Prayer: The Invitation, Incentives, and Influence

Introduction

To live the Christian life is to act out a miracle daily. To be a church, a loving, Christ-focused, Holy Spirit-filled, missions-promoting church is a miracle of God, which he has ordained to accomplished through the prayers of his people. God works in the world and the church through the prayers of his people. We prioritize prayer, the prayers of born-again people, because God has ordained that his will be accomplished in the world through their prayers. Jesus taught us to pray, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” While it is true that God is always at work, it is also true that there are things that he has ordained that will happen only through the prayers of his people.

That prayer is important of the life, growth, and advancement of the church is evident in the NT. In the new testament we find several reasons for prayers or things we are called to pray for:

Matt 9:38: God sends laborers to the field through the prayers of the saints.

Matt 5:44: By prayer our hearts are protected from hating our persecutors.

Matt 6:5–6: Jesus assumes we will pray and simply tells on how.

Matt 21:13: The house of God, the people of God, is the house marked by prayer.

Matt 24:20: Our prayers have implications for the end times.

Matt 26:36f: Jesus himself models that we go through suffering in prayerful dependence on God.

Luke 22:39–40: One of Jesus customs was to isolate himself to pray.

Matt 6:7–13: Jesus teaches, assumes, and encourages corporate prayers.

Acts 1:14; 2:42; 6:4: the early church thrived through devotion to prayer.

Devotion to God in the NT is primarily seen in one’s commitment to prayer. The term προσκαρτερέω occurs ten times in the NT, and six of those instances it refers to devotion to prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:42, 46; 6:4 [Acts 8:13?]; Rom 12:12; Col 4:2)[1]

Not only do we read about prayers in the NT, the number of prayers recorded in it shows that the early church did not simply talk about prayers, they prayed for each other, they prayed for missions, the prayed for God’s purposes to ripen. Like them we must make prayers our key priority. One of the values of this church is:

Prayer—Commitment to depend upon God’s grace and mercy in personal, family, and corporate prayer, so that in all our blessings, the Giver will get the glory. Private and public prayer will be central in every aspect of ministry in this church because anything of eternal significance can only happen by the working of the Spirit of God.

The reason we make prayer such a high priority is because we believe that in prayers, we acknowledge our weakness and God’s might, our insufficiency and the sufficiency of God, the kind of acknowledgment that grows humility. Also, when we prioritize prayers and pray for every blessing, all the blessings will result in worship, as we acknowledge the Giver. (The assumption behind this value is that we will know and teach what it is to pray sound prayers because not every prayer, even in the Bible, is acceptable prayer). Our prayers, to be acceptable, must stand on the correct motivation and driven by a purpose or purposes that accord with what God is doing in the world.

The Invitation to Pray (Rom 15:30a)

Because of the mercies God has shown the believers, Paul commands us to be “constant in prayer” or “be devoted to prayers” (Rom 12:12) in general, but in Romans 15:30 he calls on the saints to pray particularly for him. As the apostle draws to the close of his letter to the Romans, many of whom do not know him and whom he does not know in person, he appeals for their partnership in prayers— “I appeal to you…to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf” (Rom 15:30). Two observations on the appeal:

First, Paul, the apostle is already praying for himself since he asks them to strive with me in your prayers. It is not uncommon for Paul to ask the churches for pray support (Eph 6:18–20; [Phil 1:19]; Col 3:3–4; 1 Thess 5:25; 2 Thess 3:1; Philemon 22). How can the who says he prays in tongues more than all the saints ask for saints to pray for him? How is it that an apostle could ask young believers to pray for him?

1. The appeal for others to join him in prayers it indicates Paul’s humility. He does not view himself as a super apostle who prays for others but does not need their prayers. We have some church leaders who turn to think of themselves like that. Even Jesus himself invited the apostles to watch and pray with him. Paul is not one to claim that he does not need other believers. If the apostle Paul needed the saints to pray for and with him, how much more such as us? We need each other’s prayers, so we are commanded to pray for one another (Jas 5:16).

2. The prayers of the members of the church are as valuable as the prayers of the apostle. Asking for prayers from others, acknowledges that those believers though at different levels of their walk, have access to the Father just as those of the class of apostles do—no distinction between apostles and non-apostles, pastors, and church members. We all equally have access to God, apostles, pastors, church members etc. You do not need to go pay someone, in the name of a church leader, to pray for you.

3. Paul aims for the encouragement of the saints and exaltation of God in asking the believers to join him in prayers. Paul does not ask others to join in praying because of unbelief. Sometimes we ask the people we think the most spiritual to pray for us because we doubt our own effectiveness in prayer. Is Paul asking from that perspective? No. Rather he asks not because he doubts the effects of his prayers, he asks so that when the prayers are answered the saints will rejoice with him and he with them. Also, the answer will result in many praises rendered to God. He says to the Corinthians, “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” (2 Cor 1:11). When we unitedly pray for each other, we give ourselves opportunities to give thanks together for each other’s blessings. We kill the tendency to weep when others are rejoicing by joining each other in praying for each other’s good. Those who pray for each other, share in thanksgiving for each other, rejoicing, for God’s glory, with each other in their specific area of blessedness. If we must be a church that rejoices with those who are rejoicing, we must be a church that offers earnest prayers for each other to God for his grace on our lives.

