1 Thessalonians 5:12-14 - Pastors and Patience and Peace

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Tabernacle Talk. And I hope that you're having a good start to your week so far.

It has been a kind of interesting week for me. And I am praying and just asking the Lord for him to work. And I don't know what kind of circumstances you're going through right now.

But I'm thankful for the fact that when we call on the Lord, He hears us and He answers us. His attention is not shut off to us. He never lacks care for us.

He is an ever-present God. And I'm very thankful for that truth. We're in 1 Thessalonians 5, and we are going to start off in verse number 12.

We're either going to go from verse 12 to 14, or it could maybe go all the way to the end of the chapter. I don't know quite yet, so we'll see kind of where we are led.

This book is written to a little baby church plant, and Paul and Silas and Timothy, they're writing and they want to encourage these new believers that, number one, their allegiance to Jesus, their witnessing to others, it has made a difference in

the whole region of Macedonia, that it has propelled the gospel message of Paul, Silas and Timothy, they say in chapter one. Sometimes we don't even have to say anything to anyone about, like, you guys or the gospel, because they tell us about the

difference that Jesus made when he came into your lives and how you turned from idols to serve the living and true God. He goes back through when he reminds them, hey, here's how we interacted with you guys, here's the motives that we had, here's the

way we carried ourselves, this is what you want to both do and what you want to look for in your teachers. He encourages them to follow the Lord, to be faithful, let's him know as soon as we can get back to you, I want to.

I was so thrilled to hear about Timothy's visit to you all and the good report that he brings back. We're praying for you guys.

We really want you to grow in your sanctification and we want you to watch out for sexual immorality in particular, that none of you take advantage of one another or of others or of other people's marriages.

We don't want you to engage in any sort of immorality. That's not what God has made us for.

And because you guys had some questions about your loved ones that have died, that they knew Jesus, but now you're not sure what their relationship with God or the resurrection or Jesus' kingdom is, I want to give you some help with that.

So that's where we've been for the past two days. And then now we enter into verse 12.

Now, we ask you, brothers and sisters, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you and to regard them very highly in love because of their work, be at peace among yourselves.

And we exhort you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. I'm going to stop there. We'll work through verses 12 through 14, and then we'll see if we get to 15 and on.

He says, first, we ask you to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you. So here he's giving an indication for them, for their spiritual leaders, for their pastors, for their elders.

He says, I want you to recognize them.

This is something that's also mentioned in 1st Corinthians 16 and verse number 18, where he says, I'm delighted to have Stephanus, Fortunatus and Achaicus present because these men have made up for your absence, for they have refreshed my spirit and

yours, therefore recognize such people. It's the same type of thing that's also said in Philippians chapter two about Epaphroditus, a passage that we went through as a church at the beginning of the year, where it says, welcome Epaphroditus in the

Lord with great joy and hold people like him in honor because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me. So here, this recognition is a respect that's given because of the

position that is held, but not strictly just that they hold the position. He says, these are the people that labor among you, that they're working hard for your sake.

He says, they are leading you in the Lord, that they are guiding you into the way that Jesus would want you to act, the way he would want you to speak, the way he would want you to evangelize or any number of things.

He says, they're doing all of this and they admonish you. They tell you when you are doing something wrong. He says, these people that are doing the work of Jesus, he says, I want you to give recognition to them.

Maybe for you today. I'm not going to give a whole bunch of prescriptions. I know that we have people here from Tabernacle.

We've got people from various areas. I think we even have some listeners in South Africa. If I saw one of the things correctly, if you are here from South Africa, thank you for tuning in.

I'm not going to give some maybe prescriptions, but I'd encourage you if you think about what would it mean to give recognition to my pastors? What would it mean for me to regard them very highly in love because of their work?

What action could I take? What letter or text could I send? What maybe gift could I give?

What actions could I take that would obey God's command here to give recognition to them and to regard them very highly in love? That should be something that we are always pursuing as God's people to say, how can I obey here?

What is less than super specific? Like he doesn't say, hey, make sure that you're giving 2% of your income to your pastor or to your church. He doesn't say, make sure that you write them letters.

He doesn't say, make sure that, you know, no one's insulting them or something like that.

He doesn't give us specifics, but a phrase I love that I heard from Pastor Josh Tice many years ago, where the Holy Scripture is silent, the Holy spirit will bring specificity.

So, I encourage you, I challenge you, think about what would it mean for me to give recognition to my spiritual leaders? What would it mean for me to regard them very highly in love?

And then I love at the end of verse 13, as he's saying, okay, here are these things that you need to do for those that are caring for you spiritually. He ends it with the phrase, be at peace among yourselves.

Sometimes the best thing that you could do for your pastor is to not be picking fights with other Christians.

One of the ways that a pastor is described, he's supposed to have, he's supposed to be a good manager of his own household because, as Paul tells Timothy, if he can't take care of his own house, how is he supposed to take care of the Church of God?

That much like raising kids is raising Christians as a pastor. And when my kids are fighting, it can be frustrating sometimes. And you might go, okay, B, Evelyn, stop wrestling.

Evelyn, don't whack B with, you know, that toy broom. B, Evelyn doesn't really want to play with this thing right now, so you don't have to drag her into that room to play with it.

And sometimes that can be true for Christians within a church, that they're fighting with one another. They'd say, oh, well, I'm, I'm deserving of this, and I expected this to happen, and that didn't come from this other person.

And I'd encourage you, be at peace among yourselves. If you are not being like harmed, if you're not being wronged, then maybe look over the offense.

