Faith, Love and Hope - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

When someone tells you you have to do something and work, that's not true. In fact, once you add a single work to it, you destroy the grace of God. Remember the story of the Galatians. The Judaizers came and said, look, I know you want to be saved, but here's the point.

You do need to believe in Jesus and you do, that's nice, but that's not enough. You also have to be circumcised. You see, and if you're not circumcised, you can't be saved. And Paul went ballistic. He called it another gospel. He said, anyone that tells you that should be eternally cursed because he realized adding a single work to the grace of God destroys the grace of God. It's no longer grace.

It's something you earn. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again, he shows us how God's word meets our world. I'm not at all sure that you've had this thought.

I know you haven't had it probably as often as I have because I have it all the time. And that is, how would God evaluate our church? Not people. People evaluate churches and all kinds of crazy reasons. You know, well, I love that church because of the music.

I love that church because of the coffee shop. You know, I mean, it's just and pastors are no better. I've been around pastors for a long time and pastors would try to evaluate how well the church is doing based on either number of people attending, the size of the budget or how many buildings you have. And that will tell you how you're doing as you serve God.

But the Bible doesn't contain any criteria like that at all. But when you look at the New Testament, you find that there is a clear evaluation by God to how he evaluates a local church. And when you really think about it, and I have this past week, it not only evaluates the church, but it also evaluates the individual believer.

And how mature or immature you are. And I think as we go through these things, you might be just a little bit surprised in light of how we often evaluate ourselves and the church. Before I look at the church, I want to look at its inception and I want you to go with me to Acts Chapter 17, the book of Acts Chapter 17. This is Paul's second missionary journey.

Verse one. Now, when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul's custom, he went to them for three Sabbaths. And he reasoned with them from scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ or the Messiah had to suffer and rise again from the dead. And saying, this Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.

He is Christ. And some of them were persuaded and they joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of God fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women. But the Jews becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the marketplace, they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar and attacking the house of Jason. They were seeking to bring them out to the people when they did not find them. They began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities shouting. These men who have upset the world have come here also. And Jason has welcomed them. And they act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.

Now, don't miss the irony here. The Jews hate Caesar. They hate the Romans.

But they hate Christ more. And so that's why they're going to seem as though they're patriots to Caesar and they're not. They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things. And when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them. The pledge could have been a money pledge, a fine.

It could have been that we won't have them in our home again. They're not sure exactly what that meant when he says pledge. It says the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews once again as Paul's custom. And these were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men. But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul and Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds. And then immediately, the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea and Silas and Timothy remained there. That's the background of the birth of the Church of Thessalonica.

So now I invite you to open your Bible, turning your Bibles to First Thessalonians, chapter one. Thessalonica is a Greek city in Macedonia. It was established around 325 B.C. by a general named Cassandra.

He later became king of the Macedonians. It's a strategic city located in a very interesting spot. It's a big city for the ancient world that has about 200,000 people in the city of Thessalonica. William Barclay says, If Christianity was settled there, it was bound to spread east along the Ignatian road until all Asia was conquered.

And west until it stormed even the city of Rome. The coming of Christianity to Thessalonica was crucial in making in the making of Christianity as one of the great world religions. It's an interesting city.

It's a very strategic city, but there's something more important about it. It's the best church in the New Testament. If you looked at all the different churches in Paul's journey, you said, what's the best church?

It's Thessalonica. This is a really solid church, has very few problems in it at all. And so Paul was writing to them and he's going to give us this hint of how God evaluates a church and ours. He starts out and says, Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy.

Now, that makes some sense. The first missionary journey was Paul and Barnabas. But Barnabas and Paul had an argument after it about John Mark. Barnabas took John Mark and Paul took Silas. And then Timothy is Paul's young disciple.

He's from Lystra. He was raised by a godly mother and grandmother. And he says to them, to the church in Thessalonica, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice the equivalency of the two. God the Father, Lord Jesus Christ, the church is in both. Grace to you and peace. And Paul says, we give thanks to God always for all of you making mention of you in our prayers. And then he says something here that is when you read it first, you don't think about it much. But once you think about it, it's very profound.

He said, constantly bearing in mind. Your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father. This is how God measures the church. This is how God measures our church. This is how God measures your maturity. This is the measurement that God uses. And it's an interesting thing.

Three different things are mentioned here. The first one is your work of faith. That seems paradoxical, doesn't it? Doesn't it sound like you're making works in faith?

Well, it's not paradoxical. The word work there is the word ergon. And it means deeds, almost always good deeds. He's saying your deeds, your good deeds of your faith. The first thing he said is the work of your faith.

