Introduction:
Three Things to Pray For While We Wait for Jesus (2 Thessalonians 3:1-5):
- The
Message to go out. (2 Thes 3:1)
- The Word of God to Advance .
Psalm 147:15 - He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.
- The Word of God to be Accepted .
- The Word of God to Advance .
- The Messengers to be protected . (2 Thes 3:2-3)
- Protection from evil Men .
- Protection from the evil One .
- The Motivation to come from the Lord (2 Thes 3:4-5)
- God's Love .
John 14:15 - If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
- Christ's Steadfastness .
Deut 6:24 - And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always...
1 Peter 2:23 - When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
- God's Love .
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:40-00:44
That's why it's so appropriate for us to walk through this particular passage of Scripture.
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We've seen already that payback is coming.
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We've seen the day of the Lord is coming.
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We see the Antichrist is coming.
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This is all ahead, and it is going to happen exactly as the Lord told us it was going to happen.
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So, what do we do?
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Like, why do we wait?
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In the meantime, we pray.
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We're going to talk about prayer today.
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And right now some of you are like, "Awesome!
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This is like once a quarter Pastor Jeff gets up and I feel really bad about my prayer life, right?
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He's going to lay on the guilt trip, pack your bags, here we go." No.
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No, we're not going to do that.
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I just want us to, for a moment, just take a giant step back.
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And I just want us to think about, and we believe God's Word, right?
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Right? Okay, don't leave me up here. We believe God's Word, right?
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Therefore, the truth is, prayer is having audience with God.
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The Bible says He moves when we pray, and we know that it matters.
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And along with the Word of God, it's the most important resource that we have.
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And prayer is actually very easy to do, right?
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We're just simply talking to God.
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And anyone of any age can do that.
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living in any culture, with any IQ, whatever education background you have, through Jesus Christ we have access to the throne of God.
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Prayer is so easy to do.
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So let me ask you, why is it so hard to do?
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I think a problem for a lot of Christians is this.
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Permission to speak freely?
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Thank you.
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It's boring.
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It's boring.
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Now, the concept certainly isn't, and God absolutely isn't, but I think a lot of Christians have made prayer boring.
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That's what we've made it.
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You're like, "How did that happen?" It's because we pray the same old things about the same old things.
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That's how that happens.
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Right?
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We get down on our knees.
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You know, I print out the prayer list here that you guys submit.
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I print it out, get on my face every week, lifting these up before the Lord.
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And truthfully, we can make that a boring activity.
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go through the list. Okay God, this person's sick. I don't know this person, but heal them. Next. All right, this lady's sick. I kind of know her. Heal her. Next. Boring!
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And you pray like that five minutes seems like an eternity. Like you thought worship was preparing us for eternity. Praying like this prepares you for eternity. Because it feels like it and then our minds start to wander it's hard to focus and then we feel like a second-rate Christian and we're like man you know there must be something wrong with me because I should enjoy this and I'm and I'm not Well, you realize that can all change for you today. Did I just hear somebody say "yay"? I think we should all do that. You ready? I'm gonna give you another run at that, and I want to hear you all do that. Okay, rewind. That can all change for you today.
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I love this church. You can totally revitalize, re-energize, and enjoy your prayer life like never before, and it's just by doing one simple thing.
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It's praying God's Word back to him. When you do that, you will find you will pray in certain ways that you've never thought of praying in your life.
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And you'll find that you can't get enough of it.
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And it's so easy to do.
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You just take a passage, hint, Psalms are easiest because though inspired by God, they are directed to God.
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But you get on your face with God's word in front of you, and you read a verse or two, and you pray that back to God, right?
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It's easy.
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And it makes prayer so much more robust and enjoyable.
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And it feels like a two-way conversation because you have God speaking to you through His Word and His Spirit at work in the Word, and you're speaking back to God.
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It's easy.
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Just pick a passage.
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How about the 23rd Psalm?
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We know that one, right?
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You're on your face, and you're like, "Okay, I'm praying this to God today.
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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
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God, I thank You that You're my shepherd because I need one.
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I would be so lost without You, God, I need your guidance today.
