Well, as I intimated last week, we want to begin a short series on 1 Thessalonians. It's a small book. We don't expect to spend a lot of time in it, but there are a number of things that obviously we can learn from this church here. And therefore, we really want to begin to delve into it in earnest this evening. Our text will be verse four of the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians, chapter one, verse four, where we have recorded for us, knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. And the title I want to give to this meditation is The Ideal Church, The Ideal Church. The title may be somewhat of an exaggeration, but the reality is here was a very good church. We will see that as we go through it. But there were not many major faults, and therefore, in some sense, they were the ideal church. As we said, there's no church, or no congregation, or no denomination that's perfect. And if you happen to come along to a congregation or denomination that's perfect, please don't join it because you'll change it. Every congregation, every church is made up of sinners saved by grace and of course they're a work in progress, so none are perfect. But here is a very good church, and we will find that as we go through it. The church was founded during Paul's second missionary journey after he received a vision to go and preach the gospel in Macedonia. Thessalonica was the capital of Macedonia, which is a province in Greece, and in the north of Greece, in fact. The writer, of course, here, there's no doubt about it, it was Paul. And it was written around AD 52. And it's regarded as one of his earliest letters. Possibly not the earliest. Galatians may well be the earliest. But if Galatians is the earliest, this would be the next. And 1st and 2nd Thessalonians were written when Paul was on his second missionary journey. And he was writing from Corinth. You know that part of his journey was he went from Philippi to Thessalonians or Thessalonica, then he went to Berea, then he went to Athens, and then he went to Corinth. And it's while he was in Corinth that he wrote these first and second Thessalonians. Why did he write them? Well, he wrote them because he was concerned about them. As you know, we tried to highlight this last week, he did not spend that long in Thessalonica. We can't be certain for how long, but we know that he preached for three Sabbaths in the synagogue. So that's, at the most, just over two weeks. And then, because of persecution, he stopped preaching in the synagogue, but he continued to preach. And he must have preached for maybe several months, and he had a great deal of success. But then he had to leave quickly, and he had to go on to Berea. And here was a fledgling church, And the Apostle Paul, despite what people might say about him, he was a pastor, as well as a theologian, and as well as a missionary. And he had a concern for the church at Thessalonica. And when he was in Athens, he was with Timothy and Silas, or Silvanus, as he's called here. And he sent these two men back to look at the churches that he had established. And Timothy was sent to Thessalonica, and Silas, we believe, was sent back to Philippi. Timothy came back when Paul, by this time, was in Corinth. and he gave a glowing report of the church in Thessalonica. And because of that glowing report, We have here 1 Thessalonians, a letter that he wrote to them following the report that he received from Timothy. And that report was largely favourable, although Timothy did mention one or two problems. So it was written to encourage the young Christians in Thessalonica. I basically have two things that I wish to highlight really from our text in context, knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. They were an ideal church, not perfect, but an ideal church because first of all, they were an elect people. They were an elect people. In his introduction, In verse 2, for instance, he talks about his prayers. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. There he's talking about he had a concern for them. He didn't just start churches and then abandon them and leave them to themselves. He was concerned for them. And in his prayer life, he was giving thanks to God always for them. Not just now and then, every day he would mention the church in Thessalonica. Making mention of you in our prayers. And what does he make mention of? Well, verse three tells us. remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father. Now we will look at this verse a bit later on, but what I want to derive from this verse at the beginning is, here we have, if you like, we have the fruit of their profession. This is the fruit of their Christianity. Without ceasing, your work of faith, your labor of love, and patience of hope. This is what he remembers, and this is what he thanks God for them. This is what he saw in them. This is the fruit of their Christian profession. And what we're seeing here is the effect of our text. What does our text tell us? Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God. In other words, there would be none of this fruit unless there had been this election. This was the cause of it. He could see the fruit, and therefore he was able to go and say, there's the reason. