Pray for the Flock...

18 "Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.” ()

When I became full time pastor, transitioning from a bi-vocational role at our church, my life and ministry suddenly became very busy—busier than I had ever been before.

I knew, without a doubt, what I was called to do.

I knew what I should be doing.

Yet week after week, I saw the things I was supposed to be doing getting squeezed out of my schedule because of the urgent demands on my time. Above all else, the one task that was most neglected was prayer. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. More than any other aspect of a pastor’s calling, prayer is the most difficult to maintain. Prayer requires time. And prayer is usually most fruitful when done in a quiet place, without constant interruption or distraction. Unfortunately, prayer doesn’t demand our attention. In the midst of people wanting our time and urgent tasks needing to be completed, spending time in prayer is easy to disregard.

A pastor knows he will be preaching every seven days, regardless of how busy he gets. The sermon must get done, and so time is set aside to fulfill that task. And sick people go to the hospital, and their suffering sits on your conscience so that even if you’re busy, you’ll eventually make the time to go. A death suddenly occurs and a funeral service must be prepared, and a pastor is at the mercy of the plans of that family and funeral home. Church leadership meetings get planned in advance, and these become default priorities in a pastor’s schedule. Besides, other people are depending on him to be there and lead.

But none of this is true with prayer. Prayer may sit on your conscience, but it isn’t complaining. It remains on the list of tasks for the day, but those who are not prayed for are unaware that they are forgotten. As other demands steal our attention, prayer gets pushed to the background. Many pastors, myself included, will go week after week until eventually that soft but necessary voice calling us to stop and pray just fades out. If enough time passes, the voice of conviction and desire will go away. When that happens, prayer gets squeezed out of our life. Ironically, a pastor can be so busy caring for his people that he never makes time to stop and pray for them.

But this isn’t right. It reveals a lack of faith and a problem with misplaced priorities. In fact, the aim of our study is to turn up the volume on that soft voice sitting on our conscience, that voice we often ignore in the midst of a busy life of ministry. My goal is not to shame us or manipulate us into praying. No, I trust that God’s Spirit through His word will do the necessary work of convicting us and increasing our desire to pray. I only hope to turn up the volume by highlighting a theme that occurs all throughout Scripture. You see, pastor’s are uniquely called by God to come before God on behalf of their people and plead with God to work and move among their people—a calling to intercede for them. This is a theme that culminates in the perfect mediating work of Jesus Christ. We’ll see how this is a consistent biblical pattern for God’s leaders, and afterward, I’ll mention some practical things that I hope will better equip you to pray for our flock. These are tools to help bring much-needed discipline to your life and ministry, restoring prayer to its proper place.

The Need for an Intercessor...

God created the world, and it was all good and perfect (). Yet when Adam and Eve sinned against God and sin entered the world (), everything changed. One lasting implication is the relational separation between God and those he had created in his image. Yet God had a plan, and his plan was to reconcile his creation from the separation caused by sin. Repeatedly, God utilizes appointed leaders of his people to serve as intercessors for his people. An intercessor is simply one who pleads to God on behalf of others. This pattern reveals God’s design for the pastoral role in the local church, but even more significantly, it reveals the gospel—that we are reconciled to God through the mediating (going-between) and intercessory (pleading on behalf of) work of the Redeemer—Jesus Christ.

Moses on Behalf of Israel

God spoke to Abram and promised that a great nation would come from his offspring (). God was true to that promise and in his appointed time, the future generations of Abraham’s offspring multiplied and formed a great nation—Israel. One of the most significant leaders of God’s people was Moses, who was appointed by God to lead his people and play a mediating role between Israel and God. Moses’ intercessory role is captured powerfully after Moses led the people out of bondage in Egypt and they built a golden calf and embraced idolatry. Then God became really angry which we read about in .

God had just miraculously delivered his people and how did they show their gratefulness? They committed idolatry by worshiping a golden calf. No wonder the anger of the Lord burned against them, and he desired to destroy them (). And yet it was Moses who passionately cried out to the Lord on their behalf, begging God to show mercy (verses 11–13). As a result, the Lord relented and did not destroy them (verse 14). Moses interceded on behalf of God’s people, and the Lord showed mercy.

However, Moses was neither a perfect leader nor a perfect mediator and intercessor. Israel was known for their pattern of disobedience to the Lord, and it would continue. Even in the midst of the people’s failures, sins, and disobedience, the Lord remained faithful to his covenant and kept seeking to communicate with them through Moses and other future leaders who cried out to God on behalf of God’s people.

King David the Intercessor

A king rules over his people for the benefit of the people. King David was God’s appointed king over his chosen people, Israel. David was not just God’s appointed king; he was the one with whom God made another covenant—the Davidic covenant in which God promises David that he will raise up his descendant after him ().

As God’s appointed leader, David would go to God on behalf of his people, secure in the knowledge of this covenant promise that now existed between God and his chosen people and king. Although David was an imperfect king who even sinned grievously against the Lord (), David demonstrated a faithfulness to rule over God’s people and plead for the Lord’s blessing, presence, and care on them.

