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So let’s continue through chapter three of 1st Thessalonians and then move into four.
We’ll pick it up at verse 6 and read through verse 13 – noting that the first six verses are more of Paul talking about how much he as an apostle cares for them, again this is apparently to reassure them in the face of external criticism.
So, last week we read how he sent Timothy to them to help them maintain their faith and now he says:
1st Thessalonians 3.6-end – 4.1-3
July 26th 2020
Milk
6 But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you:
7 Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith:
8 For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.
9 For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God;
10 Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?
11 Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.
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:
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.
Alright, back to verse 6:
6 But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you:
After Timotheus went to them in Thessalonica he went to Corinth and reported back to Paul what he found there.
And what he brought was “good tidings or a cheerful or favorable account,” or from the Greek, he brought them “Good News” that described their “faith and charity,” or better put their “fidelity to Christ or faithfulness and their agape love for each other.
And he adds to that description
“And that ye have good remembrance of us always. Greatly desiring to see us, as we also to see you.”
In other words, there remained a great love and respect still for Paul and the others from the believers at Thessalonica but even more importantly, they abided in faith and love – the one two punch or the two primary commands of a Christian.
That is, probably, they showed their remembrance of Paul by obeying his precepts, and by cherishing all affections regarding for him, notwithstanding all the efforts which had been made to alienate their affections toward him. (verse 7)
7 Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith:
The sense here is, that the believers steadfastness in faith and love proved to be a great source of comfort to Paul in his trials.
It’s sort of hard for us to imagine, but remember, Paul was called to preach the Gospel to them in preparation of the Lord Coming to take his holy bride. So for him to know, from Timothy, that they were faithful and loving (therefore living up to the demands upon them as Christians in that age) was a tremendous personal relief and reassurance to Him.
I suppose we might think of Paul in terms of being a great patriot and lover of this Nation and being in charge of the wartime operations during a fictitious invasion.
And let’s suppose the invaders were coming in by sea from the west and it was paramount for His troops to be in position to thwart these efforts.
Let’s suppose that all communications were blocked at the time except for messengers. And Paul sends a messenger to know of the conditions of the west coast defenses – as the safety of the nation was hanging on whether those troops were in place and battle ready, or not.
We can imagine the joy Paul would feel KNOWING (meaning having been given the reassurance from Timothy, a first hand witness) that the troops were fit and prepared – and this is relative only to a fictitious invasion of a country.
Paul was actually preparing and overseeing troops for Christ Jesus who would be seen as his actual bride in that age which he promised to return and take and saved from the coming destruction that would fall upon the Jews in 70AD.
So, these words, I believe are certainly heart felt from the man called and chosen by Christ to prepare his bride. Paul adds a line that supports what I just said at verse 8, saying:
8 For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.
To me he seems to be saying, “My very life and personal peace are dependent on your stability in the faith and your Christian love.”
Or, in other words, Paul can now enjoy life (For now we live) and he adds a caveat we touched on last week, “if ye stand fast in the Lord.”
Jesus also talked about standing fast or abiding, but he described it in another way, saying in John 15:
John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he (my Father) taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he (His Father) purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Along with all the other great lessons in these words, did you catch the last verse?
Herein IS MY FATHER GLORIFIED THAT YOU BEAR MUCH FRUIT – and in this way, you will BE my disciples.
With that fruit, of course being agape love which is something that the believers at Thessalonica possessed.
Paul goes on at verse 9 and says:
9 For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God;
In other words, there is no thanks that we can offer to God for you BECAUSE our joy in your condition will override any of our meager attempts to express it to him. And he adds at (verse 10)
10 Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?
This is yet another attempt by Paul to assure the believers there that he and his companions were dedicated to them and their walk, praying night and day to see them once again and reminding them that they had not abandoned them, and that they “longed to get to them, and to see them, and to assist them” in any area where their faith may have been lacking by making it complete.
At verse 11 Paul, once again as he is known to do for those who are looking, he properly lays out the proper description of God and the Lord, saying
11 Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.
Here we see that Paul appeals to the identities of two persons to direct the believers in Thessalonica – the first whom Paul calls, God and our Father, and the second is Our Lord Jesus Christ.
One God, the Father, and One Lord, Jesus Christ – the VERY same theme echoed exactly in THIRTY-ONE other Pauline passages.
