According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Well hello again and we're glad you've joined us. This is According to the Scriptures. And we're just getting our series called While We Wait underway. The emphasis throughout has been on living in anticipation of the Lord's return.

Big part of that involves thanksgiving as we're about to see. Does the way you live cause other Christians to be thankful? Something to think about, to be sure. Here's Pastor Damian Kyle in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

Damian Kyle: As I mentioned, this week we head into our second teaching and second week in a teaching series through this New Testament book of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians on these Sunday mornings. I've entitled this series While We Wait, with the subtitle Living in Anticipation of Jesus' Return.

Our primary focus in studying these two letters is not going to be Bible prophecy associated with Jesus' return. We will address that because both letters are full of that. But our primary focus will be on Paul's instruction concerning the characteristics of a Christian life that will be necessary and are necessary in order to be ready for His return when that return occurs.

Last week, we took the time to introduce ourselves to the spiritual history of the church there in Thessalonica from Acts chapter 17, so that we might be able then, now for the remainder of our series, be a part of the congregation and hear the letter as they would have heard it and to do so with the same understanding. This morning, we jump into Paul's letter in earnest.

Paul begins his letter with a typical greeting, and the greetings with which he opens all of his epistles are largely the same in terms of the form that they take, but they're also very educational. They're a part of the passage where once you become familiar with it, it's easy to race through it and get into what the letter's being written about. The Bible forbids vain repetition, but it does not forbid repetition. Repetition is important, and how Paul opens his letters is very educational to us.

A typical way that Paul would open his letter is that it would have four characteristics. First, the author of the letter would identify themselves at the onset. Remember, letters were written as scrolls in those days, so that you wouldn't have to scroll all the way to the end of the parchment to find out who wrote this thing to you. So the writer would identify themselves immediately. We write our name at the end of the letters, but of course, they get the heads up on the envelope. Filing through pages is easier than trying to fiddle through a scroll.

The second thing that would be included in an opening to any letter would have been who the letter was written to. It would be followed by a word of greeting, and then when possible, an expression of thanksgiving, some aspect of thanksgiving that filled the heart of the writer related to the recipient of the letter. After which, the writer of the letter would head into the main reason for which he or she had written the letter, head into the subject that needs to be addressed in earnest.

Very much as we do today, in our early greetings in a letter, even in a letter that's going to deal with very serious subject matter, we will take the time to be polite and to communicate, to acknowledge the human being that's on the other side of this letter and then head in earnest into the main purpose. Paul tells us the author of the letter in verse 1. It's Paul. He lists Silvanus and he lists Timothy with him in that opening verse because they had been with Paul when he went to Thessalonica and established the church there.

They had a heart for the people there. They knew them. They had a relationship with the people there and they were in complete agreement with the letter and the content of it. They are now with Paul in the city of Corinth, where he writes this letter from. Silvanus, as he's listed here, is none other than Silas. Silvanus is just another form of the name Silas. That Paul was the source of the content of the letter and that with respect, he includes the other two is clear to us because of the first person singular, the "I" that he uses repeatedly throughout the letter referring to himself.

Paul declares that he's writing to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The word "church" in the Greek is ecclesia. It means "called out ones." Paul never misses a chance to introduce doctrine into our lives or an eternal perspective. He communicates to them that you guys, remember you're called out ones, that as Christians, we are in the world but we are not of the world. We have been called to live for God in this world.

He tells them and us that they are in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, communicating that that's who they are resting in, that's where their spiritual roots go down, into God the Father and into the Lord Jesus Christ as Christians. It's a way of communicating to them the security of their salvation, the security of their relationship with God. Their salvation is as sure and as safe as God the Father and God the Son are strong. That is completely sure.

That would have been a very important encouragement to very young Christians who were facing tremendous persecution for their faith in the early weeks of their walk with the Lord there in the city and being encouraged in the fact that their foundation is deep and strong and immovable. His word of greeting here is "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace and peace were the common greetings in the ancient world. When a Greek person or a Gentile would greet another Greek or Gentile, they would say grace. They would say charis to them in the same way that you would say good morning in this culture.

