The Worlds Lighthouse No.11 One big happy family

We've got a Santa Lord, yes, we've a Santa Lord, yes we've a Santa Lord, yeah, we do. Behold our Saviour comes, behold the Son of our God. He offers Himself and He comes among us, a lowly servant to all.

We cry, we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord to you. Children, raise your arms like the King of all kings right high. Should we forget to praise the God of every stone, just say, We cry, we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord to you.

He comes to set us free, He gives us liberty. His victory over death, His eternal Son of God's love for us. We cry, we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord to you.

We cry, we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord, yes we thank the Lord to you. I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing to you, I sing Paul's final instructions for the Church of Thessalonica in his day, and because his words were so remarkably and uniquely inspired, and through the timelessness of the miracle of inspiration, these words are relevant for Worthing Tab in 1997. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 12 and onwards.

Join me. Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord, and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.

Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone, make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always tries to be kind to each other and to everyone else. Be joyful always.

Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire.

Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything, hold on to the good, avoid every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. Brothers, pray for us.

Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Well, as I intimated, this is in our notes and news, this is our final study of this highly practical spiritual letter, which I think has been a blessing to many of you, at least that's the reports that I've had, and certainly I've been helped by Brother Tim's ministry as he's joined with me in taking us through this letter. And so we come to consider the final verses, which in one sense speak of a happy family, but also I think give us an impression, as you'll find as we make our way through our overhead slide, as to what the local church, ideally speaking, should be like. Paul engaged in church planting, obviously so, and one of his successes at the human level was in Thessalonica.

It wasn't an easy assignment to go to that Greek city and there, drenched in paganism, the people languished as Paul made his way down the streets and he must have wondered just how to start. How do you begin? No PA system, no music, not really any literature, just the Word of God in his heart and the Spirit of God resting upon him. Paul endeavors to chisel out from that quarry a people who would be the Lord's.

He loved them. He loved them so dearly that the emotional Paul declares his interest throughout the epistle. We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers, chapter 1 and verse 2. As apostles of Christ we didn't want to be a burden to you, verse 7 of the second chapter.

He goes on to say of them that like a mother, the latter part of verse 7, cares for her babe so the apostle was affectionate towards the Thessalonians. When news dried up he couldn't really cope with the problem and so he had to send his only colleague because he was so desperate for information and although it meant leaving him alone, his colleague went to Thessalonica just to see how it was with them and when he brought back good news, Paul was able to say, now I really live. So that was the bond between the pastor and his people 2,000 years ago and there have been good and faithful men down the whole of the history of the Christian church who have shared that agape love, many men and women who have given their lives to establish the local church.

Well, what can we learn for all time in terms of principles about the local church from this letter which Paul wrote to the Thessalonians? It seems to me that the apostle is here addressing the total congregation. When in the 12th verse of and now with chapter 5, he speaks the word brothers, he does so generically. I have sympathy with those who are concerned that the Bible, when it uses masculine terms, where those masculine terms also embrace ladies, that that should be clear.

And here it's no disrespect to the apostle, it carries the dynamic of the meaning to say that as he is addressing the church in the language of those days, the word brothers embraces sister, it's generic. So if we were writing a similar letter today, we would say now we ask you brothers and sisters. And later on he says exactly the same thing, verse 14, we urge you brothers and sisters.

He's writing to a congregation about a church, their church. What does he identify? Well, first of all, he identifies that they were specific in the leadership, specific in the leadership. This is basically what verses 12 and 13 are telling us about.

Here is a description, if you like, of the pastorate. Here is reference to those who are engaged in a senior ministry. There has sometimes been a needless tension in the church historically between the so-called clergy and the laity.

There have been absolute, absurd positions taken on either side. Sometimes the clergy have been looked upon or presented themselves as being men, almost exclusively men, outside of contradiction, assuming virtually a papal infallibility. And the member of the congregation, well, he was lucky to be there, fortunate he or she to be there and to listen and to make a contribution to the offering, but that's about all the contribution that was looked for, an extreme position.

