Published: November 23, 2025 | Speaker: Tim Freitag | Series: The Law of Liberty - Part 12 | Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:6-11
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This is our custom. I'm sorry. I thought I had put that in there, but I didn't.
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I don't want to belabor the point and I know I said early on that I was trying to focus on the overall message out of these
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sections um, and come up with this worldview, this idea of the law of liberty. But there is one more piece of this section here um in chapter five that I want to
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uh examine or draw out while we're here
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because I think it is um integral to our understanding of this idea of the law of liberty. how Paul and the other writers of scripture examine or understand this concept, this idea, and how we are
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to be in the world, how we are to to be together as a people of God. Um, we talked last week, and I'm just going to briefly recap this because it does relate or link into this, that God has
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established a people
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Um in one sense perhaps this is the entire scriptures. God is establishing a people called by his name for his glory. Why do we have the history of Israel and those
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things? It was God calling a people, forming a people. He even says um that it was it was God who called them out of Egypt. So God establishing a people to be called by his name for his glory. In
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the New Testament, of course, and this is one of those bright lines of continuity that runs between them. We are intended to be those people called by his name. We now go by the name of
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Christian Christ ones, but we are called by his name for his glory. That's that's fundamental to the whole bit, right? That's that's central idea here. Um
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Paul's view on the matter, I phrased it
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that there's one people who are pulling together um it occurs to me of course in in uh Philippians 1 it's the verse we put on our sign Philippians 1:27 with one mind striving together for the faith
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of the gospel he says so the idea of pulling or striving or or exerting ourselves is what we were examining last week the idea that that we are examining uh or sorry exerting or or putting
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effort that we are working for God's glory. I think this is fundamental to the New Testament and I think it's fundamental to this idea of the law of liberty.
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Um it's one of the things that we can examine. We've talked a little bit about the contrast between the Thessalonian church and the Corinthian church. It's not that the Corinthian church were not Christians. It's not that they were not gifted, but the things that Paul is
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rebuking them for over and over again. They're not primarily aiming at God's glory. He's rebuking them again and again that they're looking at their own glory in their giftedness. They're looking at themselves rather than
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glorifying God through the the things they've been given or the work that they're doing. Um, we've even looked at it here briefly. Um, you know, the the word came up here in
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chapter 4 of um, let me see if I can find it here.
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Yeah. So, near the end of or middle of chapter 4 in verse 11 where he says, "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business. Work with your hands as we have commanded you." Um the the word there uh
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is literally in the Greek uh as James identified looking at it that it had the pho at the beginning literally lover of glory or lover of of ambition
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that you are ambitious to make a name in a way. Well, we are called by his name. This is what Paul is looking at that our ambition here is for his glory, not our
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own glory. This is the this is the thing that we're aiming at. So, I'm going to read again here in chapter five. I hope not to uh irritate anybody by still
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being here in this section, but there's one more element of this that I think we need to look at. So, I'm going to read I'm going to read chapter 5 down through verse 11 again. Even though really I think the thought goes further back. But
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um Paul says here, "Now as to the times in the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. And while they are
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saying peace and safety," then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness that
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the day would overtake you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness. So then, let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and
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sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and of
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love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or
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asleep, we will live together with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are
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Um, the Bible gives a number of pictures of the church. Uh there's the picture of course of us
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as the bride of Christ. There's the picture of the church as the flock. These are word pictures that scripture uses. Um one commentator estimated that maybe as many as a hundred different
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things in the New Testament that picture the church in different pictures. But one of them I think that's fundamental and is related to this section here is the idea of the church as an army, the
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church as a military. Um, and it may I want to be careful in how I do this because it's not necessarily its most
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obvious in this passage. In fact, a number of commentators um commented on this link here in the middle of the section I read where he says um
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in verse 7, those who sleep do their sleeping at night. Those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. They
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we're struggling at this. Well, what's the link between being sober and being armored? Um, it's a military picture here. It is a picture and and actually this is the whole point uh that I'm
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driving at in this section here where he says uh just after that, God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Does anyone have a different use of word there in uh verse 9 besides obtaining?
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Okay. Um it's not the most common uh word in the Greek, but it is from a Greek word that means to possess or to uh some some say uh acquire was one of the offered translations of it.
