Hey, I don't know about you. I want to just say my heart is
overwhelmed with joy for many reasons.
But every year at this conference, I just feel like
it's a family reunion. And even though there are new
people here because of the kindred spirit of the Holy
Spirit living in each of us, I can't tell you the joy that I
have looking around and seeing people walking and interacting.
And I think we're getting a little glimpse of what we're
going to have in eternity. We're going to be with each
other forever and ever and ever. And if that intimidates you,
here's the good part. We're all going to be perfected.
So it's not going to be so overwhelming as much as you
might think. I'm so excited to be with you
tonight. And here, here's my prayer also
for tonight, I hope you have energy reserved to respond to
this message because there will be a response.
I'm just telling you where we're going.
There will be a response to this message.
And it's going to be an invitation for every single one
of us. And if you're not energized, I'm
going to pray that God would energize us because we want to
meet with the Lord. And James tells us draw near to
God and he will draw near to you.
So he puts the ball in our courts, right?
We initiate the pursuit and God is faithful to meet us there
with open arms. And so I hope that what you hear
today would stir you to say, I really want to respond to these
truths and experience them from my for myself.
So I prayed, but I would like for us to pray again before we
crack open our Bibles together. Let's do that, shall we?
Lord, we ask that you would by your Spirit, drive us to the
place where you want us to be in prayer.
Drive us to our knees, drive us to the place of adoration, of
worship, of faith again. Resurrect things that we've
stopped praying for. Stop believing you, for we need
your help, Lord, because we know that Satan would love to stifle
and to eliminate this reality from our lives.
But we pray that today it would be a turning point for each of
us. And so let your word be spoken
clearly, free from any stammering, confusion,
distraction. Let it come with authority from
heaven. We trust that Lord, you will
hear us even now, and you will guide us for the rest of this
evening. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. Behold, he is praying.
Those were the comforting words that the Lord Jesus gave to a
very reluctant disciple by the name of Ananias, who was
summoned by Christ to go and minister to a radically
transformed Saul of Tarsus. And what was true of Saul, whom
we know to be Paul in the infancy of his faith, was a
trademark throughout his life and ministry until his very last
moments on the earth. In other words, one of my one of
my first notes that I still have to this day that I taped behind
the cover of my Bible were all the requests that Paul made to
the various churches to pray for him.
It moves me and move me because of who Paul was and yet at the
same time how dependent he was on this strange, mysterious, yet
accessible thing called prayer. And I believe it's because of
what he believed in. Second Corinthians.
I want you to turn to with me in chapter one, verse 11 of Second
Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians 111.
Look what Paul says to this church.
You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on
our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers
of many. If you want one simple take away
from this verse, you'll never forget it.
Prayer works, and prayer helps. If Paul didn't believe that, he
wouldn't waste his time asking for it.
But he really, really believed it.
And when he wrote this, he was undergoing an undisclosed
intense season of suffering where he says that I, I could
smell death. I can actually taste the grade.
That's how severe this turmoil was that Paul and his ministry
team were experiencing. And he understood something
here. He understood that he can be
helped, that there is certain heavenly assistance that's
unlocked only upon this premise. If the people of God pray, if
they don't pray, then we're not going to tap into this help.
There's only access through prayer.
And so he demands it. And notice this, he says you
must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our
behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
So again, Paul here believes that there are certain blessings
that can only be experienced through prayer.
I wonder how many testimonies we've missed out on because of
our lack of praying. Then our churches, our families,
our marriages, what have we forfeited because we have not
put our faith in this thing called prayer?
This is something for us to consider because what's
fascinating is not just what prayer can do, but who Paul's
asking to do the praying for him?
The Corinthians. You know, people better be
careful when they say we need to go back to the days of the early
church. Which part?
I think what you're referring to is the early church before Acts
chapter 5, because as much as there might be problems in our
churches, and we all have them, I'm sure the Corinthian church
was messed up, severely messed up.
And so comparatively to the apostle Paul, Paul asked
struggling Saints to pray. And not just the Corinthians,
the Thessalonians, the Ephesians, the Colossians.
He asked all these different churches, with all their
weaknesses and their defaults and their limitations, to pray.
To pray. You may never preach a sermon in
your life, but you can pray. You may never be invited to do
something like preach at a conference or travel and plant
churches, but you can pray. You may never be able to, out of
the goodness of your heart, give financially, but you can reach
into the treasury of intercession and pray.
