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1st Thessalonians 2.9-13
July 12th 2020
So, we left off with Paul telling the believers at Thessalonica that they, the apostle and his traveling companions, bestowed not only the Gospel to them but their own souls, and we read:
8 So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.
And now, continuing with this thought Paul adds:
9 For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.
10 Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:
11 As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children,
12 That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.
Let’s cover these four verses before moving on:
9 For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.
Paul here calls them to remember their labor among them, in all probability referring to Paul’s tentmaking, laboring day and night so as to, he adds . . .
“not be chargeable unto any of you (as they) preached unto you the gospel of God.
That is, when I was not engaged in preaching the gospel, he appears to say, that he worked day and night so as to escape being chargeable to any of them.
In other words he supported himself (possibly during the week and at night) as a means to prevent him from “being chargeable to them,” which is a means to describe when a person is paid directly for their labors and services.
Paul want no part of that – he chose to labor making tents “day and night” rather than to be paid and then in the position to have someone tell him how he was supposed to preach or do things.
I get this and embrace it. Freedom is vital to believer and leader alike and money has a way of making both the giver (boss) and the receiver (employee) or indebted.
Not good when people are seeking to both teach only the truth and to HEAR only the truth (as led of the Holy Spirit). (At verse 10 Paul speaks to the way he and his partners behaved when about them, saying)
10 Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:
Both you and God are witnesses of how
“Holily/ Justly and Unblameably” they all behaved among the Saints at Thessalonica.
This is certainly another appeal from Paul toward their reputation which apparently was under attack because he spends a lot of time defending it.
We can also see from these descriptions that these are in fact truly letters written to a people on a personal basis and have little to do with us except by principle and history.
Anyway Paul says:
How hose-oce (Holily- Piously), dikayos (Justly– righteously) – and Amemptos – (how unblamably) – they behaved themselves.
They not only did no wrong they lived among them in their duties before God and man. Verse 11
11 As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children,
READY
“That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.”
Now HERE we have some applicataion, my friends.
11 As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children,“That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.”
As believers and as sons and daughters we cannot get away from the weight of this and other passages which Paul has given to the believers at Thessalonica.
Paul “exhorted, comforted and charged every one of the believers at Thessalonica, as a Father would council his children, for them to
1. Walk worthy of God
2. Whom call them into His Kingdom
3. And Glory.
When a child on earth walks worthy of her or his parents they live in accordance with what the parent desires of them to be and do.
It is very easy to take these passages and have them have Paul demanding that they live in accordance to a bunch of rules and laws and expectations THAT IN THAT manner they might approach “walking worthy of God.”
We’ve seen religion impose itself on people in such a manner, right. Human beings are driven to making exterior rules for the life of others.
Piety, proper clothing and appearance, memorizing scripture, paying tithes, attending Sunday school and every external sign of worthiness that men and their religions can heave upon the backs of others.
The idea of “walking worthy of God” is not a new subject to Paul, and there are several places where he appeals to this language:
Ephesians 4:1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
And if we stopped right there on that passafe we could walk away and place ourselves under all sorts of Religious demands as a means to “be worthy,” right?
Again, in Colossian 1:10 Paul writes That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, (and defines this as) “being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
So that is one way that Paul describes walking worthy unto God – to be fruitful in every good work AND increasing in the knowledge of God.
When he says being fruitful we have to cross reference this with the fruit of the Spirit, not the flesh as THAT is the fruit we want to bear. And that means we could read that verse as saying:
That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, (and defines this as) “being full of the fruit of the Spirit which is love in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
Go back with me to that Ephesians reference I just gave you and listen to the full context of what Paul says there (Ephesians 4:1-3)
1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
3 Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Are you beginning to see how Paul defines walking worthy? These are really important distinctions because if it is not recognized people will begin to try and ‘walk worthy” of their call from God through all sorts of exterior physical means and expressions when the call is spiritual and on the heart.
I knew a man years ago who sought so hard to follow Jesus externally that he cut his hair in that weird fashion that looks like a halo, you know like, Friar Tuck in Robin Hood tales? That was his right, but not necessary. His heart happened to also be full of the fruit of the Spirit so what could we say?
