Three Prays-Worthy Qualities

"Three Prays-Worthy Qualities"
1 Thessalonians 1:1-3

Standing in his tower, looking out over his kingdom, the midget king of the comic, “Wizard of Id,” observed, “Thanksgiving Day again.  And as I look out over my kingdom...I must pause to give thanks.”  After thinking it over, he left muttering to himself, “Thanks for nothing.”

There are people like that--people who find nothing to be thankful for.  They go through life bitter and depressed.  That’s why one of the qualities I admire about the apostle Paul is that he could write to each church he started, and no matter how bad the situation might be in that particular congregation, he found something for which he gave thanks to God.  Even in the church at Corinth--a church that created headache after headache for Paul--he still found many reasons to give thanks.  And so it is with the church at Thessalonica.

When Paul first went to Thessalonica, he had only been there three weeks, when opposition mounted.  A few Jews converted to Christianity, as did a number of non-Jews.  But those Jews who were repulsed by the Gospel, and out of a furious jealousy of Paul, hired what Phillips translation called, “...the unprincipled loungers of the marketplace.”  These people “gathered a crowd together and set the city in an uproar” (Acts 17:5).  Those who had come to believe in Christ, whisked Paul out of the hands of the crowd and got him safely out of town.

It wasn’t too long after that experience that Paul wrote this letter to the Thessalonian church, giving thanks to God.  For what?  For such a “great” reception?  No.  For the believers and what they were having to go through in order to hold on to their new-found beliefs, in a church that was in the stages of infancy.  He told the Thessalonian believers that he was thankful for three specific qualities he saw alive in them.  Let’s go through them together.


The first trait for which Paul gives thanks concerning the Thessalonian congregation was that their “...faith has meant solid achievement.”  The word Paul used that is translated, “solid achievement” has to do with the work you do in your occupation--your chosen vocation.  But it isn’t about what you accomplish in your work--how many widgets you sell, how many computers you fixed, how many miles of road you got paved, how many student’s papers you graded, etc.  What Paul is describing has more to do with the attitude with which you work.

When we ordain an Elder or Deacon or Minister in the church, one of the questions they are asked is, “Will you serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?”  That, I think, is what Paul was describing how the faith of the believers ignited some great qualities of how they worked, not what they did in their work.  Does your faith in Christ energize your working, rather than just sap you dry by the end of the day?  Does your work, because of your faith, use the full reaches of your mind and intellect?  Does your faith push you to stretch your imagination of what could be--of what is possible?  That’s what Paul was praising the Thessalonian believers about.

So the “solid achievements” weren’t things the believers were doing in the community--just yet.  It was what they were doing in themselves, first.  Then, as they changed as people, as individuals, they began to transform others around them.  By making individual changes, they then began to transform the culture around them.  Those are truly “solid achievements.”

During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, the British government began to run low on silver for coins.  Lord Cromwell sent his men on an investigation of the local cathedrals to see if they could find any precious metal there.  After investigating, the soldiers reported, “The only silver we could find is in the statues of the saints standing in the corners.”  To which Cromwell replied, “Good!  We’ll melt down the saints and put them into circulation!”

Our purpose as believers is not to stand in the corners of our churches and allow ourselves to be seen as only some kind of relics, who hold on to the same kind of relic faith.  Our attitude toward our faith is to one of an active energy, intelligence, imagination, and love, that gets us in circulation in order to transform the culture around us.


That leads well to the second quality that Paul gives thanks to God for in the Thessalonian congregation:  “...your love has meant hard work…”

This is a somewhat gruesome phrase in the Greek language that Paul wrote in.  Its most literal meaning of the phrase, “...has meant hard work…” is to suffer a beating and feel the bone weariness that such a beating causes.  In a more general meaning, it has the sense of the kind of exertion that brings on physical tiredness, almost to the point of collapse or exhaustion.

What Paul is praising God for, concerning the people in that congregation, is for developing the kind of love that doesn’t come easy; the kind of love which takes a beating, but is not beaten down.  As the old Timex watch commercial used to say, “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”

A church custodian was once asked how old he was.  “I’m 47,” he replied.
“But how long have you been working here at the church?” he was asked further.
“55 years,” he said in reply.
“And how could you do that?” the questioner asked.
“Overtime!” the custodian replied.

