A THREEFOLD COMMENDATION 1 Thess 1 2 3

A THREEFOLD COMMENDATION 1 Thess 1: 2, 3 ~ We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, NKJV Paul is going to deal out warning and rebuke; but he begins with unmixed praise. üTheir work inspired by faith üTheir labor prompted by love üTheir endurance founded on hope

Your Work of Faith • Their work stood as unmistakable evidence of a genuine and enduring faith. • Paul is not commending a “works” system of salvation. Rom. 4: 1 -5 • But this “faith” that justifies is not without works but moves us to seek to obey any or all of God’s commands. • Rom. 1: 5; 16: 25, 26; 2 Thess. 1: 8 • We do not have a working faith if we will not obey the commands of Scripture!

Your Work of Faith • Paul is not identifying faith as being “alone” without evidence for it in our lives. • Heb. 11: 6; Jn. 8: 24; Jn. 12: 42, 43 • James 2: 17 -22 • 1 Thess 1: 9 ~ For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, NASU

Your Work of Faith • It can only be a “work of faith” if it comes from the word of faith! • Rom. 10: 17; 2 Cor. 5: 7; 2 Tim. 3: 1617 • Can any work be a good work in the sight of God unless it is a work of faith? • What inspired them in this work? • It was faith centered in Jesus! V. 3 c • Should not every Christian ask himself, what is the work that springs from “my” faith, and in what way is my faith changing my life or the lives of

Your Labor of Love “Love leads us to attempt labor from which we would ordinarily • Not only did Paul see work proceeding from faith, but leads the work shrink in dismay. Love us was strenuous work promptedto bydo love. without having any good • We love in response to God’s feeling love forofus. 1 Jn. 4: 19 because superiority we haveofdone it, or resentment • Loving God is the key to the easiness Jesus’ yoke. because it has been imposed • Matthew 11: 28 -30; 1 John 5: 3 upon us. ” - Fields • Love caused God never to rest or hold his peace until the plan of salvation could become a fact. (Isaiah 62: 1, 2) • 1 John 3: 18 ~ My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Your Patience of Hope • What is meant is not quite, passive resignation, but an active constancy in the face of difficulties, that hope which is more than pious optimism. It is solid certainty”. – Morris • Rom 8: 25 ~ But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

Your Patience of Hope • 1 Peter 1: 3, 4 ~ … living hope … inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away… • 1 Thess 5: 8 ~ But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

Your Patience of Hope • Heb 6: 18 -20 ~ that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the

Your Patience of Hope • Heb 10: 35 -39 ~ Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: "For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him. " But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of

üLet your work be inspired by faith! üLet your labor be prompted by love! üLet your endurance be founded on hope!