1 Thessalonians 4:11

Quiet lives of faithful work

Well, I know you all are probably familiar with the tale of the three little pigs. But what you're never told about the first two little pigs is why they wanted to build straw houses instead of brick houses. And so what I want to suggest to you tonight is that the first two little pigs had not heeded the wisdom of our passage tonight. while the third pig embodied this quiet, steady, faithful work that Paul is exhorting us to. The third pig was willing to play the long, hard game on the brick house, and depending on the version of the tale that you have, the third pig even invites in the first two to shelter them from danger, as his faithful, quiet work works out into love for his brethren. So likewise, in our passage tonight, 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 11, Paul is exhorting the Thessalonian believers to aspire to quiet lives of faithful work. And I wanna set our verse in its immediate context, so I'm gonna read from verses nine to verse 12. Please follow along with me as I read.

Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. For that, indeed, is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Interestingly here, Paul sets his discussion of work in the context of love between believers. And so what is probably going on in this Thessalonian context is that some believers are refusing to work and are mooching off of some more affluent believers in the church. And it might be an abuse of a patron-client relationship in the Greco-Roman context. And so Paul is showing us that a proper work ethic is the outworking of your love towards fellow Christians. So that is context. From verse 11, I want to point out three obstacles to living quiet lives of faithful work. They are visions of grandeur, illicit peacemaking, and pride. The first hindrance from our text for a quiet life of faithful work is visions of grandeur. In our day and age, it is easy to get caught up in the euphoria and despair of the world around us. We have the power of the internet at our fingertips, and so we should feel like, or we often feel like, we should be changing the world. But if we are so caught up in seeking these great things for ourselves, we will totally miss all the small steps of faithfulness that God is calling us to. Look at the text. Paul says,

aspire to live quietly.

Paul is doing a play on words here. He's saying, be zealous or strive eagerly to keep still or to be at peace. So he's calling for the Thessalonians to not try and make waves, but to practice brotherly love in the church. He might here have the social political sphere in mind and not stirring up the ire of the Romans through political aspirations. When they first came to Thessalonia, or Thessalonica in Acts 17, Paul and Silas had been accused of stirring up political strife. So Paul is calling for them to be content in their situation of life. If we have these sky-high aspirations that see ourselves doing great things, how will we deal with discontentment? Paul, on the other hand, is calling us to be content in simple acts of faithfulness. Faithfulness and contentment in fulfilling our callings. So we do not need to feel the need to reinvent the wheel. And this is comforting to us as the Holy Spirit works through us, empowering us to do our work. Secondly, another hindrance is illicit peacemaking. We've all been there, we've heard a conflict in the church, it piques our interest, and then we want to get involved and try to solve it. But being a peacemaker does not mean that we are called to meddle in everyone's affairs. Our peacemaking must be informed by mercy and purity, as we discussed on Sunday, which will point us away from snooping into the business of others. So what Paul is calling for is not a disinterest in the welfare of our brothers and sisters, but he is pointing us away from what some will fall into in the Thessalonian church, as we see in 2 Thessalonians 3, where they were not being busy at work, but busy bodies. They're literally meddling, wasting one's labor on that which does not produce. But instead, in this context, Paul is pointing us to loving relationships, where we can help promote reconciliation without being a burden, and to do the good work of building up one another in Christ, not dragging others down by meddling in their affairs. Thirdly, the final hindrance to a quiet life of faithful work is pride. And this is where our Protestant work ethic ties in. There is no work that is below the believer. We might not appreciate some jobs, but, for instance, without garbage men, our world would significantly look less beautiful. So they are actually engaged in a curse-reversing, recreative work as it were, by making our world reflect more of the beauty of God. But Paul's not just trying to praise manual labor, per se, here in our passage, but to encourage Christians, rich or poor, to do the work that God has called them to, and to be self-supporting, contributing members of society, and to not get caught up in senseless debates, which often plagued their Greek context, and still plague us today. But he's calling them to engage in real work, whatever it might be that God has called us to do, to engage in this creation ordinance that God has gifted us with, to take part in this divine means, to share in the recreative work of God, as through our work, we subdue creation, make it more beautiful and fitting, and uphold the created order. All of this is active, engaged, creative work, no matter the color of your collar, and not meaningless, frivolous work that has no substance. Paul's point here also shows us that even in light of Christ's return, which Paul flows into right after this, we are not to disengage from the world, we're not to be grabbed by some eschatological frenzy, and we are not some spooky separatist cult. But as Christians, we are to lean into our work. Even in a fallen world, where often there is struggle and pain, and we are to do it faithfully and trust God for the ultimate outcome. Finally, notice the purpose clause in verse 12.