A Focused Prayer

6 · The pastor introduces the second element of Paul's thanksgiving—the Thessalonians' increasing love for one another

Secondly, Paul thanks God that their love is ever increasing, specifically their love for each other.

7 · The pastor grounds the importance of increasing love in Jesus' commandment in John 13, identifying mutual love as the public mark of discipleship and the evidence of Christian maturity

In John 13:34-35, Jesus said this: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." Their increasing love for each other, the Thessalonian Christians, was evidence of their growing Christian maturity. Paul knows this commandment. He's heard what the Thessalonians are doing and how they're growing in love towards each other, and he pauses and takes time to thank God for that increasing love and grace in their lives.

8 · The pastor uses D

When our confession of love to Christ does not result in a growing love for others who also confess Christ, we should legitimately ask how serious and how accurate our own profession of faith is. D.A. Carson puts it this way. He says, "But we may put this positively. When Christians do grow in their love for each other for no other reason than because they are loved by Jesus Christ and love Him in return, that growing love is an infallible sign of grace in their lives." So Paul stops and begins his message, his letter here, thanks God for their faith that's increasing abundantly and for their ever-increasing love for each other. Paul hears reports about the growing love among the Christians, and he's struck by it. This could only be due to the work of God, Paul concludes. This could only be due to the work of God, and that's why Paul thanks God for what he sees. Carson, D.A. Carson, goes on a little bit later in his commentary on this verse, and he says, "This is the stuff of revival." When we see Christians growing in their faith abundantly, when we see them loving each other, fulfilling the commandment that Jesus gave. D.A. Carson says that is the stuff of revival. We need to be looking for those things. We need to be striving for those things in our own lives. Paul saw that and he paused to give thanks to God for that.

9 · The pastor corrects a common theological misunderstanding by arguing that faith is not a static possession or genetic trait but a dynamic, growing relationship with God

Sadly, sometimes the idea of spiritual growth in the areas of faith and love is foreign to us. We tend to speak of our faith in static terms. As something we either have or we don't have. Have you ever heard the phrase, "I wish I had your faith"? That rolls off our lips like we would say, "I wish I had your complexion or your curls or your whatever it is that we see in someone else." But our faith is not a commodity like that. It's not something that's genetically determined. Others of us will say, "I've lost my faith," in a similar way that we say, "I lost my car keys." Faith isn't like that. It's not something we can just misplace. Faith is an outcome. It's a result of our relationship with God and a trust relationship with God. And like all relationships, it's living, it's dynamic, it grows. We can grow it, we can nurture it. There are degrees of faith. Jesus implies this when he says one time, "You of little faith." And another time, He says, "I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith." So there can be degrees of faith.

10 · The pastor extends the dynamic-not-static argument from faith to love, rejecting the fatalistic view that love is binary and unchangeable

And it's similar with our love. We assume rather helplessly that we either love someone or we don't love them, and there's not much we can do about it. But love, like our faith, is a living relationship whose growth we can take steps to nurture.

11 · The pastor identifies the third element of Paul's thanksgiving—the Thessalonians' perseverance under persecution—and establishes the causal connection: their increasing faith and love produced the spiritual strength necessary to endure affliction

And although it takes a different format here, Paul is also grateful and he's communicating that he's thankful for the perseverance about the Thessalonians and their perseverance under trial and under persecution. It's because their faith and love were increasing that they were spiritually strong enough to endure the rigors, the challenges, and the difficulties of persecution, of living a persecuted life, of living under the afflictions that they were currently facing. Their perseverance, their steadfastness, and their faith were so exceptional that Paul boasts about it. He says, "I boast about this." in the churches of God.

12 · The pastor clarifies the nature of Paul's boasting—it is not self-promotion but doxological testimony to God's grace at work

This boasting is not about Paul though. It's not about Paul and what he's done in this church. This boasting is about what God has done in the lives of the Thessalonian Christians. Expanded version of that little statement might look something like this: Have you ever noticed how powerfully the grace of God is operating in the lives of the Thessalonian believers? The way they withstand the pressures of persecution and assorted trials is truly remarkable. It is a compelling testimony to the grace of God in their lives. Having been fortified by their growing faith and increasing love for each other, they just press on and on. What an example they are to us. What an encouragement they are. What an incentive for the rest of us. So throughout his presentation or without his expression of thanksgiving, Paul again models the proper way to do this for us. He attributes their spiritual health and growth to God. Instead of congratulating them on their faith, their love, and their perseverance, he thanks God for those things.

