A trilogy for Christians
1 Thessalonians
“Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;” (v. 3)
The Lord, through Paul, commended the Thessalonians for three basic services: Their “work of faith”; their “labor of love”; and their “patience of hope”. I wonder how we all would measure up in these areas? First though look at the first few words of our verse, Paul prayed “without ceasing” as he later urges them to do (1 Thess. 5:17). “Without ceasing” is constant prayer. Paul kept them in remembrance, because, even though they were commended for doing right, they needed prayer to maintain, as we also do. Let’s look now at the three works of the Thessalonians, and the testimony that was resultant from them:
The first was a “work of faith”: this entails a life that is steeped in faithfulness, and a church that is in one accord. The individual lives of each of them collectively, made a great and honorable “work of faith” for the Lord. They were an active, working church.
Secondly, they were commended for their “labor of love” which shows a charitable spirit. The Lord’s work is indeed a “labor of love” and is performed in love when applied correctly. It takes a lot of love to continue in the work of the Lord. Without a loving spirit, the preacher would never make it, he would not be the success he should be, or could be.
This is very closely linked with the “patience of hope” which is the third work that the Lord commends them for. You see, patience is love stretched out. This patience refers to the patience of our great hope, that the Lord is coming back. We are to work until He comes, and not grow impatience with Him, but also there is a more fleshly aspect to their patience, that being, patience with men. It takes a loving patience to deal with the problems that come our way at times, and with people in general. Not everyone is of the kind nature that they should be. We owe every man a certain degree of kindness, and it takes patience to exercise it many times. In fact, this entire chapter speaks of the good works of the Thessalonians.
There is another interesting trilogy in this chapter, and it may be directly linked to the three previously mentioned: “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.” (v. 5). The Gospel came in word; in power; and in assurance, rather “much” assurance, by the Holy Ghost. It came with the backing of God Himself.
1 Thessalonians 2
“But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.” (v. 4)
We too, my friends, are “put in trust of the Gospel.” This is a great privilege indeed. Even the angels in Heaven would rejoice at the privilege bestowed upon us. If we only knew the gravity of being entrusted with such a precious thing, we would be much more careful to tend to it, and with much more diligence. This, according to scripture, was allowed us by God; just that endorsement alone ought to be more precious than anything we could imagine. As Paul was inspired to say, “even so we speak…”, and this ought to be our testimony too, but not as man speaks, but as God would have us to do. He has put His trust in us after we have put our trust in Him, and we cannot, rather should not, let down in the matter of witnessing for Him any more than He could let us down for trusting Him for salvation. But our message is not our own; it is not for our glory or praise, but for the glory of God. That is what the Gospel produces, glory to the Father, whether it is in the salvation of a soul, or the repentance of the redeemed. His Word does not return unto Him void (Isa. 55:11), but accomplishes the purpose which He has sent it out to do. We forget the power of the Gospel message, and the glory it brings to the Lord.
What a privilege to be the “called” of the Lord. Those men who are called to preach are of a special class of people. We are all precious to the Lord, of course, but His “preacher boys” seem to have a more special place with Him, and with it, more responsibility to Him. Although all of us could enter into the “we” in the beginning of this verse, it also could apply to the “we” of apostleship and preachers, and in a greater way, perhaps. Either way, it is our responsibility, each one of us to be entrusted with the Gospel and to do that which the Lord expects us to do with it. We need not please men in the publishing of it, but if it pleases men that is fine too, it is an extra bonus. When the Truth of the Gospel goes forth, it does please the lord and some men, and many of us men are glad to hear it, knowing the power it has had in our lives.
