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1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; [10] for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, [11] and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, [12] so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.
What a joy to open God’s Word together and hear God’s counsel for how to live our lives.
You’ve probably seen the acrostic B-I-B-L-E, Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth. This definitely applies to our passage this morning. We’re heading for the rapture of the church next week. But how do we live in the meantime? Back in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 Paul exhorted us to walk and please God and excel still more. Then he talks about the battle for moral purity. God’s will for us before leaving earth is moral purity. God calls His people to sanctification or holiness and then assures us we have the power to live holy lives by the Holy Spirit in verse 8.
Now Paul takes up a new topic and urges us again to excel still more. You can do better. You should never be satisfied with where you’ve come in your spiritual growth, in progressive sanctification. I’m calling this section Monday Morning Christianity. Christ is Lord over your Mondays as well as your Sundays. For many professing Christians, there’s a huge gap between what they believe on Sundays and how they live on Mondays. Do you take your theology to work with you? One of Paul’s great concerns is that we believers give the right view of the Christian life to our unsaved friends, family, neighbors, and the people we work with. In Titus 2:10 he calls us to “adorn the doctrine of God.”
Do you go to work Monday morning knowing you’re doing the will of God? Do you take a Romans 8:28 perspective, knowing whatever happens today is part of God’s purpose for you to help you become more like Christ? Do you take a Matthew 6:33 attitude, seeking first God’s kingdom instead of carrying worry and anxiety with you? Do you have a 1 Timothy 6 view on money, not loving it but using it for God’s glory? In his sermon on “The Use of Money” John Wesley gave three attitudes toward money: gain all you can; save all you can; give all you can. God placed you here, not as an owner, but as a steward (1 Peter 4:10). Does what you know on Sunday control how you live on Monday? That’s the Monday morning Christianity question.
Let’s look at our passage. Paul starts with loving the brethren and ends with making sure we are paying our bills and not mooching off of others. In between he talks about working with our hands. The average employee working 50 hours a week, 50 weeks in a year, for 50 years, is putting in a total of 125,000 hours on the job. Of course, we know a man works from dawn to setting sun, but a woman’s work is never done. She’s on call 168 hours a week. Do the math and you’ve got about 437,000 hours. Proverbs 31:10 says that a woman’s value is far above precious gems. All mothers deserve a raise.
Now, let’s take a closer look at Monday Morning Christianity.
Monday Morning Christianity means excelling still more in loving others.
1 Thessalonians 4:9-10, Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; [10] for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more,
You’ll never perfect this thing of practicing Christ-like love in this life. And that’s why Paul says, “You’re doing it, but let’s crank it up some. Excel still more. You can do better.” And 2 Thessalonians 1:3 tell us that the Thessalonians did do better. Paul commends, “The love of each one of you grows ever greater.”
“Love of the brethren” is “philadelphia.” The Greek words philia means love, and adelphos, means brother. We all know there’s a lack of “brotherly love” in our Philly today; there has been 10,479 violent crimes so far this year. Paul ties Christian brotherly love in with agape love and says, “If you’re a believer you are part of God’s family, there’s a family affection, care, encouragement, and loyalty to one another, and God Himself has taught you to love one another with that self-denying, giving, serving agape love.” This is a big thing in your Christian life. Sin makes you selfish, but Christ turns sinners into lovers and givers. When God hunted Cain down and asked about his brother, what did he say? What the selfish world says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The world is not a loving place.
But here God Himself teaches you and me as believers to love one another and excel still more. The great commandment is to love God and love your neighbor. The lawyer asked Jesus, “Who’s my neighbor?” The guy who needs your help. If you can help him, help him. John 13:34-35 records Jesus’ words after washing the disciples’ feet, “As I have loved you, love one another. This is the leading mark of my disciples.” Find some feet to wash and get down and wash them. Love is the leading fruit of the Spirit.
Here are additional verses that speak of God’s kind of love. First Timothy 1:5 – the goal of our preaching is love. Colossians 3:14 – we are to wrap up all the other virtues with love. At the top of the list of virtues in 2 Peter 1 just after brotherly love is agape love – self-denying, giving love. Ephesians 4:16 – the body of Christ grows as we speak the truth in love and each member functions in love within the body, serving one another. Hebrews 10:24 – we are to provoke one another to love and good works. And 1John 3:14 – love is a mark of the new birth, “We know we have passed out of death into life, because we are loving the brethren.”
