We do not celebrate this and that and the other thing, but historically speaking, we know that after Passover, Christ rose from the dead. This is the testimony to the whole world.
This is one thing that everybody says: Easter, the day Christ rose. It is the testimony to the world that does not believe—the truth that we celebrate. This is what Christians believe: not just that Christ died, not just that Christ became flesh, but that, having become flesh and having died, He was raised from the dead to die no more, to ascend to heaven, and to come back again.
This is what we are about. There would not be any of this—we would not be meeting here—if Christ did not rise. And of all men, we would be most miserable. That is what Paul says.
My wife was saying, “Jim, call an Easter hymn.” Unfortunately, she is doing Sunday school. Then I heard Mary Ann call, “He Lives,” and I figured, you know, that is the Lord saying, “Let’s celebrate. Let’s celebrate His resurrection.”
So that has nothing to do with what I am going to talk about today, though.
Yes, it does. Amen. Amen. There you go.
All right, let us go ahead and read from 1 Thessalonians. We are going to read the first chapter, which is the big ten verses.
First Thessalonians 1. This is the first letter that Paul actually wrote. It is way back—it is almost like way, way back, kind of buried there—but this is the first one he wrote to believers. And he writes this:
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.We give thanks to God always for you all, 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 in the sight of our God and Father,
knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God.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.
And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit,
so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe.For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything.
For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the truth that this day represents: that You raised Your Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead, and You brought Him into heaven. He is coming again to rapture His church, to be with us, to rule the world again, to bring righteousness back to earth, and to make the earth what You wanted it to be in the first place.
We thank You that we can celebrate this. This is the truth.
And now, Lord, we come to You and ask that You speak to us from Your Word and give us encouragement to walk with You. Lord, we need Your Holy Spirit to open Your Word to us, and we ask for His help.
We ask also for the ability to say things, the ability to hear things, and the ability to respond to You. Lord, we do not want to be dead; we want to be alive to You. So we ask You for these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In reading this, there are just a couple of things about 1 Thessalonians that I thought were really, really interesting. It is like Paul wrote this to the Jesus generation.
If you read 1 Thessalonians, the second coming is referenced over and over. Those of us who were saved during the Jesus movement remember what really caught our minds more than anything: Jesus coming back again. That was a big thing.
Here Paul is writing this, and in the first three chapters there is a mention of it each time. In the fourth and fifth chapters, there is an explanation of His coming back. It is like, “Oh, wow, this is to me.”
Another thing is the gospel. That is the thing that won us, and that is the thing that we went about preaching all the time when we were young believers. We got caught up in the Word and by the Holy Spirit, and we wanted to preach the gospel to everybody. That is the same thing Paul has here.
But again, I am not here to speak about that. That is just one of my things when I started reading this.
I do not know if I am going to do a study on these things, but some things have captured me. I was asked by a group in California if I would come out this spring and speak concerning growing together, walking together, and serving together.
That has been on my heart and mind. Then I was asked to do the prayer meeting a few weeks ago. You start to say, “Lord, what do You want?” It is nice when you are given a subject, because you can look into things that you probably would not have looked into before. The Lord starts putting things on your heart and opening them.
In thinking about how we walk together, I thought, “I need a picture,” because I am a visual learner.
I got a D in algebra the second semester and a D in geometry the second semester because, in January both of those years, I missed one week of school. If you are doing mathematics, you have to see things done. I missed the week, so they just gave me homework. All you have in your math book is an explanation of how to do it, but that is not seeing it, is it? You have to see it worked out. So that is why I got a D. Anyway, that is my excuse.
I have been thinking about things we said at our brothers’ meeting: about the Lord breathing right now here in our midst. Looking around, I saw that we have a word picture in this first chapter of what a corporate testimony is.
Here we have the church of Thessalonica. Paul tells us what he sees, and he also tells us what others have seen in it. It is about all these believers. That is what I want to speak on today: this picture of a corporate testimony.
I want to look at four things:
This is not a deep teaching or anything. It is just a picture. I think the Lord is gracious in that He gives us pictures here and there. We are not all deep people. We can look at pictures and draw something out of them.
I think that is why, in a lot of big churches, the Lord gave us stained-glass windows. Everybody was illiterate, but they could see the picture and say, “Oh, okay, I get that.” So He gives us a picture here of a corporate testimony.
