Prayers of a Healthy Church (2 Thessalonians 3:1–5)

I know nobody does, like nobody has cable anymore really.

And nobody does like channel flipping, you know, but channel

surfing. But if you did, you would, you

know, once in a while you will come up, come across a, perhaps

a Christian broadcasting station.

And then they'll have once in a while preachers that are a

little bit different than the way we preach.

They're sometimes called televangelist.

They sometimes fly in personal jets.

And sometimes we call their gospel prosperity gospel.

Basically, be faithful and God will reward you with health and

wealth, right? That's why it's often nicknamed

the health and wealth gospel as well.

So the, the, the really the essence of the teaching is you

give to get, you give God money and God will multiply it and

then give it back to you. And I don't need to explain, you

know in detail why this is wrong.

And you know that's not the gospel, right?

It's the transactional thing. You give so you can get back

that that has nothing to do with grace and mercy.

It is just a system of earned blessings.

Prosperity gospel seems silly to many of us and and I'm sure most

of us would not agree with that type of teaching.

But I would argue despite us rejecting it, if I had a guest

speaker that was give $1000 today and God will give you back

10,000, you know, have faith. If I had a guest speaker like

that, most of you guys would leave and never come back.

So we we reject it. But I could argue that even

though we reject it, we may still practice milder forms of

it. We wouldn't ask God every time

we give offering to the Lord, Lord multiply and give it back

to me. We wouldn't say that, but we, a

lot of us certainly pray for financial stability, promotions,

finding a job. Not that there's anything wrong

with those things. We wouldn't pray.

Prosperity gospel is big on Lord, make me the best version

of me. You know, Lord, I'm going to be

faithful to you. And then Lord, in return,

improve me. Make me the best version that

that is a big part of their teaching.

We may not pray in that way, but we may pray milder forms of it.

Lord, help me achieve this. Help me get better at this.

I'm not saying these things that I just talked about.

The milder forms are necessarily bad.

What I'm saying is if those prayers are the only prayers

that we give to God, I want to argue that, yeah, then our faith

is. Sure, it's not as drastic as

prosperity gospel, but it is still unhealthy faith.

It is a just a milder version of something that is wrong.

What I'm arguing is that unhealthy church only prays for

those things. Lord, help me with this.

Help me with that. So what else would a healthy

church pray for? That's the question we want to

answer today. So what does a healthy church

pray for? What does a healthy church pray

for? We'll be turning to 2nd

Thessalonians, chapter 3. I'll be reading verses 1 and 2

for now, one and two for now. All right, What does the healthy

church pray for? The healthy church prays for

their pastors and missionaries, verses one and two.

In addition, brothers and sisters, pray for us that the

word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored just as

it was with you, verse 2, and that we may be delivered from

wicked and evil people for not all have faith.

So this is Paul, Silas and Timothy asking the church that

they you could leave, leave the verses on asking the church,

right? They're they're the pastors, but

now they're always so they're also missionaries and then

they're asking for prayer. Pray for us.

Any topic that is not related to our health and wealth.

It's probably not pray for much in your personal life or even at

church. So even things like a Lord, my

friend is sick. Help help you know my friend

that is related to health. Asking all you know my my or

let's say our youth groups going to reach.

We pray for protection. Lord, keep the, you know, keep

the driver awake and let the kids be safe.

And that trip, we're praying for health.

Oh, my CG member is unemployed, You know, he or she is looking

for a job. I pray for, you know, my CG

member that is praying for wealth in essence.

So when left to ourselves, the vast majority of the prayer that

that we give to God are somehow related to health and wealth.

And when Paul says pray for us, that is not health or wealth.

We're praying for pastors and missionaries.

And even most of us don't pray for pastors and missionaries.

And even when we do, we pray for their health and wealth.

Lord, we sent Frankie and Lord help, you know, help him get all

his funding. And Lord, you know, be with this

missionary or this pastor Petros in Cambodia, Let him be healthy.

And again, nothing wrong with that, but we just, we don't want

to end there. And Paul gives us an idea what

to pray for. That's why it is essential that

we go to the scriptures to learn how to pray.

Just a couple months ago, we talked about how to pray for

sick people in the book of James.

So now Paul is teaching us, OK, in addition to what we usually

pray for, pray for these areas, OK?

So if you're not praying for, you know, anything other than

health and wealth, but then add praying for pastors and

missionaries to your list and I would argue right now it is the

best time. Lent started on Wednesday.

