1 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Good News About the Best News

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Felczek takes us through his series, Hope Rising, from the book of 1 Thessalonians. Let's listen in.

Thanksgiving for a Church Standing Firm in Faith and Love

Well, good morning. Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Felczek. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm glad to be back together to worship with you this morning. It is Father's Day. Hopefully nobody has like a oh no, I missed it kind of expression on your face.

But please make every effort today to honor your father. That might mean a phone call. That might mean a road trip or whatever, or maybe just taking him out to lunch. I already feel very honored. This morning, my daughter got up and made me breakfast, and it included crispy, very crispy bacon.

So I was like, that's all I need. That's all, that's what I need. So it was great. Great morning for me. My family enjoyed our vacation in the Smokies down in Tennessee. That's why I wasn't here last week to preach, but it's always good to be back here where I belong.

And just a quick update before we jump in to introducing the message this morning. The building has been chugging along. How many of you had a chance within the last week or so, couple weeks to go out there?

It really is changing. This is a stage where it changes massively one week to the next. And so if you haven't been out there in the last week, I'd encourage you to go out there and check it out. But be careful to not get in the way of the workers.

If you go in the evenings, usually that's a good time and just be careful and be safe if you're gonna go out there and check things out. We're hoping to be in our building in the middle of August. And I would like to just be very thankful this morning.

And maybe we could even just offer a thank you for those who have been setting up and tearing down. This, by the way, marks a very significant morning for us. This hopefully is the very last Sunday that we need to set up chairs.

So, praising God for that, the school is out. And they're actually, they're gonna start, you're just gonna notice that there's gonna be some construction over the next several weeks or some dust out in the hallways.

Not construction was the wrong word, but destruction. They're gonna be pallets lining those walls that are gonna eventually have stuff on them from the teachers unloading their classrooms and different things like that.

So we're just gonna have to navigate around that for a while here. But praising God that we've been able to use this building. And again, just very thankful for the work the time and the energy. I wonder what the raw tonnage is of amount of lifting these chairs up and down every week over the course of the time that we've been meeting here.

It's been a lot of effort and a lot of work moving that stuff. And so, I was very grateful for all of that. Again, we're hoping to be in the building in the middle of August. And the builder still seems to think that we're on target for that.

But the issue that many of you are aware of, and I'm just letting you know this for prayer, is that we need to be out of this building tentatively. The date is the end of July. So those of you who are kind of calendar oriented, you know there's a gap in there of about a month, give or take, that we're gonna need to meet in the park or meet somewhere else.

And so we have the park reserved here in Matawan for the month of August. Pray for good weather, pray that it works out and that we're able to just continue to meet. And what we would do during that time is on those of you with toddlers, young children, we would have a toddler space at the meeting room for those who would come.

And so we would not have a nursery and we would not have anything above those two and three year olds, anything for them. But at the park, that's what we're planning for August. And please be in prayer for this transition and be in prayer for the finances of it as well.

We've already shared that the project is about 18 over budget, making things tight for the outfitting of the building with tables and chairs and that kind of thing. So just be in prayer for God's provision for those ongoing needs that are there.

But I am confident that God has guided us into this transition. It's a delight to see the building going up and it's exciting to see his provision as well. I think he's teaching us as a church in this process to be patient and trust in him.

And so I would just encourage you. I think the greatest expression that we can offer to God in the realm of trust is our prayer. Turning to him instead of turning to ourselves, turning to him and saying help when we need help is the way that it's designed and the way that faith looks.

And so with that in mind, I think it's valuable for us to consider in this text. This morning, I'm just going right through First Thessalonians, but it just seems like a lot of times the things that I'm studying are just tackling the things that I'm thinking about throughout the week and things that are going on in our church's history.

And this is a text that should orient our perspective from things that matter some, things that matter some, like buildings and stuff and things like tables and chairs and walls and electrical lines and plumbing and all of that stuff, things that matter some to things that matter most.

The Apostle Paul demonstrates for us enthusiasm in our text for the right things, God's movement in his people, the types of things that should really get us going, the types of things that should cause excitement and enthusiasm.

