Sermon Tone Analysis

2009-07-19 (am) 2 Thessalonians 3:6-8 Idle Worship

 

            Have you heard the one about the born again Christian?

One day a born again Christian was walking along the ocean while the tide was out.

Suddenly, his foot got wedged between some rocks.

No matter what he did, he could not free his leg.

He was stuck.

The tide started coming in.

Even so, he was not worried.

Inexorably, the tide came in.

When the water was up to his waist, a fellow pulled up in a boat.

“Say, you there, do you need some help?” he asked.

“No thank you,” the man replied.

“I’m a born again Christian, God will save me.”

Still the tide advanced, and now the water was up to his chest.

Another fellow, in another boat came alongside the stuck Christian.

“Dude, what are you doing there?

Are you stuck?” he asked.

“Well, actually, I am physically stuck.”

The Christian explained.

“However, spiritually, I am free in Christ and because I am a born again Christian, God will save me.”

With the tide looking like it was about to swallow another victim, with the water up to his neck, a coast guard helicopter hovered overhead, lowered a rescuer on a crane who asked, “Let me help you!”

To which the Christian calmly replied, “I’m a born again Christian, God will save me.”

Well, this born again Christian dies and goes to heaven, where he promptly begins to grill God.  “Why didn’t you save me?”

He asked.

God looks him in the eye and says, “What do you call two boats and a helicopter?”

          That’s the attitude of some of the Thessalonian Christians.

In that church, some of the members were treating Christianity as a spectator sport.

They watched the world flow around them while doing nothing more strenuous than giving colour commentary.

They did not work; they expected their fellow believers to supply them with their needs.

They justified this with the attitude, “the Lord will provide.”

But it was even worse than that.

It is not as though these guys were merely lazy, no, they were rebelliously lazy.

They were able bodied brothers who chose not to work, and who rebelled against Paul’s instruction and example, not only while he established this church, but also after Paul warned them in his first letter.

So Paul deals with the matter head on.

You can tell that Paul wishes he could be there himself.

In fact, as you read our passage, you can almost imagine Paul jumping up off the page and banging some heads!

Didn’t you feel that when I read the text?

“/We/ were not idle when /we/ were with you… /we/ did not eat… /we/ worked… /we /would not be… /we/ did this, not because /we/ do not have the right.”

And you know that he wants to bang a few head together, or at least box a few ears because of the tone that starts verse 6.  Actually, you can’t see it as clearly in the NIV because they start verse 6 with a clause.

In the Greek we get the command first, “we command you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to shun the rebellious idlers.”

Don’t let them get away with it any longer!

Stop enabling them.

Intervene!

Paul first addresses the church.

The church has been enabling the lazy people by letting them get away with it.

It is like a faithful wife who dutifully cleans up the house after her alcoholic husband gets drunk, vomits everywhere before passing out.

In order to help her husband, she must stop enabling him by refusing to clean up the mess, and let him see the results of his alcoholism himself.

The full weight of responsibility doesn’t lie only with the rebellious idlers.

The entire congregation bears responsibility.

So Paul commands them, using hard words, appealing to the Lord Jesus Christ’s supreme authority.

This is not something they can sweep under the rug.

They must deal with it.

Now, in light of what Paul has written about the Thessalonian church in his first letter, we might wonder why Paul is so upset.

Didn’t he commend the Thessalonian church?

Wasn’t he on good relations with everyone there?

Weren’t they living as examples to other churches?

Weren’t they holding up well under pressure?

Certainly when you compare them with Corinth, this is a lot more minor than a guy shacking up with his step-mom.

So what’s the big deal?

In verses 7-10, Paul tells us why this is a big deal.

Sin is sin, and the church must deal with sin in its midst.

We must not think that Paul is saying that rebellious idleness is the worst of all sins.

Rather, rebellious idolatry was threatening the congregation.

It was disrupting the fellowship and love among the believers and it was affecting the church’s witness in the world.

So Paul responds to the situation by giving specific instructions that apply to holy living.

All the Christians in Thessalonica are to imitate Paul in their work and lifestyle.

They are to work for their food.

That’s what Paul did.

Even though Paul could have asked for remuneration for preaching and teaching the gospel, he did not do so.

Paul goes into detail about this in 1 Corinthians 9; I encourage you to check it out.

Instead, in addition to preaching and teaching, he chose to work night and day in order to provide for his own needs, as well as the needs of others.

If I were to ask, “What defines a Christian?”

What would you say?  Would you say, “A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus Christ?”

Or would you say, “A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, who sacrifices her own desires for the good of others.”

In some ways, we’ve separated faith and deeds in our churches.

We’ve concentrated on the importance of having a right relationship with Jesus Christ to exclude from it all others, particularly our relationships with our fellow believers.

People are saying, “I don’t need to go to church in order to be a Christian.”

To push that to the utter extreme, it would be like Jesus saying, “I don’t need to be born of a woman in order to save humanity from sin.

I don’t need to have fellowship with humans.

I don’t need to humble myself, die on a cross in order to redeem people from the Father’s wrath against sin.”

We need each other far more than we think!

We are being built together to be God’s dwelling where he lives by his Spirit (Eph.

2.22).

Paul clearly indicates here that fellowship and caring for others is the task of every Christian.

The Rebellious idlers weren’t having a problem with fellowship.

They were all over that.

But they weren’t contributing to the needs of others; in fact, they were draining the resources that should have gone to others.

They were mooching of the rich Christians.

They were able to work, but they didn’t want to.

More than that, they refused to work, when Paul had told them flat out several times.

Being selfish and self absorbed; leeching off others is incompatible with Christianity.

Christians follow and model Jesus Christ.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Phil.

2:5-7 NIV)!

          Paul demonstrated the attitude of Christ.

He gave up all his rights in order to make himself a model for them to follow.

Paul’s one consuming thought in his life was not himself, but Jesus Christ.

He did everything in his power to witness Christ.

The actions of these rebellious idlers negatively impacted the church’s fellowship and ministry.

It also marred the church’s witness to the world.