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Please guide me like the stupid sheep that I can be.
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God, I need you.
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I shall not want.
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God, thank you for all of the provisions you made.
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And sometimes I'm guilty of not being thankful, but I look and see that you've given me every single thing that I need.
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And then you pray that for a while, and then you move on to the next verse.
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Read it out loud, pray it back to God, and you're going to find an experience in praying.
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that maybe you've never had before.
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I'm going to give you a chance to try it here in a few minutes, because this is what we are called to do while we wait on the return of the Lord.
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So on your outline, in the meantime, three things to pray for while we wait for Jesus.
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Are you ready?
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2 Thessalonians, what chapter are we in?
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Great, okay.
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Thank you.
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That's somebody paying attention.
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It says, "Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you." Stop there.
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Three things to pray for while we wait for Jesus.
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The first, we pray for the message to go out.
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We pray for the message to go out.
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He says in verse 1, I love this, he says, "Finally, brothers, but do you notice there's still a lot of stuff after that?
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I'm going to let you in on a trade secret.
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That's a preacher trick." Oh, come on, we all do it.
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You know why, right?
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Because you're like, "How much longer is this sermon?" And you're like, "Finally!" And you're like, "Oh, I'm going to perk up, and I'm going to catch the last part of this really good." But we're far from done when we say finally.
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And you're like, "Pastor Jeff, that's dirty." I'm like, "It's in the Bible.
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"He did it right here, right?" What he means, getting inside, what he means is, "I've been doing all this "end times teaching." He goes, "Okay, I'm done with that.
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"But before I sign off here, "I gotta give you a couple words of instruction." And one of them we saw last week, he said, "Stand firm, we talked about that." The second thing he tells us to do, knowing Jesus is coming soon, he goes, "Here's what you need to do while you wait." He says, "Pray for us." Pray for us, literally in the Greek, what he's saying is, "Continually surround us with prayer." You're like, "Well, pray for you how?" Well, there's two things, jot these down.
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First of all, he says, "Pray that the Word of God," I'm sorry, "Pray the Word of God to advance." The Word of God to advance.
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Did you see that?
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He says, "Pray for us that the Word of God may speed ahead." Literally, that is run.
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He goes, "Pray for us that the Word of God may put on track shoes and take off running." It's a concept straight from the Old Testament.
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Psalm 147.15 says, "He sends out his command to the earth.
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His word runs swiftly." And Paul says, "Hey, church, you need to pray for this." And notice the prayer is focused first for the message, because that's what changes people.
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He's like, "Yeah, pray for us." Like, for what though?
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That the word gets out.
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And understand, whether it's me standing here, or Alex here in a couple of weeks, or whoever is standing here, it's not about us.
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It's about the Word of God.
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I said one time, "You know, I'm really nothing more than a glorified microphone." And somebody said, "Glorified?" They're right.
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They're right.
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I accepted that rebuke.
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But he says, pray that the word gets out, because that's what changes people.
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The gospel changes people.
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People who realize, maybe there's somebody here who needs to realize, that by nature, I am a rebellious, wayward sinner.
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I've turned my back on God.
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I know that I've done so much wrong before God and before other people.
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I know I'm guilty of sin.
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And I know I deserve to be punished for that.
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And the message is that God loves you so much that He sent His Son to die in your place.
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He took all of your sin on Himself.
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And when Jesus Christ was on the cross, He was bearing God's wrath for your sin and for my sin.
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So that God could say, "You are forgiven because of what my Son did for you." The message is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead to give us the promise of eternal life.
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That's the gospel.
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And Paul says, "Pray that that gets out." Secondly, letter B, not just pray the Word of God to advance, but pray the Word of God to be accepted.
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Did you see that?
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He said, "May speed ahead and be honored as happened among you." He says, "So let the Word of God be preached, "let the Word of God be preached accurately "and compellingly, "and let the Word of God be preached accurately "and compellingly to people who will receive it." All right, finally, that was to get you to perk up.
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Because I'm about to say something that I've shared different times over the years, and every single time I share this, it gets a negative reaction from one or two people.
