GODLY ASPIRATIONS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 29, 2024 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church New Year’s Sunday Sermon Message, December 29, 2024 from 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

Theme: We should aspire to live in the kind of manner that will best promote the gospel to the unbelieving world.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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The beginning of a new year is traditionally a time to make resolutions. And it’s also a tradition in our church family that, at the closing Sunday of the old year, we look to the Scriptures for a resolve that would please our heavenly Father.

And so this morning, let’s consider a particular resolve that’s given to us through the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12. It’s a resolve to live the kind of life that would best advance the cause of His good news in this world. In that passage, he wrote to the believers in the Thessalonian church and said;

But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12).

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Now; the church in Thessalonica was a remarkable one. It was, in many respects, a model church family.

The city of Thessalonica was located along the southern coastland of the Grecian kingdom of Macedonia. The apostle Paul and his missionary team came to that city shortly after he had preached in the Thracian city of Philippi. That ministry in Philippi was a very difficult one. Paul and his team suffered a great deal of resistance to the gospel in Philippi. But when they arrived at Thessalonica, the receptivity to the gospel was very different from what it had been in Philippi. At the beginning of his letter to them, he told the Thessalonian Christians;

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come (1:2-10).

Often when Paul wrote a letter to a church, it was because he had some hard things to tell them in order to correct some pressing problems. But that was not so with the letter to the Thessalonians. Paul was delighted with how receptive they had been to the gospel; and he wrote to them to keep it up. In fact, he was even able to gush about the Thessalonian Christians before other churches. They had become a transformed people; and their reputation was a great help to Paul and his ministry team in spreading the gospel in other places.

That didn’t mean that there weren’t problems, however. It was hard to be a Christian in ancient Thessalonica. The Thessalonian culture was very pagan, and was characterized by a lot of immoral and godly behavior. And so; as you read through this letter, one of the things that stands out prominently is the encouragement and praise Paul gave the Thessalonian Christians for standing faithful to the Lord in the midst of cultural pressure and persecution. There will always be persecution whenever God’s people seek to live godly lives in the midst of an ungodly culture. But the Thessalonian believers were wonderful examples to all the other churches of how to stand firm in the Lord when the pressure against the faith was intense.

And another thing that stands out in this letter—something that, no doubt, was crucial to how they remained so strong in their faithfulness—was the joyful expectation they had of the return of the Lord. 1 Thessalonians is a relatively small letter; but it’s surprising how much of it is devoted to good doctrinal teaching about Jesus’ second coming—and to how Jesus’ followers should live in the light of that promised appearing.

As you read this letter, you get the strong impression that the apostle Paul was very proud of these Thessalonian Christians. The ancient Thessalonian church was a good example to look up to. But what Paul wanted from them was that they would live with even more thoughtfulness and devotion to the example that they were setting and to the impact they were having on the culture around them.

He wanted them to live—even more than they already were—in such a way as to advance the cause of the gospel.

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Now; when I was reading through this letter from Paul a few weeks ago, what stood out to me in this passage was the word “aspire”. You see it in verse 11; where Paul wrote that he wanted the Thessalonian believers to ‘aspire’ to certain things. The old King James Version has it that he wanted them to ‘study’ to do certain things. Some translations have it that he wanted them to ‘make it their ambition’ to do those things.

The command to ‘aspire’ or ‘be ambitious’ for something really struck me. It could probably be said that there’s no one among us who doesn’t have some aspirations of some kind. We live in a world that is filled with ‘ambitious’ people who ‘aspire’ to greatness in some way. Many ‘aspire’ to achieve fame on social media; and so, they will do some pretty crazy things, and even sometimes some pretty horrific, or dangerous, or downright evil things, in order to be recognized and celebrated on the Internet in some way. Others make it their ‘ambition’ to achieve greatness through material success and wealth. They aspire to be ‘movers and shakers’ in this world; and they climb over people in order to achieve that goal. Very many today have it as their ambition to be what they call ‘activists’ in the world—to have a plan for what they think the world ought to be, to make that plan happen through whatever means are available to them, and to have their name associated with a movement of some kind. Sometimes legitimate means of persuasion are used; but very often, means are used to force others to conform to the activist’s plan. Often, great harm is done to some people through the ambitions of other people. And it all seems to boil down to having the desire to make some kind of a significant dent in the world—to make a name for one’s self that will be remembered—to be known for having shaken things up and disrupted the status quo in some way.

