1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 - Mind Your Own Business

Well, welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. It's a little bit of a toasty day here where I am.

And we are in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, beginning in verse number 9.

We've gone from the first couple of chapters, Paul expressing to the Thessalonians how grateful he is for how they're following the Lord, how they have been telling others about Jesus, how they have not forsaken Jesus even in the middle of

persecution and difficulties. He reminds them of the way in which he and Silas and Timothy interacted with them, encouraged them in their faith, motivating them to do the same kinds of things.

He let them know that they want to be back with the Thessalonians as soon as they can, and he has a prayer for them that they would love each other and those around them more and more, and that God would make them blameless and holy in preparation

for Jesus' coming. And last episode, we looked at one way in which Paul encourages them to live their lives. It's through sexual holiness, that they would follow God's design of one man and one woman for one life. And he did that.

Now in verse number nine of chapter four, he picks back up and talks about their love for each other. And this is where we're going to be today. We're going to close after verse number 12.

So we're just going over these four verses 9, 10, 11, and 12. And then tomorrow's episode is going to be all about the second coming of Jesus. Actually, the next two days are going to cover that topic.

So this one might be a little more brief. We'll see how it goes. I think last episode was like 27-ish minutes.

So this one might be a little shorter. Verse number nine, about brotherly love. He says, you don't need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

He says, you guys know, Jesus' love for you, it is motivating you to love each other and to love other people. It's not something that I have to do a bunch of prep work on. You guys know, the Holy Spirit is leading you to do that.

He says, in fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia. He says, it's not just sticking around in Thessalonica.

You guys are loving and sharing the Gospel with and caring for and praying for people all in your corner of the world. He says, but we encourage you brothers and sisters to do this even more.

He says, don't just be content with the amount of love that you're showing right now. Keep on increasing it. And that's a challenge to me as I think about that.

I can today say or think, yeah, you know, I'm doing enough. I'm loving people. But the encouragement from God's word is, grow even more from chapter 3 overflow and increase in your love for others.

How can I love others today? Who can I maybe send a letter or a text? Who can I maybe take out for a meal or for a drink or for, you know, any number of things?

Who can I give a book to? There was someone earlier in the year, they listened to this podcast and they were going through just a rough time with a family situation.

And immediately as soon as I heard that the person was going through this, I knew of a book written by just a really, really inspirational Christian writer who had gone through a ton of difficulties herself.

And I went, man, I bet that book that that person wrote, that that might be an encouragement to this person. And it was super cool.

This Sunday or two ago, that person that I'd given the book to, to hopefully encourage them, they asked me while I was at church, hey, would it be okay if I gave this to this other person?

Because I know that they would really, really appreciate this particular book. And it would encourage them during this time when they're feeling kind of down. And I was just thrilled to death about that.

That it's 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 1, that that person with some of the comfort that they received from God, they wanted to pass on that comfort to other people. And they didn't want to just be the recipients of love.

They wanted to pass that love on. And I would encourage you today, who can you pass on the love of God to? Maybe God has blessed you financially.

Maybe you might be able to bless someone else. You might be able to bless a waiter or waitress. You might be able to bless your local church.

You might be able to bless a Sunday school teacher or any one of a hundred different things that you could do. There are so many ways in which you can express love and appreciation and gratitude and kindness to others.

Let's look on how we can do that more and more, even as Paul here encourages the Thessalonians to do. Verse number 11. Actually, I'm going to read into the sentence real quick.

But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be

dependent on anyone. Okay, bunch of little sections in here. Let's dive in. He says first in verse 11, we encourage you to seek to lead a quiet life.

Depending on who you are, that sentence might or that portion of a sentence might greatly encourage you. You're an introvert and you're like, yes, I want to live a quiet life.

A quiet life is not just one that's lived apart from the noise of other people's existence. He says, I want you to attempt to live your life in such a way that it's not stirring up trouble. You're not getting in trouble with the law.

You are not fighting with other people, with family members or friends or stuff like that.