We can get excited about all kinds of things, right? How many of you admit that at times you can be moved to excitement? Now, we all have different kinds of people. Some people, two hands up. Some people wanted to shout, but you didn't because you're reserved and I get that.

But I'm excited to go out there this week and see electricians pulling line through the walls this week. The concrete crews pouring the sidewalk over the last few days. I can get excited about a tiger's win, though they don't seem to be that common this year.

I can be excited about spending some time at the beach over the summer, right? Or excited about the accomplishments of my children or you name it, and you've got things that kind of get you going. But in our text this morning, Paul receives good news, good news about the best news.

And he is exploding with excitement in our text at the great report of the church in Thessalonica that is growing in faith and love. And that really gets him going. He gets super excited about that. He's excited about lives being changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And even this evening, if you're around, please come out to Miracle Camp this evening. There's gonna be probably an announcement about that here in a few minutes anyways. I don't know if we have maps for that, but if you have problems getting the location, we can get you oriented to that.

But we're gonna get a chance to hear how God has been working in people's lives. One of my favorite things about ministry is the opportunity to do baptisms and hear the work of God in people's lives and hear their testimonies and then see them demonstrate physically what has transformed them on the inside, that they've died to themselves and been raised again to new life.

And so if you get a chance to come along and see that, it's a beautiful thing. But let's open in our Bibles, if you're not already there, to 1 Thessalonians 3, verses six through 13. If you have a device, you can navigate over there.

But if you don't have a Bible on your lap or a means to navigate to scripture on your lap, then please just do me a favor, not to call you out, but Mark's got some, raise your hand. The only way he knows to bring you one is if you raise your hand.

And so you can get one of those there and that way you can follow along and see that the things that we're reading are coming straight from the Bible, God's word. In recast, I like to remind you of this every week, that this is God's very words written down for us that I'm gonna be reading here.

This is what he desires for us to hear. Think about this. The one who created the stars and the planets and the galaxies is about to speak to us. And that's the privilege we have with this every day. Not that we have to read it or, well, I'm going through a Bible reading plan, so I gotta check a box and get it done this week.

He's gonna speak to us, so let's listen in to 1 Thessalonians 3, six through the end of the chapter. 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, for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about you through your faith.

For now we live if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we do for you 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.

Let's pray before the band leads us in worship through song. Father, I thank you so much for this morning that you have given to us. I thank you for the way that you provided for us as a congregation, not just in finances to build a building, not just in material things, but spiritually you have richly blessed us.

You have most richly blessed us through your son Jesus Christ. There is good news. There is good news. There is very good news. And so Father, I pray that on the basis of that good news that although we couldn't save ourselves and we were in the most dire of circumstances, broke and completely corrupt, not even seeking after you, you chose to send your son to die for us.

And Father, I pray that we would praise you even now with our voices. Join together in unity with others who are called saints, who are called holy ones only because of the holiness and righteousness and blamelessness of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Not because we're good enough. I pray that you would silence our voices and silence our mouths if we think we're good enough and worthy enough to come into your presence, but only because of what Christ has done.

May we lift up our voices all the more loudly, all the more rejoicing, all the more excitedly at what you are doing in our midst and what you're doing in our hearts through our Savior and Lord. And his name is Jesus.

And it's in his name that I pray. Amen. Thanks a lot to Dave and the band for leading us this morning. Really grateful for the time and energy that they put in. I'd like you to go ahead and make sure you get comfortable.

Feel free to get up and stretch out in the back. I know those seats are not super comfortable, so if you need to get up at any time, give your back a rest. You can just jump up back there. If you need more coffee, juice, or donuts, you're not gonna distract me.

If you need to get up here, and then just so that everybody knows, use the restrooms out the doorway to the right at the end of the hall. Women's downstairs, men's upstairs. And use the bathrooms that are on this end of the hallway if you need that.

I also ask that you please keep your Bibles open to 1 Thessalonians 3, 6 through 13. That was not just a scripture reading. That's the text we're gonna go through. We're gonna dissect that and figure out what God has for us here this morning.

Different Kinds of Good News

And I guess kind of the first thing that God laid on my heart this week as I was studying that, is that I'd like to suggest to you that there are different levels of good news. You've experienced that, right?

