Our entrance in unto you - His first coming to preach the Gospel was particularly owned of the Lord, many of them having been converted under his ministry. This consideration gave him a right to deliver all the following exhortations.

our.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us...

1 Thessalonians 1:3-10 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ...

2 Thessalonians 3:1 Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you:

in vain.

1 Thessalonians 3:5 For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you...

Job 39:16 She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's: her labor is in vain without fear;

Psalm 73:13 Truly I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence.

Psalm 127:1 Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.

Isaiah 49:4 Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD...

Isaiah 65:23 They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD...

Habakkuk 2:13 Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire...

1 Corinthians 15:2,10,58 By which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain...

2 Corinthians 6:1 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain.

Galatians 2:2 And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles...

Galatians 4:11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on you labor in vain.

Philippians 2:16 Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.

The Calling of the Regenerate:
"Whom He did predestinate, them He also called."--Rom. viii. 30. In order to hear, the sinner, deaf by nature, must receive hearing ears. "He that hath ears let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." (Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29; iii. 6, 13, 22). But by nature the sinner does not belong to these favored ones. This is a daily experience. Of two clerks in the same office, one obeys the call and the other rejects it; not because he despises it, but because he does not hear God's call in it. Hence …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit