With the recent entry of his company SpaceX into the stock market a few weeks ago, Elon Musk reportedly became the world’s first trillionaire.

A quick refresher, for those, like me, who have problems processing what a trillion even is. A million is a thousand thousands. A billion is a thousand millions. A trillion is a thousand billions. When Donald Trump was first elected president he was worth about 10 billion dollars. Elon musk is now worth over a thousand billion dollars. He’s more than a hundred times as rich as Donald Trump.

Predictably, reactions have been mixed. A candidate for the Senate seat in Maine said he wants to make sure that Elon is the last trillionaire this society ever creates. One commentator responded with this question: “Should we want a system that creates fewer trillionaires or a system that creates more trillionaires?” [[ ]] Hmmm. What do we want in our society: less wealth or more wealth? That’s a question worth thinking about for a while.

More than any other nation in the history of the world, the United States of America is a society characterized by the ambition and drive to create wealth. There are plenty of people who think this is part of why we’re the greatest country that’s ever existed. And there are plenty of others who insist that it’s why we’re the most evil society that has ever been. And that divide between how people see wealth and poverty is getting wider and wider.

It is becoming increasingly common in cities like ours, when churches attempt to open ministries that serve the poor, especially the homeless, for those efforts to meet resistance from the surrounding community. When that happens, the reasons offered are usually quite practical. People express concern about safety, about what will happen to their kids, about  property values going down, about insurance premiums going up, and about the long-term stability of the neighborhood. There are often very strong responses on the other side, as well. People ask where compassion has gone, why those in need are being treated as problems rather than as people, and whether the church should not be willing to step forward where others draw back. The whole thing becomes very polarized very quickly. One side appears to be lacking compassion, while the other appears to be without  wisdom or restraint. It’s the heartless versus the reckless. If we’re honest—and If we’re willing to step outside our own opinions and try to see another perspective—most of us can feel the pull of both instincts.

When we come to 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12, the Apostle Paul is not stepping into that kind of debate in order to take one side against another. Instead, he is doing something more foundational. He is helping believers understand what Christian love looks like when it is expressed in the ordinary patterns of life, and how that kind of life will be seen by those who are watching from the outside.

Paul has just reminded the Thessalonian believers that they have been taught by God to love one another, and he commends them for how they’re living it. At the same time, he urges them to continue growing. That tells us something important about the nature of Christian love. It is not static. It is something that matures, deepens, and becomes more clearly expressed over time. Now Paul begins to describe how that love takes shape in everyday life. What is striking is that he does not point them to dramatic acts or extraordinary moments. Instead, he focuses on habits of real love that might easily be overlooked, but which together form a powerful and visible testimony of glad submission to the Lord Jesus Christ in everyday love to God and our neighbors.

S&R 1 Thessalonians 4:9–12

⁹ Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, ¹⁰ for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, ¹¹ and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, ¹² so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

So let’s listen together for four habits of love which together form a powerful and visible testimony to the grace and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

the first habit of love

Love is ambitious to live a quiet life

Paul begins by saying that they should aspire to live quietly. The word he uses suggests a deliberate pursuit, something that you set before yourself as an aim, an ambition. He’s literally telling them to be ambitious. What he places before them, however, is not the kind of ambition we often associate with the word. He does not direct them toward possessions or prominence or influence, but toward a life characterized by steadiness and peace.

The quiet life Paul is talking about is not one that withdraws from responsibility or from engagement with others. Rather, it is a life that is not marked by unnecessary conflict, instability, or disorder. It reflects a settled heart and a consistent way of living.

Genuine Christian love does not seek to draw attention to itself or to create disruption. Instead, it contributes to an environment of peace and stability. That leads us to examine our own lives carefully. I should ask whether my presence tends to bring calm and clarity or whether it introduces tension and confusion into the relationships and situations around me.

Believers in Jesus are ambitious to live a Jesus kind of life. Ambition to accumulate money and property and power has no place for us. It’s not that money and property and power are evil in and of themselves. All they are is tools. If we have them, we are to use them to create a calmer, better life for ourselves and people around us. Ambition to accumulate those tools is a wrongly-ordered desire. It is covetous and idolatrous. Believers are ambitious to live a quiet life.

the second habit of love

Love is careful to recognize boundaries

Paul then adds the instruction that the Thessalonians are “to mind [their] own affairs.” They were to take care of their own responsibilities first and foremost (and so are we). This does not suggest that believers are to be indifferent toward one another. The broader teaching of Scripture makes it clear that we are to bear one another’s burdens and to care deeply for one another. We are to love each other and help each other and correct each other and learn from each other. Still, there is a real difference between appropriate care and unnecessary intrusion.

