An estimated 500,000 tons of water rush over the Niagara Falls every minute. On March 29, 1948, the falls suddenly stopped. People living within the sound of the falls were awakened by the overwhelming silence. What happened? Heavy winds had set the ice fields of Lake Erie in motion. Tons of ice jammed the Niagara River entrance near Buffalo and stopped the flow of the river until the ice shifted again some 30 hours later.
How often do we take for granted the grace of God that flows into our lives every minute? Many times we fail to realize how great that grace is until it stops flowing. The Apostle Paul was not an individual who took God’s grace for granted. After all he had been shown immense grace when God forgave him for his part in the murder of Christians. And he was one who was never negligent to give thanks for the grace of God in his life or in the lives of those he knew.
In this passage of Scripture God gives to us a picture of His grace working through a group of Christians in a difficult setting. And the Apostle Paul gives thanks loudly for it. I think the key idea that we can glean from this passage is that the changes that God produces in our lives through His grace, as believers, should cause us to give thanks to Him. And this ought to be whether we see it in our own lives or in the lives of others. Let us not wait until the flow of grace is cut off and the deafening silence that results shows just how much God had been doing. Let us be thankful people and seek to constantly recognize God’s work in our midst. We are too often too quick to criticize and too slow to give thanks.
In this first chapter of his letter to the Thessalonian believers, the Apostle Paul describes two sources of his unceasing thankfulness for them. He notes his thankfulness for these brothers and sisters in Christ by saying, “We give thanks to God always for all of you.” This is important to note as we begin this section because Paul was not thanking the Thessalonians. He was thanking God who was working through the Thessalonians. We must never forget whom we are to thank as we see people around us serving Christ with all their heart. The action may be coming from them but it is coming through God. Why is it that Paul and those with him are continually giving thanks to God? Paul lists the two sources of his unceasing thankfulness in verses 3-10.
1. Remembering Their Virtue
The first source of Paul’s unceasing thankfulness is found in verse 3. It is by remembering their virtue. Their behavior was worth remembering. There were three highly meritable characteristics that these believers exhibited. And being an evidence of God’s grace in the lives of the Thessalonians, Paul was able to give thanks greatly. We see two components of this these characteristics that Paul describes.
A. It was a three-tiered effort
The first component of these characteristics that Paul describes is that it was a three-tiered effort. These characteristics weren’t independent of one another. But Paul lists them as if they described the increasing faithfulness of these Thessalonian believers. These three characteristics seem to move in a direction that portrays a greater amount of devotion to the God who saved them from their sin. Let’s just read this verse again. “Constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father.”
i. A work motivated by faith
The first characteristic that Paul lists here is that the Thessalonians carried on a work motivated by faith. These believers in Christ heard of the good news of the Gospel and they took off to work. They understood the implications of this Gospel in their lives and realized that it was necessary for them to share this good news with others. It was a work motivated by faith. Their trust in the fact that God had loved them enough to send His Son to die for them caused them to realize that since this was true then anyone who did not put their faith in Jesus Christ would suffer the coming wrath of God. This faith motivated them to go everywhere telling others about the good news of the forgiveness of their sins. This is the forgiveness to everyone who would embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. For the Thessalonians, this was news that was too good to keep.
This work of sharing the Gospel, into which they entered, was simply the logical conclusion of what they had believed. They had recognized, that as sinners, they were going to stand accountable to God for all the wrong that they had done. They likewise understood that the penalty of that sin was eternal punishment from God. And when they responded to the Gospel, the good news of this available forgiveness, they reasoned that since this was true how could they be so unrighteous, so wicked as to not tell those around them. It truly was a work motivated by their faith.
What about you? Have you found in the Gospel news that is to good to keep to yourself? If your neighbors house was on fire wouldn’t you do what you could to warn them? Then if you believe this good news of God’s forgiveness will you keep the truth to yourself and allow your friends and neighbors to perish in the flames?
ii. A labor that continues through love
The second characteristic that Paul lists here in verse 3 is that the Thessalonians performed a labor that continues through love. Yes their faith had initially sustained their effort. But the work of sharing the Gospel began to become more difficult. This word, “labor” refers to that which leads to exertion, toil, pain and hardship. It denotes not only the activity of exertion and toil and the process of becoming tired but also the consequent fatigue and depression (NIDNTT, p.262). Whereas “work” may be any task that is being accomplished with a goal, “labor” is that which brings exhaustion. And Paul is telling the Thessalonians that when they began to see opposition to the Gospel, when they recognized that not everyone they told was going to be as enthusiastic as they were in receiving the message, they still continued to labor. And this labor was born out of their love for Jesus Christ. They now had a love that would sustain them through the difficult times. The Apostle John says in his first letter that we love God because He first loved us. And Paul also says in his letter to the Romans that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Because God has put this love into our hearts through our faith we are enabled by Him to continue when the work turns into labor. If we truly have love for God shed abroad in our hearts then we are going to want to tell others about His great love for us. We are going to continue putting our hand to the plow when things seem tough. We are not going to give up in our pursuit of holiness when the world around us seeks to stifle our Christian walk.