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. One or two things we want to highlight from this, and I'm glad to say that one of the brethren in prayer covered some of the things I want to highlight. Salvation, friends, begins with God. It begins with God. Salvation is of the Lord. It is from eternity. It's not something that was devised in time. The Bible teaches us that God has chosen from all of mankind a select group, a determinate number that we cannot number but God alone. And God knows who he has chosen. And he made this choice in eternity. And that is before the world, before the universe, before Adam, before sin, before you were born. It is amazing. It is deeply humbling. It puts all the glory onto God and to God alone. Now, this is not an isolated text. I'm not going to go through the various texts that we find in the Bible. You'll know this yourself. But this is taught by Christ and by Paul and by Peter and by John. It's not isolated. Jesus, for instance, in John 6, verse 39, And this is the Father's will, which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." There he's clearly talking about those whom the Father has given him, and he'll not lose any one of them. Not one of the elect shall be lost, and all the elect will come to glory. They will hear the gospel. They will be born again. They will be justified. They will be adopted into the family of the living God. They will be sanctified. They will be glorified. They will be brought to glory, and no power on earth or hell can stop this. Election, friends, reveals God's love. We know that this doctrine is avoided, and there are many pulpits, many congregations where you'll never hear of this. Sometimes it is frowned upon, but it's in the Word of God. And Paul is writing to Christians who are very young Christians, and they don't have what we might call a church background. They weren't brought up as Jews. They didn't have the scriptures. They didn't have any kind of godly religious background whatsoever. They were taken out of paganism and idolatry. And how old they were in Christ, we cannot tell, but they were not old. They wouldn't be as mature as many of us here are in the faith. They would be much, much younger. But the Apostle Paul is only reminding them of what he already proclaimed to them. He's not bringing a new doctrine to them. This is something that he presented when he was preaching the gospel to them. This is not new. And although many might despise this doctrine, this is a doctrine that reveals the love of God. Paul again in Ephesians, in chapter 1 verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. To many people to associate the doctrine of election with love seems incredible but it was the love of God because If God did not make a choice, if God did not choose, none would be saved, none whatsoever, because none of us would come to the Lord Jesus Christ left to ourselves. It's only because we have been chosen, and God has made us willing in a day of his power. God has revealed things to us. He has revealed our sinfulness. He has revealed our lostness, and our deadness, and our hopelessness. He has revealed the horrors of eternity to us without Christ, and he, bless God, has revealed Christ to us. And these are things that he does not do to everyone. God the Father has chosen his people before the foundation of the world. He has chosen them in Christ. And Christ has gone forth to save that people, and that people will be his reward. And there on Calvary's tree, he worked out a perfect salvation whereby all his people shall be saved. And that work of Christ is applied by the Holy Spirit to his people. It's wonderful, it is glorious, and therefore he's able to say to them, knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God. And this election, it is sovereign. and it is unconditional. What do we mean by sovereign? Well, we mean it rests in the sovereign will of God. We'll never understand this, why some are chosen and some are not. It is because God is sovereign. Again, something else that people today do not like. They like a God who will love them. They like a God who will provide for them. but they do not like a God who is absolutely sovereign, who rules. But that is the God of the Bible. That's the one with whom we have to do. One who is sovereign, who is a ruler, who sits upon the throne. And what's more, this is unconditional. You know, some people like to embellish this doctrine to please mankind. And they say something like this, oh, well, those who have been chosen, God has chosen them because he knows that they will believe, therefore he has chosen them. Or they might say something very similar. They might say, well, God has chosen them because he knows that they will perform good works. In other words, God has seen something in them and therefore he has chosen them. God knows that they will believe, therefore he has chosen them. Or God sees the works that they will perform, how good their service might be, and therefore, because of that, he has chosen them. Not the case. Not the case whatsoever. There were no conditions. God chose because he chose. And the matter lies in his sovereign will. There were no conditions whatsoever. And what does election teach us? Well, it teaches us also that the elect will believe. The elect will believe. You cannot be of the elect if you will not believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter how you might argue. It doesn't matter what you might say. It doesn't matter how you might live. All these things are irrelevant because the elect will prove their election by believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, when we say believing, we mean in a saving manner. It's not just enough to say that we believe the historical record that we find in the Bible concerning about Christ. It's not that we simply believe that he