and continually recalling before our God and Father your work of faith, your labor of love, and your enduring hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and perseverance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father.Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;
3 sermons cite this verse
… He was from the South. Making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father. Verse 4. Knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. I love that. That means God picked you. God picked me. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. As you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. Verse 6. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction. That's powerful. The Thessalonians believed that what Paul and his team were preaching must be real. because of their argumentation, number one, and then what they went through by way of affliction. In other words, they didn't change their story when they were under attack. They stuck with it with joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. …
… So that's verse one. We give thanks to God always for you 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. Very, again, typical of Paul. He will mention that he prays for the church he writes to, or he will sometimes mention that he prays and then say, this is what I'm praying specifically for you about. And he does that in several places, but he's not doing that here. He just says, I think of you a lot, often, and every time I think of you, I make mention of you in my prayers. our prayers. Remembering, thinking back to the time he spent with him, without ceasing, I love this triad, work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God our Father. This is, again, Paul loved combining these three attributes, faith, hope, and love. 1 Corinthians 13, now abide these three, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. …
… and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ. What's beautiful about this text is that Paul's writing in a very relational tone. I remember you, we're praying for you. I'm thankful for your work. And it actually makes sense if you understand the background and context of the Thessalonica church. Around 50 or 51 AD, Paul took his second missionary journey. And if you look all the way up at the top left-hand corner, you'll see him on his journey arriving at Thessalonica. And according to Acts 17, you can read about this if you want to, but Acts 17 tells us about his visit there. he visited this major city population of over 200,000 people that he knew was important and strategic because it was the capital. And also, if you'll see up there, it was a port city. So Paul knew if he could reach those people with the gospel, the gospel could spread from there to places around the world. Now, how did the church start? Well, according to the book of Acts, Paul preached in Thessalonica on three different Sabbaths. And when he preached, some Jews got saved and some Greeks got saved. And there was a new little revival going on. The problem is some of the non-believing Jews got angry and jealous of Paul. And so they literally ran him out of town. So he's there for about three weeks, probably less than a month. He preaches, a bunch …