Gospel-Centered People

241Until we receive the reward of our faith, the journey continues. However, to navigate this journey successfully, we need help. Despite our active faith, even our best efforts will fail apart from God's enablement. Paul therefore turns his attention from the Thessalonians' response to God, to God's work in the life of the Thessalonians.

Any mariner will tell you that the best way to keep from getting seasick is to keep your eyes on the horizon. When everything is shifting around you, you must find something stable on which to fix your eyes. The same principle applies when living out our faith. If there is anything certain about our lives, it is that our lives are uncertain. In the midst of our uncertain world we need something certain on which to fix our eyes. As Paul demonstrates in his prayer for the Thessalonians, our certainty comes from the grace and love of "our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father" (2:16).

Because Paul recognized the impossibility for the Thessalonians to live out their faith in their own strength, he prays for their ongoing encouragement and increasing stability. He identifies both the Lord Jesus and God the Father as the source of this encouragement and stability. Noticeably absent from his prayer are requests for God to lift their burdens or to judge their detractors. He instead prays specifically for God to "encourage" their hearts and "strengthen" them in "every good work and word." In 3:5 Paul adds to this request by praying specifically for God to "direct [their] hearts to God's love and Christ's endurance."

Paul basically had two specific prayer requests for the Thessalonians. First, he prayed for their ongoing spiritual productivity. In this regard he asked for God's intervention in their lives, not to remove any of their burdens, but to bring them encouragement. Second, he prayed for their ongoing spiritual growth. Such growth would be evident by their increasing love for God and their ability to endure suffering by following in Jesus' footsteps (3:5). Hence, Paul's desire for this young church was for them to be diligent in their service for God and deep in their walk with God. For those in spiritual leadership, we can find no more appropriate example of how to pray for your people.

242In His intercessory prayer for His disciples, Jesus makes at first blush what may appear to be a startling request. Listen to His penetrating words:

There are two very sobering revelations in His request: that Jesus knows how much the world hates His disciples, and that Jesus would desire for His disciples to remain in an antagonistic world.

One of God's great mysteries is how He uses evil and suffering as tools to accomplish His purposes. We have already seen this principle at work in the Thessalonian church when Paul reminded them that God was using their suffering as a means by which they would be "counted worthy of God's kingdom" (1:5). Although Satan is an ubiquitous foe in the Christian life, God provides His people with sufficient strength to overcome. Recognizing that both he and the Thessalonian believers must have God's help in this spiritual war, Paul once again turns his attention to prayer.

With regard to his personal need, Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray for his deliverance "from wicked and evil men" (3:2). For him to request prayer from the Thessalonians says much about how he felt about them. At the same time, the Thessalonians must have been honored by their spiritual father's request for them to pray for him. As a new believer, I can vividly recall one of my respected mentors asking me to pray for him. Although I stumbled over my words as I voiced my prayer, I will never forget how honored I was to be asked to pray. Perhaps you could do the same for a young believer. Enlist his prayer support for the challenges that you face in your life and ministry. At the same time, ask how you can pray for him. One of the most significant joys in the Christian life is the privilege of praying for and with one another. This brings at least three benefits:

We acknowledge our dependence on God. Even on our best days, we are powerless to win any spiritual battle without God's intervention. In this passage Paul reveals dependence on God. We need God's enablement 243to keep going (2:17), His direction to keep growing (3:5), His protection to keep us safe (3:2-3), and His provision to keep advancing (3:1, 4).

We are reminded that we are in this battle together. Spiritual tunnel vision is a very real danger for suffering and hurting Christians. We would do well to recall God's message to a suffering Elijah when God informed him that he was not the only suffering prophet in the land (1 Kgs 19:18). In a strange way, it is comforting to know that you are not the only one who needs to be comforted. In other words, it's comforting to know that you share with one another in the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet 4:12-14).

We are compelled to stay humble. Whether you are an illustrious apostle or an unknown church member in Thessalonica, everyone needs prayer and everyone can pray. As John Phillips rightly notes, prayer grants anyone direct access into God's presence. He writes,

Paul's life passion was to advance the gospel (Rom 1:15-17; 15:20). To hear him request prayer for the "Lord's message" to "spread rapidly" (v. 1) comes as no surprise, but his request goes beyond the advancement of the gospel to the receptivity of the gospel. To add even more specificity to his prayer request, Paul adds, "just as it was with you." In other words, he knew that if others received his preaching with the same enthusiasm as the Thessalonians, then the gospel would be sure to spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. For the gospel to "spread rapidly" at least three ingredients must be present.

