存活元素 Survival elements

Title: Survival Factors
Date: 3rd Oct 2021
Preacher: Rev. Wong Siow Hwee

The first epistle to the Thessalonians began with a thanksgiving. Paul had one big thing to be thankful for – that the Thessalonian church survived after his departure, and not only that, they stayed strong in the midst of persecution. Survival strength is a hard-earned quality that can only be tested and proven through actual difficulties. We see many businesses that crumbled during this pandemic, but also many that survived. One can argue that some of the survivals might be due to the nature of the business, e.g. the tourism sector is embattled, while the food delivery businesses thrived, but I believe some of the survival cases are due to the grit of the business owners who stayed committed to the vision and quality of their work. So Paul could be thankful for the survival of the Thessalonian church, because in the days of the early church, there were many others who did not.

You can read about the different scenarios of mission work in different towns and cities from the book of Acts. The parable of the sower is a realistic depiction of the realities of the gospel movement in the first century. The seeds were sown on different grounds. In some places, it was outright rejection. In some others, the enthusiasm for the gospel sprouted quickly but lasted only a short time and collapsed easily in the midst of persecution. Some grew in the bad times, but withered in the good times when swamped by the concerns of the world. This was especially true of those churches in the big cities like Corinth and Rome. Only those that could bear the struggles of oppositions and the temptations of societal influences could survive to bear fruits to multiply. The city of Thessalonica was a prosperous city much like Corinth and Rome, so they faced the same cultural influences of politics and materialism; and the Jewish opposition there was especially aggressive against Christianity, but the church grew and survived despite those threats.

How did the Thessalonian church survive? Paul described it as “your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” I would argue that these are the three key elements in any healthy growing church, no matter the degree of hardships. First let’s think about faith in Jesus Christ. The works produced by faith refer to the good works, or acts of kindness that we do in ministry. As stated in James 2: 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Sometimes, to avoid a misconception of salvation by works, we avoid talking about good works altogether. But that would be a misconception too. Faith without works is dead. Faith is always accompanied by good works because we have to act on our faith. If we believe that everybody in the Christian community is part of the body of Christ, then we act to care for one another. If we believe that the gospel of Christ is the salvation of mankind, then we act to share the gospel. This is why the Thessalonians survived, because their faith was real and accompanied by works. Even in the absence of Paul, they saw Christ at work in one another, though one another. Theirs was a living faith that continued to bear fruits and continued to multiply more works of faith. Mark 4: 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.

Is there a difference between good works, and works of faith? It really depends on the motivations and expectations of the good works. There will be some who are motivated by kindness and compassion, and others who are doing it out of publicity and expecting some form of reward or good karma. Christians should be motivated by the Creator God who loves the world. So even if your good works are misunderstood as ulterior motives, or you do not get any rewards, your faith is in God who is pleased by your obedience to do his will.

Dearly beloved Jubileans, what is your faith? (Continuing from Rev Tan’s sermon from last week [1]) By looking at your actions, I can tell the kind of Jesus you believe in. There’s a saying in evangelism, you are the first bible that a non-believer will read. Will people see a judgmental and hypocritical Pharisee and think that is the true Jesus? Or will people see a kind and compassionate Jesus willing to go the extra mile to help a person in need? If you want good works to be part and parcel of your life, the most direct way is to join as a volunteer in our Presbyterian Community services. [2] If your passion is for the elderly, under the PCS volunteers program, you can accompany frail seniors without caregivers for their medical appointments, or assist to deliver meals to home-bound seniors. If your compassion is for the young, you can plan and organize activities (e.g storytelling) to teach our children values. Such volunteer programs for good works are also available in Jubilee if you contact our zone pastors and our Chinese Kindergarten chaplain Pastor Zhang Li.

