Labor of Love

Paul's Opening Praise and the Crown Jewels of Christian Virtue

0:08 We come this morning to the seventh in a series of studies in this wonderful letter of Paul to the young church at Thessalonica. And we are presently focusing our attention upon verses 2 through 10, which could be called in a very real sense, Paul's opening paragraph of praise. Having identified himself and his co-workers in verse 1, and having identified the people to whom he is sending the letter in that same verse and giving the general apostolic greetings, he says in verse 2, we give thanks to God for you always, making mention of you in our prayers. Then from verse 3 down to the end of the chapter, Paul gives in some detail those things which caused him to lift up his heart in praise, to God. We give thanks to God for you all. Why? Well, not just for things in general, but for some very definite things in particular.

1:14 And so he begins to enunciate them in verse 3, remembering without ceasing. And at the very top of this list of those things for which he gives thanks to God, he gives what I have called the three crown jewels in the diadem of Christian virtue. In these verses we have a number. Of the jewels that adorn the diadem of Christian virtue.

1:39 Those things which were an indication to Paul that God had wrought a work of grace in the Thessalonians. But at the very beginning, he gives what we might well call the crown jewels. Those that stand out above all others in worth and in importance. And he names them there in verse 3 as their work of faith, their labor of love, and their patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the sight of God and our Father.

2:12 We considered two weeks ago the work of faith and how in that phrase comprised of three words, work of faith, Paul beautifully brings together those things which in the minds of so many are terribly at opposites with each other and continually warring. You get a crowd that all they can talk about is works, works, works. And when you mention faith, they throw up their hands in horror as though you're trying to give men a license to sin. On the other hand, we have the curse in our evangelical circles of those who simply talk about faith, faith, faith, believe, believe, believe.

2:53 And if you ever mention the concept of works, they throw up their hands in horror as though you were somehow trying to destroy the gospel of grace. And yet Paul gives. Paul gives. Paul gives thanks to God for the Thessalonians because they had a work of faith.

3:10 And they had faith and works, both of them, and in their proper relationships. And to see the necessity of faith and works and to have them in their proper relationship is a wonderful gift of God. To see that the only basis by which guilty sinners can come to God is that of faith in the finished work of Christ, in the imputation of His righteousness, is a wonderful thing. And to see further that that bond of faith which unites us to the gift of God then becomes the main spring producing works that are acceptable to Him because they flow out of faith.

3:52 They flow from a life that is committed in faith to the living God. This is a blessing indeed. And we saw in our study that wherever Paul found simply works, and no faith, he condemned those works as dead works. Where he found professed faith that didn't produce works, he condemned that as a dead and as an empty faith.

4:14 But where he saw, as he did here in the Thessalonians, both faith and works, he says, I give thanks to God for your work that flows from a principle of faith. Now we come this morning to study the second of these crown jewels in that diadem of Christian virtue. And he mentions it here. As their labor of love.

Defining 'Labor of Love': Intense, Costly Toil Motivated by Selfless Affection

4:37 Now first of all we must define the two words. Paul says that he gives thanks to God remembering without ceasing their labor of love. Let us therefore define the word labor and then the word love and see why this was an occasion of Paul's giving thanks to God. Now in a day of automation, where sweat on the brow, is almost a forgotten thing like a Stanley steamer, it's hard for us to realize what Paul meant by the word labor.

5:14 But the word used here is the same word used in John 4.38, where we have a description of the kind of work that a man does out in the fields, in the hot sun, sowing and reaping grain. That's labor. That's the kind of work here in the States that we give to the migrant farmers, to those whom we judge to be least capable of higher forms of employment in terms of dignity and responsibility.

5:44 We call that the job of a common laborer, a man to whom sweat is no strange thing. That's the word that Paul uses here. It's the same word that he uses in 1 Corinthians 3.8 to describe the efforts of a stonemason.

6:00 Now when I was working my way through college, I did construction work summers for a mason contractor. And when you get working with 12-inch or 10-inch concrete blocks out in the baking sun on a slab of concrete for eight and nine hours a day, with but one coffee break in the morning and one in the afternoon and a half an hour for lunch, and when you finish carrying block and mixing cement, we were non-union, you didn't sit around waiting for the fellows to call for some more, you picked up a trowel and laid some blocks, you understood a little bit what laboring was. What it was. To feel the sweat pouring out of every pore and at times to feel every muscle in your body aching and just press on.