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So I want you to hear me out.
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As we're talking about prayer.
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Notice he says here, "Pray for us." Now obviously the context here is evangelism.
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Evangelistic prayers in the Bible are always primarily directed at God's people.
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Hear me.
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Because somebody is going to walk away from this and say, "Pastor Jeff says you shouldn't pray for lost people." I'm not saying that.
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You can pray for lost people if you want.
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Here's what I am saying.
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That is not the pattern of the New Testament.
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You don't read in the New Testament from anybody, Jesus, or Paul, or John, or Peter, any of them, say, "Hey, pray that the lost get saved." Every time you see evangelistic prayers, the primary focus is always, "Hey, pray for us to be able to reach the lost." prayers are focused. And listen, it's okay if you want to pray for your unsaved neighbor, you should. But you come to me and say, "Jeff, I want you to pray for my neighbor Joe because he's lost and I want you to pray that he gets saved." My response is, "Well, how does somebody get saved? How does somebody get saved? It's and receiving Jesus Christ, right?
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So you have to know, and I have the list right here.
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And people that are like, I have people in my life that need to know the Lord, and that is so encouraging to me to see these people lifted up in prayer, but I want you to know something.
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When I pray for these people, I'm praying for you.
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I'm saying, God, give the requester opportunity to share the gospel with these lost people that they want to know Jesus Christ, because that's how somebody gets saved.
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When you're like, "Pray my neighbor gets saved," I doubt they're gonna be sitting on their couch and all of a sudden just be like, "Wow, for no reason whatsoever, I realize I'm a sinner in need of the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ." They're going to realize that when you share the gospel with them.
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You know, Jesus modeled this, right?
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Matthew 9, Jesus saw the crowds coming, the Bible says He had compassion on them.
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And what did Jesus say?
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Did He turn to His disciples and say, "Hey, see all those lost people?
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Pray that they get saved." Is that what He said?
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He said, "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to do what?
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Send forth workers into the field." You need to pray for us, church, in this way.
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Whether it's the person up here preaching, or teaching the kids back there, or leading a small group, or whatever ministry.
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This is how our prayer should be focused.
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Pray for the person that's going to be delivering the message.
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Did you get all that? Because I can run through it again.
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You got it? Alright.
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Did I say it's wrong to pray for the lost?
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No, absolutely you can't.
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I'm saying, biblically, we pray for those that are delivering the message to reach the lost.
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But Paul, despite everything he accomplished, and our church went through the book of Acts, what was that Mark, like three years we went through the book of Acts, something like that, he accomplished a lot.
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But here you have to notice that Paul, more than anyone recognized that he needed prayer.
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He knew if something was going to advance the kingdom of God, it had to transcend him.
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And it's the same for this church, because this church has a ridiculous amount of talent and creativity.
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This church has the most amazing Christians in the Pittsburgh area, dare I say Pennsylvania, maybe the world.
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And that is awesome, but there's a danger that comes with that kind of talent and creativity.
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And it becomes easy for us to trust our own resources.
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And start thinking that we don't need God's resources.
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Like, hey, we sounded pretty good today.
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The sermon was somewhat intelligible.
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We didn't lose any of the kids in children's ministry.
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But natural ability means nothing apart from God's power.
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That's why Paul says, hey, before I sign off here, you gotta pray for us.
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because we are working on getting the gospel out.
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Let it run and let it be honored and pray for us so that that would happen.
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Number two, pray that the messengers would be protected.
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Three things to pray for while we wait for Jesus, the messengers to be protected.
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Look at verse two.
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First of all, he says we want to pray for protection from evil men, verse 2.
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He says, "And that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith." Wicked and evil.
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Wicked means capable of harm.
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It's just the kind of person whose life's ambition is to inflict harm on other people in some way.
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You know people like that.
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Evil people.
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That's wicked.
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Evil speaks to those who corrupt others.
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They're just a nasty influence and they try to get other people on board with their nastiness.
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Paul says, "Hey, we need to live literally rescued from those who would harm us." And I need you to pray that we would be protected from such people.
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That last phrase he says, "For not all have faith." Have you noticed that?
