Growing in Faith

Out of your depth

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you feel completely unqualified to do the task that is before you?

Maybe you’ve felt it in whatever job or career you’ve had where your boss asks you to step up into a role you’ve never done before.

It might be in church when someone asks whether you can lead a certain group.

Or it could be in a less formal setting - you have a friend going through a trauma and you know you need to care for them, but you have no idea what to do. What are you going to say? You’ve got nothing to offer.

Or you see someone in church struggling with something - you feel you should say something - but what are you going to do - you don’t feel qualified. You do nothing - after all, it’s not your job to care for them.

What if the person isn’t going through a specific struggle as such, but they’re just going through a bit of a lul in their faith journey - are you able to help them in anyway, or is this something just reserved for the pastor or perhaps someone a bit more suitably qualified?

Now, some people are going to have a more specific calling to be pastoral care type work compared to others, however, I’m going to argue that every believer from time to time will need to spiritual nourish someone else.

If you’re a parent, whether a parent to adult children or a parent to young children, you have a calling to spiritual care for you sons and daughters.

Then there are other people that will enter your sphere of influence. That might be a large sphere, or a small sphere - it might include people you consider more at a peer-to-peer level, or it might be people who look up to you as a role model of sorts - we need to spiritually care for these people.

Now, how does that make you feel? Maybe you feel ready for such a task - but perhaps you feel completely unqualified. Perhaps your only a relatively new believer, and you’re thinking - how in the world am I meant to provide any sort of spiritual care to my children, when all of this is still new to me?

Well, whether you’re new to this, or you actually feel quite comfortable in this space, as we go through the passage for today, I want us to think about what it means for us to spiritually care for those in our sphere.

Background

As we see in the passage Paul cares a lot about the people at Thessalonica.

But first, for the benefit of those who are new to this series, let me give a quick recap of the background of this letter.

Paul is on his second missionary journey. He arrived in the city of Thessalonica which is perhaps the most important city of the region known as Macedonia. For the first three sabbath days that he is there, he goes to the Jewish synagogue explaining how Jesus is the Messiah. He’s able to convince a good number of them, in particular the people known a God-fearers, which is another way of saying the Greek people who had started attending the Jewish synagogue. But eventually, the Jewish people get upset because Paul has essentially taken people away from their synagogue. They get so upset, in fact, that they cause a riot and leave Paul with no other option than to flee the city.

Only a relatively short period of time has elapsed, say about a few months or thereabouts, when this letter is written, and so those final moments before his departure would still be fresh in their minds.

As you might imagine, Paul feels the need to clarify what happened in those moments. Last week, when I looked at the first part of chapter 2, we saw the first part of his defence which focussed on explaining why he acted the way he did while he was with them.

This next section that I’m going to look at today, it essentially continues Paul’s defence, but rather than considering his time while he was there in Thessalonica, he is going to defend what he has been doing while away - and actually, if you look at the first verse of chapter 3, we find that he is in Athens as he writes this.

Well, it’s his actions while he’s in Athens that really get a good look at the heart of Paul and in particular his desire to spiritually care for these people. And it’s those aims to care for them that we’re really going to focus on this morning.

Longing

So, what did Paul have to say about what was going on for him while he was away?

Well, he uses the word “orphaned”, to decribe the separation that has happened. The word used in the Greek actually describes the intense feeling someone feels when a child or love one is taken from them.

He goes on to describe the intense longing he had to see them.

Now I don’t think the strength of the language Paul is using here is accidental, nor is it mere exaggeration. But why does Paul have such strong feelings for them? After all, while we might not know exactly how long he was with them in Thessalonica, it certainly wasn’t a long time.

I know you can form a good friendship in a short period of time, but would you really describe your desire to see them again as an intense longing?

This is what kingdom connections can do.

This is what knowing that God has established something good, and he’s doing something real special and we get to be part of the growth of it.

This kind of intense longing happens when God places a love in your heart - a love that might not make sense on a worldly level - but it does on that kingdom of God level.

For us, we need to allow the love of God to fill us so strongly, that when we look at the needs of others, we don’t consider it a chore to help them, rather we actually develop a longing to be with them and help them.

Now, just to be clear, we can’t have this intense longing to help every single believer - that’s just not practical. But as I said earlier, I believe God has placed people in your life for which will become the focus of your intense longing.

If you’re not feeling it, perhaps start with focusing on the love that God has already shown us.

When our way is blocked

But, though we might have these intense feelings, it sometimes might be that we are prevented from helping for some reason.

Paul describes wanting to go to them, but as he says in chapter 2 verse 18: “Satan blocked our way”.

Now, he doesn’t actually elaborate what he means by that. It could be that he is just referring to the circumstances that led him to leave in the first place are still there, and he’s attributing this barrier to Satan. It’s also possible that some other kind of affliction has come over him to prevent him from travelling. But in some ways, the exact reason he can’t go back to them is not important, rather we just see that there are times when we are prevented from being involved in the way that we would like to be involved.

And that’s important for us to note as well. It’s great when we are able to help, but if circumstances happen that prevent you from helping occur - that’s okay - God is bigger than just you. At times God may choose to use you, but he has a lot more options at his disposal.

Strengthening

Well, on this occasion, there was another option - Paul’s young helper, Timothy.

He’s able to send Timothy, who is able to go and be with these new believers in Thessalonica. You’ll see this being described in the first few verses of chapter 3.

But what I want you to pay attention to is the focus of his visit.

This is not just a social visit - although I’m sure he had a great time being with them.

As it says in verse 2, Timothy went to strengthen and encourage them in their faith.

This needs to be our focus.