And I don't know how many of you guys are actively practice

observing Lent, but some of you I know are are playing too fast,

right? There's a guide out there.

The guide gives us suggestions. Week 1, pray for fastest.

Week 2, you know, fastest. I think the first thing that the

suggestion is food, not every meal, but you could fast every

other meal or every other day or one meal a week, whatever it is.

And then I think the week after it's supposed to be, I think

maybe movies and TV shows, something like that.

So whatever you fast, you have extra time.

And with that extra time, you're supposed to add in more

spiritual things, right? So this is a perfect time to add

more spiritual things like praying for pastors and

missionaries. OK, so how we pray for our

pastors and missionaries? Well, Paul gives us very

specific things to pray for. The first thing he says is pray

that the word may spread rapidly.

May spread. And I want to focus on this word

rapidly. Yes, it works.

By the way, I'm our media team and Pastor Daniel, I saw this on

Instagram. So I'm church doing it.

I said, hey, can you make this happen?

And they made it happen. I asked for this like 8 years

ago and we found out that you, you, you literally have to

install a computer on the pulpit.

So we're like Nah. And then technology advanced and

there were cheaper ways to do it, but they did it even like,

like way cheaper than whatever the Instagram, you know, the

tutorial, you know, pointed out. Anyway, thank you, media team.

Thank you, Pastor Daniel. All right, so he says, pray for

us again, not safety, not anything else, but the word of

the Lord. The gospel may spread rapidly

and be honored. Let's focus on rapidly first.

The actual word, the literal word that Paul uses in the Greek

rapidly literally says run fast. May the gospel run fast.

And why does he use such language?

Well, first of all, Paul likes using like metaphors that are

has to do with race and running. You know, I have, you know,

finished the race or, you know, a different passage, you know,

on a race or many runners, only one gets the crown and he likes

that metaphor. And this is another one made the

word of God run fast. So and I was reading up on what

Paul might have meant when he wrote runs fast.

And this is kind of the the, you know, this is perhaps what Paul

was thinking. So for example, my wife and I

have been watching the Winter Olympics and we watch sports

that we've never heard of, never seen, but we're like suddenly

biggest fans. And one of them was a 3000 meter

relay on, it's called a short track and a bunch of people with

ice skates running in little tiny circles. 3000 meters is

almost 2 miles. And Korea was a third place the

entire time, almost the entire 2 miles, third place.

And then in the last lap and a half left, you know, room runs

past everyone and becomes first. My wife roots for America.

I root for Korea. She's like, aren't you AUS

citizen now? My blood is still Korean.

What can I do? What can I say?

Of course I have root for America too.

But in the last lap, we see one skater just run past, run fast,

faster than anyone else. And that's just kind of the

idea, I think that Paul wants us to have in the world.

There are a lot of ideas, a lot of teachings.

There is the true gospel that Paul is talking about.

There is the false gospels like prosperity teaching, like Jesus

is not God. There's a lot of teachings, a

lot of ideas, a lot of value systems.

But what Paul is saying, pray for us then when we preach the

gospel that the gospel will run fast.

There's all these things, but the gospel run faster so that

the gospel preached will be honored.

Couple sermons ago, it's almost, this is almost a Part 2 of that

sermon. I said, what is a healthy

church? A healthy church preaches the

gospel. A healthy church accepts the

gospel faithfully, receives the gospel faithfully, and this is

an extension of that. Everything Paul is saying has

everything to do with that. That's the most important thing

Paul says. And now he says, pray for us

that when we preach that our preaching will run fast and that

it will be honored and people will receive it.

Pray that the gospel can run fast regularly.

Pray for the preaching ministry of pastors, elders and

missionaries because what the Word of God does is really the

most important thing. It's not fancy preaching.

It's not intellectual preaching, it's not entertaining.

It's the Word of God preach. That's what cuts through men's

hearts. That's what brings change and we

need to pray for it. When I was in Cambodia, Pastor

Petros shared with me a story. He said, I don't know the exact

details, but he said this man in his village was, he made-up his

mind that he would end his life. And then he was kind of making

his rounds to say not, you know, he was saying, like, announcing

that he was going to end his life, But he was, you know, kind

of on his own, seeing people and kind of saying his own goodbyes

without letting him know. And I guess church was one of

the stops he was making. He heard the sermon and and he

he, the gospel touched him like it never had before.

He was in tears and that man's life changed.

