What is God's will for my life?

Good morning everyone. If I have never met you before my name is Chris and I currently lead the children and youth work at St Joseph’s, a church that JPC started nearly six years ago across in the West End of the city. It’s so great to be back with you all! Now before we get stuck into 1 Thessalonians 4, let me pray for us:

Father God. Thank you so much for speaking to us. Use your word today to encourage us in the gospel in such a way that we are changed to be more like Jesus. Amen

Here is a question for you to begin with: What is God’s will for your life? Or, what does God want you to do with your life? It’s a question if you are a Christian here this morning you’ve probably asked yourself loads of times. Now that God has saved me I have a glorious future in heaven coming. My relationship with God is based on what Jesus did for me on the cross not on what I have done or will do. So what does God actually want from my life now? It’s the moment of a Christianity Explored (if you’ve ever done that course) where you know your friend has understood grace being a gift and not something we earn when they ask ‘Well what does God want me to do then, can I just do what I want?’ Or even more pertinent to the passage we are looking at today. ‘If Christ has died to save me, can I just chill out and relax and wait for Jesus to come back?’

In the first half of 1 Thessalonians 4, which you looked at last week, Paul told the Thessalonians that God’s will for their life is for them to be sanctified. Which means, in response to God saving us, to then grow in holiness, to be set apart to live for God and his glory. Just as your toothbrush is set apart for just your own teeth, nothing else, as Christians we are set apart to honour God with our lives. And this is God’s work in our lives, growing our holiness. Last week’s passage looked particularly at sexual immorality and the need to control our bodies. This week’s passage from 1 Thessalonians 4.9 the Thessalonians are again told to be sanctified and to grow, to do something more and more. This time they told God’s will for their lives is for them to love one another more and more.

This might have been a surprising thing for Paul to choose to mention. The Thessalonian church was actually famous for their brotherly love. People in the whole region of Macedonia had heard of, or even experienced, their love for other believers. It’s like Paul telling Shearer to score more goals or Mary Berry to bake better cakes. Surely, this church could be working on other areas? But although there is great encouragement to be had in their love for one another there is still plenty of room for growth. But before we understand how they are going to grow in their love Paul needs to remind them that it was God who taught them how to love in the first place.

God taught them how to love.

1 Thessalonians 4.9:

Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another

The Thessalonians weren’t just a bunch of nice people. They weren’t just the friendly cheery type. They loved each other because God had taught them to love. The kind of brotherly love the Bible talks about doesn’t come naturally to people. Being nice sometimes does come naturally, I’m sure you know nice friendly people. But the kind of love the Thessalonians had for each other was something much deeper. Their love was the result of a miraculous work that God had done in their lives. God had given them his Holy Spirit who was, gradually, but really and effectively turning the oil tanker of their lives with their unloving self-centred attitudes around to ones that wanted to love each other sacrificially. And if you are a Christian here this morning he is doing the same sanctifying work in you. He is teaching you how to love. But how is the Holy Spirit moving the oil tanker of our lives around? This is how he does it: He opens our eyes to see God’s love for us and for others. God’s teaching method is always ‘look and see’ then ‘repeat after me.’ We see the example he sets for us and we follow in response. We come to see that he is the God who has loved for all eternity. The Father loving the Son, loving the Spirit. Perfectly. We come to see that he is the God who made mankind in his image to share in his love. And most importantly we see this from 1 John 3:

By this we know love that Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers

We come to see that he is the God who in incredible sacrificial love sent his Son to die in our place. Leaving the glory of heaven. Coming to the world that had rejected him. Born in a field to live an ordinary life and ultimately be betrayed, denied, beaten, flogged, mocked, killed on a Roman cross, facing the wrath of God on our behalf that we deserve and then rising from the dead, as Paul puts it in chapter 1 of this letter, so we can be delivered from the wrath to come. So that, as 1 Thessalonians 5 says, we can live with Jesus forever. This true gospel story of God’s love for you might be old news to you this morning, but don’t forget how staggering it is. Don’t forget to what extent you’ve gained from it and where you’d be without it. This is how you have learnt what extraordinary sacrificial love really is. Our culture likes to talk about love all the time. It thinks it’s really positive about love. But it has no real definition for what it is or what it looks like. Is it a feeling, a flutter inside? But we as Christians aren’t in the dark. God has shown us. Extraordinary love is costly, sacrificial, other centeredness; Christlikeness. The complete opposite to our world’s mantra ‘Do what’s right for yourself’ ‘Do what’s right for me’.

