Work is a gift from God to give us something to do which avoids the idleness that leads to sin. And I'll tell you right now, the culture that we're living in is a classic illustration. The more and more people demand recreation and idle time, the more corrupt they will become. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
The legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said, Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will all be judged by only one thing, the result. You know, it's true the end result is important in any job, but it's certainly not the only thing God cares about. In fact, your attitude at work, regardless of the outcome, can indicate just how committed you are to Christ. You'll see that today as John MacArthur offers a little wisdom for the workplace. That's the title of his current study based on 2 Thessalonians 3.
And now with today's lesson, here's John.
Well, it's time to turn again in the Word of God to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. Looking at verses six through fifteen.
Okay. Under the title Work, A Christian Duty. It fascinates me how Practical the Apostle Paul is. Here is a brief epistle of only three chapters. Up until Chapter three And verse.
Five It is lofty. It deals with the Lord Jesus Christ coming in righteous judgment and flaming fire, revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. It deals with eternal retribution, eternal destruction. It deals with The coming of Christ to be glorified in his saints. It talks about the rapture of the church, the gathering together.
It talks about the day of the Lord, the career of... Antichrist And how his career will be broken. It talks about the gospel. It talks about sanctification.
So many lofty, grandiose theological truths. And then it comes squarely down to earth in verses 6 to 15. And it talks about work. How practical. That was Paul.
No matter how elevated his theology became, it never left the ground. It never so elevated a man that he no longer had a responsibility in the routine of life. And it so happened in the Thessalonian church that there were Christians in the congregation who refused to do their job, to work, to earn a living. They perhaps had been influenced by some of the Jewish background of the scribes who thought that anything other than studying the law was an unworthy way to spend your life. They surely were affected by the general Greek attitude that.
Work was demeaning and sordid and base and low, and belonged only to slaves and not to free men. And they probably had had those predispositions somewhat exaggerated by virtue of the fact that someone had come along and told them that they were already in the day of the Lord and the return of Christ was imminent, and there probably wasn't much use in doing anything other than evangelizing and studying the Word of God. And so they had given themselves to that happily because of their disdain for work anyway. Problem was Least long term, if you can call several months long term for the Thessalonians, in that Paul had dealt with it when he was there. Several months later, when he wrote them the first letter, he dealt with it, and here he is writing a second letter and dealing with it a third time.
They didn't want to work. It was beneath them. Homer. The Greek, famous Greek writer had said that the gods hated man. And the way they demonstrated their hatred was to invent work.
and punish men. by making them work. This kind of philosophy being existent in that time, it found its way into the lives of those people, and thus, when they became converted, it found its way into the church. Becoming a Christian doesn't change everything immediately. We will always have residuals of our past, and we will always, to one degree or another, be affected by our culture.
And so, here in this church in which so many good things had happened, a genuine conversion, a genuine godliness, they were not slack in spiritual service. They had a work of faith and a labor of love, and they did it with patience and endurance because they hoped in the return of Christ. They worked hard at ministry, but they didn't want to do the jobs that they had to do in the world, at least some of them. And so Paul was dealing with a church that had its spiritual life on target and was doing well, excelling spiritually, but they had this one problem that dominates the church in terms of its conduct, and that was that there were people there who didn't work. They then became a burden on everybody else.
And it wasn't that they couldn't work, it wasn't that they had a physical disability, it wasn't that there wasn't a job available, they refused to work, seeing it as beneath them or not a priority for those engaged in kingdom enterprises. Years ago, a situation like this would have struggled to be relevant in our time. Then, because America was a hardworking country years ago, in fact, the American work ethic has always been hailed as sort of the supreme work ethic of the industrialized world. We have always sort of set the pace for productivity and enterprise up until more recent years, that is. Charles Coulson and Jack Eckard, who um Heads the Eckard company, which operates Drug stores in other parts of America, they wrote a book, and the title of their book is Why America Doesn't Work.
Now that's really a new thought. A new concept for our culture, for our society. The subtitle is: How the Decline of the Work Ethic is Hurting Your Family and Future. The future of America is changing dramatically. There are other nations that are putting us to shame in terms of work habits and a work ethic.
In their book, they point out that we have in America declining rates of productivity, the loss of competitive position in some world markets, and workers who aren't working. And they conclude it is a bleak picture. And I suppose they asked the right question, the question we would all ask at that point, what has happened to the industry and productivity that made this country the marvel of the world? at one time. I think since the beginning of our nation, America, in terms of its social and economic perspective, has always exalted thrift and industry and diligence and perseverance and summed it all up to be hard work.
