Quietness/Self Interest/Industriousness

Introduction: The Context of Pleasing God and Brotherly Love

0:03 Let's turn again this morning to 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 4, 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 4. I'm glad to have some old-timers back with us today, and I know when Cheat left we were still in 1 Thessalonians. I don't think we were there when Doug and Betty were with us, and we certainly welcome these folks back with us today. However, as we plot along, verse by verse, we find ourselves this morning in Chapter 4, and particularly focusing our attention upon verses 11 and 12. And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you, that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing. Remember the general setting now of any of the instructions which we confront in these two chapters, Chapters 4 and 5.

1:24 They deal with the general theme of how to walk and abound in a life that is well-pleasing unto God. For in Chapter 4 and verse 1, the Apostle explicitly states that this is his theme. Ye know, brethren, how we exhorted you to please God, even as ye do walk. That ye abound more and more.

1:49 As he unfolds the subject of how to walk so as to please God, he has already touched upon two very basic elementary themes. First of all, the theme of sexual purity, which we studied for some three or four weeks in the first paragraph. And then the subject of brotherly love, beginning in verse 9 and continuing at least down through verse 10. Now, when we come to verses 11 and 12, we might ask the question, what is the connection between this and brotherly love?

2:21 If you have a paragraphed Bible, most of them include verses 11 and 12 in the paragraph, beginning with verse 9, dealing with the subject of brotherly love. Now, how does he move from the subject of brotherly love to this exhortation to be quiet, to do your own business, to work with your own hands, with the added incentive that in so doing we shall please God and have our own material needs met? Well, let me suggest what might be the connection. I confess that this has puzzled me, and as I've read over it and prayed over it and studied and sought out whatever light I could get from the commentators, I'm not convinced that I yet understand the connection, if indeed there is a logical one. But let me throw out several suggestions. It could be this. If we abound in love one to another, for that is the exhortation that we considered last week, it will mean that we must learn to be careful to keep our own place in love with one another, for if we don't, we'll cause a rupture in love.

3:32 You see, if a people are to abound in love one to another, they've got to learn to keep their own place. And what causes friction in an assembly is when someone moves out of his place and begins to mind somebody else's business, then you have the problem of friction. So it could be that Paul is looking at this thing from a very practical standpoint, and he's saying, now concerning brotherly love, you don't have a crisis situation that prompts me to write you, but I do write you to abound more and more. And if you're to abound in love, you better learn how to be quiet, do your own business, work with your own hands, because the moment you cease doing that, you're going to have all kinds of friction and the opposite of love one to another.

4:15 Now that could be the connection, it seems to fit, or perhaps this is the connection. The apostle recognizes, as he indicates in many of his writings, that left to ourselves, there's no wonderful truth of God which we won't take and abuse, and what should be for our good, we'll use for our harm. The medicine of divine truth that's there to heal us, will either take too much and ruin ourselves, or take too little and fail to experience its benefit. So maybe Paul recognizes, that if he exhorts the people to love one another, why, what does love do?

4:49 As we saw last week, it responds to the need of my brother. Well, maybe Paul knew, he had some filters there in the assembly, he'd say, look, you're supposed to abound in your love to me, so they just start inviting themselves over for Sunday dinner, every Sunday, and they just start showing up all the time, unasked and unwanted, until finally they begin to filch on the brethren, and so they have a togetherness orderly, orgy, where people refuse to bear their own responsibility and start sponging on each other. So maybe the apostle is anticipating how this wonderful truth might be abused, and he's putting in the corrective. Or the third alternative, it could be, just moving into another subject and there's no logical connection.

