First Thessalonians 1:2-3: Faith, Love and Hope
Children love to get mail. Right now, our boys are receiving their lessons every week from their Sunday school teachers and it’s always a joyful moment to open up the envelopes. Perhaps we all enjoy receiving mail. Not junk mail, but mail that has been sent to us personally.1 And I would imagine that as the Thessalonians gathered around to hear the reading of this letter, they were on the edge of their seats as the reader gave voice to the ones who had loved on them in the gospel only a few months before.
There are scenes in the Bible where parting is a sorrowful matter (e.g., Acts 20:36-38). No doubt the day that Paul and Silas were run out of Thessalonica there was much sadness and uncertainty about the future of the new church plant and the lives that had been so greatly altered by Jesus. But Timothy has visited them and brought back his report to Paul. And now it’s Paul’s turn to speak to these new believers who are a hundred and eighty-seven miles north of him.
So the reader has finished the opening of the letter, and some may be thinking (or saying!), “Yes, yes, get on with it!” And so he continues the letter in verses 2-3:
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.
You can hear Paul’s pastoral heart for these new Christians pouring out onto the page. Surely Paul and Silas are reminiscing about their time in Thessalonica, the events that took place and their new relationships. As the various faces of the church flash in their minds, they retell stories of laughter and sorrow. You can also hear Timothy chiming in now that he has met this beloved congregation.
What erupts from their memories are floods of thankfulness to God.2 The Thessalonians are always listed under “Things to Prayer For” in the back of the Corinthian bulletin. They are named during the intercessory prayers on Sunday in worship and at the small group meetings each week. God has worked his miracle of bringing people from death to life in Thessalonica and Paul is overjoyed by the new brothers and sisters he has found there!
The experience for Paul is perhaps similar to parents hearing their children profess Jesus as Lord and watching them walk in his ways. A heart of gratitude to the Lord for his mercy and grace wells up to praise.
Then Paul names three things they are remembering about the Thessalonians. Here we come upon his great triad of faith, hope and love that is found throughout his letters. Let’s look at each of these briefly.
Work of Faith
Paul and Silas had preached the gospel of grace to the people of Thessalonica. They told them how they were sinners in need of a Savior. They told them that the promised Messiah had come and in him there was forgiveness of sin. They told them of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. They told them that God had given his only Son and whoever believed on him had eternal life. They told them that they could not work their way to God to earn salvation, but that if they trusted in Jesus (who he is and what he has done), then they would have life in him and all the blessings of the gospel of grace.
Paul had seen many respond to his preaching by putting their trust in Jesus, but it did not end with a mere profession of faith. Their faith put them to work. Where their work before may have been in order to appease the gods and try to earn their favor, now their work was in light of the favor of God that rested upon them in Christ.
When we think about the relationship between faith and works, we often think of them as antithetical. But it depends on what we are talking about. When we discuss the doctrine of justification, our works play no part and are antithetical to faith.3 We are justified (declared righteous before God) by faith alone, apart from works (Rom 3:20, 28; Gal 2:15-16).
So works are never meritorious, and are certainly not the basis for our justification, but they are a part of our salvation as a whole. This is God’s grace to us in Christ and it is he who enables us to walk in good works. We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared beforehand (Eph 2:8-10). Our faith is a working faith. As James says, faith without works is dead, and Abraham showed his faith by his works (James 2:14-26). As the Westminster Confession of Faith says, our good works are “fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith” and our ability to do them comes “wholly from the Spirit of Christ.”4
Perhaps a more general way to say it is that genuine faith will be apparent in a person who is truly in Christ. How is it made apparent? By their works. And that is what Paul saw in the Thessalonians. Their lives were changed and their possession of Christ (not just their profession of knowing him) was made evident by the various works they were doing.
In the same way, our faith should be a working faith that is apparent. It should be a faith that exhibits a true knowledge and possession of Christ. If our faith is not exhibited by works, Paul and James would want us to consider whether we have true, saving, justifying faith. In other words, do we really know Jesus?
Labor of Love
What Paul had seen in these new believers is that they had a love for God that ignited their love for each other and fueled their labor. They had heard of God’s great love for them and how he demonstrated it by sending his Son to reconcile them to himself, even while they were his enemies (Romans 5:8). Jesus said that the greatest love is one of self-giving, one of self-sacrifice (John 15:13). The Thessalonians knew something of this.
Living sacrificially is not easy.5 Making others more important than us and putting their interests ahead of ours is counter-intuitive to our old selves. It makes no sense in a world that should be about me. But these young believers had been captivated by their savior and his love for them. He had sacrificed himself for them, considered them more important them himself, and put their interests above his (Phil 2:3-8). And now, they followed in his footsteps, laboring for each other, compelled by Christ’s love for them and their love for him.
Perhaps the labor that Paul has in mind is the way that he saw the Thessalonians giving themselves to each other, sacrificing time, energy and other resources to serve their brothers and sisters in Christ, and others around them. This same labor of love is to characterize our lives in Christ as well.
Steadfastness of Hope
It is interesting that Paul puts hope last. Perhaps this is because he wants to emphasize this for his readers.6 The Thessalonians were experiencing various kinds of affliction because of their faith in Christ. Life had become more difficult since becoming Christians, not easier. Contrary to what some may try to sell us, knowing Christ and life in him means we share in his sufferings. The Thessalonians could tell us a thing or two about what that means.
Paul commends them and praises God for their perseverance in the faith, even in the midst of trial. And what propels them to be steadfast in affliction? Hope. But this hope is not a general good feeling about the future. It is something much more specific. The hope that Paul is speaking of is the hope of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. What causes the Thessalonians to persevere is the joyous and wondrous thought of their savior returning and making all things right. Perhaps they understood what Paul would say later to the Corinthians: though we experience light momentary affliction in this life, God is using our suffering to prepare for us an eternal weight of glory; therefore we do not lose heart (2 Cor 4:16-18).
It is often challenging to have hope in the midst of difficulty. Trials and affliction are like spiritual cataracts that cloud our ability to see beyond our circumstances. But the hope of Christ’s definite return is the replacement lens for our foggy vision. It is in light of Jesus’ sure promise to us that he will come back and renew all things that we can continue steadfast in our faith.
As Paul, Silas and Timothy are remembering these things before God, they are not simply thinking about them. They are also praying that the Lord would continue to grow them in their faith, love and hope. As we consider what Paul saw in the Thessalonians, may we be stirred up to growth in grace as well.
Here is a song based on 1 Peter 1:3-12. It seems to fit well with our study today and Paul’s emphasis on hope. This is off a cd I recorded in 2008.
1 My heart skips a beat when a book I’ve ordered arrives.
2 Verses 2-10 are one long sentence in Greek and the controlling theme of this whole section is one of thanksgiving to God. See Robert Cara, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 34-35.
3 In justification, we are forgiven all our sin and declared righteous before God only because of the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
4 WCF 16.2-3. For a short, interesting article on good works: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/are-good-works-necessary-to-salvation/
5 Thank you, Captain Obvious.
6 Cara, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 37.