the father who pulled them together. And he's saying because the Holy Spirit lives among us and dwells in our very midst, he is going to hold us together too with bonds of love. This is the new community, the new humanity that we are working out. Now how does this work? Well in verses 12 through 15, I want to suggest you the apostle is showing us about three categories of people that we need to learn to love in a special way if we are to be different from those who do not have Christ as Lord and do not have the Holy Spirit in their midst and are not part of the Christian family. Now the first one you see in verse 12, and we are to love in our family those who are over us, love those who are over you, those of you who are children, love your parents, honor them. If you're a minor, you are to obey them. Sometimes children will daydream about, oh I wish I was so-and-so's child. My kids think that all the time I think, but you remember how you used to do that, oh I wish I had another father, another mother, yes that's when you get mad at them. But here the apostle is saying yes you may wish that too in terms of human leadership in your church, but he's saying here to them he says respect, look at verse 12. I ask your brothers to respect those who do three things. They work hard, they are over you, they stand over you he says, and they admonish you. He says respect those who work hard. He doesn't respect them because they're smart, because they're better looking than you are, because they make more money than you do, or they've married a prettier husband than you did, or they have more friends than you do. Respect them who work hard over you. These are, it seems to me clearly speaking about elders here who are over, who govern the church, and who admonish the church, who address the church in a way that seeks to conform them to Christ. He's saying don't resent them, don't be jealous of them, lovingly respect them. In fact the word here for respect and the original language is just the word for no. If you have a KJV, that's what it says. Know those who work hard among you. Let me tell you something about those who work hard over me and over you. Let me just tell you a little bit about our session. I started to think about them this week. These men meet 11 or 12 times a year for about a three or four hour meeting. They meet in common with the deacons, and then we pray together on these for 30 minutes for you. We study the word together about what it means to be a shepherd for 30 minutes, and sometimes meeting small groups and hold each other accountable. And then we deliberate on the business of the church. Many of them are involved in our congregation on units and Sunday school. Many of them are involved in mentoring younger people and the more the merrier. Many of them are involved in cases where you might find yourself in time of need, or it may be a moral or spiritual problem that you're facing. Sometimes our elders get involved in the very difficult work of intervening in a case where something is going on that's not honoring to the Lord. And you or I need help with it, and so they will stick their nose in our business at the risk of losing us as their friend temporarily and getting us mad at them. They answer phone calls when you don't like something in the church. When you're looking for someone to talk to and you don't want to talk to senior ministers, you call one of them. They contact our people, they serve in a variety of ways, and most importantly, they're willing to have their names up front as Christian spiritual leaders and to seek to set a God example. And had you look at them and say, well, that must be what it means to be a Christian. Now, that's a pretty difficult thing to do, isn't it? And I began to add up how many man hours do you think that is among our sessions? During this year, in the best I could calculate, it comes out to about 10,000 man hours. I don't know how much they get paid per hour, but we're getting close to a million dollars. A time that's just given to pastor the church. I get paid for it, they don't. If you ever wondered about it, maybe they at least ought to have a bed over here for all the time they spend here. But I began to think, these men are working hard. Those are just the ones on the session. And many, many others are elders who are inactive at the moment of the session or rotated or elders emeritus who nurturing cultivate the people who call on us, who pray for us, who visit you in the hospital. If possible, if they said in verse 13, there may be some reasons why certain aspects of their personality or their intelligence are not all that respectable. They said it doesn't matter because you are to respect them. He says in verse 13, hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. So it's not just submitting to them, it's not just the negative of not disobeying them or not following them. It is loving them, embracing your leaders. Why? Because the apostle says at the end of verse 13, live in peace with each other. And if you want to know how you live in peace as one who's been around the church now for two or three decades, if a church is having a problem, I immediately go to the session and ask questions about the elders. They must be in conflict, if the church is in conflict. I want to tell you something, I have never found a church that was fractured and in division when those elders on the session had their hearts and minds together. There