Idle Hands (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15 Jeff Kliewer)

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Sermon Notes: notes.cornerstonesj.org Idle Hands

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Let's stand together and sing. So with each breath
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I'll bless Your name, O God. Your name will be revealed by children yet to come.
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As generations sing, the wonders You have done.
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Your strong and mighty deeds are always near.
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O God, most high, Your name be revered.
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How great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
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How great is the Lord, our
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God. How great is the
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Lord, and greatly to be praised. Your gracious hand provides for all who live.
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Your mercy runs to find the helpless and the weak.
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When we call out to You, You hear our cries.
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And all our days are filled with prayer. How great is the
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Lord, and greatly to be praised.
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Forever without end, creation will rejoice.
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Works of wicked men may destroy.
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Your power will proclaim till Christ descends.
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And You will reign forever without end.
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How great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
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How great is the Lord, our
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God. How great is the
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Lord, and greatly to be praised. The theme of Psalm 62 is that we are not simply looking to Jesus for our hope and our safety.
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Maybe in that time of uncertainty and death, but it's during living that we can look to Him.
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Because He truly is our deepest and our truest and our most stable refuge.
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So let's sing together. My soul will wait. The enemy surrounds.
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And my heart grows faint within. When the darkness overwhelms.
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And my fears are pressing in. I will trust in You, O Lord.
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In the silence I will wait. I will stand upon Your way.
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You're my solid rock and my salvation. My steadfast hope that won't be shaken.
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My soul will wait. My soul will wait for You.
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My stronghold and my shield. In the midst of every threat.
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Though the wicked never meet. They will vanish like a breath.
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Yes, I know the outcome's sure. Satan's evil plans will fail.
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In Your power I'm secure. You're my solid rock and my salvation.
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My steadfast hope that won't be shaken. My soul will wait.
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My soul will wait for You. For my comfort when
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I feel forsaken. You're my refuge and my sure foundation.
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My soul will wait. My soul will wait for You.
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This is love I can't explain. This is mercy unreserved.
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Through Your sacrifice. So great a peace that's undeserved.
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I fear no shame or loss.
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Now the sting of death is gone. You're my solid rock and my salvation.
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My steadfast hope that won't be shaken. My soul will wait.
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My soul will wait for You. For my comfort when
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I feel forsaken. You're my refuge and my sure foundation.
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My soul will wait. My soul will wait for You. Let's pour out our hearts before the
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Lord this morning. We will trust in You. It's before You.
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We will trust in You. We will trust in You.
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Pouring out our hearts. It's before You.
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We will trust in You. And save Your strong defender.
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We will trust in You. Lord, we trust in You this morning.
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We stand here singing with all of our heart. Your many blessings.
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Your righteousness. The redemption that You give. Allow us to give our entire hearts to You, Lord Jesus.
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What gift of grace is Jesus my redeemer?
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There is no hope for heaven now to avail.
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He is my joy, my righteousness, and freedom.
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My steadfast love, guiding in my worst days.
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To this I hold. My hope is only
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Jesus. For my life is only bound to Him.
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Oh, how strange and evil I can see.
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All is mine, yet not I, the new Christ.
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The night is dark, and I am no sign.
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The Savior, He will stay. In weakness and rejoicing.
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To this I hold. My shepherd will defend me.
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I shall always believe.
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I tread the future shore.
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The price has been paid. For Jesus bled and suffered for my pardon.
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And He was raised. To this
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I hold. My sin has been defeated.
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Jesus now and ever is my plea.
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Oh, the chains are released. I can see.
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I am free, yet not I, the new Christ. Deep breath,
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I long to follow Jesus. For He has said that He will bring me home.
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And day by day, I know He will renew.
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Until I stand with joy before the throne.
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To this I hold. My hope is only Jesus. All the glory to Him.
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When the race shall repeat.
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Yet not I, but through Christ in me. When the race.
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When the race is complete. Still my lips shall repeat.
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Yet not I, but through Christ in me.
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Yet not I, but through Christ in me.
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Father, it is so sweet to trust in Jesus.
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Thank you, God, that you gave your one and only son, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. To forgive us of our sins and grant us eternal life.
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Through faith in His name. Jesus, you are worthy of every praise that we could bring to you.
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Guys, can you imagine what that would be like? To go back to elementary school to learn to speak
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English while a teenager. That would be hard. But the older ones set an example, not only of work and school, to learn the language.
