In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of the Gospel and its impact on the lives of believers. He focuses on the ministry of the Gospel in the Thessalonians' lives and how it transformed them. The preacher highlights the power of the Gospel message and the need for both the message and the messenger to have power. He also mentions the importance of love for Christ as a prerequisite for effective ministry.

I'm not sure that I know how to address a church on anniversary day. I've never been quite sure what the etiquette really requires. I know that one should begin by giving thanks to God, and I believe we should end by giving thanks to God. But it is right and proper that we should salute those who have laboured in the days that are gone, and likewise that we should salute those who, here with us in this present day and age, are bearing the burden of ministering to old and young. And I want to do that. There are so many here in Knox who bear burdens of one kind or another. The church is never built by one person or even two or three. It requires men severally gifted, each obedient to the heavenly vision, carrying out what God requires of him and of her. And I want to salute you in that sense. All of you who are bearing the burden and the task that God has given you, may God bless you. And I trust that on this anniversary occasion you will catch again the vision that set you out in the service of the Lord in relation to the church here, or elsewhere for that matter. Catch the vision that the fire of enthusiasm may burn as it never burnt before. Know that as we move along together into whatever years and time and opportunity may be left for us to serve our God, oh that we may be seen to be a people who know the will of God and are involved in just that. Well now, I have felt constrained that we should spend morning and evening worship today in one chapter. Not that we are going to expand the whole of the chapter, but it seems to me that it has been haunting me and following me. You know, you find this, do you not? A word of God follows you, it pursues you. And this whole chapter has been at my footsteps, tugging at my heart over recent days, and I just want to turn to it this morning and this evening and share a few of the emerging thoughts with you. The chapter is 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1, and I want to read as the basis of our meditation this morning, verses 2, 3 and 4. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, 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, knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Now, we have billed as our title this morning an apostolic confirmation of the Church's election. I was a little puzzled as to whether we should do that, because mention of the doctrine of election has well too often gendered more heat than light. And there have sometimes been sparks flying that have had a detrimental effect on one and another, and even detracted from the glory of God. Even so, all will agree, I believe, that it would be a most precious boon, a most precious benefit for any community or individual to be assured that he or they are God's elect. In fact, if we are not persuaded of this, then ultimately we are like the flotsam on the seashore at the mercy of any and every whim that may come our way. If we cannot say with Paul, If God be for us, and that's not an if of doubt, but an if of certainty, as sure as God is with us, who can be against us? But we need to be sure that God is with us, for us, that we are his. Now, I like to put it in this way. The doctrine of election is so often misunderstood, but may I suggest to you that basically its purpose in scripture is to assure us that God's redeemed, every one of them, are God's wanted people. God's wanted people. The doctrine of election is meant to assure us that we didn't simply opt for God. We did that. We probably remember the time, we probably remember the occasion when, by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Word, we decided for the Savior, we chose Christ. Now, that's quite true, that's the human side of it. But our Lord put it like this. Looking into the face of his disciples one day, he said, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you. He did not thereby mean to minimize the human aspect of this. Of course they decided, of course they left all and followed him, of course they chose. But behind the human there was the sovereignly divine. He called before they obeyed. He chose them before they chose him. He wanted them before they wanted him. And you see, this is really what the doctrine of election is meant to do. It's to assure us that God hasn't merely decided to put up with us. Now, that's very wonderful that he should put up with me. I don't understand how he does that from time to time. But he wanted me. He chose me. It wasn't that he was put in a corner and he couldn't avoid it. You can't put God in a corner. He chose us, he chose us. Now I find that there are many Christian people today who are at a loss and they don't know where they are. And one of the reasons is this. They don't realize that every redeemed child of God is a wanted child. A wanted child. You are wanted. You are wanted. You were chosen. If you and I can bear this sense of being chosen by God into a world