Like, there's different levels of good news. There's good news, like it's gonna be sunny and a high of 80 today. Like, is that good news? You like that one? That's the news. Some of you might adjust that final 10.

I like it about 75. That's perfect for me. But some of you are going 80, really? That's it? Like, I like it to be 95. I don't know. But there's good news maybe a step ahead of that. There's other levels.

Like, the baby was born healthy. Good news, right? I mean, whatever context, whoever has a grandkid, a child, a friend has a baby, whatever, the baby's born healthy, that's good news. The cancer is in remission, good news, right?

Like, that's super good news. Your son is coming back from Afghanistan. Like, he's safe and he's on his way and he's returning. Like, that's good news, right? And there's different levels of that that you experience in life.

And I don't wanna draw this morning a huge barrier, and I think we have a tendency to do that, but in this message, I don't wanna draw a huge barrier between the good news that we experience each and every day and the good news of the gospel.

I think we sometimes do ourselves a disservice when we draw this massive line. I think it's beneficial to keep all types of good news in the same basket. And I say this because I do not believe that we elevate the gospel by putting it in a category all alone.

But instead, we can sometimes be guilty of putting the gospel under glass, like a museum piece that's on display, but just isn't really that practical or useful for our daily lives. It becomes so other, so distant, so different than all other good news is that we don't put it in that same category anymore, and we might even tend to think of it as just something that's totally out there.

What I mean by this is, in very practical terms, it's sometimes easier for me, and you can confess your own, but it's sometimes easier for me to be moved by a University of Michigan touchdown than it is to be moved in my soul by considering the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Am I the only one? Is anybody, maybe it's not University of Michigan for you, maybe it's not even football for you, maybe it's something else, but you can identify something that moves you, that makes you wanna stand up and shout.

I confessed in a sermon not too long ago that I've got a permanent scar on my knuckle from jumping up at a University of Michigan touchdown, scraping my hand on the ceiling in an apartment years ago, and it really tore that knuckle up pretty good.

Do we shout like that? Do we jump like that with the good news of Jesus? I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I'm just trying to say, what is the category here? Have we removed the gospel so far away from that kind of uncivilized, untamed enthusiasm?

Have we civilized the gospel? Have we put it under glass and like, you know, in case of rapture, break this glass, and then you get to celebrate? But otherwise, it's just kind of hermetically sealed off in a vacuum somewhere that doesn't really get into our hearts.

The touchdown, the birth of a baby, the good diagnosis, the good prognosis. I'm suggesting that we let that enthusiasm, those types of enthusiasms, bleed over into our celebration of what God is doing in us and through us.

In our text, Paul gets some plain old routine good news about a church that he started and had to be, he was kind of torn away from, and that causes him to rejoice. And although he rejoices in what is, of course, the best news of all, he still keeps that in the same category of elation and joy and delight and kind of an untamed enthusiasm about it.

Earlier in chapter three, remember, we gotta set some context here because not everybody's been here through this series. Chapter three, Paul had dispatched Timothy to return to Thessalonica to check up on the church there, to find out how are they doing?

Are they staying firm in the faith? Are they still believing? He was desperate to find how they were doing. He was deeply concerned for them that we saw two weeks ago when I preached the earlier portion of chapter three.

He loved them and he was eager to hear if they had weathered the storm of persecution. He couldn't text them, couldn't call, couldn't email, no Snapchat, nothing. And so he had to rely on sending someone physically there.

And imagine the time that it would have taken, and estimates are at the bare minimum, if Timothy spent a month with them, this would have been at least a four-month turnaround. Okay, so it was a pretty significant turnaround in terms of him actually getting a report back from the time that he sent Timothy out there.

And so now in verse six, we find that Timothy has returned with a good report. And it proves to be good news. The church remains in faith and remains in love, and even has a desire to see Paul and the team again.

They're saying, just as much as you're communicating to us, we long to see you. I mean, as much as you're saying you long to see us, we long to see you too. And in verse seven, we see that Paul is comforted by this report.

You see, Paul and team had endured distress and affliction in the starting of the church in Thessalonica. Remember that they were threatened at the very risk of their very lives, and they ran out of town early and didn't even get to complete the teaching that they desired to communicate to the Thessalonians.