The people that God places in our care… I am aware that they will be going through lots of specific issues. There might be health issues, or financial issues. Possibly relationship issues, or addictions, or housing, or issues with their jobs or any number of other issue - possibly even a combination of many of those. Yes we need to help them in their specific issues, but when we encourage them in their faith, we’re giving them a resource that will help them whatever the issue might be.

The people God has placed in our care, some might already have a strong faith… others will have only a weak faith, if barely there at all.

But help them see how a reliance on God can help them through. It’s possible that they’re circumstances might remain difficult, but here’s the thing, when the faith a someone grows, no matter what the suffering is, they are carried throuhg with a supernatural peace.

Inevitability of suffering

Now, while I’m on suffering, it’s worth pointing out as Paul does to these Thessalonians believers, that suffering is actually inevitable.

While we know that God can and even does do amazing works that sees breakthoughs in our lives, as Paul forewarned the Thessalonians, I too will forewarn you: You will face suffering and persecution.

The nature of your suffering may vary. For some, you may face persecution because of your beliefs and quite a direct way. Others it might be more indirect. Sometimes your suffering might just be part of living in a broken world where things are really messed up.

But don’t be surprised when the next set of difficult circumstances arise. God hasn’t promised you an easy life this side of his return. What he has promised you however, is that in the midst of those trials, he will never leave nor forsake you. He has promised you that he will carry you through.

This is why we need faith.

As we comfort those in our spiritual care, we will not be able to alleviate every single piece of suffering they are feeling, but by helping them to strengthen their faith, we will help them get through it.

Thankfulness

Well, in verse 5, Paul describes the apprehension that he felt as he waited on word from Timothy. There was really only one thing that he was really concerned about, and that was whether they had kept the faith or not.

If they had remained faithful to God - Paul had supreme confidence that they would be fine. If the tempter had led them astray… well, that was Paul’s big fear, because without faith, there was little hope for them.

But in verse 6, Paul describes the joy when Timothy does finally arrive and he is able to give good news.

Their faith is strong and they have remain firm in the Lord.

I just love the way Paul expresses his response to this news in verse 9, he says: “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?”.

Now, it’s important to remember that Paul’s joy here is because of their faith. It’s not because of how much money they’ve made, or how big they’ve grown a business. It’s not even so much about how big they’ve grown the church… it’s about how strong their faith has grown.

This is so important for us as we care for those God has given us.

We often take joy when they get a promotion at work. Or when they move into their first home.

Now don’t get me wrong, its right and proper when something good happens that we are happy for them.

But don’t lose sight of what’s really important for those that you may be spiritually caring for. When they remain strong in their faith and their love for one another, even when they’ve lost their job and battling a health condition, we still say thank you God, because we know this person has a beautiful future… that this person has what they need to get through this world… We thank God because they have joy in the midst of suffering.

This is what we are truly thankful for.

Our prayer

So, as we’ve moved through Paul’s words here, we’ve seen his intense longing for the believers in Thessalonica… we’ve seen that his desire for them to grow in faith as the number one priority… and we’ve seen that his joy and thankfulness is not found in their worldly success but in their faith. But there is one more aspect of what Paul says which in reality is perhaps the most important aspect of all - his prayer for them!

In verse 10 he says: “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith”.

Again, note how his prayer focusses not specifically on the earthly matter that we tend to think about, but on the faith that will carry them through.

Now again, I don’t want to suggest that we can’t pray for specific circumstances that people face, in fact, to the contrary, I think that it is important that we do pray for those specific cicumstances. Pray that your son finds a job. Pray that your niece defeats the cancer in her body.

So pray for those specifics, but can I suggest that we almost need more urgency in the way that we pray for their faith.

But then, look at the prayer that Paul ends with as he draws this defence to a close.

In verse 11, he’s prayingg for a specific matter, namely, that the path that he previously spoke about as being blocked by Satan… that it might be cleared. Incidentally, it would seem that he doesn’t end up going there again until his third missionary trip, which was quite a few years laters. But I guess in this sense, even though it was probably much later than he anticipated, God did answer that part of the prayer.

But then in verse 12, he says: ‘May the Lord make your love increase and over flow for each other and for everyone else, just a ours does for you”. He then continues in verse 13: “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”.

Paul knows what is important. It’s not worldly success. It’s staying firm in the Lord.

Paul knows what is coming - the return of Jesus. This is the focus.

When Jesus returns, time will be up. You will either be with God, or away from him. You’ll either be considered blameless and holy, or you will be unworthy.

What matters then, is whether you have maintained your faith in Jesus Christ.

This needs to be the focus of our prayers.

I want you to think a moment about the ways you pray for those you care about. When you pray for them, what is the main focus of that prayer? Are you focussing on the specific circumstances that they face? Or does your prayer recognise the bigger picture of what is happening - that is, how close they are drawing to Jesus.

I want to reiterate as I have already - it is good and proper to pray for specific circumstances in those we care for, but prayer that God will build up their love that it will increase and overflow for each other… pray that where there is a lack in their faith, that it may be filled.

Conclusion

You have people in your life who you need to care for. It may be a lot of people. It may be just a few. But you need to think how you can best love and care for those people.

I just want to pick out four thing that we’ve found in this passage for you to think about as you care for those people:

Have you kept a desire to really love and be with them? A love based on the love that God has for you?

Is your aim to strengthen and encourage them in their faith?

Are you finding joy as they grow in faith?

And are you praying that their faith and love grow more and more?

Circumstances may not always work out the way we want them to. For Paul, they certainly did not. But yet even when he remained absent from them, he never stopped loving and caring for these precious people.

Let me pray...