Some corporate testimonies are birthed into life. Something new happens, and a gathering of the Lord’s people gets together. They begin to meet around the Lord, and there is a corporate testimony.
Some testimonies are recovered testimonies. They are brought back into life. Whether a testimony is birthed into life as an original thing or whether it is something being recovered, both are done by a sovereign act of God.
God is sovereignly acting in the situation to bring about the testimony that He wants. It is not just all about new things. It is not all about young people, either. I hate the idea of separating young people from old people. We are all saints. We are all in different places in life, and some younger saints are more mature than some of us older saints. But we are all one.
Consider what God did in the Old Testament when He brought the people back from captivity. He brought back young and old, everybody going together. That was a recovery work, and the Lord provided all the things. It was a sovereign act because He brought Cyrus into being and brought the people back in that way.
Or think about Josiah, the young king Josiah. All of a sudden he becomes king, and he brings back revival. It was a sovereign act of God.
All testimonies, whether recovered testimonies or testimonies God is birthing at the moment, grow out of something of the Word. I will say that they all grow out of the gospel. Without the gospel, there is no testimony—no testimony at all for God without the gospel.
In the Old Testament, that gospel was the law. That was what made the Jews different from everybody else. Josiah found a copy of the law, and all of a sudden something burned in him. He had a great revival, at least as long as he was there.
It was the Word of God in Jeremiah that birthed that recovery of the people coming back. When Daniel found that Word, he started to pray for the people to come back. He probably even shared those verses in Isaiah with Cyrus the king, because he was in that cabinet work for the king of Persia.
The whole thing is that all beginnings have their origin in the gospel. If you read Acts 17, it tells how the believers in Thessalonica began.
Paul preached in the synagogue for three Sabbaths. He unfolded and argued from the Scriptures about who the Christ was, about His suffering, and then applied all of that to Jesus Christ—the man Jesus of Nazareth. He proclaimed that Jesus is the Christ.
From that, you had a beginning. The whole idea of having a testimony is seeing the gospel. It starts with seeing the gospel, and the gospel is manifested in the man Jesus Christ.
You see God’s plan for man in Jesus Christ. You see not just the redemptive plan for man, but the original plan for man. You see what man was supposed to be when you see the man Jesus Christ. You see Him at peace with God, in relationship with God, walking with God.
Then you see that man has fallen, but this one Man, this perfect Man, gave Himself up by the will of God to bear the punishment for sin and the separation for all mankind.
That song we sang was a little hard to sing, but did you notice those words? Were they not wonderful? “He, the more perfect Adam.” That was wonderful.
Here you have this One who took the place of the first Adam and became the last Adam. Before He became that last Adam, He died for the first Adam, so that all might be restored and brought back to God. Man might be reconciled to God and continue with what God had planned from the beginning.
So in Jesus Christ, in the man Jesus Christ, we see the gospel. We also see the heart of God manifested in Jesus Christ.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Paul says that the gospel was not just a bunch of teaching. It was not merely biblical material to talk about. He said it came in power. It came in power.
Not that his voice was powerful, or that he made gestures that made it powerful. I do not know if you have ever seen a newsreel of Mussolini speaking. He must have given some powerful speeches, because he looked powerful. But the gospel’s power was not in the way Paul gave the Word. It came with power.
Brothers who have spoken before know that sometimes, when you are speaking, you notice power going out. There is power to convert; there is power to heal. Paul said, “I was looking at the man, and I noticed he had faith to be healed.” So he acted on that.
Paul noticed this in his preaching to the Thessalonians. He said power was released. There was power there. The gospel came in power, in the Holy Spirit, and in assurance.
There was assurance given to the people, and assurance to Paul that the gospel was going out in power. He knew something was different. It was not just, “Oh, I am just giving a thing.” He knew in himself that the Word was going out in power.
That is a wonderful thing. It is wonderful when you are able to speak and you feel as though you are not trying to slug it out, but things are being drawn out of you. That is what Paul experienced there. He knew the Word was going out in power, and he knew there was conversion. People got saved.
This is where the testimony started for these people in Thessalonica.
Now, what about us? Has it not been the same with us? As individuals, that is true, is it not? But it is also true as a people, as a congregation.
