Saturday, July 30th

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Psalm 113-115; 1 Thessalonians 3

The verses in 1 Thessalonians that jumped out at me were...
Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. 1 Thessalonians 3:10-13

And of course, Apple has an app for that MacArthur has a sermon for that. I highly recommend you read it, or listen to it, in it's entirety. I'm going to post it in pieces for you here (all emphasis mine)

Paul, when praying for the Thessalonians, was praying that their faith would be strengthened (that's why he wanted to come, to supply what was lacking in their faith), that their love would increase, that their hearts would be steadfast to resist temptation due to a purifying hope.

Macarthur......

Faith is the ability to trust the truth...Now if I'm going to trust the truth, I have to...know the truth. And to bring someone's faith to perfection, completeness, wholeness, is not a mystical call, it's not a mystical thing. It doesn't involve calling people to a higher trust. It isn't believe harder...I've heard people say that...you need to believe harder, you're not believing hard enough. You have to believe more. You need to...believe with more strength....What do you mean believe harder? I either believe or I don't believe. I can't believe harder. Yet you hear that.

No. That's not the idea. If I'm going to perfect your faith and if faith is trusting in the truth, then I need to expand your comprehension of....the truth. And as I expand your comprehension of the truth, your faith is enlarged because now you can live your life in trust on a larger foundation of truth......

If we are to live by faith and faith means believing God, the more I know about God the more I believe, right? The more I believe the more I have capacity to live on that belief....

that's the only way that I can enlarge your faith is to enlarge what you can believe in, not the degree to which you can believe. You either believe or you don't believe. And when the man said, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief," he wasn't saying, "Help me believe harder," he was saying, "Help me know what I don't know, help me know more so I can believe. I believe what I know but I can't believe what I don't know, so give me the rest." That's why the mandate of the church is to feed the Word of God to people so you enlarge the foundation of their faith. Greater and greater trust in the Lord is dependent on greater and greater understanding of who he is. His Word.

And then what happens is as you get this larger and larger base of truth, God begins to show you in your life that truth at work. And as you combine the biblical confidence with the personal experience of God working through that truth, then your faith really grows. For example, the Bible says, "God answers prayer." I believe it. Add to that the fact that I prayed and God answered it and I really believe it, right? So my experience of God at work in my life, consistent with the revelation of God as a foundation is what makes my faith grow. Faith lays hold of the truth of God, of Christ and builds its life on it.

So Paul wanted to perfect their faith with the Word of God. That's why he wants to be there....

How do I know if my faith is growing? Let me give you a little list of things, just quickly. Number one, my knowledge of the Word of God is growing...my knowledge of the Word of God is growing and if it is, my faith is growing. Two, I find a greater confidence in God. Three, I have a higher trust in His sovereignty. Four, there is a definite increase in obedience. As I apprehend more truth and trust more truth, I live more truth...that's obedience. Here's another one, I find joy in my trials. What does that mean? That means I have a large faith. Why? See, I know that my trial produces perfection. Since I trust that truth, I have the faith to go through that trial joyously, right? See, as I know the truth and trust the truth, I find a growing faith. Those are the things that indicate your faith is growing. You know more of the Word. You have a greater confidence in God. You trust in His sovereignty. There's an increase in obedience. You have joy in your trials....

Love then becomes the evidence of growing faith. The more I trust God, the more God is the object of my life, the more I walk by faith and not by sight, the more I am then demonstrating my love for God, the more I am demonstrating love for God, the more that love overflows to those around me. It all begins with truth. Faith embraces that truth. It moves the limits of that truth and it embraces that truth and then as I know more about God my Savior, more about Jesus my Lord, as I trust Him more and as I love Him more, the spill over of that extends to others. As I grow in my faith I learn to trust God more perfectly. I learn to love Him more perfectly. And my heart moves toward Him. And as my love for God grows, my love for everybody else grows too. I become rooted and grounded in love. I experience its breath and length and height and depth and the very love of Christ that passes knowledge fills me with the fullness of God by which I love others....

You start with truth, it moves to faith, it moves to love, it moves to hope. If your foundation of truth is broad and your faith is great and your love is increasing and abounding... in order that the Lord may establish your hearts.....he wants to establish your hearts because it's the heart that is the seat of motive, purpose, desire, thought. Everything comes out of the heart. It's not what goes in a man that defiles him, it's what comes out of him, out of his heart. And the reason the Lord wants you to have a strong foundation of faith and love is so you have a firm, strong, immovable, resolute heart that can stand against temptation....so that you're unblamable in holiness...

If I really know some day I'm going to face God and the day I'm going to face God is going to be the day of the coming of Jesus when He comes to reward His people...if there's coming a time when Jesus returns for us to take us to himself, and at that time we will be called to the judgment seat of Christ, according to 2 Corinthians 5, and there at the judgment seat of Christ our works will be scrutinized by the judge, then if I know that's coming that ought to motivate me now, right? So that becomes a purifying hope....

The goal is not lowered because of our inability.

Here's a neat thing MacArthur points out. Is Paul's prayer answered? He prayed for their faith and love to increase, right? Well, a few months later he wrote them again, and this is what he said....

2 Thessalonians 1:3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.

Isn't that awesome?!

I'd like to end with MacArthur's prayer from his sermon, and this is my prayer for you and I, for all participants and readers of this blog....

Our dear Father, indeed we do pray for this [group of believers] even as Paul prayed, that they may complete what is lacking in their faith, that they may increase and abound in love for one another, that they may have a purifying hope, anticipating that they shall stand before God at the coming of the Lord Jesus and along with all the saints may they long to be unblamable in holiness at that event. Father, this I pray knowing full well that the power resides with You, thanking You for the model of the Apostle Paul, a testimony of those to whom he ministered. And, Father, believing that even as You granted the answer to his prayer, even enlarging the faith of those believers, enlarging their love and purifying them through hope, that You would do the same for us. And we'll thank You in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Tomorrow's passage: Psalm 116-118, 1 Thessalonians 4