was a great teacher and miracle worker, and we believe all about the historical Christ that is found in the Bible. That's not what believe means in a biblical sense, in a salvation sense. What it means, friends, is the elect will believe savingly upon Jesus Christ. They will take their eyes off themselves. and they will look unto him. They will trust upon him. They will not trust upon him and their works or anything. They will recognize that without Christ they are lost and therefore they must have Christ and Christ alone. Election also involves the whole trinity. as I've already alluded to that, and therefore there is no sense of any kind of division in this matter. You know, Christians believe in one God existing in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Election involves all of the Trinity. It is a united matter. There are no divisions whatsoever. And of course, as Christians believe in one God existing in three persons, we worship one God, just like the Jews Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 says, And that's the same for the Christian. But the whole trinity. is involved in election. And therefore, the whole of the Trinity, the triune God, is involved in our salvation, in the salvation of the Christian. And this, therefore, is to encourage the Christian, because there'll be times in our lives when we might doubt these things. The devil will fire his fiery darts at us. He will test us. He will try us at sometimes more than other times. We are to respond. We are to take up the shield of faith, and we are to be reminded that God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all out for the Christian. They're all involved. in your salvation. This is no haphazard matter. This is not something that has just come into being when man fell into sin. No, this was in the mind of God from all eternity. And yes, we delight that Christ came in the fullness of time and he went to Calvary and we see the great plan of redemption going on and going on until that great day when we shall see the Lord Jesus Christ coming in the clouds in great glory. Secondly, and this is the most important thing I think that we find here from this ideal church, salvation involving election changes the life. This is how we knew of their election. It was because their lives were transformed. Let's look very briefly at verse three and compare it with verses nine and 10 of the same chapter. Remember there, verse three, remembering without ceasing your work of faith. And if we go to verse 10, how ye turn to God from idols. That was their work of faith, or at least that was part of their work of faith. They turned from idolatry, they turned their backs upon the way of life that they had before, and they began to serve the living God, the work of faith. Their lives were transformed. Everyone could see it. The Apostle Paul and Timothy and Silvanus, they could see it. Their neighbors could see it. The community could see it. And because of this, they were facing persecution. We notice also again in verse three, labor of love. What do we find in verse nine? To serve the living and true God. They were workers. They were labouring. They were working. It was hard work. We don't know exactly what. the work that they were involved in, but it would seem from verse 8 that it was evangelism. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak It was labor, it was difficult, but they found this loving. Why did they find it so loving? Because they looked to the Lord Jesus Christ. They looked to what he had done for them. They saw their lives being transformed. They were taken out of idolatry. They were on the broad, the narrow road that leads to destruction. There was hope and life and vigor in their lives because they had been saved. They had been transformed. and salvation changes the life. It's certainly changed their lives. Again, if we go back to verse three, what do we find? And patience of hope. Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. And again we find this in verse 10. They had a great hope before them. They were ones who had been transformed. They had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Their sins were forgiven. They were full of new life and they were looking forward to that glorious hope that's before all the people of God that day when Jesus Christ shall return. This was their great hope. Again, surely this is reinforcing to us that the gospel, salvation, was no mere intellectual thing. It didn't fill their heads. It motivated their hearts and changed their lives. Someone said, quote, those whom God chooses, he changes. How apt and how appropriate. Those whom God chooses, he changes. Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God, God had changed them. They were transformed. Did you notice there, friends, in verse three, we have faith, love, and hope mentioned. Work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope. What are they? They are the three cardinal virtues of the Christian life. These are the things that should be found in every single Christian. Faith, love, and hope. It doesn't matter about the order, but these are things, these are our virtues, cardinal virtues, that God puts into the life of every single Christian. Paul says this again in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, that great chapter about love at the end. What does he say? And now abideth faith, hope, charity, which simply means love. These three, but the greatest of these is charity or love. There you have the three great cardinal graces, faith, love, and