13 · The pastor transitions from exposition to pastoral application by identifying a practical dilemma the congregation faces: how to affirm spiritual growth in others without either flattering them (which promotes pride) or remaining silent (which discourages)

This serves as a compelling reminder to me on how to be thankful in a biblically God-honoring way, what to be grateful for, and that it should be something that I should practice often. Paul says, "I ought to do this often," as he began that. There's a valuable lesson for us in this. What should our attitude be to fellow Christians who we see doing well, who are growing in their faith, who are growing in their love? Some of us resort to congratulations, well done, pat on the back, I'm proud of you. I use that one a lot with my kids. Some people resort to that. Others are uncomfortable with this kind of format. They see the temptation that it could create for the recipient. It borders on flattery. It promotes pride and it could rob God of His glory. So perhaps some of us, instead of going out and letting people know that we appreciate, that we see what God is doing in their lives, we withdraw and just silently thank God for that. We can replace flattery with silence, which can then leave people discouraged. So is there a third way? Is there another way to go about recognizing what God is doing in people's life which affirms people without spoiling them? I think there is, and Paul models that for us.

14 · The pastor provides concrete instruction on how to apply Paul's model: thank God for what you see in others' lives and then tell them you're thanking God for them

Paul models that and he says, and he does this in many of his prayers, he not only thanks God for the Thessalonians, for their faith and their love and their steadfastness, he also tells the Thessalonians that he's doing that. So he says, "We ought always to give thanks to God for you. We boast about you," he wrote to them. If we follow his example, we can avoid both the congratulations which will corrupt and the silence which can discourage people. Instead, we can affirm and encourage people in the most Christian of all ways. I thank God for you, brother or sister. I thank Him for the gifts He has given you. I thank you for the grace I see in your life. I thank you for the increasing faith. I thank you for the increasing love that I— sorry, I thank God. I flip right back into it myself. I thank God for what I see in your life. I thank God for the increasing faith, the increasing love. The gentleness in Christ I see in you. Paul shows us how to affirm each other and to encourage each other without bringing flattery onto them. So we would do well to adopt this pattern in our prayers of thanksgiving.

15 · The pastor presses the application with a series of diagnostic questions targeting specific relationships (spouse, children, care group members, fellow congregants), asking whether the congregation is actively thanking God for the grace they see in others' lives

So when was the last time that we considered our spouse, our children, those in the care group, maybe your care group leaders, those who are sitting around you in the chairs this morning? And thank God for the signs of grace that we see in our lives? Do we make us a source of praise and worship to God when we see another Christian growing in love and faith and steadfastness, when we see each other growing in Christian maturity and conformity to Christ, persevering under persecutions and trials and afflictions? If not, we need to elevate that in our lives to have a heart of thankfulness and spending time thanking God for what He's doing in the lives, our lives, our families' lives, and the lives of those in the church.

16 · The pastor signals a shift from exposition of thanksgiving (vv

Moving on, Paul just revealed to us that the Thessalonian church is under persecution. They're enduring persecution presently as he writes this. He addresses this issue in verse 5, beginning of verse 5, and essentially lets them know that vindication is coming.

17 · The pastor reads 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, which addresses God's righteous judgment, the purpose of suffering, future vindication of believers, and future judgment of persecutors

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He comes on the day to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed. There could easily be many sermons, certainly one if not multiple sermons in this passage. I just want to make a few quick observations though before we move on.