6:41 That's the word Paul uses here. The kind of work that someone who labors in construction with stone and mortar experiences. Then he uses it of the general work of a farmer in 2 Timothy 2.6.

6:55 The husbandman, the farmer that laboreth, must be the first to partake of the fruits. And our dear farmers, for whom we don't give much praise, they know what it is to labor. I've got a brother-in-law who's a farmer, up every morning, 4 o'clock, 4.30, and very few days off.

7:14 The cows don't know what it is to hold off their milk for a day or two while you take a trip to the Poconos. It just doesn't work that way. Well, you see, in all of these usages, the picture of a harvester and the worker in the field, the builder, a mason, a farmer, this word means intense labor. The kind of labor that love prompts, which voluntarily assumes troubles and pains for the good of others.

7:40 Now, Paul is thanking God that as he saw the Thessalonians, and as a report came from Timothy, that they were no strangers to labor, to intense sacrificial work. Now he says, it was a labor of love. And in a day when this word has been so prostituted, by the songs that we hear, and by the theater in Hollywood, it's very difficult to put on this word a biblical connotation. But the best way I know to do it, and I try to do this periodically, lest I be brainwashed in thinking of love in a non-biblical way, and you and I are brainwashed constantly, constantly.

8:24 You're not insensible and insensitive, and utterly shut off from the influences of your society, and it has its concept of love. It has its definition of love, and it's continually trying to impose it upon us. And the only way you can keep from that influence, giving you a non-biblical concept of love, is to read again and again a passage like 1 Corinthians 13, where we have not so much a definition of love, but something that's better. We have a vivid description of the actings of true love.

8:55 Love seeketh not her own, is not puffed up, does not behave itself, unseemly, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. That's the kind of love Paul's talking about. The best way I know to describe it is as follows. It is that powerful selfless affection, and principle of action, which makes us seek the good of others, even at personal cost.

9:31 It is that powerful affection, and principle of action, which moves us to seek the good of others, even at personal cost. God so loved the world that He gave, He was so moved, and I say it reverently, so motivated by that powerful affection, and principle of action, selfless, that He moved in a direction that was costly to Him. Selfless, that He moved in a direction that was costly to Him. Selfless, that He moved in a direction that was costly to Him.

10:03 Selfless, that He moved in a direction that was costly to Him. He so loved that He gave. We read in our scripture reading today, Christ loved the church, and what did that love do? It didn't take.

10:14 Lust is love perverted to take instead of to give. Christ so loved the church that He, what's the next word, gave Himself for it. Oh young people, don't, don't, don't be brainwashed into the world's concept of love. Every time the word loved is used in any popular song, it's nothing but lust.

10:39 And you ought to just, in your mind, make that transition wherever you hear it used. Lust is concerned with what it can get for the gratification of itself. Love is concerned with what it can give for the delight and the well-being of its object. And so the thing that delighted Paul, as he thought of the Thessalonians, was that they were a people who were laboring.

11:04 They were engaging in arduous, costly labor that was motivated by a principle of love. It wasn't a labor of duty alone. Now thank God for those who'll do their duty even when they don't have much heart for it. But Paul says they were motivated by something other than duty, doing things because they had to, or simply doing things out of a motive of fear.

11:32 Now thank God that fear, sometimes, is the only thing that moves us to do what we do. We're afraid of the consequences. There are times when I know my children obey me out of fear of the consequences if they don't. Well, you say you're some kind of a cruel tyrant.

11:48 No, I'm just trying to be a father, according to the Scripture. And the Scripture says that the child should have this reverential fear of his parents' will and his parents' rod. But how much more delightful when I see them spring to do what I ask them to do out of love for me. And so at times we may be governed and motivated in our labors because of fear of the consequences.

12:16 But with these people, Paul said, the dominant note was not duty, not fear, but love. It was not mercenary, not doing it for what they could get out of it. It wasn't legalistic, thinking if they labored they could gain some merit. No, they did what they did in all of the intense labor of it, because of this love, first of all, to God.

12:37 Notice the indication of it in verse 9. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God. Ye turned to God to serve him. When he speaks of their labor of love, it was a love in the direction of God.

13:01 It was this selfless affection that became a principle of action that made them seek to do the things that would bring delight to their God. They delighted to serve him. And that service had in its very nature labor, intense, arduous, self-sacrificing activity. And then it was done out of love to man.

