Stronger Love

Introduction

Title: Stronger Love

Text: 1 Thes 4:9-12

Date: 8/7/22

What would you do if you honestly believed that the world was going to end very soon?

Really think about it—what would you do? That may feel like an intimidating question, so let me give you some options to help think it through:

Spend time with family/loved ones.

Tell him/her “I love you” ; get married.

Sightseeing (Grand Canyon)

Disney World

Fanatically Evangelize

Commit petty crime (climbing a water tower, etc.).

Skydiving, rocky mountain climbing, 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu.

Spend time in nature or alone.

24/7 worship service.

Peacefully continue your daily life, including going to work.

Most likely, that last one is the first we’d knock off the list. Right? I mean, that’s the least interesting option! Man, none of that daily life stuff matters anymore. Right? Well it may not seem like it at first glance, but this is exactly what Paul is recommending to the Thessalonians in our passage this morning, who did absolutely believe that the end of the world was at hand. And of course as believers, the end of this world means that Jesus is coming back, so not only do we need to ask “What would you do with the last days of your life,” but we also need to ask, “How do we want to be found when Jesus returns?”

We’ve been working through the book of First Thessalonians, and as we’ve seen before, there is this focus throughout the letter on the return of Jesus. Paul had planted a church in this city, and he had taught these young disciples of Jesus about the Gospel, which includes the resurrection from the dead—the belief that Jesus was coming back soon, and that His followers would be raised to a new life of reigning with Him! So the Thessalonians, like many believers in the 40’s and 50’s AD, fully expected that Jesus was returning any day now.

But their excitement about Jesus’ return was making it hard for them to go on with their daily lives. They were unsettled, and they were unsettling to those around them. They were, as the old saying goes, ‘“So heavenly minded that they were no earthly good.” They were all caught up in waiting for Jesus’ return, but as a result they were no longer living as Jesus’ disciples. They understood that God was calling them into Christ, but they missed that He had also called them to live in a certain way in the world now. And as we read our passage today, we’ll see what that way is, why it matters, and how we can walk in that way as well—even if the world is coming to an end. So go ahead and open up to 1 Thes 4:9-12, and let’s read together.

*read 1 Thes 4:9-12.

Now, as we get into the passage this morning, I want to remind us of where we’ve been. At the end of Chapter 3, Paul has just finished a major portion of the letter, and he caps it off with a prayer in 3:11-13, praying that God would “make your love increase and overflow for each other…” and that He would “strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes.”

And if you notice, his prayer at the end of chapter 3 sets the stage for his instructions in chapter 4! He prays for holiness, and then he instructs them on holiness. Paul talks about sanctification and sex (which, if you missed Jim’s sermon last week, let me encourage you to go back and listen to it)! And now in verse 9 he brings up another point of instruction: “Now about your love for one another,” just like he was saying in his prayer. In our passage today, Paul is going to make his prayer about having stronger love practical, so the first thing you can write down is that we need stronger love for one another.

But it's not just love for one another; It’s a specific kind of love. Paul uses the Greek word philadelphia here, which is the word for brotherly love. He’s talking about the love we have for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is about the church. And since it’s about the church, it’s about God’s plan for the world, because the Christlike Church, the church that is living and loving like Jesus, is the hope of the world. So let’s not just read past this passage. It’s so practical, and it’s so important. We as the church of Jesus Christ need stronger love, and in this passage there are three reasons why.

First of all, if you look back up at verse 1, you’ll remember that all these instructions that Paul is giving are helping the Thessalonians to “live in order to please God.” In other words, Paul is saying that you can live in a way that is pleasing to God first off by avoiding sexual immorality and pursuing holiness (vv. 1-8), and you can also live in a way that is pleasing to God by “your love for one another,” verse 9. So first of all, we need stronger love for one another because it is pleasing to God. In the same way that it pleases God when we pursue holiness and sexual purity, it pleases God when we love one another as a part of the family of God. And that right there should be reason enough! Is it?