And then the church was persecuted even after they left. They left in the middle of the night, not knowing how it was gonna go for that little church. So verses six and seven clearly communicate just how unsure Paul was about the future of that baby church that he had planted.

He didn't even know if they wanted to hear from him again or even see him again. As far as he knew, they might be just so upset that he had brought persecution down on their heads or something like that.

But they did wanna see, they did wanna see him. You see, he had come into their town. He'd shared the good news that Jesus, the Son of God, came here to live among us and live this sinless life, that he died on the cross to forgive their sins, that he rose again three days later to conquer sin and death and to grant victory to anyone who would follow him, so that anyone who believes in Jesus and puts their trust in him may have eternal life.

And many in that community believed and were immediately given a new heart and immediately punished and abused by their community for following Jesus. And this is the first report Paul received from them since that night he departed as the church forced him out as a way to protect him from being murdered by the crowds.

So you can see the intensity of the delight that Paul has in receiving this very practical good news. He outright calls it good news in verse six, but further, he uses the word that he is comfort in verse seven, and he uses an extreme illustration in verse eight, if you look at the text there, saying in essence, we are now alive, we now live, since you are standing solidly on the foundation of Jesus.

You'll notice in the ESV, it translates to if, but it's better in context, I think, to translate that since, we are now alive, since you are standing solidly on the foundation of Jesus Christ. We might use the illustration of holding our breath.

That's an idiom that we would use. He's like, we were dead until we heard the good news that you're still in the faith. But we use the word of holding our breath. The ball is in the air, the buzzer is counting down.

The last play, the final shot, the last out, the count is three and two, it's full, and here comes the final pitch, and we hold our breath. Paul wasn't gonna die physically if the church failed at Thessalonica.

His life, his physical life wasn't tied up in that, but he felt like it. Do you see the intensity? I think Paul was a bit of an intense personality. Do you see that? I mean, do you see that through his letters?

Do you see that through his life? You can kind of get a feel for who he was and the way he rolled. I don't think he's being melodramatic or over-sensationalizing this, though. I think he's telling us just how much of himself he invested in the church, how much he invested in others, how much he invested in ministry and those around him.

And he wants them to grow in their faith with every fiber of his being. He's not dancing at the edges of relationship with the church of Christ. He's all in with serving the church, just like we talked about two weeks ago regarding the great joy and great glory and equally great risk of genuine ministry and relationship with one another.

Timothy reports that they're standing fast in the Lord. They're rooted in Christ. They are keeping the faith. They are withstanding the storms because they're built on the rock, not on the sand. They're stable.

Their lives are fully planted, unshifting on the foundation of Jesus Christ our Lord. So we've seen in verses six through eight the good news that the church is doing well, and that's the practical side of it.

They're truly in the faith. They are truly withstanding genuine persecution, and now the rest of the passage, we're gonna see Paul's blossoming response to this great news. And this takes the form of four things that Paul does in response to that very practical good news that a church has indeed been formed in that community.

See, I think up to this point, he wasn't even sure if he had planted a church or not. Up to this point, he wasn't sure if he had just come into town and people emotionally responded quickly. How many of you know that people can emotionally respond to a new message and not really have it in their hearts?

Did you know that that's possible? And so he didn't know what had started there. Until he gets this report back, he's now confident that there's a church in Thessalonica. Until this report, he was unsure, but now he knows that there is a church.

So how does he respond to that? And the first is that he gives enthusiastic thanks. How should you respond when you receive good news? What should you do first? Thanks. Well, thanks to who? Well, you know who to give thanks to because who does all good things come from?

He is so elated, Paul is so excited that he's grasping for ways to thank God in verse nine for the work that he's done in the lives of the Thessalonians. When we see faith and growth in others, we ought to be moved to celebration.

That's one of the things that we're doing this evening, right? We're gonna gather together and celebrate what God has done and is continuing to do in the lives of these who are gonna come forward and be baptized.

It's a beautiful thing. When we get good news in general, I hope that we're quick to offer thanks to God. Paul and his team did. They expressed deep joy in this good news. And it's so important that the direction of our thanks goes to God, especially in the context of what God is doing among his people, particularly regarding salvation.

