Paul's Longing for the Thessalonians

Introduction: Paul's Longing as an Amen to His Prayer

0:04 and we will be focusing our attention particularly upon verses 11 through 13 in our continuing study of this letter of Paul to the infant church which under God he was privileged to establish, from which he was wrenched so suddenly, and toward which he had such holy concern and longings as are so clearly expressed in this section of the letter. Last week we studied Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians in verses 9 and 10, prayer that was suffused with thanksgiving when he came into the presence of God, and prayer that focused with holy persistence upon this request as recorded in verse 10, that he might, by God's grace, see them face to face and perfect that which was lacking in their faith he longed that God would open a way that he might return to them not just to have a nice chit-chat and sip coffee and eat donuts together though perhaps that may have entered into this some legitimate social fellowship but his longing was to return to them that he might instruct them and exhort them in the area of the defects in their faith both as to knowledge and to experience.

1:33 Now, when a man is involved in such a prayerful concern for something even when he rises from his knees or is not consciously praying that longing does not leave his heart and prayer for an object will deepen one's longing for the object and the longing in turn will trigger prayer and so you have this cycle of the one feeding the other and so it's not surprising then that having recorded the substance of his persistent prayer for the Thessalonians he then tells us his deep longing for them in verses 11 through 13 so we move from the record of his prayer on their behalf to this expression of his deep longing now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way unto you and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men even as we do also toward you to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Now this is another one of those passages which when I began to prepare

3:00 I said Lord how can it be that there would be enough substance here to feed your sheep on a Lord's day morning and as has happened so often I've had to break it down into at least two messages and possibly three. So rich is the word of God that when we begin to dig into the statements of Holy Scripture we find that they break open in ways that we have never thought in just a cursory reading. Now this longing of the apostle as recorded here breaks down very naturally into two divisions for those who are in the church who are bound by preachers that have to have three I'm sorry to disappoint you for the Holy Ghost has only given us two. First of all there is his longing Godward now may our God and Father himself do thus and thus and then his longing manward verse 12 and the Lord make you to increase. So we have the record of Paul's longing in the perpendicular direction Godward and also in the horizontal his longing manward. Consider with me then first of all his Godward longing. Having prayed as he did in verse 10 night and day that God would enable him to see them face to face it is not surprising to find that the essence of his conscious longing

4:28 is that the God and Father of the Lord Jesus or God even the Father and the Lord Jesus would actually direct his way unto the Thessalonians. So the essence of his longing is very clear it is simply an amen to his prayer. Has he prayed night and day that he might see them? When having finished his prayer he is filled with a conscious longing to see them face to face and he recognizes that he cannot or will not be able to do so until God is willing to sovereignly dispose all the events and circumstances in his life and in the lives of others involved in this trip and open the way for him to come. For you will remember in the second chapter he said in verse 18 because we would fain have come unto you I Paul once and again but Satan hindered us. He made several specific attempts to return to them and was frustrated by some words of the devil what it is we do not know. So the essence of his longing as directed toward God is that God would open the way to return.

Lesson 1: The Practical Power of God Over Satan

5:45 Now what lessons do we learn from this Godward longing of the Apostle Paul? If all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction for instruction in righteousness then there is something for our understanding of doctrine for our correction for our instruction in the path of righteousness even when the Apostle as it were opens up his heart and gives us a glimpse of his holy longings. It is not put here just so that we might look at the Apostle's heart and say well isn't that nice he had a deep longing to be back with the people isn't that sweet? No there is something there for our understanding of doctrine for our correction for our instruction in practical godliness. And may I suggest that inherent in this record of Paul's Godward longing there are no less than three or four basic lessons practical and doctrinal as well. First of all there is a practical lesson about the power of God.

6:54 He had indicated in chapter 2 that he had purposed on two previous occasions to come to them but Satan hindered him. Alright then what is his attitude with regard to God? With regard to the power of the devil? Does he look at this satanic obstacle as something which cannot be overcome?

