Well, we are in 1 Thessalonians
again this morning, and I pray that as you have spent time this
week, that hopefully, prayerfully, you've come to a place where
you've decided you wanted to read this a little bit, study
it, know it, and most importantly, that it would have, I don't know,
hope in your life, steadfastness, purpose, Oftentimes you find good advice,
good wisdom in a worldly way. Sometimes you find really cool
sayings that are sort of profound. We share them on Facebook. We
write them down on cards. We tattoo them to our conscience. But ultimately they fail us. They fail us because no matter
how profound some truth might be, if it is not the truth of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, it fails. No matter how wise wisdom
may be when it is not the cross, it is foolishness. No matter
how powerful and mighty and strong someone may be in our defense,
no matter how firm the argument in a court of law, it's all for
nothing. And the incomparable Christ is
set to itself in comparison. It is nothing. Everything that
is not Christ is nothing. And we, as we are in Christ,
are His body, which makes us something. But if we're not in
Christ, we are nothing. That's a very difficult thing
for our world to swallow. It's a very difficult thing for
us to consider as Americans where, and I say these words and they
could carry with them great meaning amongst us, a broad view, but entitlement, what's due us,
what's ours, what should be ours, things that we feel are, as we
like to say in our documents in our country, what does it
say? Unalienable rights. Do we have a right to life? Do
we? Liberty? Really? And the pursuit
of happiness? If I've never heard a more secular
hedonistic statement, there is one. But am I thankful that God
has established such a government? Absolutely. But it is not ultimate. It will fail. It has to fail
because God has ordained it. All of Babylon come under the
feet of Christ. All nations fall. All kings are
destroyed for there is no king but Christ and no kingdom but
his church. And so as we've started this
letter last week, We've learned, as Paul and Silas and Timothy
are the senders of this letter, of course, Paul being the author.
that those who are called the church of Thessalonica, the recipients
of these letters, the introduction to this letter reveals the reality
of the gospel, reveals the purpose of God with this church, reveals
the power of God through Christ, and that we have grace and peace
through Jesus Christ in the Father. We are in God. And so therefore,
because of this grace, because of this peace, the rest of the
writing of this letter is going to unfold before us. Friends,
Paul did not write these things just to remind them of the teaching
of the Gospel so that they would just be excited. Well, great, Paul reminded us
of the Gospel. Paul wrote them of the teaching
of the Gospel in this first breath so that they would see the purpose
for which the whole letter stands. Paul wrote this so that they
would see that there is no other hope except the Gospel of Jesus. Paul wrote this, that as he gets
in verse 6 and he starts to commend them for their actions and their
attitudes and their affection, that they don't lose sight of
the reality that it is not for them that they actually exist.
It is not by their power that they actually live. It is not
for their purpose that they actually are doing the good deeds and
the good love and enduring. It is because of Christ and it
is for Christ. As Paul would write to the church
of Colossae, that Christ is the visible image of the invisible
God, and that all that exists, I'm paraphrasing the reality
of what he writes, everything that is, whether kingdom, king,
or material object, everything exists because Christ called
it into being by the Word of His power, and He upholds it
in existence by the Word of His power, and that all these things
are created for Christ and through Christ and in Christ. So that we exist, our holiness
exists, our striving for righteousness, the purpose of our gathering
as the church. We exist for Christ, not for
us. You see, Paul wrote this letter to the
Christians for the sake of their joy, for
the sake of their steadfastness, for the sake of their hope, for
the sake of their strength, for the sake of their endurance.
You say, well, that sounds like it was for them. It was for their
sake, to the glory of God, to the praise of Christ. You see? Why do we need to be strong?
so that Christ is proclaimed our strength? Why do we need
to stand fast in suffering so that Christ is proclaimed and
praised as our hope? Why do we rest in trials and
tribulations to the praise of His glorious grace, as Paul would
tell the Ephesian church? That's why we're here. That's
why we have good days. That's why we have bad days.
That's why we have calamity. That's why we have blessing.
That's why we have everything that happens to us in this life.
