Blameless in Holiness (1 Thessalonians 3:7-13)

First Thessalonians chapter 3, 7 through 13.

1 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction, we were encouraged about you through your faith, for now we live if you stand firm in the Lord.

How can we thank God for you in return for all the joy we experience before our God because of you?

As we pray very earnestly, night and day, to see you face to face and to complete what is lacking in your faith.

Now, may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.

And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone, just as we do for you.

May He make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Amen.

Lord, we thank you for this verse.

God, we pray that you would have your perfect way in our hearts this morning, that you would use this verse as a scalpel to cut out anything that you don't want in our lives, to shape us and to form us and to make us more like Jesus.

So I pray that we would come with an openness this morning to allow this verse to do whatever it is that you want to do for us as a whole, as a body of Christ, but as individuals as well.

So Lord, would you do the speaking this morning and help me to step out of the way?

And we pray that you would bless this time together that we have.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So last year in our house, we were doing some work with a hot glue gun.

Everybody knows what those are.

Use those before.

And it was, we're doing the work on our counter, but then we left the house in a hurry because we're going down to Royo Grande because my daughter had a basketball game.

And about halfway there, I think we're going down the grate or something like that.

I had the thought of, did we turn the glue gun off?

I don't know if we turned the glue gun or not.

Did anybody unplug it?

And so I asked that to the car, hey, did anybody unplug the glue gun?

And I recogni I got the response of maybe.

I think so.

Well, actually, maybe not.

You know, I don't remember actually.

So Michelle and I started chatting, like, what do we do?

Should we turn around and go check?

If we did, my daughter would be late for her game.

And then we started thinking, well, are we worrying about nothing?

What happens if you do leave a glue gun on?

Does like something bad happen to fire start?

And we're thinking, like, well, it was next to a pile of papers.

There's wooden cabinets right above it.

You know, we start kind of overthinking this, I guess we should say.

And what then we start, at least I started thinking, like, what happens if we lost those files and those photos and those family heirlooms and all of that kind of stuff?

Kind of felt like home alone when the mom's like, God, you know.

We didn't leave any children behind, though.

This is all about a glue gun.

But we started asking ourselves, should we call somebody to go check on this?

Because we can't turn around to go check on this.

Should we interrupt somebody's day and have them stop what they're doing to go over to our house and to see if a glue gun is plugged in or not, which kind of seemed ridiculous as we started talking about it.

So instead of calling somebody to take care of it, we just decided we were gonna worry the whole time throughout the whole game.

Hours later, we get home to realize it was unplugged the whole time.

We were worrying about absolutely nothing.

But Paul and Silas were doing something similar with this church in Thessalonica.

Obviously, their care, their burden, their worries were much deeper than a glue gun being left on at somebody's house.

But they planted this church in Thessalonica, most likely were only with them for three to four weeks.

They were forced out because of persecution to leave this church, and they were really worried about all the scenarios that could possibly happen to this church that was just established and so young and now pretty much on their own.

But they did choose to call a friend and to send them to go check on things, and that was Timothy.

And they asked them, hey, go check on this church, do what you need to do, and please come back and report to us on how things are going.

They couldn't get them, this church, off of their mind.

They're praying for them night and day, constantly desiring to be with them.

So Timothy goes to them and they ask them, just report back how are things going.

So Timothy does, he comes back and he lets them know, hey, you guys, you've really been worrying about nothing.

Like, yes, they're going through some serious stuff.

And yes, they have some questions that need to be answered, but nothing's on fire at this church.

You guys can breathe now.

You can stop worrying.

God's got this.

The Holy Spirit is guiding them.

They're actually doing really, really well.

So in our text today, Paul's gonna pick up on how glad that they were, Paul and Silas were, when they got Timothy's report back of how well they were doing.

And you probably noticed, if you're a Bible, you know, uh if you're a Bible head, we started with a therefore.

So when you have a therefore, you've got to go back and see what it's there for.

