First Thessalonians, 3:6-13
1 Thessalonians 3:6-13 · Bradley W. Maston · Nov 11, 2007
1 Thessalonians, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926044275623

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, Ellen. The whole thing. Don't read the numbers. She's my mother-in-law. I didn't introduce you. Everybody, this is my mother-in-law, Ellen. And Dennis. Den here? Okay. Alright, good enough. Alright, sorry. So here, away we go. But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we also long to see you, For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction, we were confident about you through your faith, for now we really live if you stand firm in the Lord. For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy in which we rejoice before our God on your account, as we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith? Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you. And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all people, just as we also do for you, so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Thank you. All right, so here's your memory test.

Who remembers where we left Paul and company last week? I know it's difficult. We've slept possibly seven times in most people's cases, 14 to 18 in my case since then. And that kind of wipes things away a little bit. But who remembers where we left Paul last week? Yep. All by myself, lonely. What was his emotional makeup? Randy, quite eloquently, said we're building up to something and we kind of got right to the crest of it last week and then we get to go over the crest this week. What was the big emotional build-up about? You can cheat. Feel free to look back on last week's notes or your Bible. It's not cheating, because this isn't a test.

Suffering of the believers. Yeah, he was concerned with the suffering of the believers, absolutely. He was concerned with the Thessalonican believers, right, about their faith and kind of left them Yeah, we left him last week kind of discussing. It was just before we started this verse today about Timothy's good report. So all of his concerns prior to Timothy's report. are being, well, everything's being addressed this week, which is pretty exciting stuff. I just think it's so amazing to think of Paul, who is, as he's going to say, struggling, suffering, dealing with, you know, an immensely difficult situation, and the thing that's keeping him up nights is not, poor me, or this situation really stinks, and I wish I didn't have to deal with it, but rather it's, I wonder how all this is affecting the Thessalonian believers. I wonder how this is affecting the brothers and sisters in the Lord up there.

I didn't have much time with him and I didn't get to explain it to him as clearly as I might have wanted to. And I better send Timothy to go check on him. Which is also amazing because Timothy here is one of his sole companions, his company in all this affliction and distress.

And he sends him away because that's how much he loves these believers. And I think it's of note and a powerful note that that this is not Paul's fleshly human love. This isn't just the love of Paul for these really good friends he met, but rather it's Christ's love flowing through Paul as he abides in him. That's the love that he's manifesting for these people. That's the love that Christ wants us to have for each other, not our human love that, you know, kind of keeps a small track of what's going wrong and good things and bad things and strikes against and strikes for and in the end goes, well, you know, okay. But it's this deep welling up of love that comes solely from our being fixed in Christ. So, I think it's a really exciting passage. We'll have a lot of fun looking at it this morning.

So, 1 Thessalonians 3.6 reads, But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us as we long to see you. So, just as you're kind of I know everybody wants to know what theologians fight about, right? Because it really matters. One of the things that theologians have kind of gone back and forth on or take sides on is, did Timothy just arrive, just that moment, like he was writing the letter, writing the letter, writing the letter, and then Timothy walked in and goes, it's okay, they're still Christians.

Or did he come and Paul was just recounting the entire experience. I think you'd probably argue for, you know, given the Greek, the Greek gives it this sense of urgency, almost as if Timothy just showed up. But as we look at that verse and really consider it, what practically would be the difference between the two? How would that practically affect our interpretation, whether it was one way or the other? Not at all, maybe? Not even a little bit. So that's basically just a lot of ink maybe that was spilled over. But that doesn't matter. I just thought it'd be fair to point that out to you. That they felt free to write about it. Okay.

Good news here, as we see, I have a laser pointer. which I don't know if I'm coordinated enough to use, good news here, is actually the same Greek word that we see translated gospel. So you could almost translate this as the gospel of your faith and love, your continuing faith and love, which is really amazing to me that Paul would use this same word. Paul obviously didn't just throw words around.

But this wasn't just small G good news to them. This was big G good news. This was a big deal. This love and this care. Hey, this is great news. So great a news to me that I feel like I can use the same word that I used for the gospel of Jesus Christ coming to save us.