Because honestly there are so many times that we settle for less. Notice how in our text, Paul actually congratulates the Thessalonians on their love for one another. This wasn’t something that they were totally failing at—and so Paul is encouraging them. But Paul knows that it’s so easy for us to become complacent, to turn love into a box that we check off, or into some kind of formality. On the one hand, Paul wants to affirm the love that they have, yet at the same time he wants to call them deeper and deeper into love. So he says, “Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so,” that is, to love one another, “more and more.” Why? Because Paul knows that until we look just like Jesus, we still have a next step to take! No matter if you just became a believer, or if you’ve walked with Him for decades, there is a nuance and a depth to the love of Jesus that should challenge every single one of us.

There’s one more reason in this text that we need stronger love for one another, and it’s down in verse 12. Paul writes “we urge you to do so more and more… so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.” We need stronger love for one another because it points outsiders to Jesus.

There is something really good about God’s design for the church, and it should be discernible from the outside. How we love one another as believers should speak volumes. Jesus says to His followers in Mt. 5:14-16 that “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Part of God’s design for the church is for it to be like a city on a hill, that when people see the way that we live, the way that we walk through our lives beside one another, it makes an impact. It’s something that people want to be a part of.

We need to get stronger in our love for one another—not merely for our own sake, but because it is pleasing to God, and because it is the hope of the world! We need to fall in love again with the Church, to see it as Christ sees it! Not the church as an institution, which is riddled with failures and blemishes but the church as one another, and as Christ calls us to be—a gathering of His disciples who have been washed clean by His blood, and clothed with His righteousness. We are the bride of Christ! Let’s treat one another like the bride of Christ, amen? Let’s not settle for less. Because when we love one another more and more, God gets His glory from a watching world. But in order for it to be visible, it has got to become practical.

Think about your own life. We know that we’re supposed to love one another—we talk about it all the time! It’s written on our church walls—Love God, LOVE PEOPLE, Live Surrendered. We’re not really breaking new ground here. But is that theory becoming reality in the way that you live? Sometimes we can get it into our heads that our maturity and our Christlikeness can just be something that we feel or think—some purely internal thing that’s happening. But in this passage, Paul is clearly calling believers not to just know that they should love one another, not to just feel love for one another, but to allow that love to get practical in their daily lives. It can’t just be something up in the air—it needs to land on the ground somewhere; it needs to impact our lifestyle.

And starting in verse 11, Paul gets practical, giving the Thessalonians three ways that they can get stronger in their love for one another. First, Paul tells his audience to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” What does Paul mean by this?

The language Paul is using here means, “to live a quiet life or refrain from disturbing activity, be peaceable/orderly. Of conduct that does not disturb the peace.” Paul’s not talking about a life that doesn’t make noise, but a life of peace and rest, so you can write down that brotherly love prompts us to lead a life of peace.

Now the biblical idea of peace is not just the lack of conflict, but the presence of harmony. And if you remember the context, the Thesalonains were all excited about Jesus coming back. In fact, in 2 Thessalonians, which we believe Paul wrote shortly after the letter we’re reading today, this becomes even more clear. 2 Thes 2:1-2 says “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us… asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.” Paul is writing to a group of people who were unsettled and alarmed by a misunderstanding about Jesus’ return. So Paul is calling them to settle down and return to walking with one another in harmony rather than causing a public uproar.

As believers in Jesus, no matter what is coming over the horizon, we can have peace about tomorrow. We may not be disturbing the peace because we think Jesus is coming back next week, but there are plenty of things that unsettle our communities and disturb the peace of our relationships with our brothers and sisters. This is important for us to hear, because some of us have pet issues or soap boxes that are more important to us than living in loving relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. So, how practical will you allow love to get? Are you willing to love people who love Jesus but vote differently? This is such an easy example, because many times the answer is “no.” But there are a lot more examples than just our political parties. Friends, if an issue or agenda is becoming more important to us than fellowship and unity within the Church, if it’s becoming more important to us than the call to love, then it’s very likely that love is going to prompt us to set it aside for the sake of peace.

God wants us to have life, and life abundant. And that abundant life isn’t a constant feverish state, and it’s not constant conflict with other believers—Our daily walk with our Lord and with our brothers and sisters in Christ should be defined by peace. Not only is that good for us, and not only is that pleasing to God, but it also catches the attention of those around us—that when everyone else is disquieted, when everyone else is panicking, we are able to be still and know the God we serve. We’re able to trust Him with any issue and in any situation. We’re able to press on and serve one another, give to one another, and live with one another because of love.