Next we think about the “labor prompted by love”. The word “labor” implies manual work, which prompts us to wonder what kind of work Paul was referring to. If we were to infer from a key topic from the rest of 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, this labor should be referring to our jobs for income, as well as the work involved in community living. Paul was thankful for such labors of love because the opposite would be freeloaders. In any community or teamwork, freeloaders not only take up resources without chipping in, they also demoralize others who feel taken advantaged of by the freeloaders. Since the first century church was a strong proponent of community sharing and living, freeloading was a crucial problem to solve, and something that we will address in quite a few sermons. I will be covering this topic in greater detail in my future sermons, so I will just cover this point briefly.

What I wish to share today is the connection between labor and love. Love in the Christian context is more than just an emotion; it is linked to faithfulness in a covenanted relationship. The classic example was the love between God and Israel, but it also applies to marriage and family and even the relationships between members of a society or as fellow humans. In a family, love is what makes a father or mother go to work or do housework, and in church, love is what makes a member serve in a ministry, whether it is doing safe entry duty or PA, or counting the cash offering. Love is more than just an emotion, and when we are dutifully fulfilling the necessary tasks in the community, that labor is out of love. Rev. Boon Young recently shared with Rev. WeiKang and I that his motivation to work as a pastor despite the limitations from his stroke was his love for the church.

In modern society, we might subconsciously downplay dutiful work because we can monetize labor. All the housework can be converted into the cost of a maid at home, the ushers converted to the pay of a receptionist, and maybe even the pastor can be converted to the cost of an honorarium of an invited speaker. One might even argue that paid work is of better quality than labors of love, since you can hire the best and demand the best. Brothers and sisters, labors of love cannot be monetized, because they are willing sacrifices of their lives for the sake of others in the relationship.

Just like what Jesus said in John 10: 11 “12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. The Thessalonian church survived because the church members were willing to sacrifice for one another with labors of love. In Chinese we say: staying on till death打死不走. I think if you were to ask many of our elders and deacons, our cell groups leaders and our children ministry teachers, the shepherds of Jubilee, why they served for so many years, you will get the same answer. So dearly beloved Jubileans, what do we love? We are called by God to be a family in Christ here in this place. If we are willing to chip in to serve dutifully for this family, we can go through thick and thin till the next century.

Lastly, Paul talked about the “endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hope is a mindset about the future towards the present. And the product is endurance. The Thessalonian church could endure because they believed in the second coming of Christ. As Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15:32, If there is no resurrection, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” But because the Thessalonian Christians had the mindset of their secured future in Jesus Christ, they persevered on in their works of faith and their labors of love.

The basis of their hope was in their experience of the gospel: “5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.” Simply put, they experienced from Paul and his mission team their “work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, and endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” What they witnessed was the living faith, love and hope in Jesus Christ. Of course, there were those who experienced these and were unmoved, just like there were many who rejected Jesus in Galilee and in Jerusalem. But to those who responded positively, the evidence of the truth of the gospel was clear. And whenever the going got tough, they could toughen themselves based on the truth of the gospel and persevere on.

I would like to conclude with a reflection of the survival of Jubilee Church. We have to face the hard truths of our aging community, lack of vibrancy, and a society that is increasingly secular and English-speaking. So I can appreciate those who are genuinely worried about our survival. Some of us who have been serving for many years might feel quite jaded by the lack of an observable transformation. But our survival is ultimately dependent on just the three essentials, as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 13: 13 And now these three remain (abide): faith, hope and love. That was how the church survived for two thousand years till today despite all the ups and downs.

So our faith, love and hope have to be real to produce works, labor, and endurance, and they are only as real as our relationship with Jesus. Let our hearts not be troubled, for as long as we preach the true gospel, and the Holy Spirit moves the hearts of the hearers, the church will grow in its due time.

[1]https://www.jubilee.org.sg/sermons/?sermon_id=1116
[2]https://pcs.org.sg/volunteer/

华语崇拜视频链接：https://youtu.be/gJPOdWeaAno
Bilingual Service Video Link: https://youtu.be/qSehYSybUbU