You see, our Christian faith has sanctified every occupation. There isn't any difference between the secular and the sacred. There isn't any at all. The church should remember that Jesus was a preacher for three years, but a carpenter for at least 20. That sanctifies work.
All of life is God's. All of it is for His glory. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. This week you'll probably spend more time on the job than at church.
more hours at your work site than with your friends. In fact, in your lifetime you may well spend more than one hundred thousand hours working.
Well, since the Bible says you need to do everything to the glory of God, how can you make sure that your daily labor meets that requirement? John MacArthur is answering that question in his current study titled Wisdom for the Workplace. And today John highlights the role that you and your church can play in motivating believers to faithful, diligent work. And with that lesson now, here is John MacArthur. We're going to be looking at least initially at verses 6 through 15.
A very, very interesting little section, in fact, quite unique in the New Testament. Dealing with the subject of work. Work. In fact, I suppose I could title the message Work a Christian Duty. In spite of what most people might think, in spite of what most people might feel, work is one of the most honorable and noble things a Christian can do.
In fact, in the very beginning, God established that man would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, Genesis 3:19. Right after the fall, God said, You're going to work. You're going to work to earn your sustenance. On the other hand, Scripture has a lot to say about lazy people. Proverb says, Poor is he who works with a negligent hand.
It also says, the soul of the lazy person craves but gets nothing. What should be the proper view of work? Is it a secular thing or is it a sacred thing?
Well, if you go back into the history, say, of the Jews, the Jews looked at work as a secular thing. The Jews didn't understand the sacred duty of work. They saw it merely as a common, menial sort of human second. class effort. Whereas religious duties were first class, sacred, divine, noble things.
The Talmud, for example, has a very interesting prayer in it. The Talmud is a codification of Jewish tradition and law. And it has a very interesting prayer that was prayed by the scribes. Scribe, you remember, was a person who devoted his entire life to studying scripture. That's all he did in his life, and he was supported by the Jewish community to do nothing but study the law.
This is a scribal prayer. Listen to it. I thank thee, O Lord my God, that thou hast given me my lot with those who sit in the house of learning, and not with those who sit at the street corners. For I am early to work, and they are early to work. I am early to work on the words of the law, and they are early to work on things of no importance.
I weary myself, and they weary themselves. I weary myself, and profit thereby, and they weary themselves to no profit. I run and they run. I run toward the life of the age to come and they run toward the pit. End quote.
Surely not a very good view of work, is it? People who get up early for no reason, who work to produce nothing, who run to the pit. of deaths. pointlessly. What a narrow and what a painful view.
Assuming that because you spend your time working on the law of God, you're somehow better, couldn't be further from the truth. And yet, it not only pervaded Judaism, sad to say, it's even found its way into the church. How are we to understand it as regards Christians?
So, starting in verse six. Look what he says to them.
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That you keep aloof from every brother who leads a disorderly or unruly life, and in this context, it means who won't work. and not according to the tradition which you receive from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we didn't act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you.
Not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you that you might follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: If anyone will not work, neither let him eat. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life. doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.
Now, such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. And if anyone doesn't obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that man and do not associate with him so that he may be put to shame. And yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
Now it becomes obvious that there's some people living an unruly, undisciplined, disorderly life and what it comes down to is they're not working and they're meddling busy bodies fussing around and not working and then casting themselves on everybody else to have their food need met. And the apostle is directing this passage at these people who won't work. It is a very unique passage. directed for folks and for the church in which folks exist who will not work. You see, our Christian faith has sanctified every occupation.
There isn't any difference between the secular and the sacred. There isn't any at all. The church should remember that Jesus was a preacher for three years, but a carpenter for at least 20. That sanctifies work. All of life is God's.
All of it is for his glory. Your job is not a secular job. It is a spiritual duty. You are serving the Lord. With your attitude and your diligence.
You're serving the Lord. You're doing it unto his honor and to his glory. You're even serving mankind, for what you do provides a service to man. It helps them. in their life.