13:22 We see an indication of that in chapter 2 and verse 14, where Paul speaks here of what it cost them to serve their brethren. Verse 14. They became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, etc.

13:48 You see, they were willing to pursue their course of Christian obedience, even when it meant opposition from their countrymen. But they stood true to their principles, not only out of love to God, but love to those countrymen, realizing their spiritual blindness. Verse 15. As they, from the human side, were faithful to their God, would they have reason to believe that faith and repentance would be granted to them?

Labor of Love: A Common Experience of All True Saints

14:12 So much, then, for a definition of the terms. I hope you catch the feeling, as well as have some kind of an intellectual, mental concept of what Paul is talking about here. The second crown jewel in this crown and diadem of Christian virtue, a labor of love, an intense, arduous, self-sacrificing, costly endeavor that was prompted by this principle of selfless affection that would seek the good of others, even at personal cost. Now, may we make some practical observations from this principle that we did, or from this definition of the phrase, the labor of love, and the fact that Paul thanks God that these people were engaged in a labor of love. Verse 16. The first observation that I would like us to see and make is that this labor, this intense, arduous, costly activity, is a common experience of all the true saints of God. All the saints of God have many things that differ.

15:27 They may differ as to their race. We have probably at least one, two, three, four distinct races. They may differ, and they do, in terms of their background, in terms of their upbringing, in terms of the kind of sins to which they fell most prone, but they also have many things in common, regardless of their race, regardless of their background, regardless of the extent to which their depraved nature was allowed to express itself, and regardless of which channels it found expression, they have many things in common. Ephesians 4.

16:00 They have one Lord. They have one faith. One baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all and over all and in you all.

16:08 If you're a saint of God, we have much in common this morning. We've seen ourselves lost and undone. Don't tell me you're a saint of God until you've seen yourself as a foul sinner. For God never makes men saints until he shows them what they are by nature and by practice.

16:25 So we have in common the fact that we've been discovered to ourselves by the work of the Spirit and the law. We have lost men. We have seen that Jesus Christ is our only hope of mercy. We've been brought to bow at his footstool.

16:40 We have embraced him. We have these things in common. But we also have something else in common, namely that we are not strangers to that arduous labor that springs from a motive of love. Let me give you three texts of scripture that indicate that the common experience of the saints of God.

17:04 One is this labor of love. First Corinthians 15 and verse 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren addressed to the entire assembly at Corinth, be steadfast, unmovable, ever abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your. Here's the word that your labor, your arduous toil is not in vain in the law.

17:30 Therefore, brethren. Knowing that. Toil is not in vain, indicating that Paul assumed that every true Christian would know something of that toil in the Lord. This is not talking now about whether or not you have a job that means hard physical labor.

17:48 This is talking about a laboring in the Lord. Another text of scripture, Hebrews 6 and verse 10, and here the same phrase is used. To my knowledge, the only other place in the New Testament or in the Bible where it's used in the exact same way. Hebrews 6 and verse 10.

18:06 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and, here's the phrase, labor of love, which you've showed toward his name in that you've ministered to the saints and do minister. Now, who is this addressed to? Pastors, deacons, elders, some special church officers? No, notice verse 9.

18:29 But beloved, having spoken of the apostates, those who fall, fall short of a true work of grace, though they may have many other things, enlightenings, convictions, ecstasies. Notice. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation. And what is one of those things that accompanies salvation?

18:50 Here it is. Here it is. Labor of love. And if we're strangers to the labor of love.

18:57 Now, the degree differs in terms of maturity and in terms of our present relationship to the Lord. But if there is a total absence of this labor of love, we are lacking one of those things that accompanies salvation. For here the writer to Hebrews assumes that it's the common experience of the household of God. And then in Revelation 14 and verse 13.

19:26 Revelation 14 and verse 13. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord from henceforth. Blessed are all the saints, in other words, those who die in the Lord of the people of God. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they, who, those who die in the Lord, how many of them, apparently assumes all of them, that they may rest from their, here's the same word, from their labors, from their arduous toil, from their self-sacrificing involvement in the work of God.

20:05 Verse 14. Verse 14. Verse 14. Verse 14.

20:08 Verse 14. Verse 14. Verse 14. Verse 14.

20:08 Verse 14. Verse 14. Verse 14. Now, may I ask you a very personal question?

