Grace to You Weekend

John MacArthur: May I suggest to you that you were saved and called to a vocation so that you might honor God in your job?

When you go to work, that's a divine vocation. God has given you the skill and the opportunity to do what you do, and you're to work for His glory.

Phil Johnson: Welcome to Grace to You Weekend with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Maybe you start each day with Bible reading and quiet meditation, certainly an important part of the Christian life, drawing near to God in that way. But does that mean you're not close to God during the parts of the day when your mind is occupied with other things, like when you're on the job?

Well, today John MacArthur gives you helpful biblical truth to apply on the job. His study here on Grace to You, called Wisdom for the Workplace, is showing you how to glorify God in just about any task. So now let's hear from John. Here's today's lesson.

John MacArthur: The Christian faith does not accept a utilitarian work ethic. The Christian view of work is transcendent. That is, it escapes me and my world and directs its attention toward God. And so here at the end of this great chapter, which is really the close of a great book dealing with grandiose theological concepts, he puts his feet squarely on the earth and says, "Let's talk about work."

It's not the time to put your pajamas on and sit on the roof and wait for the coming of Christ. It's not the time to be indolent or indifferent toward what it is that God has skilled and gifted you to do in your vocation. It's time to go to work. And he gives them six motivations, six reasons, six incentives.

The first one is disfellowship in verse 6. We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. What he's saying there is, you need to alienate yourself from them. The first thing that's going to stimulate them to work is that they're going to get cut off from fellowship. That's what he says. Keep aloof is the key word there. Stay away. I don't know what your translation might say. The idea is alienate them, stay away from them. Make them know there is a price for their indolence and their laziness, and the price is they lose fellowship.

The second motivating principle, example. In verses 7 to 9, he says, "You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example because we didn't act in an undisciplined manner among you." That is, we didn't forgo work. Undisciplined means they never went to work. They were unruly, they were scattered around, they never brought their life into line and worked. He says, "We didn't do that. We didn't eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but rather with labor and hardship we kept working night and day." Remember Acts 18:3 says he was a tentmaker, working with leather, and he had to set up his business even in the few weeks he was in Thessalonica. And he had to work and sell it so that he could get a living from it. He had to literally set up an enterprise. And we did it night and day, so that we might not be a burden to any of you.

So he says the second motivation they should have is our example. Let's go to the third one. The third one is very straightforward in verse 10. "For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order." Now let me stop there for a moment. He's harking back now to one of the things that he had been teaching them. "When we were with you," back when we were there for the three Sabbaths and the two-week in-between period, and then the following weeks that we stayed to get the church rolling, just a brief period of months at the most. "When we were with you, we used to give you this order." In other words, we repeated it. We didn't give it once. It was a matter of course. We told you this all the time. And here it is: "If anyone won't work, don't let him eat."

That's it. "If anyone will not work, neither let him eat." That's an axiom, that's a maxim, that was a Pauline tradition, that was a divine, authoritative, revealed truth. If you don't work, you don't eat. That's it. That's the Christian view. If someone won't work, let him go hungry.

There's a fourth principle that he uses to motivate them. We'll call it harmony. We'll call it harmony. And it comes in verse 11 and following, "For we hear," and we don't know how he heard, so there's no sense in speculating. I mean, it could have been Timothy coming back with a report, it could have been some people on the road from Thessalonica to Corinth, the Christian communication, which we call the grace-vine. We don't know how, we don't know how it came, but it came. He says, "We hear that some among you," and it must have been a fairly good group, some, "are leading an undisciplined life." There's that same term used back in verse 6 and over in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, translated unruly. They just, they were undisciplined. They didn't have their life together, they were not working. "We hear that they're leading an undisciplined life." Here's its definition: "doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies." Literally in the Greek it says, it's a play on words, actually. It says, "not busy, but busybodies." They are not busy, they are busybodies.

He uses the word erga, from which we get ergo, which has to do with energy, even talking about ergs, which is a component of energy. They were not ergazomenos, they were periergazomenos, which means they were all over the place. Peri, around. We use it for the periphery of something. They were just moving around all over the place to no particular good. They had nothing to do. They just wandered around, interfering in the lives of others, meddling, probably trying to get other Christians to stop working, telling them Jesus was coming, they're in the day of the Lord, work is beneath us, whatever their message was. They were an irritant. They were creating disunity and discord. People were getting tired of these deadbeats. They'd show up on Sunday and they'd say, "Oh, let's get out of here. Here he comes." He's going to want food, he's going to want some money. And it was beginning to affect the loving harmony and the effective witness of the community of faith.

With no job to do, they were taxing others and they were making the ones they taxed resent them. And they were meddling in people's lives. It's reminiscent of those in 1 Timothy 5:13 that the Apostle Paul talks about those young women who are widowed. He says, "They learn to be idle. They go around from house to house, not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention." Therefore, I want younger widows to get married. When a young girl is widowed, she's still young, she's got nothing to occupy herself, she needs to get married because she doesn't need to just be flitting around, gossiping, involving herself in things she shouldn't be involved in, talking about things she shouldn't be talking about, and falling into the sins of idleness.