On the other hand, there's been times when the church has reacted against this and thought just in terms of the laos, the people, and everyone has got a ministry, everyone can have their own say. And over against autonomy or over against authoritarianism, you've had almost a position of anarchy. But the apostle, when he makes reference to this church, when he outlines the principles of church government, has a delightful blend, which we need to remind ourselves of.

Because if this is in any sense here, wording tab, a New Testament church, then these aspects of leadership, these commitments on the part of leaders and so-called laity, they are to be reproduced. And so the apostle singles out these men who have a position of responsibility, and he gives us some insight as to what it means to hold that type of office, to fill that type of office. And he does so by bringing out three words, which are leveling words, challenging words as far as those who feel that to be part of the ministry is to take up a soft option.

Not at all, says the apostle. The ones who are helping to lead you, they work hard. He uses the word laborer, which he uses again when he's writing to Timothy, and he's there referring to the agricultural laborer, the man who sweats, who toils.

And so it is with leadership. There is a toil. There is a sweat.

There is time to be invested. And these men who exercise this position, they're not only to be thought of in terms of laborers, but those who have some authority, spiritual authority over the ordinary Christian. He actually uses the word manager in the sense of giving supervision.

Those who have a clear view in mind as to where they want the church corporately and individual members to go, supervision, labor. And then he brings out another word. He speaks of admonition and correction as though this is the third aspect, not that the three things are mutually incompatible.

One will flow into the other and the second into the third and so forth. But here is the idea of the Thessalonians when they come together. There are those among them who will expound, who will teach, and in their teaching, they will correct.

So he unblushingly refers to these men who are leaders of this congregation and he singles them out in these final verses when he's actually addressing all the congregation, brothers and sisters. But there's something that I think we need to bear in mind about men who exercise this sort of authority. They do so in the spirit of Jesus, who tells you that the man who will be the leader must also be the foot washer.

You see, this is no secular authoritarianism that Paul has in mind. He has the example of Jesus, who is Lord and Master, but will do the most menial task. Therefore, the Christian leader, who at times is not prepared to clean toilets, the man who will serve at the high altar, who will not sweep out the cellar, actually has little understanding, one of the life of Paul and two of the definition of authority and leadership as exemplified in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's because these men exercise their ministry in the way in which they do, as gentle managers, humble and kind yet strong, as those who can give correction and are counselors, as hardworking laborers, as these congregants see these men, they are to respond to the duties of these men by giving them their desserts, which is what? Well, show affection and appreciation, hold them in the highest regard, in love because of their work. So here is the apostle, and he has written this particular practical set of instructions to this church, so that they know that he, the apostle, is not on the side of anarchy. He does recognize a leadership.

And wherever you find Paul planting churches, you will discover that some months later, if you read the Acts of the Apostles, he returned to the very point where he had dispensed the gospel in the first instance, and he ensured that there were men who could take on the role of holding the church together, specific in its leadership. But let's move on, because you get a balance. Not just specific in its leadership, but what I have termed pacific in its fellowship.

Pacific, of course, means peaceful, and the apostle is showing how these leaders can be assisted in their ministry by ordinary members of the congregation. He tells them in verse 13, hold in the highest regard, in love because of their work. These men live in peace with each other.

Now again, bear in mind, the apostle is here referring to the whole congregation. He's not just speaking about leaders, he's speaking about all the congregants. He's saying that each one of them should, in effect, make such a contribution in Thessalonica that if the church has any description at all, if there's any name given to it, to be given to it by the outsider, then it should be the fellowship of Philadelphia, the fellowship of brotherly love.

Look at verse 9 of the previous chapter. Now about brotherly love, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia, yet we urge you brothers to do so more and more.

Apostle, writing about that sort of peace that there should be in the local church, this cooperation with leaders, with pastors, so that the church, far from being a warring faction of people, represents a community where each one is in love with and shows practically the outworkings of that love with the other. Now, the apostle is a realist, he's not just a sentimentalist. You might have thought that just in reading that last phrase, live in love with each other, live in peace with each other.