7:13 Is Satan so powerful that he must wait for some kind of a disposition in the devil to clear away the blockage to his return? Not at all. He says in this expression of his longing something concerning the power of God that is very practical though Satan has hindered in the past if God the Father and the Lord Jesus are pleased to direct our way to you then nothing can stand in the way. And oh how we need to remember this practical lesson about the power of God that though Satan is mighty there is one who is almighty though that wicked one is powerful there is one who is all powerful and we need to remind ourselves again and again of one of the most tremendous lessons in all of scripture concerning the devil and his relationship to almighty God as that lesson is set forth in the book of Job where the devil must come and take his place before the almighty and even ask permission for what he does. Let's never forget that as we see on every hand indications of the powers of darkness loosed upon our own society as we see unbelief and pride and rebellion against every form of constituted authority which is nothing less than a symptom of man's utter rebellion against the God

8:42 who has constituted authority. We need to remind ourselves of this very practical lesson if God was pleased to do so at one snap of his fingers he could utterly obliterate the devil and all his influence in an instant of time.

Lesson 2: The Theological Nature and Being of God (The Trinity)

8:59 The reasons that are locked up in the heart of God some of them some revealed in scripture God has allowed the devil to have some measure of rope but the time is coming when he shall be banished to the pit of eternal burnings and all evil and sin and wickedness shall be forever banished from the presence of God and his people. Now that's a very practical lesson that we need to learn as well as the apostle having learned it. Now there is a theological lesson in this wish about the nature and being of God and you wouldn't catch it reading in the English but in the original it's very clear that the apostle is indicating something of his understanding of the character and being of God. Notice his prayer or his wish. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way unto you. You have a plural subject you have God the Father and the Lord Jesus directing the way.

10:07 Now in English we don't have what they had in Greek we can use the same verb whether it's with a single or a plural subject we can say John came John and Mary came we use the same verb even though we have a plural subject but it's not that way in the Greek language. If you were saying in the Greek language John then you'd use the verb that has in it the he John he came and if you were saying John and Mary then the verb would be different it would have in it the they John and Mary they came so the singular or the plural the first person second person or third person are all bound up right in the Greek verb. Now what you have here is a plural subject now may God and our Father himself and the Lord Jesus what you would normally expect is a verb that would be in the plural. May they direct our way unto you but you don't have that you have a singular verb. Now may God our Father and our Lord Jesus may He direct our way unto you so that the Apostle is indicating to these young Thessalonians that which they would understand when hearing the Greek read not that Paul somehow forgot his grammar no no

11:33 but that Paul's understanding of the relationship of the Father and of Jesus was one in which though there was identity of person the Father is not the Son the Son is not the Father there was unity of essence one God though there is distinction in persons this argument and demonstration of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity of God one God in three persons is so forcibly taught in this passage that when the heretic Arius who tried to say that Jesus Christ was not the eternal Son of the Father he was the first created being but he was something less than God the Father when he came and sought to parade his heresy through the church and God raised up a young deacon a young presbyter I guess he did become Athanasius one of the passages that Athanasius used to demonstrate the essential unity of the essence of God was this very passage and by all the laws of Greek grammar it cannot be evaded so that in the expression of a wish just opening up his heart Paul's theology breaks out and stands before us in full display and many times some of the most precious doctrines in scripture are not found formally stated

Lesson 3: The Searching Nature of a Saving Relationship to God

13:01 but informally assumed and that makes them all the more powerful well you see what you say in your unguarded moments is a revelation of what you say what you really think on the issues that are not in focus when you're talking when you're talking about a given issue you can say well now the people I'm writing to obviously think this way and they expect me to say it this way so you can consciously frame your words but when you're talking about something over here and they're just a casual reference to something over here your real deep-seated understanding and conviction about that issue over here comes out in your informal speech and conversation so here's not in a doctrinal statement but in the record of the deep longing of his heart expressed Godward the apostle not only gives us by the direction of the spirit a practical lesson about the power of God in relationship to the devil but he gives us a very vital theological lesson about the essence of God and the relationship of the Father to the Son and then in the third place he gives us a very searching lesson about the nature of a saving relationship to God will you notice how he speaks of God now may our God and Father and our

