Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of wholeheartedness in responding to God's leadership, particularly in the context of a national crisis. He draws from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, highlighting Paul's prayer for the church to be stirred by the Holy Spirit to fulfill God's good pleasure through their faithful response. Bickle notes that revival often arises during times of calamity, and he encourages the church to engage in prayer and fasting as a means of aligning their hearts with God's will. He stresses that God desires a relationship characterized by wholehearted love and obedience, which leads to the glorification of Jesus in the lives of believers. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a new beginning for individuals and the church, urging them to bring their fragile offerings to God, who graciously receives them.

Monday, tomorrow, we begin a solemn assembly, and a solemn assembly is an assembling of the saints together in a solemn way. Now we get that from Joel chapter 2, that's the classic passage on the gathering of the people to fast and pray and cry out to the Lord. We'll look at that passage in just a moment, but here in 2 Thessalonians 1, this prayer of Paul is a model prayer that is really appropriate for a Joel 2 moment in a spiritual family, meaning when I look at all the 25 prayers of the Apostles recorded in the New Testament, this one seems to line up the clearest with what we're aiming for from Joel chapter 2. It's a prayer for the fullness of the Holy Spirit to be released in response to coming to the Lord in wholeheartedness, and we'll break that down and show it to you phrase by phrase in just a moment. When I look at our nation, it's obvious to so many that we're heading towards real calamity as a nation. The church and the nation are facing real calamity right now. We have crossed a certain line as a nation of our defiance against God's authority and God's Word and our apostasy. I mean we're making it official and declaring it and putting it into law. But at the same time, there is a stirring up of the body of Christ in a way that I've not seen in my 40 years of ministry. There is a clear rising up of the body of Christ across the land. There's new prayer initiatives, and I don't mean that 24-hour house of prayer, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about days of prayer, prayer meetings. Thousands of churches are engaging in this in a new way. I mean right now in October this month, there will be thousands of different congregations doing things like this, like we're doing, and so I take a step back. I look at the Holy Spirit's leadership in America, in the church, and many are responding. Now we need to see more, but I mean the numbers are encouraging. The Lord is at work in our midst. Now when you look at church history, 2,000 years of church history, it's clear that revival often comes and great advances in the church often come in context to a social crisis or a crisis in a nation. When you look over 2,000 years, when the moral dark, I mean the darkness in the realm of morality and compromise in the church reaches epic levels, that's often when revival breaks up. Now revival is that combination of God's sovereignty. He ordains times and seasons, and they're in His hands. But that's not all there is to revival. There's also, when the darkness gets darker, the church gets provoked, and the church is provoked to urgency in this hour like I've not seen it in 40 years. We're not, it's not quite to the level we want, but it's at an all-time high level from my perspective. It's like 10 years ago, there's a lot of believers, they were sincere with the Lord, but they were a little bit troubled, but it's gone from trouble to where there's urgency, and many are rising up and taking action. It's like the devil oversteps his own strategy, and he's waking up the sleeping giant called the Church of the Lord Jesus. They're getting disturbed. I mean, they're rising up right now, and it's happening all over the land. So in the midst of the increasing darkness, God is raising up hundreds of thousands, millions that are responding to Him in a way that's quite encouraging. And this prayer, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, I believe it's very appropriate for this hour of what the Lord's doing in the body of Christ in our nation. Let's read it here on the on the handout, paragraph A, just read the verse 11 and 12. Paul said, we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, that you would fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness. You would fulfill the work of faith with power, and the result of that is that the name of the Lord Jesus would be glorified in you, and you would be glorified in Him. That's an interesting phrase, that you would be glorified in Him. And all of this will happen by the empowering of the grace of God, that the grace of God will initiate this process. The grace of God will sustain it through the journey, and the grace of God will bring the church to the completion. It's all of grace, and the grace of God speaks of God's free forgiveness, but it also speaks of His supernatural empowering. Grace has the element of a supernatural empowering in it. Now what Paul is praying in this verse here, and again we'll look at the phrases more carefully in just a few moments, but to summarize it, he's