We all should have had this experience that God is in the midst. Whether God called us together and birthed us together, or whether He is trying to do a recovery work, we need to become aware that God is doing something.
When we become aware that God is doing something, then it is up to us to respond. It is up to us either to accept what He is doing or to reject what He is doing. There is no, “Well, wait on it,” because God is moving.
God is moving all the time. Jerry said it this morning: God was ahead of you. God is ahead of us right now. He is doing things, setting things up, and if we begin to see and sense that He is doing something, then we need to get on board with it or let it pass.
We are only going to do one of those two things. I want to be on board. I do not know about you, but I want to be on board with what He is doing. I do not know how many years I have left in my life, but I am tired of being on a treadmill. I want to go forward.
Like those people in Deuteronomy, the Lord said, “You have circled this mountain long enough. Let’s move north.” We are going north. We are going to the place where He wants us to be.
The beginning of all testimonies is with the gospel. There is no testimony without the gospel. If we do not see Jesus Christ and who He is, if we do not bow the knee to Jesus Christ and who He is, there is no testimony.
We can have nice forms, do nice things, have nice works, and be socially active in helping people, but there is no testimony. There is a testimony of us, but not a testimony of Jesus Christ.
What does the testimony look like to the world? In 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, it says:
They themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead.
These are the three things the world sees.
First, they see a people who have turned to God. Notice that I left out the other part for a moment. The other part is not the important part. The important thing is that they turned to God. The other stuff will take care of itself.
If you do not turn to God, you can get rid of a lot of things, but it has nothing to do with what God is doing. The whole thing is that they turned to God. That is the focus people see: these people have turned themselves toward God and toward whatever God is doing.
We might say, “Well, they turned from idols. We do not have any idols here in the United States.” We have statues of Confederate generals, but they are not idols. Yes, we can say that we have idols in other forms, but we do not have the idols they had in the Greek and Roman days.
Yet, in turning to God, they did turn from some things. If I turn toward Josh, I am also turning away from Kenny. That is just a natural thing. I cannot be facing two directions at once.
When I turn toward God, my back will be toward other things. What will my back be toward? For us, it will be turned from the world and its influences. The world influences me away from God.
If I turn and face the things of the world and want to follow those things, I will turn my back on God. But when we turn ourselves toward God, we find ourselves turning our backs on the world.
For some of us, it is not just turning from the world; it is turning from religion itself—religious exercises, what we think religion is, and what we think God is all about. Until we see the gospel, we do not even know.
That is why it is so important that we see Jesus Christ. It is so important that we are introduced to the gospel. The gospel is salvation. It is the power unto salvation.
We are turning from a heathen culture. When I say “heathen culture,” I know people get offended. They think we are talking about people who are uneducated. But this is what I mean by heathen: a heathen culture is one that does not know God, does not fear God, and does not care for God.
The world we live in is that kind of world, and the country we live in is becoming more and more that way. We do not fear God; we do not know God, nor do we care to know Him as a nation.
Is that true as a people? Is that true as a congregation? Where are we? When we begin to turn toward God, we begin to know Him. We begin to fear Him—not as though we are terrified of Him, but as we come to know who He is.
We start to see His concerns. We respect who He is. We respect that there is wrath in Him and discipline in Him, just as we feared our fathers.
This is what the world sees: people who have turned toward God. In other words, they are not dancing to the tune that everybody else is playing. We are going to a different beat—not our own drum, but a different music that comes from God Himself, from Christ Himself.
Secondly, they begin serving God. The whole idea of serving God is not like a worship service, where we come together and sing hymns. That is not the service of God we are talking about.
The Greek word is like serving as a slave. We have become slaves—not slaves in the sense that Israel was enslaved in Egypt and forced to do this and that, but like bond-slaves.
All of a sudden, we say, “I see what You have for me. I see what it is, and I like it, and I do not want to leave. Therefore, I sell myself to You. I give myself completely to You.”
Our vocation changes. We are no longer free agents giving ourselves to pleasure, wealth, fame, or whatever else. Instead, we say, “God, I give myself to You.”
I always have trouble saying that I have given myself totally to Him, because I do not know myself totally. But I can say, “Lord, what I know of myself, I give myself to You.”