In 2nd Timothy 1:9 Paul says, speaking of God:
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
When we consider literally what it means to walk worthy of God who has called us we have to consider his commandments for us – as these describe how we are to walk, meaning in accordance with those commands.
Many Bible readers suggest that the starting place description for “worthy walking” is the Ten Commandments, and to then go on out from there.
The Jews have 613 commandments that they suggest are required to walk worthy of God and then looking to the New Testament, there are over 1000 commandments given by Jesus or the Apostles to people in that day on how to walk worthy.
So if you are seeking to walk worthy according to all that is written before you, you are looking at approximately 1,639 commandments in order to measure up.
Good luck.
God intends for HIS children to be free and to live unencumbered for they are whom Jesus came to set free!
And so he gave us two commandments, according to a contextual study of scripture.
And John’s the Beloved’s first epistle describes them to believers, saying:
1st John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
Wanna walk worthy of God’s call on your life – believe on His Son and love each other.
How on earth could these two simple (general) but nevertheless tough to do commandments encompass all the other 1639 separate commands of the Bible?
(Beat)
Because if we believe and place our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior AND if we are successful at loving our neighbor, we will have fulfilled all those other commands – completely.
The beautiful thing about John’s summary of the Christian commandments into two things – believe on Jesus and love each other – is it removes the complicated, unending legalisms that religious life brings – “don’t touch this, don’t taste that, don’t do this, this is forbidden” – and allows each believer to let the Spirit of God, which is given to us by and through faith in His Son, to lead us, reprove us, remind us and guide us in the ways of faith and love – rather than rules and regulations.
I see an apple pie my neighbor has made sitting on the window sill (how’s that for old school).
I am hungry and without means. I am tempted to steal the pie but I am reminded of the two part command – “have faith in Jesus and love my neighbor.”
So choosing to trust Jesus, that He will provide and make a way for me, I refrain from stealing the pie my neighbor worked hard to make for her family, and in this I show her love (even if she never knows about it).
“Faith and love.”
Someone steels the apple pie I worked all day making, and I go out and find them behind the barn with crumbs all over their face.
I place my faith in God that he will deal with this pie thief and I kindly speak with them about their crime, showing them mercy. (faith and love)
That is walking worthy of the Call God has on your life – through faith on His Son and love for each other.
But Paul adds:
12 That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory
Jesus made it plain to Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world. Since God has called people unto or into His Kingdom, we know by association that this means we are not in or part of the Kingdom of this world.
Now, again, we have to be clear or else we will allow ourselves to be mislead by man-made interpretations of what this looks like.
And the way we interpret what not being of this world looks like is by looking at the life of Jesus – even if it was 2000 years ago.
So quickly, did Jesus have a job? For most of his life he had a job, as a carpenter. Does that mean we should all be carpenters? No. It means that in this world we labor in jobs – whatever they may be.
Any job? Any job. Again, its not the occupation outside of us, it’s the avocation inside us that makes us who we are.
Christians can work in every kind of work as all things are lawful unto us – but not all things are expedient.
What this means is while there is no intrinsic evil in any viable job, there are things that would be unwise to pursue. Let the spirit guide.
And so, while His kingdom was not of this world, we know that Jesus himself had a job! What this tells us is that the heart of the Lord, the focus of the King was on “other places and other things” while His physical body had to survive, and God made it so He would work.
That is telling, isn’t it?
That God himself did not have Jesus being fed by the pigeons for his keep but had his own Son work a job.
Did Jesus enjoy this world? That “he was not of this world” does not mean that he didn’t enjoy himself. Jesus was a frequenter of parties, a socializer with men, so much so he was called a glutton and a winebibber by his critics.
That was our Lord “who’s kingdom was not of this world!” This is not to suggest that he let “fine wining and dining rule” his life, but the Son of Man certainly lived a life here on earth that was typical of most people’s lives on earth – he wasn’t nearly as ascetic as John the Baptist was, who represented the law and the prophets – but he was certainly focused on the things of His father from the heart.