asking the Lord to stir up the church. He's asking that the Holy Spirit would inspire them, and awaken them, and motivate them, so that they respond to Jesus' leadership in a way that's worthy of who Jesus is. That the church in the city of Thessalonica, Paul says, I'm, I'm praying the Spirit would stir you to such a degree, you would respond in such wholeheartedness, that the Father would esteem it, and count it worthy of Jesus' leadership. And then he says, because of that, because of that response, that God will fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness in and through you. And that's a phrase that's referring to the fullness of God's will, and His plans for a particular, for the body of Christ in a particular city, that so often what God desires, and what God has ordained to happen, that the body of Christ doesn't lay hold of it. But they are still lagging behind in their diligence, they're lagging behind in their responsiveness. And Paul is praying here, Lord move them, stir them, stir them to where they respond in a way worthy of who Jesus is. Worthy of His leadership. And in that stirring, and that response they give back to you, that you would then allow the fullness, everything that you've ordained, you would fulfill all the good pleasure of your goodness. That's an interesting phrase for the plans of God. You'd fulfill all your plans in and through them. Now again, in a few moments we'll look at the key phrases and break them down a little bit. But I want to say this, this prayer is a prayer you can pray for your own individual life. Stir me God, that I would respond in a way worthy of Jesus. You can pray it for your family, you can pray it for your church family, you can pray it for your business, you can pray it for any level of what God's doing in our nation. This prayer has many, many applications to it. I want to encourage you to get familiar with this prayer. It's not one that you've heard much over the years. You know, 40 years of pastoring, I've never heard a sermon on this prayer. And to my own fault, I've never given one on it, so there you go. But I'm saying, Lord this is such an important prayer for us to be familiar with and to be engaged with in a really specific way. Now the key issue in an hour like this, and the key issue to the Lord actually at any time, is the issue of wholeheartedness. The Lord wants us to respond with all of our heart. That is what He means by responding in a way worthy of the Lord Himself. It's this idea of all of your heart, all of your strength. Now the reason God wants us to love Him with all of our heart and all of our strength, and to seek Him and to seek to obey Him with all of our heart and all of our strength, is because that's the way He loves us. I mean, can you imagine, He loves us with all of His strength. And He is a God of relationship. Christianity is not a religion. People say, well the world, religion, Christianity. No. Christianity is a relationship. And at the very core of the relationship is this reality, all of your heart, wholeheartedness. God loves us wholeheartedly. He says, I want you to respond to Me wholeheartedly. Now we talk about loving God, but Jesus said, if you're going to love Me, it has to include obeying Me. He defined loving Him with all of our heart as a spirit of obedience, that we would honor His leadership. So loving God with all of our hearts more than feeling tenderness in a worship service, I love that. But it's about our lifestyle, this wholeheartedness that, Lord, You are so gracious. You're so generous. You gave everything for us, and the only worthy response of receiving Your salvation is that we would respond with all of our heart. That is what is worthy of the Lord. To give to Him what He gave to us, our all. Now our all is a lot smaller than His all. And the remarkable thing is how generous God is when we bring our all into the relationship. Because our all is pretty small. And our all, I mean, when I think, I think of my own self. I love Him with all my heart. My love is weak. My love is frail. My love is fragile. My love has holes in it. But I come with all of my heart, and God is so generous. He goes, I'm actually esteeming that as valuable to me. And I go, well Lord, scientifically, if I was analyzing how well we bring our all, we don't do it that good. But the Lord says, but it moves me. In my generosity I receive your all. God's standard of evaluation through the grace of God is human friendly. He gets who we are. The reason I say that, some people when they hear these exhortations in the Bible to come with all of your heart, they go, oh, it's overwhelming. Because they have this idea of that God's demanding this heroic spirituality that is not within the reach of real humans. You know, maybe the apostles did it when they were finally real mature. Somebody, we don't know who actually did it. You know, there's books about those people. Well, I got good news for you. The all that God asks of us is within the reach of everybody. The weakest among us says, Lord, my all is so broken and fragile. The Lord says, I'll take it. And it's actually, it moves me. Because I understand. I want you to bring your all. And through the generosity of His personality and the grace of God, He esteems it. It's valuable. I mean, we, we wouldn't esteem it in the value that He does. And so my point being, this really, really is doable. The weakest among us, the Lord says, just bring your weak all. I'll take it. I'll touch you. I'll inspire you. It will grow in you. I mean, what a glorious reality. Let's go to paragraph D. Let's look at this, this phrase, or this idea, with all of your heart. And the classic passage of Joel 2. This is the classic passage in the Bible. If you read the whole chapter, on your own time, it says, blow the trumpet. Alarm everybody. Get everyone's notice. