I want to begin today with a question for us to consider. If you knew that Jesus Christ would return in seven days, would you go to work this week? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And Colin, I’m going to guess that if you asked for a show of hands, most people would say no. Well, forget a show of hands. I want to know what your answer is. Are you going to be turning up for work if you know this to be true? Okay, okay. My answer is yes. We recently finished a series on Elijah and on his last day on earth, in a sense, he went to work. He went out and proclaimed the Word of God. It was like a farewell tour. Yeah, but here’s the bigger question that we’re talking about here as well, because we’re talking, Elijah is a guy involved in ministry. What if you’re selling ice cream? What if you’re a teacher in a primary school? Would you go to work then? And the importance of this question is that it gets to the root of what we think work is all about. And a lot of people have the idea that work is simply a means to an end, that it’s something I have to do in order to get a salary, in order to have money to live. And if the Lord was coming in the next week, I wouldn’t need that additional money. And so what would be the point in going to work? You gave the right answer. The answer is, if Jesus Christ was coming, yes, I would go to work. Why? Because work is something that he has given me to do. And what better thing could I do than do the thing that he has purposed me to do? A lot of folks have the idea that when I’m doing ministry, when I’m involved in serving in the church, that that’s how I’m somehow serving the Lord. But if I’m a teacher or a pharmacist or whatever that work may be, if it’s not specifically Christian work, that somehow that doesn’t count, we’re going to get a very different view of work today. And it’s a wonderful view of work. It’s something that God calls you to and it’s something that he delights in and is present in with you. So we’re going to look today at 2 Thessalonians and chapter 3, this time verses 6 to 15, as we begin the message, pursuing what is right. Here’s Colin. Well, please open your Bible at 2 Thessalonians and chapter 3. We’re coming towards the end of this marvelous letter, just one more message planned in the series after today. And we’ve seen together that it’s all about perseverance. It’s about patience. It’s about endurance and it’s about steadfastness. And that is why we have called this series, Staying the Course When You Are Tired of the Battle. And we saw that the first chapter of this letter is really about strength for staying the course. The second chapter is all about wisdom for discerning the battle. And this third chapter that we’re in now is about priorities on the front lines. What are these priorities? Well, we’ve seen from verse 1, priority number one for the church is indeed that the gospel may run whatever happens, whatever you are doing. This is priority number one for the church of Jesus Christ. Pray for us that the gospel may spread rapidly and that it may be honored just as it was with you. Then we saw last week a second priority that we as God’s people are sustained by a growing experience of the love of God and the patience of Christ. Remember verse 5, may the Lord himself direct your hearts into the love of God and into Christ’s patience. In other words, Paul is saying, when I think of everything that you folks are going through, all the difficulties that you are enduring, here’s what I pray. I pray that what is in Christ will be in you. And here’s how you can endure. Here’s how you will endure. Here’s how you can face what lies ahead of you this week. That the love of God will be in you and the patience of Christ will fill you. Now today we come to the third priority and it’s very simply and beautifully stated in verse 13. Never tire of doing what is right. Never tire of doing what is right. And I said at the beginning of this series that, at least in my mind, this is really the key verse to the whole letter. If you want one verse to sum up what Second Thessalonians is all about, I would choose this verse, chapter 3 and verse 13. Never tire of doing what is right. It’s about perseverance. This is the subject encapsulated in a single sentence. Staying the course when you are tired of the battle, never tire of doing what is right. Now this verse is going to be our focus for today, but it comes in a passage that sets out very wonderfully a Christian doctrine of daily work. Now this is a hugely important subject and I want to begin today with a question for us to consider. If you knew that Jesus Christ would return in seven days, would you go to work this week? That’s the question I want you to think about. If you knew that Jesus Christ would return in seven days, would you go to work this week? Now it is a fascinating question because it gets to the root of what we really think about our daily work and the reason for it. A secular view of daily work, of course, says that work is simply the means of getting the money that you need and the sooner you can be done with it, the better. How much money do I need before I can get out of doing this and go and do something better instead? That’s how many people will approach daily work. And if this is the view, then work is simply a means to an end and the end to which it is a means is money. And therefore, as soon as I have enough money, I will be done with work and then I will be off to the beach or off to the golf course, or even better, off to a golf course beside the beach, if you see what I mean. Now if that is your view of work, your answer to this question that I’m asking will be very obvious. Well, if I knew that Jesus was returning in seven days, of course I wouldn’t go to work this week because I have enough money to get by for seven days, so why in the world would I go to work? Now the reason I raise this is that that seems to be precisely what was happening in this town of Thessalonica. Some people were so certain that Jesus Christ was about to return that they had quit their jobs. They said, well now Christ is coming, and because Christ is imminently coming, there is no reason for us to work. So they packed in their jobs and they felt very sure that it