Father, we are thankful for your word, as we always are. Quick, powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. Use it, Father, to whittle on us today and to carve away what isn't Christ-like and to help us to submit and become more like your Son. So we thank you for Paul, this message, the last in a grouping here that's kind of serious and can be taken the wrong way. I pray that it would come across right, that we would respond. With great excitement in our service to you. So we thank you for the privilege of hearing your word today Teach us for your glory. I pray in Jesus name. Amen Second Thessalonians chapter 3 verses 13 14 and 15 next week. We are going to close off the letter We're going to do a variety of things here for a little while kind of jump around a couple special special messages I'm going to do five weeks on marriage and In January, first week of February, I'm actually going to preach on marriage on Super Bowl Sunday. Is that okay? My topic that day is how marriage is permanent. I'll be talking about divorce. Maybe that'll be very appropriate. But I'll try to present it from the positive side, what God's desire is and how he wants to work that out. So just to take note, there'll be a section on Ezekiel for two months, and then we'll be starting into the book of Acts. So you can see I'm projecting out into the future ways. I don't plan on going anywhere. And you just have to be ready if God tells me to depart somewhere in the next five or 10 years and somebody's got to step up and take over from there. So I'll map out where the sermons are supposed to go and you just have to be ready, right? Preach, pray, or die at a moment's notice. That's what we were taught in seminary. So we'll have you work on that. We talked last week about working. Isn't work a good thing? We love it, don't we? Four-letter word, but we love it. And we're going to stay at it and give it our whole heart, aren't we? We talked last week, if you can work, you must work. If you are unable physically, if you're unable because you can't find a job, that's different. But I would encourage even those who can't find a job, dive in. Show up Tuesday morning, say I'm reporting for duty, and I'll give you some stuff to do. If you are unable to find regular work that pays, we'll find some things for you to do around here. So jump in. Let God provide. As he sees you taking work seriously, for pay or not for pay, God will meet your needs accordingly. So I want to encourage you to not feel discouraged. There are reasons why some people can't work, but there should never be a reason for an able-bodied person to not be doing something. And then if people know you're out of work, they can help provide along that line. So God's Word is very, very clear. And yet, laziness is a perpetual problem in the church. What is the rule of how many people typically work in the church? They've said it for many, many years. If the guess is about what percentages? 10% work and what do the 90% do? They enjoy the work, right? Enjoy watching, sitting, sleeping. Some of you try to get away with that here in church. And if you, unless you're on medication or have a doctor's written permission, I have the seats wired to wake you up. And so all of a sudden, you're going to see something sitting by you. They'll just kind of make a quick jerk. It's OK. Just relax. It's a mild jolt. It won't hurt them. But they will not sleep, will they? Some of you try to get behind somebody else's head so I can't see you. And then I don't know to shock you. But the bottom line is laziness is a serious problem in our world. If I mention the word union, what comes to your mind in regards to laziness? Waiting on a shovel. Typical stance. They're unashamed anymore. They'll do it right down a major road with all the people driving them. They'll just be leaning on a shovel. How many are typically there? Oh, there's five now. Used to be three. Now it's moved up to five. But the idea of unions was very good in the beginning. And some of you may be unionized. That's OK. You can throw rocks at me later. But the problem today is the unions have gone overboard the other way, and now they're looking for excuses to let people off. You've heard about Hostess Twinkie? That may go out of business. And part of the reason for that is because they cannot carry Hostess Twinkies on the same truck as bread can go on that same truck by the same company. They have to be delivered separately. One's more of a dessert item, I guess. One's more of a staple. So two different truck drivers, when they get where they're going, can the truck driver unload? No. Somebody else from the union has to unload the trucks and put them where they belong. What they're doing is they're running the company out of business. The company's trying to work with them to back off from that and to go back to letting more people or less people do more of the jobs the union will not allow. Is that a problem? They're not avoiding work, are they? Maybe they're standing there waiting for a truck to show up, or they say, I can't do that. That's not part of my job description in the union. So you've got a laziness to encourage, even to the point where my dad worked for a large space corporation, whatever they call those, aerospace corporation. And the last few weeks of a contract, they told him, you do whatever you want, but you've got to punch in at the right time, punch out at the right time. You come in, you do whatever you want. If a big boss comes walking through, or somebody from outside the company comes walking through, make sure you look like you're busy. My dad drew up his house plans for weeks on the job, just showed up and they told him, we don't have anything for you, but you have to be here. You have to use up the money of this contract or else they won't give us the same amount of money next time they'll cut back. Should they cut back? Yeah, we didn't need the money. So you've got things like that and you go on with hundreds of illustrations and you come into this situation that's happening even in the church. Is the church unionized? Sometimes. People have different jobs. You try stepping in and doing a job somebody's been doing for 20 years. What do they say to you? Try sitting in their seat. That's why we move the chairs around once in a while. We get locked into these things that we say have to happen. And so there's certain jobs you do or don't do. And you have to watch out for it. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is 10% of the church, typically, and who knows, this church is higher. I don't know what the number is, but it's higher. A lot more people here are doing more. But our goal is what percentage? 