2 Thessalonians chapter 3, beginning in verse 3, hear now the word of God. But the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. We have confidence in the Lord concerning you that you are doing well and will continue to do what we command. May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example because we did not 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 would 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 so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either." We come really to a passage of scripture that oftentimes is one that you don't want to have to enter into. Paul is talking to us about church discipline. And church discipline can be a very difficult thing, especially in our culture. The strategy that Paul is using here in the strategy of church discipline within the scriptures are easily missed by those of us who are in the Western culture. And that is because many of us are very individualistic. And for the most part, we're shameless. We contend to get along without each other. And we We live in homes and things like that with that very purpose. The Thessalonians lived in a very strong communal culture. It's a huge difference. They lived in a place where honor and shame were very much used for conforming to the communal culture. It really helped to control social behavior. And so when you remember the persecution that was beginning to fall upon the Thessalonians because of their faith in Jesus Christ, that they had left the ways of their culture, they had left the ways of their idols and and turned to the one true living God. And so they were cut off by family, they were cut off by society, from their culture, from their networks of which they functioned in. And this was a very important way of life for them. And so when they were cut off, they needed to find a new network of people, a new community of people that they could fit in, that they would be accepted, that they would care for, love, and be about that community, a group of people. And that group of people for them was the church. And the church became that community. Gene Green in his commentary writes this. He says, the separation of the disorderly believer from the new family, speaking of the church, would have been devastating. It is hard to imagine a more forceful way of bringing these believers into harmony with the apostolic teaching. than that of church discipline. We also need to know as we come into this passage, what is the meaning of Paul's wording here when he says that we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life. every brother who leads an unruly life, not according to the traditions which you have received from us." What is this unruly life? It's the word, the Greek word of talk, it means undisciplined, it means an unruly life. It's any kind of conduct that does not conform to the established law or expected practice. And so they were They are disorderly, they are undisciplined, they are unruly, they are insubordinate. Simply put, they're sinners. And they are living in that sin, knowing that that is unruly and is against not only the Word of God, but is destructive. And so that's really what the word means. It's talking about sin that creeps up in a person's life who begins to habitually live by that sin, bringing destruction to their own lives, but also then bringing possibly disunity among the believers. Paul's saying that their behavior is in need of correction. And because it has continued and even gotten worse, it's time to enact church discipline. Church discipline, again, is very difficult. In our society, when we have practiced church discipline here, when we practice church discipline, what usually is the case I've tried to think through, is there ever a case? I think there's only one time that I've been a part of church discipline that the person actually repented and was restored to the body. Usually what happens is they leave the church and they go to another church and the other church doesn't care to address the sin issue. That's okay with them. And that person stays on their path of destruction. Proverbs chapter 13, verse 18, here's Solomon in writing, says this, poverty and shame will come to him who neglects discipline. Now the word discipline there is who neglects correction, who neglects instruction. Poverty and shame will come to him who neglects correction, who neglects instruction. But he who regards reproof will be honored. The one who regards reproof. And that's a difficult place to be. It's tough to be reproofed, right? It's tough to have your sin addressed. and your life and pride creeps up and we can become defensive and we can battle against it. That's the norm. That's the flesh. But all scripture, Paul said, is inspired by God and profitable, what, for teaching, for rebuke, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. That's the purpose of the Word of God, of bringing us to Christ and walking in a manner, as Paul said in Ephesians 4, worthy of our calling of following Jesus Christ. In verse 20, Proverbs 13, it says, He who walks with the wise will be wise, but he, a companion of fools, suffers harm. That's so true. the importance of being a part of the body of believers and those who are walking with Christ in wisdom through his word. And knowing what God desires to do in us. That's what we were created for. For the Thessalonians, a sin that was that was undisciplined, that was unruly in their lives, is their idleness. It's rebellious idlers. Those who were not simply lazy, but they compounded the sin by