YOU MEAN YOU REALLY WANT TO PRAY FOR ME?

YOU MEAN YOU REALLY WANT TO PRAY FOR ME?   Philippians 1:9-11 May 31, 2009 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Highway engineers in St. Louis haven’t made many friends lately. The seemingly endless project of rebuilding Highway 40 through the city has been perturbing, delaying, aggravating and otherwise inconveniencing everyone for many months now and it feels like there is no end in sight. Tomorrow morning at 5:30 The Big Bend overpass will be closed for six months. But, all in all, the whole process has gone well. With good planning and well-organized work going on 24 hours a day, the program is actually ahead of schedule. And, as they always say, “once it’s done, it will be worth it.” At least that’s the perspective of the engineers and the Missouri Department of Transportation. Many others have a different opinion—including those retailers who have had to weather greatly diminished traffic on top of the economic slowdown, and many whose businesses have failed in the process. Progress is costly. God has a construction program going on and He calls it – you. His overall plan for those who have come into His kingdom through Christ, is to eventually recreate you into the image of Christ, according to Romans 8:29. This overall goal includes a number of incremental reconstruction projects. You know all about them, don’t you? It seems the Divine Engineer is always tearing something down in your life that, to you, seemed just fine the way it was, but He knows that an overhaul is the only thing that will serve His purpose. These one-step-forward-two-steps-back episodes are painful and frustrating, and in the midst of them, we’re often just sure He doesn’t love us anymore. Sometimes it feels like your whole life is being destroyed. But God has a master plan, and each and every frustrating step is a key ingredient. Paul addressed this very thing early in the Philippian letter, when in verse six he wrote that he was confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. But we are not to be imbalanced in our understanding of God’s program. We can’t say, “I guess don’t need to do anything but sit back and watch Him carry it to completion; He’ll do just fine without my help.” That’s not the way it works. His plan is to involve us in the process. So He reminds us with such passages as Philippians 2:12 - …continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. An essential part of helping believers move forward in their growth process is prayer—intercessory prayer. Paul’s jail cell had become a prayer cell. He prayed diligently and intelligently for his Christian friends in Philippi. By the grace of God and the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, we have preserved for us this brief, three verse prayer at Philippians 1:9-11. Let’s consider it as a model for how to really pray for one another in the body of Christ. LOVE ABOUNDING What was it that this great apostle prayed for on behalf of his dear Christian friends in Philippi? Verse 9 says he prayed: And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight… AGAPE love is the word Paul used here. This love is a caring self-sacrificing commitment to seeking the highest good of the one loved. I know about this love, because it is what 1 Corinthians 13—the “love chapter”—is all about. I know about this love because God loves me like that. I know about this love because I love God like that, albeit imperfectly. I know about this love, because I love Charlotte like that, again, imperfectly, and she loves me like that. Paul acknowledged that the Philippian believers were already loving God and others with this AGAPE-style love. But, he says, you should grow more and more in it. He wrote a similar thing to the Thessalonian brothers: You have great brotherly love, but you must increase all the more. But here in the Philippian letter he didn’t just tell them to grow in love—he enters into the process of their growth and prays to God to help them grow. His prayer is that God would cause their love to “abound more and more.” That’s what our intercessory prayer for one another does—it enters into the process of growth—it’s one Christian helping another by faithfully asking God’s help. It was a midweek prayer service, and one member requested prayer for a neighbor woman who was having a difficult time and was feeling "just miserable." Volunteering to take the request, a deacon reverently bowed his head and fervently prayed, "O God, bless this miserable woman!" When it comes to measuring up to God’s standards of pure, genuine AGAPE love for Him and others, we might rate ourselves somewhere in the “miserable” range. Frankly, brothers and sisters in Christ, this church family is really pretty good at loving one another, but we are nowhere near where we can be. While each of us strives to please God in this area, we may be overlooking one very important area of help—praying for one another to grow in AGAPE love. I want to suggest that we allow the apostle Paul to be our model in this grace—praying for one another to abound more and more in loving God and loving others. (And that’s really the order, isn’t it? Love God first with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then your neighbor as yourself.) It is when we have received the love of God that we are able to truly love Him in response. 1 John 4:19 says it well: We love because He first loved us. Then the very next verse says, If anyone says ‘I love God,’ yet hates his neighbor, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen…Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Here’s what I think we should pick up from the Philippian letter this morning. One way I can demonstrate my love for God and for my brother, is to pray on his behalf for God to help my brother love God and to love others. In this way I am loving God and praying for His purposes to be achieved in my brother, and I am showing my love for the brother, because I am seeking his highest good. Now, guess what happens to me when I step into this role of intercessor for love? That’s right, I grow in love myself. You know, you can’t honestly pray for someone and continue to hate them. You can’t sincerely pray for someone and not grow in your love for them. Some years ago I was deeply hurt by someone, and in my pain I sought the Lord’s help and healing. In no uncertain terms I understood Him telling me that I could be healed if I would pray for that individual, not for myself. At first I didn’t want to pray for the person, but I did. My prayers, I’m afraid, were short, cold and never made it past the ceiling. They went something like this: “Lord, please help so-and-so get past this foolishness, immaturity, insolence, pride and attitude!” I soon recognized that my prayers were not really prayers if I wasn’t sincere and selfless. So I tried, and I couldn’t bring myself to pray sincerely. So I prayed God would take away anything in me that hindered my prayer for so-and-so. He was faithful and did it. Then I was free to pray for the person with sincerity and selfless concern for them. Within a short time, I felt my love for the person deepening. It was really quite amazing! What the apostle prayed for, specifically, was not just that the Christians’ love would abound. No, he goes a level deeper, and prays that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. He didn’t ask God for a superficial, sappy kind of love for these believers, but a deep, insightful love. He was praying that their understanding of God and His ways would increase. Where does that kind