14:30 Lord Jesus he speaks of a relationship to God in such personal terms he is our God and , our Father and our Lord even Jesus that's the very essence of a saving relationship to God in the nutshell it is a personal acquaintance with God as God and the Father and the Lord Jesus one would think that the old liberal doctrine that all men are the children of God had long been the same doctrine that all men are the children of God Jesus since died but it's just as alive today as it ever was the assumption that lies at the root of much of the humanistic thinking of our day and much of the so-called social concern of the church that is not true biblical social concern but a substitute for the same is the fallacy that all men are the children of God well in the sense that they are the creatures of God yes but they are not children for Jesus Christ clearly taught in John 8 44 ye are of your father the devil and the lust of your father ye will do and no man can call God his father

15:59 in this sense until he has experienced what Paul writes about in Galatians 4 6 where he says because ye are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his son into our father as many as received him to them gave he the right to become the sons of God indicating that those who have not received him have the right to be called the sons of God even to them that believe on his name and so until we have come as conscious sinners in need of the saving work of Jesus Christ and approach God and be God when we have come through Jesus Christ then this great infinite God is not only the transcendent majestic God of scripture but he becomes the imminent God the one whom we can address as father and into that word father we must put not some of our perverted notions of fatherhood as perhaps we have picked them up to heal but we must allow scripture to shape and mold that word father before our eyes and one cannot help but think of passages as Psalm 103 like as a father pitieth his

17:29 children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him he remembereth our frame that we are but dust he will not always chide neither will he keep his anger forever whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth not in some kind of undisciplined anger but he chastens out of the principle that he longs to make us like his son and in love he goes to work on us to make us just what he wants us to be and so in this simple record of his expression of longing to God we have this searching lesson about the nature of the relationship of the adopted sons of God but notice also that he personalizes this relationship to Christ and he says and our Lord Jesus a better way perhaps of understanding this relationship to Christ and he says and our Lord even translate that would be would be our Lord even Jesus in other words he acknowledges here in the forefront of his thinking that his relationship to Jesus

18:58 Christ is that of a subject to a sovereign he acknowledges that his estimation of Jesus Christ is not primarily that of his humanity Jesus but Lord in Acts 2 in verse 36 and he doesn't call him the Lord but he says our Lord I have been brought by the grace of God to bow beneath his scepter he is not simply Jesus who died on the cross to whom I look for forgiveness but he is the Lord upon a throne to whom I bow in submission and that's the essence of the saving relationship that we have in Jesus the God man and his death and resurrection that's the only basis upon which God can deal with sinners like you and me there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved Acts 4 and verse 12 but salvation is not imparted when we simply recognize that salvation is in Jesus but when by the spirit of Jesus he was crucified in the cross and the tomb as the enthroned Lord of heaven and had

20:26 fallen down at his feet and cried with Saul of Tarsus Lord what will thou have me to do and he's not your savior a practical lesson about the power of God,

20:49 a theological lesson about the nature and being of God, but a searching lesson about the nature of a saving relationship to God. Is He your Lord? Can you talk of Him in these terms and know what you're talking about this morning? Our God and Father and our Lord Jesus.

21:08 Can you talk of Him in those terms? In the full light of Scripture. I don't mean presumptuously, but in the light of Scripture.

21:18 In the light of His own words when He said, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Are you doing what He says as a teenager? As a father, a mother, a wife, a husband.

21:35 That's the searching lesson of this wish of the Apostle.

21:40 Saving religion is personal. Our God, our Lord. It is evangelical. It has to do with Jesus who bled and died and rose again.

21:52 Saving religion is volitional. It has something to do with the world being brought captive to Jesus Christ. Do you have a personal, evangelical, volitional relationship to God in Christ? If not, you do not have saving religion.

