I thought we'd spend the next few weeks of our services together looking at this first letter of Paul to the church in Thessalonica. In six months' time I will be leaving here, and I will no doubt after I've gone be wondering how you are all getting on. Do keep in touch — you’re friends. I look forward to hearing your news: personal news, church news, and so on.
The church in Thessalonica was one that the apostle Paul had to leave in a great hurry. He's anxious therefore to know that the church there is going well, and so this is a letter in which we learn God's priorities and God's wishes for such a church. It helps to know a bit of the background. You can read the background for yourself in Acts chapter 17.
Some background
The background then to this letter and to the church in Thessalonica is in Acts chapter 17, and the year is 48 AD. Paul, Silas and Timothy had just had a bruising experience in Philippi — as it happens, in Paul and Silas's case quite literally a bruising experience. You may remember the story of the Philippian jailer who, along with his whole household, was converted after God rescued Paul from prison at midnight with an earthquake. But the very fact that he was in prison, even though he was a Roman citizen, showed that he had experienced intense opposition. And from Philippi he travelled to Thessalonica with his travelling companions Silas and Timothy.
He spent just three Sabbaths in Thessalonica, which means he was there somewhere between two and four weeks. And at the end of that time things got decidedly tricky. A number of the Jewish religious leaders were jealous of the following that Paul was getting. A number of the prominent Gentiles in Thessalonica felt that what Paul was doing in preaching about the Lord Jesus was somehow a rival and a threat to the Emperor Caesar, and that Caesar was somehow being replaced, and therefore a riot ensued and Paul had to flee the city under cover of darkness.
Paul, Silas and Timothy went to a neighbouring town called Berea. But when they left Berea, Paul and Silas went south down to Athens, and they sent Timothy back the way they had come to find news: how was this fledgling church that they had had to flee from doing? Well, Timothy eventually catches up with Paul and reports back how things are going. Paul is delighted with the news, and as a result he writes this letter.
We'll need to return to that background as we work our way through the letter. There are a number of details in the letter that make perfect sense once you understand and appreciate the background. But the background tells us two main things about the Thessalonian Christians, which give Paul's two priorities for them at this stage in the life of their church. And those two priorities are what shape and drive the whole letter, but they're present very clearly even in these first three short opening verses.
A young and persecuted church
Here are the two things about the Thessalonian church. They're a young church — Paul only spent between two and four weeks with them. It's a church made up entirely of baby Christians, and therefore they need to keep growing. But secondly, they are a persecuted church. Paul himself was driven out of the city, but the persecution carried on as the Christians he left behind were mistreated once Paul had left. And therefore not only do they need to keep growing, they need to keep going and not give up.
Well, in these opening verses Paul reassures the Thessalonians who they are. He wants them to be sure that they are the real deal — they are proper Christians — and implicitly by doing that he is encouraging them to keep growing and to keep going.
So who are the Thessalonian Christians? Two answers from these three short verses.
1. They’re a genuine, secure church of God
Number one: the Thessalonians are the genuine, secure church of God. The genuine, secure church of God. Let me read again verse 1: "Paul, Silas and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace and peace to you."
Notice two things from that verse. The first thing to notice is that he calls them a church — "to the church of the Thessalonians." Now you may just gloss over that and not think too much of it, but actually, no. You see, you could easily be forgiven for thinking — certainly they could be forgiven for thinking — that they're not actually a proper church yet. I mean, after all, they haven't got a church building. Their leaders have all been Christians a matter of months and have had no formal theological education, no sort of validation from the wider church to appoint them as leaders. The whole thing is in its infancy. You can see why they might be tempted to think that they are sort of a church in the making — a proto-church, a half-church, a home group, just a group of Christians meeting informally, hoping that one day they will become a church. But no — Paul says no. You are the church of the Thessalonians. You are a church.
But secondly, they are in God. Paul says, "to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." It's interesting — a number of writers have noticed this — to compare this opening greeting with the way Paul greets many of the other churches to which he writes. For example, 1 Corinthians: "to the church of God in Corinth" — of God, in Corinth. Here: the church of the Thessalonians in God. This church is in God's care and protection. Their identity is not so much that they are Thessalonians, but that they are people who are in God's loving care and protection. And therefore the God who envelops them and cares for them will keep them going. They are a proper church and they are in God; therefore they are the real deal. They are a genuine, secure church of God.
