Sermon

November 30, 2003
Advent 1
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Pastor Joel Zank

Our Advent Prayer

(1 Thessalonians 3:9-13) How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.13 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.

In Christ Jesus who will soon return with power and great glory, dear fellow redeemed,

Ever so quietly the Savior's church slips into the first season of a brand new church year. To my knowledge there are no Advent parades scheduled, nor will Advent fireworks light up the nighttime skies. And yet this season exists for no other purpose then to remind us that we will soon observe the greatest celebration of all times-the triumphant return of Christ.

The word "advent" literally means "arrival." We're awaiting the Savior's arrival. But as he himself reminds us today, our wait may not be all that pleasant. We're going to see and experience some rather strange and unsettling events - the kind that will cause some people to faint from sheer terror. In fact, after using words like anguish, perplexity, and anxiety, Jesus says to us in our Gospel reading, "Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen" (Luke 21:36).

Have you been doing that? Have you been saying your prayers, asking God to see you safely through this world's last days. Or do you wonder how to even word such a prayer? Today the Apostle Paul shows us. By his inspired example we learn exactly how and what to pray as we await our Savior's advent. So let's make Paul's words Our Advent Prayer as we join him in praying, Lord, deepen our faith; and Lord, increase our love.

But first, before we make any requests of our God, it is only right that we should thank him for what he has already done for us. That's what Paul does when he writes, "How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?" (1 Thessalonians 3:9). As Paul thinks about the fellowship he enjoys with the brand new Christians living in Thessalonica, he realizes that he owes God a debt of gratitude that he will never be able to repay. For Paul and his fellow Christians owe God their very lives. We do too don't we? God is our Creator. As the psalmist says, it is God who knit us together in the womb. But God's gift goes far beyond our beating hearts and the breath that fills our lungs. For he has worked in us the miracle of spiritual life-life with him.

This is the miracle Paul had experienced in his own life and was so pleased to witness in the lives of others as often as he preached Christ crucified for sinners. We've experienced and seen the same miracle, and perhaps because we've seen it so often, we began taking it for granted long ago. But how can that happen? Here we are-a gathering of sinners who, because of our sins, were once the living damned. It's horrifying to think about it, but in those days when we were still unbelievers, we were just one fragile heartbeat away from hell. A sudden illness or an untimely accident would have instantly delivered us into the unending misery of our sin's punishment. But there was no such illness or accident. There was only grace-God's undeserved love that kept us alive, sought us out and, then, taught us to believe that Jesus Christ has done away with our eternal misery by suffering in his own body the punishment for sin that should have been ours. How can we thank God enough for the joy that grace has brought to our lives, and keeps bringing to our lives as we witness its power at work in one another?

We will never thank God enough for giving us love that we don't deserve, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. So how can we thank him? As odd as it may seem, God says that we thank him best when we ask for more grace. So we plead in our Advent prayer, "Lord, deepen our faith." This is a prayer for grace. God's gracious gift of faith is what has brought us into a saving relationship with our Risen LORD. God-given faith is the only thing that connects us to the perfect life Christ lived as our substitute. Faith is the only pipeline that keeps the blood of Christ flowing into our lives and covering our many sins. Without faith we are without forgiveness and without heaven.

But why pray for a deeper faith? Is there something wrong with the faith we have now? Was there something wrong with the faith of those Christians living in Thessalonica. Is that why Paul told them, "Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith" (v. 10)? Paul's concern was not that the Christians' faith was something less than saving faith. That need not be our concern either. Jesus has promised, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). Faith, no matter how small, makes all the riches of heaven our very own. But that faith that fuels our spiritual life is constantly being spent. If it is not replenished it grows shallow and finally runs out. The more trials our faith encounters the faster that happens.

This summer we vacationed in the mountains of Colorado and Utah. I'm use to filling up my car with gas and going for more than 300 miles. But during our vacation I nearly ran out of fuel on several occasions because I wasn't paying attention to the fact our car was burning more gasoline at a faster pace on those steep mountain grades. Paul was afraid that the same sort of thing might happen in the faith-life of the Thessalonian Christians. He knew that their faith was constantly being drained by the ridicule and persecution they faced every day.

