Brotherly Love

Now, before we share in the baptisms this evening, we’re going to proceed a little further in our studies in 1 Thessalonians. And before turning to these verses, let’s seek God’s help:

Our God and our Father, we do pray now that you will speak to us and teach us through your Word and by your Spirit. We realize that while we may have the privilege of planting and watering, that only you are able to make things grow.[1] And so we look to you tonight to do what you alone can do. To the glory of your great name we ask it. Amen.

We are at 4:9, as you would see, where Paul introduces this theme of brotherly love. If you allow your eye to scan back to the opening verses of the chapter, you will recall that Paul is providing practical wisdom as to what it means to please God. He has already addressed the matter of sexual purity and having done so, he now returns to this issue of genuine love amongst those who profess faith in Jesus Christ.

He moves, if you like, between the verses of last week to this week, from chastity to the question of charity, which is, of course, an old-fashioned word for love. And it becomes clear by reading these verses and thinking on them that the believers in Thessalonica, who lived in an overtly pagan environment, were being identified amongst their pagan neighbors by their commitment to purity, to love, and to hard work. If the people of the community had been asked to identify the believers amongst them, they would have pointed to these intensely practical and obvious things within their lives. They were not being identified by a shared commitment to a social agenda, to an economic policy, or to a political ideology. Two thousand years later, we still have a great deal to learn. Love was the hallmark.

Now, I’d like you to notice love’s foundation, love’s expression, and love’s impact.

Love’s Foundation

The foundation of love as it is provided for us here in verse 9 and then in 10 is clearly the love of God for these people and the love of God through these people. In the Old Testament, the two great commandments are to love God with all one’s being and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.[2]

Jesus reaffirms this in the New Testament, and the apostle John uses love as one of the identifying marks of what it means to be a genuine Christian. He says if there is going to be an expression of faith in Jesus Christ that is genuine, then one of the evidences will be in the love that is expressed from our lives. And you may like turn to 1 John 4 for just a moment, where, in the seventh verse, John makes this clear. I thought of it in my study this week and went back to these verses and was staggered to realize that it was five years ago today that we studied these particular verses together.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” That is the foundation of love. “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” In other words, everyone who manifests this genuine, Christian, agape love does so because of the transforming work of God within their lives. And consequently, “whoever does not love [in this way] does not know God, [since] God is love.” And he then goes on to explain that God has manifested his love in the sending of “his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him,”[3] and that love, he says, is not our response to God but is God’s initiative in relationship to us, in sending his Son as a propitiation or “as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”[4]

When we became Christians, we became partakers of the divine nature. That’s what Peter says in 2 Peter 1:4. We were born of God. Here in 1 Thessalonians 4, he says we are “taught by God.” And this idea of being “taught by God” is directly related to the giving of the Holy Spirit of God in 1 Thessalonians 4:8. He is the one “who gives [us] his Holy Spirit,” and it is because we’ve been given his Holy Spirit that we are “taught by God.” The Spirit of God works within our lives to take us beyond simply the use of our faculties to try and understand the syntax of the English language to a dimension of spiritual understanding which can only be explained in terms of the activity of God.

We ought to love because that is how God reveals himself in his people.

That’s why, you see, you can fill up a room with people listening to someone speak from the Bible, and for a number of people, it just goes absolutely over their heads. For some, they’re completely closed to it, and for others, listening to the same material, they are taught. You could say that they were all taught because they were all present, and they were all listening, and therefore, they had the chance to understand, but it was the work of the Spirit of God within the lives of the people of God which applied the truth to their lives and made them new.

And in this express way, says Paul—and John concurs with it—it is “the love of God … shed abroad in our hearts”[5] which becomes us as Christians. You remember Jesus said, “By this [will] all men … know that you are my disciples, [that] you [have] love one [for] another”[6]—so that when we became Christians, when we professed faith in Jesus Christ, not only were we adopted into God’s family, not only were we given the status of sons, but at the same time, we were regenerated and we were given the very nature of God.

And that’s why John summarizes it in this wonderful little section. He says we ought to love because God has revealed his love in his Son. We ought to love because that is how God reveals himself in his people. In other words, the invisible God became visible in Thessalonica as a result of their sexual purity, as a result of their hard work, and as a result of their genuine affection for one another.

See, it’s always easier to dress up in funny clothes and identify ourselves—you know, if everybody wore pointed hats or a red plastic nose, or something like that, or wore one of your shoes backwards, we could then be identified in the community, and people would say, “Oh, there’s some of those weird people. They have their shoes on, one shoe on backwards. That’s how you know them.” Or “They always wear that pointed hat,” or “They have a thing that hangs from their left ear,” or whatever it might be. That’s easy enough to do. But God never purposed that it would be that way. Instead, the community of Christ in Parkside Church would be identified as a result of the fact that when single people dated the singles from our church, they were confronted by this obvious and patent sexual purity—that when they came amongst the people of God, spent time in our homes, were involved with us in the community, were dealt with in terms of business practice, they were overwhelmed by the commitment to genuine love.

