So That
- Details
- Sunday Morning Service
- Pastor James Richards
- Copalis Community Church
- 31 August 2025
- 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5
Second Thessalonians 3 and Paul says, finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you. And that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. And Father, that's my prayer for each one of us here today. God, that directing our hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. God, that you would help us to see that we've all been called to be a part of the work. And yes, we may not be able to go, but we can stand behind those who do with our prayers, with our support and our encouragement.
Thank you for Gabe and this commitment that you've put on his heart and just continue to work in him. Father, bless him, God, go before him, open spiritual doors that he can be effective in the ministry youy've given him. And we pray that for our church, Father. God realizing that God, if the worst is going to succeed, God, we're going to have to be praying that the gospel would go out and would impact people's lives. And we ask that you would do that.
Thank you again, Lord, for the blessings you brought into our life. For answered prayers for the health you've given us and for the opportunities that lie before us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated.
In the fall of 1933, that's over 73, 93 years ago. 93 years ago, a young man, a 20 year old man named Newt Razor was sitting in the evening service of a church in Aberdeen and just there to worship the Lord, to hear the word of God. And the pastor, almost upset, said, what are you doing just sitting there?
You need to go out and do something for the Lord. That week he and two other men went out and established three churches. One in Wisconsin Valley, one in Pacific beach and one in Copelhas Beach. And of course we're interested in the story of Copelhas Beach. Well, that week Newt went to a school board meeting.
The school, I believe was right up where the post office was. Is that right? Paul did the old school? Yeah. And so he went to their board meeting and he asked for permission.
Can we use one of the Sunday school, one of your classrooms for a Sunday school class on Sunday mornings. Simple request. And one of the board members responded angrily. There will be a Sunday school class in this school. Over my dead body.
Well, not discouraged, Newt went home, prayed, and guess what? That school member died that week.
Newt went back to the next meeting, asked the remaining two guys. Okay. To have Sunday school class. Yeah, yeah. And that's how the work started here in Copelis Beach 93 years ago.
And.
And so, amazing story. And what I want to point out for us that love the Lord and want to be involved in work, God's work done God's way accomplishes God's will. God's work done God's way accomplishes God's will. And I think we're going to see that in our passage today. A lot of commentaries kind of struggle with these five verses I read because Paul had been talking about the last days, and all of a sudden it seems like he switches gears and it doesn't seem to kind of line up with what has been said.
But I think Paul was just underlining how we can be successful in accomplishing God's will, no matter what the opposition is how we can be successful in accomplishing God's will. And that's different for each one of us, no matter what the opposition is. I believe he gives us some keys to do that no matter what age we live in. And so Paul has been talking about the last days. And there's a tendency for us to think the last days are the last seven years, the tribulation.
But the fact is, the last days in the Bible began with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And they won't end until Jesus Christ comes back again. Whatever the timing is, we are in the last days, and we need to be aware of that. Because Jesus said concerning the church, he said, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. That's in Matthew 16:18. I will build my church.
And yes, there will be opposition, but they will not prevail. And there's two truths here that we can hold on to. Number one, as long as this church is on the earth, we can be sure that Jesus will build it. Why? He promised.
He promised, and he will fulfill that promise. And the second thing we can be sure of is while Jesus is building that church, and you and I are part of that, we are going to experience opposition. Okay? Don't be surprised. Jesus said he promised.
He told In John 16:33, I said these things to you that in me you may have peace in the world, you will have tribulation.
And that's been true since the day that Jesus was resurrected and will be true until Jesus comes back. But take heart. I have overcome the world. Jesus will build his church. There's opposition, but we can take heart because Jesus has overcome the world.
And so my question is, how do these truths. I'll build my church. There will be opposition. How do these truths impact our life? On the one hand, we should have tremendous confidence, shouldn't we?
Jesus promised. I can rely on that. I can trust that. Yeah, we're facing headwinds, opposition. We have an enemy named Satan, but I can be confident he will do his work.
But on the other hand, we need to be aware there will be opposition. And if there's opposition, and especially someone strong, it means it won't be easy. We get discouraged when it's not easy, don't we? No, Jesus said it won't be easy. And there's a reason for that.
And we'll look into that. And so what I believe that Paul is dealing with this passage is what we need today if we're involved in the work of God, which we all should be. So let's take a look at this. We see this there in that passage, he says, finally, that doesn't mean I'm finishing things up. Here's some things we're going to bring together to kind of close things up.
But there's a key verse there, and that's verse three and one, that powerful verse. Yeah, there's opposition from wicked and evil men. But he says, but the Lord is faithful. The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. This is an amazing statement. And yeah, we face headwinds. There's opposition. We have an enemy.