Certainly, we would know from Jesus's life that there are times when that will occur naturally, but it ought not be that we are seeking out arguments, that we are seeking out battles to fight. Let us be peacemakers.

Let us have that quiet life that we are leading, that people know if they come to us, we're not going to blow up. We're not going to be the ones that escalate and shout. We're not going to be the ones that...

I'm trying to think of the specific end of the phrase that I was thinking of here. We aren't the rabble rousers. We aren't troublemakers.

We aren't fighters, gossippers. To know us is to enter into a place of peace, of rest, of stillness. What a joy it is to speak with people that that's how they live their life.

That it's almost like walking into a sauna. It's going into maybe like a place where you'd go to get a massage, and in there, there's nice calm music.

The lighting and everything is just perfect so that you go in and you feel relaxed, as opposed to if you're walking into maybe a club or something, and there's loud noise and everyone's shouting and it's chaotic, and you can hear clinks of drinks and

all sorts of things, that there's such a difference in the mood in which you enter into that situation. Paul here encourages the Thessalonians, lead a quiet life, that for people to interact with you is to interact with the peace of God.

Okay, how would I lead a quiet life, especially if I'm not naturally introverted? Maybe I like talking and maybe I'm a little bit more type A, and so I can be much more prone to kind of stirring up the pot a little bit.

Well, I think of Philippians chapter four, where it says, Don't be anxious for anything, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which passes

all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We go to God in prayer and we say, God, I could be short tempered. God, I could be anxious. God, I could be worried.

I could be furious. But Lord, I want you to bring the peace of Jesus into my heart. I'm going to ask you to work in this situation, that you would bring vengeance where it needs to happen.

God, you would bring reconciliation where it needs to happen.

God, I pray that you would bring wickedness to light, that the wicked schemes would be frustrated and upended, that they would not be successful, and that righteousness would be what defines, you know, this area or this country or this situation.

We ought to pray. How do we lead a quiet life? We realize God is sovereign.

He's the one that's in control. And so anything that I want, anything that I expect out of life, I need to bring to him. Because if there's going to be a change made, it's not going to come outside of his working.

It will only come within his working. So I can go to the Lord and I can say, God, please work in this situation. Make this occur.

If it is your will. And then we can know whatever comes my way, it's coming through the hands of my sovereign God. And so because I don't have to be the one that's in control, I don't have to be the one that brings vengeance.

I don't have to be the one to punish. I can just shine out Jesus, the Prince of Peace. And I can bring some peace into the lives of those around me.

So first, he says, we encourage you to seek to lead a quiet life, that to enter into a conversation with you is a peaceful moment. People don't have to be on edge. They can know, okay, this is going to be a level-headed, calm situation, a quiet life.

Number two, he says, we encourage you to mind your own business. The literal translation here, to practice one's own things. They're minding your own business.

Great way of phrasing that. Many times, we can be so obsessed with what other people are doing, with trying to manage how other people live their lives, that we forget that we have our own race to run.

I'm going to turn over to Romans 14, because Paul also has a section in that letter to the Roman Church that deals with this type of topic. So, I'm going to read through a few of these verses in Romans 14. The big picture is this.

There were, in the Roman Churches, in the Corinthian Church, people that, having come from a particular background, felt that to eat or purchase meat to eat from a marketplace, that the meat was donated from a pagan temple, that to buy and eat the

meat that came from the pagan temple originally was an act of idolatry. And Paul did not share that opinion, and he thought that that particular belief was not viewing the world the way that God viewed it, as he would state in 1 Corinthians.

He says that the meat is nothing, the drink is nothing, what matters is your heart before God.

So he says, if you're not like acknowledging Zeus or Aphrodite in your heart as you're, you know, eating steak or whatever, he says, then you're not worshipping them just through eating food that someone else dedicated.

He says that those those gods, Zeus and Aphrodite, they aren't real. It's not it's not factual. It wasn't actually dedicated to any legitimate deity.

But he warns both those that do feel that participating in such actions was idolatry.