hope. The brethren in Thessalonica had them. They work these things out in their lives. Faith, friends, real faith. saving faith, life-changing faith is to be seen. It's not just an intellectual matter, it changes the life. James, you know, James chapter 2 verse 26, for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. That was not true of them. They had a great profession. They didn't have a great confession of faith. That wasn't formulated at this time, but they had real saving faith, and that real saving faith revealed itself in a life that was transformed and lived out by faith. In other words, you could see by their works that they were Christians. You just didn't hear it from their mouth. It was by their works. Again, someone else said, quote, we are not saved by faith plus works, but by a faith that works. There's a world of difference. I know it's just words, but if we study these things, there is a world of difference. We are not saved by faith plus works. We're not saved by Christ and our works. No, but by a faith that works. Ask yourself then this evening, do you know anything of this? living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The other, or one of the other cardinal virtues is love. They loved one another. We will come to it when we go through the book, but in chapter 4, verse 9, The apostle says, but as touching brotherly love, you need not that I write unto you. Why? For ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. Excuse me. He didn't need to exhort them. He didn't need to take them aside Look, sir, this is what you need to do. God had taught them. This grace, this virtue was there. It was living out of them. Paul could see it. Silvanus and Timotheus could see it. So could the people outside who weren't in the church. They could see this. Can they see it in you? Can they see it in me? A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye may also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. It's self-examination time. Where is the love? Is it there? Well, we trust it is there, but friends, it can be cultivated, and it must be cultivated. This is the distinguishing mark of the Christian, that he loves his brethren. Now, that's not easy. It's not easy. but by the power of the Holy Spirit, which he gives to every Christian. This is for everyone to love one another. The other virtue is hope. This is something we will look at in more detail as we go through, but they eagerly anticipated and waited for that day when Christ would return. I wonder, do we have that same hope? I wonder, do I have that same hope? If you think about the end of the world, because that's what we're talking about. If you think about the end of the world, Jesus returns. This world as we know it is over. It's eternity. Now, you may well be saved, and we trust you are. You may well be saved. That day in itself doesn't cause you any trouble. You don't need to fear Judgment Day because Jesus Christ has taken the condemnation that you deserve on your behalf. But you might have people you know and love and you don't have that hope for them. And when that day comes, there'll be a great separation. And maybe there'll be people that you have loved and you still love them. Sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, siblings. And they're not going to be there. Do we still have that hope? Do we still look forward to that day when Jesus shall return? Well in one sense we do because the more that we're in this world, the more we recognize what a foolish world we're in, what a sinful world we're in. Just take a look at some of today's events. You see what's happening in the Ukraine, the war there, and the devastation. We don't know all the details, but war is a terrible thing. It's evil. There may be such things as a righteous war, but nevertheless, it's evil, and there's always bloodshed, and there's always suffering, and there's always widows, and there's always orphans. There's always bad things that happen in war. and it's to be avoided. And then you have the earthquake in Syria and Turkey, dreadful things that are happening. And then you have ridiculous, stupid things occupying the minds of people. You think about the Church of England talking about the gender of Almighty God. You talk about our parliaments and politicians talking about changing gender of male and female, and the more you look at the world and you see the contrast, you see these terrible events, you see these silly things that's happening, and then you see people taking up with things that are so silly and pointless. And you look at this world and what a foolish world because we're all rushing towards eternity. Well, the Thessalonians would have seen things like that in their life also. The world hasn't really changed at all. Yet, they were looking forward to that day when he would come in the clouds. That was their great hope. They had enough of this world. They could see it for what it is. Vanity of vanity. All is vanity. That's what they saw. And they had this great and glorious hope. Do you have that hope? Where will you be on that day? Oh friends, we need to consider this. Where will we be on that day? When do we know it'll come? We don't know, but we know it will come. We know that for definite. This same Jesus shall return in like manner. He will come, friends. That's our hope. Have we got it? These persons had it, knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. And because of their election, they were ones who lived out real biblical Christianity. May this be true of us, of you. Amen.