As the Lord brings us on to other places, we find places we have to give afresh to Him. We have to give them newly to Him because we did not know we were holding back there. Then we see that in the light of where He is taking us, and we can give it up because we give ourselves to Him.
This is what the world sees: people who are serving God—not merely going to church, but giving themselves to the Lord. They have a new Master, and it is not the master calling the tune for the world.
These people are different. They have a hope different from the hope the world has. It is not just, “I want a good life. I want to be taken care of when I am old. I want to live in comfort.”
One of the worst temptations for us as believing people is the lure of comfort. “I just want to be comfortable. I just want to have a comfortable life.”
But now you have people who have turned to God and are serving God, who say, “It is not about the comfort of my life. It is about the God I am following and this service. He is what I want more than anything, and His service is what I want.”
Then it says they were waiting for the Son of God to return. That is our hope: He is going to return.
Do you realize that? Our hope is not that I am going to make it. Our hope is that He is coming back. We are banking everything on His coming back—everything. “I sold it all because He is coming back.”
This is not merely waiting as you wait for a bus, sitting around. It is a sustained waiting, a sustained expectation of His coming back.
College kids, what are you waiting for? You are not waiting for the next test, I know. What are you waiting for? Graduation. Why are you going to college? You do not go to college to be there the rest of your life. You want to graduate.
When you graduate, you feel like you can enter the real world. Now you are really an adult. Now you can really start what life is all about. You think you are trained for everything you need to know, anyway. We all get awakened.
My mom had a hope chest. People do not have them much anymore, but ladies used to have hope chests. My mom’s was cedar. You opened it, smelled that cedar, and then the mothballs.
A hope chest was preparation for married life. You expected to be married, so you began to lay aside things for that day. Some would make or buy a wedding gown, but that was not the only thing in the hope chest.
You might say, “When I get married, I am going to need china.” You saved your nickels and dimes and bought a china set for dinners. Then you bought silverware. You might buy curtains for your house.
Everything you were doing was looking ahead to one day, and you were preparing for that day. That is what this is talking about.
When I look at my life, I am waiting for that day of culmination, when all these things become reality. I am waiting for Christ to return because, when Christ returns, I will not merely be sitting on a cloud with a harp.
He is going to bring me into His kingdom, and I am going to have responsibilities in that kingdom. I want to make sure I am prepared for those responsibilities. I am laying aside things and buying up things that will make me ready for that day, so I do not come into that day unprepared.
There is no elopement here. I am planning this. I have not seen my husband yet, but I know he is out there.
We have never seen Christ, have we? Yet we wait for Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory, because we say, “He is coming to get me. He is coming back for me. That is His promise to me.”
This is what the world sees. They see a people who have turned themselves toward God, who are beginning to serve God, and who are dancing to a different drum. They are waiting for something that the world cannot see.
Yet the world sees these people diligently looking to that day. They have to take note and ask, “What is the hope that is in you? I do not see it.” That is when we have the opportunity to give an account of what we see. It is a wonderful thing, is it not?
Thirdly, there is the testimony within the local assembly. This is what the Thessalonians saw in one another, and it is what Paul saw in them at the opening of his letter when he began to pray for them.
He says, “I see three things: a work of faith, a labor of love, and a patience of hope.”
These are the three things that testify to the members of the local assembly of Christ’s life in us.
A work of faith. People have said a lot about this, but the explanation I like best was from G. Campbell Morgan. He said the work of faith is the act by which you become a Christian.
He used the line from the Gospel of John, where people asked, “What must we do to do the works of God?” Jesus said, “Believe on Him whom God has sent.” That is the beginning of everything, is it not?
But it does not stop there. We do not just get saved and then go on with regular life. The work of faith continually keeps you on the ground of Christ.
We came to the table today, and it is wonderful to know that we are reconciled. Then we go home tonight and yell at our wife, kick the dog, or something like that. What do we do? We go to the ground of Christ.
“Father, forgive me. I sinned.” We continually go to that ground of Christ. We remain on the ground of Christ.
Christ is our justification, our sanctification, and our glorification. It is all the ground of Christ. We are not looking to ourselves to try to be what God wants us to be. We are looking to God. We are looking to Christ.
“Lord, I need Your life in me, because my life is not what makes it. I need Your life. I need Your sanctifying life in me so I can say no to this. I need Your sanctifying life to keep me away from this.”
