1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Remember the Grace You First Believed

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on September 10, 2017 at Beacon Church

Thessalonica (now Thessaloniki) is a city in Greece where they speak… well, Greek. And this letter by Paul was written in Greek to a church there that was then only about 6 months old. An interesting feature of this letter is that throughout it, in every chapter, the writer reminds his readers to wait for the second coming of Christ. For example in verse 10, where the word, “anameno” is used—meaning “stay up” or “wait”. Waiting for Christ, however, turned out to be very difficult for these new Christians when events shook their faith. If only they were more mature, had had more time to grow, for their faith to be stronger, to be ready… but they didn’t get that time.

For thousands of kids in our province this week, it was off to Kindergarten for the first time. I remember that day myself. I failed Kindergarten the first time actually, so I have two memories of my first day of Kindergarten. That's the day when parents naturally wonder if their child is ready, (apparently I wasn't) and when many children will feel anxiety at being separated from their parents. If we have done our jobs as parents, it is good to see our children begin to take steps toward independence. Pioneer missionaries have a similar responsibility to help the churches they plant get ready to stand on their own. When Paul, Silas, and Timothy planted the church in Thessalonica, in Greece, they were only there a couple of months at most, before an angry, anti-Christian mob forced them to flee. Some of the new Christians were arrested; apparently some died shortly after that. It was a hard time for that infant church to lose their missionary mentors. Paul was worried about them too, so he sent Timothy back to check on them some time later. And when Timothy returned with his report, Paul found out the church had been really disturbed by the events that followed his sudden departure. Their faith was shaken. And they apparently felt like he had abandoned them. On top of that, some serious doctrinal confusion had led them to despair for the Christians who had recently died.

Paul’s remedy was to take the Thessalonians back to the Gospel they first believed, and to recover the "grace and peace" they had known when they first believed in Jesus. (see v1) In fact, we can see both a reminder about grace (and an encouragement to restore peace) intertwined through each of the points in chapter 1. The rest of the book expands on these ideas.

We didn't make your church (v1)

(but we will help you experience what you're missing, so let's get started!)

“Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace,” (1 Thess. 1:1 ESV). Instead of skipping right past the greeting, notice this letter isn’t just from Paul, although he seems to be the primary writer (2:18). He includes each member of his team. Silas was an experienced missionary travelling with Paul. Timothy was a young apprentice who had joined them recently. We read in Acts that Paul sent Timothy and Silas back to visit several of the churches they had planted, to make sure they were doing okay. This letter then is their response to the problems the Thessalonian church was experiencing. And right off the bat, it looks like Paul is emphasizing their church exists because of God and not merely because of the missionaries. Referring to their church as consisting of Thessalonians is unique among Paul’s letters. They might have been all locals and all recent converts. They were Thessalonians whom God had formed into a church. So the unique greeting might be pointing out their new identity: Thessalonians, yes, but Thessalonians who now have their identity "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"! If they are going to recover the grace and peace they need in the middle of loss and suffering, and opposition, they need to start with this foundational truth: God, not just the missionaries, had started something incredible in Thessalonica when Paul, Silas, and Timothy brought the Gospel to that city! God's work among them was supernatural. And in spite of the setbacks they were worried about, God was only getting started.

Remember how Jesus changed you? (vv 2-3)

(we love you so we can't stop thanking God!) 

When we suffer setbacks to our faith, we have to go back before we can go forward. We might even say that there is no growth, no progress in the Christian life, unless every day we start where we first began, with the Gospel. The more we take the Gospel for granted, the less we keep it in mind, the farther we wander from the Faith. The peace these troubled Christians needed so badly could only be found by remembering the gracious work God had begun in them when they first believed in Jesus: “2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,  3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Thess. 1:2-3 ESV). Notice what Paul says about their work, their labour, and their steadfastness. Work refers to their obedient service to others, caring for the needy, evangelism, and so on. Labour emphasizes the difficulty of their work—really hard toil. Steadfastness means they didn’t give up when it got hard. But seeing all that good stuff the Thessalonian Christians had thrown themselves eagerly into doing in the first several weeks of their lives as new Christians, these missionaries could tell it was all the genuine fruit and result of hearts changed by the Gospel: specifically of faith, love, and hope: the work of faith, the labour of love, the steadfastness of hope—specifically in the Lord they and the missionaries all believed in and served, Jesus Christ the Saviour they all had in common (notice, “our Lord”). The difference Jesus had made in the Thessalonians’ lives was actually visible.