It's just, I mean, it doesn't insinuate anything to equate it with Paul's saving faith at all. But at the same time, it shows how deeply this love goes and how deeply this care Yeah, it continues on, and I think it's just such an inspiration. I was studying this and studying this. I spent, you know, a couple hours last week, a couple hours this week, and just by the end of it was just absolutely flabbergasted with what the love of Christ looks like as it's played out in the lives of believers, in the lives specifically of Paul towards these Thessalonian believers.

So, see the word faith in here, and we notice it has the definite article in the Greek. Obviously, in English, some things are difficult to bring across quite literally, so don't blame your translators, because it's quite a challenge. But if you're going to bring it across more in an interlinear form, you'd say, and has brought us the good news of your the faith, or the faith of you maybe, and the love of you. It has that definite article. And part-time Greek scholars or full-time Greek scholars, what does it mean when a word is preceded by the definite article in Greek? Yeah, one thing specifically, right? It's the specific faith of you.

And it's a thing that constantly strikes me. We live in an age where we talk about people of faith. We're all just people of faith. We're all God's children, right? Just this general idea that faith in and of itself is characteristically something good that we should have.

Oh, you just need faith. If you read, I remember taking a class on health and wellness, just how to take care of yourself, exercise a couple times a week, don't eat as many Snickers bars as you want, stuff like that. But one of the things that they spent a long time highlighting is that you need to have spirituality. You've got to have some kind of faith. It doesn't matter if you meditate, or if it's New Age, or it's this, or it's that.

You just need to address the spiritual dimension of your life. And that's all that's really important. That's just how you're going to live a healthy and productive life in society. And the reality is, biblically, that's just bosh. I mean, it's just garbage. It's absolutely untrue.

Here, Paul is saying, Timothy brought us the good news of the specific faith, your specific continuing commitment to the doctrine that we taught you, the teachings that we taught you about Jesus Christ. You're not just continuing on in faith and you slip some Zoroastrianism and some Buddhism in there. But hey, it's faith, right? No, the specific faith.

And that's why they praise God. I mean, I can't even fully verbalize how important and pivotal to the passage that is. And yet, because English doesn't work that way, it becomes difficult to bring it across. So it's pretty fantastic stuff. So we're just thinking amen. Amen. OK. That's good.

Because faith in the true sense of the word, and I'm reading off the handout here, is only as good as the thing that you actually put your faith in, right? And no one and no thing is worthy of our faith except the Lord Jesus Christ, right? you know, it's a body of truth about Jesus Christ and who he is, who we are, and him. So that's a, you can trace that through many passages that place the faith. So it's a significant point. That's great. Powerful stuff. It's a life. That's how we work out there. Yeah, amen. Amen.

I just love the illustration of a chair. I sit down in the chair, I'm essentially saying in my action, I have faith in the chair, right? But if the chair holds me up, I don't go, wow, I have good faith. That was really good. No, the chair was worthy of that faith and proved it out, right? If I fell on the ground, the chair wasn't worthy of that faith, but either way, it wasn't my lack of faith that made me fall. is the worthiness of the chair.

So it's fantastic. So you see that the faith thing, and we can transfer a lot of what we just talked about over to love, because it's not just love. Once again, it's the love. The specific love. So what would be the specific love that Timothy found in that Christ love, the Holy Spirit, absolutely. The real love, the absolutely distinct and unique, specific love of God that is found in any believer who is walking with the Lord. That's the specific love, the love that is sourced in God.

So these aren't just, I guess, what I want to draw your mind to, because we love to write these big, loquacious letters and lots of words and lots of little compliments and all this stuff. So we think maybe he's just kind of flattering them a little bit, like saying, oh, we just were so happy you had faith and love, and right on, way to go.

But really, what he's saying is, hey, you are really understanding, you're really getting that you're identified with Christ. And it's really coming out. You're standing for the faith. We see that you're in the specific faith. We see that you're manifesting the love of Christ. Love of Christ is being poured through you. You are believers. You are on the right track. The fruit is there. It is good. Amen. And that's going to be our theme of our whole study today, I hope, is that real love. Jack? You know, I'm always reminded in these studies like this, that term, that Christ being the son of God's love.

