Thanksgiving (1 Thess. 1:2-6)
This sermon was preached on 10/1/2010
It is common in Paul’s letters for him to follow his greeting with information about his prayers for this reader. Although his prayer here is depicted as thanksgiving, we should not imagine that his prayers for the Thessalonians were limited to gratitude. Thanksgiving is highlighted because of the wonderful report brought back to Paul and Silas by Timothy, but before they received the news they interceded for the church there. Of course, we should not separate the faithfulness of the Thessalonians from the prayers of Paul and his colleagues. Yet since this particular prayer is one of thanksgiving, we will make some comments about it as our first point.
1. The Thankful Prayer (vv. 2-3)As we noticed, the team in Corinth did more than send Timothy to Thessalonica – in addition they prayed for their friends there. We can admire their commitment, but we must do more than approve of it. The required response by us is imitation. We should have the same kind of spirit as marked these men. So how can we develop a spirit of thankfulness? The first point is obvious – before we can have a spirit of thankfulness for God’ s work of grace, we should have intense intercession for that work of grace. Connected to it are three details.
First, there must be ongoing affection for those about whom we are thankful. The love between the three men and the church had been forged during the period when the gospel was blessed in Thessalonica. But love is more than a memory. Although the situation had changed, the hearts were full of love. They thought about the church often, every day, not leaving any of them out of their prayers.
Second, there must be ongoing information. Timothy’s report had further stimulated their thankfulness to God. The church was proof that not only did God commence a work in the hearts of the Thessalonians, he was also continuing it. Thankfulness arises and develops on seeing God at work. Yet we should note that the information did not fall out of the sky on to their laps. They had to take steps to discover the information they wanted to know. We must do so as well. Surely we want to know if our prayers for a situation are making a difference.
Third, there must be ongoing delight in praying for them. I think we can sense the delight of the team by noting how they describe their thankfulness. They realised that they were mentioning the Thessalonians in the very presence of heavenly Father. Thankfulness in prayer for other believers is like the joy of a family that gathers around parents after a time apart, with great mutual delight in one another.
These three features will enable us to express thankfulness for one another and for others for whom we pray.
2. The Triple Progress (v. 3)
The evidence that the Thessalonians were genuine disciples was revealed in their new way of living. Paul and his colleagues observed that the Thessalonians were displaying three important graces – faith, love and hope. The threefold set of graces occurs several times in Paul’s letters. For example, Paul writes in Colossians 1:4-5: ‘since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.’ Perhaps his best known usage is 1 Corinthians 13:13: ‘So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ Peter mentions the three graces in 1 Peter 1:21-22: ‘who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.’ We can see the three graces in Romans 5:1-5 and Hebrews 10:22-24 as well. So it is reasonable to deduce that church leaders, when looking for reality in a congregation, should see if these graces are present in one way or another. The triad are not used in the same way in each reference, but their presence is described and approved of.
It is not clear if the Thessalonians are being commended for their behaviour in general or for a specific action. If it is general behaviour, then they are commended for remaining true to Christ despite the many obstacles in their way; if it is a specific action, perhaps it is a reference to the church’s evangelism that is mentioned later in verse 8, and such a widespread activity would have involved hard work.
The point that is being made by Paul, Silvanus and Timothy is that the activities of a church must flow from certain attitudes. Actions are not accepted without these inner expressions of Christian life in the soul. What is not done by faith in God is of no value, no matter how costly it is in energy expended. Similarly, what is not done by love to God and to others is of no value, no matter how dedicated one is to the task. And, what is not done depending on Jesus Christ is of no value, no matter how much one grits his teeth and gets on with it.
Sometimes the impression can be given that serving Christ will not require all our energy because he himself is omnipotent. We deduce that his strength replaces our weakness, so we can therefore sit back and observe rather than participate. This is a wrong response as we can see from Paul’s description of his ministry in Colossians 1:29: ‘For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.’ We can also note how in that letter he describes the prayer life of Epaphras: ‘who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always( struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God’ (Col. 4:12).
Each of these outlooks of faith, love and hope looks away from oneself. A Christian does not trust in himself, does not express love by focussing on himself, and does not anticipate good results by looking at himself. Whatever he does for God he does it in a spiritual way.
3. The Terrific Preaching (vv. 4-5)We can say that one reason for the spiritual health of the Thessalonians was God’s answer to the prayers of the team in Corinth. As they prayed, they were links in a chain. But their prayer was not the first link in the chain; indeed it was not even their first contribution to the chain. Paul mentions three other links that preceded their prayers – God’s election, the preaching of the gospel, and the acceptance of the gospel by the Thessalonians.