20:13 Do you know anything of a labor of love in the work of God? Can you point to anything that is an indication that you have put some sweat into the work of God's kingdom? That there's been an impingement upon your time, your energies, your family, your conveniences? Can you point to anything that indicates that you've been in the work of God?

20:40 That you've had a heart to labor out of love to God and out of love to man?

20:49 If you can't, you're lacking one of those things which in Paul's mind was an accompaniment of salvation. He says, I give thanks to God. Why? Not only is the fact that you see that your only access to God is by faith and that as a result of that faith you're involved in the work of God, but that having been brought to love Him, that love is not an idle wisp of wind, but it's a principle that moves you to put your neck in your shoulders to the harness and to toil in the work of God.

21:25 This to Paul was an indication of a work of grace and in the light of these texts that we've looked at, it should be to each one of us an indication of the presence or the absence of grace. What's your attitude toward responsibilities that are...

21:42 that are set before you in terms of the work of God? Is it the attitude of that man who said, I pray thee, have me excused? I'm not talking just about preachers, pastors and church leaders, but every one of us. Paul was writing to the saints and he says the thing that marked that whole assembly was a labor of love.

22:05 They had in common not only their faith in Christ, the exposure of their sinfulness, their submission to Him as Lord, their embrace, the grace of Him as Savior, but this intense labor of love.

The Spirit's Work Does Not Negate Our Labor

22:19 And so I say that the first practical observation we're warranted in making is that this labor of love is the common experience of all the saints of God. The second practical observation we want to make is this, that the work of the Holy Spirit does not negate or cancel the necessity of our laboring. Now follow me closely.

22:45 I hope you realize and know me well enough to know that I'm just not putting filler in the sermons when I stand here Sunday mornings. These are matters of life and death. Some of you feel a little drowsy. I can see it.

22:55 It's warm. It's warmer up here.

22:58 But just stir yourself up to stay awake. If I were droning on in a monotone, I'd blame myself for putting you to sleep. But I'm trying to put heart and soul and body and mind into the communication of the truth. I trust you'll do the same and listen carefully.

23:15 The ministry of the Spirit does not negate or cancel the necessity of our laboring. Now I'm bringing this principle into focus because I think it's a peculiar danger of mine and as a result of it a peculiar danger perhaps that we face as an assembly. For we look out into the average context of evangelicalism today and we see all this busy beaver whirl of activity. We are living in a day of Christian activism where spirituality is measured in terms of how much shoe leather you wear off running to meetings.

23:55 If you want to know how spiritual you are why then you take your shoe off and you get a micrometer and you measure your shoe leather. And if you've worn off fourteen thousandths of an inch that day why then you're very spiritual and if only ten thousandths why you're not doing so well. Now much of this activism is based in a rooted in a defective theology. It's rooted, in a theology that is man-centered.

24:20 So that that which lies underneath it is rotten and so we don't like the superstructure because we don't like the foundation. Now this is right and we ought to give no countenance to this idea that spirituality is measured in terms of busyness and running hither and yon seeking to get something done. So our tendency will be in our reaction against a sinful activism having come to recognize that only God can awaken sinners that only God can convict them only God can effectually call them and in a real sense only God can make saints. If you don't believe that you just become a pastor. Only God can make saints. Or you can preach year in and year out and instead of seeing people make progress you see regress. Now that's true only God can make saints out of sinners and make better saints out of saints.

25:23 Only God can do that. But is His doing it accomplished in such a way that it bypasses the full employment of all of our faculties and all of our energies? Well let's look at several verses that bring this principle into sharp focus in the testimony of the Apostle Paul. First of all we turn to Colossians chapter 1.

25:47 We've not departed from our text we're just seeking to see the tremendous principle involved in that little phrase your labor of love. Colossians chapter 1 notice verses 28 and 29. Whom we preach speaking of Christ warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect or mature in Christ Jesus where unto I also here's the same word where unto I also labor. In this desire to see men presented mature in Jesus Christ Paul says I find that I am engaged in arduous self-sacrificing costly endeavors. I labor. Notice the next word striving. But he doesn't stop there.

26:46 According to His working which worketh in me mightily. You see Paul fully acknowledged that all that his endeavors all of his endeavors that were worth anything were carried on by the mighty inworking of God by the Spirit. His working which worketh in me mightily. But in the outworking of God's inworking God did not bypass Paul's sweat.

27:17 His working out was manifested in Paul's sweat. You follow me? He says I strive. I labor.

