BROADCASTS.com

We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

Many Christians are familiar with the triad of faith, love and hope as found at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 where it is written, \u201cAnd now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love\u201d (13).

What we may not know is that these three appear several other times in the letters written to the early church. In our text the apostle is telling the Thessalonian church about how he and Silas are praying for them. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

John Calvin once wrote that these three, faith, love and hope, are a brief definition of the Christian faith. Here, we discover just how valuable they are to us Christians. Each of them pulls us out of ourselves into different directions. Faith directs our attention towards God. Christian faith is, of course, faith in God. But it is worth noting because we are easily tempted to have faith in ourselves. We live as if our survival depends on us, not on God.

Love directs our attention towards other people, our neighbours, as Jesus once said. Again, it should be obvious, but it always bears repeating, Christians are called to love both those of the Christian fellowship and our neighbours beyond the church. This love is concrete. It is not a feeling, it is action. So, at the end of the day we need to ask ourselves, \u201cHow have I loved the church today? How have I loved my neighbour today?\u201d

Hope directs our attention towards the future. This is not the same as an optimist who believes everything will turn out alright. Rather, it looks for signs of the emerging kingdom of God and participates in activities that bring that kingdom. Christians act in compassion not for simple humanitarian reasons, but because we long for the kingdom. It is our desire to lay up treasures in heaven.

This hope also helps us keep going when we face opposition or even indifference. Hope gives us endurance. It seems to be human nature to question ourselves when things don\u2019t go our way. But we believe the kingdom of God is coming so we continue on even when there are no results. We persevere in loving difficult people because we do so out of faith, not for results. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. Because of his death and resurrection, the kingdom will come.

These three are all evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. They are part of our sanctification, that goal of the Christian to become more like Jesus. As sinful humans, we tend to become self absorbed: life is about me. The Holy Spirit leads us out of ourselves towards God, towards others and towards the future.

These three are not abstract. They are productive. Faith produces work, love labours and hope endures. True faith in God leads us to love others with real deeds. Otherwise, it is mere sentimentality, which often passes for love these days. These three together, faith, hope and love, make us a God orientated community.