To this point, we have looked at two of the three reasons that Paul gives for being so thankful for these Thessalonian believers. We have already seen their work of faith and labor of love, which are two important facets of the Christian life. Today, we are going to focus in on the final attribute that Paul lists in verse 3, which is their "steadfastness of hope." So, if hearts and minds are ready to study God's truth, let's begin by cracking open our Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 1:3.
1 Thessalonians 1:3 (NASB) - constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father (emphasis added)
Last time, we noted that Paul is giving us a logical progression in these attributes that correlate to the Christian way of life. First, we start with our "work of faith," which is simply believing in the gospel message. From there, we move on to serving the Lord and others through our "labor of love." On top of all of that, we have our final attribute, which is a "steadfastness of hope" in Jesus Christ. Steadfastness is an interesting word as it comes from the Greek word hupomonē (Strong's G5281) and means "a patient enduring." The BDAG lexicon further defines hupomonē as: the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty, patience, endurance, fortitude, steadfastness, perseverance. So, when we look at this word, we can clearly understand it to mean that these believers had a hope that was both patient and enduring. This is the basic meaning of what Paul is referring to, and a closer look at the Scriptures and relating texts will further shed light on their steadfastness. So let's investigate this further.
As we read the text, we notice that this "steadfastness of hope" is directly tied to "Lord Jesus Christ," which is who their hope was in. This was a faith that the Thessalonians held firm to, even in the faith of opposition. If you glance down just a few verses to 1 Thessalonians 1:6, we find Paul discussing how the gospel message was delivered to them in much persecution, but yet they were still imitating the example that he had set. Flipping over to Acts 17:5-9, we also get a much clearer picture of what was taking place, when we see how the unbelievers were treating them as they tried to get Paul removed from the city. They were drug into the city courts, harassed and so forth; yet, their faith remained steadfast. And if the picture wasn't clear enough, Paul specifically mentions their troubles in 2 Thessalonians 1:4, his second correspondence with them, meaning that their afflictions hadn't lightened since his first letter.
Persecutions and perseverance are not peculiar to the Thessalonian believers; instead, we find that it is a common theme all throughout the New Testament, especially in regard to standing for the faith in the face of adversity. As Church Age believers, perseverance is something that we need to take special note of because that is one of the means by which we mature and grow. We find Paul making mention of this in the majority of his epistles in one form or another (Rom. 5:3; 2 Cor. 1:6; 6:4; 12:12; Col. 1:11; 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:10). Paul isn't alone in this, as other apostles make note of this as well, including Peter, James, and John (Heb. 10:36; Jas. 1:3, 4; 5:11; 2 Pet. 1:6; Rev. 2:2, 3, 19). For the believer, hope is an awesome thing because, as we see in these passages, even in the face of trouble, we can find comfort, hope, and peace in and through Jesus Christ. This is illustrated best in Romans were we find Paul again coupling hupomonē with hope (Rom. 5:4; 8:25; 15:4). It is here that he clearly teaches how hope is a strong motivation for persevering in this Christian walk.
If there's any application that we want to extract from this passage, it's that these believers were able to persevere and stand firm because their hope was in Jesus Christ. That needs to be true for us as well. The Bible tells us that we will be persecuted because of our faith, but because our hope is in Jesus, it should never waver or be lost. Yes, it may get weak at times, but it should always prevail and overcome anything that stands. One of the reasons these believers had such hope is because of the firm doctrinal teaching that they were under. If there's anything that's going to ground us and keep our hope secure, it's going to be sound Bible teaching. One of those teachings, which truly strengthens our hope, is the imminent return of Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 1:10; Acts 1:11; James 5:7-11; Rev. 3:11), which Paul will teach in further detail as we get further into this epistle. If there's nothing else that gives us hope, the return of Jesus should!
Let the motivating hope of our Savior's return be the motivator of our hope! Until next time, keep hope alive!