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But then, after school, they would go out to the apple orchards. And on Saturdays, all of the six
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Clewer kids would be at the apple orchards working from sunset to sundown.
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My dad describes it as quite hard work. In fact, did you know that to this day in Washington, all of the 10 billion apples that are picked annually are done by hand?
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Isn't that interesting? But it's hard work. And so, these young people would pick the apples and fill baskets.
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Each one was weighing 40 pounds. And bring them in and they would get paid by the basket.
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So, they had incentive to work. The more they picked, the more they got paid. And nobody could keep up with Uncle Willie.
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He was the third. But he was just so fast. My father at the time, in 1964, was 13 years old.
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Working hard on the apple orchard. Picking apples to help pay for the bills that the family needed to pay.
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Very far away in Washington, D .C. in 1964. The farthest point from the northwest corner,
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Washington, D .C., and also the farthest away ideologically, was
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Lyndon Johnson, the newly elected president. In 1964, he proposed what was called the
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Great Society. Anybody ever heard of it? It was a vast expansion of FDR's New Deal, which had provided food stamps and welfare.
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Now, much more money would be poured in to these programs. FDR had been ambitious, not just to help a little, but he said,
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Throughout the nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth.
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That's 85 years ago. FDR says, I pledge myself to a New Deal for the
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American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms.
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And so, minimum wage and Social Security, and all of these programs came into being in the 1930s.
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Well, the Great Society pushed that and basically put that on steroids.
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Took it to the next level in the 1960s. Great programs like, well, not great, but supposedly great programs, poured money to try to lift people out of poverty, the government becoming the provider.
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One example of that was the Pruitt -Igoe housing development in St. Louis, built by the architect who would go on to build the
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World Trade Center. Each of the 33 buildings were 11 stories tall, state -of -the -art in many ways, and gorgeous, and such an amazing common area for play and for recreation.
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Housing 10 ,000 people in public housing. People were very excited to move in.
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The government was lifting them out of poverty by providing housing now. By 1976, all 33 of those buildings had been razed to the ground.
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Because being given public housing did not actually provide the result that was expected.
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There are two ways to approach the problem of poverty. Poverty itself is the natural state of affairs.
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Naked we come into the world, and naked we leave. We bring nothing in with us, and all that we have must be brought up from the ground.
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According to the curse of Genesis 3, it will involve thorns and thistles. But this work that God prescribed actually goes back before the fall, and it is a good thing.
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Colossians chapter 3, and this is just a quick verse, we're not turning there yet. Colossians 3, 23, and 24 says,
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The path of life is a path of hard work. The path of entitlement leads in the opposite direction.
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Just a couple years ago, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was advanced still further.
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In response to a virus, the government shut down business, resulting in less goods and services being produced.
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But to meet the needs of people, this nanny state government printed $6 trillion.
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And sent that money out into the economy.
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Now when you have too much money chasing too few goods, the result is inflation, which is now estimated at 9 .1%.
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But using the old metrics, it's actually more like 14%. And so the problem of government intrusion and government provision for people's need is only getting worse and worse.
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There is a writer for Time Magazine who recently, he was one of the co -founders of Facebook along with Zuckerberg.
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He wrote an article saying, He says,
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Sounds like the Great Society, the New Deal. To actively manage the
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American market. What you see in this effort is yet another attempt to provide what people used to provide for themselves.
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It is the government taking on the role of provider. Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College responded to this article saying,
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Today's advocates of a managed market may call it by a new name, the
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Great Reset. But it is premised on an old and harmful idea. What utopian ideologies like this have in common is a misplaced faith in the rule of so -called experts.
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And a corresponding disregard for the people's right to rule themselves. Taken to their logical conclusion, such ideologies can only end in tyranny.
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There is a path of life and a path of death.
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The path of death is the government attempting to do what
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God has put into the hands of men and women. The path of life is to do whatever you do, working heartily as to the
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Lord, knowing that you will receive from the Lord an inheritance as your reward.
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Turn with me, if you will, to 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 6 -15.
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This is the thrust of Paul's argument in the third chapter of Thessalonians.
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He is saying that idle hands are the devil's workshop, essentially.
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He desires to compel Christians to work, and to do so by example, not just by word.
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We're going to read through the passage, and then break it down and see what it would have to say to us,
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Christians living at the cusp of the Great Reset. 2
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Thessalonians 3, verse 6 and following. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness, and not in accord with the tradition that you receive from us.
