On Wednesday I was sharing how I've been challenged by these verses in 1 Thessalonians 3. So let's just read this section, 1 Thessalonians 3, verses 6-13. But now that Timothy... 1 Thessalonians 3, verses 6-13. But now that Timothy has come to us from You and has brought us the good news of Your faith and love, and reported that You always remember us kindly and long to see us as we long to see You, for this reason, brothers, In all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about You through Your faith. For now we live, if You are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for You, for all the joy that we feel for Your sake before the Lord, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see Your face and supply what is lacking in Your faith. Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to You, and may the Lord make You increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints." The thought that's been on my mind is prayer that advances the Kingdom of God for His glory. a prayer that advances God's Kingdom for His glory. And the reason why this passage here has challenged me so much is because honestly, very often for me, it's far more easier to place emphasis in activity rather than in prayer. And I'm sure all of you struggle with the same thing. And obviously, if God's kingdom is going to be advanced, it's going to require activity. And Paul is emphasizing in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians the fact that he himself labored night and day with his hands in diligent labor so as to supply his own needs, but also as an example to the Thessalonians that they might do likewise, and that this would be necessary if the kingdom would be advanced. And not trying to take away at all from that truth, but I was searching for all the places that talk about night and day. and was very convicted that prayer being the central focus comes before night and day activity. Because if we're focused on activity, but we don't have the relationship with the Lord on a continual, all-day basis, then our activity is probably not going to be much better than Martha's activity in the kitchen. Martha wanted to serve the Lord, but she hadn't chosen the best part, and we too can do many things, whether it's in the way of laboring with our hands, or whether it's even in areas of ministry, if we're focused on the activity before we're focused on our relationship with the Lord, we should not be surprised if the end of it is not fruitful for His glory. And when you think about this passage, it's talking about Paul in his prayer life night and day. Now surely we don't understand this to mean that Paul never slept and he just simply prayed night and day. And we surely don't understand this passage to mean that he wasn't active and working because we've got other passages that talk about him working night and day. So what do we glean from this? Obviously, we must glean from this that this was Paul's lifestyle. He had a lifestyle of prayer. I can envision Paul waking up in the morning and just rejoicing in the goodness and mercy of God. God's mercies are new every morning. And Paul was thinking about the greatness and the goodness of his God. And that's the way his day began. And if we're going to be fruitful for the advancement of His kingdom, our day must begin that way. Our day must continue that way. There must be a time alone with the Lord that would cultivate this relationship that Paul had with the Lord. The same as the Lord Jesus Christ had a relationship with his father. The same principle we see in John 15. Paul was living this life of John 15. That's the way I see it. Jesus exhorted those poor disciples who wanted to follow Him and were going to do all kinds of wonderful activity to display that they were more committed than any other followers, and yet they fell flat on their face. And Jesus gave them the answer to what their problem was. Without Me, you can't do anything. But if you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done unto you. And hearing is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." And it's as the Father loved Jesus, so He loves us. And as we continue in that love, as we're focused on His love for us, and then as we keep the commandment to love one another as He loved us, then we're going to abide in that love and His joy is going to remain in us and our joy is going to be full. So I'm reading this in that context, saying Paul, Paul understood the secret of what it meant to abide in Christ, maybe in a better and greater way than most anyone had. And we look at Paul as one of the greatest missionaries that ever lived. And we look at his activity. We look at where he went. We look at his labors. We look at what he preached. But what I was struck with is this man was really a man of prayer. And the victory is going to be won through prayer. And as some of the old timers used to say, the victory is won through prayer and our activity is the cleanup. And if we put things in reverse and we focus simply on the activity and we focus on what we're going to do, we're going to fail. It's really convicting for me because I see my own life so often in this very way. The Lord brought us to Texas in 1990, and you all know I was very inclined to get everybody to go to the mission field. I was focused on the activity of it. And now I realize more and more, brethren, we're going to accomplish the advancement of God's Kingdom only through prayer. And if the prayer life is right, the activity life will be there with it. We're not going to have to twist people's