rebelliously refusing to obey when the apostles addressed it when they were there. And then it was addressed again in the first letter. And now here again, having to address and getting worse. There's no desire to change. So in this text that was before us this morning, Paul is going to address this issue of the rebellious idler, but really he's going to address the issue of sin. That's what he wants to do. He's addressing the issue of sin within the church. And he begins with an exhortation, he follows it by an example, and then sharing an established fact, an established truth. And so on your bulletin on the back, you'll see the outline, exhortation, example, and established. Paul begins with an exhortation here in verse six. He says, now we command you, brethren. Paul opens with a specific command. And this command is not gonna take the church by surprise. It's not all of a sudden like, whoa, where's he moving here? He already addressed it in verse four. We have confidence in the Lord concerning you that you are doing and will continue to do what we command. They have this faith in Paul and they see Paul as their father. They see him as that of an authority of Jesus Christ. And so, He says, he commands them, and he says he's confident. I think he's confident based on his experience that the church of Thessalonica, he commands that they're going to do. He knows that they're gonna do it, and so he wants to bring it. And notice that this command, who the recipients are. Who are the recipients? You, brethren. Who are those? That's the church. He's talking to the church at Thessalonica. So he's talking to the church right here. He's talking to you as the church. That I command you, church, brethren. He's talking to all of them. This isn't just the leadership. This isn't just one person. This is the whole church that is involved in this, including the sinners, including the ones that he's going to address. Brethren also softens it. It softens the harshness of the command. Church discipline is not a joy. I don't look forward to a week and think, boy, Lord, show me some church discipline that we could practice. Church discipline's necessary. And when he's talking about brethren, he's talking about fellow believers. Brothers and sisters, this is family. That's who we are. And we know that the destruction that sin can cause, and when somebody's caught up in sin and we see it, and it just becomes blatant in their lives, that we must go to them. It's a picture of love, people. It's a picture of love. I mean, let me just, The whole idea is this. How is somebody who is a believer in Christ and is caught up in sin and it's addressed, how will they know the love of God? and His forgiveness, except for through the word, but how will they experience it if it's not through us? Because we're the body. Christ is the head, and we're the body. And so when somebody repents, there's great joy and there's great rejoicing and they experience it in flesh and blood of this forgiveness, of this love, of this care, of this restoration. That's the beauty of it. It's not harshness. It's not, well, you're acting bad and you're out of here. That's not what it is. It's really a heart issue. A heart issue, and it's a heart issue. And Paul is telling them to keep away from them. Keep away from every brother, a believer, somebody who professes to be a believer. who is leading an unruly life, who's caught up in sin and is just walking in that path with no desire to change. And he says, you need to, you need to not associate with them. And it's because you love them. And the word here for command is pargelo. Paul uses it two more times. But notice Paul's command is not out of his own authority, but it's out of the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church. It's out of the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's out of the authority of his truth. It's out of the authority of his word. It comes through the apostle Paul. But what he does is he invokes the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ because it is the obligation. For the Thessalonians Bay to walk in obedience, it's it's a truth and we'll see this in a moment. That they are to keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us. The errant members, the errant church members are anyone who continues to walk in an undisciplined, unruly life. In a pattern of sin that is blatant and known. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 7 because how many of you heard, who are you to judge? You ever heard that? Who are you to judge? We're not to judge each other. We're not to judge. Matthew chapter 7, right? It tells us that. Matthew 7 verse 1, do not judge so that you will not be judged. Right? There it is. But we leave it out of the context. What's Jesus doing? What's he talking about? This is Jesus' words. He's preaching. He says, do not judge so that you will not be judged, for in the way that you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Meaning that if you are hypocritical, or if you are pharisaical, if you are legalistic in this, and you are saying, listen, your sin, and you gotta change, but there's nothing that applies to you, you are not. Understand that you're going to be judged the same way. And if it's out of harshness, if it's out of legalism, then God will judge you the same way. