Faith, Love and Hope (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3)

Sermon

Key Passage

1 Thessalonians 1:2–3 NIV

We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Introduction

We are in a series entitled Following Faithfully.

The idea behind this series and journey through the book of 1 Thessalonians is to understand how the Thessalonians followed Jesus and we will observe the impact they made on the world around them.

Last week we introduced the book of 1 Thessalonians

I began by emphasizing the value of the Word of God.

If anyone needs a Bible let me know.

If you downloaded the app, I didn’t mention how to find our notes that were uploaded. Here is how to do it!

BIBLE APP SLIDE

I encourage you to continue reading the Scriptures, especially what we cover in our sermons and allow God to speak to your heart.

Also, I encourage you to connect into a small group where you can build relationship with the church and discuss deeper with other believers how the Word of God applies to your life.

Last week, we only covered one verse. This week we are covering two verses, so we are doubling up our progress!

We took a look at the author, Paul and his co-authors, Silas and Timothy

We also dug into the city of Thessalonica

It was a Greek city that was a major port and also a stop on the main highway from Rome to the Orient.

We looked at the context of this letter

Paul, Silas and Timothy came and went to the synagogue and reasoned from the Scriptures, showing that Jesus is the Messiah that was prophesied in the OT.

They stayed there for three weeks preaching the Gospel.

Some of the people believed. Others passionately rejected the message.

They rejected to the point of starting a riot in the town and searching houses for Paul.

Paul escaped to a nearby town and went to preach the same message in the same way.

When the Thessalonians heard this, they traveled to that city and also began stirring up trouble.

This forced Paul to continue traveling south to southern Greece where he was able to stay for a while and write a letter to the baby believers in Thessalonica.

With that context, we will now dive into the letter.

I have tried to make this sermon series very foundational.

There are many who may know bits of information here and there. I hope that by presenting the Word in this way, we can fill in some gaps to better understand God, His Word and our calling in this world.

The reason for the foundational nature of this series is because that is how this book is written.

These new believers knew very little about Jesus.

They were infants in the faith and left to fend for themselves in a very violent and rebellious city.

Paul writes this letter so that the newest believer, the most uneducated person, the most unchurchy person can grasp their part in the Kingdom of God.

With that, we’ll dive into today’s text.

Sermon

I had on my calendar to preach the rest of chapter 1 today, but during our sermon prep team time, we discovered that verses 2 and 3 are so important that they need to be communicated individually.

I am so excited about today’s text because we will talk about three of the most important words in our journey of discipleship: Faith, Love and Hope.

1 Thessalonians 1:2 NIV

We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.

After introducing himself, Paul then makes this statement

We- Paul, Silas and Timothy

ALWAYS- exaggerations? Maybe not.

We will discover next week that Paul, Silas and Timothy had received word that the believers in Thessalonica had not just received the Gospel and existed as disciples of Jesus.

Rather, they had endured brutal persecution.

AND, they had preached the Gospel they had received to the surrounding areas.

In fact their part of the world was hearing of the Gospel because the Thessalonians had been exposed to the Gospel for three weeks!

Paul knew it wasn’t because of how great of a preacher of the Gospel he was.

He knew that what was happening in the church in Thessalonica was God. It started with God, I was all God and would continue to be God.

Because of this, he would hear the reports of what God was doing and appropriately thank God for these humble and obedient believers.

Continually mention them in prayer

Paul wanted them to know that this was God at work.

Not a valuable education

Not a philosophy or style. It was God.

Because of this, he knew it would be God who would sustain them.

He couldn’t be there to help them. All he had was prayer in the almighty God.

That is the greatest blessing and aid he could provide.

Do we do the same?

God’s part

He brings salvation

He blesses with the Holy Spirit

He empowers, equips and grows the seed that was planted

Their part

They had to grow, and embrace what God was doing.

They were responsible for their growth between them and God, not Paul

Paul was support. God was primary.