The word means grace, and it would basically be saying may your day be full of grace. We say it in a more diluted form when we say, "Have a great day," and we're hoping that they have a grace-filled day. The Jews would greet one another with the word Shalom, with peace. There was a communication where may your life today and may your day today be marked by peace. The order in which these are found in Paul's letters is always in that order: grace first and then peace. In all the letters he writes, he never reverses those words in that greeting.

It's deliberate. There's a reason for it. He's communicating that always peace is a byproduct of grace in the Christian life. That is, no one can ever know the peace of God until we know the grace of God. No one can know peace in their relationship with God until they realize that not only is our salvation based upon God's grace, but the relationship that we have with God subsequently to salvation is entirely grace-based.

If I think that my relationship with God is based upon me earning something from Him, human effort, all of these things, I will never know peace in my relationship with God because I'll never know if I'm doing enough. So he always speaks of it in this order: grace and peace. He declares this to be from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, this is exactly the kind of relationship that both Father and Son want to have with you: a grace-based relationship with you and one that produces peace within your life.

Now at this point in Paul's writing of this letter to the church in Thessalonica, when typically he goes into some kind of an expression of thanksgiving for the person or the church that he is writing to. As he thinks about this church in Thessalonica, his heart is so full of thanksgiving, so many reasons to be thankful for them, that he doesn't stop in a verse or two. He continues the expression of his thanksgiving for them all the way through the entire first chapter.

It's important to realize that Paul here as he's expressing his thanks to them for their Christian lives, to recognize that he doesn't declare their Christian lives to be extraordinary in some way, or that the Christian lives that they're living and that he's going to describe here in the remainder of the chapter is something that is only achieved by a rare few Christians. Only what he is saying is that he is thankful that they are living the Christian life as it ought to be lived and as Christians who are sincerely watching and waiting for the Lord's return.

Some might think that a Christian who's watching and waiting for the Lord's return, that it's simply a person or Christian who believes that as a theological tenet, or they believe that it will happen one day. They even believe that it could happen today. But here we see that watching and waiting isn't merely a theological truth that's to be confined in my mind, but that it's one that is to have practical ramifications in our lives as well, the kind of ramifications that it had in the lives of this church, Christians here in Thessalonica.

And here we see that to really believe in Jesus' imminent return will translate into a certain quality of Christian life. It will translate into a Christian life that is consistent with the fact that in one moment of time, I can be standing immediately before Him at the time of the rapture of the church. What Paul describes here concerning the Christian lives of these Christians in Thessalonica is the Christian life anyone who truly believes in Jesus' return will live. That is, it's a description of a person who is truly watching and waiting for the Lord's return, one who is serious about hearing a "well done" one day from the lips of Jesus.

A Christian life that we may choose for ourselves, the one that we might fashion and say, "I'm content with this, I don't want all of the rest of what's written there in the Bible," that kind of Christianity will fail us. It will fail us in the last days. It will not be sufficient. As J. Vernon McGee used to say, "sermonettes for Christianettes." It is not going to work. It is going to take a particular quality of Christian in the depth that we see here in their Christian life to be able to navigate the end of human history in the way that God wants us to. This is the kind of Christian life and character that we will need.

One final thing before we dig into all of this, and that is to remember that Paul is writing to very new Christians. He's describing people who had only become Christians just a very few months prior to receiving this letter. We might call them baby Christians, and yet they possessed an astonishing Christian maturity. They didn't understand all of the doctrine yet, all of the truths of the Bible yet, but in terms of commitment and zeal and obedience, tremendous maturity.

Christian maturity is not solely represented in how much we know about the Bible or how much biblical knowledge we have accumulated over the years. Christian maturity is measured supremely in the amount of what we know biblically that I am now living in obedience to on a daily level in my life. That what I believe has now become a part of my Christian life and a part of my relationship with God. That's where maturity is defined.

