1Th 3:10-13 “10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith. 11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”

This week we come to a shift in the book of 1 Thessalonians. We are looking at 1 Thessalonians through the eyes of the verse that says, “Redeeming the time because the days are evil.” If we want to make the most of the time God has given us, what are we to do? We can learn much from the example of the apostle Paul. For here in 1 Thessalonians, we find answers to those questions.

If we were to outline the book of 1 Thessalonians, we would do so with three questions and their corresponding answers:

1. What happened to the Thessalonians as a result of Paul’s three week visit? Many of them became Christians. Chapter 1 shows us what that looked like.

2. What did Paul do during those three weeks that made such an impact? The answer was that he connected with them. Chapters 2 and 3 show us the way he connected.

3. What would Paul have taught them if he had been able to be with them longer? The answers to this are found in chapters 4 and 5.

In between our look at what made Paul so effective as seen in chapters 2 and 3 and our question, “what would he have taught them if he had more time” is a prayer.

This prayer is the prayer of a godly man. This prayer is a prayer that shows his heart. This prayer is very short, in fact most of the prayers in the Bible are. Paul was a praying man.

Do you struggle with prayer? Do you wonder what you should pray for? Most of our requests are for the sick and needy. But Paul has different needs in his mind as he prays for the Thessalonians.

This morning I want to give you three requests that you could incorporate into your own prayer life. It will change the quality of our prayers for many of us. It will make us look at life in a different way. These verses tell us what Paul prayed for. But within Paul’s prayers are prayers we can call our own.

There are three requests that Paul gives.

First, he prays that he can see them again.

“10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith. 11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.

That is his prayer. But this is not the prayer I want to bring to you. We find that prayer when we ask the question: Why did Paul want to see them again?

He wanted to see them so that he could supply what was lacking in their faith. They had deficiencies in their faith. There were gaps. There were things that they did not know.

This is not a point of criticism. The Thessalonians were young Christians and needed to grow. All of us do. We all have deficiencies in our faith. Wouldn’t it be great to know that people were praying that our faith would grow and that we would be stronger?

So the first prayer request I would suggest we pray is that God would remove the deficiencies in others faith.

Think of how many Christians you know that are younger in the faith than you are. Think of how many people are new to the Christian life. Many of you would love to have someone pray for you that you would “catch up” with others, that you would know more about God and what he wants you to do. All of us need help. You might not even know what the deficiencies are. But you can pray this prayer. Pray it for me. I am willing to confess that I have things lacking in my faith. Pray for our elders. They have deficiencies in their faith. Pray for your friend who is sitting beside you in church. We might as well admit it. We all need prayer that our faith in God would be strengthened.

Paul also prays that the obstacles might be removed for his visit. What are the obstacles?

1Th 2:18 “18 For we wanted to come to you--certainly I, Paul, did, again and again--but Satan stopped us.”

The obstacle to Paul’s visit was Satan. Satan literally means “adversary”. In the Greek it also has the article so it is “the adversary.” The Greek word is Satanos. The physical adversaries were the Jewish leaders. They were the ones that kicked him out of Thessalonica, followed him to Berea, and then caused him to flee that city as well. But behind the opposition is a spiritual force that is against the word of God. Satan and his demons will do all they can to disrupt the preaching of the Word of God.

The word “stopped” is also an interesting word. It literally means “to cut up.” What would happen in wartime is that the army would destroy the road, they would cut it up, to make it hard for the enemy chariots to travel on.

As Paul thinks back to this time in Thessalonica, he sees a choppy road. Satan was trying to make it as difficult as possible for Paul.

In his prayer that God would “clear the road,” he is praying that the Jewish opposition would modify or be eliminated so that he could return to them. He wanted God, he wanted Jesus, to clear the way for his return.

So the second prayer request we could pray would be for God to removed spiritual obstacles from our path.