And I think what Paul's saying is, therefore, since we have received such a great report from Timothy, therefore, since the things that we were so concerned about have been put to rest, therefore, because of your faith and your steadfastness in the midst of persecution, and since we miss you guys and you miss us, and we want to be with you, and you want to be with us, therefore, pick us up in verse 7.

He says, Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction, we were encouraged about you through your faith.

Think about the relief for Paul and Silas to hear this great news from Timothy after all the scenarios that they had been worried about.

You know, in chapter 1, Paul already said that their faith and their joy in the Holy Spirit in the midst of this persecution had actually gone before him in his travels.

He would arrive places or be places and come across people that were, you know, that had just been to Thessalonica or something like that, and they're like, oh wow, that church, their faith is encouraging us, and he's running into people that are telling him things like this.

And so Paul starts to tell them how much their faith is now encouraging him and Silas.

You know, think about that.

These guys that are risking their lives almost daily for the sake of the gospel are being encouraged by the faith of this very young church.

And I just want to ask you: have you ever had someone more mature in your faith that maybe you look up to tell you how you've encouraged them and been an example to them in their faith?

I mean, talk about a shot in the arm.

You know, when I was a few years into being in vocational ministry for the first time, the lead pastor of that church that I was working at, he wrote me a letter sharing a few ways that I had encouraged him in his ministry, and I still have that letter in my Bible at home.

Almost 20 years later now, because I was so encouraged by that, and every time I read it, I'm still encouraged by just that little gesture that he made.

You know, I imagine Thessalonica received this letter that's being written right now through Paul's hand, and they were thinking, whoa, we just encouraged the Apostle Paul.

Isn't that crazy to think about?

You know, I'm sure it not only bolstered their faith even more and so encouraged them in so many ways.

So I just wanted to encourage us, go encourage somebody today.

Whether they're younger in the faith or they're older in the faith, just you never know how far that encouragement is going to go with that person.

You know, they might think about it 20 years later from now and think, oh yeah, I remember that one Sunday when so-and-so told me what a great job I was doing, or how I encouraged them in their faith.

And it's just really neat to see how Paul's letting this very young church say, hey, this is how you have encouraged us because of what you're doing.

And I'm sure it just encouraged them to have more and more faith and to live that out more and more.

Now, one thing I want to point out before we move on to verse 8 is how human the apostle Paul is.

You know, I think we can sometimes look at him as some type of this spiritual superhero that had some type of superpowers, you know, or that he didn't have to deal with things like we have to deal with.

He didn't have to deal with the same emotions like worry and fear and loneliness and things like that.

Or we can think that maybe you know persecution didn't bother him like it would us.

Like he had the superpower to just like let it roll off of his back.

Paul worried and he needed encouragement in his faith.

Paul had physical ailments that he pleaded with the Lord to take away from him.

You know, we've been using this map, and I want to throw it up again.

Talking about his travels and how he was pretty much chased across the top of the Aegean Sea, and everywhere he landed, he was coming to these places where he was finding persecution, and then he had to leave.

He finally ends up in Corinth.

And it's interesting because he ends up in 1 Corinthians 2 3 saying, I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.

Apostle Paul came to you in weakness, in fear, and much trembling.

These things really affected him.

Paul wasn't this spiritual superhero that had special powers that made him not feel, or not worry, or not fear.

He needed encouragement, he needed reassurance from the Lord.

You know what he was though that made him so special was he was available, he was faithful, and he was courageous through those emotions that he was experiencing.

You know, I mentioned this so that we can look at some very human emotions in this passage that we see here.

Uh starting in verse 8, he says, For now we live if you stand firm in the Lord.

You know, in previous weeks I've mentioned that there's a few moments in this letter when Paul kind of sounds like a romantic.

You know, and this is one of those times.

It's like somebody saying in a romantic comedy, like, I can't live without you.

It's like, well, yes, you can.

You might not want, you know, have the same life or whatever, but yes, you can continue living without this person.

