Happy Lord’s Day! It is good to be face to face before the Lord together in worship this morning.
As some of you may have noticed, it got cold this week. On Wednesday my children, having viewed the frost covered ground, declared it had snowed. As a result, I woke up to the chorus of the song, “Let it Snow.”
Now, some may argue it is too early for Christmas music, but we really are only 49 days out as of this morning. And in our passage we see Timothy bring Paul, “Tidings of comfort and Joy”
We don’t really send tidings anymore, but the word means: news. And Timothy’s good report about the Thessalonians faith sends Paul into another fit of joy. Our passage reveals to us Paul’s heart and gives to us a model of brotherly love. The phrase, “brotherly love,” includes you too sisters. I point that out because historically the “generic masculine” includes both. For example, when I say, “all men have fallen short of the glory of God,” we all know the “men” in the phrase includes women. The Bible uses the generic masculine a lot and as we get ready to pick up on the phrase “Brotherly love” this morning, I wanted to be clear that the “Brotherly love” includes “Sisterly love too.” And we’ve taken “brotherly love” from the next chapter.
1 Thessalonians 4:9 | 9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another
Our passage gives us a model of what brotherly love looks like in the church. So, here is the main idea today:
Main idea: Brotherly love produces joy, comfort, and holiness.
OUTLINE
1. Joy | The Desire of Brotherly love
2. Comfort | The Design of Brotherly love
3. holiness | The Destiny of Brotherly love
Would you stand with me in the honor of reading God’s holy word…
1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13 | 17 But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, 18 because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 For you are our glory and joy. 3 Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, 3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. 4 For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. 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.
This is the word of the Lord…..May he carve it’s eternal truth on our hearts.
PRAYER
This passage is fascinating because of how sort of herkie jerky it is. Paul is still concerned about assuring the Thessalonians that they are loved and chosen by God by reminding them that his ministry among them was not in vain. At the beginning of chapter 2 he says his ministry wasn’t in vain because it’s primary aim was to please God. Then in verses 13-16 he argues his ministry wasn’t in vain because it produced the fruit of the Thessalonians faith. They received the word of God not as the word of men but as it really is the word of God, and God’s word was at work in them.
Now, in our section Paul has moved from thinking about the time he spent among the Thessalonians to confessing his worry about their faith. He is telling them that he sent Timothy to them to instruct them and to find out how they were doing because he was afraid, 3:5, that somehow the tempter had tempted them and his work was in vain. Last week we considered the efforts of Satan to tempt the Thessalonians into being like the seed sown in the rocky soil of Jesus’s parable of the soils. You’ll remember the seed sown in rocky soil is quickly green, then quickly gone. Because it has no root, the seed in the rocky soil ends up scorched and by the heat of persecution.
This week, we learn that The Thessalonians are indeed good soil and that the word sown by Paul, Silas, and Timothy has continued to produce good fruit even in their absence. In verse 5 we see Paul fearful for the Thessalonians like a parent waiting for their child to come home after curfew. He is wondering where they are and what may have happened to them. And in verse 6, we see Paul bursting with relief as Timothy brings him tidings of comfort and joy – his ministry wasn’t in vain! Look at the shift with the adversative in verse 6…
1 Thessalonians 3:5-6 | 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. 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—
“Good news” in this text should stand out to us. It’s the same source word as the word “gospel.” And this is the only place where Paul uses the word, “gospel” to describe anything that is not the announcement of the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for sins and raised for justification.1 Paul is so thrilled with the steadfast faith of the Thessalonians, that he says, “Timothy brought the gospel to me!” Paul is not disinterested in the Thessalonian church. He isn’t mildly interested. He is all in on them. He loves them with a brotherly love such that their well-being is connected to his joy. Look at how he continues to describe his delight in the Thessalonians in verse 8…
1 Thessalonians 3:8-9 | 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.
Do you hear Paul’s joy? Think about what he has said, I’ll paraphrase, “Timothy brought us the gospel of your faith in Christ and your love for one another and us. Now we live! Because you are standing fast in the Lord.” Paul uses conversion to Christ to describe his joy in the Thessalonians. What a striking picture!
