In the sermon 'Pray for One Another' based on 1st Thessalonians 1:2, Steve Hopkins emphasizes the importance of both private and corporate prayer within the Christian community. He reflects on Jesus' teachings in Matthew 6 and Mark 1:35, urging believers to pray alone in the morning before starting their day. The sermon highlights the benefits of private prayer, which has been undervalued in modern times compared to the practices of earlier Christians. Hopkins stresses the unity of the body of Christ, pointing out how believers are interconnected like members of a single body, as described in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. When one suffers, all suffer, and this is why praying for one another is crucial. He encourages praying for the sick and those in need, and also for spiritual well-being, as demonstrated by Apostle Paul's prayers for the Ephesians. The sermon illustrates that prayer is a manifestation of love and sympathy, urging believers to pray even for those they find difficult to love or esteem. Additionally, Hopkins reflects on Jesus' intercession for believers, both on earth and in heaven, as a model for how we should intercede for others.

Verse Thessalonians chapter one. And we're going to read just one verse this afternoon, verse two. You know, we were talking about prayer last week and Christ's commandment to us, in Christ's commandment to us, His commandment to pray, to His disciples to pray in Matthew chapter six, and then His example in Mark 1.35 to pray in the morning. And the only conclusion that anyone could make is that Jesus wants us to be praying alone with God in a solitary place, close our door, get alone with God, and to do that in the morning before we begin our day. That's the only conclusion when we look at Matthew 6 and Mark 135, and even the Lord's prayer, a daily prayer, give us this day, our daily bread.

So these simple things from scripture, you know, we need to really take to heart and implement and, you know, Christians of old seem to understand these things and, but it's lost so much in our in our day in our time and we've lost a lot of benefit from it. The churches have lost a lot of benefit from understanding that not only are we to gather in corporate prayer, Not only are we to pray as the men did earlier in the church prayer time, but that we're to get alone with God every day in the morning before we face the day. That's the teaching of Scripture and I tried to really impress upon everyone last week the great benefit of that. And those who have been veterans of private prayer will tell you it's been a great benefit to them. And I hope that everybody is able to enjoy those great benefits.

But with that, let's stand and read one verse only. First Thessalonians chapter one and verse two. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. Let's pray. Father, open unto us, O God, your Word.

Give us your Spirit, O God, to open our understanding as we open your Word. And bring glory to your name, O God, as we seek you through your Word. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's be seated. So we are returning to our series of the one another's of scripture.

This week, pray for one another. Pray for one another. And I want to begin with a question. Do you do you pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ? Is that your habit?

Could you say, yeah, I pray for my brothers and sisters in in Christ. I mean, when I ask that, I mean really, really pray for them. And then second, if you pray for them, what are you praying for them about? What are you praying for them about? Certainly, we're to pray for the sick.

James 5, 16 says, pray for one another that you may be healed. Confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. I trust that if you're praying for your brothers and sisters in the Lord that you're praying for the sick. And I trust that you're comforted by the fact that when you're sick, you have a church family that is praying for you corporately in the meetings of the church. And brothers and sisters in the Lord who are praying for you privately when they get alone with God in prayer every day.

When we gather on Sunday, as we did today, the men come forward and they pray and they always remember those who are suffering among us. I can tell you that it's a great comfort to me to know whenever I'm sick that I have a church family that's praying for me. Is that the way every one of you feels? When you just know, I've got people praying for me. I know I can send out something on the men's loop or the ladies' loop, and I can know that I'll have brothers and sisters that are praying for me.

The family of God has no comparison on earth. There's nothing to which the family of God can be compared on earth. The world around us is disconnected. It's disjointed. It's even dismembered in many ways.

While the family of God, we are bound together as one. We're in one body. One body in Christ through the eternal spirit. Romans 12 and verse 5 says, So we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another. We being many are one body in Christ, and every one, every one of us, members one of another.

1 Corinthians 12, 12 says, For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so is Christ. We are the body of Christ. Our unity comes from being united with Christ. Our unity comes from being united in Christ. In this respect, think about it, the many are one.

We have many members, but we're one body. Many members who are one body in Christ. Colossians 3.15 says, ye are called, ye plural, you all who are in the body of Christ are called in one body. You all who are Christians are called in one body. The many are one.

