A, Post-Pentecost 24 Proper 27 - Matthew 25:1-13 "Expectation"

What do you expect from this day?  We all live with expectations everyday of our lives.  What are expectations and from where do they come?  To where do they lead?  Are your expectations healthy or unhealthy?

Expectations change from person to person, from place to place, and they vary in different times of life throughout the ages.

Our expectation for a meal, a bed in which to sleep tonight, an enjoyable day amongst likeminded folk, seems reasonable to us.  But, for those in war-ravaged places perhaps these expectations would lead to disappointment, resentment, and further hopelessness.  Our expectations might be quite trivial to those whose very existence hangs in the balance! 

The expectations we place on others can differ too.  What you expect of your parents or children changes over time.  Children learn to expect parents to care for them when young, but they expect to escape from their authority when they’re teenagers and young adults!  Likewise, parents expect to care for their children when young, and our mums and dads expect to be cared for, when they grow old!

Expectations are buried in our being from the time we’re born. 

Expectations remember the past, in the present, and furnish one’s future. 

Depending on the culture into which you’re born, will usually dictate the expectations you have of others, and yourself.   What you did and do, dictates what you will do.  Enjoying what you ate encourages what you will seek to eat.  Where you live, who you serve, who serves you, who and what you trust and don’t trust are learnt expectations.

Another word for expectations is wants!  Wants or expectations are fuelled by something deep within each of us.  Examining our inner wants and expectations can tell us a lot about ourselves.  Learning of another person’s wants, or a group’s expectations, can also help us discern much about the person or group.

For example, those who expect the world to continue to evolve into a better and better place, might have an expectation of society learning from its mistakes and not making them again.  There’s an expectation of humanity cycling round and round in an ever-rising series of events towards perfection.  On the other hand, those who expect the universe to one day spiral and explode into a chaotic oblivion will have very different expectations.  Both are expectations, both are not right, but they affect how humanity acts and reacts to events and other people.

So, what or who fuels your expectations?

Are your expectations, or wants, a false god?   Are your expectations premeditated resentments?  Setting yourself up, or others, for hurt and failure?

What do you expect of God?

What does God expect of you?  You might be surprised what God expects of you, written in his Word!

What fuel’s your expectations of God, and your understanding of his expectations of you?  It depends on whether your expectations submit to the Word of God, or you try to make God submit to your expectations and wants!

Ten virgins expect the coming of the bridegroom.  In this parable Jesus says five were wise and five were foolish.  The wise were those who have considered bringing extra fuel for their lamps.  The foolish have not thought things through and don’t have extra oil to fuel their lamps.

Jesus teaches the parable to prepare us for his coming and what we should expect.  So, what is the parable of the ten virgins teaching us to expect about Jesus’ return?

At the end of the parable Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13 ESV)  This sudden surprise is made explicit in the midst of the parable.  All ten virgins are asleep and startled when the cry comes for the bridegroom’s arrival.

Jesus previously says, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  (Matthew 24:36 ESV)  Not even Jesus knows, only the Father in heaven.  Obviously when Jesus is sent by the Father, he will know, but not beforehand.

Notice that in the parable all the virgins fall asleep, and they cannot lend their oil.  This is so, because when we fall asleep in death, what we believe and trust, is the fuel of our faith, and it’s this light that will expose us as followers of Christ.  What you believe, or what you expect when you die, cannot be changed when Christ returns.

When we think of lamps, we might assume that lamps were used to see the way.  They may have been, if the lamps were rags soaked in oil on sticks, but the parable tends to suggest a lamp that’s not a temporary torch to see the way, but a lamp made of clay with a reservoir to hold the fuel and a wick to draw the fuel and burn a flame.  Much like a candle would burn and produce a small amount of light.

This type of lamp is not for seeing the way, but for being seen.  Virgins walking in the evening moved about with lamps to illuminate their faces, so they could be plainly seen.  Women who moved around hidden within the cloak of darkness, were usually anything but virgins.  The virgins needed the fuel for their lamps, to be seen by the bridegroom on his arrival, not to see the way to the bridegroom. 

One cannot work their way to Jesus.  Just as he came the first time, he will come the second time.  We didn’t find him the first time, and neither will we find him when he returns.  What will be seen of you when he returns?