arms to go to a mission field. If the relationship with the Lord is right, then prayer will be right. And if prayer is right and the hearts of God's people are filled with the kind of joy and rejoicing and thanksgiving that we see in Paul, God is going to stir people's hearts to go who knows where or nowhere. Maybe at home, maybe raising children for the mission field like Timothy's mother and Timothy's grandmother. So, Paul, of course, he hadn't been in Thessalonica very long. It was only a few days and he had to leave there. And Paul was a man himself motivated by the love of God. Thinking again about John 15, Paul was living and abiding in the love of God for him, the love of Jesus for him. He puts it that way, right? The life that I now live in the flesh. I live. How? How does Jesus live in me? By faith. By the faith that comes from Jesus, but has Jesus as the object. By faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Who? Jesus was His life. For me to live is Christ. And so this man, Paul, understood that with all of the gifts, with all of the talents that God had given to him, he was absolutely helpless. And certainly, absolutely, the most undeserving in his own mind and heart to ever be a representative or an ambassador for Jesus Christ. He was the chief of sinners. He was the least worthy. And yet it was all mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. I can picture Paul waking up every morning just amazed with the love and mercy of God to have chosen Him And then giving him the privilege to go to one country after another and lift up not himself, not the wonderful works he was doing now that God had saved him, but he was lifting up Jesus Christ. And again and again he was exhorting people, Jesus, that's the object. I desire to know nothing, I'm determined to know nothing amongst you Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified. We were here last week and we heard that those central points, who Jesus is, and what Jesus has done, the Person and the work of Jesus Christ. For Paul, that was the object. I want to know Him and I want to know the power of the resurrection. And that's what we need. We need a growing, knowledge of who Jesus is, we need a growing appreciation, knowledge of what Jesus has done, what he is doing, and what he has promised to do. And that'll produce the same results as we see in these verses. The more we know Him, the more we see the greatness and preciousness of Jesus Christ, and the more we realize what He accomplished for us as the most undeserving, hell-deserving, wretched sinners, helpless and hopeless, the more His value is going to increase. The more it did for Paul, the more He the more he thought about Jesus, the more his eyes were fixed on Jesus, the more he was able then to proclaim to others the greatness of Jesus, and what He'd accomplished on the cross, and how the work was finished, and how He rose again from the dead, and how the Father was pleased with the sacrifice, and how He arose to glory. and there sits with all power and all authority, and how he's coming back again for his people, and how we have a home. Paul was living with a constant focus on this for himself, and we know that because he constantly is focusing our attention and the attention on the churches, on Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ alone. And so not only was Paul living with this joy from when he woke up in the morning and throughout the day until the late evening hours and as he labored hard or as he woke up in the middle of the night, he was rejoicing in his God. Because there wasn't one shred of hope in what Paul was going to do or what he had done. There wasn't one shred of worthiness that would recommend Paul to God. But then Paul was so encouraged by what God was doing in the lives of other people. It wasn't just a love to God, but a love for God's people, a love for others. I guess what stands out in this is that Paul really, he was really, really focusing on his thankfulness for what God had already done, his thankfulness for what God was doing. And then we see the earnest appeal to God that God would do more. And I guess that's just what I was really thinking about, what would happen. If we as a church, as Grace Community Church, would be growing, growing on the one hand of our knowledge of who God is and what God has done, the person and work of Christ like we heard last week. And that would be our growing focus as we're in the Word, as we're searching God's Word, as we're begging that God would open our eyes to see more of the realness and preciousness of Christ. And then at the same time, that's going to produce a growing thankfulness to God. And Paul was so thankful. And we see that not only here, but look at how he begins almost every epistle with his extreme thanks to God for what God had done in their lives. Even the church at Corinth, he's thanking God for what God had done. Why is such a tendency in our lives, brethren, to be focused on the negative, focused on what hasn't yet come to pass, focusing on the lack of maturity, and Paul was able to get past that. He saw all the imperfections, but yet he was exceedingly thankful to God. Look at the beginnings of the letters. He was exceedingly thankful to God for what God had done. And if we're not thankful for what God has done in our own lives, but also in the lives of our brothers and sisters, in the lives of others around the world as we see God working, what's going to stir our heart to expect more if we don't see the preciousness of a changed life even with its defects? Now, Paul