It appears that some in Thessalonica had begun to involve themselves in matters that did not properly belong to them. Instead of occupying their time and their efforts with taking care of their own responsibilities and affairs, they spent an inordinate amount of effort and attention on other people’s issues—particularly on details that they had no business interfering with. As Paul puts it elsewhere in this letter, instead of being busy, they were busibodies. In doing so, they were not strengthening their faith community but rather contributing to disorder.

Love, as Paul presents it, includes the wisdom to recognize limits. It involves knowing when to step in and when to step back. That requires a degree of humility and self-awareness, with a willingness to trust that not every situation requires our involvement. Some do, but most don’t . Most of us have all we can do just to work our jobs and take care of our families. We don’t have time to go poking around in other people’s business. On the occasions when we do legitimately need to involve ourselves in another Christian’s problems, it takes sacrifice. We don’t have an unlimited store of time to spend.

Here’s an example: am I minding my own affairs if I try to teach a young believer to earn his living by work, rather than getting it by panhandling? [[ ]] Am I poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, or am I helping my younger brother grow as a Christian disciple?

Which actually leads us to

the third habit of love

Love is faithful to work and be productive

“work with your hands, as we instructed you… and be dependent on no one.”

It’s important to notice that this insistence on work, not indolence, was not a new teaching. From the beginning of their discipleship, the Thessalonians had been instructed that following Christ involves living responsibly and engaging in honest work. Paul himself provided a model of this. Earlier in the letter, he reminds them that he and his companions “worked night and day” at his tentmaking business so that they would not be a burden to the believers (1Th 2:9). Even though Paul had the right to receive financial support from the Thessalonian church, he chose to labor with his hands in order to remove any possible misunderstanding about his motives and to demonstrate the kind of life he was calling them to live.

Despite that instruction and that example, problems had emerged. When we read Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, we learn that some had settled into patterns of idleness. In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul addresses this very directly, stating that if someone is unwilling to work, that refusal cannot simply be ignored. He describes individuals who were not occupied with meaningful labor but were instead becoming disruptive within the community. Tersely he quips, “if someone is unwilling to work he doesn’t need to eat either.”

There are good reasons to believe that at least part of this problem stemmed from a misunderstanding of the return of Christ. Some appear to have concluded that because Christ’s coming was near, ordinary responsibilities no longer mattered. As a result, they began to withdraw from the normal patterns of life like working a job or paying their bills. In just a couple of weeks we will look at some of the teaching Paul gave to clear up the confusion about the coming of Christ. It might clear up some confusion for us, too.

This connection—the link between doctrinal confusion and personal disorder—is deeply instructive for us. It shows that theological confusion does not remain confined to abstract ideas. It often affects the way people live. When the truth about Christ, about grace, or about the Christian life is misunderstood, the result is usually practical disruption. Over time, such misunderstandings can foster habits of idleness, indolence, and unnecessary dependence.

Paul’s response makes it clear that this is not a minor issue. It is a matter of discipleship. Following Christ involves growth into a life that is marked by responsibility, contribution, dignity, and self-reliance. It includes helping people move away from patterns that diminish them and toward patterns that restore them to activity and productivity.

At the same time, we need to maintain the balance that Scripture maintains. It is not sinful to be poor, and there are many circumstances in which people are truly unable to provide for themselves because of age or infirmity or genuine disability. Beyond that, there are new believers in Jesus who have not yet grown in discipleship to learn that they are expected to work and to take responsibility. They need to be discipled, and that usually takes time, and patience. The church is called to show compassion and to provide help in those situations. Paul’s concern is not with those who are in unavoidable need, but with those who are able to take responsibility, yet unwilling. Love helps in ways that help, not in ways that hurt. Love empowers change, but it doesn’t enable sin.

the fourth habit of love

Love orders life for the sake of the Gospel

Paul then explains the purpose behind all of these instructions: “so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”

This brings the entire passage into focus. Paul is concerned with how the life of the believer is perceived by those outside the church. The ordinary patterns of life that he has been describing are not merely private matters. They form part of the church’s public witness.

