1 Thessalonians 3:1-13
“So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best
to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and
God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and
encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials.
You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with
you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that
way, as you well know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent
to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might
have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.” –1 Thessalonians
3:1-5
When was the last
time you were worried about someone? For
Paul, Silas and Timothy, they were deeply concerned for the disciples in
Thessalonica. It’s easy to be concerned
about someone that’s close to you, a child, a parent and spouse. But it’s not as easy to show or feel concern
about someone in the church. The day my
dad passed away I knew that something was wrong. My parents were divorced. I visited my dad over the weekends. The front door of his trailer was locked, but
I could hear the T.V. I looked in the
front window by the kitchen table, but I couldn’t see anything because of the
curtains and the glare of the sun. I
tried the back door, but it was locked too.
I looked in all the windows, but I couldn’t see him at all. It was not like him to leave the television
on when he left his place. So, I began
panicking. I drove our van back to a gas
station nearby and called my mom. I
drove way too fast. I knew something was
wrong. When my mom showed up, she jerked
the door open and the chain was still locked on the inside. That’s when I knew he was dead. That can only be locked from the inside. She jerked again and the chain broke
free. He was at the kitchen table,
slumped over. It was a completely
natural thing to be worried about my dad.
He was someone I loved. Even
though he had done bad things, we were still close. I was concerned about the condition of his
body. I imagined him passed out on the
floor. Eventually, when I saw that the
chain was still locked, I imagined that he was dead. I was right.
The Thessalonians
went through terrible trials. Some of those
trials were physical. They were
persecuted physically because of their faith in Christ. While I think Paul, Silas and Timothy were
concerned about the physical problems that the disciples were going through, I
think they were also concerned about their soul and their faith. When was the last time you were concerned for
someone in our church? When were you
concerned about someone’s faith or soul?
My concern for my dead was for his physical wellbeing. At that time in my life I wasn’t following
Christ so I wasn’t concerned about people’s faith in God. When I read 1 Thessalonians 3 I felt
guilty. I don’t have the same level of
concern that these guys had. But the
encouraging thing is that we can ask God to give us that concern, or that
longing. We have people in our lives
that God wants us to pursue. Call ‘em,
text ‘em, email ‘em, mail ‘em a card, talk with ‘em in person, Twitter ‘em,
Facebook ‘em, or Instagram ‘em. Never in
the history of our world have we had so many options to communicate with
people, and yet, never in the history of our world have we had a culture so
independent, closed off, and unconcerned about other people.
I’m not
exaggerating about Paul’s concern for the disciples. In verse 5, Paul said he was “afraid.” Paul told the Corinthians “For what is seen
is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18) I can see your eyes but I can’t see your
soul. I want to be concerned more about
the things that will last forever.
“But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has
brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always
have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long
to see you. Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were
encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are
standing firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for
all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day we
pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in
your faith.”—1 Thessalonians 3:6-10
Like I said
earlier, it’s harder to be concerned for someone when you don’t know them as
well. It’s even harder to be concerned
about someone you don’t know very well when you’re going through a hard time
yourself. I think we all fall into the
temptation of losing concern for others when we get busy, or things are tough
at work, or the kids aren’t doing what we want, or we’re going through financial
trouble. Satan and his demons will do
whatever he can in order to get your concern off of others and back onto
yourself. Isn’t that what he did to
Jesus in the wilderness? When Jesus was
going through a difficult time, Satan slipped right in beside Him and said, “If
you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (Matthew 4:3) Jesus didn’t have to come down to earth. He had close fellowship with God, the
Father. He didn’t need to live on the
Earth in order to be closer to the Father.
He came to Earth in order for us to be close to the Father. What would be wrong with eating a little
piece of bread? Well, Satan wanted Jesus
to get His eyes off of His mission for us and to get His eyes on whatever He
felt like He was lacking for that brief moment in the time of His hunger. Paul, Silas and Timothy were longing for the
disciples even in the midst of their own persecution. In verse 10 it says that something was
“lacking” in the faith of the disciples.
Their faith wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It needed to grow. It needed to be repaired.
