Insight for Living

Guest (Male): Throughout the year we give gifts to those we love. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas. But what about gifts to our fellow believers? Is there something we could give one another year round? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll explores First Thessalonians to share essential gifts that require no shopping and no wrapping paper. Just willing hearts.

These are gifts that last, that lift up one another, strengthen the family of God, and honor our Savior. Chuck titled his message, Gifts to Give the Family. It's message number 10 in our 12-part study on contagious Christianity.

Pastor Chuck Swindoll: Suppose you have a Christian friend who has left God's path to walk in the ways of the world. No longer attending church, this person is closing off spiritual things and neglecting family responsibilities. Your initial thought is probably I should admonish my friend. And yet, when you meet with this person, you hear a story of heartache and frustration, maybe even disillusionment. And you begin to think, no, I don't have the heart to admonish him.

What should I do? What do I do? Are your friend's actions a result of unruliness, faintheartedness, weakness, or maybe all three? Should you confront or should you console? Should your love be tender or tough? Those are hard questions, aren't they? If you're wrestling with these issues as they relate to someone about whom you care very much, you'll really appreciate Paul's words to the Thessalonians, even though they came way back in the first century.

If you have a Bible, please turn with me to First Thessalonians, the last chapter, chapter five, and listen as I read for you verses 12 through 15. First Thessalonians 5:12-15: "But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord, and give you instruction. And that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people."

There is one season of the year, and only one, where everyone seems to be thinking of someone else. It's remarkable. I have never seen anyone go into a Christmas shopping spree with a list of things just for himself. In fact, we seldom if ever buy our own gift. And whether we are in the streets of Seattle or Minneapolis, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, San Diego, or Phoenix, it's all the same scene.

My travels have taken me to a couple or three of those cities I just named, and it's always interesting to see that life is really not that different there than it is here. They talk different there, but after a little time of language training, you can get along even in Atlanta.

I say that and remind myself of one of my all-time favorite stories of a fellow who called me from Texas. He said, "You probably can't tell it, but I'm from Texas." I said, "I can tell, I can tell, believe me." We talked for a while and I found out he went to school in Texas and I said, "Where'd you go to school?" He said, "Hard pain." I said, "Howard Payne?" He said, "No, Hard pain." I said, "Oh, Howard Payne. What'd you major in?" He said, "Speech." Speech.

Well, it doesn't matter where you go, doesn't matter how you talk, doesn't matter where you live, the wonderful, marvelous thing about the Christmas season is it's a time in which folk think of others. I suppose that's the reason we all love it so much. And even though we may live miles from our own family members, it's a time of making contact, either by phone or usually by a gift.

Webster says that a family is a group of people united by certain convictions. He also adds it is a group of persons of common ancestry, and also a group of individuals living under one roof, usually under one head. As I read that definition, I thought that's true of the family of God. We are of similar convictions, we are occasionally under one roof, hopefully always under one head, and certainly of one ancestry.

So it seemed reasonable that we think about gifts for the family. I think it's very helpful for us to think about what we want to give one another. In fact, it is not only helpful, it is as God would have it. And the good thing about these gifts is that they are always in season and they all come from within us. All you have to wrap them in is your skin and the gifts are appropriately available. And how needed they are.

Before we look at the list of gifts that God would have us give one another, I want to mention three or four qualities that I hope we'll never forget to wrap up inside our skin when we give gifts. First of all, we want to give gifts that last. We don't want trash gifts. We don't want gifts that wind up in the heap in a couple of weeks. We want permanence connected with our gifts. We want gifts that last. No quick and easy kind of gifts, but deep gifts, gifts that last.

Secondly, we want gifts that lift, that lift up one another. The New Testament term for it is edify. Gifts that really mean something to family members are gifts that lift up one another. So along with gifts that last, let's give gifts that lift.

Third, let's be sure that our gifts cost. Be honest now. Ever given somebody else a gift that had been given to you? Kind of tacky, but I suppose we've all done it. And we acted like it was something we labored over and bought with hard-earned money, but we just gave it because we didn't need it or we didn't want it. No cost at all. Gifts that really mean something to the body are gifts that are sacrificial. They require something expensive from us. Gifts that are costly.