You say, you mean to tell me that what I do is as important before God as what you do? Yes. You say you mean washing dishes in my house? As unto the Lord is the same as you preaching as unto the Lord? Yes, not in its impact for evangelism on men, not in its certain instructiveness in regards to Scripture, not before men is it necessarily the same in kind, but before God it is the same, for it is your service rendered to His glory.
That's the point, and the Thessalonians didn't grasp it.
Now, frankly, they should have. I mean, go back to 1 Thessalonians for a moment, chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And verse 10, at the very end of verse 10. He says, we urge you, brethren, to excel still more.
You're doing well, but you need to do better. And then in verse 11, he says, why? Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. Quit running around all over the place. Settle down.
Attend to your own business. Stay out of other people's business. And work with your hands.
Now what he's talking about here is work. In verse 12, he says, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. Work. Don't be a meddler. Don't be a busybody.
Don't be fussing around with other people's business. Get your life ordered, get it brought into control. Attend to your own business and do your own work so that verse 12 you don't have any needs. That is very important to the unity of the church. And it is important to see your work as honoring to God.
So he says that in 1 Thessalonians 4.
So he's already told this to them. But would you notice what else he says at the end of verse 11? Just as we commanded you.
So in the first letter, This isn't the first time they've heard this. When he was there, he must have confronted it and commanded them about it. When he came into town and he founded the church, obviously it was a problem from the beginning. Which leads me to think that they carried in this Gentile free man mentality. and then somehow compounded it by the anticipation of the return of Christ.
It's beneath me, and it's not the priority as we're near the return of Christ. And Paul had instructed them when he was there: work. Go to work. This is a command from God. They apparently didn't obey it.
And now, a few weeks later, he writes this letter back, 1 Thessalonians, and he says again, you must do this as we commanded you.
Now you come to 2 Thessalonians, and he has to repeat it a third time. Because apparently they are stubborn. They are obstinate. And they're not about to go to work. It doesn't seem to matter what he says.
They're not going to work. This kind of stubbornness needs to be dealt with. And so as he writes here, He writes in a disciplinary way. Verse 6 is really discipline. He is commanding the church to be able to do it.
to keep aloof from these people who won't work. You say, well, now wait a minute. Doesn't the scripture tell us where to help those people who are poor? Again, I say to you. People who would work but can't find work.
People who would work but don't have the physical ability to work, people who are ill and can't do their work. Their needs must be met. He's not talking about those kinds of people, he's talking about able-bodied people with opportunity. Obviously, Acts 4, Acts 2, even, and Acts 4, Acts 5, Acts 6, the early church, there was a sharing with the poor saints in Jerusalem. And Paul spent months collecting an offering from Gentile churches to take back to poor saints in Jerusalem who would have worked if they could have.
We're not talking about that. What we're talking about is the deadbeats. People who could but won't.
So in this text, Paul is really going to motivate him. You can imagine when this letter was read. In the Thessalonian church, everybody knew who they were talking about. Everybody knew. When Paul said, We command you, brother, and so forth, they knew who was the target of this.
In fact, I think Paul knew who they were, he just doesn't say.
So they were exposed to the whole church when the letter was read. And they would have heard this read and its inherent motivation. Paul lays out in verses 6 to 15 six incentives to go to work. Six motivations. Six compulsions.
to get these believers who won't work to go to work. Here are the six. This fellowship. This fellowship Example Survival Harmony, shame, and love. Disfellowship, example, survival, harmony, shame.
and love. First one, incentive number one, disfellowship. Verse 6.
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep aloof from every brother. who leads an unruly life, and the obvious interpretation of that is they don't work. And therefore, there are these busy bodies all over the place. And not according to the tradition which you received from us.
Now, the verse is very strong, and what it calls for is the church to separate itself from these Christians who won't work. Separate yourself from them. This is tough. If they're the lazy ones who won't work just because they're lazy, they depend on these people. If they're the people who have this This sort of noble view that they should be studying the Bible and evangelizing, and therefore they won't work.