And I have never yet been able to really fathom the full impact of that statement. But this is in the area, Howard. If anyone can fathom the full impact of that, I suppose you can go home and take the day off. That's huge. Amen, amen, and amen. If we talk about going home, home. Yeah, amen. Let's go to the big home. Absolutely. Amen and amen.

All right, so and then this last bit here. that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us as we also long to see you. I always kind of, in my cursory readings, I thought, man, Paul's pretty mean. Like, everybody's always talking about, hey, and you still love us, which is great, because we're pretty good.

You know, like, no, it's not what he's going to get at all. The reality is that I believe, and there's many commentators behind this, that he's saying, essentially, much like the Corinthian church had a lot of problems and then was kind of decreased in their love for Paul, because they knew Paul had the truth to give them that was in contradiction to the way they wanted to live.

He says, hey, you guys love us. Just like maybe kids are misbehaving when their teacher's out of the class, they got that kid who's looking out, saying, she's coming, she's coming. Because they don't want her to come in, because they're doing the wrong thing, right?

So he's saying, it's a sign that you at least are trying to go the right way, walking as best you know in the spirit, because you long to see us. You know that we're not going to have a whole lot of rebuke to hand you when we come. You know that you're not slipping back into your pagan idolatry or into this or that.

And so you long to see us just as we long to see you. And you think kindly on us. which obviously as we walk in our flesh oftentimes it allows our eyes to become clouded to what is really good and the teaching that is really good and the fellowship that is really good. So I think that's the great significance of that is that he's saying hey not only are you manifesting this are you showing this the faith and the love that we talked about also You think kindly of us and share the same love with us that we have for you, and that you're not dreading our coming to you and having to drop the hammer, so to speak. So, moving on to 1 Thessalonians 3, 7. For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction, we are comforted about you through your faith.

Since I always do this, it's really my fault. I always break up verse by verse by verse when really they're all one unit. What's the for this reason here? Yeah, pretty simple, nothing complicated. Timothy's good report to them is the reason for the following.

Distress and affliction here actually translate to similar words. Paul kind of has this tendency to take two words that have a lot of overlapping meaning and some meaning that is a little bit distinct to describe the whole. So I don't know if that's a Hebraism or if it's a Greek thing or what, but it's definitely habit of Paul to take two words that have a lot of similar meaning because honestly when you look these up in your lexicons they'll both say tribulation or they'll both say distress. They'll have like overlapping definitions and yet they'll have some distinction. So I pulled these definitions out of Thayer's.

Oh and I have to just be totally honest with you and say the distress and affliction thing as it gets translated through different translations and then as you do it with your Greek interlinear there I'm not Convinced I know which one is which like which Greek word is always attached to which English word so to be fair This is I took one I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. And the difficult thing is that you've got distress and affliction in this, and then I believe it's distress and affliction in the King James. Others will have affliction and distress.

You know what I mean? Different translations will, and I don't know if they're mixing the words or just translating the different words. I mean, it's a mystery to me. But what I can tell you what's not a mystery to me is that these two Greek words are used and this is how they're defined.

So however you want to hook them up with distress and affliction, yeah, do whatever's comfortable for you. It's really not of importance. what my inner linear on the computer said, it was defined as distressed as a Greek word that says, is defined as necessity imposed by either by the circumstances or by law of duty regarding to one's advantage custom argument. And the second definition was calamity, distress, or straits. And then the word translated affliction was oppressing, pressing together, pressure, metaphorically oppression, affliction, tribulation, distress, and straits. So you definitely see the overlap right away, right? And yet there's kind of a sense of fullness when you put the two together.

It's internal and it's external. It's physical and it's spiritual. It's the whole situation is giving them distress and affliction. which makes me feel really bad when I whine about my job. Because it probably ain't this bad for me. Anyway, and praise the Lord. Yeah, I want to learn patience that way, not today. Anyway, so The point being is that this is a really kind of whole life experience of distress and affliction and difficulty.

This is his whole life. And once again, he's using these huge extreme words. And I often think that Paul probably got tired of trying to come up with bigger words and more extreme statements. I mean, it's just like everything's in the fullest measure possible. And I guess there's no other way to talk about the Lord. And yet still, it must have been tiring for him.

