We Thank God For You - 1 Thessalonians Series

 

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.

Paul, Silas and Timothy formed a church planting team that ministered in the Roman province of Macedonia. Macedonia is the northern part of the Greek peninsula in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea in what is now northern Greece.  This team of three brothers in Christ, led by the Apostle Paul, wrote a letter to the congregation in Thessalonica a few months after they started the church.  Many people study this letter and Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians because they want to understand more about the second coming of Christ. Paul indeed talks about Jesus’ return in these letters. But these letters also show us what a good relationship between a church planter and a healthy church looks like.

As a village church planter, you are devoting your time and energy to start new churches that are healthy. It is not easy to start a church. And it’s certainly not easy to develop a healthy church. But with God’s help you can do it. Healthy churches obey Jesus.  Healthy churches don’t just say “Jesus is Lord.” They intentionally follow his commandments. Healthy churches are safe churches.  The members of healthy churches walk in the light as Jesus is in the light. In this way, the members have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses them from all sin.  Over the next few months most Multiply Podcasts will be devoted to finding encouragement in Paul, Silas and Timothy’s relationship with the Thessalonian church. So, let’s get started. Let’s learn together from the example of these three great church planters.

Paul, Silas and Timothy were always thinking about their brothers and sisters in Christ who formed the church at Thessalonica. How could they forget them? These men and women, boys and girls had become very dear to the church planters.  They loved them so much! Paul, Silas and Timothy devoted themselves to prayer.  And when they prayed, they remembered the Thessalonian believers. Again and again as they prayed, they thanked God for the Thessalonian Christians.  Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 1:2, “We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.” 

This church planting team’s example is a good one for us all.  So often when we pray for others, we pray that God will meet their needs.  We pray out of a sense of compassion and ask God to take care of our brothers and sisters.  This is a good way to pray.  But Paul and his team show us a way to pray that we often forget. They thanked God for new believers.  They thanked God for new members of the family of God. They continually thanked the Lord for the Thessalonians.

For Paul, Silas and Timothy, people were a blessing, not a set of problems to be solved. For those guys, people were a gift, a gift from God.  So they thanked God for the new converts He had given them.  They thanked God for the new family members who blessed them.  Paul says, “We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.” 

How about you? You are a village church planter.  How often do you thank God for the new believers God has given you? Let me encourage you to follow Paul’s example.  Take time in prayer today to name the people in your church, one by one. As you name them, thank God for each one, by name.  As you pray and remember each one, let God fill you with joy and peace.

How I thank God for you.  You are engaged in a good work and for that I rejoice.

This has been “Multiply.” And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?

 

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