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye. Right? I mean, it's gonna be very difficult for me. Here's a speck, and I'm trying to take this speck out of Jake's eye, right? But I have a log in mine. Man, he's gonna need eye surgery and head surgery by the time we're done, because I'm gonna pummel him with the log, trying to take out the speck. And notice, it's a speck. I mean, if something like that happened to me, I used to work in a shop with some guys, and man, if you got hurt, You know, tape an aspirin to it, it's a long ways from your heart type stuff. You know, if I got something on my eye, well here's a pair of pliers, let me pluck it out. You know? No, I want tenderness. These are my eyes. Right, and I know what that feels like, having your eyes scratched, and going to the doctor, and then all of a sudden they put this drop in, and it's just like, wow, this is awesome. I have no pain anymore. I mean, and then they could remove whatever was in there, and I didn't feel it, you know? It's a tenderness. Turn with me. Well, let me just continue. He says, first take the log out of your own eye, then you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. What's that? People, that's judgment. If I know my brother has a speck, I judged it, I see it. But what I need to do is make sure that I don't have the same problem and I'm accusing them of something that I won't even deal with myself. and being able to deal with that. This is what Paul's gonna move into here. But dealing with it in my own life so that I can, right, see it removed from a brother's eye out of love and tenderness and the grace of God and his mercy. Proverbs chapter 27. This is a great problem. I as I was sitting there and thinking through all these things, my wife also quotes this verse. And I thought, ah, that's the one. I just, uh. Listen, what he says. Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. You know what he's saying there? Like if I'm not gonna rebuke you, I see sin in your life, and I'm not gonna try to come in and rebuke that of you and try to see you, but I'm gonna overlook it, that's not love. That's what he's saying. That's not love. Love will rebuke. Not out of harshness, but out of tenderness. Listen, faithful are the wounds of a friend. You see that? Faithful are the wounds of a friend because those wounds are going to heal. But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. It looks like they're correcting it, but they're not doing anything to remove the abscess, and the infection is just going to get worse and destroy. You see? But, oh, they sure treat me nice and kind as I die. Instead of, let me remove that so that this doesn't destroy your life. Let me come alongside you. That's what he's called the church to. And these are rebellious sinners. Obviously, their sin has been addressed before. And they have willingly disregarded the teaching, and so they are without excuse. And so Paul moves to an example. And he says, for you yourselves know. How you ought to follow our example. Because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you. So he begins first. We didn't act in a sin along that. It's not saying that he's perfect. It's not saying that he isn't a sinner. But in this specific issue, Paul can give the example of how one ought to live. And specifically, he's going to move into it. What is the sin that they're dealing with? 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 would not be a burden to you any longer. Unlike FedEx truck drivers. Right, Todd? I I heard okay, you gotta hear this is This week III guy just said it, you know, I was talking to Todd Gimple and he said man I'm thankful that Bob that we didn't have church because we haven't driven this week. You know, we don't have work and we're not working. And so anyway, and so I just I had to throw that out, right? That's it's different type. These were unwilling to work when even work was available. That's that's what we're talking about here. But listen, it What he's talking about here is anyone's bread. He's talking about the whole realm of not just bread to eat, he's talking about life, the needs of life, shelter, place to lay down his head at night, more than bread, water, food to eat, all of that. Paul is addressing all that. He's saying that we have come in and our needs that we have to live, we paid for it. We did it with labor and hardship, working night and day. You see the stress that is there. And the example that they left, that we didn't act in an undisciplined way. And especially in this area of sin, we were model examples for you of what it is to look like. We didn't eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But we worked night and day with labor and hardship, sweat. I mean, there was this, it's in the present tense that it kept going on and on, this labor and this hardship night and day. And so, obviously, they're working night and day to provide for their needs while they're there, but also then taking the opportunity and the time to share the gospel and to disciple those who are there. You know, I look at it and I think, golly, when did he sleep? I mean, they worked night and day. They obviously didn't have to sleep or something. It just wants to clarify that there was no aspect of laziness whatsoever in their minds of take it easy now. Right? There's a day of rest. That's what God has given us in the Sabbath. It's a day of rest. And that we diligently work and we'll talk about that next time. Work is a gift from God. It's what God has created us for. So we'll see that in Genesis chapter one, two. So we won't go there today, but Paul is talking about his example. Listen, are you an example? We can share the gospel. with somebody. We can share what we see maybe needs to