1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
First Sunday in Advent Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, December 1, 2024
“Our Earnest Advent Prayer for You”
Three weeks and three days. I don’t know if you will think of this as good news or bad, but that is the amount of time we have before Christmas arrives—three weeks and three days. Good or bad depends a lot on perspective and context. Is that a long time because you still need to wait that long, even as Christmas music and decorations have been showing up for a while already? Or is that way too short because you have so much shopping and so many preparations to get done? Isn’t there a tension between wanting more time to get things done and wanting the holiday to arrive with its happy celebrations?
In a way, that’s a lot like the season of the Church Year known as Advent. There’s a certain hope and a palpable joy. We’re getting ready to celebrate Christmas. But there’s a tension, because we need to wait, and we need to examine ourselves, and we need to consider some hard truths if we’re going to celebrate in the most meaningful and most important ways.
So Advent takes us places. It has us consider biblical events that make us think about preparations that God and people made for Christ’s first coming as a baby. Advent calls on us to learn lessons and apply them. Advent helps prepare us for Christ’s second coming as an all-powerful judge. Advent takes us to places like Jerusalem and Nazareth and Bethlehem. Advent takes us to the wilderness near the Jordan River. And today Advent takes us to a place that sounds a little less “Advent-ty.” Today we’re making a stop in a city called Thessalonica.
The Apostle Paul visited the city of Thessalonica on his Second Missionary Journey. The city was in a region called Macedonia. That region is notable because it marked Paul’s first visit into what we now call Europe. God even sent Paul a dream in which a man from Macedonia asked Paul to come his direction to share the Gospel. That’s exactly what Paul and his fellow travelers and missionaries did. Their first stop in Macedonia was Philippi. Paul and Silas got into some trouble there. They hadn’t committed any crimes, but they upset some people. They were beaten and imprisoned. The book of Acts tells us about how they witnessed to a jailer in the prison there who became a believer along with other people in the city.
After they were released from prison in Philippi, Paul and Silas, along with Timothy and others, went on to Thessalonica. For three weeks they preached in the synagogue there, and God brought many people to faith. But then more trouble started. Jews who were jealous started a riot. They stirred up a mob of people against the missionaries. It got so bad that Paul had to leave. It got so bad that he couldn’t even stay in Berea, his next stop. People were listening to him there and learning well, but Thessalonian mobs came there, too.
So Thessalonica was a place where Paul had preached and taught and met people and had seen them come to faith, and then he had to leave. This didn’t necessarily surprise Paul. He knew that the Gospel would face opposition. He knew that believers would face persecution. It didn’t surprise him, but it did concern him. How would the new, young Christians fare in Thessalonica while they faced persecution and such a heated environment? Well, Paul wanted to know. He sent Timothy to go see and return with a report. This was all while Paul’s missionary journey continued. Timothy came back with good news. The Thessalonian Christians were holding up. They were letting their lights shine. They were not giving up on Christianity or Jesus even in hard times. They were holding firmly to the faith.
On hearing that good news, Paul, inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, wrote a letter. We call that letter 1 Thessalonians. The third chapter of that letter gives us some particular words to consider on our little visit to Thessalonica this morning. In this section, Paul talks about his earnest prayer for the Christians of that city. It is a deep and rich prayer. We’ll summarize it in three parts: He is thankful for their faith, hopeful for their love, and confident of their holiness.
First, thankful. Paul gives thanks to God for the faith of the Thessalonians. Faith was God’s gift to them, and knowing about their faith was God’s gift to Paul. After being worried about the people he had to
leave behind, Paul got a good report. They are holding strong! Paul was overjoyed. This was such good news. Thanks be to God!
But as abundant as Paul’s joy was, there was more to his prayer. He prays for what is lacking in their faith. He only had three weeks with them. His Grow in Grace Class, his Bible Information Class, was not a three-week course. He had more to teach. They had more ways to grow. And he didn’t just want them to learn more or know more. He wanted them to love more. And may the Lord increase your love and make it overflow for each other and for all people, just as ours does for you.
There’s a bit of tension that we can note in Paul’s prayer. He is overjoyed and thankful. He had heard such good news. The people are faithful. But it’s not complete. They have so much growth and so much learning ahead. They have so many opportunities for their love to be filled to overflowing. Paul wants to be there to preach the Gospel for their growth in faith. He wants to be a part of their maturing. And that’s why Paul’s earnest prayer becomes our earnest Advent prayer. Advent is a season of right now and not yet. We’re not pretending that Christmas has not already happened. We’re not suggesting that our faith isn’t real or is somehow insufficient for salvation. In fact, we can be thankful and joyful for how God has seen us through many difficulties and challenges. But we are acknowledging that heaven is our ultimate goal and we are not there yet. We are looking deeply at our own sin and shortcomings. We are seeing how much we can grow in our knowledge and in our love.
Just think how easy it can be for us to get caught up in this busy season. Busy isn’t a problem. That’s not a sin, but how do we handle it? I am busy. I have so much to do. I have so many things that I need to get ready. That’s not mature Christian love. That’s allowing ourselves to be as selfish as anyone else. God has poured out his love to us. We should be overflowing with love for others. We should be thinking about the people whom we can serve and love and with whom we can share. We have so much room for growth in God’s Word, and growth as he builds us up with his sacrament of Holy Communion. Our Advent is so clearly a season of not yet. We’re not holy. We’re not what we want to be. But Christ comes to us in his Word and sacrament. He builds us up.
And he build us up to remember why he came. He didn’t come just so we can do better. He didn’t come so that we could finally earn our own salvation. He came to earn it for us. He came to die for our sins. He marched into Jerusalem so that he could stumble to the cross. He came with a purpose. He came to overflow with love so great for us and for the whole world that he gave himself up completely. So even though your day-to-day is not perfect, you are perfect because Jesus Christ has given you his perfection.
And our earnest Advent prayer is completely confident of that. Paul looks ahead with the Thessalonians to the last day and Christ’s second coming. He sees them standing blameless and holy before Jesus the judge. He envisions that amazing time when not yet disappears. When everything is now. He doesn’t get into all of this in these verses, but he says more in his letter, and we know more from all sorts of Scripture. When Jesus comes back, he ushers in a time of perfect joy. All the struggles go away. All the temptations disappear. All the persecution fades. There is only joy, and there is only Jesus. And that celebration never has to end.
That’s why our earnest Advent prayer is that you would grow in faith and knowledge and love and joy. That’s why we’ll go other places in our midweek services, regular Sunday morning worship, and Christmas celebrations. That’s why we rejoice to gather together around God’s Word and thank God for each other.
Three weeks and three days. That’s how long our Advent season lasts this year. But Advent truths last much longer than that. We’re setting ourselves up to celebrate a real Christmas by remembering why Christ came. He will strengthen us as he comes to us in his Word and Sacrament, and he will prepare us to be blameless when he comes again. We are thankful for your faith, hopeful for your love, and confident of your holiness. That is how we will pray our earnest Advent prayer for you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The Text: 1 Thessalonians 3:9–13 (EHV)
9Indeed, how can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have before God on account of you? 10Night and day we are praying earnestly to see you in person and to supply what is lacking in your faith.
11May God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12And may the Lord increase your love and make it overflow for each other and for all people, just as ours does for you, 13so that he may establish your hearts as blameless in holiness before our God and Father, when our Lord Jesus comes with all his saints.