GOD'S CHOICE OF YOU - PART1 (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10)
INTRODUCTION:
Our introduction to 1st and 2nd Thessalonians was to look back to before these letters were written to see why Paul wrote these letters. We learned that Paul and his companions, Silas and Timothy, had planted a church in Thessalonica during Paul’s second missionary journey. How much time they spent in Thessalonica teaching the new believers we do not know but due to some jealous, unbelieving Jews their time in Thessalonica was cut short as they had to flee the city under the cover of darkness. These unbelieving Jews wanted to bring Paul, Silas, and Timothy before the city authorities but when they could not find them, they brought some of the new believers instead and charged them with treason. These new believers were forced to post a good behavior bond that would be forfeited if they disturbed the peace of the city again. The church sent Paul, Silas, and Timothy away by night for fear that if seen in the city they might be harmed. This was the situation that Paul was in when he left Thessalonica, he was concerned for the new believers that he was leaving behind, fearing that they would not be able to stand firm under affliction. It is in response to this concern and a report by Timothy on the condition of the church that prompts Paul to write these two letters. Let’s pray and then begin to look at the first chapter of 1st Thessalonians this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to 1 Thessalonians 1. We are going to read the whole chapter which is only 10 verses. We will not get through the whole chapter this morning. Please stand, if you are able, in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
1st Thessalonians 1:1-10,
“Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. 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, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1:1–10, NASB95)[1]
SALUTATION (1st Thessalonians 1:1)
There were standards of letter writing in Paul’s day just as there is in our day. We usually begin with a date and a salutation of some kind to the person we are writing. We usually end our letters with a closing remark and our name. In Paul’s day the Salutation began with the name of the writer, then the recipient of the letter, and then a blessing or prayer for the recipient often for their physical health or wellbeing. Paul was not so concerned with the physical health of his recipients; he was concerned about their spiritual health.
He begins by identifying that this letter is from himself and Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy. Paul includes Silas and Timothy because they knew the Thessalonian believers and had been with Paul when the church was born. They had ministered to them as well and were concerned for them also. Paul goes on in his greeting to identify the recipients and identifies them as the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s designation that this church is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ makes it clear that he is not just writing to an assembly of people, but to an assembly of believers who were united to God as their Father and to Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. It is worth mentioning here that Paul uses the Savior’s full title, the Lord Jesus Christ. This full title combines all the major aspects of His redemptive work. The title “Lord” describes Him as the Creator and the Sovereign Ruler, the One who made us, bought us, rules over us, and to whom we owe full allegiance. The name Jesus which means Yahweh saves, refers to His humanity; it is the name given to Him at His birth. The term Christ which means anointed One is the Greek term for the Hebrew term “Messiah,” the One promised by God to fulfill His plan of redemption.
Paul continued his salutation with a greeting of grace to you and peace. Grace is God’s undeserved favor to the sinner by giving him complete forgiveness of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the results of God’s grace is salvation from God’s wrath against sin, adoption into God’s family and eternal life. This also results in peace with God because we are no longer at enmity with God because we have been forgiven and are justified before Him by our faith in His Son. This grace and peace are also the believers’ daily portion, the grace empowers us to live and minister and obey, and the peace of God guards our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus.
MENTIONING (1st Thessalonians 1:2)
Paul after his salutation launches into a prayer for the Thessalonian believers. As I already mentioned, his prayer concerns the spiritual health of the believers. Because of this when we read the opening prayers in Paul’s letters, we see three main functions for them. First, his prayers served a pastoral function, they were used to express his love for the believers. Second, they served as a challenge to the readers to live up to the prayer or thanksgiving that he was writing. Third, they served to give us a glimpse or a heads up as to what Paul was going to say later in the letter. As we will see in this prayer for the Thessalonians Paul is thankful for their faith, love, and hope.
As we look at Paul’s prayer this morning, let’s think about what our prayers look like and how they compare to Paul’s prayers? Prayer times in most evangelical churches are almost completely focused on physical health needs. I have even given prayer requests for the health needs of different people, and Paul would even ask people to pray for this on occasion, and there is nothing wrong with that. When that is the primary request, we are missing something central in prayer. We are missing the spiritual dimension that concerns our faith, but listen to Paul and allow his prayer to guide us to a deeper level of prayer regarding our faith and our spiritual life.
Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonian believers begins with thanksgiving. Paul gives thanks to God for them. This prayer’s overarching theme is thankfulness. Being a thankful person simply means that you are aware of the blessings that are around you. Paul looked at what God had done in Thessalonica, and he gave thanks to God. Paul begins by encouraging the Thessalonian believers that himself, Silas, and Timothy make mention of the believers in their prayers, in other words their prayer and thanksgiving for them is ongoing as they pray for their spiritual wellbeing. First, he mentions the Thessalonian believers in his prayer, then he remembers their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1st Thessalonians 1:3a, NASB95)[2]
REMEMBERING (1st Thessalonians 1:3)
Paul begins by bearing in mind or remembering the Thessalonians work of faith and he gives thanks for it. Faith is required for salvation, faith is receiving and resting on Jesus Christ alone for salvation. It is by faith that we receive what God has done for us through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith in this way, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, NASB95)[3] The word assurance could be translated reality, in other words, faith is the reality of things hoped for, the conviction or the evidence of things not seen. Faith is what makes salvation a reality, forgiveness a reality, eternal life a reality, heaven a reality for us, it is the evidence of those things which we cannot yet see accept with the spiritual eyes of faith.
This kind of faith works. From the very moment that we trust in Christ for salvation, faith begins it work of transforming us and producing fruit in us. The emphasis of the word “work” in work of faith is on the activity of faith. Faith is not dead, it is alive. Faith is like an energy within us that directs our attention to God, to His grace and holiness and sovereignty and glory. Faith is the energy within us that gives us the desire to worship and obey the Lord Jesus. We will see an immediate example of this work of faith near the end of this chapter where Paul declares that the faith of the Thessalonian believers has gone forth everywhere. Other people had heard of the Thessalonian believers’ “work of faith,” which included how they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. In other words, their faith had produced fruit.
Paul continues in thanking God for the Thessalonian believers, and he is not only thankful for their “work of faith” but also remembers and gives thanks for their “labor of love.” It is important to understand that Paul was making a distinction between these two phrases. Although the English words work and labor are similar, Paul was using two different Greek words. The Greek word that Paul used in the first phrase that is translated work is a word that focuses on the work itself. The Greek word translated labor focuses on the energy expended to do the work, it stresses intense labor or hard work to the point of exhaustion. Genuine believers are known by their love for others. Believers minister to others motivated by love. Loving one’s enemies is an expression of the power of salvation. Loving other believers is also evidence of salvation. The apostle John speaks of this love for others extensively in 1 John. For example, he writes in 1 John 2:10, “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” (1 John 2:10, NASB95)[4] He also states that such love is evidence of salvation. He writes in 1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.” (1 John 3:14, NASB95)[5] To love our enemies and to love even the brethren is truly labor intensive if we love with the selfless love with which God loves us, seeking the good of others over our own selves. This labor of love truly is an evidence of a true believer and Paul saw this love in how the Thessalonian believers treated him and his companions while they were with them, it was even seen when they sent them away by night so that no harm would come to them by staying in the city. Paul thanks God that this evidence of their salvation is displayed in their lives.
Paul gives one more virtue seen in the Thessalonian believers that he is thankful for, it is their steadfastness of hope. This phrase could also be translated as endurance inspired by hope. All true believers have a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, a persevering anticipation of seeing His future glory and receiving our eternal inheritance. The redeemed look for the glorious appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this hope in the Lord Jesus Christ comes through the promises of God the Father in whose presence Christ dwells. Paul in writing to Titus stated that salvation instructs us in this hope that we have, he writes in Titus 2:11-13, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,” (Titus 2:11–13, NASB95)[6] Paul could encourage and instruct others in this hope because he was so confident of it in his own life and steadfastly hoped for Christ’s return.
This word translated steadfastness conveys the idea of endurance or perseverance, literally, it denotes the condition of enduring under pressure. The Thessalonian believers had suffered for their faith, but they kept serving God and proclaiming the Gospel while keeping their hope squarely focused upon the Lord Jesus Christ, because they believed that what Jesus Christ started at His resurrection he would finish at His return. We will speak more on this hope later on in this book. It is a confident hope that endures suffering and persecution because it is hope for the future, a hope for the glory that is yet to come, the glory that will far outlast and outweigh the suffering.
Paul was thankful for these spiritual virtues and when he prayed for the Thessalonian believers, he remembered their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope. But that was not the end of Paul’s prayer, and we cannot ignore what Paul prays in verse 4. He prays and writes, “knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you;” (1 Thessalonians 1:4, NASB95)[7] This verse is connected to what we have seen in verse 3. The main action of these verses is “we give thanks” from verse 2. Three actions are connected to that main action. We do not always see it in our English versions. The three sub-actions are “constantly mentioning” in verse 2, remembering in verse three, and knowing in verse 4. By writing this way Paul specifically ties verse 4 into his thanksgiving section.