In our Gospel reading Jesus gives us reasons to have the same concern for our own faith-life. In these last days our faith will fight many up-hill battles. We will see and experience tragedies on this earth and in our lives that may cause us to doubt the very love of God. At the same time we must battle our own sinful nature. Again Jesus says in our Gospel reading: "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap" (Luke 21:34). Our own perverted love for sin will constantly challenge our faith's belief that it's better to have God's forgiveness than sin's pleasure. Our faith is being and will continue to be taxed at an alarming rate. It is growing more shallow more quickly than ever before. That is why we want to pray: Lord, please deepen our faith so that when you return we don't end up trapped in the very hell from which you have saved us.

This is our prayer. Do you believe the Lord wants to answer it by giving us more faith? Without a doubt! So how will he do it? Think of Paul's prayer. Paul wanted to be able to come to the Thessalonians and supply what they were lacking. He wanted to bring them more of the truth of God's love for them in Christ. He wanted to grow them in their knowledge of Scripture. Why? Because as Paul points out in Romans 10:17 "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."

As you and I pray for a deeper faith, in the same breath we are asking God to make us daily students of his Word and frequent partakers of his sacrament, because God has chosen to deepen faith by these and no other means. Not even time spent in prayer deepens faith. In prayer we speak to God. Faith grows only when God is speaking to us. Only time spent in worship, in Bible classes and in our own private study of Scripture puts us in touch with the Gospel's power by which alone the Holy Spirit builds faith. To deny ourselves any of these opportunities is to starve our faith at a time when it is threatened most. We pray, "Don't let that happen, Lord. Move us to study your gospel and through it deepen our faith."

"And Lord, while you're at it, increase our love." That's the second part of our Advent prayer, based again on these words of Paul to the Thessalonians, "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you" (v.12). Notice that Paul doesn't simply demand that the Christians be more loving. That's because the kind of love that pleases God is a always and only a product of the faith God gives us. Faith is born of and clings to God's Word. It is eternally grateful for his saving promises and wants nothing more than to express its thanks through acts of love. Deeper faith produces increased love. And what is love's favorite thing to do? It lives to give itself away to others.

But is our love up to that task? In these last days before the Savior's return we find ourselves with more and more people to care for. First we have each other to love as fellow Christians. In love I need to recognize that the times are getting rougher not just for me, but for you too. Your faith is under attack. You need encouragement. That means that now more than ever I need to show you the love of Jesus. I want to make his love something you can actually see in my face. I want his love to be something you can hear in my voice as I warn you about sin and assure you of God's forgiveness. I want you to experience the power of Christ's love at work in your life through me. And I in turn want to, need to, see and experience Christ's love through you. For though it boggles the mind, Christ has chosen us to be for our spouse, our children, our parents and siblings, to be for each other the faces, the voices, the hands and feet of his love.

And not only for each other, but for everyone else on earth as well. There is not much time left for the people of our world to know Jesus as their Savior from sin before he returns as their Judge. The love of Christ that lives in us compels us to share Jesus with people who are as lost now as we once were. We are their only connection to Christ. Lord, increase our love that it may overflow for each other and for everyone else.

This Advent prayer of ours is short, but it gives us so much to think about. In some ways it seems as though we carry the weight of the world upon our shoulders. We know what needs to be done. We need to be in the Word for ourselves so that it may bring blessing to us and many others. But even as we see this great need we don't appear to be up to the task. Like Paul says in Romans 8, we have the desire to do what is good, but we cannot carry it out.

Paul says this not to offer himself or us an excuse to fail in the future, but rather to remind us that God alone is the source of our strength and encouragement. Any change needed in our life must be worked by God or we cannot and will not change. So before Paul sends us on our way today, he offers one more prayer, the words of which provide the very strength they seek. For in his prayer is found this truth: that when we stand before God's judgment throne at the end of time, our Judge will be none other than Jesus, our Savior whose verdict in our case will be based not our accomplishments but on his own. Our sins will be hidden from his sight, covered by his own blood, and even the poor attempts we made to thank him during our days on earth will be regarded as holy because the Judge will see our love as something perfect, made so by his own righteousness. Dear Christians, may God's Spirit use this powerful truth to 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. Amen.

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