And that's the main thing that
Paul says here. The word remember is interesting
and we'll see that, but we read really of the beginning of this
church in Colossae in Acts chapter 17. If you'd turn over there
with me, Acts chapter 17. I believe this will help us to
sort of get to know this church a little bit. verse 1 of Acts
17 Now when they had passed this
is Paul and his The group of folks that were with him when
they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia they came to Thessalonica
where was a synagogue of the Jews so this church was born
out of false religion the Jewish customs and perversions of the
Word of God that had prevailed in the Jewish synagogues But
Paul as his manner was verse 2 Went in unto them in three
Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures Opening and alleging that Christ
Must needs have suffered So you see how, what a church is and
how the Lord forms a church is by the word of truth, the gospel. He opened unto them the scriptures
on three designated days of worship. He opened the scriptures unto
them and what did he say? Well, it says opening and alleging.
The word opening means what you think it does. You open the Word
of God. But more than just physically
opening the book itself, you open the Scriptures. You say,
here it is. This is what it says. But also,
the word alleging means it's a term having to do with a waiter
setting food on a table. And that's important. To see this the preaching of
the gospel that way I haven't cooked anything up this morning.
I'm just the waiter I'm just saying here Are you hungry? Is this what you? Is this what
you ordered is this what you came here for? And I said it on the table, opening
and alleging, just making manifest. That's what Paul said. We provide
things honest in the sight of all men. This is not done in
a corner, not done deceitfully. I didn't come with empty words
of man's wisdom or just rhetoric to get you to do something. He
just simply set forth Christ in the word of God, opening and
alleging what? Christ crucified. that Christ
must needs have suffered. Christ suffered for sins, the
just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. That was his
message. So that's what a church that's
a church. Somebody believes that people believe that the Lord
opens hearts like he did Lydia's and people believe that and they
begin to gather together to hear it again. We want to hear it
again. We want to worship the Lord and the truth of his son.
And some of them believe, verse four. Well, let's look at the
last part of verse three, opening and alleging that Christ's needs
have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus
whom I preach unto you is Christ, who he is and what he did, that's
what he preached. And some of them believed and
consorted with Paul and Silas and of the devout Greeks, a great
multitude. And of the chief women, not a
few. So there was quite a few people believed the word of the
gospel by the grace of God. But the Jews, which believed
not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of
the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city
on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to
bring them out to the people. They resorted to the house of
one of the men that believed because the synagogue itself
in general was probably not real friendly to the message of the
gospel. But they came and rooted him
out and look, it says they were moved by what? By a zeal for the truth. You know,
what you're preaching is error. We want you to know the truth.
No, envy, envy. They were mad because some of
their supporters were taken away. And when they found them not,
verse six, they drew Jason and certain brethren to the rulers
of the city, crying, these have turned the world upside down.
These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.
And Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the
decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. What an accusation. By the way, that's exactly what
they were saying. There's another king. His name is Jesus. But not for the reasons they
were alleging or accusing them of. And they troubled the people
and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And
when they had taken security of Jason and of the other, they
let them go. And the brethren immediately
sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who coming thither
went into the synagogue of the Jews." What do you reckon he's
gonna do there? Same thing he did before. These
were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received
the word with all readiness of mind. You'd think that they would
have thought, well, boy, going to these Jewish synagogues is
not a good plan. That didn't work out too well.
I think we'll do something different. We're gonna go preach the gospel
to people that claim to be gathering to worship God, but they don't
know who God is. What was it Paul said? My heart's
desire, my prayer to God is for Israel, that they might be saved
because they have a zeal of God. These ones in the synagogue,
these were the ones that were supposed to be worshiping God
and speaking for God, serving God, but not according to knowledge. By the grace of God, I'm gonna
teach them who Christ is and what he did for sinners. But many in this synagogue, they
received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures
daily, whether those things were so. Therefore, many of them believed
also of honorable women, which were Greeks and of men, not a
few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of
God was preached, Of Paul at Berea they came thither also,
and stirred up the people. And then immediately the brethren
sent away Paul to go, as it were, to the sea. But Silas and Timotheus
abode there still. And they that conducted Paul
brought him unto Athens, and receiving a commandment unto
Silas and Timotheus to come to him with all speed. And they
departed. So you see the it was it was
through much affliction and turmoil and discouragement that the church
in Thessalonica was formed To see though that the result Of it was ultimately what Paul
refers to in verse 3 Back in our text in Thessalonians Beautiful
this is such such discouragement in the beginning such trouble But look what Paul says in verse
3 remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor
of love and patience of hope In our Lord Jesus Christ in the
sight of God Our father so Sometimes we think
this way, this is a lesson here in this, sometimes we think like
this, well if God meant it to be, he would open a door, it
wouldn't be this difficult, we wouldn't be so discouraged in
it. He would make it easy if it was meant to be. That's not
what the scripture teaches. That's not what the scripture
teaches. We see differently than that in the word of God. Sometimes
an open door looks like a disaster. For a long time even. And here's
the lesson here. The courage by God's grace of
what we know is right is more important than circumstances.