Paul's Manward Longing: Establishment in Unblameable Holiness

22:09 Whatever else you may have, you have that which will be bound as a short-changing religion in the day of judgment. Well, I hurry on now to the second division of Paul's wish. The manward. The manward expression.

22:25 And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men even as we do also toward you to the end that He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me ask you a question this morning. If you were severed very suddenly from the people of the Trinity Church, or the church where you attend, and you were thinking about that which you would long for them to have, what would you write in the letter? If you were writing something that you wished God would do for those people who remain here, what would you put down?

23:10 What would have top priority in your thinking?

23:14 In many ways, our longing for others is one of the most clear revelations of the state of our own heart. For generally, we project to others our own values. Our own goals. And our own idea of what is quote, the good life.

23:35 If our ambition is centered materialistically, that's our wish for others. If it's in terms of pride or prestige or acknowledgement from others, that's what we'll project to others. Now the Apostle Paul gives us here one of the clearest revelations of the character of his own life as we see him expressing his longing for others. Notice in the first place, the focal point or the object of his longing.

24:03 What was it? Here it is. May the Lord make you to increase and abound in love. To what end?

24:12 This is the means. Increasing and abounding in love. To the end. This is the object.

24:18 This is the focal point of his longing. To the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness. The greatest longing Paul has for others. For the people at Thessalonica is not that they be very busy, little busy beavers, activist Christians running around like busy beavers doing something in the name of Jesus.

24:45 That's not his longing. His longing is not that they be primarily well-instructed Christians with big, outsized, overstuffed heads full of Bible facts so that they can hardly keep their equilibrium with the Bible. For the weight of their noggins. That's not his longing.

25:05 He doesn't say a thing about material prosperity. Here's a people in the midst of persecution and not a word about longing that somehow God will turn the persecutors away and drive them out of town. Not a word about they ought to get together and organize and change the structures so that no longer will Christians be persecuted. None of that business.

25:26 Here's his prayer. Here's his longing. Here's the passion of his heart. That they be established in holiness and in sanctification.

Holiness as the Goal of God's Saving Work

25:38 Now may the Lord do this to the end that you may be established in holiness. Now why is that his greatest love? Would he rejoice if he heard that they were busy? Sure.

25:52 The first chapter he rejoices that from them the word of God is being sounded abroad. They were very busy in witnessing. Were they concerned with practical matters? Sure.

26:03 Later on he says that I don't need to teach you to love one another. It's obvious. Well how was it obvious? You can't read the affections in a man's heart.

26:11 It was obvious by their deeds that they loved one another. They were concerned for each other's needs.

26:18 But none of these fruits of sanctification becomes the object. That which is the deep passion of his heart is that they be perfected and established in holiness and sanctification. Now why? Well for the simple reason as we saw last week in some measure I trust Paul knew that the very end of God's work of grace was to make people holy.

26:45 When God first conceived of salvation in the councils of eternity according to Ephesians 1 and verse 4 when he chose a people in Christ what was the object of that choice? Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy. Holy and without blemish before him.

27:10 In the very conceiving in the mind of God of the purposes of grace holiness stood before the mind of God as the express object of the divine selectivity. And the Lord Jesus came and took upon himself the sin of men and knew what it was to bear in himself the brunt of the wrath of God against human sin in order to save us. To satisfy divine justice. What end did he have in view?

27:41 Simply to juggle the record books in heaven so that we might be happy that our sins are brought out? Never. For we read in Titus 2 and verse 14 he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar people. He died to purify a people.

28:04 Holiness, sanctification was the end. Of that definite atonement which Christ offered for his people. When God in his grace calls us out of darkness into marvelous light what is the goal of his calling to make us happy to give us peace to make us joyful? No!

28:23 Those are byproducts the goal of his calling. According to 1 Corinthians 4, 7 he called us not unto uncleanness but unto holiness. 1 Corinthians 1 in verse 9 God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord for whom he did foreknow he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. The focal point the object of Paul's longing is that these Thessalonians be established in practical godliness because that is the goal of God's saving work.