was not a person to make excuse for sin, but he was a person who seemed to be extremely thankful for every indicator that God gave that he was working. And so, as we look at this, we see in verse 9, in relationship to the Thessalonians, for what thanksgiving can we return to God for you for all the joy we feel for your sake before God." Paul's prayer life obviously was not a prayer life of, Lord, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me. But as we already said, his prayer life included this component or this beginning point of worshiping God for what God had already done. Thanksgiving, praise, worship. And I know I don't think nearly enough, and perhaps we don't think nearly enough what this kind of praise and worship to God means to Him. We quickly say that everything is for His glory. We quickly would say that in glory itself, when we finish our course on this earth, we're going to be praising Him and worshiping Him. But why would we wait till we get to glory to spend time in praise and worship to God? So lacking in my own life, so focused on activity, so focused on what I'm going to do next. How much time do we take just before God in thanksgiving for what He has already done? Brother, I don't think we realize as Grace Community Church how God's blessed us. We take it for granted. We focus on what we have not yet attained. But brother, let us be thankful for what God has already done. in our own lives, in our family members' lives, amongst the lost, God keeps saving, even on the foreign mission field, what God has done. Are we giving Him praise, thanksgiving, worship before Him? Are our hearts filled with the sense of joy? How does he put it here? He says, He says, for what thanksgiving can we return to God for you for all the joy that we feel for your sake before the Lord? No, no, Paul was not rejoicing in empty decisions for Christ. Paul was rejoicing that although he was only there for a few days, they were really changed. They were turning from dead idols to serve the true and living God, and the report came back. Yes, you were only there for a few days, but the impact on these Thessalonians has produced a testimony that's gone far and wide. It was real. That's what we rejoice in. We rejoice in the work of God that shows forth the reality that it's real. And the fact that it's real is because there is real love for Jesus Christ and there's real love for the brother. And this was evident there. And obviously it doesn't talk about how they did their evangelistic endeavors, but they went everywhere talking about the true and living God. They went everywhere talking about Jesus. And maybe on purpose God doesn't show us and tell us what their evangelistic methods were. Maybe they didn't have evangelistic methods. Maybe they were so involved in going and so involved with the joy of who Jesus was for them that it flowed out automatically as they were going. Anyway, Paul was rejoicing, Paul was true. And it's true for anyone of us, if our lives are involved with other people, and then we see later on how they're walking in the Lord. Isn't that what John said on the Isle of Patmos? Maybe he couldn't go anywhere, but he was rejoicing that his children were walking in the light. Such an encouragement even for me, you know, for Judy and I to go to Nepal and see how God saved some of these young people. It's just such an encouragement to us, such a reason to thank God that although in some people's minds it might not be big enough, it's not displaying some grand show, if God really saved people and produced a Christ-like selfless love, And we can see that in some measure, and we can see that growing. Brethren, we need to spend time before the Lord just rejoicing with thanksgiving for what He has done. And the more we do that, the more the love of God becomes real to us. If we're focused just on all the negatives and all the questions, then our heart isn't stirred with the love of God not only for us, but now the love of God as it's shed abroad in the hearts of others This will increase our love. It only serves to help us move forward and get our eyes off of ourselves and get our eyes fixed on what God's doing. Jesus is sitting on the throne. He has all power. He's still advancing His kingdom. Satan can only go just so far and God says, that's it. Satan can try all of his plans to keep Paul from coming to Thessalonica. And Paul can say, Lord, why, why, why? I want to go there. I want to see those brothers face to face. But the fact that he couldn't go there, we have Thessalonians 1 and 2. God knew what he was doing. God knows what he was doing when he put John on the Isle of Patmos. God knows what he was doing when he put Paul in prison in Rome as a prisoner. God knows what He's doing with us. God knows why we each have certain burdens, trials, what we would call hindrances. But we must recognize that God doesn't give us, if we love Him and we're called according to His purposes, God is not allowing the hindrances to hurt us. God is gonna use them together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. So we have no reason, if our hearts are right, to stop rejoicing in the Lord. and bring Him glory. If the angels are rejoicing in heaven, what about God? I guess it's kind of hard to get our minds around the fact that God receives joy and glory from the likes of us, but doesn't the Scripture say a sacrifice of thanksgiving? Do we bring God joy with the way we pray? because we're rejoicing in what He rejoices in. Even Jesus said He was looking forward to the joy that was before Him. If the angels