The Worthy Life

Introduction

Scripture clearly teaches us that we’re to honor our fathers and mothers. It’ll come as no surprise to the group here that I don’t have a Father’s Day sermon. That’s really not my custom, but I do want to pause just briefly at the beginning of my remarks this morning to honor our fathers. We did so on Mother’s Day, and it’s appropriate to do so on Father’s Day. We’re thankful for the fathers that God gave us. None of you, except for Deedra, knew my father, David Chapman. It may come as a surprise to you, since you didn’t know my father, David, that my dad was a small man. He was short in stature, short, skinny little man. But he was a giant in my eyes. I looked up to my father in so many ways.

We had a unique relationship, though, because of his size and my obvious size. That very early in life, our roles got reversed in one way, Dad got to wear my hand-me-downs after a while when I would outgrow things. But uh I inherited my sense of humor from my dad, and so you can blame Dad for that, uh, certainly. But Dad taught me a lot. He taught me how to work, uh, he taught me how to laugh and to make other people laugh. Uh, he taught me how to love and to respect, and so I honor my father as hopefully you will uh today. You know, the wonderful thing about being in the family of God is that if you were fortunate enough like myself to be raised in a good, loving Christian family and household, that you have a parallel to look at when the scriptures, as it does so oftentimes, makes parallels between our physical family relationship and our spiritual family relationship, that you can easily make that transition in your mind.

But if you weren’t that fortunate, that you didn’t grow up in a loving family, you didn’t have a father that you could look up to, or even maybe a mother who would love and care for you, that you can have that in this family. That you can learn what a true father is supposed to be through your heavenly father. You can learn and experience what it’s like to have loving brothers and sisters as you have loving brothers and sisters in Christ. And so, regardless of your family background, you can be a part of the best family on earth, and that’s of God’s family. And so, as we said about our earthly mothers, we say about our earthly fathers. If you’re blessed to still have your father with you, call him, reach out to him, tell him you love him, happy Father’s Day.

Your father is already passed on, pause, enjoy some memories, smile and laugh at something that you and your dad did together, and say a little prayer of thanks to the Father who maybe taught you as mine did, so many important live what the Scripture calls the worthy life. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 9 through 13 or 9 through 12, uh the apostle tells us, and really in what might at first glance be strange language to us, this idea of a worthy life, because we know that we cannot earn our salvation. So there’s in some sense, there’s nothing worthy that we can do in our lives, but yet there is still something that Scripture calls a worthy life. I just want to notice verse 12 of our text, 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 12.

Paul’s appeal and prayer for these Thessalonians is this that you should walk worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. We want to talk about how we can live that worthy life, how we can live that worthy walk that God has called us into. And it’s really just about living the right life and making the right choices and decisions. Let’s just be honest, it’s not always easy in this life to make those right choices, to choose the right pathway.

They may sound made up, but they all really happened. And I know I’ve probably shared this story with you before, but I’m going to repeat it this morning. I wasn’t the best of students. I don’t think that necessarily reflected upon my mental aptitude. Hush. It had more to do with me being lazy and me being the class clown that I was.

And so one year I had fallen behind and my grades reflected it. But I had one of those very generous and lenient teachers that year, who toward the end of the year offered us a bonus credit. And she said, if we did this assignment, and we passed, she put a pretty high bar on passing this assignment. But if we passed this assignment, she would increase our grade by a whole letter grade. And that meant a lot to me. That meant going from failure to passing. And so for the first time that year in that class, I studied. And I studied hard. And I worked on that assignment. And if you remember this story, you may remember that not only did I do that assignment, it was a chapter in the book that we were supposed to answer all the questions.

And there were a lot of questions at the end of this chapter, and some of them were essay questions. And so I studied and I got all of those questions. I was confident I had them all right. And I was so worried about speaking about my dad, about the wrath of my dad if I failed that class and had to go to summer school that summer. Then so I not only studied and did that assignment, but when I looked at it, I wasn’t happy with it. And so I got a new piece of paper and I rewrote everything and made it neater just in case she gave extra credit for penmanship. And I carefully carried that assignment back to school and handed it to my teacher and put it on her desk.

The next day, after she had graded those papers, she called me up to her desk, which in my experience was never a good thing. And she said, Kenneth, that’s what they called me back then. She says, Kenneth, I’ve got good news and bad news. And it’s mostly bad. She said, The good news is you answered every question perfectly. You made a hundred on that chapter’s assignment. The bad news is you did the wrong chapter.

I fear that’s the experience of so many in life. That when they get to the end of their life, they’ve done wonderful.