He does realize that within the local church, there could be a storm. He appreciates that within the local church, there are several strata of people, and he's going to identify these strata, and each one of the strata represents a weakness. We'll come to that in a moment.

But the thing that he's going to make clear is that when he starts to identify the weakness, the people who should be engaging in applying the correction are not just the leaders, but the total congregation. We urge you brothers, he's going to be talking about the idle, and the timid, and the weak. He's going to be talking about those who have some sort of deficiency within their spiritual life, and he wants those who have these deficiencies to find help.

But you see, here you get the wonderful balance in the teaching of Paul. Having isolated the fact that there are leaders, having identified the sort of work in which they are to engage, he does not say that the pastoral ministry belongs to those men exclusively. He does not say that the pastoral ministry belongs to men exclusively per se.

He says that the pastoral ministry, the responsibility within the church for nurturing and helping comes from every member, man or woman, who is to do what he or she can for the benefit of the local church. So let's work through his argument. You find it from the 13th verse, the second part of the 13th verse, to the 15th.

He speaks about those who are idle as one strata within the church, one grouping. But by idle, well, he has some interesting ideas. He's talking about those who are insubordinate, those who are like soldiers, out of step.

He might actually be thinking in terms of those who literally are idle loafers, who need the corrective of the West Indian song, you ain't going to heaven on a rocking chair because the Lord don't have no lazy bones there, which doesn't get a prize for grammar, but theologically, actually, it's on target. Now, there are those within the church, this church that Paul loves, but within the strata of the church, there are those who are idle, those who are out of step, who feel that everyone else is actually disorderly, but don't appreciate that they themselves are actually like him. And then he, in a very sensitive fashion, makes reference to the timid, encourage the timid.

The Greek actually means those who have little souls. Now, he's not using this in a nasty way. You don't find the apostle Paul doing this.

He's sympathetic. You see, here's this timid brother who has great difficulty. Somebody from his household has died.

He put his faith in Jesus, but Jesus isn't back, and he's seen this body just be put into the earth, and as a result of that, his faith is feeble, it's timid. Now, Paul tries to deal theologically, or does deal theologically with this, as we've discovered earlier on with this particular condition. I'll just cite you one example.

There may be many other reasons that contribute towards the timerity of these little souls. Paul identifies that there are such within the congregation. There are those who find faith very difficult to hang on to.

There are those who belong to the Lord Jesus, but they are also difficult, the idle, the timid. And then he makes reference to the weak. The connotation seems to be those who are morally weak.

Now, here is Paul, and he's told us about ourselves, hasn't he? Because we do have within our congregation, perhaps we recognize within some of these characteristics ourselves. We do appreciate that what Paul is referring to has relevance today. Now, once again, I put the question to you, who applies the corrective? And how is the corrective to be applied? And it is not just leadership, not the leadership alone, because no leadership can pass to four or 500 people.

There are giftings within the body that have to be released, one person coming alongside another person. You see, here is Paul, and he's a very stoical fellow in some ways. I mean, we would say of his life that it's a perfect life as far as we know, yet he considers himself to be the chief of all sinners.

And when he deals with the weaknesses within this Christian community, note how he couches his instructions towards these three deficiencies that he's recognized. We urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle. He doesn't say excommunicate them.

We urge you, brothers, encourage the timid. He doesn't say put the fear of God into them. We encourage you, brothers, be patient with everyone, help the weak.

And the idea is putting your arm around somebody who's flagging or failing. You see, what a supreme example of the pastoral attitude the apostle gives. And he's directing his comments, I repeat, not just to the clergy, quote-unquote, but to the laity, for with the apostle Paul, there are no tensions in this respect.

And he would have thought the future course of church history to be tragic, that there could have been two compartments sometimes rivaling, speaking against one another. No, says the apostle, this is the way to conduct your affairs. This is the way that church life is to be lived.