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Have you noticed that?
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Not everyone has faith?
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Like, yeah, that seems kind of obvious.
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Not everyone has a saving and growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
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I have noticed that.
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But I've been thinking a lot about that this week.
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He says, "For not all have faith." And I have to wonder, what Paul was talking about when he mentions the wicked and evil men.
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Is he talking about problems from within the church?
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I mean, it's obviously those outside the church don't have faith.
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I just have to wonder, is he saying that there's people in the church that are causing problems?
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Like, by the way, not everybody sitting in church is a Christian.
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Is that what he's saying?
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I don't know.
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But take it from someone who's been in ministry for over two and a half decades.
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The worst problems, and the hardest issues, and the most destruction does not come from the people on the outside of the church.
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Just without exception, it comes from the people from within the flock.
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The most heartbreaking and discouraging and stressful pain has been inflicted by those that we've loved, those that we've poured into, those that we've encouraged.
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You know, all the little Judases that were with us for a while, but were never really with us.
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That's what hurts, right?
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Aaron can tell you.
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Like, yeah, people outside the church, any problems we've had with them, that doesn't bother me for a second.
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Like you know what?
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Lost people act like lost people, right?
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People who don't know Jesus act like people who don't know Jesus.
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That doesn't bother me.
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But Aaron can also tell you how many sleepless nights I've had from the pain that's come from somebody in the flock. I kind of lean towards, I think that's what he was talking about there. And I know that many people sitting here and watching this stream, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
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He says, "We're not all have faith." Look at verse 3.
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He says, "But the Lord is faithful." Don't you love that contrast?
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He's like, "Not all have faith, but God is faithful." You don't have to worry about Him.
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He always delivers.
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He's always faithful despite evil men and despite Satan's campaign against God's people.
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Look he goes on to say, "He will establish you and guard you against the evil one." That leads to letter B under number 2, "Protection from the evil one." Because not all of the attacks on the church are physical.
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In fact, I would clarify that by saying, I think relatively few attacks on the church or physical.
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The overwhelming majority of attacks on the church are going to be spiritual from the evil one.
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Accusations, discouragement, those kinds of things.
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And he says, "God is faithful to establish you and to guard you against Satan." Now look, Satan is powerful.
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There's no question about that.
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Let's not give Satan too much credit.
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Because some Christians are sort of preoccupied, I think sometimes more with the devil than they are with the Lord.
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Like, "Oh, the devil's doing this, and the devil's doing that, and my life's hard because the devil did this, and the devil made me do that, and the devil this, and the devil that." And can I just give you a general reminder from the book of Job?
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Satan doesn't do a thing apart from God's permission.
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And when you embrace that truth, that gives you so much trust and confidence and joy.
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He's doing nothing unless God greenlights it.
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And if God says, "No, I'm not going to allow that," it's not going to happen.
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Because Satan too is under the sovereign of the universe.
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And the way that we appropriate that trust and that confidence and that joy and knowing that God is sovereign even over the evil one, you know the way we appropriate that?
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It's through prayer.
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That's why one person said one time, "The one who kneels before God can stand before anything." Right?
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So we not only pray for the message, we pray for God to protect the messenger to keep the Message going.
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So in the meantime, three things to pray for while we wait for Jesus.
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Number three, finally, the motivation to come from the Lord.
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Here's something you need to pray for. You need to pray for the motivation to come from the Lord.
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You're like, "Motivation for what?" Look at verse 4.
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He says, "And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command." Talking about obedience, Paul says, "I am confident in your obedience." And obedience to the Lord, to the Word of God, is the mark of every true, sincere follower of Jesus.
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And again, notice, he doesn't simply say, "Hey church, I'm praying that you obey." He says, "I know that you will." How do you know? Look at verse 5.
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He says, "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." This is what we should be praying for as a church.
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That the Lord would direct our hearts.
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Literally in the Greek, it means "straight." In other words, "May the Lord put a direct path straight to the heart of God." That's what he's praying for the church.
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You're like, "Well, what does that have to do with obedience?" You see, that's what has to motivate our obedience.