Let’s keep reading. Paul moves into the next phrase and writes the second way we can love one another more and more: by “mind[ing] your own business.” And man, that sounds pretty harsh, doesn’t it? We usually use this language as a negative thing, basically the same as saying “hey kindly get out of my face!” So why would Paul use this kind of language? Well, if we look over in 2 Thessalonians 3:11, Paul talks about people in this church who were “idle and disruptive.” They were neglecting their responsibilities because of their excitement about Jesus’ return. The problem was that Jesus hadn’t come back yet—but rather than going back to their own business, some people were starting to disrupt the people around them. And we know well that when our hands aren’t given something to do, oftentimes it is our mouth that wants to fill in the gap with things like Gossip, Criticism outside the context of love, Snap judgments, Pride that says “I want to be the first to know, and I want to be the first to tell.” See, the problem isn’t that these believers had the day off; the problem was that they were using their time to be disruptive and intrusive. Rather than doing something with their own lives, they just wanted to watch and critique the lives of others.

First of all, this means that it’s not always loving to provide your opinion. Our words are powerful—Scripture says as much over and over again. When we speak into the life of someone else, we need to ask, “Am I actually contributing helpfully to this situation? Do I really need to be the one to be involved in this way? And, Are my actions here motivated by my love for this person, or my need to feel important?” It requires humility to learn that, in reality, I am not needed in every situation. When we’re idle, we can be tempted to over involve ourselves because, in our pride, we want to oversee and orchestrate what we think should be happening in the lives of others. We backseat drive, we micromanage, we overstep boundaries, and this isn’t loving! Instead, brotherly love prompts humble focus on the task that God has placed in front of us.

And would you believe me when I say that Social Media has made this exponentially more difficult? In my opinion, social media has got to be the farthest away from minding your own business as one can get. Now, can social media be a tool to expand our influence for Christ? Perhaps. That might be possible. But that’s not the way it works the majority of the time.

Now, I’m not going to ask us all to take out our phones and delete Twitter, but ask yourself: How does knowing what is going on on the other side of the country, or on the other side of the world, allow you to more faithfully love the people that you actually live beside? There are people right in front of us! Yet we would rather talk to people that aren’t part of our daily life than get to know the people we pass by every single day. Friends, God has placed us in this place, in this time, for a reason! Your “business” is to love your neighbor. Your neighbor isn’t restricted to just the people that live beside you, but it does include them! And to fail to interact with our neighbors because we’re so invested in someone else’s business across the world is missing the mark of the kind of community God wants the church to be. It’s failing to mind the task that God has placed in front of us.

God called people in Thessalonica to follow Jesus because He wanted them to be a light to people in Thessalonica, and whoever crossed their path! Imagine if they spent all their time writing letters to random households in Rome. They would be missing the people and the community that God has placed them in. In the same way, we are the Church in Elyria, in Lorain County. So you answer for yourself: Is social media, or minding the business of others, distracting you from the task of loving your neighbor, and especially from loving your brothers and sisters in Christ? Is it taking away from your ability to do the business that God has placed in front of you?

Let’s go back to the Text here for the third phrase Paul uses. Finally, Paul calls the Thessalonians to make their love practical in verse 11 by “working with their own hands.” Once again, 2 Thessalonians 3 sheds light on why Paul is using this kind of language. We already read verse 11, Paul continues in verse 12 saying “Such people [meaning the people who were idle and disruptive] we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.”

So what’s happening is that there are some in this church who responded the same way we would to believing the world was going to end very soon: They gave up their day jobs! But part of the reason the Thessalonians were able to stop working is because there were other people in that congregation who were wealthy, and because of their love for the church, were willing to provide food for those who needed food, which is a beautiful testimony to the power of the Gospel.

The problem is that, apparently, some people who could have been working to provide for themselves were taking advantage of the kindness of their brothers and sisters. They had their needs provided for, so they resigned themselves to a life of rest. But when we live a life of perpetual rest, it’s not called rest—it’s called laziness. And Paul is saying that’s not loving. It’s not loving to take advantage of someone else’s kindness and sacrifice. So on the one hand, love prompts us to give sacrificially, but on the other hand love prompts us not to take advantage of sacrificial giving.