100% of the church is involved in the church. Sometimes it's going to be behind the scenes. I've had people come and criticize us for different things. I go point over and I say, they used up 100 tracks out of that track rack. And you're telling me we're not witnessing? Where'd they go? Somebody's doing it. Because you're not seeing it doesn't mean it isn't happening. But at times, there are jobs here that aren't getting done. And there are notorious ones that people don't want to do. And yet, We aren't eager about those sometimes. So you can run into that problem. Our church has a higher number of workers in it, but we're after 100%. This is what Paul was after here in 2 Thessalonians. And he just got done talking to them about that. If you weren't here last week, I can't really catch you totally up to date. But he ultimately said there in verse 10, if anyone will not work, neither let him eat. They were in a very tight, persecuted environment. A lot of them had nothing. They couldn't even get work outside because they were believers. And the church had to help meet their needs. They'd come together to get fed, even. Whether it was a love feast or whatever other way it was being provided. And they would minister to others. But if they weren't even willing to work for themselves when there was possible work to do, he said, don't feed them. Do not enable them. You're building bad habits. You're pulling away from God's will. You will destroy what God's after. And so Paul had to discipline the idol believers in last week's message. They were disorderly, lazy, busybodies. And yet he says here to this church, which I think was a good church. I think as we went through here, we saw some great things about this church. He's still admonishing them to not slack off. Look what he says in verse 13. He says, but as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. And if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, specifically they are to work, take special note of that man and do not associate with him. Man, that's harsh. So that he may be put to shame. And yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Now, you notice one thing here. I only took three verses. You got to write that down. Sometimes people think I'm crazy. When we get into Acts, I'm going to do 60 verses in one Sunday. It's because it's Stephen's description there. A lot of it will go quickly. It's historical. I'm not going to go into every last little nitty detail of it, but here's three verses. What can Jack do for all this time with three little verses you watch? And you respond, because I want you to interact with some of this as well. He's saying in verse 13, the very first word in the Greek is you. It's emphatic. He's stressing a contrast between you and who? The people he had just been talking to who were doing what? I'm sorry. They were being lazy, busy bodies. They were idle. They were showing that disorderly conduct that we talked about. Same word they'd use in the military for someone out of line. And so he says, but you and the you is actually put up front. Paul has expectation that the kind of the whole troops have to snap to and Paul's the commander there. One of the generals on earth talks to them. And he says, here's what's supposed to be happening. You, brethren, do not grow weary. What was the problem with the other half of the people? What were they getting weary of? They were doing all the work. He says, you're looking around and you see this person and that person, this person kind of slacking off. And you notice that some people will come to church once a month or once every six months, whether it's Christmas or Easter or or they'll do some things like that. And what kind of attitude is wells up inside of us? if we're not walking by the Spirit? Some resentment. What else would pop up? Judgment. Discouragement. Can you go that route with it? There could be some anger. What else? You've been there. You've been at work parties when you see somebody standing on the shovel or leaning against the shovel. What are they doing? And it creates these feelings in us. And so Paul just took them from the admonition of those who are supposed to be working to the group that he's addressing here. The ones that are at church, hearing the letter or reading the letter, the ones that are involved. And he says to them, do not grow weary. Is Paul encouraging or discouraging? He's encouraging them. This is positive. So just in case I discourage you this morning, just recognize that this is a very positive message. He's trying to encourage them. God expects Christlikeness out of believers, no matter what other believers are doing around you. So don't grow weary. What does that mean? Anybody have a different translation? Don't give up. Never tire. Don't get discouraged. OK, with what some of your translation may have. What else comes out of this? He's talking about the idea of not losing heart, of not desponding, of not being fainthearted is an idea behind it. It goes even deeper. It's an emotional struggle that's leading to this discouragement on people's parts. You ever been there? Every other week, right? Just tired, God. It's like there's too much put on us. Or I'm one of the few that's carrying this out. Many of you have been in a position like that. You took charge. You took responsibility of something. And it was just like pulling teeth every week, trying to either get somebody to help or find out the person didn't show up who was supposed to do it that Sunday. And you get thrown back in there to do it again. I find that every single week I look for someone to preach. And what happens every single Sunday? I get thrown right back into the same job over and over and over again. And if you don't like what you're hearing, whose fault is it? It's your fault. You guys get another preacher if that's what you want. Just kidding. But there's a struggle. There's a discouragement going on here. And Paul was trying to tell them, don't give in to the bad examples of the irresponsible. Who are you serving? God. If He tells you to work 24 hours a day, what's that got to do with anybody else? Why am I complaining? Why am I getting faint-hearted? Why am I going, oh, woe is me? Elijah did that. There's nobody left. They've all given up. I called them all. I tried to get somebody into this program and they wouldn't show up. Is that how he felt? What does God say to him? In the Hebrew, it kind of says, knock it off. That's the first idea behind it. Is that what he says? No. God came to him very gently. There are 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. What are you complaining about? What are you so discouraged about? What are you so frustrated over? And Paul's doing the same thing here. It's not only that a large percentage aren't doing the work they're supposed to be doing, it's that the ones that are doing the work are struggling to keep doing the work. And so Paul has to try to build them up. And he's an example of what? How's Paul fitting? Is he the 10% or the 90%? He's the 1% or the Point one percent, right? What does Paul learn in the process of serving God and not focusing on man? Has he been discouraged? You go to Second Corinthians, there's times, yep, there were many times he was beaten down. What did he learn? Okay, the reward's great. What solves this discouragement? Okay, prayer will help, but what's the ultimate bottom line take you out of it just like that? Okay, rejoicing, praying, giving thanks, but it will be to do what he just told him to do in the previous six verses. Work. See, when I have idleness, when I have time to think about what others aren't doing, is when I get in trouble. If I'm staying focused on what my job is, and I'm not looking around at how anybody else is doing, I am focused on Christ, I'm moving forward. I'm not giving an account for everybody else around me. I'm giving an account for me. When I stay focused that way, I rejoice. I give thanks. I stay on task. I don't get discouraged. I don't compare as what everybody. Oh God, you made me work 12 hours today. So and so only had to work two hours. You can't remember a parable about that. What is that to you? And here's Peter and John struggling in John 21. And he tries to make it. They're trying to compare each other. He says, here's your job. Here's his job. You focus on your job. Relax. What's your job today? If you pulled out a piece of paper right now and started writing down, here's what God has me doing. Could you do that? Could you actually write it down? Or is that maybe part of the problem of discouragement, frustration, irritation? Sorry, Dana. This is a major deal in the church. That's why I could take hours working through this and trying to help explain it. You've got this narrow group that's kind of on track. They're kind of in the middle of the teeter-totter. You've got a large group that's not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And that's typical. It shouldn't be. Some of that large group are not