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Uh and it bothers some people because that again has terminology that indicates exertion that we obtain that
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we should grasp that we should lay hold of if you want to use the terms like that. Paul of course makes it very clear immediately after that um through our
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Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. So it is because of his death, it is because of his action that this is a thing. But he is making use of the terminology. It's both and again he's using these
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terms here that we are destined to obtain that we ought to be exerting ourselves or striving at it. This whole picture here frankly I think is
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of a military campaign. Um and I I connect this thought actually all the way through. So again, stick with me here because I think sometimes we read first Thessalonians
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first Thessalonians uh in Christianes. So we read it we read it in our heads in in the terms of Christianness. Yes.
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Yes. Stick with me. Stick with me here. He's talking in this whole section from four up up where we left off in four all the way down through here about the day of the Lord. He says it here in in
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chapter 5. The day of the Lord that the day of the Lord will come upon them. The day of the Lord is pictured as a pitched battle. Okay? It goes all the way back to Amos. It goes through the various
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prophets. It is pictured as a battle. It is pictured as a conflict. Um this is the context in which he's talking to them is about the end of
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days. Okay. But I think sometimes we get off track on this end of days when he says here that you might obtain salvation. I equate this with victory.
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Okay. I'm equating this with the idea of obtaining victory in this conflict in which we are engaged. Sure.
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Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that
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it. Yes. You can't separate the two one and not the other. So don't misunderstand me.
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Nothing I do will ensure my salvation. God alone ensures my salvation. I know on whom I have believed and what I have entrusted to
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him. Right? But at the same time, and this is the whole point here, Paul's terms all the way through here, and and this is why I want to draw this out and
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be careful with this. Paul's terms all the way through are of activity, of action, of exertion, of of laboring. Abigail, and then Justin.
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I look forward to it. Um, while we have First Peter open, I I will call on you in a second, Justin. While we have First Peter open, also First Peter 5, um, he's exhorting them in in defense of the flock. And yet he says here, uh, as he
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as he closes the book, I'm going to pick up in verse six. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be of sober
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spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around you like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour devour. But resist him firm in your
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faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will
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himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be dominion forever and ever. Amen. Um, so this idea
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Right. Um another example if you like. Um, so again, I I don't want us to misunderstand and and the way that the term salvation is being used here. Um,
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God alone saves our souls. And yet the picture here is of pitched battle and of of achieving salvation is of the idea of victory. The idea of of securing or or
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establishing the victory. Um, I appreciate what you were saying there and and I wanna I want to connect this. I have so many thoughts and I rearranged
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the I felt like I needed to do one of those flip books where you have the the pages are in separate sections. I could have done my outline that way and just turned them all over because how many things run together here. Um what he's
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he's examining is this idea of the uh and now I'm forgetting the passage. You know the the works that will be tested in the last day. Those works that
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are made of wood, hay, and stubble will burn up, but those made of precious metals. We talked a little bit last week about the idea of the work of ministry.
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Venet's terminology, the action of soul on soul. Um, remember please that the things that we do among the people of God, our souls are immortal. The works
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that we are doing that are of good and of benefit to the people of God endure because those souls endure. I I've had conversations with people
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sometimes about the idea of legacy or those things that will persist beyond their time. The things that you do for another in their soul will persist with them in eternity. Okay? So those are the
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works that we have in mind. Those are the works that will endure. Okay? The works that are that are of frivvality, the works that are of of, you know, of wood, hay, and stubble are of no
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account. But those things that we do in ministering to one another are the things that shall endure, the things that will stand the test of fire in the day of the Lord. All of these things are connected to what Paul is trying to get
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them to look at here, which is be alert, be ready, be armed, because we're at war. That's that's the gist of this or the thrust of this section. He's
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coming down through some of you are concerned that some have already died. The souls are immortal. And now he's coming into this section of five talking about you are not in the dark. You are
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not unaware. You are in the light and you ought to be sober and you ought to be armored. Being in the light is being aware of our warfare. Is it not? Being aware of the conditions, the the things
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that we are engaged in. If you're not aware that you're at war, you're in a lot of trouble.
