1 Thessalonians 5:14-15
Ministering to the Troubled
Grab your Bibles with me and open them to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. We transitioned last week in this letter from eschatology to a section filled with instructions for how to maintain a healthy church.
We said these verses from 12-22 are all about relationships. First, how you relate to your leaders in the church, then how you interact with others, and finally your relationship with the Lord.
Regarding your leaders (12-13)
Interacting with others (14-15)
Trusting your Lord (16-22)
Last week we looked at the obligation and privilege of the sheep to love and honor their shepherds. And the corresponding blessing that comes from that command. It strengthens the church. It makes the pastors job a joy and not a pain. It protects a key relationship that needs to be maintained for a church to remain strong.
Last week we looked at sheep and their shepherds. This week we move to dealing with other people (really everyone else you could say). And the bulk of this instruction is about how to deal with difficult people.
I love that about Scripture. It’s unapologetic and its raw.
Instead of pretending that relationships will be easy. We are instead told plainly how to deal with difficult people. And if I could frame up a trajectory here for how to think about this text, it’s showing us how things are supposed to look in the body of Christ.
What are we naturally predisposed to in the flesh? We gravitate toward certain kinds of people—who are the people that others like to associate with? People who are attractive and impressive (King Saul); people who are rich (Proverbs). People who are happy. People who are gracious. And appreciative. The flatterers. Why? Because those are relationships where you get something out of it for yourself. The Bible calls this partiality and it’s where you favor people based upon what’s rewarding to you.
Regarding relationships in this way is part of the old life. To be a consumer rather than a servant.
Christ has a higher calling for his bride. The church is a hospital. It’s a place for spiritually sick people to come and find care for their souls. And it isn’t based upon how much you deserve that care. And it certainly isn’t based in what you can contribute.
The church is a community of people transformed who put on display the glory of Jesus Christ by loving others the way our Savior has demonstrated love toward us.
Ministering to difficult people is challenging. It’s easy to ignore them. It’s easy to get angry with those who present challenges and don’t shape up. It’s easy to write people off in your heart when they have mistreated you. But Jesus presents an entirely different approach to life in the body of Christ.
He presents a body where the spiritual misfits and the down-and-outers, and the strugglers find strength and encouragement and care. The church is to be counter cultural in the way that we love one another and support one another, even when we are at our worst.
Early on in our family life even before Susie and I had children we were encouraged to cultivate our home as a refuge. It was great advice. To cultivate the atmosphere of the home to be a safe place.
Certainly, that we would deal with issues. Confront sin.
But to work hard, as best as we’re able to make it a place filled with love and encouragement and care. To know that when you are in our home you aren’t going to get belittled, or torn down, or ignored. You’re not going to have your own little life to yourself apart from the rest of us.
No, there’s a mindset that we are all in this together and we will lovingly bear up with one another’s weaknesses. That’s a blessing to me. Difficult work experiences. Difficulties in the church. You know that in the home everyone has each other’s back. There’s a loving commitment to help one another even when we are at our worst.
And we talk about it that way. Hey kids, daddy’s weak and struggling right now. Pray for daddy. Hey kids, one of your siblings is in a rough spot and it’s testing you, how can love and serve them in spite of being wronged? To create an environment that is characterized by graciously bearing up with one another and helping one another in this race called life. And to know that when you come into this home, you are accepted where you’re at.
We don’t do that perfectly, but that’s our aim. And its exactly how things are supposed to look in the church. If I could sum it up, we sinners stick together. It’s not a club membership for the people who have it all together. Its where sick people come to find the boundless love of Jesus Christ through the hands and feet of his people.
In the church of Jesus Christ, difficult people aren’t to be merely tolerated. They aren’t to be avoided. But lovingly ministered to not as projects, but as beloved brothers and sisters who need help.
Let’s pray again… God pour out your love on us, and make it abound through us toward one another—that your good and wise plan would be true of us.
Sub-Introduction
1 Thessalonians 5:12–28 (ESV) 12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
5 Practices for Bringing Jesus to Troubled People
Warn the line crossers
Encourage the discouraged
Help the weak
Endure the difficult
Bless the cruel
Here’s how this passage is structured: Paul gives a persona (a type of person in the church) and then he gives a one-word instruction for how to deal with them.
