In the Lord and Before God
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
In our study of this paragraph that begins at verse 2 and extends down to the end of the chapter, verse 10, we have in a very real sense what we would call Paul's prayer of thanks to God for what he discerned to be the work of God in the believers, the people of God, there at Thessaloniki. And at the very top of the list of the things for which he gave thanks to God in verse 3, we have what I have called the three crowned jewels in the diadem of Christian virtue. A Christian is one to whose life God has worked many wonderful virtues by the grace and the power of His Spirit, and yet it would seem in the thinking of the Apostle Paul under inspiration that the three crowned virtues amongst all of those which God really works in His people are those mentioned here in verse 3: faith, love, and hope. The same Paul who said in 1 Corinthians 13, "but now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love."
Well, we have gone into some detail in studying each of these separately. You recall the work of faith that he mentions here. Paul was grateful that these believers had a living trust in the living Savior that made them naturally produce works of gratitude, works done not to earn salvation, but as the fruit of salvation received by faith as a gift of God. Then he was thankful for their labor of love, that they had love to the triune God that made them engage in sacrificing, arduous labor and toil for the cause of Christ, the cause of the kingdom, the cause of the gospel. And then last time we were in this epistle together, we looked together at the phrase steadfastness of hope. They had a hope, which is not a mere wishful desire as you and I use the word hope today, but rather a confident expectation of promised blessing. And that expectation produced - epimoni- , endurance, perseverance, bearing up under the pressures to which they were subjected as young Christians.
This evening we want to look at the last two phrases in verse 3, which are very, very instructive to us. This work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope, Paul says, all of these were in our Lord Jesus Christ and before our God and Father. And in these two little phrases we have what we might call in the first place, the object and the cause of these virtues. Toward what or whom is this love directed, this faith, this hope directed? Paul would tell us in this phrase that it was directed toward none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, who causes these virtues to be found? Well, also Paul tells us here as well.
And then in the little phrase, before our God and Father, we have this sincerity and the climate in which these graces and virtues were actually worked out or exercised. Were they something that the Thessalonians just put on as it were to simply impress others and impress the Apostle Paul? No, he says they were not in the sight of men, they were not before men, but they were exercised in the sight of God. They were exercised sincerely and in a climate of God-consciousness. And that is very significant. That is very sanctifying.
So these little phrases are by no means just sort of a, you know, they're thrown in there for the sake of filler. These answer a very vital question. If you have in you today these virtues, the work of faith, the labor of love, the steadfastness of hope, where do they come from? And what will sustain them? That's the question Paul answers. If you seem to have them, are they mere sham virtues or are they the real product? Are they a cheap imitation or are they the genuine issue? Well, we can find out if we understand what Paul means in the little phrase before our God and Father as well.
So let's take the two phrases in that order. First of all, the object and the cause of these virtues, these crown jewels. Now you have, we have a little problem in the structure of this in the original, in the Greek text. Notice verse 3. It could mean that Paul is saying this: "I remember without ceasing your work of faith, your labor of love, your steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus," and the "in the Lord Jesus" phrase referring only to their steadfastness of hope. This, then, would be a commentary on the kind of hope they had; it was in the Lord Jesus.
But in the original, the word in is not there. It's supplemented. It is not there in the original. It could very well be translated of or in. It could be both. And I believe it is both, and I'll explain why. It is so structured that it could well refer to the entire passage. And I believe it is. Let me illustrate. I might say to you tonight, I'm very thankful to the congregation for the love, the patience, and the grace which it has shown to me and my family. Well, you see, the "shown to me and my family" applies to all of those things for which I'm thankful, not just the last one. All of them.
So we could read the passage this way: "Remembering without ceasing, your work of faith of the Lord Jesus, your labor of love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and steadfastness of hope of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Lord Jesus Christ." And I really believe this is the sense that Paul really communicating here for us. And for the simple reason I say this, whenever the Apostle Paul has opportunity to trace the virtues found in a Christian back to their ultimate source, He delights to trace them back to the Lord Jesus Christ as the ultimate source. The fountainhead from which all of these virtues flow down into our lives, the lives of the people of God, He is the fountainhead and He is the source. He always does that. He traces them back.
You remember in the first chapter of Philippians, Paul prayed for these Philippian Christians that they might be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which he says are, Philippians 1:11, "through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." It is in Christ, of Christ, through Christ. Always. It's always this way. So in this passage, the Apostle Paul is attributing to the Lord Jesus Christ the fact that there was work of faith, there was labor of love, and there was steadfastness of hope. He was the source. He was the object of these virtues.
Now let's consider them together. Christ is the object of all faith. He's the object of love and the object of hope, which is commendable in the sight of God. Today, all around us, you have these inspirational spiritual gurus. They tell us that if you have faith, it doesn't matter who's the object of that faith, so long as you have faith. But if you have faith and if you have hope, it doesn't matter who's the object of that hope. And if you have love, just as long as you have love and if you have those three things, that's the way you will live successfully. You're good, good to go.
But the Bible never told you that having faith, hope, and love is the way to live successfully. For you see, the emphasis of the Bible is not upon faith itself, hope itself, and love itself as entities in themselves. But the emphasis of the Scripture is upon faith, hope, and love in terms of their object. And the thing that caused Paul to rejoice is that these beloved people had a work of faith, faith which had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ. Just faith of itself is no virtue. It isn't. It's not some kind of a magical kind of potion that if you take it and have it or you have it, all will be well with you. It is not faith in faith.
You see, you could talk about faith and hope and love in any circle today and people think, isn't he nice? He's quite religious. That's lovely. This is what even politicians and heads of state do. They talk about faith and hope and love and all the rest. And you see, everybody will embrace this and love it and say, isn't that nice? You end up with a cultural type of a religion. But you see, the emphasis of the Bible is what's the object of your faith? What's the object of your faith? You see, faith in some kind of a nebulous God or faith in the God revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that makes a whole difference. Nebulous God or the God revealed in Jesus Christ? Love to something that you can see to be God or love to the God who's revealed Himself in Jesus Christ? Hope, just sort of a wishful desire that everything's going to turn out all right in the end or hope that is really rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of glory in us.
With these Thessalonians, their faith, their love, their hope had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, beloved, the Christian life is not a self-focused life. It is a Christ-focused life. It is a Christ-centered life. This life, this work of faith, this labor of love, this steadfastness of hope, where it is centered? Where is it experienced? In our Lord Jesus Christ, in Him. One of the great evidences that you've been converted is that your life is not centered on you. It's not centered on you. Faith is not centered on you. Love is not centered on you. Hope is not centered on you. It is not self-wardly focused. It is Christ-wardly focused.