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So, he is uh again, God alone appoints or or or establishes these things. Um God alone is the one who saves and yet God appoints mediate instruments, does he not? I mean God alone is the one who
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is capable of saving our souls and yet he has appointed that the foolishness of the preaching of the word should be an instrument for our salvation. Yes.
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So the idea that his kingdom is alone established by God and yet we are called to be warriors of it to be at work in establishing it. establishing it. These things are not
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at odds with each other. Um, I'll put it like this. I am not primarily a logician, but I did try to put a little bit of a logic here. So,
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let me put my proof if you want here. Um, and I I'll welcome any feedback.
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sure. But I know that if I speak and write at the same time, we're going to be in
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Okay, that was dramatic. God has enemies on the earth. Yes. Yes. Okay, great. Wonderful. We can't start
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there. God's enemies are our enemies. We are called by his name. We oppose the things he opposes. In our context, opposition to God is
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usually ideological. Okay? We are not like Israel was where we're literally waring against somebody flying a banner
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of another god physically fighting with them. We are not. We do encounter many who are flying the flag of other gods including
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themselves. That's what I mean ideological in ideas primarily. Okay. Sometimes that extends to the institutional or the political um
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abortion for example or evolution being the established concept to be taught in schools. These are things that have risen to the level of ideology or or of institutionalism that we oppose. Yes.
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Our warfare as he tells us in Ephesians 6 is not against flesh and blood, right? Our warfare is against these ideas. So our our fight, the thing that he is
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exhorting us here to to be armored when he says be sober um having put on the breastplate of faith and of love and as a helmet the
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hope of salvation and then encourages them on to secure to obtain that salvation to make sure of it by your war, by your fighting, by the effort
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you're establishing there. That's what we're looking at. Yes. Egypt
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Yeah. Yes. Well, I I appreciate that because that's exactly it. That that paradigm is there. And to further that point, that conquest frequently had setbacks
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when they did not follow his directives. Right Chuck, you had your one of those. just think we've longed
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Yeah. Um, right. So, thank you because this and I and I will call on you in a second, James. This is where I'm trying to to aim us today so we're not retreading the same ground over and over again. But is
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Paul in multiple places talks about the armor one said you could you shouldn't overpress this analogy because he doesn't use the same terms for each piece of armor in each place.
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He talks about armor and the idea of being defended being defended by the the equipment God has given us. Okay. Being armed and prepared by the things that God has given you. And I am
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going to go on to argue here the whole thing that we're looking at in Thessalonians and the whole drive of this section of five is the idea of of
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doing these things together as a people. The idea of being organized in the way that a military was organized. I think Paul has it in mind actually and and we'll look at a couple of things as we go through the whole of First
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Thessalonians. He's got an idea that mirrors in some ways the army that was before him in the day, the Romans.
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very much so. Yeah, that section, the idea of being conformed to Christ, not conformed to the world, we are at contrast. We are at conflict. And um I don't again I'll be careful not to
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preach the choir necessarily, but I think there's a reminder for us here of these things in a number of places in scripture that the idea of the church organized together in both defense and
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offense as a military unit is actually a very dominant picture and motif in the New Testament. So I want to pick up just a couple of references here as we go through. So, one of them um I mentioned
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before that the idea of the flock being one of the pictures there. There's also a connection to the flock in this idea of of guarding and of defending in Acts
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chapter 20. chapter 20. Um and it's the title. I think we've got some over there. The title of Stra's uh book on uh fierce wolves are coming. Um,
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so he says here in uh Acts 20 starting, I'm going to pick up in 207.
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Uh, this is Paul speaking to the elders there. He says, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy
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Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. For I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the
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flock. And from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert, remembering night and day, that night and day, for a
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period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears. Mirrors what he's talking about here in Thessalonians, night and day, he did not begrudge anyone the time to do these things. But the idea that that defending
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the flock involves violence in some respects. I mean, use the picture of David. Well, why was David ready to go fight Goliath? He'd already taken on the
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lions and the wolves and the other things that were coming after the flock, and he could not stand to see someone opposing God to the face of his people and his people doing nothing about it.