happen in somebody's life. But the question is, am I doing that? Am I living that? If I'm going to address a sin in somebody's life, first question I need to ask myself is, do I fail in the same sin over and over again? And or has God given me victory that I can then go in and come alongside somebody who's struggling with that same sin and say, hey, listen, you can have victory. This is what it looks like. Let me come alongside you. Let me walk with you. Let's let's see this out together. That's that's the picture. We are examples of what we ask others to do. If I'm asking you to read the scripture on a daily basis, am I doing that? If I ask you to pray on a daily basis, am I doing that? If I ask you to to serve within the body, I do that. Am I an example? Right. Oral teaching was huge for them. We we like the visual. We want to see it. Lived out. And Paul goes on for even or not because we do not have the right to this, right? They had every right to ask them for provisions. They had every right. As men of the gospel of preaching and teaching the gospel, they had every right to ask for provisions. But in order to offer ourselves as a model for you so that you would follow our example. Am I an example to follow? That's what I need to ask myself, especially in church discipline. Am I an example to follow? How we model. We need that testimony. Especially when we ask our kids to do things, am I willing to do the same things that I ask my kids? Am I an example that my kids can follow and they see? Dad does it. Mom does it. And what they're asking us to do, they do. And so Paul has given an exhortation. Practice church discipline. Avoid such people. He's given an example of this is what it looks like, especially in this area of specific sin that's happening in these people's lives. Here is an example to follow. But also, verse 10, it was established truth. It's an established truth. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either. So when Paul was there ministering to them, he taught that. And orally they would have got that. Oral tradition was huge for them in that day. They would have heard it, they would have understood it. And yet they rebelled against it. And then when he wrote his first letter to them, he addressed it again. And they heard it again. And they rebelled, willingly rebelled against it. And so now here's a third time that he's bringing it to them again, and he's going to specifically bring it to them in the following verses for next time. But it's established truth. Is what I'm asking you, is what sin I'm addressing, can I go to the scriptures and say, look, this is what the scripture says concerning that. This is what God's word says, and he wants to set you free from that. And He wants you to walk in newness of life. So whether it be immorality, or whether it be anger, or whether it be idleness, or selfishness, or pride, the Scripture speak to that and bring it to the Scripture. And allow the authority of the Word of God to be the authority of why you're addressing it. I'm not addressing it because I have authority over you. I'm addressing it because God's Word has authority. And I want to bring you to the Word of God. And pray that the Spirit of God will work in your heart. I can't change your heart. But the Spirit of God by His Word can change your heart. If you're willing to walk in repentance Paul's not speaking about someone who can't find a job. This is one who's not willing. The opportunity is there for them to work, but they deliberately refuse to. They would rather find the ease of life of having the benevolent fund of the church provide for all their needs and not have to do anything for it. And it's been addressed. It's been shown to be sin. And now, because you refuse to listen and refuse to listen, I'm asking the church. I'm asking them to stay away from you, to not provide for you any longer. And so if you don't eat, you'll starve to death. It seems harsh, but it's not. It's loving. Because it's a path of destruction that they're on, and the whole desire is to bring them off that path of destruction, back into relationship with Christ. You understand it's not harsh? You understand that the established fact is this, that Jesus Christ came for the very purpose of dying for your sin, of dying for these things that even the Thessalonians were struggling with. And whatever your sin may be, he came and he died for those, and he took it upon himself, and he took the penalty of that on the cross. In order that you can be set free from that path of destruction because you are not created for that, And so it is His kindness and His compassion and it is His grace and His mercy that desires to bring you back. That should be the same desire that we have. We wanna bring Him back. We wanna see Him restored. We miss Him. I mean, that's a hard thing to do, is when you love somebody, to say, I'm gonna step back and let, because I can't change it. Listen, there's sometimes, sometimes you have to get off the horizon of that person's life in order that they see Christ. Because if it's me constantly there, they see my face, they hear my words, and they think it's me that's addressing that. And there's times I need to just say, Here's the Word of God, get off the horizon and let the Spirit of God move in their heart. And pray. Pray that the Spirit of God moves. Because there's no greater joy, let me just say this, there's no greater joy than when one sinner who's on the path of destruction repents and comes back, right? There's no greater joy. How exciting is that?