5:33 Now that's entirely possible because he does that later on, in chapter 5 particularly, and many of his other letters, where he just moves from one subject to another, and there's very little logical connection. However, whether this is an appendix to brotherly love, or whether this is a new arm, all of its own, a new subject, it's obvious that the subject before us is what we might call sanctified quietness and industriousness, and this has to do with how to please God. Remember now, we're not just giving little moral snippets of how to be nice and good. This is redemptive truth, as a redeemed one of the Lord, he has purchased you that you might please him, that you might, as Peter says, show forth the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into marvelous light, and if you're to do so, you must not only face honestly, and by the grace of God, appropriate and to experience the teaching concerning sexual purity. Certainly any professing Christian who disregards the first paragraph brings great reproach, to the Lord, and sorrow to himself. Certainly anyone who disregards the teaching of verses 9 and 10, and doesn't seek to dwell in love with the brethren and abound in love, brings reproach to the Lord and sorrow to his own heart.

The Three Exhortations: Quietness, Self-Interest, and Industriousness

6:57 Well, with no less authority, the apostle now instructs us about being quiet, doing our own business, working with our own hands, and if we would please God, we must take to heart the directive here, just as I trust we've taken to heart the directive concerning brotherly love in general and sexual purity in particular. Now, to think our way through these verses, it's very simple. Sometimes the outline is stamped right there, and this is one of those cases. You have, in verse 11, three specific exhortations.

7:31 Study to be quiet, number one. Do your own business, number two. Work with your own hands, number three. Then in verse 12, we have two reasons to enforce these exhortations, first one, that ye may walk becomingly to them that are without, the second, that ye may have need of nothing.

7:50 So if you can't give back the outline this morning because you're not reading your Bible, or you've got the wrong Bible, there it is, stamped right on the face of the verses. Well then, let's consider, first of all, the three exhortations. You say, Pastor, why do you call them exhortations? Well, because they're a continuation of what he said in verse 10.

8:11 But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound, more and more, that is, in brotherly love, and also, we also exhort you, that ye do these things. He doesn't repeat the word exhortation, but this is all part of his exhortation. And as we considered last week, an exhortation is an authoritative charge, directed to some specific activity. Therefore, God wants us to understand what the charge is, and he is demanding that our wills, that we comply, and we say, Lord, by your grace, I will do it.

8:49 So God is addressing your mind, your thinker, and your will, your choosing. Now, what are the exhortations? Well, the first one is what I'm going to call sanctified quietness. The second one, sanctified self-interest.

Exhortation 1: Sanctified Quietness

9:04 And the third one, sanctified industriousness. I exhort you, the apostle says, that you study, be quiet. He is exhorting to sanctified quietness. Now, the word study is a very interesting word, only used two other times in the New Testament.

9:27 In Romans 15.20, it's translated as ambition.

9:33 Paul is speaking about his activities as an apostle, and he says in Romans 15.20, Yea, making it my ambition, or my aim, so as to, to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, that I might not build on another man's foundation. Now, it's obvious what the word means there. Paul had a distinct goal in mind as he laid out his evangelistic endeavor.

10:01 Wherever the gospel was already planted, he deliberately avoided those places. And as he'd look at a map, if he had a map, of where the gospel had not penetrated, he would scheme and plan and pray and purpose to take the gospel to those places. In other words, the word has the connotation of ambition, of calculated, clear ambition. It's the word used in 2 Corinthians 5.9, where Paul says, Wherefore we make it our aim, our ambition, that whether present or absent, that is, present in the body or absent from the body, to be well-pleasing unto God. Paul says the conscious, clear, consuming goal of my life is to be pleasing to my God. Now, Paul says, study to be quiet. That is, make it your conscious, deliberate, concerted effort to be quiet.

11:03 Now, what's the word quiet mean? It means to be of a peaceable temper and bearing. It's the opposite of the person who is characterized by strife and contention. And it's often connected with the whole world.

11:16 The whole idea of being like a bee flitting from one flower to another with the idea of a busybody. For it's used in that connection in 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 11 and 12. For we hear, There are some who walk among you disorderly that work not at all but are busybodies. Now then that are such, we command and exhort that with quietness they work.

11:41 See, the opposite of being a busybody and running hither and yon and being an instrument of the world, and being an instrument of the world, and being an instrument of dissension is that you be quiet.

