A lot of 2 Thessalonians is prayer. For Paul the key to holding on to the end is a growing confidence in God’s ability to keep us – even in the face of suffering. Look at v.3-4.

Paul’s confidence for the Thessalonians future rests in God’s faithfulness. All the way through 2 Thess. we have seen that God’s sovereignty over evil is crucial to our ability to endure and prayer is where we show that we know God is in control.

Prayer isn’t like a tug-of-war: I used to do a summer camp with a sports day that ended in a tug of war – the leaders on one side and the teenagers on the other. We were stronger but they were twice as many and so every year it was touch and go who would win but we shouldn’t think of prayer as  grabbing the rope to pull with  God’s team to try and win victory. All the way through 2 Thessalonians Paul has stressed that Christ’s victory over evil is certain (see 1:8-11, 2:8)

Prayer is where we show we know that God is in control.

But that makes prayer a bit of a mystery to many people including many Christians.  We can’t quite see the purpose of prayer, after all if God has it all under control, if he is working things out, how is that an incentive to prayer?

Why pray to a sovereign God?

Two reasons.

a) Prayer changes us.

Prayer is God’s means of helping us hold on to him. All the great prayers of the Bible are prays for God to do what he has promised to do and so through prayer we grow in trust that God will do what he has promised to do.

I wonder whether you are ever struck by the fact that Paul was a man who absolutely believed in the unstoppable plan of God was a man who prayed and he didn’t just pray occasionally he prayed  constantly for the Thessalonians (1v11).

Why should you and I pray? We pray because it changes us….

John Bunyan said Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty is filled by God. As we pray we practise putting our trust in God and so our confidence in him begins to grow.

Bunyan again: The truths that I know best I have learned on my knees. I never know a thing well, till it burned into my heart by prayer.  Prayer will change you. Will you let it? Will you give yourself to prayer.

Persecuted Christians pray and they pray because they very thing God has promised to do is the very thing they most need him to do , to deliver on his promises to keep his people and then to vindicate them on Christ’s return. Maybe the reason we don’t pray is because we don’t think we need God – not to live today or tomorrow.

We’ve said in this short series in 2 Thessalonians that suffering works for us and not against us and one of the ways that works is that at times of suffering we more quickly turn to God. Abraham Lincoln said I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.

We also pray because

2) Prayer changes things

Paul prayed because he knew God’s plans includes our prayers. God takes our prayers and uses them.

God is sovereign but he’s not a computer programme, he’s not a machine. We need to understand that God is sovereign but he is also personal and because he’s personal he chooses to achieve his purposes through his people.

Imagine I want to wash my car I could take my sons and drive the car into the machine at the petrol station. The key when you wash your car with a machine is that you need to sit still, stay in the car and let it wash over you, literally! But I could wash my car by filling three buckets full of  soapy water and saying to my sons let’s wash it together.

God wants us to pray because he wants us to achieve his purposes together.

Don Carson says in his excellent book on Paul’s prayers A Call to Spiritual Reformation Something has gone wrong in our reasoning if our reasoning leads us away from prayer; something is amiss in our theology if you theology becomes a disincentive to pray.

Prayer changes us and prayer changes things, God calls on us to be people of prayer.

In a short series of posts I want to ask Why read? What to read? How to read?

Why read?

1. Read because it will grow you as a Christian

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15

The number of theological books should…be reduced, and a selection should be made of the best of them; for many books do not make men learned, nor does much reading. But reading something good, and reading it frequently, however little it may be, is the practice that makes men learned in the Scripture and makes them pious besides.

Luther

Just think how reading can change you!

• Read to be inspired
• Read to be informed
• Read to be challenged
• Read to  be rebuked
• Read to be trained
• Read to be changed!

2.  Read because it will equip you for Christian ministry.

John Wesley wrote to a friend and fellow minister John Premboth the following on August 17^th , 1760.

‘What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety, there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first, will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you in particular.’

3. Read because with a little effort you can achieve more than you would think

John Piper shows how just 15 minutes a day can make you a surprisingly well read person!

Suppose you read slowly like I do – maybe about the same speed that you speak- 200 words a minute. If you read fifteen minutes a day for one year (say just before supper, or just before bed), you will read 5,475 minutes in the year. Multiply that by 200 words a minute, and you get 1,  095,000 words that you would read in a year. Now an average serious book might have about 360words per page. So  you would have read 3,041 pages in one year. That’s ten very substantial books. All in fifteen minutes a day.

Or, to be specific, my copy of Calvin’s Institutes has 1,521 pages in two volumes, with an average of 400 words per page, which is 608, 400 words. That means that even if you took a day off each week you could read this great biblical vision of God and man in less than nine months (about thirty-three weeks) at fifteen minutes a day. The point is: The words and ways of God will abide in you more deeply and more powerfully if you give yourself to some serious reading of great books that are saturated with Scripture. It certainly does not have to be John Calvin – or my favourite, Jonathan Edwards – but not to read any of the great old books when you have access to them may be owing to nothing better than what Lewis calls “chronological snobbery.”

John Piper

Conclusion

So what’s stopping you? If reading is essential to growing as a Christian and serving as a Christian perhaps the only thing stopping us is the need to plan to read.

plan to read

1. Why not fix a time in your day for 15 minutes of reading.
2. Write it in your diary.
3. Create your own sticker chart and reward yourself (not too much) for say 5 consecutive days. Luther maybe didn’t need such an incentive but if it keeps you going just do it.
4. Tell others about your plan.  What you’re reading and how they can encourage you.
5. Fix to read with others – maybe your spouse or a facebook friend.
6. Commit to reading before say you switch the telly on or check your e-mails.