18 · The pastor establishes a theological framework for understanding suffering by contrasting the Western Christian tendency to view suffering as evil to be avoided with the New Testament's view that God providentially uses suffering to develop character, faith, and perseverance in believers

To Paul's prayer in verse 11. First of all, the New Testament does not look on suffering in quite the same way that 21st century Western Christians look on it. To us, we often see suffering as evil, we see persecution as evil, something that is to be avoided at all costs. The New Testament doesn't gloss over it like that though, and neither does it lose sight of the fact that in the providence of God, suffering is often the means used by God to work out His purposes in His people. He uses it to teach us valuable lessons and to develop in us character and faith and perseverance, and that makes us complete, lacking in nothing, according to James. Suffering is not thought of as something that may possibly be avoided by the Christian. For the believer, it's inevitable. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul tells them that they were destined for affliction. 1 Thessalonians 3:3. We live out our lives and develop Christian character in a world that is dominated by non-Christians. Faith is not some dainty little thing to be hidden away. We don't want to hide our faith away. Our faith should be robust, should be tested. It's to be manifested, made strong in the fires of trials and in this furnace of affliction. The very troubles and afflictions and trials that we face as believers under God's direction, become the means of making believers what they ought to be. Romans 8:28 tells us, should be a familiar verse to many of you, "We know that for those who love God, all things," not some things, not just the good things, but all things, "work together for good."

19 · The pastor clarifies a potential misreading of verse 5—that persecution is divine judgment for sin—by explaining that God is using (not causing as punishment) their suffering to prepare them for the kingdom

Secondly, the evidence of righteous judgment of God, that phrase that's in that passage there, should not be understood that the Thessalonians were facing judgment or persecution and affliction because of something that they had done. God was using the persecutions and afflictions in order to accomplish something, that the believers in Thessalonica should be counted worthy of the kingdom. It does not imply that by displaying the perseverance and suffering that we earn a right or that they were earning the right to be found worthy of the kingdom. For Paul, it's always about God. Since God was allowing the Thessalonians to suffer, they could know that He was using it to prepare them for glory, to prepare them for the kingdom. So although God was allowing those who were persecuting the Thessalonians some leeway here, God was at work in their lives. He was on their side. He was sustaining them. He was sanctifying them. He was using their persecution as a means to develop their faith, their love, and their steadfastness. He was preparing them for glory and for entry into His kingdom. These qualities, again, did not make them worthy of the kingdom in the sense of deserving that, but by them they were being counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which they were suffering. God's transforming grace was preparing them for their heavenly inheritance.

20 · The pastor establishes the eschatological vindication promised in verses 6-7—Christ will reverse the fortunes of persecutors and persecuted at His return

And third, for believers there will be a day of vindication. God will reverse the fortunes of both the persecuted and those who are persecuting. When Christ comes back, He will pay back trouble to the troublemakers in verse 6, and He will give relief from affliction to those who have been afflicted in verse 7. It takes spiritual discernment to see a situation of injustice and persecution as evidence of the just judgment of God. When we see persecution and afflictions, we can be prone to wonder, where is God in this? Why isn't God getting these people out of it? What happened? Where is God? The answer is, He is doing something. He's there with them. Paul saw it, and we need to see that as well. John Stott writes, He is allowing His people to suffer in order to qualify them for His heavenly kingdom. He is allowing the wicked to triumph temporarily, but His just judgment will fall on them in the end. Thus Paul sees evidence that God's judgment is right in the very situation in which we might see nothing but injustice. So we need to have that same type of spiritual discernment and a paternal perspective as the Apostle Paul had.

21 · The pastor synthesizes Paul's pattern: thanksgiving for grace in success and thanksgiving for justice in suffering

In the Thessalonians' success, instead of flattering them, he thanked God for the evidence of grace in their lives. In their sufferings, instead of complaining, he thanked God for the evidence of His justice.

22 · The pastor signals the structural shift to the sermon's main focus—Paul's prayer in verse 11

Now we can move on to Paul's prayer in verse 11. So if we are grateful, Paul set up a framework here, some background. He's grateful, he's thankful, and he's given us a heavenly perspective, an eternal perspective on persecution and challenges that these Christians were facing. So he begins his prayer, "To this end," or with this in mind, Paul then dives into two requests that he has of God.

23 · The pastor begins exposition of Paul's first request—that God make the Thessalonians worthy of His calling

First one is that our God may make you worthy of His calling. To this end, or with this in mind, he writes, "We always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of His calling." For Paul to be called by God means to be saved, to belong to God, to be accepted as one of His. He makes this very clear in his book, letter to the Romans in chapter 8, verse 29. Paul writes, "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified." Romans 8:29.