that knows not whence it came or whither it goes, I tell you we have an anchorage that can keep us in the midst of the many storms and trials and tempestuous times, intellectually and morally, and keep us stable. God give us this. Let me repeat then. My friend, God wants you to know that if you're a child of his, you were wanted and you are wanted. I remember hearing in London of two little boys squabbling. You know boys can be very cruel to each other. Of course girls can too. But young life, young folk can be very cruel. Now the lad next door who was born into the family knew that his partner was an adopted child. One day they were squabbling and he said some very nasty things to his friend and among the things he said was, look, you don't belong to so and so anyway. You don't belong. I belong. That said the little Mike. He said, Mommy and Daddy chose me. You only arrived. Now I don't want to underline the second point, but I do want to underline the first. Men and women, if you're sprinkled with the blood of Christ this morning, if you're born of the Spirit, if you're in the body of Christ, I want to look you straight in the face and tell every man and woman among you, you are wanted. And that is the basic significance of the doctrine of election. It goes beyond that. But it's God coming to tell us however much we struggle to get into the kingdom, however much effort we put into it, He wanted us. And by the Spirit and by the Word and by His servants and circumstances, He contrived to woo us and to win us and He would not let us go. That's why we're here this morning fundamentally. Now, the Apostle Paul is assuring the church in Thessalonica that they were God's wanted people. How did he do it? What is the basis of such assurance? Taken against the background of the context as a whole, it would appear that Paul bases his reasoning upon two main factors. Now, the first I can only mention. In the first place, he is assured of the election of this church because of the manner in which the gospel came to them. I'm now reading verse 5, which I did not read from my text, but I think it's necessary to see this. For our gospel, says Paul, came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. Now, those words speak of a power that was inherent in the word of the gospel and they also speak of a power that was evident in the messengers of the gospel. And says Paul, we are so sure of your election for one thing, the power with which the word came to you, the power with which the gospel came to you, and the power that was given to us as we lived among you and behaved holily among you. Now, if our congregation this morning comprised a majority of ministers and of pastors and of theological students and missionaries and men who are about to be the ambassadors of the Lord in this full-time sense, we would have to spend more time on this. As things are, I will confine myself to saying this. Ultimately, the emergence of the church of God depends upon the power that is in the word of the gospel and the power that accompanies the preaching of the gospel. And you must have a power of the message combined with a power in the messenger. And all this is described here in most graphic terms. The word of God, the gospel came unto you, he says, not in word only. It's so easy just to be talking. And there's nothing more to it than words, words, words. No, no, no, he says. But also wrapped up in dynamis, in dynamite. Wrapped up in the Holy Ghost. Not impersonal power, but power which is personal. God, the Holy Ghost, was present directing affairs, convincing and convicting and converting. Now, we need this kind of power. Pray, then, for those of us who are involved in the ministry of the word on the home front and further afield. And it is this only that I can say in connection with this point. Pray for us. That we shall not blunt the edge of the gospel of Christ, but rather know the power of the Spirit of God in us day by day. Pray for the missionaries that have gone out from here that this may be true of them. That the power of the gospel objectively may be accompanied by a power of God subjectively. That wedded together, the divine dynamic, the divine dynamite, in the message and in men, may perform the divine work. Pray. Now, what I want to dwell upon this morning very specially is the second strand of teaching which we have here. Not upon the manner in which the gospel came to the Thessalonians, important as that was and is, but upon the ministry which the gospel performed in the lives of the Thessalonians. What the gospel did in them. What the gospel did for them. And then, ultimately, what the gospel did through them. Looking back retrospectively upon the solemn circumstances surrounding the birth of this church, read for us by the Reverend George Lowe from Act 17 this morning, though that's only a summary statement, of course. But looking back retrospectively upon the circumstances envisaged there, Paul acknowledges with almost boundless joy the wonder of the spectacle of God at work in power. Now, you read the story again in Act 17 and you will see that it was a difficult time. Paul didn't get it all his own way. There were all kinds of people that set machinery in motion to do this and to oppose and frustrate in that way. But we give thanks to God always for you all, he says, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before God and our Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. We can't stop praising God for you. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Now, how could he be so sure? Two things I want to say this morning. The fruit of the gospel as seen in the outward life of the Thessalonian church members was such as to indicate that they were really the Lord's people. I refer now, first of all, to the outward life, the things that were evident to the ordinary human eye. And they are remembering your work of faith, your labor of love, your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Three things, then, in the outward life, the evident life of the Christian community here, three things impressed themselves upon the apostle, in consequence upon which he was quite sure they were God's elect. Now, let's look at these three before we turn over to the more inward evidences of election. First of all, in this connection, the ministry of the gospel produced work. How do you know when a profession of faith is real? How do you know when a person who allegedly trusts Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord is genuinely so trusting? Well, ultimately, you have to wait and see whether there is a corresponding work of faith. Let me put it negatively, and then positively. Negatively, we can't assess any man's profession by its apparent emotional content. For example, emotion like steam can be related to the trivial or to the eternal. Steam can simply blow a whistle, or it can be used to drive an engine. And emotion is the same. Emotion can be related to the trivial and the superficial and the passing. Or it can be that mighty thing that drives an engine through life across a continent like this. Emotion is of that order. You can't, therefore, assume that a man is genuine simply because he has passed through an emotional experience. Neither can we assess a man's experience by reference to his ecclesiastical context at the time. You see, the fact that an experience takes place within the walls of a church, it doesn't mean anything, really, in and of itself. Let me put it to you like this. Among the most God-fearing people, you can find a Judas, even as among the Twelve. People who accompany the children of God do not necessarily belong to the children of God. On the other hand, in an ungodly setup like the ancient Sanhedrin of New Testament times and the synagogue in Jerusalem, you may find a Nicodemus. Circumstances are very confusing. Life is very confusing. Among the Twelve, a Judas. In the synagogue, a Nicodemus. No, no, no. Our ecclesiastical setup does not prove that our experience is genuinely of God. Positively—let me hurry from the negative, though there is more we can say. Positively, an experience is valid and genuine when it produces the appropriate kind of work. James says, faith without works is dead. It's aborted. It's fruitless. There's no life to it. It's a mere profession. It's empty. It's a shell. Faith without works is dead. Paul says that every newborn babe in Christ is, I quote, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Now, this is a delightful word. Have you ever really noticed it? Every newborn babe in Christ is created but for into good works. That's the preposition. Right into it. There are works waiting for us. A man is born again. He's born into a sphere of good works. And God prepared them from before the foundations of the world for every newborn babe his work. So that when God gives us the grace to have faith in his Son, we are born to work. There's something waiting for us to do. John's concern is exactly the same in 1 John 3, 10, to which I will not now refer. Now, these Thessalonians, then, were no mere churchmen talking about the institution. Oh, no, no, no, no. Nor were they experienced mongers trying to give a ticket for another spiritual trip into the unseen to their fellow countrymen. No, no, no. They were men who had exercised faith in Jesus Christ and that faith had generated work. That was the first mark. Work. Now, it's not a good word. It's a bad word in the twentieth century. We want to get out of as much work as we can. We don't like long hours. We don't like much toil. Not too much work. Work is the relevant word here. Secondly, in this connection, the ministry of the same gospel produced labor or toil. Your labor of love. Labor. Labor. The difference between work and toil, or work and labor, whichever translation you prefer, is this. Toil is work, but it is work in the face of difficulties. It is work in the face of opposition, and then it becomes toil. All work is work, but not all work is toil. The moment work becomes toil, it envisages difficulties. Someone's standing in my way, or I am tired and I would rather pack it up. But I toil on. We read of the disciples. They tell our Lord in Luke 5 and verse 5, We have toiled all night and caught nothing. They've been out on the Sea of Galilee. They've been trying to get a hold of fish, but wherever they go, whatever they do, the fish evade them. We've toiled all night. We've been moving here. We've been going there. We've been doing this, that, and the other, but we've got nothing. It's not exactly the same word that is used, but it has a similar connotation when we