Download I want to tell you about three great men from this church`s recent past

2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 – MREFC – 17th April 2005, am
I want to tell you about three great men from this church’s recent past. They were all serving
as leaders when I arrived here only a little less than nine years ago, but they are all dead now.
Most of us here will not remember them. Oldest among them was Gerald Henagulph. Gerald
became the lay leader of the church in the 1940s when there was only a handful of people
remaining and it was about to close. Under God Gerald rescued the church and lead it for
more than 30 years.
Then there was Harold Poyser. Harold was an ordinary man. He worked a large part of his
life at the Cowley works, and then latterly as a college servant in the kitchens. Everyone who
came to the church would remember Harold’s beefy handshake and warm open smile.
Finally I want to mention Roy Enoch. Roy was a relative newcomer, having come to
Magdalen Road only a few years before me. But Roy made a great mark as a leader. He
combined great gentleness and love with shrewd wisdom, and became a father figure to many
people of my generation.
Why do I mention them? I mention them because they were all great men of prayer. Brian
has some of Gerald’s early diaries from the 1940s – they resonate with prayerful confidence
in God’s ability to rebuild that little church – and he did! Harold Poyser was in the habit of
praying through the whole Magdalen Road prayer list every day. In his latter days when he
needed less sleep, he took delight in rising in the small hours and praying until morning. And
Roy was one of those utterly regular disciplined people. Every morning he read his Bible,
and he prayed without fail.
Today they are all in glory. They have passed the baton to us. And I wonder. Are we as
strong as we once were in prayer? There is no doubt that we are stronger in some aspects of
our church life. I think it is fair to say that we are more biblically literate as a church. In
many ways we are more engaged with our community – we mirror its multiculturalism, its
youth, its educational range. There are certainly more people. But is there a real
commitment to prayer?
A survey carried out a few years ago in Britain made sobering reading. The average church
attender in Britain prays for only 4 minutes a day. Their minister prays for only 7 minutes a
day! When we hear a statistic like that there is a tendency to sigh a sigh of relief. “At least
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2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 – MREFC – 17th April 2005, am
I’m not that bad” we say to ourselves. But could it be that this is a key reason for the woeful
weakness of the church in Britain. Do we want to be like the average church?
If our prayer life is weak, why do you think it is? Don Carson in his book “A Call to
Spiritual Reformation” - which we are encouraging you all to buy and read – says that one
reason is simply that we don’t plan to pray. Is there a fixed point in your routine which is set
aside for Bible reading and prayer? If our plan is just to fit it in when we have a moment you
can be sure we won’t find that moment.
Distraction is by far the biggest reported hindrance to prayer. I combat that with a prayer list
– of people I pray for daily, weekly and monthly. I have developed the habit of jotting down
some key thoughts from the Bible passage I am reading and turning that into prayer. Some
people read hymns and pray through them. I was recently given Martin Luther’s sixteenth
century book “A Simple Way to Pray”. It gives great advice on how to use the Lord’s prayer
and the Ten Commandments in prayer. We can learn to focus in our work – there is no
reason why we should not learn to focus in prayer.
I think another reason why we don’t pray is that we are activists. We have learned that “God
helps those who help themselves”. Occasionally I will set aside a few hours in a day to pray
and meditate. I have to wrestle with a sense of guilt that I am “not doing anything”. When
did the Bible ever describe prayer as “not doing anything”? For a pastor in particular it is one
of my two great tasks – “the ministry of the word and prayer”. All our activity will go astray
if it is not covered by prayer – beware of prayerless activism.
This morning, though, I want to pick out a couple of things from 2 Thessalonians 1 which
may offer a little more diagnosis, and potential cure for prayerlessness. I want to suggest that
prayer is driven by confidence and hunger.
First of all then I want to suggest that prayer is driven by confidence in God
 Confidence in God: a foundation for prayer
That is the burden of verses 3-10.
Paul is confident, first of all that God is acting now
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2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 – MREFC – 17th April 2005, am
 That God is acting now – vv3-4

Vv3-4
He feels an obligation to thank God because he sees their faith growing “more and more”.
He sees their love for one another increasing. He sees them persevering and enduring under
considerable difficulty.
Let’s be frank. Those are the last things that stir many of us to prayer. We may pray when
those we love are sick. We may pray when our job is threatened. We may pray for an easier
life. But rejoicing with God when faith grows, and love increases, and Christians endure in
difficult circumstances – do those things make us rush to pray? Often we just don’t care
about the things that God really cares about.
But more deep seated is a lack of confidence that God is working in that way today. We
focus on the failures in our faith and others. On the signs of lovelessness. On the
precariousness of people perseverance rather than the fact that they have kept going.
I often talk to people, even amongst us, who just don’t believe God is working. They see
only struggle and failure. Let me say I would love to see him working more powerfully. I
would love to see our faith be stronger than it is. I weep when I see or hear of lovelessness
amongst us or in my own heart. And I do see people give up.
But don’t close your eyes to the real work of God that there is amongst us, and amongst
evangelical churches in this country. It is frankly a miracle that the best part of a hundred
people gather here regularly, to sing and pray and learn from the Bible and enjoy being
together. It is a miracle that two wages get paid by us. It is a miracle that people with
nothing in common except Christ are learning to love one another.
Make no mistake about it, the outside world sees that miracle. Over the last few years I have
met a few hostile observers of this church. They are convinced that I possess some
dangerous charismatic power that enthrals you. They have a higher view of my gifts than any
of us in this room I think – because they have no other explanation for what is going on here.
We know it is the work of God.
And notice too the increasingly shrill way in which evangelicals nationally are labelled as
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“dangerous fundamentalists” or even “the Christian Taliban”, when in fact we are only
following what have been mainstream Christian beliefs for the last two thousand years. The
strength of evangelicalism gives the lie to the secularists confident assertions that Christianity
is a dying faith. And they are worried.
Make no mistake about it, God is working, and Christians who see it, as Paul puts it “aught
always to thank God”.
And that confidence that God is acting now give us confidence that he will act in the future.
 That God will act in the future – 5-10

