Thanksgiving and Faith in Prayer

Father in heaven we come to you this evening sinful but forgiven, weary but hopeful. Would you fill our hearts with Thanksgiving and joy before you, would you supply what is lacking in our faith and direct our way to your son Jesus Christ through your Word in scripture and by your spirit would you enable us to walk blamelessly before you and to give you praise. Amen.

Please open your Bibles this evening to the Book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 3. Continuing our Sunday evening sermon series through the prayers of Paul and in our passage this evening we hear Paul’s prayer for the new church in Thessalonica. And Paul’s prayer here is fairly basic, although it’s not un-profound and as I read the passage listen for three ideas, listen for the joy of Christian fellowship, the love that characterizes Christian life, and the call upon Christians to holy living. Now hear the Word of God from 1 Thessalonians 3 verse 9 to 11. Paul writes, “For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply 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 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 for our God and father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints.” Amen.

Now you may have noticed that there are two parts to this passage tonight. First part is the kind of prelude in verses 9 and 10 where we get a long rhetorical question. And then of course the second part is Paul’s prayer in verses 11 through 13 so we’re going to consider this a passage this evening in two parts as well. First we’re going to look at features of Paul’s prayer that can serve as a model for our own prayer life and then we’re going to draw three lessons for our faith from what Paul believes is lacking in the faith of the Thessalonians. So, models for prayer and lessons for faith. Let’s begin.

The first feature I want to draw your attention to in the passage this evening is how Paul highlights the positive. This is one of the many things that Paul does so well in his life and in his ministry is to express thanks, to express gratitude, and this, I would suggest, should be a basic feature of all prayer. Paul does it early, he does it often, and in fact in many of Paul’s letters one of the very first things he says is something like we find in verse 2 of 1 Thessalonians 1. Paul writes there, “We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers.” He does this in many of his Epistles and Romans 1:8, and first Corinthians 1:4 and Philippians 1:3, again and again we see Paul and hear him expressing thanks to God for his brothers and sisters in Christ. And Paul’s not just being polite here. The kind of thanks that he expresses is not trite or vague, he’s not just saying I’m thankful for you as a sort of throwaway comment. I do that sometimes.

Now in all cases, Paul also gives the reason that he’s thankful, and that reason is always theological. Listen to some of it. In his various letters Paul gives thanks for others, he says, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. Because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, because of the hope later for you in heaven. On and on Paul goes giving thanks for these sorts of theological reasons and I’ll tell you, I was convicted, I was writing this sermon because I’m not nearly as good as Paul is at telling people that I’m thankful for them, and when I do it’s usually for pragmatic reasons, it’s usually closer to “I’m thankful for your help.” When is the last time you or I said to someone, “I’m thankful for you because your faith is growing abundantly.” We would have to have strong fellowship with one another to be able to know something like that about someone else. Paul expresses theological thankfulness because he has his priorities right. In prayer he highlights the posterior first, or to put it another way, Paul shows gratitude before he does anything else, that’s his posture towards others and before God.

Actually if you look at 1 Thessalonians as a whole, Paul spends all of the first three chapters expressing thanksgiving and giving encouragement. It’s only after he comes to his prayer in our passage in chapter 3 tonight that Paul shifts his focus towards instruction and exhortation and I think scripture would suggest to us that we would do well in our relationships to budget like Paul. When we see a need for correction in our relationships, maybe it’s mentoring or parenting or friendship, perhaps we should spend more time first giving thanks and encouragement before exhortation, that’s what Paul does. And that’s exactly how Paul leads into his prayer for this passages not as well. In verse 9 here you can see Paul writes, “What thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God.” So Paul, as a model for us recognizes God’s powerful working in the lives of others and turns to the Lord in joy filled prayer to give thanks for. Let’s pray like that.