The fact that His kingdom was not of this world did not prevent him from enjoying many of the things in this world.
So we aren’t called to asceticism.
I can’t stress enough how Jesus came to took away the sins of the world making way for the Sons and Daughters of God, having been cleansed from all sin two thousand years ago to live at peace, to live in liberty and freedom by faith in His finished work.
You like pork, eat pork.
You like wine, drink wine.
You love parties – go, have fun.
But the point is in all of this (and more) is put Him and his kingdom at the forefront of your mind and heart at the parties, in the job, realizing that you are called into the Kingdom of God which is IN you, and from the heart love God and others when living your life.
The antithesis to this approach is to have zero care for God or his Kingdom and to live for and to focus on the pork and wine parties; on how to please yourself over pleasing Him through agape love, how to take from others, how to hurt others, how to prey on the innocents, and do harm to others and live without mercy.
That kingdom is of the world which of course Christian Sons and daughters would never embrace.
Then finally Paul says here in 1st Thessalonians, not only that God has called them unto his Kingdom” but he adds, “and Glory.”
God is glorious. The word in Hebrew is kabod and in Greek is doxa and scripture defines it in a number of ways:
First, it means abundance, wealth, treasure, and honor (Psalm 49:12; Genesis 31:1; Matthew 4:8; Revelation 21:24-26)
It means dignity and great honor (1st Kings 3:13; Hebrews 2:7; 1st Peter 1:24; Psalm 19:1; 29:1; Genesis 49:6; Psalm 7:5; Acts 2:46)
It means splendor, brightness and majesty (Genesis 45:13; Isaiah 4:5; Acts 22:11; 2nd Corinthians 3:7; Isaiah 59:19; 60:1; 2nd Thessalonians 1:9)
It means glorious moral attributes and infinite perfections (Isaiah 40:5; Acts 7:2; Romans 1:23; 9:23; Ephesians 1:12; Hebrews 1:3; John 1:14; 2:11)
And it is also synonymously used to describe the bliss of heaven (Romans 2:7,10; 5:2; 8:18; Hebrews 2:10; 1st Peter 5:1,10)
Here Paul says that we are called to His glory. So Sons and Daughters are called to his:
“abundance, wealth, treasure, and honor
dignity and great honor, splendor, brightness, majesty, his glorious moral attributes and infinite perfections and to the bliss of heaven”
We did a show on heart of the Matter recently called, What hangs in the Balance, Part A.
It is one of the most important presentations we have ever done for a believer and if you haven’t watched it your should.
In it we show how Sons and Daughters are not just called to His Kingdom – that is a call to all believers based on faith in His Son.
But we go on to show that we are also called to His glory – which is a VERY different matter as that glory will be bestowed upon every person by God and His will through the resurrected Body he gives them.
So to His Kingdom AND to His glory, meted out by and through the resurrection in the eternal body God grants us.
Alright, so let’s read through from verse 13 to 16 where Paul says:
1st Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
Alright back to verse 13 where Paul writes:
1st Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
In addition to the reasons for thankfulness Paul has already maintained, the apostle refers here to the fact, that when they received the truth, when it was preached by them it was received in such a way as to show that they fully believed it to be the word of God.
“Not as the word of men.”
Or not of human origin, but as a Divine revelation.
Paul is talking here about the spoken word by which he and the others with him preached the Gospel to them.
They received the word as if it was from God himself, and not from the imaginative minds or from the recesses of human reason by which philosophy originates.
Their convictions came, quite frankly, by revelation of the Spirit.
We note from this a couple of things – the Gospel was first preached – that is how the truth of it came to be known in people’s hearts – when they heard the word and the Spirit confirmed it to them.
I maintain that the written word – that which we believers gather to study together – is a gift from God to believers, generally speaking, and that its contents cannot typically be discerned by non-believers.
For this reason, the Gospel – from John the Baptist, to Jesus, to His Apostles on out into the world, was “SPOKEN.”
We could frankly spend a good deal of time on this fact and cite how Jesus did not command his apostles to write but to go out and preach, and teach, and exhort, and instruct.
