Unleashing God’s Word (2 Thessalonians 3:1)

Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you.
– 2 Thessalonians 3:1

What a great prayer that Paul asks these Christians in Thessalonica to pray for, just like the gospel spread in Thessalonica, which Paul had talked about in this letter. He talked about it in the previous letter. He talked about how they received God’s word. It spread in power and the Holy Spirit with deep conviction, and it was sounding forth from them in Macedonia, in Achaia. 1 Thessalonians 1:8 says, their faith in God had gone everywhere.

So Paul gets to 2 Thessalonians 3:1, and he says, pray for that to happen all over the place. Pray for the word of the Lord to speed ahead. Is that not a great phrase? For God’s word to go swiftly out and be honored. So not just like a lot of people hearing it, but a lot of people believing it and revering it and receiving it and experiencing life change through it.

So I just want to lead us to pray this exact prayer for each other and for the places where we live. Let’s pray for this in our cities, that the word of the Lord would speed ahead and be honored through our churches, through our lives, in the communities, in the cities where we live. And then yes, to pray for this around the world. As we think about our brothers and sisters in different places in the world, let’s pray that the word of the Lord would spread, speed ahead and be honored.

We’re going to pray specifically today for the Sarera people of India. So this is a Sikh people group of about 90,000 people. So we’re going to pray for them, but then let’s just pray for this all over India and all over different countries. Ah, let’s just pray 2 Thessalonians 3:1 together.

Prayer

God, we pray straight from your word, for your word, to speed ahead and be honored.

God, we pray for that in and through our lives, in our communities. God, we want to see. Think about the city where I live. God, I want to see your words speeding ahead and being honored by more and more and more people. I pray for that. We pray for that in all the cities we live in. We pray for spiritual awakening. God, we pray for the word to go forward and be received.

God, we pray that you’d help us to be bold with your word, to speak it knowing it won’t speed ahead if your people don’t speak it out loud. So God, we pray that you’d help us by the power of your Holy Spirit to spread your word and we pray that it would be received and that it would be honored and that it would be exalted in the cities where we live. We pray for your word to be exalted.

And then, God, we pray for this around the world. We pray for this among the Surera people, specifically of India, among this Eastern Punjabi speaking people group. God, we pray that your word would speed ahead and be honored among the Surera people of India. Yes, God, please, may it be so.

And we pray for this all over India. We pray that your word would speed ahead and be honored. We pray for that in India. We pray for that in Afghanistan. We pray for that in Pakistan. We pray for this in North Korea. We pray for this in Somalia. We pray for this in Yemen. We pray for this all over Europe. And let’s just cover all the continents and North America, in South America, in Africa, in Asia, anybody on Antarctica.

God, we pray that your word would speed ahead and be honored all over the world. We pray for that, oh God, that today in our communities and in places around the world, your word would go swiftly and it would be honored to your glory and to the good of people across our cities and people among all the nations.

We pray this straight from your word in 2 Thessalonians 3:1. In Jesus’ name, amen.