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.