11:51 That you exemplify in your life that peaceable, restrained temper. It's the word used in 1 Timothy 2, verses 11 and 12. I suffer not a woman to teach but to be quiet. It's the word used in 1 Peter 3, 4 of the adornment of a meek and a quiet spirit.

12:14 Well, I think you get the idea of the meaning of the words. Now, what is Paul saying?

12:21 Not all exhortations come to all of us with the same force. Some things are more difficult for some of us than for others. Now, when Paul says in Timothy, Charge the rich in this world that they be not high-minded. Most of us breathe easy when we read an exhortation like that.

12:40 We say, doesn't apply to me. Now, some of you, when we preach through 1 Thessalonians 4, probably have to say, well, that doesn't apply much to me. Someone in their 70s or 80s generally won't have the same problem with the matter of sexual purity that a 15-year-old or a 16-year-old or a 30-year-old will have. So you can breathe a bit easy.

13:02 Now, some of us may face a command like this and say, well, that doesn't apply to me as much as maybe others. Granted. But remember, there is no virtue of the Christian life that any of us has to perfection. So no matter how much this may be our strong point, there's none of us who can cast this aside lightly.

13:19 And frankly, there's some of us who need this desperately. For this is one of our glaring weak points, that we have not learned to be quiet. And so the exhortation comes to us that you make it a conscious, deliberate ambition toward which you move with concerted effort to be quiet.

13:43 In a tumultuous world filled with a meaningless blur of mingled sounds, a quiet saint is a beautiful man. People at the office running off at the mouth about this and that, silly talk, dirty talk, gossipy talk. And in the midst of all of that, someone with the sweet fragrance of Christ just quietly going about his or her business. What a beautiful oasis in a parched, sinful world.

14:15 Now, Paul says that ought to be the mark of you Christians there at Thessalonica. You ought to study to be quiet. You ought to study to be quiet. You ought to study to be quiet.

14:21 And it involves, of course, keeping your mouth shut when you ought to keep it shut. James says, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak. It ought to involve our whole to manner and bearing that we're not, as it were, all in a tither and jumble. This quietness is to pervade the spirit as well as the activity of the lips and of the tongue.

14:48 Now, if that's so, this is God's standard for us. Anything less than this is sin. This is the will of God, Paul says. Even your sanctification in the first few verses of chapter four. Now, what does that involve?

15:01 It involves sanctified quietness. Not a temperamental quietness. You see, some of you by nature are just quiet. In any given group you'll never have the problem of dominating the conversation. You're just not built that way.

15:17 But you see, if the only reason you're quiet is because that's the way your genes went together when you were conceived, and that's the kind of temperament you got passed on down from grandpa and grandma, well then you see that kind of quietness is no virtue. But when you as a Christian say, God expects this of me, and in order to be pleasing to Him, I will seek to adorn this characteristic, then what is just a temperamental quietness now becomes an indication of something that God has wrought in you by His grace and by the application to your own heart and light of His truth. Now, what's the next thing to which He exhorts? And I'm just giving you the meanings now. I haven't come to exhortation in much application. It's what He calls what I'm calling sanctified self-interest. Study to be quiet and to do your own business. I came out of the study the other day laughing. I said,

Exhortation 2: Sanctified Self-Interest

16:11 Honey, you know where this phrase do your own thing got started? In the Greek, this is what it says literally. If I were translating word for word from the Greek, it'd be this. And that you do the things of your own. Paul says do your own thing. That's what he's saying. Do your own thing. Study to be quiet and to do your own thing. Now, what's he mean?

16:36 Oh, I think this is what he means.

16:39 He says you have a circle of your own God-given responsibilities as fathers, mothers, Christians, elders, deacons, whatever you are, every one of you there at Thessalonica, you have your own circle of God-given responsibilities. Now he says, get so absorbed in doing your own thing. In doing what falls within the circle of your responsibility, you won't have time to be flitting out here and yon making evaluations on other people and how they're taking up their responsibility and trying to help them here and there. You do your own thing.