But I just adore that he's going through all this distress and affliction, and he says that they're comforted. Their comfort in all this is through their faith. You know, when I'm going through a rough time, it's really hard for me to say, well, you know, at least I know Lindy's walking with the Lord. And at least I know my wife is walking with the Lord. And that's a comfort to me.

Or I work with some Korean kids, and I don't, in my roughest times, I know, go and say, hey, Lord, thank you so much for working in their lives. And it's a confirmation that you're using me and that I'm here for a reason. I'm not just wasting it all, wasting my time here or anything like that. More often, I think I'll look for other places to find comfort. Maybe food. I like to eat. Television. I'd love you to take a little inventory in your mind. You don't have to say anything.

But what are the things that we comfort ourselves with? And why aren't we comforting ourselves with our fellowship here at Holly Hills? What's keeping us from that? Ultimately, what's keeping us from seeking our comfort in Christ? I just, maybe this is something, a struggle that's unique to me, but I find again and again and again that I am not looking for comfort in my difficult situations in Christ. I want the shortcut. Well, you know, I'll just go get a big fat Chipotle burrito and dissolve away, you know, and stop thinking about it and run away from my stress or my difficulty. So I'd love for us to just consider what keeps us in our lives from being comforted What is it? What's the block there by the faith of our brothers and sisters in Christ? Yeah. Any other comments about that before we move forward to 3A?

You know, actually, just thinking as a parent, and you're young at this, but I'm sure you already understand that you're concerned about cadences. spiritual well-being as well as her physical well-being, and actually primarily her spiritual well-being. That's the eternal impact.

And I know that through the years as I've watched my kids grow up and now watch them as adults, I continue to be concerned for their spiritual well-being, that they would continue to walk with the Lord. I know their salvation is secure, but I really desire for them to have that ongoing fellowship with the Lord. And Paul was their spiritual father, not their biological father. But he had that same kind of care and concern for them.

Isn't that amazing? Amen. Amen. Any other comments before we move forward? Cool. Cool. Exciting stuff. For now we really live! if you stand in the Lord." I thought this was just wild. I almost thought, oh man, he's really gone too far now. But he said it. I guess I don't need to absolve him of it. It's pretty fantastic.

For Paul, his quality of life, his very quality of life was degraded by the thought that these Thessalonians were not walking with the Lord, were not getting all of the joy and the life and the fruit of being connected to the Lord, of their salvation that Christ had won for them. And it, I mean, just as Nancy pointed out, it's really, it would be tough for us to, or it can be tough for us to enjoy life as fully knowing that a husband, a wife, a brother, a sister is even physically struggling. knowing that they're in physical pain or a physically difficult situation. It can mess up your perspective, your view, and consume so much of your time that you just can't enjoy life as fully. And here Paul is solely concerned about their spiritual well-being.

Because he tells them, there's going to be tribulation. There's going to be trials. Expect it. Wait on it. Count on it. I'm not worried about you in your physical situation, because that's just going to happen. If anything, I'm just worried about you abiding through that, not hoping that you're not going to get it.

So yeah, it's just fantastic how much he cares for their spiritual state. And that he would say, and we found out and now we really live. Now that's that much less time that I spend in concerned prayer and that much more time I spend in thankful prayer. Now I feel freed up. And I can say this, I really live now where my whole quality of life was lessened before by the concern that maybe you won't walk in with the Lord. It's just very cool stuff. Very, very exciting stuff.

Stand firm here. I'm not gonna, don't actually have to even think about the Greek. It doesn't say striving firm, right? It's just stand firm. It's really interesting that Paul can be at peace about their situation as long as they're standing firm on what the Lord has done. Obviously, ifs in scripture are always a little bit iffy. You never know if they mean like, if you stand firm, and I don't know, you might be, you might not be.

Yeah, exactly. Purely. It's sense here. And it's sense, or like many statements in scripture, that you might be saved. Maybe you won't. No, no, no, no. Not at all trying to give that sense in the word. Almost ever, without having looked at every situation. Whenever it's talking about your salvation, it says that you might be saved. It's never talking about that you might not. It's always talking about the assurance there.

