1 Thessalonians 3:11-13 - The Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Target Date: Sunday, 16 October 2022

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Direct -κατευθύνω (katĕuthunō) – intensified form of “straighten” or guide.

Only used 3 times in NT.

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” - Luke 1:79

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. - 2 Thessalonians 3:5

Thoughts on the Passage:

In mentioning this prayer to both the Father and the Son – as a singular entity – Paul displays his implicit understanding of the deity of Jesus Christ.

Many commentators do not consider the singular verb as significant, treating it only as a convention of speech. In the other examples, though, the antecedents are of the same essence.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me - John 10:27

There is certainly something to be said for this being indicative of the call of Jesus to salvation – justification. It is entirely true that we heed his voice when we truly repent and believe in Him for salvation.

But are we to understand that is the last time we will feel the guiding hand of Jesus Christ on our hearts? Is this call limited to the instant of conversion, then all further contact is held in abeyance until the Parousia? No.

11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Sermon Text:

There is a huge and dangerous temptation that all teachers and preachers face.

And that temptation is to say something new.

Something surprising.

Something noteworthy.

Something that people will acknowledge as profound or life-changing.

In addition to being a temptation well-meaning, godly pastors must fight in each sermon preparation;

This temptation is at the heart of every self-proclaimed “prophet” I have met in my life.

It is found, I suspect, in the hearts of many teachers who would seek audience or influence beyond their local congregation,

Whether their desire is to preside over their denomination or their podcast audience.

And the problem with this temptation to say something new is that it is couched in the finest motives:

“I want to have a positive impact on people, even beyond my local congregation.”

“I want to defend the truth, making sure people hear it.”

“I want to give people truth they haven’t heard before.”

“I want to make arguments that my opponents have never heard before.”

I recognize that this temptation to be clever or novel in our defense of the gospel is not limited to teachers, but we do battle with it.

We teachers are especially prone to the fleshly desire to captivate people with our wisdom, particularly if we forget or neglect that our first, our most solemn duty in our role of pastor or teacher is to our local assembly.

The portion of God’s church we have been graciously called to serve.

You cannot serve an Internet constituency;

You cannot be a servant to a person you do not serve.

You can lead them, in the style of the Gentiles.

You can teach them lessons, yes, but you cannot follow up on their understanding and obedience, gently correcting or adjusting their understanding in the truth.

You can only serve a person who is right here, right in your own congregation;

A person you know well enough to know their strengths and weaknesses, and love them regardless of each.

We do make the sermon each week available on some platforms, but God forbid I ever put one word in for the people on the other side of the screen.

The expositions I bring, I bring for the sake of those here;

Those who I love.

Those who I serve.

Those who I will fellowship with, and have discussions on these doctrines with, perhaps over our fellowship lunch.

I am grateful for the opportunity for some to hear the doctrines of the gospel preached over the Internet from here,

And I hope that the teaching is helpful to those who hear.

But God protect me from trying to be clever or well-known or eloquent at the expense of the truth of the gospel.

A servant’s highest honor is to be helpful in our Lord’s service.

That must be good enough for me.

That should be good enough for us all.

I offer this somewhat unusual introduction to today’s passage because we shall deal with a subject that many here, perhaps all, think we have a good handle on: the Trinity.

I doubt anyone would say they understand it, per se, but I think most of us accept it as we should – by faith.

So I would encourage you in a topic so familiar that you pay special attention today,

Because it is our tendency to let our minds wander when we think we know what will be said.

And I assure you, I intend no clever analogy or novel approach to the subject.

I seek only this morning to remind us all of the truth of this doctrine that, as we see in the passage before us, formed a foundation of Paul’s teaching of these new disciples in Thessalonica.

You may be re-reading today’s passage now, thinking “I don’t see an explicit reference to the Trinity”, and you would be technically correct.

But it is there – in verse 11:

Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you…

It sounds like a natural way to say they are praying that God will bring them again to Thessalonica.

But in the Greek, the verb “direct” is not plural – it is singular.

In English, we use the same word in either case – “direct”,

I direct; you direct; we direct; they direct; may God direct.

All the same form of the verb.

But in Greek, it is much more precise: a plural subject would generally require a plural verb.

So Paul, clearly, did not consider the Father and the Son to be plural, but singular.

Now some commentators poo-poo that idea, stating that there are other examples of a singular verb follows a plural subject:

For example, James 5:3:

Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you

“Gold” and “Silver” are a compound subject, and “rusted” is singular.

But notice that the subject - gold and silver – share an essence – they are both precious metals used as money.

And in every example I found in the New testament, this construction of plural subject and singular verb dealt with subjects with an identical essence in the sentence.

Another example to illustrate the point is Mark 4:41:

“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

In this, the essence of the wind and sea are two uncontrollable forces of nature who each obeyed the command of Jesus to stillness.

So even though we see this grammatical construction is not unique to this sentence, it does declare the assumption Paul had when he wrote this:

Jesus and the Father are one.

And, I would remind you, he does not go into a great explanation of the doctrine here, but makes the assumption that the Thessalonians recall this fundamental doctrine.