17:18 Sanctified self-interest. Now you see, there's an unsanctified self-interest. That must be denied. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.

17:28 I may say there is an unsanctified concern for others.

17:35 When people are concerned for the things of others at the expense of not doing their own things. And you see, there's a connection between the first two. Usually such people are not quite being negligent in their own personal duty. They can give great advice to others on how they ought to perform their duty or on how poorly they're performing it. And Paul says, no, you must be ambitious to be marked by sanctified quietness and sanctified self-interest. Your circle of responsibilities as a citizen, a husband, a mother, a member of the body of Christ is so demanding, you don't have time to be doing somebody else's thing.

18:20 And behind this, and I believe the apostle probably recognized this principle when he wrote these words. If he didn't, he says them elsewhere. There's an aversion, to your flesh and mine, to everything that is the will of God for me personally. Galatians 5, 17 The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary the one to the other. Now why is it so easy to be meddling in somebody else's thing and so difficult to apply yourself to your own thing? Well you see, your own thing is the will of God for you. And there is in your flesh even as a child of God, an aversion to anything that's the will of God for you.

19:04 So recognizing that, Paul knows there is this constant tendency for the flesh to manifest itself in being careless about our own thing and meddling in somebody else's thing. The itch to be doing somebody else's thing or evaluating somebody else's thing and that causes great trouble in human relationships.

19:28 Now, lest some abuse this and get so selfish they don't care about others, part of your thing is being sensitive to the needs of your brother. They're one another's burdens. That's part of your thing.

19:40 It's being concerned about my brother. That's part of the circle of my thing. But in order to illustrate this, picture how grotesque it would be if as I'm preaching this morning, here my hands are doing their thing. They're helping me preach this morning.

19:57 As one of my friends said, if he ever tied my hands behind my back, I couldn't talk. It would be like cutting out half my tongue. And I believe him. I don't know what would happen if I had to stick my hands in my pockets.

20:06 Now, my hands are doing their thing. My feet are doing their thing. They're supporting me as I move around behind this book. My tongue is doing its thing.

20:14 Now, suppose all of a sudden the tongue begins to get concerned about the foot. And it reaches out here and begins to start making evaluations about the foot. And the eyes, instead of looking at you, begin to go out here and look back and see if the hand's doing its thing. Well, you see how grotesque this would be. The reason I'm able to communicate to you this morning is that the hand is rightly related to the head and to the central nervous system. The foot is rightly related. The tongue, the eyes, all of the faculties rightly related to the central nervous system are getting their directions from the head and they're doing their own thing. And because they are, this body as a harmonious integrated whole is a vehicle of communication to you.

20:57 See? I'm communicating not just with my eyes or with my tongue but with my entire being.

21:05 And it's because every member in my body is doing its own thing as directed from the head. Now, God uses that illustration of the body of Christ again and again in Scripture. Christ is the head. He has set the members in the body.

21:21 And in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul has to elaborate on this. The problem at Corinth was they weren't content to be and do their own thing. They wanted to be and do somebody else's thing. Why?

21:37 Because the grass is always greener. The flesh, lust, is against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. For the Holy Spirit has come to indwell us. Why? To enable us to do our own thing. What God has appointed for us to do. The Holy Spirit hasn't come to equip you to do my thing or Miss so-and-so's thing or Mr. So-and-so's. He's come to equip you and make you able and competent to do the thing that is the will of God for you.

22:09 And so Paul exhorts them then to this sanctified self-interest.

22:15 It is reported that a lady one time came to Frederick the Great and complained and said, Oh, how terribly my husband treats me. And he said, Madam, that's none of my business. Ah, she said, but if you knew how evil he talks about you, he says, Madam, that's none of your business. You get it?

22:39 Oh, my husband treats me. He said, that's none of my business.