There must be a word to be proclaimed. Paul identifies this word as the Lord's message. This message is synonymous with the gospel (1 Thess 1:8). For Paul, the gospel was not an addendum to be tacked on at the end of the sermon; the gospel was the sermon from beginning to end. This of course does not mean that Paul did not expound the Scriptures. He was thoroughly biblical in his approach (Acts 17:1-4; 28:17-29). His messages were thoughtfully prepared and purposefully preached in such a way that the gospel was central. We would do well to follow 244in Paul's footsteps by evaluating every sermon before we preach it to ensure that it is Christ-centered and gospel-focused.

God must prepare the way. While this might sound obvious, we must not miss the point. Paul's request for the Thessalonians to pray makes clear that he was totally dependent on God to ensure both receptivity to and advancement of the gospel. His request for prayer is in the present tense, which suggests ongoing action. He was asking the Thessalonians to make their prayers for the advancement of the gospel an ongoing priority. They were also exhorted to pray specifically for the message to spread rapidly. Paul envisioned an unobstructed pathway on which the gospel could advance. At the same time, however, he was well aware of the "wicked and evil men" who were seeking to thwart the message and the messenger (v. 2).

There must be receptive people. The preaching of the gospel does not guarantee the rapid advancement of the gospel. Those who hear the message must honor the message by receiving it. Paul's reference to the Thessalonians' receptivity ("just as it was with you") is a reminder to us once again of how the gospel transformed these people. Though Paul, Silas, and Timothy were forced to leave the city under duress (Acts 17:5-10), the message they left behind was doing its work. Even many months later, as Paul pens his second letter, he can still rejoice in the continuing work of the gospel. For God's work to advance, the gospel must be preached and received. Perhaps this is a contributing factor as to why some churches grow and others do not. Despite godly leadership and faithful gospel preaching, some churches never see explosive growth. The gospel will never fully take root and spread rapidly without the receptivity of the people. Paul knew this from personal experience. After his successful campaigns in Philippi and Thessalonica, he was greeted by ridicule in Athens (Acts 17:32) and persecution in Corinth (Acts 18:17). The same preacher with the same message experienced different results. Why? Ultimately, the results must be left to the sovereignty of God, but at the same time we cannot ignore the varying degrees of receptivity in each city. Perhaps we now have a better understanding as to why Paul desired that the Thessalonians pray for receptivity to the gospel message. Without it, the message would never spread rapidly.

There are a number of important principles to be gleaned from this passage.

245Genuinely converted people will bear fruit. This is a recurring theme in the Thessalonian letters (1 Thess 1:2-10; 2:13; 3:6; 4:9-10; 2 Thess 1:3-4). While the Thessalonians were not a perfect church, there is no doubt that they were a redeemed church (2:13-14). This passage provides a template for us to evaluate how evident the fruit of the gospel is in the churches. Consider these five characteristics of the Thessalonian church:

We would be hard pressed to find any pastor who desires anything less for his church.

We must expect opposition to the gospel. This theme also recurs in the Thessalonian letters (1 Thess 1:6; 2:14, 18; 3:7; 2 Thess 1:4-5; 3:3). The "evil one" was working tirelessly to hinder the advancement of God's message in Thessalonica. Yet, despite his efforts, the gospel was flourishing. The presence of opposition does not signal the absence of God. The opposite is often the case. Satan has no need to inject himself into any church where God is not working. Why would he? Where there is no threat there is no need for his intervention. However, where God's Word is advancing and God's people are growing, you are likely to find opposition. In fact, you will most likely discover that the greater the spiritual victory, the more heightened the level of persecution. So while everyone around him is reveling in the glory of God's activity, the wise pastor is exhorting his people to be on guard against the enemy's attack. Contrary to the experience of many Christians, the church is not a playground—it is a battleground. The eternal destinies of people hang in the balance. Why would we expect anything less than the fullest force of opposition against everything we do? Paul did not live his life in a spiritual vacuum. He knew the inherent dangers of ministry. Knowing the dangers you and I also face, listen soberly to Paul's words to the Corinthians:

God sanctifies those whom He saves. Again, this theme runs throughout 1 and 2 Thessalonians (1 Thess 3:12-13; 4:3; 5:23-24; 2 Thess 1:11-12; 2:13, 16-17; 3:5). In this passage Paul expresses gratitude to God for sanctifying them by the Spirit (2:13), guaranteeing their ultimate glorification (2:14), encouraging them to persevere (2:16-17a), strengthening them in their work (2:17b), guarding them from the evil one (3:3), and directing their path for them to accomplish His purposes in them (3:5). Indeed, those of us in positions of spiritual leadership should endeavor to pray for God to do these things in our people. God never intended for the Christian faith to be a destination; it is a journey whereby God's people are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 3:18).