Review of 1 Thessalonians:
Background Review
•
The ancient city
of Thessalonica (Thessaloniki)
- Located in modern day Greece
- Major city that attracted people from all walks of
life through it’s gates
•
The summarized
account of Paul in Thessalonica in Acts 16-18
- Paul’s second missionary journey
- Arrived in Thessalonica around AD 51
- Paul “reasoned” with the Jews and some came to faith
in Christ
- They were mistreated and ran out of town
•
Chapter 1
- The Thessalonians were setting an example for other
believers abroad
- They were encouraged by the faith of the Thessalonians
under pressure
- They set an example in their joy, their obedience,
their witness, and their hope.
- It reminds us that we too are setting an example for other believers as well. People see what we do and will imitate us. If we can serve Jesus, so can they!
•
Chapter 2
- Paul defends himself and his ministry against his
enemies who were accusing him of being a fake and a failure.
- Regardless the accusations made against him, he knew
they had no merit and set the record straight.
- It reminds us that the accusations made on behalf of the devil are worthless and hold no merit with God. The facts are in the blood! When we feel we have failed, God is working. God will do what He promised He would do.
That brings us to chapter 3. Here Paul is filling in the gaps of what happened after they fled Thessalonica. He informs them that when they left, they were concerned for their physical and spiritual well-being. So they sent Timothy to go back to encourage and exhort them in their faith and bring a report back to Paul. Paul was concerned that all their hard work had been undone by those persecuting the Thessalonians. When Timothy came back, Paul was happy to know that they were still standing strong.
[Side note]: There is something to be said about doing what you are responsible for and leaving the rest up to God. Your obedience makes a difference. You may not see it, but it is making a difference. When you do your part, it makes God’s part a whole lot easier. Our faith in God is ultimately shown through our obedience than any other way.
At the end of chapter 3, Paul shares his prayer for the believers in Thessalonica. The prayer is two-fold: The first being personal and the second being prophetic.
Personal
Prayer
This first prayer was personal.
Personal Prayer
10 “as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith. 11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you…”
His hope was that God would allow Paul and his team to go back to finish what they started. His prayer was relational and it was pertaining to their spiritual growth. Paul took time to witness to them, lead them to Christ, disciple them, guide them, and invest in them. He had personal stock in the people he was praying for.
We should have someone we are investing in. We should have someone we are discipling. We also ought to pray for those we are discipling. We should pray for them and for their continual spiritual growth and their relationship with Jesus. Find someone to disciple. You may have to help lead someone to Jesus first. If you do, make an investment in their life. Invite them to church. Love them. Encourage them. Show them an example worth following. Pray for their spiritual success as a believer.
Prophetic
Prayer
The other was a prophetic prayer; meaning that it was specific to the Thessalonians in that day, but also for the Christians of today. It was a prayer that only God could fulfill then and one that only God can do now.
1 Thessalonians 3:12-13
“...and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
Paul’s prophetic
prayer was also two-fold:
1. Increase
in love
2. Be
blameless in holiness
Increase and Abound in Love
Paul’s prayer was that the Thessalonians would increase and abound in love. What does that mean? As our love for God increases, our love for others should increase as well. Not only should it increase, it should also abound.
Abound = To have plenty of, to be filled with, to be well supplied.
God’s desire is that we would be filled with His love and have plenty of it. The Bible says that God is love; so to be filled with love is to be filled with God. If we are to have more love, we must have more God.
*Now, doctrinally speaking, we can’t have more of God in our life. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit and He is more than enough. We can’t leak God in our life in a way that we need to be filled with more of Him in order for for us to have enough. But, we can choose what we are filling ourselves with. We can choose to feed ourselves with more Jesus in our life. The truth is that we are either feeding/ pleasing our flesh or our spirit. In that sense, we can have more God in our life. We can have more of the word of God in our life. We can talk to God in prayer more. We can have more fellowship through attending church more. In that sense, we can have more Jesus in our life.
When we fill our lives with more Jesus, love will abound. It’s a by-product of the Holy Spirit being active in our life. He will just produce more love because that is who He is. We can always increase more Jesus in our life.
John 3:30 - “Christ must increase and I must decrease.”
We can always increase Jesus in our life and less of ourselves (flesh pleasing activities). It doesn’t mean that those things are bad. But in order to abound in love, we have to increase our Jesus intake. (Illustration of a/c intake: your air conditioning unit is either producing clean or dirty air. It depends what it is taking in. It can only produce the kind of air it is taking in. That depends on your filter. If the filter is dirty, it will produce dirty air. If the filter is clean, it will produce clean air. That can only be determined by you, whether you are changing out your filter or not.) It is the same for our lives.
As we abound in God we abound in love. As we abound in love for God, we will abound in love for one another and for others. God’s desire is that we would abound in love for each other and that we would abound in love for others.
When we love one another, we care for each other. We encourage one another and believe for one another. Love overcomes division, disappointment, and dissension. It allows us to forgive, forget, and move forward. We need more of this with one another. We will fall short with one another! Nevertheless it’s our responsibility to repent and forgive. It is our obligation to model the same grace and mercy that was shown to us through Jesus.
We should also grow in love for the lost. We should pray for our co-workers, neighbors, friends and family members that don’t know Jesus. We should invite them into our life and show them the love that somebody else showed you and that Jesus showed you. This is also our responsibility as believers. We must allow love to cover over and wash out the division, disappointment, and dissension the devil stirs up in order distract us from the greater goal.
1 Peter 4:8
ESV - “love covers a multitude of sins.”
AMP - “it overlooks unkindness and unselfishly seeks the best for others.”
Allow God’s love for the lost grow in your heart in such a way that resembles His love for you. God sees the greater potential in you rather than just your shortcomings. See the greater potential in those around you as well who don’t know Jesus. See their future salvation instead present shortcomings.
Blameless in Holiness
Having more Jesus in our life also leads to more holiness. Paul prayed that we would increase and abound in love “so that…” meaning that the former is a cause and the latter is an affect. When we have more Jesus in our life (God is love), then another bi-product is holiness. You can’t get close to Jesus and get close to sin at the same time. It’s impossible! We can only be serving one of them.
Romans 8:8 (ESV) - “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
We cannot please Jesus and please the flesh at the same time. If we are truly abounding in love, then we will gravitate closer to a righteous life and further away from a sin-filled life. This is no doubt by God’s design. It is simply a bi-product of more Jesus in our life. In other words, if we want to get rid of more sin in our life, then all we have to do is to focus more on Jesus and less on our sin. Don’t allow the devil to make you believe the lie that you have to be the one to make you more righteous. While you are responsible, you are incapable. You don’t have the power to make you more righteous…only Jesus can.
One day Jesus is returning! Paul’s hope is that the believers in Thessalonica and us as believers today is that when Jesus returns that we would be blameless before men and holy before God.
Takeaways:
1.
Allow Christ
to increase
2.
Allow love to
increase
3. Allow holiness to increase
We
all just need more Jesus. More Jesus fixes a lot. Jesus truly is the answer.
