Shaming? Seriously?

to passing things out again. Well, take your Bibles and turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. I want you to follow as I read verses 6 through 15. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you receive from us for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us because we were not idle when we were with you nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you it was not because we do not have that right but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command. If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies. 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.

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Let's pray. Father, once more, we ask that your word would penetrate our hearts, that you would not just convict us, but give us hope in the Lord Jesus. We pray, Father, that you would be at work here today. we are thankful for your word we are thankful for how it directs us and teaches us how to be faithful disciples of jesus now father i pray guide our thinking open our hearts help us to change and do this for your glory we thank you in jesus name amen i don't know if you've noticed but our culture preaches an anti-shaming ethic it commands you to stop shaming people stop the fat shaming that is getting on people's cases because they fat or maybe they a little bit bigger than you stop the body shaming we told Stop shaming people because their body isn fit and toned Stop the mommy shaming That is, getting on some mom's cases because of the parental choices she's making.

By the way, daddy shaming comes in here too, but it's mostly mommy shaming. Of course, you also have to stop the trans shaming, the age shaming, the identity shaming. In other words, it's wrong to shame anybody. In fact, in our culture today, never let these words pass over your lips. Shame on you. But you know, I don't know what to do then with the text that we just read.

Is it always wrong to shame somebody? Is it wrong to use shame in the life of somebody? It must not be if God's word is true, because in this text, we are commanded to do something that will bring shame on some people. We need to look at that. Now, the text we have for today, verses 13 through 15, is part of a larger text that emphasizes God's view of work.

It's a text that urges, exhorts, and commands God's people to renounce laziness and to work. Now, God obviously puts a great deal of emphasis on work. As we saw last week, he says if you won't work, you should not eat. Or that if you refuse to work, others should not give you what you can gain for yourself. In our text this morning, he elaborates a bit more on that concept.

The concept of withdrawing fellowship to those who prove unwilling to work. Let's look at our text this morning, just a few verses, verses 13 through 15. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

You find here two commands. The first is, don't grow weary helping others. The second is, do not fail to discipline the lazy. Those are the two commandments that God puts forward to us in this text. first of all do not grow weary in helping others what exactly does the statement mean when he says as for you brothers do not grow weary in doing good what is he talking about there what does that statement mean is Paul saying that we should continue to do the right things or is there more to that statement Well let consider the language that he uses He says here, do not grow weary in doing good.

He uses almost the exact phrase in another place in the scripture, a place that he was a few years before, and that's Galatia. Turn over to the book of Galatians chapter 6, you remember these words, verses 9 and 10, and let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

What's he talking about here? He's talking about providing food and clothing to those who can't get it themselves he's talking about helping people so consider the language of what we find in second thessalonians consider also the context in the middle of talking about the sin of laziness would he just switch to a statement about continue to do good things and then go back to talk about what to do with lazy people so the context would indicate that he's talking here about something that fits that context, the language he's using. And I think what he's saying here is, this is a command not to abandon the noble work of helping people who truly need help.

Don't abandon that. Look, in any kind of ministry, dealing with people, you can get cynical. You can get cynical. Now, our deacons are directly involved in this kind of ministry. And I would say almost all of you do not know the work that those guys do. They do a lot of work helping folks.

And frankly, they deal, most of the times they deal with folks who are outside of our congregation, not inside. About 90% of their work is people from outside our church, our congregation, coming for help. And when someone comes for help, let's say I get a call. I can't pay my electric bill. Can your church help me? first thing I do is I say call all one of the deacons say can remember who the go-to guy think it's Jim called Jim Bennett here's his number and what the deacons do then is they say look we want to talk to you we want to get to know you want to discuss things with you so can you come and meet us at church and after church will spend some time with you And so they get to know the people they always share the gospel they help them out they encourage them to come back and attend church.

But they also say things like this, look if you come back to us again we really want to help you and we want you to get the long view here. And so if you come back what we want to do is to discuss this again some more with you and help you so that you don't end up in this situation again. Now, many times, most of the time, people are not interested in that kind of help.

They just want immediate help. And so they don't come back, or if they do, they don't like what they hear. They meet people oftentimes who aren't interested in real help. They're just using a system, right? Either the government system or churches all around us, going to all the different churches. they're not interested in help. They just want to use the system to get what they want.