read that they were toiling and rowing. They were going into the teeth of the wind. It's another occasion there. Going into the teeth of the wind, and the wind was blowing, and they were rowing, and they couldn't make any progress. Toiling, toiling. Toiling is work, then, into the teeth, into the face of difficulties. That statement reflects opposition. Now, the acceptance of the gospel by the Thessalonians did not only produce work, it produced toil. They lived in a pagan environment. There was much opposition. Paul had to run away for his life and leave two of his lieutenants behind to pursue the work. They got rid of him because they were afraid that the apostle was going to be murdered. Now, that was a dangerous place for the gospel of Jesus Christ and for young Christians. But they toiled on. They worked on in the face and in the teeth of difficulties, and they kept on going on. Their moral muscles were flexed. Their will became impregnated with a whole resolve to go on. Now, this is the work of God's grace. Thirdly, in this connection, the ministry of the gospel produced, the best translation here is steadfastness. Not patience, but steadfastness. Steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. The word Paul used refers more to the steadfastness that underlies patience, rather than to patience itself. I heard a good English theologian say on one occasion that the best word to translate the particular Greek word that Paul used here is a word which is not in the dictionary. Whether he coined it or not, I'm not sure. It's the word stickability. You don't have that over here, I'm quite sure. Stickability. You know, a man refuses to abandon ship. He goes on, he's plodding on, and he means to go on, and he will die if he's going on. This is what the grace of God does. It doesn't simply create starters, but finishers. You know, we can psychologically generate starters in the church. People who will take on the job. People who will set a going, but it's only the grace of God that can make finishers. People who pursue the course, who endure to the end. Now, this is God's work, this. Work, toil, steadfastness. Such evidences in the external life of a man or of a church point toward a genuine work of grace, be it in the church or the individual. The fruit of the gospel in outward life. My friend, would you be assured of your election of God? If you can look at yourself this morning and see, yes, God's grace has generated work which was not there before. Work which has manifested itself in terms of toil, when difficulties have emerged. And which keeps me going on, then I tell you, that is not the work of a man, that is not the work of a minister, that is not the work of an evangelist, that is not the work of a church, that is the work of God. The perseverance of the people of God in Knox for 150 years, one generation handing on the torch of truth to another, means that God was in the beginnings of it and God is in the continuance of it. For he which hath begun a good work in you will, God never gives up, will finish it or will pursue it until it is finished. Now, come with me to the other side of this coin. The inward root. Whence such fruit emerged, as seen in the transformed lives of these Thessalonian Christians. What makes Paul so glad and so reassuring that those outward fruits were so evidently the product of a wholesome spiritual condition? Now listen to what he said. If I had to finish here this morning, I would have done great despise to the gospel, because Paul did not simply speak of work and of toil and of perseverance. Notice, he traces each one of them to their root, and he is as concerned with the rootage as with the fruitage. The work, he says, is a work of faith. The toil is a toil of love. And the steadfastness, a steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now take a brief look at this spiritual condition of soul. It's not simply, you see, that they're active. You can get people involved in a kind of work, and you can get people involved in toiling, and you can get people who are apparently steadfast in going on, and yet they may not be genuinely Christian. But if they have in their hearts this, this, this, this cluster of roots, all entwined into one, making one, faith and love and hope, and if the works and the toil and the perseverance emerge out of faith and out of love and out of hope, says Paul, you need ask no more questions. This is the genuine article. You may be sure, he says, that your God's elect people for the inward condition corresponds to the outward manifestation. This is no hypocrisy. This is no play acting. This is no religious acting. This is the real thing. When the heart is true to the outward life. Now, let's look briefly at these. The work inspired by the gospel in the life of God's elect is a work of faith. The Bible talks about a lot of works and many kinds of works, and they're all interesting and need to be pursued and analyzed carefully. There are works of the law. There are wicked works. There are dead works. There are unfruitful works of darkness. Ungodly works. Good works and other species are like this. Beautiful works. Sometimes usually translated in the King James Version as good works, but beautiful works. The woman who broke her alabaster box of precious ointment did, according to