“For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 3:8)
We continue the series learning from 1 Thessalonians.
Love and Fatih (1 Thessalonians 3:6-13)
What is your ambition for the church?
Interview question
This week my son, Jonah had an interview for a job. He says it went well, but he won’t hear whether he has the job until next week.
However, one of the questions he was asked, was “Where do you see yourself in five years time?”
It’s a classic interview question and a good one, because it reveals something about the interviewees ambition. What they want to see change for the better for them in the coming years.
Our Vision: Dare to Share
At St. Luke’s and St. George’s we spent last year in discernment for what our ambition should be for the coming five years. We prayed and sought from God a vision for 2030, what we should be wanting to change for the better in the next five years.
The vision we have is called, Dare to Share. Perhaps because the controversial parts of the vision are to do with selling and developing buildings, the danger is that we think the vision is all about buildings. But the vision is really about seeking to release us from the burden of too many buildings so that we can focus on growing communities of faith. We want to be ambitious about growing people and less concerned about buildings.
Paul: Relief turns to Ambition
Our reading today comes from the middle of Paul’s letter to the fledgling church in Thessalonica. Up to this point the letter has been a celebration of what God had done amongst the Thessalonians through the ministry of Paul and his team.
But, Paul had been forced to leave Thessalonica because of the persecution of the Jews and had not been able to return to them. So, he had sent his colleague Timothy to them. As he did so, he was worried, had the persecution in Thessalonica caused them to give up on their faith?
Look at what he says in 3:5:
“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 3:5)
As a leader in the church and actually just as a Christian, one of the greatest sadnesses is to see those who used to be Christians giving up on their faith. It is so sad when people who seem to have grasped the wonderful truths of what Jesus has done for them fall away. They have seen that the God who created the whole universe loves them so much and wants to call them his children and give them eternal life but have decided it is not true and walked away from church and faith. Sadly, it happens far too often.
Recently, however, I met someone from a church in another part of the country and after talking to them for a while, I realised they were from the same town as one of my best school friends who had come to church with me. But we haven’t really been in touch for many years apart from Christmas letters and I did not really know whether he was still taking his faith seriously or not. So, on meeting this Christian from the same town as my old school friend, I asked tentatively, whether they knew my friend and his family. “Oh yes”, he said, they’re a key part of our church! It was wonderful and joyful to hear that this friend was still continuing in their faith.
In the same way, Paul tells the Thessalonians how overjoyed he was when he learnt on Timothy’s return after week’s of anxious waiting for the news that they were indeed continuing in the faith. Look at how ecstatic Paul is in verses 8 and 9:
“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?” (1 Thessalonians 3:8-9)
But Paul does not just sit back and celebrate. His relief and joy, drives him on to ambition.
What is Paul ambitious for? Their growth in faith and love.
So, what can we learn from Paul’s ambition? What does it mean to be a church that seeks people’s growth in faith and love?
Ambitious for their Faith – vs. 10
When Paul talks about faith, he is talking about faith in the God and Father of Jesus Christ. Faith is trusting that the good news about Jesus, that he opens a way to become part of God’s family, that his directions for life are true and that in him is the gift of eternal life. Faith deepens the more we discover that God is trustworthy.
Faith is not easy. It can be hard having faith in God, when others around us don’t. It can be even harder if people actively ridicule or mock us for that faith and harder still, if like the Thessalonians you are hated and threatened because of your faith. Under such pressure many people’s fledgling faith can wither and die.
Faith is standing firm – vs. 8
But Paul says in verse 8, that the Thessalonians are standing firm in the faith. Despite the pressure from those around them, they are sticking to their guns about Jesus and God. Those who were Jews are not returning to the Synagogue that had rejected Paul’s message about Jesus, and those who were not Jews are not turning back to the idols that they used to worship and no doubt many of their friends and neighbours still worshipped.
They believed that Jesus is trustworthy, that he would not let them down. They believed the life he promises is worth all the pressures, ridicules and threats they were facing for following him and rejecting their old ways.
Does that describe your faith? Have you grasped that God is trustworthy, that you can be confident of his promises? Have you also grasped that following him is definitely worth it no matter how costly it is in this life?
