Biblical Text: 1 Thes. 3:9-13 (KJV)
“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? Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 toward you: 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.”
The greatest virtue in the world is love. Without love, man cannot have abundant life. In actuality, without love man is nothing. Paul knew this. This is why he went before God and prayed that the Thessalonian church and its believers might grow in love, more and more. Paul knew that the model church is a church that has a strong love.
Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians is a power-packed prayer. He prays to both God and Christ. You can’t pray effectively if you have no understanding of the Deity to whom you lift your request. Paul prays to God, the Supreme and Majestic Being of the universe, the Supreme Intelligence, the Creator and Maker of all things, the Giver and Sustainer of life and of everything else, the Person who dwells everywhere in perfect and supreme power, knowledge, and being. This is the image most Christians have of God; that He is in the heavens—in outer space someplace—a God who rules and reigns but is somewhat removed and not too interested in man. Paul reveals that God is what some men think: supreme, majestic, ruling and reigning.
But Paul then makes the case that God is more, much more. He prays to God our Father. And in so doing, Paul reminds us that God is a Father to us, intimately involved in our lives. He is not just in outer space ruling and reigning in some place far removed from us. God, our Father is right here with us, actively participating in our lives just as an earthly father participates in the lives of his children. Paul approaches God our Father, as a child, and asks Him for certain things; and when he asks, he knows that his Father will hear and answer. He knows because God is not only able to answer, but God is his Father.
And then Paul prays to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Supreme Majestic Ruler of the universe who has existed eternally in heaven and who loves us enough to become our Lord, and come to earth in the flesh and dwell among us. In the profundity of Paul’s prayer, he reveals that both the Father and the Son have the nature of God; both have co-existed eternally, and continue to reign eternally.
This power-packed prayer establishes the Deity of the Father and the Son before it even purports the purpose of the prayer. And what does Paul request of God? That the Father and the Lord Jesus would direct and guide his way back to the
Thessalonians. Paul was asking for a specific blessing; He wanted both God and the Lord Jesus working together to open the door for him to return to the dear believers at Thessalonica. The church would have been greatly uplifted to know that it was their spiritual father’s desire to return to them. Satan had created some terrible problems and obstacles for this fledgling church, and they needed the comfort of knowing that their spiritual leader understood their dilemma.
But even if Paul could return to them immediately, it was not HIS power that would deliver the saints at Thessalonica and build their spiritual house. So Paul prays for the only solution to their dilemma – He prays for their need to love.
Love is the necessary foundation for every church that seeks to abound in the work of the Lord. The word “increase” (pleonasai) means to multiply over and
over. The word “abound” (perisseusai) means to excel and overflow. If the church of Jesus Christ is to grow, it must allow the love of Christ to multiply and overflow into the world.
It would seem a reasonable expectation to compel church members to love one another, but how can they extend that love even to their enemies? Love’s interpretation is forever competing against a worldly definition of love that will not set the Church of Christ free from the bondage of hatred.
The world teaches us to offer only requited love – to love only those who love us. But the love of Jesus Christ challenges us to love ALL MEN, not just one
another. Paul prays, “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men.” Imagine a love pouring from the church that is so great as to include all men….not just the neighbor who borrowed your lawn mower and didn’t return it, but the terrorist, the prisoner, the homeless, the murderer, the dictator, the spiteful.
The Model Church must love ALL people. But how? How can we abound in love for those who offend us, who persecute us, and who cause us pain? How is it possible to love those who treat us as enemies? Is it even practical to ask us to love all men? Is it even humanly possible? No! Of course, it is not. Man’s ability to love is carnally founded on reciprocal love.
But there is a way; God’s way. And that is the subject of Paul’s prayer. Paul prays knowing that the source of love is the Lord. There is no other source, not for the kind of love that can love all men. So Paul, knowing his own limitations in the flesh, goes before the Lord to request such a love. Paul knew that it was impossible for him or the Thessalonians to work up the kind of love that could reach out and abound toward all men. Paul could not love those who imprisoned him and kept him from his beloved church at Thessalonica – but Christ had the power to love his incarcerators through him. A love that could love those who ignore, neglect, abuse, and shamefully treat us could only come from God. That’s agape love - the very love of God Himself. It alone can conquer the hearts of men and make them love their enemies, no matter how they treat us.
Hatred is a powerful weapon of Satan that stifles the soul and eats at the flesh. The Model Church does not have the time to plot and scheme against its enemies. We know that vengeance is the Lord’s work, not ours, and we cannot allow the emotion of hatred to slow our work for kingdom building. Love is how the church of Jesus Christ GROWS. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
Love will present the church unblameable before God when Christ returns to earth. The word “stablish” means to support, confirm, or make fast. It is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who stablishes our hearts before God. No one else has the right or power to set us before God and make us acceptable to Him. If the heart is man’s whole personality, then the heart of the church is the collective personality of all the saints who claim Christ as their own – and it is THAT heart that Christ will stablish before God.
Paul prayed that the Thessalonians would be an unblameable church, a faultless church. Who else has the power to cause our church to reach such heights than Christ himself? The Church’s only hope is Christ to set us unblameable and holy before God.
How much time does the Church of Jesus Christ have to reach this lofty goal? Until Christ returns! And how long is that? Not long! When Christ returns, He will come to claim His church and present us before God, first He will gather all those who have died and gone to be with the Lord. Then He will gather all the believers on earth, and we will be raptured (removed within a twinkling of an eye). What a coronation, the glorious day of our presentation before God—meeting Him
face to face and being presented to Him unblameable and holy—to be with Him forever and ever! It is the promise of God Himself and therefore it cannot be stopped! And no man should want to stop it.
If the church is not in a hurry for the rapture to come, then we’ve missed the mark. There is nothing on earth that should keep the heart of God’s people from desiring to stand in His presence and proclaim Him Lord. On the contrary, all men should prepare for that day and welcome it, for “…when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 5:4).
God can perfect that which is lacking in our faith.
God can direct ALL of our ways.
God can increase our love and cause our love to overflow toward others.
This is the mandate of the Model Church.
Not just that we encourage the faint among us, but the faint in the world.
Not just that we strengthen the weak within our walls, but without as well.
Not just that we inspired the discouraged on our roles, but the disheartened in our community.
Not just that we feed the hungry among us, but that we reach beyond to the hungry who know not the Lord.
This is the Model Church’s prayer:
Lord, let us carry your love into all the world, because we know that:
There is no marriage that Christ’s love cannot strengthen,
There is no fellowship that His love cannot enhance,
No heart that His love cannot soften,
No sorrow that His love cannot relieve.
This is the prayer of the Model church:
Make us blameless, make us pure, make us holy, our pathway sure.