It's so that Christ may be, what? Preeminent in all things. Because He is. And as we see this letter unfold,
as we see it begin, it sets the course for the reality of the
gospel and the lives of these Christians in such a way that
there is no question as to how these Christians have lived the
way they have. Remember, they are babies. Remember
that Paul and Silas and Timothy left under duress. Remember that
these Christians heard the gospel and that these church planters,
these apostles, only were there for a short time, maybe six months. And Paul did not go to Thessalonica
and gather a bunch of believers together and say, let's get a
church started. Paul went there under the penalty
of prison and whipping and beating and death and said, I will proclaim
to you that which is absolute foolishness to this world, which
is an offense to my very own people. Jesus Christ is the Lord
God of all creation, and He came to earth, came from the womb
that He created, lived as a man, learned obedience, lived holy
before God, and submitted to the will of God the Father, and
died on the cross so that He might atone and propitiate for
sinners who without His power could not save themselves. This
is Jesus whom you killed, who you saw die, now is alive, who
has been raised to life. Do you believe on Christ? This
is the gospel that Paul preached. And he preached to a full, absolutely
unanimous lost group. Nobody was saved at Thessalonica
when Paul got there. Just like I believe that every
church on every corner If missionaries were to enter their doors, they'd
be preaching almost to a majority of lost people. And when they preach the gospel
of Jesus, when they preach the preeminence of Christ, and when
it puts people in their place which is subordinate to the authority
of Christ, oh, the people of God love and cherish that position,
to know that there is a greater, higher authority than we. But, oh, those who have a false
hope and a false Christ with a false worldly gospel, they
hate that authority. Because there's something internally
with our depravity, with our death, with our sin nature, that
makes us feel as though we are the most important thing in the
cosmos. Ironically, it is more deadly
and more consequential to kill certain animals in this world
than to murder a baby. It is more consequential to starve your pets when you
are poor than to not feed your children. And friends, it is very consequential
when we give way to the flesh of our own authority and ignore
the one who came from heaven and proclaimed life. And I think the root, the root
of all depravity, the root of sin, as we saw from Satan's fall,
from Lucifer's fall, to the fall of the garden, to every man and
woman and child who has ever lived, the root of sin is power. Authority. And the power that
comes with wisdom, knowledge, wealth, it's power. Satan wanted to share the glory
of God because it gave him power. Imagine seeing someone who stunk,
teeth were rotted out, begging for money on the road. You may
have sympathy for them, but they keep showing up to your house
because you gave them something to eat. They want more to eat.
They sleep on your front porch. They climb into the trunk of
your car to go to bed and you're driving down the road and you
hear bump, bump, bump. Hey, I just needed a ride. I mean, if we were honest, we're
like, this guy is getting on my nerves. Let's, you know, love him. Let's
come up, let's take up like $2,000 offering and just get this guy
to another town. I have gotten that wisdom before. Get him a bus ticket closer to
where he needs to go. Get him off your chest. That
sounds a little sad, but that's what we did. Where do you want
to go? Do you want to get close to my family? Here's a Greyhound
ticket. And ultimately, for most people, it was to get him away. Imagine that person. Now imagine after a couple of
months, you find that person, you're watching television one
day, and you see this guy standing on television. And he's standing there in front
of a throne, in front of a royal guard, and he was the king of
a nation. All of a sudden, this guy that
was bothering you, that was sleeping in your trunk, you go, oh, I
know that guy! I gave him a ride. He used to sleep in my house.
He was my roommate. We're like good buddies. It's
all about perspective. It's all about power. We all
want to stand aligned with things that are beautiful. Nobody wants
to stand next to the haggard looking people when it's photo
opportunity time. Nobody wants a selfie with the
homeless guy unless it makes us look powerful because we're
helping him so. But oh, the enemy of God, Lucifer,
wanted to share and bask in the glory of God's authority and
God's power. Not because he knew he did not have power, but oh,
to stand there and be looked upon, and they look upon the
infinite worthiness of God's holiness, and they say, look
at God. Wait a minute. Who's that? He's
sharing the light. He must be beautiful. He must
be worthy. And it's the same temptation
that the devil gave Eve and Adam in the garden. He said, Oh, God
is infinitely worthy, infinitely powerful, infinitely authoritative,
but He's given you the opportunity to share in that authority, to
take the world over, to subdue it, to rule it. But He's keeping something from
you. And if you would just listen to me, I will show you the fullness
of how you can have the power that God has. And they took and
ate of that fruit. Now why this on top of this? Because friends, this was active
in the day of Adam and Eve. This debate, this war, this reality
of power. And it's active today. It was
active in the days of Jesus and the apostles. Thessalonica was
not a stranger to this type of war. And friends, it has not
changed for us this moment. Every one of us sitting here
today is at war. We're at war because we know
the truth. We know the power of God, but
yet the small little voice in our minds tell us that there's
something infinitely missing. There's something, not infinitely,
but infinitesibly missing. We know the truth of this great
eternal power. We know this great God, and His
name is Jesus. He is the Christ, the Lord, the
King. But something else must take
place. We hear those little voices. We get those little voices as
they are confirmed by others around us. Oh, you need to do
what's right for you. You need to make yourself happy. Friends, if Christ is infinitely
worthy, and infinitely holy, and infinitely beautiful, and
infinitely everything, what else do we need? But yet, day in day
out, our careers, our finances, our relationships, our knowledge,
our successes, our little career paths, our goals, our ministries,
our pulpits, our churches, our doctrine can become idols. And
we think if we just knew more, if we just did more, if we just
had more, if we just became more, if we just were more servant.
not bad things to desire, but when our hope is placed in these
things, in the fruit of our faith, above the one who is faithful,
who gave us faith in the first place, we have made an idol.