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I shouldn't have to threaten you to obey God.
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I shouldn't have to bribe you to obey God.
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I shouldn't heaven help me - I shouldn't put some legalistic construct together to try to guilt you into obeying God.
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None of those things are right motivations.
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There is only one right motivation to obey God.
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And it's going directly straight to the heart of God.
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In other words, I'm praying that you, Harvest Bible Chapel, are motivated to obey God, because you're driven to His heart.
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And He highlights two aspects of that.
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First of all, God's love.
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God's love.
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John 14, 15, Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." opposites true as well. If you don't love me you won't keep my commandments, right?
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But that statement isn't some kind of a deal being struck, right? Where Jesus is like, "If you obey me and I'll evaluate your obedience and then I will determine if I think whether or not you love me." That's not what I don't think that's what that means at all. Nor is it a checklist where you just sort of take his self-evaluation and say, "Well, okay, I did this and I did this and I did this and I did this.
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That must mean I love God." I don't think it's just simply that.
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I think Jesus' statement, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," I think that's a cause and effect statement.
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In other words, the person who loves Jesus will obey Him.
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It speaks to motivation.
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I follow Jesus because I love Him.
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Straight to the heart of God.
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Second thing here is that needs to motivate our obedience is Christ's steadfastness.
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Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, steadfastness, you get that, right?
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Like patience, endurance, that kind of thing, right?
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Like, what does that have to do with obedience?
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How can being driven to the heart of the steadfastness of Christ motivate obedience?
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I'll tell you why.
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It's because obedience is really easy in the short term.
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It is.
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But when life gets hard, and the days are long, and it doesn't seem that relief is coming, it's easy to get discouraged.
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And in those moments it's easy to let our love for Christ grow cold.
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And we're not as fired up to follow Him as we once were.
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Christ's steadfastness because obedience demonstrates trust.
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It's a hard issue.
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You know, when God gave the law, I think sometimes when we look at the Old Testament law, living on this side of the cross in the empty tomb, and you know, living on the edge of the apocalypse, sometimes I think we look back at the Old Testament and simply look at it as all those legalistic rules and regulations and like it was red tape and hoops to jump through for Israel.
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But Moses said something very interesting in Deuteronomy 6.
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He said, "And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God." Look at this last phrase. "For our good always." Why did God give His law?
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To see what hoops He could get Israel to jump through? No. He said He gave us this law for our good. God doesn't personally benefit from it. God doesn't become more God or less God based on our obedience or disobedience. He said the Word of God was given because God loves me and He cares about me. So I obey God not only because He is God and I am not, which would be more than enough motivation for me to obey God, but I obey because He has my best interests in mind.
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Are you with me?
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And you see Christ's steadfastness, that Paul says, "May God drive you straight to that." Why?
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Because of this, Christ's steadfastness came from his trust in and obedience to the Father.
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There wasn't a person that walked this planet that had more steadfastness than Jesus, more or endurance, because there was nobody that had more trust in the Father.
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That's why Peter says in 1 Peter 2.23, it says, when He, Jesus, was reviled, He did not revile in return.
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When He suffered, He did not threaten.
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How did He do that?
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How did Jesus endure all that?
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Here it is.
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But continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly.
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Did you see that?
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Christ was like, "I trust my Father.
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Whatever happens, I trust Him.
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That's what led to His obedience.
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That's what caused the steadfastness that Paul is praying that we are driven to.
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Like Christ, we are motivated to obey God because we trust God, even in the hardest times.
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at the beginning I said you want to revitalize your prayer life, pray God's Word.
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And this is plug and play right here.
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He tells you exactly the things that the church should be praying for.
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Right?
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And you're like, "Good to know." Thank you.
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Thank you Jeff for informing us.
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"I will pray about these things this week." Is that what we say at this church?
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"I will pray about these things this week." Is that what we say?
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Oh, come on.
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What do we say?
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Let's pray right now.
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So how can we look at what God's Word has to say the church should be praying for and leave this place without praying for these things as a church?
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Doesn't that sound like a good idea?
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It sounds like a good idea to me.
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So here's what I want you to do.
