Committed To Christ

I Thessalonians 1

1. Have works - Our works follow us. Our works are a testimony of our faith. 

2. Labor of love - I Corinthians 13:4-7

3. Patience - discipleship works daily

Refuge Ministries International is an incorporated ministry for non-profit a 501 (c)(3) spreading the message that you can have a Legacy of Freedom in Jesus Christ.  We are listener supported by donations at paypal.me/refugeministriesint and Cash App $refugeministriesint

We sincerely appreciate all monetary gifts and words of encouragement. You can find us on Facebook.
For questions about this topic or prayer request you reach us at refugeministriesint@gmail.com and   
P.O. Box 483 Jonesboro, La. 71251
 
 
 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thankful for the ordinances of the church and communion. And I'm so glad Brother Blake said it before Brother Rusty stood up here and he pointed to the communion table and he said, you know, Jesus said, as often as we do this, right? And so I'm thankful that our Lord is not one who was and is no longer with us, but he is with us. I read this morning to the end of the age. Amen. He'll never leave us or forsake us. He is with us. And I'm so thankful that we have that blessed assurance that one day in his kingdom we're going to eat at the Lord's table. Amen. It's going to be every nation, tribe, and tongue. There are going to be people that we we've never been in that culture, but they're going to be there at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Amen. And I'm looking forward to that. I I have a reservation to you. Amen. I've got a place, you know, when we go to an important event, there's usually a table set for you, and it'll have your name on it. The party that's supposed to be sitting here. And I just we have a seat and we have a mansion in his kingdom. And I'm I believe it. If it were not true, you would have told us it wasn't true, but it's true. Amen. So it's good to make uh the acquaintance of the bishop and the presbyter of this church. And I've heard about you. Matter of fact, Brother Blake had told me that you periodically came. And because I have questions sometimes, and I ask about the oversight of the church. And so I submit to the oversight and the authority that God's placed in his kingdom. Amen. And I honor. I heard an evangelist once, and he was more of a charismatic evangelist, but he said when he went into a nation, he always reached out to the ministers or the pastors or leaders there. And he said he came to work alongside them, not to work against them or to undermine their work. And that's always been my heart is to stand with the Church of Jesus Christ. And what we agree on is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He's the only way to the Father. Amen. And no one comes to the Father unless the Father draws them, and Jesus is the door. And I'm thankful for that. And so glad that we we have open communion to all believers. Amen. Sister Dawana, and it's so good to have you back. We've said it, we're just going to keep saying it. Because you have been through the wilderness of trials and tribulation, but we believe the Lord's given you a new season of blessing and just health and overcome. You've overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony. Amen. And so we're thankful for that. And we're going to be in the epistle to the Thessalonians this morning. First Thessalonians. It's always good to be here. It does us well. It does my heart good to be able to be here with you. It encourages me to seek people who are hungry for the word of the Lord and who love God. And so we're going to be in 1 Thessalonians chapter number 1. I'm going to read the whole chapter. It's only 10 verses, so bear with me on these ten verses, and that way we'll have a good context to draw from. Paul and Sylvanus and Timothy unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you, for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and your labor 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, for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Ghost. So that ye were examples to all who that believe in Macedonia and Achae. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only at Macedonia and Achaea, but also in every place your faith to faith to Godward is spread abroad, so that we need not speak anything. For they themselves show us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you for the Holy Spirit and the help that he gives us today. I ask you, Lord, take your word and magnify it in our understanding. Help me, Lord, to deliver in such a way that would honor you, that would bless your people, and that would carry us through the journeys ahead. We ask it in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And everyone said, Amen and Amen. The Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the Thessalonians, who we understand is a church that is persecuted. A church that is that is in what we would say now as modern-day Greece, but they are suffering great persecution for the faith. And I don't think it's any consolation to you today that we suffer for the faith, but we need to remind ourselves that there is a suffering that we as Christians will come into as believers. We will have people that will reject us, or people that will ostracize us, or people that would even attack us. I see it now that even in places like Nigeria, there are people who are still laying down their lives because of their faith. But the Bible is telling us here that Paul is reminding the Thessalonians that he always prays for them and remembers them in his prayers, and he remembers some specific things about them. He remembers that their work is a work of faith, that their labor is a labor of love, and their patience is a hope in their Lord Jesus Christ. One of the best church mission statements I've ever come across was this statement. It says, turning irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ. You could put it this way: turning heathenistic people into disciples of Jesus. There is a change when you come to the kingdom of God. When you