Have a think about a time this last week or month where you have shown sacrificial love to a brother or sister in Christ. Time you took out to pray for them or to speak words of encouragement to them. The energy you gave to practically support them. A gift you gave. All of that love that you showed was you repeating after God what he has done for you. It was you putting into action what you have been taught by him. That is not your natural instincts that was a lesson you learnt from God. It’s encouraging isn’t it? It’s proof God is at work in your life teaching and changing you. I thank God for all of you when I think of your act of love in starting St Joseph’s Church six years ago. The money you gave, the people you sent, the work you did stepping in for those who left. It was an incredibly sacrificial move by you as a church family. Out of an extraordinary love for God and an extraordinary love for the West End of the city, for Benwell. Like Paul, I don’t need to teach you how to love, God has so clearly taught you already. I’d love to tell you stories of the people that your love has enabled St Joseph’s to share the gospel with. When you hear the stories from St Joseph’s and you hear of the people who have come to faith through that church, I hope you are encouraged that God has honoured your act of sacrificial love.

And on this mission Sunday I praise God for all the missionaries you’ve sent out too. There are groups of people all over the world who have benefitted from your sacrificial love as a church, people groups who now have the Bible in their language, children who are now off the streets. People knowing Jesus as their saviour, some of whom are now in glory with him face to face. I hope you are encouraged, God has taught you to love like him. But what do we do now? Sit back and relax. Job done. List all ticked. Pyjamas on? Wait for heaven? No Paul’s message for those loving Thessalonians is love more and more! No resting on laurels, no complacency.

Love more and more.

I wonder what ways you could sacrificially love your brothers and sisters in Christ more and more this week? It’s worth having a think over lunch with whoever you are with, how could I love more and more? There are so many opportunities in a church family. Maybe as it’s mission Sunday you could commit to praying for a mission partner. Print their prayer letter out and put it by your bed and pray for them every night this week. Send them a gift from home in the post. Then at the end of the week send them an email telling them you’ve been praying for them and encouraging them. Ask them if your prayers have been answered. There are so many opportunities to love more and more in really simple ways. It can be quite overwhelming. But Paul gives some specific ways we can do this. He tells the Thessalonians to (1 Thessalonians 4.11-12):

aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

We need to know the context of the Thessalonian church to understand what this means. He wasn’t talking about them speaking to loudly or even speaking too much about Jesus. Paul was always talking about Jesus! And he wasn’t commanding them to not be involved in other people’s lives Paul spends lots of this letting saying that Christians should be intimately involved in each others lives. Instead he is calling them to do their own ordinary work out of love for others. The Thessalonian church had issues with people thinking that now their eternity was sorted, that working on practical things in this world was just a bit pointless. They were above it. ‘I’m getting a mansion in heaven, why bother working hard here on earth? If we aren’t doing ‘spiritual’ work shall we just get in our lounge wear and wait it out?’ Jesus could come back any second. This had meant some of the Christians had sinfully stopped working and were relying on the generosity of other Christians and idly waiting for heaven. Not only that but they were gossiping about other people’s lives and looking down on them pridefully. By the time Paul wrote the second letter to the church in Thessalonica he wrote (2 Thessalonians 3.10-12):