Prayer gives all of us equal access to making an impact for
the Kingdom of God, no matter what you are, what you do, what
you feel like you're limited by. So Paul invites these believers
to pray Weak, stumbling, inconsistent Christians
believing that God would hear them if they came in humility.
And so this is a gift that God has given every single one of us
to be, to be able to make a profound move forward for the
Kingdom and the glory of Jesus Christ.
And if you're not moved by the fact that the Corinthians were
invited to partner with Paul, partner with heaven through
prayer, then be moved by the fact that Paul is the one asking
for it. If there was a guy that I can
write off as someone who didn't need to go around asking people
for prayer, it was Paul. Paul, this guy was a machine of
a missionary. No matter where Paul went, one
of two things happened. There was either revival or
riots or sometimes both. This man, again, as we've been
studying, is just, he's unique in many ways.
And yet in virtually every single one of his letters, he
goes, would you please pray for me?
You know, when Christians ask for prayer, they kind of say it
like a second hand kind of sign off to the conversation.
Yeah. Yeah.
Pray for me, brother. Do you think that's how Paul
asked people for prayer? Do you think it was just
Christianese? Now let me show you how much
Paul really believed in people praying for him and how much he
needed it. So we read Second Corinthians,
but go to Romans and look at chapter 15, verse 30.
He says to these Christians, I appeal to you, brothers, by our
Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive
together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf.
Do you see the desperation in this man's words?
Look again, I appeal to you, I urge you, I beg of you Romans, I
need you to pray for me. Now when I, when I read this and
meditated on this, this is the, this is the thought that ran
through mind. This is the question that caused
me to reflect. If Paul asked people to pray for
him, why don't I? Why don't I ask people to pray
for me? Is it because I'm afraid that
people would see me as weak or Paul had no problem looking weak
before others? Or is it perhaps that I I'm
limited my understanding of what can happen when I collect and
combine my faith with other Christians?
Is that what's hindering me from joyously making a couple of text
messages to people to say please pray for for me?
Paul had no reservation. In fact, Paul understood that
one of the things about Christian community is that we
make a dedication to do this thing called prayer for one
another. And he did not hold back.
And notice that when Paul asked for prayer, it did not mean that
he did not engage in it with himself.
Read again Romans 15, verse 30. I appeal to you, brothers, by
our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive
together with me. So you have another extreme
where people ask everybody for prayer because they don't pray
themselves. That's not the way to do it.
Strive together with me. Strive together with me.
There's some ministers who are apparently too busy to pray, and
so they'll ask people to pray for them or they'll create a
prayer team. That's not how Paul ministered.
Paul didn't allow himself to get to the point where he justified
his lack of praying, even in the name of ministry.
He said strive together with me. Let's work together now to
bombard the throne of grace and to believe that God will send
something down. And as you can tell, so much can
be said about this incredible treasure.
But for the sake of time, if you are a note taker, I want to
present to you 3 glorious life altering possibilities through
this thing called prayer Three. And the first one is this prayer
prize. Open prayer peels.
Open prayer opens spiritual eyes and that truth is found in
Ephesians chapter one, beginning in verse 16.
Let's read that together, shall we?
Ephesians 116 Paul says, I do not cease to give thanks for
you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation, and the knowledge of him having the
eyes of your hearts enlightened. That you may know what is the
hope to which He has called you. What are the riches of His
glorious inheritance in the Saints, and what is the
immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe
according to the working of His great might?
There are three. What's that Paul includes in the
introduction of this letter? Three, what's that he wants
these believers to experience and to know?
The first one is what is the hope to which he has called you?
The second what is what is the riches of his glorious
inheritance in the Saints? And lastly, what is the
immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe?
Now these verses, they they encourage me and they challenge
me at the same time. You know why?
Because Paul is not writing to non believers.
When you go back to verse 15, you realize that he is writing
to people who have exemplary faith, who have been radically
transformed by the gospel. And yet at the same time he
tells them, I'm praying that you would see more, that you would
see more, right? And he tells the things that he
wants them to, to behold and to witness in the innermost part of
their being, which tells me that you and I can be saved but
remain shallow. And Paul couldn't imagine of a
greater nightmare for believers to just come to the knowledge of
Jesus Christ and stay there at the basic understanding of your
faith. He goes, no, no, no.