I need the love of God shed abroad in my heart so I can love my brethren and love my family. It is all of this that keeps us on the ground of Christ.
It is also my choosing Christ every day. I am aware of who I am every day, and I am aware of the provision of Christ for me every day—the life of Christ for me every day, not just the blood of Christ for me every day.
That is why the resurrection is so important. Not only has the blood been effective, but now that He has gone to heaven, He has given us of His life. The Holy Spirit takes that life and ministers it to us as we come and find ourselves in need of it.
That is a wonderful thing. That is salvation right there: the life of Christ in us overcoming. It is not just that we are dead, as Watchman Nee found out; it is also that we are alive, as Hudson Taylor found out. “I have the life of Christ in me.”
So we are continually choosing Christ, and we are doing it daily. This is what people see in the church with each other. We see those who are availing themselves of Christ.
As we see them availing themselves of Christ, it is an encouragement to us. If Christ is there for him or her, Christ is also there for me. That is our hope. That is our encouragement.
A labor of love. The emphasis is not on love; the emphasis is on labor.
Labor is costly. It costs you something. You are expending effort. It costs you something physically. That is what labor does. It is toil.
I remember telling my daughters that the generation coming up often feels—and it is our fault, my generation’s fault—that you are going to get a job that you are so in love with, doing things that invigorate you, and that is what life is all about.
But when I get up in the morning, I do not go to school; I go to work. I have been greatly fulfilled as a teacher, greatly fulfilled, but it is still work. Work, work, work. Labor is toil.
That does not mean toil is not beneficial or that it will not be fulfilling in time. But it is toil nonetheless.
Those of you who have had children remember this. My wife nursed Katie; she did not nurse Jamie. You know what I found? You have to get up to feed the baby, and the baby can get up at any time.
The baby does not say, “Dad, I am sorry. I know you need your rest because you are teaching tomorrow. I am going to let you off the hook and sleep longer.” No way.
They cry, and you have to get up. Your child gets sick and throws up. What do you do? You go and help them. It is toil. It is labor.
But the love in it means you are not shrinking back from the cost. You know it will cost you something, but you are not going to shrink back from it.
Consider 1 Corinthians 13. How often do we read it? Maybe once a year because we are going through the Bible in a year.
I remember reading a little thing when I was a young Christian about how to read your Bible. You were supposed to read ten chapters a day. It had you read two chapters every day: Hebrews 11, about faith, and 1 Corinthians 13, about love.
When I think about that now, reading 1 Corinthians 13 every day seems like a pretty good deal. It opens by saying that if you do not have love, you do not have anything.
In the local assembly, if you do not have love in that church, you do not have anything. When we think of love for Christ, remember that Christ is in every believer. Are you loving Christ in every believer?
That is hard to think about. When I think about losing your first love, is it only talking about Christ as the One up there, or is it Christ in the assembly? The Ephesians were into teaching and everything, and all of a sudden they had lost their first love.
This is what 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says:
Love suffereth long, and is kind;
love envieth not;
love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not its own,
is not provoked,
taketh not account of evil;
rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth.
In other words, love never runs out. That is love.
One person I read said this: “The one who gives love never gets the advantage.” Isn’t that an interesting thing? The one who receives love gets the advantage. But that does not mean we are not supposed to give.
“Channels only, blessed Master”—channels of the love of Christ to one another. The love of Christ is not always huggy, syrupy stuff. Sometimes the love of Christ says, “Brother, you are out of order. Brother, you are going wrong.”
How do we show love to one another in the assembly? Through hospitality. Through visiting someone, comforting someone, giving monetarily, giving time, teaching, going out to someone, or bringing someone in.
All these things are things of love. Paul said, “I see your labor of love.” Within the local congregation, that should be the testimony of all believers.
“I see the labor of love that is going on. I am touched by the labor of love that is going on. I am giving the labor of love that is needed in the assembly.”
Thirdly, there is the patience of hope. The patience of hope is not enduring the saints. The labor of love takes care of that.
It is enduring the hostility of the world and the community you are part of, because they do not like what they see. It convicts them. They hate the light because it exposes their deeds as evil.
That is why those Jews went after Paul, started a riot in Acts 17, drove him out of the place, and left those poor believers with all these other people upset at them.
