Transcript

Each week at the meetings of a local Rotary club a different member was asked to give a brief statement about his job.

When it was the turn of a Christian minister he stood up and said this: “I’m with a global enterprise. We have branches in every country in the world.

“We have our representatives in nearly every parliament and board room on earth. We’re into motivation and behavior alteration.

“We serve in hospitals, feeding stations, universities, publishing houses, and nursing homes. We care for our clients from birth to death.

“We are into life insurance and fire insurance. We perform spiritual heart transplants. Our original Organizer owns all the real estate on earth plus all the galaxies and constellations. He knows everything and lives everywhere.

“Our product is free for the asking. Our CEO was born in a small town, worked as a carpenter, didn’t own a home, was misunderstood by His family, hated by enemies, walked on water, was condemned to death, and arose from the dead. And I have the privilege to talk with Him every single day.”

That kind of gives you the big perspective on the Church and things in the Christian life, doesn’t it? It also reminds us of the privilege each of us have to talk with our Lord and Savior every day.

We’ve been considering the topic of how to pray under grace. In relation to this, I’d like to briefly answer the questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How in regards to prayer under grace.

WHO can pray? Anyone can pray. God hears all prayer. You don’t need a pastor or spiritual leader to do your praying for you. God wants you to pray and personally bring your requests to Him. As we mentioned in an earlier message, God doesn’t hear just your words, He hears your heart and your emotions. So prayer doesn’t have to be done perfectly with perfect words or phrases.

WHO do we pray for? We pray for all people, believers and unbelievers. We pray for unbelievers to be saved. We pray for believers to come to the knowledge of the truth. We are also taught to pray specifically for leaders in government.

WHO do we pray to? Of course, we pray to God. I believe praying to God the Father honors Christ’s shed blood which made it possible for us to have free access with boldness and confidence to the Father. We should pray to Christ as well in our personal relationship with Him. This honors the Father and the Holy Spirit who points us to Christ always.

WHAT do we pray for? We pray for everything. Any spiritual need, any physical need is prayer material. Nothing is too small. We take everything to God in prayer. We are taught to bring all our requests to Him.

WHEN do we pray? Always, without ceasing. Morning, afternoon, evening, and in the middle of the night. We are to have a running conversation with God that never really stops. For some people, they like to get up early to pray. Some like to pray at night. Do what works for you. But we are all called to pray always.

WHERE do we pray? Anywhere and everywhere. We don’t just pray in church. We pray wherever we are in life: at home, at work, at school, in the grocery store, walking the dog, anywhere. I like to pray when I’m driving, that’s a great time to pray. But it’s very important to pray with your eyes open then.

HOW do we pray? There is no required position for prayer. However you want to pray you can. The Bible talks about prayer positions, but none of them are for the purpose of teaching us that this is how we must always do it.

Out of tradition, we often bow our heads and fold our hands, but this is just so we can focus on the Lord and demonstrate submission and fervency as we talk to the Lord.

But we can pray with our eyes open too, with our heads raised. The Bible talks about raising hands to pray too. We pray whenever, wherever, however.

WHY do we pray? Because God teaches us to pray in His Word. We pray because God is able, and the God who answers prayer can change things, according to His will. We pray because it changes us. We pray because it draws us closer to the Lord. We pray because it strengthens us and increases our faith in God and love for others.

Philippians 1:3-5: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.”

An elderly couple was once visiting another for supper. The two women go into the kitchen for a moment, leaving the men to talk. One of the men says to the other, “The Mrs. and I went to the nicest restaurant last night. The food and service were great.” The other man asked, “Is that right? What was the name of the place.”

He replied, “That’s just it, I can’t recall. Say, what’s the name of that red flower that has thorns all over it that people give on special occasions?” He responded, “You mean a rose?”

He exclaimed energetically, “Yeah, that’s it!” Then he yelled out to the kitchen, “Hey Rose! What was the name of that restaurant we went to last night?”

Sometimes we all have trouble remembering things! Paul had a good memory when he thought of people, and he had good memories as he thought of the Philippians.

As we pray under grace, out of love and grace we should remember to pray for fellow members of the Body of Christ, and thank God for one another.

Every single person in the church is important and needed. This positive attitude of gratitude toward other believers can lift us above the negative thoughts we are all prone to have because of our old nature.

By Paul’s prayer example we learn how he thanked God for others, he expressed his appreciation to God for other members of Christ’s Body, for their salvation, their service, their testimony, just them. It brought Paul joy to think about and remember other believers who were in Christ too.

Paul was interested in the Philippians and every time he thought about them, upon every remembrance of them, he thanked God for them. We should follow this example.

W. Wiersbe wrote: “The high priest in the O.T. wore a special garment, the ephod. On it were twelve stones with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraved on them, a jewel for each tribe. He carried the people with him, over his heart in love, and so did Paul.”

And so should we. We should carry each other with us, in our hearts, remembering and praying for one another.