Now these are not exhaustive categories. By that we mean to say there are other types of people to minister to in the body This isn’t exhaustive.
Furthermore, these aren’t comprehensive labels. By that we meant to say that you may be weak in an area or dealing with someone who is a line crosser, but that’s not comprehensive of their walk with the Lord at any given moment, and certainly not permanent.
14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle,
5 Practices for Bringing Jesus to Troubled People
Warn the line crossers
admonish the idle, νουθετεῖτε τοὺς ἀτάκτους,
νουθετέω: to counsel about avoidance or cessation of an improper course of conduct, admonish, warn, instruct1
You perhaps recognize the νουθετέω word. It makes its way into our vocabulary in the study of the mind, which is the νοῦς. The nouthetic counseling movement which has been rebranded as the biblical counseling movement was borrowing from this biblical word. It was aimed at changing the inner life through the thoughts.
If you were distill down then, how people change, fundamentally, it is through the renewing of our minds. Truth comes in and we begin to evaluate and reason differently.
Who needs to be admonished?
Well, all of us. But here is one particular type of believer that Paul has in mind. It’s someone who is out of step. They are not in order. This word is used in various ways to mean someone who is disorderly. Insubordinate. Undisciplined.
Idle is not the best representation of this word. Several English translations capture it better with: undisciplined, disorderly, wrong doers, those who are not living right, and my personal favorite in terms of getting the sense, the unruly. That’s the persona here.
The reason its translated idle in some of your translations is because Paul uses it in the next letter to this church:
2 Thessalonians 3:11–13 (ESV) 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. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.
They weren’t working in the way they were supposed to be. But the contrast is that they are busybodies. So they are doing the wrong things, not merely lazy. And furthermore, Paul had two other better words to choose if the issue were merely idleness or laziness.
Outside of the New Testament the word for line crosser:
… refers to military officers who neglect their duty or to “an army in disarray” and out of its ranks, as well as to “undisciplined and insubordinate soldiers.” Likewise, one ancient author uses the word to refer to the Roman authorities who “have the right to expect from the [Roman] senate one whose life is licentious and disorderly.”2
There’s a pattern here it would seem.
The way I like to remember this person is the habitual line crosser. You aren’t running around correcting every speck in your brother or sister’s eyes. You aren’t a faultfinder. You aren’t overly critical. But you can identify patterns of disobedience in others that need to be identified, with the corresponding truth, and then urged to obey. To admonish someone means to say 1) here’s what you’re doing; 2) here’s what the Bible says; 3) let me encourage you to obey.
We warn because we love. Just consider how admonishment is written about in the New Testament. We see it done:
Persuasively and urgently with tears (Acts 20:31)
As a parent would plead with a beloved child (1 Corinthians 4:14)
In wisdom (Colossians 1:28)
And knowledge (Romans 15:16)
Using the word of Christ (Colossians 3:16)
Is this present in your life? Are you admonishing others? Are you being admonished? The flesh shrinks away from it in two ways. One, by keeping life so private and controlling your image before others that you avoid being admonished and two, by keeping relationships superficial and comfortable so you don’t have to step out and admonish someone else.
I call these terminally superficial relationships. That weakens a church. When everyone makes friends, who tell them what they want to hear and not what they need to hear. When conversations stay in a comfortable level. We’re missing out if we don’t learn to graciously give and receive admonishment when needed.
At CBC these are two statements that are part of joining the church:
Will you seek out mature believers to disciple you, and will you also disciple others? (1 Corinthians 11:1; Romans 16:15; Matthew 28:18-20).
Will you be willing to humbly give and receive correction and spiritual counsel, being careful to flee from pride and hiddenness in your life? (2 Timothy 2:24-26; Matthew 7:1)
This is what bodylife looks like. Now you might be unskilled in it. That’s okay. The Bible says you have what you need:
Romans 15:14—I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.
I know our flesh pulls away from it. We don’t have the right words. We aren’t sure that it’s our place. Our lives aren’t completely together yet. It’s easier to just shoot the breeze and have a good time.