was God himself who was calling them to do this. In other words, the folks who are being addressed here in this passage had actually made a virtue out of not working. And it isn’t hard to imagine once this movement got going, the kind of language that might be used, you know. You really believe that Jesus is about to come? Well, do you have the faith to quit your job then, you see? It isn’t hard to imagine what happened next. Here are these Christians now who have felt led to quit their jobs because of the imminence of the coming of Christ in their minds. They therefore don’t have enough to do with their time. And so you know what happens next. It’s what always happens when people don’t have enough to do. They end up causing trouble. And so you have that in verse 11. We hear Paul says that some among you are idle. That is, they have made this choice, this refusal to work. They are now idle. They are not busy and they have become therefore busy bodies. They had no business of their own and so they spent their time, Paul says, sticking their noses into everyone else’s business. The phrase comes to mind, the devil always has work for idle hands. Now I want you to understand very clearly and carefully, especially in an environment today when I know many in our congregation are actively looking for work. The problem here is not that these folks didn’t have work. The issue here is that these folks point blank refused to work. They didn’t want to work. And they made a virtue out of not working. That is why, notice in verse 10, this is very important, Paul says, when a man will not work, he shall not eat. He doesn’t say when a man does not work or he does not say when a man cannot work. He says when a man will not work, when he’s addressing the situation in which people have made a settled refusal on the basis they claim of their faith not to do any work. And so he gives this command in verse 12, such people, that is the people who have refused to work, he says we command and we urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to do what? To settle down, you see, and to earn the bread they eat. Now the problem here then is that this group of people in Thessalonica, in their enthusiasm, had a completely unchristian view of work. If you think that work is simply a means to make enough money to get yourself to the beach or to the golf course or even more the beach that’s beside the golf course or the golf course that is beside the beach, then I’m asking you to think again. That is not a Christian view of work. What is a Christian view of work? Let me put it this way. Your work is a gift and a calling from God to be pursued for his glory and for the good of others. Now when I say your work here, I mean your employment, but I don’t only mean your employment. Many of us give ourselves to work for which you are not paid. The definition of work in the Bible is not tied to compensation. Adam had no money for the work that God gave him to do in the garden, but it was God-given work and it was his great privilege to do it for the glory of God. So some of us work as house makers, home makers. Some of us work as volunteers visiting the sick and caring for children and serving the poor. It is work that God has given us to do. It is wonderful work. For some of us, and let me give this word of encouragement today, for some of us the work that God has given you to do right now is to look for work and you can honor him in the way that you do that difficult task in these difficult times. You can do it with faith. You can do it with perseverance. You can do it with vigor and in the very pursuit of work you can glorify God. And what I’m saying is that a Christian view of work is that it is a gift and it is a calling from God to be pursued for his glory and for the good of others. And all the way through your life there will be some purpose that God has for you, some work that he has for you to do. We have been created by God in Christ and there are good works that he has prepared throughout the years of our lives in advance for us to do. Now this is very important, a Christian view of daily work, a Christian view of your employment, a Christian view of what you are doing with the days of your life. See people look to pastors and to missionaries and they say, well now God has given them a special work to do. And that’s true. But God has given you a special work to do. And your work is a gift and a calling from God. Now it’s wonderful for us to see, and I hope this will be a great encouragement for you today, that the dignity of work lies in the nature of God. That’s where it’s rooted. The dignity of work is rooted in the nature of God. Remember that right at the beginning of the Bible God introduces himself to us first as a worker. What is he doing? He’s creating. He expresses himself in this way. And then he makes us in his image. And what that means is that we express ourselves by creating as well. That could be expressed in building a car or it could be making art or music or writing a document on the computer or it could be establishing a company. But in some sense all work is a reflection of the very nature and character of God. It’s a wonderful thing. You are made in the image of God and the dignity of your work is that in some way it reflects the character of God. This is always the moment in the sermon where the carpenters get a big smile on their face or other guys who are in construction, you see. Because you have this very, very obviously and most Christian carpenters I’ve ever spoken to have spoken about it at some time. Big smile. I’m in the same trade as my saviour. Isn’t that a marvellous thing? I love that. I think we can extend that out. For everyone who is involved in construction, manual labour, you can say I do the same work as the son of God. Isn’t that marvellous? But what about the rest of us? Well, I want you to think about this in relation to your work. Let me give you some examples. If you flip burgers, you are reflecting the work of God who provides food. If you are a homemaker, you are reflecting the work of God who creates order out of chaos. Without what you do, it would be chaos and formless and void, would it not? If you are an accountant, your work reflects the integrity of