our law, not a good work, but a beautiful work. Kalos. Beautiful. The word you use of a beautiful person. A beautiful deed. A lovely deed. A beautiful thing. Now, all good and beautiful works, such as those that betoken our election of God, are essentially works of faith. That's the point. Works of faith. Well, you say, what really does this mean in practical life? This. A man who is genuinely a Christian doesn't do the right thing simply because people expect him to. Now, this applies to those of us that are brought up, perhaps, in a Christian home. And we know that mum and dad expect certain things of us. They've prayed for us. They've sought the covenant blessings of God in relation to us, and they're expecting. And as children in a Christian set-up, we may do things just because that's the expected thing. But you see, if we are genuinely Christian, we shall do it for another reason, because we are faith in Jesus Christ. Or there may be people that are going to quiz you, some very bosom friend of yours. And you covenant it with him or with her. Look, I'm going to do such and such a thing, and when you meet that person next time, he's going to ask you, did you do it? And you're going to do it because you're too ashamed to have to say you haven't. I'm not minimizing the importance of that kind of friendship. Saul, I'm sorry, Jonathan and David. I'm not minimizing the importance of that, but I am saying this. Ultimately, this kind of action which is born simply to avoid the ire of my friend is not what we have here. This is deeper. This kind of work emerges because of my faith uniting me to Jesus Christ, and the impulse of his life in me is this, Christ liveth in me, therefore I so live, I so behave. Hence, the works of faith are to be distinguished from works of convenience or works of necessity, if I may so call them. They spring spontaneously out of my shaving relationship to Jesus Christ. Is that true of us? Listen, my friend, if there was no one looking, and no one inspecting, and no human eye to see, would you have done that? Go deep. The Christian life, the truly Christian life, is primarily a God-like thing. I am answerable to God. We walk in the light, and our hearts are open to him, and our conscience is alive to him. We are alive to God, as Paul puts it in Romans 6. This means we do it out of faith in ourselves. Secondly, the works of God's elect are a work of faith. The toil inspired by the gospel in God's elect is a toil of love, labour of love. Now, just as men work for different reasons, so also do they toil. Some face difficulties and opposition for material gain. I don't need to enlarge on this, do I? You know of men and women who get up early in the morning and they'll go to bed late at night and they'll spend and be spent because they want a prize. Now, I'm not sitting in judgment upon this, I'm stating a fact. A fact of life. Some will do it for social considerations. They want to mean something in society, and they want to get places in society, and they want this honor and that honor. I'm not sitting in judgment for the moment, I'm stating a fact. Other people for academic reward. Neither am I sitting in judgment upon this. I've no right to anyway. I'm only stating a fact. There are people who will burn the midnight oil and they're up early in the morning, and they'll forget about the body and forget about all physical needs because they're bent on getting places academically. They're after the reward. But the toil or the labour of God's elect is different. It is traced to a heart of love. This man, this woman labours out of love for Jesus Christ. There's a passion here. It's a sanctified passion. It's a heart passion. And it is a passion that is a love for the Savior who died. As C.T. Studd put it, if Christ be God and died for me, then there's nothing too great for me to do for him. The love of Christ constrains us, says Paul. It hedges us in. We can do no other. Demi, the renowned and ever-blessed Scots theologian of an earlier age, said this. The passion of the New Testament, he says, startles us when we chance to feel it. For one man among us who is using up the passion of his soul in barren ecstasies, there are thousands who have never been moved by Christ's love to a single tear or a single heartthrob. They must learn to love before they can labour. That's why the one test our Lord gave to Simon Peter before he launched him out on his great apostolic career was this, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Simon, son of Jonas, do you really love me? Now, you see, if you've got this, you don't need anything else ultimately. Oh, I'd like to qualify that. I can't do it this morning. But ultimately, if we have that kind and quality of real, genuine love in Jesus Christ, it will generate a kind of toil that we shall need before our day is out. You know, this reminds me of a dear old gentleman in one of our Welsh mining valleys. He's recently gone to be with his Lord. Twenty years ago, he had what he was told was cancer in the throat. He worked in the mine, a Saturday night shift, and he always preached in the churches around on a Sunday and took a Bible class in the afternoon. And this day had been a very difficult day, knowing that he had cancer in the throat. He'd been over, not by car, he had no car. Colliers