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For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it.
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But with toil and labor, we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you.
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It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you and ourselves an example to imitate.
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For even when we were with you, we would give you this command. If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
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For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.
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Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly, and to earn their own living.
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As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with them, that he may be ashamed.
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Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
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So the book of 2 Thessalonians covers three main areas, each corresponding to the chapters.
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Chapter 1 addresses the suffering of the Thessalonian church.
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They are being persecuted. Some of them are being thrown in prison. Some of them are losing their jobs.
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Probably some of them have been martyred for the faith. And Paul speaks to them to encourage them for their steadfastness, that they're holding on to Christ even in the midst of suffering.
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Chapter 2 deals with a doctrinal error. And that is, there were some teachers that were saying that the day of the
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Lord has come. That they were in the tribulation, that the reason why they're suffering so badly is that the day of the
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Lord was upon them. They were in the tribulation. So chapter 2 was written in order to dispel that lie.
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Someone had actually written a letter in Paul's name with this teaching. And Paul says, don't believe it, because three things have to happen before we're into the tribulation.
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What were they? The apostasy, the antichrist, and the abomination of desolation.
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He goes on to say that the day of the
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Lord won't happen until those things happen first. They're indicators. Until that time, the evil of this world, the beast system of the antichrist, this one world government that will dominate.
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It's described in Revelation 13. There's a mark of the beast that goes with it. You can't buy or sell without the mark of the beast.
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This system will be restrained. The Holy Spirit will hold it back and he'll use the church to do that.
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Until the church is taken out of the way. The Spirit changes his ministry. He raptures the church.
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And then the seven -year period called the day of the Lord comes upon the earth.
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Now, if you had that backwards. If you thought you were living in the day of the
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Lord. You were in the seven -year tribulation. What incentive would you have to work?
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Would you invest in your future? Would you lay away funds for your children's education?
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Would you invest for retirement? Of course not. Things would only go from bad to worse in the seven -year tribulation described in the book of Revelation.
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You would go up on a hill or into a cave to hide and pray. And that brings up the third chapter of 2
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Thessalonians. The practical application of this book. And that is
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Paul is upset with them for being lazy.
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They have thought wrongly in chapter 2. And the practice, the problem that he's addressing is slothfulness.
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Unwillingness to work. Now, in Christianity, we often regard sexual sin, stealing, violence, things of this nature, drug dealing, as being bad sins.
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And then there's this category of sin that we regard almost as respectable sins.
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That would include gossip and the sin that would formally be described as one of the seven deadly sins, slothfulness.
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Look with me at verse 6. Paul has no such estimation of the seriousness of laziness.
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Verse 6 says, and here's the first point, it's a serious sin. Now, we command you, brothers, in the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
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Here's how you know that Paul takes it seriously. He reverts back to military language.
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You see that word command? He had used that previously in verse 4 when he spoke of a fortification that God would establish you and guard you.
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He's speaking in military terms. Now he's issuing a command like an officer in the army.
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He's not playing around. He's commanding. And he goes on to say, in the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. By invoking the name that is above every name and the fullness of that name, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, we know that Paul is very serious about what he is commanding.
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A command is to keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you receive from us.
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Now, tradition is always considered to be what? Bad in our culture.
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Away with tradition. What makes tradition bad is when it is man -made and contrary to the word of God, as in the traditions of the
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Pharisees and Sadducees, which added to what Moses wrote in the law of God. But what the apostle gives here is good tradition.
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And that tradition involves hard work. It's been described as the
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Protestant work ethic. It is the tradition of Christians to put in long, hard days of work.
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And it comes all the way from the Bible. Here, the command from Paul.
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So the first thing to notice is how serious Paul takes this. He issues it as a command in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. But secondly, look at verses 7 through 9. Paul is not one to domineer.
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He's not one to bark out orders and sit back like a king in his throne room and call his attendants to come meet his every need.
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Paul, rather, is very gritty. The apostle goes to the hardest places, risks his own life.
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And even as a missionary in Thessalonica, he sets for them an example of work.
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Notice what he says. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us. Because we were not idle when we were with you.
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Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you.
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It is not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.
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The reason I open my sermon by saying one of the great privileges and advantages in my life is that I'm the son of an immigrant is because my father, for the life of me, has set an example of work.
