1 Thessalonians 5:12-15

1 Thessalonians 5:12-15  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 try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. 

The above scripture reveals clearly how we should LIVE in the Spirit.  We should respect our leaders in the church and HOLD THEM IN HIGHEST REGARD IN LOVE.  We should seek to live in peace with each other.  We should encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone and warn the idle in church that they should work for the Lord.  And of course, never pay back evil for evil, and try to be kind to everyone.  Sounds simple doesn't it, but in our day of electronic messaging, we see many messages on Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail breaking those simple guidelines to Christian living.  We have to stop and ask ourselves if we Christians really believe we are going to stand before our Lord someday to give an account of our words.  Do we sometimes find fault when we should be complimenting; do we tear down when we should be building up our pastors, our worship leaders, our friends, and our neighbors?  If we can't love them, how will we love the unlovely?  Jesus said,"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:43-45)  He goes on and says that anyone can love those who love us, even the pagans do that.  He says if you love your enemies you will be called sons and daughters of the MOST HIGH for God who made man in his own image sends his rain (blessings) on the righteous and unrighteous.  Unfortunately, some of what Christians say through the electronic media best illustrates the scripture in Isaiah that tells us that we are like sheep who have gone their own way, who have no shepherd to guide their ways.  Of course, this kind of self-willed life is repugnant to God, for HE desires us to reflect him to a dark and sinful world.  We are to be his ambassadors, showing forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness and love. 

As ambassadors we should possess God's wisdom, yet we sometimes stand on our soapboxes, loudly, even angrily, professing our words of wisdom for all to hear, thinking we know the mind of God.  We read in James 3:17, But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.  Anger, bitterness, hate, and discord are not part of the true wisdom of God that changes the hearts of men and women in a lost generation.  They are the characteristics of the fallen world.  Negative words and emotions don't illuminate the lost with God's light or penetrate hearts with his love.  Rather, those negative words and volatile emotions shroud the world even more in Satan's darkness and hatred.  All of us are susceptible to worldly, fleshly words and actions, for we are but flesh.  When we allow doubt, fear, and unbelief to enter our Christian beliefs and to permeate our thinking, we tend to strike out at the world in anger; and we soon find ourselves mired in the terrestrial, forgetting our purpose in life is to serve God, glorify his name, and bring others to him.  We forget who we are in Christ and who He is in us.  Today's passage orients us toward who we truly are in the family of God:  We are of the celestial, not the terrestrial.  We possess eternal life within us that will never fade away, a fountain of hope overflowing to share with every person we meet.  But our hope for the world is not to make it a better place where we can live at ease, but to offer freedom from sin and a certain hope of eternal life.  The martyrs understood these realities: they knew the world and everything IN IT would pass away someday, so their hope was in Christ the Eternal One.  As John wrote: Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.  (1 John 2:15-17)     

Our world presents so many distractions we have to remind ourselves who we are in the Lord.  How easy it is to become upset and bitter about events in the world.  We hate the sinfulness and waywardness, the way people treat our values and the things we cherish; but when we stop to pray for those same people, God's Word comes to our remembrance: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  (John 3:16-17)  We realize we must love the people of the world, even if they hate our message, our God and Savior, and us.  God sent his Son, his precious only begotten Son to save mankind.  He did not send him as the great condemner but as the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, Savior of all.  As his children, we are not free to sow criticism, discord, and hatred, no matter how right we think we are.  We must discipline our mouths and our actions to allow the Holy Spirit's attributes to control our lives.  As we have been writing in the last couple of breakfasts, the Spirit's characteristics should be our characteristics.  Do love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control overflow from our lives?   Stephen spoke harshly to the Jews at his stoning.  He told them that God was displeased with them because of their disobedience, their resistance to God changing their lives.  You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears!  You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!  Yet having said this, his last words before death showed the love of God for them flowing from his heart: Lord, do not hold this sin against them.  (Acts 7:51 & 60)  Let us not resist the Holy Spirit's wooing.  As much as is possible by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, may we live in peace with each other.   He asks each of us to come under his authority: to check our mouths, to control our actions, to be his children in a dark and sinful world.  Love your leaders in the church and out, pray for those who persecute you, comfort those who have no one to share their pain and sorrow.  This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  (1 John 1:5-7)