Forgive it, forbear, as we would read about in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4, among many other places. Be at peace among yourselves.

When people go to interact with you, when your pastor hears from you, it would be a wonderful thing if they knew, okay, if so-and-so is coming to me, I know there is 0% chance that they're going to complain about some other person.

I know they're going to ask for prayer. They're going to ask for, you know, maybe spiritual counsel. They're going to ask how they can be involved in something.

Maybe they're going to ask they've got a need in their life and they're looking for some help. Those are all wonderful things. It ought to be that we can settle our differences with one another without having to try and third party it in.

Of course, if there is something where there is a deep divide between believers that God has given us, spiritual leaders, to be able to help in those times that we can rely on, okay, I think this is the right thing to do.

This other believer, this fellow Christian, this fellow member of my church thinks that this is the right thing to do and we want to do what's right and maybe we just need someone else who can enter in and be able to say, okay, here's what I think

would be a wise thing to do from scripture. That would be something that we would pursue.

I'm not saying if you have a problem, never bring it to your pastor, but how wonderful it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity as Psalm 133 says.

I think even of the verse in Proverbs, see the Proverbs 6 or 7, with the seven things that God hates, one of those is the one that sows disunity among brothers and sisters.

So he says, be at peace among yourselves, verse 14, and we exhort you, we're encouraging you, we're challenging you, brothers and sisters. He gives three things.

first, warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Okay, there's actually four things. I misread it.

So first, warn those who are idle, the ones that are just being lazy, maybe in their life, maybe in their Christian life, that they're not doing anything for Jesus. They're not getting involved in God's work.

They're not getting involved in evangelism. They're not jumping into maybe joining the church, either in the corporate worship time or maybe in small groups.

One of the challenges that he gives to everyone that is at Thessalonica, he says, warn those who are idle. Time is too short to waste it on ourselves. We need to live our lives for Jesus, for his work.

And we ought to be diligent in everything that we do. Christians should not be known as slackers or lazy. We ought to be known as the hardest workers.

So he says, first, warn those who are idle. He says, comfort the discouraged. And man, I know that can be me many times.

And I know for many of you, there are those times when Satan's just beaten us down, that this world seems like there's no hope.

Maybe that with our own bodies, that we have, you know, chemical imbalances and things that would lead it to where we have heightened anxiety or depression.

And we as believers ought to take it on ourselves that would say, we'd say, I'm going to comfort the discouraged. How do we do that? We can comfort them with the word of God.

We can comfort them with letting them know that we're praying for them. We can actually take time and pray with them, whether in person or on the phone, something like that.

You might be able to give someone a card and let them know that you're thinking about them. You might be able just to go over and spend time with them.

Maybe they're discouraged about, you know, some different chores or things that need to be done at their house.

And if you've got a little extra time and you have the ability to go be a blessing and a benefit to another brother or sister, then you should take the opportunity to comfort those who are discouraged.

If someone's discouraged, don't just pass it off as, okay, well, I guess God or someone else might cheer them up. You are part of Christ's body, and you might be the way that Jesus comforts another person. So first, warn those who are idle.

Secondly, comfort the discouraged. third, help the weak. And man, this is a wonderful thing for us to do, that maybe those that are weak in their faith, we would help disciple them.

Maybe those that are weak physically, we might do what we can to help them out.

That's something that deacons have often done throughout church history is helping the widows, helping those that are in need of food, helping those that have physical difficulties and problems, and they need someone to come alongside and help to do

what they cannot do. Don't just pass it off to other people. If you know of someone that is weak, that's struggling, you can come alongside and help them. Then he says, be patient with everyone.

Man, that is a struggle, because there are some people for me that it's easy to be patient with. That I'm like, man, this is just a delightful person, and so I'm going to be patient with them.

There are other people, and sometimes it might be type A personalities, that they're just really kind of go, go, go, and I'll get after it, and that's how they live their life. I'm kind of that way.

And so sometimes it's harder for me to be patient with those type of people, because I'm like, okay, well, if I'm not doing it right now, if I'm not engaging in whatever they're asking me to do right now, it's because I've got additional things that

I'm carrying and additional considerations. And so it can be easy then for me to get impatient and be like, oh, well, listen, can't they just like, let me do my thing? And maybe for you, maybe you're type B and you're more laid back.

And maybe for you as well, it might be a type A person is jumping in and getting involved and giving advice or something. And you're like, oh, listen, man, just let's chill. Like, let's be good.

Maybe you're you might be a type B person with another type B person and you made plans with them and it was going to be great. And then they backed out at the last minute. And you're like, listen, I don't get out and do a whole lot.

And so the fact that when I was actually going to get out and do stuff, then you backed out on me. Oh, man, I'm really impatient with you. It is a godly thing to have patience.

It's it's as Proverbs would tell us, it's the glory of kings to pass over an offense that when we are wronged, when we don't have to get the best of someone else, when we don't have to have vengeance on someone else, it is a Jesus-like thing to do,

that as he forgave us, as he's been patient with us, he hasn't dealt with us according to our iniquities, that when we do that for others, when we have patience with them, it is a god-glorifying thing. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna stop there

today, stop at the end of verse number 14, because these next sections of verses are wonderful. There's so much that could be said about them. If I took all the time, we might be at about a 30-minute episode or something.

So I'm gonna stop there for today, and I look forward to jumping into verse number 15 and on with you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in. Hope you have a great rest of your day.