We are still fighting and are at war with this power struggle. We want our humility to be strong
and powerful. Oh God, thank You that I'm not
like that publican. The Pharisee would pray. Thank
you I'm not like those, as we'd say in California, across the
bridge, dealing with the homosexual community. Or those of the city,
is how most people would say it politely. Thank you God that
I vote Republican. Thank you God that I care for
people. Thank you God that I'm in church
every week. Thank you God that I'm not like
my neighbor." You see, that Pharisee in that story had
power in his own mind. He sat, justified in his own
heart, content at peace with God because of who he was and
how he lived and what he did. He even thanked God for his own
righteousness. I thank you God that I'm not
like this guy. And I mean, we don't really see
that in our day. Because we don't have a sect
of people who truly stand apart from the rest of us. And sadly,
the church of Jesus Christ should stand apart from the rest of
us. As the church in Thessalonica did. because of the grace of
God in Jesus Christ and the peace that came in it. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
verse 1, to the church of the Thessalonians, in God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. We give thanks
to God always for all of you constantly, mentioning you in
our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work
of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, there is nothing I can
say that can bring to light the beauty
of Your Son, the beauty of this text, the beauty of the Gospel,
apart from what You have said and apart from what You are saying
through Your Word this very moment. So Lord, please guard me. Protect
my fleshly wisdom from bleeding into Your infinite truth. Protect the hearts of these sheep
all of us from deceit, from idolatry, from self-righteousness, from
guilt, that we might stand in unity with one faith because
of our one Savior, Jesus, who gave us life through his life,
through his death, and through his resurrection. We thank you
for the faith that you've given us. We thank you for the labor
where you've placed us. Oh Lord, bring remembrance to
each of us as we hear this word today, that we might celebrate
your ineffable glory. In the name of Jesus Christ we
pray. Amen. So because of all this grace,
because of all this peace, the only response that Paul and the
apostles have is gratitude. Think about it. That is the outcome,
is it not? What is worship? We call worship singing. Oh,
that's worship. I can sing a song about anything.
Matter of fact, Brother Doug and I have got about a half a
dozen tick marks in that book. We're going to tear out some
songs on there. And we'll put it together really rapidly. Oh,
this sounds good. This sounds good. Theologically abominable. We'll take some of those songs
out. And I've seen, you know, I do the same thing. You see
families come and they start looking at a church, and they
come in and they want to see some theological fortitude. One
of the greatest places to look is to see what they sing. And I saw a couple in here a few
months back, and they're looking at the book. And I think they
saw some things they didn't like. Like, ooh. Yeah, I meant to tear
that out. That's okay. It's just music. Or is it? But worship can be
done through singing. If the truth is there. If the
truth is sung. And even if the truth is sung,
worship can be absent from singing. If it is not a reflection of
our hearts, then it's not a truth that comes out of our mouth,
it's not a confession, it's a lie. So we can say we love Christ,
and we can say that it's all about Christ alone, but if we
don't believe it, we're not worshipping Christ. We're just saying it. Much like many will say, Lord,
Lord, and Jesus Himself said, Not all who say to me, Lord,
Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who
do the will of my Father who is in heaven. And we won't deal
with that this morning, but sit on that for a minute and let
it rest in your hearts. That some of the greatest blasphemous
use of God's name in vain is Sunday morning worship services.
When people sing praises to a God they don't know, they use the
name of Jesus, that is not the Christ of the Bible, and they
feel good about it. The outcome of grace and peace
is worship. true worship, to cry out and
to ascribe, because of our supernatural affection for the Lord, the reality
of what we see Him as and who He is to us and to our lives. That we let everything go for
the sake of knowing Christ as our Lord and Savior. That we
are willing to die that we might live. And though we are put to
death, we still live. Paul would say, and there's a
big compilation there of a couple of texts. But if we understand that gratitude
is the outcome, that worship is the outcome, and I've used
those words interchangeably, I'm sorry to say, because when
we ascribe worship, we are thankful. We are thankful. Paul is worshiping
in verse 2. We give thanks to God. We thank
You, God. We thank You, God. We thank You
for who You are. We thank You for these beloved
saints in Thessalonica. We thank You for the suffering
that we endured. We thank You, though You left
them as babes, You secured them in the Spirit. We thank You that
not only are they Yours, but we thank You that they are in
You, and they are sealed in Christ Jesus, and they have peace in
the midst of pain, and they have hope in the midst of hopelessness.
They are absolutely Yours, God, and we thank You for Your work. We thank You for Your name. We
thank You for Your power. We thank You. And so when Paul
saw the work of God in the Thessalonians, he could do nothing but worship
God because of it. He could worship in such a way
that he prayed continually as he would instruct. Pray without
ceasing. He exposes here. We give thanks
to God always for all of you constantly mentioning you in
our prayers. And I didn't get a chance to
really deal with this, Sonny. We ran out of time. So I want to
emphasize the reality of this today. that the very core of
being the church of Jesus Christ, the very bottom practice, the
very essence of what it means to trust in the power of the
gospel, is that we have thankfulness and gratitude to God because
of what He's done, and who He is, and how He's working, and
everything else, but also that it's evidenced, listen, it's
evidenced by continual prayer. that as we think, we pray. Let me tell you one of the biggest
power struggles in the life of the church is how we think in our own minds,
how we talk to our own selves. And you know, when we ponder and when we examine And when
we think and we talk to ourselves and we have these conversations
inside of our minds, most of the time it's not positive. You ever thought about that?
I mean, I guess if you're some
weirdo that looks in the mirror and goes, I'm a beautiful person. Everybody
loves me. What is that, you know, self-affirmation
stuff? If some of you do that, let's
talk. But most of the time, we talk
to ourselves in our minds, the little voice inside of our heads,
it is negative. Well, this is not working right, this is not
good. What am I supposed to do? Maybe I'll do this. Or maybe
if you're like me, see, I just go into this little zone. I suck
myself into this little room, and it's like an interview room,
and everybody that I need to deal with is sitting across the
table and we're talking. This is what I see. And we're
talking, and then I say some things, and then they say some
things. And then we have a conversation in my mind. Yes, I'm crazy. In
my mind. And then I'm mad at them. How dare they say that to me?