This is a key part of the parable because if one does not have the good oil, so to speak, when the bridegroom arrives, we cannot expect to bargain our way through the door of eternal life to be with Jesus.

Like the virgins who went to find oil and returned to begged to enter, Jesus also says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21, 23 ESV)

If we have an expectation that we can change our story on judgement day, Jesus clearly tells us it doesn’t work like that!  The fuel of faith we need when we die, is the fuel of doing God’s will, or what God expects and wants. 

He wants to see us waiting for him, illuminated by his presence, and not the back of us working, or changing, to get the good oil.  He wants to see the radiance and joy of our hopeful expectation in which we will enter the grave and will be woken at his coming.

So, what is this fuel?  The good oil of expectation!  It’s not an idol of our works, or a belief in a false image of God we’ve concocted in our hearts.

What is this fuel of faith that God expects to see in you?   It’s the fuelling trust in God’s Word, looking not to ourselves or finding our way to eternity.  It’s allowing the fire of the Holy Spirit to illuminate Christ’s death for our daily death of self.  This fuel of faith lets him shine his holiness in us.  So, when the Father sees us, our lamp of faith shows Jesus the bridegroom, shining for us, in his resurrection glory.

God expects you to be a sinner!  If he did not expect this, he would not have sent Jesus to be the only sacrifice for sin!  But God also expects you to be an enlightened repentant sinner, who despite knowing your sinfulness, willingly stands in his presence to confess, be forgiven, and forgive as Jesus has forgiven us in his death and resurrection.

Like the wise virgins whose faces are lit up with hope and joy at his coming, our wisdom is not so much about you or me, but about the wisdom of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working and waking us with the Word of God.

God expects us humans to have doubts and troubles with faith.  Every day you can expect the old human self will seek its resurrection.  That, you can count on without a skerrick of doubt!   This is not a time to forget the oil reserve that is being deposited in you through God’s Word. 

When you have doubts, let the eternal resurrected bridegroom pour his Word into you with the Holy Spirit.  When you doubt, bash on God’s door in prayer for the Holy Spirit to open Godly expectations of his Word in you!  When you pray, trust the Holy Spirit to give you a desire and joy in God’s Word.  When you receive God’s Word as the good oil, expect this oil to be the oil to keep your lamps burning.

God wants your greatest expectation, to be of him. 

He wants your expectation of him alone.  

He expects you, to expect him, to be your God.  Amen.

A, Commemoration of All Saints - 1 John 3:1-3 "It is Finished"

1 John 3:1–3 (ESV) See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

“It is finish!” That is the cry of Jesus on the cross!  It is the joyful confession of those who have gone before us and are now worshipping around the throne of God outside of time!  It is finished!  What is finished?

When something is finished, it implies that at one time it began, it endured, and ended.  When something is finished it also implies something new has begun.

Not so much today, but in past times, there was an institution known as a “finishing school”.  It was a place where well to do families sent their daughters to become ladies.  Grooming and deportment of young girls prepared them to hold themselves appropriately within the social circles they were expected to mix.

One can imagine there would be an opportunity for comedy to occur in seeking to finish a rough diamond of a girl into a prim and proper lady.  Plays and movies like “My Fair Lady, Nanny McPhee, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman, all are stories about such “rough diamonds” being polished with all the drama and comedy one would expect with the transition of a person from one lifestyle to another.

With much drama and comedy, God seeks to finish us as his children.  In fact, the creation in which we live, the bodies in which we breathe, and the society in which we seek to survive, is God’s finishing school.

Like the movies our lives don’t always follow a simple, rags to riches script!  There are many setbacks and deviations in our stories.  Some are God directed, some are from our own misdirection, and then some come about from the deception of others.

The movie, My Fair Lady, is one such movie!  Actress, Audrey Hepburn, plays a poor Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who becomes the centre of a wager by Professor Henry Higgins, that he could make her “well to do” and pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball.