22:45 You've got to resolve your problem. That's between you and your husband. Don't come gabbing about your husband to me. So she thought, well, she'd hook him in by saying, yeah, but he talks evil about you. So that's none of your business.

22:56 If he talks evil about me and I hear of it, I'll go to him. That's none of your business.

23:01 This is what I'm talking about. How often problems arise in an assembly when we simply start doing somebody else's thing and we don't mind our own business.

Exhortation 3: Sanctified Industriousness

23:18 Then the third thing to which he exhorts is what I'm calling sanctified industriousness. Study to be quiet, to do your own things and, he says, to work with your hand. The word work here is the common word used for labor. 1 Corinthians 4.12, Paul says, working with our own hands. Ephesians 4.28, labor, working with your own hands that you may have to give to him that need it. It's used in 2 Thessalonians 3, four times it's used in that chapter.

23:54 And so it speaks by way of symbol, working with your own hands, would of course in an exclusive sense refer to someone of the artisan class, a potter, a carpenter, a mason. But Paul is speaking of any form of legitimate employment. He's saying here that you Christians are to be marked by sanctified industriousness, giving yourself to that circle of labor and responsibility to which God has called you. What a tremendous lesson this is for the people of God and in particular in our day where the whole area of labor relationships has become so strained and so absolutely ludicrous.

24:38 Those of us who live in the metropolitan area, we know that part of every day's news is going to be two or three more strikes. We know that. I mean, we just get insensitive to it. I don't know how Mayor Lindsay keeps his cool. I think if I were him, I'd say who in the world wants this job? Throw down the gauntlet and quit. And let the city go to pieces. I mean, I just marvel. God must give that man an awful lot of common grace or he's got an awful lot of political ambition one or the other to ever stick with that mess there. Just the labor mess alone. And one of the problems that you and I face is that we have inherited an unscriptural concept concerning labor. Labor in our day is looked upon as a necessary evil to get a paycheck to get the thing that's really virtuous things that the money can buy. It's the things

25:31 that the paycheck can procure that is the real goal and the labor the work is a necessary evil, a means to that end. Isn't that the philosophy? You see, it's that vacation. It's that new suit.

25:48 It's that car. It's the kids in college. It's this thing or that thing. That's the real goal. That's the real pearl.

25:56 And this is just wading through some mud to get to the pearl.

26:01 You gotta go through the mud to get to the oyster that's got the pearl. And we have lost the biblical concept of the sanctity of labor. Remember, now what is the theme of this chapter? How to walk so as to please God. Now how do you please God? Paul says by sanctified industriousness. And when you go back to the account of creation you find God placing Adam in the garden before sin ever entered and he gave him an artisan's task. He said dress the garden and keep it.

26:39 And so Adam got down on his hands and knees and he got dirt under his fingernails and dirt on his knees and God smiled upon him in that labor in the earth as much as when he came out to walk with him in the garden in the cool of the day. And you say what difference does that make? It'll make a tremendous difference. As we come to verse 12.

27:05 Your attitude to work. If you see the sanctity of labor as the appointment of God in the original creation and then see that in redemption now we have this new motivation as Paul says to slaves. What lower life can you have than a slave? Someone whose sweat is the property of his master. And Paul says to slaves he says do your work not with thy services men. But singleness of heart fearing the Lord for ye serve the Lord Christ.

27:44 So when the slave came in to clean up the mess that his master made at his banquet he says you're serving Christ.

27:56 You're serving Christ. When the mother has to sweep up the crumbs from the floor put the dirty diapers in the washing machine and sew the buttons on her husband's coat she's serving the Lord.

28:12 Some of you drive that truck or turn that lathe or whatever else it is push that fire hose up on the building. You serve the Lord Christ.

28:25 And when we get that biblical perspective at work. No longer is it a drudgery to be suffered and endured for the sake of my testimony but it's a service rendered to my God which is pleasing in His sight. Now Paul says I want you to learn that. I want you to learn that.