27:28 But it's according to His working which worketh in me mightily. Keep that verse in mind as we move over to 1 Timothy chapter 4. And here we have a most amazing combination of concepts. This is one of those verses you read for years and then suddenly you read it.

27:51 And it was just a couple of months ago as I was reading through Timothy this thing just smacked me right between the eyes. Verse 10. 1 Timothy 4 verse 10. For therefore we both labor.

28:04 There's the same word again in the original. Therefore we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God. You see Paul's trusting did not lead to that which a friend of mine calls relying and relaxing. Because he trusted he didn't become a pacifist.

28:28 But he said his trusting became the very spring out of which flowed laboring and the suffering of reproach. Trusting in the living God. He put his neck and his shoulder to the yoke and labored in the work of God. To this end we labor and we strive.

28:47 Why? Because we trust. Because we trust. And then in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 10 one other reference.

28:56 I don't want to labor. These texts. But they contain a very vital principle. And I want to bring it home to us practically in just a moment.

29:06 But by the grace of God I am what I am. 1 Corinthians 10 10. And his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. Now stop there.

29:16 Don't read on. He says everything I am I am by the grace of God. God did it. I take no credit for it.

29:23 All the praise goes to him. And he says his grace that was bestowed upon me was not in vain. Well how do you know it wasn't in vain? Well because of what it produced.

29:32 And what did it produce? Notice. But I and there's the same word again. I labored more abundantly than they all.

29:42 Paul says the indication to me that the grace of God was not bestowed in vain. The grace that accomplished anything worthwhile that's been accomplished in me was the grace that set me to labor. Not grace that negated the necessity of labor. Not grace that set apart the function of labor.

30:00 But grace that operated through laboring to accomplish the purpose of God. You see the working of God is mediated through the working of his people. Only God saves sinners. Amen.

30:18 But God has chosen to save sinners through the labor and the travail of his people. That's why Paul said my little children whom I travail again in birth till Christ be formed in you. And he joins those two words together in Thessalonians. He says for ye know brethren our labor and our travail.

30:40 He brings the two strongest words he can bring. Bringing before our minds the vivid picture of a woman giving birth when all that she is and has is focused upon that one thing of giving birth to that child. Paul says his involvement in the work of God so demanded the full employment of all of his faculties. And energies upon this one thing of seeing people brought to birth.

31:04 Wait a minute Paul don't you believe only God saves sinners? Yes he does and only he does. But in the saving of him he doesn't bypass the labor and the travail of his people. He catches up their labor and travail and makes it a part of the very fabric of his mighty working.

31:22 You see this principle meets us at the very threshold of the Christian life and follows all the way through. Only God. Can bring men to repentance and faith and yet I say to every one of you here who's not a Christian God commands you to repent and believe and that you set yourself this morning to repent and believe and to seek his face and cry to him that he would grant you the grace to turn from sin. In the Christian life it's only as the Holy Spirit enables us to put to death the deeds of the flesh to mortify therefore the deeds of the body.

31:53 It's only as the Spirit of God quickens and enables and imparts the graces and gifts needed that we shall be sanctified. What he's imparting does not bypass our striving, our fighting, our wrestling, our warring, our running. All of these are words involved in the process of sanctification. His working comes to light and manifestation in our working and so in this matter of the work of God the ministry of the Spirit does not negate or cancel the necessity of our laboring.

The Labor of Ministry and Church Life

32:25 When Paul looked at the building of churches, you know what he called it? Labor. And travail. When Paul thought of the task of preaching, he calls it laboring.

32:35 Same word, 1 Timothy 5, 17, especially those who labor in the word and in doctrine. And I'm not saying this in any sense this morning to protect the ministry, but I wonder if very many of you have any idea of what's involved in producing week by week, three times a week, a study in the scriptures that is really worth 45 minutes of attention, that has some measure of clarity of thought, that is true to the sense of scripture, that has application to young people and children and adults, that has some illustration to make it light, to give some light to it like little windows, to let in some light upon the truth. The picture that Paul gives, for he knew what this meant, is laboring in the word. I've got a sneaking suspicion, I wouldn't take a poll, but there's somebody out here, that think people like myself sort of got the gift of gab, and in about 20 minutes can get together a nice little something and just talk on ad infinitum. Well, I could do that, but you know what you'd be getting?