Most known for the phrase made popular by the movie, “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!” Eliza practises these words to polish her speech!  And there is comedy when she relapses back to her Cockney ways amongst the dignitary at Ascott racecourse, as she inappropriately calls out, “Come-on Dover, move your bloomin’ a_ _ _ (hind quarters)!”   Eliza proves not to be completely finished, as Higgins had hoped her to be!

This movie comes from a play called Pygmalion.  One can understand, looking at the name, why they changed the name to My Fair Lady.  Similar to the story of Pinocchio, Pygmalion in Greek mythology is where a sculptor falls in love with the female ivory sculpture he has finished, in rejection of the young female prostitutes around him.

We are in God’s finishing school!  He seeks to put to death the deeds of our old sinful nature.  This is an all of “this life” project!  In fact, this life is not really life, rather it is the prelude to the life that God originally intended for us and gives us after the resurrection.

In reality this life is not life, but death!  Where the world puts their trust in this life with the hopeless reality of death to come, those who believe and trust Jesus Christ, exist in this finishing school, having the old self killed off, and finished, waiting patiently in hope of the life to come.  This is life with Jesus Christ, the Almighty Father, the Holy Spirit, the angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

St John sees the whole company of heaven in his revelation as one of the elders tells John just who the company is, clothed in white robes…

 “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:14–17 ESV)

Those who have gone before us, who are in Christ, spur us on!  They urge you on, in the knowledge that they are with Jesus by no effort of their own, but by the great love of our Father in heaven!  They have finished and have been finished in Jesus Christ alone!

When were they finished?  They were finished in baptism, they were finished when Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!”, bowed his head and died.  Their finishing became an unhidden reality in Jesus’ resurrection, in their resurrection, in the resurrection when this life bound by time is finished!

Yet, here we are, still in this existence we call “life”!  But it is a penultimate or second last life!  It is the night before the sun rises on the new eternal day!

It might appear that we are not quite finished!  Like Eliza we fall back into the old ways of our old Adam!  We become sculptors of ourselves, taking the tools out of God’s hands, only to fall in love with the self, or despair of what we cannot create!  What becomes apparent is we cannot finish ourselves!  Or we exist knowing our finish is a sham, trying to fool others, but only fooling the foolish self within!

But despite not being finished in this world, we, like those who have finished their earthly time, are finished too!  How can that be when it seems God has not finished finishing us for eternity?

God has given us the finishing requirement for eternity, and life with him, in our baptism!  When Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”, on the cross, “and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), he gave up his spirit for you, and me!

Jesus was the perfect sculpture of humanity, incarnate, created, in Mary.  Sent in love by God the Father, who loves you so much, he sent his only beloved Son, so that “right now” we are God’s children, God’s beloved children, even though we only see it through faith in God’s word of promise.

Hear again the promise, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:1–3 ESV)

God is no Pygmalion!  He did not keep his Son for himself but sent his beloved Son to conquer death and finish death, for you, his beloved.  Today we remember those who have conquered death in their baptismal death and have now victoriously been raised from the second death.  Let your remembrance of these perfected saints in Christ, spur you on in this earthly finishing school, and heavenly hope in eternal life after resurrection!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”  (Hebrews 12:1–4 ESV)

But if you are required to shed you blood, praise God!  He who has been finishing you through the blessedness of repentance and forgiveness of sin is about to welcome you into his eternal presence!

Blessed are the finished, blessed are those being finished, and blessed are those who will be finished, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they are the children of God.  Amen. 

A, Commemoration of the Reformation - John 8:31-32, 34-36 "Get the Message Right, Get the Message Out"

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free…34 I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:31-32, 34-36)

Get the message right; get the message out. 

There’s a mindset occurring in the church today that threatens the very life of the whole church.  This philosophy is one that says, ‘we’re all Christians, it doesn’t matter what we believe; we’re all going to the same place’.   And although there is an element of truth to the statement; at the core, stands the same ideals and beliefs that led to the building of the Tower of Babel.  Did God bless that project?  No!  We must ask ourselves why? 

God gives us the message and the message is one a small child can get right.  The message we’re talking about is the gospel of our salvation, the message of redemption in the Word of God. 

To the believing Jews, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32) 

The first half of this verse can be translated in a number of ways: If you remain in my word; if you abide by my word; if you dwell in my word – you are truly my learners; or, you are my disciples indeed.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  Get the message right!  Why is it so difficult for us to keep that message right?