So that when they actually do call, or we actually have the
conversation, I'm already mad. Don't go there. Y'all don't do
that? Am I the only insane person here?
But you know what I'm saying? And we do all that and then we
fret. And then something pops in our mind. And we're not even
having lucid thought. It's just there. It's like...
Trouble, trouble, trouble. I mean, you know, warning, warning. And it's just like a warning.
It's just constant insanity. And we don't know how to deal
with it. But we give time to it. How am I ever going to overcome
this? Friends, if we would take our
thoughts and our personal conversations and we would pray instead of
ponder, we would be in tune with God. And when we pray, we show our
dependence upon Him and not us. And I've never ever had an authentic
prayer that had any phrase in it where I'm talking to myself
in front of God. Well, maybe I should do this.
That's not a prayer. God, maybe I should do this.
Now, that's what you talk to your neighbor about your weed
problem. Bill, maybe I should spray some Roundup. No, it'll
kill your grass. That's not how we talk with God.
Jesus makes it clear how we pray. We pray constantly. And so that's
what I think Paul means on the surface in the context of praying
without ceasing, is that we always have thoughts in our brains.
And these thoughts need to stop communicating with a depraved
nature and start communicating with the Spirit of God. that
we give our thoughts to the Lordship of Jesus. And I don't want you
to take those words and run with them. I believe that we have
been given the power and the authority to subject all that
we are to the Lordship of Jesus. And so how does that work? Discipline.
The Word. Pray. But most importantly, not
just in praying, the point here, I've gone on a rabbit trail,
the point here is that we are a praying people. Now let me
tell you what is not healthy prayer. Unhealthy prayer is no
prayer. That's what unhealthy prayer
is. Not praying is unhealthy. Praying is healthy. You see it? Quit falling into this power
struggle with thinking that we've got to have the right words.
We've got to say the right phrases. We've got to claim the right
things. Friends, you can't claim anything that God has not already
given you. You can't rebuke anything that God has not rebuked. And
it's not a spirit of the devil that causes your anger. It's
your flesh. You want to rebuke that? Then
put your flesh to death. Put it to death. Subject yourself
to the truth of the gospel that you are alive and that this man
that lives, that tries and struggles at war with the Spirit of God
in me is dead. Stop! How? Well, how often do we pray? And I think we ought to pray
more than we seek counsel. We ought to pray more than we
hear preaching. We ought to pray more than we read our Word. Though they should be close. Because a Christian that has
no prayer life, a Christian that does not pray, is a Christian
that is in control of their own lives. Spurgeon would then say,
a Christian that does not pray is no such thing. They prayed thankfully to God
always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers. Friends, do you know why? Do
you know Paul had a lot more to deal with than praying for
the people of Thessalonica? Out of sight, out of mind. And
they were healthy. They were living the Christian
life. They were sharing the gospel. They were suffering with joy.
They were being arrested and their property being plundered.
They were losing everything they had for the gospel. Paul had
much more to pray for than them. But yet, the Spirit of God, because
of His great affection for them. Remember in the writings of the
Philippians? Remember how Paul says, I have for you all the
affection of Christ? That everything, the fullness
of the love of God in me is in the same way in which I love
you? All the affection of what Christ loves, I love you equally? Because all the love within me,
as we'll see in a minute, is Christ's love for you? You know,
something that you love is top of your mind. Something that
you love is always on your plate. It's always in your thoughts.
It's always in front of you. And when we love something, it's
there. It's there. It cannot escape us. It cannot
escape us, even if it's taken away from us. Our affection does
not escape. Friends, our love for each other
as the church should be that way. And you may not even know
the names of everybody in this room, but you know their face. And you should have a heartbroken
but joyful remembrance of this body and of others who we pray
for on an ongoing basis. Is your prayer life worthy of
the truth of the gospel alive in you? And all of us should
say, not at all. Yet we rejoice knowing that God
is constantly at work. There is no guilt. I prayed that
for us this morning. We cannot sit here guilty under
the preaching of God's Word unless we're purposefully rebelling.
And then that feeling of guilt turns to repentance, a feeling
of repentance, a truth of repentance, then the action of repentance.
We stop and we move into obedience. So we should pray. And we remember
each other, as Paul says in verse 3, remembering before our God
and Father. Now, here is why Paul was so
grateful to God. Now, I'm going to say something
right here, and I want you to listen, because it's going to
be... These little statements like this have often been the
crawl, the rub, the stick, that people start to think, I don't
know about this guy. A lot of times we thank God in
our prayers for each other because our children have come to faith.