Now, to show you it's not paradoxical, hold your place. There will be coming right back and go with me to Ephesians Chapter two in verse eight. Ephesians two, just a few pages to your left and verse eight. And these are about the simplest, most profound verses in the Bible about salvation, you'll find.

Paul says in verse eight. For by grace, you have been saved, have been as a past tense, as perfect results go on forever. For by grace, you have been saved. It is grace that saves you. Grace is chorus.

It means a gift. You by the gift of God, you have been saved. He said through faith, that's our part.

He says, and that is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. The salvation is a gift of God.

You see, it's a gift for by grace, you have been saved. Now, he said, maybe you still don't get it. Maybe I'll be clear, not as a result of works so that no one can boast. When someone tells you, you have to do something and work.

That's not true. In fact, once you once you add a single work to it, you destroy the grace of God. Remember the story of the Galatians, the Judaizers came and said, look, I know you want to be saved, but here's the point. You do need to believe in Jesus and you do.

That's nice, but that's not enough. You also have to be circumcised. You see, and if you're not circumcised, you can't be saved.

And Paul went ballistic. He called it another gospel. He said, anyone that tells you that should be eternally cursed because he realized adding a single work to the grace of God destroys the grace of God.

It's no longer grace. It's something you earn. Now, where do works come in? Of course, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You see, you're saved by grace and grace alone through faith and faith alone. But the faith that saves you is never alone. It results in works. Now back to Thessalonians.

Think about this. This is where James wrote. James wrote his whole epistle about this. And a lot of Christians I've met over the years really don't like James. They think it's a bad book, but it's not.

It's a great book. But James isn't talking about being saved. James is talking about what does faith produce. That's why James said faith without works is dead. That's just dead faith.

He said that's just dead. You see, and that makes sense. That's exactly what the word of God tells us. Now, what's interesting is that what he says here is constantly bearing in mind your work of faith. In other words, your deeds of faith. If you just talk faith.

I'm suspicious. You see, because once you're born again into the family of God and the Spirit of God takes up residency in you, and he takes up residency, you're indwelt forever by the Spirit of God. It should produce something, shouldn't it? You see, God has invaded your life. Something should happen with your life. And our faith can't be reduced to, no, no, I don't have any. My life has nothing to do with good deeds at all.

My life is just telling people the truth. I'd be leery of that. You see, I'd be suspicious of that. Now, to the degree of works, that's between you and God. That'd become legalistic to start saying you need to come up with 26 of them or something.

No, you don't have to do that. I'm not talking about that. But he says, notice your work of faith.

That's what happens. Your deeds of faith. One of the deeds they have is they're extremely persecuted. The Jews hate them.

And the Romans don't like them either, because the Jews hate them and cause trouble for Rome. And so they're persecuted, and yet they persevere. That's a good work. That's a deed. So he calls it the work of faith. Then secondly, he says this, and the labor of love. Your labor of love. The word labor is kopos. And that's a great word to describe this kind of love.

Kopos, as a verb, simply means this, to be weary to the point of exhaustion. Notice he didn't just say you have love. He said, no, your labor of love.

Weary to the point of exhaustion, love. Now, see, that makes some of us uncomfortable, because isn't it easier for us to just tell everybody we love them? Love you, man. Love you. You ever need anything, let me know, but I'm going to a ballgame right now.

But hey, if you ever need something, just let me know. But I love you, man. You see, that's not kopos. You see, kopos is different than that.

Kopos, he said, is to the point of exhaustion. He said, just like he wrote to the Philippians, you people consider everybody else as more important than yourselves. You live for other people. By the way, churches don't always do this. If Thessalonica is the best church in the New Testament, the worst church in the New Testament by a mile is Corinth. It's a terrible church. If you could do something wrong as a church, the Corinthians did it wrong. Everything you could do wrong, they did wrong, all the way through the book. But you know what it is they completely lacked that made everything go wrong in their church? They didn't love each other. They didn't love people. They were proudful and arrogant.

You see, that was their problem. Again, you can hold your place and go to 1 Corinthians 13. The Corinthians had great wealth.

It was a large church. They had big numbers, and they were carnal, fleshly, weak, childish. When he said they were carnal, Paul said to them, you know, when I look at your lives and I look at the life of an unbeliever pagan Greek, it's the same.

I can't see any difference in you at all. But they had all the gifts. In fact, they completely wrecked their church with the way they viewed the gifts. So Paul's writing in that section about the gifts. And he says, look, you people don't understand something. You think that if you had a certain gift, you'd be spiritual.

You see, and in our case, it was glossileia or tongues. If you had a gift that made you spiritual, absolutely not. You see, he said that has nothing to do with spirituality.