One author put it like this: “Christians are to lavish upon each other that same self-sacrificing love which was shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). Peter puts some muscle and energy to agape love.
1 Peter 1:22, Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.
See that word “fervent?” It means stretching out with all of one’s energy. You see it in any field and track event when the football player recovers the fumble and high tails it for the endzone or when the base runner rounds third on a hit to the outfield and stretches out full speed ahead to get to home plate before the ball does. Peter says it again in 1 Peter 4:8.
1 Peter 4:8, Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
In verse 10 Paul again encourages these Thessalonian believers, “You are practicing it.” You are demonstrating it. You are actually loving one another in visible, tangible ways. In any body of growing believers there is godly love, encouragement, sometimes gently correcting those in opposition. You see this in the early church as those new believers were sharing needs and blessing one another. Love is the true driving force of new life in Christ. So in verse 10 Paul says, “You’re doing well in loving one another, but you can do better.” This is Monday Morning Christianity, excelling still more in loving one another. Don’t coast. Because we have the sufficient and powerful grace of God in our hearts, we can always improve, do better, and love one another more fervently.
Monday Morning Christianity means living in a quiet way in all your relationships.
1 Thessalonians 4:11a, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life…
What does Paul possibly mean here? Don’t be that parent at the little league game screaming at the ump. Determine not to freak out over everything that comes down the pike. Live with a strong grip on the sovereignty and goodness of your God. Here’s the perfect reference.
Isaiah 30:15, For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.”
Quietness and trust – they go together. Don’t run from one crisis to another. Work hard to live a calm, peaceful life. Sometimes silence really is golden. Proverbs 17:28 says, “Even a fool when he keeps silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips he is counted prudent.” Proverbs 27:14 says, “He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be reckoned a curse to him.” Some people are always in crisis mode. They thrive on news that the sky is falling. They get addicted to the crisis. They can’t stand normalcy. It’s boring. Monday Morning Christianity determines to live a quiet life of trust and rests in God’s good sovereignty, waiting patiently for the coming of the Lord.
Speaking of the sky falling, beware of date setters. When there is great international upheaval, the date setting hucksters get busy. They used to write books like Eighty-eight Reasons Christ will return in 1988. Now they just get on Facebook or YouTube assuring you something big is going to happen in 2025. “God told” this one guy I saw. You may have seen the individual too. I don’t know his name but he’s a typical scaremonger and click-baiter. He wants you to click on that video at the bottom to get the real truth about what is happening, how it’s all going to collapse, and, of course, he has a product you simply must purchase if you expect to survive the crisis up ahead. Flee that stuff. In quietness and trust in your God is your strength.
Monday Morning Christianity means minding your own business.
1 Thessalonians 4:11b, attend to your own business.
This is literally “practice your own things.” Don’t be prying into other people’s business. J. Vernon McGee describes it as, “tend to your own knitting.” In 1 Timothy 5:13 Paul warned about those who “learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention.” Basically, keep your nose out of places where it doesn’t belong.
Monday Morning Christianity means practicing a godly work ethic.
1 Thessalonians 4:11c, and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,
Apparently some of these Thessalonians got mixed up about the Lord’s return. They had quit working and were just waiting for Jesus to come back. You’ll see more of this in 2 Thessalonians 3:11, “For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.” In 2 Thessalonians 3:10 Paul gave us that great principle that needs to be applied throughout our nation, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” Paul says, “Get to work.”
This is one of my favorite topics in the Bible. All legitimate work is sacred. When Luther came across this truth, it revolutionized how he saw life. Here’s what he said, “Your work is a very sacred matter. God delights in it, and through it He wants to bestow His blessing on you. This praise of work should be inscribed on all tools, on the forehead and the faces that sweat from toiling.”
People get the wrong idea about what it means to serve God. They put a distinction between the sacred and the secular for the Christian. God says all of life is sacred. Everything you do should have “holy to the Lord” written on it. The Puritan William Perkins declared people can serve God “in any kind of calling, though it be but to sweep the house or keep sheep.” Tomorrow morning, whatever your occupation, so long as it is not sinful, you’ll be heading out to do the will of God.
What is Paul saying? There is nothing more holy or sacred for a Christian than fixing a car, building a house, picking up garbage, cleaning windows or cleaning a house, painting, mowing the lawn, vacuuming the house, processing data, or serving as a nurse or teacher or lawyer. All work sacred as long as it is not sinful.