Our part

We think that God needs us to do more than we can do.

We can’t obey for others, we can’t make them grow, we can’t protect them from sin

We can love them, pray for them, and thank God for what He is doing.

1 Thessalonians 1:3 NIV

We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The first few words of this passage bring up something that we have spoken about recently on a few occasions.

The word “remember” should ring a very clear bell to you if this is your church home.

Paul saw what God had done in this group of believers.

God is always at work

Sometimes we see it. Other times we don’t see it.

But we can know this truth: God is always at work.

When we become aware of God’s work, it is our privilege to respond to God’s work in our lives and in our world by responding in worship.

Worship acknowledges God, identifies His nature and what He has done.

And expresses our heart of gratitude and surrender to Him in the process

However, during the times that it may be difficult to see God at work, we can still remember God’s activity.

We can trust He is at work, but we also must take time to remember.

Whenever we see the word “remember” it opens the door for celebration and worship for what God has done.

That is what is happening here. Paul is saying “We want to glorify God by remembering what He has done in and through you and your church.

This statement by Paul is worship to God in view of the Thessalonians.

He is not directly complimenting the Thessalonians. He is worshiping God for what He has done in the Thessalonians.

The Thessalonian church gets to see worship and intentional remembrance in Paul through this first letter.

These are very important habits in the prayer life of a disciple of Jesus.

The next three phrases are what we are going to spend the rest of our time in:

work produced by faith

labor prompted by love

endurance inspired by hope in Christ Jesus

For this infant church, there are no three greater words than Faith, Love and Hope.

Paul doesn’t just say the words to them so they can define and apply them how they want.

He gives the effect of each word in their lives.

As a new disciple, we need to know what ‘faith’ means.

The world gives us a definition, but what did Paul mean?

As a new disciple, we need to know what ‘love’ is.

Again, the world will give us a definition, but what is the love Paul is defining?

As a new disciple, we need to know what ‘hope’ is.

Not a worldly hope, but a Godly hope.

This is why we are pumping the brakes on our sermon series.

We don’t want to fly by these words, leaving them vague or undefined.

We want to dive into these so every person knows what they are and how they apply to the life of a disciple.

Faith

The first phrase we will discuss is “Work produced by Faith”

Paul had seen firsthand the response of these people and their faith in God.

In our world, faith is defined as something that I believe is very different from how the Bible defines faith.

In our culture, I would say that faith is defined in some way as:

The world’s definition of faith:

A fervent religious belief that benefits my life

I want to highlight that the world and even some believers will define faith as the depth of our fervency, emotion, intention, intensity, enthusiasm.

Like the harder I believe in something, the more real that something becomes.

And if I can believe something hard enough, God sees the intensity and purity of my faith and give me what I want.

All of this is built on a religious concept where Bible verses are plucked out of their context in the Bible to make this definition of faith look Biblical.

I want to tell you that the Thessalonians were not in Thessalonica just mustering up an emotional intensity and believing that God is going to make their lives more comfortable, easier, less suffering, etc.

Their faith was something different.

I want to go to a diagram that we have created here that helps us see what faith looks like in our lives:

Faith Diagram

At the most basic level, if you want to grow in faith, read the Word of God. Listen to sermons that are preached from the Word of God.

Be around people who will point you to God

Spend time in prayer speaking to God.

The greater you know God, the greater you can trust God with everything in your life.

As you learn to know God, that faith begins to develop into an absolute trust in God.

We surrender to God because we have learned that He is good, faithful, wise, and present.

We realize that He knows our lives better than we know our lives.

He knows what we need better than we know what we need.

He understands our struggles, so rather than praying that God would take our struggles away, we pray to know Him more in our struggles.

You cannot strive for control of your life and still live in faith.

Faith is absolute surrender to God.

As we learn to trust God, we live lives of obedience to Him. We adjust our lives with the truth of God’s Word, His direction, and His holiness.

