Living in Gospel Community - 1 Thes 5:12-28

Brotherly Love

Living together/doing anything as a group requires leadership. And it requires contributions from all memebers of the team.

Back in that horrible year 2016 when Sydney lost the AFL grandfinal to the Western Bulldogs something beautiful happened.

The Bulldogs have basically been broke and hopeless for years. Massive underdogs. And during that time their captain, Bob Murphy had been dedicated to the club. Sadly for him he was injured in the 2016 season and couldn’t play in the grand final.

So the coach. The one in charge of putting the team together and leading them to win stood on the podium at the end of the grand final and did this amazing gesture.

See video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W0P-OeGNQg

Here was a leader, who saw a man who had missed out on the very thing he had dedicated his life too due to a cruel blow and so sacrificed what was his for the good of those whom he led.

And Beveridge did it because he was part of the Western Bulldogs family as well as being their leader. Their coach.

This kind of sacrifical brotherly love is what Paul is calling the church to in our reading today as they seek to live together as a community shaped by the gospel.

Recap and Intro:

Paul is for the most part thankful for the Thessalonians and their faith.

They are living out their faith and are spreading the good news in word and deed, even in the midst of persecution.

We have seen Paul’s deep love for the church which he has ministered to.

Paul has encouraged the church to keep on living out their faith day by day whilst also eagerly awaiting his return.

Now Paul concludes with a whole lot of little encouragements. They are an encouragement to the family of God.

Note Paul uses brother’s and sisters (vv. 12, 14,25, 26 (God’s people), 27).

These final words to the church are instructions for living as a community shaped by the gospel.

Leadership (1 Thes 5:12-13)

1 Thessalonians 5:12–13 NIV

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.

Work hard

Great job you only work on Sundays.

The word Paul has used usually refers to manual occupations.

The leader must work hard for the church.

Paul talks about the locus of this hard work for leaders in 1 Tim 5:17

1 Tim 5:17

1 Timothy 5:17 NIV

17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.

Preaching and teaching so that we might grow as disciples of Jesus. This is job number one.

But also all the other work of administration, pastoral care, vision and planning, managing resources, etc.

Care for you

The job of the leader is to care for the church as a father cares for his family.

Often when we think of care we think of a nice person who visits us when we’re sick. But actually it’s about caring for us as we grow as Christians. Now that might involve an encouraging word by your bedside in sickness. But it involves a lot more. And in fact the word Paul uses there that we have before as “care for you in the Lord’ would more naturally be translated, “who are over you in the Lord”. But because we forget that leadership in the Christian church is about servanthood, just like Jesus showed and taught, the translators here in the NIV have opted for care for you. Which is ok. But that’s not without its own problems.

Fatherly care and all that involves I think is the best picture. Both tender and firm.

Admonish you

This is about warning you about bad behaviour nad its consequences. This is about bringing discipline.

Leon Morris says: “while its tone is brotherly, it is big-brotherly”.

So if I call you out on something, or tell you it might be worth changing your behaviour. This is me being a loving, caring shepherd. Not a nasty guy.

Your attitude to leaders?

And your job if your not a leader, is to not despise them, but to respect them, ‘hold them in hisest regard”

Respect them.

To love them “in love”

Why? Because oftheir work. That is to help you!

Hard working, caring admonishing leaders. This is vital for the church to be a community shaped by the gospel. Otherwise lots goes undone, and peopel aren’t challenged to grow in their discipleship. And respectful love of our leaders (not elvating them too highly nor denegrating them too lowly) enables them to do their job well and for all of us to live in peace (v13).

John Stott:

The Message of Thessalonians 1. The Pastorate (5:12–13)

happy is the church family in which pastors and people recognize that God calls different believers to different ministries, exercise their own ministries with diligence and humility, and give to others the respect and love which their God-appointed labour demands! They will live in peace with each other.

Church Community (1 Thes 5:14-15)

Lest we think having leaders lets us off the hook, Paul now turns from tell us how we should respond to our leaders, to our own responsibilites as members of a christian community.

We’re called not just repect for leaders, Paul calls the church to a radical gospel shaped life. It’s not just the leaders who are meant to go about the business of helping others grow as disciples.

Warn some

1 Thes 5:14

1 Thessalonians 5:14 NIV

14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

It is highly likely that you are going to know more about idle and disruptive behaviour in the church than I am. People tend to be less open and honest with leaders like me because they know part of our job is to admonish them.

Likewise if people have an issue with me they may not speak to me about it. And I can’t read minds.

They may however talk to you about it. Your job, as a Christian is to help them. And to warn them.

