If you haven't done one of these before, typically we're
shooting, I'm right now at least going to shoot for about 20
minutes of time in the scriptures together.
I gave you some notes, knockout, some of that, and then we'll
take some time to pray. I have specific things we'll put
on the screen to pray for as a church and we'll just, I'll give
you some instruction. We'll break out into groups.
If you're not comfortable praying out loud, someone else
will pray for you. No big deal.
It's all voluntary. There's no perfect words or
anything like that. So let's get envisioned for some
prayer. But prayer is somewhat an
intimidating topic. Like if you talk to the lost
world and you say, hey, come to prayer service tonight, they
might be thinking like, what? What kind of prayer?
What does that? What are you going to do?
Is it going to be any fun? Is it going to be boring?
Are you going to make me feel awkward?
Are we going to be on our knees? We maybe have a lot of thoughts
that come to mind. And I think it's good to just
look at a biblical pattern for what is prayer in the Bible.
So tonight I'm calling this a pattern for prayer.
It's it's really simple and honestly, it comes out of where
we are in Bible study in Colossians chapter 1.
So why don't you just turn your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1?
I will have most of the verses come up on the screen if you
don't happen to have a Bible, but I think you're going to be
familiar with this if you've been in it.
I don't intend to teach you everything because I know you've
been studying it already. But in Colossians chapter 1, the
apostle Paul writes to this church and he says in verse
three, he says that he's praying always for you.
Now, that's a grand thing to say about anybody.
I'm always praying for you. But we believe that Paul had
never actually visited or met these people.
So he's praying for people that are of the same spirit in a
different place that he's never likely met.
He says in verse 9, he says, we do not cease to pray for you.
And man, I just think that's incredible.
And that's the heart that we want to have for other people.
Really this pattern of prayer we will see together we can apply
to our own life, but it is intended for others.
So let's read in Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 through 14.
The Bible says for this, 'cause we also, since the day we heard
it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you
might be filled with the knowledge of His will, and all
wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might
walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every
good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthen
with all might according to His glorious power unto all
patients. And long-suffering with
joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints and
light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness.
And that translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom
we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of
sins. Now you've probably seen this in
Bible study, but you should know repetition is the price of
learning thy word. If I hid in my heart that I
might not sin against thee. Some things are just worth being
looked at again. So let me give you, in case you
missed it, a brief pattern for prayer, starting with point
number one, that prayer. Hold on.
Nope, there we go, all right, to pray for God's will to be done.
So if you don't know how to pray, if you don't know what to
pray, you can start here. It says in verse 9 that you
might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all
wisdom and spiritual understanding.
So this is something that Paul was praying for this church and
honestly for most of us when we're praying for people or
things in our life, it's not usually let's have God's will be
done in this moment. We often want reprieve.
God fix my problems. We complain to God instead of
surrendering to his will. And here Paul says we want you
to have the knowledge of his will.
So in your prayer, this is a good place to start.
If you don't know what to pray, you can be like Jesus.
In Luke Chapter 11, Jesus says thy Kingdom come, thy will be
done as in heaven, so on earth. This is the Lord's prayer.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray, and he said when you come
to God, make sure you're surrendering your will to God's
will. At the end of Jesus's life in
the Garden of Gethsemane, when he was praying and asking the
Father that he wouldn't have to be crucified, he said not as I
will, but as thou will. And so it's OK to wrestle with
God's will. We don't always love the things
that God asked us to do, the things that the Scriptures
clearly tell us that it is his will for our life.
It's OK to wrestle with His will, but we should begin with
prayer to say, God, you have a will, You're in charge.
I hope you hear me and do the things that I am asking you, but
you're the Lord. But you can know what God's will
is just simply. Second, Peter 39 is that for you
to be saved? The Bible says it's God's will
that you'd be saved. First Thessalonians 4 says it's
God's will that you would abstain from fornication.
First Thessalonians 5 says that you would give thanks.
So God's will is clear. It's not a crazy ambiguous
thing. It's very clear what His will is
for you. And we're praying for our life
and for the lives of others. We want to pray that God's will
would be clear in our lives. The apostle Paul wrote to
another church and had a prayer for them to the Colossians.
And he says he was hoping that that you might stand perfect and
complete and all the will of God.
Apophis is this wonderful servant in that church, and he
was laboring fervently for this church that they would stand
perfect in all the will of God. That's what good leaders should
be doing. We should be praying for other
people to be accomplishing God's will.
So in your notes, I put it to you this way.
If you don't know what to pray, ask for God's will to be done.
That's a good place to start. We'll have a time of prayer at
the end of this and pray for some specific things.