How do those who never read the Bible, never consider God, find the invisible God becoming visible in their communities? The answer is, it is on account of this brotherly love. “And so,” says Paul, “about brotherly love I want to give you an encouragement. I don’t really need to write to you.” If you remember, back in verse 3, he opened the letter by encouraging them in relationship to their love: he says, “When we think about you, we remember you before God, and we remember three things: your faith which functions, your love which labors, and your hope which hangs on.”[7] If you take notes and put them in your Bible, that should be there, if you were here for that study. That’s how I remember those verses. How do I know? ʼCause I cribbed the three points from somebody else when I was a student: faith that functions, love that labors, and hope that hangs on.

And he comes back to it in 3:12. He says, “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” And he says, “In one sense, I really don’t need to write to you about this. After all, you’ve been taught by God to love each other. We’re discovering that you’re loving all the brothers throughout Macedonia. And yet,” he says, “I want you to do it more and more. Make sure that you’re loving and you’re increasing in love.”

Love’s Expression

The foundation is in the work of God within our lives. And if that is where it is grounded and founded, how then is it expressed? And I think this is the emphasis here. Verses 9 and 10 are often disengaged in commentaries from verses 11 and 12, as if it were three separate little sections—a section on sexual purity, and then a section on love, and then a section on work. I don’t think so. Love is the fulcrum on which sexual purity and work turn. The person who truly loves his brother will not invade their sexual privacy. The person who truly loves his brother will work with all his heart towards them. So, verses 11 and 12 give us three practical expressions of this genuine love.

Hendriksen, the commentator, says that there exists in nearly every church representatives from these three groups: “fanatics, busybodies, and loafers”[8]—loafers not being shoes but being lazy people. And he said it’s hard to view a congregation in which you won’t find all three groups identified: fanatics, nosy people, and lazy people. And he addresses every one of them in relationship to love.

He says, “You want to know about love? It’s not a queasy feeling in your tummy. You want to know about love? Let me tell you how it will be expressed. Number one, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” That’s an expression of love? Yeah! In fact, what he uses here is a classic oxymoron. Phillips paraphrases it, “Make it your ambition to have no ambition!”[9] And that makes the point. The issue is not ambition, though; the issue is restlessness and fanaticism. And what he says in the Greek is this: “If you want to get excited about something, get excited about being quiet. If you want to get agitated about something, get agitated about not being agitated. Make it your aim to lead a quiet life.”

Now, what was this agitation that was going on there? Well, if you turn to his second letter, in 3:11, you get some more input on it. He says, “We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.”[10] “Settle down,” he says. It would appear that the prospect of the return of Jesus Christ, to which he’s going to come in verse 13, was so filling the minds of certain folks within the Thessalonian church and they were so focused on that point that they really couldn’t get on with anything else at all. They had become fanatical about one particular area of Christian doctrine, and they couldn’t get off it.

Now, we’ve all met people like that. They identify themselves in this way when they come and speak to you. They will come up, and they will identify themselves as “Hello. Do you know that I am a Reformed theologian?”

“Oh, you are?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hello. Do you know that I am a premillennial dispensationist?”

“Oh, is that right? Nice to meet you.”

“Hello. Do you know that I am a charismatic Christian?”

“No, I didn’t know that, but thank you for sharing it with me.”

And what happens when you get to know these people is, they can’t see past this stuff. It’s their whole deal. They might as well have it on the front of a baseball hat, because they are totally unsettled by a preoccupation with something which is not wrong, but it’s just an overemphasis. And it would appeal that in Thessalonica, these folks were thinking these things in relationship to the return of Jesus Christ, and he has to say to them, “Listen, quieten down, would you? Settle down. Don’t be so restless about these issues.”

Secondly, love will be expressed when we learn how to mind our own business. There’s a word here for those of us who are instinctively nosy. And I love the intense practicality of this, don’t you? And people like to think about love, again, as I say, you know, as a nice feeling on a quiet evening with a violin playing, you know. And as the violin music plays and as you’re having your nice feeling, you’re poking your nose into everybody else’s business. Paul says, “No, you can’t do that.” Because the foundation that is grounded in Christ expresses itself in these three intensely practical areas. One commentator says, “There is a great difference between the Christian duty of putting the [interest] of others before one’s own (Phil. 2:4) and the [nosy person’s] compulsive itch” to be involved in everyone else’s affairs.[11]

The “What about him?” syndrome is alive and well in the Christian church. You know the “What about him?” syndrome, don’t you? And turn to John 21:21; you’ll see the “What about him?” syndrome. Jesus is talking with Peter, giving him instructions for what will be going on after Christ has ascended into heaven. And Jesus identifies certain important facets of this for Peter. And then in verse 20:

Peter turned and saw … the disciple whom Jesus loved [and he saw that he] was following them. (… the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) [And] when Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” [And] Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You … follow me.”