The first link in the chain is actually one that no-one can see – God’s choice of his people before the foundation of the world. Some people are frightened of election and regard it as some kind of bogeyman, that if they don’t think about it, it will go away. But it won’t, because the Bible refers to it repeatedly.
Several reasons can be given as to why the Bible refers to it so often. One reason is that it is a means of giving confidence to those who believe the gospel – it states that God is for them, and has been for them since eternity. A second reason for its frequency is that God wants us to understand it. There are two ways of thinking about this doctrine – a right way and a wrong way. The right way is to use it positively as evidence that God will save sinners; the wrong way is for anyone of us to use it negatively and say, “He will not save me.’ No-one knows who the elect are until they believe.
A right use of election, of a sovereign God determined to save sinners, has been a powerful motivator in the past – during the Reformation, in times of revival (Whitefield) and in preachers who won many souls for Christ (Spurgeon, W. C. Burns). It has caused many Christians to perform great exploits. If your concept of election does not motivate you to evangelise, it’s not election you believe in, but fatalism. Concerning those not yet converted, if your concept of it drives you to despair, it’s not election you’re thinking about but fatalism. Election is liberating because it guarantees that God will save sinners through the gospel.
The second link is the preaching of the gospel. Paul says four things about the gospel. First, it is rational and logical – while it did not come in word only, it did come in word. Paul and his colleagues had to declare a message of good news. They announced as clearly as possible that Jesus had died in the place of sinners so that they would not have to undergo the wrath of God.
In addition to having a message, the preachers were marked by three features. They were marked by the presence of power, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and by the presence of strong conviction (the conviction refers to how the message was presented, not to how it was received). What do these features suggest, because they are intertwined.
Paul and his friends sensed that their message was a powerful one, I suspect in the sense that it carries with it a strong impression that it is true. We can listen to a person making a speech and sense that the words are true; there is an authenticity about them. I think Paul is saying that something similar happens when the gospel is preached. Listeners become aware that it is a word from another world delivered by sinful men.
But this sense of power accompanying the gospel is not sufficient to convert people. Many a person has been affected by it, realised that they should believe in Jesus, but don’t at that time. Their refusal does not make the message false, but their failure means that additional activity has to accompany the gospel. That additional activity is the presence of the Holy Spirit. If we can make a distinction, the first power hits us from outside, the second power (the Holy Spirit) hits us from the inside.
How do we know that the Holy Spirit is accompanying the preaching of the gospel? The answer to that question is that we begin to feel what the gospel says. We no longer react to it as an intellectual opinion or theory. Instead we sense that it is describing us and we become convinced that we are sinful. We become appalled at our sins and begin to feel them as a burden. Further we regret them and want to be forgiven. At the same time, the Spirit points us to the remedy described in the gospel. We begin to find the person and sacrifice of Jesus as the Saviour very attractive and we realise that through him alone there is forgiveness and pardon.
The third feature mentioned by Paul is the effect their preaching had on themselves. Accompanying the powerful effects of the truth of the gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit was a very strong inner conviction that compelled them to continue declaring the gospel. Perhaps they had this conviction because of the opposition they faced, suggesting the strength of the conviction was a special provision by God. I suspect, however, that this conviction should always be present when the gospel is declared. It is not the type of conviction that causes a preacher to harangue or speak confrontationally. Rather it is a conviction that enables the preacher to know that he is declaring a message that will have effects in his listeners. Therefore it is a liberating conviction because it frees him from trying to find means of enhancing the effect of the message. As the men recalled their days of gospel preaching in Thessalonica, they remembered how they felt when declaring the powerful gospel and observed the Spirit at work. And therefore they could remind the Thessalonians of the type of preachers they had observed.
4. The Trusting Acceptance (v. 6)There are many ways by which we can describe how sinners respond to the gospel. Sometimes we mention the response of repentance and faith, highlighting how they related to one another. At other times, they are not mentioned, as here in 1:6, although they did take place. Paul covers them in his phrase, ‘received the word’.
Instead Paul focuses on two other details, one refers to the circumstances and the other to what accompanied the response. The circumstances were that strong opposition faced any who would become disciples of Jesus. This situation highlights that faith involves commitment to Jesus as well as confidence in Jesus. Fear of man has often been the reason why listeners, convinced by the gospel’s truthfulness, refuse to become followers of Jesus. This reason is still around today: what will others think if I become a follower of Jesus? Will they laugh at me? In some countries, there may be persecution from the civil authorities. The Thessalonians did not let possible trouble prevent them from becoming followers of Christ.
On believing in Jesus, the Thessalonians experienced spiritual joy. It is important to note that they are being described by those that observed them. A Thessalonian convert may not have said, ‘I have great joy.’ Instead he may have said, ‘I have a great Saviour’ or ‘My sins have been forgiven.’ If we think about joy, we probably will not experience it; if we focus on what brings joy, we will experience it even if we do not realise we have it. What is essential is that we receive the message of the gospel.
