Pray For Us, And We ll Pray For You Message 13 in Getting Ready To Meet Jesus Series (A Study of I & II Thessalonians) II Thessalonians 3:1-5 NKJV

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1 Message for THE LORD S DAY EVENING, April 14, 2013 MESSAGE 13 in Getting Ready To Meet Jesus Series (I & II THESSALONIANS) Christian Hope Church of Christ, Plymouth, North Carolina by Reggie A. Braziel, Minister Pray For Us, And We ll Pray For You Message 13 in Getting Ready To Meet Jesus Series (A Study of I & II Thessalonians) II Thessalonians 3:1-5 NKJV This evening as we resume our study of I & II Thessalonians, I would like to ask you to please open your Bibles to II Thessalonians the third chapter. P R A Y E R 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5 (NKJV) 1 Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, 2 and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith. 3 But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. 4 And we have confidence in the Lord concerning you, both that you do and will do the things we command you. 5 Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. **********************************************************

2 I N T R O D U C T I O N Do you know one of the greatest contributions you and I can make in each other s lives is to pray for one another? -We may NOT be able to change someone s situation. -We may NOT have enough money to lighten someone s financial load. -We may NOT be able to take away the pain or cure the disease or change the test results. -We may NOT be able to take away someone s grief or mend someone s broken relationship or bring someone s loved one back to life. But there is one thing we can always do! WE CAN ALWAYS PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER. This matter of intercessory prayer is what s at the heart of tonight s message. As Paul begins writing this third and final chapter of II Thessalonians he makes a request of the Thessalonians. I. PRAY FOR US (vs. 1,2) 1 Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, 2 and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith. 1. If you will think back to the final paragraph of Paul s first letter to the Thessalonians he made the same request that he s making now: Brethren, pray for us! (I Thess. 5:25)

3 2. Paul and all of his co-laborers in the gospel fully understood that the success of their ministry was entirely dependent upon the prayers of God s people. 3. Paul asked the Thessalonians to pray for two things in particular. Request 1: Pray for us that the WORD of the LORD may run swiftly and be glorified. (v.1) Paul isn t asking the Thessalonians to pray for our programs or pray for our projects. He asks them to pray for our preaching. God can and does work mightily through the preaching of His word, this is why Satan does everything he can to hinder the progress of the gospel. Paul says, Pray that the word of the Lord may run swiftly! Think of a beautiful horse running swiftly through a pasture. Think of a powerful river running swiftly for miles and miles without any obstruction. Think of a running back in football running untouched through the defense all the way to the goal line. Paul said, Pray that the word of the Lord may RUN SWIFTLY! Request 2: Pray that we may be delivered from UNREASONABLE and WICKED men. Satan knows one of the best ways he can hinder the progress of the gospel is to discourage the ministers of the gospel. And Satan knows the best way to discourage a preacher is to put unreasonable and wicked men in his path. Sadly, more times than not these unreasonable and wicked men are on the inside of the Church, not the outside.

4 ILLUSTRATION: Henry Ward Beecher, the famous New England preacher, stepped into the pulpit one Sunday morning and noticed an unmarked envelope lying on the pulpit. He opened it up and on the inside there was a single sheet of paper with the word FOOL written in big, bold letters. Mr. Beecher laughed as he held the sheet of paper up for his congregation to see. He said, I have known many an instance of someone writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name. But this is the first instance I have ever seen where someone signed his name, but forgot to write the letter. (THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HUMOR by Lowell Streiker Copyright 1998 Hendrickson Publishers, INC. Peabody, MA ) 4. Do you know the average stay of a preacher in one Church is 18 months? Do you know 8 out of every 10 young men who graduate from Bible College and go into the preaching ministry will quit the ministry within five years of their graduation? That s an 80% attrition rate; one of the highest of any career a man can go into. Do you know 90% of the men who leave the ministry say their number one reason for quitting was they were discouraged from having to deal with problems and problem people in the Church? And according to Church Mutual Insurance Company, ministers die and go to heaven 20% sooner than the average Church member. 5. Do you understand now why PREACHERS NEED THE PRAYERS OF THEIR CONGREGATION?

5 6. The preacher of God s word has the highest privilege of any man on earth, but it is also the highest responsibility ity. Preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most serious task a man can undertake in this life. 7. The man who preaches God s word has the greatest potential to do good, but he also has the greatest potential to do harm. And therefore the man who preaches will be held to a higher standard of accountability than any other man in the kingdom of heaven. 8. The man who preaches God s word has the responsibility to preach the truth and defend the truth and live the truth regardless of how unpopular it makes him. The man who preaches God s word has the responsibility to preach the whole counsel of God NOT just those parts of the Bible people like to hear. The man who preaches must resist the temptation to add to or subtract from the scriptures. He must resist the temptation to change or alter or water down the word of God just to tickle the ears of man. 9. Brothers and sisters, no man has the power or the strength or the resolve to preach God s word unless he has tremendous prayer support from his congregation!