Perhaps make a list of people in your church, or take your church directory out, and pray through it, thanking God for each of those people, praying for the various needs of each person individually. Don’t overlook the young. Thank God for the young people, pray for God to use their life and that they would stand and live for the Lord.

The younger generation needs prayer. These are challenging times to take a stand for your faith in Christ. They need prayer.

And as Paul thought of them and remembered them, it was with joy that Paul prayed and made request on their behalf to God. As he says, “making request with joy.” Paul shows us that intercession and prayer for the saints is not an obligation, but a joy.

In our service and prayers, God wants us preoccupied with the needs and welfare of others. Paul’s prayers were thankful, thoughtful, thorough, joyful, and intercessory.

It brought Paul joy to pray for others. At this time, Paul was under house arrest facing possible execution, but his focus was not on himself or feeling sorry for his circumstances.

Rather he was joyful because he thought about other, about the Church and made request to God for their needs.

Paul says later in this book in 2:4: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” Getting the focus off self is key to joy in life.

As Paul thought of these believers, none in the church were excluded. He prayed “for you all.” So we should pray for all in this church.

A true story is told about a woman who was in nursing school. One day the Professor came in and said those words students hate to hear, “We’re going to have a pop quiz!” She made it through the quiz, until she got to the last question.

It read, “What is the name of the woman who cleans the school?” She thought she read it wrong! She had seen an older lady who cleaned, but how was she supposed to know her name? After the quiz, one student asked, “Is that last question going to count?”

The professor said, “Yes, it’s going to count. You’re going to meet a lot of people when you get out in this field. You may be tempted to overlook some. But each person is important and each one has a name. And by the way, her name is Dorothy.”

To love others requires knowledge. The more we know people, the more we can love them, and the better we can pray for them. Every person is important in God’s eyes; every one is loved and precious to Him. And so as we trust and obey this passage, may it be our desire to know one another more, to pray and thank the Lord for each other.

As Paul was thankful for the Philippians he was thankful for their “fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now” (v. 5).

Paul was thankful that these people were saved by the gospel of the grace of God and for the fellowship and oneness that believers have in Christ. Christ binds believers together, He makes us one Body and family in Him.

We all have the same Savior, we are all saved by the same gospel, and we all share in its hope together. The fellowship of the gospel is very special.

In his prayers for them, Paul thanked God that the Philippians from the very beginning, from the first day they trusted Christ until now, that they were partners with him in the vital endeavor of making the gospel known to the world.

He was grateful and found joy in how they shared in the work of the gospel, with their prayers, their labors, and through their financial support.

The world needs the gospel most of all. It is the most urgent, pressing need for every single person. And as the church labors together for the faith of the gospel, we should thank God for each other, for one another’s efforts to make the good news known.

1 Thessalonians 1:2,3: “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.”

Like with the Philippian church, Paul was always thankful for the Thessalonian church, and he prayed for them.

Paul’s prayers for the Thessalonian church were prayers of gratitude. But it wasn’t just Paul. He says, “We” give thanks and the verse ends, “our” prayers.

Verse 1 mentions Paul, Silas and Timothy. These 3 had served, evangelized, and established churches as a team, and they prayed together as a team too.

Praying together with other believers is powerful, encouraging, and challenging as you hear other people’s faith in the Lord and hear their love and hope expressed through prayer.

These three men were always praying for them “all,” no one excluded in the church, just like in Philippians. They were always remembering them in their prayers, and their prayers were filled with thanksgiving for them all.

Paul’s thankfulness is based on the fact that as verse one says, they were a group of believers and a church who by faith was “in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, they were saved.

We can constantly thank God for each other’s salvation and that we are in Christ. We can thank God that we are people, who if Christ came back today, we’d disappear off the face of the earth, and we’d meet the Lord in the air, and forever we will be with the Lord in heaven.

Paul instructs the Thessalonians later in this letter in chapter 5 verse 17 to “Pray without ceasing.” And what he asked others to do, he did himself. He was always praying, always giving thanks to God and making mention of this church in his prayers.

The Church needs continual prayer, and following Paul’s example, we need to life one another up through unceasing prayers, thanking the Lord for each other, praying that we might each stand strong for Christ, for the gospel, and for God’s Word.

Telling others that you are thankful for them and that you pray for them is encouraging. Paul was an encourager and a prayer. Grace teaches us to be both.

In verse 3, as Paul thanked God for them he remembered without ceasing their “work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.”

Paul here speaks of a familiar trinity of truth: faith, hope and love. 1 Cor. 13:13 reads, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Paul looked for this abiding trinity in the churches. He didn’t look at how many members they had, how many programs in the church there were, what talents the people had.

He looked at the heart of the church, because there is the real measuring stick of a local church. If faith, hope, and love was in that church, they were a full church in every sense of the word, whether they had 5, 50, or 500 members.

Paul prayed and remembered the Thessalonians’ “work of faith.” The Thessalonians work of faith were works done by faith in the Lord.

They weren’t works of faith to be saved, they were works of faith because they were saved by God’s grace. They were works done for the glory of God.