Well, that's what these people were doing. The definition of what happens when you've got nothing to do in 1 Timothy 5:13 fits these people. They were just busybodies. You know what that means? It's a very graphic term. So Paul reiterates in verse 12, "Such persons now, we command," that's very strong, "and exhort," that's more compassionate, Parakaleo, the Paraclete, the Comforter. So it's both commanding and comforting. It's a command with some warmth in it. "We command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ," that is, those of you who are in Christ, within the family of God, the idea being emphasized here, in Christ, some versions have in the name of Christ, but that doesn't appear in the older manuscripts. It's best to see the idea emphasizing our unity in Him. Because of the importance of our unity, because we all belong to Christ, we command and we exhort, not only in His name, but in the unity of Christ, those people to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

"Settle down," he says. That's what work in quiet fashion means. "Stop running around, meddling, moving uselessly, go to work." Begin an ordered life of quiet, consistent work. Now this is really amazing to me because you would think on the one hand that if Jesus was coming, if you really believed He was coming, and if the end of the world was near, people were on the edge of damnation and judgment. And since we believe the Bible is the absolute priority and the most wonderful thing you can do to occupy your time, you would think the apostle would say, "I certainly want to commend you for just saying no to work. I just want to commend you for pouring your life into ministry. I just want to commend you for studying Scripture. I want to commend you for not wasting your time in some job. I just want to commend you for being out there zealous and proclaiming Christ and studying Scripture because that's really what you ought to do with all your time and energy." But he doesn't say that. He says, "Go to work, shut your mouth, and do your work."

I don't even think he sees the job as an evangelistic field particularly. I think what you have to say on the job by how you work is the platform on which your individual witness will begin to have some credibility. He just says, "Quietly, get your life in line and go to work." And somebody's going to say, "But it's not as spiritual." It is. It's a command. It's a way to glorify God. It's why you were placed where you were placed, in the flow of the creative mandate. It's all a part of God's plan. And it will affect your witness, believe me. It also makes for unity in the church, which affects the church's corporate witness. Just keep your mouth shut and go to work. Calm down. Settle down. Get some discipline in your life. Be productive. You don't need idle time. And you don't need to be doing these kinds of enterprises which assume you don't need to work. God says work.

That's all part of the very, very basic command of God for us. Why? So you can earn the bread you eat. And you won't be a burden to the community, and you won't be a burden to the church. Then in verse 13, there's a word to the rest of the folks that's obvious, I think, if you think about it. When I first read it, I thought, "Well, what does this have to do with anything?" and then as I thought, I saw it. "But as for you, brethren," that's the rest. Those of you that are working, those of you that are having to pay for these people, having to pass out your money and give them food. "The rest of you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good."

You see, the potential was they would become so tired of these deadbeats, they'd become so fed up with giving this money and this charity to these lazy people that they would become very weary of the whole process. And then when somebody came with a real need, they would be indifferent to it. So he's saying, "Look, don't you grow weary of doing what is really good." The assumption is they were weary of taking care of these people who should have been taking care of themselves. And he says, "Don't let your weariness translate over to weariness in doing what you really should do." Doing what is good. Kalos is the term that's attached to the verb there. It means what is perceived by others to be noble, so says Milligan in his, in his lexicon. What is perceived to be noble. Do what is noble.

You go back to the Psalms and you're going to find out over and over again that we are to take care of the poor and that when you take care of the poor, God will bless you. Go back to Proverbs, you're going to find the same thing. Go back to Isaiah. Go to Luke chapter 14 verses 12 to 14. And what does Jesus say? When you have a dinner, when you have a reception, don't invite the wealthy people who are going to reciprocate. Invite the blind and the lame and the halt and the maimed and the poor, who can never pay you back, and God will pay you back in eternity in the resurrection. Take care of the poor.

In Acts chapter 20 and verse 35, the Apostle Paul says, "You saw me work and labor, and I showed you how that you ought to do that in order to give to people who have need, based on what our Lord said, 'It is more blessed to give than receive.'" And even in the letter to the Galatians, chapter 2 and verse 10, he says, "They only asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I also was eager to do." Who asked him? The church at Jerusalem, the leaders there: John, Peter, James, Barnabas. "We remember the poor." Paul went around collecting an offering for the poor. The really poor, the truly poor who want to work and maybe work a little, but can't earn enough. You've still got to make up what they can't earn if they're willing to work. They're still going to be people that can't make up enough. There are people in our community, there are people in our church who try hard. Their skill level keeps them at a low-income level and they can't support their family maybe in all the areas they need to, and we help them. There may be single parents who do everything they can, who try hard, and they work as hard as they can, but they still come up short. There may be people who have physical disabilities and consequently, they have needs. And I applaud that our society will meet those needs. That's a right thing to do. And certainly, it's a right thing for Christians to do.

So he says, "Don't you get weary in doing what is really good for people who genuinely have need," and that's a very important balancing point. Now these things will keep our harmony together, our unity together. All this discord that's coming into the church, people are so weary of these people, they're so sick of them that they want to, the tendency is to stop doing good to people who really have need. You could see it was, it was fracturing the fellowship and discord and animosity was coming in. He says, "You people go to work on the one hand, and the rest of you who can supply the lack for those who genuinely have need, you do that, and that'll keep the harmony of the church." Maintain the unity and that's essential to the testimony.