24 · The pastor clarifies the logic of Paul's prayer by distinguishing between the unmerited call (which came by grace when none deserved it) and the subsequent transformation that makes believers live up to that calling

Paul also knows that we are not called by God simply because we deserve it. Paul's own testimony bore that out. If you remember Paul's conversion, he was on the road. He was busy. His life was consumed with and he was busy persecuting the church, killing Christians. And in the middle of that, that's when God came to him, changed his life, and called him. He was not— we could all recognize Paul was not worthy of being called at that point in time. Paul remembered that. So this is not a prayer that somehow the Thessalonians might become worthy enough to be called. They had already been called. Paul prays that God Himself, though, might count them worthy of His calling. That means that the believers here must grow in all things that please God so that He is pleased with them and He will finally judge them to be living up to the calling that they have already received. By grace we have been forgiven by God. By grace we have been made heirs and co-heirs with Christ. By grace we have been justified, and all of the grace that we've received was freely given. It wasn't earned, it wasn't deserved. Like Paul, not one of us was worthy when we received the call to eternal life. Now, however, after having been called, after already having received grace, Paul wants us to become what we were not. He wants us to become worthy of that calling. We were not worthy originally. Now Paul is praying that they will become worthy, and that's what Paul's prayer is here. He prays that Christians might become worthy of all that it means to be a Christian, all that it means to be a child of God, all that it means to be worthy of the love that sent Jesus to the cross.

25 · The pastor contrasts typical prayer content (success, health, happiness, problem-removal) with Paul's prayer priorities (conformity to calling, spiritual maturity)

So by judging by his example of Paul's prayers, it should be clear that our chief concern, one of our chief concerns in prayer, must not be that we become successful, wealthy, popular, healthy, brilliant, triumphant, happy, and beautiful. Still less does Paul encourage us to pray that all our problems will disappear. Paul's prayer is constrained by the framework that he brought into it. He prays for more signs of the grace which he has already recognized and thanks God for. One day we will give account for our lives. And on that day, God is going to ask in effect, "What have you done with the salvation that I bestowed upon you? What have you done with that call? How have we responded to the way in which— how have you responded in that way that I graciously called you to Myself? Have you lived up to that calling?" Paul's encouraging us here. He's encouraging the Thessalonians to grow in Christian maturity since we already have become children of God through His free grace to us through Christ, we must now become all that such children should be. God has graciously called us and now we need to live up to that calling. That means that we need to be looking to become increasingly mature, increasingly holy, self-controlled, loving, generous, full of integrity, willing to sacrifice, knowledgeable of God and His word. We should delight in trusting and obeying, having faith in our Heavenly Father.

26 · The pastor highlights the grammar and agency in Paul's prayer—Paul asks God to make them worthy, not for them to make themselves worthy

But Paul knows, if you look at his prayer closely, Paul knows we can't do these things on our own. If God is going to consider us worthy of His calling, we need His help. Paul's not asking or telling the Thessalonians to simply try harder to be worthy of the calling. Look closely at the prayer again. Paul writes this, or he prays this: "To this end, we always pray for you." What? That God would make you worthy of His calling. Paul wasn't expecting the Thessalonians to make themselves worthy. Paul is praying and asking God to make them worthy.

27 · The pastor presses the application with diagnostic questions contrasting typical parental prayers (safety, success, happiness) with Paul's prayer (that God make them worthy of their calling)

So consider again, how do we pray? Does it look anything like what Paul prays for? When was the last time we prayed this for our friends, for our families, for our church, for your pastors? How much time and energy do we spend praying that our children will pass their exams or get a good job or be happy and not stray too far. We pray that they will be safe and stay out of trouble. Then the follow-up question is, how much time and energy do we expend praying that God would make them worthy of His calling on their lives?

28 · The pastor introduces Paul's second request—that God fulfill every good resolve and work of faith by His power—and unpacks the assumption embedded in the prayer: conversion produces transformation resulting in a new set of life goals distinct from the world's priorities

Paul continues, his prayer continues, and he prays that God may fulfill our good and faith-prompted works. Back to 2 Thessalonians 1:11, he says, "To this end we always pray for you." that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good in every work of faith by His power. It's quite an astounding prayer. Paul's assumption here is that through our conversion and through our response to the gospel, that we have been completely transformed, that we would now live our lives and have a new set of goals. Those of us who have been recipients of grace and mercy Saved by faith in Jesus Christ, we've been justified and united with Christ. We should have different goals and objectives in life than those around us, particularly the non-Christians around us.