are born again by the Spirit, God is sanctifying us by the Holy Spirit. He is making us a new man or a new woman by the help of the Holy Spirit. And these people had an example or a testimony that they were truly God's children. They were people that stood out in their community. And today I believe there's some people here that you stand out in your community. You stand out in your workplace as a believer. You have the fruit that you are a Christian today. I'm going to go through some things and hopefully it's going to resound with you today that we are God's children. Amen. That was the message that Paul was declaring. He says, we continually thank God, mentioning you in our prayers and remembering you are fully devoted followers of Christ. Not just in the good times, not in the easy times, but fully devoted. That means we've made a decision to follow Jesus. And as the old song says, where you go, I will follow. Though none go with me, I still will follow you. And that's the testimony of every born-again believer that He saved me, He loved me, I must go where He goes. Amen. I must follow Christ. And if none go with me, still, I must follow Jesus. And I believe today what God is doing, he is turning people who were not religious people, they were not following God, but when they come into a relationship with Jesus, they are becoming fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. The young man that Brother Todd played the song, David Crowder, if you don't know who that is, he started playing his guitar at the university because there was no worship. I don't know if it was Chi Alpha or what meeting they had, but he just began to worship God and begin to sing, not understanding that his ministry would be filling the world with songs to Jesus. We never understand in the very beginning what God's going to do with our life. But when we're committed to Jesus Christ and we follow him, God has a plan and a purpose for our life. It is always to glorify Jesus Christ. It's always to honor God. It's always, I remember of visiting with Christian people, and we always come to a place of testimony of how God is working in our life to testify to non-believers. My mother's a great example of that. She carries little paper gospel tracts in her purse to this day. That was a big thing when I was a young man. Gospel tracts. How many know what I'm talking about? It makes me sound a chaic, but there were gospel tracts that we would give them to people with have a little simple gospel message that they could take that and we'd pray over it and we would pray the Holy Spirit deal with their heart. Mom still will be rifling in her purse at the grocery store, looking for a track to give someone because she's inspired by the Holy Spirit because of her work of faith. If she didn't believe that, she wouldn't share the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we want people to know this Savior who will save their soul and bring them into a kingdom that will never end. And so Paul is speaking of their example, and he's saying that your example has gone abroad that I hear what people are saying about you. This city was a city of about 200,000 people located on a major Roman road. And there was a diverse group of people made up of a small number of Jews and a large number of Gentiles, mostly Greek, who were polytheist, who had turned away from their idols, and now were serving the only true living God. And there were several prominent women in this church at Thessalonia. How many know that understand that God uses men and women in the kingdom work? These women were business women. And they were going to prayer, and Paul meets them in a place that they are seekers of God, but not seekers of the true God. But when we reveal Jesus Christ by the help of the Holy Spirit, the eyes of and understanding of men can be open and they can come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And then their work is no longer to gain influence for money. Now their work is promoting the gospel of Jesus Christ. And despite the persecution from the very beginning in this church, Paul is praising these believers for staying strong and becoming a positive example to other believers in Greece. I wrote this: they are fully devoted followers of Christ. Let that be our testimony that we are following hard after Jesus. We're fully committed to Christ. Number one, if we're committed to Christ, we will have a work of faith. This is not to be confused with working to be saved. Amen. For we're saved by grace through faith alone. Faith alone in Christ Jesus will save you. You can add nothing, I can add nothing to the work that Christ has finished. But as followers of Christ, as born-again believers of Christ, we do have works. Our works follow us. Amen. Everything that we do for Christ has an eternal significance. Here's what I, as I begin to think about this sermon today, I this is my analogy, so just bear with me. Faith is like the sail of a ship. You ever saw ever been on a sailboat? Faith is like the sail that is moved by the power of the wind. The sail works because of the wind. But the sail must be raised in order to utilize the force of the wind. The work of faith is evident in the moving forward of the church. If we are people of faith, then God is going to move us into the places that are going to honor him and glorify him and be a blessing to others to come to know Jesus Christ. So here's what Alistair Begg said. Faith simply reaches out the empty hand to receive what God has provided it through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. I like that. Faith is the empty hand reaching out to receive what God has provided for us. But as we receive what God has given us through Jesus Christ, every time we come to God in faith, we can see the work fulfilled. The testimony of the work is not our ingenuity or sheer determination, but it is the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ. It is not how hard I can work, it is simply that I obey God and God blesses the work because of my faith.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Amen. Right?