Let's consider them briefly, individually.
Faith, their faith was of or in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, how do we know this is true? How do we know this is true? Remember back in Acts 17? If you turn back there and find the account, the founding of the church, remember how we saw that together and considered it together? We read that when Paul came among them, he did not come with some kind of a psychological emphasis just saying, you know, well, if you just have faith in something other than yourself, then you're going to be fine. All will be well with you. You sort of needed to trust some sort of a higher power, a higher being.
Does that ring a bell? I think that's what Alcoholics Anonymous use as the term. You've got to have faith in a higher power. Now, is that what he preached? You've got to have faith in some higher power? No, no. Listen to his words. Acts 17, verses 2 and 3, “according to Paul's custom, he went to them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and setting before them that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is that Christ,'" and some of them were persuaded, they believed.
What did they believe? They did not have a nebulous kind of faith and a nebulous kind of a concept of a nebulous God. No, no. Their faith was rooted in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, the Christ of history, who lived, who died, who rose again, who was and is the only way by which sinners could find acceptance before a holy God. Therefore, their faith, which Paul commends, had as its object that unique person, the God-man, Christ Jesus, set forth in Scripture. That Christ, by His work upon Calvary's cross, was set before them. The open tomb and His presence at the right hand of the majesty on high. He's the only Savior of sinners. And they embraced Him.
For notice, he says it was faith of or in the Lord Jesus Christ, giving to Him His full official title, which is a beautiful summary of all that He is and all that He does for sinners. That's what He says to them. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ and He uses the full title. He is Jesus the God-man. He is the Christ, the promised Messiah, prophet, priest, and King, who would teach us by His Word, who would die for us and shed His blood for our forgiveness, and who would rise and be the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is Jesus the God-man. Christ, the promised Messiah, prophet, priest, and King, and He is Kyrios. He is the Lord who sits upon a throne.
And Paul says, we give thanks to God, remembering without ceasing your work of faith of or in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their faith was an intelligent theological faith, and that's the only kind of faith that God will ever commend.
And then their love. Their love was directed to the Lord Jesus Christ. It wasn't directed to just Jesus. You know a lot of sentimental love to Jesus, syrupy love. We like to think of the man of Galilee. It was directed not just to Jesus. And I'm always suspicious of groups or movements who, they talk about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and don't give Him the full title. It wasn't just to Jesus, and it wasn't just to the Christ. They weren't just preoccupied with the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus, the anointed one.
Their love was directed to the Lord Jesus Christ. They loved the one who sat upon the throne, who came to that throne by way of a cradle of a cross of a tomb. They loved Him for who He was. They loved Him for what He had done as the anointed Messiah, God's Son. And Paul says he gives thanks to God for their work of faith, because it was faith which had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave thanks for the labor of love, for that love had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ, and then their hope had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ.
It wasn't a confident expectation in the betterment of humanity. It was a hope that was in and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there was that confidence that at His coming, and His triumphant coming, there would be then a full realization of all that He had purchased by His own precious shed blood. Spurgeon got this. He had a Christ-centeredness that sprung from a deep personal relationship with the Lord. He loved Christ deeply, passionately, and his sermons are filled with rapturous exaltation of Christ.
Listen to what he said so eloquently, and this is really helpful for us: "If you leave out Christ, you have left the sun out of the day and the moon out of the night. You have left the waters out of the sea and the floods out of the river. You have left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of the body. You have left joy out of heaven. You robbed all of it. There is no gospel worth thinking of, much less worth proclaiming, if Jesus be forgotten. We must have Jesus as Alpha and Omega in all our ministries." Perhaps Spurgeon never put it more succinctly than when he said, and I close with this, "If you take Christ out of Christianity, Christianity is dead." End of quote.
At the heart of his preaching was a desire to exalt Christ and proclaim Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. For Spurgeon, a sermon whose aim was not to bring the people of God to a deeper love to their Savior was a waste and a crime, he said. In fact, he said this: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution." End of quote.
That's what Paul does here. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the object. He is the source. He is the fountainhead. It is all about Him. And it's all directed to Him. But not only is the Lord Jesus the object of these virtues, He's the cause of them. He's the cause of them. Where did their faith come from? And literally, if you were to translate this as given in the original, it would be translated this way: your work of faith of the Lord Jesus Christ or from the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That phrase is found other places as well. He's not only the object of our faith, but He is the author of it. That's taught all throughout Scripture.
That familiar text in Hebrews 12 verse 2: "Fixing our eyes on Jesus,” who is what? “The author and perfecter." He's the author of our faith and He's the perfecter of our faith, beginning to end. He authors it. He sustains it. He perfects it all the way to glory. Do we not read in Philippians 1:29, "For to you it has been granted." To you it has been what? Granted. It's a grace gift that we don't deserve. "For Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him," you see? To believe in Him is a granted gift, gracious gift from the Lord, but also to suffer for His sake. And so the Lord Jesus is the author of our faith.
As Paul mentions the blessings that come to believers in Ephesians 1, he says that all spiritual blessings are stored up in Christ and they flow out of Christ. And even the faith by which we embrace Christ is one of those blessings that come as His gift.
And love? What about love? Of course, love has as its source the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John 4:19, "We love Him because,” what? “He first loved us." “The fruit of the Spirit is love,” Galatians 5:22. Our love to Him is a result of the working of His Spirit in our hearts.
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing," Romans 15:13, "so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit, taking out of the fullness of Christ, works even in this matter of hope in the heart of the believer.
Oh, do you see, beloved, the emphasis of the Apostle Paul? Do you see it? As he looks at the Thessalonians and sees the virtues of faith that works, love that toils, hope that endures, he in no way is patting these people on the back. Yes, he's encouraging them, but he's not patting them on the back. What is he doing? He's simply delineating those things which were the evidence. The evidence is to him that the Lord Jesus Christ had become the great object of these virtues and not only the object of these virtues, but the very cause of them so that unto Christ and Christ alone would be ascribed all the honor and all the praise and all the credit.
Think of the application of this principle. It's very clear. Let me say a word to you this evening who are perhaps here, but not savingly joined to Christ. All Adam, human nature, unaided by the Spirit, can produce some cheap imitations of these virtues. We can produce something that may look like the work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope, but they are nothing but empty, hollow imitations if they are severed from a vital relationship to the source, Jesus Christ.