Paul doesn't thank the Thessalonians for hanging in there or for grasping the gospel really well. If anyone could be credited with something to be proud of, it should be the Thessalonians. Think about it.

With very little teaching, okay, Paul didn't even get through all the things that he wanted to communicate to them. He got to the gospel, obviously, but he didn't get out everything that he wanted, and that's gonna be clear here in a minute.

But with very little teaching, they grasped the gospel, endured suffering, and even in the absence of their pastor, continued on suffering with Jesus. But I believe that Paul could damage them by thanking them for receiving the gospel.

I think he could damage them for that. He would give them the wrong impression that their salvation has been their work. Instead, he models the right direction for gratitude in this context, and it should be to who?

Who should he give thanks to? To God. All thanks goes to God. We need to be focused Godward in our thanks, even when we are telling others that we're excited about what we see God doing in them and through them.

I'm not discouraging you from being an encouragement to others. I'm not saying you shouldn't say thanks to those who have served you, or those who are working with you, or those who have helped you out.

But at the end of the day, where does all the glory go? It goes to God, right? There's a way to do that. It gets kind of awkward, and Dave and I have joked before about when somebody says, hey, good sermon, kind of take the knee and give it back to God or something, whatever your little end zone dance is, but make sure that it ends in a cross or the Holy Spirit flying or something.

I don't know. However you wanna do that to make sure that it reflects back to God is up to you. We joke about that, but in reality, there's a truth to that, right? How much of the good things that God does in our lives do we let lodge in here and puff us up versus letting that pass through us to God and say, yeah, you've used me, thank you.

It's you. I know that my very breath comes from you. My life is yours, and so any good that is produced here, I give credit to my God and my Savior, because I certainly wouldn't be standing up here if he wasn't my Savior.

I wouldn't have an opportunity to minister to you. I'd be ministering to this guy right here, and I'd be the only thing I was concerned about. I guarantee that if it wasn't for the cross of Christ, and so you see the need to give thanks here.

We need that to be focused Godward when good news comes our way, especially when good news of God's work in the lives of others, and in verses 10 through 11, Paul prays. This is the second thing he prays.

That's the second thing in the thanks. He prays for an opportunity to complete their training in this context of hearing that the church has been established, hearing this good news that there's a church there.

He prays to God for more. He prays to God. That may seem antithetical, but we can't just rest on the previous graces, right? We can't just stand on what God just did and let that carry us for the rest of our lives.

We know that when you get to a place, there's always more to grow. There's always more to, so that's what Paul says is he turns to God in prayer. Thanks for what, I offer thanks to God for what has happened but I'm praying for another opportunity.

I'm praying for, now he's praying for the opportunity to go and complete their training. He explains that his team has been praying earnestly night and day that they might return to the Thessalonians to finish what they started.

He mentions that their faith is lacking in Thessalonica and it's not a derogatory comment, not as a way of saying you guys are boneheads, you're idiots, you don't get it or something like that. At the end of the day, he's just saying there is more.

Paul did not feel like he was able to really round out their spiritual instruction before he was torn from that community. He had more that he wanted to explain and he's gonna use some of this letter and some of his second letter to cover the things that have proven to be misunderstandings or that they haven't quite gotten trained in yet regarding their faith.

But there's an interesting observation here that I think may be helpful to us in many avenues of our lives, not just in the church, certainly it ought to be applied in the church, but in a variety of capacities in which you serve others and work with others in your family, in your workplace.

People don't grow as fast as we would like them to. Anybody experience that in your life? Have you ever wanted somebody, my wife. That was really good. That was convicting, but it's good. Yep, I'll do a better job with a dishwasher.

I'm gonna work on that. I'm gonna try to get that thing unloaded more regularly. That's private conversation. But anyone else, anyone else? I know that all of us do, to some degree, you have somebody in your life that has gone off in a different direction than you would've wanted them to, or they're just not the right person for you.

They're just not advancing fast enough. And again, it could be a workplace situation. It could be in your family. It could be in the church. It could be, there's a whole host of different things, but it all comes down to relationships.