Say well all the circumstances are contrary so that that must
be God tell us no God told us to preach the word God told us to gather and worship
him to exalt his name to show forth his death Until he come God told us to go and preach
and And if all hell breaks loose against us, may he give us the
grace to go and preach. The way that the gospel was spread
by God from Thessalonica to Berea to Athens to Corinth was by Paul
and his company being run off from one to the other. They took
them out of the cities, these cities because they were afraid
they were gonna be killed if they didn't. That's how the gospel
spread. And that's an important lesson
to us. Rejection and threats were the
means that God used. Sometimes it's turmoil sometimes
it's Being unable to tolerate What's going on in one place
that takes you to another this church was born that way And this is where the word patience
in verse 3 comes in We think of that word as just being you
know being fine with waiting But patience here is steadfastness
of hope. We're gonna trust God if he's
gracious to us and gives us the faith to trust him, no matter
what. If he doesn't, then we'll cave
in a heartbeat. But if he does, We'll stand up
like Simon before those who have every authority and right to
kill us and say, you're the ones that killed the son of God. What
are you gonna do about it? So patience, the word is defined
by these words, enduring, sustaining, perseverance. Paul moved on from Thessalonica,
but Paul remembered. He remembered. It wasn't just
a stop off on his way to somewhere else to him. He remembered them
and he rejoiced in what God had blessed them with, their faith
and hope and endurance, steadfastness. He writes to them with concern
for them as if they were his own children. his own children,
he prayed for them, and he called them my beloved brethren, my
beloved brethren. For three Sabbath days, he was
able to preach to them, but then he heard, as our studies
have recently shown, he cared and he wanted to know about them.
He wanted to know about them, and so he heard. of their steadfastness
in faith and rejoiced. Notice in verse one that Paul
says that they are the church of the Thessalonians as far as
their earthly location. I mean, that's why, you know,
we named this church College Grove Grace Church because the
churches were known by their locations. I mean, you could
call it something else and that'd be fine, but that's, you know,
it's the church at Thessalonica. But it wasn't in Thessalonica. It was in God. The way he tells
it. It was located in Thessalonica,
but he said, you're in God. You're
in God the Father and in God the Son. Boy, what a lesson in
that. It means union with, to be in
God the Father and Son. means union with. Where is this church? Well, it's
in College Grove, Tennessee, but mentioning that might help
somebody find it. But it's physical location other
than that doesn't mean anything. Except that God was gracious
to bring his word where we are. Are we members of the body of
the Lord Jesus Christ, one with Him and in Him, or just members
of a congregation of people here in this place? We don't have a church role.
If we need to look at a list on a piece of paper to find out
whether you're a member of this church, what in the world are
we doing? I don't need to look at a list,
do you? Even if there were 500 of us, I wouldn't need to look
at a list. I could just look and say, there
he is right there. There's our list. There you all
are. I've got a list right here. Does it mean every single member
is here every single time? But you don't have to wonder
whether somebody is in on it or not, do you? You don't have
to. You can't hide that. You can't
hide that. Somebody is a member of Christ.
If they're in God and in his son, you don't have to write
their name down. You can look them in the eye
because that's where you'll find them. Not on a piece of paper,
but in the worship And then he prays as he often
did for grace and peace Not prosperity grace, there's
a difference Not a chance grace Not numbers, but grace. If God gives numbers, that's
wonderful, and it seems there were quite a few of these folks
in Thessalonica that believed. Not a few, it says. But we're
not gonna mistake that for grace. Grace is almighty. Grace is certain to those whom
God loves it is a faith That it might be by grace so that
the promise is sure to all the seed all the seed of Christ And look where grace comes from God the father and God the son That's why grace is sovereign That's why it can't be forfeited.
That's why you can't mess it up, because it's from God. And
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. He doesn't
change his mind. He doesn't take grace away. He
giveth more grace. It's from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now again, We've recently taken
the time to notice this, but notice again, this word, Lord.