So I want to ask a very simple question of you this evening, and I trust you will listen very carefully. Strip away, strip away everything in your life, all the activity, all the religious activity and everything else until there's nothing left but that work that you do out of living faith in a living Lord, that work which springs out of a true love for the living Christ and that endurance that is rooted in a steadfast confidence that He's coming again. Now you see a Christian has got a lot left if you strip away everything but that. For He realizes, yes, I am laboring because my confidence is in Him because I love Him and because I know that He is coming, I endure, I bear under it. Because I love Him, I toil, because I trust Him, I work.
A very searching little book for the refreshing of one's own soul written by Octavius Winslow for the specific state of the declension of the soul, waning of devotion to Christ, and he says something in that little book that really struck me and I want to share it with you this evening, listen carefully, quote, "perhaps nothing forms a more certain criterion of the state of the soul than this. We would be willing to test a man's religion both as to its nature and its growth by his reply to the question, what think ye of Christ? What think ye of Christ? Does His blood daily moisten the root of your profession? Is His righteousness that which exalts you out of and above yourself and daily give you free and near access to God? Is the sweetness of His love much in your heart and the fragrance of His name much upon your lips? Are your corruptions daily carried to His grace, your guilt to His blood, your trials to His heart? In a word, is Jesus,” now watch this, “is Jesus the substance of your life, the source of your sanctification, the one glorious object on which your eye is ever resting, the mark towards which you are ever pressing? Be not offended, reader, if we remark that a professing man may talk well of Christ and may do homage to His name and build up His cause and promote His kingdom and yet rest short of having Christ in his heart, the hope of glory. It is not the talking about religion or ministers or churches nor an outward zeal for their prosperity that either constitutes or indicates a true spiritual man and yet how much of this in our day passes current for the life of God in the soul? Oh, that among God's dear saints there were less talking of ministers and more of Jesus, less of sermons and more of the power of the truth in their souls, less of I am of Paul and I of Apollos and more of I am of Christ."
Is He the source of your joys, the object of your love, of your devotions? That's the question I had to ask myself afresh. Beloved has the work of the hand somehow weaned the heart from devotion to the person of Christ? Maybe you're busy doing different things. Has that weaned your devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ? You see, Paul would never rejoice that these people were simply busy, simply loving, simply hoping. It was that their working was a work of faith in Christ, that their laboring was a labor of love to Christ. Their hope was one which caused them to endure because it was a hope of Christ. He was the central object of all of these virtues.
And oh, dear brothers and sisters, and I speak to myself as well, we must remind ourselves that these virtues thrive and develop only as they are fed by the streams of vital, vital attachment to Jesus. Am I weak in faith? Am I weak in love, weak in hope? I must go to Christ. And as I view Him as He's revealed in the Scriptures, coming from the presence of the Father, humbling Himself to become a babe in a manger, humbling Himself further to die on a tree, coming out of the tomb triumphant, going back to the right hand of the Majesty on high, as I view the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, then faith is strengthened. And when faith is strengthened, I find myself working more diligently, more earnestly, more from the heart.
As I think of Him and His love to me, my love to Him will burn with a deeper glow, and out of that there will be a more willingness to toil for His kingdom. As I think of His promise to come back again, that promise will fill me with endurance and the confidence that all will be well at the end when He comes, that the best is yet to come. But if you cut away vital heart attachment to Christ, contemplation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, you have, as it were, dried up the streams from which these virtues flow.
I confess to you this evening at times those streams were awfully, awfully low in my life and how futile it is to try to somehow pump new water into the streams. You can't do it. I can't do it. You can't correct the stream by concentrating on the stream. You've got to go back to the place from whence all this flows, vital heart attachment to Jesus.
That's why God gives us the Lord's day, one of the reasons that we might in this day as we come together pray, O Lord, O Lord, for fresh revelations of Christ, more of Christ, the worth of Christ, the value of Christ, a higher view of Christ, O Lord, for new love to Christ, new hope in Christ, new faith in Christ, more of Christ. And as God grants those, then the work, the labor, the endurance will be the blessed byproducts.
Must hurry on to the second thought and spend just a few minutes on it. In the little phrase of the Lord Jesus, or in the Lord Jesus, we have the object and the source of these virtues. And then this last phrase, what an amazing phrase, "before our God and Father”, “before our God and Father." We have what I have called the sincerity and the climate of these virtues.
Again, again, you have a problem. What does this little phrase refer to? Some say it could refer to Paul's prayer, saying in verse three, "remembering without ceasing, before God, your work of faith." They would say then that Paul just sort of stuck this on at the end to tell them that where He remembered was in the place of prayer. Others would say, well, it's just a general statement of God's omniscience. God is omniscient, He knows everything. You know, all that they did, their work of faith, labor of love, was beneath the eye of God. God sought, God took recognition of it. Psalm 139, “He knows our sitting down, He knows our rising up."
Well, there's a third possibility, and I believe this is the proper interpretation. What He's saying is that this work of faith, this labor of love, and steadfastness of hope, that only had the Lord Jesus Christ as their object and source, but the consciousness of the presence of God created in these virtues a true, genuine sincerity, and in the hearts of these people, it's what gave them that desire to continue in them—the fact that they were living in the sight of God, God and their Father, Coram Deo.
Now, these virtues were not produced for the eye of men, but rather in the sight of God, before the eye of God, before the presence of God. Remember our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, don't be like those hypocrites, the Pharisees. What do they do? Well, they do in order to be seen by men. That's why they do. They do to be seen by men. What you do, you should do for one reason, He tells them. And He tells us, remember? “Before your Father.” “Before your Father, who sees in secret”, Matthew 6. Giving, praying, fasting, our Lord emphasizes three times.
The concerns of the true Christian is what? The Father sees. The Father sees. The Father sees before God and Father. It is before God, Coram Deo. That's what concerns me. The Father sees. Well, that produces what? It produces sincerity. That produces honesty. That produces frankness. That produces authenticity. We who've been on the way a while need it. We need it desperately. You get, you see, you're walking with the Lord and it's been so many years and you're a cruise control and you get a reputation of being rather spiritual and maybe rightly so, then all you do is you keep up your reputation. You don't care about the reality of the thing just as long as your reputation is maintained.
Paul says, no, no, no. The work of faith, the labor of love, the steadfastness of hope was in the sight of God. It was in the sight of God and Father. There was a sincerity about it that carried it on even when men were not there to see. Basically, what He's driving at is that this was the climate in which they exercised them. The climate of God consciousness. God consciousness. There was this pervasive awareness of the presence of God, a pervasive consciousness of the presence of God, the eye of God upon them.