People don't grow as fast as we want them to, but Paul here models an enthusiasm for gains, for gains, while acknowledging that there's still a lot of ground to cover. He says, we've got more ground to cover.

Let's take a moment to celebrate this. Let's take a moment to say thanks to God for how far you've come, that you're really in, he's saying to the Thessalonians. You're really in the faith, and let's rejoice and celebrate in that, even though you've got room to grow, and you probably are a little bit, there's still babies in the faith, there's still babies in their understanding, and there's some things that they probably have flat out wrong about God right now.

You've embraced his son, and you've been saved, but there's so much more room to grow, he says, and we're just praying and earnestly desiring to get to you to finish this discipleship program, but for now, he celebrates.

In other words, Paul's over the moon with excitement that they're in with Jesus, even while he knows that they have a lot to learn. How quick are we to celebrate the glimpses of grace we see in our children, in our coworkers, with our neighbors, with our family members?

Are you looking for and attentive to improvement? Are you attentive to it? Are you looking for others to succeed around you? Are you, do you even identify that there's growth going on around you? Sometimes we put people in a box, and we've got them defined, and they can't grow out of that box anymore, because you've got them defined in such a way that even when they improve, you still see them as that person over here.

You don't even have eyes to see, because you're not attentive to the good that's going on. It's very easy for us to get in that cycle, right? Is that just me, or anybody else? It can be your tendency.

Are you able to see the good that God is doing in your spouse, even if it's just a little good? Even if it's just a little good? Or be honest, is it just simply that a little good is not enough for you, because you want it all now?

You want them to completely change now. Paul celebrated the progress and looks for opportunities to build on those gains that he sees in their lives. The third thing, in verse 12, Paul prays for these converts to increase and abound in love for one another and for all.

He wants their love to grow, their love to increase, within the church and outside of the four walls, he says. But the way that Paul prays for them is powerful, and when understood correctly, could really change the way that you pray.

You see, look at verse 12. And may the Lord make you. What? You could just as easily translate that, force you. May the Lord force you, may the Lord make you increase and abound in love. We don't like anybody to make us do anything, right?

And we sometimes even think that others can't make us do something. But here, Paul is praying that God would make a change in another person's heart. He would transform them. He would make them grow and increase more and more in love.

Pray that God would change people in their hearts. Not just change their outward behavior, but change their hearts. I personally pray a lot for God to make me love more and more. I do pray that. I pray that God would make me glorify him more.

I pray that God would make me more and more like Jesus. You see, our hope is found in the power of God to make us something that we cannot be on our own. Let me say that again. Our hope is found in the power of God to make us something that we cannot be on our own.

We need to be changed in ways that we do not have the power to change ourselves. Paul is here teaching a very deep theological concept that really comes down to the core of the message of the word of God to these young believers, and it's simply this.

You and I all need a supernatural work of God in our hearts to love, and certainly to increase in love more and more. So simple application is to ask him for it. Ask him for that change, and ask for it for others.

Ask for it for the church. Go to God and request that he would make those you live with increase in love. Pray that he would make you increase in love. Please pray this prayer for our church here, for Recast as well.

Pray that God would make us increase in love for one another and for all. This means that we would increase in our love for those outside the walls of these four churches, these four walls of this church as well.

That we would increase in love for those in our community in need. Paul prayed that God would do a work in the motivation compartment in the hearts of this little church in Thessalonica to make them increase in love, and I hope that we'll pray that too.

And further, I think we should pray that God would make us love him above all things. We should pray that God would make us love him more than pornography, that he would make us love him more than alcohol, that we would love him more than our own comforts, that we would love others more than ourselves and actually serve one another, that we would love the lost, that we would love the poor, that we would love the hurting, that we would love the downcast, that we would love all people, and that we would especially love his church.

And loving like this requires a work of God in our hearts. We should be asking for it. The last thing. He reminded this new church of the best news. Here's good news. The church is established, and he reminds them of how they formed.

What is it that is the core of, what is it that makes a church? Why is this not just a social club? It comes down to this, good news. See, Paul has received good news, and wrapped up in that good news is the fact that this whole group of people are clinging to the best news.