Sermon Tone Analysis

Hope and Endurance

 

June 21, 2009

1 Thessalonians 1:2-6

 

In Luke, chapter 9, verse 51, we read,* */When the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem/

In Experiencing God Day-by-Day, Henry Blackaby says it is easy to become distracted in the Christian life!

The moment you understand what God wants you to do, it will seem as though everyone around you requires your time and attention!

When the time came for Jesus to go to the cross, He “set His face” toward Jerusalem, so that nothing would prevent Him from accomplishing His Father's will.

So obvious was His resolve to go to Jerusalem that the Samaritans, who hated the Jews, rejected Him because they recognized that He was a Jew traveling through their village to the hated city of Jerusalem.

Jesus determined not to digress from His mission, but He took time to minister to many people along His way.

He sent out seventy disciples into the surrounding towns (Luke 10:1).

He healed lepers (Luke 17:11–19).

He cured a man of dropsy (Luke 14:1–4).

He brought salvation to the home of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1–10).

He continued to teach His disciples (Luke 15:1–32).

Jesus did not refuse to minister to others as He went to Calvary, but ultimately He refused to be deterred from His Father's will.

If you know what God wants you to do, set your sights resolutely toward that goal with full determination to accomplish it (Prov.

4:25).

Your resolve to go where God is leading ought to be evident to those around you.

Beware of becoming so sidetracked by the opportunities around you that you lose sight of God's ultimate goal for you.

Do not succumb to the temptation to delay your obedience or to discard it altogether.

Once you have received a clear assignment from God, your response should be unwavering obedience.

Adrian Rogers of Love Worth Finding Ministries adds, John Calvin was one of the greatest theologians who ever lived.

He said, "I gave up all for Christ and what have I found?

I have found everything in Christ."

Do you wish you could say that too?

You can.

Just don't get confused about what it means to "give up all" to find Christ.

So many think that being a disciple means they must get into a movement or go to the mission field or attend seminary.

Friend, being a disciple is fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ -- knowing Jesus intimately and following Him wherever He leads.

Fellowship with Christ comes before service for Christ.

We must minister to Jesus before we can minister to anyone else.

Today we will begin the study of the book of First Thessalonians.

Thessalonica was the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia — present day Greece.

It was a populous city — a center of trade and commerce, ideally suited to Paul's missionary strategy to concentrate on centers of influence in order to evangelize as many as possible.

Paul stopped there briefly as he travels on his second missionary journey with his co-laborers, Silas and Timothy.

(For details on this journey you will have to go to Acts 15:36 through chapter 18).

Now it is AD 51-52.

He had left Timothy in Thessalonica, and traveled south to Corinth where he has been for 18 months.

Now Timothy arrives to report about the problems in their church plant.

So Paul sits down to write his first letter to the church he left behind in Thessalonica.

Many biblical scholars consider this letter as Paul's first New Testament epistle.

He writes for several reasons: he wants to encourage the faithful believers and reassure them and exhort them to keep on keeping on until Christ's return.

Paul needs to deal with errors in their thinking and lifestyles and he also needs to defend himself, his conduct and motives against opponents seeking to undermine his authority and work in Thessalonica.

I gather some of the believers were having Roast Paul for Sunday dinner!

Please open your Bible and turn to 1 Thessalonians, chapter one and we’ll read verses 1 - 3:/ Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, 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 you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ./

In these three verses,  Paul encourages the believers.

He gives thanks to God that faith has produced work and love has produced labor and hope has produced endurance.

Let’s look at faith, hope, and love.

You might say that faith in yourself produces hard work, and love for family produces labor to earn food, and hope for victory produces endurance to finish the race.

And, of course, that would be true.

But it wouldn't be Christian.

It wouldn't be of any spiritual or eternal value.

It wouldn't be what Paul is talking about here.

When Paul speaks of faith giving rise to work and love giving rise to labor and hope giving rise to endurance, he has in mind some very definite Christian, spiritual transactions between us and God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Notice how Paul links the Christian life of faith and love and hope to every member of the Christian Trinity:

First, notice the relationship to God the Son: at the end of verse 3 the faith and love and hope are "in our Lord Jesus Christ."

Paul is describing particular spiritual effects of being in relation to a living Person, Jesus Christ.

Faith and love and hope which are "in our Lord Jesus Christ" give rise to a particular kind of work and labor and endurance that count for eternity because they come from Christ and honor Christ.

We often call this work “ministry”, and as you know, ministry can be for Christ without coming from Christ.

We all have a ministry.

Is your ministry Christ-led?

If it is Christ-led it will bring honor to Christ and have eternal value.

If it’s not Christ-led, it will be wood, hay, and straw – it won’t last. 1 Corinthians 3:11-13 states: /For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw — each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done/.

Our work, labor, and endurance must be built on the sure foundation of the Son of God.

Second, notice the relationship of these things to God the Father.

At the beginning of verse 3 it is to God the Father that Paul gives thanks for the faith and love and hope that the Thessalonians have: /"Remembering before our God and Father . . .

"/ So evidently God the Father has been instrumental in producing this faith and love and hope, since he gets thanked for it.

Now, let’s look at verse four together: /For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,  /In verse 4 the connection with God the Father is even more specific.

If faith in Christ produces work, and love in Christ produces labor, and hope in Christ produces endurance, this is clear evidence that the Thessalonians have been chosen by God.

Verse 4 connects with verse 3 like this: /"We give thanks for your faith and love and hope for (by this) we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you."/

We know that you are among the elect of God because of the fruitfulness of your faith and love and hope.

When we were studying the book of John, chapter fifteen spoke frequently of bearing fruit (Jn 15:2, 8, 16).

As the bride of Christ we bear fruit to God the Father (Rom 7:4)

Third, notice the relationship to God the Holy Spirit.

Verses 5 and 6 make the connection clear.

Now turn and we’ll look at these verses /"For our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction."/

So the change in these people's lives is not only evidence that they are chosen by God the Father, as verse 4 says; it is also evidence that the Holy Spirit was powerfully at work within them.

Verse 6 spells out the evidence of this just like verse 3 did: /"You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit."/

The fact that affliction didn't destroy the joy of their faith is evidence that the gospel had come with Holy Spirit power and not just in word.

I just finished reading a book by Randy Alcorn call “Safely Home” about the persecuted church in China.

If you have the Holy Spirit living in you, like the believers in China, affliction can increase your joy.

I highly recommend that each of you read “Safely Home”, an amazing story of hope and endurance.

So the upshot of all this is that the faith and love and hope of verse 3 are not general psychological principles that happen to work and make people more productive and stable.

Rather they are profound theological realities.

They come from a relationship with the living Lord, Jesus Christ.

They are the result and evidence of being chosen by God the Father.

And they are the work of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of a particular message called the gospel.

If you’re true believer, know this people, you were chosen by God to be His child.

Ephesians 1:4-5 tells us: /even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love \\ he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,/ What an encouragement to know God reached down from heaven, tapped us on the shoulder, and said, “You’re mine!”

What we want to focus on this morning is the relationship between endurance and hope.

Our text is found in verse 3 and in particular the phrase, /"endurance of hope."/

I take this to mean that hope produces endurance, or that endurance is the fruit of hope.

My reason for this interpretation is that "work of faith" and "labor of love" seem to have that meaning—namely, a work which comes from faith and a labor which comes from love.

Faith produces work.

See James.

He says, by works faith is made perfect (Jm 2:22).

And love produces labor.

Similarly then, endurance comes from hope and hope produces endurance.