“Well Remembered” – FBC Morning Light (9/13/2023)

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading, we're looking at Isaiah 33 and 34, 1

Thessalonians chapter 1 and Proverbs 12. Let me ask you this.

We want to look at a couple of verses in 1 Thessalonians 1, but let me ask you this.

What is most memorable to others about your life and your life's work?

So, in other words, if you could sit around with a group of your friends and family, maybe three or four people, you wouldn't want it to be too large a group, and you could ask the question, confident that they would give you honest answers, you could ask the question, when you think about me and my life, not the last week, but my life as a whole, what comes to mind?

What do you remember? What comes into your mind when you think about that?

That's a good question to ponder. I'm motivated to think that way from what

Paul writes to the Thessalonians in this first chapter and verses 2 and 3.

He says, we give thanks to God always for you. Now, there's a good question to ask ourselves.

Do people as a whole that know me, do they give thanks for me?

Do they thank God for my life, the way I'm living it, the way I interact with them?

I hope they can. I'm sure they can. But nevertheless, it does give us reason to pause.

Then he goes on to say, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing.

Okay, so here's the thing. Here's what Paul says, here's what I remember about you. When I think about you Thessalonians, here's what comes to mind.

I remember your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in our

Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved, your election by God.

Paul is commending these people. He says, I'm thankful for you. I know that you are the elect of God, that God has chosen you as his children.

But here's what I remember about you. I remember your work of faith, your work of faith.

On the one hand, that could be referring to their coming to faith in Christ, and how they exercised faith in Christ.

But I think on the other hand, it's probably referring to work that is prompted by and motivated by faith.

Work that is carried out because of the faith, because of their faith in God and in what he's doing.

For example, if these Thessalonian believers did face persecution, if in the face of persecution they were confident in God and had their faith and trust in him and his providence and his purposes and so forth, they would work out that faith by standing firm, by carrying on in their everyday life as a

Christian, not afraid to assert that they are Christians and so forth.

Their work of faith. Do people think of me, remember me, think of my life as one that is marked by a work of faith?

And then he says, I also remember your labor of love. Your labor of love. This could be referred to as labor that's prompted by love, or it could be referred to as labor that is done in love.

Either one of those are good questions to consider. But think about work that is done in love.

Do I labor in love, or do I labor under a weight of duty, laborious burdensome duty, obligation?

I've known people, and I want to warn you against this attitude. I've known some believers who have had the attitude that their everyday,

Monday through Friday, eight to five job is just a pain in the neck.

It's just a burden that they have to bear, and the only reason they get up and go to work, the only thing that motivates them is so they can have some kind of an income from which they can support the church and support the work of the ministry, but that's about it.

Let me encourage you to look at your work, your everyday work, differently. Go to work in love, in love for your neighbor, love for your co -workers, in love for your

God who has given you this job, in love for your family who is depending upon you to do a good job, and so on.

We can go through all of that. But a labor of love. My known for, laboring in love.

And then he says, I remember your patience or your steadfast endurance of hope in our

Lord Jesus Christ. You know where this comes into play? Whenever there is a national catastrophe or an international incident that is threatening and fearful, it also comes into play in our own personal lives when a hardship comes our way, we suffer in some way, we get sick, we get a bad diagnosis, a diagnosis we don't like, or something of that nature.

When there's a financial reversal, etc., etc., these hard things, these difficult things come.

Is the way we respond to those things reflective of a steadfast hope in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Not only in His coming someday, but in His ongoing intercessory, high priestly work in my life.

Do I have that kind of a hope? Or is my response one more of complaining and and ringing and fear and anxiety and worry?

Or do I deal with the fear and the anxiety and the worry with the truth of the steadfast hope that I can have in Christ?

These are some good questions for us to ponder. They get us to think about how we live our lives and what kind of a legacy we leave behind, and how others would remember us.

So, I trust that we will be remembered for our work of faith, our labor of love, and our steadfast hope in our

Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father and our God, I pray that that would be characteristic of our lives, and we pray this in Jesus' name.