1 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians 10-17, in 1 Corinthians 10-17, Paul puts it like this, for we being many are one bread, one body. So, you know, thinking about this and this unity of the body, this oneness of the people of God being many yet in one body, It's no mystery that Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that when one member of the body of Christ suffers, the whole body suffers with it. And you think about your own physical body and how, you know, just one member suffers and like the whole body suffers, right? So it draws from this analogy, but, but when one member of the body of Christ suffers, the whole body suffers with it. When one part of the body hurts, the whole body endures a sense of their pain, of that one single member's pain.

In 1 Corinthians 12, 25 through 26, Paul says, the members of Christ's body should have the same care, one for another, and whether one member suffer, All the members suffer with it. And being so much one, what do we do? Well, we pray for one another. We pray for one another. In our prayers, rejoicing with those who rejoice.

And in our prayers weeping with those who weep, Romans 12, 15. Carrying one another's burdens, as we read in Galatians 6, 2, and thereby fulfilling the law of Christ. Not only actively, and we've been looking at that in our study of the one another's of scripture, not only actively going out and carrying each other's burdens, but also lifting up one another's burdens, bearing each other's burdens in prayer before God. That's what we do, that's what we do in the body of Christ. We bear one another's burdens actively in this world and then we also bear one another's burdens in prayer before God.

You know, there are those who can't, who may not have the health or the strength or way or access or means by which they can, they can bear one another's burdens, But every one of us can bear one another's burdens in in prayer every one of us can lift up the burdens of our brothers and sisters before God in prayer Lifting them up in our prayers one for another You know as I was looking at these passages, I also was thinking about Hebrews 13, 3, and Brother Richard remembered the persecuted church in his prayers. You know, we're to be praying for those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ in our local body and those that we know, you know, around the world who are in need. But we're always to remember and never to forget those who are in chains for Christ. Hebrews 13 three, we're to, to remember them as bound with them were to remember them as though we ourselves were in chains with them as if we were there with them in their dark cells suffering with them away from their wives away from their children away from their families away from their church We should be praying for them and lifting them up as though we were there with them.

Our prayers for one another are a manifestation of our sympathy. It's an outworking of our sympathy and our tenderheartedness towards our brothers and sisters in Christ and a manifestation of our love for them. First Peter 3, 8. We're told to be tenderhearted and to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. This shows our heart and maybe no one sees it but God.

Maybe God is the only one who sees it because you're praying in secret. No one else even knows. But God knows that you're sympathetic toward them, that your heart is filled with concern for them, that you're tender-hearted toward them, that you love them. And you know this from experience. Every one of us knows this from experience that when they hear of it, when it happens that, a brother or sister does hear that they're being prayed for, maybe by you or by the congregation.

When they hear that we are praying for them. It is a means by which they are encouraged. First Thessalonians 5 14 talks about encouragement for the faint hearted and for the weak. Well, the faint hearted and the weak are encouraged when they know that their brothers and sisters are praying for them in their their weakness and in their struggles. Brothers and sisters Ephesians 425 says we are all members one of another.

And when we pray for one another, it is a sure evidence that we are members of the family of God. You know, one of the First John tests of true faith is you know, do you love the people of God? Do you love the people of God? Well, yeah, I love the people of God you say well if you love them, you know Is it being manifested in your in your in your prayer life? Is it being evidenced in your prayer life?

Maybe it isn't, and you still love them, but maybe you need to begin to put them on your prayer list and say, you know what? I haven't been praying for this person. I love the people of God, but I haven't been praying for him. Or maybe you just say I haven't been praying for them as I ought to. But it is a sure evidence that we're members of the family of God, and that we are of one heart and of one soul.

Acts 432 says, and the multitude of them that believe, this is in the first church, the early church, the multitude of them that believe, that's the whole group of them that believed were of one heart and one soul. So it's a sign that we're of one heart and one soul. And not only that, it's a sure sign that we, being of one heart and one soul and one body, have begun to look beyond ourselves. We've begun to look beyond ourselves. We're so impressed with our own needs, right?

We have so many things that we need, so many things that are on our plate, so many concerns that we need to be dealt with, that many times we don't look beyond ourselves, but we, you know, we, when we do begin to look beyond ourselves, it's a sure sign of our love for our brothers and sisters as ourselves. Remember we started with Jesus saying, in the world you're supposed to love your neighbors yourself, but your Christian brothers and sisters more, right? Remember, He said, love them as I've also loved you. That's a different kind of love. It's a greater degree of love.