Second feature is Paul avoids fault finding in prayer. I think it’s worth noting what Paul doesn’t do in prayer, he doesn’t fault find, he doesn’t nitpick. Have you ever done that in prayer, have you ever found yourself praying in a way that is directed towards others about your concerns, rather than praying for others to God about His concerns. God pray that my roommate would stop forgetting to run the dishwasher. Lord please help my husband stop complaining so much. It’s easy to do, focus on criticism or personal offenses or things that you feel are shortcomings rightly or wrongly. Now Paul certainly had things he could have nitpicked about the Thessalonians. We learn about Paul’s times with the Thessalonians back in Acts 17. Paul had spent several weeks there with Silas working with a local synagogue and reasoning with them from scripture each sabbath day, and many were converted, not just from among the Jews there, but also gentiles, some of whom were rather wealthy and so many conversions occurred and this created great controversy.

We’re told in Acts 17 that some of the unbelieving Jews became jealous, which might have had to do with financial reasons, and they whipped up a mob and things went sideways fast for the Thessalonians, people were arrested, accusations were hurled, fines were imposed, and after that things were different for the believers in Thessalonica who continued to face opposition long after. And at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians 3 we read that Paul had sent Timothy back to encourage them. We also see Paul longed to see them and that they longed to see Paul as well, so much so it might be they were a little disappointed that Paul had sent Timothy and not come to see them himself, and yet in his prayer we don’t hear Paul veering into fault finding. It would have been easy for him to say, may our God toughen you up just a little bit more. May the Lord help you stop being so needly. No, that’s the sort of prayer that is very wrong like we see in Lukes chapter 18, the Pharisees prayer where he says, “God I thank you that I’m not like other men.” It’s a posture that presumes superiority and instead of that we see Paul doing the opposite, his posture in prayer is humility because he understands the seriousness of sin. He says he’s comforted by their faith. He’s filled with joy and thanks for them. So what’s the upshot here? I think for us it’s this, if you want to gage the spiritual condition of your heart pay attention to how you pray for others. A.W. Tozer once wrote, “We pray only as well as we live.” Of to put it in Jesus’ words, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and the mouth prays.” So Paul as a model for us sets his mind in prayer not on his own complaints or concerns, valid though they may be, but on what God desires for his people. So let’s pray like that.

The third feature is Paul distinguishes concern from responsibility. I’m sure you’ve had times in your life, your walk with God when something weighs heavily on your heart. Maybe something’s weighing heavily on your heart tonight. Some situation you’re involved in matters a lot, it’s complicated, it’s stressful and I’m sure you’ve had times in situations like that where you’re really not even sure how to pray about it. Paul’s in a situation like that in some ways with the Thessalonians. He spent a good bit of time with these new believers, they had bonded over the study of scripture, they faced stiff opposition together and the affection between Paul and the Thessalonians is genuine. Paul’s writing this letter just a few months after he had been in Thessalonica with them and he says in verse 10, he prays most earnestly night and day to see them again. He knows the Thessalonians really do need him there. Opposition persists, some have died, confusion swirls. Paul really should go back there like right now, but Paul is writing to the Thessalonians from Corinth and guess what, they need him there too. What should he do? How should he pray?

Now look at verse 11. “May our God and father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.” Perfect. May God direct our way, maybe soon, maybe not. It’s a prayer that yields the decision, yields the circumstances and the timing. To God it’s a prayer that takes seriously the real needs that are pulling Paul’s heart towards the Thessalonians and that are of deep concern to him, rightly so, but it’s a prayer that recognizes Paul’s own limits. It recognizes his responsibilities, his calling elsewhere to others and their needs, at least for now, and as Paul prays this he also points to the Thessalonians to God who will help them far better than Paul can. And so Paul, as a model for us, distinguishes his concerns, as legitimate as they are, from his responsibilities in prayer and submits both to the sovereign care of the father.

Another feature of Paul’s prayer is that Paul prays corporately. Did you notice that as we read the passage? Throughout just five verses in this passage Paul speaks not in terms of me and I and mine, but we and us and our. We return, we feel, we pray, on he goes praying and speaking corporately. He does that throughout the entire letter of 1 Thessalonians, not just here in this passage. Part of the reason for that is because Paul is literally not alone for most of his activity. He is in Thessalonica spreading the gospel, and he’s there with Silas and Timothy, and after the riots and the arrests there the three of them went on to Berea and then Paul went on alone to Athens.