28:47 You see unless you can learn to get and I use the word carefully unless you can learn to get some legitimate thrill in doing your round of daily task as unto the Lord. You know what you're going to have to do? You're going to have to take that hard earned money and spend it for trying to get your thrills elsewhere. And isn't that a picture of our society?

29:07 What are they striking for? Not because they're starving. Want more money to do life. To get more things.

29:14 To give you a little lift in life. Want a longer vacation. To get a little lift in life. Why? Because there's no lift in the labor. Because this is just an evil to be endured.

29:25 Isn't that the philosophy? But you see when you as a child of God get this biblical concept. That's not an evil to be endured. This is holy service to be rendered to my God.

29:38 Oh the tremendous difference it makes. And Paul says that's what I want you people at Thessalonica to learn. I want you to learn sanctified industriousness. And then he puts in this little phrase before we move on to verse 12.

29:54 Even as we charged you. Now isn't that interesting? He was only there three weeks. And one of the notes that he struck in his initial evangelism and Christian life teaching was what?

30:08 Sanctified quietness.

30:11 Sanctified self-interest. And sanctified industriousness. He says, even as we charged you. We made it very clear that when God saves you. He saves you. That he might make you whole men. True men. Men who have a wide and biblical perspective on life. And he made that a dominant note even of his early preaching. Now he moves in verse 12 to enforce these three exhortations with two basic considerations.

Reason 1: The Purity of Your Witness

30:43 In order that I charge you to these three things. In order that, two things. There might be one, the purity of your witness. That he may walk becomingly toward them that are without. And secondly, that there might be the provision of your legitimate needs. That he may have need or lack of nothing. Let's consider them in that order. First of all, he says, as God's people, if you learn these three things that I've instructed you about, there will be a purity and a power to your witness. That you may walk becomingly. What does the King James say? That he may walk honestly? Is that the word that's used?

31:25 Honestly? Toward them that are without? Now, honestly is a poor translation. Honestly it is.

31:33 It's the word that means decently or comely. It's used in 1 Corinthians 12, 24 where Paul says, on our comely parts we bestow honor. On our uncomely parts we bestow our more honor. It's the word used in 1 Corinthians 14, 20. Let all things be done decently and in order. Let all things be done in a fitting way. It's the idea of a woman who might come through the door here this morning. Dressed in beautiful, finer hair.

32:03 Piled up all beautifully. She's been to Ralph's Beauty Shop. And she has a mink stole on and everything. And you're just admiring her beautiful coiffure and her beautiful outfit in your head. And your eyes move from her head down to her garments. And then you see she's got some old dirty brown sneakers on her feet. And you say, how unbecoming. How uncomely. It doesn't fit.

32:27 It doesn't fit. Well, that's the idea Paul has here. Here's someone who's adorned

32:35 the profession of Christ. Who's adorned

32:40 an open confession of the Savior. Who professes to adorn the doctrine of God. And he's got the brown sneakers of an attitude that's far from sanctified quietness. Far from what we consider this sanctified self interest and this sanctified industriousness. Flitting about like a bee from place to place. Far from quiet. Far from occupied with his or her own circle of responsibility. Paul said no. It's only as you embody these three characteristics that there will be this comeliness in your witness. And I suggest for your own study that the emphasis of the New Testament on witnessing is far more heavy in the area of the witness of the blameless life of the believer in the natural circle of his contacts than on this idea of learning ten verses and three points and all the rest. You mention the word witness in the average evangelical church and you think of applied salesmanship. That is not the biblical concept.

33:48 Thank God there will be those who have the peculiar gift of evangelism and we're grateful that the Lord has put his hand upon several in our own assembly and equipped them in a special way to go out door to door and evangelize and confront men with the gospel. But the concept of witness in the New Testament is far more in keeping with this principle here. Paul says that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without. Where? In your day by day experience as they behold you in the midst of a world full of turmoil and tumultuous babble. They behold you with quietness.