Now; it’s not necessarily wrong to be ‘ambitious’. In our passage, the apostle Paul urged the Thessalonian Christians to have an ‘aspiration’ for something—to make certain things their ‘ambition’ in life. But what he urged his brothers and sisters to be ambitious for was quite a bit different from the kind of things for which the people of this world are typically ambitious. He urged his fellow Christians—in the midst of an ungodly culture—to make it their ambition to lead a quiet life, and to attend to their own matters faithfully, and to work with their own hands in order to meet their own needs. Those things almost seem ‘counter-ambitious’. After all, who hopes their little boy or girl will one day grow up to be a great ‘quiet’ person? Who works hard to earn a degree in ‘minding their own business’? What great leader goes out to arouse the passions of people and rally them around a movement of just simply ‘working with their hands’?

But as it turns out, the reason Paul wanted those Thessalonian Christians to make these things their ambition was because it helped to advance the most truly ‘ambitious’ project that the world has ever known—the spread of the life-transforming, soul-saving gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. It was so that the people of the Macedonian region would look at those Thessalonian Christians and see how the gospel had transformed them into kind, gracious, peaceful, productive citizens who took care of their own responsibilities faithfully and lived without being in need. It was an ambition to live in a way that was so pleasantly distinct from the surrounding culture that it made the gospel genuinely attractive to the watching world.

And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; do you ever stop to consider how your and my manner of living might impact the spread of the gospel in the world? The Lord Jesus once made a promise that “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). No matter what else may happen, the gospel of Jesus Christ is absolutely going to be spread throughout the world before His return. Jesus promised that it would be so. But how we choose to live our Christian lives will either help advance the gospel’s spread or will in some way hinder its spread. And so, it’s important to ask ourselves, “Am I living in such a way as to recommend the gospel to others; or am I living in such a way as to make them have doubts about the gospel altogether? Am I making it my ambition to intentionally live the kind of a daily life that will commend the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet embraced Him as their Savior?”

That’s why—if you’re searching for a New Year’s resolution to adopt—this is a very good passage to look to. It teaches us that we should aspire to live in the kind of manner that will best promote the gospel to the unbelieving world.

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Now; Paul explains this ‘resolution’ in this passage in three steps. First—in verses 9-10, he gave the broader context for this resolution; then—in verse 11, he gave the content of what this resolution should include. He said that it should include three things: (1) to aspire to lead a quiet life; (2) to aspire to attend faithfully to one’s own concerns; and (3) to aspire to meet one’s own needs with the work of one’s own hands. And then, finally—in verse 12—he shows that the desired outcome and consequence of it all is that we would thus live in such a way as to give an honorable and favorable impression of the gospel to the watching world.

So; let’s look at this passage a little more closely. We can see Paul’s ‘resolution’ first in terms of …

1. ITS BROADER CONTEXT.

And that broader context is ‘brotherly love’ in the household of faith. In verse 9, Paul wrote, “But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another …”

Paul had a reason for bringing up the subject of ‘brotherly love’. It was because he had just gotten through reminding them to avoid sexual immorality. That was an ever-present problem in the paganistic culture in which these Thessalonian believers lived. In verses 1-8, Paul told them;

Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit (4:1-8).

Sexual immorality is a false kind of ‘love’; and it’s something that we who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus must avoid. It’s truly unloving to cause a brother or sister to stumble into sexual sin. But when it came to the right kind of love—the true, sacrificial kind of love that we’re to share together as brothers and sisters in Christ—Paul didn’t feel that he had to write and tell these Thessalonian believers anything about that. They had already been taught about it by God Himself.

They were already familiar with God’s will on that matter from what God the Father had commanded in Leviticus 19:18; where He said to the people of Israel,

“You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:18).

And more; in John 13:34-35, the Lord Jesus Himself specifically taught His followers that this was to be His ‘new commandment’ for them;

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

Paul was confident that God had already taught the Thessalonian Christians to love one another. And what’s more, he was confident that they had learned the lesson because he actually saw that love being practiced by them. He said in verse 10, “and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia.” Their love went beyond the circle of their own church family and out to their brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the regions of the kingdom in which they dwelt. Paul rejoiced in their love so much that, in 3:12, he prayed, “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you …” So; this was—without question—a church family that was characterized by great love for one another in Christ. Everyone could see it.

But notice what he went on to say in verse 10: “But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more …” In other words, Paul and his ministry team wanted to see the brotherly love of the Thessalonian Christians grow and be demonstrated in ever-deeper and ever-expanding ways. No matter how much we may love one another, dear brothers and sisters, we can always grow to love one another more. That’s because our love is a reflection of the love that the heavenly Father has for us through His Son Jesus. And His love is limitless!

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So; it’s important to understand that the resolve that the apostle Paul is going to suggest to his brothers and sisters in this passage has ‘brotherly love’ as its fundamental context—the ever-expanding and ever-deepening love we’re to have for one another in Christ.

With that in mind, let’s then go on to consider something further about this resolve, and that is …

2. ITS SPECIFIC CONTENT.

In verse 11, he put that love into practical application when he wrote, “that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you …” And here, we see three specific things that those Thessalonian Christians were to ‘aspire’ to, or to ‘have as their ambition’.