I want you to know the depths of his power, the depths of his
riches, the depths of this hope that is your inheritance.
Now, I want to ask you, if you were here and you teach the
Bible on any level, Sunday school mothers to your children,
you have a Bible study, a Home group, you run a men's meeting,
you're an elder. Whatever you do in terms of you
communicating the truth, how would you go about trying to
unfold the what's that Paul presents to this pupil?
What would you, what would you do?
What would be the primary means? It's very simple.
You would probably teach it. I'm going to now have a series
on what on what is the hope to which he has called you for the
next seven weeks. We're going to do a series about
what are the riches of his glories inherits in the same.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but what I find so
fascinating about Paul is that he doesn't necessarily expound
on these things before he tells them that I'm praying for you to
experience them. I am praying that your eyes will
be open. And what Paul reveals here is
that you can have incredible abilities to argue and
illustrate and and be compelling in your communication skills.
Those things are not enough. And we're living in an age in
which even among Christians, we are moving further and further
away from the supernatural components of our faith, so much
so that so many people have shriveled up in their prayer
life, including ministers. Paul didn't rely on his oratory
skills. Paul didn't rely purely on his
writing ability. Paul understood here that growth
and spiritual knowledge cannot be fully achieved until I take
some time to put my knees on the end of my bed and to ask God for
you to see it with greater clarity and supernatural
assistance. So elders, if there are elders
here beyond elders of NBC, when you're ready to share the word
of God, do you pray for the people to see what you're about
to explain? Youth group leaders, do you pray
for the young people every other Friday?
When you give a small lesson, do you ask God, Lord, I'm praying
that you would open their eyes because I can only take them so
far. Parents, all my beloved parents
and so many, the babies in here make me so happy.
They don't bother me one bit. I love to hear the voice of
these children as they are in the presence of God's people, in
the presence of singing in his Word.
But can I ask you something? Are you creating a habit even
now with those little ones in your arms to pray and ask God
that as soon as they can, their little eyes would be able to
behold the majesty of Jesus Christ?
Because apart from prayer, it's going to take a lot more work in
your strength to do it. Paul says, I'm praying that you
would see he didn't depend on humanistic ideas.
In fact, he he echoes this not in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 3IN
that very famous passage where he says I bow my knees before
the Father. Then he goes on to tell them
another thing that he's praying for, that they would know the
height, the death, the breath, right?
The length of the love of Jesus Christ.
I'm praying that you would know that again, I can explain to you
the love of Christ. And there is an importance in
that, in preaching and teaching and declaring and explaining
you. You can't nullify that.
But Paul here also shows that it's one thing to explain the
love of Jesus, it's another thing to experience it.
And I believe Paul understood that to experience it, it must
be prayed over, lest what happens here is just a lesson
and there's no real impartation through the power of the Holy
Spirit who takes these truths and drives them into your heart.
So Paul here believed that unless I seek the Lord, people's
eyes will not be able to open up to the degree that they should
be opened. That's true for people you pray
for and certainly that's true for yourself as you pray and you
ask, God, let me see you, let me understand you.
Let me behold the wondrous things that you're out of your
law. Open my eyes, God, please.
But that's not the only thing. There's a second thing that
prayer does. Prayer now only opens spiritual
eyes. Prayer increases and matures our
love. So that's found in Philippians
chapter one. Go there with me if you would.
And in verse 9 to verse 10, I'm here to tell you today that
love, Holy Spirit, love Christ centered and themed love is not
going to come through spontaneous combustion, right?
This kind of godly love does not have to be depended upon your
empathy being stirred by some event or some suffering that
you're beholding. Paul shows us here that there
can be a loved access and experience through prayer.
Notice what he says to these believers.
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more
with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may
approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the
day of Christ. So Paul wrote a total of 4
letters from prison. This is one of them.
And what's amazing here in that in every single letter, his
prison epistles, he mentions how he is praying for the Christians
that he is writing to. You know why that's important?
Because although Paul was bound by chains, although he couldn't
walk and travel and sail, to be before the people and to preach
to them and to counsel them and to console them, he knew prayer
can go where he could not go. He knew that though he may be
shackled, his prayers could not be limited.
They could traverse through the walls.