I learn to forgive when I don’t want to

I love when the other person is unlovable

I share the gospel when rejection is the outcome.

This is the very foundation of salvation

There are those in this world that may believe in God, but do not have a Biblical faith.

In James 2, it says that even the demons believe. Belief is not salvation. Belief is necessary, but it is not faith.

Ephesians 2:8–9 NIV

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Paul writes this in another letter, this one to the city of Ephesus, that we have grace from God through faith.

Faith is not about us, faith is about God and it is a gift from God.

And we are not saved by works, we are saved by faith.

This is so that there is no pride in our salvation.

There is not one person who is more saved than another person.

We are all equally in need of salvation from God.

Faith is our relational knowledge of God, our surrender to God as Lord, and our obedience to God.

That passage goes on to say: Ephesians 2:10

Ephesians 2:10 NIV

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We are not saved by what we do. We are saved by faith that results in activity in our lives.

This is what we talk about in discipleship.

A disciple follows Jesus. He seeks and knows Jesus.

That disciple is changed. He surrenders the authority of His life to Jesus.

That disciple begins to live a different life. On mission with Jesus.

This is exactly where the Thessalonian church found themselves.

They didn’t just believe what Paul said. They demonstrated faith in Jesus Christ.

I want to take a moment and talk about this in our own lives

When we present salvation, I want you to know that:

We are all sinners

Sin separates us from God

Separation from God leads to eternal death and hell

Jesus came to pay the penalty of death on our behalf

Because of Jesus death, God sees His righteousness instead of my own.

What is required for this eternal life in Jesus?

It isn’t that I need to do things.

I’m not asked to be righteous to be saved

I’m not asked to be consistent to be saved

I’m even not asked to get smarter to be saved.

I’m asked to have faith.

Listen to the Jesus that is preached.

Recognize that He is God and He is the only hope for direction in our lives

Surrender to His lordship and ask for forgiveness of our sin

Live a life of growing to know God, surrender to Him, and live out the life He demands

One step of this demonstration of faith is baptism

Know Jesus

Surrender to Jesus

Obey Him in baptism

I can go for a while talking about faith, but this Thessalonian church had lived faith out to its completion and their faith was evident to the world through the life change and works God was accomplishing within them…FOR HIS GLORY.

The second phrase we will discuss is “Labor prompted by love”

Love

This may sound similar to the last one.

If my faith produces works, doesn’t this mean the same thing?

Follow through this with me.

They are certainly connected, but they are very different.

The world defines love typically in a few ways:

I love my wife

I love my friends

I love my family

I love cheeseburgers

We use the same word for all of these, but they are all different expressions of love.

As we look at the definitions of all of these loves, they are all conditional to some extent.

I love my wife…because she is my wife— the condition of the love is that she is my wife.

I love my friends…because we have things in common—the condition of my love is friendship.

You can see how this plays out.

The love that is defined in this context is not based on condition.

We may say that it is “Unconditional love”. While accurate, I don’t think that this phrase means very much.

The way that I like to define this Godly love and Biblical love is that it is a love based on identity, not performance.

I love because you are made in the image of God, just like me.

You have broken and tarnished that image through your sin, just like me

But Jesus loved me, not because of my sin or righteousness, rather because of my identity as someone He created.

As a follower of Jesus, the Thessalonian church embraced the world through the lens of God’s love, not their own.

They discovered that the most sinful, rotten, evil people were made in the image of God and that God loved them.

They discovered that the most hurtful people that were hunting them down, beating them, imprisoning them and hating them were also made in the image of God and they loved them.

When we love like Jesus loves our actions in this world change.

I love how Paul defines this as a “Labor prompted by love”

I’ve defined love, but now I want to define that word, “Labor”

Greek: Kopos

Toil, trouble, suffering, brutal hard work, exhaustion

I love how the Bible makes things like “love” real.

