A Word in Season: Pray for Us (2 Thessalonians 3:1)

Paul’s Request in 2 Thessalonians 3:1

Finally, brothers, says the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. This is the last thing I want to leave with you as I come toward the end of the letter. There's just a few more issues that I want to cover and the first of them is this.

What do you think he's going to say? What might the Apostle be profoundly concerned about? Finally brothers, pray for us. Well is that a little selfish? Is that Paul saying, look, whatever else I've said, the most important thing now is that you would be bringing me to the throne of grace.

Well, not me alone certainly, but us. He's writing on behalf of others also who are gospel laborers and Paul doesn't just leave it hanging. He tells the Thessalonians what he wants them to pray and that's where we see the heart of the man.

Praying for the Word to Run Swiftly and Be Glorified

That the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified just as it is with you and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for not all have faith. Paul and his friends are oppressed and opposed.

There are those who are standing against them in their work as preachers of the good news of God in Jesus Christ and so they're pleading that we would plead for them, that the Thessalonians would intercede on their behalf, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly, might have free course is an older translation, might make unimpeded progress, that the obstacles to its hearing and being received in the hearts of men and women would be taken away and that it might be glorified, that it would be honored in the work that it does, that it would be properly received and that God would magnify his word as the instrument by which the Holy Spirit is pleased to make an entrance into the hearts of men and women.

And so here is a particular concern for the preachers of the gospel as they write to the Thessalonians. What about preachers today? Same work, essentially, same challenges, more or less, same desires.

If you have a pastor who's laboring today, perhaps, to prepare something for the word of God to be preached tomorrow, I think, I hope, if you asked him, what do you need today? He would say, please, brothers, pray for us, pray for me.

Not that I may be successful, not that I might be easy in the pulpit first and foremost, not that I might be applauded, not that I might get a few more notches on the ministerial belt or a few more hits or downloads on the website, but pray that the word of God may run swiftly and be glorified.

You see how this turns attention away from the man as the instrument that God uses and towards the word of God as that by which God makes himself known. That's the great concern, whether or not this under God will have the kind of impact that a preacher deeply desires.

And is that how you would pray for yourself and for others? As you think about the men and women, boys and girls who will perhaps be gathering in your congregation, or perhaps you've got preachers who are going out onto the streets and into the square and they're going to be preaching the word of God to sinners.

What are you pleading for them? What do you plead for yourself? That the word of God may run swiftly and be glorified. And isn't that a beautiful measure that the apostle brings in at the end there? Just as it is with you.

Perhaps it's worth asking ourselves the question, would I be able to use that kind of a qualifier? Would I want somebody else to receive the word of God as I have done it? Would I want my response to the word of God to be a model for the response of others?

If not, then perhaps we ought to be praying, not just for our pastors and preachers, but also then for ourselves. That we might be the kind of Christians of whom it could be said. If you want to know what it's like to hear and heed the word of God, to receive it with faith, to embrace it in your heart, to put it into practice in your life.

Look at that man, that woman, that congregation. What a prayer to pray. How simple and yet how sweet and spiritual that the word of God, as it comes forth from God's preachers to those whom God has appointed for the hearing of the word, that that word may run swiftly and be glorified.

So let's pray it for those who preach. Let's pray it with regard to those who hear. Let's ultimately pray it for the glory of God in Christ Jesus.