You'll notice in verse nine, it says that they turned to God from their idols. That was their conversion. And what will a true conversion produce? What will it produce? When a man truly turns to God, then He will seek to live as in the sight of God. Right? When a man truly turns to God, He then seeks to live as in the sight of God and that thought is not a burden to Him, rather it is what? A delight. A great delight. That's just another way of describing what? Let me give us a synonym. That's another way of describing the fear of God. That's what it is.
What is the fear of God? What is the fear of God? The scripture says in Acts 9:31 that "the church going on in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it continued to multiply." We're told in 2 Corinthians 7:1 to "perfect holiness in the fear of God." Hebrews 12:28, we're told to "offer to God an acceptable service with reverence in awe." 1 Peter 1:17 declares that we're to "conduct ourselves in fear during the time of our sojourn." What is the fear of God? Notice the little phrase. He says, "before our God and Father.” “Before our God and Father."
You see, that fear is not the fear that we should have if God is not our Father through Jesus Christ. If we're outside of Jesus Christ, the fear that we should have of God should be one of pure trepidation, pure dread, pure dread. Moses says in Psalm 90 verse 11, "who knows the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you?" He's the almighty God who's a consuming fire. And if you're here this evening not savingly joined to Jesus, you ought to fear God with a holy dread for He is a God of justice and wrath and anger. It is a fearful thing to fall in the hand of the living God. And yet, blessed be His name. He pleads, He exhorts, He entreats, flee from the wrath to come by coming to my Son.
But this is the fear that a child of God has. It is walking in the sight of God before God and our Father. He's our Father. It is that blessed godly fear which regards Him as our Father through Jesus Christ. And yet, He is still our God even though He's our Father. And with all His rights to our absolute devotion to the love of the whole heart, mind and soul and strength, He is our God. He is the end of our existence. He should be the object of our desire, the source of our delight. He is our God, but He's not a God against us in His wrath, but He is the God who is for us as our Father through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now, to walk as in His sight is to walk in the fear of God. And the fear of God is that fertile soil in which holy living is produced. Where to walk in His sight and to walk in His sight is to walk in the fear of God and to have a constant regard to His demands, to His glory, to His will, to His purposes, to please Him. And that's what delighted the heart of the apostle, that these young Christians had learned to walk in the sight of our Father.
Now, that's entirely opposite to man by nature. For Romans 3:18 says that the natural man, what? "There is no fear of God before their eyes." "There is no fear of God before their eyes." If you have any thoughts of being in the sight of God, if they have any thoughts of being in the sight of God, they want to dismiss those thoughts quickly. They want to dull the conscience. They wanna get rid of it. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They want to stifle every remembrance that all that I am is open and naked before the eyes of Him with whom I have to do.
But to the child of God, oh, to the child of God, this is a delight. Do you find it a delight to cultivate the consciousness of God wherever you go? Do you? Wherever you are, whatever you are doing? It's like that person who said to his pastor, I just can't get out of my mind, God out of my mind everywhere I go. I just can't get Him out of my mind as if that was something negative.
That's wonderful. That's wonderful. That's wonderful if what you're doing, you want to be doing in His sight. The only time that's bad is when you try and cheat on God to get away with something. Then it's haunting. It's haunting. Isn't that right? It's a haunting thought.
You see, the child who's doing the things that pleases his father is never bothered that his father might be looking out the window. He's happy that his father cares enough to watch him. Daddy, look, look at this. Oh, look at this. Mommy, look at this. You know how children are. Now, if they're doing something that they shouldn't be doing, they look around and make sure that Daddy and Mommy aren't looking. They don't want to do that in the sight of Mom and Dad. And so the true child of God, he cherishes the thought of the presence of God, the eye of God upon him. And that becomes one of the governing principles of his life.
Like Joseph, when he was being seduced by Potiphar's wife, he said, remember, he said, "How can I do this thing and sin against God?" Well, he knew that he did what he did before God, that he lived Coram Deo. He lived in the fear of God. Oh, Potiphar may not know. My relatives, my family may not know. They're hundreds of miles away, but I am living in the sight of God. I am living before the eye of God. How can I do what is wicked? I am conscious of His eye on me. And this became one of the governing principles in the life of Joseph that kept him in that totally heathen society with no other influences external, but there was that internal influence of the fear of God within him.
Do you have that? Do you seek to exercise these virtues and live as in the sight of God and our Father? That was the thing that brought delight to the heart of the Apostle Paul, that they had this work of faith, this labor of love, this steadfastness of hope, not merely in the sight of the elders of the assembly, so that when one of the pastors was coming to visit, the wife and husband all of a sudden got all sweet and lovey, and they'd just been pouring out some words that had a lot of hostility in them, cutting words, but now all of a sudden, oh, everything's wonderful, everything's sweet.
But we want to have a work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope in the sight of others, but God sees the heart, beloved. God sees the motives. God sees the attitude. You see, that's what the Day of Judgment will reveal, that nothing mattered but what He saw, what He knows. That's basically a definition of the Day of Judgment, a revelation of the truth, that nothing matters but what He saw. Nothing matters but what He saw.
That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, verses two through five, "It is required of a steward that one be found faithful, but to me, it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even examine myself, for I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted, but the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of the hearts, and then each one's praise will come to him from God."
You know, wonderful relief comes when you're seeking to live in the sight of God and the Father, wonderful relief. You're sitting with your friend, you're sitting with your spouse, you're sitting with, you know, talk about certain things you're deciding to do, and she turns to you and she says, but honey, so and so will think, but how about so and, it doesn't matter what they think. Are you in the revealed will of God doing it? Yes. Are your motives right in doing it? Yes. Do you believe it's yes? Then who cares? You do it. God knows, you know, praise God, nothing else matters. That's wonderful freedom.
Do you know that freedom, beloved? I really pity the person who's got to all times, as it were, be playing to the crowd. Well, I've got to impress this one, and that I am this, and I've got to impress this one, that I'm not this, and I've got, oh, that's terrible bondage. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. And one of the most blessed liberties with which Christ sets a person free is to live in the sight of God the Father, and if He smiles upon you, then let the world frown. Who cares? Wonderful release. Do you know that release?
And you young people in this place particularly, young people in this place, do you know that? Who cares what your peers think? Who cares what they say? Is it pleasing in the sight of God? That's what's important, isn't it? Does it please Him? That's what's important. Who cares what mere men think? Oh, what a blessed release, and I trust we know it. And if we do, then it's because God in His grace has worked the same virtues in us that He's worked in the Thessalonians.