See to it, he says, see to it that nobody pays back wrong for wrong. Here he has the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount ringing in his ears. Here he has the example of our Lord Jesus, always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.

Because when Jesus was spoken against, he did not speak back. He did not repay in the currency that they doled out to him. And Paul's example is insignificant compared with Jesus.

And what you have here, compressed together, is a beautiful exposition and summary of what our Lord gives in the Sermon on the Mount. And don't you see that when all this is put together, when these characteristics are teased out, when other characteristics replace them, when you've got a leadership, when you've got a laity, when you've got people working together for the benefit of one another, loving one another, forgiving one another, practically demonstrating their theological convictions, then you've got a happy family. Then you have the Church of Philadelphia, the church of brotherly and sisterly love.

The local church, ideally specific in its leadership, pacific in its fellowship, finally holistic in its worship. Now from verse 16 right through to verse 21, you get some injunctions, you get some specific commands given by the Apostle. Always be joyful, continually pray, ever give thanks, never dampen the spirits working, be open to the word, exercise discernment.

I could perhaps have said when coming to this last point that what the Apostle Paul was arguing is that people should be charismatic in worship, but he doesn't, doesn't, not exclusively. What he argues is that people should be holistic. You say, what do you mean? Well, let me just argue for a moment to clear the way and to firm this up in your conviction that what the Apostle here is directing as commands is to the whole church.

He still has these brothers and sisters in mind. He's not speaking to individuals in their private life. He's speaking to the church when it comes together.

These are injunctions which are to govern worship. I mean, it can't be private, can it? I mean, he talks about giving a kiss. You can't do that privately on your own.

You should blow it, and I don't think that was the Apostle Paul's mind. In his mind, he doesn't seem to be in that sort of temperament. He talks about prophecy.

Well, there aren't really circumstances in which you can prophesy on your own. Here is the congregation together. Here he is defining what congregational life is like.

And the reason why I veered away from charismatic in describing this is because there are some who believe that charismatic is equivalent to rampant freedom, as though form is wrong in a church service. But it seems to me that when you read the New Testament epistles and the description of worship, there is this delightful blend between the structure, the form, and the spontaneity, the contribution on the spot. So when they come together, they'll read from the scriptures.

When they come together, it seems as though there are certain phrases that have actually become so familiar in their minds that they've turned them into little refrains, what we would call scriptural choruses. There is a form, and there is also a spontaneity. And within the form, when they come together, what are they to expect? Well, always be joyful.

Now, it's not easy to be joyful in every circumstance, but I think what the apostle has here in mind, be joyful at the thought of you being a part of the body of Jesus Christ. Always let that be the thing that brings you out of your depression into a realization of the riches that are yours through him. Be joyful always.

You come together, you Thessalonians, from your diverse backgrounds. Some of you are slaves. Some of you have been maltreated, but you're the lords.

Be joyful when you're together. Christians gathering together should be a joyous company. Pray, pray continually, and in your prayers, give thanks, ever give thanks to the Lord in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you.

But don't put out the Spirit's fire. If when you are gathering together and there is a special consciousness of the Spirit resting upon you, and there are involuntary contributions, then you seize on those freedom and form, spontaneity, and what is prepared. Some don't believe that God can bless what is prepared.

Some believe that only what is prepared is proper, but it seems to me that in these commands there is the balance of both, being joyful, prayerful, ever giving thanks, never dampening the Spirit's working, open to the Word. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Prophecy generally speaking is speaking forth the Word of God.

I imagine that way back in the apostolic times when they didn't have the scriptures as we have completed, then they were that much more dependent on a direct, dynamic word from the Lord. The scriptures now have been completed, and it seems to me that though that ministry still exists in some principle, in the substance that it was there then, it perhaps isn't present now. But God does speak through His Word today as He spoke by the prophets then.

God does still give intuition today as He did then. God does sometimes use unusual, unlikely people from the congregation then, and He does now. And you are to come together with this joyfulness, with this prayerfulness, with this thankfulness, looking to the Holy Spirit to enable you to recognize His Word, whether the Word is preached to you directly in terms of exposition of the Bible or a biblical passage, or whether through someone getting up and making an involuntary contribution.

