The Good Church Takes Everyone Doing Well | The Church God Calls Good | Pastor Joe Coffey

Second

Thessalonians chapter three, verses six through 18.

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our 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.

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.

But with toil and labor we worked night and day

that we might not be a burden to any of you.

It was not because we do not have that right,

but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command.

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

For we hear that some among you walk in idleness,

not busy at work, but busy bodies.

Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord

Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

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 ashamed.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

Now may the Lord of peace

himself give you peace at all times, in every way.

The Lord be with you all.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

This is a sign of genuineness in every letter of mine.

It is the way I write.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Hey, everybody, welcome to Christ Community Chapel.

Really, really glad that you are here.

Thanks for coming.

All right.

We have been in a ten week series.

We've been looking at two letters that the apostle Paul

wrote to a church in a city called Thessalonica.

Now, we have other letters that Paul wrote to other churches.

And not all of them are positive, but these two letters are very, very positive.

And that's why we have called this series The Church God Calls Good.

And we've been trying to, learn from the Thessalonians,

because we want to be a church.

God calls. Good.

And we're at the last week of the ten week series.

I get to bat clean up, and we've made it all the way to the end of the second letter.

So if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Second Thessalonians chapter three.

Second Thessalonians chapter three.

If you're going to use one of our Bibles, in the pew or in the back of East

Hall, it's on page 931, page 931 if you want to follow through.

Oh, and by the way, if you, do not have a Bible,

we would love to give you your first Bible.

All you have to do is

go to the Next Steps area out in the atrium, and we'd be glad to give you a Bible.

All right.

All right.

I know we just had it read to us.

I'm going to read it again because I want it fresh in your mind.

And then I'm going to give you

the three points that I want to cover and pull out of this passage.

This is what Paul says.

Now, I command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness

and not in accord with the tradition you received from us.

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.

But with toil and labor we work night and day

that we might not be a burden to any of you.

It was not because we do not have that right,

but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command.

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

But we hear that some among you walk in idleness,

not busy at work, but busy bodies.

Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ

to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

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 ashamed.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

Now may the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times, in every way.

The Lord be with you all.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine.

It is the way I write.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

All right.

Here are the three points that I want to pull out of this passage.

If you want to know where I'm going.

If you're a note taker, you want to write these down.

But a good in a good church, everyone works.

That's the first point.

In a good church, everyone works in a good church.

Everyone imitates someone, everyone imitates someone.

And in a good church, everyone gets grace and peace.

Everyone works everyone to imitate someone.

Everyone gets grace and peace first.

Everyone works.

Verse six and then verse 11,

Paul says, now we command you, brothers, in the name of our 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.

And then verse 11, for we hear that some among you walk

in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.

What had happened

in Thessalonica is that some of the people in the church

had misunderstood Paul's teaching about the second coming of Jesus.

One of the great hopes that we have as

Christians is that one day Jesus will return.

And when he returns, he returns as King

and heaven, all of heaven comes with him.

There's a common misunderstanding.

I think that, people think that our home is in heaven up there.

But that's not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that our home is here on earth.

It is right now.

It will be for all of eternity.

Because what happens is that haven't actually descends

with Jesus as King,

and the world is remade into everything

that you always wanted it to be hoped it would be.

There's a Greek word for that.

The Greek word is Palin Genesee.

It's one of my favorite Greek words, and it means the renewal of all things,

that everything becomes pristine

just the way God intended it to be.

Now, some of the people in testimony in Thessalonica

thought that when Paul talked about the second coming of Jesus,

that Jesus was going to come right away, like within weeks.

And so they quit doing everything.

They quit working, they quit serving,

they quit everything.

And they became what Paul says is idle now, in some ways,

that shows faith because they really believe Jesus was coming back.

But Paul was not pleased. In fact,

he was really upset.

And the question, of course, is why?

Why did that upset him so much?

And the reason is because Christians have a unique relationship with work.

It's different than virtually everyone else.

Because there there are normally a couple of different ways that people approach work.

And one, I will call the Bruce Springsteen approach,

and the other, I will call the Bolivian taxi driver approach

first. The,

the first one, right.

Bruce Springsteen I was watching TV a couple of weeks ago,

and a commercial came on for Bruce Springsteen's world tour,

and they were showing a concert, and you hear his voice

and his voice, and Bruce Springsteen says,

I have been playing music for 50 years.

It's the way I justify my existence on earth.