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Blow the trumpet across the land. Call the people together in a solemn assembly of the people. Now the people that are assembled, they're not wholehearted at all. They haven't been wholehearted. There's been deficiency in their dedication. And the Lord says, but I want, there's time. I'm going to give you another opportunity to come. And I'm going to take your deficient lives of dedication. Gather before me. Let's start again. Let's have a new beginning. And I will be gracious to you. And I want you to bring the fragile weak all. Bring it. And in my generosity and kindness, I will receive you. And I will help you. I mean, this thing is doable for everybody. Let's read the passage. Joel chapter 2. Just a little bit of it. I just lifted a little bit out of the whole passage. I encourage you to read it a time or two in this next few days. Now the context is that the nation of Israel was in a national crisis. And we're in a national crisis. There's, they were in a military crisis about to be invaded by a foreign power. They were in a economic crisis. They were in a spiritual and moral crisis. I mean, it's very similar to what's going on in our nation and the nations of the day. I mean, the terrorism threats, the economic threats, the moral decline, the compromise in the church, the legislation of sinful behavior by our Supreme Court and U.S. government. So many things are happening. And the church, so much of the church has been a negligent about pursuing the Lord hard. But the Lord's stirring up more and more who are saying yes to Him. I mean, there's millions that are saying yes. There needs to be more, and that's what we're believing God for. But to a people that were deficient in their obedience, He says, verse 12, come to me. We'll have a new beginning. We'll have a new start. Beloved, I believe this is a new start for us, individually, for our spiritual family, for our individual families. He goes, come with all of your heart. Come with fasting. Now fasting doesn't earn you anything with God. Some people have the wrong idea. If we fast, we're letting God know we're doubly serious. The Lord says, well I know your heart better than you do. I know how serious you are, or how serious you're not. I already know. Fasting actually tenderizes us. When you come to the Lord in repentance and a rededication of your heart, and you add fasting, it actually makes your heart more tender. Fasting positions you where the process of change, of turning your heart, actually accelerates. You can receive more, and you receive it faster. Fasting changes us. It doesn't change God. It brings us into greater alignment with His heart, our heart with His heart. Now that greater alignment, our prayers then, in that context affect God. So it does affect God in that secondary sense. Fasting changes us. Now there's many kinds of fasts. There's the full fast, many types of partial fasts, and all in between. And I don't want to go into that, but I'll just say this. Fasting is a New Testament grace that it's not about earning anything, and it really does accelerate your ability for your heart to be tenderized, and turn to the Lord, and get free of things. He goes, come with weeping, and come with mourning. Now I've seen groups over the years, they, uh, they try to stir up the weeping in the morning, like, one, two, three, weep! Ah! Okay, we did the weeping. That's a little exaggerated, but I've seen the contrived weeping. Let's try to get the people to weep. So the ladies, you know, would bring their napkins to church, to the prayer meeting, with onions tucked into the napkins, so they could cry a little bit easier. That's not what he's talking about. He's saying that as your heart is turning, and you're adding fasting, now again, the fasting tenderizes you, and it makes your heart more pliable. It really does. He goes, then you get more in touch with your own personal failures. You get in touch with the state of the church, and the, and the weakness. You get in touch with the tragedy in the nation, and it touches you in a deeper way. It's not a contrived emotion. It's an expression, and that, that expression comes over time. It's not like there's one moment it comes, and then it's over. It's a growing sense of identification with God's heart, His sadness over the crisis, but it doesn't end with sadness, because there's a confidence that He's going to intervene and turn things around. That's the next verse. Well, verse 13, he says this, rend your heart and return to the Lord. Now to rend your heart means to tear it. If you read the whole passage, it says rend your heart, not your garment, because in the Old Testament, they would tear their robe, or they would tear their shirt to show how sad they were. God says, now don't tear your shirt. Tear your heart. Go ahead and keep your shirt on, but tear your heart. I don't want a religious kind of jumping through the hoops, the