These were the qualities that have been cultivated and respected in society. Look at your parents. Look back to your grandparents. And see how their life was and how they lived their life and what their priorities were. And you will see they're very different than the priorities of people today, very different approach to life.
America's drive to work hard and America's drive to work well. was more than simply good business. It wasn't really driven by materialism. It was rooted in a religious commitment. Whether you're talking about European Protestants or European Catholics or whether you're talking about Jewish immigrants.
They all had a strong religious belief. They all had a strong belief in God. And they all believed that their work somehow mattered to God. That God was watching them. And that there was a certain accountability about that.
What I'm saying is, a religious society, no matter what the form of that religion might be, if it has a high level of accountability to God, to whatever God it is that they believe in, has a determination in how people work. But now God is not a factor in our society and our culture. We have rejected God. We have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. We have rejected the Bible.
We have rejected not only the gospel in the scriptures, but we have rejected basically the morality of the scripture. The general societal morality of scripture is gone. Moral values don't mean anything today. Biblical moral values are the enemy today. We have gone through a revolution.
A moral revolution, a sexual revolution that has affected our work ethics. We have an ethical malaise all the way from the jet set. corporate leaders down to the person working at the bench. The whole concept of work Has so dramatically changed, it no longer has a transcendent motive. There is no longer something beyond me to make me perform at a certain level.
Thus, the meaning of work has been sapped from everybody from the top to the bottom. to some degree Obviously, some people still work harder than others.
Okay. Now our society may not have a choice, but they They have to accept this. But as Christians, we can't accept this. The Christian faith does not accept a utilitarian work ethic. The Christian view of work is transcendent.
That is, it escapes me and my world. and directs its attention toward God. First, work is a command from God. Six days shall you labor. God commands us to work.
Secondly, Work is a model established by God. For it was God who worked for six days and then rested on the seventh, and God, of course, is the worker who continually sustains the universe. Man being created in the image of God then is Created as a worker. Work is a part of the creation mandate. In other words, what I mean by that is it is the role of man.
Stars shine, sunshine. Shine. Moons shine. On the earth, plants grow, animals do what they're supposed to do, rocks do what they're to do, mountains do what they're to do, water does what it's to do, clouds do what they're to do. And we do what we're to do.
As Psalm 104 says, all of creation moves in a normal course, and part of it as man rises goes to work until the setting of the sun. It is creation mandate. It is how we contribute to the processes of life in God's wondrous creation. Work is a command. Work is established as a model by God.
Work is part of the natural creation. Fourthly, work is a gift from God. It is a gift from God. It is a gift through which we glorify Him and the wonder of His creation as we produce things, putting on display the genius of God who created us in all of our abilities. It is a means by which we can glorify our Creator.
Just as the beast of the field gives me honor, as Isaiah said, and just as the heavens declare the glory of God by what they do, and we sit in awe of them, so man declares the glory of God, the wonder of his creative genius, by doing what he has been given the ability to do. Work is a gift from God, not only to glorify Him, but to give meaning to life. Work is a gift from God to give us something to do, which avoids the idleness that leads to sin. And I'll tell you right now, the culture that we're living in is a classic illustration. The more and more people demand recreation and idle time, the more corrupt they will become.
The two go hand in hand. An escalating, pornographic, sinful, wicked culture is sped on. The slide is greased by a shrinking commitment to work. And we fill up all that time with things that feed the lusts of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Work is a gift from God also to provide for needs.
Work is a gift from God so that we can serve each other. And lastly, in the Christian work ethic, work is to be done as if the boss was the Lord Himself. It says in Colossians chapter 3 and Ephesians 6 that we're to work as unto the Lord and not men.
So the Christian faith does not sanctify the kind of attitude we're seeing in our own country toward work. Years ago, this message may have seemed a bit obscure when America was working productively.
Now it seems to be rather on target, for we are suffering today with some of the things that Paul faced in the Thessalonian church. But as Christians, we have to establish the standard.
Now Paul faces this in Thessalonica, this This Group of people, whoever they are, and I'm sure he knows them probably by name, but doesn't mention them, who won't work. And they're not just accepting it for themselves. Apparently, they're very evangelistic about it. I mean, they're selling it. And they're a problem.