As any human resources recruiter for any major company is asking themselves as they're interviewing any prospective employee for that company, they're asking themselves silently in their mind, "Is this someone with 20 years of experience or one year of experience that's been repeated 20 times?" Sometimes new believers can really put some of us old dogs to shame who have walked with the Lord for a long time in this regard. They certainly can shake up our belief of what is a spiritually mature Christian.

Now let's notice all of these causes for thanksgiving that filled the Apostle's heart when he thought of them. You know, we talk about the Bible is full of exhortations for us to be thankful as Christians. Here we have a glimpse at how to be a Christian that makes other Christians thankful in their lives as they look at us, as every remembrance of us. As he describes what he's thankful for, he began in verse 3. He was thankful for their work of faith.

We can tend to think as Christians that works and faith are opposites or they are enemies within the Bible or theologically, and they certainly are concerning salvation. We are not saved by works or human effort but by grace through faith. But the moment we become a Christian, works and faith become very good friends within our lives. They unite together in a powerful way within our lives. Saving faith will always be evidenced by works following as an evidence of that faith.

James is probably the one that is the most pointed related to this, and you wonder what was he saying when you read James. James chapter 2, verse 20, he said in this regard, "But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" Later in that same chapter, he said, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." James tells us, he's writing to Christians, that if my life has not changed by virtue of being born again or by virtue of becoming a Christian, then it is a dead faith.

It is impossible for God Almighty in the person of the Holy Spirit to come into a human life without producing change within our lives. It may not be as fast as we would like it and others would like it, but it does occur. Their salvation, these young whippersnapper believers there in the city of Thessalonica, their salvation had radically changed their lives, and that blessed Paul as it blesses any Christian and certainly the one that leads us to the Lord.

Secondly, he tells us in verse 3 that Paul was thankful for their labor of love. That the motive behind living their Christian life, their motive behind their Christian service—and they were an active church, even as young as they were—their motive in all of this was love. It wasn't selfishness or greed or self-promotion or anything like that. Paul saw that their motive was a love for God and a love for other people. The Bible says the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, and he saw that manifestation of the Spirit within their lives.

That love that they had for God, the love that they had for people. You just see that in people's lives as they're born again, this fruit of the Spirit within their lives. As Jesus said, the two great commandments, the first and greatest is love God with all of your heart, all your mind, all of your soul, and all of your strength. The second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself. They were fully engaged in doing both of those things out of a motive of love. They were loving Christians, Christians motivated by love in their relationship with God and with others.

And then third in verse 3, Paul was thankful for their patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God the Father. That is, despite being very new Christians and the persecution they were facing as a result of having become Christians, their commitment to Jesus, their commitment to living in anticipation of Jesus' return, their commitment to their new Christian life and their confidence in the everlasting life, it was strong. It was unbudging in their lives.

Phillips' translation captures the meaning of the word "endurance" here when he translates it "sheer dogged endurance." In other words, they weren't fragile Christians in terms of their commitment to God. They weren't the kind of Christian that you had to worry whether every trial in life would end up shattering their Christian faith or whether their commitment to Jesus would continue. When Paul saw that in a Christian, when he saw that in a church and in a group of believers, it blessed his heart and he spoke of it with gratitude.

And then you notice in verse 4, he declares to them, "Knowing, beloved, your election from God." One of the main things the election of God communicates to us concerning our salvation as Christians is the security of our salvation. Their steadfastness was an indication of this election. I would guess that virtually all Christians could look back on all of the obstacles, think about all of the obstacles you faced as a brand-new Christian: the persecution, the rejection by people, the spiritual warfare that instantly became a part of your life and so forth.

We wonder how in the world we were able to make it into some semblance of maturity through those early, early years, except that God's grip on our lives was very strong and is very strong.

Guest (Male): We'll hit the pause button right here and share the rest of this message from Damian Kyle next time here on According to the Scriptures. For resource requests, like today's message on CD, call us, won't you? 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. Pastor Damian Kyle's studies can also be heard online on our website accordingtothescriptures.com, as well as oneplace.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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And don't miss our next study when Pastor Damian Kyle will again open the Word, helping us to live our lives according to the Scriptures. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Modesto.