Find all the ways you can to keep reading for your good and God’s glory.

Next time: what to read?

Don’t waste your life.

Procrastination. How much time is eaten up when we could be getting on with doing other, better things. Work, praying, hanging out with ‘real’ people.
Ill-discipline. How easy is it to stay up late into the night messing around – ‘just one more click’ we say to ourselves – even when friends have gone to bed we can continue ‘virtual friendships’.
Poor priorities. Fifty percent of Facebook users visit the site every day. I wonder whether even fifty percent of Christians read their Bible and pray every day. C.f. Psalm 1.
Addiction. As human beings we have sinful natures that are prone to addictive weaknesses. The very nature of certain technologies may make them harder to resist. Internet has constant novelty and constant access. Here is how one journalist put it:
‘I’m all but surgically attached to the web. I’m working 24/7, and increasingly isolated from social interaction. Going to the Atlantic offices helps, but getting a grip on this thing is hard.’

Maturity

Facebook is focused around younger people who have most to learn in being godly and controlled in their use of technology. Bad habits develop early and are then harder to kick.

Relationships

Flirting. I may not think of it as such but might my behaviour towards the opposite sex become a way to lead them on? Maybe the pictures I post at the very least might be unhelpful to them? Do I use Facebook to check-out people I might be interested in dating but then that lead to unhealthy thoughts, even lust?
Projecting an image. Do I use Facebook to re-create myself. To show off by projecting a false me, a new ‘me’ that people wouldn’t recognise if they really knew me.
Inappropriate intimacy? Why should I view photobooks of people I hardly know? What is the point of a ‘wall’ on which private remarks become public comment?
Saying things we might regret. It’s easy to type a few words in a status bar that easily offend. Even Bishops do it . (link)
Public exclusion. Everyone knows who and who are not ‘friends’ or who’s not been invited to the event, etc.

Virtue of humility

Narcissism. If the heart of sin is as Luther says ‘Life turned in ourselves’ then Facebook is the perfect platform for sin. How easy it is to use Facebook as a place to promote ourselves and how many friends we have and what a great time we’re having. Facebook is a way of saying ‘look at me’ everybody.
CS Lewis says ‘Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less’. Using Facebook to promote Christian humility is a challenge for all of us.

Celebration of trivial and superficial

Superficiality. It’s not easy to say anything meaningful on Facebook. Such platforms don’t seem to be a good forum for in-depth heart-to-heart talks or extended discussion or discourse. If this is my primary means of relating will a shallow culture turn me into a shallow culture – Nicholas Carr seems to think so. As a culture we don’t know how to relate intimately. Deep intimacy is avoided. We prefer superficial and even anonymous relationships.
Lack of accountability. How easy to invest energy in lots of superficial friendships and fail to develop a few good friendships. The danger is of hiding behind superficiality which might be enough in the happy student bubble but is disastrous for a whole life lived for God.

The very way it weakens our thinking

‘The blogging mind does not easily adjust to reading a book or allowing an unformed thought stay unformed. Even when you carve out time for more offline reading or living, it’s hard to switch gears. And the danger of burnout is serious.’ Andrew Sullivan, ‘A Blog Sabbath?’
I’ll leave the last word to Don Carson:
‘Scarcely less important than speed of access is the Internet’s sheer intoxicating addictiveness—or, more broadly, we might be better to think of the intoxicating addictiveness of the entire digital world. Many are those who are never quiet, alone, and reflective, who never read material that demands reflection and imagination.’

What was striking was that at a gathering of Christians not once was the name of Jesus mentioned by any of the hosts and when it came to songs all we were invited to sing were soul classics such as James Brown’s ‘I feel good’.

Did those who organised the event love Jesus? I’m sure they did. Do they desire that many would come to share their faith?  Absolutely. So what was it that most troubled me? Simply that the call to Christians to engage in social action was made without reference to the very gospel that should inspire it.  In other words the gospel was assumed but not proclaimed.

Today I came across the following statement by Don Carson made in a lecture in 2009 and included in a blog post by CJ Mahaney which helps establish exactly what is at stake with assumed evangelicalism.

There are some wonderful instances of ordinary Christians, not least the young, who are concerned to preach the whole gospel unabashedly and do good first to the household of God and then, as much as is possible, outside as well [Galatians 6:10]. That has got biblical mandate behind it.…

My warning would be to those who are coming along and talking a lot about, “I want to be faithful to the gospel, but I also want to do social justice of good works.” My warning would be: it is not just what you do, it is what you are excited about.

Carson goes on;

If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.

If the gospel—even when you are orthodox—becomes something which you primarily assume, but what you are excited about is what you are doing in some sort of social reconstruction, you will be teaching the people that you influence that the gospel really isn’t all that important.

And here is Carson’s crucial insight:

You won’t be saying that—you won’t even mean that—but that’s what you will be teaching. And then you are only half a generation away from losing the gospel.

So what should have happened at our gathering earlier this week? We needed to find ways of communicating through word, prayer and song that we are indeed passionate about serving our communities because we are passionate about Christ.

As Tim Keller’s set’s out in his new book Generous Justice ‘we must neither confuse evangelism with doing justice, nor separate them from one another.’

The big lesson then according to Carson is simply this:

Make sure that in your own practice and excitement, what you talk about, what you think about, what you pray over, what you exude confidence over, joy over, what you are enthusiastic about is Jesus, the gospel, the cross. And out of that framework, by all means, let the transformed life flow.