Was his sermon extra special that week?

I don't think so. For whatever reason, the gospel,

it went deep inside his heart that day.

And in our history of our church, I remember instances

like that too. I remember over 10 years ago,

some guy came in. I thought it was just a random

newcomer, but it was a Christmas service.

So I thought, oh, you know, we have some guests for Christmas

service. But he was really looking for

his girlfriend. He's like, oh, like she's my

girlfriend. She's not answering my phone

call. Oh, that's, that's why he came.

Thank you. And then he's, I said, we'll

just just just stay and then we'll figure it out.

He stayed. He came coming back, kept coming

back. He said, he said the experience

receiving the word, somehow he said it made him feel different

and he was interested what God had to say.

Praying that when the word is preached that people receive it

and hearts are changed. And I shared with you a couple

sermons ago, right? I didn't preach the gospel until

I was 26, although I was a pastor for four years at that

point. I did not preach the gospel.

I preached moralism. I said, hey, Jesus died for you,

so you guys better be good, don't get in trouble.

I was a youth pastor, so that's how I talked, right?

26. I've been a Christian all my

life. My parents met at church.

I got married at church. They had me literally from

birth. I was at church after 26 years I

finally saw the gospel for what it is.

It's not morals, it's that we are nothing.

That I am a Sinner and I deserved really nothing.

I deserve hell in fact. But that God would love me so

much, He will send his one, one and only son to save me.

And if God ended it there, you are saved and he ends it there.

That's still amazing. But He made me a child of God,

give me eternal life, give me the right to be His son, His

child. And all of that just hit me like

I heard it for the first time. That's what we need to be

praying for, Lord. You think of a missionary, You

think of a pastor in one of those countries.

Lord, when Pastor Petros preaches, when Pastor Danny in

Thailand preaches, let the gospel run fast.

Let it run faster than any other competing thoughts or ideas.

When people listen, let the gospel run fast and let it

change their hearts so that they will honor it.

Pray for miracles. Pray for salvation to happen.

Pray for changed hearts. OK, so Paul says pray that the

word goes fast. In verse 2 he says also pray for

deliverance and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil.

He does say people here, but I think it goes broader than

people be delivered from wicked. What is deliverance?

It's a divine rescue and protection from those who are

trying to harm us or who are trying to obstruct the spread of

a gospel. So we want divine rescue and

protection from God, from wicked and evil.

Sure, pastors and missionaries, we occasionally deal with wicked

and evil people who are trying to be in the way of our gospel

ministry. That has happened.

I'm sure every church, every pastor has experienced it.

But really, it doesn't stop there.

The wicked and evil is also the spiritual battle.

Every time a pastor preaches the Word of God, you know we have to

prepare it, right? There's about a 10 to 15 hour

process. And I guarantee you, doesn't

matter who's preaching that week, that preacher is going

through a spiritual battle. Satan does not want that person

to do a good job. Satan does not want that

preacher to be praying for the sermon, being being blessed by

the sermon, preaching with conviction, with the power of

the Holy Spirit. Satan doesn't want any of that

to happen, so it'll be full with distraction temptations.

Chances were the preacher could get mad and get distracted from

the word of God, something to upset him or her.

Pray for the spiritual battle that is raging in our lives.

We need deliverance from the Evil 1, and the devil knows that

one of the most effective ways to destroy the Church is really

to start at the top. And also so wicked evil men,

right? Just evil forces like, like

Satan. But thirdly, also we need

deliverance from ourselves. Oftentimes it's my pride or my

fear of failure or my temptations.

It's really me, that kind of my own way that I am my worst

enemy. You know, half of my pastor

life, I, I served at a Korean church, which means there is a

Korean congregation that that is the main congregation.

And on the side there is a smaller English speaking

congregation. And historically those two

groups, even though it's part of the same church.

And I've heard from my other pastor friends that that is the

same as pretty any immigrant church.

Chinese churches, Vietnamese churches.

When there is an English speaking and an immigrant

church, they always have issues and I struggled.

I struggled a lot serving at a Korean church.

Why? Because they never took the

English speaking people seriously.

I feel like they're always belittling us.

My pride always got hurt, like not too long ago.

We're renting space from our next door neighbors, TGSC, and

they've been so good to us. Like even beyond what we

imagined. They've been so good to us.

But I don't know how many months ago it was, but one of the

ladies was talking to me, which was old, much older, of course,

and she referred to us as EM students English.