But notice also how Paul describes their prayers to God whenever they prayed for the struggling Thessalonican church plant: every life they had seen changed (all of you) was a life they thanked God for. Why thank God for changed lives? “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers…” (1 Thess. 1:2 ESV). In particular, why thank God for the work and labour and steadfastness of the Thessalonians? Because in writing that they thank God for the marvelous difference they had witnessed among the Thessalonian believers, these missionaries were teaching those new disciples a doctrine they needed to learn if they were ever going to turn their inner turmoil and fear into strong peace. It’s a really wonderful thing to know people are praying for you. To know you are loved. But if you find out one of those people is praying to their cat on your behalf, that encouragement loses some of its power. We don’t thank God for something God didn’t do. And we don’t pray to God for things outside of His control. Right in this paragraph, the Thessalonian believers were discovering that when they heard the Gospel and believed it, and then began to be changed by it, it was all accomplished by the power of God. Knowing that, then, no matter what flood comes, what storm rages, or what hurricane envelopes us in its chaos, there is a peace to be found. Because we know that the God who calms a storm with a word, holds our lives in His strong hands. What’s the bigger miracle? When Christians somehow are spared the devastations of Category 4 hurricanes and magnitude 8 earthquakes? Or when Christians endure those disasters, or even die, but do not lose hope in Christ to save their souls for eternity?

It's all because God has started something in each of you (vv 4-5a)

(because God loves you!)

It's helpful to see that the grammar of these verses, in Greek, connects the missionaries' "giving thanks always", and "remembering before God" in prayer, with the cause that they knew something the Thessalonians now need to know if they are going to recover grace and peace: “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you…” (1 Thess. 1:4 ESV). The missionaries prayed and thanked God, because they "knew that God had chosen" those Thessalonians to be saved. The perfect tense, and participle form of the word, "know" means that they knew about God choosing these Christians before they prayed and thanked God for them. Again, we don't thank God for something He didn't do. That's amazing grace. But the deep encouragement Paul points out here in verse 4 is that God’s decision to choose them was grounded in love. Their God was not like Zeus or Jupiter, unpredictable, dispassionate, or selfish: His eternal will is sovereign, but His love is also omnipotent. As Paul says so profoundly in Romans 8, if God has decided to love you, nothing can separate you from His love, no power on Earth can thwart God from what He has decided to do.

And this is another reason Paul and his fellow-missionaries knew for sure that God had loved and chosen the Thessalonians to be His children: “…Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction…” (1 Thess. 1:5a ESV). It was because of what happened when they first came to Thessalonica to preach the Gospel. What they witnessed convinced them that the Thessalonians had done more than just listen to their words; they had been powerfully affected by the Holy Spirit. This may also mean that they had witnessed demonstrations of the Holy Spirit's power when these people believed the Gospel. At the very least, they saw that their audience was not just interested, but that they became completely convinced--"full conviction"--when they heard and understood the Gospel. "In power and in the Holy Spirit" shows that the missionaries might have done the preaching, but God had done the convincing and God had produced the changed lives that had so amazed these three men (see verse 3). 

Just like He did in us (vv 5b-7)

(and because we love God, we try to imitate Jesus!)