As a result of our meeting, will we have thankful prayers and the threefold progress seen in our faith, love and hope? Will others observe that we have great joy because we have responded in faith and repentance to the gospel?
1. The Thankful Prayer (vv. 2-3)As we noticed, the team in Corinth did more than send Timothy to Thessalonica – in addition they prayed for their friends there. We can admire their commitment, but we must do more than approve of it. The required response by us is imitation. We should have the same kind of spirit as marked these men. So how can we develop a spirit of thankfulness? The first point is obvious – before we can have a spirit of thankfulness for God’ s work of grace, we should have intense intercession for that work of grace. Connected to it are three details.
First, there must be ongoing affection for those about whom we are thankful. The love between the three men and the church had been forged during the period when the gospel was blessed in Thessalonica. But love is more than a memory. Although the situation had changed, the hearts were full of love. They thought about the church often, every day, not leaving any of them out of their prayers.
Second, there must be ongoing information. Timothy’s report had further stimulated their thankfulness to God. The church was proof that not only did God commence a work in the hearts of the Thessalonians, he was also continuing it. Thankfulness arises and develops on seeing God at work. Yet we should note that the information did not fall out of the sky on to their laps. They had to take steps to discover the information they wanted to know. We must do so as well. Surely we want to know if our prayers for a situation are making a difference.
Third, there must be ongoing delight in praying for them. I think we can sense the delight of the team by noting how they describe their thankfulness. They realised that they were mentioning the Thessalonians in the very presence of heavenly Father. Thankfulness in prayer for other believers is like the joy of a family that gathers around parents after a time apart, with great mutual delight in one another.
These three features will enable us to express thankfulness for one another and for others for whom we pray.
2. The Triple Progress (v. 3)
The evidence that the Thessalonians were genuine disciples was revealed in their new way of living. Paul and his colleagues observed that the Thessalonians were displaying three important graces – faith, love and hope. The threefold set of graces occurs several times in Paul’s letters. For example, Paul writes in Colossians 1:4-5: ‘since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.’ Perhaps his best known usage is 1 Corinthians 13:13: ‘So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ Peter mentions the three graces in 1 Peter 1:21-22: ‘who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.’ We can see the three graces in Romans 5:1-5 and Hebrews 10:22-24 as well. So it is reasonable to deduce that church leaders, when looking for reality in a congregation, should see if these graces are present in one way or another. The triad are not used in the same way in each reference, but their presence is described and approved of.
It is not clear if the Thessalonians are being commended for their behaviour in general or for a specific action. If it is general behaviour, then they are commended for remaining true to Christ despite the many obstacles in their way; if it is a specific action, perhaps it is a reference to the church’s evangelism that is mentioned later in verse 8, and such a widespread activity would have involved hard work.
The point that is being made by Paul, Silvanus and Timothy is that the activities of a church must flow from certain attitudes. Actions are not accepted without these inner expressions of Christian life in the soul. What is not done by faith in God is of no value, no matter how costly it is in energy expended. Similarly, what is not done by love to God and to others is of no value, no matter how dedicated one is to the task. And, what is not done depending on Jesus Christ is of no value, no matter how much one grits his teeth and gets on with it.
Sometimes the impression can be given that serving Christ will not require all our energy because he himself is omnipotent. We deduce that his strength replaces our weakness, so we can therefore sit back and observe rather than participate. This is a wrong response as we can see from Paul’s description of his ministry in Colossians 1:29: ‘For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.’ We can also note how in that letter he describes the prayer life of Epaphras: ‘who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always( struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God’ (Col. 4:12).
Each of these outlooks of faith, love and hope looks away from oneself. A Christian does not trust in himself, does not express love by focussing on himself, and does not anticipate good results by looking at himself. Whatever he does for God he does it in a spiritual way.
3. The Terrific Preaching (vv. 4-5)We can say that one reason for the spiritual health of the Thessalonians was God’s answer to the prayers of the team in Corinth. As they prayed, they were links in a chain. But their prayer was not the first link in the chain; indeed it was not even their first contribution to the chain. Paul mentions three other links that preceded their prayers – God’s election, the preaching of the gospel, and the acceptance of the gospel by the Thessalonians.
The first link in the chain is actually one that no-one can see – God’s choice of his people before the foundation of the world. Some people are frightened of election and regard it as some kind of bogeyman, that if they don’t think about it, it will go away. But it won’t, because the Bible refers to it repeatedly.