It reminds me of an old WVU football player, Owen Schmidt, there is great video of him hitting himself in the head with his own helmet until he starts bleeding to get fired up.2 Some football players are like that, they don’t really feel like their alive until they’ve bled a little. This is what Paul is saying here, “You know what makes me come alive? Hearing that you’re standing fast in the Lord.”
Does Paul’s experience describe how you relate to other Christians? Do you have a brotherly love for your brothers and sisters in Christ that causes you to take joy in their faithfulness? Does your desire to see God’s work in others lead you to rejoicing when you see it? Brotherly love produces a joy in God’s work in others that is equal to our joy at God’s work in ourselves. This is a hard love to develop. Sins like Envy die hard. It’s true for pastors too.
I’ll confess to you I didn’t realize how envious I could be until I took sermon delivery in seminary. Some of those guys were just amazing. I can remember not feeling joy at the Lord’s work in and through them, but disdain born out of envy. It really was twisted. I’ve always loved listening to preaching, but there was something about many of my peers being better at it that made it difficult for me to hear. This was a sin I really battled. It was worse than I knew because I remember clearly the first time I really felt pure joy at God’s work in the preaching of one of my fellows. It was post seminary and I invited my friend Nathaniel to fill the pulpit. He preached Psalm 51 and I felt like I understood it for the first time. I was delighted to understand God’s word and – I realized to my surprise – I was joyful for God’s work in Nathaniel rather than in me… I remember thinking to myself: Why would I be so stupid as to not take hold of the joy that comes from rejoicing over God’s work in and through others? It was dumb. Why would I rather resent God’s work in someone, instead of rejoice over it? Again really dumb.
But I think, maybe some of you are sinful enviers like me. Maybe some of you have struggled to love others and rejoice at work God is doing in them because you wish he were doing that same work in you. If you’re like me, repent of that envy and commit to brotherly love. Commit to loving others so that you are able to share in their joys, so that you are able to rejoice in God’s work in them.
Children, this is a good thing for you to ask yourself: Do I get happy for my brothers and sisters when they obey mommy and daddy and get rewarded for it – when I don’t? Love for them demands that you rejoice at God’s work in them.
TR – Church, brotherly love produces joy at God’s work in others. Pray, verse 12, God’s love would abound in you…. Brotherly love produces joy in God’s work in others and it produces joy in being with God’s people.
~Look at how many times Paul speaks of being together with the Thessalonians:
· 2:17 – we were orphaned from you, brothers, for a short time, in person “face” not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face.
· 2:18 – we wanted to come to you
· 3:1, 5 – speak of how they cannot bear not knowing about the Thessalonians
· 3:6 – you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you
· 3:10 – we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face
· 3:11 – may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you
The brotherly love that permeates this passage expresses itself in a desire to be together with God’s people. Paul, Silas, and Timothy desire to be with the Thessalonians. Brotherly love desires to be with God’s people…. Do you? Do you desire to see God’s people face to face? Do you look forward to and long for the Lord’s Day?
You should. Gathering together as God’s people is essential and life-giving. I love getting together with you on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. This week I saw some of you Tuesday and Thursday night too. It was great. I’ve had some of you tell me how much you have loved our Sunday evening service as well. Gathering is good and I’m happy we have lots of opportunities to do it at FBC. My hope is that when we gather together it is something you are looking forward too. My hope is that your brotherly love would produce within you a desire for Christian fellowship. If you don’t have that desire at least some of the time, let me encourage you to cultivate it (a) through prayer (b) through preparation.
Pray that God would give you the desire to gather with the saints, particularly on Sunday since we are commanded to worship together on the Lord’s Day. And prepare for the Lord’s with excitement. Something you can do if you’re a student is resolve to not work on the Lord’s Day. Make sure all your homework and studying are done by Saturday and leave Sunday for gathering with God’s people, spending time with your family. Make Sunday a day of resting and feasting. IT will serve you well.
If your responsible for cooking in your home try and prep meals so that all you have to do is plug in the crock-pot, put something in the oven, or simply toss it on the grill. Parents, prepare for the Lord’s Day by laying out your kids clothing ahead of time. Talk about what the day will look like with them before you come and what your expectations are. Make Sunday fun – we are celebrating Jesus saving us from our sins by way of his death on the cross. We are celebrating his resurrection from the dead. We are celebrating his promise to bodily raise us up with him. Is there a more appropriate day to have ice-cream? A semi-regular practice in my house is “Sundays on Sundays.”