Eventually Silas and Timothy will catch up with Paul and by then he’s concerned for the health of this new church in Thessalonica. We see that in verses 1 to 3 of our chapter tonight. Paul writes there, “Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left alone at Athens and we sent Timonthy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in the faith.” So again there’s a very real we for Paul that’s involved in all of these events and yet notice in verse 1 Paul says, “We were willing to be left behind in Athens alone.” Now there’s some debate here as to who exactly might be with Paul or not, but in the end at some level Paul speaks corporately even when he is primarily or only talking about himself, but I think that’s intentional. I think it’s pastoral. It’s the difference between for others and praying with others. When Paul expresses his concern for others, when he prays for others, his emphasis is always on the body of Christ as a whole with himself as part of it.

Look at verse 12. “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we do for you.” Now of course there’s Paul and there’s the Thessalonians, it’s not that Paul blends everyone together in his prayer, but the corporate language, our God, our Lord, one another, all of that emphasizes unity among the fellowship of believers and that unity matters not only when there’s physician distance like we have with Paul and the Thessalonians, but also differences in levels of spiritual maturity, spiritual understanding. Unity is Paul’s point in verse 12. So, just as Paul doesn’t fault find in his prayer, neither does he position himself as above others, as the sole dispenser of prayer requests. Instead, Paul prays for others while also praying with them because of his love for them.

Last feature I wanna draw our attention to before turning to some lessons for our faith is Paul’s prayer is brief and simple and in the spirit of that principle maybe I should just say that and move onto my next point, but I’ll say a little bit more. The point is obvious, notice how short the prayer is, its just three verses. If you count verses 9 and 10 it’s five verses, but in those verses Paul covers a lot of ground. He touches on three major theological themes that I mentioned at the outset, fellowship, love, holy living and actually this is the same kind of brevity that shows up in all of Paul’s prayers that we’re looking at in this sermon series. Joel May is gonna preach a whole sermon next week on two verses. Now, maybe we can simply say that Paul knew his bible. We certainly can say that, right. I think of Ecclesiastes 5:2. “May your words be few.” But on the other hand, just a few chapters after this, Paul is going to write in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” Now maybe sometimes it feels like that during the pastoral prayers, surely there’s a biblical balance to strike here. I would suggest that it’s this, Paul who is a model for us, can pray powerfully and briefly while also maintaining a lifestyle of ongoing prayer.

Now of course these features of Paul’s prayer are not the only features that our prayer should ever have. As I just noted, sometimes it’s right for prayers to be long and scripture, scripture is full of prayer, much of it’s long. All of the prayer and scripture, except for that Pharisee’s prayer I guess, can model how we are to present our requests to God, especially the Lord’s prayer. So we’re gonna spend the remaining time this evening considering how Paul’s prayer here in our passage is tied to the spiritual needs of the believers in Thessalonica. You see, Paul doesn’t just model for us how to pray, he also teaches us about the one to whom we pray. Now it’s true that Paul, although he is genuinely concerned about the Thessalonians, he has received a positive report about the young church there. Verse 6 says, “Timothy has come to us from you and brought us the good news of your faith and love”, and Paul is relieved to hear it. That news is what launches him into the prayer that we’re looking at tonight, and yet even in that prayer Paul says something subtle that tips us off to the fact that he knows the Thessalonians still need help. He says in verse 10 he wants to return to see them so that he can supply what is lacking in their faith. Now Paul’s not making some kind of statement here about the Thessalonians having something less than saving faith. The way he phrases this means something closer to reinforcing or repairing some of the weak points in what they believe, their theology, it’s a maturity issue. So I wanna consider what three of those things may have been. Each of those things we’re going to look at it tied to what Paul prays in our passage tonight.