How does God grow
our faith? We all need our faith to grow. We all need to trust God more fully. But how does God increase our faith? He uses the Bible. The Bible is God speaking to us. We take God at His word believing that He has
the power to do what He promised. God
uses trials. Our faith can grow as we
trust God during difficulties. According
to 1 Thessalonians 3:10, what else does God use? He uses people. Paul, Silas and Timothy knew that God wanted
to use them to see the disciples’ faith grow.
They wanted to “supply what is lacking in your faith.” They wanted to “supply” or “complete” what
was “lacking”. The Greek word for
“complete” is katartizo. It’s used in Matthew 4:21 when the disciples
were “mending their nets.” The Greek
word for “lacking” is hysterema. In 2 Corinthians 11:9 it’s used to
communicate that the Apostles’ physical needs, like their necessary food, were
“fully supplied.” In other words, there
was no lack in what they needed.
Philippians 2:30 conveys the idea of deficiency.
Why would you mend
something? Oftentimes, an item is mended because it’s not fulfilling its
purpose. A fishing net is mended in
order for it to fulfill its purpose.
It’s not mended just for the sake of being mended. A fishing net is practical and its purpose is
focused. You don’t use a fishing net to
parachute out of an airplane. You don’t
use one to pull water out of a well.
There are other things that need mending as well.
In The Living
Bible, 1 Thessalonians 3:10 is paraphrased this way, “For night and day we pray
on and on for you, asking God to let us see you again, to fill up any little
cracks there may yet be in your faith.”
There are other reasons to mend items, other than restoring a practical
purpose. Paintings are mended as
well. Why would you mend a
painting? You can’t catch fish with it,
after all. You can’t use it to plow a
field or use it to hammer a nail. Its
purpose, in part, is bringing enjoyment to the one who is looking at it. As a painting gets old it develops problems. The paint becomes cracked or chipped. The canvas may suffer a dent from an
accident. Even the frame can become
loose or unattractive. Someone who
restores fine art would try, to the best of their abilities, to restore the
painting close to its original state.
They weave together individual threads of the canvas under a magnifying
lens or microscope. They may apply
paint. There are times when they need to
apply other liquid products to preserve the canvas. It can be a painstaking process.
The following is a
video of a painting being mended. Keep
in mind that God uses you in the lives of the people in this room. You are not neutral. You are in the business of mending. God wants to use you to “fill in the cracks”
of other people’s faith. If you have a
good week in trusting God, then that could cause someone else’s faith to grow,
or to be mended. If you have a Bible
verse to share with someone, then that could help them grow as well. Your involvement in someone’s life could
provide practical knowledge on how to make a disciple of Jesus Christ. You’re helping that person fulfill God’s
purpose for their life. I’m not just talking
to the pastors. I’m talking to
everyone. We can’t hide behind a busy schedule,
or behind our young age, or behind our old age, or behind our parents, or
behind our school work, or behind our problems at work. God didn’t save us in order to hide us. You were saved so that you could mend.
“The Restoration of
Mother Mary” by Baumgartner Restoration
You, by the grace
of God, were made to mend. If someone
is down, you’re there to encourage them.
If someone wants to live out God’s purpose, then you teach them how to
do it. If someone just seems to be
missing something, but you don’t know what it is, then you pray for them. As this person is slowly restored, they bring
glory to God. “God’s painting”
so-to-speak begins to demonstrate the grace, the kindness, the love, the
creativity and the patience of God.
Becoming more like Christ, this mending, brings joy to God. We’re here for His enjoyment. He wants to use you in ways that are
practical. But He also wants to sit
there and enjoy you whether you can do anything practical for Him or anyone
else. We are told in Ephesians 3 that we
“are God’s masterpiece”.
Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus
clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and
overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May
he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the
presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy
ones. –1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
How can we be
concerned, or long, for others like Paul, Silas and Timothy? God made their love to increase. God uses many different things to increase
our love for others. According to 1
Thessalonians 3:12, “the Lord” would personally increase their love. God intervenes, reaches in, and changes us. He does this by grace, a gift. The good news is that we can ask God to
increase our love for each other.
Instead of hoping that we will develop a concern for one another, a
longing for one another, we can ask God to give us that longing. This is the same thing that Paul and his
co-laborers did for the Thessalonians.
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