But this is just strong language to express the love that we have for somebody or somebody else has for somebody.

You know, it's like Paul saying, I really wasn't living to the fullest until I knew that you guys were all right in Thessalonica.

Until I knew you were weathering the storm of persecution that you're going through.

That's why he says, For now we live if you stand firm in the Lord.

And he goes on in nine.

Look at it with me.

How can we thank God for you in return for all the joy we experience before our God because of you?

It's a more strong language.

Look at verse 10.

As we pray very earnestly, night and day, to see you face to face and to complete what is lacking in your faith.

Can you see how much Paul loves this church through these words that he's using right here?

You know, this desire to be with them, to see them, to talk to them, to minister to them, to answer the questions that they have.

We're gonna get to that next week, actually, answering some of the questions that they have.

And they're doing all of this in the midst of hostility.

So Paul really wants to help them get established in their faith even more than what they already have.

Again, he's writing like he's in this long-distance relationship, and he really doesn't want to be in a long-distance relationship.

That's what it sounds like to me.

It's kind of like he's grabbing, like, I miss your face.

You know.

I think he says, I think about you night and day.

I pray for you night and day.

I pray that I can be with you night and day.

Those are that's some strong language there.

And note something interesting at the end of verse 10.

He wants to be with them.

Why?

To complete what is lacking in your faith, he says.

But he keeps talking about how great their faith is and how encouraged he is by their faith, and how the whole region is encouraged by their faith.

So what's lacking?

What's he talking about here?

Well, first, we all have room to grow, don't we?

In our faith, no matter what.

They had room to grow.

They're doing great, but they had room to grow.

I think we're doing great, but we have room to grow as well here today.

No matter how mature we are, we always have room to grow.

But what I think he's talking about, and I think what we can gain from context, is that what is lacking is that he's not with them.

You know, we can understand this better, I think, when we look at another place that Paul used this same phrase.

I think we can take a cue from Colossians 1.24.

When Paul wrote to them, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking, same word.

So I'm completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for his body, that is the church.

I don't know if you remember when we went through this as a church, but what on earth was lacking in Christ that Paul could do in his flesh?

That sounds weird, doesn't it?

It was to be physically present with them, with the Corinthian church.

Christ has called the church to be his hands and his feet physically here on earth.

We are his physical representatives.

So, in this context that we're looking at here today, what was lacking in the Thessalonian church's faith was Paul being physically with them, his physical presence with them.

And it was killing him to be in this long-distance relationship and to not physically be there.

He wanted to go and complete what was lacking in their faith.

So Paul prays night and day for this reunion.

And we get to see a bit more of his heart in this in the next couple verses, which we're going to call kind of a prayer blessing that he's writing to them.

He says in verse 11, now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.

This is just Paul's heart.

Can I go to them?

Can you please make this happen, God?

That I can get to them.

Will you direct my path to them?

You know, it's interesting to see Paul speak in this way, at least to me, and talk about his desires in this way and to kind of see how he's been praying for this church and relaying this desire to them.

We don't know for sure if Paul ever made it back to Thessalonica.

If he did, it wasn't directly recorded.

We know that he went back through Macedonia, but it never mentioned that he was specifically back at Thessalonica.

And as far as we can tell, it sounds like Paul just had this straight-up worry and anxiety and fear for this church.

And whether this was a burden the Lord wanted him to carry or not, I'm not sure.

Because the Lord's burdens are easy and his yoke is light.

And this sounds really heavy on Paul and Silas.

He said he didn't feel like he was living completely.

He was so filled with concern for this church.

But what Paul did that was extremely biblical, was what he did with that worry.

What he did with that burden that he had for this church.

He prayed constantly.

At the end of verse 11, notice he says, May God direct our way to you.

So Paul wasn't going to allow fear and worry to dictate his path.

He said, God, this is my desire.

I want to get to these people, but may you direct my path back to them.