He told those people that thought it was idolatry and the people that thought it wasn't idolatry that the most important thing was not eating the meat or not eating the meat or observing a particular, you know, Jewish holy day or not observing it.

He says, that's not what's important. What's important is your love for one another and you realizing that you are responsible for your conscience, for your obedience and actions towards how God is dealing with you specifically.

He says, that's what's important, that you need to worry about you.

You need to mind your own business, because God will deal with other people for how they interacted with him, especially when it comes to things that aren't specifically outlined in Scripture.

So I think I mentioned this long, long ago in our studying Acts when the conscience was mentioned.

That where the Holy Scriptures are silent, where it doesn't give a specific, hey, you should do this or you shouldn't do this, then the Holy Spirit will bring specificity to the child of God.

So where the Holy Scriptures are silent, the Holy Spirit will speak to the individual child of God. But he might not deal with every single person in the exact same way.

So one person might feel as though a specific course of action, not outlined in Scripture, is permissible. And if their conscience does not condemn them for that action to say, nope, like this is wrong, this is sin, you should not be doing that.

If their conscience doesn't condemn them in that, then no other believer has a right to condemn them for that action.

And on the flip side, if a person does believe that a particular course of action, not outlined in Scripture, is wrong, if they were to participate in it, they would be sinning against their own conscience.

If their conscience says, this is bad and they do it anyway, they're sinning. So Paul says, don't judge each other. Okay, here we go.

Accept anyone who is weak in faith, but don't argue about disputed matters. One person believes he may eat anything, while one who is weak eats only vegetables.

One who eats must not look down on one who does not eat, and one who does not eat must not judge one who does, because God has accepted him. Who are you to judge another's household servant?

Before his own master, he stands or falls, and he will stand because the Lord is able to make him stand. One person judges one day to be more important than another day. Everyone else judges every day to be the same.

Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. Whoever observes the day observes it for the honor of the Lord. Whoever eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God.

And whoever does not eat, it is for the Lord that he does not eat it, and he gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord.

And if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Christ died and returned to life for this, that he might be Lord over both the dead and the living.

But you, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or you? Why do you despise your brother or sister?

For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore, let us no longer judge one another. Instead, decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother and sister. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself.

Still, to someone who considers a thing to be unclean, to that one it is unclean. For if your brother or sister is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy by what you eat someone for whom Christ died.

Therefore, do not let your good be slandered, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and receives human approval.

So he says to mind your own business, that if it's not directly, clearly stated in scripture, then allow grace for your brothers and sisters in Christ to believe and to act in ways that aren't the same as yours.

And many examples could be given of that, that I'm sure would infuriate many. So I won't list those at this time. I'll wait until I actually go through Romans 14 to give more specific examples.

It says lead a quiet life, mind your own business, work with your own hands as we commanded you. Don't have laziness. Work hard at what you do.

Don't just rely on other people to benefit you. As long as God gives you the ability to breathe and to work, utilize that. It's a gift from God that you ought to utilize.

Then it says so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.

Here we do all of these things in the presence of outsiders, that as other people look at our lives, that the life of a Christian would be something that people would want to emulate. It's something that they could follow.

They wouldn't say, I mean, those Christians, they are so lazy.

They're always bumming off of other people, but that we would work hard with our own hands for as long as God gives us the ability so that we would have a good testimony for those outside of the faith, that they would say, man, those Christians,

they're some hard workers. They're not looking for a fight. They're not looking to just be angry. They mind their own business.

They lead a quiet life. And yeah, they tell us about Jesus.

And as we look at their life and see their kindness, see how they interact with each other and with the world around them, we can believe them in what they say about Jesus, because it's real in their heart that they are totally different than anyone

else that we're interacting with. And I pray that that would be our testimony, that it would be clear because of how we interact with our world, that we are the children of God. Thanks for tuning in and look forward to tomorrow.

Diving into Jesus' return and going over some amazing things. Those will be at least the next two days with the end of Chapter four and then Chapter five. So, thanks for tuning in and see you next time.