are rejoicing in Heaven, what about our God? Our God knows the detail of everything that He is doing. And what He's doing in our hearts to stir our hearts to joy and praise in Him, He knows that. He's the originator of that. We love Him because He loved us. What are we living for? We say, oh, we're going to die, and we're going to live for the glory of God in heaven. No, brother, we can live to a greater degree for the glory of God here, and we can enjoy more of the joy that Paul enjoyed here. Lord, help us. And if we're gonna have a more intense focus on prayer as a church. then it must include, it must start with this component, His love for us. The One who laid down His life for us. And it must include, if we're going to pray for the advancement of the Gospel as it goes forth, we must bring Him praise and thanksgiving for what He's already doing and what He's already done. And that's going to stir our hearts to do the next thing that we see here. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you? For all the joy we feel for your sake before the Lord." But he doesn't stop there and say, Lord, you've done so much, we dare not ask for anything more. No, what's really interesting is the more that God does, the more it should increase our expectation of what God will do. So what does he say? He says, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see your face, you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith. And why now may our God and father himself and the Lord Jesus Christ. See, we're praying to God, the father. and we're coming to Him through the Son. We've got a trium God working here. The Spirit of God is going to accomplish the work in reality, but the prayer is going out to the Father and the Son who are in unison in their purpose. And may the Lord make you increase. What is the purpose? To increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we do for you. That was his desire. This very love that was staring Paul. This very love that we see in John 15. Continue in my love, he says. He wanted the Thessalonians to keep growing in their love. And he wanted to come there in person so he could talk to them face to face and encourage them. There's something about face to face. And it's not some computer program. The Internet's wonderful, but there just isn't a, there just is not a replacement for personal face-to-face involvement with people. Tim and Diego are going to Ecuador. So they can visit with this group of people face-to-face. We have other people in other places through I'll Be Honest. What a blessing! But they want interaction face-to-face. And we ought to be praying, Lord, open the door that we can have face-to-face interaction with people in different parts of the world. Why? so that we might encourage them to look at Jesus and look at God for who they really are, like we saw last week. That's the whole problem. Satan is saying, no, God's this, Jesus is this. No, God says in His Word, this is who I am. Look to me, live, find a growing, joyful relationship in your God and you can have more, your faith can be increased. The more we see God for who He really is, it'll produce thankfulness on one hand for what He's already done, but it's gonna produce for us a greater expectation for what He will do through us. This little group, But we've got so many deficiencies. Well, God used that group. And we can always come up with a reason why God could or did use another group or another man or another church more than ours. But I got thinking about this. Can't we pray that God would use us with all of our exceptional weaknesses and deficiencies? in a way that would just confound the world, it shouldn't happen. God was using the Thessalonians church and they had a great problem with a lack of discipline in the area of just regular work. Part of it was doctrinal, part of it perhaps was inherent in the culture. But God used them, as only he knows how to use them, We go to places in the world where the whole concept of work ethic is almost completely missing. People are just living their lives as though they're victims of something, and there's no hope for them. I didn't grow up in the right class system, so there's no hope for me. Yes, there's hope, but the power's not in us, and maybe my problem is I want to see power and ability and strength and work ethic and people. And maybe a great part of it's my own problem because I need to look to God to produce what only he can produce. Look what he did with Paul. He can do that with anybody. And He can change their lives. And He does change their lives. And we do see changes in people and growing changes in people as their relationship with the Lord grows. That's the issue. Is the relationship with God growing? And that's going to grow through the way they're focused and absorbed in the Scriptures and in the way that they are praying to God. and thanking God for what He's done and looking to God to bring about this growth. He desired an increase to make you increase. It wasn't just faith and miracles, no. No, He desired the increase of their faith, but it was going to be a faith that worked by love, and it was going to produce, make you increase and bound in love for one another. With one another first, and then for all. as we do for you." And it was going to establish their hearts so that the Thessalonians would be established in Christ alone. They, poor, helpless sinners and nothing at all, but their hope was fixed in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Their hope was fixed in what God would do. Their hope was fixed in the