God. If you are a CEO, what do you do? You hold all things together and you move things forward. This too is a reflection of God’s work who holds all things together by the power of his word. God gives each of us work that in some way reflects his character. I would push this as far as to say that if you cannot think of a way in which your work reflects the character of God, it probably means that it’s work that you shouldn’t be doing. Now, I hope that this will be a great encouragement to you in work that sometimes makes you weary. There is great dignity, there is great joy in seeing how your work reflects the character of God. Now, let’s go back to our question. This time with a Christian view of work. If you knew that Jesus Christ would return in seven days, would you go to work this week? Well, if you have a Christian view of work, your answer to that would be yes, absolutely. Remember this, this week, when you are at your desk or on the site or in the shop, if someone were to ask you, would you be doing this if you knew that Jesus Christ was coming back tonight? If they were to ask you that, your answer should be absolutely yes, because this is what he’s called me to do today. It’s a wonderful thing. It is a gift and it is a calling from God that you are to pursue for his glory and for the good of other people. This great, great gift for which we thank God. Now, since your work is a gift and a calling from God and it’s to be pursued for his glory and it’s to be pursued for the good of others, it follows, especially in relation to work, though the application is broader, that your example matters more than your rights. This is the second very important lesson that comes to us clearly from this passage of Scripture today. Your example matters more than your rights. Now, let’s pick it up at verse seven and see what the Word of God says. You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. So the theme of examples coming in here. And what’s the example? Well, Paul says, we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. Now, what we’re learning here is that in his ministry, the Apostle Paul worked incredibly hard. This man, as most of you know, was a brilliant scholar. He was a Pharisee from the school of Gamaliel, but he also had a trade and he used it at times to earn money while he was serving the church. Sometimes there was money to support him, sometimes not. And when there was no money, here’s what Paul did. He made tents and he sold them. And then he gave himself to the work of ministry. At these times, and it wasn’t always in his life, but it was sometimes in his life that he did this. And especially when he was in Thessalonica, from what he says here, that is what he did. He was what we would call today bivocational. In other words, he gave himself to two jobs. He gave himself to the work of ministry and he gave himself to the work of tent making. It was bivocational. And that is why he says in verse 8 that he worked day and night. Two jobs, you’ve got to really extend yourself. This is incredibly difficult to do. But Paul was ready to do whatever it would take to make the gospel run. And here then is the great irony. That Paul is working two jobs so as not to be a burden on other believers. That’s what he says here. And at the same time, here are a bunch of Christians who refuse to do any work and are becoming a burden to other believers. It is an extraordinary irony. Now, the Bible says those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. That’s 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 14. And Paul says that this is a command from the Lord. So it’s quite clear then that as an apostle, Paul had a right to financial support from the church. But I want you to see what he says here in verse 9. We did this, that is working day and night, being bivocational, running two jobs at the same time. We did this not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. Now you see what he’s saying? To be an example is more important than to have what is mine by right. That’s what the apostle is saying. Just go to your regular podcasting site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates. On our website, you’ll also find lots of other good information. You’ll find Open the Bible Daily, which is a series of short two to three minute reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish. There’s a new one on the website every day, or you can find it as a podcast. Again, go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and select Open the Bible Daily. Subscribe to the podcast to receive a new one every day. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners. That’s people just like you. If you feel that’s something you’d like to get involved in, you can do that by going to our website. That’s openthebible.org.uk. If you’re able to set up a donation in the amount of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free gift. It’s two copies of a book called More Than a Carpenter, written by Josh McDowell. Colin, why is this book so important? Well, I’m always drawn to books that are tried and tested. And God has used this book, More Than a Carpenter, for more than 40 years. And it has been a means of God’s work in many, many people’s lives. But I think it’s perhaps a book that many today are not aware of. And so I’m just delighted that we’re making it available. More Than a Carpenter deals with real questions that a sceptic might have in regards to the Christian faith. So Josh McDowell deals with questions like what about science? And what about the new atheism? And how do we know that the Bible is reliable? So this is a really helpful book for believers to help us be clearer and more confident in our witness to Jesus. And it’s also a marvellous book to give to anyone who’s asking honest questions about the Christian faith. And that’s why we’d like to send you two copies, one for you and one to give away, in return for setting up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible for five pounds per month or more. Details on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. You’re tired and you’re ready to give up or find something to escape into. There is another way. Find out what it is next time on Open the Bible.