And I trust that our somewhat detailed and lengthy study of this third verse will prove helpful to us, that we might know that which as Christians we should emulate, that which we should seek to experience by the grace of God. Thank God for this letter. A faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that will produce work, a love for the Lord Jesus Christ that will produce labor, and a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ that will produce endurance. And see them carried out in the climate of a God consciousness that will make us men and women who do not play to the crowd, who do not seek to live a role that will get us in good standing before the eyes of our peers, but that we should walk in the fear of God and in the company of the Holy Spirit.
May God bless His word to our hearts. Let's pray.
Well, we have gone into some detail in studying each of these separately. You recall the work of faith that he mentions here. Paul was grateful that these believers had a living trust in the living Savior that made them naturally produce works of gratitude, works done not to earn salvation, but as the fruit of salvation received by faith as a gift of God. Then he was thankful for their labor of love, that they had love to the triune God that made them engage in sacrificing, arduous labor and toil for the cause of Christ, the cause of the kingdom, the cause of the gospel. And then last time we were in this epistle together, we looked together at the phrase steadfastness of hope. They had a hope, which is not a mere wishful desire as you and I use the word hope today, but rather a confident expectation of promised blessing. And that expectation produced - epimoni- , endurance, perseverance, bearing up under the pressures to which they were subjected as young Christians.
This evening we want to look at the last two phrases in verse 3, which are very, very instructive to us. This work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope, Paul says, all of these were in our Lord Jesus Christ and before our God and Father. And in these two little phrases we have what we might call in the first place, the object and the cause of these virtues. Toward what or whom is this love directed, this faith, this hope directed? Paul would tell us in this phrase that it was directed toward none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, who causes these virtues to be found? Well, also Paul tells us here as well.
And then in the little phrase, before our God and Father, we have this sincerity and the climate in which these graces and virtues were actually worked out or exercised. Were they something that the Thessalonians just put on as it were to simply impress others and impress the Apostle Paul? No, he says they were not in the sight of men, they were not before men, but they were exercised in the sight of God. They were exercised sincerely and in a climate of God-consciousness. And that is very significant. That is very sanctifying.
So these little phrases are by no means just sort of a, you know, they're thrown in there for the sake of filler. These answer a very vital question. If you have in you today these virtues, the work of faith, the labor of love, the steadfastness of hope, where do they come from? And what will sustain them? That's the question Paul answers. If you seem to have them, are they mere sham virtues or are they the real product? Are they a cheap imitation or are they the genuine issue? Well, we can find out if we understand what Paul means in the little phrase before our God and Father as well.
So let's take the two phrases in that order. First of all, the object and the cause of these virtues, these crown jewels. Now you have, we have a little problem in the structure of this in the original, in the Greek text. Notice verse 3. It could mean that Paul is saying this: "I remember without ceasing your work of faith, your labor of love, your steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus," and the "in the Lord Jesus" phrase referring only to their steadfastness of hope. This, then, would be a commentary on the kind of hope they had; it was in the Lord Jesus.
But in the original, the word in is not there. It's supplemented. It is not there in the original. It could very well be translated of or in. It could be both. And I believe it is both, and I'll explain why. It is so structured that it could well refer to the entire passage. And I believe it is. Let me illustrate. I might say to you tonight, I'm very thankful to the congregation for the love, the patience, and the grace which it has shown to me and my family. Well, you see, the "shown to me and my family" applies to all of those things for which I'm thankful, not just the last one. All of them.
So we could read the passage this way: "Remembering without ceasing, your work of faith of the Lord Jesus, your labor of love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and steadfastness of hope of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Lord Jesus Christ." And I really believe this is the sense that Paul really communicating here for us. And for the simple reason I say this, whenever the Apostle Paul has opportunity to trace the virtues found in a Christian back to their ultimate source, He delights to trace them back to the Lord Jesus Christ as the ultimate source. The fountainhead from which all of these virtues flow down into our lives, the lives of the people of God, He is the fountainhead and He is the source. He always does that. He traces them back.
You remember in the first chapter of Philippians, Paul prayed for these Philippian Christians that they might be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which he says are, Philippians 1:11, "through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." It is in Christ, of Christ, through Christ. Always. It's always this way. So in this passage, the Apostle Paul is attributing to the Lord Jesus Christ the fact that there was work of faith, there was labor of love, and there was steadfastness of hope. He was the source. He was the object of these virtues.
Now let's consider them together. Christ is the object of all faith. He's the object of love and the object of hope, which is commendable in the sight of God. Today, all around us, you have these inspirational spiritual gurus. They tell us that if you have faith, it doesn't matter who's the object of that faith, so long as you have faith. But if you have faith and if you have hope, it doesn't matter who's the object of that hope. And if you have love, just as long as you have love and if you have those three things, that's the way you will live successfully. You're good, good to go.
But the Bible never told you that having faith, hope, and love is the way to live successfully. For you see, the emphasis of the Bible is not upon faith itself, hope itself, and love itself as entities in themselves. But the emphasis of the Scripture is upon faith, hope, and love in terms of their object. And the thing that caused Paul to rejoice is that these beloved people had a work of faith, faith which had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ. Just faith of itself is no virtue. It isn't. It's not some kind of a magical kind of potion that if you take it and have it or you have it, all will be well with you. It is not faith in faith.
You see, you could talk about faith and hope and love in any circle today and people think, isn't he nice? He's quite religious. That's lovely. This is what even politicians and heads of state do. They talk about faith and hope and love and all the rest. And you see, everybody will embrace this and love it and say, isn't that nice? You end up with a cultural type of a religion. But you see, the emphasis of the Bible is what's the object of your faith? What's the object of your faith? You see, faith in some kind of a nebulous God or faith in the God revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that makes a whole difference. Nebulous God or the God revealed in Jesus Christ? Love to something that you can see to be God or love to the God who's revealed Himself in Jesus Christ? Hope, just sort of a wishful desire that everything's going to turn out all right in the end or hope that is really rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of glory in us.
With these Thessalonians, their faith, their love, their hope had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, beloved, the Christian life is not a self-focused life. It is a Christ-focused life. It is a Christ-centered life. This life, this work of faith, this labor of love, this steadfastness of hope, where it is centered? Where is it experienced? In our Lord Jesus Christ, in Him. One of the great evidences that you've been converted is that your life is not centered on you. It's not centered on you. Faith is not centered on you. Love is not centered on you. Hope is not centered on you. It is not self-wardly focused. It is Christ-wardly focused.
Let's consider them briefly, individually.
Faith, their faith was of or in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, how do we know this is true? How do we know this is true? Remember back in Acts 17? If you turn back there and find the account, the founding of the church, remember how we saw that together and considered it together? We read that when Paul came among them, he did not come with some kind of a psychological emphasis just saying, you know, well, if you just have faith in something other than yourself, then you're going to be fine. All will be well with you. You sort of needed to trust some sort of a higher power, a higher being.