Do you have people who are fighting your faith? Are there people who are making following the Lord difficult? Pray that obstacles would be removed. Do you lack the funds to do what God wants done? Pray that the obstacles would be removed. Do you find yourself without the help and support you need? Ask God to either give you the help you need or the strength to find another way to get the task done.

Second, he prays that their love will grow. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

What kind of increase is Paul talking about? What kind of growth is he praying for? I do not believe in this verse that he is looking for a higher quality of love, rather the increase is in the kind of people we would love.

Let me explain. We love ourselves. Sometimes people say, “I hate myself.” But in a strange way, our desire to be different is an indication of our love for ourselves. The Bible tells us to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” The assumption is that we love ourselves.

We love our family. Unless there have been real problems, blood is thicker than water. This is natural. We care about our spouses, our parents, and our children.

Paul prays that their love will grow to include Christians.

This is difficult. Every church is made up of individuals. To bring such a diverse group together is tough. We love ourselves, we love our families, but to stretch this out to where we love other Christians is difficult. Many people look at the church in the same way that they look at the PTA or the other organizations in the community. We may be organized, but primarily we are not an organization; we are a body. We are not an organization; we are a family. We are not an organization; we are an army. Paul wants the Christians in Thessalonica to love one another.

Their love will grow to include everyone else.

This is tough. The Christians had been persecuted by fellow Jews and by the people in the city. Loving those who make up the “everyone else” is a tough call. But this is how the love would grow. It would grow across racial lines, religious lines, and political lines. They would not only love themselves, their families and other Christians, but that love would go out beyond that.

We are engaged in a time when our country is divided. We have Democrats and Republicans. We have those who are pro-gay and those who are anti-gay marriage. We have Christians, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhists all occupying the same space. In other countries, they would burn each other’s homes, rape each other’s women, kill each other’s children. But in Christ, though we do not agree with those who do not worship Christ, we are called to love them. Jesus died to reconcile people to God. God wants our love to be such that we want to see people different than us reconciled to God as well through Jesus Christ.

Our third prayer would be, God, help us to love Christians and those who are not.” In this situation where gay marriage is going to be at the forefront of the news in the State of Maine until November, I would hope that we as Christian people in this community would be against gay marriage, but that we would be civil, respectful and loving towards those who are gay at the same time we disagree with them.

Third, he prays that they will have strong hearts.

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”

The heart is the seat of our convictions. What we believe in our heart is what we are convinced about.

One must have a strong heart to be blameless when Jesus comes. It’s hard to live in this world and not be held accountable in the public eye for something. Look at what a struggle it is for politicians. A sex scandal here, a drug trip there, a dishonest dealing here; all come under scrutiny when people are asked to run for office. It’s hard to find people who are blameless.

But that is what Paul wanted for the Thessalonians. When Jesus came, he didn’t want this group of people to be known for their hypocrisy or their moral failings or their poor testimony. He wanted them to be blameless.

One must have a strong heart to be holy when Jesus comes. The main idea of holiness as shown in the Bible is separated. God wants Christians to be separated from the world. He does not want us using the world’s language, he does not want us accepting the world’s ideas, he does not want us practicing the world’s morality.

Our fourth prayer would be “God strengthen our hearts.”

This prayer might change our lives. There might be things in our lives that would embarrass us if they leaked out into the community. God, strengthen our hearts to change before we dishonor your name.

There may be areas in which you are just like the world around you. God wants you to be holy, separate from the ways of the world. But you don’t mind bending the rules for your own benefit with it fits you.

I would like to put a challenge before you. Take this outline that you have filled out. Sometime today, put it before you and pray using these items as your prayer concerns.

I have. Let me tell you what it does. First, it feels strange. It’s different than I have become accustomed to praying. Second, it caused me to look at situations and people in a little different light. It almost forces a spiritual point of view in my mind. Third, it is exciting. When you pray for God to do things in the spiritual realm, it is amazing what the potential is.

So again, I challenge you. Take the outline and pray these requests. If you didn’t get it, it is online with the text of the message. But pray, and then let me know what it does for you.