Just trust the Lord and do it. Look, a church that is involved in this is a healthy church. Because we help one another live lives ordered by Christ. It’s about his supremacy. His honor. His reputation.
Pray about it and then go. Even this week. If you haven’t done it, it gets easier as you do it because you begin to realize how important it is. You begin to see how selfish it is not do it. And you begin to see the fruit from it.
The dearest people to me in the Lord admonish me. By God’s grace let’s help each other.
So we’ve established the driving focus of this text, the next points roll rather simply now.
5 Practices for Bringing Jesus to Troubled People
Warn the line crossers
Encourage the discouraged
encourage the fainthearted, παραμυθεῖσθε τοὺς ὀλιγοψύχους,
Encourage the fhe fainthearted. Fainthearted, which is a great translation, is translating the word: ὀλιγόψυχος. You’re familiar with an oligarchy (rule by a few) and ψυχή (the soul). Literally then this is a small-souled person.
It’s used physically. So, someone with a physically weak heart finds themselves what, easily winded. Out of breath.
In the Thessalonian context this was likely those who were beleaguered by trials.
Now correlate it spiritually. This is someone who gets dismayed. Overwhelmed by life. Overwhelmed by the call of Christ our captain. Sanctification is overwhelming. Obedience is overwhelming. It’s a lack of confidence in God and what he’s doing. All they can see is the size of the trial. The size of the problem.
There may be a tendency to focus on self and one’s own lack. History of past failures.
The mountain seems to big to climb. They don’t feel up to the task.
Little faith Jesus calls it in Matthew 6. Easily dismayed. Easily losing courage. Easily wanting to give up or give in because it feels like to much. This person needs others to come alongside and provide encouragement.
The very same way the ministry of the Spirit of God is described as the comforter in John 16 so you are to be to others.
Reminding them of God’s faithfulness. Evidences of his work in their life. Reminders to look to what is unseen and not to what is seen.
I recall being a season of faint-heartedness and I had called one of my pastors and I was in acute need during that time period. And as I have reflected back on those meeting and phone calls what I remember is that I didn’t receive any special hidden wisdom in our meetings. I wasn’t given the secret key to the Christian life.
But I was pointed back to the truth and encouraged to believe the basics I knew, but I couldn’t access them by faith in the moment I needed them. My experience felt like it was outside of God’s control and I was in a different category. And to have a dear brother just slow me down and stand firm at my side—that’s encouraging the faint-hearted.
The anxious. The timid. The despairing. The hopeless.
This person doesn’t to be admonished because they aren’t unruly. They need to be given gospel truths and reminded of the steadfast, strong love of God for them through Christ.
5 Practices for Bringing Jesus to Troubled People
Warn the line crossers
Encourage the discouraged
Help the weak
help the weak, ἀντέχεσθε τῶν ἀσθενῶν,
Devote yourself to the weak. Weak is the perfect word here. It means the sickly. The feeble. Those with incapacities. Those with limitations. Those who are helpless.
These are the spiritual down-and-outers.
You are to grab hold of them and hold fast. Not let go.
People who struggle to obey. They are prone to failure. Of course, we all fall short of God’s glory every day. But this is a habitual weakness.
They have a home in the church. A place in the body. And Paul calls the entire church to be devoted to these people.
Literally they need help.
This would of course still include the ministry of the word, but it would entail more than that as well… it would entail
These are the people that tend to fall through the cracks. They are the disenfranchised. We are to have classes within the church of those who are in and those who are not. We don’t all have the same gifting and function and role, but there aren’t to be divisions among the have and the have nots. That happened in Corinth with devastating results. At the Lord’s Supper some were hungry and some were feasting.
But Those who tend to get overlooked.
Jesus said that we are to minister to the least because that’s how he ministers to us.
1 Corinthians 1:26-27— For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
The church isn’t the club for strong people. It’s a place for weak fools to find strength and wisdom in Christ.
That’s the game plan for how to minister to others. Not everyone is going to excel in all of these. Some of you aren’t the most empathetic. Others of you could hardly confront someone if your life depended upon it. We want to grow in our ability to minister to others.
But what about when it doesn’t go well.