Be open to the Word. Ever exercise discernment. Hold on to the good.

Test everything. Avoid every kind of evil. Here is the apostle heaping commands upon this Thessalonian community, coaxing them to a greater degree of maturity.

Here I see he's setting forth what are binding principles for the local church for all times. Specific in their leadership, they acknowledge the men that God has given them in terms of being their main spiritual leaders. Pacific in fellowship, coming together harmoniously, each recognizing that there is a gifting that they possess and that the work of pastoring, the work of helping, the work of encouraging a deeper spirituality is the responsibility of the total congregation and not just the leadership.

Wholehearted in worship, enjoying the prepared, open for the spontaneous. And the apostle Paul, because he's always to the last degree a pastor, then breaks away from these final injunctions and prays for these people. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

May you be individually and collectively wholeheartedly for God. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless until the day of the coming of Jesus, that day to which I referred. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

The energy that allowed Paul to be successful as an apostle, he believes that spiritual dynamism will be available to every member of the local church so that they too can rise to their responsibility and attain the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. I, says the apostle, but there's still a slop of water as he listens and thinks again about the teaching of Jesus and remembers the example of Christ who washed the feet of the disciples. I, brothers and sisters, pray for me.

Remember I've got my Achilles heel. Pray for your leader. Pray for the vulnerability amongst the apostles as well as amongst the elders.

Pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

Here is Paul, completely unapologetic. He knows that what he has written is beyond just ordinary prophecy, which is to be judged. This is the inspired word of the Lord.

I charge you, brothers, take this. I've received this from God. That which I have received from the Lord, I deliver unto you.

This is not open for contention. This is not open for debate. This is the express will of God.

These are his purposes for the church at Thessalonica, not just for the church at Thessalonica, but throughout the whole of the area. Therefore, take this letter and have it read and live by these principles which have been scripturated, written down, and placed before you, for you to benefit from them. He concludes, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

That's what a local church should be like, specific in its leadership, specific in its fellowship, holistic in its worship, praying for the leaders, and the leaders praying for the people, and all of us seeking the mercy and the forgiveness of almighty God who sent his beloved Son to be our Savior. So we pray for the character of Christ to be more formed in us as we turn to 463. May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day by his love and power controlling all I do and say.

Please be seated. I detain you for two minutes longer and then a prayer. I'll be glad to have your company this evening when a rather extraordinary man, Bill Drake, will be with us.

His medium may not quite be to your taste, but the way that God has blessed a man who was abused in the early years of his life and has used his testimony incredibly to the salvation of probably hundreds of young people is a man who deserves our respect. And if you can be along this evening on this evangelistic occasion, then we'd be glad to have your company. The last time I shall be in the pulpit when Brother Tim is part of our staff is next week I shall be in Nairobi.

Tim will be responsible for the ministry throughout next Sunday. And later on, the week following Wednesday, as a church fellowship, we'll be gathering together for a farewell, which will be somewhat lighthearted, as well as having a more serious and emotional touch to it. But we're grateful to Tim and to Anne and their delightful little family for the years with us.

Let's pray. Father, we praise you for your goodness to this local church. Thank you for your faithfulness, for men, for women, that you've given us down the years.

Thousands now in the Church of the Firstborn in heaven. Thank you for those who are part of our body but serving you abroad. Commit the handsomes again to you as they add to that number.

Be with them. And for the church here during the Easter period, bless it. And this Holy Week, in our times of gathering together, use our specific gifts as we come.

Use us, Lord, in the maintenance of the ministry. We ask that Easter may be special, that your servant may have a special unction as he enters this pulpit, that it will be with him and Anne and the family. And bless them in the days, the months, the years that are to come.

We commit them and we commit ourselves to you. And we ask for each of us, pleading your mercy upon our lives, that we may see you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly until our journey's done. Amen.

Good morning. God bless. Thank you for coming.

Amen.