29 · The pastor models the kind of faith-prompted purposes Christians should have by asking a series of concrete evangelistic and missional questions

We should view the world around us differently than our neighbors do. We should be looking for opportunities to show the love of Christ to those around us, to share the gospel with those who are lost. We should be asking and considering questions like this: I wonder how I can witness or share the gospel with my neighbor. Is there some way that I can show care and concern to the lady up the street who just lost her husband? How can I go about befriending the high school kids on my block? What days this month could we set aside to invite neighbors or coworkers into our home? How can I use my time, my resources, and finances to support the church, its mission, and outreach to the needy. Of course, no Christian can or should do everything, and none of us should try to do that. We can all do something, a significant something. And meanwhile, we must recognize that those plans that we make, as they've been generated by what Paul labels good, goodness and faith.

30 · The pastor anticipates an objection—'my schedule is already full'—and shifts into direct pastoral counsel examining what fills the schedule

If you just listen to that list of questions and your first thought was, or your initial response is, Are you kidding? My schedule is so full already, I can't possibly consider adding anything else to it. If that's you, let me ask you this: what kind of activities is your schedule full of? We live in a culture that is obsessed with activity. Excuse me. There's sports for the kids, there's sports for adults, there's music lessons, there's speech, there's drama, there's a club for almost every activity under the sun. There's computer gaming, there's virtually unlimited entertainment options that we face. Our lives can easily get full. You've often heard it said that if you want to know where a person's treasure is, just look at their checkbook. The same thing can be said regarding our calendars and our schedules. Examine your calendar, schedule carefully. It reveals a lot about you. It reveals what's important to you. It reveals your priorities. The kind of activities we fill our lives with reveals what kinds of things that we truly value.

31 · The pastor concedes that typical activities (sports, music lessons) have some value but uses 1 Timothy 4:8 to establish a hierarchy—godliness has value in every way, whereas bodily training has only some value

Now, there are a lot of good things that can be learned and gained from most of these activities we engage in, activities we engage our kids in. There are a number of good and godly character qualities our kids can learn from playing sports. Paul says that himself in 1 Timothy 4:8, where he tells Timothy that bodily training is of some value. But if you take that little phrase and put it in the full context of what Paul is Talking to Timothy, he says, "Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance." So there is value in these activities that we engage in, but are we putting our time and our efforts into things with some value when we could be putting them to activities and things with eternal value. So apply the test of time to your activities. 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now, 1 billion years from now, what will you look back upon and wonder, what could I have changed about my time and my energies when I was looking at my calendar and planning my life out? Do our calendars and activities that we engage in now have eternal value? Do we engage in kingdom activities? I want, I know Matthew wants, and there are others at this church who want Providence to be a gospel-centered, kingdom-prioritizing community of believers. Do our calendars reflect those priorities?

32 · The pastor unpacks the second half of verse 11—Paul prays that God would fulfill the good resolves and works of faith by His power

Paul continues praying that God, again it's about God, he wanted God, he was asking God to make them worthy of the calling. Now he's asking God that would fulfill God to fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power. Assuming that Christians will develop spiritual-minded purposes, that we will fill our calendars with eternal activities, Paul now prays that God Himself— again, the focus is on God, not on us— that God Himself may take those purposes and so work them out as to bring them to fulfillment and bring fruit out of them. If you're like me, you probably have come up with dozens, if not hundreds, of great ideas of things you could do to share the gospel, to reach out to your neighbors, but you never get around to doing most of them. Perhaps some of you are go-getters. You're very great planners and administrators, and something comes into your mind, you just jump right in, get it on the calendar, get planning, get organized, and get it on, and you pull it off. Maybe it's dinner for your neighbors. You invite them over, you have a great meal for them, you have good discussion. But in the busyness and the craziness of getting that together and pulling it together, we never stop and think the approval and pursue the approval and the blessing of God on this well-intentioned goal. But Paul here says unless God works in us and through us, unless God empowers these good projects, they will not result in any enduring spiritual fruit. "Unless the Lord builds the house," we are told in Psalm 127, "its builders labor in vain." We don't want to be laboring in vain. We need the Lord to empower these works, these faith-inspired, faith-encouraged works.