Because I speak to this so often I am not going to address it here – but I will reiterate the following:
One God – the Father.
One Lord, Jesus Christ, who, with the fullness of God in him, overcame his flesh, and upon his resurrection had that flesh, (in my opinion) deified and in total becoming our Lord, God and human interface with his Father.
Notice who Paul says does the helping of them “to increase in Love toward each other” in the next verse? Take a listen:
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:
The word “Lord” here seems to refer to the Lord Jesus, as this is the name by which he is commonly designated in the New Testament. If this be so, then this is a petition to the Lord Jesus as the fountain of all grace and goodness in the human race, proving once again that it is in and through Jesus (and His power and might) that humans are best equipped with the capacity to love God and one another in the most ultimate sense.
This is just another reason Jesus is indispensable to the salvation of human kind – only he, having taken on flesh and having overcome it, is in the position and place to equip other human being with the Godly capacity to love with agape love.
If God the Father had that capacity, amidst him being just, I think he would have bestowed it in his creations from Adam on down automatically.
But the agape love Jesus bestows appears to have been won by Jesus Himself from the Father, proving that consummate love present in himself and his own flesh, and THEREFORE before being able to equip others with it.
So, Paul has said in verse 11-12
11 Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.
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:
Then he says
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.
What can we say? It’s a black and white, that the actual, literal aim that Paul lays out that he has for those believers there and then is–
THAT . . .
11 God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, (would) direct our way unto you.
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:
Then . . .
13 To the end he (the Lord) may stablish your hearts “unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, (WHEN?) at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
This was the expectation, the end goal, Paul had in this letter to them/then. And from it we see that among the believers in that day there was a drive or expectation that they would arrive at the place where
Their hearts would be unblameable in Holiness before God, even the Father, AT the coming, (Paul writes to them over whom he had direct jurisdiction and responsibility over) of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
The word that Paul uses here translated “blameless” is “an-eng-laytos” and it means “without reproach, blame or guilt.” Paul appeals to it a few times in his letters like in
1st Corinthians 1:8 when he says:
Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And
1st Thessalonians 5:23 where we will read him write:
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Of course, human beings are seen as blameless by their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. But CHRISTIANS saved by grace through faith are also seen by God our Father as blameless by and through their love for God and others – and it is by this that they are commensurately rewarded.
Since the capacity to love is supplied by Christ, the connection to faith on Him, and love for others, appears to be inextricably connected.
Which is why “faith and love” are so often mentioned together as the primary commandments for believers.
And this takes us to chapter 4 – if you can believe it! Short chapters
1st Thessalonians 4:1 ¶ Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
2 For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;
5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
8 He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.
So, let’s go back to verse 1
1 Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
Naturally, “furthermore then,” refers to a continuation of all he said in the previous chapter, “we beseech and exhort you by the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Who does Paul “beseech and exhort” them by – Jesus Christ – and this is important because what Paul is suggesting here directly ties to the will of Christ the believers allow in their lives.
And what does he talk about them doing in the name and cause of Christ himself?
“that as they have received from them on how to walk (their Christian lives) and to please God” ready??
“so they would abound more and more” in the ways they have been taught – which, hearkening to last week, is to walk in faith and love,” MORE AND MORE.
I know it can get overwhelming when we go verse by verse and one of the reasons for this is the layers of what God desires of his Sons and Daughters are like a twenty foot baclava – and verse by verse shows that Our Father wants and desires a lot from his children, especially His Sons and Daughters.
At every step of the way we choose to remain and carry with Him and His will – and he loves us every step of the way.
And so, it begins with He seeks for all people to receive his Son by faith, wherein He turn bestows His graceful salvation upon all.
And he mercifully and according to his clock (not ours) gives us all a time of infancy, a time to be loved and cared for by Him as babes wallowing in his light and joy.
On the two lane highway called God and Man in relationship, we can stop there and remain babes, or we can move on with Him deeper and deeper into this relationship.
To move on after a season of infancy – His season and His timing, we begin to notice the ways of our infancy “wearing thin” as proof of his work on us inwardly becomes mandated, with him calling ever so gently for us “to mature,” to grow in knowledge and wisdom, to learn more of Him and His Son.
To move from being tendrils on the vine to branches that can bear fruit.