And it's too easy to start saying things like, what good does it do to show Christ's love in this way? What good does it do? We're not reaching folks. It looks to us like they don't respond to the gospel and it doesn't seem to be helping them change their lifestyle. Maybe your involvement is with New Path or you've administered to folks consistently with your money and your time but folks just want to use you it's too easy to get cynical when those things happen it's real easy to get cynical like yeah i know people are all the same they're not interested and i don't want to be involved in this anymore and so and so forth so god says to you yes there are users there are people who don't seem to respond there are people who who no matter what you do don't seem to shed their lazy ways, but don't lose heart.

Don't give up on the ministry. You must continue to minister to people who do need help, people who are willing to work, but they can't, people whose families don't shoulder their responsibilities and abandon their parents. Help those folks, people who are truly disabled, people who are out of a job and they're looking hard and they're not finding a job and they're coming to crunch time.

He says don't give up doing good to those who need help. Be careful of cynicism and remember that what you're doing is right and noble. Remember what Galatians 6.9 says, and let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Boy, that's something we always need to hear. in the face of folks who persist in idleness, guard against cynicism, and continue the good work of helping people who really need help.

That's what he's saying here. He's saying there's some folks that are going to be lazy, and you're going to get cynical. Do not give up doing the good, the noble, the right thing. Do not grow weary in helping others. However, he says, do not fail to discipline the idle. Now, what has to happen?

What does that look like? He gives us four things to do, four things to do with folks who are lazy. The first is this, determine the grounds for discipline, which in this case is persistent laziness. What does he say? if anyone does not obey what we say in this letter. Now, Paul has already addressed this issue of work a number of times before we get to this point.

When he and Silas and Timothy arrived in Thessalonica and they gathered a group and they gathered the disciples and they started teaching them the ways of Christ, one of the things that they emphasized was a disciple of jesus will be a worker he'll be a hard worker and they actually gave them a model to follow we saw that last week they gave them a model to follow in that whole thing and after they left you recall the the apostle paul wrote them a letter emphasizing certain things that they had talked to them about when they were with them All right And you see that back in 1 Thessalonians for example 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 11 that there to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. So after they taught them, after they gave a model of that, then the second thing he does is writes them a letter and it emphasizes that issue of work. Notice in chapter 5, verse 14, when he says, And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

All right? So now, after teaching them personally, then he sends them a letter and tells them, this is what you must do. And then, after that, he writes this letter and tells them they need to get to work. And then he says, if they do not obey the instructions of this letter, withdraw fellowship from them. So this is the third time, at the very least, that he's talked about this.

Now, this is consistent with what Jesus taught us in Matthew 18. This is exactly consistent with what Jesus taught us. Turn there, Matthew 18. we all know this as the church discipline passage our friend and former elder larry haas always insisted on referring to this as the church reconciliation method and he was right but i want you to see the consistency of what paul says with what jesus says here in matthew 18 beginning in verse 15.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

What's Jesus saying? He says, You always move it up when someone refuses to listen, when someone remains persistent in their sin. You know, we've always said around here that there's only one sin that puts you out of the church, only one. You know what it is? Stubbornness, refusing to listen. And so the Apostle Paul is consistent here with what Jesus said If someone refuses to work after multiple warnings God commands us to help him along All right Here the second thing He says officially identify the one who is persistent in this laziness Take note of that person.

Take note of that person. This is an official identification. It means to identify or mark him out. all right j adams in his book handbook of church discipline writes this word that the word translated take note means to make or put a sign on him paul is not suggesting that we pin a scarlet letter on the offender but he certainly does mean identify him to the entire congregation apart from making this clear identification of the offender the congregation could fulfill very few of their obligations to him.

And so we're to officially recognize, identify someone who's persistent in the sin of laziness, officially identify them. And again, this lines up with what Jesus himself has said. If he refuses to listen to them, which is a reference to the witnesses, tell it to the church right if someone is persistent in his sin and won't listen to the to the to the witnesses then you take it to the next step and tell it to the church identify the person up to that point it's been confidential but now it becomes public and so the apostle paul's consistent with what jesus says officially identify that person what's the third thing he says let's look at it he says in verse 14 and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed at this point he says when that identification is made the church must withdraw its fellowship now this is not the last step of church discipline when jesus says let him be to you as a gentile that is an unbeliever or a tax collector that is a traitor.