And so, here at the end of this great chapter. Which is really the close of a great book dealing with grandiose theological concepts. He puts his feet squarely on the earth and says, let's talk about work. It's not the time to put your pajamas on and sit on the roof and wait for the coming of Christ. It's not the time to be indolent or indifferent toward what it is that God has skilled and gifted you to do in your vocation.
It's time to go to work. And he gives them six motivations, six reasons, six incentives. Just to review the two we've looked at, the first one is disfellowship. In verse 6, 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 not according to the tradition which you received from us. What he's saying there is.
You need to alienate yourself from them. The first thing that's going to stimulate them to work is that they're going to get cut off from fellowship. It's what he says. Keep aloof is the key word there. Stay away.
I don't know what your translation might say. The idea is alienate them. Stay away from them. Make them know there is a price for their indolence and their laziness. And the price is they lose fellowship.
As I noted before, this is step three of the Matthew 18 discipline process. You've gone to them once, you've gone to them twice, and now you're basically saying to them, you no longer can participate. We're saying to you, stay away until you get your spiritual focus. Right. And so, disfellowship, the pain of alienation, you can't be a part of the society of Christians.
You can't be there for worship. You can't be at the Lord's table or the love feast. You can't be alongside in mutual ministry. You can't be there to use your gift, to teach, to learn, to share. Cut them off, stay away, make them feel the pain of isolation if they're going to continue in the sin.
Second, The second motivating principle, example. In verses 7 to 9, he says, You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we didn't act in an undisciplined manner among you. That is, we didn't forego work. Undisciplined means they never went to work. They were unruly.
They were scattered around. They never brought their life into line and worked. He says, We didn't do that. We didn't eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But rather, with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day.
Remember, Acts 18:3 says he was a tent maker, working with leather. And he had to set up his business even in the few weeks he was in Thessalonica. And he had to work and sell it so that he could get a living from it. He had to literally set up an enterprise. And we did it night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you.
Not because we do not have the right, he did have the right. Those that preach the gospel should live of the gospel. What does that mean? If you preach the gospel, you should get your living from it. 1 Timothy 5, those who labor in the word and doctrine are worthy of double pay.
Galatians 6: the one who is taught shares with the one who teaches. He had a right to it, but he said we didn't use the right. In order to offer ourselves as a model for you, that you might follow our example. End of verse 9. He says, look, once I saw the condition there.
We said we're going to just work because we need to set an example here. They needed to be a model to change the cultural perspective that work was sordid and demeaning and only for slaves. Paul says, I had a right to be supported. And the fledgling church didn't have much, but maybe they could have helped a little bit. He said, no, I want to show you how you need to work.
Here was the most elevated man they had ever met, the philosopher beyond all philosophers, the true theologian, the greatest teacher they'd ever known, the godliest man they'd ever met, the paragon of Christian virtue, the highest of the high, Paul, and yet he stoops to work with his hands and do his business and acquire his hides and sew them together and market them somehow. And he does his work because he wants them to know that work is honorable and God-honoring and God-glorifying, a lesson they desperately needed. In spite of all of that modeling that he had done of the price he had to pay working night and day, they still didn't obey it. They were still being lazy.
So he says the second motivation they should have is our example. Let's go to the third one. The third one is very straightforward in verse 10. For even when we were with you, We used to give you this order.
Now, let me stop there for a moment. He's harking back now. To one of the things that he had been teaching them. When we were with you, back when we were there for the three Sabbaths and the two-week in-between period, and then the following weeks that we stayed to get the church rolling, just a brief period of months at the most. When we were with you, we used to give you this order.
In other words, we repeated it. We didn't give it once. It was a matter of course. We told you this all the time, and here it is. If anyone.
Won't work. Don't let them eat. That's it. If anyone will not work, Neither let him eat. That's an axiom.
That's a maxim. That was a Pauline tradition. That was a divine, authoritative, revealed truth. If you don't work, you don't eat. Ignorance was not their problem.
They knew this. He had told it to them over and over, wrote about it in the first letter, chapter 4, verse 11, chapter 5, verse 14. They didn't have a problem of ignorance. Secondly, they did not have a problem of inability. They could work.
He's not talking about people who can't work. And neither did they have a problem of opportunity. They did have the opportunity to work. They had information, they had capability, and they had opportunity. And when you have that...
And you don't work, you don't eat. That's it. That's the Christian view. If someone won't work, let him go hungry. You say, but if he goes hungry, he'll die.