So we begin to look beyond ourselves, not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others in the body of Christ and its members. When we become concerned not for our own things and our own needs only but also the concerns and the needs and the interests of our brothers and sisters in Christ, when we're impressed with their needs We look beyond ourselves. We get kind of outside of our own little circle and begin to care for others and lift up their needs and lift up their things and they become as important as our own things and sometimes more important. We asked a few weeks ago, I think both Eric and I both asked this question, is there anyone in the body that you find it difficult to love? If you looked around at the local body at Burnet Bible, is there anyone you say, wow, I kind of find it hard to love this person?

I would ask the same question here in the context of prayer. Is there anyone in the body that you find it difficult to pray for? To really, from the heart, pray for? Is there anyone? I told a story many years ago, I was asking Christiana if she remembered the story, she didn't remember it, So it's long enough that she was young enough that she didn't remember it.

Some of you may remember it. I told the story many years ago of a man in the 1800s. He was lowly esteemed in his church. He was poor. He was kind of socially awkward.

He didn't communicate with people well. And he had a lot of glaring faults. A lot of glaring faults. And a family in the church would, would, many times go home and someone in the family, the mom or the dad, the mother or the father, you know, and after their example, sometimes even one of the children would, would point out something that this man, old Joe did, it was kind of funny or awkward or strange. And everyone in the family would chuckle about it.

They never really esteemed him very, very highly. And if they ever thought or spoke of him at all, it was, it was in pity for, or maybe in joking, you know, for the way that he was or the way that he acted or one of his glaring faults. At any rate, one day the father of this family was leaving his office in the city and he was walking back to his home and a rainstorm came in that forced him to take a different route home And he took this different route so that he could walk underneath the eaves of the apartments in their rows towards his house without getting drenched. And as he was walking home on that different route that rainy day, He happened by the window of this brother from church. And when he heard his voice, he recognized his voice.

And he stopped for just a moment outside his window and he heard Joe praying. Dear God, once again, I want to pray for the Smith family, this man's family that was standing outside his door. Bless them richly Lord, keep their children safe, and especially their little ones. And provide for their needs, Lord. I love them so much.

And Mr. Smith was crushed. He had never prayed for Joe at all. He never lifted him up any of his needs or even cared what he might be going through in his life. When he got home, he gathered the family and told them what had happened and of Joe's prayer and together they confessed their sin against their brother and the Lord and the heart of the family was changed and they took on a new family ministry and began to pray for those who were least esteemed in the church.

You know, sometimes we have to be broken over our sin before we will begin to pray for others as we ought. Now, I want us to see something here concerning our prayers for one another. That though they are to include the physical well-being and financial needs and health related needs of our brethren, they are by no means to be limited to these things. The Apostle Paul gives us an example of this in Ephesians chapter 3. Listen to him praying for the members of the church at Ephesus.

He says, for this cause I bow my knees, that is I get on my knees under the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man, and that Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Paul gave us an example to bow our knees, that is to humbly go to our knees before God in prayer for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And to pray for their spiritual well-being and to pray for their spiritual prosperity and to pray for their spiritual health. Three things he prayed that we should also pray for one another. That God would grant our brothers and sisters, number one, spiritual strength.

We need to be praying, of course, for our own spiritual strength, but also for the spiritual strength of our brothers and sisters in the Lord for inner strength by his spirit in his words According to the riches of his glory that they would be strengthened with might by his spirit capital S in the inner man by the Spirit of God in the inner man. Number two, that we should pray that Christ would be deeply rooted and grounded in the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ and that by faith. That Christ would be formed in them by growing in the faith of Him and reliance upon Him. Yes for their salvation but also for everything strengthened in their inner being through faith in Him and what He has done for them and that for a purpose. Number three, that being convinced of his love for them, they would be rooted and grounded in Christ's love.

Have you ever prayed for that that sort of thing before that and even for ourselves but this is he's praying this for others that we would be oh Lord I want to be rooted and grounded I want to be made strong and stable through the knowledge of Christ's love for me I want to know more of his love for me and I want my brothers and sisters in the Lord to know more of Christ's love so that they can also be made more strong and more stable and be strengthened more in the inner man. Help them God and help me to be be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ and help my brothers and sisters in Lord to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ that they might be able to comprehend along with all saints that is along with all those who are Christians, all who have been separated unto God by Christ, they might be able to comprehend somewhat of the magnitude of the breadth and the length and the depth and the height of Christ's love, which he says surpasses understanding. A note in my Bible commentary here says that that surpasses understanding, that they would, I think the note is talking about applying it to themselves and understanding the somewhat of the incomprehensibility of Christ's love that it includes them and that it is inexhaustible and that it is self-sacrificing.