The point here isn’t to give you a long thou shalt list, but to try and help you think about how you can make The Lord’s Day the highlight of your week. And how you can set the worship of the Lord on the Lord’s day apart as the best part of the best day of the week.
Maybe this will help, we are in the Southeast after all, start treating The Lord’s Day like you treat Saturdays in the Fall. If you’re like me, a lot of you love college football. So in the fall each week you have in mind what good food you’re going to cook up, what the tv schedule is, what games you’re going to watch, and all the various tasks you’re going to get done so that you can give the game appropriate attention. Because of a love for college football, people like you and me, naturally
consecrate Saturdays in the fall. We should do the same thing with a greater measure of excitement for the Lord’s Day.
When we gather together in the name of Jesus we do so to celebrate what Jesus has done on the cross. Friends, he paid for the sins of all who repent and trust in him. Non-Christian, you can have your sins forgiven. You can be reconciled to God if you repent of your sins and trust in him. Church, you have been bought by the blood of Jesus and you’re here to celebrate that every week. The Christian calendar is a weekly one. Every week we remember that Jesus died on Good Friday and Got up on Sunday. Every Lord’s Day we are celebrating Easter. Every Sunday we gather together to preach to one another – He is Risen. He is Risen indeed. Every Sunday we gather together to anticipate and act out the great marriage supper of the lamb with singing and feasting. Every Sunday, in this gathering we come together as the body of Christ in the presence of Christ. Every Sunday we live the miracle of the gospel as we are welcomed into God’s presence as his Sons rather than his enemies. How could we not desire to gather together?
We should desire to gather together in obedience to Scripture and accept no substitutes. It is most unfortunate that many have adopted “digital gathering” as there substitute for church. Digital gathering is an oxymoron. It’s nonsensical. It’s not gathering, gathering. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful we can stream services and get sermons later in the week, especially for those saints who are homebound. But ask any one of those Saints if they would rather be in church and they will tell you that watching the gathering online is a poor substitute for being gathered. Embodied gathering is important and it’s something brotherly love desires.
“Attending” church digitally should feel to you like getting married via skype or facetime. Think about it, you would never facetime into your own wedding ceremony. You absolutely would want to be there face to face. Friends, when we come together as a church we come together as the bride of Christ before the bridegroom. Our vows have been made, the band has been struck up, the horderves are being served. It is a glorious thing we do when we gather to sing, laugh, pray, cry, and feast on Christ together.
TR – In between Sunday’s we should sing that BabyFace song thinking of gathering again, “When Can I see you again? When can my heart beat again!” We should be like Paul, praying that we may see one another face to face before the Lord again soon. Brotherly love desires to be with God’s people and takes joy in being with God’s people. And Brotherly love produces comfort for God’s People. Look at verse 7…
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Designed…for comfort
1 Thessalonians 3:7 | 7 for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith.
Brotherly love is designed to bring us joy as we rejoice in being with God’s people. It is designed to bring us joy as we give thanks to God for his work in God’s people, and it is designed to bring us comfort from God’s people. The word for “comforted” here is the same word that is used in verse 2
translated there as “exhort.”3 The word has a wide range of meanings, but typically it takes on one of two nuances: command or comfort. The context of this passage (persecution) makes me think it should just be translated comforted in verse 2 and verse 7. The reason I am bringing your attention to the fact that the same word is used, is to show you the sweet sort of irony that has taken place. Paul sent timothy to establish and comfort the Thessalonians and now – with Timothy’s return, it is Paul, Silas, and Timothy who are comforted.
You see how incredible God is? He comforts us in our afflictions by using the faithfulness of other saints in their afflictions. The Thessalonians are suffering and they are comforted by Timothy. Paul, Silas, and Timothy are battling their own distress and affliction and are comforted by the Thessalonians. The Lord uses brotherly love to produce comfort and joy in the other…Paul teaches this same thing at the open of 2 Corinthians…
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 | 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Our God is the God of all comfort. He himself comforts us in affliction, so that we might comfort others who are in affliction. The comfort Christians receive from God radiates to other Christians so that part of God’s plan for comforting you is by means of the other Christians you are connected to. God comforts Christians with comfort from other Christians. The Brotherly love God calls us to have for one another produces comfort and joy for us. When we see our brothers suffering well – standing fast in the Lord – we are comforted and inspired to suffer well ourselves. Comfort is contagious.