The kind of love exhibited by these Christians was “overtime” kind of love--above and beyond the call of duty.  Such love, by the nature and level of antagonism dished out by the culture in Thessalonica, had to be an overtime, extra mile kind of character.  We get the idea here that love is hard work, but also that the Christians worked hard because of their love.  The Good News translation has this phrase as, “...your love made you work so hard…”  It was for love, and out of love that the Christians kept up their work of sharing the Good News of the Gospel in the face of constant setback and abuse.  In fact, Paul went further.  To him, it was sheer joy.

Khalil Gibran, in his book, The Prophet , wrote,
Work is love made visible.  And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms from those who work with joy.

Work can only be a joy if love is the mainspring that keeps the whole thing wound and running.

If we love, it doesn’t matter what we are facing.  That is not just a romantically frilly statement either.  The kind of love Paul was being prays-worthy about to the Thessalonians was the kind that was willing to exert itself, the kind that was willing to work through exhaustion, the kind of love that was willing to roll up its sleeves and sweat.


The final prays-worthy quality for which Paul thanks God about the Thessalonian congregation was that, “...the hope that you have in our Lord Jesus Christ means sheer dogged endurance in the life that you live before God.”

This kind of endurance Paul is talking about is characterized by the ability to stand fast, while at the same time waiting, and being full of expectation.  It’s not just an anemic kind of perseverance.  It’s more an energetic (there’s that word again, like in the first quality--see how these are all tied together?)--it’s more an energetic kind of endurance.

Timothy Walker, in his book, The Stained Glass Gospel, told the story about a man who lives in Maine.  The man used to live in a little town named Flagstaff, which was flooded as part of a large dam and lake project carried out by the Army Corp of Engineers.  The man said the most painful part of the experience, besides relocation, was watching his hometown die.  He said all improvements and repairs ceased.  What was the use of painting a house which would be covered with water?  Why repair a building when the whole town would be wiped out?  Why worry about rubbish and potholes in the streets or graffiti on the walls?  So week after week, the whole town became more and more bedraggled and desolate.  Then he added this comment:  “When there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.”

Hope does focus itself on the future, but it must be lived out in the here and now.  That is what patience and endurance is all about.  What Paul is praising the Christians for is that he knows they have hope, because they are energetically resisting and enduring RIGHT NOW!  If, in the way they were living in the present was not demonstrated by such endurance, he would have known they had given up their hope.

A chaplain was talking with one of the soldiers of the army of the Potomac, who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.  He belonged to the Sixth Corps, the corps that made the famous march from Manchester to Gettysburg.  The soldier told the chaplain, that march, with the clouds of dust, the perspiration, the blood of wounded limbs trickling down into his boots, was the hardest experience of his whole long war service.

It is, often harder to march than it is to fight.  We know what to do with ourselves in tight skirmishes with the enemy.  We know what to do during the heat of the battle.  But the test of endurance in life is the long march of faith.  It is a march that all Christians have set out upon.  You will meet many others who have gone part of the way and turned aside.  You will have by your side many others who are ready to quit.  But always there are some who are going steadily forward, and who have no idea of anything but enduring to the end.  Of using every bit of their energy, intelligence, imagination and love to keep going.

And why is it that we are able to endure?  Here is how these three prays-worthy qualities intertwine.  We endure because of our faith in Jesus Christ—a faith that works, and achieves.  But it isn’t our faith as much as it is Whom our faith is in:  our Lord Jesus Christ.

When I lived in California, I discovered that it is one of the states that consistently rates toward the top in the country in terms of its percentage of suicides.  The reason sociologists and psychologists think that is so is because many people have gone to California with what has been a last hope scenario, either as to health or for personal fortune.  When that hope in a dream or hope in themselves failed them, life no longer held anything for them.

What Paul is saying is that we can be hopeful and endure because of who our faith is in—not some last gasp grasp at straws, either in California or anywhere else.  Instead it is an unashamed faith in Jesus Christ and our hard-working love for Him as Lord and Savior will be the only thing that keeps us enduring.