Vv5-7a
We can’t look at verses 5-10 in any detail. Suffice it to say that the promises God give us
about our eternal destiny, about our future glory, and satisfaction and delight in eternity are
not vain. But nor are the warnings that those who reject God will in turn be eternally
rejected. The choices we make now all too rapidly become eternally hardened. The reality of
God’s future action must be a powerful stimulus to prayer.

V11a
Or perhaps we just don’t realise the great drama that is being played out in the lives of every
single person that we know. If life was only about food and drink and clothes and homes and
sex, then we might pray a little when we were worried about one or other of them. But if life
is about judgment or vindication by God then we must pray earnestly.
Confidence that God is at work now and forever is a vital foundation of prayer.
But there is something else that drives Paul’s prayer life too. It is hunger.
 Hunger: a stimulus to prayer
Hunger for Christ-likeness.
 Hunger for Christ-likeness

V11a
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Back in verse 5 Paul has already expressed confidence that they will be “counted worthy of
the kingdom of God”. But now he prays constantly for it too. There is no contradiction.
God wants us to be caught up in his great work. He wants us to yearn for what he yearns for.
He wants us to be hungry for what he is hungry for. His great project in the lives of
Christians is to conform us to the likeness of Christ.
He chose us for heaven, but now he is preparing us for heaven. We will never be “worthy of
his calling” in an absolute way – we will always need God’s abundant forgiveness if we are
to be saved. But we can, indeed we must be changed so that, in a more limited way, we are
worthy to be called followers of Christ.
Are you hungry for that in yourself and in others. Do the failures of other people in this
church leave you resentful, or condemning, or proud? Or do they drive you to your knees to
plead with God on their behalf – that he would overcome their lovelessness, that he would
give them a deeper faith, that he fill their hearts with a passionate love for Jesus which drives
out sin.
What if we resolved never to make any negative comment about another member of the
church unless we prayed for them, for their maturity, for their happiness in Christ – for a
week!
Paul was hungry for success too.
 Hunger for success

V11
There is a qualification in what Paul prays. He prays only that their good purposes, or
probably better “desires” would be fulfilled. He prays only that their acts prompted by faith
would be fulfilled. Not every desire or every act or Christians is empowered by God. We are
sinners. Sometimes our desires are warped. Sometimes are acts are prompted by more base
driving forces than faith. Paul is clear that he prays that God would apply a filter to our
desires and actions.
But he is also clear that he prays ambitiously for the fulfilment of their desires, and
empowerment of their actions. He prays for God to fulfil “every good purpose and every act
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prompted by faith.”
God encourages us to be ambitious for his glory. There is a glorious freedom about the way
that God treats us. He showed it first to Adam and Eve. Genesis chapter 2 records how
Adam and Eve were placed in a region in which there was gold in the hills, and aromatic
resin, and onyx, and all kinds of trees whose fruit they could enjoy. A thousand and one
good things to find and enjoy.
So here Paul prays that every good thing that comes into our heads – would become reality.
That every act of faith would be richly fruitful. Paul was hungry for good fruit from the lives
of Christians – he was hungry for their success.
He prayed that our desire to do a job at work would be fulfilled. He prayed that our desire to
love our family better would be fulfilled. He prayed that our desire to speak to a friend about
Christ would be fulfilled. He prayed that our decision not to upgrade the car but to use the
money for something better would enrich us. He prayed that our decision to go and spend a
bit of time with that lonely person would be richly rewarded. He prayed that our decision not
shout for our rights at work but simply to work diligently as for Christ, would pay dividends.
He prayed that our commitment to pray regularly for that person would be honoured by God.
And what would be he be praying for us as a church? Is it a good desire to want to own the
Bingo Hall? Is it an act prompted by faith to explore buying it? There are certainly
unambiguously good desires associated with it. It is a good desire to long to see people
reached for Christ. It is a good desire to long to be better equipped to serve our community.
And there are so many other good desires – as numerous as the fruit trees in the garden of
Eden. Lets pray for them all – God will filter out those he is not happy about but he loves to
fulfil every good purpose, every act prompted by faith. Are we hungry to success as we serve
Christ?
And he is hungry for glory.
 Hunger for glory

V12
believers. God’s ultimate purpose is to be
First that Christ would be glorified in these
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glorified. Not because he is a despot, but because his glory is the great, completing, all
satisfying purpose of his whole creation.
“I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
He says. But as Christ is glorified in us, so we are glorified in being associated with him –
we “glorified in him”. Paul is quite unabashed that he is hungry for glory – but not as the old
divines used to call it “vainglory”. The exaltation of ourselves is the tawdry glory of the
emperor who actually has no clothes.
Paul was hungry for the glory that comes from magnifying the glory of Christ.
Perhaps we don’t pray much because we are just not very hungry for the greatest things in
life.
There is a story in St Ebbes’ Church from years ago about some old ladies who used to sit at
the back of the rather sparsely populated morning service. When urged to move forward they
replied that they were praying that the pews in front of them would be filled. How their
prayers have been answered! They were hungry not for vainglory, but for the reflected glory
of glorifying Christ.
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