1 Thessalonians 1:4-10

Known by Our Actions

We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.  You know how we lived among you for your sake.  You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.  And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.  The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.  Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us.  They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

owever much we inveigh against the practise, those around us watch ever so carefully our lives.  They gauge the depth of our faith and the degree of our faithfulness by the manner in which we conduct ourselves in the world.  What outsiders may think of Christ, how they view the fellowship of believers, or what may be their opinion of the Faith, is dependent in no small measure upon us as individuals – our attitudes and our actions.  What do those about you think of Christ?  The answer may be as simple as asking what their opinion is of your life.

            In exploring this thought, I invite you to consider the lives of a group of saints commended by the Apostle to the Gentiles.  I am speaking, of course, about the Thessalonian believers.  Paul carefully reflected to them the impact they were having on the world about them.  In effect, he held up to them the mirror of public opinion that they might see the reflection of their actions and be thus encouraged.  If we would honour God and influence mankind for God's sake, what do you suppose would be found in our lives?  Let's compare our life as a congregation to what was commendable in the life of the Thessalonians that we might be instructed and encouraged.

The Saved Demonstrate A New Attitude Concerning God [vv 4-7].  Few things appear less exciting to the natural mind than imitating Christ.  The prevailing perception among the inhabitants of this world seems to be that Christianity is defined by negatives.  Christians don’t dance, don’t drink, don’t smoke – don’t do much of anything in fact.  I am not implying that these are necessarily healthy endeavours; I only observe that the world defines us by what we eschew and not by who we are.

            There is no question but that drunkenness is of questionable health benefit.  Neither should anyone imagine that smoking is a pleasure.  How many other activities can you name that requires you first to get used to being ill before you can participate?  Did ever you attempt smoking?  Do you remember your first smoke?  Have any of you ever tried drinking Scotch neat?  It would be easier to down a glass of motor oil than to drain the last few drops of a Scotch and water.  Good to the last drop takes on a new meaning for the drinker.  It is wrong to imagine that a Christian is identified solely by the negative.  Jesus lived a life of infectious joy among those about Him.  That is the one basis for the charge against Him that because the Son of Man came eating and drinking, He was thus a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and 'sinners [Luke 7:34].

I see the Lord Jesus as a joyous personality whose very presence encouraged spontaneous and infectious joy among those about Him.  The disciples rejoiced in His presence.  I could not expect the natural mind to readily embrace this truth!  Indeed, among those whose minds have been blinded by the god of this age, the joy of Christ's presence cannot be recognised.  The thought of His mastery translates in their mind as slavery.  They construe their present thraldom as freedom and twist His freedom into slavery.  They cannot see any prospect of joy in knowing and serving Christ, having confused joy with happiness.  Yet among believers, and especially among those believers who are newly entered into the Faith, there is an evident sense of patient endurance of hard situations which cannot obscure the joy of Christ within.

The presence of Christ ensures great joy among His disciples as noted in a previous message [cf. Acts 8:8, 39; 13:52; 16.34].  He was born with an announcement of joy [Luke 2:10] and there was joy when He conquered death [Matthew 28:8].  You need but recall the promise which Jesus gave all disciples in John 16:20-24.  I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.  You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.  A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.  So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.  In that day you will no longer ask me anything.  I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.  In His High Priestly prayer, Jesus asked for joy for those who would follow Him. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them [John 17:13].

            The Thessalonians became a model of godliness, and the expressions which Paul noted were devotion to a lifestyle which honoured God and which revealed indefatigable joy.  Do not imagine that how you live is unimportant to the cause of Christ.  Sinners observe the professing Christian to determine if what is professed is real.  The Thessalonians, as observed in a previous message, were marked by work … labour … and … endurance.  The outward expressions were but evidence of the operation of the Spirit of God, for work arose from faith, labour was rooted in love, and hope inspired endurance.

