Transcript

In the third century a man named Cyprian wrote to a friend named Donatus these words: “This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from a fair garden under the shadow of a tree or vines.

But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see: [robbers] on the high road, pirates on the seas, in the ampitheaters men murdered to please the applauding crowds, under all roofs misery and selfishness. It really is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world.

Yet in the midst of it, I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this life.

They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people are Christians…and I am one of them.”

Being called a quiet and holy people is a compliment for believers. This is the instruction that Paul gives the Body of Christ for how we are to stay ready for the Rapture.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul teaches about the Rapture of the Church, the Body of Christ. In verses 9-12, leading up to it, Paul gives practical instruction for how the Body is to live in light of Christ’s coming and be Rapture ready.

1 Thessalonians 4:9-10: “But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

“And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.”

The context for verses 9 to 12 is set back in verses 1 and 3. There our Apostle Paul talks about how to walk and live to please God, and that the will of God is our sanctification.

Practical sanctification concerns the daily matters of life that are the outworking of our relationship with the living God.

It’s about being set apart unto God in what we say and do. As we obey God’s Word by faith, we will live set apart from the world and sin, and honoring and pleasing to God.

This Thessalonian church was dynamic and enthusiastic. They were an all or nothing groups of people as seen in chapter 1 and their aggressive proclamation of their faith.

1 Thessalonians 1:8 reads, “For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.”

Also, chapter 1, verse 10 tells us that this enthusiastic Church was waiting for God’s Son from heaven. And they were literally, actually waiting for Christ to come.

Paul had taught them about the believer’s hope of the return of Christ at the Rapture to catch away the Body of Christ to heaven, which will close this dispensation of grace and deliver us from the wrath to come in the Tribulation period.

Paul had taught them that Christ could come at any time, that we don’t know when He’s coming, but that they had every reason to expect its possibility, like we still do now. So Paul had taught them to wait for Him, and this church was enthusiastically waiting.

They were gripped by their hope. But in their excitement and zeal for the coming of Christ, they began to allow the everyday responsibilities of their life to lose importance. They were so heavenly minded they were of no earthly good!

They had focused totally on the coming of Christ and lost sense of personal responsibility. They were looking for Christ and that was good. But this focus had become so strong and powerful that they were neglecting the everyday duties of life.

Their thought process was: What’s the point with worrying about things down here? We could be leaving here any time. So they needed these reminders to love one another, and help others in need while we wait.

They needed to be reminded to live to not be idle, to work with your hands and take care of the responsibility of your home and family while we wait.

Their enthusiasm is good, however. It teaches us, the Church, something. We need more of their kind of Rapture enthusiasm. Because the Church has the reverse problem today.

It’s not that the church is so anxious for the coming of Christ that we’re ignoring our worldly responsibilities, it’s that the church is often indifferent to the coming of Christ and it is consumed with its worldly activities and the temporal things of life here so that the church hardly thinks about the Rapture. To be Rapture ready, we need to keep it in mind.

It’s good for the church to anticipate Christ’s coming and to be looking for it, knowing that every single day is a day we may stand before the great God and our Savior. This is to drive us to live for Christ and for eternal things, and not for the temporal only.

All this shows how easily the Church is given to extremes. We see it often even now.

In their extreme, the Thessalonians had lost their balance, their Rapture hope had distracted them, and they were excited to the point where they weren’t doing the everyday, necessary duties of life. And so the instruction of this passage teaches us the kind of things God expects out of us, His Church, as we stay ready for the Rapture.

And a priority for our lives and what we’re supposed to be all about as we wait for God’s Son from heaven, is to “love one another.”

God wants His church to be a loving people, as we remain ready for our loving Savior.
Paul teaches the church to not neglect love, not look past meeting each other’s needs as we wait for the Rapture. God wants us to abound in love for one another as we wait.

In contrast to the world with its anger and hostility and bitterness and hatred, God would have His Church love one another.

Paul writes, “as touching brotherly love.” We know about the city of brotherly love, the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“Brotherly love” here is the Greek word, “Philadelphia.” With “brotherly” in it you see that this kind of love is the natural love that exists between “brothers” or family.

Paul is saying that our love for believer to believer should be as normal and natural as loving family members. We actually are family; we belong to the same family in Christ, the family of God, so this kind of love and care should naturally be a part of the church.

Paul said it was unnecessary, that he didn’t need to write unto them about loving one another w/ brotherly love because they were taught of God to love one another.

Paul had just written about not living like the Gentiles “which know not God” in v. 5. But the Thessalonians did know God. In knowing God, they knew that His very nature is love: “God is love” 1 John 4:8 says. God teaches us to love others by His own example. Because God is love, we, the people of God, are taught of God to be loving.

And Paul had brought them the gospel of grace. The Gospel teaches us of God’s love for all. Romans 5:8 teaches, “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

That unconditional love of God in giving His Son for us and in Christ dying for us, for sinners, teaches the church to do the same, to love others unconditionally.

