I Thessalonians 4:1 Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more
You have probably had a coach or two in your life. Coaches are generally people who push us. They push us ahead. They are usually a good example to us. If you have ever had a coach who was out of shape, it hurt him in coaching you. A coach also knows how to bring you from where you are to where you could be. When you read I Thessalonians, you almost get the impression that the Apostle Paul is a sort of a coach. You find him talking to the Thessalonians saying, “Beseech you,” “Exhort you,” and so on. A coach does not just compare you to someone else. He thinks about what you have, where you are, and where you could be.
A growing Christian is not complacent. Paul says, “I beseech you…I exhort you.” He wants growth and progress. For instance, in I Thessalonians 4:1 Paul says, “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.” He is saying, “You have been walking to please God. Do that more and more.”
He talks about the fact that they are taught of God to love one another. They indeed do that, but they should increase that more and more. In I Thessalonians 3:10 he talks about that which was lacking in their faith and how it needed to be completed and perfected. In verse 12 he says, “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love.” They were loving people perhaps, but they needed to abound in that toward all men even as Paul did toward them. So, a growing Christian by definition is not complacent.
Progress is not merely walking, but walking in the right direction. Paul says in verse 1, “Ye ought to walk and to please God.” That is walking in the right direction. A person who is not walking in the right direction is not progressive or progressing. I am not progressing merely because I am breathing and changing my location. I need to be changing my location in the right direction. So, a growing Christian by definition is not complacent, not self-satisfied. I should be content, but not content in the way that I am satisfied with myself to just plop down on the couch spiritually, mentally, physically, and any other way and let the world pass me by. No, God has much more.
A growing Christians is curious. Any three-year-old in the world is just a bundle of curiosity. My little granddaughter is utterly curious. Everything that comes within fist reach of her goes straight to her mouth. She is gorging her senses because she is curious. The Bible says of some early believers that they “searched the Scriptures daily [to see] whether those things were so.” Many times we are limited by our desire. We don’t really want to know what we could know.
When I was growing up, I would often ask my dad a question and my dad would reply, “Do you really want to know?” Dad is a good explainer and he was going to tell me, but not if I was just making conversation. So many times we claim willful ignorance and claim not to know, but if we let ourselves, we could probably know better than we do. Knowing often has consequences and ramifications we don’t want to face, so we don’t. If you are going to be a growing Christian, be curious.
A growing Christians is teachable and coachable. This was easier when I was twenty than it is now. When I was twenty, I didn’t know anything and I knew that I didn’t, but now that I am older, I am less inclined to listen. That is not good. I need to be teachable to the authority and to good examples.
As to the authority, I Thessalonians 4:9 says that you are “taught of God.” He does that through His word. It is not the culture. I am not to live as the Gentiles who don’t know God. I am to know what God would teach me.
Then, I am to follow good examples. I Thessalonians 3:12 says these people were to love others “even as we do toward you.” “Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ,” Paul says. A growing Christian is not complacent. Be teachable.
A growing Christian should be aware. This morning in the news I read of a retired Olympian who made reference to some profound mistakes in his life and said, “Live and learn.” I don’t know if I agree about where he is in life, but I do agree on living and learning. All of us have made mistakes, but despair lives in those mistakes. Hope learns and looks ahead.
Over and again in I Thessalonians we see that God would our coach if we are coachable. He says, “Abound more and more…perfect that which is lacking in your faith…increase.” In short, there is room for every one of us to be growing into the image of Jesus Christ. A growing Christians is not complacent. He is curious, teachable, and aware. May God help me be those today.