What Will Be Our Legacy? - 1 Thessalonians 1

6. You want others to like you too. But leaving a legacy is more than others liking you. A Legacy is what you’ll leave behind when you’re gone. What sort of things will you be remembered by? Word association game.

7. The Thessalonians were known for some things that we can learn from.

Read Passage

8. Playing the Word association game with Paul; Paul had a special love for the Thessalonians, always praying for them and being thankful for them because of their legacy. We should want that legacy too.

II. Body.

1. We should be striving for a legacy of a working Faith

a. Not salvation by works; salvation is by grace through faith and through faith alone. Eph 2:8-9

b. However while salvation is by faith alone, it is not by a faith that stays alone. Faith that does not work is not faith. Greek word for work = manifestation/practical proof. Translation: manifestation of faith, practical proof of faith. You say you have faith, well prove it!

c. Faith illustration. Two farmers prayer for rain. Faith without works is dead.

d. Must have a working faith; what does that look like? James 1:27

i. visiting orphans and widows; meeting the needs in those around you

ii. keeping oneself unstained by the world; do not dabble in sin. Stain word-picture. A Legacy of a working faith meets other’s needs and remains unspotted from the world

2. We should be striving for a legacy of a laboring love

a. A labor that is motivated by love. Agape. Wasn’t used much before Christians. Mean sacrificial love. Labor means to engage in activity that is burdensome.

b. We are called to toil laboriously in sacrificial love. 1 John speaks of this all the time. 1 John 4:7-11.

c. Guy at school who gave his time. He had a legacy of a laboring love.

d. We should be doing as 1 John says. As I mentioned 1 John has a lot to say about loving others. 1 John 3:16-18. Maybe money, time, things, the possibilities are endless.

3. We should be striving for a legacy of a persevering hope

a. Different translations read different things, NASB says steadfast hope, NKJV says patience of hope. Greek word: hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty. One theologian said this: “[this word] means not a negative, passive acquiescence, but an active, manly endurance.” Another scholar said that this is “not the resignation of the passive sufferer, so as it is the fortitude of the stout-hearted soldier”

b. Hope is always carries the idea of certainty with it. Not like today’s hope.

c. Biblical hope: Greek lexicon defines this word as “The looking forward to something with some reason for confidence respecting fulfillment, especially pertaining to matter spoken of in God’s promises”. More than hope, it’s a confidant expectation. Hope that inspires perseverance.

d. What is the hope in? In the New Testament it’s usually tied with the Second Coming. Titus 2:13 Jesus is coming back and this knowledge, this confident expectation of the reality of the return of Christ causes us to what? Persevere!

e. Persevere in what? It causes us to endure, but to what end? 2 Peter 3:11-14. The hope of Christ return should inspire us to live blamelessly and spotlessly. And to persevere in it. Nothing will get you down. Why? Because Jesus is coming back!

III. Conclusion

1. This was the legacy of the Thessalonian church. A faith that proved itself in works, burdensome activities of sacrificial love, and hope that inspired perseverance.

2. As you look back at you 2011, is this what you left behind? I do not know about you, but as I look forward to 2012, this is what I’m going to be striving for. A working faith, laboring love, and persevering hope. Lets pray.

Related Media

Related Sermons