But God will tell them on the judgment day, you did wonderfully on the wrong assignment. You achieve the top of the business world. You exceled in getting your children into athletics and to the best colleges and giving them the best opportunities and the best car and the best house. And you did the best you could do with what you had in all of those pursuits, but that was the wrong assignment. That’s not what you were supposed to be doing.

And so you failed. The Apostle Paul’s urge for these Thessalonians would be his and God’s urging for us as well, that we live this worthy life that God has called us to. And we need a reminder from time to time what the assignment is. Because it’s so easy to get distracted and to work on the wrong assignment and to do the wrong things. And so let’s talk about. Paul says that we should walk worthy of God who calls us into his own kingdom and glory.

1. God Placed Within Us a Sense of Right and Wrong

Now, Paul would tell these same Thessalonians that he’d called them and us through the gospel. But God’s done many things to call us through that gospel. Let’s talk about that worthy life, the right assignment, the right things that we should do. One thing God has done for us in calling us and preparing us is that he has given us a sense of alt. I truly believe that God placed within all of us this sense of alt. Now I know that we can all think of exceptions to this. There’s always going to be what we call psychopaths or sociopaths that seem to have little or no conscience. That’s the exception rather than the rule. That for most the overwhelming majority of mankind, God placed within us some sense of right and wrong.

Look with me in the book of Romans, isn’t that part of Paul’s argument to the to the Gentiles in Romans chapter 2. In contrasting the Gentiles to the Jews, the Jews were given a law that explicitly spelled out for them what God wanted, what right and wrong was. But notice what he says about the Gentiles’ experience. Romans 2, verse, let’s start in verse 14. For when the Gentiles, Romans 2, 14, for when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do things in the law. These, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. If I understand Paul’s point there, he’s saying that the Gentiles, they didn’t have that written code of conduct that the Jews had, but sometimes they would do that.

They would love their neighbor as themselves. They would do the right thing.

Why? Because they had a law there that said if you do this, you’ll be stoned or punished in some other appropriate way. No, because he said that law was written on their hearts. But they had that conscience. So God has given us, God is calling us to this worthy life by the very nature of our creation. That he gave us some sense of alt, some sense of right and wrong. Now the scripture would warn us about that, that that sense of alt, that sense of right or wrong can be abused. And if it’s abused enough, then it becomes really worthless to us. And so then there’s the need for more.

2. Morality, Ethics, and Righteousness

I want to use three terms that you’ll be very familiar with. And those three terms are morality, ethics, and righteousness.

The idea of ethics. Many people are guided, and their standard is some standard of ethics. Many times, ethics and the concept of ethics is based upon some kind of philosophy. The ethical standard is based upon some philosophical standard. We have the Stoics and the Epicureans, we read about in Scripture, they had different philosophies, and so their ethics differed based upon their different philosophies. The Stoics, which we read about in scriptures, the Stoics believed their philosophy was that life was not really to be enjoyed. Life was to be mundane and austere, and so we have to come up with that idea of being stoic is almost being serious. The Epicureans, to the other extent, felt like, hey, life’s to be lived and enjoyed, and you do whatever makes you happy.

Live it up. You only live once. And so though ethics was based upon those different philosophies. Morality, morality is usually gauged to this idea of not so much being based upon a philosophical system, but to be based upon humanity.

And for many, that is their morality.

I and I alone get to decide what my standard of morality is. Some have raised the bar slightly, we would say, and said that morality is based not just selfishly upon my own standard of right and wrong, but kind of on humanity, mankind. That morality is based upon what’s best not just for me, but what’s on best for us. Now, we get to decide that. And so it’s kind of a democratic system. We decide what’s best for us. Now, the problem with that, the problem with any kind of democratic system, and certainly a democratic system of morality is, is that the majority gets to decide that. And if you’re in the minority, then too bad for you, because what’s good morally for the majority may not consider what’s good or bad for the minority.

And so we end up with things like slavery. That was considered moral because it was good for most of us. And so morality is based upon either selfish concept of individuality or selfish concepts of the collective, whatever you define that to be.

Ethics, morality, and righteousness. And again, I know those terms are used differently, and sometimes we can use the term morality to ascribe to righteousness. But righteousness is the concept that morality, ethics, the standard of right and wrong is not based upon some man-made philosophical system. It’s not based upon what I as an individual decide, not what we as a collective decide is best for the majority of us, but it is decided by God and God alone. Are you still in the book of Romans? Turn back one page to Romans chapter 1 and verses 16 and 17. The apostle says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it’s the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

For in it, that is the gospel, in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. Now let’s pause here and make a contextual point. When you see the term the righteousness of God, let’s talk about what righteousness. Righteousness means just right wisess, the state of being right.