Does that ring a bell? I think that's what Alcoholics Anonymous use as the term. You've got to have faith in a higher power. Now, is that what he preached? You've got to have faith in some higher power? No, no. Listen to his words. Acts 17, verses 2 and 3, “according to Paul's custom, he went to them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and setting before them that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is that Christ,'" and some of them were persuaded, they believed.
What did they believe? They did not have a nebulous kind of faith and a nebulous kind of a concept of a nebulous God. No, no. Their faith was rooted in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, the Christ of history, who lived, who died, who rose again, who was and is the only way by which sinners could find acceptance before a holy God. Therefore, their faith, which Paul commends, had as its object that unique person, the God-man, Christ Jesus, set forth in Scripture. That Christ, by His work upon Calvary's cross, was set before them. The open tomb and His presence at the right hand of the majesty on high. He's the only Savior of sinners. And they embraced Him.
For notice, he says it was faith of or in the Lord Jesus Christ, giving to Him His full official title, which is a beautiful summary of all that He is and all that He does for sinners. That's what He says to them. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ and He uses the full title. He is Jesus the God-man. He is the Christ, the promised Messiah, prophet, priest, and King, who would teach us by His Word, who would die for us and shed His blood for our forgiveness, and who would rise and be the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is Jesus the God-man. Christ, the promised Messiah, prophet, priest, and King, and He is Kyrios. He is the Lord who sits upon a throne.
And Paul says, we give thanks to God, remembering without ceasing your work of faith of or in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their faith was an intelligent theological faith, and that's the only kind of faith that God will ever commend.
And then their love. Their love was directed to the Lord Jesus Christ. It wasn't directed to just Jesus. You know a lot of sentimental love to Jesus, syrupy love. We like to think of the man of Galilee. It was directed not just to Jesus. And I'm always suspicious of groups or movements who, they talk about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and don't give Him the full title. It wasn't just to Jesus, and it wasn't just to the Christ. They weren't just preoccupied with the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus, the anointed one.
Their love was directed to the Lord Jesus Christ. They loved the one who sat upon the throne, who came to that throne by way of a cradle of a cross of a tomb. They loved Him for who He was. They loved Him for what He had done as the anointed Messiah, God's Son. And Paul says he gives thanks to God for their work of faith, because it was faith which had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave thanks for the labor of love, for that love had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ, and then their hope had as its object the Lord Jesus Christ.
It wasn't a confident expectation in the betterment of humanity. It was a hope that was in and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there was that confidence that at His coming, and His triumphant coming, there would be then a full realization of all that He had purchased by His own precious shed blood. Spurgeon got this. He had a Christ-centeredness that sprung from a deep personal relationship with the Lord. He loved Christ deeply, passionately, and his sermons are filled with rapturous exaltation of Christ.
Listen to what he said so eloquently, and this is really helpful for us: "If you leave out Christ, you have left the sun out of the day and the moon out of the night. You have left the waters out of the sea and the floods out of the river. You have left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of the body. You have left joy out of heaven. You robbed all of it. There is no gospel worth thinking of, much less worth proclaiming, if Jesus be forgotten. We must have Jesus as Alpha and Omega in all our ministries." Perhaps Spurgeon never put it more succinctly than when he said, and I close with this, "If you take Christ out of Christianity, Christianity is dead." End of quote.
At the heart of his preaching was a desire to exalt Christ and proclaim Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. For Spurgeon, a sermon whose aim was not to bring the people of God to a deeper love to their Savior was a waste and a crime, he said. In fact, he said this: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution." End of quote.
That's what Paul does here. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the object. He is the source. He is the fountainhead. It is all about Him. And it's all directed to Him. But not only is the Lord Jesus the object of these virtues, He's the cause of them. He's the cause of them. Where did their faith come from? And literally, if you were to translate this as given in the original, it would be translated this way: your work of faith of the Lord Jesus Christ or from the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That phrase is found other places as well. He's not only the object of our faith, but He is the author of it. That's taught all throughout Scripture.
That familiar text in Hebrews 12 verse 2: "Fixing our eyes on Jesus,” who is what? “The author and perfecter." He's the author of our faith and He's the perfecter of our faith, beginning to end. He authors it. He sustains it. He perfects it all the way to glory. Do we not read in Philippians 1:29, "For to you it has been granted." To you it has been what? Granted. It's a grace gift that we don't deserve. "For Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him," you see? To believe in Him is a granted gift, gracious gift from the Lord, but also to suffer for His sake. And so the Lord Jesus is the author of our faith.
As Paul mentions the blessings that come to believers in Ephesians 1, he says that all spiritual blessings are stored up in Christ and they flow out of Christ. And even the faith by which we embrace Christ is one of those blessings that come as His gift.
And love? What about love? Of course, love has as its source the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John 4:19, "We love Him because,” what? “He first loved us." “The fruit of the Spirit is love,” Galatians 5:22. Our love to Him is a result of the working of His Spirit in our hearts.
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing," Romans 15:13, "so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit, taking out of the fullness of Christ, works even in this matter of hope in the heart of the believer.
Oh, do you see, beloved, the emphasis of the Apostle Paul? Do you see it? As he looks at the Thessalonians and sees the virtues of faith that works, love that toils, hope that endures, he in no way is patting these people on the back. Yes, he's encouraging them, but he's not patting them on the back. What is he doing? He's simply delineating those things which were the evidence. The evidence is to him that the Lord Jesus Christ had become the great object of these virtues and not only the object of these virtues, but the very cause of them so that unto Christ and Christ alone would be ascribed all the honor and all the praise and all the credit.
Think of the application of this principle. It's very clear. Let me say a word to you this evening who are perhaps here, but not savingly joined to Christ. All Adam, human nature, unaided by the Spirit, can produce some cheap imitations of these virtues. We can produce something that may look like the work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope, but they are nothing but empty, hollow imitations if they are severed from a vital relationship to the source, Jesus Christ.
So I want to ask a very simple question of you this evening, and I trust you will listen very carefully. Strip away, strip away everything in your life, all the activity, all the religious activity and everything else until there's nothing left but that work that you do out of living faith in a living Lord, that work which springs out of a true love for the living Christ and that endurance that is rooted in a steadfast confidence that He's coming again. Now you see a Christian has got a lot left if you strip away everything but that. For He realizes, yes, I am laboring because my confidence is in Him because I love Him and because I know that He is coming, I endure, I bear under it. Because I love Him, I toil, because I trust Him, I work.