So here, this if is just a sense. could be brought across equally as well since any good lexicon for this word this Greek word is in it says it can be if or since why they chose it I don't know I think it's shorter are we saving to make space a lot of stuff to fit into just you know a couple thousand pages talk a little bit more about that where they are standing. It assumes that they are standing in a fulfilled position. Jackie just said they are standing in a position where they realize who they are in Christ. Isn't that cool? The condition is reflecting their position. Isn't that extreme? Paul wouldn't say, for now, we really live. He wouldn't say that if it was... Yeah, in the more Pauline style. He's using a real strong, for now, we really live, because, really, it's because you stand firm in the Lord.

Isn't that fantastic? Small words. Huge significance. Totally unfair. That's so fantastic. So sense very clearly. And I just love this sense of standing firm because standing firm is in the active voice. So let's all together actively stand. It's kind of weird to think about it, right? Like I am standing in front of you. Am I doing it actively or passively? Any You should have seen my previous classes. Bounce around like a ping pong ball. Can't help it. Just get so excited.

Anyway, this standing firm, it's in the active voice. We're supposed to be actively be standing firm, actively be standing in our faith, actively be resting. But once again, it's like that Actively passively thing again, isn't it? I mean you're actively standing in your faith.

You're actively Pursuing the Lord for the through the word through teaching of his word through prayer and through trusting in him You're actively abiding in Christ and yet it in and of itself is something of a passive action it's just an amazing dichotomy that I can never fully wrap my mind around that my will has something to do with it, and God's will has something to do with it, and there's almost a mystery there of where the twain shall meet.

I mean, that I'm trusting in the Lord, and I'm trusting in the Lord, and yet at the end of it, you know, I feel like the only reason I trusted is because He gave me more than enough good reason to trust. I don't know. I'm not going to actually reconcile that intellectual quandary for you, because I can't. So, but it's just fantastic. Standing firm in the Lord. It definitely reminds me of this, this verse here.

Would someone like to care to read Ephesians 6.13 for us? It says, therefore take up the full honor of God, so that you may be able to recess the evil day, having done everything to stand firm. Good.

I come from a background which is a lot of spiritual warfare talk. And, oh, we're going to go storm the gates of hell, and we're going to go take the city for Christ, and we're going to go do all these things, and, you know, we're striving. And the funny thing is, is that whenever you get warfare imagery in the Bible, or for the New Testament, it always results in, stand. Stand your ground. Get all armored up and stand. Stay right there. It's great. The Lord tells us, stay where you're at. You're positioned perfectly. Don't do any work. I don't want you to do anything. Trust me. Amen. That's hard. It's hard for us to just do nothing and stand firm. And that's where Christianity takes that bend in the road. I got to do something. Yeah, because they want to do something. It's true. Amen. Not our age. Perfect. Amen.

I was just thinking, watching and the coach comes out there, and he's trying to tell him what to do, and finally he just picks this kid up and puts him right here, and says, stand. And I'm like, Lord, just stand. And if he didn't, I'd still be sitting in the middle of the field going, ah. happy. So in any event, I just, once again, the focus there is on standing. It's not on going out and getting more units or whatever it is.

And yet it's so hard, as you pointed out, it's so hard for us to think that way. It's so hard for us to think I'm like, okay, the Lord did it. The Lord really did it. Which is why we need to keep coming back and re-studying this word. Yep, yep, it's still in there. Didn't change. Next time when I read it, it might, you know, it might be, go out and do it. I hope it is, because that's so much easier for me. And yet it's not. And that's why it's so important to keep coming back.

I'm trying to reflect upon that old gospel song, Standing on the Promise. Amen. And that's what it's all about. That's where it's deemed. Absolutely. And if we don't know it, it's tough to stand firm. So there it is. There it is. Praise the Lord. OK, so they're standing firm. Oh, and then also just to bring about something that's already been pointed out at length, am I confused? Oh, sure I am. All right, here it is. The standing firm is in the Lord. It's positional, right? They are standing firm in their position that's been provided for them by their belief in the work of Christ on the cross and nothing else. There's a great statement about their condition and their position, where their condition and position are meeting every day and where ours need to meet as well. And the faith in that promise that if we just do that, we'll be where we need to be.

I think I went through, no, I know I went through the bulk of my Christian life thinking that verses like this were to be taken half-seriously. But no, they don't need to be taken half-seriously. The Lord's Word is good and never comes back void. And if we just stand in Him and stand and trust in what He's given, we'll be conformed.