We pass over that word and we may mention, you know, that he's
the sovereign. He does as he pleases, but this
word is so rich. The grace that Paul is talking
about and desiring, and desiring for this church is from the one
who owns us and decides. That's what that word means.
You look up that word Lord in this text and the one we were
in the other night, and it means primarily, this is the beginning
of the definition of it now, it means the one who owns and
the one who decides. This grace comes from one who
decides who gets it and who don't. That's why we call it sovereign
grace. I don't know if the word sovereign
actually appears in the English version of the scriptures or
not, but it appears in the Greek version of it. I guarantee you
that. Sovereign. He's the Lord. It's the same thing. By grace
are you saved. By grace are you saved. And grace
again, and I understand what people say. I understand what
somebody's saying when they say the Lord gives you dying grace
or another kind of grace. He gives you what you need when
you need it. He gives you understanding grace, doesn't he? He said to
the disciples, there's some things that I have to teach you that
you can't hear now. I'll teach them to you when the
time is right. understanding grace, but really like blessing,
people say, well, oh, that was a blessing. I get that, I understand
that. I think it's fine to say that,
but understand this, the blessing of God is all or nothing. There's just one kind of grace
and it permeates everything. Grace is God's gift and it's
never taken away. And it's almighty, it's powerful,
it's controlling, it's constantly benefiting you. When you say,
oh, that was a loss, that was a bad thing. No, it wasn't because
God's grace is on you. By grace are you saved. By grace
are you taught. By grace you can die, looking
into the very face of God's son and looking forward to being
with him. By grace. And peace, peace comes by grace. Peace with God. It's because
of God's grace that you have peace with God. Otherwise the
enmity that we are by nature will take us down to hell if
it's left up to us. But because of the grace of God
bestowed upon sinners that he's loved from eternity, there's
peace with God. Grace is in Christ and peace
is by Christ. It pleased the Father that in
Christ should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through
the blood of his cross, by him, by Christ to reconcile
all things unto himself, by Christ, I say, whether they be things
in earth or things in heaven, and you, whether it's you or
not, that were at one time alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in His sight." You see where grace and peace wind up? They
wind up with us being with Him and being accepted. God's church
is in God and in His Son. Verse two, we give thanks to
God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. We give thanks to God always
for you all. For the church, remember who
he said he was writing to? To the church, to the church
in Thessalonica. I give thanks for you. Thank
God that he has mercy on sinners. Are you thankful for that? Thank God that he had mercy on
me, but thank God that he had mercy on you. I thank God for
you, for all of you, for all of you, not just that church
in general, but every one of you. I give thanks for every
last single one of you. Thank God for the family. that
he promised in Mark 10, 28 and has given to every one of his
people. Listen to this, Mark 10, 28.
What a beautiful promise and what a beautiful reality that
we enjoy because of that promise. Think about it. Then Peter began
to say unto him, lo, we've left all and followed you. And Jesus
answered and said, verily I say unto you, There is no man that
hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lands for my sake in the Gospels. but
he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time. Do you thank God for that? That's
what Paul's doing in our tent. Thank God. I thank God for you,
my brothers and sisters. God promised you to me and he
gave you to me. I thank God for all of you. and with children and lands with
persecutions and in the world to come, eternal life. It's not
just about now. It is about now, but also eternal
life. His promise, his gift. What did
you leave now, Simon? What'd you say you left? Thank God. I left two brothers. And I've got 200, easy. Easy. Many, many here and many in other
places. I've got a lot of brothers. I
left a sister and I've got hundreds, hundreds of them. Thank God for
you. Who is my mother and my brother?
Thank God for you. That's what Paul said. Thank
God. I pray for you. He said, I pray for you. And
be careful of this word mention. He says, I mention you in my
prayers. Now that word, again, in our
society and the way that we do that, it's like, well, in passing,
I just mentioned your name in passing. We tend to think of
that word that way. That's not what this word is.
It sounds impersonal almost, doesn't it? I mention you in
my prayers. It sounds like something done
in passing. It means to be mindful and remember. To be mindful and remember. I think about you when I come
before God. All of you, not in general, Again, I think some people cringe
when I'm just honest with you about my own experience, and
life's too short. Look, I've got nothing by God's
grace. I can't say that. I don't want
you to know everything about me. But let me be honest with you
about something. It hadn't been that many years ago when the
Lord taught me to quit praying, be with everyone in the church,
Bless the church, bless College Grove Grace Church. And that
was it. At some point, some years ago,
the Lord taught me to pray for you. For you. And. I think that was the Lord blessing
me greatly when he did that. When he taught me that. I still
don't know how to pray. but you're not just part of a
group anymore in my prayers. I think of every one of you.