Now, isn’t that the constant task of parents? You’re walking down the street; the children are always turning around, tripping over their shoelaces and everything, ʼcause they’re worried, “What about… What about… What about…” And you have to turn and take their little head in your hands and say, “Listen, don’t you worry about everybody else. You just hold my hand. You just stick with me.” That’s exactly what the Word of God is saying to some of our hearts tonight. Some of us cannot live our Christian lives for constant preoccupation with what we may be missing in the lives of other people. And nosiness is a sin.

Love, then, is expressed in quietness, in an absence of nosiness, and in learning to work with your hands: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands.” Now, why would this ever be stated? Well, you see, because manual labor was not highly regarded by the Greeks. They thought that that was beneath them. And Paul had absolutely no hesitancy in calling believers to this kind of honest endeavor. Indeed, in Ephesians, he speaks of those who have been stealing, and he says—Ephesians 4:28—“Let him who stole steal no longer, but let him do something profitable and purposeful with his hands.”[12] In other words, earn your bread. Push your own wheelbarrow. And he modeled this in his own life. Verse 9 of chapter 2: “Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and [our] hardship [when] we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.”[13]

In the third century, there was a bishop who told his flock that the return of Jesus Christ was going to come by the end of that particular year. And the result was that a great number of his congregation quit their jobs, sold their properties, and subsequently became destitute. And as a result of now becoming destitute, they became tempted to cash in on the loving generosity of others: “Well, it won’t matter if I run out of cash. It won’t matter if things go down for me, because after all, these people are supposed to love me with a passion. And if they really love me with a passion, then, of course, they’ll take care of me.” Paul says, “Be careful of that kind of logic. Lead a quiet life. Mind your own business. Pay your own bills.” That’s Christian love.

Love’s Impact

The foundation, the expression, and in verse 12, the impact. Why would he be so concerned about this? “Because,” he says, “as a result of this, your daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and you won’t be dependent upon anyone.” As we’ve said many times before, the challenge of the little doggerel,

You[’re] writing a gospel,
A chapter each day,
By the deeds that you do,
[And] the words that you say.
Men read what you write,
[Distorted] or true,
[So] what is the gospel
According to you?[14]

Said, “The world is watching you Christians there in Thessalonica.” The world is watching you in Aurora, in Cleveland Heights, in Maple Heights, in the surrounding areas. They don’t understand why it is many of the things you do, you do. They don’t really appreciate your understanding of biblical truth. They, frankly, don’t have a grasp of very much at all. But they will be able to understand a transformed life.

And he says here that the gospel is not simply to be proclaimed by our lips, which it is, but it is to be adorned by our lives. Laziness does not adorn the gospel. Lack of initiative does not adorn the gospel. A constantly filthy car does not adorn the gospel. Grass that’s seven inches tall because I’m too lazy to cut it does not adorn the gospel. Guttering falling off the side of my house, not because I’m poor but because I’m lazy and couldn’t care, does not adorn the gospel. The world watches. The world waits to see if this Jesus stuff really makes a difference.

And crazy, restless, fanatical preoccupations with particular areas of Christian doctrine do not adorn the gospel either. And if all of our friends know about us that they can’t be in our company for more than a minute and a half before we start hammering on them in relation to some peculiar, esoteric interest that we have in some piece of Christian understanding, we may think that we’re doing a wonderful job; the chances are we’re making a downright hash of it.

When people drive up and down Pettibone Road and look at this building, they haven’t a clue what’s going on in here. For all they know, right now, we’re a bunch of snake handlers from West Virginia. Right? They were on TV the other night. I saw them. Total, abject stupidity, under the disguise of religious fervor, as a result of a downright misunderstanding of the Bible. So how in the world are the people out there, for whom the people in here exist, ever to come to terms with the claims of the Christian gospel, unless we adorn the gospel by the lifestyle which we live before them? Unless my daily life wins the respect of my non-Christian neighbors, then it is unlikely that they will ever have reason to question my faith or ever to embrace it.

The gospel is not simply to be proclaimed by our lips, but it is to be adorned by our lives.