Imagine someone comes up to you and says, I’m not going to help out anymore because I don’t really like the direction our church is going in and in fact I’m going to stop really engaging in the mission of the church and instead I’m just going to have lunch with others and we’re going to reminise about old times and figure out new things that we can get grumpy about to try and disrupte the mission of making disciples at the church. Your job isn’t to come to me and dob when you find yourself in that conversation. It’s to warn that person yourself. This is idle and disruptive beahviour. Stop!

Encourage and help some

Likewise you can encourage others with the good news about Jesus. For the Thessalonians this might have been those who have become disheartened because their loved ones had died before Jesus returned, Paul says encourage them with the gospel. Likewise whatever might be cause people to feel disheartned encourage them with the good news about Jesus.

Likewise help the weak. Not like the people who can only bench press 5kgs instead of 50. But I think this refers to those who are struggling with their faith. Possibly living out the kind of sexual ethics Paul talked about. back in chapter 4. But any one who is weak in faith can be helped by others stronger in faith. Whatever the issue.

And as we warn, and encourage and help we do this in the power of the Spirit who gives to each of us the fruit of paitence.

Every church has its difficult people. It’s odd balls. The ones who need warning, encouragement and help. You might need some of that too.

And just as God has been paitent with us so too we should be paitent with those in our community. Part of what it means to be a gospel community is that we are not a holy huddle but a hospital for sinners. That is people are going to need constant support to grow in their faith. And that might get tiring if we strive to help others in own our strength. But if we rely on God we can have his paitence.

Do good to all

Paul’s final encouragement to the church is I think one for how it relates not only to insiders but also to outsiders. Remember it was a persecuted church. And Paul says:

1 Thes 5:15

1 Thessalonians 5:15 NIV

15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

In these instructions to the church community Paul:

The Message of Thessalonians 2. The Fellowship (5:14–15)

he is laying on the whole congregation the responsibility to care for each other as sisters and brothers, to give appropriate support, encouragement or admonition to the church’s problem children, and to ensure that all its members follow the teaching of Jesus, cultivating patience, renouncing retaliation and pursuing kindness

What a beautiful picture of the church working well.

How are we going? What do you need to work on?

Public Worship (1 Thes 5:16-22, 27)

From verse 16. Paul changes tack. He now uses a series of plural verbs to describle our collective practice as christians. That is what we do when we are gathered together.

Rejoice

1 Thessalonians 5:16 NIV

16 Rejoice always,

Not a call to constant happiness. But rather an invitation to joyful worship of God and our worship reminding us of what God has done through Jesus.

Pray

1 Thessalonians 5:17 NIV

17 pray continually,

We praise God for what he has done. We also must engage in prayer for each other and for our world.

Not just on Sundays. But whenever we gather together.

Give thanks

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV

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

We give thanks for all God’s blessings but of course especially for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

Listen to God speak

1 Thessalonians 5:19–22 NIV

19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.

1 Thessalonians 5:27 NIV

27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.

These words of Paul are an encouragement to allow God by his word and through his Spirit giving us eyes to see and ears to hear God’s word to us.

His own letter he encourages to be read aloud in the church. So that God can speak to all his people.

But also through the work of prophecy. Now, In the NT prophecies are not about future telling, but about applying God’s word to our lives as Christians today.

People can and do exercise prophetic gifts and ministries today. Those to whom God has given remarkable insight into Scripture and its meaning and/or to its application to contemporary society or to particular issues or for particular people.

Paul here encourages us to be open to any utterance that claims to come from God. To listen to it and test it. To sift it and weigh carefully what is said.

How do we test it?

But holding on to waht is good and rejecting what is evil (v21, 22). That is by weighing whatever is said against scripture. By seeking others input, by praying.

For Paul the public worship of a gospel community should invovle rejoicing in the Lord, praying, giving thanks and listening to God’s word read, expalined and applied. God’s spirit works powerful as we worship together.

Conclusion (1 Thes 5:23-28)

Well Paul wraps up his letter with a prayer for the Thessalonians.

That God would help them to keep on working out their faith.

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 NIV

23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

He then asks this church he loves to pray for him.

1 Thessalonians 5:25 NIV

25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us.

And finishes with his wish that

1 Thessalonians 5:28 NIV

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

As we’ve spent 6 weeks in the lead up to Christmas refelcting on this letter and all that God wants to teach us. Let’s pray that God would sanctify us. Shape us to be more like Jesus. And that we would be ready for Jesus to come again whenever that may be.

Let’s pray that we would be a gospel shaped community like the one Paul has described in this final part of his letter.

And if we are going to do that, then let’s know and trust that the grace of the Lord Jesu Chrsit will be with us.

Amen.