SPEAKER_01 15:41

We measure ourselves by ourselves, and scripture tells us this is not wise. We should measure ourselves by the word of God. The word of God is our standard. The word of God encourages us to put our hope in nothing but Jesus Christ. Amen. Not my abilities, not my wisdom, not my influence, not my finances, but Jesus Christ. And so when I put my faith in Jesus Christ, that faith will work 100% of the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Does it mean that we don't go through challenges?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Amen, Sister Dewana. Does it mean that we don't go through hardships or sometimes doubting seasons of wondering if God is even with us? But the truth of the matter is that faith works when it is in Jesus Christ. My faith will have works. And I know that God has given us faith in his son that we have a kingdom which cannot be shaken. Do you know that's scripture? The word of God says we have received, are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, so we can walk by faith in Jesus Christ. And their work was a testimony of their faith. I don't want to bring this into this congregation today.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Your work, my work is a testimony of our faith. And we should sharpen our faith through the scripture. Because faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It is very important that we stay with the word.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Amen. One evangelist said we beg we we begin with Jesus, we continue with Jesus, and we stay with Jesus. We begin with the word, we stay with the word, and we we finish with the word, right? We must build upon this foundation of faith in Jesus Christ. Secondly, their work or it's it's almost so similar. The words that the apostle uses in his letter. He says, your work of faith, but then he says your labor of love.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

It's similar, but it's not exact. Work is different from labor.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

It means a cut, a toil as reducing strength, liter literally or figuratively, by implication, listen to what he said. Pains, labor plus trouble, plus weariness.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

That's labor. That means let's say the old country adage that I was working like a dog. Well, you weren't working like a dog, you were laboring. Difficult, tedious, strenuous, weariness.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

And then Paul uses this word to describe the Thessalonians showing that their love was a labor of love. Now, what does this mean? It simply means that it is genuine Christian labor of love, authentic Christians. This means that we move beyond religion, we move beyond doctrines, rules, and rituals into the life-changing experience of intimately connecting with Jesus Christ. It means it's not a surface relationship, it's something that has that's been worked out, it has been tedious, but you have come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is all that the Bible says he is, and yet you have a personal relationship with him.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And now the love that is coming from you has fruit. And the fruit of the Spirit is love. Starts with love. The greatest commandment is to love God, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

The Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength. And the second Jesus said to the lawyer is comparative, the love of your neighbor is yourself. The Ten Commandments they deal with honoring God and loving God in the first part of the Ten Commandments and honoring and loving your neighbor and other humankind and the second part of the Ten Commandments. Love is the royal law. And sometimes, as Christians, the most difficult and exalting, exhausting thing for us to do is to love out of a pure heart. Amen. To love the unlovable, to love the unruly, to love those who despise you and reject you and hurt you and ostracize you and say all manner of evil against you to love those. You say, God, that is exhausting, but this is the testimony of the church at Thessalonia that they loved, they had a labor of love, and they were living, they were living in a place that persecuted them, but they were willing to love the love of Christ. Oh God, help me to love as Christ loves. Not just when it's comfortable or convenient or in my my favor or best interest, but to love at all all times. I was talking to someone this week who had suffered. Rejection from her church. I didn't know the details.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

