Do Not Grow Weary in Doing Good
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28)
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen. The sermon text for the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost is the epistle reading 2 Thessalonians 3. Have you adjusted to the time change yet? It can take some time to get used to it. Over the last few weeks I have been dragging a little bit. I don’t seem to have as much energy as I should. I couldn’t figure out why that was happening. But then I remembered the time change. A couple of weeks ago we turned our clocks back one hour. It gets dark so early in the day now. Along with the darkness comes the cold. Some of the days this week have felt like winter. We are entering the dark and cold time of the year. It is the time of the year where many of us feel like staying in. It is the time of the year that many of us lack energy and feel tired.
The time change is not the only thing that can make us feel tired or weary. There are many other things that can sap our energy. Many of us work long hours at our job. Parents are raising their kids. Grandparents are helping as much as they can. We have responsibilities to our family and we have responsibilities to our work. But there are many other things that take up our time. Believe it or not Thanksgiving is just around the corner. After that the Christmas preparations begin. When we look at our lives we see that there are many things that pull us in all sorts of directions. We do indeed have busy lives and because of that we get tired and weary.
But a busy life is not the only thing that can suck the energy out of us. Health problems will certainly do it. Going from one appointment to another, having surgery on the knee, hip or any other body part that has worn out, recovering from surgery, taking medication, and checking on our insurance company to see how much they will pay are all things most of us have to deal with. It can make us so tired. Talk about getting weary, has anyone been keeping up with the news? We are under a 24 hour news cycle that overloads us with so much information that it is impossible to process it all. The news that we hear is usually discouraging. It can make us tired.
There are a lot of things that can make us tired and weary. Yet when we look at our reading for today, we hear Paul say these words. “Do not grow weary in doing good.” Paul originally wrote those words to the church in Thessalonica. In order to fully understand our text I will give you some background information. The congregation at Thessalonica was waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately there were those within the church that stopped working. They thought that Christ was going to come at any moment so they didn’t have to work anymore. So instead of doing real work they walked around being busybodies. It was a good thing that the church was waiting for Christ’s return. All Christians are to be ready because our Lord could visibly return at any time. But we don’t know when He will return. It could be today or thousands of years from now. We are to be ready but as we wait we are to work. Paul was calling out those who stopped working. Paul was telling the congregation that they were to work as they waited for the Lord. They were all to work in their various vocations that God had placed them in. Paul was encouraging them to work and as they worked to not grow weary in doing good.
I don’t get the sense that we are a group of people that want to be idle like some did in Thessalonica but the words of Paul still apply to us. They apply to us because we do grow tired of doing our work. We do get weary of doing good. God works through all of His people to do good things in this world. As Christians, we help those who are in need, and we serve our church. We are also called to work in our various vocations that God has given us. Some of our vocations include – child, spouse, parent, church member, and our occupation. We are called to faithfully do the work that God has given us. As Christians we are also to be the salt of the earth. We are to be a Christian witness in what we say and do. Paul tells us all that there is work to be done but as we work, he also encourages us to not grow weary in doing good.
Yet we do get tired don’t we. We do get weary. We even get tired of doing things that we know benefit us or things that are of great importance. We don’t always feel like going to church. We sometimes forget to pray. We get tired of our job. Our family can make us weary. Our work is not always appreciated. Life is hard. In our Gospel reading, Jesus describes for us what things will be like before His return. He talks about wars, pestilence and persecution. But the thing that makes us the most weary is the spiritual war that we are in. Satan is temping us and trying to deceive us. We are also in constant battle with our sinful nature. It is enough to make us weary. Sometimes we want to give up.
The good news that I get to proclaim to you today is that Christ our Lord does not grow weary in doing good for us. It is Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who came into this world and became a man in order to live a perfect life in our place. It is Jesus who went to the cross in order to bring us God’s grace. It is the Lord who defeated death for us by His resurrection from the dead. Jesus gives to us forgiveness and He restores our hearts. He gives us peace with God. Christ Jesus is our source of strength, hope and joy. He gives to us the gift of faith. He stands with us and preserves us. He blesses us now and forever. Jesus tells us that when the time is right, He will return in glory. “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Indeed the Lord will come to us on the Last Day and bring us into His eternal presence. We do get tired. But our Lord does not get tired. Jesus does not get tired in doing what is good. His love is unlimited.
As for us we will get tired and weary. But our source of strength is the Lord. We pray to Him not because it is something on our list of things to do but because we are calling on the One who will always help us and who is gracious to us. We study God’s Word not as another thing that will make us weary but to hear the voice of the One who is never weary in doing good. To hear the voice of the Lord who gives us comfort. Listen to what is said in Isaiah 40. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might He increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall walk and not faint.”
As we look to Christ Jesus, we are indeed moved to do what is good in the site of God knowing that our work is not in vain and the fruit of our faith is pleasing to the Lord. Through Christ Jesus we can now listen to the words of Paul with joy in our heart when he says to all of us. “Do not grow weary in doing good.” Amen.