But God promises that he is faithful. He is faithful to his word. He is faithful to his promises. When you ladies bring those promises, you're proclaiming that God is faithful. And he is.
Doesn't mean things always work out the way we want to. But he is faithful to His Word. And that's an amazing statement. And essentially, Paul is saying that the work God has called us to is hard, might even seem impossible. And yes, there's an enemy, a heavenly being so strong that we can't even imagine his strength, who's opposed to the work.
But. And not everyone is going to remain faithful in the work. But those truths are real, and the Thessalonians were experiencing them. But I will be there to establish you and guard you in the midst of that and so he'll do two things. First of all, he says, I will establish you.
I will establish you. That word is often translated, I will strengthen you. I will make you strong in the midst of the battle. Sometimes we call businesses establishments, don't we? And if a business has only been there one week, I don't think we can call an establishment.
But if it's been there for 50 years, that's an establishment. That's a business that's strong enough to have gone through all the trials of starting up and times when things aren't going well and the economy is bad and it's rooted, it's successful. And that's what God is saying, that he will establish you and I, that you and I will grow strong roots. We'll be able to withstand the drought and the storms of life. And that's something he does in our life.
And yes, we partner with him in that, but it has to be from him. And so I believe that's true with Coppelas, that God has established this church. It wasn't someone's idea, let's do a church here. And I often say, if we were starting a church today, we wouldn't start it here. Okay, this isn't a promising place.
It's a wide spot in the road. But the fact is, God has established this truth. When I was with village missions, we would come back here every summer for a visit and because we'd come out of Copelis and had a connection with Newton Margaret Raiser, and we come back and visit. Well, one summer I came back. Church used to be that way, and the church had been full.
They were running 160 in church attendance. Here at Copelis, they had over 150 in Sunday school. Imagine that. It was really a going concern. Then Ocean Shores got started and other churches strung up.
But there was a lady in the church that opposed Newt and she undermined him. As a result of that, 75% of the congregation left.
And some of you lived through that, know more about it than I. I came to visit and was sitting in church and I was going, where'd everybody go? Where'd everybody go? And I was just shocked, especially at some of the people I'd known and who had been blessed by Newton Margaret's leadership and they had left. And so I asked Newt about that and, you know, his response was, I guess we're just going to have to work harder to restore things. It wasn't bitter.
He wasn't angry, wasn't accusing anyone. It's just God has given A work. And we know he's faithful. And it was a couple years after that that God moved me back here. And God has worked.
He will establish you and praise God for that. Second, we see. Well, just a couple things you want to see out of that. Paul is not asking for prayer here. Now you say, wait a second, brothers, pray for us.
No, that is a command.
He is commanding the church at Thessalonica to pray for his ministry. Second thing we see, he's not requesting prayer for himself. He says that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored. Has happened to you. He is asking them to pray for the gospel, that the word would go out and would be effective and would accomplish his purposes.
And then third, this reveals that the power in the gospel, that word we want to share with other people, so they come to Christ. The power in the gospel to change lives comes through the prayers of the saints. In other words, if we want to see God work in people's lives, we need to be praying that God would do that. God could do it without us, but he wants to include us in the work. And we see this in Jesus life.
And of course, proclaiming the Word and healing people and driving out spirits and raising people from the dead. Well, the opposition, the religious Pharisees, they accused him of doing that work by the power of Satan. And Jesus responded that. But one of the things he said, he asked his accusers, or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods? This world belongs to the strong man.
He has authority. Satan, it doesn't belong to him, but he has power to keep his goods safe. And so Jesus asked her, how can someone enter a strongman's house and plunders goods? Unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house. And there's a song that going to take back what the devil stole.
And want to be careful with that song. Sometimes that's a challenge, a direct challenge of Satan. But if we're going to see the church take back what God has, what Satan has stolen, we need to bind him first.
He's a strong man. He's not going to let his goods be plundered. He has to be bound. Now, that doesn't mean that you tell Satan, I bind you. You know how Satan responds to that?
No. I bind you back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And he's not impressed with words. And I believe in studying this passage. What binds Satan is the prayers of the saints in your life, in your family's life in your church, life in world evangelism.
So Paul knows that that truth and he commands them to pray for the work of the Gospel because he knows that that's the only way that it's going to be effective, that it's going to accomplish his purposes, that it's going to win back what Satan has has taken. And so we use prayers to bind the enemy and open doors so that we can plunder the enemy, take back the goods that he's stolen. That's the first key. He commands us to pray. And if we want to experience God establishing us and guarding us against the evil one, we need to be praying.