If you don't understand them, just default back to God's will
being done right. So first, pray for God's will.
Secondly, pray for lives that are honoring to God.
Pray for lives that are honoring to God and Colossians chapter 1
and verse 10. This is this is all the
description of this prayer that that Paul had for this church.
He says that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all
pleasing, being fruitful, and every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God. I'm summarizing this one in a
couple of different ways. But in general, Christians are
supposed to live differently than the rest of the world.
And Paul's prayer for the Colossians church was that they
would walk worthy unto all pleasing, meaning first pleasing
to the Lord, pleasing to the Lord, That word or that phrase.
I don't know what you guys come up with in your Bible studies,
but I think we we rested on that phrase, all pleasing.
What does that mean? It's an interesting phrase.
Well, essentially it is to be pleasing to the Lord.
And we're reminded with this kind of phrase that not
everything is pleasing to the Lord.
We're called to walk worthy, to live differently.
And first, John, John says, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of
him. So this is the context of prayer
because we keep his commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight. If we want God to hear our
prayers, we need to be walking in his ways, doing things that
are pleasing in his sight. Secondly, in this phrase, Paul
is praying for the fruitfulness of this church.
He says in verse 10 of Colossians one being fruitful in
every good work. So when we're praying for
ourselves or we're praying for others, we're praying for fruit
that is the fruit of the Spirit, the character in our lives, the
Spirit of God pouring out to others, but also bearing fruit
as Jesus says in John 15. Herein is my father glorified
that you bear much fruit. This is a a marker for a
disciple. If we want to call ourselves
disciples of Christ, we are going to be sharing the gospel.
We're going to be reproducing with others.
So if you don't know what to pray, pray that people are
fruitful. And thirdly here, pray to know
him better. In verse 10, he says increasing
in the knowledge of God. It's an interesting phrase, the
knowledge of God. Did you guys look at that one in
your Bible study? Anyone break that one out?
I think we looked at that one during our time, but the word,
the phrase knowledge of God isn't used a whole lot of times
in the Bible. In Romans Chapter 11, we're
reminded of the depths of the riches both of wisdom and
knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His
judgments and His ways past finding out as believers, we are
called to know God in an intimate way and have knowledge
of God and that knowledge is unsearchable.
His judgments, you'll, you can study it your whole life.
You can seek Him your whole life and we'll never fully have him
figured out. So when we don't know what to
pray, I think I put it to you this way in your notes.
Pray for God to grow you to be who He wants you to be.
He wants your life to be pleasing, to be fruitful and
increasing in the knowledge of God.
This is a great thing for you to pray for your friends and
neighbors as well. Let's look at #3 to pray for
strength and joy and suffering. So as Paul continues in verse 11
of Colossians 1, he says strengthen with might according
to his glorious power unto all, patience and long-suffering with
joyfulness. Now there's so much densely
packed in here, but really, quite simply what we see is
patience, long-suffering and joyfulness.
And often times when we think about prayer, we're thinking,
relieve the difficulty. That's what I'm praying.
I don't know about you, but I don't like feeling bad or being
oppressed or struggling or not having victory or people not
liking me. I want to be free.
I want to be good. I want everything to be perfect
in my life. Who doesn't want that?
But we're going to have difficulty, right?
Instead of being relieved, we need to have joy.
So a couple verses on this. In Second Timothy chapter 2,
Paul says all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer
persecution. It's only a matter of time as we
walk with the Lord and we seek him and do his will.
The point that we saw previous, we're fruitful that some kind of
difficulty comes our way only because we're a follower of
Jesus, not because we're being idiots.
If we're making terrible decisions, that's on us.
But if people don't like us because of Jesus, well, we just
can't change that. There is a choice in that first
Peter three. It is better if the will of God
be so that you suffer for well doing than for evil doing.
So at some point you could say it is the will of God that you
suffer, not that you're always miserable and hate your life,
but it's if you're going to be like Jesus, you will at times
find yourself unpopular. It's just how it goes.
But God has given us because we believe the gospel.
When we heard the word of the truth of the gospel, He gave us
His Holy Spirit to dwell in US. And in John 14, the Holy Spirit
is called the Comforter, and we have with us at all times an
ability to be strengthened with all might through the Spirit of
God that lives inside of us. And truly, if we are going to to
be fruitful and present joy and long-suffering, if we're going
to have any patience, it is not going to be produced by our own
natural physical means in the flesh.
We have to rely upon the Spirit of God that lives inside of us
at times of difficulty. So I put it to you this way in
your notes, don't always pray for deliverance.
Not saying not to, just don't let that be your only prayer.
Pray for strength and joy and struggles.