They can traverse through terrain and cities and
provinces. It's no accident that Paul told
the people while under house arrest that he was praying for
them. Because prayers outlive the
people who even pray them. You realize that prayers will
outlive you. There are some people, I
believe, including George Mueller.
We're told of George Mueller, that he prayed for two specific
individuals to come to Christ. One of them did right before he
died and the other one did after he died.
Prayers outlive the ones who pray them.
That's a remarkable thing about prayer.
And Paul here tells him I'm praying for you.
And in the theme of his prayers centers on love.
But notice that he qualifies the kind of love that he's asking
God for. He's not very general.
He gives 3 features about the kind of love that prayer makes
possible for your life. And you're saying, well why is
this important? If you're a Christian, you
understand how important love is the first characteristic.
If you're taking those, these are sub points to what Paul's
praying for. Three features of this love that
if you but pray for can be true for you.
And the first one is this, that the the love they would know
would be abounding. Isn't that what he says?
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more.
So it's not that the Philippians lacked love because earlier he
commends them for their support in verse 7.
But Paul knew that there was even more, even more for them to
tap into. And this is what he's asking God
for. And he understood.
Listen, that prayer is the spiritual pump that draws out
tangible, sacrificial Christ, reflecting love from any heart
that desires it. If you're honest enough to say
that you're weak in love for your spouse, for your church,
for your elders, for fellow believers, for the lost, for
certain ethnic people, you're in need of prayer and ask the Lord
for it to abound more and more, and you will be amazed at how
God will inspire you. You would be fascinated to
realize what he can do. But Paul doesn't stop there.
The second quality he seeks for the people about their love is
not just that it would abound, not that it would overflow
merely, but that it would be a knowledgeable love.
Isn't that what he says, That it would have bound more and more
with knowledge and discernment? So we talk about love in in such
a general way, and it's foreign to the Bible.
The Bible has specific, meticulous ways of describing
biblical love, and one of them is a knowledgeable love.
And what does that mean? What does it mean for love to be
knowledgeable? Well, because there are many
people who love but not loving the truth.
And there's some people who love, and their love is more
stimulated by emotion than conviction.
So the extended of love depends on the fuel of what they're
feeling that day or that week. If they feel like loving you,
you'll experience their agape love.
If they don't feel like it, then you might not experience it.
And so, so many acts of service, so many sacrifices, so many
times of patients are dependent, unfortunately, on on stirrings
of the heart. And Paul's saying, I'm actually
asking that God would give you a love so much deeper than that,
that it would not rely on things that are so fleeting, like how
you woke up that morning and because you had a good week and
not a bad week, I'm asking for something greater than that, a
love that is stimulated by knowledge rooted in what you
know. And this is important because I
wonder, I wonder what Paul would have prayed like when he asked
God for that. I imagine that it would be.
Lord, let the believers in Philippi come to a place where
they love because they know who you are and they know what
you've done for them. Lord, please let this love be
unbroken. Let it be something that
remains. Let it be something that's not
easily taken from them. Let it stay true.
And as they grow in their knowledge of you, may that only
increase their love more and more.
A knowledgeable love. But here's where I think it is
the most interesting feature about this love.
He's not just talking about a love that abounds, not just a
love that's knowledgeable, rooted in truth, but a love
that's discerning. I'm praying that you would
increase in your life with knowledge and discernment.
And I cannot express how relevant this is to us today.
They're Christians who believe, and they're Christians who
defend. And there are Christians who act
on behalf of people and causes and our culture, churches that
embrace agendas and ideologies, thinking that they are doing so
in love. And they justify it because it's
done in love and it lacks discernment.
And a love that lacks discernment is dangerous because
what you end up doing is manifesting a type of love that
lavishes affection and approval on those who will live in open
and unrepentant sin. Christians who will give
anything to anybody out of their compulsive compassion.
There's so many things that can go wrong when Christians do
things in the name of love, void of discernment.
And Paul says, I'm praying that your love would be protected and
they would be funneled and it would be framed by discerning
instruction. So discerning level instruct you
when to comfort, a discerning level call you to rebuke.
At times, a discerning level tell you when to go, when to
stay, what to give, what to not give, what to support, what not
to support. Fail to have this discernment
and you end up supporting and feeding things that can even
damn people to hell. So if you don't seek the Lord
for a discerning kind of love, you're going to do more harm
than good. And Paul understood that, and so
he prayed for this discernment. But it's it's more than that.