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He would be up at 6 o 'clock in the morning driving a paper route, throwing papers to the sidewalk of the houses in the neighborhood.
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He would drive a school bus to earn extra income. And he was a real estate agent, working hard in real estate.
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He would purchase a small apartment complex, fix it up, and sell it. And use that money to reinvest in another apartment complex.
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This was his method of work to achieve what he was able to do.
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My uncle Henry, not speaking English as he came here almost in his 20s, became a welder.
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And worked hard to provide a wonderful living for himself and his family. And his son
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John became a pastor like myself after first becoming a lawyer. So my cousin pastors in Minnesota.
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My other uncle, next to Henry, was Herbie. He worked hard on the farm until he had a fall that severed his spine.
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And he was paralyzed. When I was a missionary in the inner city, Herb and I would exchange letters.
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In those days of his suffering, he would handwrite copies of the Bible as a way to keep himself working.
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His work ethic was unmatched. But see, there's a difference between genuine need and unwillingness to work.
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When someone is paralyzed and they physically cannot work, it is good for Christians to come alongside and provide help for a person in that situation.
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That's very different than a person who's unwilling to work. Uncle Willie worked hard.
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He ended up at Boeing as a machinist. On the top of a crane, lifting the wings of planes.
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Marty also worked for Boeing. And as I said, my dad in real estate until he died in a car accident in 1988.
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But in all of this, the Clewer children had learned from Paul and Holda Clewer what it was to work.
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From sunup to sundown. It was an example set for them. And that example is a great blessing.
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Paul can be that father figure if you don't have that father in your life. Paul steps in as an apostle here in verses 7 to 9 and says, imitate us.
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He unapologetically said the same thing to the Corinthians boldly. Imitate me as I imitate
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Christ. He says to the Philippians, join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we set for you.
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Christianity is not just a matter of telling others what to do. That's part of discipleship.
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We need to say what's right, but we also have to live it out. Christian men need to go to work and provide.
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And their sons and their daughters need to learn from that. And from their mothers in the home, who are also industrious according to Proverbs 31.
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This is the Protestant work ethic. It is lived, not just taught. Notice also in verse 9 that Paul says he would have had a right to be supported by the
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Thessalonians. He's not asserting here that he has a right to their property.
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Private property is assumed in Exodus 20, thou shalt not steal. It belongs to them.
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The right he's referring to is to receive their generous charitable contributions. That he would live as a missionary on their support.
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But this was so important to Paul that he chose not to exercise that right as an apostle.
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And instead, they saw him up in the candlelight past midnight.
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What was he doing? You all know. Making tents. Paul was a tent maker.
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And that physical work was the example he wanted to set for them. Now verses 10 and 11 actually strike at the heart of what this passage is saying.
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Because up until this point you might assume my big message to you this morning is don't be lazy.
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We'll get to that in verse 12. But 10 and 11 strikes more at the heart of what Paul is saying here. He's actually saying do not enable the lazy.
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Look back at verse 6. The command is actually that you keep away from the sluggard.
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The issue at hand is Christians here enabling bad behavior.
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So let's read 10 and 11. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command.
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If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
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That sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? I can't say it any better than the apostle here.
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Let him refers to letting a person suffer the consequence of their own laziness.
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I love the picture that the Proverbs paints. It says that the sluggard puts his hand in the dish, but he's too lazy to bring it back up to his mouth.
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Can you imagine that? He has some bread and he's dipping it in the sauce, but he's so lazy his hand just gets stuck there, extended, and he can't even feed himself.
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What are you going to do? Lift his arm for him and help him eat? The point here in verse 10 and 11 is that we're not to enable lazy behavior.
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Verse 11 says, for we hear that some of you walk in idleness. Not busy at work, but busy bodies.
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What happens when a person is bored? Very often they sin.
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The old expression is partly true here, I think. Idle hands are the devil's workshop.
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The gossip who floats around talking about everybody is probably bored.
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If she or he had been hard at work doing the work of the Lord, working by the sweat of the brow, she wouldn't have time to gossip.
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But the busy body in view here is one who wasn't busy at work.
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Enabling is a serious problem, and it can happen to the best of men.
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How was David described in the Bible? A man after God's own heart.
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He's a terrible father. Witness Absalom. In 1
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Kings 1, verse 6, we have a very important verse about enabling.
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The Bible sets it up with David at the beginning of 1 Kings. He's very ill, he's old, and he's actually dying.