outward stuff. I want your heart torn. Now what's He mean by tear the heart? Many believers, sincere believers, they've given everything to the Lord, but they have that one or two areas. Some guy says, I wish it was one or two areas. It's more than that. But many times of a sincere believer, there's that one issue, maybe that second issue, that hasn't been brought under his leadership. And the Lord says, I want you to have a new beginning. As an individual, as a spiritual family, I want you to tear your heart. I want you to let go of that. You say, ouch. No, I'm really, this thing's got a hold of my heart, this one area. And the Lord says, I know. I know it does. But I want you on this final area, I want that tearing loose of it, and it has an ouch in it. It really does. But the Lord says, I'll take it as love, your love for me. Rather than condemning you and reminding you you have that area, I'm gonna see the love in the expression that you love me by pushing away from that area and going through the struggle to tear free of it. I mean the Lord, if He was like many of us, He might say, well why were you in that area anyway, that area of compromise to where you have to repent of it. You shouldn't have been there. The Lord says, no, no, no, I'm not like that. You tear loose, and often it's a process. Sometimes it's faster than other times. But the Lord says, I'll take that as expressions of you loving me. Now look at this. For the Lord is gracious. He is of great kindness. He relents from doing harm. He turns away the harm that's coming. That's a remarkable reality. The Lord is saying in this passage, I see the compromise, because without the compromise there wouldn't have been a need for a gathering to repent. The Lord sees the compromise all through the church in our nation. He sees the compromise in our own midst. He says, but here's how I'm gonna approach it, with great tenderness and graciousness, with great kindness. I mean, I go, oh Lord, I love the way you receive us when we're stuck in something we should never have been stuck in. Joel says, know this, come with confidence, that on the other side of the relationship, there is a King that has great kindness. He wants to give you a new beginning. He wants to wipe the slate clean. He wants you free of that. Now this is an issue about being forgiven. We're already forgiven our, our, our citizenship and the family of God is secure. This isn't about being saved or not saved. This is about moving on in the Lord in a way that has depth and maturity in it. He goes on, he says, he, the Lord will relent from doing harm. The Lord says, I'll change what was going to happen. Now some people, they look at the crisis of the nation and they go, it's inevitable. It's inevitable. Great disasters coming and there is a crisis that's unfolding. But beloved, here's the good news. That terrorists don't have the final word on crisis. The liberals, both within and without the cap, they don't have the final word on the crisis. The economic policymakers don't have the final word. The devil doesn't have the final word on the crisis. The king does. And we're in covenant relationship with him. He calls us his family. He goes, I'm the king. I have the final word on how to reverse the situation in your family, your life, your city, your nation. I can turn it around. It is me. It's my word is the final word. So beloved, much of the negativity can be reversed. Much of it can be diminished. It can be minimized. It can be delayed. We don't know. But the Lord says, I'm very gracious. Come to me. But I want this all of your heart dimension. I want a new level of commitment to my leadership. Now paragraph F, there's a practical dimension of coming with all of our heart. I mean the spiritual benefit is that the Lord is moved by it. He releases a greater activity of the Holy Spirit. Oh yeah, I forgot to read that verse. Let's go back to paragraph D. Verse 28. The Lord says, it shall come to pass afterwards. We're in Joel chapter 2, verse 28. Forgot to read the promise. He goes afterwards. And the context is clear. After you've come to me with all of your heart, afterwards. There'll be a greater activity of the Holy Spirit is what this promise means. He goes, I'll pour out my spirit. Now we know he poured out his spirit on the day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago. But the promise here is in a practical sense, in specific geographic locations, in specific generations, he's saying I'll give an increase of my Holy Spirit activity in your midst. But that increase is afterwards. Yes, I'll stir you to be more responsive. So the Lord stirs us to be more responsive. We respond to him. Now we're more responsive. We're wholehearted. Then he responds again to us. So he begins the process, stirs us up. We go, yes Lord. We come under his leadership in a greater way. It stirs him up. And he releases even a greater activity of the Holy Spirit. It's a relational dynamic. God says, I want to do this in context of you responding to me, and then me responding to your response. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. But here in paragraph F, it's important to know there's a practical dimension of wholeheartedness. That is, God designed the human makeup in such a way that, Beloved, if you don't have something to give your whole heart to, you don't have anything to live for. I heard this phrase many years ago. It's in my 20s. I can't remember who said it, but I've repeated it many times over the years, right here in paragraph F. If you don't have something to die for, you don't have anything to live for. A preacher said that many years ago, and I went, wow. If there isn't something in your life worth giving everything for, then Beloved, you don't really have a reason, anything to live for. Not really. I mean, if the goal of life is to have a little bit of impact, a little bit of notoriety, enough economics to have a comfortable life, that's it. Make sure we go to heaven when we die. You'll live spiritually bored. You'll live spiritually and emotionally in bondage inside. You cannot thrive as a human with that mindset. The God who is wholehearted created and designed the human makeup. You have to be wholehearted, or you're stuck in boredom, and you're stuck in this increasing dilemma of greater emptiness, greater restlessness, greater addictions get a hold of you. Your soul doesn't stay neutral. It gets worse and worse and worse because you were simply created to be wholehearted, designed that way by a God who is wholehearted. Some people have this idea, again, you know, I'll do well in my money, in my business, and in the last decade or two, I'll have enough money where I don't have to really exert myself, and I'll just mostly play for a decade or two. And that's called retirement. And I'm all for retiring from a, from a job in the marketplace and all that stuff. But beloved, you don't ever want to retire from wholeheartedness. Never. You don't want to retire. The old phrase is you want to refire. You want to engage again because spend the last decade or two kind of just playing, peddling around and playing with nothing gripping you. You know, I made my money for 40 years. Now for the next 20 years I'm gonna play. You will have a growing restlessness, emptiness, spiritual boredom. Lust will be stirred up in you. Anger will be stirred up in you. Bitterness will increase in you. You won't stay neutral. You will end up in worse condition on the inside simply because you're not made to live outside of wholeheartedness. Well, if you've got anything you'll die for. The guy says, well my family, that's good. That counts. That's a good one. That's, I'll give everything for my family. That's good. That's not quite enough because you need something that lasts forever. You need labors and you need involvement to last forever. And only God can give you the value of, I mean the evaluation that your labor here lasts beyond the grave. Can't be your business because your business is going to be done one day. It's got to be in our giving ourselves to this King. I'm not talking about having a big impact. I'm talking about having a big engagement of the heart with Him. Well, let's look at a paragraph G. Growing in grace. This is a common New Testament principle. We receive the grace of God the day we're born again. As a matter of fact, all of the grace of God is available to us freely the day we're born again. So we receive it all. We receive it all for free. Again, grace means the forgiveness, but grace also means the empowering. Grace means both of those things. Fully forgiven and accepted and empowered. So grace, don't limit grace to one word. I mean one idea. It's more than forgiveness. Here's the point. The Bible makes it clear, and I gave you a few verses here, we grow in grace. Grace is multiplied in our life. What does that mean we grow in grace? I mean grace doesn't grow. It's all available freely the day you're born again. It means your experience of the empowering of God increases. The way you experience it in your mind, the way you experience it in your emotions, the way you experience it in the way you impact others, there's an increase of your experience. That's what it means when it says grace increases. I mean grace in reality is fully available to us, but we grow in our experience of it more and more over the years. Let's look at top of page two. Now let's look at this prayer for about the next a few moments here. Now look at a three or four of the phrases, just to give you a framework for it, and then we're going to respond to the Lord. And this is a, again, a prayer that we're going to, I want to focus on in the next couple days as we gather, both in this building and we gather down at the prayer room as well. Not just the eight hours that will be in this room that many will be a part of, but afterwards and before, because of different time frames of different people and different responsibilities. You can only make it here, but you can't make it there, etc. Let's read it. Verse 11. Paul says, we pray always. Now when the very fact that Paul prays this prayer on a regular basis, tells you, it alerts you to its importance. There's only a few prayers that Paul said, I pray this one all the time, or I pray this one often. So that alerts you. You're saying, okay, okay, this is a prayer I want to get familiar with. This is a prayer I want to understand. I want to get, I want to get a handle on it. Now notice the prayer. And at first, you might not grasp what Paul's getting at, at a quick read. You might read it and go, actually it's a little bit confusing. Here's what he's praying. That our God would count you worthy of this calling. Now Paul's praying for the church at Thessalonica, that's a city in Greece. He's praying that God