Please, I'm not belittling it. I'm just giving a list and then
we're going to pull it all together. Or that someone gets saved. Or in days of old, we used to
do the altar call. Oh, look at the people that came
to the Lord. And here's the point. It's easy for us to feel exuberance
and gratitude and joy at new birth. Or at false new birth. You hear me? Paul is not praising God that
those people receive the gospel. Many receive the gospel. Few are born of God. Did you
hear that? Many. Oh, the greatest story
I've ever heard. Good news. Yes, that's what I've
been looking for. Praise the Lord. I believe. to which the Word of God, every
portion of the New Testament, tells us that the fruit of that
salvation is the work of God. And so Paul did not pray gratitude
to God, constantly mentioning them in his prayers, because
they had received the gospel, Paul is thankful to God and mentioning
them constantly in his prayers because they received the gospel
with power evidenced by transformation and new birth. Okay? So that's what Jesus means. There's
two sections of people in the, quote, body of Christ. Those
who say, Lord, Lord, and those who are truly His. They will know you by your fruit.
And if you have no fruit, you are going to be cut off and burned. I'm remembering before our God
and Father three things. That's all we're going to deal
with today in the remainder of our time. Three things. One is
your work of faith and labor of love. Instead, fastness
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, three. Alright, so let's put
this together, and then verse four begins with four, and that's
next week. Three things. We thank God for
you. But most importantly, we thank
God for His work in you. First, we thank God for His work
in you, for your work of faith. Why are you putting those words
in there? He's already said that. To the church of Thessalonians,
in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you
and peace to you. Thank God for His work in you. So it's there we talked about
the last week. Your work of faith. You see, a lot of times people
think that work of faith, it could be a lot of things. What
is your work of faith? If you had to answer that right
now, what would your work of faith be? Some of us would say,
I don't have any work of faith. That's the problem. I'm sitting
on my butt, I come to church, I sit on my butt, I come to church,
I sit on my butt, I come to church. What my grandfather would say
years ago, most people think church is this, I come, preach
or preach, I go home. Done. It's not it. The work of faith
is not your religion, though it's important, what you do in
response to obedience to God, the things that you work in your
life, working out your own salvation of fear and trembling trust in
Him who is faithful. But the work of faith that the context
of this letter, especially the first chapter, teach us, is not
just working out salvation, but working in and from salvation. And for the sake of those who
knew the Thessalonians, who lived among them, the Macedonians,
the Achaeans, and others, the Thessalonian church was active
in the work of faith for the sake of salvation to others as
well. And they never went out into
the hillsides and said, hey guys, we're having a blast, Jesus is
awesome, come join us in what we're doing. That's not the gospel. And if that's not the gospel,
then to do that is anti-gospel. What is anti-gospel? No gospel.
What's the result of no gospel? Paul says to Galatians, anathemas,
cut off forever. So we want to think about our
pragmatic theology, if I could dare call such a thing that.
That's why we are not going to be involved in becoming a purpose-driven
pragmatism placing whatever, give me another P and a bad thing
and then we'll put it in the list. We're not going to be that
type of people who become programmatic in thinking we can share in a
work of faith that's getting people to come to the fellowship.
Friends, what could we offer them that would be greater than
Christ, that would entice them to come be a part of the body
of Christ? That makes no sense. I don't even know how to come
up with an example to illustrate that, because it's just dumb.
But yet, that's who we are. Just dumb. Without Christ, we're
just dumb. We think we're wise, but we're
really fools. We seek after the wisdom of this
world, but God in His wisdom has chosen to make nothing of
the wise. This work of faith, These Thessalonian
Christians went out of their area, went into their own homeland,
and they proclaimed the gospel. Not, come be with what we're
doing. Come join us. Man, Jesus set me free and I've
never felt so good. I've never had so many friends.
I've never enjoyed Sundays before. Why are you saying those things?
These are testimonies I've heard at baptisms. where people say
they've been saved from their sin by the holiness and the graciousness
of God. And instead of proclaiming that
truth of the gospel, they proclaim, my life, I was just so bored,
and I was just so alone, and I was just so depressed, and
I was just so sad, and now that I'm in church, my life is transformed. That's not a testimony of God. The Thessalonians were not doing
that. They weren't asking anybody, alright y'all, let's just give
up our alcohol, let's just give up our idols. Y'all come on,
we've got a support group for people who worship idols. You
know what the support for people who worship idols is? Christ.
You know what the support group looks
like for marriages that are in trouble? The gospel of Christ. and that they put Christ as the
highest love of their life above their marriage. And as Paul says
in 1 Corinthians, when one comes to faith and an unbelieving husband
doesn't want to have anything to do with Christ, let them go. The work of faith is that these people,
at all costs, were sharing the gospel of Jesus. Y'all hear that?
This is the work of faith. They went to bed every night
on their knees, praying that God would sustain their lives
to such a degree that they could see the sun rise the next morning.
That they could go and proclaim and herald the great righteousness
of Jesus Christ as the only hope for the living who are really
dead, that they may live forever. This is what they did. This is
what they did in their jobs if they kept them. This is what
they did in their homes if they were allowed to stay. This is
what they did in their communities if they were not ostracized.
But friends, it came with a great cost. They were hated. They were
arrested. They were beguiled. They were
belittled. They were worthless. in the eyes
of their culture because they had given up everything they
were. They gave up their nationalism. They gave up their patriotism.