That is the kind of faith that stands firm, that is the kind of faith that shows you are truly a Christian. Are we ambitious to see more and more people hold this kind of faith?
Faith needs completing – vs. 10
So, faith is standing firm. But Paul says in verse 10, he also wants to come to them and ‘complete what is lacking in their faith’. The same Greek word is used in the gospels of Peter, Andrew, James and John repairing their fishing nets.
A net with holes in it, needs sorting out, if you are going to use it for maximum effect. So, to complete the net is to plug the holes. A net with holes, will catch fish most of the time, but if the fish swims at the hole, it will slip through.
In the same way our faith needs completing. This will involve learning more about God and what it means to live as a Christian in this world, so that we can have increasing confidence in him, in every situation that life might throw at us. An incomplete faith may keep you standing firm most of the time, but you may not be equipped to stand firm in every situation in life, or every doubt that may arise in your mind. The more we learn about God from the Bible and being with other Christians the more we are equipped to see God’s trustworthiness and to stand fast in every difficulty we may face in life.
So, do you want to see people stand firm in faith. Are you investing in helping them to be fully equipped so that their faith will hold firm no matter what? That is why we need to invest in the church by sharing our gifts, our resources, ourselves and God’s word with the others in the church. We should be ambitious to see one another’s faith made more and more complete.
Ambitious for their Love
But Paul is also ambitious for their love to grow. Look at what he says in verse 12:
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” (1 Thessalonians 3:12)
Love in the Bible is exemplified by Jesus’ love. He loved us so much that he died for us. It is a sacrificial love. A willingness to share what I have, for the sake of others. Paul’s ambition that their love increases and overflows is an ambition that they would share what they have more and more abundantly as their love grows.
The marriage service includes the lines: “all that I am I give to you, all that I have I share with you.” Love is about sharing.
Let’s think about this in terms of our vision. Our vision is to dare to share:
- our Gifts. God has given all of us talents and abilities, some natural, some from the Spirit, but we are to use them for the good of others. In fact when Paul talks about the gifts in the church in Romans, he follows it up with a call to sincere love. When he talks about Spiritual gifts in Corinthians, he follows it up with 1 Corinthians 13, one of the most profound chapters about love ever written. We are to use our gifts with an attitude of love, for the good of one another. Using or sharing our gifts is a fundamental part of what it means to love one another.
- our Resources. The bottom line here is money. Unless people share a significant portion of their finances to support the work and life of the church, it will decline. We recently asked people to consider their giving to support St. Luke’s ministry. It wasn’t for building work at St. George’s or even to fund any of the aims of the vision, we need £10,000s more giving per year in order to sustain what we are doing now. Without a greater generosity there is a danger that our ambitions to grow the people of the church will fail. But, a growth in love, must surely result in a growth in generosity.
- Ourselves. For Paul love is not just about doing things with his gifts, or giving financially, it is a deeply personal engagement with the people he works with. That is why he longs to see them again. Sharing ourselves means wanting to meet with and be with others. Please do not underestimate the importance of coming weekly to church on Sundays and meeting with others once or twice at other times in the week. Doing this too is a sign of growth in love.
- God’s Word. Finally, if we are growing in love for others, we will want them to hear God’s word. We will want to spend time with other Christians discussing God’s word so that their faith may be made complete. We will want to take opportunities when interest is shown to share our faith with people we meet or friends and family, perhaps inviting them to hear more at a church service. If some come to know Jesus and find life in him as a result, is there any more of a loving gift you could have given to them?
So, are we ambitious for our own love to increase and overflow? Are we ambitious that the same is true for those in the rest of the church? Do we pray for it?
Ambitious
Paul was ambitious for the Thessalonians that they would grow in faith and love. But his ambitions did not stop there. In verse 13 he also says he is ambitious for their holiness and hints at the idea of hope as well. But this is really the introduction to the next two sections of his letter. We will look at the section on holiness in a couple of weeks and the section on the hope we have in Christ, the week after that.
In all these ways let’s be ambitious for the growth of the church like Paul.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 