Paul uses the Greek word “agape” for the second word “love” in this verse. God teaches us to love with His pure agape, humble, selfless, sacrificial love.

Paul wrote the Thessalonians that he didn’t need to write about the need for brotherly love, because God taught them to love with His divine agape love which ends up in Philadelphia-type brotherly love toward one another.

Lee Iacocca once asked Coach Vince Lombardi what it took to make a winning team. The book entitled “Iacocca” records Lombardi’s answer.

He said, “There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who first know the fundamentals, and second, have plenty of discipline, but they still don’t win the game.

“Then you come to the third ingredient: if you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other.

“Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and saying to himself: If I don’t block that man, Paul Hornung is going to get his legs broken. I have to do my job well in order that he can do his. “The difference between mediocrity and greatness,” Lombardi said that night, “is the love those guys have for each other.”

If football teams can band together and demonstrate love for one another then the church surely can do the same. And as we stay ready for the Rapture, the church can accomplish great things as we selflessly “love one another” with God’s love and work together as one.

In verse 10, Paul writes because they were living it out, not only among their own church, in their own town, but beyond. They were showing God’s love to all the churches and all believers in all of Macedonia, v. 10 says.

This wasn’t selective love, they were loving “all the brethren” unconditionally, regardless of their background, social standing, gender, age, or race.

Thessalonica was the capital city of the region of Macedonia. And there were other grace churches founded in Macedonia by Paul, such as Philippi and Berea.

The Thessalonians were showing love to all these brethren too, either as they went out & visited them, or as believers came to Thessalonica and found them full of God’s love.

In 4:1, as they walked to please God, Paul encouraged them that they “would abound more and more.” And here Paul beseeches them that their love “increase more and more.”

Love is not an achievement, it is something that we grow in and must practice continually. We don’t ever arrive with our love in the Christian life.

We can never sit back and feel like we’ve done enough. People continually need God’s love. There’s always more that need His love and care.

Paul encourages the Thessalonians to excel in their love, to increase the level of their love, to let their love have no limits, to super abound with it, to love to a greater degree. There is always room for spiritual growth with our love.

We increase in love by an increasing understanding of Christ by the Word rightly divided. It is the Spirit Who causes us to increase in love. It’s His fruit in our lives.

To be Rapture ready, Paul’s instruction is love each more and more, not less and less, concentrate more on meeting people’s needs. Don’t ignore this world because Christ is coming, take a closer, harder look at the people around you and love them more and more.

1 Thessalonians 4:11: “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.”

Paul writes to “study to be quiet.” “Study” means “to make it your ambition, to aspire, to strive earnestly for, to make it your goal.” “Quiet” means “to be at rest, to be silent, still, or calm.”

Paul says, “Be ambitious, make a major effort, to just live quietly.” It sounds like a contradictory instruction, because ambition tends to be noisy and to make a splash. But Paul says to make it your life’s ambition to lead a quiet life.

This is the opposite of what we might think. Christ could come at any moment, so shouldn’t we lead a loud life? Shouldn’t we be all over the place yelling, hollering, protesting, and doing whatever we need to do to wake up this world?

No, God teaches us to lead a quiet life. So then it makes you think: how can we strive to make a difference for Christ and yet be quiet at the same time?

The answer is that believers make a bigger impact for Christ by leading quiet lives, than by being noisy, out there banging drums, causing scenes, on the news, getting arrested, being troublesome.

Leading a quiet life doesn’t mean we are silent with the truth and the gospel, and that we don’t open our mouths to share it. We are taught to speak the truth in love.

But in this passage Paul points out the strong influence believers have in impacting unbelievers by the nuts and bolts of our day-to-day lives. The greatest witness for Christ we will ever have is the life that we lead.

We make a powerful difference for Christ by leading a quiet life of faith. The emphasis here is on the quietness of mind and heart, the inner tranquility and peace of God.

Two painters were in a contest where each said they could paint a picture of peace. One painter painted this sunset with the sun going down over the calm water. It all looked very nice and the picture had a very calming effect.

The other painter painted a picture of a storm. In it, the sky was dark and there was lightning and dark clouds rolling overhead. The picture showed the waves crashing against the rocks. Things looked chaotic. But in the corner of the painting, at the bottom, were two big stones with a bird protected in the middle of them.

The bird was singing. That’s peace. Peace is where God’s calm and God’s tranquility overrules what’s going on around you.

Though it looks like the world is falling apart and is going to crash down around us, we can have this inner quietness, and lead a quiet, peace-filled life, a joyful life in spite of what’s going on around us.

And in the middle of the chaos we can sing and rejoice in the Lord, because we have hope in Christ and we know He is coming one day.

Paul is speaking of gracious, quiet, kind of living for the believer. It’s not idleness or not doing anything for the Lord.

It’s living in the peace of God that transcends human understanding. Paul didn’t want the Thessalonian church frantic, worried, anxious, lacking composure as they stayed ready for the Rapture, he wanted them to live in God’s quietness as we wait for it.