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Paul had never intended Christians to give up on their work and their ordinary lives and wait for the day of the Lord to arrive. Instead, he wanted them to live ordinary lives, doing ordinary work, fulfilling their own responsibilities with the extraordinary love they’d learnt from God. As Christians we are never above hard work. That’s both paid work and other practical work that is required for us to live (house work, childcare etc). Now obviously there will be times in everyone’s life when they will need to rely on others to fulfil their responsibilities. Paul isn’t rebuking those wanting and trying to find work or those who physically can’t be in paid employment. Instead he is rebuking the idle. You see, all work is actually a way we can live out being made in God’s image. God works, Jesus worked and he made us to work. Before Adam and Eve fell into sin they worked and we will have work to do in heaven. Work here on earth is hard and frustrating in a world full of sin and so it’s easy for us to assume that work is a worldly thing with little value. But Paul says that is not true, all work which is not directly sinning against God can be done in a way that glorifies God and shows love for other people.

Engineers designing water treatment plants, plumbers repairing leaking taps, cashiers manning tills, volunteers sorting food bank donations, pavement sweepers, bus drivers, childminders, carers, website designers, washing up, mowing the lawn, clearing up after your ministry, giving people lifts etc. You name it, all of these types of work are opportunities to honour God and to quietly and humbly provide for our own needs and responsibilities. As Christians we never rise above that. We should all ask ourselves, do we add burdens to others or do we take burdens or responsibilities from others. Paul made tents with his own hands to make sure he wasn’t burdening others. In fact a totally right response to hearing the amazing news of the gospel this morning would be to be the one who washes up after lunch today. Making sure the burden of your dirty dishes doesn’t fall on someone else. Or offer to take a job off your spouse or your housemates rather than lazily expect them to do something for you.

This is true with our church life too. Your fellowship time, the ministry you serve in. We are never above hard work. Even working with our hands. Andy Gawn, in my opinion the best children Bible talk writer in the country and a member of senior staff is the first one lifting Holiday Club stages and rigging lights and driving minibuses, never thinking he is above that kind of hard work and relying on others. I’m sure you can think of others like him. We are never above putting our own chairs away after meetings. Maybe at work our employers pay others to do our practical work, but this isn’t the way a sacrificial loving church works. No one is above practical work. We all must be willing to get stuck in with whatever needs doing, particularly making sure we don’t end up being burden others. We should continue to work to make that a culture here at JPC.

I remember when I joined the Christian Union at university and we were trying to share the good news of Jesus on campus. It was often the culture of the CU that evangelism and CU stuff came first and uni work and keeping your house clean and tidy were of secondary importance. It’s not unusual for students to be slow to wash up their dishes is it? But in a way the CU had a unique problem. We, like the Thessalonians, assumed that as Jesus is coming back at any point, cleaning the bathroom was a waste of time in the grand scheme of things, that in some way we were above it. But we had forgotten what we were really called to - extraordinary loving by doing our own ordinary work. It was a totally right response to the gospel to do our seminar reading and to tidy after ourselves in our flat. Not wait for other people to do it for us. There should be no project group at university or management team at work where an able Christian is the one not carrying their weight. That’s not sacrificial loving. And actually Paul says it helps our evangelistic witness if we do work hard. Paul says the result of this extraordinary love and ordinary work is that we will walk properly before outsiders. We’ll show off the sacrificial love God is growing in us.

I remember the late John Wilkinson who was a member of this church, a man very much known for his great Christ-like love. As far as I saw he never preached and never went overseas to do mission work. He was an engraver and by all accounts he was a brilliant one at that. He told us when we moved into our house when we got married that he’d found the best way to bless his neighbours and share the gospel with them was to put their bins out. What a blessing he was to everyone around him. The man on the street willing to burden himself rather than burden others, not thinking he was above it. What way are we burdening others with our idleness? What work are we tempted to think we are above doing? How are we going to get our hands dirty this week? Let Christ’s love for you teach you as you do it. He was the king of the whole universe yet he became a carpenter, for many years he cut wood. He washed his disciples’ feet. He cooked breakfast. He went to the cross. Let us humbly love more and more like him this week. Let me pray:

Father God, thank you for teaching us to love. Thank you for the work you have already done in our lives. I pray we would go on to love more and more, being willing to get our hands dirty fulfilling our own responsibilities out of love for others. Amen