He wasn't going to allow fear and worry to make him make a snap decision and make a beeline to Thessalonica just so he could feel better about the anxiety that maybe he had over this church.

Instead, he prayed that as the Lord directed him, that the Lord's path would lead him back to them.

You know, in all of this, he's not taking things into his own hands.

He's admitting that he had this anxiety really for this church.

But he just continues to pray for them and pray that the Lord would direct him back to him.

And I think that's what the Lord wants us to do as well when we have these fears and cares of this world and things weighing on us.

Pray and then seek the Lord's direction.

You know, Paul later wrote to the Philippian church, and a lot of you are probably familiar with this passage, but Philippians 4, 6 through 7, he wrote, Don't worry about anything, right?

Not some things.

Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Paul had all of these carries cares, I should say, and worries.

He had all of these what-ifs for this church.

So what did he do?

He prayed night and day for them.

He prayed for the Lord to direct him.

You know, for us, if we have something that's gripping us to the point where we feel like we can't breathe, like there's a weight, you know, on our chest.

Or maybe it's something small, but you can't stop thinking about it, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger in your own mind.

Paul gives us an example here.

Pray, pray, pray some more, seek the Lord.

God doesn't want us to worry about anything.

Think about that.

I think we glaze over that because we've become so familiar with this verse.

Anything.

You know, how many times have we talked about hope recently?

We've talked about it a lot.

We talked about it at Easter.

We've already talked about it a couple times here in 1 Thessalonians.

And we've talked about how hope is tied to our future.

Do you guys remember this?

We can't really, you know, place hope in things that have happened in the past.

And we've talked about how Jesus is to be our hope and an eternity with him is to be our hope.

You see, worry is the opposite of hope.

They're both about the future, aren't they?

But one is God's will for us, and one is Satan's will for us.

God wants us to have a hope for the future in Christ.

Satan wants us to worry and be consumed with the unknowns of what's coming.

You know, if Satan can't kill, steal, and destroy us, he's gonna try and do that with our thoughts.

Because when we um, I'm sorry, when he can do that, when he can take over our thoughts in that way, it leads us to either taking things into our own hands because we're so worried, or it paralyzes us and it makes us ineffective for God's kingdom.

But the problem is when we talk about worry, if we're being honest with ourselves, we like to worry.

Because it makes us think that we're somehow in control of a future outcome that we have no control over.

And it's confession time for me, okay?

There have been times where I'm really worrying about something, and I feel like there's that weight, you know, that burden that I shouldn't be carrying.

And then I get distracted by something else, and I kind of forget about it, and I'm like, oh, I'm feeling a lot better than I was this morning.

Like, huh, what's going on?

And then I'm like, wasn't I supposed to be worrying about something?

Oh yeah, that thing.

And then you know, and then it comes back.

And then I'm like, why on earth did you just do that?

Like you were feeling better.

Why did you just bring that back?

Because, you know, because if we're honest with it with ourselves, it's because it makes us think, oh, I have some sort of control if I don't stop thinking about that thing, if I don't stop worrying about that thing.

And then, you know, when we weren't sure about the glue gun, going back to the glue gun, and we decided we were gonna let it ride, and we were not gonna call anybody to go check on the glue gun for us.

I should have stopped worrying at that point, right?

Because I couldn't do anything at that point to change the outcome of if our house was gonna be standing or not when we got home, other than pray.

And I did that, and and I prayed, and our house was still standing when we got home.

But I just kept worrying and I kept worrying as if I could change something down in Royal Grande.

About a glue gun here in a task and arrow by being so concerned about it.

You know, God wants our current and future thoughts to be on the hope of Christ.

It's mentioned multiple times here in Thessalonians.

So I just want to encourage you if you find yourself consumed with worry and fear and exact and anxiety, follow Paul's example here to just continue in prayer.

Continue to give it over to the Lord.

Cast your cares upon Jesus, fixing your eyes on the hope of Christ, and then continue to follow his leading.

