The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

Sermon for 7/30/2006

2 Thessalonians 3:1-15

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything

Introduction:

After hundreds of years, a model preacher has been found to suit everyone. He preaches exactly 20 minutes and then sits down. He condemns sin, but never hurts anyone’s feelings. He works from 8 am to 10 pm in every type of work from preaching to custodial service. He is 26 years old and has been preaching for 30 years. He is tall and short, thin and heavyset, and handsome. He has one brown eye and one blue, hair parted down the middle, left side dark and straight, the right brown and wavy. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers, and spends all his time with the older folks. He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls a day on church members, spends all his time evangelizing the unchurched, and is never out of his office!

WBTU:

A. Letters that I send out say: I am praying for you and don’t forget to pray for me.

B. I know that some people say I will or am praying for you and they don’t. I mean it. I mention you by name in my prayers. If you have not received one of those letters from me, unless you are a guest, you will receive one shortly.

C. This is Biblical. I pray for you and you pray for me. Paul laid out this principle in Colossians and also 2 Thessalonians.

D. (2 Th 1:11 NIV) With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.

E. That is the verse that he says I am praying for you and in vs. 1 and 2 this morning we find that he says now you pray for us.

F. As we now have a youth minister, I ask that you not only pray for me but also pray for Tony.

G. 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2 tells us how to pray for our ministers, for our elders, for our deacons and for the church as a whole.

Thesis: How should we pray? Paul gives us three things here to focus our prayers.

For instances:

1. Delivered from evil, wicked people vs. 2

A. (2 Th 1:6 NIV) God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you

(2 Th 1:7 NIV) and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.(2 Th 1:8 NIV) He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.(2 Th 1:9 NIV) They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power(2 Th 1:10 NIV) on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.

B. Not everyone has the faith. Lot of persecution going on in the city for Christ.

C. (2 Th 2:2 NIV) not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.

D. Some people were lying to get believers to abandon the faith. The day has already happened and you are still here and nothing has changed. Lies! Not everyone has the faith!

E. Paul was writing this letter to remind them and to further teach them about the Second Coming. Some people were twisting these concepts to get people to abandon Christ!

F. (2 Th 2:10 NIV) and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2 Th 2:11 NIV) For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie (2 Th 2:12 NIV) and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

G. (2 Pet 2:19 NIV) They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

H. (1 Pet 4:4 NIV) They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.

I. The early church experienced a lot of this from governments and also from their society. However, in this land we don’t experience a lot of this.