The psalms are full of examples of King David’s role as the people’s advocate to praise God for his goodness to them, plead for his forgiveness of their disobedience, and ask for the Lord’s protection against their enemies. is just one example

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart celebrates, and I give thanks to him with my song. The Lord is the strength of his people; he is a stronghold of salvation for his anointed. Save your people, bless your possession, shepherd them, and carry them forever.” ()

David praised the Lord on behalf of his people. Although imperfect, David modeled so much of what God’s king was meant to be and to represent, as God’s people awaited this descendant of David to come and rule on his throne over his everlasting kingdom.

Jesus Our Intercessor

All the imperfect God-appointed leaders of Israel were to be a shadow of the perfect mediator, intercessor, and shepherd who would reconcile God’s people to himself and cry out on their behalf. Jesus Christ came as that long-expected Son of David (). Jesus was identified as the Son of David (; ). Jesus was a more faithful King than David. Jesus was better than Moses (). Jesus did what no other leader of God’s people could have done: He gave his life for them. In giving His perfect life as a sacrifice, Jesus became not only the perfect mediator of His people but also the one to reconcile his people to God and cry out on their behalf. Jesus is the great and perfect high priest foreshadowed in the old covenant sacrifices—that high priest of a superior covenant with better promises ().

The most vivid picture of Jesus as the intercessor of his people is found in the moving high priestly prayer, as Jesus prays for his disciples just before going to the cross:

9 "“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours. 10 "Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 "I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.” ()

15 "I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 "As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 "I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” ()

This impactful prayer during Jesus’ anguish of anticipating the cross reveals so much about the relationship Jesus has with his Father. Jesus is able to appeal to his Father on behalf of his disciples in a way no one else could. Jesus came to God as His Son, equal with God.

Jesus asks for their protection.

Jesus appeals to the Father to protect them from the evil one and

To sanctify them in God’s truth.

Unlike the intercessors of the past, Jesus comes to the Father as an equal, and these requests of Jesus are based on who he is, what he has done, and what he is about to do. When Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave, He purchased His people with His own blood. Now, He is able not just to be the one to deliver God’s message to his people and the people’s response to God, but Jesus’ person and work provide unhindered, eternal access to the Father for His people. This is how Jesus is the Savior of His people, as well as the perfect mediator and intercessor of His people, as explained by the author of Hebrews: Let’s read

Because Jesus has now sealed the eternal redemption for every single follower the Father has given him (), followers of Jesus can come to the Father with a bold confidence, no longer separated from our Creator: Let’s read 10:19-22.

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Let’s read 10:19-22

Jesus appeals to the Father on his followers’ behalf, and they are fully accepted as God’s children. Jesus purchased for his followers right standing with his Father that only he is worthy of. God’s redemptive plan to reconcile His people is done, once for all, through the sacrifice of Jesus (). As a result, sinners and rebels against God are now adopted as children of God through the atoning sacrifice and righteousness of Jesus Christ. These blood-bought believers in Jesus Christ are now united by Christ in faith, are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and have become His body—the church.

The Apostles—Intercessors for the Church

Jesus has brought full reconciliation between God and his redeemed people, and so the church is able to appeal to God on its own through the mediating work of Jesus Christ, who now always lives to make intercession for them (). And yet, as the apostles begin to establish the early church, leaders emerged from among those in the church who lead and shepherd God’s people on behalf of the Chief Shepherd (). The apostles modeled this call to a ministry of prayer () and then defined this role in their instructions to the different churches. As Paul gives instructions for the church, he also appeals to God, through Christ’s mediating work, and models this continuing pattern of God’s appointed leaders interceding on behalf of the church:

18 "Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. 19 "Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20 "For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.” ()

Paul asks the church members in Ephesus to pray always and on all occasions. To pray for the Lord’s people. To pray for Paul and his work of proclaiming the gospel. Paul wrote these words knowing there were faithful pastors (elders) in place () who would model for their Ephesian flock how to pray in this way ().

James writes to Christians, exhorting them to call on their pastors (elders) to pray on their behalf: .

James urges those who are sick to summon their appointed shepherds to pray on their behalf. In these examples, a transition is taking place as the church is being established, one in which the apostles are modeling prayer on behalf of the churches and calling churches to a ministry of prayer as a central aspect of their congregational life—a ministry led by their leaders, their pastors.

Pastors—Intercessors for Their People

God’s redemptive plan and pattern have led to the establishment of the church, where those from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation are transformed through the gospel of Jesus Christ. These redeemed people are brought into a local church led by biblically qualified leaders who shepherd their souls on behalf of the Chief Shepherd, who continually intercedes for them. Those who shepherd on behalf of the Chief Shepherd () and care for the souls of Christ’s redeemed people () are also called to pray for each soul entrusted to their care. An essential aspect of shepherding God’s people is praying with them and pleading on their behalf before the Father. The ministry of prayer enables the ministry of God’s Spirit and equips the whole body of Christ to obey the commands of Scripture.

This pattern has been a part of God’s design to redeem his people from the beginning. God appoints leaders to be intercessors, those who represent the needs of the people to God. Through the work of Christ, every believer now has full access to the throne of God. The prayers of a pastor are not better prayers or necessarily more effective, yet pastors have a special responsibility to diligently make appeals on behalf of their people. Their calling is clear, yet it is all of grace. Praying for the flock is simply one part of the work of being a faithful shepherd.