believers. So don't focus on that. Don't say, oh, all these believers are getting away with doing nothing. Then you got this other group over here who's doing it and then kind of fading back and doing it and fading back. And it's keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus. That's the whole picture. When you look at his life and you get into Hebrews 12, verse three, where he talks about that, tells us, fix our eyes on Jesus. What did he do? What did Jesus do? Who for the joy set before him, Endure the cross. He didn't kind of chop it up into pieces and say, here, you carry some of this. He took on what God gave him. Carried the load. God is not going to give us more than we can handle. Where's that from? 1 Corinthians 10, 13, kind of a quickie synopsis of the verse there. God is working on it. So this idea here, you all, the people last week were saying, oh yeah, go get them. Go teach those people who aren't working. Slap them. Spank them. Motivate them. Paul comes back to the other side of the group and says, how are you doing? Are you complaining? Are you frustrated? Are you slacking off because everybody is leaning on shovels? Or are you focused on Christ? Can you make a list? Here's what I'm doing. Here's what's going on in my life. There are things that sometimes surprise you. Yesterday, Bev and I were driving back up from California, went down to help her dad really quick. And on the way back, pulled into a gas station, I was only there a few minutes, barely getting my own gas, and the guy walks up and asks me for gas. How often does that happen to you? Once in a while, they're looking. Gives me the whole, I don't want to call it a sob story because that puts it in a negative light, but because of the example of some of you recently in my life, my response wasn't, no way. I did slack off on some things I normally would have done. I should have checked the gas gauge and the driver's license. But the way the conversation went, it was totally different. I had to move my car. He has to pull into a slot, have to go over and help him. Another guy pulls in while I'm sitting there trying to talk to him. But the question he asked me just slapped me right across the face. And I thought, this is from God. This is worth whatever amount of money I'm going to put in his tank and gas. He says, do you like God? I kind of looked at him and I go, what? What do you mean, do I like God? And he just stood there looking at me. And I said, well, the Bible doesn't teach us to like God. I was nailed. It was that one, there was no way I was going to answer correctly. Because as soon as I started explaining to him that I'm supposed to love God, it's like the Holy Spirit is saying, how are you doing? How are you doing on that? What's your love for God like? You're preaching to this guy and you're telling him, here's what the Bible, the Bible doesn't tell you to like God. The Bible tells you to love God. And he goes, gotcha. And I went, oh. But then I started looking at it and it reminded me of John 21, which is why I brought it up a minute ago. And where Jesus asked Peter, do you like me? And it was slap. And as the guy drove away, because it all happened so fast, I go, who was that masked man? You know, I'm kind of looking at this going, this is really odd. And he asked me a couple other questions and he took my answers really well. And I gave him some scriptures and we had enough time to talk there. I kept pumping and pumping and pumping. I gave him what he needed when he laid out what the need was. But I'm sitting there, and I drove away, and I pondered, and I pondered, and I pondered. And Beth says to me in the car, she goes, you're going to use that in your illustration some more. I'm going, is that part of my work? Did God bring a guy up to me and it wasn't just for me to help him out It's like he made me think all day yesterday as we finished up all the half day because we were halfway home And no, I guess we weren't that was six hours away and then into the evening and this morning I'm reflected on that I'm going who was that guy and was did he really need gas and did he pull out on the road in his car? Disappear, you know, I don't know if this was an angel. I'm starting to look at this whole thing I thought this was really weird But it's because of some of the other questions that I'm taking too long. But I'm going down and I'm really realizing that God calls on us to be available all the time to Him. The first call was, are you willing to help somebody in need? No. That's what your gut says. This is my money. I earned it. Why should I give it away to some stranger who could be flat out lying to me because I've had many in my lifetime lie to me. And I've caught them in it. And I don't have time. The guy's got me in a rush here. You know, we've got cars, the place is busy. There's more people coming in and you can pump your own gas in California. And so you're kind of moving along and, but I'm pondering this and it's like, God keeps asking me, do you like me, Jack, or do you love me? You know where that shows up best? Shows up in my work. See, if I only like him, eh, you know, you like your boss, you kind of do okay. If you love your boss, If you like your job, if you love your job, does it do anything to you differently? Where's the love side come from? If you really love something, where's the motivation come from? It's a hard attitude. You can beat somebody and beat somebody and beat somebody. They're not going to back down. Love doesn't fail. Love doesn't give up. Love doesn't stop. But if you're in the church and you profess to know Christ and you say, I only like God, what happens when somebody does something to you or there's a problem or a pressure or all of a sudden there's just too many things going on in your life? And do I give the money to the church or do I give it to this hobby of mine? And if you only like God or you only like the church, what happens? The tug of war wins out toward me. And this is the struggle. It was like God was just getting my attention for the next few hundred miles driving. And I just kind of pondered on that part. I bet you I will never in the remaining days of my life, I will never have a stranger come up to me and ask me, do you like God? It's just what people do that. And God goes, gotcha. I knew I knew you'd react to that. But the guy we had a great conversation, but here I am, I'm being called on to work. I mean, hold on, not to make money, but to give it away, and to serve somebody else, and shared with him, as much as I could in that short amount of time, his need. And he says, I told him to read the Gospel of John, we were talking for a while, and he goes, you mean like John 3, 16? I said, that's a great verse, but that's only one verse. You need to read the whole Gospel. Because he agreed to read that. I said, read the whole Gospel, ask who is Jesus Christ as you read through here. His name was Vince. You can pray for Vince. But the work goes on and on. I think sometimes we think we come into church, I punch in my time and you better not be late. You better not dawdle. You better not make me stay here any longer than necessary. And so what I'm telling you is I might not even like my job, but I'm tolerating it. But I don't love it. Now, I have things pulling at me, my family, other responsibilities, commitments that I've made. But if I really love God, work is going to come out of me super easy. And you notice when we sing the closing song again, in his presence, what's in his presence? We'll see that when we sing it. Yeah, work. God loves work. Started it in the garden, pursues it here. And so he tells these believers who I think are responding, he's talking to believers, they're brethren here. He says, do not grow weary. Don't become discouraged. Don't quit out of frustration over the disorderly conduct of some