What happens when someone doesn’t embrace your ministry. They are stubborn. I mean you could have not been clearer with the truth in that meeting. You were so gracious and faith-filled in your response, and they’re unimpressed.
Nothing changes. Nothing happens. Nothing gets better.
5 Practices for Bringing Jesus to Troubled People
Warn the line crossers
Encourage the discouraged
Help the weak
Endure the difficult
be patient with them all. μακροθυμεῖτε πρὸς πάντας.
Let me state the obvious—difficult people require patience.
Unruly people sometimes stay unruly for a loooong time. Discouraged people sometimes get settled in their patterns of discouragement. And yes, weak people sometimes don’t become strong very quickly, or ever.
The first time you say it is easy enough. But what if you have to keep saying it. What if you have to keep supporting and encouraging? Positive outlook on what God is doing.
Simply embrace God’s plan for change. Look at the disciples… look at the churches… look at your own life. To be patient here (μακροθυμέω) is:
to bear up under provocation without complaint, be patient, forbearing3
One of the hallmarks of love. The ability to absorb wrongs. Absorb inconvenience. Absorb challenges and persevere in the relationship. Slow to passion. Slow to anger. You got a long fuse.
Even when provoked, not being quick to anger, but bearing up. Timothy is told that a characteristic of an elder is a man who has the ability to be patient when he is wronged (2 Timothy 2:24).
Typically, what we think of is that we are generally patient except for in a few relationships or with a few types of people who rub us the wrong way. That’s the very point. It’s the challenging ones that identify your lack of patience. Easy to be patient when you aren’t actually enduring pain and not receiving relief.
It won’t cut it to rely on your own strength. To fall back on a disposition of long-suffering. This is waiting patiently on the Lord as you continue to serve beyond your own strength and ability in the grace which he provides.
To keep a positive outlook. To keep willing to get back in the ring. To keep praying. Keep serving. Keep sharing.
Holding God’s expectations and not our personal ones.
Impatience is the frustration that results when our desires aren’t met when we want them to be.
Notice this is given to whom? Not to the pastors, but to the people. Last week it was to the shepherds, here it is to the sheep.
14 And we urge you, brothers, παρακαλοῦμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί,
We urge you church. Brothers is the collective masculine, plural. All the brothers and the sisters. The saints. The sheep. The folks.
He doesn’t say, call the pastor and tell him about the issues you see in someone’s else life in the church so he can go deal with it. You might need help thinking through something or encouragement to go yourself, but God gives us the wonderful privilege and responsibility of ministering to one another in these ways. In fact, the pastors equip the saints who do the work of ministry.
Mobilizing an entire body. An entire church. An entire group of priests. We are ministers. Servants. Servants of Christ and of one another.
This atmosphere in the body—the way that people are confronted and cared for is lived out by the saints with one another. Not based upon the worthiness of the other person, but the worthiness of Christ.
All of these are present active imperatives—there is an element of practice associated with them—you keep doing it and doing it. Question: in the past year, how have you been involved in giving and receiving this kind of ministry within the church? Do you avoid difficult and troubled people or do you minister to them?
Have you not received this ministry yourself? You have been taught by God. How patient has Jesus been with you? How many people has he sent to teach you the truth? How many times has he gently admonished you as you are reading your Bible or listening to a sermon? How many times has he been your source of strength and encouragement when you were weak and couldn’t go on?
Incarnating the love of Jesus… this is how he ministers to us and we are left here to act in his behalf. He warned Peter. He calmed the disciple’s fears. He fed the hungry. He restored Peter (patience).
We give what we have received. You know why we get impatient in part? We forget where we’ve come from. And we overestimate where we are today. We experience God’s grace and then give ourselves credit. Like that wicked servant in Matthew ???? who was forgiven much and went and demanded payment from the one who owed him. It’s about forgiveness, but the text says that the debtor asked for patience and he demanded payment immediately. Oh how quickly forget.
We are actually called a kingdom of priests. The role of a priest was… we minster to one another.
To give and receive this ministry is going to require opening up your life to others. It’s also going to mean inserting yourself in the lives of others. Some of you do this quickly and probably pretty easily. Others of you are experts at dodging the accountability of body life.