That's exactly what Paul's praying for here for himself and for this church.

Now, Paul continues with this prayer blessing on them in verse 12.

He says, And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone, just as we do for you.

The imagery here that Paul is painting is to be filled until it runs over.

And specifically filled until it runs over with love.

You know, the church is doing well in this that he's writing to.

But again, they had room to grow in this.

So this is an encouragement to continue on, to be filled with the love of Christ until it's running over.

You know, I think our church does well with that as well, but we can continue in growth with that as well, just like this Thessalonian church.

And look at verse 12.

It's not just a love for the church, it's a love for everybody, a love for everyone.

You know, the key here really is the source of where that love comes from in verse 12.

And that source is Christ.

We don't have the ability to love each other well.

We don't have the ability to love our community well or our neighbors well.

We definitely don't have the ability to love our enemies at all.

Not even well, just at all.

It's as the love of Christ flows into us and our vessel is full, that we can then overflow to where it's starting to splash on others.

But it has to be Christ being the source of that.

You know, this goes back to abiding in Christ.

We abide in the vine, and he's going to be our source for everything, including love for everyone.

You know, God doesn't want us tipping our vessel over and shaking out the last drops of love that we have.

He wants us overflowing with the love of Jesus for ourselves first.

To the point that we can't contain it all, and it just overflows on everybody else.

And that only comes from nearness and closeness and a connectedness that comes from abiding in Christ.

And that all comes from just spending more time with him and becoming more like him and allowing him to be that source of love that flows through us.

Now look at the end of this prayer blessing, verse 13.

He says, May he make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Amen.

There's a little bit of a debate here on this verse of whether Paul's referring to positional sanctification or progressive sanctification because of the way that this is written in the original Greek.

You can kind of take it either way.

And just as a reminder, positional sanctification is our standing in Christ before God as sanctified and holy.

You know, so this happens the moment that we follow Christ.

God sees in us the finished work of Jesus Christ.

And then progressive sanctification speaks of this process that we're going through, if you're a Christian, that you're going through right now on this earth.

And it's in between coming to faith in Christ and before we are with Jesus face to face, whether we die or we're raptured to him.

This is really where we're daily supposed to be coming more and more like Jesus.

More and more set apart from this world, more and more set apart from what the world looks like, and more and more like what Jesus looks like.

I think verse 13, because of the way it's written, it's probably both.

You know, an encouragement to continue in their progressive sanctification while also looking forward to what awaits us in eternity and looking forward to that with hope.

You know, that day that we are with Christ and actually get to live in that positional sanctification.

Right now we don't get to live in it yet.

But when we are with Jesus, we'll get to live in that positional sanctification.

God sees us as positionally sanctified.

We're just not quite there yet.

Whenever Paul talks about the return of Christ, as we've been talking about, end of each chapter, uh, this one included, he's talking about the return of Christ.

But every time he talks about the return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians, it's to encourage them.

It's to encourage them to look forward to that day that's coming.

You know, he's trying to encourage them to endure what they're going through now because what awaits them is so, so much better than what they're going through right now.

And this is part of that hope that we've been talking about, that hope of that future with Jesus, where the worry and the anxiety and the fear that we have and experience now is no longer gonna exist.

Where persecution of the church no longer exists, where the temptation and the fiery darts of the enemy, we're not gonna have to worry about those things anymore.

Where the struggle in our work no longer exists.

The thing is, God wants us to look forward to this with hope because that's what he wanted from the beginning for us.

From the Garden of Eden, that's what he desired.

But then we chose sin over obedience.

We chose separation over a face-to-face relationship with him.

We chose struggle over joy.

We chose, continue to choose, worry over hope.

God wants to help us start correcting all of those things now.

And then we get to live in those perfect things for all of eternity, and he wants us to have a hope for those things.

And all of this is through Jesus.

He came to give us a way out of misery when we chose sin.

He came to offer us hope because of him and through him and hope in an eternity with him.