We need to be praying this of course for ourselves but also for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Don't you want your brothers and sisters in the Lord to be assured of the love of Christ for them and to know more of the expanse of it, of His love for them, the breadth of it, the length, the depth, the height of Christ's love which passes or surpasses understanding and that it includes them and that it is inexhaustible and that it is a self-sacrificing love. We should want that for all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, And it says here that they might be, Paul goes on, be filled with all the fullness of God. You know, being filled with that, the knowledge of the love of Christ for us, being equated with being filled with all the fullness of God. The psalmist talks about his cup overflowing, his cup overflowing.

You know, sit and meditate when you can sometimes on just the love of Christ, the love of Christ for you, the love of Christ, the height, the depth, the breadth, the width, the length, the expanse of the love of Christ, the incomprehensibility of the love of Christ for you. And pray that you would understand more of it, that you would sense more of it, you'd feel more of that love of Christ for you. It's really the foundation for everything else in your Christian walk and pray that your brothers and sisters in the Lord would also know more of the love of Christ. Pray for them, pray for them and pray for yourself. It really is the foundation for, for everything in the Christian life, as far as how we operate, how we live, understanding his love for us, dealing with temptations in our lives, dealing with the weaknesses, dealing with all of the daily trials of life, knowing that Christ's love is for us and never fails and will never be turned away from us is such an encouragement, such a blessing, but that they might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Paul says in first Thessalonians 525, as we close here, brothers, pray for us. That's the whole verse. Brothers, pray for us. Of course, he starts off, you know, the first letter to the church at Thessalonica. I believe it's Timothy, for me, Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus.

Now here this one single verse, brothers, pray for us. And he's asking the family of God to pray for him. And the leaders of the church basically is what he's saying. And Eric and I would ask you all to pray for us as well. Not just for our health, which is important, but for us in every way.

We need to be strengthened by the Lord. We need your prayers. And we would ask that you would be praying for us and lifting us up to God, even as we're lifting you up to God daily. Samuel said to the people of God, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you. So as we close, you know, a faithful minister and brother in the Lord, you know, once told me I'd finished a sermon and got a conference and, and I went over and I just said, you know, I really feel like I just failed here so miserably, you know?

And I said, you know, I don't know, do you ever have that feeling? And he said, brother, He goes, do this. He goes, no matter how bad your sermon is, he goes, always land on Christ. Just land on Christ and it'll be all right. And I took that advice from him, that was Kevin Swanson by the way, Just land on Christ, you know.

And I thought, wow, that's good, you know. So in landing on Christ here, Jesus prayed for us while he was on the earth. In John 17, he said, I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." Wow. And he guaranteed that none of those that he prayed for would be lost, except for the son of Perdition, which he didn't pray for, but Judas was lost.

But none of those that he prayed for would be lost. And he said, I pray not only for these, in other words, the believers that were there with him, he said, but also for those who will believe on me through their word, which is us, every one of us here in this room today. And secondly, he prayed for us in heaven. Jesus prayed for us while he was on earth. He prayed for the church while he was on earth and he prayed for the future church while he was on earth for those who would believe on him through the words of the Apostles.

And he also intercedes for us now in heaven. He prayed for Peter on earth that his faith would fail not and our faith will not fail and we will be ushered into his presence on the last day because our crucified, risen, exalted Lord and Savior Jesus Christ paid our sin debt in full and rose again to prove it and is interceding for us even now within the veil of the heavenly tabernacle until he comes again to take us unto himself amen let's pray father we thank you that Jesus sits at your right hand governing all things reigning as king of kings and Lord of lords and that He's interceding for us and that we can also intercede for one another in prayer. And I pray God that you would help us to follow his example and to intercede for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And I pray God that you would help us to pray for one another from the heart. And I pray, God, there would be none in the congregation that we would fail to pray for.

And I pray, God, that we would pray for even those who are the least esteemed in the church. And I pray, God, that you would continue to assure us of the fact that you hear our prayers and that they never are prayed in vain. We love you Lord and we just commit the rest of this service to you in Christ's name, amen.