Discerning love doesn't just doesn't just decide what to do
and what not to do, what to believe and what not to believe,
what to support and what not to support.
But this is where it gets more practical.
This discerning love also in in a very real way, tells us the
best way to go about loving people.
I would be afraid if you love your unbelieving neighbor in the
same way you love your spouse, that would be wrong.
There would be problems there. There will be problems if you
love your brothers in Christ the same way you love your sisters
in Christ, right? And so Paul understands that
there is a wisdom in love that needs to be accessed in order
for us to be the most effective in our loving.
So he prays for a discernment that you would know what to do
with every situation and every single person, every object of
your love by the Spirit living in you will give you the exact
and the best way to lavish them with Christ, affection for them.
Paul's so obviously led by the Spirit enlisting these things.
And so we see here that this multifaceted way of love, God is
ready to dispense it if we just humble ourselves and ask for it,
isn't it? I mean, what a gift this is,
what a gift this is that I don't have to excuse my lack of love
or my careless love or my spontaneous love to my
disposition or my upbringing. Now all of that can be cancelled
if I just get before the Lord and say Lord, if Paul believed
it was possible for the Philippians and himself to
experience it, give it to me. Give it to me.
You know who got it? Not the Philippians at this
point, at least the Thessalonians.
You don't have to turn there, but listen to these amazing
words about the Thessalonians and what kind of love they
experienced in First Thessalonians 49.
Paul says now concerning brotherly love, you have no need
for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught
by God to love one another. God did a direct work in the
heart of the Thessalonians and Paul, recognizing he says what
you guys are doing for each other and for others outside of
your church, that comes from God, no doubt about it.
Imagine that that prayer can to can take us beyond listening to
a series of messages on love, though that's important.
I'm not trying to dismiss that would belittle that, but I'm
trying to open our hearts to realize that this thing called
prayer, we can't afford to neglect it.
There's something to be known in it that deserves greater
attention. And before I move on, I wonder
if we caught this when Paul spoke to the Philippians, right?
He asked that their love would abound, that it would be with
knowledge and discernment. For what reason?
So that they would be found blameless at the day of Christ.
Did you catch that? If you didn't catch it, go back
and look at it. He says it here in verse nine of
Philippians and 10:00 so that you may approve what is
excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
When you're talking about the day of Christ, you're talking
about the return of Christ. You're talking about Christ
coming back to judge this world. He's going to do that by the
way. He's going to come and he's
going to clean house. He's going to he's going to do
everything that we have been hoping for for generations and
establishing a government that will be without fail and promote
a peace that will be eternal. He's going to do it.
Only him. He's not going to be your
favorite political candidate. I'm sorry to disappoint you.
Only Christ is king, and only Christ will make everything
right. But notice in Paul's mind when
he speaks about the day of Christ and believers preparing
for the day of Christ, you know what's going through his mind?
Their love, their love increasing as the day of Christ
is approaching. And I wonder how many
Christians, in these tumultuous, troubling times, as we believe
more and more that the return of Christ is closer than it's ever
been, how much of our conversation, how much of our
dialogue, how much of our praying for one another, centers
on our love increasing so that when Christ comes back, he'll
find his love mirrored in our hearts?
If your only sense of preparation for the day of
Christ is looking for bunkers, loading up an ammunition, and
storing up food and buckets, you you're not reading the Bible
right. He's telling these Philippians,
hey, listen as a day of crisis coming closer and closer.
Get your love going and prayer will get it going.
Let Christ come back and find the people who reflect His
affection. Prayer creates a love in US and
grows it. But thirdly, prayer invites us
to express and experience, express and our experience, our
holy desires. I invite you to turn to Romans
chapter one. When you come to Romans and you
read Romans, you have to understand a very important
element about Paul's relationship with these
believers. Paul never met the Romans.
Paul didn't lead the Romans to Christ.
Paul heard about their faith. There was already a church
established there, and he's writing this letter to them to
encourage them in the faith. But he also explains them that
upon hearing about their faith, he's tried many, many times to
be there and to meet them. So we don't exactly know who led
the Romans to the Gospel, but there is a clue in Acts chapter
2, verse 10, when the day of Pentecost occurred and the Holy
Spirit fell upon the 120 in that upper room.