may be some folks who will splinter off and have problems, but the church itself will not be when those men have their hearts together. Dear friends, I plead with you, as the apostle did, I ask you, I urge you, respect these men and lovingly hold them in the steam. I'm going to ask that every man here who's been ordained as an elder at Second Presbyterian Church, if you'll stand up, and if I see one of you not standing up, I'm calling names. So, if you will, just stand up. Every one of you who's ordained an elder, please, right away, don't go past gold, don't collect 200, please get up. Now, I'd like for you, please, to be seated. I'd like for everybody else to stand up. Everybody else who's not an elder, please stand up. And would you please tell these gentlemen what you think of them? Thank you. I would insist that you go on, but I'm a preacher, so we'll go to the next point.
That's what he says. First of all, if we're brothers, if we're family, then we will indeed esteem those who are over us and who had monashas. Notice that last aspect of their job description, they govern us and they had monashas. Now, it's kind of non-threatening if someone teaches you and explains what something means and illustrates it. It says, this is the truth and what it means. It's another thing if someone says, now look, I saw you last week. And I want to challenge you a little bit here. Not to get personal. You've gone from preaching a medley. Well, we may as well say here, those who are over you, those who work hard and those who metal a monash, because they're the medlers. And if they're not, they're not doing their job. And so, it's very tempting, you know, when someone confronts you best, then when someone's always challenging you to resent them and want to escape them. But here the Apostle says, do just the opposite to your family. Be a real family and hold up and love your leaders. Now, secondly, he says, not only love those who are over you, but in verse 14 he's going to teach us, love those who are around you. Love those who are around you. Oh, you say, that's easy. There's such lovely people at second. I say that all the time. And it's not boasting so much as it is confessing. But just to say, I don't have a very hard job when it comes to loving those around me. You folks are honestly, I'm not flattering you. You're just a lot of fun to be with. You are great folks. Let me tell you what concerns we just a little bit. How great you are. I'm wondering, as I look at the description of the church here, how much it would suit us to be described as idle, timid, and weak. If I were picking three adjectives for second Presbyterian church, I wouldn't pick idle, nor timid, nor weak. Let me suggest something to you from this text that concerns me. When I look at the early church, it seems to me that the majority of their communicans were coming from the lower end of the socio-economic scale. And I know that we live in a different neighborhood and I'm not trying to put anybody on a guilt trip. I'm asking that we stand our minds for a moment about what the church means and what relationships mean here. I said a moment ago that sometimes the church loses its flexibility when we begin to think of ourselves as wanting to concretize things as they are now. We like it. We want to keep it this way. We're fine. We don't think of ourselves as being in progress and a long way from the ultimate goal and pressing ahead toward the heavenly church. But a second problem that seems to me to suit us from time to time is that when we think of church and how we like church, we usually look in and look at the problems that we have, the relationships we're trying to manage, and we basically set up church life to relieve the problems that we're all feeling in the church. Now that is a legitimate thing to do as long as it's in perspective. And here's the perspective I'm suggesting. When Jesus left to go to heaven, as we said in the word on worship this morning, he left a church. But do you remember what he left them? A mission. He said not only stretch your minds to the end of time to define who you are, but stretch your minds to the ends of the earth to define who you are. That is the reason that the church by its very nature must be multicultural, multi-social economic group, multi-racial, multi-national. We cannot allow the dictates of Southern Protestant American cultural assumptions to shape the church and say that's what it is. We must always be pressing out as well as pressing up. There's a horizontal expansive and transcendence to the church, as well as a vertical transcendence and a yearning for the perfect and always striving for it. And I guess what concerns me, and I wouldn't say so much in this room, but what about the rims where Sun School classes meet and small grips meet, are we looking for too much homogeneity sometimes? I mean, really thinking about what makes my flash feel comfortable. The kind of people you know that you like to hang out with that will give you some business contacts or some social contacts or something else that is really driven by some agenda other than the mission of eschatological church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a different world. It's not a club. And in some clubs or businesses, of course you exclude certain people. We go out in higher and we interview and we assess and we turn some down and we take others and we're very careful about this in any of our work. But in the