I just knew that she had left her local church and and in speaking with her, she began to share with me some things that were said, hurtful things.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Things that cut all the way to her soul, things that no Christian should ever say about another Christian, that she was wounded.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

And God reminded me of the scripture that says how how blessed it is when brethren dwell together in unity. When you love someone, you're in unity with them.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

You're not divided, you love them, you care for them, you want to see them healed and helped. And he said it's like the oil that ran down, the anointing oil that ran down from Aaron's head, upon his beard, down his garments, down to his feet. That holy anointing oil that flowed over the great high priest is the oil of the Spirit that flows over God's church. And if we are the children of God, that oil flows through us to flow and help other people. And even those who persecute us, we have the ability as Christians to love as Jesus loved.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

We have the ability to respond as the world would respond. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

But our testimony is we have a labor of love.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I asking God for my life to help me to be a man who loves at all times. Remember the little song we sang in children's church?

SPEAKER_01 23:58

He's still working on me. To make me what I ought to be. It took him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the moon and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient he must be.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

He's still working on me. Is he still working on? You see, as we yield ourselves to God, he works. Faith works. We labor in love.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

And I like what he said in 1 Corinthians 13. When love is the motive, it has its fruit. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7. I'm just gonna, it's not verbatim, but I'm gonna read it. He said uh one translation said, Love suffers long, it's kind, does not envy, love does not parade itself, it is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And then he said, Love never fails. It's a labor, but it works. And those who were laboring, they weren't laboring without hope because the apostle says that you have the patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to ask you this morning. Did Jesus promise that he would go and prepare a place for us? That where he is, we may be also. And did he promise that if he went away, he would come again to receive us unto himself, that where he is, we shall be with him always. That's a promise. John 14. Well, they believed that promise. They had the blessed hope. And here's what patience, the dictionary, defines patience as the calm ability to wait. Oh, endure delays or face hard times without getting angry or upset. I'll be the first to say my patience is very thin some days. Amen. But it means staying peaceful when things are slow, difficult, or annoying. We need patience. We need patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, that while we wait, we don't grow weary. While we wait, we rejoice in the hope that God will answer and that God will help us in the right season, the right time. I wrote this down as I thought about patience and hope at the Thessalonians of the first century, uh, the first church. Here's what I wrote discipleship develops daily, not in a day. Do you agree? I told the men at Adult Teen Challenge Friday night, I said, salvation, we're saved when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, but it's a process, not an event, that God is changing us. I would really like God to change me all at once. I would really like God to get through with me on the day that I say, I will follow you, Jesus, but he is working in me and working out of me the things that need to be worked out. And discipleship develops daily. And I want you to think about this scenario or this story as you think about God is changing us and working in us and how he started with us where we were, but how he has a purpose and where he's bringing us. In John Maxwell's book, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he writes of a of a lady named Anne Scheiber. Never heard of Ann Scheiber, but he shares with us a little story about her. She was 101 years old when she died in January 1995. For years she'd lived in a tiny run-down, rent-controlled studio apartment in Manhattan. Paint on the walls was peeling. The old bookcase that lined the wall was covered in dust. Rent was $400 a month. Shiver lived on Social Security in a small monthly pension, which she started receiving in 1943 when she retired as an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service. She hadn't done very well at the IRS. More accurately, the agency hadn't done right by her. Despite having a law degree, doing excellent work, she was never promoted. And when she retired at the age of 51, she was only making $3,150 a year. Shiver was quite the model of thrift. Benjamin Clark said she was treated very shabbily. He knew her as well as anyone did, and she had really had to fend for herself in every way. He said it was quite a struggle. She didn't spend money on herself. She didn't buy furniture as the old pieces she owned became worn out. She didn't even subscribe to a newspaper. About once a week, she would go to the public library and read the Wall Street Journal. Imagine the surprise of Norman Lamb, the president of Yeshiva University in New York City, when he found out that Anne Schreiber, a little old lady whose name he had never heard, who had never attended Yeshiva University, left nearly her entire estate to the university. When I saw the will, it was mind-blowing. Such an unexpected windfall. This woman had become a legend overnight. The estate of Anne Schiber left to the university was almost $22 million.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