around you. Don't slack off because of the moochers and the deadbeats, is another way I wrote it down. That gives you no excuse to back off. Jesus endured hostility of sinners, and he says there in Hebrews 12, 3, that you may not grow weary. Philippians 3, 14, Paul pressed on towards the goal of the prize of the upper call of God in Christ Jesus. It's going to be hard work for us to do what we need to do. Fix it in your mind. But love the work that God has called us to. Give everything. Do it heartily as unto Him, as the Scriptures say. If we had assigned seats in the church, as I mentioned earlier, I think too many of them are empty during working hours. And some of those seats, as I go check them out and looking for people, they have little signs on them. They might say, gone fishing. What are some other things they might put on those seats that are empty? Sleeping in. Depressed. Had too busy of a week, needed some time off, so I take it away from God. See, what they don't understand is when you give God what he's asking for, what's he give you? The energy, the motivation, the encouragement, the benefits. There are Sundays when I've told you many times, I don't want to be here. There are many Sundays when I'm not preaching to you, I'm preaching to me. And those Sundays I come away, I've never come away from a church service, regardless of how bad I preached, without God fixing my problem. Because he gets my eyes off myself and onto the needs of others and recognition of what others are doing and appreciation of what others are doing. And so here Paul is simply trying to encourage them to not slack off. And he says, don't grow weary in doing good. And what's interesting here, I would expect this to be the one word for good, but it's not. It's the other word for good. If you go to Vines, which I didn't work with you on Friday morning on, but we'll keep working on that, and you look up the word good, there's two primary words that show up in there. Agathos is more the idea of doing that which is beneficial. It's good for somebody else. It profits them. That's what I thought this word was. It's not. You say, well, why not? Do not go weary in doing things that are beneficial for other people. He uses a form of the word kalos. Kalas is a word that's hard to define. I like Agathos. I can lock on to that one. That's a doer's word. What's Kalas? It means that which is good in character, beautiful. It's not so much the idea, not that it can't be beneficial in that sense, but it's a focus on the idea of doing things that are honorable, right, noble, virtuous, just. And who determines that? God does. It's things that God has put a stamp of approval on. He says, this is good. This is beautiful. This is fair. This is virtuous. This is right. And so he says, do not go weary in doing what is noble. Don't go weary in doing what is the right thing to do, regardless of how it makes you feel, regardless of what benefits you get. That was Paul. That was Jesus. That was Abraham. They kept moving forward. I have to focus on it this way or I want to quit. How often do we want to quit? Every other day? Every day? Do we do better in the morning than we do in the evening? See, if we're realistic with God, if we're honest with Him, we would acknowledge, man, we are like roller coasters all the time. And what's God doing? He gets out these hydraulic jacks and He's trying to jack up the low spots. And he puts some weight on the others and pulls down the high spots. He says, let's get a little more consistent here. Be like Jesus. Do you see him all in a panic sometimes? Never. Storms at sea, when everybody else is thinking they're going to drown. Where's Jesus? He's asleep. How can you do that? And so here's the picture for us is to get our eyes fixed on Christ, ultimately on the Father, and to doing those things that are right, that are honorable, that we can relax in. And the key there comes down to Colossians 3.23, which I've already kind of hinted toward. What you do, do your work heartily. That's for the Lord rather than for men. That's the key. I'm going to battle if I'm doing it for anybody else. If you're trying to impress somebody, you're in trouble. It's not going to work. Yeah, beneficial or profitable as it accomplishes something for them. Yeah, it's more the word that is just noble in and of itself. It's a, it's that which is fair, beautiful, but it carries the idea that which is right or just noble. to do for God. Yeah, under God's definition or explanation of what's noble. The world won't think the world will think you're wasting your time. They call it in God's eyes. Yeah, what the act and it's a word of a poem, which is the idea of doing something, accomplishing something. But it's it's the work that you're doing is is not so much beneficial for others. And it may be I'm not I'm not saying that won't happen. I'm saying it is it's the right thing to do. So it's what keeps you going. You think about it, think about the jobs you have. You're in the middle of one and some hard things come up. Criticisms, frustrations, people don't show up. You've got to do double duty. You have to do overtime. Those things pop up. And what motivates you is it's the right thing to do. Sometimes it's only because, well, they did it for me last time, so it's the right thing for me to do for them right now. If that's all it is, the world will do that. But if you're doing it in God's eyes is the right thing, they could have stabbed you in the back the last six times that you asked them to help you out. And they said, no, I don't. I don't. I got plans. I got places to be. I can't stay after and let you have some time off. But as soon as they turn that around and they ask you to do it, what's your response? The noble thing. It isn't based on what do you owe me idea. It's the right thing in God's eyes. It's the noble, fair, the just thing to do. It has nothing to do with them. Everything to do with me and my working relationship with God, the father. That's what he's trying to bring out here. Now, see how long I took with one little verse. And there's a whole bunch more here, but I'll try to get away from it. And I picked on the unions a little more down here, but there's too many that are trying to get the greatest pay for the least amount of work. That's a big problem today. See, when your goal is money, you will not do your work heartily. Now, obviously, you've got to make a certain amount of money. That's going to take care of itself. But too many unite to get the greatest pay for the least amount of work. They want to figure out how to get out of work, but give me more and more and more money, less and less and less hours, more and more and more benefits, greater retirement. But what am I willing to trade for that? And there's a struggle there sometimes. And then there's the other people who are doing the least amount of work possible while they're on the clock. They'll jump too when the boss shows up. And they may even have a signal system that they let them know when somebody's on. You do that with your commanding officers when they show up, all of a sudden everybody, you know, there's a little bit of a change there. The same thing happens when you're driving down the road and a police car pulls you over. Or you see a police car. And what does everybody do on the highway? Slow down. Why? What for? What's the problem? Were you going too fast? Is there a guilty conscience or are you just simply trying to not get in trouble? And as soon as he's out of the way, what do you do? See, there shouldn't be any adjustment to a police car unless the lights are flashing and you're supposed to slow down and get over. But if you just see a police car, there should be no difference. If there is, there's something wrong. But anyway, that's another whole message that we can work on. But here he is telling