couldn't afford cars in those days. He walked across the mountain, top down to the next valley until he got to the little church, after taking his Bible class in the afternoon. And he got there and he preached. And knowing him, he would have preached. Preached, I mean. And he came back, and he arrived in the house exhausted, without that much energy of mind or of body, and he went into his bedroom, and he was overheard to pray something like this, Dear Lord, dear Lord Jesus, they tell me it's stupid, but I'm only doing it for the love of you. And I'll be in such and such a place next Sunday, if I'm still in this life, cancer or no cancer. That's what I'm getting at. I'm not reading something from a book that's not true. I'm talking about Howard Griffiths, a man I knew. The toil of love. What do we know of this? And lastly, the steadfastness kindled and inspired by the gospel in the hearts of God's elect is a steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, hope has to do with the future, of course. Hope is faith and love together looking into the future. My faith in Jesus Christ, your faith in Jesus Christ, if it's genuine, it results in certain things right here and now. Of course it does. By faith we have peace with God, says Paul, through our Lord Jesus Christ. By faith we have access to God. By faith we have grace upon grace. All the blessings of this morning, by faith through grace. But not all the promises of the one in whom we believe have been yet fulfilled. Some relate to the future. Faith looking to the future is hope. The same goes for love. If you're in love with Jesus Christ this morning, there are certain inevitable consequences here and now. He shares his love with you. You keep Christ with him, and when you meet and talk together and share each other's secrets together, there is something here upon earth which is a veritable fortest of heaven. But it's all a fortest! And so love, like faith, has this future anticipatory aspect. It looks forward. Faith knows it's received something. The end must come. Love knows it's received the firstfruits. The great consummation will come. The great marriage day will one day arise. And this is faith and love looking forward to the future. Hope! Do you know anything of this? And because of hope we are determined for the sake of him whom we trust and him whom we love and him in whom we hope to go on to the end of the road. Let the wounds come. Let the blisters and the wheels arrive. Let the opposition and the fury of men, if needs be, face us day by day. We're going on because we have hope in him. Yea, though he slay me, yet will I trust. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Now, as I think of 150 years, I somehow see a reflection of some of this. Speaking generally, this must have been true. But, my friends, I'm forgetting the past. I want you to come with me this morning and ask ourselves this. Is the work which we profess a work of grace, is it really of this caliber? Nothing less will suffice in this day and age and nothing else will satisfy when at last we meet our God before the judgment seat. Therefore, in the words of the apostle Peter, let us make our calling and election sure. Let us attend ourselves to the rootage in the soul. Let us give ourselves to the perfection of the faith and of the love and of the hope. Let us seek to fan the faith in Christ which is in another brother or another sister's heart. Let us seek to pour the oil of fellowship and the oil of the Spirit upon the hearts of other people that their love may be kindled to a flame. Let us try to gender in each other and in one another all round this hope which is in Christ that enables a man to go on and on and on. Most suggestively, a historian has said that the last time Sadhu Sundar Singh was seen, he was still climbing. Hallelujah! The last view of him, he was still climbing. My friend, are you climbing this morning? If you are down on your knees, then by the grace of God get up again. If you are wallowing and defeated, the grace that sought you and found you in Jesus Christ comes after you on this anniversary day and says, Man of God, man of faith, your love may be weak and your hope may be weak, but look, I want to put you on your feet again and send you out. May the Lord enable this to go on in each of our hearts today. May the ministry of this church, as long as the church shall last, be a ministry where faith and love and hope are perfected to the glory of the Christ who called us and the Father who has made us His own. Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, we bless Thee for Thy great goodness and mercy to us. We need reassurance this morning and some of us have to say that our faith is feeble and our love is cold and our hope is dim. Therefore, believing that Thou didst begin the work in us, we come to the only throne where grace is dispensed that makes weak faith strong, that transforms the cold heart into a heart that is ablaze with love and that thereby strengthens the hope and makes it firm and full and robust. Our God, God of our fathers, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the Father, come, finish then Thy new creation. Pure and spotless let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation perfectly restored in me. We ask it in our Savior's name. Amen.