A very searching little book for the refreshing of one's own soul written by Octavius Winslow for the specific state of the declension of the soul, waning of devotion to Christ, and he says something in that little book that really struck me and I want to share it with you this evening, listen carefully, quote, "perhaps nothing forms a more certain criterion of the state of the soul than this. We would be willing to test a man's religion both as to its nature and its growth by his reply to the question, what think ye of Christ? What think ye of Christ? Does His blood daily moisten the root of your profession? Is His righteousness that which exalts you out of and above yourself and daily give you free and near access to God? Is the sweetness of His love much in your heart and the fragrance of His name much upon your lips? Are your corruptions daily carried to His grace, your guilt to His blood, your trials to His heart? In a word, is Jesus,” now watch this, “is Jesus the substance of your life, the source of your sanctification, the one glorious object on which your eye is ever resting, the mark towards which you are ever pressing? Be not offended, reader, if we remark that a professing man may talk well of Christ and may do homage to His name and build up His cause and promote His kingdom and yet rest short of having Christ in his heart, the hope of glory. It is not the talking about religion or ministers or churches nor an outward zeal for their prosperity that either constitutes or indicates a true spiritual man and yet how much of this in our day passes current for the life of God in the soul? Oh, that among God's dear saints there were less talking of ministers and more of Jesus, less of sermons and more of the power of the truth in their souls, less of I am of Paul and I of Apollos and more of I am of Christ."
Is He the source of your joys, the object of your love, of your devotions? That's the question I had to ask myself afresh. Beloved has the work of the hand somehow weaned the heart from devotion to the person of Christ? Maybe you're busy doing different things. Has that weaned your devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ? You see, Paul would never rejoice that these people were simply busy, simply loving, simply hoping. It was that their working was a work of faith in Christ, that their laboring was a labor of love to Christ. Their hope was one which caused them to endure because it was a hope of Christ. He was the central object of all of these virtues.
And oh, dear brothers and sisters, and I speak to myself as well, we must remind ourselves that these virtues thrive and develop only as they are fed by the streams of vital, vital attachment to Jesus. Am I weak in faith? Am I weak in love, weak in hope? I must go to Christ. And as I view Him as He's revealed in the Scriptures, coming from the presence of the Father, humbling Himself to become a babe in a manger, humbling Himself further to die on a tree, coming out of the tomb triumphant, going back to the right hand of the Majesty on high, as I view the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, then faith is strengthened. And when faith is strengthened, I find myself working more diligently, more earnestly, more from the heart.
As I think of Him and His love to me, my love to Him will burn with a deeper glow, and out of that there will be a more willingness to toil for His kingdom. As I think of His promise to come back again, that promise will fill me with endurance and the confidence that all will be well at the end when He comes, that the best is yet to come. But if you cut away vital heart attachment to Christ, contemplation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, you have, as it were, dried up the streams from which these virtues flow.
I confess to you this evening at times those streams were awfully, awfully low in my life and how futile it is to try to somehow pump new water into the streams. You can't do it. I can't do it. You can't correct the stream by concentrating on the stream. You've got to go back to the place from whence all this flows, vital heart attachment to Jesus.
That's why God gives us the Lord's day, one of the reasons that we might in this day as we come together pray, O Lord, O Lord, for fresh revelations of Christ, more of Christ, the worth of Christ, the value of Christ, a higher view of Christ, O Lord, for new love to Christ, new hope in Christ, new faith in Christ, more of Christ. And as God grants those, then the work, the labor, the endurance will be the blessed byproducts.
Must hurry on to the second thought and spend just a few minutes on it. In the little phrase of the Lord Jesus, or in the Lord Jesus, we have the object and the source of these virtues. And then this last phrase, what an amazing phrase, "before our God and Father”, “before our God and Father." We have what I have called the sincerity and the climate of these virtues.
Again, again, you have a problem. What does this little phrase refer to? Some say it could refer to Paul's prayer, saying in verse three, "remembering without ceasing, before God, your work of faith." They would say then that Paul just sort of stuck this on at the end to tell them that where He remembered was in the place of prayer. Others would say, well, it's just a general statement of God's omniscience. God is omniscient, He knows everything. You know, all that they did, their work of faith, labor of love, was beneath the eye of God. God sought, God took recognition of it. Psalm 139, “He knows our sitting down, He knows our rising up."
Well, there's a third possibility, and I believe this is the proper interpretation. What He's saying is that this work of faith, this labor of love, and steadfastness of hope, that only had the Lord Jesus Christ as their object and source, but the consciousness of the presence of God created in these virtues a true, genuine sincerity, and in the hearts of these people, it's what gave them that desire to continue in them—the fact that they were living in the sight of God, God and their Father, Coram Deo.
Now, these virtues were not produced for the eye of men, but rather in the sight of God, before the eye of God, before the presence of God. Remember our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, don't be like those hypocrites, the Pharisees. What do they do? Well, they do in order to be seen by men. That's why they do. They do to be seen by men. What you do, you should do for one reason, He tells them. And He tells us, remember? “Before your Father.” “Before your Father, who sees in secret”, Matthew 6. Giving, praying, fasting, our Lord emphasizes three times.
The concerns of the true Christian is what? The Father sees. The Father sees. The Father sees before God and Father. It is before God, Coram Deo. That's what concerns me. The Father sees. Well, that produces what? It produces sincerity. That produces honesty. That produces frankness. That produces authenticity. We who've been on the way a while need it. We need it desperately. You get, you see, you're walking with the Lord and it's been so many years and you're a cruise control and you get a reputation of being rather spiritual and maybe rightly so, then all you do is you keep up your reputation. You don't care about the reality of the thing just as long as your reputation is maintained.
Paul says, no, no, no. The work of faith, the labor of love, the steadfastness of hope was in the sight of God. It was in the sight of God and Father. There was a sincerity about it that carried it on even when men were not there to see. Basically, what He's driving at is that this was the climate in which they exercised them. The climate of God consciousness. God consciousness. There was this pervasive awareness of the presence of God, a pervasive consciousness of the presence of God, the eye of God upon them.
You'll notice in verse nine, it says that they turned to God from their idols. That was their conversion. And what will a true conversion produce? What will it produce? When a man truly turns to God, then He will seek to live as in the sight of God. Right? When a man truly turns to God, He then seeks to live as in the sight of God and that thought is not a burden to Him, rather it is what? A delight. A great delight. That's just another way of describing what? Let me give us a synonym. That's another way of describing the fear of God. That's what it is.