33 · The pastor applies the theological claim with concrete instruction: before acting on good purposes, pause and ask God to empower them

So we can't just dream them up on our own and go and do them. We need to stop and pause and ask God to empower them. Our lives will become full of activity if we don't pursue God, pursue His empower. We will be busy people, but there will be no fruit and there's no life in it. So we need to carefully consider our schedules, our agendas, our priorities, our goals, our objectives. What should we be attempting for Christ's sake? Those in leadership positions at the church should be asking again and again, what are our goals? What's our purpose in this ministry? What's our Christian mission together? And as we find answers to those questions, we must pray and ask that God, by His great power, might bring these to fruition. It's getting windy up here. I guess I had too much hot air. Might bring these to good purposes, these good goals, their faith-prompted acts to fruitfulness. So again, if we're going to be successful in our faith-inspired and faith-encouraged works, we have to spend time, we need to go to God and ask Him to empower those things. The success that we see will only come through God empowering our activities.

34 · The pastor identifies the telos of Paul's prayer—the glorification of Jesus Christ in believers

So what's the goal of Paul's prayer? Paul now gets towards the conclusion of his prayer and he states this: basically, the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 1, verse 12, he says, "To this end we always pray." Why does he pray these things for the Thessalonians? "So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you." For Paul, his concerns— his concern that Christians might be made and counted worthy of their calling and his desire that God will fulfill our good faith-prompted purposes can never be the ultimate end. They are good things. Things that should be deeply desired and absolutely things to be prayed for. But this isn't about us. It wasn't about the Thessalonian Christians. It's not about us. For Paul, everything is always about God and Jesus Christ. The reason Paul prays that God would make us worthy of our calling and that God would empower our works of faith is so that the Lord Jesus is glorified by those things being done in us.

35 · The pastor applies the doxological goal with diagnostic force: if we serve hoping to be recognized, we've shifted God's glory onto ourselves, which at root is the same sin as Adam and Eve's—the desire to be like God

Our ultimate desire in our Christian lives should be that Jesus Christ is praised and glorified. When we set goals and do things in the hopes of being recognized and praised, we have shifted the glory that belongs to God and shifted it onto ourselves. And when we ask, when we endeavor to do good things and ask God to empower it, the motivation should be for His glory and His praise, not ours. So when we come and clean the church, when you serve as an usher, if you preach a sermon, when you visit the sick or lead a youth group, when you help a neighbor or attend a prayer meeting. Whatever we do, when we do any of these things, we have a secret desire in our heart that we might be praised for our godliness and for our service. We've corrupted our calling. Lying at the heart of all sin is the desire to be like God. That's exactly what Adam and Eve were tempted with and what caused them to fall—temptation to be like God. So if we take on Christian service and try to use it as a vehicle that will draw attention to us, we have paganized our Christian service. Our journey as Christians need not be very far along before we recognize that even our best service, motivated by the highest zeal, regularly contains rather large doses of self-interest. Paul recognizes the problem and he articulates the proper goal in prayer. We pray this, he writes, not that you might be thought of as remarkable Christians, so that you may gain reputation for perseverance and spirituality and for power throughout the Roman Empire, but so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ might be glorified in you.

36 · The pastor addresses a potential misreading of 'you in him'—that Paul is now allowing believers to pursue glory for themselves

There's a second part to this. Paul also seeks the glorification of believers. To this end we always pray, he says, or he writes, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him. So after just making the glorification of Jesus absolutely primary, and of first importance, is Paul now just softening a bit and suggesting that we can go about legitimately pursuing a little bit of praise for our own? Absolutely not. It's not at all what Paul is saying here. What Paul has in mind is not quite as simple as that. Paul is well aware of God's urgent insistence in Isaiah 42. It says, "I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not give glory." to any others. But there is another side to glory that makes it very much appropriate to talk about Christian glorification. Romans 8:30, Paul writes that all whom God calls and justifies, that is, all who are genuinely saved, will one day be glorified. One day those called by God will be made perfect. One day they will enjoy a resurrection body. And one day we will live in the splendor of the new heaven and the new earth in God's presence forever. But even now, in the here and now, we're told in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory. So one day our final glorification will come and we'll be without taint. We will be without sin or spot or blemish at that point in time. We will enjoy the presence of God forever. But even now, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians, we are being transformed from glory to glory. The final transformation is going to be wondrous, it's going to be magnificent, it's going to be incredibly wonderful, but it's going to be prefaced by a whole series of smaller transformations in this life as we become more increasingly conformed to the likeness of Christ in this life.