They're going to be expecting these people to look at them as if they're heroes. And support them. And what he says is. Cut yourself off. That verb.
Keep aloof. It's a very unusual word, and it was used in secular Greek to speak of furling the sails. You unfurl the sail, you open it up. You furl it, you roll it back in. Pull yourselves in from them.
It came to mean that, and it is a good translation in the NAS: keep aloof, keep your distance, keep separate. And the words are very strong. He's not saying, you know, it might be a really good strategy. If you guys just kind of cut them off a little bit so they can feel the alienation and isolation. No, no, he doesn't say it's a good idea.
In verse 6, he says, We command you. And he uses a military term. If there is somebody who doesn't work, we command you, and here he's sort of scooping up Silas and Timothy with himself, as noted in the first verse of the first chapter. They were there when he wrote. We commend you, brethren.
And then he adds another heavy duty. Shot to this, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the full name of the Lord, the Son of God. Saying, I am standing on Christ's authority in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, consistent with his person and work and will, the will of the sovereign Lord. We give you a military command not to be disobeyed that carries all the authority of the living Lord Jesus Christ in it. And we tell you, keep separate from these people.
It's very stern. Cut him off. Disfellowship. That's amazing. No doubt, the Apostle Paul had gotten word that they had not responded to the teaching when he was there, and they hadn't responded to the first letter, and now he's got to tell them the third time to do this.
And now it's time for discipline. I mean the first time it's instruction. The second time it's exhortation, but the third time it's discipline. Maybe he had heard from Timothy, who had made a visit there. And Timothy had come back and say, those people still aren't working, Paul.
You better say something to them. They're still not working. And the rest of the folks are getting a little upset about it. And it's also affecting the testimony of the church. Because they've got these people who aren't producing.
And they're just sponging. And maybe it was somebody who traveled along those trade routes that ran from Thessalonica to Corinth, where Paul was when he wrote this. And some of them have told him: Paul, those people in the Thessalonian church have a problem. There's some folks there, it won't work. And so now it's discipline.
I mean, I told you once. when I was there, and I told you again. And now it's discipline time. And he says, I want drastic action. I want you to cut yourselves off from him.
I want you to alienate yourself. Keep aloof from, notice this, comprehensive, every brother. who leads an unruly That's an out-of-step life, disorderly. Ataktas in Greek. It's a military term, means you're out of rank.
Out of line, out of order. And what was their out-of-order behavior? Laziness. They were loafers. And it was flagrant because they had been told.
And I have given you what he calls at the end of verse 6 the tradition which you receive from us. Tradition simply being a term to sum up apostolic teaching. It was teaching and it became a body of truth. Tradition to be passed on. Tradition doesn't have to be unscriptural.
Sometimes we talk about the scripture plus tradition. But there is a scriptural tradition, there is a biblical tradition, there is an apostolic tradition. That was passed on. They had received the word from Paul when he came at the first. 1 Thessalonians 2:13, he says, You received from us the word of God's message, and you accepted it, not as the word of men, but for what it really is the word of God.
When we first came and we taught, you took it as the word of God. You received the tradition and you held it and you believed it. And we gave you instruction in chapter 4 of the first letter as to how you ought to walk and please God, and you received it. And now, this you haven't received. You've got some people who won't take this, so.
If they haven't received this tradition, that we gave about work. Separate from them. separate from them. No more Lord's Table? No more worship, no more home Bible study, no more fellowship, separate.
To fit this into Matthew 18, the pattern of discipline, this would be the third step. Matthew 18, 15 says, If your brother sins, go to him. If he repents, you've gained your brother. That's step one. One to one, you go to the person who sins.
If he doesn't, step two, take two or three witnesses with you, go to him, confront him again. Hoping he'll repent. If he doesn't, tell the church. Step three. Step three is to tell the church.
What does the church do? Separate. Alienate. Still step three. Look down at verse 15.