The fundamental difference between the unity language cheaply tossed around in the church today and the unity that Christ calls us into is this: Christ’s way is centred on him, rather than focusing on the acceptance of other people’s ideas and words in a bid not to offend them.  Unity in Christ listens to Christ alone and not to the ideas of people.  So, in the text we hear that if we look to Jesus and abide by what he teaches us we are his disciples.  And having held onto his Word as the truth, it makes us holy, and it sets us free.

The sad fact today is that most people in the churches are all too willing to accept what someone else believes because they don’t really know what they themselves believe.  Christ is no longer at the centre and the message is no longer right.  They neither examine nor become learners of what their own church believes nor what the other churches teach. 

Most of us don’t even know the subtle differences which we, as Christ centred Lutherans, should reject in other church’s teaching, nor do we know the strengths that these other denominations might offer us and the greater church.

Most denominations are Christ centred, but their doctrines are being rejected in favour of a shallow, pop, pleasure cultured, me-centred theology; where “god” is the person seeking, “Lord just” prayers are the way to coerce Jesus Christ with our self-righteousness yearnings, and our ‘thou art God speak’ just makes us sound churchy.

Unfortunately, the message of the Gospel gets turned back into Law.  All the things that Christ gives us and has called us to hold at the fore – don’t get rejected outright, but have the importance taken off them in favour of things that appeal to the sinful heart.   The things that Christ has set in place and have been proven over time in the church are misplaced in favour of self-righteous feel-good things.

Such as: Corporate belief and understanding of God’s Word, or a church’s doctrine and theology, are replaced in favour of the life one must live.  The means of Grace or the things Jesus personally put in place for us to receive him and the Holy Spirit, are replaced by a public declaration of personal faith, most often expressing itself in the statement, ‘I made a decision for Jesus Christ, my personal Lord and Saviour’. 

‘Lord’ is turned from Redeemer or saviour into someone I must fearfully obey to be good enough to gain eternal life.

‘Grace’ is not God’s death on the cross in our place, but rather grace is reduced to a template for moral living, and salvation is only obtained if we live as Christ did. 

Ironically, nobody could live as Jesus did when he was here!  He walked to the cross alone!  So, what makes anyone think they can do it now? 

The  preaching of the Gospel, commanded by Christ, and passed on by the Apostles, Jesus’ first disciples or learners, is put aside in favour of group sharing sessions usually fuelled by worldly ignorance of God’s word. 

Liturgy is deserted in favour of free unscripted prayer; the Lord’s own prayer is rejected as dead in favour of the prayers that come from the heart.  If Christ and his prayer are rejected from the heart, one must ask, “In what condition is the heart to pray a free prayer anyway?” 

In fact, ritual is seen as bad, even though every one of us needs ritual.  Why do you think babies become unsettled if they don’t have a regular pattern of living?  All humans need ritual for stability and reassurance; it’s the same in the church for Christians!  

And finally, the church or the assembly of the saints, the gathering of all who confess and believe in the Triune God is moved to one side, sacrificing things such as repentance and forgiveness, through confession and absolution.  In its place conversion experience becomes more important than God’s justification.

Don’t hear me wrong.  As good as these might seem, when they are put first before God, they become destructive in our reception of the One True God and the holiness he chooses to give through his way — his chosen means of grace.

The Reformation was all about placing Jesus back at the centre; remaining in his word; getting the message right!  The church of Luther’s day had turned from Christ and his means to other means of coming before God.  So, the church of the day had taken what was given to them as right and got it wrong. 

Jesus Christ coming down in love, was pushed out, in favour of a gospel of love climbing up to God, doing the greater good, which is no gospel at all.

Later on, others came along and rejected all things catholic (that is gathered by the Holy Spirit, according to Christ), but Luther and others who followed him stood against them.  Luther and his supporters fought against extremists reforming the church too far in the other direction which also led to Christ still being pushed out of the centre. 

As much as Luther stood against the Roman church of the day, he still recognised that through Christ-centred-catholicity (cath-o-liss-ity), God proclaimed the Holy Gospel and gave himself through the means of Holy Baptism, Holy  Communion, and the forgiveness of sins.  