This knowledge of can may include academics, but that is not the main driver, as sometimes the head knowledge never reaches the heart.
But once the learning and knowledge has blossomed, it begins to take root – and that it painful; this is where the self-reflection and analysis of ourselves begins; this is where God begins to calls us to suffer . . .
. . . to take what we “know” and allow it work in and on us.
By this time we have become stronger branches coming out of the vine, and are willing and able to let him produce the fruit of agape love, again the goal of being a Christian.
But God does not even stop there. Fruit is great and fruit is good – but God wants more. More what? More fruit. He wants the biggest harvest of fruit from everyone of His daughters and Sons that they are willing to present in their mature Christian walk.
And so we learn from the parable of the Vine that as a means to get this out of us, God will cut us back – will we allow it? Some will, others will not.
He will take you and all that you think you know and have learned (or even earned) and he will prune you back till you are bare – or appear to be nothing – like Job – to what end?
To punish? No, never.
That we will produce MORE fruit – just like a plant that needs to be pruned and for the very same reason – to increase the production of fruit.
In the case of the Christian this means directly that God cuts us back to produce MORE faith and MORE love – in each Son or Daughter.
He can do this in so many ways – which again, we can choose to accept and receive and grow thereby OR we can refuse . . . and remain where we are – or even diminish.
These later stages of our personal love harvest will take us to places we never thought imaginable with our showing agape unconditional Biblical love to people years before we would have rejected outright.
It’s produced in patience we never had before, forgiveness we did not think was possible, longsuffering in settings that would have erupted in chaos in younger years.
He will cut you back to reveal yourself, allowing you to face the things that should not be.
Because He is love.
Here Paul confirms much of what I just said – again
1 Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
And verse 2
2 For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
Now, specifically, to the Thessalonians, Paul had given them more commands than to have faith and love – and we are going to get to those directives next, but this does not change the principle I just shared that
God wants us, his Children, to become, by and through HIM and HIS spirit, manufacturing plants of love.
In the Parable of the Sower, and in describing those where the Word of God plants itself in Good Heart Ground Jesus says:
Matthew 13:23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
In John 15:8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Paul writes in Philippians 1:11 of believers that they are
“Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.”
I think it’s important to recognize a couple of factors in this biblical reality for Sons and Daughters though.
First, while God does desire that his children produce much fruit, that this is all relative to what they have been given – scripture confirms this.
So, it’s not a competition in quantities, its relative to the individual and what they have been given by God in life, and nothing more.
A person who is given the capacity to bear “one harvest of fruit” is in no less honor before God than someone who have been given ten capacities and produces ten.
So, we are NOT in competition with each other, any more than a grove of apple trees compete with each other – we are simply living in response to God and what He has given us.
We cannot all be Billy Graham’s. If we were who would sit in the audience?
This reality is manifest in the analogy of all of being members of the same body and therefore all of us playing our respective parts.
As Shakespeare said,
“What’ere thy part, Act thy part well,” whether the brain or the little toe – God knows – just play it well.
Also, the reiteration that it “is God in us” producing that fruit cannot be overlooked or overemphasized.
Imagine that we are all created like pasta extruder machines at a grand pasta extruding maching manufacturing plant.
Some of us have one outlet to extrude pasta, some two, some ten and some fifty. But in the end, the pasta coming out of us is always God, and that is the end product He seeks – because HE is love.
We are merely the vehicles extruding it to the world around us in his name.
Interestingly, few people sit down to a plate of fantastic pasta and praise the extruding machine that produced it – it’s the final product – the pasta – that brings joy and sustenance to people – and it is God, who gets the glory.
As the machines, intricately and wonderfully made by God Himself, we merely strive to do what we were created to do – nothing more, but nothing less.
But God does seem to desire that his children operate at optimal capacity relative to how He made us.
And that is the point of this principle – remembering that He will shut the machine down, cut its production back to nothing at times (sometimes for maintenance) as a means to later increase the outflow of love – HIMSELF – to others.
We are machines in his hands – if we allow it. He decides the pace and the amount of product. We are learning to allow him, the husbandman, to adjust us along the way all with the end goal of producing more.
Getting back to Paul, he now reminds the believers at Thessalonica of somethings that were really important in that day and age to believers.