I'm mindful of you. I'm mindful of what I know you're
going through. I'm mindful, by God's grace,
of you as an individual, as a saint, as one of his precious children,
that he ever intercedeth for, and what a privilege it is for
us to have the opportunity to do that same
thing, though poorly. When I pray to God, I remember
you. I am mindful of you. And that's by God's grace now.
First Paul gives thanks. That's the first thing he does. I believe the Lord taught me
that too sometime. Along the way. To give thanks first. And throughout. Not only for the blessing that
they were to him, but for God's blessings on them. He gave thanks. You've given him faith. You've
given him a steadfastness that I've heard about. Thank you. Remember this, never say your
prayers. There's just really no good way
to take that phrase. I just don't think there's anything
good about that phrase. I said my prayers. I hope you know what I mean by
that. Remember, be mindful in your prayers. Be mindful of who
you're speaking to. Be mindful of those for whom
you intercede. Be mindful of what you are. The Lord is in the heavens and
you're not, therefore let your words be select. There's very little more humbling
and comforting than to know that God's people are coming before God and remembering
you. I had someone tell me that yesterday,
somebody that I hadn't heard from in a while and hadn't talked
to. I saw him a few months ago, but somebody that I have every
reason in the world to be praying for right now myself. And you
know what he said? I'm praying for you. What a precious, precious day. A priceless gift from the Lord,
a brother or sister that remembers is mindful of you before the
throne of God. And listen to this, if you would,
please, 1 Samuel 12 20. Listen to me and Samuel said
unto the people fear not You have done all this wickedness
Yet turn not aside from following the Lord Isn't that a beautiful
You've done all this wickedness. You're a you're a walking disaster
Don't stop following the Lord you're not very good at it But
don't quit By God's grace, don't quit. Turn you not aside, but serve
the Lord with all your heart. And turn you not aside, for then
should you go after vain things. You know what? If you turn aside
from Him, what is there left? Vain things. which cannot profit nor save, for they are vain. For the Lord will not forsake
his people. Don't despair in it. Though you're
miserable at it, follow him because he's not gonna forsake you. You
might forsake him, but he's not gonna forsake you. That's our
encouragement to follow him, You know, we've gotta do better,
you know, in order to please the Lord. No. Our encouragement
to follow Him is that He'll never let us go. Though we've done this great
wickedness every day, He's not gonna let us go. He will not
forsake His people for His great name's sake, because it hath
pleased the Lord to make you His people. Moreover as for me God forbid
that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you God forbid God forbid that I should sin
against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you But I will teach
you the good and the right way. Oh What a precious thing for
God to Give us one another. To use one another to bless his
people. Because it's him, it's him doing
the blessing. Verse three, remembering without
ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience, steadfastness,
endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of
God and of our Father. Now this is a memorable thing.
Remembering without ceasing when somebody, when a human being,
when a sinner acts utterly contrary to the nature he was born with,
and the grace of God can be seen in them. Faith, love, hope. That's something to remember,
isn't it? And he said, I remember. Faith. In Acts 11, 21, we're
told that the hand of the Lord was with his people in Antioch
and that many believed and turned unto the Lord. And in verse 23
there in Acts 11, it says that when Barnabas came to Antioch,
he saw the grace of God. How do you see the grace of God? Forgotten a lot of people that
I've met over the years I've met way more people than I can
even remember having met But this is hard to forget when you
see the grace of God When you see it on display when you see
God His work on display This is what Paul had seen Remembered
about the Saints in Thessalonica. They had the kind of faith that
James wrote about faith that works You see that in the verse work
your work of faith your work of faith faith works That's how you know That it came
from the Lord. Did you know that? James said,
show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith
by my works. Look what God has done in me.
That's how you see it now, because faith works. Now don't look to
me as some kind of an example or a model to follow, but you
can't hide faith, not real faith. Don't look to anybody but Christ
himself, the object of faith. But faith works. The work, your
work of faith. That's the kind of faith that
James was talking about. Faith without works is dead.