I think some of the hardest times in my Christian life was when, as a new believer, I was putting off the evil behavior of my life to which I was so accustomed, others would castigate my new life in Christ by saying that I thought I was better than them. I knew that it wasn’t true because I only wanted to live in a way that was pleasing to my Lord and Savior. That was my motivation for changing. It was difficult but my love for Christ allowed me to continue to live for Him. But we shouldn’t be surprised when these difficulties take place in our lives. The Scripture says that they are going to happen. Peter, in his first letter, says that the unbelievers are surprised that you no longer run with them into the same excesses of wickedness and they speak evil of you.”
And how did these early believers respond? Not only did they not abandon their faith but they continued to love those who refused their message. They continued to pray for them and serve them with the desire to see them know the love of Christ that controlled them.
Paul says the Thessalonians evidenced their love for Jesus Christ by their hard labor which they were enduring as they lived for Him.
iii. A steadfastness that endures because of hope
The third characteristic that Paul lists here is a steadfastness that endures because of hope. They had a firm hope in the fact that they would not experience the wrath of God but would be, as verse 10 says, rescued from the wrath to come. Now the biblical word “hope” shows every evidence of a sure and firm expectation of God’s promises coming to pass. They weren’t 50% sure that their sins had been forgiven. They were completely sure, not on the basis of their effort, but on the basis of God’s promises to them through His Word.
Their hope was not placed in this life. Their hope was not in the pleasures of this life. They didn’t live for weekends or for condos or for anything else but God. They didn’t see the best things of this life as the world sees them. Their hope was centered on Christ and the life into which they will enter when they will see Him.
This hope gave them a steadfastness or patience or endurance that allowed them to live with joy in the midst of heavy persecution. This is what Paul says in verse 6. “You also became imitators of us and of the Lord having received the Word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.”
I received an email from [name removed by request], our missionary to Thailand, this week. Let me read to you an excerpt from it.
Four days ago, I sat across a table with three believers from Donphai and Donsung village who had walked over 90 miles through the thickest of woods and mountains for 2 days just to get to the city of Pakse to seek temporary refuge because of the threats on their lives and their families. I listened to them recounting the unforgettable stories of their prior arrests for believing in Christ and now again their sons and closest relatives are in prison and they themselves are not safe anymore. Others are under forced labor making bricks as part of their crime. Their crime is their insistence in believing in Jesus Christ and their resolve in maintaining their Christian faith.
How could anyone endure this kind of persecution unless they had understood the truth of the Gospel, and placed their hope not in the ease of retirement in this life but in the enduring wonder of the next life? I think that many are not living for Christ in the West because it has been easy to believe in Christ without real persecution. It is easy (maybe too easy) to avoid persecution and think that we can place our hope in Christ and in our comfort too. However, Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters. If we have placed our hope in not suffering for the Gospel and have not set our heart and eyes on the next life then we are not serving Christ.
I think the reason that many Christians in the Western world are renouncing their faith is because they do not have any hope in the next life but seem to think that it is to be all in this life as if Jesus Christ is some kind of Genie who needs to give us all for which we ask. We forget Paul’s words to Timothy when he said, “Those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” I think [name removed]’s response to the plight of those believers whom he is trying to help in Laos is indicative of what kind of hope we should be having. Instead of getting mad at God for not helping these believers, he said, “I have no solution to how I felt except to say that God is sovereign.” Though [name removed] doesn’t have an answer to why God is allowing the persecution that is taking place, he has a hope (a confident expectation) in a sovereign God who works out all things together for good to those that love Him and are the called according to His purpose; God who has given us an enduring in the next life but not a promise of ease in this life.
Where have you placed your hope? Are you looking forward to the treasures in heaven or are you seeking to stock up on the treasures here? Ask yourself a couple of questions to determine where you are.
Are you avoiding opportunities to share your faith because you don’t want to be insulted or abused by others or do you prepare yourself to suffer for the sake of Christ?
Are you willing to make yourself uncomfortable so as to better present the Gospel of Christ to those around you?
Well how can we have a patience that endures because of our hope in heaven? How can we develop a love that can give us the will to labor and toil for Christ? How do we grow our faith so that we want to work for Him? I think that this answer can be found in the next component of these characteristics that Paul describes.
B. It was tied to God
That second component of these characteristics (work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope) that Paul describes is that it was tied to God. Why do I say that? Look at verse 3 again, “Constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father.” How was this tied to God? Paul mentions two ways in which their faith, love and hope were tied to God.
i. There is the centrality of Christ
First we see that, in the lives of these believers, there is the centrality of Christ. He was the center of their lives. There is faith, love and hope (where?) in our Lord Jesus Christ. Their life of faith, love and hope was centered on Jesus Christ. They didn’t come to Christ for all the good things that they could get from Him. They centered their lives around Him because He is worthy of us giving our lives to Him.