How patient are you? How many times are you willing to minister before you reach your patience limit? What about God’s patience toward you. What if it takes years? What if it takes decades? How can you be patient? God is the one who hardens and softens. God is the one who draws. And humble.
You are weakening the church if you ignore this. Think of the impact of 10 years of disobedience or 10 years of obedience to these instructions. Watch Jesus powerfully work among his people.
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the patient enduring ministry of others in my life. If it was come and whip into shape. Those who snap into line make it and those who don’t get out.
Preach with great instruction and a little patience. Great instruction and patience. No instruction and GREAT patience.
None of us is beyond this. You may not be characterized in your walk with Christ or in life as weak. But you need this ministry too. In the past month I’ve personally received admonishment, encouragement and help.
5 Practices for Bringing Jesus to Troubled People
Warn the line crossers
Encourage the discouraged
Help the weak
Be patient with everyone
Now the one that is least likely to be faked in your own strength. You need God’s divine power and the restraint of truth in your life for this one. You need to be convinced of the Father’s love for you.
Bless everyone (even the cruel)
15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, ὁρᾶτε μή τις κακὸν ἀντὶ κακοῦ τινι ἀποδῷ,
In this life we get wronged. People cheat. They slander. They lie. They offend. They do unkind things. They say hurtful things. They commit sin against us.
And oftentimes our flesh wants to retaliate.
Probably the most instinctual reaction. And to not retaliate, to not respond in a like fashion feels unjust. Unfair.
God has hard-wired a sense of justice in us. He is a just God. It is one of the most natural and instinctive sins.
Laws are to be just, and those laws would include retribution. In the Levitical law codes, we read of lex talliones—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. What’s that mean? When someone commits a crime, they ought to experience a consequence in keeping with the crime itself. And often times in retribution. You steal someone’s car and wreck it, then you buy them a new car. It would be wonderful if our criminal justice system took some notes from Leviticus. It’s how you would establish a just society.
While it is legitimate to impose reciprocal repayment or penalty when someone’s civil or economic rights are violated, chaos results when this is rigidly applied to interpersonal relationships. When we are offended, do we keep a grudge until we are able to “pay back” the one who hurt us?4
But that was the laws for governing a just society. When did it fail?
When people began to use it for establishing how they would conduct matters in their own personal life, and they would insist on getting their just dues.
When you are wronged, what do you do with that wrong suffered?
Negative side—do not retaliate.
Proverbs 20:22 (ESV) Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.
Matthew 5:38–39 (ESV) “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
1 Peter 3:9 (ESV) Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.
3 John 11 (ESV) Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.
Grates on us. Why?
We are so focused on our own little kingdom. Do you see what God has called us to here? How much greater and grander this is???
But that’s not where it stops. Not merely the absence of retaliation. Not simply saying, “I’ll stay over here and not lob grenades.” Actually, go across the aisle and do good.
but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. ἀλλὰ πάντοτε τὸ ἀγαθὸν διώκετε [καὶ] εἰς ἀλλήλους καὶ εἰς πάντας.
Grammatically here it would seem that it is when someone wrongs you even in the church, that you are to repay them with good.
I think of our Lord asking the Father to forgive those who were crucifying him. Father, they want my harm, and yet I want their good. And I want it at the deepest level of who I am.
This is a good place for confession. I don’t do much retaliated… it’s a generally frowned upon behavior for pastors. But when someone wrongs me? My heart wants to see them get their just deserves, even if it not through me.
Paul says do good to one another and to everyone. You’ve been wronged? Can you do good to that person? Can you treat them in the same way Jesus treats you?
There’s a priority here that is established in the Bible plainly:
Galatians 6:10 (ESV) So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
The church first cares for the church and then beyond.
These are our instructions. Jesus gave these to us as his bride. His precious bride. And it’s our privilege to honor him in how we relate to one another, especially when we are at our worst.
You know what happens when a church devotes herself to this? You have a culture of people who are filled with grace. May this be one of the marks of our church by God’s grace. A group of people who are devoted to one another, and troubled people aren’t merely tolerated, but loved and accepted.
Luke 22:26—But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.
Let’s make our church a place that sinners are welcomed and accepted through the love of Christ as we minister to one another.