It's just something that the evil nature of man comes up with. Not the faith of God's elect. They had that blessed fruit of
the Spirit, which is faith. And also this
fruit of the Spirit, love, by which our Lord said that all
men would know that you're my disciples by the love that you
have one for another. It's identifying. It can be seen,
it can be observed. And notice that word labor. Again,
I saw your love because you're always warm and fuzzy feeling
or you're always got a big smile on your face. Nope, your labor
of love. How is love defined in 1 Corinthians
chapter 13? By what it does and what it doesn't
do. patience Patience of hope this is a hope
that can't be shaken Steadfastness endurance and Paul
knew that this wasn't stony ground. I hope that our Lord warned of
in Mark 4, 5. If the object of our faith is
indeed the rock of ages himself, then that faith being God's gift,
it never fails, that hope never wanes. And then Paul said he
remembered these things and was thankful for them, but as he
writes in this verse, what we see is not so much important,
although it's a blessing. I thank God for it, I see it.
I see it in you. Thank God for that. But what
we see is not so important as what God sees. You see that there? In the sight of God and our Father. I might mistake
self-righteous religion for works of faith, but not God. We may mistake fleshly sentimentalism
for love, but not God. We might mistake fear of punishment
or hope of reward for true steadfast hope in Christ, but not God. May we all prove to be genuine
believers in the sight of God. where it counts and our hope
be in Him. It's a blessing if I see that
in you, but I might be wrong. God needs to look to your substitute
and not you. God needs to see your sin offering
and not you. What does God see about you? if you're gonna be saved. Now,
may these be the things that I remember when I think of past times and experiences with
the people of God. May these be the things that
I remember. Not grudges. May I forget every slight, every
discouragement, manifestation of our evil nature, and you forget
mine. And may we see his church at
least a little bit as he does. Because what he sees is what's
real. You may look like a pathetic
example of humanity to me. But if God says you're holy.
You're holy. Lord, give us eyes to see each
other without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Can we do
that? Is that hard to see through all
of the faults and all the failings, all of the sin? It doesn't have any eternal significance
whether I see you that way or not. But I still want to. I still should. This is the way
God sees his church. Husbands love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church. And gave himself forth that he
might sanctify and cleanse it. with the washing of water by
the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. Can we see each other like that? And this is the way God sees
his church, and that's got to affect Does not the way God sees
you have some effect and in some way shape the way that I see
you? How can it not? When I see fault, I must remember
that Christ died for you. And when I see grace, I must
rejoice that Christ died for you. Labor of love. You know that
word labor has to do with enduring sorrow and weariness. This is
not just, you know. Paying your bills or something
like that that you don't really want to do, but you gotta do
it. This is labor. unto weariness and even sorrow. Knowing, brethren, beloved, your
election of God. Just a thought on this. verse 3 and And those verses
after this verse for Paul mentions the evidences that make this
knowledge possible Our knowledge of this is not infallible Even
of our own election, but it's substantiated by clear marks
if the marks are genuine then the grace which is can only be
the cause of them, must be present. Even verse one shows God's election
of grace, so that every verse in this chapter hinges on this.
He's talking about God's elect, his loved ones, his chosen, his
love being first, God's choice of love, having taken place from
the beginning and being the cause of all of these results. We've seen in a recent study
in another chapter that we are to consider ourselves the elect
of God. We're to behave as the elect
of God. That means one that was chosen
in spite of the fact that he was the worst worm crawling on
God's earth. Not promise keepers, not decision
makers, the elect. Where faith, love, and hope are
mentioned in verse three, these are the fruit of the Spirit.
The Spirit that's only present in those who are called and regenerated
and born of that Holy Spirit whose fruit is born in them. And those whom he called, he
also did predestinate. Those are the objects of his
love that's spoken of later in chapter eight of Romans. He called
us, predestinated us, justified us, glorified us, and then it
says, that being the case, who can separate us from the love
that chose us like that? And determined before eternity
everything that would happen to us. You know why he did that? There's no chance, there's no
devil in hell that can touch us because of that love that
can never, that can never allow separation
between us and the one who loves us. Thus, as in all these evidences,
the gracious God of heaven and earth receives all glory as his
only right. The evidences of grace seen in
his people are just that, evidences of his
grace. A certain and direct result of
his choosing of us in Christ before the foundation of the
world. We are his workmanship. That's what you see. If there's
any evidence of grace, you see that we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them, Ephesians 2. That's what you're
seeing. You're seeing what he did. And that's where verse two comes
in again. When we see the results, our
hearts give thanks where it's due. We don't idolize or elevate those
in whom we see His grace. We give thanks unto Him who giveth
grace. Whose divine love is the cause
of ours. Amen, let's pray.