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Okay? So, the shepherd stood up ready to defend. Uh, we already looked at first Peter 5. There are very marshall terms in there. Be ready to guard. Be ready to
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fight. Be ready to defend. Um, the idea of conflict here. Uh, I'm going to actually jump over to Matthew real quick. And this is not, I think,
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primarily the focus that most people take on this section. In my Bible, it has a heading of Peter's confession of
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Christ. But in verse 17, Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven. I also say to
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you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth
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shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." Are gates an offensive weapon?
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No. When it says the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church, that is the idea of the church assaulting them and they will not stand.
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Okay? Gates are not an offensive weapon. They're a defense and the church will prevail against them. If that's not a picture of war and of going out to war,
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I don't know what is. Not so much.
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way. I think over the years that has encouraged parts of the church to become basically spiritual pacifist
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reaction to the legitimate wayap
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history of the church that we do see where we have done it wrong and then maybe because of that shy away from doing it at all. Yeah, I I think you're exactly right and
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I do want to make the time today um I'll call on you in just a second. And I want to make the time today to make a point about this because this is what I'm trying to get us to is to share Paul's
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understanding. Part and parcel of all the things that we've been talking about is the idea of being organized. And as you've already alluded to, the idea that this is not single combat. Okay, we love Rambo movies and things like that where
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one guy goes out and takes on the that doesn't really happen almost ever in the history of warfare. Very, very occasionally. Most wars are won by coordinated effort between units. Okay?
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So get out of the like I alone armored as a centurion. I'm going to go out here and and face down the barbarian hordes. We're working together as a unit. It is
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a coordinated effort between the body. Uh Justin, you had your hand
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I feel like a lot
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That's me thinking aloud. No, so I I think you hit several important points there. So, thank you. Um, the most critical there, of course, is the spirit, right? That we uh I think
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a lot of times we talk about this idea of uh uh well, faith in God. Guess what? That also means trusting that the Holy Spirit will do what God
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has promised. Okay, it does. In a military, there are different roles, right? Not everybody has the same rank, not everybody has the same
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occupation. Not everybody has the same thing to do. We briefly touched on this point yesterday, and I'm not going to make a big thing of it, but Paul clearly delineates that there are
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those who are elders, who are to be shephering, and there are those who are the body, who are the flock. The shepherds are the ones who are responsible for making sure that the
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wolves do not arise from within, right? Or that when they do, they are dealt with. They are the ones responsible for purity of doctrine. They are the ones responsible for helping us understand
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assignments of things that we're doing, right? Of giving us in some respects our marching orders. And I'm going to be careful to clarify that here in a second. But what has
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often happened instead as you point out is a rule is is often a for example uh confessionalism erected in lie of actually shephering we'll put up all of
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these fences that'll keep them out. Okay, that's not it. And we talked about this last week in talking about um that we are not given a reanumeration of the
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ten commandments and a to-do list of do these things, don't do those things. Um I thought it was was really well taken up on Thursday night um as we talked
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about this in and we talked about the Sabbath and sacred time, but we also talked about the fact that the Sabbath is not reinstituted for Christians. It's there because we ought to want to
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do the things that are in line with God's nature. Uh this is I think what what Aaron meant and I don't know where he is this morning. Um when he was teaching and he he used this phrase
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rules are for fools. When I was a child and I was in my parents' house, my parents had to tell me do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that. Hopefully
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now that I am an adult and hopefully mature, they don't have to tell me do this, don't do that. They trained me to have judgment about the things that need
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doing or the things that I should not ought be doing. Right? That's the whole point of when Paul says the law was a school master. Now that you have reached the age of maturity, you don't need it. You ought to be have ought to have been
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trained to understand the principles on which God is at work in the world and work in accordance with them. Uh this is
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I think this is Paul's worldview with the law of liberty and it extends to this concept or maybe not even extends it's wrapped up in this concept of the church as army. Um I think it's some
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280ish times in the scriptures, God is called the Lord of hosts or the God of armies. Okay, he is not passive about this. And I want to make a point here
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with this. Um this term is apparently no longer used very much, battle doctrine. I think it went out in World War II apparently, but
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it was for a long time a concept of how the army fights. Well, they they just changed it slightly. Okay, now it says military doctrine. Um, and if you're interested, the Air Force's is online.