eternal glory set before them, the exceeding weight of it. And it was going to produce a Christ-like holiness so that when the Lord comes back and when their life comes to an end, they were going to be living out the reality of Jesus in them and not their own life. I've been thinking a lot about this subject of what can be accomplished by Grace Community Church. And of course, I've thought lots through the years of what that would mean activity-wise, what that might mean sacrifice-wise, what that might mean work-wise. Well, brethren, if we would start with the person and work of Christ, our hearts would be stirred to this kind of prayer, this day and night prayer that we're talking about here, was not some drudgery. This wasn't a drudgery for Paul. Perhaps there was a real discipline needed to set aside the time, but we see the content of that prayer with joy and with worship focused, and God was faithful making this alive. We know that Paul didn't always have an easy time. And Jesus, I think it was yesterday in our devotions, in Luke, He's talking about not being anxious, but laying out our cares to God, crying out to Him night and day. We're not saying we're not going to have trials. But how often in the Psalms don't we see David crying out? And then He says, oh my soul, why art thou cast down and disquieted within me? Hope in God, who is the health of my countenance and my God. God hasn't changed. He was faithful. He is faithful. He's never changed. So the battles are before us. The discouragements are before us. But God's going to use them all in the end for our good. He's trying to teach us, you know, count all these trials. Count them as joy when you fall into many different kinds of trials. Because I'm using them together. I'm weaving them together for good, for the advancement of a kingdom and for my glory. Moravians. We look at them as a model of people who made a major impact on the world. But prayer was a major part. So much of prayer is an indicator that we're nothing, and we expect nothing from ourselves. If our prayer is lacking, it's an indicator of our pride, because we're thinking we're going to do something. for the glory of God, like the disciples were going to do things for the glory, like Peter. Isn't that so much convicting for me? It's so easy for me to be focused on the activity, but if I really sense how absolutely impossible it is for me to do any good, For the advancement of God's kingdom and His glory, then it's going to produce a growing relationship with this good God. And it's going to grow a greater and greater appreciation for His mercy. Come to the throne of grace boldly. Receive the mercy. Have our hearts settled at peace with God through His mercy. But then find grace to help in time of need as we labor to live out our lives. praying for wisdom to live out our lives, but then praying earnestly that God's kingdom will be advanced as our brethren go to Ecuador, as we pray for the brethren in Mexico and Nicaragua and Temple and Austin and Nepal and India. Even though we can't all get to these places, if we had hearts right, we could pray for them. Think of James Frazier. And I was thinking it'd be nice that we could watch that video. It's only a 35 minute video, but James Frazier became so convinced that the breakthrough in China could only come through the prayers of God's people. His own heart, yes, but the prayers of the people back home were going to make the mission endeavor on the field breakthrough to the glory of God. That's what I'm hoping God will do. We can talk about all kinds of strategies and all kinds of ideas. And even in this area, this is a growing relationship. The more we see what we heard last week of the person and work of Christ, if we're really Christians, this should grow in our lives. This does grow in our lives as a Christian. And we're continually Continually challenged and convicted that when we wander to something else, it brings coldness into our lives. It'll bring a lukewarmness into our lives. We're going to lose the first love we had because we left the first love we had. But that's not what we see in the life of Paul. He's an example of a man, no matter how horrible his past was, His past didn't hinder him from living with a growing relationship for the future. And we see it best in his prayer life. I know we think, we talk, as elders we talk about about praying for more leadership, praying for other elders to be raised up in this assembly. That, in my mind, has got to be the central focus. Who's growing in their relationship with the Lord, seeing less and less hope in themselves, seeing more and more all sufficiency in Christ, and living out their lives in a way that would display that. Let's pray that God would raise up more leaders of every kind, whether they're elders in the church, deacons in the church, missionaries for the field, women to minister to women, women to minister to children, mothers to raise our next Timothys. May the Lord just really help us to be focused. Father, help us. What are all of our words if this selfless Christ-like love is not growing in our lives? Lord, please grow us as a church. Don't let us become lukewarm. Don't let us lose the love we had or have. but increase it and make it greater. As Paul was desiring and praying for this, even praying that he might come face-to-face with other believers to stir this up. Lord, please help us to be that kind of an encouragement to one another and pray for this as it becomes real and can be more real around the world. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.