There's an old hymn that became one of my favourites when I began preaching the Gospel: it says, "I love to tell the story to those who know it best". As a brand new pastor--probably not much different from Paul's apprentice, Timothy in a lot of ways--I quickly realized that the small group of elderly believers I was preaching to had a lot more experience with that old story than I had. They had been more changed by the Gospel, after decades of hoping in Jesus, than I had. I love the way the Gospel does not make an expert out of its preachers: the Gospel's power is the same power to save and to change all believers, no matter which side of the pulpit they are on. It is the great leveller. No matter who we are when we come to Jesus, rich, poor, powerful, important, unnoticed, or ashamed, the Gospel reveals we’re all just sinners who need the same grace. It is the marvelous news of the gift of God through Jesus Christ, before whom all of us are beggars in need of divine grace we can never earn. That's the encouraging truth about which the missionaries remind their disciples in verse 5: “You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake,” (1 Thess. 1:5b ESV). The Thessalonians had been able to see how God was changing the missionaries as well. That's why the words, "we proved to be" are passive. The students had seen God making the teachers into the kind of men that were helpful for learning the Gospel--"for your sake". And they began to imitate their teachers at the same time their teachers were imitating Jesus. “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,” (1 Thess. 1:6 ESV). Acts 17:4-5 tells us that the danger of being a Christian didn’t make the Thessalonians change their minds. So they followed the pattern first set by Jesus, then by the Apostles. The joy the Holy Spirit produces in us comes from knowing that we are following in the footsteps of the Saviour who loved us before we even knew His name. And that persevering through hardship only makes us more like Him in the long run. It is a sign of true discipleship, and of genuine faith, when we imitate Christ because we love Him. As Paul says in 1 Cor 11:1, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." When I was in Mizoram, India a year and a half ago, I was amazed at how some of those poverty-stricken saints seemed so encouraged by my story about our church here. They reasoned that for Canadians who seem to have it all to commit ourselves to shining the light of the Gospel in a place like James Bay, shows that Jesus is more satisfying than any amount of money and cars and houses and western comforts. The story I shared about your faithfulness in our little church here, made an impact in far away Aizawl. Just as the story about how the Thessalonians had responded to the Gospel made an impact everywhere as it was repeated and spread all over Greece, north in Macedonia, and south in Achaia. “…So that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia,” (1 Thess. 1:7 ESV). Among some of the world's proudest people, most sophisticated cities, and advanced culture, Jesus was using the story of the church of the Thessalonians to reach more and more people with the Good News.

Like He's already doing through you in the whole country (vv 8-10)

(God won't fail to finish the rescue He has started!)

“For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything,” (1 Thess. 1:8 ESV). We can see from verse 8 that the Thessalonians had already begun to spread the Gospel to other places around Greece. But we can also see what the missionaries had realized, that as the Gospel spread around Macedonia and Achaia, where Paul was writing from in Corinth, that it wasn't just the account about Jesus that convinced the Greeks to believe, it was also the reports about how the Gospel had affected the Thessalonians that persuaded them. As the missionaries continued on to other Greek cities, this means they didn't need to do as much convincing. The powerful effect of a changed life, of work and toil and enduring hope motivated by love for Jesus, is a great reason to make sure we don't hide the fact that we are followers of Jesus. Our words are not nearly as convincing as when unbelievers get to see how our lives are affected by Jesus.

Notice what kind of reports were spreading about the Thessalonians: “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…” (1 Thess. 1:9 ESV). The story that people were repeating about those believers wasn’t just about how they all got religion, but about what they gave up when they discovered the “truth” about God. No dead idol can compare to a living Saviour who hears and answers our prayers! Oh my friends, let’s not pretend to our city that we have it all together when we don’t. Instead, let’s show them what repentance, and humility, and Gospel-fueled love look like. Let’s demonstrate to our city that God is more satisfying than the things we give up to follow Jesus.

Finally, isn’t it interesting that when some of the brand new Christians in Thessalonica had recently died, and when Timothy had reported some big confusion about life after death and that Jesus is coming again, he barely mentions any of that in chapter 1. Just this one brief word in verse 10. “…And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come,” (1 Thess. 1:10 ESV). Looking back on chapter 1 now, we can see Paul started with the reminders the Thessalonians needed most: to remember God’s powerful grace that He had begun to work in them and for them, and for so many others in the cities beyond Thessalonica. That grace began in the heart and will of the Father, reached its zenith on the cross of Christ, and was applied in the power of the Holy Spirit when they heard that Good News. That grace teaches us to wait for Jesus to come and finish His great work in this world, because it teaches us why Jesus is worth waiting for. This is the Grace that leads to Peace, even when life unexpectedly shakes our faith. This is why we stand. This is the message of 1 Thessalonians.