KNOWING (1st Thessalonians 1:4-5a)
Paul ties verse four into his prayer of thanksgiving because he wants us to understand the grace involved in our Christian life and the ultimate reason why we have faith, love, and hope: because “God has chosen you.” Paul provides the ultimate reason for all of our thankfulness: God chose us to be His people, and granted the Thessalonian Christians the faith, love, and hope that we are witnessing in this letter, just as He grants us the faith, love, and hope that we see demonstrated in our own church. Paul was thankful that he knew their election of God. The King James version uses the word election here in verse 4, and the word election is not a verb, but a noun; however, it implies the action of God’s choice, which is why the ESV translates it as “chosen” by God. We should understand this in the way that Paul uses it in chapter 2:11-12, “…just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.” (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12, NASB95)[8] God called them into His own kingdom and glory because He chose them.
The doctrine of election is often controversial because it teaches that election is of God’s free choice, without regard for our future choices. We follow Jesus because He first chose us. This doctrine has been debated for centuries and that debate will not be solved this morning. But it is a reality that is mentioned right here in our passage, and as I preach through books of the Bible we are going to come upon these passages, and we cannot avoid them just because they are hard passages.
Look how Paul uses this doctrine here. Paul has two goals in using the doctrine of election in his prayer of thanksgiving. First, Paul is saying that God’s choice of these Thessalonians was the reason why they had faith, love, and hope. If we believe in the importance and reality of grace, we would not want it any other way. We would never say that God’s choice of these Thessalonians was based on their own faith, love, and hope. If we do we turn these virtues into works that gain God’s favor, we do not want to do that because we know “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NASB95)[9] Paul’s thanksgiving is that God chose these Thessalonians and in choosing them produced in them the fruit of faith, love, and hope.
Second, just as God in the Old Testament had chosen the nation of Israel to be His beloved people and He is not finished with them yet, there is still a future for the nation of Israel when all God’s promises to them will be fulfilled. In this age of the Church, God has chosen those who are His elect people in this present age. Paul’ second goal is that for the same reason that God chose Israel, He also chose us, because we are beloved by God. So loved are we by God that Paul states in Ephesians 1:4, “…just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” (Ephesians 1:4, NASB95) Our election is bound up and connected to Jesus Christ, and when we trust Him, we are adopted into God’s family as beloved sons and daughters. Paul goes on in Ephesians 1:6 that God did this all “…to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:6, NASB95)[10] God chose Israel to be His elect people in the Old Testament for no other reason than His love for them and His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was not because of who they were, not because they were great, they were not. God loved them because He chose to love them. That is the basis of our election in this age as well. Paul states in verse 4 that we are chosen by God because we are loved by God. Paul was thankful that God had placed His love upon this church by choosing them. They were not great in number, they were not the great people of the city, in fact, they were scorned, persecuted, and afflicted. But God chose them for His purpose.
Sometimes when we talk about election, we are tempted to leave it there in the eternal plan of God. But we must not do that because when Paul talks about God’s eternal work, he shows it effect on history. Paul explains to these Christians that he knows they are elect, not because he can see into the eternal mind and plan of God, but because the gospel came to them in power, and they believed. We see this connection between verses 4 and 5. Notice how this flows, Paul says, “we know that God has chosen you,” but why? Verse 5 finishes the thought, “for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and with the Holy Spirit in full conviction.” (1st Thessalonians 1:5a, NASB95)[11] Paul knows that God chose them because the gospel came to them in power, in the Holy Spirit , and in full conviction, and they believed.
Paul is using the doctrine of election to bring them assurance. That may seem odd to our way of thinking. The doctrine that has caused disputes and debates in the church is used by the Apostle Paul as a source of comfort. But remember, it is not comfort because we know the eternal plans and decrees of God. It is comfort because we see that plan unfolding before us in history. The Holy Spirit brought the Gospel to us in power, and we in faith are following Jesus as His disciples.
CONCLUSION:
This is where we will stop this morning. This morning we have been looking at Paul’s prayer of thanksgiving for the Thessalonian believers. His ultimate reason for thanksgiving is because as people beloved by God, God has chosen them as His own. Our prayer of thanksgiving should echo Paul because God has loved us and chosen us for His own, we are His elect people. You are one of God’s chosen children if you have agreed with God that you are a sinner hopeless and helpless to escape God’s wrath against sin on your own. But in faith you believe that Jesus took God’s wrath against sin on Himself on your behalf. You believe He died, was buried and on the third day rose from the dead proving that sin and Satan and death were defeated. When you believe this in faith you are God’s elect and it will be seen in the fruit of your work of faith, your labor of love, and your steadfastness of hope, and your response will be a prayer of thanksgiving to God who loved you and chose you.
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[10]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[11]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.