Okay? Don't treat him as an unbeliever or a traitor. At the final step, that's how you treat him. But that's not what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying in verse 15, right? Don't treat him as an enemy, but what?

Warn him as a brother The last step of putting him out of the church or treating him as a Gentile or an unbeliever or a tax collector comes if he does not respond to this measure All right And so at this point, in some official manner, the congregation must withdraw its fellowship from a persistent idler. Now, what does that mean? Paul doesn't elaborate, but what does it mean?

Well, it means at the very least that that person cannot partake of the Lord's table because that is the ultimate expression of our fellowship. So at that point, he's barred from the Lord's table. Once that happens, it means the person identified to the congregation does not participate. For example, in our Sunday meals. If we can get back to those eventually.

Those meals that we had. Do you remember those? It's been light years away, but we used to always meet after church for a meal, right? It means you can't participate in those. And other congregational activities. It means you don't do the normal things with Him that you would do.

You don't do the things you normally would do. you don't act as if everything's okay and nothing's happened when you get to this stage and you officially identify him you don't act as if everything's okay between us we're withdrawing fellowship listen to jay adams again but what does withdrawal mean and this is what i like about jay he's always very very specific here's what he says it means that if john calls bill and suggests that they play a round of golf on Monday, Bill will reply by saying something like this, John, there's nothing I'd rather do, but there's a problem. You are under the discipline of the church and have not repented. I would be happy to spend that time with you on Monday talking about the problem instead.

Martha asked Jill to go shopping with her. Her reply is the same. And so we don't act as if everything's okay. We're going to use that time to talk about the problem. We've been called now to withdraw fellowship, but to talk to him. And we need to take this seriously.

Even if a person is a family member, you've got to take this seriously. Now right away, some of us are thinking, oh my, that's a Sounds like the Amish practice of shunning. Oh, we can't do that. Really? What does God say here? He says, withdraw fellowship.

But she's my sister. We grew up together. What does God say here? He says, you withdraw fellowship. By the way, this withdrawal of fellowship continues in the next step. Continues into the next step.

If the final step comes of treating him as you would a believer or tax collector, It means that someone who's professed Christ and now turns his back, we're not to have fellowship with them. That's what the Bible says. First Corinthians five, if you want to look that up. All right. So we withdraw fellowship. Why?

The immediate goal, the primary goal is what? To restore that person, to help that person. The immediate goal, he says, is what? So that he will feel he will be ashamed. he will be um he will be shamed it will be the congregation officially saying to them shame on you right now today to shame someone as we've seen is an unspeakable social transgression you just don't do that well yeah we do i mean don't anybody go around body shaming fat shaming and all that kind of stuff all right we get that we understand that but here it says if someone is persistent in his idleness all right we need to withdraw fellowship so that he feels the shame of his actions we withdraw fellowship so that the lazy brother might see that his inactivity is not worthy of the name of christ that his refusal to work dishonors god that's what he says now what's the fourth thing that he tells us to do he tells us to counsel the idle person Here in our Bibles, it says to warn him.

That's the term, that's the biblical term for counsel or counseling. It means to correct by word of mouth. And so he says the congregation withdraws its fellowship but it must continue its counsel It must continue to warn him We still have to take opportunities to take him aside and help him to see that what he doing is dishonoring to God and to help with that as we talk to him So continue to counsel him.

Don't treat him as an enemy. He's still considered a brother. But take time to warn him, to counsel him, to help him. hey if you've got a job you can offer him do it at that point all right of course we hopefully we've done it before then but at the very least we could do it now but counsel him now why should we do all this why should we do all this this all seems very very difficult and it even to to to many today may seem harsh why should we do it well the first reason is for the reputation of christ for the reputation of Jesus himself.

Christians are an unpopular minority in our culture. And we're getting more unpopular all the time. And many try to counter our influence. We can see that all around us. Many try to counter our influence. And one of the ways they can do that is by spreading unfavorable rumors about us.