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I want you to stand up and I want you to get into prayer groups.
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Just get a couple of people nearby and listen.
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We say this all the time.
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This is absolutely true.
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If you prefer to stand and pray by yourself, this is a no judgment zone.
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You can do that if that's what you choose, but this is a safe place and you're surrounded by people here who love you and who want to seek the Lord with you.
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So I want you to stand up, get a couple of people nearby.
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Usually when we do this, we go around and take prayer requests.
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We're not going to do that this time.
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You're going to get in your prayer groups and I'm going to give you each of these things that we talked about.
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And I want somebody from your group to lift that up before the Lord for just a minute or two, and then I'll announce the next one.
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And we're going to laser focus as a church, praying for these things.
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All right?
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So go ahead, get in your prayer groups.
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And Darren's going to play.
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I will give you your instructions in a minute.
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Alright, I'm going to announce these.
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I want somebody in your group to lift this up before the Lord.
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The first thing that Paul said we need to pray for is for the message to go out.
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So I want somebody in your group to pray that the Word of God would advance from Harvest Bible Chapel with our ministry here, in our community, in our mission work, all over northern Thailand and beyond.
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that the Word of God would advance.
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Let's pray for the Word of God to be accepted.
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He says that the Word would be honored.
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It needs to be honored first of all by the person that's preaching it.
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And pray that it would be honored by those who are going to hear it.
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Let the Word of God be honored.
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Please, church, let's pray that the Word of God be honored.
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So church, we not only pray for the message to go out.
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Let's take a couple of minutes and pray for the messengers to be protected.
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First of all, he said pray for protection from evil men.
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Pray that we would be protected from wicked and evil men.
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Somebody in your group, pray for protection from the evil one.
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Satan is under the sovereignty of God.
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He is prowling around like a lion, but he does nothing apart from God's permission.
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We see very clearly in his word, we are called to pray for protection.
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Deliver us from the evil one, Jesus taught us to pray.
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that this church would be protected from the evil one.
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Church, let's pray for our hearts.
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Yes, we are called to obey.
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But our motivation to obey isn't legalistic.
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God doesn't love us unless we do everything He says or anything like that.
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That's not it at all.
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Our motivation needs to be love.
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So pray that our hearts would be motivated to honor Christ and His Word because of His love for us and as a result, our love for Him.
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Let's pray.
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And finally, let's pray that our motivation would come by being driven to the steadfastness of Christ.
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We have the example of Jesus, who entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.
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That we are able to endure all of these things that are happening in the world as we're living on the edge of the apocalypse.
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We are able to endure because we have the example of Jesus Christ, and we have the power of Jesus Christ.
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Pray that we are driven to the steadfastness of Christ to motivate our obedience.
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(P)
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Our Father in Heaven, as we close this particular time of prayer, we thank You for the privilege that You've given us to cry out to You.
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Father, we pray Your message would go out.
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You would use this church however you see fit to get your message out.
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Father, I pray that we would be protected, every servant of Christ in this church serving in any capacity.
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Father, please protect us.
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Father, please keep us rightly motivated.
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Please, Father, keep us rightly motivated that you would direct us straight to you.
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Our hearts to your heart, so that we would know the love of God, we would know the steadfastness of Christ, that our worship would be from our hearts, our prayers would be from our Our service would be from our hearts.
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The way we love one another would be from our hearts.
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The way we reach out to this community from our hearts.
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The way we give to the work of the ministry from our hearts.
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Father, let us be rightly motivated in everything we do as a church from our hearts.
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And all praise and glory and honor and power be unto your name forever and ever.
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And all of God's people said, "Amen." Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What are some reasons you think many Christians struggle with consistent prayer? What one piece of advice would you give someone who struggles with consistent prayer?
Why are New Testament evangelistic prayers (see 2 Thes 3:1) directed at those who are bringing the Word, instead of those who need saved? How should this shape the way we pray?
What are specific ways “wicked and evil men” (see 2 Thes 3:2) inflict harm on those in the church? How does God “deliver” (ie, rescue) us from them?
Breakout
Pray for some of the things this passage calls us to pray for.