And I was like, just the anger was boiling steam coming out,

right? Like, why do you see us as kids,

right? Sure.

We don't have any people in their 60s, seventies, 80s.

And then they have my parents are almost 70.

And then they claim that they're they go there by the way, and my

parents claim that they're one of the younger ones there,

right? Sure.

They're much older than us, right?

What do you call it? EM kids, EM students.

I was like, we have like 2 students, right?

We have parents who have kids that are students, right?

My pride, that's why I never did well in that kind of that kind

of situation. My pride kept getting in the

way. I kept getting distracted from

what's really important and focusing on, oh, did you see

what they all they're making us do that all that just I just

could not get over it. My friend who's been the English

ministry pastor of the church, you know, that helped plant this

church, Global Mission Church. He is such a humble man and I, I

respect him so much because he's doing such a good job.

And the biggest difference is this, it's not like he tries

harder, it's not like he's, he is a lot smarter than me.

But other than that, he's like, come on, I'm better than him.

But he's just super smart. But the main thing is this, he's

so humble. Like when people talk down on

the English ministry, it just, he just kind of like brushes it

off. So he's younger than me, but

man, I look up to him because of humility.

Your pastors, me in particular, we are weak.

We are not this man of God. Just because I am on this stage.

I'm full of weaknesses. I'm full of pride.

I, I get in my own way because we're so weak.

I need you to pray for me. I need the church to pray for

us. And those missionaries, I know,

they seem like some superhuman beings, right?

They're not. They're just real, normal human

beings. They have, they're married, they

have kids. They have the same worries as

us. They worry about money, they

worry about health. They worry about just.

They need our prayers too. Pray for us.

I'll end the first point with the shameless plug.

We do have an 830 prayer meeting next door every Sunday.

If you want to pray for something that is beyond health

and wealth, the first thing, it depends who leads it.

But almost always the first thing we pray for is the

service. Whoever is in there, they pray

for whoever is preaching, whoever is leading prayer, I

mean praise. They pray for your hearts,

everyone of you. You were prayed for today by the

men and women who are next door. So 8:30 every week, 1030, what's

830? Thank you.

Who's at 10:30? Thank you, thank you for thank

you. You know, when there's a lot of

Asians, they don't speak, they don't like to speak, you know,

out. So they just, they just don't

say anything. Thank you.

Thank you for correcting me. 1030, yes.

I mean, you can come at 8:30. I wouldn't stop you.

But 1030 OK #2 much shorter, not much shorter.

Do not fear. What else does the healthy

church pray for? Well, this is more of attitude

than it is something specific, but #2 healthy church prays

knowing that God is faithful, knowing that God is faithful.

So from verse 3, Paul transitions from pray for me or

pray for us to blessing the Thessalonian church.

So let's read verses three to five.

I think the next slide is just three to five.

Is that correct? Try the next slide.

Just kidding, Nevermind, go back.

All right, let's right in the middle, but the Lord is

faithful. He will strengthen you and guard

you from the evil one. We have confidence in the Lord

about you that you are doing and will continue to do what we

command. May the Lord direct your hearts

to God's love and Christ's endurance.

Amen. Let's go back to the other

slide. OK, leave it there.

So of course, pastors need to pray for the church members too.

It's not just the church members.

Pray for the pastors. Elders, we need to pray for our

flock. CG leaders, pray for your CG

members. But of course, even if you're

not a leader, we must pray for one another.

Every community group shares prayer requests.

It's called a prayer request so that we pray for each other.

I think sometimes it's just like, oh, thank you for the

update. OK.

It's not an information sharing time.

It is a prayer request sharing time so that we could pray for

each other. The joy that we have in serving

one another and joy of having being in this community.

The biggest story that we can experience, I mentioned a couple

of servers ago is the growth of one another, right?

What is the best thing we could do for one of those growth is to

pray for one another. But here's the thing, there are

times where it's discouraging. I said the growth of others.

It's the source of one of the greatest joys in our in our

Christian walk. Well, sometimes when the

brothers and sisters that we're praying for, they struggle, you

know, they've been away from the church and they come back to the

faith and they're like, praise God.

And then something happens and they leave like, oh, what's

going on? They come back, praise God, they

leave. Like sometimes caring for others

up and down, up, up and down struggle.

And I and, and many times people have come to me and said, Pastor

Tim, I know so many people that are struggling in our church.

Is there is something wrong with our church?