They gave up everything that they believed in for their entire
lives because Christ had come and found them in the darkness
and opened their eyes to see and they looked out and they
said, there is no way this holds a candle to the beauty of that
Lord that has saved me by His grace. No way. So the work of
faith that God was being praised for is that these people were
known for the gospel coming out of their mouths. That's the work
of faith in the Thessalonians. I mean, look at verse 6. Let's
give you a little sneak preview. And you became imitators of us. You
lived as Christ has called us to live. For you received the
Word. See, they received the Gospel
in much affliction. Not easy believism like we have
in our culture today. It is not easy to believe in
Jesus. It is costly. It's not costing me anything.
Check your faith. Don't sit here pride. Don't sit
here with the power of your flesh and the power of your faith in
that moment in time where you think you got saved because of
what you did. You believe in the gospel of Jesus this day.
Never was it written yesterday was the day of salvation. Nor
was it ever written tomorrow you shall be saved. Today. But you received the word of
much affliction, verse 6, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so
that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia
and Achaia. And in verse 8, for not only
has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you, but your faith
in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.
You see that? Friends, does this surprise people?
When they see you with your Bible... Is that a Bible? You know one of the most horrifying
rebukes that ever happened to me? It's not a rebuke. One of the most horrifying realities
is as I walked the hall of a church building with a Bible in my hand. I was called the prophet because
I always had the Bible. And I'm like, wow, I thought
that's what we were. What else should we have? Do
people know us for the gospel or for our gossip? Do people
know us for our calling in Christ or our career? Do people know
us for our humility? The people know us and the words
on our mouth is that no matter what we may discuss, no matter
what we enjoy in this life, it's always coming back to the cross
of Christ. Because nothing else matters. Friends, this isn't
a call for the pastor of the church. This is a call for all
who are in Christ. And it's not even a call, it's
a certainty. A mentor of mine years ago, as
he lived radically before the world, I radically stopped in
my car one time and said he'd eat dirt for Jesus, got out on
the side of a Virginia highway and ate dirt. No lie. Licked the bottom of his shoe.
I don't care. I love Jesus. I'll do anything. More power
to you. And then I heard him speak to
a group a couple of days later, and he said, some people say
that I'm a radical Christian. Radical. And with the loudest
voice he ever said, he says, I'm not radical, I'm normal. The Thessalonians were normal
Christians. Normal Christians of our culture
are non-Christians. You hear that? The normal Christians
of our culture are non-Christians. And we all need to look at that.
And we don't need to get up tomorrow and change our personality, change
our plans, lest the Lord call us to. But we need to get up
in the morning and do exactly what we were doing this afternoon.
living with an absolutely unshakable affection for Jesus Christ that
produces that which it produces at every moment in our life. Friends, we don't put our socks
on except for the glory of God. Now remember, I talk to myself
a lot. I don't talk to my socks, but
I think about what I'm doing when I'm putting on my socks.
And I think about how awesome it is to have socks. And I think
about, I wonder where these were made. And I wonder if it's slave
labor. I really don't want to know right
now. What about this company? You see what I'm saying? And
Robin used to always say, James, why are you walking around with
one sock on? Because I've been sitting here for 15 minutes with
the other one on, thinking, and then I forgot to put the other
one on. I'm better now. That's the truth. It doesn't matter what we do.
We need to be effectively concerned with how our lives are representing
Christ. How our hearts are affectionate
toward Him. And friends, when we do these
things, we let everything else in this world go. It just fades
away. And even though it may be urgent
and important and vital, it does not shake us. And we know that
it's secondary, even though it may have to be dealt with this
day. If an ox is in the ditch, we deal with it. But friends,
I don't buy one moment, I don't buy one moment that there is
anything that God would call us to do that's costly, that
we wouldn't do if we're born of God. I'll say it another way. If we love Christ the way we
ought to, We'll do anything He calls us to, even if we die. I thank you God, Paul says, for
your work in this people and their work of faith, their obedience
of faith. The outcome of their lives is
that they made much of the gospel. They were missionaries who preached
Christ. all while being hated and persecuted. You want to see a friendships
test? Preach the truth of the gospel. Just open your mouth
and tell the truth. And God will speak. And they
will hate you or they will be broken before you. I promise
you. I promise you. No matter what
you do. If you sell chocolate door to
door, preach Christ. That's the first thing God was
praised for, their work of faith. Secondly, their labor of love.
Well, now, what's the difference? Well, I believe their love for
Christ and their love for others in the body and their love for
the lost created that labor that produced that work of faith.
You see that? This labor of love. This is a work of pain. I want
you to pay close attention. Labor, by definition, is hard. Listen, posting I love Jesus
on Facebook is not labor. Sending a private message to
a brother who posts heresy because you want to see him find joy
in Christ, that's labor. Getting on the phone with somebody
who hangs up on you because you want to see them full in the
truth of the gospel, that can be labor. Why? Because it hurts.