That's right. And he knows that. better than you. And people who are about to die, if there's food available, will eat. And if they have to work, they'll work to get it.
There needs to be an opportunity for you to earn. Your own food, and you need to take that opportunity. And again, I want to say this: it may be that in some cultures, There is not enough work to go around. And that a person couldn't do enough work to really make the whole living, then in generosity and charity and love, we make up the lack. But we don't feed the indolence.
Jesus, you remember in John chapter 6. Fed the multitude, and it was a large crowd. We talk about feeding the 5,000, but it says 5,000 men.
So, wherever there are 5,000 men, there have to be 5,000 women at least. Then throw in a few thousand mother-in-laws and grandmas, sisters, and aunts. And throw in a 15,000 kids at least. and you've got a crowd somewhere between 20 and 50,000. It could have been a massive crowd, and Jesus fed them all.
You remember, he had those five little. Cakes, five loaves, they're actually little barley cakes and two pickled fish, and he just created food. And I'll promise you it was the best lunch they'd ever had because it bypassed the world. The barley, the barley cakes never came from barley that grew in the ground, so they were never touched by the curse. I don't know what an uncursed piece of cake tastes like.
Just plain cursed cake tastes pretty good. Uncursed cake would be beyond imagination. And I don't know what an uncursed pickled fish tastes like either. Um The fish that never came from any mom and daddy fish, a fish that just got instantly created out of the hands of Jesus, would be something like a pre-fall fish. And uh So I don't know what pre-fall fish and pre-cursed cake taste like, but man, they had some feast that day.
In fact, it was so good that the next morning they all showed up for breakfast. You remember the next morning they were all on the hill again and they wanted breakfast, and Jesus said no. And he left.
Now, do you realize when he said no to breakfast, I really believe that their anger was turned on him. Because in an agrarian society like that, they had to work with the sweat of their brow to produce their own food. They didn't go down to some market and flip out food stamps or a check or a credit card or whatever it is. They didn't go to a fast food restaurant. If they didn't work that day, they didn't have the food to eat.
And not only a matter of preparation, but a matter of provision. And so when Jesus, when they saw Jesus make food, they thought they had just found the Messiah who would bring the ultimate and eternal welfare state. We don't even need food stamps, just show up, and he passes it out. You don't even have to get in line to collect it, they serve it. And when time for breakfast came, they were there and he left, and I think their anger and hostility turned on him.
Because they knew then what he could do, but he refused to do it. He could have done it for us as well, but he knows the value and the benefit and the purpose of work.
So here were these Thessalonians and they wouldn't work. And so he says if they don't work. Don't let them eat. That'll help them get the message. That's survival.
Father, we thank you. That your word again has been sold down to earth. Clear. Make us faithful as we do the tasks that you give us to do at home. That had our job and Just the general work that is all around us as we subdue this cursed world.
Help us to know that as we do it, we please you. Yeah. We honor you. And we pray, Lord, for those who are in our midst this morning who. have never come to Christ.
who were still in their sins. who've never known forgiveness. Father, we ask that you would save some today and Put them on the path of righteousness that they might work even their work. with a new commitment. to your glory, something they've never known.
And to Christians who are here, Lord, give all of us a fresh new joy and exhilaration about what we do. and how you view it. And may in this church, Lord, any who are sinning by Not being willing to work, hear the message and be faithful. to turn from that sin and Find a productive pursuit. For those, Lord, in our congregation who can't work and who need our help.
And who will receive the noble deeds? May we not ever be weary in ministering to their needs. Give us this wonderful balance. that we find in this passage as we live as your people in this world. for your glory in Christ's name.
Amen. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today we continued John MacArthur's study titled Wisdom for the Workplace.
Well, friend, today John talked about the importance of work in the life of any believer and how your day-to-day tasks can be an act of worship, no matter your job description. If you want to dig deeper into what Scripture says about Christians and the workplace, and everything else God's Word says, I want to remind you about our newly redesigned MacArthur Study Bible app. This is a library in one volume for learning the Bible that you can take everywhere. And with the relaunched app you can now get John's study notes free of charge. 25,000 detailed notes that explain virtually every passage, with no purchase required.
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Our phone number again, 800-55GRACE. and our website gty Now, for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be back tomorrow as John shows you the role your church has in motivating a Christ-like work ethic among its members. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time. on Race to View.
