Let's turn in our Bibles to 1
Thessalonians chapter 1. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Now Paul had been to Thessalonica
on his second journey. He went there and preached and
he was there for three weeks and the Lord established a work
there. The Lord called out some of his
redeemed there. And the scripture says this,
let me read this from Acts 17, 2. It says, He reasoned with
them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ's must
needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that
this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. And scripture
says some of them believe. And they consorted with Paul
and Silas, and of the devout Greeks, a lot of Gentiles there
too who were wealthy, a great multitude believed, and of the
chief women, not a few. But the Jews which believed not
moved with envy right away. And they took unto them certain
lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company, And they
set all the city on an uproar, and they assaulted the house
of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. And so
the brethren sent Paul and Silas away by night, and they fled
away from there by night. They were just there three weeks,
preached the gospel, the Lord established his church. So they
experienced persecution right away. You know, when we ask to
grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, we're essentially
asking for the Lord to send us some trouble. And that's not
the only way he grows us in grace and knowledge of him, but it
involves trouble very much. And the Lord's going to have
these churches established, these early churches. And so he wasted
no time sending trouble. He permitted these Jews to raise
this raised his persecution against them right away. Right away. So that's one reason Paul's writing.
He's writing to encourage them. Then there were some there who
continued to speak evil of Paul and continued to try to question
his motives and turn the brethren against him. And he addresses
that in the second chapter. Some had thought that Paul had
preached that Christ was returning right away. And so some of the
brethren quit work. They were looking for Christ
to come right away, and so he addresses that. And then there
was a need to exhort them to abstain from fornication. Most
of these Gentiles had turned from idolatry, and that was a
big part of their idol worship. So he had to address that. So
this is to those that believed in Thessalonica, and it's believed
to be one of Paul's first letters, if not his first letter, and
it's certainly his first letter to the Thessalonians. Verse one,
he says, Paul and Silvanus, that's Silas, and Timotheus, Timothy,
unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a refuge, isn't it? That's why they were safe in
the midst of all that trouble. because they were the church
in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. They were
in the refuge, they were in the stronghold. And he says, grace
unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always
for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. And here's
gonna be our focus, these three things for which Paul thanked
God. Verse three, 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 and our Father. So Paul thanked God for these
brethren. He thanked God for what God worked
in them. Everything was of God. So that God's the only one to
be thanked. It's all of God. So we thank God. Continually
remembering Him, continually thanking God always for you all,
he says. And I remember without ceasing
your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.
Now let's look at these three things. First of all, he said,
I'm thankful. We thank God for your work of
faith, for your work of faith. Now, what's the first work the
Lord creates in His children that could be called the work
of faith? That's what He called it anyway. You know, they came,
asked Him, what works must we do to work the works of God?
John 6, 28, He answered, said, this is the
work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. When
God gives us grace, showers us with grace, quickens us, gifts
us with this gift of faith, He brings us to rest in Christ.
He brings us to see that we're sin, He brings us to see our
inability to save ourselves, He brings us to see Christ's
all our righteousness, and He brings you to rest in Him, to
trust that Christ indeed has made you the righteousness of
God by His obedience unto the death of the cross. made you
accepted and a beloved. Now faith believes Christ has
justified us. That's what righteousness is.
To be made the righteousness of God, he's justified us from
all things from which could not be justified by the law of Moses.
And then we begin from then on to live by faith. We begin to
live by faith. We begin to walk by faith. Day
by day, we live by faith. Persevering in faith that's in
Christ. Now you know they needed faith
to go through what they were going through right away. And
that's what God causes His people to do. He said in Galatians 3.11,
No man's justified by the law in the sight of God. It's evident,
for the just shall live by faith. The law's not of faith. The law
says the man that does these things shall live in them or
by them. And faith believes Christ has
done all to make us righteous, and we're righteous in Him. And
so to just live by faith, the Hebrew writer said, if any man
draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. And we see
here that faith's gonna be kept by God. Our believing, our living,
our standing, our continuing in faith has to be of God. We
see this here because this persecution came right away. The same as
his gift of faith was given to us, made us flee to Christ, trust
Christ, so he keeps us coming to Christ, trusting Christ, looking
to Christ, and living upon Christ our bread. And faith is a working
grace. Faith's always accompanied by
works, by good works. And that's what Paul is mainly
talking about here. Without faith in Christ, nothing
we do is good. Nothing we do is good. But wherever
he's given faith, there will be works of faith. Unbelieving
Jews that lived around them, they immediately started causing
this great persecution. We're not talking about just
saying some mean things about them. We're talking about killing
some of their brethren. Now, you put yourself in their
shoes. They weren't turned aside from believing in Christ by that. In fact, like Rahab, they believed
God was able. They believed the Lord Jesus
was able to save them and keep them in the midst of all of that.