33:44 If you think it's hot today, you'd get a lot more hot air than that. Paul likens the work of a teaching elder to laboring in the word and in doctrine. So that if God's people are to be fed, somebody's got to sweat in the study. Somebody's got to, at times, literally slap his face to keep his head up, in order to try to find out what a word like labor means, and a word like love means, and then lay it out so that people who haven't had the advantages of a lot of higher academic circles can sit there and say, I see it.

34:27 Laboring in the word and in doctrine. And now to extend the application, if the work of God is to be established in this assembly, it means we've got to have a lot of work to do. We've got to have an assembly of people who labor. No freeloaders who want the fruit of someone else's labor, but are not willing to shoulder their neck to the harness and labor themselves.

The Cost of Laboring in Love for the Kingdom

34:57 From such may God deliver us. You who are contemplating membership in this fellowship, it's only fair that we say at the outset, we expect you to manifest along with the fruits of repentance and faith in our attachment to one Lord. The labor of love. The labor of love.

35:16 It's going to cost you something. It means some of you wives are going to have to learn to die to your selfishness and give your husbands up to some long meetings and to some hours to plan and work. It means some of you husbands are going to have to die to that nice fat overstuffed chair that's so comfortable at the end of the day's work. It means some of you young people are going to have to die.

35:44 To maybe even some legitimate social concerns. How well I remember when God was pleased to lay hold of my life as a senior in high school. I think I've mentioned this one or two other times. We have such a turnover here of new folk coming in.

35:59 It doesn't hurt to repeat it. And all the young people's groups were always saying, What can the church do for us? If you don't do enough for us, we'll go somewhere else. I don't know where we got it.

36:15 Probably from the Lord and His word. I don't know where else we could have got it from. We just somehow had sanctified sense enough to believe that with a city of some 70, 80 thousand going to hell, maybe there was some work for us to do. And we just better roll up our sleeves and get doing it.

36:32 And so we did. Get out in the street corner three and four times a week and preach. Well, who planned your socials afterward? Nobody.

36:43 We didn't have time for them. We're too tired. You preach to 100, 200 people in a street corner with buses going by and hot rods blaring their dual exhausts, and their buses tooting. You preach until your stomach literally hurts.

36:59 You're projecting upward from here until your voice can't say anything more. You just like to go on home and go to bed. Or you say, didn't you miss some of the normal things of your teenage years? Not at all.

37:13 I look back and covet those days. I feel I've lost much since then in some ways. You young people, there's a labor for you. A labor of love.

37:25 Wives, you husbands. This is what will mark us as a true New Testament church. Not only our adherence to the doctrine of the New Testament and to the glorious doctrines of God's grace, but to the outworking of this in hearts inflamed with love to God and men that will cause us to shoulder the yoke and to labor. For if the kingdom of God is to be established in this area through us, His people, then it will not be in a way that bypasses our labor.

Laboring According to God's Word and Spirit's Power

37:57 Thank God we need not go into the camp of the busy beaver Christians who are running about doing anything somehow, hoping to accomplish something. But we can with calm deliberation, as it were, come to the word of God and say, Now, Lord, what activities have you ordered in your book? And seeing His marching orders can go to our knees and cry to Him for grace and for the anointing of the Spirit and rising up then with a clear understanding of the task, given to us from the word of the power that is available to us in the Spirit to go forth and labor, not doing something somehow to accomplish something sometime, somewhere, but going forth to do the work of God according to the word of God in the power of the Spirit of God, trusting in the blessing of His presence and the enablement of His grace. The third observation that I'd like to make in closing this morning is that not only is this labor of love the common experience of all the saints, secondly, the ministry of the Spirit does not negate or cancel the necessity of our laboring. But will you notice that these things are inseparably related? If we labor out of any other motive but love, it cancels the virtue of the whole thing.

The Inseparable Relationship Between Love and Labor

39:20 Remember 1 Corinthians 13? If we should even give up our body to be burned but have not love, it what? Prophets mean nothing. And do you remember that touching word to the church at Ephesus?

39:32 I can't read it without at least getting pricked, if not really wounded. The Lord says, and He uses the same words here in Revelation chapter 2. He said, I know thy faith and thy patience. Now listen carefully.

39:50 Thou canst not bear them that are apostles, found them liars, say they are apostles and are not, thou hast borne and hast patience, Revelation 2.3. And for my name's sake, here's the word, thou hast labored. But, he said, I have somewhat against thee, thou hast left thy first love.

