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1 Thessalonians 3:4-4:8
Good morning church!
I pray you will all have a wonderful new year.
Congratulations to those of you that completed the chronological reading plan through the Bible yesterday.
That really is a life changing accomplishment that I would encourage all of you to do.
There are a couple of different plans on the back table for those of you looking for something to follow.
But, my encouragement is to be in the Word of God everyday.
Now if you will open your Bible’s to 1 Thes 3, and we will be picking up in the 4th verse. 1 Thes 3:4-5
Let’s pray..
If you are here for the first time this morning, it may seem like we are jumping in at the middle of a story, and we are.
Rather than go through it all, I’d encourage you to check out our previous teachings on 1 Thessalonians on our website as the last two have a pretty good recap on how we got to this point.
For those that have been with us, but memories have faded with Christmas being last week and Dr. Benjamin the week before…Paul is writing this letter from Corinth after having been run out of town in Thessalonica.
He had only spent a little less than a month with them, got the church going, poured into them as much as he could, and then those that opposed him threatened his life and ran him out of town.
And now Paul is worried about these guys.
What happened after he left?
I’m sure Paul was familiar with Jesus’ teaching on the parable of the sower… Matt 13:4-6
How much depth could these guys possibly have after Paul was with them for only three Sabbaths?
So Paul is writing this letter as a Father in the faith, that really loves the people that he is ministering to.
He has been praying for them, and when he couldn’t stand not knowing any longer he sent Timothy, a faithful brother and fellow minister in the Lord.
When Timothy returns, he returns with great news!
News of their faith, not news of scorching, or withering away.
News of their love, not news of their faith being dismissed because they were tempted by other things that took priority over God.
And they longed to see Paul, just as he longed to see, and be with them again.
He continues on…1 Thes 3:7-10
Vs. 8 For now we live.
We were stressed, but now we are satisfied, like a new lease on life, like new life was blown into them as the Thessalonians were standing fast in the Lord.
Vs. 10 Paul’s longing to see them, goes way beyond wishful thinking.
He is in active conversation with God over this.
Morning and night, PRAYING EXCEEDINGLY, that he may see them, and perfect what is lacking in their faith.
Now, this is not a jab at them.
If you’ve hung with us through this little letter, you know, Paul has praised these guys up and down.
He noted that they received the Word of the Lord in the middle of affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
They quickly became examples to the entire region and the Word of the Lord sounded forth from the people.
From the church.
Not a priest, prophet, or pastor.
From the people.
They lived like they believed that the gospel really was good news.
They lived like Jesus could come back before Paul did.
They lived like they believed what they say they believed, only they really truly did.
So what what Paul talking about here when he says he wants to perfect what is lacking in their faith.
Where is the specific criticism?
Let me turn this around an ask you a rhetorical question…are you trying to perfect what is lacking in your faith?
I mean, you do realize that you haven’t yet arrived don’t you?
Paul had nothing but praise for this church, yet he says, don’t get complacent, don’t say good enough, you’re not perfect yet, you’re not holy yet, so keep going!
And he could have just sent letters, I mean Paul’s letters are written with Apostolic authority, but he sees the value of this.
Of face to face teaching and gathering, and discussing, he sees the value of fellowship, and discipleship and that can’t be done one on none from a distance.
Paul then actually writes out his prayer for them, so they can see, and they can know what he is praying.
Our equivalent today might be the difference between saying hey, I’ll pray for you and saying, hey, let me pray for you and doing it right then with them so they can hear and pray in agreement.
Paul writes and Paul prays… 1 Thes 3:11-13
Interesting prayer here, especially the end where he prays that He (The Lord) may establish your hearts blameless in holiness.
This idea of personal holiness continues on in the next chapter and I want to look at part of it.
But first, lets make sure we understand what it means to be holy.
We should understand this because God is holy and He tells us to be as well.
We see it throughout the Old Testament, and Peter says 1 Peter 1:15-16
To be holy is to be set apart.
The vessels and the articles used by the priests in the temple were considered holy, because they were set apart for the use of God.
Paul’s words to them, to us, are heavy words.
Actually, they’re not words to us, they were words to God, it was his prayer that the Lord would establish their hearts blameless.
Do you know that that is where it starts?
If our hearts aren’t right, all the religious things we do, the good deeds, don’t really matter, and they don’t make us holy.
So lets look at chapter 4. 1 Thes 4:1-2
First of all, Paul says finally then, but it is not his version of in conclusion, or I’ll close with this.
Paul is making a transition here from theology to application.
Or the finally, this is what it should look like in your lives.
This is how you ought to walk.
Faith becomes real when it moves from our head and our heart to our feet.
It’s real when we are living it.
Verse two he clearly says commandments not recommendations or guidelines.
Commandments through the Lord Jesus.
I don’t know if you saw the sermon title on the first slide or not, but it said the will of God.
That is one of the most asked questions by new Christians and Old Christians and everyone in between.
How do I know what God’s will is for this situation, or for my life?
Paul makes it super simple for us and writes it out in plain language…1 Thes 4:3
I’m going to give you some homework here, because I could spend the rest of our time together this morning talking about sanctification.
What it means and what it looks like.
Your homework is to look up the word justification and look up the word sanctification.
How are they similar and how are they different?
For the purpose of our discussion this morning.
When we place our faith and trust for salvation in Jesus’ finished work on the cross.
God says at that moment, that we are justified.
Our account with Him has been made just as if I’d never sinned, the slate is wiped clean.
Sanctification is the process of Him making me clean.
Justification means I have been saved by Christ, sanctification is Him making me more and more like Christ.
It is the continuing perfecting of our faith, our victory over the bondage of sin.
It is the weakening of our flesh and the strengthening of our spirit.
I don’t want to do your homework for you…but it is the will of God that we be sanctified.
What does that look like practically?
That we should abstain from sexual immorality.
This is so important for us to understand.
If this is God’s will for us, that we be sanctified.
Set apart for Him, separate from the world, different from the world, and practically, one of the things that it means is that we would abstain, be absent from, not be a participant in sexual immorality.
What does that mean?
Not what do you feel like that means, or what does your friends say that it means, or the world, or the collective consensus of society say that it means.
I mean what in the world would their definition be.
What would qualify as being immoral sexually in our perverse society?
Maybe rape?
Pedophilia?
Not everyone would agree?
Homosexuality?
Bisexuality?
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