When I think about things going on in people's lives, I always
want to help alleviate the struggle, but sometimes I'm
hesitant to step in and try to solve a problem that maybe the
Lord is working out something in that person's life.
I can't know the circumstances. And just recently a person that
I'm trying to witness to it in my office in the city told me
that his mom has cancer. She's terminally ill.
And I said, man, I'm sorry I I genuinely am.
I hope that she gets better, but I also have to wonder what might
that do in his heart as he considers the gospel and life
and death. God could be working.
If you are in the book of Exodus and you read through Pharaoh and
hardening the heart, there is a whole thing that God allows
rebellion and difficulty ultimately so that his power can
be on display. So we never truly know what's
going on, and if we always just try to save everybody from their
problems, they're going to miss out on producing joy and
long-suffering in times of difficulty.
Now, just so you know, I don't ever want to make your life
difficult, OK? I'm not ever going to try to
create these circumstances, but they will happen.
So when they happen, pray for strength.
And lastly #4 is to pray to remember what he has done.
To remember what he has done. It says in verses 12 to 14,
giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of Saints and light, who had
delivered us from the power of darkness, and have translated us
into the Kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.
So when you're praying, if you don't know what to pray, at very
least if you're a Christian, you can be thankful.
We can, we can be thankful at very least because we know God,
he says in verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father.
It's so easy to just get bummed out and pray for difficulty.
And Lord, it's not going this way and fix that and do my
thing. And God hears all of your
requests. Amen.
But also you know the God of the universe, you know the
omnipotent one, all powerful pre-existing creation.
I mean you get to call him Father as it says in this verse,
giving thanks unto the Father. So no matter what your father
has been like, you have the best father.
There is no greater father than God.
I'm, I'm try to be a good father, but hands down I'm never
going to be as good as God. He is a good father in Jesus.
Jesus in Matthew 6 says in the Lord's Prayer after this manner,
therefore pray ye our Father, which art in heaven.
And if you're a believer, the context of these phrases if you
continue to read giving, giving thanks unto the Father, which
hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of
the Saints. And like God has made me a St.
In verse 13, he delivered us from the power of darkness.
According to John chapter 8, before you accepted Jesus as
your Lord, Satan was your daddy and he was not a good daddy.
He wants to kill, steal, destroy and wreck and ruin your life and
keep you in bondage until you ultimately suffer in hell
forever. But Jesus gave his life for you.
And if you believe in that you have a Father in heaven and at
very least we can be thankful for that.
That is the will of God, as I mentioned before and everything
give thanks for this is the will of God.
So if you don't remember all of this stuff, just remember you
can be thankful in your prayers and if at the very least
thankful for salvation. Sometimes it's hard to be
thankful for difficult circumstances, or that's just to
be patient and wait. But we have been delivered from
the power of darkness. The Bible says we have
forgiveness of sins. And I think honestly, most of
the time we just don't get excited enough about this,
right? I mean, we, we should be stoked.
We should be singing songs and jumping up and down.
And man, I don't have to do anything to make up for my sin.
Jesus took all of all of my shame, all of the, the
condemnation and he brought me into his family and totally
forgiven me. And he, he calls me son or
daughter unworthily only because of the blood.
Psalm 35 And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord.
It shall rejoice in his salvation at very least.
We've just got to be over the moon for the cross like every
day. And I think that kind of
outpouring of joy and gratitude of salvation, that's a witness.
The lost world can't say that they don't have this testimony.
I have a Father in heaven. He's awesome, He's forgiven me.
I know him. We walk together without hope in
this world is how the Bible describes the lost.
But it's easy to lose that in Psalm 51.
King David, if you read the whole Psalm, it's a difficult
time in King David's life. He made some poor decisions and
he writes this in grief pouring out to the Lord.
Man, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I messed up.
He says, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.
And maybe if we can't today be joyful, if we can't be reminded
of what God has done for us, we can pray this honest prayer.
God, get me excited about the gospel.
Remind me of what you did. So your last blank is to pray
for God to remind you of who you are because of what He has done.
Who you are because of what he has done.
So our pattern was to pray for God's will to be done, to pray
that our lives would be honoring to God, to pray for strength and
joy and suffering, and to remember what He's done and be
thankful and be grateful. If you don't know how to pray,
that's a good place to start. So I want to give us some time
to do that now and then we'll break out into praying for some
specific things. So I want to give you about 3
minutes before we pray for other stuff.
Why don't you think about these for a moment?
Essentially, these are the the main points.
I'm just going to ask you to pray silently and I'll come back
up in just a couple minutes and we'll move on.
So let's take a moment and pray.