We could talk all about how in the Beginning God created things by speaking – and all that he said with his words were done. We could talk about how His very Words became flesh, and dwelling among us spoke the truth, and commanded with his mouth that things occur – and that they were done.
We could talk all about these things, about the power of the “spoken word” from one person to another, especially when the words are accompanied by the Holy Spirit.
We could talk about how the written world of the Apostolic Record was not readily available or agreed upon or readable by the masses for the first 1500 years of the faith, or at LEAST that the earliest church grew only by WORD of MOUTH.
But in the end, in and through this method of mouths speaking, God has generally allowed for conversion to occur. Which is why we speak the Truth by the Spirit and the truths shared do not return void when planted in the hearts of seeking people.
The written word is another form of the Spoken word, but we must never forget that before the word was written, it was spoken, by God into the minds and hearts of those who recorded them.
They too must be read by the Spirit just as the Spoken word must be heard by the same.
But that written word is typically speaking for people who believe and will not always work to bring conversion to a reader who has no capacity to understand it.
The difficulty with of this spoken word stuff is that there are all sorts of counterfeits out there also speaking into our ears.
Words from friends, foes, commercials, theaters, philosophies, testimonials, you name it – and because these Words often convey earthly truths they can also be words that contain lies, deceptions, counterfeits, and at times sheer darkness.
How can a person tell between the words of God spoken by someone and the words of Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Smith or Harvey Weinstein?
I suggest that it all goes back to what we talked about last week when it came to vetting doctrine.
If someone stand before you and speaks, do not listen to the “feelings” you may feel – we all have them and any capable speaker can get people to feel anything.
Also, do not buy into the promises made in the words of this world – they can be self-fulfilling.
And get the full story. The art of convincing people (where we get the term Con from as in con man) is usually obscured in partial truths.
You get the honey upfront, you get the bitterroot later.
Hear the whole story before you buy into any of it.
And along the way, listen with your ears, consider the content in your mind, demand to hear the whole story, and before ever letting the words of others take a place in your heart, consider the END game of them all, the end result, of what is being said or promised or promoted.
Finally, if what is being said does not, will not, cannot lead to more faith and reliance on Jesus Christ (the author and finisher of our faith) and to loving God and all others (in a biblical sense of love, meaning with Agape love) do not receive or believe it or them.
And if the words of someone do lead to faith and love, this does not mean you should believe that all of their future words can be trusted.
Everything must be tested as a means to discern the truth. Why did God make it this way?
It seems to have something to do with being Good, with freedom and with those really wanting and seeking the truth being able to find it over those who would rather please themselves and itch their own ears.
So, Paul says at verse 13 to these believers that
. . . we thank God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe
That last line gives us the value of finding and hearing and keeping the Word of God in us – because it “effectually works in those that believe.”
I have said it a thousand times but it bears repeating – “if you want to overcome your fleshly mind, body and soul, it occurs by and through bringing in the Word of God into your life.
You can believe in Jesus till doomsday but if you do not have the Word of God in your mind, you will remain and babe in your faith and your flesh will reign. This I know from first-hand experience.
For nearly twenty years I have taught that the Word of God read and heard acts like “scrubbing bubbles” in the soul of a believer, which scrubs away the rot, lies and filth that our flesh adores.
When I see people come out of Mormonism (and I’ve seen a lot of them) they take various roads to recovery.
Some take the John Dehlin road of enlightened humanism, and discard God and Jesus pretty much entirely – or keep them at arms length.
Some take the hardened atheist road or the road to self-destruction through substances and sex which leads to addiction, divorce, and the like.
Some take to a form of Christianity and go all in with its tenets and demands,
But some seek Jesus and His truth. For those who seek Jesus, there are two types:
Those who continue to believe in Him and profess love for Him and never read or hear the word, and those who receive him by faith AND consume His words both by hearing and reading.
In the end, the most stable in Christ, the most mature in the faith, the most in control over their flesh, and the most settled in His peace, are those who dive into His word by hearing and reading.
They get scrubbed, as uncomfortable as that can be.
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