The Model Prayer: Praying For God’s Will (Matt. 6:10 Sermon) 

Posted on 2015/05/07 by Shawn Thomas

(Preached at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, Wed. p.m., 5-06-15)

A few years back I read the testimony of a pastor who lived well over a hundred years ago, and who was praying for a friend of his who was very ill, to the point of death. He prayed that God would spare this friend’s life, and add years to its length.  Suddenly he felt as if God were asking him: “Would you be willing for Me to take those years from your life, in order to add them to his?”  At that question, his heart began to beat quickly, and sweat began to bead on his brow. He didn’t know how to respond. Finally he prayed the only prayer he knew how to pray: “Lord, Thy will be done.”

For the last several Wednesday nights, we have been looking together at the Model Prayer of Matthew 6:9-13. We have seen that it is not a rote prayer that we are to pray mindlessly and repeatedly, but that it is a model of the kinds of things that God wants us to speak with Him about when we pray. We have begun to look together at what those requests teach us about how we should pray, and we have studied the first two requests thus far.  We have seen from “Hallowed by Your name” that we are to begin our prayers with praise, and last week from “Thy Kingdom come” that we are to pray for the requests of God’s Kingdom first: praying for churches, pastors, staff, mission work and missionaries.

Tonight we come to the third request of the Model:  “Thy will be done.”

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And He Was Teaching Them

Posted on 2015/05/07 by Shawn Thomas

Mark 2:13 says that Jesus went out by the sea again, and the crowd came out to Him. But it is instructive for us to see just what He did when they came out. It says: “And He was teaching them.”

We often think if we are going to be like Jesus, we need to heal people, or meet their physical needs — and Jesus did plenty of that for sure. But it is also significant that on this and on many other occasions, Jesus TAUGHT the crowd. Continue reading →

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“If it’s God’s will”?

Posted on 2015/05/06 by Shawn Thomas

One must admit, Paul didn’t make much of a “positive confession” in Romans 1:10, when he told the church at Rome: “if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.”

Those words “if perhaps now … by the will of God, I may succeed …” are significant. They express a humble uncertainty, and a willingness to submit to the will of God, which he admitted was unknown and uncertain to him just then.

It is also significant that Paul didn’t seem concerned with trying to make a “positive confession” by saying: “I’m claiming it; I AM going to be coming to you!” Continue reading →

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Give To Everyone You Meet

Posted on 2015/05/05 by Shawn Thomas

In Romans 1:11 the Apostle Paul writes: “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established (strengthened).” Paul wasn’t speaking of “spiritual gifts” here in the technical way that many of us have come to think of them. He didn’t want to see them so that he could give them the gift of tongues, or preaching, or administration, etc., in that sense of “spiritual gifts.”  Rather, he was saying that he wanted to be of spiritual benefit to the members of the church at Rome; to be a blessing to them; to pass along spiritual things which would be of help to them in their walk with God and in their service to Him. He makes this clear in the next verse (:12) which continues: “That is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith …”.   Continue reading →

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From A Cottage in the Foothills …

Posted on 2015/05/04 by Shawn Thomas

It’s been a busy few weeks since we hit the ground running at my new pastorate, Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in Morganton, North Carolina. People have asked how Cheryl and Michael especially like it here, and the answer is that they absolutely LOVE it!  It would be difficult to find a prettier place — nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just a few miles off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And you will find no sweeter, more loving and accepting people anywhere  than those at PRBC.  From our perspective, this was indeed a match made in heaven!

Here’s a picture of some of our church family at  my first-ever Easter sunrise service:


And although I have been too busy to record all of our family “antics” the past couple of whirlwind months, we have had a great time settling in, and have had plenty to chuckle about:

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The Old, Old Story

Posted on 2015/05/04 by Shawn Thomas

Many contemporary Christians are looking for something “new” to share from their pulpits and classes — but they are making a huge mistake. In Romans 1:15 the Apostle Paul writes: “So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” It should be instructive to us that many (and perhaps most) of the people to whom Paul was writing here were already Christians. But he was still going to “preach the gospel to you.” That reminds us that we never lose our need to hear the gospel. Continue reading →

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“The Discipline of Morning Prayer” (Psalm 5:3 Sermon) 

Posted on 2015/05/03 by Shawn Thomas

(Preached at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, 5-03-15

Not long ago, someone posted on Facebook that they wished they had a 30-hour day, so that they could get everything done. In the comments section, I posted a link to one of the best articles I have read, “The Tyranny of the Urgent” by Charles Hummel.  In it he writes that many people often wish for a 30-hour day. But Hummel asserts that if we had it, we would soon be filling it up with more of the things which are already squandering our present 24-hour day! His solution? Do what Jesus did, and get up early and spend time with His Heavenly Father in prayer to begin the day. Get HIS direction and priorities, and then follow that. But the whole plan hinges on spending time with God before you get into your day.

A couple of weeks ago we started a series of messages which have I entitled: “The Disciplines of Disciples.” Last Sunday we saw the importance of spending time every day in what I Peter 2:2 calls “the pure milk of the word” — just you, your Bible, and the Holy Spirit of God speaking to your heart each day, and you writing down what you learn in that time. I hope you’ve been exercising that discipline this week. Today we are going to look at another discipline, closely related to it, and that is the discipline of morning prayer. Psalm 5:3 will be our text:
“In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice. In the morning I will order my prayer to You, and eagerly watch.”

To give this a little context, David is in a difficult spot in this Psalm, reflected in :1, “Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my groaning.” He is “groaning” about something bad which is going on. We may not know exactly what it is, but we get hints of it later in the Psalm, where it says in :5, “the boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity”; and :6 “YHWH abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit”; :9, “there is nothing reliable in what they say”, etc. So evidently some wicked people had arisen who were proud, and who were slandering David. He responds by calling out to God in prayer.  Notice the special commitment of his prayer in :3, and what it teaches us about the discipline of morning prayer:

Continue reading →

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Strength From The Almighty

Posted on 2015/05/01 by Shawn Thomas

“The LORD will give strength to His people.” (Psalm 29:11)

The last verse of Psalm 29 is a very encouraging one — but it is even more so when you consider what the Psalm had taught earlier.
Psalm 29 begins with :1 exhorting God’s people to “ascribe to YHWH glory and strength.” Then :3-10 describe how powerful the voice of the Lord is: it “breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon” (:5); it “shakes the wilderness” (:8), and makes a well-known local mountain peak (Sirion) skip like a young animal! (:6)  Verse 10 reminds us that God sits on the throne of the universe, and always will. Continue reading →

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The Model Prayer: Kingdom Praying (Matthew 6:10 message)

Posted on 2015/04/30 by Shawn Thomas

(Preached at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, Wed. 4-29-15)

Yesterday, a well-known pastor wrote on his Twitter account something about all of the troubles our world is facing right now: the killings by ISIS, the earthquake in Nepal, the riots in Baltimore, and the Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage, and he ended with something like, “Come, Lord Jesus” and then he quoted part of the verse from the Model Prayer, “Let Your Kingdom come.”  Well, I don’t think that’s a WRONG use of those words — we DO want Jesus to come back and set up His Kingdom on earth — but I also think that praying for His Kingdom means more than just that. Tonight we are going to look together at this second major category of prayer request that Jesus gave us in the Model Prayer: “Thy Kingdom Come.”  Continue reading →

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When Wisdom Remains Silent

Posted on 2015/04/30 by Shawn Thomas

Christianity is all about sharing truth — most of the time. But there are times when we should just keep our mouths closed.  Proverbs 23:9 indicates one of those times: “Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.” Continue reading →

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