It's beyond reason. It's beyond explanation. And it couldn't be overstated. Yeah, but we have this fast food mentality. If we just help it along, it'll happen faster. Really. I mean, we're not prepared, I think, as human beings to sit back and let the Lord work in our lives and let us see the fruit. And it may be down the road. And we do the same thing with people we love. We try to ram this, you know, well, if you just do this, and if you just do this, you'll be conformed. Well, no. It's not gonna do it. It's not how it works. But, you know, the activity of our faith is beholden. Exactly. And not a conservative group, so.

Isn't it amazing when you see people walking on an escalator? It's like, come on, the stairs are already doing the work for you. Why you got to keep walking just to push it along? Just because the escalator gets you there eventually, you got to move. It's like jumping on the elevator.

It's already doing the work for you. It's not going to get you any further, any faster. And the only difference in the illustration being there, it actually does some good. Whereas in our faith, it doesn't. So maybe jumping in the elevator is a better example.

But still, that's awesome. Right on. Does anyone have any more comments before I move on? Cool. I just think it'd be a really awesome, almost spiritual experience for me to end early. So we'll see if it happens. All right, so, not at this pace. All right, we're going to try.

For what thanks that we can render to God for you and return for all the joy that we rejoice before our God on your account. So what's the response that Paul has, that we, Paul and company have? Yeah, rejoicing. Thanksgiving, right? I just, I adore this. I just adore that Paul never forgets, like never is it, hey, your faith is, you're living out your position and your condition, so good job, that's what you should be doing. Anyway, moving on.

Say, no, it's beyond, what thanks can we give for this great joy that we've had on your behalf? Doesn't take it for granted, and oh, by the way, what thanks can we render to God? for this. When you talk about the conundrum that we're talking about here, it's just amazing. Like, hey, they're walking with the Lord. We want to thank God. that is so powerful and the joy that's given.

It's not just we thank God, but what thanks can we even think to give? It's beyond, we're already so blessed and we've already got our position, we're already saved, Paul's got all the blessings that any of the rest of us have in Christ. And yet this even magnifies it even more. We were already 110% thankful, how do we kick it up to 150%? This is just amazing, this thankfulness.

Bob, did you have a comment? Sorry, you looked like you were on the verge of one, and then I kept going. No, I'm not on the verge of anything. So I put together this chart, which, after putting it together, couldn't decide if it was really all that helpful or not. So if it helps you, great. And if not, you can cut it out or something. Why not over it? Because these are printed on both sides. All right.

You got the Thessalonians' situation on this side and Paul's response on this side. So their faith gave him comfort and affliction. Actually, I should probably say their faith in the Lord. Comfort and conviction. Their standing fast in the Lord was as life. to him. Now we can really live. Just for them, thanksgiving to God, for their sake, is filled with joy. And his desire to see the Thessalonians perfect what is missing in their faith, he's praying day and night in opportunity to see them, which is pretty cool stuff.

It's pretty awesome. So before we move forward on this verse, does anyone have anything else to add? I should really wait until someone answers or not to move forward, but I have an itchy thumb, trigger finger, I guess. All right, 1 Thessalonians 3, 10. As we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith.

So Paul is constantly resting in Christ, in Christ's strength. Paul doesn't simply say, I'm going to try really, really, really hard to get to you. But rather, when he wants to go and do something, he prays and asks the Lord. I just think that's fantastic. I mean, we've kind of got this pray for the Lord to move a mountain and grab a shovel and start digging attitude or mentality. And oftentimes, in my Thursday Bible study, we talk about how much we just forget to pray altogether. And yet here's Paul, you know, Mr. Can-Do Attitude.

And he's praying night and day for this thing that he wants, this thing that he desires. And I think it's because wherever he is, he doesn't want to just see good works out of his flesh or want to do what he thinks is good or what he thinks is right, but rather wants the Lord's best. He wants to be where the Lord really has him and where he'll be of the most use, because he knows that If he does or doesn't see these Thessalonian believers before he finishes his trip on this planet, they're still in God's hands. They're still in God's sovereignty. So this request that he's praying day and night, and just a brief word about that, praying day and night, does that mean they're never sleeping, never walking, never, you know, they're never, I'm sorry I can't eat dinner, I'm praying right now. Probably not, right?