And so they kept sending the gospel forth. They kept sending
the gospel forth. They turned from their idols,
they believed on Christ, and they were sounding forth the
gospel. And not only that, but they sent
abundant amounts of money to Paul. This is how Paul was able,
at another church, at Corinth, they weren't supporting him.
And this is how Paul was able to preach the gospel there, because
this church kept sending him financial help. And they did
this in the midst of great, great persecution. Those that believe
on Christ are gonna continue the work of faith. They're going
to continue to support the gospel. They're going to continue to
provide for their brethren. Because when God's called you,
you really believe. You really know Christ is your
wisdom. You're not looking to yourself to save yourself, even
out of the everyday things when you're being harassed by persecutors. You trust his wisdom. He's the
wisdom that saved you from your sins. You trust him to save you
from everything else. And you really believe he's your
righteousness and he's your sanctification. Because he's made us righteous
and justified us, he's going to keep us separated under him
and not let us fall away in apostasy. He's going to keep you separated
under him. He's redeemed us. He's purchased us. He's bought
us from the curse, being made a curse. That's the most precious,
valuable thing there is, the blood of Christ. He's not going
to let you go. Faith believes this. And so in the midst of
the hardest, most difficult, trying persecution like they
were going through, they didn't stop this work of faith. They couldn't be stopped. They
trusted all their confidence, all their strength was the captain
of their salvation who had accomplished their warfare, and they weren't
worried. They weren't concerned that he
was going to let them go. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world. And this is a victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith. Why? Because faith lays hold
of Christ who overcame the world for us. And he'll make sure we
do. He'll make sure we do. Now these
Thessalonians, brethren here, they believed, truly believed,
this is what their works of faith manifest. They believed we're
more than conquerors through Christ that loved us. The only
way they could keep on up with this work of faith, stay together,
keep meeting together, keep providing for one another, keep sending
the gospel forth, keep supporting Paul. You know whenever the Jews
of old, when they would persecute you like this, they would cut
you off completely. It's like you're blacklisted
in town. And that hits your income. And they were still sending financial
help to Paul. They weren't looking to man to
provide for them, were they? They were looking for the Lord
to provide for them. That's the work of faith he's talking about.
Why did they believe this? Why did they know this? Because,
like Paul said, when he said, God sent us to trial that we
would not trust in ourselves but in Him that raised us to
death, he said, He hath delivered us from so great a death. Once
you know He's delivered you from you, and He's delivered you from
your unbelief, and He's delivered you from the curse of the law,
and He's delivered you entirely, eternally by laying down His
life for you, He's delivered you from so great a death, Then
you know He's delivering you today. And you know He shall
deliver you tomorrow. So you can keep doing whatever
He's put in your hand to do, but trusting Him alone. That's
what faith does, and that's true work of faith. Now secondly,
look back here. It says, that which makes faith
work accepted is the motive. He called it your labor of love. Your labor of love. Just like
if they didn't have faith, the work wouldn't be a good work.
If the motive wasn't love, it wouldn't be a good work either.
Labor of love. Why did the Father choose His
people? Why did He give His only begotten
Son to His people? Why did Christ come and give
His life to redeem His people? Why did He do this? He loved
us. He loved us. That's why he did
it. He loved his people. He loved
us without a cause in us, simply because he loved us. He came
forth and he manifest his love by this labor of love on behalf
of his people. He laid down his life for his
brethren. That's why when the love of God
is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost in regeneration,
when He quickens you and He first shows you His love for you. He loved all His elect and laid
down His life for us. When He shows you that love and
He sheds that in your heart, the Lord Jesus Christ becomes
the object of our love. We were the object of His love.
That's why He did this. And then He becomes the object
of our love. He wins our heart over our vain idols and whatever
else it is. And He has our love now. And He's going to keep it there.
He's going to keep it set on Him. And so the motive for what
we do now, the motive for what we do is Christ and His cause. from a love for Him because of
His love for us. This is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians
5.14. The love of Christ constraineth
us because we thus judge. And if one died for all, for
all his people, then we're all dead. We all died in Him. That's
what Paul addresses in Romans 6. Our body of sin was destroyed.