A hope we would not have had otherwise if it wasn't for Jesus.

You know, when we're gathered to Christ, when we're caught up with him in the clouds, as we'll see at the end of chapter 4, we're gathered with all the saints, as it says here in a verse this morning.

We're gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

Not to be judged or punished for our sin, but to be judged for our good works.

There shouldn't be fear in us about that judgment seat of Jesus Christ.

That's something we should be looking for.

Sounds weird, right?

Judgment seat.

I think in our culture we're automatically thinking this is a bad thing.

I hope there's no guilt found in me, you know, stuff like that.

This is the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, where he's just gonna judge us for our good works because the punishment's been taken for all of our injustices, for all of the things that we have done wrong.

It's because of Christ that we can actually look forward to that day.

And it's all because Jesus already took on all of those things for us.

All of that punishment and the judgment for our sins, he took on those things so that all that's left for us to receive is reward.

Think about that.

All that's left for us to receive in Christ is a reward.

We're rescued by Christ.

He came to rescue us from our sin and from the separation that we caused through our sin.

And through the struggle and the worry and the punishment, he rescued us from those things.

So all that's left throughout all of eternity is a reward.

So I want to ask us all do we have that hope?

Do we live with that hope in our life?

And I'm not talking about if you're not a follower of Christ, we'll talk about that in a second, but if you are a follower of Christ, do you live with that hope of Jesus Christ in an eternity with him?

Are you looking forward to that day?

Are you looking forward to the judgment seat of Jesus Christ?

Because we should be.

Scripture tells us we should.

Paul's encouraging this church over and over to look forward to that because when we do that, it makes the things of this world just seem so less significant, I guess is a good way to put it, in comparison to what God has for us, in comparison to his power, in comparison to what he wants to do and walk us through while we're here on this earth.

You know, and if you haven't accepted the gift of Jesus, if you don't have that hope, if you never experience that hope, the gift of salvation from all of this, for all the judgment to be gone and only reward to be left, it's a free gift that Jesus already paid for.

And not only is he offering it to you, he's excitedly offering it to you, hoping that you will accept that free gift that he already paid for.

Today, you can be sanctified and holy in God's sight just by accepting this gift of salvation that Jesus is not only offering, but he's excited to give to you.

And all you need to say is, yes, Lord, I believe that Jesus is God.

I believe that he died and rose again for my sins, and I believe that he has an eternity waiting for me.

And you can be saved.

You can have this as well for yourself, this gift of salvation.

And all you can do it from your seat right now.

Would you please pray with me?

God, we thank you so much for your love.

We thank you for the gift of salvation.

We thank you, Lord, that you are uh excited for that day, that that your bride comes to be with you.

Lord, I pray we would have that exact same excitement in our heart as well.

And as we go through these hard things and as we struggle with worry and fear and anxiety and all of those things, help us to keep our eyes fixed on hope.

Please don't allow the enemy to steal our joy through worry and fear and all of these things.

But help us in those times to continue to pray, to continue to fix our eyes on you, and to continue to look for the way that you want to lead and guide us through this life.

God, you are so good and we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ.

Help us to live with hope.

A hope that is noticeable by everybody around us, not just in this church, but people we work with, classmates, um, whoever else it might be, our neighbors, that we come across on a daily basis.

Help them to see that hope and be like, man, with the the world seeming like it's on fire right now, where are they getting that hope?

Lord, and that that would open a door to tell them about this hope that we have in Christ.

Lord, help us to live with the love of Christ that's overflowing.

Help us to remain so filled with the love of Jesus that it splashes out on others as well.

Lord, help us to take the time to have that intimacy with you in prayer and in your word and just hanging out with you to where we are filled up to overflowing first, and then it's affecting everyone, as that verse said, including our enemies.

Help them to see that love that can only come from you.

Show us how to do that well, we pray.

God, we just pray that you'd have your perfect way inside of each and every one of us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.