And we're told about different names of peoples or people
groups rather, that were present when they began to speak in
tongues and glorify God in their respective languages.
And we're we're told there that there were visitors from Rome.
So could very well be that there were Romans who were there
during the feast and they heard about the Gospel and they went
back with the gospel changing them in a church being
established through that. Nevertheless, Paul he was moved
by their testimony. He he explained something here
in verse nine. I want us to read it together.
For God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the
gospel of his Son that without ceasing.
I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by
God's will I may know at last, or that somehow rather excuse me
at last in coming to you for I long to see you, that I may
impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.
So listen, I haven't mentioned before, but I want to tell you,
and I'm calling God to witness, that I haven't stopped praying
for you. And the fact that he has to call
God to witness about his prayer life shows how difficult it is
to remain consistent in our prayers, right?
To say that I have not stopped praying for you.
That's a difficult feat to accomplish, right?
But he says, I'm calling God to witness, that I actually have
been consistent in seeking God on your behalf.
And he prays. But we see here that there were
these hurdles. There are these external
obstacles from him actually getting there.
He's done an over and over again.
And I am happy that Paul never went to Rome at this time.
Do you know why I'm happy? Because perhaps if Paul did go
to Rome, he would never have written the book of Romans.
The book of Romans is the result of him being restricted and him
reaching out with his efforts to bless this church from a
distance. So.
So don't be squeamish and don't raise your fist to heaven.
If God closes the door, maybe he's wanting to open something
else. One of the most brilliant,
fascinating theological masterpieces came as a result of
God not allowing one of his men to go to Rome.
But we see here that Providence is not the only insight we
gained from this early chapter. We also are instructing about
what what Apostolic praying looks like.
So he says here, God is my witness, whom I serve with my
spirit and the gospel send that without ceasing.
I mention my prayers and notice that Paul again calls God to
witness. But more than that, he tells
them that he submitted to God's will in the whole matter.
So look at verse 10. He says, always in my prayers
asking that somehow by God's will.
So when you pray, you're always keeping in mind and you're
always ready to submit to God's ultimate decision with your
prayer request and by the fact that the fact that he's saying
God's will is even more meaningful when you look at his
desire in verse 11. Look at the beginnings of verse
11 for I long to see you like he really wanted to see the Romans.
He really wanted to travel. He really wanted to impart
something to them and he really wanted to receive something in
return. I long to see you and yet I
still am willing to submit to the will of God.
That's that's what we must do first.
How often do you take your desires to prayer?
How often do you communicate those desires to him?
Is he your friend? We sang it, my Lord, write my
companion, my friend. So when's the last time you have
just in simplicity and an honesty poured out your heart
and saying, Lord, I, I long for this.
It can be anything as long as it's holy.
If it's sinful, you have no business even entertaining it.
But if it's holy like these things, Lord, my heart really
yearns for this. I really want to serve in this
way. I really want to be married.
Something wrong with that? I really want to begin this
project. I really want to do this.
You have every right to do that. And that's one of the gifts of
prayer that we can vent to the Lord.
We can open ourselves before him.
But at the same time, guard yourself by conscious surrender
to the sovereignty of God. Because what you'll realize over
time is that no matter how strong your desires are, if God
gave you everything that you asked for, that would hurt you
more than anything else. Listen, I've been walking with
the Lord, let's say here 12 years now, and there are many
prayers that I thought should be answered.
And in hindsight, I'm so glad God didn't answer.
Very happy, actually. And so I come with that boldness
and I come with that honesty, but I also am cushioned by
knowing that as I'm speaking to my Father, He will not give me
something that He knows will not be good.
He knows and so I'm never nervous wondering if I prayed
hard enough or long enough to convince God.
That's not how it works. He honors your faith, but He
goes more than just honoring your faith.
He will protect you from things that you think will be goodwill
actually not be good. We've been studying Elijah and
I've mentioned this before but I can't help but refer to him.
Elijah prayed 3 significant prayers.
One time was fire from heaven, it came instantly.
The second time he prayed for rain, it came slowly.
And the third time he prayed to die and God never answered it.
In fact, he never died, right? And so we have to understand
those things. God can answer prayers right
away. God can answer prayers slowly.