What did they say? They said, “These who have turned the world upside down have come hither also,” because they were preaching another King instead of Caesar.
That is what our life should show: we have another King. Because of that, we are going to have hostility.
Morgan calls these three things—work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope—the three attitudes of Christian life. This is what we should be.
At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, it says that faith, hope, and love abide. These are the things that remain. These are the things that should be living in the community of believers in the local assembly.
A work of faith, a labor of love, and a patience of hope should all be present in the local assembly and should minister to one another through that.
Finally, how is the testimony sustained? How do you sustain a testimony? There are three things I would like to bring up.
Paul starts this letter in 1 Thessalonians 1:2 by saying:
We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.
The first thing that sustains the ministry, or the testimony, is prayer. Those who see what is happening pray.
They do not pray merely in general; they pray for specific things. They are praying for what is going on. “We pray for you all.”
Do not think that is a generic thing. Jeffrey brought this up in the prayer meeting and in ministry on prayer: mention the names of those for whom you are praying.
Even if we are praying for people in our group, mention their names. They have names. They are not a generic group. We do not merely pray, “Lord, bless Group A. Make Group A strong.” Group A is a conglomerate.
Pray, “Lord, bless Mort. Help him during this time he is going through with Karen. Bless him during this time.” It does not have to be a long, extended prayer, but I am bringing him up to God. I am knowing him.
Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians about the weight of all the churches on his heart. What about us? Are we weighed down with the brothers and sisters in our assembly?
Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 3:
Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you;
and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you;
to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.
In other words, Paul is praying for their whole welfare. He is praying for their ministry in the assembly. He is praying, “Lord, when You come, may they be found blameless.”
To me, that is a wonderful prayer. If people would pray for me that way—“Lord, let Jim be found blameless when You come”—I would covet something like that.
I look into my dark heart and do not see how that is going to happen except in Christ. But I want some of that veil lifted so I can see and be confident that, when He comes, I can stand in His sight because of what He has done for me: the blood of Christ and the life of Christ in me.
That life can come out more and more, so that on that day I will not shrink back. I hope you pray for me that way, and I hope I pray for you that way.
In the local assembly, there must be prayer for the assembly itself. I am not saying that we do not pray for other things, but we should not shun praying for the assembly.
It is prayer with an aim. The aim is that we are completed at the end. We pray, “Lord, complete that brother. You are doing a work in this sister’s heart. She is going through a hard time. Lord, complete that. Bring it all the way through.”
“Let her be done with the suffering. Let her be done with this part of her life. Let her get through that time.” It is prayer with an aim.
Secondly, in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, there is a lot of instruction. Another way the testimony is sustained is through instruction from the Word.
Instruction must be heavenly, and instruction must be practical. There have to be both. It cannot just be one or the other.
How many of us, before we came into some of the teaching we have received, had that sound grounding in the Word of God and the application of the Word to our life?
When we first got saved in the Jesus movement, how many of us were in churches where every sermon was really a Bible study on Sunday morning? The next week was a continuation, and the next week was a continuation.
Once in a while somebody else would come in, but the pastor had this thought: “I am helping you on the way. I am instructing you for what is going on. I am instructing you in how all this applies to your life.”
That instruction enables you to live life before men and before God in a way pleasing to God.
In 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, there is instruction about sexual immorality, instruction about not getting too high in your head about other people, and respecting other people. The instruction was there.
In this letter, there is not a great deal of correction. Paul usually corrects a lot. But there is instruction, and there is encouragement.
Through instruction, we receive the encouragement and admonishment that we need when we face the Word. The Word becomes the springboard for our life. It is not merely something we read in the morning and then we are done with it.
The Word has an application to our lives. It has something to do with our living. That is what we want.
Finally, beginning in 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul says:
But we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children.
Even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were become very dear to us.
Then, in 1 Thessalonians 2:10-12:
Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and righteously and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you that believe:
as ye know how we dealt with each one of you, as a father with his own children,
exhorting you, and encouraging you, and testifying, to the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you into His own kingdom and glory.
The third thing that sustains the testimony is the ministry of mature and caring saints.
When I speak about mature saints, I am not talking about age. I am talking about maturity. They become responsible for the dealings of God in their life.