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Because he can't even stay warm, he can't get out of bed, his body is shutting down. They didn't have heating pads back then, so they called in a young lady whose name was
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Abishag to lay next to him. Not sexually, but to keep him warm, which is why
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I like to call her Abishag the heating pad. Abishag the heating pad is laying next to David, but what is his son doing?
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His son Adonijah sees the opportunity and says, I will exalt myself,
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I will be the next king. So he gets Joab and some of the leading men to proclaim him king, and he goes about parading himself as the one to follow
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David. Of course, that was meant to be Solomon, as David would choose Solomon to be the next king.
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But read with me, if you want to turn to 1 Kings 1 -6, very important verse. Because Christian, even a good father, is prone to enabling.
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David was a good man after God's own heart, but listen to what it says in 1 Kings 1 -6.
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His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, why have you done thus and so?
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He was also a very handsome man. Can you sympathize with that problem?
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He always got his way because he was handsome. And he was born next, after Absalom.
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So his father had never displeased him at any time by asking, why have you done thus and so?
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He never held him accountable. He never sent Adonijah in the field to mow the lawn.
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And then by the end of the day, to see the lawn is unmowed, and there's little Adonijah playing with his toy truck in the grass.
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David never held him accountable and said, why did you do thus and so? He never said the hard thing.
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He enabled bad behavior and laziness. And it was the death of his son.
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Enabling is a temptation. In fact, I think what you'll discover is the harder you learn to work, the more potential for others to leech off of you.
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The more productive you become, the more established you become in the work that you do, the more people will look to leech off of you.
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It's the undoing of many professional athletes, whose entourage will just drain them so that many of them end up in bankruptcy.
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Their hard work drained by parasites that they enable.
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But as Christians, we have to understand this principle, that enabling bad behavior is not love.
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Continuing on to verse 12, at this point, we've seen the danger of enabling. But there's something direct that the apostle would also say to each one of us.
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Now, such persons, we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
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Now, Paul directly addresses the one who has been lazy.
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And he commands and encourages. Now, notice, it's not a domineering kind of command.
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It comes with encouragement. The father who simply barks out commands will not raise up a godly son.
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But the one who gives instruction with encouragement, encouragement means to speak courage into a person.
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To give them courage by saying, you can do this. I'll help you get started.
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Let's learn to do it together. And then encouraging and sending a person off to do the work.
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But Paul here in verse 12 is now addressing the one who is lazy. Tabitha was a great example of a hardworking woman in the
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Bible. You guys remember her story? She died. But when Peter came into the room, they showed him all of the wonderful things that she had made.
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How she had worked with her hands to produce clothing and things for the poor. Now, she had an unfortunate translated name, which was
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Dorcas. But the Bible says she was full of good works and acts of charity.
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By her hard work, she had something to share with others. Another example, again, is
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Paul with Silas. When they went into Philippi, they could have gotten themselves in all kinds of trouble if they had taken a couple days off.
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They had that little girl that was following, calling out things. They could have used what money they had to take a few days off, but instead they were busy at work in the vineyard of the
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Lord. The harvest is ripe. And so they were doing the work of the Lord. Well, that got them thrown in prison.
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If idle hands are the devil's workshop, then being in prison, chained together, was little opportunity for sin.
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Instead, in that situation, their hearts were full. They were praising the Lord. Now, notice something.
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When it came time for them to be released, the magistrates, the officials, the government sent word for them to be released.
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But look what Acts 16 .37 says. Acts 16 .37
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says, They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are
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Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out secretly?
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No. Let them come themselves and take us out.
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Interesting. The government gave a command. The magistrate said, Go.
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And Paul's answer to the government was, No. There are times when
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Christians need to speak to the government. To be like salt and light in a culture that's departing from biblical ethics, where Christians can say,
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No. You can only go this far. The government actually bears the sword.
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If you don't pay your taxes, what happens to you? You go to jail.
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They commandeer your paycheck until you're paid up. The government bears the sword, which is the highest responsibility.
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The use of the sword to confiscate wealth from the people has the highest level, the highest bar to justify that taxation.
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Now we know that there are legitimate reasons for taxation, right? He does not bear the sword in vain.
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So government has a legitimate function. Render to Caesar that which is
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Caesar's, to God that which is God's. But when the government begins to overstep and confiscate by force of the sword money from the people, there comes a point where it is
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Christian to say to the government, No. And I see that in Paul's words here.