            How will anyone know if Jasper Park Baptist Church is a godly congregation?  They need but observe whether we work at what we claim is important.  Do we tell the Good News?  Do we endeavour to win the lost?  Do we teach the Word?  Do we worship together?  Are we working to maintain the unity of the Spirit?  More than that, do we actually labour, working to the point of exhaustion, in demonstration of the issues which are important to us?  Work and labour are important marks of spirituality among the saints of the Lord … if they find their origins in faith and love.  Furthermore, work and labour are continually seen where hope reigns among the people, for such people await the return of their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

            In spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.  It is somewhat misleading that our translation employs the definite article.  Paul is not claiming that there exists a specific joy separate from what we would commonly recognise as joy; he is pointing to the fact that the presence of the Spirit of God is marked by joy independent of all circumstances.  Despite many pressures, you welcomed the word with joy from the Holy Spirit.

            So often people will tell me they are doing well, "under the circumstances."  In such instances I fairly want to shout out, "Get out from under the circumstances!"  While it may be true that happiness is dependent upon the situation in which we find ourselves, joy is not dependent upon our particular situation.  Underscore in your mind this truth: happiness is dependent upon external conditions; joy is derived internally.

            What a strange creature is this Christian!  He works diligently at menial tasks which are disdained by the world and is eager to serve others.  He finds pleasure in humbling himself to care for the needs of the least within society.  This strange creature often engages in prayer speaking with evident love to One he has never seen.  This strange being lives in expectation of an imminent return of that One he professes to love.  He rests confidently in promises written millennia past in a language he cannot himself read without help.  All this is reflected in a sense of joy independent of his situation.

            What would you do to dissuade this one from worship of the unseen God?  If you threaten him with loss of property, he would insist that he has riches stored up in heaven where neither moth nor rust can corrupt.  If you threaten him with injury, he would say, My times are in His hands.  If you threaten to take his life, he would say it is better to depart and be with Christ.  What can you do to one who has hidden his life in God?  More than that, freed from the chains of this world, his life is marked by the joy of the Lord.

            Let me press this point in practical fashion.  When you were an outsider, God seemed to you to be a cosmic ogre intent on stealing your happiness.  But there is nothing in this world which will give permanent happiness; that commodity is a phantom, it is ephemeral, transitory, vacuous, vain, hollow.  Though you suspected that happiness was fleeting you nevertheless pursued that phantasm vigorously assuming that power or position or popularity or possessions or pleasures would somehow bring happiness.

            Power demands that you resist those aspiring to use you like you once used others.  Position is always threatened by hungry people bent on displacing you from the top of the heap.  Holding onto popularity is like trying to grasp mercury.  Possessions are soon redistributed to others less deserving than yourself; and pleasures never last.  At the last, your eyes opened to the sorry state of life itself, you must realise that you have pursued a fantasy; there is no happiness to be found.

            In Christ you discover, not happiness, dependent upon external conditions, but you find that which is permanent and settled, joy given by the Holy Spirit.  That joy arises from the knowledge that you are complete in Christ.  The source of that joy is the residence of God's Holy Spirit within the life of the believer.  That joy is founded upon the certainty that you are free of all condemnation, accepted by and acceptable to God in His Son.  The joy given by the Holy Spirit flows from the freedom discovered in Christ – freedom to be all that God would have you to be and freedom to come into His presence and freedom to call Him by that most intimate of terms, Abba, Father.

The Saved Demonstrate A New Attitude Concerning Outsiders [vv 8,9a].  Time demands that we recognise that not only do we relate to God in a new way, but also as believers we view outsiders differently from the manner in which we once saw them.  When I was identified with this world, the world recognised me as one of its own.  My view of the world was one of calculated tolerance.  All I sought was acceptance to do my own thing (whatever that thing was) without censure.  I was tolerated because the world was comfortable with me.  The attitude is perhaps best described as laissez faire.

            When I became a Christian I could not ignore the world.  I could not condone death, neither could I casually accept that those about me were rushing blindly toward confrontation with Holy God.  Compelled by love I united with other believers to insure that the Lord's message would ring out.  I saw the world with new eyes – eyes of love.  Dearly loved family members once seen as united to provide a form of security about me, were seen to be under sentence of death.  Colleagues in the laboratory once viewed as kindly disposed toward me were realised to be rushing toward death.  How could I be silent about their peril … if I truly loved them?