6 10. I want to share with you a couple of true life stories to illustrate what a difference the prayers of God s people makes in a man s ministry. STORY ONE: DR. WILBUR CHAPMAN As a young minister who had just preached his very first sermon at a Church in Philadelphia, Wilbur Chapman was approached by a man at the door who said to him, You re pretty young to be the minister of this Church. But you preach the Gospel and so I along with my two prayer partners are going to pray that you may have the Holy Spirit s power upon you. Wilbur Chapman would later say, At first I thought the man was just an old crank, but I didn t feel so bad when he told me he was going to pray for me. In time the three praying Church members became ten..the ten became twenty..the twenty became fifty and eventually over 200 people met before every service to pray for Dr. Wilbur Chapman. He said, I went into the pulpit each week knowing that I would have the anointing of God s Spirit upon my preaching in answer to the prayers of my Church members who faithfully prayed for me. What difference, if any, did the prayers of the people make? After just three years as the minister of the Church, Dr. Wilbur Chapman saw over 1,100 people come to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. ************************************************************ STORY TWO: CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON Back in the 1800 s, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was known throughout the world as the Prince of Preachers. Spurgeon was the minister of The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England. This 1800 s Mega-Church packed in 7,000 people at every worship service. One Sunday afternoon, a group of ministers came to Metropolitan Tabernacle to see if they could discover Spurgeon s secret. The minister s found a rather stout man wearing bibbed overalls in one of the hallways of the massive building. They said, Sir, would you kindly show us the power plant of this huge structure? Certainly said the man in the over-alls. And he led them down to the basement of the Church building.

7 As the man opened a door at the end of a hallway in the basement the ministers expected to see a mighty furnace; instead they saw over two hundred men down on their knees praying for the evening worship service which was to take place in just a few short hours. The man in over-alls said, PRAYER, GENTLEMEN. PRAYER IS THE POWER PLANT OF THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE. As the man removed his floppy hat, the ministers then realized the man in over-alls was Charles Spurgeon himself. Charles Haddon Spurgeon knew the key to the success of his preaching and the growth of the Metropolitan Tabernacle was that group of faithful praying men. FOR YOUR INFORMATION Every Lord s day morning and evening, you all see Gary or Raymond seated at the sound system back there. They record each and every sermon on to a CD and store it in our Church library. But let me share something with you that you may not realize, and honestly I didn t realize until just recently. Gary puts the audio as well as the sermon notes of each message preached from this pulpit on our Church website. Our website tracker keeps a record of how many visit our website and download sermons to listen to or read. Would you believe we have had 1,271 hits from people in communist China? Our tracker also shows that people from Canada..Romania..India..Russia.Lithuania the Czech Republic South Korea..Germany..the Philippines and a host of other countries are downloading these gospel messages. Brothers and sisters do you see the tremendous opportunity the Lord has placed before us? I want to issue the same challenge to you that the apostle Paul issued to the Thessalonians: Pray that the word of the LORD may run swiftly and be glorified! Pray for me faithfully ly each and every week. Pray that God s Holy Spirit will be upon me. Pray that I might declare the word of God boldly as I should! Pray that the Holy Spirit will work through the gospel messages that are preached from this pulpit to change the lives of people all across the world.

8 Well after requesting that the Church of Thessalonica pray for him and his fellow preachers of the gospel, Paul lets the Thessalonians know that PRAYER IS A TWO-WAY WAY STREET. He tells them in verses II. We ll PRAY For YOU (vs. 3-5) 3 But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. 4 And we have confidence in the Lord concerning you, both that you do and will do the things we command you. 5 Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. 1. Paul deeply loved the Christians in the Church at Thessalonica. In fact he started out this second letter by reminding them how much he prayed for them. II THESSALONIANS 1:11,12 (NKJV) 11 Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, 12 that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Now as Paul is about to bring this second letter to a close he is letting them know that they need HIS PRAYERS as much as he needs theirs.

9 3. There are three matters in particular that Paul prays for on behalf of the Thessalonian Church. (A) Paul prays for their PROTECTION (v.3) 3 But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the t evil one. Remember the Thessalonians were still relatively young in the faith. They had been Christians just a short time. And just like in the animals kingdom, the young are often the most vulnerable to an attack from a lion. Like a protective father guarding his children, Paul prayed that the Lord who is faithful, would establish them and guard them from Satan s attacks. (B) Secondly, Paul prays for their PERSEVERANCE (v.4) 4 And we have confidence in the Lord concerning you, both that you do and will do the things we command you. Paul knew that in the face of persecution and the uncertainty regarding the coming of Christ that had been stirred up by false teachers that the Thessalonians might grow discouraged and give up. Paul assures the Thessalonians that he and his fellow preachers have the utmost confidence that they will continue steadfastly in the teachings they received. (C) And thirdly, Paul prays for their PURSUIT of the things of God. 5 Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. There is a very real danger that lies within the heart of every Christian and that is the danger of the world s allure. Many have walked away from the faith because they stopped pursuing the things of God and chased after the things of this world. Paul is praying the Thessalonians will continue to pursue the thins of God.

10 4. Earlier in the message I asked you to pray for me. Now I want to assure you that I will pray for you. *You and I have shared many experiences together over the last five years. I ve prayed with a number of you when you were about to go into surgery or when you were bedridden in the hospital or at home. *I ve prayed with some of you after you had been seriously hurt or injured. *I ve prayed with some of you during those dark hours when you had lost a loved one. *And I ve prayed with a number of you when you had doubts and fears over a situation you were in. 5. But I want you to know that my prayers for you extend beyond the physical realm. I also pray for your spiritual growth and maturity. I pray that God will fill you with a hunger for His word. I pray that God will give you the courage to take a stand for him in your home and in your place of work. And I pray that God will help you to persevere in your faith in these difficult times. 6. Pray for me, and I will pray for you! C O N C L U S I O N Early African converts to Christianity were deeply committed to their daily prayer life. Each convert had a separate spot in the thicket where he would go the first thing every morning to pour his heart out to God. Over the course of time the pathway to their places of prayer would become well-worn. As a result, if one of the African believers began to neglect his prayer life it soon became apparent to everyone in the village. And they would lovingly remind the negligent one, Brother, the grass is growing on your prayer path. I leave you with that same question tonight: Brother. Sister is the grass growing on your prayer path?