34:30 In a world that's always sticking its finger in everybody else's business. As they behold you preoccupied in the right sense with your circle of responsibility. In a world that looks upon work as an evil thing. They see you discharging your responsibility as unto the Lord with a holy glow of contentment. He says ah the world is watching and the world sees. And takes note that here is a demonstration consistent with the profession of your faith.

35:03 Isn't this the emphasis that Paul gives in Philippians chapter 2 where he says in verse 14 do all things without murmurings and disputings why? That ye may be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom ye shine as lights in the world. You see the world has a very keen sense of what's befitting. Just like you know that brown sneakers don't befit a woman with her hair piled up all beautifully and her mink stole. You've got sense enough to know that brown sneakers don't fit. And the world has sense enough to know that the grumbling complaining attitude that they have to work and to labor is not befitting one who professes what you profess.

35:51 They know that the kind of unquietness of which they are guilty meddling in other people's business and yakking too much they know it's not right and they expect something different from you. May I say that those that are without are not only our neighbors and those with whom we work but our own unconverted children. They're part of the without.

Reason 2: The Provision of Your Legitimate Needs

36:15 They're part of the without and they see whether or not we become the gospel in these areas. So the apostle instructs us to embody these three virtues for number one the purity of our witness and then in the last place he says that you may have need of nothing. This will be the means by which there will be the provision of your legitimate needs. He says almost essentially the same thing in chapter 3 in verse 12 of the next letter 2 Thessalonians we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus that with quietness they work and eat their own bread.

36:55 He said your temporal needs will be met by honest industry. Now wait a minute the Bible says God meets my needs doesn't it? Philippians 4 19 but my God shall supply all your need. Did not our Lord instruct us in the 6th of Matthew to pray our Father who art in heaven give us this day our daily bread. Don't we ask God for our bread? Don't we plead the promise that my God shall supply your need? Don't we plead Matthew 6 33 seek first the kingdom of God and these things shall be added unto you? God meets the need and yet now Paul is saying be quiet do your own thing work with your own hands and you'll have need of nothing.

37:44 Well does God meet my need or do I need? Well God meets but he meets it by means of my sanctified industriousness. That's the means which he has appointed and it's presumptuous to expect God to meet that need if I'm not industrious. Just as it's unbelief not to believe him to meet it if I am industrious.

38:11 And so as God's people we often kick between the ditch and the quagmire of unbelief and presumption presuming God will meet it when we're not laboring with our own hands or here we're doing all to our utmost to labor with our hands and because we can't see how the needs will be met we what? We throw up our hands in despair and say God's promises don't work for me and we're guilty of unbelief. So you have to have here instruction that will keep us on the one hand from unbelief and on the other hand from presuming upon God. Now as we close our study this morning perhaps some are saying well you know pastor this really isn't quite up to par the kind of spiritual teaching I'd expect in a Sunday morning service this sounds rather practical and sort of mundane be quiet, do your own things, be industrious may I close our study this morning by pointing you to our Lord himself as the great embodiment of these principles scripture tells us in 1st John 2 6 that he that saith he abideth in him that is in Christ ought himself so to walk even as he walked picture our Lord the last record we have of him prior to his baptism by the river Jordan is that he went down with his parents to Nazareth and was subject unto death and then scripture

Christ as the Embodiment and Encouragement for All Believers

39:39 leaves us in at least 18 or 20 so years of absolute silence the next time we see him he's coming to the river Jordan to be baptized as he's baptized of John the heavens ring out with the voice of God and what does God's voice say this is my son my beloved one in whom I am well pleased now what pleased him had the Lord been out healing raising the dead preaching the gospel of the kingdom nothing of the kind what had he been doing for 20 years buried in a carpenter shop and they didn't have 8 hour days or 7 hour days or 5 day weeks remember the Lord said are there not 12 hours in the day in which to work to the people of his day that struck a note you work by the clock you didn't have the curse of electric light excuse me the blessing of electric light bulbs you didn't have the blessing of artificial lighting so when the sun came up you got up when the sun went down then you went down and that generally figures a 12 hour day 6 days a week and where was our Lord subject to his parents learning the trade of a carpenter from Joseph his stepfather