Several reasons can be given as to why the Bible refers to it so often. One reason is that it is a means of giving confidence to those who believe the gospel – it states that God is for them, and has been for them since eternity. A second reason for its frequency is that God wants us to understand it. There are two ways of thinking about this doctrine – a right way and a wrong way. The right way is to use it positively as evidence that God will save sinners; the wrong way is for anyone of us to use it negatively and say, “He will not save me.’ No-one knows who the elect are until they believe.
A right use of election, of a sovereign God determined to save sinners, has been a powerful motivator in the past – during the Reformation, in times of revival (Whitefield) and in preachers who won many souls for Christ (Spurgeon, W. C. Burns). It has caused many Christians to perform great exploits. If your concept of election does not motivate you to evangelise, it’s not election you believe in, but fatalism. Concerning those not yet converted, if your concept of it drives you to despair, it’s not election you’re thinking about but fatalism. Election is liberating because it guarantees that God will save sinners through the gospel.
The second link is the preaching of the gospel. Paul says four things about the gospel. First, it is rational and logical – while it did not come in word only, it did come in word. Paul and his colleagues had to declare a message of good news. They announced as clearly as possible that Jesus had died in the place of sinners so that they would not have to undergo the wrath of God.
In addition to having a message, the preachers were marked by three features. They were marked by the presence of power, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and by the presence of strong conviction (the conviction refers to how the message was presented, not to how it was received). What do these features suggest, because they are intertwined.
Paul and his friends sensed that their message was a powerful one, I suspect in the sense that it carries with it a strong impression that it is true. We can listen to a person making a speech and sense that the words are true; there is an authenticity about them. I think Paul is saying that something similar happens when the gospel is preached. Listeners become aware that it is a word from another world delivered by sinful men.
But this sense of power accompanying the gospel is not sufficient to convert people. Many a person has been affected by it, realised that they should believe in Jesus, but don’t at that time. Their refusal does not make the message false, but their failure means that additional activity has to accompany the gospel. That additional activity is the presence of the Holy Spirit. If we can make a distinction, the first power hits us from outside, the second power (the Holy Spirit) hits us from the inside.
How do we know that the Holy Spirit is accompanying the preaching of the gospel? The answer to that question is that we begin to feel what the gospel says. We no longer react to it as an intellectual opinion or theory. Instead we sense that it is describing us and we become convinced that we are sinful. We become appalled at our sins and begin to feel them as a burden. Further we regret them and want to be forgiven. At the same time, the Spirit points us to the remedy described in the gospel. We begin to find the person and sacrifice of Jesus as the Saviour very attractive and we realise that through him alone there is forgiveness and pardon.
The third feature mentioned by Paul is the effect their preaching had on themselves. Accompanying the powerful effects of the truth of the gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit was a very strong inner conviction that compelled them to continue declaring the gospel. Perhaps they had this conviction because of the opposition they faced, suggesting the strength of the conviction was a special provision by God. I suspect, however, that this conviction should always be present when the gospel is declared. It is not the type of conviction that causes a preacher to harangue or speak confrontationally. Rather it is a conviction that enables the preacher to know that he is declaring a message that will have effects in his listeners. Therefore it is a liberating conviction because it frees him from trying to find means of enhancing the effect of the message. As the men recalled their days of gospel preaching in Thessalonica, they remembered how they felt when declaring the powerful gospel and observed the Spirit at work. And therefore they could remind the Thessalonians of the type of preachers they had observed.
4. The Trusting Acceptance (v. 6)There are many ways by which we can describe how sinners respond to the gospel. Sometimes we mention the response of repentance and faith, highlighting how they related to one another. At other times, they are not mentioned, as here in 1:6, although they did take place. Paul covers them in his phrase, ‘received the word’.
Instead Paul focuses on two other details, one refers to the circumstances and the other to what accompanied the response. The circumstances were that strong opposition faced any who would become disciples of Jesus. This situation highlights that faith involves commitment to Jesus as well as confidence in Jesus. Fear of man has often been the reason why listeners, convinced by the gospel’s truthfulness, refuse to become followers of Jesus. This reason is still around today: what will others think if I become a follower of Jesus? Will they laugh at me? In some countries, there may be persecution from the civil authorities. The Thessalonians did not let possible trouble prevent them from becoming followers of Christ.
On believing in Jesus, the Thessalonians experienced spiritual joy. It is important to note that they are being described by those that observed them. A Thessalonian convert may not have said, ‘I have great joy.’ Instead he may have said, ‘I have a great Saviour’ or ‘My sins have been forgiven.’ If we think about joy, we probably will not experience it; if we focus on what brings joy, we will experience it even if we do not realise we have it. What is essential is that we receive the message of the gospel.
As a result of our meeting, will we have thankful prayers and the threefold progress seen in our faith, love and hope? Will others observe that we have great joy because we have responded in faith and repentance to the gospel?
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