Even today’s Christian culture has Jesus being the one who is at the beck and call of our whims. Our self-centered culture (this “me” generation) elevates self rather than Christ. We have transformed Him into the “All-American” Jesus who says, “Have it your way. Come to me and keep all your sin. Have the best of both worlds. Repentance, turning from sin and self-indulgence, is no longer popular. The Hymn writer, long ago, had written, “Take the world but give me Jesus.” Today many, posing to be Christians, say, “Give me the world and Jesus too.”
Have we too fallen prey to this ideal, neglecting Paul’s words in Titus 2 where he says, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.”
We forget that, as Christians, our minds and bodies are not our own to do with what we want. They belong to God. If you are a Christian, the grace of God has appeared to you to deny worldly desires and live righteously. We have been so conditioned to have it our way that if things don’t go our way we get angry. We say that we will dress any way we wish because its our bodies. We neglect modesty and forget the fact that we have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters in Christ to protect their eyes and minds by how we show our bodies.
Our Christian communities are forgetting the centrality of Christ because we are putting ourselves first. God says in Colossians 3, “Since you have been raised up with Christ keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above not on things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” How often do you make your daily plans without considering Christ in them? Do you call out to Christ to directly use you for His work each day? In the midst of your day are you calling out for Him to glorify Himself by your life, by what you say, and think, and do?
Are you setting your mind on things above? Is your faith, love and hope driven by a burning desire to serve Christ with a mind set on Christ? We have such a grand opportunity daily to share the love of Christ with those in a dying world by how we speak, how we act, how we love, how we serve. There is nothing mystical or mysterious about how God uses us when we make Christ central in our lives. We don’t receive any special zap by God to be used by Him. We simply set our hearts on pleasing Him and obeying His Word and go throughout our day looking for opportunities to do right and stand above the selfish crowd. If we would only open our eyes and see how we could serve Christ instead of being served we would find that God would truly use us and shape us into His image. As Jesus said, “It is truly more blessed to give than to receive.” Unfortunately many of us in the Christian realm have lost our focus on Christ and have bought into the Americanism that says it is more blessed to receive than to give. Let us examine ourselves and see how we can restore our focus to center upon Christ.
ii. There is the consciousness of the Father
Secondly, we see that in these believers there is a consciousness of the Father. We see here Paul says, “Constantly bearing in mind . . . your faith, love, hope . . . in the presence of our God and Father.” Paul says the work that these believers were accomplishing was before (or in the presence of) the Father. They were they living out their lives with a direct consciousness that God was watching their every move and seeing their every thought. They had come to the realization that since God was all knowing it had personal implications for each one of them. And they lived their lives, not in a panic over God’s infiltration of their lives but in enthusiastic reverence for their God who knew all the thoughts of their heart. It caused them to carefully weigh what they allowed into their minds as well as whatever they planned and carried out.
When I worked with nuclear reactors, the protection systems for the reactor had a program that continuously scanned itself for errors. If there was a problem within the protection system it would alert us that something was not right. This was called a watchdog program. It ran with intention of making sure that no faulty logic defeated the protection system. It continuously checked itself against the standard to make sure that it was working properly.
In a sense, the realization of God’s continued presence, in the lives of the Thessalonians, initiated a kind of self-checking, a watchdog program if you would. These believers out of awe and reverence for God’s omniscience caused them to continue to check their thoughts and actions against the Word of God so that they might live in a manner pleasing to God. Their desire to live righteously before God came from a clear understanding of His complete knowledge of their lives.
Let me ask you some questions? Are you living your life as if God was present with you? Are you living with the realization that God knows all you think and do? Do you expect to get away with wrong words, actions or thoughts?
Because we fail to realize and apply the truth of God’s ongoing presence to our lives we fail to believe that God says whatever we sow we shall also reap. If we continue in our sinful actions without any thought to the consequence we will find ourselves one day caught up in sin that we wished we had never taken on.
Conversely though, if we put into practice understanding the ongoing presence of our God and king our lives will also reap but they will reap the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And our lives will shine as a testimony to God’s grace.
It is difficult to live righteously in a society that no longer prizes biblical righteousness as a virtue. It was difficult for the Thessalonians too. Their society was plagued with evil on every side. The Roman Empire was given to every kind of debauchery. Yet when the Thessalonians found God, or rather were found by Him, they began to live for God through His grace that enabled them to continue to serve Him when things got rough. It was this, Paul remembering their virtue, which caused Him to give thanks to God always for all of them.
Let me close this first part of the message by asking, “Are the three Christian virtues that Paul lists in this passage active in your life?” Are you evidencing faith, love and hope in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is your life noticeably different because of Him? If not, let me encourage you to earnestly seek God to pour out His grace (His undeserved favor) upon you so that you might live for Him. This isn’t some one-time event; we must recognize that each one of us needs to continue to call out to God for His grace to sustain our Christian lives. But if you have seen your need to call out to Him don’t make any excuse for delaying it. Today seek His face.
Perhaps you are seeing the evidence of God’s work in your life. If so, it ought to cause you to give thanks to God for it. Don’t neglect to praise our great God for His great work in your life.