church, we don't decide who comes in. Jesus Christ decides who comes in. And if we are not forbidding the little ones to come to him, he will often bring them. If we're not forbidding the weak to come to him, he often brings them. If we're not forbidding the timid and the poor from coming to him, he often brings them wide because the poor and the timid and the weak and the young, they know they need him. And I plead with you look when he looks around and see who's around in the Tesla and I can church. Let us look around and ask the question. He says here, special instructions. Here's how you're to love in the family. First of all, respect those who are over you and who admonish you, who are exercising Christian leadership in a servant hood manner. But who also know they're to rule and to govern and to challenge and to absorb but also then look around and love those not only over you but around you and who are they? He says, first of all, he says, we encourage, we urge you brothers, warn those or admonish those literally who are idle. The word idle is really just a military term that means out of step. In fact, I think the KJB says unruly. It's not just the elders, it's not just pastors who are to intervene in people's lives or you're to intervene in our lives and one in others lives. We're all in the family. We're functional. How would it be if one of our teenagers just out there every weekend, getting sloppy drunk, sleeping around, taking the Lord's name in vain, never coming in at night, always coming in late in the morning, never does anything his parents tell him to do. And the parents just whistle along, just, oh, how you doing today? All fine. It's great to be in the house of the Lord. Talk about dysfunctional. And Paul says, we're brothers. We're family. And therefore we've got to be family if this is what he says, let's do it. And it will mean something very special for Memphis Tennessee because what it will do is it will set up a big time post and said Christ is alive and he lives among these people and will show you what his life is like as we seek to love one another. So he says, he says warn those who are idle and encourage the timid and this word can simply mean those who worry a lot. And some people who worry a lot. Some people are just kind of have a frame for worrying and being timid. Well, you know what, if someone worries around you a whole lot, you know, you try to encourage them a little bit and then what do you do? You say, get me out of here. Yeah, it's a black hole. I've been trying to encourage this person and just keep worrying, worrying, worrying. I've just got to get some space and got to get a breath of fresh air. Or cut myself off from this group. Courage them. Keep pouring it in. Keep giving them the truths like the resurrection that encourage a warrior. This is family life folks and you don't pick your siblings. God does. So he says encourage the timid and then he says help the week. You know, anytime that you're really kind of setting up a social club or a golf club or tennis club or a bridge club. You don't intentionally go looking for weak people. You're looking for good bridge players who have good personalities and have self confidence all their ass and all their good for weak people. Jesus is. He really is. And if you're going to take the church of Jesus Christ seriously, you're going to take weakness seriously. What do you do with it? The word here says help, but the original language it really means hold on to them. They're getting ready to fall in the mud. Grab that collar and hold on. Don't let them down. There's an interconnectedness because we recognize ourselves as brothers and sisters. And that loyalty transcends everything. Whether you like it or not. You see how different this is from anything in the world? Do you see how radical it is? Do you see how it must reflect something divine? No human being does this when they set up clubs and fraternities and sororities and exclude people, which I'm not blaming them for doing such. They're not the church, but we are. And now so he says love those who are over you, love those who are around you and then it concludes this section by simply saying be patient with everybody. How many here want to set themselves forward as a patient person? Certainly not I. I want to be patient now. That's kind of my attitude when I talk to the Lord about it, but he says look you've got to for bear with each other. There has to be a long suffering. That's what the Greek word means. Suffering for a long time. And if you're in a dysfunctional family with all the problems you got to suffer a long time to be a loyal member, that's what it means to demonstrate Christ because he was long suffering with us. But lastly, if Apostle says you must love those who are over you, you must love those who are around you, and now you must love those who are against you. Look at verse 15, make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong. Now there is a full time job. We would like to volunteer to see to it that nobody here pays back wrong for wrong. That will pay you salary and will keep you real busy. How about if every time you're tempted to pay back wrong for wrong, you just call this person. I mean, how many time he phone calls you think they get every day? Well, the Apostle says here, see to it. He's talking to the whole church. See to it that nobody does this. We're all like a bunch of little kids. But little Johnny was in the