Getting the message right must come first, it must come before getting it out.  If you are not focused on Christ, if you are not a learner of his, how then can you get the right message out? 

Luther reminds us in his Large Catechism in the Third Article that where Christ isn’t preached, there’s no Holy Spirit to create, call, and assemble the Christian Church, outside of which nobody can come to the Lord Christ.  Ask yourself, “When I get the message out, to where does it lead?” Jesus Christ, or something else!

Get the message right; get the message out!  When we as Lutherans place ourselves under the confessions of the church, we place ourselves under Christ and become his disciples, learning what the truth is and what freedom from the Law actually is. 

If we call ourselves Lutheran just for the sake of being Lutheran, we then lose sight of the Gospel and take what is right and get it wrong.  The great joy of being a Lutheran is that we have a confession that trusts Jesus at his Word and calls us to submission under what he did and continues to do through the Holy Spirit.  This is the truth, and it sets us free!

So, in having the right message, now we are called to get it out.  Why?  Why do we need to get the message out? 

Our Lutheran confessions are a strength to the greater church.  They rightly show us who we are as people: sinners who do sinful things, brought about by our own sinful natures.  But they also rightly show who we are once we allow Christ to rid us of the curse of eternal death, and allow the Holy Spirit to place trust, or faith, in our hearts; leading us to say, “God you are right, I am wrong, take me, do it your way and set me free”. 

Having received such grace and faith, we can trust in these things to be enough, so we can confidently say, “Yes, I am going to heaven, I have been forgiven and saved, I will be saved!”

Knowing that you have been set free from the bondage of sin, and, ‘what I have to do to get to heaven’, you can rest in the freedom of the Gospel, being blessed completely by the obedience of Christ’s death and resurrection on the cross. 

The passion of Christ’s death and resurrection for your salvation lived by Christ and the Holy Spirit in you,  put you right!  Then surely this message which put you right, will be the message you might passionately want others to have as well.  This should make getting the message out a joy, not a task!

God gets the message right, and he gives it to us as a free gift and it saves us.  Let the Holy Spirit lead you in getting this right message out, so others might live in the freedom of the Gospel too. 

Amen.  

A, Post-Pentecost 21 Proper 24 - 1 Thessalonians 1: 3 "Produced, Prompted, Inspired"

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

The verse we have just heard, directs us to meditate on three things; faith, love, and hope.  These three are not uncommon to us from scripture.  We hear of them in many places throughout the New Testament.  But more on these three in a moment.

There are also another three things in this verse we can examine too; work, labour, and endurance.

Whether one works or not, all know what work is; all know what work they should be doing, whether they have done it or not.  Work here in this sense refers to one’s deeds or actions; to ‘do’ something. 

Then we hear of labour.  We might assume labour is the same as work, and when we labour at something we do work at it.  However, labour is more intense than work in the general sense.  Mothers, more than likely, have the greatest understanding of labour, as a more intense part of motherhood, over against the regular duties of a mother’s work.  So, labour here implies that there is hardship and difficulty, requiring commitment and passion, lest the labour not be finished.

The third word is endurance.  It too has something to do with work, as does labour.  However, with endurance we have the quality of constancy.  One might see endurance as something one has to keep at, grinding away bit by bit, until the outcome is realised.  Guts and dogged determination, stamina and inner strength are needed for endurance.  Patience, fortitude, steadfastness, and perseverance are what endurance is all about.

Saint Paul, on behalf of himself Timothy and Silas, writes to the church in Thessalonica after a hasty retreat from the multicultural trade route town.  The new converts are left to face verbal and physical persecution as a result of their newfound faith.  There’s concerned for the fledgling church as they work, labour, and endure amongst those who have rejected Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel.

So, he writes his first letter to the Thessalonians to encourage them in the troubles they’re facing.  We hear his encouragement for their work, labour, and endurance.  But specifically for their work produced by faith, their labour prompted by love, and their endurance inspired by hope.  The three-fold theme — faith, hope, and love — common in the New Testament is present here, but Paul now couples it with their deeds and lives amongst the transient community of Thessalonica.