1 Thessalonians
“To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” (v. 13)
This is the purpose for our preaching and teaching, for the “perfecting of the saints” and the salvation of the lost. In this case, we deal with the preaching for the perfecting of the saints, since it is assumed that all those whom Paul writes to are born again saints of the Lord. The aim is for growth in those who have already accepted Christ as their Savior. So, the subject is discipleship. Paul was not only concerned with lost souls, but with the discipling of those who were saved. Think of how busy we would be if we were to spend time witnessing to the lost, and then following up on those who we led to the Lord. In today’s world, this seems to be an impossibility, but that is only because we have not given priority to the discipling of others, we are too busy going about our own business to continue in the Lord’s work to this extent. In order to establish our converts in the holiness of God, we need to spend much time with them and feed them with much of the milk and meat of the Word of God, all the while “showing” them examples of what we preach. We do this by our life style as well as by Biblical illustrations and examples, but in order to allow them to see Christ in us, we need to spend time with them. Time then becomes our greatest commodity.
Time is life. We spend a little bit of our lives on them when give them our time; time is something that we cannot replace; once it is past, we never have it again. We all know that we could not go back and change the things we have already done, they are locked in time forever. The illustration is given of the batteries in a flashlight; They use up their energy to produce light, but in so doing, they die themselves until they are revitalized from another source. It is the same with us in the Christian life. Unless we are rejuvenated by the Spirit of God, we die by giving out our light to others, and yet, we are doing what we were made to do. You see, the battery was made for that purpose, it was created so that it could give of its power for the use of mankind; but it can be recharged, just as we can in the power of God. When we give them our time we give them a portion of our life, but they need that so that they can obtain strength from us, and do what they are ordained to do. The cycle never ends until we get to our reward in Glory.
1 Thessalonians 4
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (vs. 16, 17)
These verses describe what we refer to as the “rapture of the church”. The word “rapture “ is not found in scripture, but the meaning is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as:
2. Transport; ecstasy; violence of a pleasing passion; extreme joy or pleasure.
The term was (according to most accounts) a derogatory term used in mockery of our beliefs. We adopted it from the persecutors who were heckling us about believing in some sort of “rapture”, as if it were a dream. A belief in the rapture is nonetheless a true doctrine by all scriptural accounts, and is a “healthy” belief for those who are a little shaky in their faith. You see, we will never be deceived by another man who presents himself as the Messiah, or Christ, when we realize that He will not touch down on the ground when He comes back for us, but will draw us up unto Him in the clouds. No man on this earth can deceive us when we are looking for the Lord “in the air”. The last line is the best though, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord”. What a blessing! What a hope we have in Jesus! Yes, He is coming back for His church, and those that are left will be here to fend off the attacks of the anti-christ and his followers, and they shall wreak havoc on the earth and those that dwell here. We will be resting in the presence of the Lord in the meantime.
These passages also teach us that there will be a resurrection from the grave for us too, just as there was for our Lord. We shall not all sleep, as the Scripture says, but even those who are “asleep” will waken in glory. We are not “dead, and gone, and forgotten” but merely asleep until the Lord comes to lift us up and we are “raptured” up to be with Him forevermore. All the Old Testament saints seemed to realize this too, and they looked forward to His coming as we do today. Let us occupy till He comes, and not look for the anti-christ, but look for the return of Christ, the True One, the Lord and Savior of our souls.
1 Thessalonians 5
“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” (v. 11)
The admonishment is to “edify” one another. This means that we are to “build up” one another in the faith, to strengthen one another. We are to teach one another and encourage others for the work of the Lord, and in the faith of the Lord. To do this, Paul gives us several things that we need to be doing in the following verses;
In v. 12, we are to make an effort to know who we are to be shepherded by; to “know” them means to be sure they are true men, and that we are not under the teachings of man, but under the Word of God.
In v. 13, we are esteem them that are in authority over us in the church. We are to honor them and respect them as special servants of God. Also, we are to “be at peace” among ourselves, and have no qualms about the administration that are unjust or unfounded.
In v. 14, we are to warn the unruly; these need no explanation except that we are to warn; to comfort some; to support some; and to be patient is doing these things.
In v. 15, we are not to be vengeful, but always seek that which is good.
As you read down through these passages, you don’t need me to list them over again, but realize that these are the things that edify and build up the church of God, and these are many of the duties committed to us as children of the Most High. We need to make a habit of practicing these daily, and weekly in our lives, as the Thessalonians seemed to do regularly.
No comments:
Post a Comment