It's the way I justify my existence on Earth.

That's one way to approach work, where work becomes your very identity.

It's the way that you justify yourself.

It's the way it's success becomes that justification.

And really, you don't know how important work has become to you.

Sometimes until you lose your job

or until you retire, there are all kinds of stories of people who retire

and then die very quickly because they've lost their purpose.

That's one way people approach work.

The polar opposite of that is what I call the Bolivian taxi drivers in Bolivia.

Years ago, I got into a taxi and I started a conversation

with the taxi driver and asked him how much he made driving a taxi,

and he said, if I if I drive for a day, I can live for three days.

If I drive for two days, I can live for a week.

If I drive six days in a row, I take the rest of the month off.

I didn't know

whether I should respect that or, you know, not.

But that's what he said. And that's the opposite.

That's, like one is to live, to work.

The other is, work is a necessary evil

to actually, live.

But Christians are unique for a Christian,

work is an extension of worship.

Work is an extension of worship.

This is what I mean in Matthew chapter 22, somebody asked Jesus a question.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

And the question they asked Jesus is what commandment is the greatest commandment?

And I think they might have expected Jesus to choose one of the Ten Commandments.

Jesus goes a different direction and he says, the greatest commandment

is this love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

And the second is like unto it love your neighbor as yourself.

And then Jesus said that all the law and the prophets are contained

in those two commands.

What he was saying is, those are the two things

that are not only the most important things, they include everything.

This is all that God wants

is for us to love him and love each other.

All right.

So for a Christian, work

is a way that we love other people.

I heard a pastor named John Ortberg, some years ago,

say that he was giving his toddlers a bath one night.

It's why he's kneeling by the bath tub.

There's suds and water all over the place.

If you've ever bathed the toddler, you know, they're like slippery little salamanders.

And so he's trying to give them a bath.

And he looks up and his wife is leaning up

against the doorjamb, just looking at him and smiling.

And he says to

what?

And she says to him,

you are never more attractive to me

than you when you're bathing our kids.

And then John Ortberg said, we now have the cleanest kids in all of Chicago.

Okay, that was a great line.

Oh, what was she saying

to John Ortberg?

What she was saying is, when you are serving me

by bathing our children,

I feel loved.

That's the way Christians approach work.

That work is a way that we love other people serve other people,

and it's a way that we ultimately love

God because those two things go together.

When Paul talks about idleness,

he's not talking about just being lazy.

He's not talking about rest.

He's talking about a refusal

to love someone else, to love others.

Listen, I know this is a big church.

I know it's easy to come in and think everything's being done

and everything's being paid for, so

I don't need to serve anywhere,

and I don't need to give at all.

But you're wrong.

You're wrong on two accounts.

One is that we really do need you

to serve needs you to give.

Otherwise God would not have brought you here to this place.

But the second thing is that you need to do it

as a part of your worship.

And that's the first point in a good church, everyone works

because everyone is participating in worship

and loving each other and loving God

in a very tangible way.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is that everyone is imitating someone.

Everyone is imitating someone good.

Verses seven through ten

Paul says, for

you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle

when we were with you, nor do 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.

It was not because we do not have that right,

but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command.

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

About three weeks ago,

we had all my family over our three kids.

Our six grandkids.

I was one of those, crisp, cool fall evenings.

One of the reasons why people flock to Northeast Ohio.

Or at least they should.

And I was sitting there, we had a bonfire going.

I was watching the cousins, play a game.

They're playing a game called,

ghosts in the graveyard.

And, I really didn't know much about the game, but I was just enjoying

watching the cousins, and they spanned and age from 3 to 13.

The ones who were playing.

And I watched the three year old

and the three year old was watching his eight year old cousin.

He was taking his cues from his eight year old cousin.

And when the eight year old cousin would cover his eyes to count,

then the three year old would cover his eye.

He didn't know why he was covering his eyes, but he just did it

because the eight year old was there.

The eight year old was taking his cues from the 13 year old.

He would run wherever the 13 year old would run.

He couldn't keep up, but he tried that because everybody was imitating.

They learned how to play that game, not by reading some kind of instruction book,

but they learned how to play that game by watching and by imitating.

That's true in church

that the way you learn,

it's really how you learn to be a Christian

is you watch and you imitate.

You know, when Paul says, imitate me, which he says,

not just here twice, but he says it in other letters.

He's not being egotistical.

He's he's not being an egotist.