Imagine a man on a plane. He hates flying. He can’t stand the tiny seats, the people, or trying to eat a meal on the tiny trey. Most of all he hates the idea of crashing to his death. He has little confidence in air travel…During his flight the plane suddenly begins bouncing about the air like a ship in a storm. The man panics. He is strapping on his seat belt and searching for the face mask thing they told him about at the beginning of the flight when he wasn’t listening. Then, to his astonishment, he notices all the other passengers, and particularly the flight attendants, are calm as clams. One of the flight attendants comes to him and calmly explains air turbulence. He is comforted and relaxes the rest of the flight.
This is how God has designed our brotherly love for one another to produce comfort. We begin going through unforeseen afflictions and our faith threatens to break apart. We become distressed. But then, we look at see that God has gotten other saints through the same turbulence safely. Other
Christians come to us and explain nothing comes to us apart from God’s fatherly hand and that we can trust him even in the dark. We are comforted.
This is part of the design of Brotherly love. God aims not only to bring us joy through our desire to be together; he not only aims to bring us joy as we give thanks for his work in one another, he also aims to bring us comfort through one another.
Afflicted Saint, draw near to God and receive his comfort. Be comforted by his word. Be comforted by his work in your brothers and sisters in Christ (unwise to withdraw from church when suffering). Look to the faith of others and be comforted. And endure your suffering knowing your joy in Christ through suffering will bring comfort to your brothers and sisters. {be comforted: offer comfort}
TR – God has designed brotherly love to bring us comfort and joy. And he has designed brotherly love produce holiness in us.
Brotherly love produces holiness
1 Thessalonians 1:10-12 | 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, 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.
Pauls’ love for the Thessalonians leads him to pray constantly for them he prays two things specifically in our passage: (1) to see the Thessalonians again face to face so that he can give them further instruction in the faith (2) that the Lord would make them abound that is overflow more and more with love for one another, and for all believers.
Notice, Paul’s concerns are not primarily circumstantial. Sure it would be great if the Thessalonians didn’t have to endure persecution – perhaps Paul prayed for their relief. But Paul’s prayer is focused on their spiritual well-being. He is comforted because of the good news of their faith and love reported by Timothy and he is praying that God would strengthen their faith and increase their love for one another. He is praying for their continued growth in godliness.
Paul’s prayer should have some import for how we pray for others. Brotherly love is designed to lead us into prayer on behalf of one another and to pray specifically for our growth in godliness. So that they might be found loyal to Jesus when he returns. Paul prays for the love of the Thessalonians to abound so that God might strengthen their hearts so that they might be found holy on the day of Judgment.
This is pretty staggering. Paul’s prayer teaches us that one of the means God will use to strengthen us and keep us loyal to Jesus is the love of other Christians. One of the means by which God is producing the fruit of holiness in our lives is through other Christians. One of the means by which God prepares us for eternity is through relationships with one another. {EVA - @stake in relationships}
Brothers & Sisters, do you see what is at stake in our life together? We are to love one another to glory. The stakes are high. Is your love for others, for your parents, for your children, for your wives, for your husbands, for your friends, for your neighbors helping them to holiness and to glory? Help one another to be found loyal to the king at his return by loving one another loyally as the King has loved you.
King Jesus loves us as his brothers. He so desired to be present with us and so desires to be face to face with us, that he became a man. Jesus desire to be with us meant that he must lay his life down for us – for the joy set before him he endured the cross. Jesus love for us and his desire to be with us meant not only that he would die for our sins, but that he would raise for our eternal life. Jesus sufferings under God’s wrath purchased for us the comfort of God’s favor. Jesus faithful life and loyal love ensure we are destined for glory. Therefore, let us have a brotherly love for one another. Let us desire to be together, to comfort one another, and to encourage one another to holiness.