Whether it is through the Word, through a word that changes them, or through seeing something, they respond: “This is something I am to do. This is the way I am supposed to act.” Nobody has to tell them. God is working this out.
I remember when we were in our little Tuesday-night Bible study. Some of us guys began to say, “We need to take care of some of these people. This person is out of a job; let us start praying for them. This person needs a ride; let us start doing that.”
We were young, but were we mature? Yes, we were starting to mature. As maturity grows, you take on responsibility and fulfill those responsibilities.
Some of us who are older think we are past this and that nobody can relate to us. You are writing yourself off, because God has not written you off. If you are a member of the assembly, you are meant to function in the assembly in this way.
Mature saints are responsible saints who have experienced the grace of God themselves, so they know what the grace of God is. This is really the discipling of younger believers. It is the taking care of younger believers.
Younger believers see that it is not you doing this. They see the life of Christ ministering to them, and they are trained by that. They become imitators of you, and as they become imitators, they say, “It is not you I am imitating. I see Christ.”
It is like our little sister who is going to be baptized. She said, “I know I cannot tell you the day I was born again, because I have been following my parents. But I think it is time for me to stop following my parents and start following the Lord for myself.”
Where did she get that from? Her parents were caring for her. She saw the love of Christ, and she saw the life of Christ ministering to her.
This is our ministry. It is not just teaching or preaching. There is so much more.
All of this is supposed to be in the local assembly: the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope. This is how the testimony is maintained.
The testimony is maintained by brothers and sisters in the congregation who come together and walk in that light and life. They show that they have a work of faith, that they are doing a labor of love, and that they are enduring because of the hope within them.
This is for us. Brothers and sisters, if there is a new wave, a new breath going in here, we need to catch it. We need to see it. “Lord, what are You doing?” I do not want to be left behind in it. I want to be doing what You are doing, and I want to be doing it in the local assembly.
I make a big thing about the local assembly. I am sorry. But we have a tendency to look at the bigger picture, and it is good to see the bigger picture because you see you are part of something great. But let us not forget the smaller picture.
Let us not forget the smaller picture, which is the testimony to others. When there is a testimony, you find people growing, and you find increase.
Sometimes increase means other people come. Increase is also in our stature. The Word has already gone out, and people say, “Look at these people. They are different.”
They are a city set on a hill. They are the salt of the earth. They are loving one another as they ought to be loving. They have faith. They are finding their life in Christ as a group. They are ministering to one another.
This is what I think the Lord is looking for in every assembly. He is looking for Himself in these ways.
“Where is My labor of love? I want to love My brethren. I want to endure with them. I want them to see Me and trust in Me. I want these things for you as an assembly, not just as an individual.”
We do not want to go out and say, “It is just my individual life,” because that has never been the only thing. God’s church is a conglomerate—people from every race, tongue, creed, and color. Christ is the life in the church.
I think these things are the life of Christ, and this is what He is looking for in our assembly. I do not mean this to be hard. It should be encouraging, because Christ is saying to us, “I want to be here.”
I am not saying He is not here, but He is saying, “I want to be here fully. I want to be a fuller measure in your midst. I want you to know that I am here.”
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You that You love us in such a way that You will not let us go. How wonderful that is.
Lord, we have decisions to make in our lives, this and that and the other thing. I pray for us as an assembly here in Richmond, that the work You want to do here, You will be able to do; that we will not miss things.
Lord, that we will not glory in the things that have passed, but look to the future and say, “Lord, we want to be at Your coming. We do not want to be stepping back. We do not want to be going back.”
We want to be looking to You with wanting hearts, longing hearts, to see You afresh and to be welcomed into Your presence.
Lord, there is work to do. There is work to do in our life. We know that, and we would shy away from it. I know I would shy away from it and say, “Lord, let that be for someone else,” or, “That is just too great for me,” or, “I am past the age of whatever.”
Lord, minister to us the grace that You want to give. That is all I can ask: minister the grace You want to give, and have what You want in our midst.
We want to be walking with You. We do not want to be a past thought. We want to be those walking with You and having our part in what You are doing in each other’s lives, as well as in the church as a whole.
Lord, we thank You that You have given us this opportunity to be alive, and we want to be alive during this time. Yes, in Jesus’ name.