The first is this, true fellowship comes from holiness. Seeing how Paul spends time in our passage talking about fellowship amount believers. He tells the Thessalonians that he feels joy before God because of them. And he prays that the Lord would cause them to increase and abound in love for one another and for all. And he doesn’t do that without reason. Remember that the Thessalonian church was founded amidst conflict. The first members came from a wealthy Jewish synagogue right in the middle of a flourishing polytheistic Greco-Roman city. We’re told in Acts 17 that religious Greeks also converted and joined the church early on. So, I think we can imagine the kinds of disputes, the arguments, the confusion that must have been part of the life of this particular young church. In fact, I think it’s easy for us to imagine how that must have been likely because we have similar kinds of fault lines in our own lives and in our own cities, social and cultural and political.

Charlotte may not be a Greco-Roman city, but it’s certainly wealthy and it’s certainly polytheistic. Paul’s message for the Thessalonians and for us is that the unity and fellowship of believers in Christ overcomes these fault lines. It’s the bond of faith that turns believers into a body where there are lots of different parts that are united into a single entity. This is what faith in Christ can do. Of course, we can’t forget that faith in Christ alone does not remain alone. Unity and joy among believers is real because faith in Christ brings about transformation, holiness, our love for one another in the body of believers grows more sincere and joyful as the spirit works in each of our hearts to move us closer to God. That’s the reason Paul highlights the importance of living in holiness in verse 13 and goes on to explain how the Thessalonians must walk with God and pleased Him more and more. True love and fellowship among Christians can’t be manufactured, it can only come through God working out our salvation by his spirit.

The second lesson is God equips us for suffering. Conflict is not fun, not inside the church, not outside the church. We’ve all experienced that to some degree, but Paul also speaks to deeper forms of difficulties in his letter to the Thessalonians. These are also what moves him to prayer. He alludes to these greater difficulties in verse 13 when he asks God to establish the heart of the Thessalonians. The idea here is buttressing or strengthening or fixing firmly in place, again with an emphasis on holy living. One of the few things we’re told in Acts 17 about Paul’s mission to the Thessalonians is that he spent three weeks there explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer. That’s Acts 17:3. The idea of a suffering savior would have been very difficult to accept both for Jews and for Greeks. Paul says as much elsewhere. In 1 Corinthians 1:23 Paul writes, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the gentiles.” Now most of Judaism in Paul’s day expected a conquering messiah and in a similar way Greco-Roman culture wanted only victory for their glorious rulers. Not only that, but the Thessalonian believers have also continued to face adversity, suffering as a church, and personally. That’s part of the reason Paul sent Timothy to them in the first place. We see this in verses 2 and 3. Paul sent Timothy to establish and exhort you in your faith that no one be moved by these afflictions, for you yourselves know that we are destined for this. The Thessalonians seem to have been surprised to find themselves facing suffering just like we might be today in our own lives. Paul encourages the Thessalonians, he writes in 5:14 to encourage the faint hearted in their midst. Message of the gospel is that God himself saves and renews through suffering. Christ the obedient Messiah took our punishment upon himself and was raised to give life to all those who trust in him and as Christians renewed by God’s spirit, we cannot only bear up under suffering, but we’re made more like Christ through it as we trust Him in prayer to establish our hearts before Him.

We bring this sermon to a close just briefly by noting the same thing Paul notes. The end of his prayer in verse 13, he turns his attention here to the glory of Christ and His return at the end of age. Paul spends a fair bit of space later on in chapter 5 explaining the second coming of Christ for the Thessalonians, since His time there with them in person has just been a few months, but since that time some of the believers in Thessalonica had died and others were worried about their eternal faith, they were concerned, they had missed the second coming. Paul writes to tell them in no uncertain terms, “Do not grieve like others who have no hope. Christ has accomplished such a great salvation that we who are found in Him can have firm assurance in this life and the next.” Paul’s prayer in 1 Thessalonians 3 shows us how to pray, with gratitude, humility, trust, unity, and simplicity. May our prayers reflect these same things as we persevere in suffering, confident in our salvation in Christ until he returns. Let me pray for us.

Father we rejoice in the salvation that you have won for us and your son Jesus Christ. We praise you Holy Spirit for the unity that we share as believers and for the joy of the fellowship we have with one another. Lord you empower us more and more to encourage and build one another up in prayer and in conversation so we might be blameless before you among all the saints. In the name of Christ we ask it. Amen.