It hurts. The labor of love is epitomized
foundationally in the cross. It's a labor of love of God the
Father who put Christ on the cross so that He could pay the
penalty of our sin because of His love for His people. It's
a labor of love because Christ, though He knew fully that He
did not want to experience that type of suffering, Oh Father,
if it possible, take this cup from me. He willfully obeyed
death. Or obeyed the Father and died. labor of love. This work in pain
with the fullness of joy was from the love that was within
them. The love that pours out from them. The love that is God's
in them. For John would say that God is
love. We love because God first what? Loved us. So the very definition of love
is to suffer for those who hate you. The very definition of love is
to lay down your life for someone else. And if we do that not for the
gospel, we've wasted it. Wasted. Philanthropy and benevolence
and sacrifice is all God-like, but it's worthless. It all is like a shadow of the
gospel, but it's worthless. You can always see the hero sacrifice
himself on the spaceship so the earth doesn't blow up, and it's
like, oh wow, that's sort of like what Christ did, but it's
worthless. But when we give our lives away
for the sake of the gospel, what does Jesus say? If anyone seeks
to find and keep his life, he'll lose it. But if anyone is willing
or seeks to lose his life for the sake of me and my gospel,
he finds it. So the labor of love for the
Thessalonians was a work in which they endured pain. That's the
point. As a matter of fact, you could
translate that in verse 2. We give thanks to God, verse
3, remembering before our God and Father your work of love
and labor of love. You could translate that in endurance. Labor, work is hard. It's an endurance. Paul tells
young Timothy to endure, to labor, to work and suffer hard, to endure
the suffering by the grace which is yours in Christ Jesus. stand
up in it, hold on, look for it, and press in it. You see? Endurance
and suffering is not just, it's going to get me, it's going to,
oh, okay, I'll just take it. As we run away, endurance and
suffering is, there is the call, there is the pain, let's get
it! And it sounds crazy, but that's
what God has done in His people. But what specifically is this
labor of love? It's that they get no credit,
no praise, no affection, no reward, no attaboys, but they're ridiculed,
hated, laughed at, rebuked while they do the work. because
of the love of God in them, for not just the saints, but also
for their love for the lost, and for their love for Christ. It's not just in preaching the
gospel that they suffered, it's in living in the gospel that
they suffered. They were known far beyond the territory. Because
those believers in Macedonia, hey, you want to see transformation?
You want to see something? Those people in Thessalonica
have been transformed. You know how we joke? You ever
heard the old joke? Oh, we know there's a God in
heaven. Daddy quit drinking. That's good. Okay, let's give
God credit for that. Or, we know there's a God in heaven. He's
wearing a suit. Really? Well, we know there's
a God in heaven. So and so's It won the presidency. I mean, there's always some phrase
of humoristic expression where we talk about how we know there's
a God because something impossible happens. Right? Well, think of the Macedonians.
We know that the God of Paul is real because He alone, only
something divine could transform these people into who they are.
And we thought they'd flake on out. We loved Jesus for a couple
of weeks, a couple of months, a couple of years, and then psst.
But they didn't. They stayed. Now some of them
probably did. And God probably brought some
of them back. I'm not telling you to judge yourself based on
how long you've been in the faith. Judge yourself based on are you
in the faith now? Don't try to go where you were.
Be where you are. Be who God has called you to
be this day. Believe on Christ this moment. Love Him now. You
can't make up for your lack of love and your lack of service
and your lack of obedience. You can never make up for any
of it. Just like we can never make up for our unholiness and
our wickedness. Nobody can make up for any failure
on our part except Jesus Christ who has satisfied God's judgment
against all of it. Even our failures in our faith.
Therefore now there is no condemnation. So to sit in pity is as big a
sin as unbelief. Steadfastness, well, labor of
love. Love produces in these people,
love produces in us, beloved, a willingness. And I think that
that's the key word. Not just the ability to endure,
but a willingness to endure. Labor. I was scared to death
when my wife got pregnant with Katie. Because of the pain that
I thought. or knew that she was going to
experience. I didn't say a word, I didn't want to freak her out,
like she didn't know. But they endure for the prize
of a child. How much more precious and valuable,
how much more eternal is a labor, a willing suffering for the sake
of the gospel? They were willingness to be under
pain for the sake of the glorious truth of the love of Christ.
And this happens in our marriage, it happens in our home, it happens
in our job, it happens in our communities, it happens everywhere.
We've got to be willing to speak the gospel. Well, I just don't think that
that's proper in my workplace. As you go, Wherever you are,
in every opportunity, as the Lord commands, you share the
gospel. Friends, I don't know about you,
I've never been around one person in my entire life, even in passing,
who doesn't need the gospel. I don't care if it's preacher
or pagan. We all need the gospel. You need
the gospel. Even as the body, you need the
gospel. Finally, look, Paul was thankful
to God, remembering the work of love, the work of faith and
the steadfastness of hope in Christ Jesus. What does that
look like? Steadfastness is unchanging resolve. I'm going to stay in this position.
I'm not going to be shaken. I'm not going to turn away. I'm
not going to run. I'm not going to give up. Because
Christ is my strength. Because Christ has paid for my
sin, therefore has given me His Spirit, therefore I can stand
in the power and the might of God. So I am not standing here
resolved, Christ is standing here resolved in me. Paul says something very
akin to that. He says, for I do not live, but
Christ lives within me. Does He not? And I live this
life by faith in the One who loved me and gave Himself for
me. So it is not I who live, but
Christ who lives. So it is not my resolve, it is
the resolve of Christ. It is not my strength, it is
the strength of Christ. It's not my hope, it is the hope
of Christ. Christ who died hoping and knowing
fully that God the Father would raise Him from the dead. Now
we who are in Christ are standing firm without any change, determined
to do and be those people whom He has purchased at all costs. Steadfastness doesn't look back.
