03b A Passion for People

1 Thessalonians 3:6–13 ESV

6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— 7 for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. 8 For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. 9 For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, 10 as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 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.

Pray

In 1 Thessalonians 3:5-10 , Paul offers joyful thanksgiving and unceasing petitions because he loves the Thessalonian believers and has pastoral concern for their maturity in faith. After stating that he prays night and day for these believers, Paul pens a remarkable prayer for these saints in verses 11-13. The apostle makes two petitions to “our God and father himself, and our Lord Jesus,” and then states his specific goal for these saints when Jesus returns.

Paul directs his prayer to God the Father and the Lord Jesus. This recalls the very first verse of the letter: “To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (emphasis added). Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,” and He continued to address God as “Father” in His darkest suffering at Gethsemane and Golgotha. But it’s somewhat surprising that Paul in the same breath prays to “our Lord Jesus.” He also does this in 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 , “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word” (NIV). In these passages, Paul doesn’t launch into theological argument for the divine status and sovereignty of Jesus; nevertheless, his prayer offers a window into his profound understanding of the risen, reigning, returning Lord Jesus. As John Calvin writes, “We must take notice that he assigns the same office to God and to Christ, as, unquestionably, the Father confers no blessing upon us except through Christ’s hand. When, however, he thus speaks of both in the same terms, he teaches that Christ has divinity and power in common with the Father.”4

First, Paul asks God the Father and the Lord Jesus to “direct our way to you” (v. 11). In 3:10, the apostle wrote that he and his fellow workers earnestly pray night and day for an opportunity to see and serve the Thessalonian believers. Paul was torn away from this church and repeatedly hindered by Satan from returning to them, and so he asks for divine intervention to “clear the way” (NIV) so that he may see and serve the Thessalonians once again. The narrative of Acts and Paul’s letters suggest that God granted Paul’s request and allowed him to return to Macedonia—where Thessalonica was the largest and most important city—and encourage the churches that he had founded.5 Two Thessalonian believers, Aristarchus and Secundus, then joined Paul as traveling companions and fellow workers (see Acts 20:4 ).

Second, in verse 12 Paul prays that these believers would overflow in love: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you.” The Thessalonian church required further teaching and discipleship in important theological and practical matters, but they had “been taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess. 4:9 ). Yet the burden of Paul’s prayer isn’t that these believers grow in their understanding of sound doctrine—as vital as that is—but that they abound in love. Love is Paul’s burden because, “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8 , NIV). Love endures into the age to come. As Jonathan Edwards famously wrote, “Heaven is a world of love.”6

Such “love for one another and for all” was quite different from the deeply ingrained practices of patronage in Greco-Roman society. Wealthy citizens provided gifts and benefits to their clients, such as employment, social advancement, or financial support. Clients would then reciprocate by offering loyalty, gratitude, honor, and service of various kinds. But Paul writes that “our Lord Jesus Christ … though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9 ). Jesus Christ by His radical love, generosity, and service toward undeserving sinners transforms how His followers conceive of their relationships toward those within the community and those outside. This is a hard, brutal world. There are many protestations of affection, many forms of pseudo-love, whether in ancient Greco-Roman civilization or in our own. But Christian love—mature, deep, and unqualified—is a rare commodity. When it is displayed, it speaks volumes to a society that gorges itself in self-interest, lust, mutual-admiration pacts, even while it knows very little of love.

In verse 13, Paul states his ultimate goal for the church “at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” This verse describes Jesus’ return using the language of Zechariah 14:5 , “Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.” Notice that Paul substitutes “our Lord Jesus” with “the Lord my God” in Zechariah’s prophecy. This underscores Jesus’ divine position and authority as end-time judge.

Jesus’ return as divine Judge and King is profoundly good news for believers. According to 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 , “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” Paul prays that the Lord Jesus “may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father” (v. 13) in view of His glorious return. In Scripture, the heart often refers to the center of a person’s whole inner life, including thoughts, emotions, and will. God knows and tests people’s hearts, and so Paul prays that the Lord will establish or strengthen believers’ hearts to ready them for the last day.7

When Paul prays for and instructs the church, he does so with eternal values in mind. Earlier Paul sent Timothy to “strengthen and encourage” them in their faith (3:2, NIV). But as commentator Gordon Fee observes, the apostle now “prays to the one who can ultimately cause it to happen.”8 He longs for Christians to be “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation” (Phil. 2:15 ). Paul’s passion for people compels him to pray that God’s purposes would be fully realized in their lives. When we pray for people, we must do so knowing that these people, and we ourselves, are inevitably moving toward the last day. When we pray with eternity’s values in view, we are driven to pray for people because people like you and me are the ones who must give account to God on the last day.