Transcript

A missionary, in a very isolated area of Africa, performed surgery on a poor blind man. The surgery was successful and his sight was restored. Several days after the operation the man disappeared from the hospital.

Everyone was concerned for his well-being. Then, a few days later, the missionary opened his door and there stood the man who had been operated on. The man was holding a rope. On the other end of the rope were ten more blind people.

Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians here is about a growing faith and increasing love. A growing faith and increasing love cannot wait to tell others, to point others to Christ and bring them to the Savior, so that they who were spiritually blind might see too.

The miracle of love we have experienced from Christ in saving us is to overflow to others who don’t know Him and need His salvation from sin.

The Apostle Paul passionately prayed for believer’s spiritual growth, so that as a result, the church would abound in Christ’s love, and show that love and care to others.

1 Thess. 3:9-10: “For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?”

As we continue through our short series of how to pray under grace, we find in these verses about the need to pray for spiritual growth. Prayer is part of our spiritual growth and is something we need to pray about for ourselves and for others.

As we jump in the middle of a context here, we find Paul thanking God for the blessing of the Thessalonians’ testimony. Their faith and stand for Christ in the midst of their persecution had brought joy and much encouragement to the apostle.

And Paul was nearly speechless as he thanked God for all the joy the Thessalonians gave him. Words failed to express adequately to God the thanks which filled Paul’s heart.

Grace teaches us to be grateful. And grace teaches that there is joy in seeing what God is doing in the lives of other people, and to be thankful on behalf of them.

Paul says “Night and day” he prayed exceedingly for them. Paul had been blocked by Satan from coming to visit the Thessalonians. In 2:19 Paul speaks of when he would have come unto them, Satan hindered him. But this could not and did not prevent him from praying for them constantly.

Corrie Ten Boom writes this about prayer: “When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When a believer stops reading the Bible, the devil laughs. When they stop praying, the devil shouts for joy.” Paul didn’t stop praying.

Paul didn’t just sit down once in a while and pray, “Bless my friends back there in Thessalonica.” He prayed night and day, fervently, all the time. Prayer under grace is a priority. We are to pray like this in light of Paul’s example.

Philippians 4:9 teaches us, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

“Exceedingly” here has the idea of going above and beyond all normal measures with his prayer. “Exceedingly” is the same word translated “exceeding abundantly” in Eph. 3:20, when Paul says God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think.

Paul continually and fervently prayed. And he prayed specifically. He had two requests: to see the Thessalonians again and to perfect what was lacking in their faith.

Paul asked God to make it possible for him to minister to them personally, face-to-face.

Paul wanted to be there to help them spiritually and know what was going on firsthand in their life. He knew that God is able, and that God could clear the way and he prayed that He would do it. Paul prayed boldly and specifically.

We shouldn’t be afraid to be bold and specific in our prayers. God doesn’t want flowery, all-fluff prayers. God wants us to honestly tell Him exactly what it is we’d like Him to do.

And we see here also that we should be persistent with our prayer: “night and day.” Paul’s second continual request was that in being able to be with them and see them that he might “perfect that which is lacking in your faith.”

Paul wanted to see them and their spiritual condition and be used by God to help them continue to grow spiritually. There was still work to be done with their faith.

The word “perfect” in the Greek means to fit together, to surgically set a broken bone, or to mend a torn fishing net. Paul was praying for the opportunity to fit their faith together, to make it complete. The Apostle Paul is concerned about their spiritual growth.

We see by these verses that he is concerned that they continue to grow spiritually in three areas: faith, love, and hope, the great trio of supreme virtues for the believer.

In 1:3, Paul wrote, “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope.” In 5:8, Paul wrote, “…putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.”

In this letter, Paul focuses on this abiding trinity for the believer’s life. You see Paul here praying for a perfecting faith in v. 10, an increasing love in v. 12, and hope which drives believers to greater holiness in v. 13.

Continually and earnestly through prayer, Paul was handing this burden of his heart for them into the hands of God. These are the three virtues in which Christ wants to see His church go and to grow in today.

First, Paul wanted them to have a perfecting, or maturing and growing faith. Faith is about trusting the truth. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1 says.

If we are going to trust the truth, we have to know the truth. Paul’s prayer about bringing their faith to perfection, wholeness, maturity, wasn’t about wanting them to believe harder or have a higher, greater, deeper trust.

Paul wanted to perfect their faith and as faith is trusting in the truth, Paul is saying he wanted to expand their understanding of the truth, and specifically this is in regards to the body of truth Christ committed to Paul for this present dispensation of grace.

As our knowledge of the truth is enlarged and perfected, our faith is enlarged and perfected because now we can live our life in trust on a larger foundation of truth.

So when Paul says I want to come back and perfect your faith, he is saying I want to come back and give you more truth so your faith can grow and be perfected and more mature.

And so in Paul’s prayer request here we see instruction and a directive to teach the Word, and that the Church needs this to perfect that which is lacking in our faith.

We are to live by faith and faith is about believing God and His Word, and the more we know about God and His Word the more we can trust Him. The less we know, the less we have to live by and to grow in our faith.