In these days we too live in a transient and temporary society.  In communities where once everyone knew who was who, there was a consistent stability people could count on.  But no more!   Our world has gone and got itself a whole lot busier, and we have been caught up in the busyness of it too.  

Our society is changing in many ways.  We can now find out news from anywhere in the world with only a moment’s notice.  People are becoming migratory in search of the almighty dollar.  And those who stay put, can’t afford to sit still or they get left behind and buried under a pile of debt.

The church too faces this change and Christians within it face the very real pressures of the transient, live-for-the-moment desires of our age.  Once upon a time Christianity was the centre of most communities; you would see the who’s who of the district in a church somewhere.  And everyone made the commitment to be in church on Good Friday and Christmas day.  But today, friends and family are sadly missed from amongst the ranks.  The pews are empty; leaving us behind wondering if we should remain in something that seems like it might die.

The saddest thing though, is not that our society is changing, getting busier, or even becoming more and more heathen.  The Thessalonians came through it and so has the Christian church in other ages too.  No! The saddest thing is that as a result of these things we allow ourselves to backslide; producing less and less works, labouring in love is lost, and endurance becomes uninspired, bland, and boring. 

The saddest thing is we let the godlessness of our age have more power in our lives than our Father in heaven, fearing godlessness more than God, giving it greater and greater power in our hearts and minds. We see numerical decline and lose trust in God who has his plan for his church which he ultimately sustains through thick and thin. 

After the collection of the weekly offering, we pray for God to receive it for the sake of Jesus Christ.  We use various prayers, but usually they give thanks for what God has given us; ourselves, our time, and our possessions.  We go on to ask God to accept our offerings as a sign of his goodness and as a symbol of our love. 

The offering on the plate is a sign and a symbol, but it’s not the sum total of what we give!  And so we can ask ourselves, regardless of how much or how little we might put on the plate, “With what intention do I give?”

The state of our faith, hope, and love are quickly revealed when we match them next to the offering of ourselves, our time, and our possessions. 

Does the handling of our possessions speak well of our love, of God or of our neighbour?  What does our time management reveal of our daily, hourly, and momentary devotion and glorification of God Almighty?  And what type of faith do we radiate to others as a result of the faith we have received from God? 

Faith and ourselves, our time and our hope, our love, and our possessions; we ask ourselves, “What do they say about my intention towards God?”

Today, in the days of the Thessalonians, even back when the Israelites created the golden calf, and right the way back to Adam and Eve, humanity turns from the one true and living God to idols of one kind or another. 

Much work, labour, and endurance has evolved from the hearts and hands of humans to serve these idols we’ve fashioned.  But the question is; how do I turn from this habitual sin and idolatry back to the one true and living God, so faith in me produces work pleasing to God, I labour for the love of God prompted by the love of God, and I persevere, inspired with enduring hope of my eternal home, before those who seek heavenly moments in the fleeting pleasures of this world?

We could become better focused on our work, labour, and endurance; but that still would lead us on a path into idolatry.  Even if faith, hope, and love within are fed by work, labour, and endurance could we together build something special and great?  No! We couldn’t even make something as special or great as a golden calf or a tower of Babel, even if we tried really hard!  And we know what God thought of them!

Paul thanks God for the Thessalonians because they didn’t do that.  Rather they turned from their idolatry to serve the living and true God, waiting for his Son from heaven.  They looked to Jesus Christ and to him alone who chose them through the gospel, convicting them deeply by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God has chosen you and me.  Although the deep conviction to work, labour, and love might temp us to focus on these things and turn them into idols, it is the Holy Spirit’s intention with faith, hope, and love, to have us focus on Jesus Christ.  And in him we will be productive in faith works, prompted to love, and inspired by hope. 

You see faith, hope, and love are ours in Christ Jesus our Lord; we are in Christ because Christ is in us.  Faith, hope, and love are in us and can only come from us because they are in Christ and are of Christ as a result of the Holy Spirit.

So let us not even be tempted to run after these other things which might seem good, lest they lead us away from God into the idolatry of ourselves.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus and run after him, so that in him, he in us will produce prompt and inspire, faithful good works, labours of love, and enduring hope, to the glory of God — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.