The righteousness of God can just talk be talking about God’s personal righteousness. God is a righteous God. He is right, he’s always right. And so he personally possesses his own righteousness. But sometimes the phrase the righteousness of God refers to the righteousness that God is extending to us. The standard of right that he’s giving to us. And you have to decide contextually, grammatically, there’s no way of knowing. The context has to decide. They’re talking about God’s personal rightness or the rightness that God wants us to have. I think it’s clear in this context, he’s talking about the righteousness that he’s giving to us. Because he’s talking about the gospel. The gospel conveys. Does the gospel tell us that God’s right? Sure. But notice here he says it’s revealed from faith to faith that it is written, the just shall live by faith.

I live not because God is righteous, but in this context, because God has given me a standard of righteousness, a means of my own righteousness. Not ethics that’s based upon some philosophy, not morality that I or we get to decide, but God has imparted unto us a standard of righteousness. That’s the worthy life to which God has called us. That is our standard. And what we need to realize that whatever term we use, morals, ethics, that morality, let’s just use that term, that morality is always relative. To the philosopher, it’s relative to his philosophical leanings. What I think is right and wrong, the philosopher says, is determined and relative to my philosophical system. And he runs everything through that filter. Is this the right thing to do?

Well, what does my philosophical system say? Morality is relative to those who choose it individually or collectively. Is this good for society? Is this good for me as I determine it or as we determine it? You see, it’s relative. And even for the right thinking child of God, morality is relative. It’s relative to the standard that God has set to his righteousness. Is this right relative to what God has determined that is right? And I hope and I know that you do. But I hope that we can truly see the value in having a standard determined by somebody outside of our selfish selves. That someone else sets that gauge. And that we can, above that, we can see the value in not only having that standard set by somebody outside of my biased self, but by a perfect wise, himself righteous, while being merciful and gracious, God setting that standard.

3. Focus on Being, Not Doing

And that’s our standard is God’s righteousness. And we recognize that in this worthy life, that God has called us to be something. And so achieving that worthy life that God has called us to, rising to that standard, not our own standard, but God’s standard of righteousness demands that we focus on being, not doing. Now that requires some clarification. That does not discount the concept of obedience. Scriptures emphasizes that. James says that we are to be doers, not just hearers of the word. But we need to understand the intrinsic value, and to understand that the only way we can truly be doers of God’s word is if we first become beers. If we’re truly children of God.

Colossians chapter 3, you’ll know this verse just immediately. Colossians 3, verse 17, whatever you do, there’s that word, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Giving thanks to God the Father through him. Whatever you do, there’s the concept of doing of obedience. And again, we’re not belittling that at all, but he says, whatever you do, do in the name of the Lord Jesus. You see, the emphasis there is not just upon doing the right things, but doing the right things with the proper motive and in the right relationship. We do them in the name of the Lord Jesus. There’s that concept of the being and the concept of why we do those things. Skip down to verse 23.

And whatever you do, in whatever relationship that he’s been talking about, whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, not to men. Do you see the emphasis that even when Scripture talks about doing and talks about obedience, that it has to talk about it in terms of relationship. Why do I do these things? Wives, why do you submit to your husband? Husbands, why do you love your wives? Children, why do you obey your parents? It’s all because of your relationship to God. It’s all about who you are. And out of that grows the obedience that righteousness demands. Look in the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

That works on the negative side as well. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and in verse 14. This warning is issued. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14 says, but the natural man, that’s the man who doesn’t follow the Spirit of God. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. He says the natural man, the man who is driven by flesh and the fleshly relationship, who doesn’t have this spiritual relationship to God. He says that he can not do the things that please God. Why not? Because he doesn’t have this relationship.

Because there is not that love, that relationship to God. And so is obedience important? Absolutely. Is doing things by God’s righteous standard important? Absolutely. But it can only truly come and grow out of the relationship that we have with God. About being who we ought to be. It’s about building our character.

About being God like and Christlike from the inside. And then that obedience, the desire to please God, the desire to conform to his standard and to his will, of those things higher and outside of self will naturally grow from that relationship of reverence, all and love that we have for God. Be who God has called you to be.

So much easier to conform to his will and to his standard. And so much easier to walk that worthy life that God has called you to.

Conclusion

Make sure we’re working on the right thing. That we’re pursuing the right goals and living by the right standards in life. God has given them to us. If we’ll just use the insight and the wisdom that God has provided for us to see God’s will for our lives. Would you be conformed to his standard of righteousness this morning? Would you believe in him? Repent of your sins. Confess your faith before men this morning, and to be baptized into Christ Jesus, handing over your life to him, being what he wants you to be. And in that, doing what he wants you to do. Can we help you in that? Can we help you in any way this morning? Let that be known as together we stand and as we sing.