them, encouraging them, don't grow weary in doing the right thing. And he said in verse 14, if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, I went back and read 1 and 2 Thessalonians this week. And I said, what is he talking about? And specifically 2 to figure out what's in the letter. What instructions did he give? And there's hardly any in there. There is one other phrase and I'm going to go there because I don't think he's putting a focus on that. What Paul is basically saying is that heavy emphasis, the commands I give you at the end of this letter, they all revolve around work. So he's saying to them, if anyone does not obey our instruction about work in this letter, they give you a hard time, they justify it, they tell you, I'm going to defy you, I'm going to lean on two shovels. I'll show you. I'm not going to show up the next three times you ask me to do something. I'm going to wait till the last second. Then I'm not going to show up. I'm going to see if you respond like Christ. Are you going to love me anyway? Are you going to be joyful? Are you going to let me off the hook? But he gives out three commands that he really is going to focus on here. If anyone does not obey, the word for obey there is to hear, hearken to, to listen, to take in. It's one thing to recognize, you know, what somebody said. That's not what this word is. This word means the idea that you hear what they say and you respond to it. So it takes a little further. So we're too. Very common word in the New Testament. But he says, if anyone does not hear or in that sense, obey, hearken, render submissive acceptance, and you go on with a lot of descriptions here, our instruction, our message, our doctrine, our teaching in this letter. Three commands is what he's going to focus on. Number one, take special note of that man. What does that mean? Okay, the word he uses for note there, same word used for a sign or a signal. What's he tell you to do? Mark him. Notice the signal, the mark. Take note of that. Take special notice of that person. So what do we do? We walk around church and we have different colored little labels. We see somebody slacking off, you get a red one. Somebody else, man, they're just going gangbusters. They stick a green one or a gold one. Maybe you get a gold star, you know, whatever you may stick on there, some silver thing. But are we supposed to go around and start marking them out in that sense? Is that what it's talking about? What's he getting at? You guys read this this week, right? OK, you're going to be weary, but you're going to do it because you're noticing what he's doing wrong. How do you mark them out? How do you signify or kind of take note of this person in the way? I'm trying to think of how I can explain it. Mark out is kind of the best way and putting a tag on him is one of the things I wrote down here. How did they do it in the past? Let me maybe I should go to that. Give me some illustrations. Major ways that they marked out somebody who was out of line in the church. Common happened for a long time. OK, hopefully they wouldn't talk to that'd be a nice thing, but that's not the one I'm thinking of. I'm sorry. OK, the scarlet letter, I don't know what that would specify, but. OK, well, I thought it would be a typical pattern, but the church actually had things they did back in the 1600s, 1700s, what they do with them. OK, they may kick them out, but even better. OK, they may make them wear something up there, I went, Dana, sorry, they may make them wear something, but it was the stocks. Why did they put people in stocks? Who did it? Okay, well you don't want to waste tomatoes. They were very expensive back then. Okay, they treat them like one. How long did they end up in the stocks? Depending on the offense, right? You need to go back and read up on what group of people who did that. Puritans? Maybe we have to do a little bit of research. They did it for a long time. If you had messed up, they would have stocks. They would maybe have them. We couldn't leave them outside here. You'd freeze to death and we'd get in trouble. But they may have somebody in stocks sitting right here in the church. Why? They're embarrassing them, shaming them, which is what they're going to lead to here. Marking them out. Do you kind of know who's in the stocks and who isn't in the stocks? Well, they're in the stocks because they told a bad joke. I hope not. Why are they there? They sinned in some way. There's some area they crossed over. You can go on the internet. I'm sure they have all kinds of stuff on this. They violated and they sit in the stocks to pay their penalty back to society. And do they learn? Do you want to end up in the stocks? Remember last week I was going to put your picture up on the screen when the offering plate came by and you didn't put enough in? Oh, there's Charlie's face. What did you do, Charlie? You didn't put any offering in this week? How could you? Shame on you. That's what they did with the stocks. Can you imagine somebody sitting there and little kids come up to them and look at them? What did it tell the kid? You're naughty. You're bad boy. Humiliation. That was an ongoing practice that took place a lot. What's another way we could do it? What do we do with prisoners? To mark them out? We do which? They're clothing. What do we put them in? whether it's stripes or now it's a lot more orange, jumpsuits of some sort. If you try to get away, there was a crew working while we were driving up the freeway yesterday, sheriff's crew picking up stuff I guess, and they're all in very bright fluorescent yellow outfits. It's like if they start running, are they going to get them mixed up with the trees? You know, if they marked him out, and this is what he's talking about here. So I'm going to come back to the question. How do you mark out another person who's a lazy bum, if I could put it in those terms, who isn't working like God expects him to be working? And that's a judgment call. Where do I look first? I look in the mirror. How am I doing? I'm going to go jump on them. And what am I doing? I have no areas out of line in my life. But then you're going to mark them out. And so I want to know what this means. Is it easy to do? Socks make it easy. We could wear certain clothing. Oh, you've been naughty. You want to be part of this membership, you're going to have to wear your fluorescent yellow on Sunday. And the little hat that goes along with it. And you sit in the back. Okay, I want you here first. I want you to be the last one to leave. I don't want you to miss anything. This is punishment. Is that what we're going to do? What is he talking about when he says take special note of that man? You read it this week. Something came to your mind. Okay, you could respond in a way to help them, but this person's out of line and they want you to help them by dealing with this. And what is going to make them get back to work? It's ultimately going to be shame. That's what the stocks were all about. I think the Puritans built some of what they did off of this. Is that an extreme? Or should we bring it back? Well, how are you going to do that? Because, like you said, We don't know what's going on behind the scenes, and none of us are without guilt of not doing something. So how are we going to mark a person when almost every Sunday we're saying, you know, we don't know what's going on in someone's life, so you can't judge them for what they're doing. Okay, what do they know about these people's lives in the context? Yeah, it was clearly obvious that they were guilty because they weren't working. So we're not talking about a nebulous uncertainty of the heart. That's God's department. We're talking about what shows on the outside, first off. And in this case, it really showed. You know, you can imagine, you show up for workday, here's 25 people. I