Colossians 3:23-24, Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
This is Monday Morning Christianity. Paul said, “Work with your hands, as we commanded you.” When you head out to work tomorrow, you’re going to do the will of God. Jesus worked until he was thirty as a “tekton,” a worker in wood or metal (Mark 6:3). Paul worked as a tentmaker. Work is good and godly. Work is a God-given therapy to increase your self-respect. When Luther felt depressed he went out and spread manure. Every been there? There you are, dreading getting into fixing that leaking faucet or whatever needs fixing, but you get your tools, get busy changing this or that, breaking half the stuff, five trips to Home Depot, you finally read the instructions, and you get the thing fixed. Your wife is amazed at your plumbing skills and your chest puffs out like a blow fish.
Work is godly. God worked six days and rested on the seventh. He commanded Adam to work. Idleness is a sin. Sluggards have trouble in this life. There are 14 references to the sluggard in Proverbs. Proverbs 26:14, “As a door turns on his hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed.” Calvin wrote, “There is nothing more disgraceful than an idle good-for-nothing who is of no use either to himself or to others and seems to have been born merely to eat and drink.” Christ never encourages idleness. Unless you are incapacitated in some way, the Bible tells every Christian to work and provide for himself and his family, and if he has extra money he should be generous and share (1 Timothy 6:8). In fact, if you don’t provide for your own household, Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:8, you are worse than an infidel and have denied the faith.
We’re talking about Monday Morning Christianity. When you go off to work tomorrow morning, you’re going to serve Jesus Christ. You are on a sacred mission. You are going to live before the eyes of an unsaved world of people. What are they going to think of Christ as they observe you? Back in 1989 I resigned from our first church figuring I could get a job at McDonalds or the grocery store for a while. Not so – they said I was overqualified. Then I remembered Jay Adams saying, “When you’re out of a job, you still have a job. Your job is to spend your days looking for a job.” I thought, “What can I do?” Well, one thing my dad taught me to do was to wash cars and do an excellent job.” So, I started a car washing business at my home and went from business to business in town handing the folks my business card and offering to wash cars. I actually washed quite a few cars. But then God provided a construction job for me for a year. I painted and stained doors and wood trim. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a young co-worker named Mitch. Mitch heard a preacher was coming to work and vowed, “I’m going to get him to sin the first week.” He probably did and didn’t know it since I tend to sin daily.
I want to give you ten things about Monday Morning Christianity. These things happen when you go to work.
- You’re following God’s example. He constructed the whole universe in six days.
- You’re providing for your own.
- You’re earning the right to eat. Remember, if you don’t work, you don’t eat.
- You do the best you can. Proverbs 18:9, “He…who is slack in his work Is brother to him who destroys.” Never do shoddy, sloppy, half-done workmanship.
- You give honor and respect to those over you and under you (1 Timothy 6:1-2).
- You’re working to the glory of God.
- You avoid temptations typical of the workplace – grumbling, stealing, slandering.
- You’ll be directly serving Jesus Christ. “It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Col. 3:24).
- You’ll be going to represent Jesus Christ to those with whom you work.
- You’ll be motivated to hear, “Well done, you good and faithful servant.”
One more verse that applies to Monday Morning Christianity.
Ephesians 4:28, He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
Monday morning Christianity is concerned about adorning the gospel of Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 4:12, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.
Paul was very concerned that God’s people leave the right impression of what Christianity is all about. “Behave properly” has the idea of good form, decently. Titus 2:10 says we are to adorn the doctrine of God. Don’t give the world any excuse to think we Christians are looney tunes.
Notice Paul includes “behave properly.” Don’t sponge off society. As much as is in you, don’t require others to supply your needs. A believer is to be a profitable and productive member of society, providing for his own and planning for future needs. Count on it, you’ll have unexpected expenses, so be sure to save from each paycheck. Back to John Wesley’s sermon on money. Gain as much as you can; save as much as you can; give as much as you can. There are times when God’s people are incapacitated and have legitimate needs. But we honor the Lord by working hard, saving money, and giving to the Lord’s work.
We serve a working God. Jesus worked with his own hands from His youth to about 30. He lived a productive life as that carpenter. And then He did the glorious work of redemption. We call it the work of Christ on the cross. There was no half done, sloppy, shoddy workmanship on that cross. He provided a perfect and complete redemption for all who come to Him in faith. He perfectly bore their guilt and shame in His body on that cross and perfectly satisfied God’s just wrath against our sins. Bow your heart to Him this morning, right now, and confess your sin and ask Him to save you, to be your Lord and God.