We all died in Him. A man that's dead is freed. He's
justified from sin. When the law executes the death
penalty on a man and he dies, the law has nothing else to say
to him concerning condemnation. And that he died for all that
they which live. We live with him, we rose with
him, and by his grace and regeneration we live with him. That those
that should henceforth live should not live unto themselves, but
unto him which died for them and rose again. When we were
dead in our sins, we only live for ourself. We only live for
ourself. Whatever money we made, it was
to put in our savings for self. That was all it was for. Whatever
works we did, it was for self. To edify self, to exalt self,
to set our nest on high, try to get everything we could in
this world. If we were religious before the Lord called us, we
were laboring with a mercenary spirit. This is until God calls
us and saves us and quickens us and sheds the love of God
abroad in our heart. Religious folks are working from
a mercenary spirit, a mercenary motive, and God won't receive
that. He's trying to indebt God. He's trying to work so as to
make God owe you something, try to work so as to escape hell
and earn heaven. and the Lord will not receive
it. But now that the Spirit's made us know, He's made us to
know we're accepted in the beloved, He's made you know you're complete
in Christ, He's made you to know you're seated there at God's
right hand with Him, now what you do is from the constraint
of that love that laid down His life for you. You see, now by
the mercies of God, the least I can do is serve Him. The least
I can do now is try to give whatever I'm doing in a secular job to
make money, it's for His cause. Whatever I'm doing, if He uses
me in any capacity in the church, it's for Him. Whatever it is,
wherever He's put you, wherever He's using you, it's for Him.
And whatever He puts before you, whatever you face, it's for Him,
it's for Him. And it's also for the love of
those that are born of him. It's for your brethren. John
said, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of
God. And everyone that loveth him
that begat loveth him also that's begotten of him. This is because
we're born of the same spirit, born of one spirit. And we know
now our own self personally. We know this. Christ has made
you to know you're one with Him. You're one with Him. Inseparably
one with Him. He's in you. You're in Him. And
you're one with the Father in Him. He's made you know this.
You're one with Him. You're members of His body. He's
the head. You're members of His body. When
making you know that personally about your own self, He's made
you know that so of your brethren. He's in your brethren. He's one
with your brethren, and you're one with your brethren. You're
both members, in particular, in the same body of which Christ
is dead. It's his body. And so making
you know that, therefore, for Christ's sake, by the Spirit
of the Lord, with this motive of love, we love those forgotten
of him. We love those forgotten. I was
thinking about this this past week. There is a dear lady down
in Georgia. I preached for her husband one
time, I guess in early 2000, somewhere around 2001, maybe
2002, something like that. Well, her and her husband were
gone while I preached there. He was sick. Terry and Patsy
Worthen, he was sick. Well, he's with the Lord now.
The Lord took him home last year, I believe. And I've never met
her or him. And we correspond with each other.
She just sent me a nice book in the mail. But I feel like
I know her. I feel like I know her. I feel
like I've met her. Like, why? Because we have oneness in Christ.
That's why. That's what he works in his people,
so that we seek to help one another any way we can. When our brethren
are are sick, or when they're weeping, when they're in sorrow,
we sympathize with them. Because that's, if you're an
older believer, that's your child in the Lord. That's your brother
in the Lord. That might be your mother in
the Lord. That might be your father in the Lord. But what
I'm saying is, that's you that's hurting. Is that real? You don't want to chop off one
of your members. You want to love them. Sympathize
with them. Rejoice when they rejoice. Something
good happens to them, that rejoices you because they're happy. We
bear one another's burdens. They got a heavy load on them.
You don't want to put a heavier load on them. You want to take
it off of them. Why? That's what Christ did for you.
That's what he did for you. You want to forebear with them.
That means you're going to have to go ahead and bear with them
in advance. I'm going to have to bear with
you in advance because you're going to offend me somehow. You're
going to have to do that with me too. You're going to have
to forebear with one another. God did that on purpose. He put
us in this body on purpose, for that purpose. for the spiritual
benefit and profit of one another. And then thirdly, he says, and
I thank God also, not just for the work of faith, not just for
the labor of love, I thank God for the patience of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ. They had a patience of hope in
the Lord Jesus. Now, patience is endurance. That's what it is. It's akin
to perseverance, endurance, enduring hard things. patiently enduring. It includes meekness, submitting
to God, and quietness, trusting God, not being a tumult over
thing. Resignation to the will of God, knowing he's ruling everything,
and it results in patience, endurance, of hope. You're hoping. You have
a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a good hope through grace.