How do you think it would feel to be a Thessalonian who becomes a follower of Jesus?

They had faith

They are surrendered to Jesus

Jesus says, “Love your enemies”

They love their enemies and they are beaten, imprisoned, humiliated, and possibly even killed.

Wouldn’t that be justification not to love? Not by the love of God.

That is literally following the example set by Jesus and by Paul as he was there.

This is what love is. This is the hard work of Biblical love.

Yes, the world sees the love of Jesus.

But the world also rejected Jesus. Love is a bloody and difficult word.

Paul is saying, “I see the struggles you are having. Good job! You are loving like Jesus!”

What an encouragement.

This is Biblical love.

It doesn’t make sense. Our worldly love must be surrendered to God and replaced with His love.

Hope

endurance inspired by hope in Christ Jesus

If you have faith, you’ve left the way of living in this world you used to live.

Love directs that path. We love like Jesus does and that can be really hard.

So, as a result, we need endurance. The Thessalonians needed endurance.

Endurance comes from hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hope is the last word that I want to define this morning.

Our world will define hope as a wish for something or an inspiration.

There is one phrase that I want you to think when I say the word ‘hope’.

That phrase is “absolute certainty”

I think that sometimes people mix up faith with hope.

They say, “I have faith. I have an absolute certainty in Jesus Christ. I am really, really zealous, enthusiastic and passionate about Jesus Christ.”

Those things aren’t bad, nor are they wrong. But they are also not faith.

Faith is knowledge of Jesus that leads to a surrender and obedience to Jesus.

Deep enthusiasm and emotion for Jesus that doesn’t lead to surrender and obedience, is really nothing.

Having a clarity of faith, what is hope in contrast?

When we have surrendered our lives completely to Jesus Christ, our future, our destination is all His.

The language that we use as disciples is that we follow Jesus.

Follow Him where? That is the logical question.

The future we have as we live out faith is entirely in His hands.

This is where we have the promises of Jesus. This is our hope. This is where our eyes are set as we walk in faith. We can have the absolute confidence that the future we have is His.

Hope is about perspective as we walk in faith.

One of my favorite verses communicates this very well.

All of 2 Corinthians 4 will speak to our struggles and hope in Jesus, but it is summed up in this statement:

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 NIV

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

We have a hope in Jesus Christ that far outweighs the life we live here.

We can suffer here. We can struggle here. But we are called to encourage one another with the hope we have in Jesus.

We often want to grab heaven and bring it down to Newport. But, Heaven is our hope. Jesus will lead us there.

We live broken lives in a redeemed way so a broken world can see redemption and through faith find hope and redemption through Jesus.

These are three massive words for new followers of Jesus.

For mature followers of Jesus, these are equally as massive.

I think sometimes we get distracted by our circumstances and arguments that swirl around us.

But there are three things that our lives must be rooted upon:

1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Conclusion

I want to conclude with this:

Jesus is the source of our salvation and we must respond in faith to Him

May we live lives of faith, not just for salvation which is the starting gun to the race that we are called. May we continue to live lives of faith.

The faith that saves us is the faith that sustains us and matures us.

May we love like Jesus calls us to love

May that love not be conditional or worldly. May it be Biblical love.

May we love when we have been hurt

May we love when we have been rejected.

May we love because we know the love Jesus demonstrated for us.

May we hold to the hope of Jesus.

All of our struggles will be worth it in the end.

If we are looking for the validation of our struggles here, we are looking in the wrong place. I don’t want to be a downer.

We do have wins and victories in this life.

But we also have struggles and defeats. And that does not mean that God has failed or is not faithful.

We must set our eye on what is eternal.

Real Life in Action:

Head- What word did God most bring to my attention? Faith, hope or love?

Heart- How is God asking me to surrender to His definitions of these words?

Hands- What is one specific task that you know God is asking of you?

The “heart” and “hands” need to be directed to the specific word in the “Head” question.