think we had 27 last time or one of the times. And here's one person who, and you're all going to get credit. See, the church keeps track of all that kind of stuff. And you get bonus points. They're handy for redemption later. You know, you can go to the redemption store and turn in your work credits. And you get neat little prizes. Is that how it works? You know, but it is with God. When you really stop and think about it, he's talking about rewarding us. What happens down the road? But here's a person who shows up and says, well, I punched in and I sat down, I ate lunch and when everybody left, I punched out. I got the five hour credit just like the rest of them. How does it make you feel again? You don't get any credit. You start getting antsy and frustrated and you want to teach him a lesson. And so he's simply saying, mark them out. Don't feed them lunch. How do you stop that? Do you understand how difficult this would have been? And we hate it today. We don't want to deal with sin, especially one like this, where we've got to cut somebody off from food. It's hard. I want to make sure you don't miss the point of this. Paul is not sharing some simple little thing with them. This is going to be really difficult. This may have been one of your close friends, and for some reason, they're in a state of rebellion against God, and they're saying, I want the benefits of being in the church, but I'm not going to work. God says, OK. How does this work in your family? You get a child, you got chores that day, it's a Saturday, you're all going out to do these things, and you give each one chores, and one of them decides to sit down. And two hours later, their chores aren't done. Everybody else's are done. And what do you do with them? Take away their, their town pass. Oops, sorry. You're right. That'd be a possibility. We didn't give out town passes. We should have done that. What was another answer? How do you make them do their chores? Okay. So do you take away their food? See, this is, I just, I'm trying to emphasize here that you understand this is not simple, but it's a command. This is the first command. Take special note of that man. Okay, I marked them out. They're in their orange jumpsuit. Then what's he say? The next one is not a command. He just says, take special note of that man to not associate with him. There it is. So little Charlie that's supposed to be doing his chores, we lock him outside. Is that what we do with him? Hopefully summertime and it won't be a problem. And we'll charge the other just crying his eyes out. See how I can present this in a way you'd go, you can't do that. That's inhuman. That's exactly what God's telling you to do to another believer who is disrespecting, disobeying what God has told him to do. And all of us, what do we do? What's the tendency on our parts when it comes to this? The pastor will do it. We don't want to be part of that. Do you understand church discipline doesn't work if it's not the church doing the discipline? It doesn't flow that way. Kim? Ah, so you're not cutting them off. You put them in the stocks and you share things, little tidbits with them every time you walk by, right? But they're not eating with us and they're not hanging around with us. I'm not letting them influence what we're doing the rest of the church. But I can understand that. That's more of a concrete example. But in reality with these people, you are having to avoid them. But you're not trying to not avoid, not talk to them. You're just not letting them into the close fellowship. It's a hard, delicate role to play, but it's critical. How often would you have to do this to get the church to straighten up? How many times do you think people were in the stocks? You think they were in there one week a month, just wouldn't learn their lesson? If they did that one week a month for 12 months, what would you say about that person? There's something wrong with you. You must not be a believer to be acting like that. And so then you've got to go further with the discipline. But initially, what you're doing is you're breaking off fellowship with them. And when you get together with them, when you bump into them in a store or they do come to church, which they might do, what do you talk about with them? One thing. Yep, that's it. Have you repented from your sin? That's it. You don't have a friendly conversation. You're not interacting on the scriptures. They are part of the Bible study. When you're interacting with them, you're talking to them. You're trying to win them. You're reaching out to them in that one area. I knew this wouldn't come across well. Nobody likes doing this. And the part of the problem is I don't take the sin seriously enough. And so what's happening to our country because this hasn't been practiced when it comes to work. Yep. You're getting the crowd of people that are in the stocks now outnumber or getting close to outnumbering the ones who are outside the stocks. And so who's going to end up in the stocks? Anybody who's critical, anybody who won't feed me, anybody who, you know, they start, it starts getting reversed and it's been allowed. What's the only way God can fix that? Yep. Destruction. You've got to strip them all, you've got to break them all, you've got to take away their food entirely. You break a nation down to where they have nothing and you can start working with them again. And you start with the spiritual and eventually get to the physical. So it's not a simple thing for me to explain, but it was going on in that church. And this was a great church. You remember what I've been telling you about this church. And yet he comes along and he says, here's the critical thing. You've got to stop this. You've got to nip this in the bud. If somebody refuses to work, no way. You can't tolerate that. For their benefit, you're trying to win them. You've got to cut them off from a close, intimate fellowship that you would have. And the problem with that today is there aren't very many people in the church that have a close, intimate fellowship. We don't even know what that means. Where you can cry together and laugh together and pray together. And when you see each other, it is not simply an emotional attachment because you're like them and they're like you and we get along. And so I like them. We're not talking about that. We're talking about a love that Paul has been stressing to the Thessalonians. That's sold out and will do whatever it needs to do. Yes, the believer is sinning and then in that sense being rebellious to not work. And you've got to help them. And the only way to help them is you've got to separate them out. And there's many things we go into in the area of church discipline. But he says, take special note to not associate with him. Why? So that he may be put to shame, so that he may turn his back upon himself. That's what shame is here. That's literally what this word means here. It's a passive. Right. See, if persecution arises enough in our country that forces the church into this little nucleus, and you're literally feeding each other each week. Somebody found food, brought it in for everybody to eat. Then you have more of that on a physical level, it'll eventually build to a spiritual level. And God will strip away everything that doesn't matter, and you start realizing the only thing that's going to last are the spiritual things. And that's what becomes important to me. you will drive people away. What Paul's talking about here is believers, first off, so you're going to drive unbelievers away. They will not tolerate this. Secondly, they're already in a church that's been severely persecuted. When you go back into 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, they're already under severe weight. So anyone who is not seriously committed to God, who isn't really saved, they aren't in