BLESSED WISHES
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on August 8, 2018 under PM Bible Study |
PM Bible Study Group; August 8, 2018 – from 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
Theme: The joy of our salvation expresses itself in the wishes of each other’s blessedness.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
One of the best ways to express our love for someone is by declaring what we wish for them. For a newlywed couple, we often wish them happiness, and health, and—if the Lord so wills—the blessing of children. A new graduate receives our wishes for a prosperous and fulfilling career in their chosen vocation. And when it comes to a retiring couple, we often wish for them to enjoy years of good health and excitement in their travels and adventures together.
But how do we show our love in what we wish someone who has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus and is now saved? In the household of God, such blessings are not just for that redeemed one alone, but—because we are connected together in Christ—are blessings that we ourselves share along with them. The nature of that wish for blessedness is perhaps the most significant one we could ever offer; because the context of it is eternal and in the Lord Jesus.
In the passage from 1 Thessalonians that is before us, the apostle Paul offers His wish for his believing brothers and sisters in Thessalonica—a wish that comes after his three-chapters-long expression of delight and joy in their salvation.
In 3:9-10, he wrote;
For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God, night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith? (1 Thessalonians 3:9-10);
and in a sense, the expressed wish that follows is an expansion of what it was that he might have prayed for them. He writes;
Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints (vv. 11-13).
Forgive a little Greek grammar lesson here; but throughout this passage, Paul uses what is called the optative mood. Linguistically, the ‘optative mood’ of a verb is one in which the speaker means to express his ‘desire’ or ‘wish’. In our passage, Paul says, ‘may God direct us to you’; or ‘may the Lord make you increase and abound in love’; or ‘may He establish your hearts …’ These aren’t the same thing as prayers that Paul expects to immediately be fulfilled. Rather, they are things that he wishes to happen, and in fact, does expect to happen eventually and ultimately on the day of Christ’s return. And they serve as good examples of what we should wish for each other—looking to the day when these wishes will be fulfilled in us toward one another, and motivating us to pursue them for one another now.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Note first, then, that Paul offers …
I. A WISH FOR THE BLESSING OF PERSONAL FELLOWSHIP (v. 11).
He writes, “Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you.”
Already in this letter, he had expressed a longing and desire to come again to Thessalonica and be with these believers. He wrote;
But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy (2:17-20).
Clearly, Paul expected to be with them eternally. He looked forward to seeing them in glory with the Lord. In fact, the prospect of their being with the Lord in heavenly glory was his ‘glory and crown of rejoicing’. Sadly, the circumstances of persecution and opposition from enemies of the gospel had made it necessary for him to depart from them—and this greatly frustrated his desire to be with them. But he sincerely wished to be with them and wished for God the Father and the Lord Jesus to “direct” or “make straight” the way to them one day soon.
And by the way; Paul’s wish has been fulfilled. He is with them now and has been for about two-thousand years. And one day, we will join them too. The day of Jesus’ glorious return will be a day of the uniting of all the saints together—no longer separated from one another by time and culture and distance. We should be wishing this blessing for one another now—looking ahead to its full experience in heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be!
But there’s a sense also in which this wish for the blessings of personal fellowship—ultimately fulfilled at Jesus’ return—should turn around, point to the present, and motivate us right now. Does separation currently exist between us and other brothers and sisters with whom we should be in personal fellowship? Is there a separation between us because of distance that can be bridged by phone call or a note? Is there a separation between us because of neglect or busyness because of the daily duties of life that can be bridged by a lunch-date? Or is there a separation between us because of a breaking of the fellowship in some way through hurt feelings or unforgiveness that the Lord is commanding us to bridge in love?
We cannot pray “Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you”; and yet allow a distance to continue that we can—with His help—bridge. May our wish for this blessing with one another be put into action by working to unite now while we can—and in such a way that truly reflects the union we will enjoy eternally in heaven.