of knowledge and insight come from? God’s Word. Pray for biblical understanding for others. What happened to me in that process was that I grew in my own capacity to love, AGAPE-style. I was praying for the other person, but my love “abounded more and more.” “In knowledge and depth of insight” is exactly the area I grew. All that I knew in God’s Word about forgiveness, non-retaliation, and releasing hurt and pain to God—that all came to bear in my heart as I tried to pray. And when I got more knowledge and insight, I prayed better. Watch out! When you begin to pray for others, God will likely change you in the process! Look at what Paul prayed in his letter to the Ephesians (3:17-19). Paul prayed for the Philippians and the Ephesians for their love to abound in these ways, becoming wiser and wiser in love’s mysterious ways. That’s what verse 10 is all about. …so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ… CLEAR DISCERNMENT What the apostle prayed for, specifically, was not just that the Christians’ love would abound. No, he goes a level deeper, and prays that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. And the next level of his prayer was for discernment. But notice the wording here: …knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern… Biblical love is intimately connected to discernment. The word used here for discernment is only used two times in the New Testament—here and in Hebrews 5:14. In the Hebrews passage the teaching is about believers’ maturity. The immature are pictured as feeding on the milk of the Word of God. They are not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But, by contrast, solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Consider what is being said: the difference between the immature believer and the mature believer is exactly this. The mature have by constant use of God’s truth, trained themselves to discern. So when Paul prayed for the Philippian Christians that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, it was SO THAT they would become discerning. And that discern-ment comes about precisely when someone “constantly uses” the Word of God, learning to obey it. Paul prayed that his readers’ love would abound more and more in biblical knowledge, insight, discernment and maturity! I would insist that is exactly how we ought to pray for one another—simply and sincerely asking God to help the persons we pray for to grow in their biblical acumen so they can love in a mature and discerning manner and know good from evil. You know, you can pray for hundreds of things for another, from safety to sanctification, from comfort to compassion, from health to holiness. But Paul makes it clear that the goal of the pray-er as well as the one being prayed for is that they discern what is “best”—that is, God’s perfect will. You know, I would be honored if you would pray for me as your brother, that I would grow wiser in knowledge and depth of insight so that I could better discern the will of God. I’m guessing you, as a Christian, called to conform to the image of Christ, would like me to pray for you like that, too! And look at what the rest of verse 10 promises. If this is what we long for, and if this is what we pray for, we will remain pure and blameless until the coming of the Lord! One day, King Jesus will return, on the clouds of heaven, and initiate the glorious events that will close down the history of this world forever. We don’t know when that will happen, but we know it will happen. Those without Christ will be judged by our just and holy God. Those who have trusted in Christ for their salvation will be finally and completely saved. In the words of the epistle of Second Peter, chapter 3 and verse 14, So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. We can, indeed, pray for many things when we intercede for one another, but maybe it is best that we as pray-ers exercise our discernment and pray for what is best. Let’s make some radical changes in the way we pray for one another. When prayer requests are invited to be shared, rather than scratch our heads, wondering who is sick that we could possibly pray for, why don’t we begin to pray for people’s love to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so they will be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ? Then, once we’ve prayed for such apostolically-sanctioned priorities, we can get on with praying for the sick, too. Fruitfulness The final category of progressive subjects for our intercession is that of fruitfulness. …filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. Now, don’t forget—there is a progression here. When a believer’s love begins to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, and he is able to discern what is best and remains pure and blameless indefinitely, as a result of such growth he will be fruitful—that is, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. This is the ultimate target of Paul’s prayers for the Philippians, and I believe a worthy aim for our prayers for one another. What is the “fruit”? Some argue that when the topic is brought up by Jesus as recorded in John 15, He is talking about souls saved by the believers. Others feel that passage refers to the fruit of the Spirit in a believer’s life. Still others say it is both. Here, I believe, it is clear. Paul refers to the “fruit of righteousness” which can only mean a life being lived in a manner pleasing to the Lord (this is what righteousness means). What are those traits? I suppose the listing of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is a good place to start: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the kinds of things that mark a life full of the Spirit of God. They are the fruit that results when a believer abides/clings to the True Vine, Jesus. Jesus called us the branches, and we are fruitful branches only insofar as we cling to the Vine. It is these virtuous qualities Paul prays will be manifested in the life of the Christ-followers in Philippi. It is no less true of Christians in the St. Louis metro-east. Matthew 5 instructs us that we are to let our lights shine precisely by letting others see our good works, and the result would be that those who witnessed those good works would glorify the Father in heaven. Ephesians 2 says that we who are saved by grace through faith are saved UNTO good works prepared in advance by God that we should walk in them. Colossians 1:10 is where Paul writes to those believers that he has not stopped praying for them that they would live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God...giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Now, let me ask you: is this Christ-honoring, Spirit-motivated, Father-God-glorifying kind of a life something believers ought to strive to lay hold of? Paul thought so. He could hardly talk about anything else! Because Paul understood God would be glorified and praised through Spirit-borne fruit in Christians’ lives, he can’t stop praying for Christians to live like this. I think we ought to pray for one another like this, too. Do you think that would glorify God? Do you think this idea is within His will? Listen, if you are ever inclined to do your pastor a favor, pray for me. Pray like this. Pray in the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus and ask God in my behalf, to help me bear this kind of fruit to his glory! Pray the way Paul prayed, lifting up brothers and sisters in Christ that their love would abound more and more, that they would be discerning, pure and blameless and that they would be fruitful.     [Back to Top]