Romans 15:33 says that God is “the God of peace.” And as believers live nearer to God in their relationship with Him through Christ, we can live a quiet life of peace.

All this is like what Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:2: “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” Real love and peace is what the world is looking for. And we have it in Christ. So God wants us to demonstrate this to the world.

Next Paul says, “to do your own business.” The Thessalonians were neglecting personal responsibility to the daily affairs of their life as they waited for Christ’s coming, and instead they were interfering with the affairs of others.

“Do your own business” means to mind your own business. Paul teaches the church to take care of and attend to your own business and responsibilities. Don’t be nosy, meddlesome and always prying into the others’ affairs.

What Paul is primarily teaching by this statement is for the members of Christ’s Body to keep our head down and to concentrate on our own life and character.

The point is: concentrate on how you live for the Lord. Don’t spend so much time worrying about others and their failings that you neglect your own life and your own growth in grace.

How many times during a message from God’s Word have we thought, “Boy, this person really needs to hear that” or “If so-and-so would only do this.” We should stop ourselves when we think like that.

We need to take what we hear taught from God’s Word to our own heart and to mind our own business, and listen for the things that God is teaching us and where we need to change and to grow in Christ.

Paul says keep to your business; make it a habit to attend to your own concerns, keep doing what’s necessary for your Christian walk, your livelihood and taking care of your home and your family as a testimony for the Lord and to the world.

You take care of your Christian walk, make sure you’re about pleasing God. Make your light strong and bright by living by the Word of God and God’s grace for today.

In contrast to the world’s ambition, which is to be loud and make a great stir and to constantly be in everyone else’s business, Paul’s instruction for the believer is to lead a quiet, unobtrusive, peaceful life, and focus on our own spiritual walk and our own business.

Christ could come at any time to take the Church out of this world to heaven, but while we wait, we stay ready by doing all the normal things that are necessary to life here.

Such as what Paul says next: “work with your own hands.” Some of the Thessalonians were quitting their jobs, some had become lazy, others weren’t working hard as they waited for the Lord’s return.

Their Rapture enthusiasm was telling them: “What’s the use in building something today, only to leave it behind tomorrow?”

There was a man who phoned his boss one day and said, “I need a day off, there is something wrong with my eyes.” When his boss asked what was wrong with his eyes, the man replied, “I don’t know, but I just can’t see myself coming in to work today!”

The Thessalonians just couldn’t see the point in coming to work as they waited for the Savior. God looks highly on hard work.

Paul wanted the Thessalonians to earn their wages, to work diligently. Our job, our work, can be a powerful testimony for the Lord as we work faithfully and do our job well.

An irresponsible, lazy lifestyle discredits the gospel and our testimony to the unbelieving. Diligence in our work is an important factor in living out our faith before others.

We are Rapture ready and we are properly waiting for the Lord’s return as we work and do our duties well and heartily for the Lord in our daily employment and in the home.

Believers are to do their work for the Lord while we wait for the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:12: “That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.”

Paul says we do all these things “that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without.” In staying ready for the Rapture, we are to walk honestly, or becomingly, decently, genuinely, in order to be a good testimony to the world.

Those who “are without” are those who are outside the faith, they are “without” Christ, without hope, without eternal life, i.e, the unbeliever (cf. Col. 4:5). And the unbeliever is always watching us.

There is a true story told about a faithful old deacon who would pray in front of the church and he often repeated an expression in his prayers, “Lord, touch the unsaved with Thy finger.”

One night at a midweek prayer meeting as he was leading in prayer, he abruptly stopped praying after he used this same expression. The long pause caused some to be concerned if he had become suddenly ill.

Someone finally stepped up to the front and went to him and asked if there was anything wrong or if he was ill as he stood there with his head still bowed and eyes closed. “No,” he replied, “I’m not ill. I just realized that I am that finger.”

We touch the hearts and lives of the unsaved by how we live our daily lives. Paul says we are to walk honestly before them because what impresses the unbeliever is when they see us behaving honestly and decently in the everyday world and the day-to-day grind.

What the world notices about believers are these things: how do believers treat one another, do we truly love one another?

They are searching for peace: do you have true peace? Do you live a quiet life, ruled by God’s inner peace and calm? Are you genuine and real with your faith? Do you take care of your personal responsibilities and your family? Do you work hard, faithful, and well?

When we do these things, it speaks volumes to them.

The key to reaching others for Christ is the integrity of the lives of believers who manifest to a troubled, agitated, chaotic, irresponsible, messed-up world a behavior and life that is not that way, but instead it is filled with the love of God, His peace, faithfulness to our responsibilities, and diligent work.

And when believers live that kind of a life in this world, people will take note that you’re different, that you’re “set apart” from others. And by doing these things, we light the path for others to Christ and we make the truth of the gospel believable.

As it’s been said, “Live in such a way that those who know you but don’t know God, will come to know God because they know you.”