We are back in 1st Thessalonians today. And we are close to the end of the book. 

Paul ended this letter with 20 commands he wanted to leave with these believers at Thessalonica. Every single one of them  is vital to our spiritual safety, peace and joy. The ones we’ll cover this morning MAINLY help us live in peace with EACH OTHER in the church family. These are for our relationships!  Does anyone need help with their relationships?  

Alright, let’s jump in! Verse 12 “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, (or give you instruction).” We should not fawn over church leaders or idolize them, or follow them blindly.  Yet it says to “esteem them highly in love”. 

Respect and appreciation for spiritual authority is one of the greatest protections for the church AND for the soul of each individual Christian. Spiritual leaders are described as those who watch-over your soul! This is NOT a domineering, or abusive leadership. Peter said “I exhort the elders among you to shepherd the flock of God, NOT domineering those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.” 

Abusive authority IS a problem in some churches. But the more common problem, is that many believers have no thought of being accountable to anyone to watch over them in the Lord. And that results in a lot of wandering, unattached Christians, doing what is right in their own eyes, often ending in spiritual shipwreck.  This is NOT a small problem in the church today. 

One reason for this, is the prevalence of on-line spiritual learning, on-line church or on-line discipleship. We can access our own teachers and follow them from a distance, without a relationship.  And so there’s a tendency to feel no need for less well-known or perhaps less-gifted pastors and teachers in the local church family.  How different this is from the NT scriptures! 

Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch over your souls as those who must give an account. To this end, allow them to lead with joy and not with grief, for that would be of no advantage to you.”  If you don’t respect those over you in the Lord, YOU are the one who loses out. It will be to your disadvantage.

ONE of the ways you respect those who are over you and who instruct you, is to receive and respond to their teaching.  Also to consider their counsel before making HUGE decisions that are tied to your spiritual well-being.  Some have no thought of seeking the counsel of those who are over them in the Lord. They just tell you what they are going to do.  And that sort of closes the door.  My wife very astutely observed a long time ago, that people often want prayer for a decision, but they are seldom willing to ask for counsel.  For your own safety you need to recognize and respect those over you in the Lord. 

This respect is to be directed to those who labor, among you, who are over you in the Lord and who teach you. It is obvious that in the NT church there was a structure of spiritual leadership. There were elders.  We call them pastors, which means shepherds.  We are supposed to be in a church family with those who labor among you, who are over you, who teach you! 

Then we are to respect and honor those watching over the flock.  Some today push an anti-church structure to the point that they deny the role of elders or ANY leadership in the church.  That just doesn’t match up with the NT record. 

Paul then adds a quality to the respect he calls for in verse 12. Verse 13 “esteem them very highly in love.”  So this respect that Paul calls for is not a cold respect, but it is to be filled with the warmth of love!   You have people you respect but certainly don’t love!  It’s not that way in the church. 

The very essence of our relationships with each other in the church is love.  We are a people who love one another. When we walk into church we should feel that we are with a family who loves us.  Church leaders are to love the people and people are to love them.  

Paul gives one main reason for this. Verse 13 “esteem them very highly in love BECAUSE of their work.”  Not because they are great speakers, NOT because they can keep people entertained with their stories and jokes. NOT because they have dynamic personalities.  But BECAUSE they faithfully carry out their work! They do their job.  

Two people I HIGHLY esteem are Josh and my brother Paul.  Both are fellow elders.  And I KNOW the inside story of their work, the tough situations they endure, and their labor in shepherding a church and in teaching the Word. 

Of course there are various kinds of work in the church. Sometimes cleaning toilets, sometimes is getting out the hoses and filling the baptismal tank with water.  But likely Paul had in mind the labor of teaching and preaching. 

As he wrote to Timothy, “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.” 

Everyone who respects and esteems their leaders in love, will reap the benefit of that in their own life. AND it will bless, strengthen and protect the church. But ultimately we do it just because it is RIGHT!  In the Lord.  

*Verse 13 goes on, “Be at peace among yourselves”. (Or live in peace with one another)”  It’s hard to emphasize enough just how crucial peace is in our homes, our relationships, AND in the church.  Paul lays this responsibility at our feet!  BE at peace!  Rom. 12:18 “If possible, as far as it depends on you, be at peace with everyone.”  Ephesians 4:3 “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  

One of the qualities I deeply appreciate in a person is their diligence to live in peace.  I think, generally, the peace and love we here at RLC is really special.  Psalm 133:1 says, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.  It it like precious oil poured out upon the head.” It is so good when we do this!  It’s no wonder Paul made this one of his last words to these believers.  Brothers and sisters BE at peace with one another. 

Now, I’m going to jump down to verse 15 and join that with this command. “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.”  Peace is largely kept by NOT returning evil for evil, wrong for wrong, insult for insult. The sinful nature says, “they offended me so I will get back at them by withdrawing from them, or ignoring them or slandering them, or something else that will hurt them.”  

This kind of tit for tat approach to relationships is NOT from the Holy Spirit.  It’s baggage carried into you new life, from the old sinful nature. We have to renounce this. We “crucify this passion of the flesh”.  Don’t allow offenses to dwell in your heart.  Don’t let a desire for revenge simmer in your heart.  “When Christ was reviled he did NOT revile in return”.  Peter said, “Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but with blessing.”  You come back at them with a blessing!