would count them worthy. Now wait a second. If they're born-again believers, aren't they already worthy by Jesus' work on the cross? And he said, but aren't we worthy as a gift? Yes. We are worthy of our full acceptance into the family of God. But paragraph B, clearly in the New Testament there's two different applications of the concept of being worthy. Two different applications. The first application is well known by the body of Christ. Everybody gets the first one. That we are made worthy by what Jesus did on the cross. What He did, not what we do. We're in the family. We're fully accepted forever. And beloved, we cannot emphasize that truth too many times. I mean, one wonder of wonders, forever, that what Jesus did, fully God. He took up on Himself humanity. He paid the price for our sin. We are worthy forever as a free gift. Yes! I mean, you can't say it too many times. The devil attacks this truth over and over so that believers live in condemnation and they never get confidence. But there's a second application of the, of this idea of worthy. And you'll find it about 15 times in the New Testament. The second application. And it's not a contradiction of the first one at all. And it is responding to the Lord's leadership in a way that's worthy of the Lord. Paul's not talking about worthy of deserving forgiveness. He's not for God His own doctrinal truth. I mean, Paul's the one to emphasize the free gift of forgiveness. He's not confused now. He says, no, I'm not talking about worthy of entering in the kingdom and being forgiven. In that sense, I'm talking about worthy of a response that's worthy of His leadership and worthy, here it is, of partnering with His leadership at a new level, at a high level. Because Jesus, He's not just a king with power saying, I'm the king, I have power. You better do it my way or the highway. It's not like that. He says, I'm a king with power, but I'm a bridegroom king. I'm a bridegroom with desire. I want a relationship. I brought my whole heart into the relationship. I want your whole heart. I want you to respond with all of your heart in a way that's worthy of how I gave myself to you. Worthy of our partnership. It's not about earning the anointing of God. It's not about that. It's about coming in alignment with His generosity and His extravagant love and His extravagant sacrifice and saying, I'm so moved by it. And you're so generous and you forgave me of everything. I want to give you everything. It's a gratitude love response. And that's what Paul means. He goes, I'm praying, and here's the here's the unwritten part that's very, very clear in the context. Paul's saying, I'm praying the Spirit will inspire you. The Spirit will touch you and lead you in a way to where you respond in a way that's worthy of who this man is, Jesus. And if you respond in that wholehearted way, you'll partner with Him in a far greater level. Your partnership with Him, flowing from love that gives everything, that partnership will increase and increase and increase. I mean, you're already in the kingdom, but your partnership with the King will increase is what he's praying. That's a glorious reality. Now again, this second application of being worthy, not worthy to be forgiven, but worthy of this man's leadership, Jesus, that worthy to participate in a higher level with Him. That's what Paul is praying. Now again, this concept is in the New Testament about 15 times. I have the verses there, a couple of paragraphs down. I have a list of the verses. Jesus highlights this principle to a disciple that we need to be worthy of Him. Not worthy of being forgiven. We can't ever be worthy of that. Worthy of His leadership by responding to it so that we partner with Him in a way that is based on the wholehearted love that He has exhibited. Again, He's a God of relationship. He's not just saying, I'm king my way or the highway. I won't tolerate anything but my way. I mean, He has His ways that are right, but that's not the spirit of it. He's saying, no, I want love. I came to this relationship with love. I redeemed you. I called you. I forgave you. I want love. I want all of your heart. That's what I'm worthy of. What a glorious reality. Paragraph C. Now, this is important to understand. I have a verse here, 1 Thessalonians. Now we were reading the prayer in 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians means the second letter Paul wrote the city of Thessalonica. Let's go back for a moment, because if we're going to understand 2 Thessalonians, that's the one that we're focused on right now, it's good if we know what Paul wrote them some months earlier in 1 Thessalonians. Because he's writing this prayer in 2 Thessalonians based on what he said in 1 Thessalonians. So it's one kind of continual conversation he's having with them. But if you only began in 2 Thessalonians, where I began today, you might go, I'm tripped up by this worthy. Paul praying for Christians to be worthy of what? No, no, no. He's praying they'd be worthy. Their response of wholeheartedness would be worthy of who the Lord is. Back in the first letter he had written some months earlier, look what he says in chapter 2, verse 12. He says, here's the call of God that you would walk worthy of who God is. The God who calls you into his kingdom. The God who calls you to participate in his glory. He goes, he doesn't want you just to see his glory. He