1 Thess. 1:1-3; 5:8; Rom. 5:2-5, Grow Up!

Did you ever have that discussion as a child or with a child: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Was the answer ever, “I want to be filled with faith, hope and love”?  Probably not.  That’s not what we were looking for.  However we would have been better off to aim at that definition of a “grown up” than most of the ones we have.


Here’s another discussion Christians sometimes have: what makes for a successful local church?  Answers to that question commonly include these: it’s active, giving soul-winning, missionary-minded, smooth-running, Spirit-filled, big and beautiful.  Now several of those things are admirable, and several might be the result of a church that has a lot of faith, love and hope.  But any of them can also be the product of the flesh, of our best effort, and not the work of God.


These three marks of maturity for local churches are all over the NT.  Here’s the proof: 1 Cor. 13:13 (foundational), Rom. 2:2-5 (theological), Gal. 5:5-6, Eph. 1:15-19, Col. 1:3-8, 1 Th. 1:3; 5:8, 2 Th. 1:3-4, Hb. 10:22-24 and 1 Pt. 1:21-22.  It is this repetition that leads us to conclude that when Jesus, the Head of the Church, is walking among the candlesticks (Rev. 2:1), these are what He is looking for.

Here are three “working” definitions of these qualities (i.e. not theological but definitions that tell us what it looks like when these qualities are present).

·        FAITH: visualizing what God intends to do in a situation and ordering my life accordingly.

·        LOVE: giving to the basic needs of others without the motive of personal reward.

·        HOPE: patient confidence that in the future God will fulfill His Word to us.

One way we might look at the relationship of these qualities is like this:

By FAITH the work begins;

by LOVE it continues through various states of difficulty;

by HOPE it is completed.

Here is yet another way to consider faith, love and hope.

·        FAITH: a person who has died to self in the past, who has denied self that he night follow Christ only.  Faith, of course, is tied to our salvation and that faith in Christ is declared publicly in baptism.

·        LOVE: a person who is dead to self in the present, who thinks the needs of others are greater than his own.  We could also say he is dying to self in the present; love is fundamental to the outworking of our salvation.

·        HOPE: a person who has died to self for the future, who has given up all selfish ambition and expectation, who knows not what the future holds but knows Who holds the future.  

Now is a good time to humbly seek the Lord as to the presence of true maturity in your own life.