Well, no, not that. That has nothing to do with if

something's wrong with that church or not.

Because if that was true, everyone I know is struggling.

Is something wrong with that? If that was true, then this

Thessalonian church would not be a church that Paul is thankful

for because this church was going through stuff.

We didn't preach in any of these parts.

But this church also struggled with false teaching.

Some people were believing in false teaching and they were

kind of going astray. There were people being, you

know, persecuted their some of their lives are in danger.

This church was a struggling church.

But yet Paul says, I am so thankful for you.

So it's not about whether, you know, a perfect church doesn't

mean everyone has no problems, but a healthy church.

It's not how much struggles you have in life, but it's how you,

how we respond, how we deal with the lack of growth, how we deal

with other people struggling. That's what Paul is mentioning

here. He says this, he says pray for

me. And then now he's blessing them.

He says, but the Lord is faithful.

The Lord is faithful. Paul doesn't say, hey, it's OK,

you guys are struggling. It's OK, I got you.

Just I will take care of you. No, he says he, he will

strengthen you. He will guard you.

We have confidence. Where?

Who? In the Lord?

We have confidence in the Lord in verse 5, may the Lord direct

our hearts. It's not I will direct your

hearts or direct your own hearts.

May the Lord direct our hearts when their struggle, when you

see no, no progress, you see people backsliding, you see

something opposite of growth. What does Paul say?

Hey, Lord is faithful. He will strengthen you.

He will guard you. Have confidence in the Lord.

May the Lord direct your hearts to God.

What Paul's saying is, look, what we could do is keep loving,

keep praying, but the real heavy lifting is done by our Lord.

Trust in that. Our God is good.

Our God loves the people that you care for a lot more than you

love them. Trust in that and have faith in

that. God strengthens, God guards, God

directs our hearts, God protects.

I recently read a article by Pastor Tim Morey.

He, we had him as a guest speaker once we had his wife as

a guest speaker as well. And he, he wrote an article on

taking sabbaticals and he addressed why pastors sometimes

have a hard time, you know, being away from the ministry for

a long time. And one of them, he mentions his

fear, fear that the church will fall apart.

Like if I'm gone, what if the church falls apart without me?

That kind of fear. And what Tim Morey talks about,

I think it's applicable to all of us, is that he says, you know

what? We need to adopt the Hebrew

mentality when it comes to when a day starts.

So the Hebrew people, their day started at 6:00 PM.

Well, it's sundown, but around 6:00 PM for us.

I know technically our day starts at midnight, but come on.

Nobody at midnight. Oh, it's 12010.

Let a new day start. Like, no, no one does that.

Oh, my God, let's go to sleep. OK, We wake up in the morning

and we say, ah, that's a new day, right?

So our day starts whenever we wake up.

But it's kind of weird, right? The Hebrew people like, wait,

oh, it's a new day. All right, let's brush your

teeth, wash our faces, go to bed.

That is a weird practice. Why would you start a new day

and go to bed? Well, this is what Tim Morris

says, he said. This is actually the exact kind

of thinking what we need every day brings.

Not sorry. Every day begins not with my

action, but with God's. The first thing I do to start a

new day is to let go. To let go of my own efforts and

trust that while I sleep, God is at work.

He said for the Hebrew people who are believers, every day

begins with an act of trust. And he says for the majority of

us, we only trust God when we are doing the work.

When you're actually doing the work, then you say I trust God

because you're doing something about it.

But Pastor Tim Maury is saying the best time to trust God is

when you're not doing anything. So when you are attending

church, you have relationships and people next year are

struggling, you do your part, pray for them, of course, care

for them, but also meanwhile trust that God is at work.

If you think it's all up to you, like your kids success, how they

turn out is all up to you. That is so much stress and

anxiety. How what happens at your job is

all up to you. How you perform at work is all

up to you. You got to make it happen.

That's too much pressure, that's too much stress and anxiety, too

much fear. Paul says do your part.

Pray to submit to God's will and love on others and all of that,

but meanwhile trust that God is working, doing ministry,

thinking only I could do it. That's pride.

And pride only leads to someone's falling.

A healthy church has leaders, elders, pastors and church

members. Everyone a healthy church, those

people are doing ministry knowing that God is faithful and

ultimately only he could make us grow.

Main point, a healthy church prays for the gospel, Gospel to

advance and rest in God's faithfulness.

Take time to pray. We're going to actually

transition into communion.