playroom and four years old and his little sister was with him. And his mother heard this blood curdling scream from Johnny. She comes running in the room and there he is and his little two year old sister has a handful of his hair pulling on it. So she goes over course and she disentangles the little fingers. And then she pets Johnny on the head. She's not Johnny. You've got to understand that she doesn't know how much that hurts. And just forget it. So Johnny's looking at her. She leaves the room about 30 seconds later. She hears her little two year old daughter. Of course, he runs in there. Johnny. And he looks at his mom and said, now she knows. And that's the way we are. Little Jack one day said to his mama, I'm really mad at my little brother. She said, well, you have to forgive him. He said, well, I will. But if I don't die before I wake, he's in trouble. And that's the way most people think. Well, we can get through this for a moment. But we all sit on vengeance. Delicious vengeance. We not only want to divorce. We want to hurt him. A woman was walking into the post office. One that had a reputation for not very good service. And she walks in and asked for a stamp. And the clerk who was abrupt swings the stamp at her. And it goes on to the floor. I don't know if you've had that happened to you. Well, this woman reached over and got the stamp. And she left her 34 cents right there on the floor and then walked out. I mean, we all wish we could think of things quickly like that. You know, my problem is I think of it too late. And then I'm thinking about all day long. I wish I'd done that. I almost convinced myself I did. But what the apostle is saying is all that's cute. That's clever. That's wildly intelligent. That's what you're funny. But that's not what Christ people do. He's saying see to it that nobody pays back wrong for wrong. Why? We're an eschatological community. A spirit-filled community. A missional community that wants to reach the world. And how shall you reach them? Certainly with the message of Christ verbally proclaimed. But primarily you'll reach them with an example that says look how kind and gracious and non-vengeful these people are. The apostle says not only see to it that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but rather he says be kind to each other. It's the positive, not just the lack of a negative. Always try to be kind to each other. And the word the literal language there says always hunt for the good. Have you ever done that with anybody? Yes, sometimes you have to hunt really hard. And with something's happening that's against you, hunt. Some of you are really good hunters. How about a hunter for good and a person who's hurt you? Hunt, hurt. It's maybe a needle in a haystack. Hunt, find it. Not only hunting for the good and the person but hunting for good to happen to the person. Now folks, that is radical. That's resurrection life. That's something new that's otherworldly, it's wild, it's gracious. And then he says do it toward each other and do it on the outside too. And I think their friends you will be amazed at the response when you live this kind of life. You'll be amazed at what happens in your own love for Jesus Christ because you'll know quite clearly I can't do this. He must have done that in me and you'll have an amazing love for other people. I don't know about you, but I've got some repentance to do this week. Do you? I really do. I've already started a couple of letters. What would you do? Start right where you are. Jesus forgives all of our sins and then empowers us to stumble along, stumble along toward heaven and the New Jerusalem. It makes a world of difference. So George Crane, the Reverend George Crane, newspaper columnist, had a woman come and ask him, said, Dr. Crane, I don't only want to divorce. I want to hurt him. He said, Well, I'm going to tell you how to do that. Here's the answer. These next two months set him up for some real pain. Here's what you do. Make him think that you love him and can't live without him. Dude, he did kindness for him and telling me he's wonderful. He's the best thing since sliced bread and just toward him. Then two months are over. You've got him set up and then say to him, I'm out of here. I hate your guts. That'll really hurt him. So for him, she has a great idea. She went off and did it. Two months later, Dr. Crane has to call her. He said, Well, you ready for your divorce? She said, Are you kidding me? I love this guy. It's amazing. What difference? Jesus Christ and His Word and His Spirit make in a life and in a church who are really hunting him. Let us pray. Gracious Lord Jesus Christ who loves us and gave Yourself for us. We confess that these standards are truly otherworldly even to us. We know them. We've heard them. We've sold from time to time to live them, but we find ourselves falling over and over again. And so we cast ourselves at Your mercy and pray, Lord, please help us to enjoy You by taking up our cross, denying ourselves and following You, sharing in the fellowship of sufferings and sharing in the sweet communion of resurrected life knowing that one day very soon we shall be reunited with You and with our family who will truly be dear and precious. And even perfect. These things we pray in the name of the one who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, howl with me thy name, thy kingdom come, but I will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.