            Once I had attempted to hide my life from prying eyes, fearing exposure of my own wickedness.  I valued privacy highly, and though the term was unthought of in days past the concept of cocooning was prevalent in the tolerant world.  Saved, I could not be quiet.  Salvation was evident because the joy of the Lord broke forth, and had I somehow wished to be silent I could not.  That is how it was with you also.  Soon after salvation the world knows we are changed forever.  The world knows we are changed if for no other reason than we are moved with compassion for broken, fallen, condemned humanity.

            I heard of an incident which occurred in a little country church in Texas.  A little girl had been converted under the preaching of the Word of God and in answer to the prayers of godly parents.  On a certain Sunday she presented herself to the congregation requesting baptism as a Christian.  The elders of the little congregation were disturbed.  How could one so young understand the message of grace?  They could not receive her for baptism; she clearly was too young to know what she was doing.  So one of the elders sat beside her to explain that they would defer her request until she was grown and could understand what she was doing.

            Tears were streaming down the child's face and quiet sobs accompanied the heaving of her chest.  The pastor, assuming her disappointment to be the cause of her weeping sought to comfort her.  "There, now, child," he stated, "you need not feel so hurt.  You will grow quickly enough and then you can be baptised."

            "Oh, Pastor," sobbed the little girl, "I'm not crying because of that.  I'm crying because my brother is not a Christian yet.  He is unsaved.  I cannot help but cry at the thought of his situation."

            The pastor immediately spoke to the church relating what the child had said.  "Can we find greater evidence of salvation than this that this child is concerned for the spiritual welfare of another?  I recommend that we receive our little sister for baptism immediately."  There were no dissenting voices within the congregation.

Dear people, one of the distinguishing marks of a Christian is concern for the lost.  It is those who unite with the church, however faithful they may be to fill a pew, and yet never have concern for the lost who give no evidence of new life.  I confess that my deep desire for us as a community of faith is that our faith in God [will] become known everything.  Through underwriting missionary endeavour throughout our towns and villages, throughout our province, throughout our nation, and finally to the distant countries of this world, I want us to be a missionary church.  I aspire to this not that we may boast in what we have done, but that we may exult in the work of God among us as a people.  We should aspire to underwrite missionary advance, praying that God will raise up from among us men and women with lives aflame for Christ, and that He will enable us to give them freedom to fulfil the ministry God has assigned.  I long for the people of this town site to know that we are Christians because we speak of Christ and urge them to believe.

            My aspiration for us as congregation is that we will speak of Christ in our homes, at our work places, in our neighbourhoods, wherever we may be, and that many will be brought to confess that God indeed lives among us.  I am shameless in stating that I pray that every home will become a church, every desk an altar, every community a mission field.  I pray that we will speak of Christ, turning many to righteousness and that His light will shine forth from us penetrating the darkness to the glory of God our Saviour.

            I see something here which is exciting to even contemplate.  Paul notes that the Thessalonians did not need to tell him of the success of their mission; those evangelised reported what God was doing through the missionary church!  Not for one moment do I disparage speaking of our Faith and evangelising through witness to outsiders.  I merely observe that the quality of life, the relationship of the church to the Father, became the backdrop against which they evangelised.  The world witnessed the life of the Thessalonians and was thus open to hear what they had to say.  A godly life when coupled to the witness of the Word is powerful beyond all comprehension.

            Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have [1 Peter 3:15] is Peter's admonition presenting the same thought.  The world does seek the reason for our hope.  The world does ask what is the source of our joy.  The world does wonder why we choose to live as we do.  If you are uncomfortable with aggressive evangelism, determine to openly live a righteous life, praying that God will open doors to speak of Him and of His grace … and He will!

The Saved Demonstrate A New Attitude Toward Fellow Saints [vv 9b,10].  We are Christians, and in the church we are united as a community of the Faith.  Among His final instructions to the disciples, Jesus identified the particular knowledge which the world would have concerning us as disciples and especially the evidence confirming our identity.  His focus was love and of love He said, By this all men will know you are my disciples.  Making the statement more particular still, He insisted that the evidence that we are disciples would be that we love one another [John 13:35].  The world would discover that we are disciples as we demonstrate love for one another.  The Thessalonians were recognised as disciples by their vibrant demonstration of love for one another.

