The Virtues that God Sees

1 Thessalonians 1:3

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father (AKJV);

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 (NIV).

            A college professor, an avowed Atheist, was teaching his class. He shocked several of his students when he flatly stated he was going to prove there was no God. Addressing the ceiling he shouted:  "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you 15 minutes!" The lecture room fell silent. You could have heard a pin fall. Ten minutes went by. Again, he taunted God, saying, "Here I am, God.  I'm still waiting." His countdown got down to the last couple of minutes when a Marine - just released from active duty and newly registered in the class - walked up to the professor, hit him full force, and sent him tumbling from his lofty platform. The professor was out cold! At first, the students were shocked and babbled on in confusion. The young Marine took a seat in the front row and sat silent. The class fell silent...waiting. Eventually, the professor came to, shaken. He looked at the young Marine in the front row. When the professor regained his senses and could speak he asked: "What's the matter with you? Why did you knock me down?" The young student answered, "God was busy… that is why He sent me."

Paul was writing to the Thessalonian believers to speak about Jesus Christ’s work of redemption (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11). Paul was also giving us all a historical summary of God’s plan of redemption through Jesus Christ, from the Old Testament, through the birth and life of Jesus Christ, to His second coming, and until the end of human history.

Now that we are convinced that we have received the redemptive power of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul urges us with this message of exercising the virtues that we appreciate from each other and the same virtues that God beholds.

There are three virtues that we can appreciate from each other (1 Thessalonians 1:3), i.e., “work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”. Clearly, this is the 3-fold combination of faith, hope, and love in many other epistles of Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:8; 1 Corinthians 13:13; Colossians 1:4-5). This is Paul’s three abiding principles of spiritual life, meaning to say, these three always go together.

Paul and his co-authors recognized that these virtues are not only worth remembering and mentioning, but these also do not escape “the sight of God and our Father”.   

The work of faith

The NIV translation described this as work produced by faith. The Latin Vulgate, the Arabic, and the Ethiopic versions rendered it as “the work of your faith”. This work of faith simply means faithful activity. It is one’s work that is characterized by faith and prompted by faith. It is one’s work that faith alone could have enabled one to accomplish.

On the general sense, the work or works of faith can be measured in two ways:

1. Loving service to the brethren and fellow men (1 Thessalonians 4:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 5:13). Loving the brethren and fellowmen, loving the unlovable, and caring for the undeserving is a measure of one’s faith. It is in fact, through faith that believers are capable of loving other people. Without faith, people can never love people other than ourselves.

2. Fearless testimony for Christ before the world (1 Thessalonians 1:6-7; 1 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 1 Thessalonians 3:2-4). Works of faith is simple as this: a faith that had its outward effect on our lives. When believers are weak, does faith show their strength? When God calls believers to walk into the unknown, does faith compel them to follow and obey without a shadow of doubt? When a brother asks for forgiveness, does one’s faith command a believer to forgive just as Jesus Christ also forgives? Faith is always coupled with works or acts or love, kindness, and obedience (James 2:17; Galatians 5:6).

It is always easy for believers to see the reverse of work and faith. Which then comes first, faith or works? Is it faith, then works? Or works, then faith?

Galatians 2:16 reminds us that “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified”.

Our faith should work. As our faith is founded in Jesus Christ, our works are as established as the source of our faith. Here is one illustration: Suppose that a friend of mine is trying to cross from one cliff to another one which is a hundred feet away. It is five thousand feet down to the rocks below. He has, however, a one-inch thick piece of rope that can hold several tons. There is a difficulty though, for he has only 60 feet of rope. Then I tell my friend not worry since I have 60 feet of thread. I suggested that we can tie my thread to his rope and then tie them to the trees on either cliff for him to go across. He declines my offer and I asked him if he does not trust his rope at all. Of course, he would say that he trusts the rope but does not trust the thread. The rope obviously represents what Christ has done for our salvation, and the thread represents what we have done. We must trust in Christ alone. As Charles Spurgeon put it, "If we have to put one stitch into the garment of our salvation, we shall ruin the whole thing."

The labor of love

The NIV translation described this as labor prompted by love. Biblically, labor is different from works. Works point to something that was already done, hence, work of faith, because we act on what was already accomplished by Jesus Christ.

Paul mentioned about labor of love. Labor here means an act accompanied with pain. Labor is an act that requires exertion of effort (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8).

Here we see that work may be easy and delightful, but labor is toilsome. No selfish person will endure labor for another person’s good. Hence labor is the test of love. How will a mother toil and weary herself for her child! With Paul, who has his many infirmities in life, his work must often have been a heavy task. Paul teaches commends the believers of their labor of love because he himself knew how difficult it is to show labor because of love. So, whenever it is too difficult to love, then it a call for a labor prompted by love. Most definitely, we cannot reach out and touch a life if we are not prompted to do so in love.

There was a young couple who went to see their pastor to try and get him to approve their divorce, because, as they put it, “there’s no feeling left.” The pastor told the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The husband said, “I can’t do that.” The pastor asked him to love her as he would love himself. Again, the said that ‘I can’t do that’. So, the pastor said, “The Bible says to love your enemies. Try starting there.”

The patience of hope

The NIV translation described this as endurance inspired by hope. This endurance means to continue patiently in doing good (Romans 2:7). It is the inspiration of hope that compels believers continue to do good.

This endurance was set forth as an example by Jesus Christ Himself (Hebrews 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:5; 2 Thessalonians 1:4). We should therefore, imitator of Jesus Christ.

The work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope are virtues that can be appreciated among believers. In our lives, we show our work of faith, our labor of love, and our patience of hope. These virtues do not escape God’s eyes. When God sees these virtues among believers, He sees them not as man sees for God cannot be deceived and cannot be imposed upon (Galatians 6:7).

As often as we exercise our work of faith, our labor of love, and our patience of hope, we appear before God’s presence, as if we lift up our hands, and our hearts unto prayers. God remembers our faith in operation, our laborious love, and our patient hope in Jesus Christ.

Lois Cheney, in the book “God is no Fool” shared this story. Once upon a time a person was touched by God, and God gave him a priceless gift. This gift was the capacity for love. He was grateful and humble, and he knew what an extraordinary thing had happened to him. He carried it like a jewel and he walked tall and with purpose. From time to time he would show this gift to others, and they would smile and stroke his jewel. But it seemed that they'd also dirty it up a little. Now, this was no way to treat such a precious thing, so the person built a box to protect his jewel. And he decided to show it only to those who would treat it with respect and meet it with reverent love of their own. Even that didn't work, for some tried to break into the box. So, he built a bigger, stronger box--one that no one could get into--and the man felt good. At last he was protecting the jewel as it should be. Upon occasion, when he decided that someone had earned the right to see it, he'd show it proudly. But they sometimes refused, or kind of smudged it, or just glanced at it disinterestedly. Much time went by, and then only occasionally would one pass by the man, the aging man; he would pat his box and say, "I have the loveliest of jewels in here." Once or twice he opened the box and offered it saying, "Look and see. I want you to." And the passerby would look and look and look. And then he would back away from the old man, shaking his head.

The man died, and he went to God, and he said, "You gave me a precious gift many years ago, and I've kept it safe, and it is as lovely as the day you gave it to me." And he opened the box and held it out to God. He glanced in it, and in it was a lizard—an ugly, laughing lizard. And God walked away from him.

The capacity to work through faith, to labor because of love, and endure through hope are all precious jewels that God gave to all of us. We should share these jewels to other, so they will be recipients of work through faith, through labor because of love, and endurance through hope. If we do not, we simply allow these jewels to turn into an ugly possession.