He's being a realist because he knows

that people watch and that people imitate.

You know, if if it struck me that if, if you've only been coming

the last, let's say, three weeks here to seek,

you would think in order to be a part of this church

that you needed at Thanksgiving time to grab a big tub, go out,

fill it up with things to get with the Thanksgiving meal,

and bring it back at a certain time.

Because if you came in the last three weeks when you were walking

in, everyone seemed like they were walking out with a tub

with a Thanksgiving basket to fill it.

And in some ways, you'd be right.

That is our

tradition here at KCC to be a part of this church.

That is something you will probably do.

Everyone imitates y'all.

I was watching an NFL game.

Last week and commercial came on.

It was one of the commercials that the NFL puts on,

just really about how to become a fan.

And there was this little clip and I, I loved it.

I'm going to play it for you now.

And it's so short and quick.

I'm going to play it twice back to back just because you'll want to see it twice.

But show the clip.

Yeah.

Oh. Oh.

Yeah.

Oh oh.

You know, the greatest clip?

Everybody imitates someone.

Here's the question.

If someone watches you,

they're going to look at how you talk,

how you worship,

how you respond when something doesn't go your way.

The real question is this what kind of church would this be

if everyone

imitated you?

Would it be a loving church?

Would it be a kind church?

Would it be a selfish church?

Would it be a complaining church?

Would it be a generous church?

Would we be able to keep the lights on?

What would the church be like

if everyone

imitated you?

So what Paul says here is that

in a church God calls good, everyone works.

In a church God calls good, everyone is imitating someone.

And you should know someone who's going to watch you

and someone is going to imitate you.

And then what kind of church do we become?

That's the second point.

The third point is everyone

gets grace and peace.

Everyone gets grace and peace.

Let me start with grace

in verse 18, the very last.

This is the last verse of the two letters.

This is the last thing that Paul leaves them with.

He says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

The grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ be with you all.

Grace is the absolute

best quality that a human being can have.

I think I say that because there is so many attributes

that are kind of wrapped around grace here, that are part of grace.

If you have grace, that means you.

There is a certain amount of kindness that you have

a gentleness, a love, an ability to forgive.

There are all kinds of things, right?

If someone says to you, you have a lot of grace.

It is a wonderful compliment.

And usually when somebody says that, what they're saying is that you are showing

more grace than they have

at that moment, or that they would have if they were you.

Paul, in this

passage is, doing a little correcting.

I told you a few weeks ago,

that in a good church, you treat the pastor like a coach.

And the word in that passage was the word admonish, which means to encourage.

It also means to correct it.

And Paul is doing some of both in this passage.

He is encouraging and he is correcting the vast majority of the Thessalonians.

We're doing well. So he is encouraging them.

But there are some that are not doing well and he is going to correct them.

Right.

So that's what this passage is about.

I remember when I was playing college basketball, when,

we had a pre-season conditioning kind of program

where just at the very beginning of the program,

we were supposed to run to a bridge, touch the bridge, run back.

No one was there to check and stuff.

And I remember running to the bridge, I was an underclass man,

and I passed some of the upperclassmen on the way to the bridge.

I was running faster than they were, and I touched the bridge, and I was running back.

And I passed the same upperclassmen, but they had turned around

and they were running the same direction I was.

Which meant that they did not touch the bridge, which meant they were cheating.

And even at 19 years old,

I knew they weren't just cheating themselves, they were cheating me.

And sure enough, we were not a very good team.

Paul is acting like a coach

with a team where the majority of the team was doing well.

They were doing what they should do, but there were some that were not.

And so Paul was he.

He does an interesting thing.

He starts with verse 13 and he says this.

As for you brothers, do you not grow weary in doing good?

That's when he's talking to the ones that are doing well, doing right.

And it's interesting that he should do that,

because I remember when I was running as an underclassman, running the bridge

touch it, ran back, realized that the upperclassmen were cheating.

The next time we ran, I thought about turning around halfway

and running slower back just like they were, because it's hard to continue

to do the right thing when some people around

you are doing the wrong thing.

And what Paul starts out saying is, listen, don't do that.

If you're running to keep running, keep doing good, keep serving,

keep working, keep loving, keep doing what you're supposed to be doing.

And then he starts the correcting part.

Verse 14.

He says, 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 ashamed.

Okay, that's rough. Right?

That's he's going after them.

And then verse 15, he says, do not regard him as an enemy,

but warn him as a brother.