First, he wrote that they were to ‘aspire to lead a quiet life’. Doesn’t that sound like a strange ambition? Sometimes, we actually should aspire to keep our mouths shut more often. But Paul didn’t mean that someone should talk softly or not speak. He wasn’t talking about a manner of speaking, but rather about a manner of living. What he meant was that they were to be peaceable in the way that they lived and conducted themselves in this world. They weren’t to be trouble-makers, or rabble-rousers, or people who ‘stirred things up’ and ‘shattered the status quo‘ in this world. They were to stand out as quiet, peaceable, patient, calm, reverent people.

Perhaps the best way to understand this instruction from Paul is to consider what he said in 1 Timothy 2:1-4. There, he wrote to Pastor Timothy and said;

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

Paul instructed the people of God to pray for their leaders so that they could live quiet and peaceable lives “in all godliness”. It wasn’t a matter of being physically silent. Rather, it was a matter of making sure that they didn’t have a reputation in this world of being angry ‘disturbers of the peace’; and who, instead, were known for behaving peacefully in a quiet and honorable way. It was so that they could go on to live lives that were pleasing to God so that the gospel of Jesus could spread throughout the rest of the culture in which they dwelt.

So; there’s a first aspiration for us—to aspire to a peaceful and quiet life in this world. That’s not something that you hear very often nowadays, is it? And a second is to aspire ‘to mind your own business’. Now; you might hear that and think that Paul was saying that whenever you see other people’s problems and troubles, you should keep your mouth shut, look the other way, and respect other people’s privacy when it comes to their own matters. And frankly, that can very often be good advice. As the old Hank Williams song has it, ‘if you mind your own business, then you won’t be minding mine’. But while it may be that ‘keeping out of other people’s business’ was what Hank was concerned about, I think Paul had something a little more than that in mind.

The actual wording in the original language is “to perform one’s own” or “to attend to one’s own”. It’s not a command to completely avoid any concern for others—because, in fact, we’re commanded in the Scriptures to care for one another. Rather, it’s a command to occupy one’s self actively—first and foremost—with one’s own concerns. It’s a command that teaches us to take careful responsibility for managing our own affairs and not to neglect our own duties. It would speak of such things as taking care of your own family, raising and teaching your own children, managing your own household affairs, paying your own bills on time, keeping your own lawn mowed and cared for, and picking up your own trash. There’s no question that if we’re doing those kinds of things faithfully, then we can truly be a help to others without becoming meddlesome busybodies in matters that don’t belong to us.

And perhaps a good way to understand this is through the parable that the Lord Jesus gave us in the Sermon on The Mount. In Matthew 7:3-5, He said;

“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).

So; there’s a second aspiration for us—to mind our own business in such a way as to make sure we’re taking care of our own duties and responsibilities. And a third one is to aspire ‘to work with our own hands’. To work with ‘our own hands’ is a figure of speech. The ‘hands’ are meant to represent whatever aspect of our personhood is given to us by God to perform gainful labor in our particular vocation. It’s meant to communicate the idea that we’re to be faithfully hard at work—making a living through whatever particular ability God has given us to do so—so that we provide for our own livelihood as best we can, and keep ourselves from being dependent upon others.

It seems that, when Paul wrote about this to the Thessalonian church, there was a particular problem that he had in mind. Apparently, there were some professing Christians in the Thessalonian church who—perhaps out of a false motive of watching for the return of the Lord—quit their jobs and simply ceased working. He wrote about it in 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12; where he said,

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12).

That sort of behavior makes for a very poor recommendation of the Christian faith. Non-believing people look at professing Christians who live in that way and say, “If that’s Christianity, I don’t want any part of it!” Paul and his missionary partners apparently had to confront some Christians on this matter in the past; and perhaps that’s why he said, “to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.”

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So; there’s Paul’s recommended resolution. We should make it our own ambition to lead a quiet and peaceable life, to faithfully and diligently attend to our own responsibilities, and—to the degree we can legitimately do so—to work with our own hands and earn our own living.

And this leads us, finally, to consider one more thing about this resolve; and that’s …

3. ITS DESIRED CONSEQUENCE.

In verse 12, Paul wrote, “that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.” Paul and his ministry team even demonstrated this to the Thessalonian believers by their own example. In 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12, he wrote;

For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

So, as you can see, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s not wrong to be ambitious. It’s just that we must be ambitious in the right way—with a truly godly resolve to live in such a way as to commend the gospel to the world around us. We must live the kind of transformed lives that show the world that Jesus is truly a wonderful Savior who makes those who trust Him into truly better people.

As we approach this New Year, let’s resolve that we will live in the kind of manner that will best promote the gospel to the unbelieving world.

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