37 · The pastor resolves the apparent tension between God's glory and believers' glorification by establishing a non-competitive relationship: when we glorify God, we ascribe to Him what is already His, but when we are glorified, God makes us what we are not

So when we glorify God, we are not giving Him something that He would not otherwise have. We're simply ascribing to Him what is already His. But when we are glorified in the way just described, we are being made more like Him. We are being strengthened and empowered to exhibit characteristics that we would not otherwise display. So for Paul, the glorification that Christians enjoy in this life does not take anything away from the glory that goes to Jesus Christ alone. He is the one who makes our glorification possible. Because of that, our glorification itself becomes an an incredibly spectacular opportunity to praise God and to recognize and to bring glory to Christ. How could a sinful, self-centered, ignorant people like me, like you, become the children of God? Not only that, but then become people who are increasingly like Him, being transformed into His image. Is that really something that we think we can do on our own to ourselves? It's not. The only way that that happens is because God is working in us to bring about that change and bring about those kinds of things. So Christ is glorified and He received the praise that is His due as we are glorified and as we are conformed to His likeness. When the final day comes, Jesus Christ will be glorified in us on account of what we have become by His grace, and we will be glorified in Him on account of what He has done for us.

38 · The pastor identifies Paul's eschatological framework as the defining characteristic of his prayer life

Here we see that Paul has returned to his habit of looking toward the end of history. Paul always has an eternal view in mind when he's praying, when he's writing, when he's giving thanks. He had a strong conviction that the Christian life needed to be lived and could only be lived faithfully if we have that in view. He wants Christians to be glorified not only at the end, in line with God's promises to us, but now, even now, as we prepare for the end and are progressively becoming more like Christ.

39 · The pastor synthesizes the prayer's dual goal and presses the application with a diagnostic question asking when the congregation last prayed with Christ's glorification as the explicit aim

So there we have it, Paul's twofold goal of Paul's prayer is that Christ might be glorified in us and us in him. Another question to ask again, when was the last time we prayed with that kind of goal in mind?

40 · The pastor expounds Paul's closing phrase—'according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ'—as a final safeguard against moralism

Paul concludes his prayer with these words, according to the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul doesn't want to get to the end of his prayer, the end of this passage, and leave the Thessalonians with the impression that what he's really praying for is that they will simply try harder. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Paul recognizes that if we try harder, it's only because of the grace of God that is powerfully at work in our lives. Paul recognized if there is if the Thessalonian Christians are working hard, it's only because of God's grace that's actively at work in them. So Christians, we need to be constantly reminded of this. We were saved by grace. We need to be reminded that we are sanctified and glorified by grace.

41 · The pastor synthesizes the prayer's theology of grace: while Paul's prayer establishes real goals for believers, the prayer's structure—asking God to accomplish these things—reveals that grace is the sole means of achieving them

And in this prayer, Paul is asking God to be at work in the lives of the Thessalonian Christians. It's true that what Paul is asking God to accomplish also sets some real, very real goals for them. But in asking God to perform these things in them, he shows that he is very much aware that by God's grace and God's grace alone that any of those things will be accomplished. And that's what's at the root of this prayer. We become fruitful by grace, we persevere by grace, we mature by grace. By grace we grow to love one another. By grace we cherish holiness, a deepening understanding of God and of His word. Therefore, Paul reminds his readers at the end of this prayer that everything he has asked for is available to them only on the basis of grace. Jesus cannot be glorified in our lives, nor can we be finally glorified apart from the grace that God provides for us.