And one of God's hidden blessings is that God will not
answer your prayer. Paul here prayed and he's, he's
submitted to the will of God. And you know, there are some
people who are afraid to pray and ask God for his will because
they think it'll be lesser than what they have planned.
If you have that understanding of God, take a pause on
understanding how prayer works and explore the character of God
first because you have a skewed understanding of how good he is.
I've talked to so many people like that.
I'm scared that if I ask God, he's going to do this and I
don't want that. So you have a better blueprint
for your life than God, supposedly.
But look here at verse 11. Paul celebrated the faith of the
Romans and he believed that there is more for them to tap
into, just like what we read earlier in the Ephesians.
But what I love about his request for the spiritual
enrichment of these believers is that he volunteered to be the
means of it. So look again at verse 11.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual
gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually
encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
So Paul wanted the Romans to be blessed.
Paul wanted the Romans to grow. But Paul in his prayers also
volunteered himself to be the answer to those prayers.
That makes sense. I hope I didn't put you in a
pretzel there with your thinking.
I'll tell you why this is important because sometimes how
Christians use prayer is as a scapegoat.
They try to use prayer as a way of not having to deal with
things or involve themselves or thing with things or interact
with people. And so they kind of try to pray
it away, right? And so we asked the Lord and,
and we comfort ourselves because we're doing the holy thing.
We're praying, but what we're doing, really doing is saying,
Lord, can you just not let me deal with this or not let me
have to face this. Paul didn't pray like that.
Paul prayed for believers from a distance, but Paul also
positioned himself to say, and Lord, I'm willing to be the
answer to that prayer too. I'm willing to come.
And so listen, prayer is meant to transcend your capabilities,
but it's also designed to empower you to enlighten you and
to help you achieve the very things that you're praying for.
So don't don't rely on prayer as a way of.
Distancing yourself allow prayer to do something in you so that
you can embrace the very thing that you're challenged by.
We see here something else in verse 12.
Paul, if you read all his prayers, they are spiritual in
nature. There's nothing wrong with
praying for physical needs and material things, but Paul was so
consumed with the Kingdom of God that you rarely find him asking
for transient matters. It was always related to things
about the soul, things about salvation, things about
sanctification. And he's always praying for
others to be blessed, people to be safe, people to be healed,
people to be rescued. But from time to time you find
Paul praying things for himself. And so he comes in verse 12.
And he asked not only for them to be built up, but he says here
that we may be mutually encouraged.
And I see here an invitation that you and I should ask God
for things. You and I should ask God for
spiritual blessing, for miracles, for help, for
manifestations, for whatever you are a part of, to be more
heavenly and spirit empowered. He really sets a precedent for
what should happen every time you gather with Christians,
right? There should be a giving and a
taking, a providing and a receiving that we may be
mutually encouraged. Everybody is going to give
something and everybody's going to leave with something.
If that's how we operate in our churches, we'll be much more
excited for church. So he sought God to be with
other believers. He sought God to be blessed by
those believers. He sought God for things, and
God would honor that. Or would he that Paul received
the answer to his prayer to be with the Romans?
People are staring at me. I see some shoulders shrugging.
I see some people saying no. I see some people saying yes.
You want an answer? Acts 28 is your answer.
Acts 28 verse 14 and 15, the last chapter of the book of Acts
tells us Acts 28, verse 14, Luke writes.
There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for
seven days. And so we came to Rome.
Oh, looks like somebody made it to Rome, and the brothers there,
when they heard about us, came as far as the form of APS and
the three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God
and took courage. Paul got his answer to prayer.
I really want to see the Romans, Lord, I really want to know
them. I want to experience
encouragement with them. And God gave him that request.
But keep in mind how God answered his request.
All that makes all the difference, right?
How did Paul arrive to Rome? Did he purchase a ticket on
kayak and get a one way nonstop route?
Study acts to realize what it took for him to get to Rome?
False accusation? Beatings, A failed assassination
attempt? Shipwreck at sea, stranded on an
island, bitten by a snake. Finally, after all of that, he
gets to Rome. So be very specific with your
prayer request, but be very open to how God will answer it.