Particulars of Sanctification: Author, Seat, Extent, and Revelation

29:05 Now notice the particulars that he mentions about this. Holiness or sanctification. He tells us an awful lot and this is why I knew I would have to break this down into several messages because just what he says about holiness I can only give you the framework of it and don't have time to work out the details but in the first place who's the author of this sanctification? Notice.

29:31 And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another to the end he may establish your hearts. Should not be translated to the end that ye may be established or that your hearts may be established but to the end that he may establish your hearts in holiness. Biblical sanctification or holiness which is the end and goal of God's redemptive purpose is that kind of sanctification of which God himself is the author. It is not mere self-reformation mere imitation the pulling in as it were of the cinches and shoring up the weak areas of life in self-effort to be some kind of a stake-owned saint. No, no. There is no sanctification unless God is the author of it and this brings us right back to the thing he indicated in the first verse that we studied this morning. Until we are in a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ sanctification is utterly impossible.

30:40 Utterly impossible for Jesus Christ as said in John 15 verse 5 without me severed from me cut off from me ye can do what? Nothing. Oh now, imitation is not impossible.

30:55 Self-reformation is not impossible. But true sanctification is utterly impossible until we are savingly joined to Christ because God is the author of it and grace is its channel and until we are united to him by his grace there is no there is no sanctification. In the next place notice that the inner life is the seed of it to the end that he may establish your hearts that is your whole inner life. If God is the author of this sanctification which is the focal point of his longing then the inner life is the seed of it.

31:34 It is not just that which touches my external conduct.

31:41 The whole work of God's grace based on the objective merits of Christ has to be as as its goal the subjective renovation and transformation of the heart and life of the sinner.

31:57 We read in 1 Timothy 1 I believe verse 5 the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart of a good conscience and faith unfamed. The goal for which God has given us his truth is that our inner life might be renovated not like the Pharisees to whom people would look and say ah look at Pharisee Jones or Pharisee Smith his life is impeccable. Christ said you appear like unto whitewashed sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful unto men.

32:31 Man looketh on the outward appearance and look at the Pharisee he is like a whitewashed sepulcher but Jesus said within within at the seed of the being in the heart they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. There was a glossing over of the corruption of the heart with the veneer. Of religious respectability Paul's understanding of sanctification which is the biblical God given perspective of sanctification is that he is not only the author but the inner life is the seat of it. But then notice when he uses this word to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable he is indicating that the whole heart in life is the extent of it. If God's the author the inner life the seat of it then the whole heart and life is the extent of it. He says you may be established unblameable. Now what does this word unblameable mean?

33:33 It's used in Luke 1.6 concerning Zacharias and Elizabeth and of them it is said they walked in all the commandments of the Lord blameless doesn't say sinless. Philippians 2.15 Paul prays for the Philippians that they may be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

33:59 In chapter 2 of the Thessalonian letter in verse 10 Paul says his own conduct was this ye are witnesses in God also how holily and righteously and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. The word blameless means no just cause for censure.

34:21 No just cause for censure. And this is the apostles longing for these people that they may be so established in practical holiness and godliness by the power of God in the inner life that in the realm of the whole heart and life there will be no occasion for man to point the finger now or for God to point the finger then. For notice he moves from this phrase establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the fourth thing we see about this holiness is that the coming of Christ will be a revelation of its genuineness. God's the author of it he may establish the inner life the seed of it establish your hearts the whole heart and life the extent of it blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus. The coming of Christ will be a revelation of the genuineness of it.

35:36 Notice he says before our God and Father. God the Father will pass the eye of omniscience over us at the coming of Jesus Christ. And we learn from this statement of the apostle that he will come.

35:56 I remember speaking with my son some weeks ago as we were having devotions together and one of the thoughts was the long period of time 1900 years seems to us. His promise as he left this earth was I will come again. The last word the angels spoke as he was enveloped in the clouds this same Jesus who is taken from you into heaven shall so come that when you come we think of the patriarchs. The promise given originally to Adam and passed on no doubt to his posterity and then to Abraham and how for four thousand years at least they waited.

