The Sent Ones (1 Thessalonians)

I especially have missions on my mind. My sister-in-love, Kim, leaves her mission today to come home for yet another ear surgery. The pull to stay behind and ignore what her body needs tugs hard, but the need to come back is immediate and necessary, already having been delayed because of the spike in COVID cases the past few months. This medical need takes her from the place she wants to be, serving, ministering, sharing, building, and it is hard. 

As I read preparing for a WMU devotional tonight, this is on my mind, and it intersects with my daily reading in Thessalonians over the past few days. When God's people spend time with Him in His word, He is always good to bring connection and relevance to our lives through it, and Hebrews 4:12 speaks to this: “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (NASB). This is good.

One of our projects this year for WMU has been adopting missionaries to pray for specifically and to encourage, so I have particular missionaries on my mind. They too left their country to come to North America and plant churches, to do missions here. The need for missionaries is great, even here where we have thought of ourselves as the senders. There is a harvest waiting in so many places, and being able to stay in one place for very long is a luxury that they do not always have. This moving about in missions is necessary.

As I read Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, I think of Kim leaving her people behind (for they are truly her heart) for a time, not knowing for sure when her health will allow her to return and minister to them, helping them to grow in Christ and helping them make new converts. Missionaries like Paul and Kim and the ones we are praying for are “approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel,” and they speak not to please men but to please God who tests their hearts (1 Thes. 2: 4). These sent ones go to speak the word men and women and children need to hear in order to draw near to God through Christ, to those whom God has elected to hear through the power of the Holy Spirit working in them (1 Thes. 1:4-5), and it is our privilege to support them with prayer.

In 1 Thessalonians, the reader can hear Paul’s longing to be with these whom he’s labored for and with for God’s glory (1 Thes. 3:5), and Paul’s longing is recognized in his sending of someone he needs and values as he works elsewhere spreading the news of God’s great work in Christ to others. In sending Timothy to them, Paul is able to stay connected, to know that if he cannot be there, someone he loves and trusts is with them watching over them in his absence, helping them to grow. Timothy’s good report brings him peace, comforts him, reassures him that the work he is doing, the things he is suffering for the name of Jesus, the labor he has invested, none of it is or has been in vain. The good report Timothy brings causes a sigh of relief, an expression of thanks that is ongoing, a joyful reinvigoration to continue the work regardless of the resistance of the one who tries to hinder (1 Thes. 2:18). 

I cannot even begin to imagine what Paul must have suffered in order to learn contentment (Phil. 4:11) or what he endured to be able to write “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7, NASB). We in our selfishness and our pampered lives try to apply this verse and often fail. We have no idea. But these believers! They were as anointing oil on Paul's head, lifting his spirit, encouraging him, causing him to give thanks for them all at all times (1 Thes. 1:1). A missionary's report is not glory for his work but rejoicing over the things God is doing in that place. It is to enlighten, encourage, offer hope, and encourage us to continue laboring in prayer alongside them even when we cannot be with them.

So as I read and study pondering how to pray for the missionaries in my life, for those who God has sent out and intersected in some way with me that I may pray for them, I gleaned this today from Paul’s writing in this letter. I am praying that:

1. Their going to the people they are sent to is not in vain (1 Thes. 2:1).
2. Those they are sent to recognize God’s gifting and administration in placing these servants with them (1 Thes. 5:12-13).
3. They would be able to rejoice at all times (1 Thes. 5:16).
4. They would pray without ceasing, giving thanks for everything that God allows in their lives and ministries understanding it is His will in Christ Jesus (1 Thes. 5:17-18).
5. They please God in their walk, walking worthy as examples (1 Thes. 2:12; 3:12; 4:1).
6. They will be hard workers, not glory seekers, that God will give them physical well-being to do His work as well as the will to please Him in all they do (1 Thes. 2:6, 9).
7. They will have sincerity of speech, true love for those they are ministering to, being devout, just, and blameless (1 Thes. 2:5,10).
8. They will be gentle in their witness, even in times of affliction or in hard circumstances as they exhort and comfort and charge those in their watchcare (1 Thes. 2:7-8, 11-12).
9. That those they serve will behave accordingly and in a like-mindedness, not troubling their ministry, and that Satan would not be able to hinder their work in any way (1 Thes. 2:18; 5:12-14).

The important thing is to pray for these and to do so faithfully. This list could be much longer as there is so much to sift through in God’s word and His work in and through Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles, but it is a start, and it is what is on my heart today as I think of Kim leaving her people physically for a time but never leaving with her heart and longing already to get back to them as her plane flies away. I pray these things as I think of the missionaries we are praying for as a church body, as a WMU group. I pray as I think of how to encourage women to pray for those faithfully ministering to a lost and dying world. I pray as I think of how to encourage them to act as the Thessalonians did who received the power of the gospel from Paul in spreading the faith not only in their area but to every place as we “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thes. 1:10). I pray that I too will be faithful in my praying.