And this, of course, is a glaring weakness in the church as a whole today, because many churches are not teaching and preaching the Word of God.

But peoples’ faith can’t then be perfected or enlarged because faith is tied to your knowledge and understanding of God and His Word.

As Paul’s prayer is about perfecting and growing their faith; he’s talking about building a base of knowledge in the Word. And if he was going to build this base of knowledge, he needed to get back to them so he could teach them some more. They were in need of further teaching and wisdom in order to perfect what was lacking in their faith.

A small factory had to be shut down in the middle of a work day because their most important piece of machinery had stopped working. The company mechanic couldn’t get it running, so they called in an expert.

The man looked over the machine for a few minutes. He then picked up his hammer and gently tapped it. Amazingly, it started running again. He submitted a bill for $1,500 and the owner hit the roof!

He yelled at the mechanic over the noise of the machine: “That took you less than five minutes! I demand an itemized bill!” The expert sat down and scribbled out the following charges: For tapping the machine $10. For knowing where to tap $1,490.

The Bible gives true knowledge and wisdom for our lives. Its knowledge is priceless. But we need to know it, to be able to know where to tap, or how to answer and help and counsel others, and also we need to know it to know how to help our own Christian lives.

Knowing it rightly divided according to what God is doing today under grace, increases and perfects our faith, because we understand through Paul’s epistles how God is working today and we know what His will is for our lives, and how we are to live and serve Him.

As we grow in the Word, rightly divided, and we gain a larger and larger base of truth, God begins to show that truth at work in our lives. As 2:13 says, the Word of God “effectually worketh in you that believe.” And as it effectually works in us we mature, and our faith grows and is perfected.

Paul’s prayer was that their faith be perfected and grow by the teaching of God’s Word. And so you may wonder, did God grant this prayer? Later, Paul wrote them another epistle and in 2 Thes. 3:1 Paul says, “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because your faith groweth exceedingly.”

1 Thessalonians 3:11: “Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.”

Paul’s prayer was for God to “direct our way unto you.” Paul wanted a return trip to Thessalonica and knew he needed God’s help in bringing him to them. Paul’s prayer request was addressed to “God Himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He uses the pronoun “our” in both cases to emphasize the personal element, the personal relationship that he enjoys and the Body of Christ enjoys with God the Father and God the Son. God is our Father, and Jesus Christ is our Lord.

The “Himself” in v. 11 teaches us something. The Himself refers to “God…our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now if you tried in school to use a singular pronoun to refer to two persons in your English class, you’d be in trouble, and the teacher would definitely mark it down as wrong. Then on top of this, the plural subject is followed by a singular verb in the verse.

In the English language you would have to say, “Now may themselves, our God and Father and Jesus Christ our Lord, direct our way to you.”

But the reason the Apostle Paul uses a singular pronoun and a singular verb for God the Father and Jesus Christ is because these two are one. As Christ said in His earthly ministry, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

We are given insight into the reality of the trinity by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here. The way this verse is written teaches the deity of Christ, that He is God, and it teaches the unity and oneness of the Godhead.

Paul assumes without explanation that Jesus Christ is God, and petitions Him equally to the Father what his heart’s desire and prayer is. This shows that in terms of Deity and Sovereignty, they are both one, they are both Lord and God. And the fact that the prayer is directed to them, teaches that you can pray to God the Father or God the Son.

The word “direct” means to correct, make right, make straight. It has the idea of laying out a path that is straight with all the obstacles removed, all the stones and the rocks and whatever else taken away, so that the path is smooth and easy.

Again, in 2:18, Paul said, “we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.” Satan was putting obstacles in the way.

Paul was having difficulty getting back to Thessalonica. He attributes it to Satan and circumstances that he was in charge of, that were keeping him from returning.

So the Apostle here is saying that he was praying that God would overthrow Satan. He knows that the only power that can overpower Satan is the power of the Lord. We have no strength in ourselves to deal with the devil. Our words mean nothing to him.

Notice how Paul goes to God to deal with Satan and never addresses Satan directly. It’s not right to talk to Satan. We have nothing to say to him. All we need to say we say to the Lord and the Lord deals with him. We just hide ourselves in Him. We are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

The Lord is our overwhelming strength in the spiritual battle. Paul here prays to the Lord to smooth and clear the path so he can get to Thessalonica, and for Him to overthrow the plans and hindrances of Satan, knowing that He is more than able if it was His will.

1 Thessalonians 3:12: “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.”

Paul desire also was that the Lord make them “to increase and abound in love.” Not only did Paul want a perfecting faith for them, but a prospering love.

Just as the love between a man and woman in marriage is to increase more and more over time, from courtship, to engagement, to marriage, to the many years and experiences of life shared together, Paul prayed that the Thessalonians’ love would continue to grow and increase and abound and overflow for each other and for all people.

The word “love” is agape, the strongest, highest, purest, noblest love, the giving love that sacrifices to meet the needs of others.