He said, How did a spinster who retired at 50 build an eight-figure income?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

By the time Ann had retired, she managed to save $5,000. She invested the money in stocks. By 1950, she had made enough profit to buy 1,000 shares of, and I've never heard of this corporation, sharing plow corporation, then valued the stock was valued at $10,000. And she held on to that stock, letting its value build. No shares split enough enough times to produce 128,000 shares worth 7.5 million. The secret to Schreiber's success, she spent most of her life building her worth. The secret to your testimony is that most of your life, God is building the worth of Jesus Christ in you. It may start out with what seems like I can't, I can't make anything out of this. $3,150 a year to live on is not very much in the United States. And sometimes we feel as believers, what I have as a Christian is not enough to carry me through the life that I need to live for Jesus Christ. But I'm here to remind you today, just as Paul wrote a letter to these Thessalonians, reminding them that they're never ceasing the work of faith for Jesus Christ. They are constantly laboring in love and they have patience and hope for Jesus Christ. We too, as God's children, have a testimony that with God, God is working in our lives. I'm here to encourage you today, church. This church has the potential of every other church to grow in Jesus Christ, to touch lives in our community, to see lost come to know Jesus Christ, to have the Lord say to us when we stand before Him, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Amen. I believe today that we're not here by accident, but we're here to hear the word of God for our lives, saying, God says, just like he said to this church, I see and I hear the testimony of your work and of faith, your labor of love and your patient hope in Jesus Christ. And I want to hear the same testimony of my life. God says to me today, I see that you are working in faith. The issues we have in the world has crept over to the church. Remember in the world when we were growing up, we would hear the old adage, trying to keep up with the Joneses? Anyone? They're trying to keep up with the Joneses. The the Jones Joneses had maybe had a little better automobile than and then we bought one because listen, that's not the church. We're not competing against one another in the church. We're simply running the race.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Fighting the good fight. Keeping the faith.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Making a difference. I I wrestle with that. Feeling like I don't make a difference at times. Amen. But the truth of the matter is the most important piece of the puzzle is the picture on the box. You'll get it later. It's not the edges, it's not the last piece, it's the picture on the box because if you don't know what it looks like, it's going to be a difficult time putting that puzzle together. But when you understand what the picture is and what it looks like to be a Christian, to understand that you are going to work in faith and you're going to labor in love just as they were persecuted. We will find ourselves persecuted. But we're going to see the picture is that the patience of hope in Jesus Christ is that one day this race is going to be finished.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

And the picture is going to be kingdom can never be shaken. Maybe you felt that way recently, that your life was being shaken. Things aren't working. The labor's too difficult. But today, I want to leave you with a new picture. That you can look at the truth.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Until it is complete. And we sing the song of the lamb before the throne together.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Father, I thank you that you did not leave us comfortless. I thank you, Lord, that you sent the Holy Spirit to abide with us, to lead us and to help us and to guide us and to strengthen us. To encourage us. That the Spirit would strengthen us. That we would see the picture.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

That we are receiving a kingdom that will never be shaken. That we will live in all eternity. Worshiping. Beholding your face. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for helping us.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Thank you for your word. We give you the praise for it today. For it is our help and our strength in Jesus Christ. Amen and amen. Praise the Lord. Well, that's a conclusion to today for the Word of God. But it's not the end of the matter. Amen. Aren't you glad that you serve a living Savior? Praise the Lord, Brother Rusty. It is so good to meet your acquaintance and have you all today. Thank you for offering the sacraments of the Lord, the Lord's Supper today. That's been on my mind since I've been coming here about the communion, because it is the commandment of the Lord. Amen. And uh thank you for coming.