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There are times to oppose the government. Well, our government is on the path to socialism, time and again implementing more and more socialistic measures, and even talking about handing over elements of national sovereignty to a global government.
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And it is right and just for Christians to say no. But more often than not, the one that needs to hear no are people within our own sphere of influence.
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It is the parent that needs to say to the child, no. One of the hardest things to say, and yet it is one of the most beneficial things to hear.
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Paul's word, no. That leads us to the very last point here, verses 13 to 15.
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Again, the main thrust of this passage as it all comes together. Christians need to say hard things to one another.
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Listen, a slap from a friend is better than a kiss from an enemy.
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In this life, and especially in the culture in which we live, coddling people and telling them what they want to hear, what they feel is true, what they think is their own truth.
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Coddling people is assumed. And saying hard things is automatically rejected as being domineering or controlling or authoritarian.
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But hear the words of Paul, verses 13 to 15. We're done after this point. We'll wrap it up.
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As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be, wait for it, ashamed.
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How could shame ever be good? Isn't that the very thing that the therapist is trying to eliminate from society?
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Any shame? But Paul says that he would be ashamed, have nothing to do with him.
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Now look at the last verse. Do not regard him as an enemy.
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The point is not to hurt. The point is loving. It is correction for the sake of this person's own good.
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It is only good and loving to tell him the truth. It says, warn him as a brother.
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If you love your brother, you tell him the truth. Paul told the truth to the Galatians, and they did not want to hear what he had to say.
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And so in that letter of Galatians, Paul says, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
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Truth -telling is very difficult because it means that the person who hears what you have to say will not like you for a time.
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But later, trained under the truth, they will come back and do anything for you.
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Truth -telling, saying the hard things. It's a path of life. Paul never shied away.
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Here in this passage, it sounds harsh. If I say to you, if a man is not willing to work, he shall not eat.
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Sounds cold. It sounds unfeeling. But Paul says it is a brotherly warning.
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It is love. This is what Paul models for us.
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Mark Tindall is a pastor in our district of the Evangelical Free Church. He wrote an article recently that I agree with.
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He says, ministry is a series of saying the hard things.
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Ministry is a series of hard conversations. Now, that's probably overstated because ministry includes vacation
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Bible school where we're jumping on inflatables and it includes singing joyful songs and preaching sermons.
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But his point remains that genuine ministry happens when you say hard things.
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It's a series of hard conversations because guess what, guys?
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Everybody in this room is a sinner. Those who have believed, you're saved by grace.
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But that old dog of a sin nature is still after you and it still rears its ugly head.
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And sometimes you should be up in the morning working, but you're sleeping in. Sometimes you need a rebuke from a friend.
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And that's what Paul's doing for us here. He's a friend sticking closer than a brother by saying the hard things that we need to hear.
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This is an act of love. So in closing, what do we do with this?
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Here's what every one of us needs to do. Build work ethic by a series of small changes.
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Guys, listen. Work ethic is not something that someone can command you to have and then, snap, you've got it.
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Work ethic is something that you build slowly, bit by bit.
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It helps to see the example of someone who's doing it because now you have a model to live after. But work ethic requires small decisions that build habits.
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So if your habit is to sleep in in the morning, set that alarm half an hour earlier until your body's been trained to take that half an hour to read the
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Bible before you start your day. Amen? Building habits.
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Exercise. Eating right. Going to work and putting in not just 40 hours if you're a man, but 50, 60.
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Whatever is necessary to do well at the job that you have been entrusted with.
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The more productive you become, the more appealing you will be to those who would leech off of you.
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So don't forget the thrust of Paul's message. Don't enable.
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Our government has tried to do this and failed. The results of the quote -unquote war on poverty speak for themselves.
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Poverty has not improved, but gotten worse. The more money they continue to throw at it, the worse the problem becomes because it creates a dependency and a counter -incentive to hard work.
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So the Christian work ethic is really the opposite of what our government is doing. Don't allow it.
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Instead of enabling those in your own life, be willing to say the hardest of all words and one of the most beneficial, which is no.
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I'm closing the sermon today because the thrust of the passage is about work.
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But I need to close by reminding you that no amount of work that you could ever do can earn the righteousness of God.