Fourth, we want to have the gifts that we give to glorify God. We want God to smile on the gift most of all. We want Him to say as we give the gift to our family member, I'm honored in that. I'm exalted.

Now you might wonder where such a checklist is, and it's found in verses 12 through 22 of First Thessalonians chapter 5. And as is true of all shopping lists, it's not very creative. Never seen anyone hum their way through a shopping list or sort of dance their way through a grocery list. You just kind of check them off, one after another, so I confess I don't have a lot of creativity to offer, but I will promise you I'll do my best to be accurate.

We'll check off exactly as they appear. In fact, we'll only get about halfway through. There are probably as many as 15 in the list and we only have time this time for about six or seven of them. But let me show you something about this list that God has drawn up. Note how they are arranged. If you've got your Bible handy, look at First Thessalonians 5:12: "But we request of you." These are gifts that are kindly requested, verses 12 and 13.

When you get to verse 14, the request changes to urgency. "We urge you." So these are gifts that are urgently needed. Now this isn't my own doing, this is right from God. He's put a list together that begins with some that are kindly requested. Second, there are some that are urgently needed. That's as far as we're going to be able to get.

Then if you get down to verse 16, which we'll look at the next time we're together, we get to words like "rejoice always" and "pray without ceasing" and "in everything give thanks." Verse 21: "But examine everything carefully." Verse 22: "Avoid or abstain from every form of evil." These are gifts that are continually appropriate. They're continually appropriate. So this is kind of a built-in outline God has given us. Gifts that are kindly requested, gifts that are urgently needed, and then gifts that are continually appropriate.

And remember, they're all wrapped inside your skin and they're to fellow members of the family. Let's see how these gifts are revealed. First, there are things that are kindly requested. Verse 12: "But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord, and give you instruction; and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work."

The first gift mentioned is respect for those in leadership. And obviously, this has reference to people who are in spiritual leadership. Reason I say that is because of verse 12. They are the ones who diligently labor among us. They are the ones who have charge over us in the Lord, and third, they are the ones who give us spiritual instruction.

See it? Right there in front of you. You want to know who your spiritual leaders are, those who deserve your respect, they are the ones who diligently labor, who have a sense of accountability for your life before the Lord, and they are the ones who instruct you in the truths of Scripture. They may or may not be ordained. They may be a man or a woman. They may be older or younger.

They may be people who faithfully instruct you in an adult fellowship or in one of your high school classes. They may be someone who is on your campus. They may be people who are faithfully, voluntarily a part of your life who receive no remuneration for what they do. But they do those things. They may be a pastor, they may be an associate pastor, they may be a music minister or whatever. But they qualify.

Now what are we to do with folks like that? Two things. Verse 12: we are to appreciate them. There's a very interesting Greek word, and it's a general term that kind of leaves you flat. It means simply to know someone. But in the context of this verse, it's more than mere knowledge. Knowing them as you see them in a crowd or knowing their names or knowing what their spiritual gifts may be or knowing their academic background. It's more than that kind of knowledge.

This is a context that means to know the worth of someone. To place a high value on someone. One man writes, it is thoughtful respect that Paul is advocating. A respect that requires thought as well as submission of the will. The kind of respectfulness that is advocated for people who have been set free from the obedience of tyranny. A respect that I have decided upon myself, not that which is forced upon me.

That's why I began by saying these are kindly requested. No one in this ministry, nor should anyone in any ministry, attempt to put your arm behind your back and force it up between your shoulder blades and say, now submit to those who are in authority. But it's kindly requested. Not only appreciate them, but verse 13 says, esteem them highly.

Not because of their title, not because of their academic degree, not because of their age or their experience or their wisdom which may on occasion flow from their lips. But look at how it reads: esteem them very highly in love because of their work. I remember struggling in the Marines, saluting certain officers that I knew didn't deserve the salute. And I was braced on more than one occasion to whip a salute because of rank, not because of character.

In the family of God, there is to be, if you please, a salute because of the work certain individuals have undertaken. I think ministry is of the highest privilege, and I don't believe that it is a burden, and I try not to walk with slumped shoulders and look humble and beaten and whipped, because you don't do that to me. But some flocks do. It's wrong.