Fifthly, shame. Not only does disfellowship, example, survival, and harmony constitute a motive for going to work, but shame. Look at verse 14. "If anyone doesn't obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that man and do not associate with him so that he may be put to shame." If anybody doesn't obey the instruction in this letter, I'm telling you, they are really obstinate. He said it over and over again when he was there. He wrote it a couple times in the first letter. He's now saying it again, "And if these people don't obey this instruction, you take special note of that man. Mark him out. Give him serious attention. Keep on noticing that person. Keep your eye on that person for the purpose of not associating with him. Watch him so that you can avoid him. Stay away from him. Withdraw your fellowship." A double compound verb meaning, "Do not get mixed up with." Put the pressure of isolation.

Only this time you're pushing him further. This continues to be that third step of discipline where you're isolating him. But your, your isolation is keeping him at a distance. You take note, you watch the pattern, and you avoid the man in order that he may be put to shame. Now you've gone beyond just his isolation, you're trying to make him feel shame. That's a distasteful word, shame. Literally in the Greek it means to turn on yourself, to feel what you really are. Let him see what he really is: a wicked, disobedient, recalcitrant sinner. Shame him because he won't work.

But there's one final incentive left. And that's love. And I'm so glad Paul put this last statement in verse 15. "And yet, do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." Don't treat him yet like a tax collector or a heathen. Don't treat him like an enemy of God, an enemy of Christ, an enemy of the church, an enemy of a believer. Don't treat him that way. You haven't yet totally thrown him to Satan, turning him over to Satan that he'll learn not to blaspheme as is discussed in 1 Corinthians 5 for the unrepentant adulterer. He doesn't so far yet, you're still at the third stage. You're still admonishing him, that is, warning him about his behavior and calling him to obedience. And you're regarding him not yet as the tax collector, not yet as the outcast. The tax collector being the most outcast person in Jewish culture, that's why that illustration is used by our Lord in Matthew 18. You're not throwing him out yet. You're not alienating him as an enemy. You're still calling to him as a brother.

He is still in the family of God. Treat him with love, like you would a brother. Treat him with affection, like you would a brother or sister. Like Proverbs 27:6 says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." Show him tenderness. Understand that you need to lift him up considering yourself, lest you also be tempted as Galatians 6 says. Restore such a one in love. You know the interesting thing about this little list I've given you: disfellowship, example, survival, harmony, shame, and love. Those motivations to the person who won't work should also motivate anyone in any sinful behavior. It's very generic in that sense. No matter what the sin is, it's the same things that should motivate.

The threat of losing the fellowship with other believers. The fact that you have not followed the holy example of those who have walked before you. Even the issue of survival, because you can die from continued sin. Some Corinthians did. And certainly the idea of harmony, you're disrupting and ripping and tearing the unity of the church. And certainly shame, you should feel guilt and shame. And certainly love should call you back as those who are in the body of Christ and are your brothers and sisters woo you. And so, this is how we deal with any believer in any pattern of sin.

And if they resist this, then you can treat him like an enemy. Then you can turn him over to Satan. Then Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, "I don't want you to have any fellowship with them. I don't even want you to eat with them. I want you to turn them out totally." But here, Paul one more time, for the third time, in three steps, is pleading with the church to call them back.

The American work ethic has eroded. That's where we started, that's a good place to end. But the Christian work ethic hasn't changed one bit. May I suggest to you that you were saved and called to a vocation so that you might honor God in your job? When you go to work, that's a divine vocation. God has given you the skill and the opportunity to do what you do, and you're to work for His glory.

Phil Johnson: You're listening to Grace to You Weekend, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today's lesson is from John's study called Wisdom for the Workplace. Now friend, keep in mind that there is a lot more from this series that we don't have time to air on the radio. To take in this whole series, you can download it now free of charge in MP3 and transcript format. If you know someone who is discouraged about a difficult work environment, this would be an excellent study to point them to. Download Wisdom for the Workplace when you contact us today. Just visit our website gty.org. Again, the MP3s, along with the transcripts, are yours free of charge. In fact, all of John's sermons, more than 3,600 messages, are free online. Our web address one more time, gty.org. And thanks for letting us know how these radio programs are helping you grow spiritually. If you've never written, or if it's been a while, write a quick note and share it with us. And if I can ask a favor, please include the call letters or the name of this station anytime you write. Knowing the station and city where you hear us helps us make programming decisions and be good stewards of the resources God provides through faithful friends like you. So drop us a note today at letters@gty.org. That's letters@gty.org. Or you can write to us at Grace to You Weekend, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Now for our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to You Television Sundays on Direct TV Channel 378, that's NRBTV, or watch anytime at gty.org. And then be here next week and consider this question: How can every person, even those who will never hear the gospel, be guilty before God? We're launching John MacArthur's sobering study titled Without Excuse with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You Weekend.