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I was very interested when I pulled it up to find this quote at the head of it. Okay. There is no end to the number of people who will line up to make flippant remarks that the doctrine is too long,
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too short, too academic, not academic enough. The acid test is, do we read it? Do we understand it? Do we use it? Does it work?
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it work? All else is rubbish. Our doctrine does not mirror the navies or the marines or the armies. It is our aerospace doctrine, our best practices, and we should not be bashful about how we write
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it or what it says. It then opens with this doctrine consists of fundamental principles by which military forces guide their actions in support of
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national objectives. It constitutes official advice but requires judgment in application. Okay. Do we have battle doctrine in the
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scripture? I'm going to read one. 2 Corinthians chapter 10.
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I'm going to pick up in the first section. uh first verse of chapter 10 because it relates now I Paul myself urge you by what? By the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I
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who am meek when face to face with you but bold towards you when absent. I ask that when I am present I need not be bold with a confidence with which I propose
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to be courageous against some who regard us as having walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the
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weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of
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God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And we are ready to punish all disobedience. Wherever your disobedience, oh sorry, whenever your obedience is complete,
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okay, you are looking at things outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ, let him consider this again within himself. Just as he is Christ's, so also are we.
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say I read that It occurs to me taking every thought.
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that our primary battle is actually Our army is not ready.
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I was having this conversation, a version of this conversation with someone the other day uh in in the question of what would what would evangelism even look like in the context of being in Greenville when basically everyone you meet is going to tell you
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they're a Christian. Um, a lot of it has to do with correct understanding of the scripture, of being prepared, of being armored, of being
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alert, of being sober, being children of the day, as he says here in 1 Corinthians 5. So, I appreciate that very much because I I think it's coming down here. James, you had your hand up.
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Um, as we are closing this morning, here's where I'm trying to leave us with this section out of First Corinthians because I think this is what Paul has in mind. And I haven't even read all of the examples that we could have read in
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First Timothy, example of fighting the good fight and some of the other places we could have gone to look at the military nature of the church. This picture is all through here. As we've established though,
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I'll put it this way. The idea of being a mature Christian, the idea of being mature in the things that we are given responsibility for, responsibility for, we've talked about not having to have
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everything enumerated for us. When you are done with your training, theoretically, when you go out to war, it's not like your sergeant stands in
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front of you and says, "Okay, you shoot that guy. You shoot that guy. You shoot that guy." that guy." You have an objective and you have a doctrine by which you aim for the objective. That's the point. Okay? You
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have an objective. Well, we have an objective. Okay? And there is doctrine herein for how do we achieve that aim? And I frankly think this is what he's driving at in
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at in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 with his picture here that and I don't know why the commentators I was reading can't see that the connection between not being
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children of darkness, not being drunk, but being sober, alert, and equipped is military terminology. The salvation that we are striving towards. The battle is
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already won to borrow another Keith Green title. Green title. But God doesn't want his soldiers sitting around on their douffs letting their armor rust away. I mean, again, I
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time is failing me to go through all of the places we exhorted to be equipped and to exert ourselves. Okay? So, please take this on. But this is where I'm
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trying to to link this back to the law of liberty is the idea that yes, there is official guidance and it will require judgment in its applications. We are called as we hear
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and listen and digest the teaching to be ready by the spirit to Justin's point to make those judgments. We have the spirit. We
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have the mind of Christ. We're told to make these judgments. Okay? And what I'm trying to exhort us to along with Paul is to do this as children of the day.
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Awake, alert, eyes open. Not that we're serving by accident, but that we're intentional in going about these things and striving for God's glory to see him
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glorified by his people. All right, let's close in prayer.
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Father, we do thank you for this day and we thank you for this time to gather together to open your word to read. We do ask Lord that you would please stir up within us our spirits to this marshall attitude that you have uh
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placed before us in your instruction that we would be zealous for your name, excited for your cause, eager to
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eager to exert the energy, the power, the equipment that you have given to us in order that you might be glorified. not standing on our own or by our own power which is worthless but that we walk
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according to the spirit within us that we lean on him for instruction in the word to be equipped and prepared for those things that you have placed before
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us. Lord, enable us to do this work in order that you might be glorified. And as we go before you now to sing praises, to pray together, and to hear your word unfolded, we ask that you would be
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glorified among us in Jesus name. Amen.