After their salvation, having placed their faith in Christ dying for their sins and rising again, they worked for the Lord. They were works produced by faith in Christ.

Through our “work of faith,” we work out our faith in Christ, we put our faith into action, trusting Him to work through our work for Him.

Prayer is a work of faith. We pray trusting God, knowing He works through prayer, knowing He hears and answers prayer according to His will.

The Colossian believer Epaphras teaches how prayer is part of our labor for the Lord.

Colossians 4:12 reads, “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.”

The entire Christian life takes work. Christian marriages take work. Christian parenting takes work. A strong Christian testimony takes work. It takes work to grow spiritually in God’s Word. It takes work for a church to function.

But this all is a work of faith. And as we work at our marriages, at parenting, our testimony, at growing spiritually, at serving at church, we work by faith that by putting Christ at the center of our marriages He will make our marriages stronger, that He will give us strength and wisdom by His Word in parenting, that God will use our testimony for Him, our time in His Word to grow in Christ, and our service in His church to help others.

And all our service and work for the Lord is done by faith in I Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

We work by faith in light of eternity, and we know that all our service, that all our work of faith, that all our labor of love is never in vain in the Lord, and that the risen, living Lord uses it all and works through our work, and that we will one day richly reward it.

In addition to their work of faith, Paul remembered their labor of love.

We are moved and compelled to labor for the Lord by Christ’s love for us, not by guilt or obligation. As 2 Corinthians 5:14 says, “For the love of Christ constraineth us.”

Labor of love speaks of serving others out of Christ’s selfless love, sacrificially working to assist and help others in need or just to be kind.

Labor of love speaks of service for God motivated by love for the Lord. It’s been put well that “Christianity is not a life to be endured for duty’s sake, but a Person to be served for love’s sake.”

The Thessalonians labored out of love for the Lord and out of selfless care for others.

Some construction workers were building a high rise across the street from a hospital. As they were working on the 3rd floor they noticed a little girl standing in the 3rd floor window of the hospital watching them work.

One day they looked across and saw the little girl hold up a poster that said, “My name is Lisa. What are your names?”

So the next day the construction workers came back with some poster board and magic markers, and they all wrote down their names. “My name is Bob. My name is Bill. My name is Harry. How old are you?”

The next day the little girl held up a sign that said, “I am 7 years old. How old are you?” This went on for several days, asking and answering different questions.

But one day they noticed that Lisa wasn’t at her usual place in the window. So at break time one of the workers called the hospital and asked for a third floor nurse. He asked if she could tell him anything at all about Lisa.

The nurse said that Lisa had taken a turn for the worse & was now in Intensive Care. So the workers pooled their money and bought some flowers, a stuffed animal, and a card and wrote a note on it telling her they were praying for her.

And they sent it to Lisa in Intensive Care. Several days passed by, and then another sign appeared at the window, “Lisa passed away. Thank you for caring!”

That’s what the church is to be: a group of people who care. People who show they care by what they do, in their labor of love. And as we pray for one another, we show our care.

The word for “labor” here denotes an arduous, wearying kind of toil, to the point of exhaustion. It’s about giving a full effort for Christ, working for the Lord showing His love to others.

Our labor of love is like what Jacob said when he labored for Laban for seven years in order to get Rachel for his wife in Genesis 29:20: “So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.”

In light of what Christ has done for us, and out of our love and gratitude to our Savior, our hard labor for Him is light. We’d do anything for the Lord out of our gratitude to Him for saving us from God’s wrath. We’re happy to do it.

Even if we’re tired, our attitude should be, “What’s next?” We could never do enough to repay His love in dying for all our sins. He is worthy of working hard and giving Him our very best effort.

And our labor of love for Christ should last all the way until our homegoing. Because there is always people who need Christ’s love and care, and God can use us and our labors for Him at any stage of life we are at.

Lastly, as Paul prayed, he remembered and was thankful for the Thessalonians’ example in their patience of hope in Christ. Our hope is sure and unchanging because it’s based in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is faithful and unchanging.

Their hope was in Christ’s coming at the Rapture, and with patience and steadfastness they were waiting and looking for His coming to catch the church to heaven, as we do too.

Verse 10 of this chapter says they were waiting “for His Son from heaven which delivered us from the wrath to come.”

The Thessalonian church had been undergoing persecution as a result of their faith in Christ. And the word “patience” speaks of their endurance in the midst of difficulty which was inspired by their hope. No cracks had appeared in their faith and hope in Christ.

They had spiritual fortitude, and they kept their focus on their hope in Christ, on His coming for the Church, on eternity, on the next world, and not this world only.

Paul adds that their “faith, hope, and love” were not something that just would pass for genuine before men, in the sight of men, but “in the sight of God,” which is what really matters, and which shows their work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope was real.

As we pray under grace, God wants us to remember to pray for the Church, and thank God for our brothers and sisters in Christ, for their fellowship in the gospel, and for their work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in Christ.