We're waiting, Paul said in Galatians, for the hope of righteousness
by Jesus Christ. We're waiting for that time when
Christ takes us home to be with Him. That's our hope. It's a
good hope. It's a sure hope because He's
entered the veil. We're there with Him now. We're
just waiting for Him to take us there. So we have this sure
hope, but in every trial He gives you, it's for this reason. to
teach a way for him to come to you in that individual trouble.
He started working that immediately with these Thessalonian brethren.
They had to wait on him. They had to wait on him to help
them. And as he worked that in you
through each little trouble he sends you, he's teaching you
little by little. He's faithful to his promise.
He's faithful to his promise. Go to Romans 5. By that, he's
growing us. You just We can't be grown without it. Can't be grown without it. Therefore, verse 1, therefore
being justified by what Christ has done, by faith we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also, it's all
by Christ, we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. That's down
at the end. We're waiting for him to take
us to glory. That's what we're waiting for. That's our hope.
Not only Do we rejoice in them? But we glory in tribulations
right now. Trouble. Knowing that tribulation
worketh patience. That's it, endurance. And patience,
experience. You experience him being faithful
to you and it matures you a little bit. And experience grows you
in hope. You know he's gonna come in the
end because he came to help you in this trouble. You get that? And so, and the hope's not going
to make you ashamed because as he's doing all this, the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which
is given to us. And here's what he's showing
you. When you were without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. That's you, that's me. Scarcely
for a righteous man would one die, yet perventure for a good
man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth His love toward
us. This is the love He's showing
you all over and over and over again. This is, He commended
His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Much more than being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. It doesn't
matter what he sends upon you, he's sending you to show you.
If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of his son, much more being reconciled now, we shall be saved by his
life. That's how he's growing you.
In endurance, in patience, he's growing you in experience, he's
growing you in hope, And he's showing you all of this because
of how he loved you when you didn't have anything lovable
about you. And he's saying, now that I did that for you when
you were an ungodly sinner, now that I've reconciled you, I'm
going to save you by my life. So that grows you in hope that
you know he's coming. You just imagine the tribulation
these brethren face. Think about it now. Think about
it. Newly converted. We're talking
about newly converted. As far as we can tell, I know
there's some debate about this, but as far as we can tell, Paul
didn't preach there but three weekends. And I know, I've read all these
commentaries. Men say, we had to have preached
there longer. They couldn't have been so established in their
faith. It wasn't God that established them. I mean, it wasn't Paul
that established them. It was God that did. And God
could do it. God did it. and immediately sent
trouble to them to grow them right then. They started going
through that right then. Right then. Look back at Hebrews chapter
12. This is just what the Hebrew
writer is telling us right here. We got Paul, we got these Thessalonian
brethren, we got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Noah, all these
different brethren here as a cloud of witnesses. So he says, verse
1, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the
sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience. The race that set before us.
It's not a sprint. Not a sprint. It's a patient,
endearing race. Set before us, how? Looking to
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You're going to
make it. You're going to make it to the
end. Why? Because Christ already did. He's the author and finisher
of our faith. Who for the joy that was set
before him, same word, endured. He endured. He went through the
cross. He went through the grave. He
went to God's right hand. And you did it in Him already,
so He's going to carry you there with Him. You better He is. He
endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God. Scripture says Moses endured
as seeing Him who is invisible. God's going to have to make us
know he's real. He's going to have to make us know that our
faith truly is laid hold of the living God. And he's going to
do it by holding you up when there ain't no way you could
still stand if it wasn't for him. Men make fun of us talking
about believers like we're puppets. He'll send you trouble bad enough
and hard enough and trying enough that you will feel like the only
reason you're standing is because he's got his hand inside you
just like a puppet holding you up. Really. Really. And then by the Spirit shedding
the love of God in your heart, he grew them to see his faithfulness
toward him. That's how he grew all this.
Work patience and hope and all of that. This is why, remember
James, let's go to James, let's look at this. This is why James,
this is what he was saying to these early brethren. And James
is writing to the believing Jews. And their big trial was, they
had been under the law so long, they were having trouble letting
go of it. And they were having trouble taking their heavy hand
off of these Gentile believers. And so that's a trial to them. They're going to have to have
patience to wait on God to work. But he said this in verse 1,
Look at this. Here it is again. He said, verse
2, count it all joy when you fall into different temptations,
trials, knowing this, the trying of your face, working patience.