42 · The pastor issues a comprehensive application of Paul's prayer model: study it, imitate it, let it reshape your prayer life

So we should reflect on this prayer and others by Paul throughout his letters and take note of his example and what he considers to be important. We need to observe and to imitate him in our own prayer lives. There's a reason why these prayers are recorded for us in Scripture. They're there for us to study, to learn from, to model, to use as examples for us. Paul's prayer is not made up of petty requests that he hopes will be answered by a God who on occasion intervenes in the life of His children. We're not to think of ourselves as independent people generally on the right track who only occasionally need God's help or just need His help every now and then. That's not a proper view of God and how He's involved and active in our lives. Paul's vision was much broader. He saw God involved in every aspect of the Christian's life. If they were growing in grace, if they were growing in faithfulness, if they were growing in love, if they were growing in perseverance, it's because God was doing that in their lives. Paul remembers the grace we've received in the past and he thinks through the implications of the here and now. And he knows that our ultimate home is in heaven with God, and that's what shapes his prayers.

43 · The pastor narrates the story of Florence Chadwick's failed first attempt to swim from Catalina Island to the California mainland

While I was preparing this message, I came across a story of a lady. Her name was Florence Chadwick. And in 1952, Florence stepped off the beach in Catalina Island. It's an island off the coast of Southern California. She stepped off the beach and into the ocean and began to swim. Her goal was to swim from Catalina to the mainland of Southern California, a distance of roughly 20 miles. Now she happened to be an experienced long-distance swimmer. She had already navigated or swam the English Channel both directions. She was the first woman to do that. So she was not a rookie here about long-distance swimming. The morning she did this though, the assigned morning, she woke up. It was a cold and foggy morning. It was so foggy, it says, that she could barely see the support boats. Most of these long-distance swimmers, if you've seen them, there are boats coming along to give them support, make sure they're swimming in the right direction, all that stuff. It says she could barely see these boats due to the fog. So for 15 hours, she swam in the ocean. And she became, towards the end of those 15 hours, she was obviously getting weary and tired, and she begged to be taken out. And her coach kept saying, "It's only a little bit farther, it's only a little bit farther." She swam on and on. Eventually though, she became so exhausted mentally, emotionally, she just stopped swimming and they finally pulled her out. They took off in the boats and she found out that she was less than half a mile from the shore. The next day she gave a news conference and she said this, she says, "I don't want to make excuses for myself." I am the one who asked to be pulled out, but I think that if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it. She was in sight. She was within a few minutes of finishing the objective, her goal. Two months later, she's jumped in again on a clear sunny day this time, and she was able to swim that 20 miles.

44 · The pastor applies the Florence Chadwick illustration to the congregation's prayer life: just as fog prevented Florence from seeing the shore and caused her to quit, the busyness and pressures of life can obscure our eternal goal (God in heaven), causing us to give up or pray wrongly

People of Providence, at the heart of all our prayers It needs to be a biblical vision. We need to keep our eyes on the goal and where we're headed, just like Florence did. If we lose sight of it, it's easy to give up. But when we can see the goal— our goal is eternal life, it's with God in heaven— if we can keep that in mind, if we can keep that in our mind when we pray, our prayers will be transformed. That vision is what drives us towards increasing conformity with Jesus. Towards lives that lived out in the light of eternity. We need to keep that goal in sight. We can't lose sight of it. We can't let the busyness and the hecticness, the world's pressures fog our vision so that we lose sight of what the goal is. We need to keep that vision in sight and let it determine, let it drive and formulate our prayers. That vision must shape our prayers so that things that most concern us in our prayer time the things that most concern God as well.

45 · The pastor closes in prayer, thanking God for Paul's example in prayer—his gratitude for grace in others' lives, his recognition that all spiritual growth is God's work, and his focus on eternal realities

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for Paul and for the wonderful example he sets for us in prayer. I thank you for the heart of this man who was exceptionally grateful for what he saw in the lives of those that he cared for, for the churches that he was a part of. Well, this was a man who was on the lookout for the grace of God in their lives and was quick to thank God for what he saw. This was a man who was aware that any progress in maturity and in spiritual disciplines and growth of faith, of love, perseverance was not because of what we do on our own. It's because of what You are doing in us and through us. Lord, help us to model these prayers. Help us to be people who are grateful, who are thankful, Lord, who spend our time praying for things of eternal value, that you might be glorified in us and through us. In Jesus' name, amen.