Is what he says important to believers today? I think so. And the Spirit works on all of us when we are at odds with what God desires of each of us in our lives.
But I have to emphasize (actually reemphasize) the realities of that day and age, that audience, and what they were facing.
To not is to abstract these words out of context and to apply them in that way ignores the facts that they faced that we do not – at least not in the same way.
So, I want to read all of what Paul says here in one fell swoop because all of the words help frame the import of what he says to them/then and why they are so important. Ready?
3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;
5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
8 He therefore that despiseth (despises this command we have given), despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.
Let me hit these verses generally and in context and then we will hit them singly – verse by verse and wrap our time up together.
Christians are called to holiness – which includes reigning in the flesh and allowing the spirit to reign over us.
The ultimate expression of this would never include believers going out and living and practicing lifestyles of free sexual expression without reservation.
So, in this way what Paul says has direct application to each of us as we choose how we will live the faith and love the Lord and others IF we choose to read and understand “porneia” (the Greek word translated to fornication here) as meaning sexual relations between two people – which is the way most people understand the word.
So while I think the advice is good for believers today, I want to draw us back to the day and age and what Paul was probably speaking to.
To do this does not legitimize the practice of fornication among believers, as the word is understood today, but I think we have to really be careful with passages like this among ourselves.
I say this because fornication is the fleshly sin of humanity and it is so ubiquitous among people of age we must consider context here with what Paul says about it.
Remember, Jesus paid for the sins of the world, all the porneia, and it is faith in him that blesses us with God’s grace, NOT the lack of porneia in our lives (though a lack is good).
Additionally, and this is really important, laws and rules make us sinners. And to take this law or rule and assign it outside the ways of the Spirit which is working on our inward man or woman, will NOT, in my estimation, put a stop to illicit sexual expression among believers, but will only serve to drive them from the God who has received them as His by faith.
What I mean by this is the Spirit, writing God’s laws on our hearts and minds, will go much, more in keeping us from our flesh than an emphasized rule – especially one like avoiding fornication (or porneia).
And that is what we as believers preach and speak to and encourage – the Spirit and its fruits in the face of sexual licentiousness, not the rule! Because again the rule will not cause the believer to change, the goodness of God will.
And I speak from great experience folks. God has allowed me to really walk through this stuff, I think, as a means to address it.
So, with all that in hand, let me quickly talk about what Paul is saying here.
Thessalonica was in the midst of Hellenistic culture. And a great part of Greek culture was pagan worship, and part of pagan worship was prostitution, which was legal and was taxed at that time.
Porneia was anciently a word or term that described prostitution – with porne being a female prostitute and porno being a male.
In the act of pagan worship, prostitution – payment for sex – occurred. For this reason, and in a non-literal sense, idolatry was also synonymous with the word porneia.
One of the chief complaints Jesus had with a few of the seven churches in Asian minor (as recounted in Revelation 2-3) was their “engagements” and their intercourse with the pagan rituals and practices going on all around them.
Remember, believers in that day were to be HIS BRIDE, and according to scripture she was to be “pure, without spot, holy and blameless,” made possible by living apostles, a super abundance of the Holy Spirit, miracles, and the like.
With this objective Paul (and others) were constantly warning and telling the believers then to “come out from among the prevalent culture of paganism surrounding them and to unite with the body of believers in love.
So, while I am sure that Paul would have counseled a couple of believers who were in love to avoid sex unless they were unitedly committed to each other, this is not what he is speaking to here.
He is telling them to avoid intercourse either with the actual prostitutes in the ritualistic sex practices that were part of pagan worship or (and/or) to avoid engaging or being one (eating with, sleeping with, engaging with) the pagans of that day.
Wrapping this all up and its application to believers now who are hearing this teaching, I would avoid using this passage as a means to condemn and/or counsel people sexually involved with each other.
Instead, I would speak to the principles of flesh and spirit, and would focus on helping them fortify the latter, knowing that once the spirit is strong and at work, the flesh will naturally become weak, and managing natural desires is a tandem effort with the individual and God.
And I think we will return to our text next week.
Oh, by the way, next week I will not be here live, but we are pre-recording the teachings for you.
Our youngest has finished her education in Michigan and we are going to move her back to the western half of the US.
So, watch online – we will not be here!
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