            How does one love another?  What is the evidence that you love another?  My wife enjoys compliments.  I believe she is a beautiful woman and I am quick to say so.  She enjoys little surprises – flowers and remembrances and such.  But thirty-two years of marriage have taught me a few things about loving Lynda.  Among those lessons is the following.  Love does not consist of compliments.  Compliments quickly wear thin when there is no respect to support them.  Surprises are a cruel mockery if there is no consideration of her as an individual.  Love is revealed through the simple yet significant expedient of respect and consideration – daily.  It is daily service which demonstrates love.  It is consistency which is vital is revealing love.

            The same is true within the Church.  Loving one another does not consist of mouthing pious sentiments to those with whom we share a service of worship.  Loving one another speaks of serving one another, esteeming others better than yourself.  Just as the wise husband will treasure his wife, valuing her input into life, so the wise Christian will value fellow Christians as gifted members of the Body; and together they will seek to serve Christ through serving one another.  That is what the Thessalonians did openly.  The world saw them turn[] to God from idols to serve the living and true God [verse nine].

            I would have you see a wonderfully beautiful truth implicit in these sharp words: we cannot serve God without serving His people.  Underscore this one thought in your mind: we cannot serve God without serving His people.  Was that perhaps what Jesus had in mind when He recommissioned Peter to His service?  You will recall the exchange which is recorded in the final chapter of John's Gospel [John 21:15-19].

            Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon son of John, do you truly love Me more than these? perhaps sweeping His arm to indicate the other disciples over whom Peter exercised such considerable influence.  Simon, is your love greater than theirs? seems to be the intent of the question Jesus asked.

            Yes Lord,' he said, You know that I love You.

            Jesus said, 'Feed My lambs.

            Each time Jesus questioned Peter concerning the depth and the quality of his love He pointed to the obviously anticipated evidence of service to the flock.  Feed My lambs… Take care of My sheep… Feed my sheep.  In the same manner, should you insist to me that you love the Lord Christ, I need but review your service to His people to discover the veracity of your assertion.  Service to Christ does not consist of occupying a pew on Sunday mornings, although it does encompass that.  Service to Christ consists of fulfilling the ministry God gave you when you were saved, a ministry designed to build the Body through making each member complete in the Faith.  Don't tell me about your love for Christ, show me your love; serve the people of God.

            There is another facet of love which is implied in Paul's words.  Verse ten speaks of patient waiting for an event so momentous that the world seeks not merely to ignore it, but the world actually seeks to actively suppress all knowledge of it.  Christ is coming again, not only to remove His Church, but also to judge this unbelieving world.  Our waiting is not meant to be passive, but rather motivated by compassion we are to seek to warn those inhabitants of the world living under threat of His coming wrath.

            Two thoughts and I am finished.  The first thought is this: if I have known the love of Christ, if I have been freed from guilt and condemnation, how can I be silent concerning this great salvation?  It is not merely the duty of the redeemed to warn the lost of judgement to come, that duty is mandated by their knowledge of grace.  Christ will receive all who come to Him, but it is His people who are charged with responsibility to inform those in darkness.  This thought must direct our service: knowledge of Christ demands that we speak often of His grace.

            The second thought is akin to the first, being this: compassion for the lost compels me to urge them to flee from the wrath to come.  Who can watch a child suffer without being moved, wanting to do something to relieve the suffering?  Who of us can hear of great tragedies, of widespread devastation or destruction, without finding ourselves moved with compassion as we long to relieve the hurt?  Compassion is of no value until it has been permitted to move us to action.  Just so, knowing of the awful condition facing the lost, I am compelled to urge them to flee to Christ and to safety from the frightful judgement which is surely coming.

            This is our invitation to you, if you are among those yet outside of Christ and outside His Church.  There is safety and refuge within and with Him.  Look to the One who rescues from the coming wrath.  This is the message of life delivered by a church which loves Him supremely and which loves you and yearns for you.  Amen.