So he implicitly says to them: keep going. It's interesting, isn't it — the letter of Jude. I referred to Jude, the beginning of Jude's letter, on Wednesday evening. But it's interesting how Jude ends. Jude's letter ends with verse 21: he says to the Christians he writes to, "Keep yourselves in God's love." Keep yourselves in God's love — that's the command to these Christians: keep themselves, make sure that you stay in the love of God that you've begun. But then the quite famous verses at the very end of Jude, verse 24: "To him — God — who is able to keep you from falling." So who will guard and keep the Christians that Jude writes to? God does. "To him who keeps you from falling." You, you Christians, keep yourselves in God's love; and as we discover the extent to which God is keeping and protecting us, so to that same extent we need to keep ourselves.
So the Thessalonian Christians know they're a genuine church. They are in God. God will keep and protect them. Therefore: keep going, press on, and don't give up. They're a genuine, secure church of God.
2. They’re people who made a genuine, fruitful response to God
Second: who are the Thessalonian Christians? They are people who have made a genuine, fruitful response to God — a genuine, fruitful response to God. Let me read again verse 3: "We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
The Thessalonian Christians responded to Paul's preaching with faith, love and hope. Faith is directed towards God. Love is directed towards other Christians. Hope is directed towards the future. They responded in faith — they trusted that God's word, and especially God's promises, were true. They responded with love — they put the interests of others, especially their fellow Christians, above their own needs and well-being. And they responded with hope, which is not the same thing as optimism. Hope in the Bible is living in the light of what God has said will be the future; it's living in the light of Jesus's return. And through the rest of this letter Paul will have a great deal more to say about real faith, real love and real hope.
But here's the point: their response — faith, hope and love — has been a fruitful one. You cannot see faith. You cannot see love. You cannot see hope. These things are invisible. I can't see if someone loves me. I can't see if someone loves their next-door neighbour. You cannot see those things. But you can see the fruit of those qualities.
So what you can see in the Thessalonians is their work produced by faith — that they trust God has affected the way they live. Their work, their behaviour, has been marked out by the fact that they now see the world God's way; they take God at his word. Similarly, you cannot see love, but you can see the labour prompted by love. Labour there is the word for manual labour — exertion, hard work. These are Christians who have exerted themselves to serve other Christians, and that is something that you can see: the sheer sweat and toil that flows from that love. And likewise you cannot see hope, but the very fact they're still going is testimony to the fact they do believe that the Lord Jesus will come back. They do believe what God says about the future; otherwise they would have given up long ago. Their endurance inspired by hope.
And Timothy reports back to Paul that he's seen firsthand work, labour and endurance, and Paul rejoices because these are the fruits that show that their response to God of faith, love and hope is real, is genuine.
So what? Show fruit
Well, so what? So they've responded for real with faith, love and hope. There's fruit, there's evidence to show that. So what — do they rest on their laurels, chill out? They've arrived, they're Christians showing faith, love and hope, job done? No.
It's interesting to compare the words we've just heard with the prayer that Paul prays in the middle of the letter, as the first half of his letter comes to a close. Chapter 3, verses 10 to 12: "Night and day," Paul writes, "we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your heart so that you'll be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones."
You see, just as God's protection does not mean that they don't need to persevere — instead it's the impetus to them to keep going — so the genuine fruitfulness of their response to the Lord when Paul first visited them is the impetus to continue to grow in those qualities more and more. Paul is praying for an increase in these qualities, now that he knows that they are there for real.
And similarly, at the very end of the letter, there's another prayer that Paul prays, chapter 5 verse 23: "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." These Christians are on the right track, and Paul wants them to move forwards and to keep growing.
Well, some of us at this church have been Christians for longer than others. Indeed, some of us joining in this morning are probably still looking in from the outside, working out whether to begin as a Christian. Let me encourage you to begin — it is by far and away the best way to live life, and the only way to spend eternity. Please join us.
But as some of us are longer in the tooth as Christians than others, and some of us will experience more hardship as well than others for being a Christian — it's cost some of us a great deal; others of us to date it's cost relatively little — Paul wants to encourage all genuine Christians. No matter how small and fragile we may feel, this is his church. We are the church of God — or rather, the church of Kemsing and Woodlands — in God. We are for real. He's got us. He'll keep us. So keep going.
And if we have faith evidenced by work, if we have love evidenced by labour, if we have hope evidenced by endurance, then your response to God is for real. And so press on, and keep growing in those wonderful qualities.