Again back in 1:3, Paul spoke of their “work of faith, and labor of love.” Love was already among the Thessalonians, and faith was already there, but what Paul wanted to see is the increase and the perfecting of that faith, the increase and the abounding of that love. He prays for a deeper measure of both their faith and love.

The principle is that no matter where you are in your spiritual life, there is always room to grow and increase.

Spiritual growth was a burden and passion of Paul, and he prayed fervently about it, night and day! He didn’t want spiritual complacency or contentment to set in among believers.

This increasing and abounding love, flows out of a growing faith. Where you have an increased foundation of truth through the Word, as a result you have a basis for an increased and enlarged faith, when you grow in your understanding of God.

The more we know about God’s Word, the more we know about God, the more we know about Christ, and then the more we trust and as our faith increases, then in this all the closer we are drawn to God through Christ, and then we discover God’s love.

Christ is the object of our knowledge and the object of our faith. And the closer you are to Christ by faith, the more like Him you become. And knowing Christ, you find what real love is and means.

As you grow in Christ and you grow in your understanding of His Cross, you grow in love. And as you live by faith in your personal relationship with Him, you see His daily love.

So to grow in your faith, you grow in your knowledge of the Word and of Christ, and as a result you abound in love. Our growing faith results in a growing love for others. The natural fruit of an increased understanding and faith in Christ is an increased love, and when you love with Christ’s love, that love is an abounding, overflowing love.

As Ephesians 3:17 teaches, when Christ dwells and is at home in your hearts by faith, we will be “rooted and grounded in love.”

By the Word, we learn and experience the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Then our heart changes, our lives are transformd by grace, and God’s love overflows in my life to those around me. And we live out the life of Christ within us.

And as we know God and become more Christ-like by faith we “abound in love one toward another,” or we love the Church, fellow-believers in Christ. We love the Church, because Christ loves the Church, and gave Himself for it (Eph. 5:25), and we know that every blood-bought believer is precious and cherished in His sight.

Paul adds that we also “abound in love…toward all men” or the unbelieving. We love the lost, because Christ loves the lost, as He gave Himself a ransom for all, and died for all.

Paul adds that they had even given them an example of this kind of love, “even as we do toward you.” He says you ought to know from experience. They loved them when they were in the “all men” category. They loved them when they were lost. They came and put their lives on the line sacrificially under persecution to get them the gospel.

This was because of their faith. Because they knew and fully believed that Christ loves all and all need Christ that they came there to begin with. Because Christ loves the lost, they loved the lost. And the abounding love of Paul, Silas, and Timothy and their conviction of the truth drove them to bring them the saving gospel.

And after they got saved, Paul’s love still abounded toward them the Church, wanting only what was best for their Christian lives, just like Christ with the Church.

Paul’s prayer was that their love increase and abound. And so you may wonder, did God grant this prayer and work in their lives to this end?

Again, Paul wrote them in 2 Thes. 1:3, “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because…your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth.”

1 Thess. 3:13: “To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”

Paul also prayed for a purifying hope in the Thessalonians’ lives. Faith, love and now hope. Paul says, “To the end,” that these other things all lead to this.

These other factors of perfecting faith and abounding love build up toward a purifying hope, that the Lord may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.

A life lived by maturing faith in the Word of God and with the abounding love of God, will be holy, or will be set apart and separate from the world. That life will be established as set apart to God.

Notice that the Lord establishes the heart. God wants to change the heart and to establish it according to His ways and His will for our lives which is what is best for them.

He wants our hearts unblameable in holiness. We are already holy & blameless before God in Christ. Eph. 1:4 says, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”

Paul is speaking here in practical terms about our everyday life. But God wants our practice to match our position in Christ. We can’t do this! But the goal is not lowered because of our inability. It’s to make us realize that we need the Lord’s help by faith.

We are called to be unblameable in holiness “before God our Father,” not before the eyes of man. Man’s idea of holiness is far different than God’s. The world continually chips away at God’s standards. But when Christ comes again, we won’t be standing before a human judge, but before God, and we will be judged by His standards not the world’s.

Thus Paul prayed that the Thessalonians’ feet firmly established on the foundation of God’s standards and to live by it according to the Word.

The coming Paul refers to the Rapture of the Body of Christ. The “saints” refer to the members of the Body who’ve gone on before, as they will also come back with Christ at the Rapture. 4:14 says, “even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”

The return of Christ is to motivate the believer to live a holy life. When we appear before an important person on earth, we prepare for it, and we make the necessary arrangements to look, speak and act our best.

How much more this is true when we know that we will appear before Christ at His coming, and that every single day of our lives is a possibility of this.

The daily possibility of the coming of Christ and appearing before the true and living God, and our Lord and Savior, should have a purifying affect on our lives, and drive us to live a life set apart to Him for His glory.

Since He can come at any moment, we want to be ready! We want to be found living for Him, to please the One who died for us so we might live forever with Him.

Under grace, we should pray like this, using faith, hope, love: praying for people’s faith to grow by the Word, for love to increase in the Church, and that our hope of the Lord’s coming would lead to greater holiness, living set apart lives to the glory of God.