So he gets to chapter 13. He says this. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. Now, please understand everything you said is hyperbole. I've actually heard some guy say, you know, I I know now that glossileia meant you spoke like angels speak.

That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying, but even if I could speak like an angel speaks, if I had an angel language, watch if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I become a noisy gong or a clinging symbol symbol. All I make is noise. That's all I do. I just make noise. That's all I do. There's no there's nothing coming here if I don't have love. I don't have anything else. Even if you speak our language and you don't have love, you don't have anything else but noise.

And neither do I. You see, that's what Paul was saying. Next, he goes on. If I have the gift of prophecy, now watch the hyperbole and know all mysteries and all knowledge. Now, who knows all mysteries and all knowledge?

Only God. So he's not saying, hey, if you have the gift of prophecy, you know everything. He's not saying that.

He chooses hyperbole. He said, if I have all faith, notice faith. So as to remove mountains. Now, I love that because remember in scripture, Jesus said, if you had enough faith, you could move a mountain. Paul says, I'll take it a step further. If you have enough faith, in my example, you can remove the mountain. I have faith that mountain is gone and it vanishes. Now, you and I would say, wow, that's really something.

Paul said, yeah, if I had faith, it could do that. But do not have love. I'm nothing. You see, absolutely nothing. Not a little.

I'm nothing. He then says, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor and I surrender my body to be burned, but I don't have love, it profits me nothing. No matter how much I do for people, no matter how much I work, if I don't have love, it doesn't profit me at all.

That's how important the labor of love is. And then Paul says this. Now, notice the context in which Paul said it. And you and I and I got to say I do it, too. But you and I, when do you often hear this? At a wedding, man. This is for the bride and groom. This isn't for the bride and groom. This is for you and me.

This is for the church. You see, that's what he's saying. Love is patient. Love is kind. It's not jealous.

Love does not brag. It's not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly. Does not seek its own. It's not provoked.

It does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness. It rejoices in the truth.

Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love endures all things.

Love never fails. That's how important that was to Paul. You see, that's what love is, and the Corinthians didn't have any of it. Even back in Chapter 11, when they had the Lord's table and the agape feast on Sunday evenings, there was no love. So they knew that all of the poor people and the slaves couldn't come until Sunday evening.

They'd come late because they had to work. So those people who were the haves versus the have-nots, they'd get together, have the agape feast together, and do the Lord's table before the other people got there so they could eat all the food. Now, Paul says when you do the Lord's table that way, that's why many of you are sick and some of you sleep, which means you've been killed by the Lord, a sin unto death. They had no love at all. That's what this church did. They didn't have a labor of love.

Now we can go back to Thessalonians. Jesus Christ was asked by his enemies trying to trap him. If you could summarize the whole Testament, but if you could come up with one law that's greater than the others, what would it be?

They thought he'll say, well, you can't do that. Jesus said that's not a problem. You'll love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You'll love your neighbor as yourself.

He said everything is inside of that. That's how important the labor of love is. You see, that's how important this idea is, the labor of love.

It's that important. Jesus even took it a step further and makes us uncomfortable. I not only have to love God and I have to love you and I have to love the lost, but I also have to love my enemies.

Now that's just going too far. You see, that's the supernatural love of Christ. While we were still enmity with God, his enemy, God loved us so much he sent his son into the world. This is the love of God.

That's what he's talking about. Paul said later in another scripture, the love of Christ controls me. I do what I do because of the love of Christ.

So he says, you have the work of faith, you have the labor, you have to the point of exhaustion, you consider other people as better than you. You demonstrate it by the way you love them. Do you demonstrate it? Do you demonstrate this love to people?

Do we do it collectively, but do you do it? That's important for us because God's evaluation of you is different than you think. God doesn't think you're a mature Christian because you spend 15 minutes every morning reading your way through scripture. He doesn't think you're a mature Christian because you have a perfect attendance. That kind of thing is not how God evaluates you.

He's going to evaluate you by the deeds of your faith, by the labor of your love. You see, that's what he wants to know. What are you really doing? Not what you're learning.

What are you doing with it? Then thirdly, he said, and the steadfastness of hope. The steadfastness of hope. That word steadfastness is different. Steadfastness to us means it's steady, but that's not exactly what steadfastness means in Greek.

The word is hupomone. It's a compound Greek word, and it means in this sense to stay under the pressure. Whatever pressure is being put on you, you just stay there.

That's steadfastness. He said you stay under the pressure of hope. Ellipsis is the word hope, and I've told you this over the years. That word hope doesn't mean cross your fingers and hope. That word hope means a future certitude.

This is a future certitude, something I know is going to happen. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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