Yeah, because that's where a lot of people get disappointed in
prayer. They, they ask God for things
and when he brings it about in his timing, in his way, they get
frustrated, perhaps not even realizing that God is in the
process of answering it. So the way to rejoice in prayer,
to have confidence in prayer, to know joy in prayer is to marry
prayer with the doctrine of Providence that God can bring
this about. And I am fully submitted to the
way he's going to perform it. I want to invite you tonight by
limiting my time in preaching and giving more time this
evening to praying. I want to ask you to muster up
the faith to believe God for something tonight in this very
room. Parents, your wayward children
who you would love to see here at this conference, but are not
here because they'd rather be in the world than be in the
presence of God's people. I'm inviting you tonight to grab
a hold of your husband's hand, of your wife's hand, to look
each other in the eye and say let's pray.
Let's pray for him, Let's pray for her children, your parents,
whom you would love to see in heaven.
I know so many people trying to understand the mechanics of
prayer, God's will, and my prayers.
How does that work? If God really wanted to unfold
the engineering of prayer and how that all works and how all
that can be reconciled, he would have given us a whole book on
it, I'm sure. But from my study of praying in
the Bible, what I've come to the conclusion about it is that when
you and I pray, God hears that specifically for a person and he
will go based on your prayer and intensify his conviction, his
power, his love, his protection for the one that you are praying
for. And where I get that from is
Abraham and Lot. Abraham prayed for a lot.
And what did God do for a Lot? He went above and beyond to
rescue Lot from Sodom. And he still gave Lot a choice,
didn't he? Not he says, hey, listen, you're
out of here, don't turn back. If you look back, it's over.
And his wife look back. So what I take from that is when
we when we intercede for people, the Lord does work in their
lives in a profound way, in a way that would not be realized
if you've not prayed. So I'm, I'm asking you, you
people who have a, a, a lost father, a lost mother, pray
tonight and ask God we do a miracle in the very moments of
your prayers for your ministries, so many ministries
represented here. Maybe your services for months
have been absolutely dead and you can't figure out a solution.
You tried the games route, you tried the entertainment route,
you've tried the video route, you've tried everything.
It's not working. Why don't you spend some time
praying and asking God to pour out his spirit and to open their
eyes, to warm their hearts, to do something with your
preaching, to do something with the singing that would be more
than just external emotion. It would be deeper because now
God's hand is on the things that you're doing because you prayed
your desires. Maybe you've come to this
conference with desires on your heart and it's, it's actually
weighing you and you've, you've come to the point where you're
like, I can't even talk to people about it because I think
I've annoyed most people repeating myself about my
desires and my longings. People might get tired, but the
eternal 1 does not. He is never overwhelmed with
your request, even if they're repeated.
He never sighs when you approach the throne of grace.
He never shoes you away. He actually delights in you,
casting your anxieties at his feet.
He delights in it. So why don't you take some time
and you're going to have an all nighter, I'm sure perhaps some
of you, you're going to be with people.
Why don't you tonight just block out people around you and just
bow your head and murmur your petitions to the Lord of glory?
Why don't you do that? And don't do it tonight because
the person with the microphone is telling you to do it.
Do it tonight because you just got a glimpse of what prayer can
do, the miracles that can take place, the moments that can be
created. So let's bow our heads and I'm
going to just ask a couple of people from the praise team to
gently assist us in music. So at this time, if you need to
pray on your own, prayer on your own.
But if you want to grab the hand of somebody else, if you want to
pray with 2-3 other people, and I want to make one more, I want
to ask that if you've come with somebody who doesn't know Jesus
Christ, to ask them if they would like to give their lives
to Jesus Christ. Explain to them the gospel that
God sent his Son and great love to die on a cross for our sins
so that we would not experience the wrath of God, but the love
of God for all eternity. And if that person has any
obstacles, any questions, take the time to answer that and pray
with them that they would experience the gospel after
understanding it. So let's do that.
So if the praise team can come, please, I'm going to take some
time to pray as well. If you need anything to be
prayed for, if you want to combine faith together, I'm
going to be back there and I'm willing to pray with you.
And if there are more than one person who wants prayer, just
please keep that in mind. As much as I would like to hear
everything in detail, I want to also give an equal chance to
other people to receive prayer. But I want to ask every person
here, let's lift our eyes to heaven.
Let's lift our hearts to the throne of glory and ask the Lord
to do something spectacular. What would it be like to leave
Marinatha Conference at the Sea answers the prayer.
That's what I'm hoping and believing God for.
Let's do that, shall we?