But let patience have a perfect work. In other words, you endure
to the end so God gives you the full benefit of it. Don't try
to pull, don't try to get out of it too soon. Don't try to
pull your brethren out of it. that you may be perfect and entire,
wanting nothing. Look over James 5, 7. James 5,
7. Be patient, therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. And listen, He's coming in the
end. He's coming again in the end.
But if you're in a trial now, He's coming. Just wait. He's
coming. He's going to come right now.
Just wait, and you will get the lesson he's teaching you. He
will not let it go unlearned. You'll get it. So just wait. But be patient, therefore, brethren,
until the coming of the Lord. Behold, here's the example. The
husband waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth. He's planted
his garden. He gonna wait for it now. He has long patience
for it until he receives the early and latter rain. Be ye
also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the
Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another,
brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before
the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets
who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering
affliction and of patience. We can look, we're looking at
the Thessalonians. He said, look back to the prophet.
We can just look at the Thessalonians. And Paul, they suffered affliction
too. We're taking them for our example.
Behold, we count them happy. They suffered affliction and
they're an example of patience. They just kept enduring. You
go to look at all those things Paul suffered over in 2 Corinthians
when he talks about all the things he endured, he just kept right
on patiently enduring it. And he says, you've heard of
the patience of Job. We count them happy which endure.
You've heard of the patience of Job. You've seen the end of
the Lord, that the Lord's very pitiful. He's of tender mercy.
Just like Job's end was better. If you're a child of God, your
end's going to be better when the trial's over. Because God
is teaching you. He's doing all of these things
we're looking at in you. And that's how he's growing you.
And the end's always going to be better than the beginning.
You'll come out a little more patient, a little more experienced,
a little more grown in hope, a little more grown in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus, a little more believing, a little
more faithful, a little more loving. So do you think that
seeing the members they love die and be persecuted, injured,
do you think that make them think there was no hope of good coming
out of it? You reckon that? Seeing this
persecution, it arose right away. You think that made them entertain
the thought, there's no good that could come out of this.
You start seeing somebody come in here and they start arresting
us and start killing some of us. You think we'd say, well,
I don't see, have any hope of having any goods coming out of
this. But God worked it in them, just like he did in Abraham.
It appeared hopeless if you'd have been in Abraham's shoes.
Listen to Romans 4.18, Abraham against hope believed in hope
that he might become the father of many nations according to
that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak
in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was
about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb,
he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded
that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Therefore it was imputed to him
for righteousness. He believed God. So he continued,
patiently endured, It had hope against hope when it looked hopeless.
Listen to Lamentations 3. This is what we learn from Lamentations
3. Jeremiah is telling us that dwelling
on past miseries will make us lose hope. But dwelling on past
and present mercies will increase your hope. It will increase your
hope. He said, I said my strength and
my hope is perished from the Lord. What made him say that? Remembering my affliction and
my misery, the wormwood and the gall. That's all he was dwelling
on. Dwell on that, you'll lose your
hope. My soul hath them still in remembrance
and is humbled in me. But I listen to this. This I
recall to my mind and therefore have I hope. Here's what I keep
thinking on that keeps me hoping, right here. It's of the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed. Because His compassions fail
not. That's what our Lord's teaching
us. That's what He's teaching us. His compassions do not fail.
They're new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. And
here's what He said, the Lord's my portion, saith my soul. Therefore will I hope in Him. I'll hope in Him. The Lord's
good to them that wait for Him, to them that patiently endure.
To the soul that seeketh Him, it's good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. For the
salvation of the Lord. Whatever you're in, whatever
you're going through, wait and hope in the Lord. Don't give
up on believing Him. We're doing whatever work of
faith He's put in your hand, whatever labor of love, and just
keep hoping in Him. And He'll show you. He'll make
good on everything He's brought. He's able. He's able. All right. Father, thank You for this Word.
We pray, Lord, You would bless it. Teach us these things You're
working. We know You will. We trust You
will. Thank You, Lord, for working it in our brethren in the past
so we could see these things that You've done. Increase our
hope, increase our faith, increase our love. Lord, we've seen it
now. We've seen it in the word. I know how you often soon after
bring us to experience it in Providence. Lord, be merciful
to us. Be patient with us. Uphold us. Make your word effectual in our
heart. Keep us, preserve us. We're going to need it. We're
going to need you to do that for us, Lord. Thank you for Christ
Jesus, our righteousness and our hope. It's in his name we
pray. Amen.