40:10 You see, these people had a labor, but it ceased to be a labor of love. What had been done at one time out of a spontaneous affection for the Lord, the affection had waned, but since they were in the habit of doing it, they went right on doing it. Oh, do you see how that applies to us? Those labors which once glowed with delight, because they were labors of love, when the love subsides and you go on in the labor, how tedious and tasteless the hour is when Jesus no longer receives.

40:51 You see, it must be the labor of love. It's love that gives labor its fragrance. Love that gives labor its patience. Love that gives labor its endurance.

41:01 For love, what? Beareth all things. Beloved, I say, God bearing me witness, there's only one reason I could stand this morning and preach with any degree of liberty. Certain circumstances within my own life and ministry over the past couple of weeks have just about torn the heart right out of me.

41:20 And only one reason I'm here this morning is that somehow love to the hungry-hearted sheep, whom I know are gathering in this place, has forced me to pray through some issues in my own life and lay hold of God to be able to stand before Him. You see, it's love that will give labor its patience. It's endurance for love. Hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things.

41:52 I know precious little of it. I'm not saying I have pain. I just know the little trickle that came my way helped me in my own circumstance. Conversely, it's labor that gives flesh and blood and confirms the reality of our love.

42:10 You say you have love to God and men? I can't see your love. Where is it? I can only see it in the flesh and blood of your labors.

42:21 Just as the body and the spirit are joined in every true human being, I can't see your spirit, but I see you, the embodiment of it, so when we profess to love our Lord, it's as though the Lord says, do you really love me? You say, oh yes, Lord, I do. And the Lord says, how do you know? You say, well, Lord, I just can feel it right here.

42:44 The Lord says, I want to see it in the flesh and blood of labor that is the fruit of love. You see, the two are inseparable. Cut off love from the labor and it becomes tedious and heartless and barren and lifeless. Cut off labor from love and love becomes a mere center.

Intensifying Love to Increase Labor

43:03 And the apostle rejoices that the love of these people was not in word only, but in deed and in truth. We give thanks to God, brethren, for you all, remembering without ceasing your labor of love. But someone asked me, but pastor, I know I'm weak in labors and I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's because I'm weak in my love. Well, that's a good conclusion to make.

43:31 You see, if love's the engine, and labor is the wheels of the distance that the engine will take you and you're not going very far, there's something wrong with the engine and no gas in the tank, what's the way toward more intense labor of love? Well, it's the pathway of an intensified love. Well, how is my love to be intensified? In contemplation of His love to us.

43:57 We love Him because, why? He first loved us. And it's in contemplation of His love to us that our love to Him will burn. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

44:16 But when you cease to be amazed at His love, then there'll be a dwindling of your love to Him. And the only way back to a burning love to Him is the contemplation of His love to us. And then not only a contemplation of His love to us, but a consideration of the needs in His creatures, in His kingdom, so that the grace of God within us, as it were, is stirred up as it confronts need. Paul says, we are constrained by the love of Christ.

44:50 Why? Because we thus judge. 2 Corinthians 5, 13 and 14. He said, we're constrained because we judge.

44:57 We contemplate certain facts. And in the contemplation of those facts, the love of Christ constrains us. Let us contemplate. Let us contemplate the tremendous needs in our own assembly that we show to the responsibilities of witness, of consolidation of our ranks, of mutual exhortation and comfort.

45:19 Let us contemplate the needs of our own community. Let's dare to face them. Let's not retreat into a cocoon of our own nice little climate and environment and just act as though the rest of the world didn't exist. Let's expose ourselves to the world and its need.

45:38 And in the contemplation of the love of God to us and in the consideration of the need of men about us, I believe by the blessing of the Spirit our love will be raised a few degrees. And as love is raised, labors will increase, for they are labors of love. Do you have this, at least in some small flickering measure? Any involvement in the work of God that's cost you anything?

A Call to Self-Examination and Labor for God's Kingdom

46:05 Hmm? That's cost you any real sweat? Any real expenditure of energy? If not, friend, I don't care what else you're laboring in.

46:19 I see people laboring for a thousand and one things. For reputation, for station, for academic standing, for a roof over their head, and for a thousand things! But the proof that you're a Christian, one of the proofs is that you're laboring in the interest of God's kingdom, out of love to the living God.

46:40 May God grant that this word shall be fruitful in our hearts. Let us pray.