Paul says the same thing here, instead of returning evil, “Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.”  NO MATTER WHAT is going down, YOUR duty is to always do good. First to one another, meaning to other believers, then to everyone else too. 

There ARE times for honest and hard conversations. But if your heart is filled with God’s Spirit, all you want is to do good, and for good to come out of your heart to others.  If you want to know what you’re supposed to do today, or tomorrow or the rest of your life.  Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone! 

*Another WAY we keep peace in the church family, is by knowing HOW to help people with various kinds of faults in the church.  Verse 14 “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, (or unruly) encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.”  Here Paul identifies three different flaws, or tendencies in believers: the unruly, the weak, the fainthearted. 

I know the ESV says idle, meaning those who refuse to work, and this may have been aimed at those believers. But the NASB, NKJV, BSB all translate it unruly, which addresses the more general nature of this problem. 

First lets try to understand these three kinds of people. First the “Unruly”.  The meaning of this word is “disorderly, breaking rank with what is right”. It’s “a military term expressing the character of those soldiers who would not keep their ranks”. John Gill said this applies “to all who are contentious, quarrelsome, turbulent, headstrong and trouble-makers.”  I don’t think I can improve on that!

We are to “admonish them that such practices are not allowed in the churches of Christ.”  Admonishing can mean instruction but often has the idea of exhorting or correcting. The unruly need a strong, clear word. They do not get subtle messages. Admonish them. 

The fainthearted are next. These are believers who are more inclined to timidity or fear. Faintheartedness is often seen more as a more acceptable weakness than other faults so often the timid and fearful are not helped up out of that. But.. 

They need to helped because God does NOT want us to remain fainthearted.  We are to encourage them!  Or stimulate courage in them.  Lift them up to a place of courage. Here’s three Biblical ways to encourage the fainthearted? First: Remind them they have a Father in Heaven who cares for them. In Matthew 6 Jesus encourages the anxious by reminding them of how our Father takes care of the birds and the flowers, and He reminds us that we are of infinitely more value and God will take care of us too. 

Second, remind them to fear God alone! Jesus also tells us to fear God and not people or anything else in life or death.  Often the fearful are fearing something more than God. 

Third: We should remind the faint of heart of the Lord’s command and promise. “Do not fear for I am with you.”  We want to build them back up to the place they can say, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear nothing.”  So we should be ready with a word of faith for the fainthearted.  That’s a ministry a lot of you have.  

Next are the weak.  We often use weakness as a euphemism for living in sin.  I can’t find any place that Paul uses weakness in that way. Certainly we should help to restore those who fall into sin. But Paul uses weakness to describe those who are weak in faith, weak in their understanding of the scripture, or weak in conscience. Sometimes the weak in faith are SO sincere, but they are living under so many rules, that they can’t seem to get their eyes on Jesus or the liberty that we have in Christ.

Paul also uses weakness to describe our human limitations and inadequacies, or our weak circumstances or adversity, pressure, stress etc.

Paul said help the weak. The answer for them is NOT a strong rebuke, but help! Guide them into the truths of the word. Paul’s solution for these believers is to come alongside them and help them along.  

To help us know how to help the weak, we need just to look to the ministry of the Spirit.  What does the Holy Spirit do with your weaknesses?  Does He criticize you, condemn you, reject you? No!  He comes alongside you to help you. We just learned that in Romans 8. “The Spirit helps our weaknesses”. Don’t you think you should do that with the weaknesses of other believers?

Paul’s point is that different people need to be approached differently.  To use strong rebuke when people need help or encouragement just is not the way of wisdom.  Or to only encourage the unruly or disobedient person may not be direct  enough, or strong enough to really help them!  

Paul said the grace of God had been given to him to be a wise master builder.  A part of being a wise master builder in people’s lives is understanding the differences in people and using the right approach with individual people. Anyone wanting to be used by God in other people should pray for that grace.  

Paul concludes this by saying “And be patient with EVERYONE.” One of the great old commentators Charles Ellicott said, “Church officers are not to be rendered impatient by the defects, errors, weakness, stupidity, or unbelief of any one.” Don’t let other people’s shortcoming make you quick to condemn them, or write them off, or regard them with condescension or impatience. 

It does say “Be patient will ALL”, NOT just with people you find it easy to be around. That’s what it takes to be a church. If you withdraw from other believers, or ONLY associate with people who think just like you, then you might get by without much patience.  But we are the body of Christ.

The church is ALL who belong to Jesus.  The reality is we are not all alike.  We are not all at the same place in our understanding, or in our faith OR in our circumstances.  We are all at different places of maturity, understanding, we have various weakness, and so we are commanded BE patient with ALL! We HAVE to be!  For this thing to work! 

Of course this applies to the church family especially.  But it includes “ALL people”, customers and clients, waiters and waitresses, check out people, ALL who we do business with,  with our families, our extended families, whether they are believers or not. That doesn’t mean we condone everything they think or do, but we are patient with them, long suffering.

It’s part of our witness for Jesus. How will people in the world know we belong to Christ if we are not patient. 

So may the Holy Spirit instill these qualities in our lives.  And may we seek to obey these instructions from our hearts.