It isn't that those men are perfect and therefore need to be pedestalized. That's extreme thinking. It's that they qualify to be appreciated and to be highly esteemed in love. One man shared a story of a friend of his who is a fellow minister and he had the unhappy experience of confronting a family member in his congregation of wrong. And it was difficult, to say the least, to face this individual with it.

And it happened to be a woman who was unfaithful to her husband and was living in known disobedience. And this faithful pastor dealt with her and did his best to help her come back to her home and fall back in love with her husband and family. One Sunday evening, didn't have her in mind, but just had the good of the congregation in mind, the man preached a passionate message of renewal and obedience to God.

It was like a sweeping sense of revival that came across the assembly. And to his delight, this woman stepped out in the aisle and walked right down to him and took his hand and looked him in the eyes with a steel-like stare and said, "I just want you to know I'm more convinced than ever to do what I please." That's what breaks a man's heart. That's the opposite of this kind of gift.

If ever you have the experience of being confronted by a spiritual leader who tries his or her best to do it with tact and kindness, understand how hard that is and repent. Change. You see, it's part of the tough side of this job. However, it is also part of fulfilling the second request: living in peace with one another. Notice how that reads. It's a command. "Live in peace."

It may not sound terribly profound, but it is a winner in a congregation. A congregation that gives each other this gift of peace is one that cannot be separated by a split. When I hear of a split, I hear of a lack of peace. I hear of a breakdown of the gift. I hear the backwash of a series of stories where someone or a group of individuals refused to give the gift of peace.

And I'll tell you, it doesn't have to be a large congregation for there to be a breakdown of peace. You know where the power rests? In your life. This gift, I'm calling it a gift, it is actually an act of obedience. This gift is called forth from one another, verse 13 concludes. From people to pastor, from pastor to people, from pastor to pastor, from people to people. It is in the family.

Just as you know there may be a breakdown of peace between mom and dad just as well as between parent and child, so it can happen in a family. Hold your place and go to Romans 12 and you'll see how it is expanded there. Romans 12, beginning about verse nine: "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cleave"—that's a good biblical term, we don't use it much. We have the word cleaver, but we don't have the word cleave in our day.

It's a word that means bonding something to something else, gluing something or someone to someone else. Bond yourself to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor. Look at that. And it isn't a one-way preference, it's both ways. It is to pervade the assembly of God's family. Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

There's only one Master, the Lord Himself. Rejoicing in hope, hanging tough in tribulation—we could paraphrase persevering in tribulation—devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Drop down to verse 18, and I do it because it's realistic. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Don't you like the way that reads? I do, because with some people it isn't possible.

Some people are so ornery they can't even live at peace with themselves, to say nothing of peace with one another. And you do your very best to build bridges of peace to others and some will say, detour. Then detour and go on your way. Life is too short to spend it at the expense of a few who refuse to make peace. I've lived long enough to learn that lesson.

How well I've learned it and how much I wish I had learned it earlier. Now, back to First Thessalonians 5:13: live at peace with one another and as much as is possible, you do everything in your power to make it happen. Everything. Now we change from those things that are kindly requested to a couple of urgent needs. Verses 14 and 15. Let's just take them one at a time. If you're keeping a list, this is number three.

Number one is to respect those who are in leadership. Number two is to live at peace or live in peace with one another. Number three is to admonish the unruly. We urge you, brethren. So this is for the child of God. This is not for you to take to your unsaved neighbor and correct him or her and their lifestyle. If a person is without Christ, leave their lifestyle alone.

It takes power to change and to clean up a lifestyle. Now, if another individual is a brother or a sister, then there are times in the family when there must be admonition. Here's the word: admonition. Admonition. It carries with it the idea of confrontation, calling into account. It's a strong term. It suggests correcting someone else. Facing them with truth, even though it may hurt.

Please notice the object of admonition: the unruly. I found this interesting. The only time the term translated unruly is used in the letters, in fact, in the New Testament, is the Thessalonian letters, and it's used here several times. In fact, it's used in Second Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 6: "Now we command you, brethren"—here again, this is brethren truth, this is for the family of God—"we command you Christians, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life—there's that term again—not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you."

So the idea is some people will be confronted and admonished with their unruly lifestyle and they will choose not to change. That brings up the point he's making here that on occasion you must break fellowship with them.