41:03 and at the end of those years the father speaks from heaven and says this is my son and I'm well pleased with him oh I trust this will do something for some of you mothers this morning I've seen the budding frustration that comes I'm not insensitive to the stress and pressures of a home with little ones and I know my own wife has said if she can remember what she's doing and to whom she's doing it makes all the difference in the world you wives you say what in the world am I doing for the cause of the kingdom of Christ what in the world am I doing to please God you study to be quiet keep off that telephone unless there's necessity to call or unless there's legitimate social need but some of you need to stop gabbing on that phone study to be quiet stop having the itch to get out of the circle of your own thing and say Lord here's the thing you've put upon me oh God give me grace to take it from you and to render it as unto you and to be industrious am I irreverent in saying that the father looks down at the end of such a day that had nothing but menial tasks but if rendered as unto him he says that's my child

42:31 in whom I'm well pleased isn't that the theme of chapter 4 he said I'm telling you how to walk so as to what to please God this is not blasphemous this is what scripture says that pleases him some of you nurses beating up and down that cord until your feet ache and your corns ache and you say what in the world have I done today well you see if you've done this consciously seeking to be quiet giving yourself to the circle of your own things laboring with your own hands in order that your own needs be met and more beside to give to the work of God and in order that they're in that circle where poor sinners live they live in that circle they have nothing but frustration their work is a burden their daily tasks are like a heavy weight upon them and they see you with something of the grace and fragrance of Christ exuding from your life you're there as a monument to the grace of God you haven't lived in vain some of you men maybe God's put such a hunger in your heart for the word and for his kingdom and his service you say oh if I could just get this burden of secular employment off my back and really serve the Lord you are serving him see it see the difference it makes you're pleasing him you're pleasing him that shop's not going to invite me down give a little sermon

44:00 and even if they did how would they know whether or not it was just a lot of preachers talking you're there God's son day after day week in week out you're there sermon they can't shut up sermon they can't turn off I don't want to labor the point but you see the encouragement that ought to come to you you who are in the providence of God relegated to that area of what we call secular employment it's not secular it's sacred if it's put within this framework it's made sacred by the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus so that as Paul said we serve the Lord Christ even in the most menial task then there's some of you who are strangers to the grace of God it's no wonder your work is a burden it's not only a burden to you it's a burden to God the scripture tells us in Proverbs I believe it's chapter 21 that the plowing of the wicked is sin here God's put you here on his earth to labor and to work is unto him and to his glory and all you do is labor to feed your body and clothe your back and put a roof over your head and provide for your children in that sense you see your motivations are no higher than a cow or a dog God didn't make you for that God made you that you might glorify him whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do

45:29 but you cannot please him until you're savingly joined to his dear son and so let me encourage you if you're not here to seek the Lord while he may be found and not only will you come into the glory of God and you'll be saved and you'll be saved and you'll be saved and you'll be saved and you'll be saved and you'll be saved and you'll be forgiven but the wonder then of day by day in whatever circle he's placed you knowing the joy of being his servant and bringing pleasure to his heart may God give us the grace to take the exhortation to sanctified quietness and some of you need it more than others may God help those of you who need it the most to take it to heart may it not be like it all most of the time and this is what discourages the people that need it last to get it all broken up to pieces the most and the people that need it most they can't hear a thing what you're saying will that be true this morning God grant that it shan't be and then may we take the exhortation to sanctified self-interest Lord what is my circle of responsibility help me to get over this itch for something more and give myself to it and to sanctified industriousness to labor with my own hands in the confidence that as I do I am walking becomingly to them that are without I am walking becomingly to them that are without I have a pure witness and I can plead the promise that he will provide my daily necessities let us pray