What is the fear of God? What is the fear of God? The scripture says in Acts 9:31 that "the church going on in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it continued to multiply." We're told in 2 Corinthians 7:1 to "perfect holiness in the fear of God." Hebrews 12:28, we're told to "offer to God an acceptable service with reverence in awe." 1 Peter 1:17 declares that we're to "conduct ourselves in fear during the time of our sojourn." What is the fear of God? Notice the little phrase. He says, "before our God and Father.” “Before our God and Father."
You see, that fear is not the fear that we should have if God is not our Father through Jesus Christ. If we're outside of Jesus Christ, the fear that we should have of God should be one of pure trepidation, pure dread, pure dread. Moses says in Psalm 90 verse 11, "who knows the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you?" He's the almighty God who's a consuming fire. And if you're here this evening not savingly joined to Jesus, you ought to fear God with a holy dread for He is a God of justice and wrath and anger. It is a fearful thing to fall in the hand of the living God. And yet, blessed be His name. He pleads, He exhorts, He entreats, flee from the wrath to come by coming to my Son.
But this is the fear that a child of God has. It is walking in the sight of God before God and our Father. He's our Father. It is that blessed godly fear which regards Him as our Father through Jesus Christ. And yet, He is still our God even though He's our Father. And with all His rights to our absolute devotion to the love of the whole heart, mind and soul and strength, He is our God. He is the end of our existence. He should be the object of our desire, the source of our delight. He is our God, but He's not a God against us in His wrath, but He is the God who is for us as our Father through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now, to walk as in His sight is to walk in the fear of God. And the fear of God is that fertile soil in which holy living is produced. Where to walk in His sight and to walk in His sight is to walk in the fear of God and to have a constant regard to His demands, to His glory, to His will, to His purposes, to please Him. And that's what delighted the heart of the apostle, that these young Christians had learned to walk in the sight of our Father.
Now, that's entirely opposite to man by nature. For Romans 3:18 says that the natural man, what? "There is no fear of God before their eyes." "There is no fear of God before their eyes." If you have any thoughts of being in the sight of God, if they have any thoughts of being in the sight of God, they want to dismiss those thoughts quickly. They want to dull the conscience. They wanna get rid of it. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They want to stifle every remembrance that all that I am is open and naked before the eyes of Him with whom I have to do.
But to the child of God, oh, to the child of God, this is a delight. Do you find it a delight to cultivate the consciousness of God wherever you go? Do you? Wherever you are, whatever you are doing? It's like that person who said to his pastor, I just can't get out of my mind, God out of my mind everywhere I go. I just can't get Him out of my mind as if that was something negative.
That's wonderful. That's wonderful. That's wonderful if what you're doing, you want to be doing in His sight. The only time that's bad is when you try and cheat on God to get away with something. Then it's haunting. It's haunting. Isn't that right? It's a haunting thought.
You see, the child who's doing the things that pleases his father is never bothered that his father might be looking out the window. He's happy that his father cares enough to watch him. Daddy, look, look at this. Oh, look at this. Mommy, look at this. You know how children are. Now, if they're doing something that they shouldn't be doing, they look around and make sure that Daddy and Mommy aren't looking. They don't want to do that in the sight of Mom and Dad. And so the true child of God, he cherishes the thought of the presence of God, the eye of God upon him. And that becomes one of the governing principles of his life.
Like Joseph, when he was being seduced by Potiphar's wife, he said, remember, he said, "How can I do this thing and sin against God?" Well, he knew that he did what he did before God, that he lived Coram Deo. He lived in the fear of God. Oh, Potiphar may not know. My relatives, my family may not know. They're hundreds of miles away, but I am living in the sight of God. I am living before the eye of God. How can I do what is wicked? I am conscious of His eye on me. And this became one of the governing principles in the life of Joseph that kept him in that totally heathen society with no other influences external, but there was that internal influence of the fear of God within him.
Do you have that? Do you seek to exercise these virtues and live as in the sight of God and our Father? That was the thing that brought delight to the heart of the Apostle Paul, that they had this work of faith, this labor of love, this steadfastness of hope, not merely in the sight of the elders of the assembly, so that when one of the pastors was coming to visit, the wife and husband all of a sudden got all sweet and lovey, and they'd just been pouring out some words that had a lot of hostility in them, cutting words, but now all of a sudden, oh, everything's wonderful, everything's sweet.
But we want to have a work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope in the sight of others, but God sees the heart, beloved. God sees the motives. God sees the attitude. You see, that's what the Day of Judgment will reveal, that nothing mattered but what He saw, what He knows. That's basically a definition of the Day of Judgment, a revelation of the truth, that nothing matters but what He saw. Nothing matters but what He saw.
That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, verses two through five, "It is required of a steward that one be found faithful, but to me, it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even examine myself, for I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted, but the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of the hearts, and then each one's praise will come to him from God."
You know, wonderful relief comes when you're seeking to live in the sight of God and the Father, wonderful relief. You're sitting with your friend, you're sitting with your spouse, you're sitting with, you know, talk about certain things you're deciding to do, and she turns to you and she says, but honey, so and so will think, but how about so and, it doesn't matter what they think. Are you in the revealed will of God doing it? Yes. Are your motives right in doing it? Yes. Do you believe it's yes? Then who cares? You do it. God knows, you know, praise God, nothing else matters. That's wonderful freedom.
Do you know that freedom, beloved? I really pity the person who's got to all times, as it were, be playing to the crowd. Well, I've got to impress this one, and that I am this, and I've got to impress this one, that I'm not this, and I've got, oh, that's terrible bondage. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. And one of the most blessed liberties with which Christ sets a person free is to live in the sight of God the Father, and if He smiles upon you, then let the world frown. Who cares? Wonderful release. Do you know that release?
And you young people in this place particularly, young people in this place, do you know that? Who cares what your peers think? Who cares what they say? Is it pleasing in the sight of God? That's what's important, isn't it? Does it please Him? That's what's important. Who cares what mere men think? Oh, what a blessed release, and I trust we know it. And if we do, then it's because God in His grace has worked the same virtues in us that He's worked in the Thessalonians.
And I trust that our somewhat detailed and lengthy study of this third verse will prove helpful to us, that we might know that which as Christians we should emulate, that which we should seek to experience by the grace of God. Thank God for this letter. A faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that will produce work, a love for the Lord Jesus Christ that will produce labor, and a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ that will produce endurance. And see them carried out in the climate of a God consciousness that will make us men and women who do not play to the crowd, who do not seek to live a role that will get us in good standing before the eyes of our peers, but that we should walk in the fear of God and in the company of the Holy Spirit.
May God bless His word to our hearts. Let's pray.
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