FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE: INSPIRATION FOR OUR SPIRITUAL WALK
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity...” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
“We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our
prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love,
and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our
Father; knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.” (1
Thessalonians 1:2-4).
In his first letter to the Corinthian church, the
Apostle Paul mentions the enduring quality of the “big three” Christian values
or virtues. The importance of these is
emphasized repeatedly throughout the New Testament, but in Thessalonians Paul
gives us some special insight into how they influence our walk with God.
Paul’s visit to Thessalonica was characterized by many
dangers which he and the local converts were exposed to because of the gospel
that he preached. He had entered the
synagogue in that city and for three weeks preached that Jesus Christ was Lord
to the Jews. Some Jews were converted by
Paul’s preaching, and even more Greeks and prominent women came to accept Jesus
as their Savior. Several other Jews,
however, were moved by envy and created an uproar in the city and assaulted the
house of Jason, a new convert, and drew him out before the crowd. It was Paul who the mob really wanted, but
they could not find him. When the young
believers realized the danger that Paul was in, they sent him on to the next
town which was Berea. In Berea, the
people received Paul’s preaching much more graciously, and studied the scripture
to see if it agreed with Paul’s message.
When the Thessalonian Jews heard that Paul was preaching in Berea, they
came there and stirred up the people against Paul. The new Christians in Berea therefore sent
Paul away to the seashore and from there to Athens for his safety. (Acts
17:1-15).
It is clear that the young church that Paul planted
in Thessalonica suffered a great deal of affliction and persecution from the
Jews, but also from the gentile unbelievers (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). Against this backdrop of history, Paul’s words
in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 take on a special significance. In this verse Paul mentions the three
enduring values of faith, hope, and love; and he gives us insight into their
influence over the quality of our walk with God.
Work of Faith
According to the Strong’s concordance, the word
“work” in this verse is translated from the Greek word “ergon” which means:
1) Business, employment, that with which anyone is
occupied.
1a) That which one undertakes to do, enterprise,
undertaking.
2) Any product whatever, anything accomplished by
hand, art, industry, or mind.
3) An act, deed, thing done: the idea of working is
emphasized in opposition to that which is less than work.
In other words, the Greek word “ergon” used in this verse refers to any and all of the works of
man of whatever sort they may be. What
Paul wants to remember and extol about these young Thessalonian believers,
though, is their work of faith. Man is full of many works, but they are not
all works that are born of faith. Only
those works that are born out of obedience to the Word of God are truly works
of faith. When my heart and ears are
open to the Word of God, and I respond by believing what God has spoken to me,
then there is some action or work that follows that faith (Romans 10:17). Faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26). There is always an active response to our
believing. It may be to abstain from
some sin, to witness to some individual, to go and help a friend, or to give
generously to relieve the poor. Our
faith becomes substance and evidence as we act on what we believe (Hebrews
11:1).
I worked for 42 years at a factory that made
laundry appliances. A year after I started
working there I became a Christian and my life was transformed. My friends and co-workers quickly noticed
changes that were taking place in my life.
My conversation was different, my habits were different, my choices were
different, and my reactions were different.
All of this was born out of the faith that I was placing in God’s
Word. The faith that I had was an
invisible force that no man could see, but it was having a profound effect on
my outward works, and everyone could see that.
So, we can say that it is faith that should inspire our works as
Christians. We often get the cart ahead
of the horse and think that our good works will validate our faith in God, but
it doesn’t work like that. “And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great
delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1Samuel 15:22). Our works, no matter how noble, only breed
pride and self-sufficiency; but works that are inspired by faith breed humility
and praise.
Labor of Love
We may think at first glance that the word “work,”
as in “work of faith,” and the word “labor” mean the same thing, but they
actually mean two very different things.
This is why it is sometimes helpful to refer to the meaning of the words
used in the original Bible languages.
According to the Strong’s concordance, the word “labor” in this verse
comes from the Greek word “kopos” which means:
1) A
beating.
2) A
beating of the breast with grief, sorrow.
3) Labor.
3a)
Trouble.
3a1) To
cause one trouble, make work for him.
3b)
Intense labor united with trouble and toil.
So, what Paul is also remembering and extolling
about these new believers is their willingness to endure the trouble and toil
that he knew was coming on them for Christ’s sake. The persecutions and even the beatings were
things that they had to labor through, and the thing that would inspire and
enable that was their love. Love is very
powerful. We love God only because He
first loved us, and He loved us when we were incapable of loving Him. Jesus set the example for us to follow. He loved His Father first and foremost, and
He loved the world more than He loved Himself.
We, too, must love our heavenly Father supremely and then our neighbor
as we love ourselves. This is the fuel
that fires our passion for Christ. Love
truly inspires our labors for the Lord.
There is much that a man will endure for love that he wouldn’t for any
other reason. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in
him. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we
in this world. There is no fear in love;
but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is
not made perfect in love. We love him,
because he first loved us” (1John 4:16b-19). It is our love for the Father that inspires
our love for mankind. This same love
will sustain us through the difficulties that arise from living out our
Christian life. Make no mistake, the
world will hate us if we are truly witnessing for Christ. If we hide our light under a bushel, we can
coexist quite well with the world, but if we let our light shine out in the
darkness around us, then the darkness will hate the light and ultimately seek
to extinguish it. We must keep focused
on the Lord during these dark times, and let our love of the Lord give us the
motivation to endure when our labors prove heavy. It is then that we can look up and know that
our redemption draws nigh.
Patience of Hope
This phrase may seem a little awkward to sort out,
but it is easier if we break it down.
Scripture tells us that there is only one way in which we can obtain
patience: that is by tribulation (James 1:3; Romans 5:3). Patience is the virtue that allows us to be
constant and steadfast while enduring different types of trials and
tribulations that come upon us in this world.
We all must face them because we are all going to experience them. Tribulation comes on all of God’s children.
Trials are not a sign or a punishment that we have been bad. Just as surely as the rain falls on the just
and the unjust alike, so does draught, floods, and hurricanes. This is our lot in this world. God doesn’t promise that all things will be
good for His children, but He does promise that all things will work together for good in the end.
The thing that inspires our patience in tribulation
is hope. It is the hope that we are in
the hands of a loving Father Who cares for us more than anything. It is the hope that His eye is always open to
our circumstance, and His ear is always open to our cry. It is the hope that He has prepared for us a
mansion, a home in heaven, where there will be no more crying, sickness, grief,
suffering, or death.
“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But
if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans
8:24,25). As we walk with the Lord, we
learn that we must patiently wait for the promises of God to be fulfilled in
our lives. It is a process of growth and
development that goes on for our whole lives.
The more we grow, the more our capacity to stretch and mature
increases. God is teaching us day by day
that we truly can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us. Peter reminds us that we should not think it
strange, or out of the ordinary, when we experience fiery trials in our
lives. We are not immune to fiery trials
just because we are Christians. Just as
the intense heat of the furnace and the blows of the blacksmith’s hammer bend
and transform the raw metal into something useful, so do our trials forge us
into vessels of honor for Master’s use.
This is our hope and this is our confidence in Christ.
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