wants you to be a vessel of it. He wants the glory to move in you and through you. He's called you to participate, not just come into the family, into the kingdom of God as servants, standing in the background as maids and slaves. He goes, no, you're in the family. You're in the kingdom. You're ruling with me. The glory will flow in you and through you. So that's the call. And so the church at Thessalonica, they said, wow, okay, we want God to, we want to walk worthy of God. We want to respond in a way that's worthy of his leadership. We want full partnership. Man, this is exciting. But then in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, the very next issue, he says, yeah, but here's the issue. You're under persecution, and many of you are standing strong. You're showing your love of Jesus by not backing away from his leadership under persecution. But he goes, some of you are backing up. He goes, don't back up under persecution and stigma. Don't back up. Walk worthy of him. Find the grace of God to stand steady under persecution. That's chapter 3 of the first letter. Chapter 4 of the first letter, some of them were stumbling in sexual immorality. And Paul's going, no, no, don't trip in fear of persecution, and don't yield to the temptations and the culture of immorality. Walk worthy of the Lord. It's important you respond in a way that's worthy of the way he gave himself to you. So that's the background of this prayer, because they were being tempted to back away when it got hard, and they were tempted to yield to the temptations of the culture when the temptations came. So now Paul adds this new verse, the one we're looking at this morning. He says, I'm praying. Oh, I'm praying that God would touch you in a way that he would inspire you, that he would intervene and interrupt your life, interrupt your life too, as well as intervene in a positive way, so that he creates the optimum circumstance for you to respond in a way he calls worthy. Now remember, what God calls worthy is we give our all, but he's generous, because our all is small and fragile and frail, but he esteems it. He goes, I'll take it. Yeah, that's good. And I might say, Lord, that doesn't look like all to me. The Lord says, no, I'm through the grace of God. I receive it, and I'll let that all grow in you. I'll let that grow in you. So I mean, there's this generosity in this whole prayer. But Paul's praying here, in the passage we're focused on today, 2 Thessalonians 1. He's going on praying that the Spirit would interrupt and lead and inspire, so you don't yield to the temptation of drawing back in persecution. You don't yield to the temptation of immorality in the culture. You throw those things off. Now, so that's what we're praying. The Spirit would move. The Spirit would intervene. Now, sometimes the Spirit touches us. They're little moments of inspiration. Now, what some folks would like is just kind of an unbroken, like, experience of the Lord. Like, they're just, like, hooked up, you know, to the IV, and they're just, like, totally in ecstasy. Oh, I can obey like this. The Lord says, no, no, I'll give you moments of inspiration. I'll give you moments of heightened inspiration. I'll give you the key dream, or I'll let that passage stir you, or I'll let a certain message stir you, or the very fact we're gathering, beloved, we're gathering for three days, that's part of the Lord stirring you up. The very fact you'll be in a room looking around at other people, as weak as you are, going, hey, if they can, I can. That itself will stir you. That itself is part of the Lord answering, by just looking around. But sometimes the Lord, He says, no, I'm gonna interrupt your life. I'm gonna put some roadblocks, too. I'm gonna actually stand in the way of some of the things you're doing. Now, the Lord, when Paul says, pray that the Lord would count you worthy, he's saying, pray the Lord would intervene, stir you up, create the optimum environment, so that you will respond. But catch this, he's not gonna make you respond. He's not gonna force you to obey. But we're praying, even right now, I mean, not, I don't mean just starting tomorrow, Lord, do something in our community. The very fact we're calling this fast, the Lord says, that's my intervention. I'm stirring you up. But you've got to respond to it. I don't mean just in this three days, but respond to the Lord's inspiration over time. Now, look at the promise of this. We're the same. Look at paragraph D. This is very important, paragraph D. The measure of our partnership with Jesus, I mean our involvement with Him in the increase of His kingdom. The measure of our partnership is determined by our responsiveness to His leadership. I mean, we're forgiven, that's free. We're in the kingdom, that's free. But the Lord says, I have given you my love. I want you to respond worthy of my love. Again, your all is small, but I want your all. I want you to bring every area under my leadership, because it's love. I want you to respond in love now. And sometimes, though we're not earning anything by responding in love, it is costly. Sometimes we have to tear our heart to respond to His leadership in love. It does matter. If we respond more and more, we will participate more and more with what He wants to do in this city, in this nation, in this generation. If we respond less, we're still in the kingdom, spiritually mature, but