36:39 God promised one would come who would bruise the head of the serpent. And how long four thousand years must have seemed.

The Excellency and Necessity of Holiness at Christ's Coming

36:50 But in the fullness of time scripture says Jesus Christ came made of a woman made under the law to be a woman to redeem those that were under the law. Two thousand years seems like a long time to us but with God one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. And that promise though delayed in its fulfillment as we look at delay God's time schedule is perfect. And in the fullness of God's time he who came in the fullness of time to redeem will come in the fullness of time to take his own and to bring judgment upon those who have wickedly refused the overtures of his grace and will perish before him. The coming of Christ will be a revelation of the genuineness of this holiness. He will come. His saints will come with him before the coming of the Lord Jesus with all his saints and in that day listen carefully the excellency and the necessity of holiness will come to light.

38:04 Nobody's concerned whether man's holy in this biblical sense now. If God is working in him in his inner life to make him into the likeness of Jesus Christ by nature men are concerned with success and pride and the giving them to their passions and the gratification of lust. You come to the average man in the street of Caldwell today and say look I can tell you a way that you can be made holy. And he says get with it Mac I'm not interested.

38:31 And I go to speak to students on campuses and try to get them interested in how they can be holy they say oh we're not interested in that business pie in the sky and subjective pietism we're the now generation we're concerned about real problems Vietnam and poverty and as much as say chuck your holiness not important there's a day when all that talk will be changed at the coming of the Lord Jesus men will see only one thing that's important have I been made holy and if not I'll hear the words depart from me ye cursed then what will they say what will you say if you come to that day an unholy man an unholy woman for the scripture says bless to the pure in heart for they shall see God follow after the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord and so the apostle indicates in expressing his wish for these people that there is a sanctification of which God is the author the inner life the seat the whole heart and life the extent of it but one which will come to light at the revelation of the Lord Jesus and in that day I repeat the excellency and the necessity of holiness

Conclusion: Love as the Means to Holiness

39:59 will appear to all men you and I will have to reckon with him in that day now what means is ordained to the authority attainment of this holiness perfect and settled sanctification in the eyes of God is the object and the means by which it's to be attained is a growing and overflowing love to men notice in the Lord make you to increase and in bound in love one to another and to all men to the end that you may be established in holiness so God willing next week we want to study the relationship of love particularly love on the horizontal level he's talking about love to the brethren and love to all men the relationship of love to holiness for as his goal is very clearly stated that they may be established in holiness the means to attain that goal is the increase and overflow of love the Lord make you to increase and abound in love to the end that you may be established in holiness that's another subject that must await next week's exposition the Lord willing if the Lord will that we meet again in soundness of body and sanity of mind but I close today

41:28 with those words of James very much before my mind there may be no next week for me or for you and in that sense the coming of the Lord Jesus is when God summons you out of this life to stand in his presence will you stand there as one who by God's grace has entered into a saving relationship with God through the Lord Jesus have you learned the lesson concerning the essence of saving religion in verse 11 that it is personal our God our Lord it is evangelical it has to do with the blood of Christ the death of Christ the resurrection of Christ the throne of Christ faith in Christ it is personal if so then holiness conformity to Christ is the longing of your heart and when you hear Paul's longing for the Thessalonians you say oh God though faintly at times that's the longing of my own heart that being accepted in the beloved with no thought that my holiness can earn salvation but having received the free gift of life and forgiveness I want to be like you if God is your Father in Jesus Christ your Lord then this is your goal

42:56 and if holiness is your goal then pray that God will fill your heart with that love which is unto holiness and will you not pray even this week that God would by the Spirit teach us together how love abounding and overflowing is the means by which establishment in holiness is realized just a casual expression of His love and His love and His love and His love and His love but oh how precious is the word of God to the heart of the child of God who in that word hears the voice of His God have you heard His voice this morning? if so may your response be that of Samuel speak Lord for thy servant here let us pray