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There is one thing for which you can never work and satisfy a holy
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God. Listen, maybe you've heard this before, but it's never clicked this way. If you worked every day of your life and did the very best you can at everything from this day forward, you'd never build a ladder to heaven.
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You'd fall short. You could be the hardest working man in the room and on the planet, and you don't come close to earning heaven.
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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But here is the good news. Listen. There is one who was born to a virgin, came into our world, and lived a sinless life.
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Now think about that for a minute. That means he never had a lazy day. He was never slothful in his father's carpentry shop, his stepfather's carpentry shop.
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He worked hard all the days of his life. He never lied. He never fudged the edges.
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He never sinned in any way. This work was the active obedience of Christ.
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He worked on our behalf, doing what the law required. Jesus alone worked to actively display righteousness.
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Now, his work was not done. For having done everything the
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Father commanded, he passively obeyed and took on the work of the cross.
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His cross work was passive in that he laid down and he allowed himself to be pierced with nails in his hands, a crown of thorns on his head to mock him and his claim to be king.
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Pierced with a spear in his side. As he died on the cross, the last thing he said before committing his spirit to the
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Father was to telestai. It is finished.
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The work is done. The price of our sin is paid in full.
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Christ did the work that we could not do. Then being buried in a rich man's tomb,
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Joseph of Arimathea, who had labored and worked for that wealth, Jesus never rebuked
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Joseph of Arimathea because he had gained that wealth justly. Having been buried, he rose on the third day.
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He ascended to the right hand of the Father and he sat down. According to Psalm 110 in the book of Hebrews, that indicates that the work is done.
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His priestly work on our behalf has satisfied the demands of justice. So listen, there is a kind of work that you cannot do, and that is to earn righteousness.
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But there is one who earned righteousness on our behalf. His name is Jesus. If you've never trusted in him for the salvation of your soul, this is the day to do it.
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Call upon him to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. And if you're one who has come under that blood, you are forgiven.
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You know him. Work as unto him. Not to earn anything from him, but as an act of worship.
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That's why Protestants have outworked every people group in the history of the world. It's not just because we're commanded, it's because we're inspired.
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We're working as worship unto him. Every time you go to work, whether it's at...
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What's it called where you guys... Lucas, where do you work? Yeah, Jersey Mike's. Whether it's at Jersey Mike's or Chick -fil -A, or wherever it is you go to work, listen, you're worshiping as you work.
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It's unto him. So Christian, work this way. Let's pray.
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So Father, I pray for those who have never believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, never submitted to the lordship of Christ.
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Maybe they're hearing this sermon and for the first time it makes sense that Jesus has done what we could not do and earned what we could not earn.
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I pray lord that you would open their heart now to accept you as the sin bearer, the sacrifice, the priest who lays down his own life for us.
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If there's anybody here that's never prayed that, never invited
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Christ, a prayer can't save you, but a heart of faith justifies you in the sight of God.
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And you can express faith by saying something like this to God. Just say, God, I'm a sinner. In your own heart say,
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I'm a sinner. I have earned the wages of death, but I believe in Jesus.
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He died in my place. He paid the price that I owed.
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He was buried and rose on the third day. I believe in Jesus and I submit to Jesus as Lord over my life.
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I submit in the big things, obeying him in areas of sexuality, work, peacefulness.
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And I submit in the small things, as it would be called, in not being lazy, in earning my own way, that I would not be dependent.
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In meeting genuine needs, I submit to the
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Lordship of Christ. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
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Church, if this is the first time you've prayed that and you've just genuinely come to believe, we'll give you a
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Bible. Let us know. Be encouraged. Keep coming to church and learning. And for all of us who believe, let's be inspired to do this work that we're called to do.
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Stand and sing. Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look fully his wonderful face
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And the things of earth
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Will be strangely dim Glory Turn your eyes to his sight
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Let justice and mercy in him reign
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There the Son of God Gave his life for us
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As well as death was his
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Jesus, to you we lift our
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Jesus, our glory and our crown
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We adore you, uphold you
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Our Savior ever true Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to you
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Turn and see
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Christ the last dawn
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In the year of death Jesus, to you we lift our eyes
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Jesus, our glory and our crown
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We adore you, uphold you
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Our Savior ever true Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to you
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Turn your eyes to the head
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Turn for his own Every knee will bow every time
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Jesus, to you we lift our eyes
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Jesus, our glory and our crown
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We adore you, behold you
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Our Savior ever true Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to you
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Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to you