in the kingdom, but we will participate less. There really is a correlation between the two. Some people don't like that correlation. They go, ah, there's a correlation, then there's a pressure. And I say, no, it's the demand of love. The demand of love, He demands we respond in love back to Him. He really does. Now look at paragraph E. Here's the, kind of the high point of the prayer. He says that you would fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness. Now this is another phrase for the plan of God in your life. The assignment of God over your life, or over our city. The Lord says, I want you, not just to go to heaven and have a little ministry between now and then, I want you to fulfill all, that's the key word, all the will of God for your life and your calling. And as a spiritual family, beloved, I want all. I want the fullness of what God has promised us. I don't want to come up short. I don't want to be used a little bit and go to heaven when I die. I want to have the awareness and the confidence we're walking in everything that God has called us. I mean, what an amazing thing. Now, Paul is using the language from Jesus. He's using, instead of all the plan of God, he uses all the good pleasure of God. All the good pleasure. Jesus was the first one who declared this. Look at chapter, Luke 12. He said to these weak apostles, he goes, it's the Father's good pleasure to use you. When he says to give you the kingdom, he means to involve you in the participation of the kingdom. It's his good pleasure. The Father's not reluctant. I mean, if I looked at us from a purely analytical point of view, I'd say, Lord, you really are, you really want to use us? He goes, oh, I delight in it. I'm not reluctant. I use weak and broken people like you. This is, I delight in this. It is my pleasure to involve you. I mean, look at King David. I mean, he stumbled a number of times in his life, but at the end of his life, here's what God said. He did all the will of God. Doing all the will of God doesn't mean we don't stumble some, because we can recover. God can reverse it, give us a new beginning, and still fulfill all the will of God. I mean, there's a contingency for human weakness in this. We can do this. And I look at our spiritual family, and I said, Lord, I'm zealous for all. Whatever you've called us to. I don't want to come up short. I don't want to get complacent. I don't want to say, well, we've made these kinds of steps forward. Thank you. Let's coast for a few years. Kind of, you know, rest up. No, no, no. I want to press in for everything God has for your life, your family, this city, this spiritual family. I want all. Nothing less than all. And that's why we come and say, Lord, but we're broken. We're weak. We, we got compromises. He says, well, come to me then. Come. Cry out with all of your heart. I'm gracious. I'm kind. Paul's prayer is, God will help you to respond in a way that he counts as worthy. And don't worry. God's generous. What God counts as worthy of his Son, it's human friendly. It works for people like us. Look at paragraph G. We'll just bring this to a close here. I'm gonna have the worship team come up. Look at paragraph G. Look at where this goes. Jesus is glorified in you. I mean, think what this really means. Think of the Jesus in Revelation chapter 1. Some of you know that chapter. Jesus appears. Eyes of fire. Face like the sun. John the Apostle sees one glimpse of Jesus and his majesty, falls as a dead man. But Paul prays, people like us will put Jesus's glory on display by our simple coming to God in obedience. Beloved, if we will come with all of our heart, it's not a one-time coming. It's a process. And we respond in a way that's worthy of the Lord. And again, his, his evaluation is so generous. He goes, you will be a people in which the glory of Jesus will be put on display through your weak lives. I go, Lord, to us? The glory of Jesus will be on display through people like us. And I'm thinking of the body of Christ in the whole city, not just in our spiritual family here. I mean the whole city. You mean in Kansas City? Jesus's glory will be on display through weak and broken people like us. But it goes beyond that. Paragraph H. Paul said, but you're gonna be glorified in him. That doesn't mean you'll be worshipped like him, but it means the spirit of glory will rest on you. That God will make you vessels in which the glory of God moves through. And I think, Lord, this is outrageous kindness that, that you would glorify, that you, that you would glorify us in you, that we would participate in the glory of God. And beloved, it's all by the grace of God. There's no earning involved. The grace of God initiates, sustains, and brings to completion, but we have to say yes. We can say no at any step along the way and say no more. We're not going further. And the Lord says, but I, if you do, you respond with all of your heart, you will fulfill all of my good pleasure of goodness for your life. I've got more for you, but I'm gonna require a wholehearted response of love. And as a spiritual family, we're saying, yes, Lord. We want a new start, a new beginning, and we want lots of these over the years. It's like a one-time deal. We're gonna often need to gather together and get a renew, a restarting, and, you know, a recalibrating up to his heart. And that's what we're doing at this time. Amen. Let's stand.