One of them being, they're just a lazy lot. So we must live in such a way as to provide practical, tangible refutation of those rumors. Listen, I think in the culture in which we live today, which is an exceedingly lazy culture, which promotes leisure and laziness, right? in this kind of a culture a hard worker is going to stand out and i believe that one of the best ways of showing the light of the gospel okay short of talking about it remember we can live out the gospel but you always have to follow it with talk at the very least but one of the ways that the gospel can be adorned is with hard workers i've talked to many employers that tell me things.

Oh, I remember talking to Jim Lynch, right? And when Jim owned the store downtown and he talked about yeah I hired this guy yesterday and he came into work or a couple of days ago he came into work for one day And the next thing I knew he was in Florida He didn show up the third day Or some folks work for a week and then they just don show up for work anymore And that is really common. And I guess if I talk to many of you who are out there working like crazy, you could tell me the same stories.

In this culture, a hard worker is going to be like a beam of light in the darkness. And so this is really important. Notice what the Apostle Paul also says in the book of Titus. Turn to Titus for a moment. Titus chapter 2. Here Titus is talking about, as we read in the gospel section today, he's talking here about saying no to ungodliness and yes to godly and upright living. and in here in Titus chapter 2 as he deals about all the different things where we need to show the gospel in verses 9 and 10 he says this bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything they are to be well pleasing not argumentative not pilfering but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

A hard worker will adorn the doctrine of our Savior. Okay? Can you think about that? It's like makeup on the gospel, and I don't want to be irreverent, but it draws people in. It's the window dressing in the window display when you go to the mall why is that it's to draw people in if you're a hard worker you'll be able to draw people in so that you can talk about the gospel it adorns the gospel okay it it it adds an attractiveness to it as you work hard so we do it for the reputation of christ and for the gospel that's why we ought to be hard workers for the sake of the gospel and we also ought to be hard workers to teach the congregation or we ought to follow this pattern of discipline in order to teach the congregation this is obviously a disciplinary measure what is discipline okay if you taking notes make sure you write this down Discipline is education with teeth Discipline is education with teeth It sees that the lesson is learned.

It makes sure the lesson is learned. Have you ever been in a classroom where there's no discipline? Have you? How much learning takes place in that kind of a classroom? Very little. But discipline sees that the lesson is learned, you see?

So if we, for example, if we say laziness is wrong, God does not countenance laziness, and there's some person who's persistently lazy and we say, God says, don't be lazy, but we don't do anything about it. Is anybody going to learn that lesson? No. I remember as a kid, there was a neighboring church where one guy in that church divorced his wife, married his girlfriend and showed up at church. now you could say from the pulpit the whole time right adultery and divorce both are wrong but if you don't do anything about it how is is anyone going to get that lesson no so this is to help the congregation learn hey god's really serious about this god's serious about this take it seriously god says be done with laziness and put on hard work okay that's what god says he means it and this is the means he he gives us to help us learn the lesson now some might be saying here pastor i've got lazy tendencies anybody want to raise their hand and say they don't have those tendencies right um what's your hope here's your hope jesus died for lazy people so he died so that god would not condemn you for your laziness but because he died for that that ought to move us then to say so i'm going to work hard Jesus died for that.

Then I'm going to work hard. I'm going to honor what Jesus has done. I'm going to honor that by saying, Lord Jesus, help me to become what I am. Help me to become, in practice, a disciple of Jesus, which I am because of Jesus in my position. Help me to be what you've called me to be. Help me to become what I am. for the sake of Jesus who died for me.

When you have to go to work tomorrow, when you have to go to work tomorrow, do it for the sake of your Savior. Don't do it for the money. Don't do it because if I don't go, I'll get fired. Do it because that's the way you honor God. And God smiles when you a faithful hard worker let pray Father we are thankful for the Lord Jesus We are thankful for what he has done We are thankful that his commandments are not a burden if we look at them as that which honors the one who died for us.

Help us to honor our Father. Help us to honor our Savior. help us by the power of the Spirit to become and to be hard, faithful, steadfast workers. Change our view of work, we pray. Help us to see it not as something that I have to do in order to keep on living. Rather, help us to see it as the means that we use to adorn the gospel and to honor our Father.

So help us in that, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.