And I know from experience that's hard, that's not easy, we're distracted, we're this, we're that, but we're commanded to pray. The second key to experience the power of God in our lives is in verse four. And he says, and we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. Paul has a confidence that God is going to accomplish his work in the Thessalonica Church of Thessalonica as a result of their faithfulness in keeping God's commands. I'm going to speak a lot more about this in my next message.
The commands of God and why it's so important to keep them. But just, just for now, you cannot expect God to protect you and strengthen you if you're breaking his commands. Period. If you break his commands, what you've done, you've gone outside of the walls of protection in your life and you've opened yourself to the attack of the enemy. And that's one of the saddest things that I and many in ministry see.
We preach the word of God, we talk about the commands of God, and then we see people breaking the commands and then experiencing all sorts of heartache and defeat in their life. And what happened? What happened? Well, you open yourself to the attack of the enemy by disobeying God's commands. They're not there to keep you from having fun or to enjoying life.
They're there to protect you from a spiritual attack. And we need to understand that, that our only protection is to walk with the Lord. People think God's commands are restrictive, that they rob them of freedom and joy life, when in reality they're just there to protect you from the attack of the enemy. We need to see God's commands the way David did. Turn back to Psalm chapter 19, one of my favorite songs, Psal and Song.
And he says, there in chapter 19, verse 7 through 11, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. His testimony, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.
The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And then he says, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
And we need to meditate on that God's commands. They're sure. They revive the soul, they rejoice the heart, they enlighten our eyes, they make us clean forever and righteous in God's sight. And we need to see him in that light. And he says, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
And then he sums it up. Moreover, by them is your servant warned in keeping them there is great reward. How many can say that to the commands of the Lord there is great reward. And yes, we experience some of that here, but we'll experience it for all eternity when we have kept the commands of the Lord. Great reward.
So just summarizing this message and speaking to you, but I'm also speaking to myself, that we have been commanded to pray that God's gospel would go out and be established and be victorious and be honored. I believe we should pray that every morning. And I believe when we gather together as the saints, whether it's the. The worship team getting ready to worship or board meeting with the elders, wherever we get together, we should be praying and asking God to honor his word that will go ahead of us and prepare the way. And especially when we're experiencing opposition.
And the second thing, and if Paul could do this, I guess I can. I command you to keep his commands. There's great reward in doing that. And that's not based on what do I want. Paul wasn't praying for himself.
He was praying for the gospel, for the work of God to be effective and fruitful. And so great reward. I'll close with this. I mentioned Newt, 20 years old, coming to Kapelis, being turned down, then got the okay. And of course he started a Sunday school.
And I've seen some of the pictures back then, and mainly kids. They were a couple adults when they first started this church. And of course God worked in that. But I didn't realize till later, after I'd come here to pastor, I noticed we were getting a check in the mail for the church from a lady in Union Gap. Anyone know where Union Gap is?
Just outside of. Outside of Yakima. And this lady named Virginia Burlingame would send $75 a month to our church. And at the time, $75, that was a good sum of money and was really thankful for that. It helped us in the ministry.
Well, through Newt and Margaret, I got to meet this lady and she had a wonderful garden there in Union Gap. Things grow good in that area if you got water. And then she would send vegetables over and can stuff over and somehow made contact with her and end up going to Union Gap to visit her. Actually stayed in her home. It was a mobile home.
And she showed us her garden and everything. But she told me this story. She said, When I was 14 years old, my parents moved away from Aberdeen to Capaylis Beach. And that's a traumatic thing.
But she said, I got here and there was no Sunday school. And so I prayed all summer, oh, God, provide a Sunday school for me to go to. Provide a Sunday school. 14 years old and of course, no way for anyone to bind us together. But that fall, a young man, Newt Razor Felt, led to come to Copelis beach and start a Sunday school.
And it was a move of God, it was clear. And so she started attending Sunday school here and was a part of the church. And as a young adult, she met a teacher in Ocean City and his last name was Burlingame, and she married him. And finally he went to Union Gap to teach over there. And.
But she appreciated so much the work that this church had done in her life through teaching her the word of God. And she gave that $75 until she died. And she was part of a church over there. Her son ended up being mayor of Union Gap, by the way. But the rest of the story we can say, oh, here we are in Coppelas.
We're worshiping the Lord. Thank God for our blessing. Well, how did that happen? And we can say, well, Newt came to a, you know, to start a Sunday school, and he did, but really we go back to the cause. And it was one young girl's prayers that opened a door for us to be able to worship God here in Copelas Beach.
And that's something that any of us can do. We're commanded to pray for the gospel to speed ahead and be strengthened. Yes, there's opposition. There's wicked and evil men out there, but God is faithful. God is faithful.
Let's pray, Father. I can say from experience that this church has impacted my life. When I attended here in 78 and 79. God, thank you for the work you did in my life. The word of God was preached, proclaimed, honored.