this church. They're coming after them. And so they're going, I'm not going to hang around. So you've already, in this sense, you've already got a nucleus. That's the problem with churches today. You have, it's so easy to go or not to go, and if you get offended in one church, you just go down the street to the next one, and to the next one, and to the next one. You can with real believers. And you can if the real believers in the other churches will also cooperate. See, this isn't saying just to the local church. And see, what you would also have had in that case, the Thessalonians had a church. There wasn't the first and the second and the third and the fourth, you know, Baptist or whatever name I want to pick on. I grew up Baptist, so that stands out. And so, yes, there are some unique things that God may be bringing us back to, to clean the church up, to make it what he wants it to be in preparation for his son's return. We're excited about that, aren't we? So let me go back. I'm kind of running near the end here. He's telling them not to grow weary. There were some frustrated, worn out, fainthearted believers who were wrestling with this. Because it was critical that everybody pulled their weight. And he says, if they don't obey, take special note, mark them out. Literally the idea there is to inscribe marks upon. Mark for yourself. It's a middle voice. So you're responsible to make sure you take note of that man. Why? Because I love him and I want to help them. So you're going to mark them out. You're going to take note. It may be just a mental note that so and so is out of line with God and they're not cooperating with the people that have confronted them. It may have been brought to the church and we are not to associate with him. And our goal is to put him to shame. Make him ashamed. It's a passive. Bring him to repentance. Ultimately, what would be happening there? And so this is what he's after. To not associate is to draw back intimate fellowship, personal relationship, and you're trying to help them. See, I don't want it to be presented as a negative thing that's going on here. If you've got a lazy believer who won't work, it's damaging them, the church, and their outreach to the world. It's bad all the way around. It's not good. Right. A true believer will respond the majority of the time. They'll respond back. If you've got to take it like Matthew 18 to a second, a witness coming in. And by the way, you don't share ahead of time with the witness. You don't, what do they call that when you pre, preload, but there's a word for it in the courtroom too. What's that? You have prejudice to witness. You can't do that in the church either, but we do it all the time. Oh, let me tell you what they did. And we lay out all the stuff. Then we show up and now it's two against one. That's not what Matthew 18 is about. You're asking them to come. They're an independent witness. They sit in. You have the same conversation you had the first time with this person. They're testifying. And they may turn to you and go, I don't think they're sinning. I think you've gone overboard. Or I think they really have repented already. You just lost your witness. You don't tell it to the church. But if those two agree, yep, this is clearly a sin, they're clearly in disobedience, we're going to have to tell it to the church, always with the idea of winning them. But it's going to be rare. And the number of people you take to that level, rare for true believers. And if they don't listen to the church, which also has to reach out to them, then you treat them as a Gentile and a tax gatherer. You don't treat them like they're dead. All right? And then people can misunderstand that. You're still reaching out to them. What do you do with a Gentile and a tax gatherer? What did Jesus do with them? Witness to them hung out with them. He spent time with them, but you're you're doing one thing when you're with them That's to share the gospel there. They've gone to the extent where they're almost they're convincing you They're not safe because the Holy Spirit cannot get a hold of them either So that's kind of the process, but I didn't want to focus on math 18 He's simply trying to help them out here and he says don't associate them that I may be put to shame and then in verse 15 as I kind of rattle my way down here. He says, and yet do not regard him as an enemy. So Paul, he's building in the protections here. He's trying to make sure you don't do this the wrong way, that you're not throwing them in the stocks and spitting on them when you walk by and hating them. That's not what it's about. Don't regard them. Don't consider them. Here's the second command present imperative middle. You yourself don't treat them as an enemy. This word literally carries the idea of one who is hated. under disfavor, a foe, somebody who's hostile to you, an adversary, who's alienated, who's in discord. It's that kind of a flavor here. Don't treat them like that. That happens a lot. I've been treated that way in the past, in different situations through the years. I do something that somebody doesn't agree with. I don't ever do that, do I? And they react to me. I've had people hate me because I didn't hold the same doctrinal position on something that was a unimportant doctrine in so many respects. And it's like, no, no, no, we just need Bible study. We need to sit down and work through this. You hold that position? I'm out of here. And they would not talk to me. That is not what this is talking about. First off, they were not saying I was sinning. Well, some might think I was because I took the wrong position. But secondly, you don't treat them that way. He says, don't regard him as an enemy. The other side of it is admonish him as a brother. What's the word admonish mean? Okay, it's a form of encouragement carries with it the idea of instructing them would be a positive part of it. Encouraging them would be a positive part of it. What's the negative part of it? Okay, correction here. It's literally the word for unmonished in the Greek is two words put together. And it means to put in mind, what does it take for me to put in their mind always being nice? Is that how you are as a parent? You always are nice to your child. I shouldn't use that. Maybe I'm setting you up and you think I'm going to get, I'm going to get in trouble if I answer this wrong. Don't sometimes you have to get a little firm? Maybe even once in a while, I have to raise your voice a little bit and being firm. We don't want you screaming, but Henry, he's outside doing something. He ran off. He knows he's in trouble. And so you're dealing with it, but there's a need to admonish here. And this carries the idea of warning them. In your instruction, you're warning them. It's our third command. Present, imperative, active. It's more verbal. The idea to not regard him as an enemy is more of a mental thing. Don't lock into your mind that they're a bad person and you give up on them. Don't do that. But on the third case here, admonish him in a verbal way, share with them. It's never harsh, never unloving, never abusive. My goal isn't to beat them down into submission. That won't work. That's only what the world can do on the outside when they throw somebody in prison. What he's after here is that you are warning them, and you're instructing them, and you're getting them to change their ways. Does that make sense? How long does that take? It can take a number of hours, weeks, months. How long do you go until you move on to another step? What's the deciding factor? When you understand that they have heard you and they have rejected your message, it's time to move on. That can vary. Some people may need a little longer time. I've had people come to me and say, I talked to so-and-so and they didn't listen to me. You got to take the church after them. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Then I find out they were mad. They attacked. Obviously, the person want to go. Oh, I'm so sorry. I acted like that. I'm so sorry. I hurt your feelings. I will never do that again. That's not how they respond. A soft answer, but turns away wrath. So sometimes I have to negotiate with the negotiator. I have to. No, no, no. You need to go back and you and don't tell me their sin. Don't reveal all the information. It's between you and them. And you didn't do it right. Sometimes I have to rebuke the rebuker. to get them to go back and say, now you need to go back first off and ask them to forgive you for what you did. You were out of line. Now what have I just created? With the rebuker. I may have a situation with them where I'm now having to work with them, work with them, and they're finally going, I'm not going back. What do I have? Defiance, sin. I now created my own situation because of my position. And I've got to work with them before I can help them fix the person that they alone witnessed the sin. And I've had people in that middle of the road get so mad at me because they wouldn't do it right, and they wouldn't acknowledge that they'd done something wrong, that they become a worse problem than the person that was originally the problem. You understand where I'm going or am I totally confused? Let me turn around and say that again. There, I just wiped all that away. This isn't easy, folks. And Paul's not trying to make it that way. Otherwise, he wouldn't put it in the form of a command. He's not saying, oh, when you get around to it, if you feel like it. No. Don't play games with sin in the church, in this case, lazy bums who won't work. Don't do that. Mark them out. That's somebody I got to help. Jack is not working. Jack's on my prayer list this week. Jack's on my contact list this week. I'm going to go help Jack. I've marked him out. I picture him in an orange jumpsuit, whatever it takes for me to get that. And I go to him and I seek to admonish him, but not as an enemy. And that may take you a while. And I may have to calm them down first. Because they think they're fully justified in what they're doing. I don't have to work. I've worked all my life. Do you know how many hours I've put into the church? I've built up an accumulation of extra hours. I should be able to sit around and wait once in a while. Where's that in the rules? No, no, no, that's not it. See, you may take some time to help them explain. You may have a Bible study with them, or a few Bible studies. You may take some time. It may take you a while. Until finally, either they repent and they respond biblically, or they refuse and you've got to take it to the next step. I should do that reluctantly and with great tears and sorrow, trying to help them. It should never be a pleasure, but it should never be neglected either. And that's a hard balance to keep. And I never assign it to somebody else. You witness the sin, you go fix it. You go win them. You go pull them back from dropping off the cliff. Help them. Don't automatically assume somebody else is going to do it for you. So here's here's all Paul's trying to get at when it comes down to this. How where's laziness in the church when Paul gets done? It isn't. Where's laziness in the church when God gets done? It isn't. What does God think about laziness? It's bad. It's very, very harmful to people in many, many ways. It was one of his first commands that he gave Adam and Eve in the garden. Put him out there and put him to work. So what's the problem? Why am I slacking off? Do I have the wrong master? Do I have the wrong goals? Do I have the wrong perspective? Do I have my eyes on other people? What does that align? So you're going to go home today and you're going to reflect on this like I had to with that guy who said, do you like God? Slap. And I almost want to turn back. Could you take that question back? I don't want to process that question. At least he only said it to me once, you know. Peter got it a couple of times in there. But he's trying to help them in the church, and this is all beneficial to them. And when you see somebody else out of line, how do you respond? Oh, that's the job of the pastor. I don't see that in the rules either. What are you going to do? Do you understand what kind of church this produces as I wrap this up? You tell me, you close off for me. What kind of church is this? When the church is actually caring about each other to the point that they'll hold them accountable to be in line with God and move as a group. Okay, it's very loving. Excuse me. It's which? Okay, it's God-centered because that's why you're doing what you're doing is because of him. It's unified. It's holy. Okay. It's functional. It's carrying on what God wants. How does the world see that? They're going to notice. You are going to stand out. See, we keep trying to figure out why won't they listen to my witness? Because they think we're all a bunch of hypocrites. Take away their excuse. Stop being a hypocrite in their eyes. You may not be, but go to the extent where you are so sold out in your love for God and your love for God's people that you have a love for them to where you don't shoot their dog when it invades your house and kills your cat. You don't treat them the way they would treat you. You love them. You lay down your life for them. And we need to do this for one another as we look at this picture here. It's what Paul was after. Perpetual problem in the church. What do we want the percentage to get up to as far as the workers? 100%. And who do I start with? Me. How am I doing? What's my job description? How am I doing on it? God's going to call me. And what do you call those when you when you get a once a year evaluation, a job performance? Should we do those in the church? We'll call you in and have all the leadership set up there. We'll be sitting up on a platform, of course. And you'll be down there and then we'll have spotlights on you. Where were you on Friday, November 2nd? We found a fault in here, didn't we? Is that what you want? I don't want that. And I don't even want to walk around. But when I see people missing today, I pray. There's some that have been missing for months. I pray harder. I try to get out to people. There's some I need to visit. I feel guilty. I'm working on it. I'm trying to get to some that are needy out there. But you should be doing the same thing. I have one goal in mind, the high calling of Christ Jesus. It's not making money. It's not having a great retirement. It's none of that. It doesn't satisfy anyway. And in that, I will love my wife. I will love my children. I will love my neighbor. I will love God. I will love the ministry of this church. I will love the idea of witnessing and reaching out. All the things will line up where they're supposed to be when I'm in the right relationship with him and what he's asked of me. So get to work. All right. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the encouragement. We're all at times feeling in here. That's not the question. But contrary to how John's had it recently, we don't like a barking sergeant to come up and scream at us, especially in the middle of the night. We thank you that you're not that way. But we also thank you that you are tenacious. And you will get the job done that you want done in us. So help us to cooperate. Help us to look in the mirror and figure out where we're at and what we're doing. Change our hearts, Father, as we sang earlier. And have a great give us a great desire to be in your presence in the right frame of mind with the right activities in our lives sold out to you because there is where there are joys and pleasures forevermore. Help us to stop looking for the trinkets from the world and to get the real thing from you. I thank you in Jesus name. Amen.