1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

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Life Together. We miss it. Restrictions on gatherings have now entered their sixth month with no end in sight. We long to see one another in person rather than in little Zoom boxes. We miss Life Together. We miss seeing one another face-to-face, in the flesh. But families are also finding that they have too much life together. Couples and families are not used to spending so much time together in the same space. They want a break from each other! So, Life Together is invigorating, but Life Together can also be taxing.

Christians are a gathered people: gathered to God in Christ through his Spirit to be his people, to be a new family made up of lots of very different people who were not family before. And we are gathered into local churches which meet together regularly, albeit now virtually. As a gathered community we learn how to live life together in a way that is pleasing to God.

On his second missionary journey, Paul and his traveling companions, Silas and Timothy, crossed over the Aegean Sea into Europe for the first time. They preached the gospel in Philippi, and Thessalonica, and Berea. They couldn’t stay long in each city, only a few weeks, because their preaching about Jesus provoked riots and they had to leave in a hurry. But in each city a new church was formed: new followers of Jesus learning how to be family, learning how to live together in community. Though Paul was quickly physically-distanced from these new communities, he had a long, close attachment to them, especially Philippi and Thessalonica. In our New Testament we have three of his letters to these two churches.

Earlier this year we looked at the first half of Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica. We saw how pleased he was with this young church, how thankful for “your work produced by faith(fulness), your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). Faith, Love and Hope: that’s the title of this series. We saw the depths of Paul’s affection for these young Christians, “as a nursing mother cares for her children…as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging” (2:7, 11-12). He longed to see them again face-to-face, but was prevented from doing so. Instead, he sent Timothy, who returned with a good report. But this only intensified Paul’s longing to see them in person to “supply what is lacking in your faith” (3:10). “What is lacking in your faith”: it’s not that they were lacking in doctrinal understanding. Rather, there was some shortfall in their faithfulness to Jesus their Lord, in how they were living their daily lives, how they were living life together. Paul wanted to make some repairs so that they would be better-equipped for this new life together as the people of God in Thessalonica.

Still unable to visit them, Paul wrote them this letter, probably sending it with Timothy. The last two chapters contain his remedial instruction addressing some areas in which they were falling short in their faithful living. This is what we will look at these next four Sundays. Lest we be too harsh on the Thessalonians, we must remember that this is a very young church, that Paul has started his letter with three chapters of affectionate thanksgiving and praise, and that his instruction is course-correction rather than rebuke. Remember, he is very fond of this church.

We resume Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians at the beginning of chapter 4.

1. A Life Pleasing to God (4:1-2)

As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. (1 Thess 4:1-2 NIV)

These “other matters” to which Paul now turns are the remedial instructions addressing the shortfalls in faithful