Then, note that there is …
II. A WISH FOR THE BLESSING OF EVER DEEPENING LOVE (v. 12).
Paul goes on to write, “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you …”
This passage has a personal importance to me. Many years ago, when I was still relatively new to the faith, the church that I was attending hired a new youth pastor. He wanted to establish early on a depth of relationship with us; and he wanted us to know what his goal for us would be. And he used this very verse—verse 12. It expressed to us his wish for us that we would grow in love with each other in the Lord; and that this love would increase and abound. It was a good verse to establish his ministry with us, because it was Paul’s wish for the believers in Thessalonica.
Paul uses two words to describe the wish he had for the blessedness of the love that was shared between the Thessalonian believers. He wished for it to “increase” and “abound”. In the original language, those two words are almost synonymous; and the combination of them accentuates the continual growth of that love. But there are some differences. The first word may be thought of as speaking of the process of the growth of that love—that it ‘increase’; and the second word may be thought of as speaking of the attainment of that love—that it ‘abound’. It’s a love that keeps on growing and keeps on spreading.
Note also that it’s a love that is not just meant for only the Thessalonian saints. Paul desires that this same love ‘spill over’ to “all” people. When this wish for the blessedness of love among the believers is truly growing and abounding as it should, it expands toward those outside the household of faith. We are often wrongly focused on making it go the other way—feeling the pressure to love all people outside of the church without first settling-in on our love for one another as believers. God’s pattern is in the other direction; and when our love is increasing and abounding toward one another as it should, it then reaches out to the world. The world will know we are Christians by our love for one another; and they will then be drawn to that love through Christ.
Paul also adds that there is a measurable model for this love; and that is in his and Sylvanus’ and Timothy’s love for the Thessalonians. He wishes for their love for each other to increase and abound, “just as we do to you”. Much of the first three chapters of this letter had been occupied with expressions of the depth of that ever increasing and ever abounding love; and so, the Thessalonians would have known clearly what that love looked like.
And again, this is a wish that will not see complete fulfillment until the day of Jesus’ return. Then, the liabilities of our fallenness will be removed, and we will be able to love each other as we should. What a glorious experience of ever-increasing, ever abounding, eternal love we will enjoy with one another in our eternal home—all in the love of our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Heaven will be a place of non-stop, unhindered, glorified love! And shouldn’t this wish—and the expectation of its fulfillment in heaven—move us to pursue its increase and abundance now? Are there things that stand in the way of our love for one another that need to be removed? Are there expressions of our love for one another that are hindered by our inaction? If ‘love’ is best defined as seeking the good of one another in the way that Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, then are there ways that we need to demonstrate Jesus’ sacrificial love for one another?
May God help us to seek the fulfillment of this wish now—in whatever ways we can!
Finally, we find …
III. A WISH FOR THE BLESSING OF HOLINESS AT JESUS’ RETURN (v. 13).
Paul writes for this expression of love to increase in before the Lord, “so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” This looks far ahead to heavenly glory—but brings that expectation down to earth right now!
Paul looks ahead to the coming of the Lord Jesus “with all His saints”; and that expresses the unity of fellowship and bond of love that will be fully realized on the day of His return. But in personal terms, he wishes for each of his Thessalonian readers to experience the blessedness their hearts being “established” or “settled” or “confirmed” right now as “blameless in holiness” in view of that day. This is something that will only be completely realized on the day of our glorification. In Ephesians 5, Paul wrote;
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27).
Similarly, Jude wrote at the close of his letter;
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24).
But this wish—which has its sure and ultimate fulfillment on the day of Jesus’ return—is something that should motivate us to action right now. We should wish this heavenly ‘blamelessness in holiness’ for each other, and for ourselves, in such a way that we become motivated to seek its temporal fulfillment in everyday living on earth. The apostle John wrote;
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).
* * * * * * * * * *
These are ‘blessed wishes’. But if we are wishing them as we should for one another—if we are truly praying, “May these things be so on the day of glory”—then we will not be content to just wait until then. We will be motivated to pursue them now.
May it be, then, that we enjoy personal fellowship now, and an ever increasing and abounding love for one another and for all now, and hearts that are established ‘blameless in holiness’ now—and all with a full expectation that these things will be perfectly realized in heavenly glory on the day of Christ our Lord.
What worthy wishes these are for the redeemed!
EA