And there it is,

grace, do

not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

Grace.

He's saying grace, grace enough to go after them.

Grace enough to not give up on them.

Grace enough to welcome them back.

Grace as a brother.

Now, you should know that grace doesn't come from nowhere

is very, very difficult for a human being to manufacture.

Grace, if you try to manufacture grace within yourself, you'll have like

a thin veneer of grace, and it will wear off really quickly and then you'll get nasty.

I've seen it all right.

Grace has to go from come from the outside

in with the human being before it goes from the inside out.

Which is why Paul ends with that saying,

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

What he's saying is that if I'm going to call you to be to be graceful

with others, particularly those that are not doing right,

if I'm asking you to kind of thread

that needle of being, of trying to correct them

while still being gracious to them, you're going to need grace

to be constantly flowing into you so it can flow out of you.

If you ever want to know why we talked about the gospel so much,

why we take communion every week is to remind ourselves

that we are recipients of grace.

That it's grace that called us out of darkness into his marvelous light,

and his grace that we will use to call one of our brothers or sisters

out of disobedience, out of

darkness, back into his marvelous light.

In a church, God calls good

everyone gets grace.

Everyone.

The second thing is peace is what he says.

It's verse 16.

He says, now may the Lord of peace himself

give you peace at all times in every way.

May the Lord of peace give you peace at all times and every that is comprehensive.

And he's saying that to some people that are going through some really

difficult times and the question is, how do we get that kind of peace?

And the answer is the next phrase of that verse

is this the Lord be with you all, the Lord be with you all.

The Lord of peace give you peace at all times,

in every way and every way.

The Lord be with you all.

I always think of a story in Matthew chapter eight

where, the disciples get into a boat

and they head across the Sea of Galilee

and a storm hits.

And it must have been a fierce storm because about

half of the disciples were fishermen by trade.

And I always think a professional fisherman has a higher capacity

for a storm than a landlubber like me.

But I always think that if you know, if a wave got like this

high, I'd be saying, hey, you know, maybe we should turn back.

And a fisherman, a professional fisherman would say, this is nothing, right?

Well, this storm was something because all of them thought they were going to die.

So they they wake

Jesus up with the fact that Jesus was asleep is a whole nother thing.

But they wake him up and they say, don't you care that we're about to die?

And Jesus stands up, wipes the sleep from his eyes,

and calms the storm.

It's a great, great story.

But I always think,

I wonder what it was like the next time

that they were going to cross the Sea of Galilee.

The next time they were going to cross the Sea of Galilee, do you think they

they looked up with the sky to check, or do you think they checked the weather app,

or do you think they just trade a watch

and see which boat Jesus got into and then scrambled to get?

That's what I would have done.

I would have just knocked over the other disciples just to get in the boat

with you, because I knew if I could get in the boat with Jesus,

it didn't matter.

Didn't matter what kind of storm.

That's what Paul is saying.

Paul is saying, listen, I, I don't

I don't know what kind of storm

that you are going through right now

or that is on your horizon.

We will all go through storms in our lives,

whether it's a financial storm or a relational storm, or a storm

involving physical sickness or a storm of loss.

What Paul says

is that if Jesus

is in your boat.

Then you're going to be okay.

Then you can have peace

in the midst of whatever storm there is.

In a church God calls good,

everyone gets grace

and everyone gets peace.

Listen,

we come to the end of this series on first and second Thessalonians.

I hope you have been with us through it all.

I hope that you have learned a lot, and I hope all of us have learned a lot

about the kind of church God calls good.

But today

in a church, God calls good.

Everyone works

because it's our way of loving each other

and loving God.

Everyone is imitating someone.

It's the way you have learned.

To be a Christian is the way people will learn to be a Christian if they watch you.

And of course, the question is what kind of church will we be

if everyone imitates you?

And finally, everyone gets grace

and peace all the time, everywhere.

First, because Jesus gave grace to us.

And second, we get peace

because Jesus is in your boat.

Don't forget you.

Pray with me,

father in heaven, we come to you and I am so grateful.

I'm grateful for your love for us.

I'm grateful for the church in Thessalonica that was doing so well.

I pray that you would make us a church that you call good,

that glorifies you, that when people are in here, they sense something different,

that we are filled with people, that whoever anyone watches,

that if they become just like them, it will become better.

I pray that will happen.

Thanks.

Thanks for Jesus. We pray this in his name.

Amen.