But that’s not all. Paul doesn’t just say “stop taking what you don’t truly need,” he says to “work with your own hands!” These young believers didn’t want to waste their final days before Jesus came back working. They figured that they had their needs provided for, Jesus is coming back, so work doesn’t matter anymore. And Paul is saying, “Yes it does!” Paul is saying we don’t merely work to get paid, or merely to provide for our needs; we work because work is good!

One of my favorite scenes in the Chosen is in Season One when Jesus is working on the wooden lock with His carpentry tools, and when He gets done, He says “it is good.” He is reflecting the fact that God is a God who has been creatively working from the dawn of time! Even if today was your last day, even if Jesus was coming back tomorrow, in the same way that you are going to continue to eat today, you should continue to work, because work itself is a blessing. In his book called Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, Tim Keller writes that “Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul.” (Keller 35).

This is a needed message in 2022. So often we treat work like a necessary evil. We work only because we feel like we have to, and our goal in working is to provide for ourselves and our families, and to save up enough money so that one day we will never have to work again. Friends, this falls so short of the way that the Bible treats work! Last week we looked in Genesis to see God’s original design for sex, and real quickly I want to point out from that same passage God’s original design for work, because while we think sex is great, we often want to push work aside—yet work, like sex, is one of the only remnants of paradise left for us in this world! In Genesis 1:28, it says “God blessed [Adam and Eve] and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number,” there’s the blessing we talked about last week, and then the very next works, “fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” And later in Genesis 2:15, it says that “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Before sin, God gave us the loving union of marriage, and He gave us the blessing of work.

God has made us to be productive, inventive, creative creatures! God's original design was for us to work alongside Him, to join Him in shepherding and cultivating His creation! So don’t sell yourself short. You have been created in the image of God! His design is good. And His design gives you incredible dignity. You bear the image of the God who spoke galaxies into existence. The God who designed the beauty of the human body. The God who pulled the power of music into being. The God who created the very laws that govern our physical universe. And He wants you to join Him! And when we work, whether we’re using our hands or our minds, we’re doing just that. So rather than taking advantage of one another’s kindness, let’s receive the blessing of the work that God is calling us to.

So there you have it—practical ways of loving one another more and more. Rather than being unsettled and alarmed about tomorrow, lead a life of peace. Rather than disrupting those around you, humbly focus on the task that God has set before you. Rather than taking advantage of the kindness and sacrifice of others, receive the blessing of work.

And as we come near to the end of our time this morning, I want to close with one last observation from our passage. Because it’s great to have some really practical teaching. But if we leave here today with a commitment to try harder, we’ve missed the Gospel, and we will fail—every single one of us. The gospel doesn’t call us to do more and try harder; it calls us to be transformed from the inside out.

So how can we grow more and more in our love for one another? Paul answers this question in verse 9 when he says, “you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” This entire morning we’ve been talking about philadelphia, “brotherly love,” the love that we have as brothers and sisters in Christ. But when Paul talks about us being taught by God, He uses the word agape for love. It is not our ability to pull up our bootstraps that is going to enable us to have stronger love: It is nothing short of God’s unconditional love for us in Christ that teaches us the brotherly love that we need.

As you consider this message, more than a commitment to love one another, I want to call us this morning to a commitment to receive God’s love more and more. To become more and more captivated by how deeply God loves us. Because only when we are filled with the love of God will we be strengthened to pour out love to our brothers and sisters in Christ. As it says in 1 John 4:19, “We love [Why? How?] because He first loved us.” And it is only because the Holy Spirit pours that love into our hearts that we can be transformed to say no to ourselves, and to say yes to peace, humility, focus, and work. God’s desire is for the church, His body, His bride, to be defined by love so that it can demonstrate love to a watching world. But if those around me are going to see the love of God in action, then my daily life must be transformed by God’s love for me in Christ.

We know the world is going to end. We know that our King is going to return soon. Even so, there’s nothing better for us to do this morning than to be reminded of the love that God has for us in Christ, and then to let that love continue to transform our daily lives. Let’s pray.

*Pray

What better way to come face to face with God’s unconditional love than to come to the Table. Romans 5:8 says that “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.” This morning we’re going to end our services by celebrating the Lord’s Communion. So as we come to the table, I invite you to remember how deep is the love that God has for you. And to just rest in His love.