If this had been a matter of dispute at Thessalonica, he would have given a greater explanation or instruction on the subject, but he didn’t.

And in 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, we see this same construction with a slight difference:

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, 17 comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.

This time Jesus Christ is mentioned first, followed by the Father, in the prayer to “comfort and strengthen”.

In both our passage today and in the 2 Thessalonians passage, he formed the sentence with the assumption of the shared essence of the Father and the Son – One who answers prayer.

And that brings us to the remarkable idea in this passage that both the Father and the Son receive and respond to prayer.

For a Jew, brought up in strictest Judaism, the thought of praying to anyone who was not God would be repugnant, abhorrent, anathema.

But in this petition, the Father and the Son are addressed jointly, not as separate beings, but as unified God.

Paul certainly would not have made this prayer to anyone but the True God, and that is accurately the Unified Father and Son (we will look at the Holy Spirit later).

Matthew Henry, that great pastor and commentator, looked at this very thing here:

[Look at] Whom he prays to, namely, God and Christ. Prayer is a part of religious worship, and all religious worship is due unto God only. Prayer is here made to God, even the Father and our Father; and also to Christ, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore Jesus Christ our Lord is God, even as God our Father is God. Prayer is to be offered to God as our Father. So Christ taught his disciples to pray; and so the Spirit of adoption prompts them to pray, to cry, Abba Father. Prayer is not only to be offered in the name of Christ, but offered up to Christ himself, as our Lord and our Saviour.

I remember being told decades ago by a well-meaning Sunday School teacher:

“Never pray to Jesus Christ, but only to the Father.”

I stand with the exhortation of Matthew Henry and the example of Paul, the apostle:

Pray to Christ, through Christ, and in His Name.

How many little children begin in prayer by addressing Jesus?

Do not hinder the children from coming directly to Him.

I promise you the Father is not offended with prayers offered to the Son – they are not in competition.

And when we pray “Maranatha” – Come Quickly Lord Jesus – we are praying TO Jesus in that case.

So would the same thing go for praying to the Holy Spirit? There is a great vogue in praying TO the Holy Spirit in our day.

And I will confess most of my dilemma with these is often not whom the prayer addresses, but what they ask for.

But in the Scriptures, I find nowhere that someone prays TO the Holy Spirit.

We certainly have examples, in addition to our passage today, where people pray directly to the Lord Jesus.

Not the least of which is the prayer of Stephen as he was being stoned:

They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” – Acts 7:59-60

I can assure you – the Holy Spirit is not offended if you do not address prayers to Him.

Without diving into the whole subject of the Holy Spirit and His work, let’s summarize by saying He is fully God as well, and is entirely satisfied that you pray to the Father or the Son.

After all, He glorifies THEM.

when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you. – John 16:13-15

In short, based on Biblical example, I would say that, while praying TO the Spirit might be done on some occasions when we, for example, feel mired in our weakness, it is no more effective than praying to the Father through the Spirit or IN the Spirit.

Beware anyone who tells you that you MUST pray to the Spirit for some things. That is rubbish.

And so we have mentioned the Persons of the Godhead: the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ (the Son), and the Holy Spirit.

All fully God in a way that will boggle our mind.

We can only take much of this doctrine by faith in God’s revelation of Himself to us.

The second chapter, third paragraph of the 1689 London Baptist Confession describes the Trinity (Three Persons in Unity) this way:

In this divine and infinite Being there are three [Persons], the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided: the Father is of none [not derived from any other being], neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son; all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations; which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on him.

After all this, some might wonder why it is so important that Jesus Christ is understood to be God Himself.

Most, incidentally, have no problem with the Holy Spirit; their problem lies with who Jesus Christ was.

Many other religions are pleased to acknowledge Jesus as a good teacher, good man, or even a prophet of God.

Why can we not let up on that doctrine just a little?

After all, they argue, it takes nothing away from the truth He proclaimed.

We still believe in God the Father.

And we all can find common ground in that.

So I would like to quickly offer some responses to this line of attack on our faith.

1. If Jesus was not God, He was a liar.

One needs to look further than John 10:30, where Jesus says:

I and the Father are one.”

This wasn't some evasion – the Jews picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy because He made Himself equal with God.

He could only do that because He IS equal with God.

Also the familiar John 3:16-17:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

2. If Jesus was not God, He could not pay for the sin of anyone else.

We referred last Wednesday evening to Ezekiel 14:14:

even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves,” declares the Lord God.

A man, a son of Adam, cannot pay for another’s sin.

That is because we need the same salvation as the other person.

We are just as fallen.

Just as ruined.

Just as corrupt.

Just as dead in the spirit as the next person.

Only God Himself could take the weight of sin upon Himself,

Endure God’s wrath against that sin,

And rise from the dead whole and eternally alive.

In that perfect summary of God’s action in salvation – Romans 3:26, Paul describes God in both the role of the wrathful God who must be propitiated, and in the sacrifice of propitiation:

so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

3. If Jesus was not God, the Bible is a fraud.

Everything in the New Testament begins with the deity of Jesus Christ:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped - Philippians 2:5-6

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:15-17

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” – Revelation 5:11-13