The Greek grammar beyond the basics, and the gentleman's name, Wallace, says that this is talking about something that's happening in bouts, now and again. When he prays, he prays for the Thessalonians, both day and night. So he's definitely alluding to the fact that they're praying more than just once.

And I don't think it's illegal, like, oh, and they prayed every morning at 7 a.m. And every night, you know, they prayed twice a day. And both times they prayed. No, I think he's just saying, hey, every time we pray, we're praying a lot, we pray for you. And that's pretty cool stuff. But it's not, I don't believe, so mystical. And Paul was always praying. Even when he was talking to other people, he was praying. Defined prayer. to find prayer. How much time do you have here? It would be a long discussion. I just, I simply define prayer as talking to God. Sure. Right? It's not a conscious communication, sometimes subconscious. Yeah, amen. I think it's a lot of with, not just to. Sure. Listening to you share your feelings without talking about them and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, so there it is.

I just love to have Paul for a couple minutes and talk about what that's like, what prayer was like for him and how many hours he actually spent praying and all that stuff. You read about guys like Luther who say, you know, Yeah, Martin Luther, I believe, said he prayed for something on the order of four hours every morning, unless it was going to be a busy day, in which case he prayed six. It's pretty impressive. I mean, that time in communication and fellowship with the loyals.

So, yeah, yeah, it's true. We should move forward. Lacking in your faith. What can we assume is lacking in their faith? From context or otherwise. What might be lacking in their faith? The gospel? Nah, can't be that. Time in the faith. Time in the faith? Definitely. What else? Patience? Definitely. They're growing too. Like all of us, we're all growing. Yes, totally. In our condition. We're growing and there's going to be more fruit down the road as we grow.

And I'm sure they were the same. That's expected. And what could Paul have imparted? What would Paul's coming have imparted upon them that might help them? Teaching. I think that's a big piece, obviously, encouragement, love, the example of Paul, like seeing Paul, you know, whatever, building tents and cutting off the little tip of his thumb and going, oh, wow. Seeing him every day in every situation would definitely be a big part, the example of just the life-on-life discipleship, but also the teaching that he'd give them.

They didn't have the blessing that we have. They can't just pick this up and start reading, right? I mean, as far as we know, this might be the only scripture that they really have on hand. Maybe, you know, copies of the Septuagint or the Old Testament. But, so that need for them would have been huge. That supplication, that may be very well, I think, what is lacking in their faith.

So, Paul wishes to see these, I think Paul's like a parent who sends his kid off to college and just prays, Lord, please don't let him only eat ramen. let him have something besides just ramen noodles and Dorito potato chips or whatever it is. Like, Paul wants to see these young believers fed on the pure spiritual milk of the truth, the word, and the teaching that Paul had to give.

All right, moving forward. So now, may our God and Father himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you. So, I love this because I love the tension that's in it. Here Paul in the last verse is saying, I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed, and it's night and day. I prayed and I prayed, night and day, and I absolutely prayed that I could be with you. And then here, and may God the Father, our Lord, direct our way to you. Well if God's just going to do what God's going to do, why bother praying, right? Right? Maybe, maybe not. Because if God wants it, we need it. God wants it, we need it.

I think that's what Paul is saying here. Paul is just saying, Lord, I can't see through everything. I don't understand everything you ask us to do. And I know I'm not supposed to. So I know you're sovereign. And I know you want me to pray for my desires, for where my heart's at. And I can't see past the two very clearly.

But I'm going to go ahead and keep praying and keep believing that you're sovereign. even though the two might seem to pull into attention in my limited kind of mental scope here. So I just, I honestly almost blew past that before I realized that Paul just kind of lived in the tension of that. He didn't fight it. He didn't seem to do battle with it. He just said, you know, ultimately God's sovereign. But I'm still going to pray for that because I so much want to see the Thessalonians believers. How cool was that?

Just a thought, if you look at those words. Our God and our Father, maybe we'll be able to say that. And Jesus and our Lord. The relationships that he's painting for us are those words. Thank goodness. Father relationship. The Lordship relationship. goes into every area of our lives. Certainly our Father thinks that the best of all humans always have that flower. That's a faith that we strive for.