To “walk properly” before outsiders means to live in a way that is recognizable in the neighborhood as honorable and trustworthy. The phrase “be dependent on no one,” in this context, refers to avoiding patterns of life that create unnecessary reliance on others and that raise questions about the reality or even the value of Christian faith. Then as now, even among unbelievers what looked like laziness or helplessness was looked down on. The point is not personal independence for its own sake. Rather, the point is that the gospel is either clarified or obscured by the way believers live.

This is the whole point of the passage: love goes to work to display the gospel in a way that makes sense to our neighbors who are looking on and wondering about what it is we really believe.

Oh, let’s not forget about Elon Musk. As of last week, he is reportedly just under the trillion-dollar mark again.

He briefly became the world’s first “trillionaire” after SpaceX went public earlier this month, pushing estimates of his net worth above $1 trillion — some trackers put it around $1.1–1.5 trillion at the peak. But after declines in SpaceX and Tesla stock prices, several outlets now estimate his fortune closer to about $950–970 billion.

Ahh, you win some, you lose some.

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

This brings us back to the kinds of situations we considered earlier. In a community where homelessness and vagrancy are clearly visible every day, it is not possible simply to ignore the issue. At the same time, it is not sufficient merely to relieve immediate needs without addressing deeper patterns. Nor can we imagine that our Lord Jesus Christ wants us simply find a way to make people go away.

The Christian response must reflect both compassion and responsibility. It must be shaped by the conviction that people are made in the image of God and worthy of care, and also by the conviction that part of that care involves helping them move toward a life that reflects order, dignity, and purpose. The only way we know to do that is one by one, with compassion and conviction in equal measures.

Think about this. The First Baptist Church of Dundalk actually holds one of the larger pieces of property in the Saint Helena neighborhood. We carry insurance like everybody else, we pay for damages like everybody else, and we care about safety like everybody else. Those concerns are legitimate, even unavoidable, if we want to be faithful stewards of what God has entrusted to us. But they have to be held within a larger framework. Our calling is not only to steward what we have received from the Lord, but even more to display the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. What the community sees in us should not be indifference, and it should not be disorder. It should be a thoughtful, consistent example of what it means to live under the lordship of Christ, including how we care for others and how we shepherd them toward transformation. The Lord has put us here on this piece of property to make disciples of Jesus Christ in this neighborhood. And these two verses in 1 Thessalonians speak directly into that calling. The “ministry to the homeless” question is not ultimately about which side of the argument is correct. The deeper question is what kind of life and what kind of ministry will most clearly display the truth of the gospel.

The passage before us calls us to pursue a kind of ordinary faithfulness that, over time, becomes visible and compelling. It calls us to lives that are marked by steadiness, wisdom, responsibility, and compassion, all held together in a way that reflects the transforming power of Christ. That should be our great ambition. That’s a truly wealthy life.

The kind of life Paul describes does not arise simply from greater effort or better discipline. Left to ourselves, we humans are inclined either to avoid responsibility or to focus entirely on advancing our own worldly interests. The gospel addresses us at a deeper level. Jesus Christ entered into a broken world and took upon himself the responsibility for our sin. He lived in perfect obedience, died in our place, and rose again so that we might be forgiven and restored.

Through that work, he not only removes guilt but also begins to reshape our lives. He gives us a new identity and a new direction. Over time, that transformation becomes evident in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we relate to others.

For those who have not yet trusted in Christ, the call is not first to improve your life, but to come to him in faith. And for those who do belong to him, the call is to continue growing into a life that reflects his character more clearly and brings more glory to his sweet, holy, saving name.

• back door invitation (Ryan)

Eternal Father, in this very moment, we turn again from our sin and ourselves to you and your glory,

Trusting only in your Son’s sacrifice for our sins to make us right with you.

We want to shelter ourselves in the shadow of his cross,

Bathe ourselves in the blood that he shed there for us,

Rest ourselves on his redemption

Robe ourselves in his righteousness,

Renew ourselves in his resurrection,

Lose ourselves in his Lordship,

And find ourselves in his friendship.

We want him to become for us, for today and forever, wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and salvation.

For he is the One who suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to you, our Father.