Steadfastness doesn't give up. But it looks forward. All the
recipes of hope don't look back. All the recipes of hope say,
forgetting what lay behind, pressing on to what lies ahead. All the
recipes of hope and all the power of hope say that no matter what,
you accepted the plundering of your property for you knew you
had, and what? An eternal abiding reward. Why would I want to hang on to
this penny if I've got a million dollars coming? Oh, that's not
a good steward. That's not the point. Why would I want to hang on to
this life? And why would I want to focus and entrench myself
and sink into the depression of this world that's not going
to stop? It will not quit. The problems
of this world and this life are endless until Christ comes back. They will not relent. Especially for the body of Christ. Steadfastness is resistant to
failure. These Thessalonian Christians
did not fail in their lives. They did not fail in the gospel.
Now, they had failures. I want you to listen. But they
didn't fail. Because Christ cannot fail. He
who is faithful cannot deny himself. If we are faithless, He remains
faithful. Our hope is in Christ. And He
will save. He will seek. He will bring His
body to righteousness. He will build His church. He
will, He will, He will. And He has, beloved, look around
the room and look into the soul of your own existence and know
that you are a child of God because the Spirit of God testifies to
you that you are by the truth of His Word and by the power
of His Spirit. Romans 3. Romans 8. All over. The steadfastness of
hope is because we have true hope in Jesus Christ. And that's
how he closes this little phrase. We have the steadfastness of
hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. And remember the context of this
sentence. And for that, we mention you in our prayers and we thank
God. So the question that sits on
all of our fleshly minds is, how do I have this hope? Paul
says, in Christ. Paul says in Christ, I don't
know, I can't figure it out, I have no idea. You Jesus, it's
just you, I don't know. I rest in You. I don't know how
it's going to come out. I don't know what I'm supposed
to do. This is where I rest. You are faithful. You rest in
the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Friends, how that looks in resting
is going back. There are things that we must
do in our belief. Pestuanes, the believing ones. We who are the believing ones
are in a current state of belief. John 3, 16, 17. We are the believing ones and
those who are the believing ones are actively believing, which
produces what? Obedience. produces righteousness. It's not the obedience and the
righteousness that give us faith. It's Christ and His gift of faith
that gives us the outcome of that. And even when we fail,
we still are alive in Christ. But we don't stay in failure.
What are we to do? How are we to cling to Christ? If He were in the room, what
would we do? If Jesus were with us, What would
we do? We would not worry about lunch. We would not worry about tomorrow.
We would not worry about our problems. We would do what most
people did in the history of His earthly ministry. We would
crowd around Him and hope to touch Him and hope to cling to
Him and stay with Him. We would hang close. We who are
in Him. There's no difference. If He were with us in the flesh
today, there's no difference in what we would do then than
what we should do now. We stay close to Christ. the
Logos who became flesh and dwelt among us. We stay close to Christ.
We listen to Him. We talk to Him. We stay connected
to Him. This is the vine and branch analogy
that Jesus gives us. The Word of Life. We submit and
hold and hunger for the Word because we want to hear the power
of the Gospel breathed from the mouth of God in the face of Christ. We want to be able to say what
John says. We have touched. the Word of
Life, we have heard with our own ears the mouth of God. A
stark contrast to the Jews of Moses' day, who begged to hear
no more commands. To beg Moses to cover his face. We who are the body want to hear
the voice of our Shepherd. And if we are to rest and be
steadfast in the hope that is Christ, and we say that we are
not in the Word, and we are not in prayer, we don't want to hang
close to Christ. And friends, I will tell you
right now, there are people who are not with us today for whatever
reason, and because of that, the body suffers. Because there are people who
need this Word who will not be here, who need the touch of your
life and theirs, who need the prayers and the remembrance of
them in your prayers. And when they are not assembled
with us, they lose and we lose. So, that's what we are. That's whose we are. That's the
point of the rest of this letter as Paul begins to express the
beauty of the ministry of the gospel in the Thessalonians.
And I pray that your soul is satisfied in this reality. Let's
pray. Father, there is not much to
say. except praise you for your glory,
for your grace, for your unwavering love for us, for the hope that
comes through Christ, for the love that you work in us because
of your love for us. Lord, we are a broken people
set apart from this world, and each of us in our separate little
shambles of pieces come together to make a beautiful portrait
of your power. And so, Lord, we pray for each other right
now, that Your Word would be alive in us, that Your Spirit
would be powerful in us, Lord, that our hearts and minds would
be at peace with You, that we would remember each other, we
would remember those who are not with us. We would pray for
those who are unable to find hope. We would go out and proclaim
the Gospel to all in this world. We would endure the pain of the
labor of love. And we would give you praise
for it. We thank you, God, so much for showing us the simple
truth. And thank you for giving us the
eyes to see it. For there are many who are blind, and they
would rather starve than come to you. Lord, would you open
their eyes? Would you open the eyes of all
of us here? Bring us to faith. that you might be praised for
the fruit of your purchase. Through Jesus Christ and in His
name we pray. Amen.