The second impact is not simply on the outsiders, but it’s on the insiders. He said, “If you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, not only will you win the respect of those who are outside, but here’s the good news: you won’t be dependent on the people who are inside.” Now, while it’s an expression of love to support those who are in need—and the Bible says plenty about that, and that we certainly must do, and will do, and do—it’s an expression of love to support those who are in need; it is also an expression of love to support ourselves so as not to be in need. That’s the point he’s making here. It’s an expression of love to work hard, do your own work, earn your own paycheck. If you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat.[15] That’s what Paul said. What is being referred to here is not the situation where people want to work and can’t find any work. What he’s referring to is when work is available, and people flat-out don’t want to work. Idleness he says it is, in 2 Thessalonians 3:11.

“So that you will not be dependent on anybody.” Is that a statement regarding financial independence, do you think? I think it is! Do you realize that we might be financially independent, every last one of us in the room? Do you realize why you are not financially independent, if you’re not and I’m not? I’ll tell you why: because of our expectations. Because of what we have determined is necessary in order to live the kind of life that we believe we ought to be living. Very different from what Paul says in 1 Timothy and in chapter 6, if you turn to it there, in verse 6: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” It’s good, kind of basic logic. You didn’t come in clutching a bunch of stuff, and you’re not going out clutching a bunch of stuff. That’s what he says. “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”[16] “If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

So in other words, if we have enough for a shelter, and if we have enough for food, and if we have enough for clothes, then if we choose to, we can just be content with that. But all of us, without exception, choose not to be content with that. And that’s why we’re not financially independent.

Did you listen to National Public Radio earlier in the week, first thing in the morning? Did you hear the lady from Vietnam? She had been in Hong Kong—she may have been right there when I visited Hong Kong—living in a space, with two children, that was about the size of this piano base underneath here. That was the ground floor. Then the first floor went up slightly above the height of this piano—that was the first floor—and then the second floor, and then the third floor. Families living in that much space in the camp in Hong Kong. With the changing circumstances in Vietnam, she got to go home. How was she doing? Well, she said she was doing very well. Incidentally, she has one withered leg as a result of polio in childhood. She has no husband and two kids. But she wanted the reporter to know that she was financially independent, because she’d been taking the little bit of money that they gave her as a grant when they shipped her out of Hong Kong, and she bought eight pigs.

Now, her place wasn’t much bigger than a grand piano, in which she’s now living again in Vietnam. So she had herself and her two kids and her eight pigs in the house along with her. She kept them till they got so big she couldn’t keep them in the house, and then she sold seven of them and kept one sow so that she could breed the sow. And there she is in Vietnam—one little lady with a polioed leg, two kids, and a fat sow living in one house, and she’s financially independent. As I was driving in my car, I coveted her, as I thought about all of the claptrap and stuff that we in the Western world have determined is a prerequisite for contentedness.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to lay some kind of guilt trip on us, collectively. I’m not suggesting for a moment that we have some radical, strange, bizarre response to all of this. I’m merely responding to the Scriptures and recognizing the principle that he says here. “You want to know about brotherly love?” he said. “The foundation is in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. You want to have an idea of how it expresses itself? Well, it expresses itself in a quiet life, minding your own business, and getting your own paycheck. And you want to know what kind of impact that’ll have? Outsiders will want to know the difference Jesus has made. And you know what? You won’t be dependent on the guy next door for anything.”

This following Jesus Christ is radical stuff—more radical than I think I’ve even discovered.

Let’s pray together:

Our God and our Father, we hear the Lord Jesus calling to us, “If you won’t take up your cross every day and follow me, then you cannot be my disciple.”[17] Lord, we pray that you would help us to examine ourselves, our circumstances, our love, our work, our interference in the lives of others—these intensely practical things—and help us to help one another to live out these principles. Save us from assuming that love is some kind of quiver in our gut, devoid of these practical elements. And grant, Lord, that in being taught by God, we may live out your truth. Search us. “Search me … and know my heart: try me, and know my [anxious] thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”[18] For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

[1] See 1 Corinthians 3:7.

[2] See Deuteronomy 6:5.

[3] 1 John 4:7–9 (NIV 1984).

[4] 1 John 4:10–12 (NIV 1984).

[5] Romans 5:5 (KJV).

[6] John 13:35 (NIV 1984).

[7] 1 Thessalonians 1:3 (paraphrased).

[8] William Hendriksen, Exposition of I and II Thessalonians, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1955), 105.

[9] 1 Thessalonians 4:10 (Phillips).

[10] 2 Thessalonians 3:11–12 (NIV 1984).

[11] F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary 45 (Waco: Word, 1982), 92.

[12] Ephesians 4:28 (paraphrased).

[13] 1 Thessalonians 2:9 (NIV 1984).

[14] Commonly attributed to Paul Gilbert.

[15] See 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

[16] 1 Timothy 6:6–8 (NIV 1984).

[17] Luke 14:27 (paraphrased).

[18] Psalm 139:23–24 (KJV).