Step four, treat him like a tax collector and a pagan. This isn't step four, because in verse fifteen, you admonish him as they what? As a brother, he's still in the fellowship. But the whole church Is going to cut him off from normal life in the church and only confront him about his sin. Or her.
If it happens to be a lazy woman.
So he's saying you're at step three, really. It's time for you to cut these people off from the life of the church if they don't obey. Cut them off from fellowship, disfellowship them, and when you see them, warn them, admonish them. as brothers to repent. And then, of course, if they don't hear that, if they don't respond to this, then you go to step four, which is to treat them like a pagan and a tax collector and alienate them all together and turn them over to the Lord.
This fellowship. You don't work? Make them feel it. Make them feel the alienation. You say, you know, if I was going to write an epistle and it was only three chapters long, I think I could think of a more important issue to deal with.
I mean, you mean this is a big deal? It is. God has commanded us to work. It keeps people from being busy bodies. It keeps people from Being unnecessary burdens to the rest of the church community.
It's a serious issue.
Furthermore, God has given to us capacity for work by which we are designed to give Him glory. And honour. and by which we are designed to serve the needs of man. In the name of Christ. Serious issue with him.
He commands it. He commands it with all the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I'm commanding you to stay away from these people so they feel the pain of alienation when they don't work. God is serious about work. It is a means by which man Does an honorable task to the glory of God and the benefit of his fellow man.
Now since Normal. True believers are going to cherish the fellowship. This kind of command to the rest of the congregation to disfellowship them should. effect a change. It should be enough pain to make them say, I think I better get a job.
I think I better go to work. God wants us. To obey that command, I don't care how close we are to the second coming of Christ, there's no premium on indolence and laziness. We don't know when he's coming. I don't care how serious you might be about Bible study.
You can't be off in a corner studying the Bible to your own pleasure and having other people feed you and provide your sustenance. You earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.
So the scripture says work. It's honorable. And there's no such thing as a secular job. It's all sacred because you do it to the Lord, to His glory, to His honor. And for the benefit of Mankind.
And if you don't do it. And the church has gone to you once, like Paul did, and gone to you twice, like Paul did. It's now time for the third step, which is tell the whole church to cut them off. No more fellowship. That's serious.
Well, there are five more incentives that are absolutely amazingly practical. We'll have to wait till next time. to see those. Father, thank you for this wonderful little section of Scripture, which reminds us of. The happy privilege and duty of work.
and gives us clear understanding that there's no Secular sacred dichotomy, but whatever we do. We really do. To your glory. Father, thank you for reminding us that We're not to be unnecessarily a burden on your people. were to work and Provide for our own needs.
Because this is honorable. Because this is right, because you've equipped us to do that. Because it's a good testimony. We thank you too, Father, that. for those in our fellowship who would work but Can't.
Either because there's no opportunity for them at all. to do anything. Or there's no ability there. Or there's illness. Lord, thank you that we can help meet their needs, and we do that joyfully.
We thank you for the the special joy of Christian fellowship. Thank you for The fact that we have each other. And that we're so rich because we do. We certainly would never want to be in a situation where We were cut off. from each other because we wouldn't work.
I thank you too, Lord, for The fact that You allow us to work for many years and And because we have Much provision by your grace. There comes a time when we no longer need to work. The way we once did, but we can then do things in ministry and never be a burden to your church because. We have provision. that you have granted us through the years of our labors.
Give us the sense of the honorable character of work. And help us to even go there tomorrow as we Do the tasks around us, whether it be at home or whether it be At a job somewhere, with a new commitment. that this is a sacred task we do and one that brings you glory. An honor. and helps others.
And no matter how urgent might be the spiritual thing, help us to do our work for which you have. given us the ability and the opportunity. and to do it heartily as unto you. We thank you for that privilege which keeps our otherwise sinful lives occupied. In Christ's name.
Amen. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today we continued John's practical study called Wisdom for the Workplace.
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Now for the entire GraceTU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Join us again tomorrow as John MacArthur shows you how the work you do to earn a living. can and should be acts of praise to God. It's another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on Grace2U.