It's impossible. Amen. Amen. Isn't that awesome? And on top of that, isn't it cool how Paul once again, without arguing, argues for the divinity of Christ? God and Father and Jesus. Can't cut that apart. Amen. Praise the Lord. That's so cool. That is so awesome and fantastic. Praise the Lord. Definitely brought to my mind this verse as well.

Alright, I'm just picking people. Come now you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.

And with that, pal, we've got five minutes to do three pages. Fasten your seatbelts, folks. I actually know we're not going to make it through all this. I just can't decide what I really, really want to highlight before we go off. I guess we'll just pound forward.

The next verse says, the next verse says, And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all people, just as we do for you. This is another one of those extreme, extreme words. Increase has the sense of growth or augmentation. So the Lord is the cause here, right? And he's saying that the Lord may increase and abound in love for one another and for all people. This is the love that he says is already evidenced among them initially, right? It's already there. So may he increase it and abound it.

And this increase is growth and augmentation, for the love would increase in supply, almost as a balloon that fills with water and expands to hold the excess. Except for this balloon gets stronger as it expands rather than weaker, right? And abound here, oh and actually another one of those kind of overlapping words thing, increase here in Thayer's is defined as superabounding. So not just abound but superabound. And then this love grow to the point of superabounding.

Also the word translated abound here has the idea of excelling or moving forward like a horse racing for the goal. Absolutely progressing in our lives, progressing like a concentric circle that consumes more and more of the people in our lives further and further out.

Whereas, you know, when you first became a believer, maybe you found it hard to love your kids or your mom or your dad or whatever. And now all of a sudden, as the Lord continues to expand the circle of love, now it's the gas station attendant. You just think, oh, I just love that guy. You know, it's the people that you see once a week and someone cuts you off in traffic. Love you, you know. That's the way that he's got us going. That's the way it's going to respond to us. I have not arrived at this place yet, but that's the Lord's goal for me. I was blown away that the Lord is the cause here, that they would increase and abound in love for one another.

The standing reality is that our love, or I almost always want to put it in quotes, our fleshly love, is never enough. It's always a waste. It's always flimsy, forgettable, fragile, breakable, weak, but the love of Christ is perfect, full, and indestructible.

And that's the love that we need to have for one another, and that's the love that the world needs. How do we exercise this love rather than our fleshly love? Surely this too can only be accomplished by abiding in Christ. Resting in Him is the only way that we can truly love anyone and no other love will be of any use to others in the world. People don't need more of the conditional love that the flesh and the world have to offer. People need the perfect and accepting love of Christ, the love that is sourced out of Christ.

This is the love that transforms and the love that lifts up and the love that has impact. This is the love that God has designed to be lived out in our lives. Not just our warm feelings for each other or for other people. But the love of Christ is absolutely the powerful force that's going to change lives around us.

Even more so than being right. Isn't that amazing? I like to be right. I really do. And I spend a lot of time here because I want to have my thinking right and I want to be conformed to His image as best I can. If it's all done without love, it's a waste of time, right?

1 Thessalonians 3.13 For that he may establish your hearts without blame and holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. Just as a brief survey, this he may establish your hearts without blame and holiness before God and Father, does that sound like a conditional statement or a positional statement?

I mean, because I probably rewrote it at least once because I had it one way and then I thought, no, it's really not. I think it's the other way. You want to take a stab? I think it's conditional because we're already perfect in our position. Amen. So it can only be conditional. Exactly. Oh, man. All right. So we'll go on that.

The heart is in Greek is the seed of the seed of emotion, passion, thought, all these things. And he's saying, hey, I pray that the Lord would establish that part of you in your position. So praise the Lord. Please read on. There's the next bit. This is our, I believe, the third rapture verse in 1 Thessalonians, which also could not be understated. But evidently, my inability to understate is what got us here.

So let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we praise you for this amazing word, this amazing love that you have given us and that you want to live through us. Lord, I pray in all things that we would never be content with our fleshly love for others, but would always be seeking after living out your love. and seeking after abiding in you, beholding in you, till your love pours, runs through us like water into our daily relationships and our daily lives. And Lord, that you would use that love to change the world as only your love can. In Jesus' name, Amen.