4. The call to “strive together with me in your prayers for me to God” promotes selflessness and destroys selfishness. Paul means that the prayers and yours, directed to God, but they are for the me. Our prayers need not be about us; our prayers, when properly and biblically rendered, should be a loving act towards others before God. Prayer, like worship we saw last week, is a love for God and love for neighbor as well. We pray to God, demonstrating our love and reverence of him, and pray for others, demonstrating our care of them.

5. Note the trinitarian nature of the request for prayers. Paul appeals for prayers to God, the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit. In sincere prayers we enter communion with the trinitarian Godhead, praying to the Father, based on the work of Christ, applied on your hearts by the Holy Spirit, who also helps us in our prayers, teaching us how and what to pray for, and interceding for us according to God’s will (Rom 8:26). What a privilege! If we want this kind of communion in and with the trinity, we must be a praying church.

Second, Paul appeal for the saints to strive with him in prayers. The verb “strive with” only occurs here in the NT. The Greek term transliterates in English as synagōnizomai (συναγωνίζομαι) the term from which we get our English “agonize” or French “agonir.” Paul is asking for the saints to share in his earnestness not just to “say a word of prayer.” He wants the saints to take the pains in prayer to fervently pray with him. He is in agony and striving before God and is asking for others to join. If we do what the apostle asks of the Romans for one another, we will learn to share in each other’s pain. We will truly grieve in prayers and pray sincerely for each other. Paul could say, “I appeal to you, brothers, to pray for me.” But he does not. Rather, he asks for them to fight, contend along with him in prayers to God (BDAG).

Prayer is hard work, and we must strive together with each other daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, earnestly, fervently, and consistently and together watch God work, so we together can lift of hands of thanksgiving and praise, rejoicing in each other’s blessedness, because we shared in the agony. Why do we not appeal for prayers from others?

Pride: Sometimes we find it difficult to ask people to pray for us because we don’t want to appear as weak and needy. When this happens, it is generally driven by pride because we want to come across as those who have it all together. The façade of having it all together is weaknesses not strength. We are strong together not with the self-deceitfulness of isolation from the people we need by not appealing for prayers. I urge us to be open to one another about our difficulties and ask for prayers to God so that we can all rejoice together.

Gossip: I say, what I said in the previous paragraph, knowing that sometimes we do not ask for prayers because our church communities are marked more by gossip than grace. So, we fear because your prayer concern and appeal may become an appeal for others to mock you or gossip about you. It is my prayer that God would grow us into the kind of community where grace not gossip reigns, where trust and not threats reign, where love and not hate dominates. May God make us such a community where people can freely open up and ask for prayer support without shame. If we must cultivate vulnerability, we must cultivate true care, free of gossip and all that kills trust.

As a new believer I had struggles in my walk with the Lord, not studying the bible as I wanted to, struggling with youthful lust often. In my zeal and passion to walk closely with God, I appealed to a pastor in my town to pray for me for consistent times of prayer and fight for purity of thought. He sincerely, I believe, prayed for me, but then in his next bible study or so he talked about it to his church, mentioning clearly enough such that all who were present knew it was about me. Although I was not there, one who was present came and told me that they were praying for me at church today about impure thoughts. You can imagine my shock. I never went back to this pastor for any reason to pray for me. He had broken my trust. Let’s not be such for each other. I appeal to you, as your pastor, to avoid all forms of gossip and anything that will hinder love, trust, and unity among us. Pray with me earnestly and regularly that we will be a community where people feel safe to be vulnerable without fear of being condemned, judged, and become the subject of dinner table, taxi-ride, and kitchen discussions for fun and laughter.

We are a dependent people; independence is an illusion. We were made for each other, and we live better with each other than apart from each other. The Bible knows no such Christianity of isolation from the community.

The Incentive to Pray (Rom 15:30)

The apostle does not just appeal for prayers, he also gives solid motivations for praying with him, and praying for each other. The incentives are all in verse 30, the two prepositional phrases. The first incentive is with the phrase “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This phrase occurs five times in the NT and in each instance, it summarizes the redeeming work of Christ.

1 Thess 5:9: “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here through the redeeming work of Christ, God grants us salvation and spares us from his wrath.

1 Cor 15:57: “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God has given us victory over death because Jesus died and was raised in our stead.

Rom 5:11: “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Because of Christ’s work on our behalf, we rejoice in God even when we experience suffering.

Rom 5:1: “since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We are justified and reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Christ and his vindication at the resurrection. In Christ Jesus and through his work for us, God has declared us righteous, placing upon us the righteousness of Christ, covering the nakedness of our sins with the perfect garments of the holiness of his Son, acquitting us before the Judge of all the earth as innocent because Jesus’s innocence becomes ours by imputation.

Because Jesus died and by his blood washed us clean, appeasing the wrath of God for us, reconciling us to God the Father, and giving us hope to rejoice in God even in suffering, and granting us full access to God the Father in prayers, sending his Spirit to help us in prayers, we pray for each other, pray for our leaders like the Romans were urged to pray for Paul.

The second incentive is stated in the phrase “by the love of the Spirit.” The love of the Spirit here does not refer to the love we have for the Spirit. Rather, it is synonymous to “the unity of the Spirit” in Ephesians 4:3. The love or unity of the Spirit is the love that the Holy Spirit has created between believers, which Paul says, our responsibility is to maintain. One way we maintain that unity is by praying for each other.

Because of Christ’s work, the Spirit has united Jews and Gentiles, making us one big family with one Big Father in heaven. Because the Spirit has established love between us, we strive for each other in prayer. Paul highlights the love and unity between himself and the Romans, which also demonstrates our love for each other here, in at least three ways. He calls them “brothers” or as the NIV says, “brothers and sisters” (Rom 15:30a). According to Paul’s journeys recorded in Acts, Paul has not been to Rome at this point in his journeys. So many of the believers in Rome have never seen him face-to-face neither has Paul. Moreover, as he now writes they are thousands of miles away from each other separated by body of waters and vast lands and contexts. Yet Paul calls them brothers. This means that the love the Spirit has created does not necessitate that we know each other well before praying for each other. Like Paul with the Romans, we might grow in our knowledge and love of each other by praying for one another. I have observed that when I spend significant time during the week praying for each of you, I am far more eager to see you on Sunday mornings than normal.

Additionally, Paul shows our unity with the phrase “our Lord.” The Romans, some of whom Paul has never seen, share the same Lord with Paul. Because we have all submitted to the Christ at his cross, we are united and bound by love under him. Finally, the phrase “strive together” marks our association with one another. Because Jesus has redeemed us, because we have been united by the Spirit, because we are brothers under one Lord, we strive together for, not against, each other in prayer. We pray best when we love best. We strive in prayer for each other best when we are striving to love each other best. Carson, says, although not commenting on Romans 15:30,

If we are to improve our praying, we must strengthen our loving. As we grow in disciplined, self-sacrificing love, so we will grow in intercessory prayer. Superficially fervent prayers devoid of such love are finally phony, hollow, shallow.[1]

The Influence of Prayer (Rom 15:31–32; Acts 20–22)

Paul asks for prayers for two things: that he might be protected from the unbelievers in Jerusalem and that believers may accept his service for them. Praying to God that he would deliver Paul from unbelievers and that the believers would accept Paul’s ministry to them shows God’s supremacy over unbelieving and believing hearts.

In asking for prayers to be rescued from unbelievers, Paul shows that he expects opposition in Jerusalem. He does not have some fanciful thought about ministry that is suffering free. In fact, on his way to Jerusalem the Spirit testified to Paul that “in every city” imprisonment and suffering awaited him (Acts 20:23), yet he was undeterred. Rather he says,

I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).

When he asks to be delivered, he asks not because he fears suffering but because he desires to see the Roman Christian and encourage them and be encouraged by them (Rom 1:10, 13; 15:22–23, 32).

In asking for prayers to be rescued from unbelievers, Paul acknowledges that the Christian God can and is able sovereign over the wickedness of unbelievers. There is no wickedness that he cannot tame. There is not unbelief that he cannot control to fulfill his purposes. No heathen can resist the restraining hand of our God when he intends to move through the prayers of his people. If you read Acts 20–22, you will see the miraculous ways that God restrain the wickedness of these unbelievers, who bound themselves under oath that they would not eat until they killed Paul. But God, I believe in answer to the prayers of the saints in Rome, rescued Paul in one of the most miraculous rescues in Acts. God controls the hearts of the unbelievers in this city, this nation, and continent, and, as we pray to him, he can restrain them from restraining the progress of the gospel.

In appealing for prayers for his service to be acceptable to the believers, Paul teaches us to not assume that even among people of good faith our good deeds for them may not be welcomed. The service for the saints refers to all the collection of gifts that Paul gathered from the churches to bring to Jerusalem. Even though he is bringing them money and resources to meet their needs, he does not assume that they will accept it. For the saints to accepts Paul’s service, God must work, and work through the prayers of his people. We should not assume that believers will always appreciate the things we do for their benefit. It takes the miracle of grace for any good deed to be received as good. Sometimes our good deeds may be misunderstood and thus rejected. So, we pray like Paul and ask others to join us in so doing.

In appealing for prayers, so that he can come to Rome (Rom 15:32) even though he has been hindered by Satan multiple times from visiting Rome (Rom 1:13; 1 Thess 2:18), he teaches us that God can overcome satanic hindrances to missions through the prayers of his people. As we pray God tears down demonic hindrances to the progress of the gospel. If we must advance the mission of the gospel, through evangelism, missions, Bible translation, preaching, teaching, we must pray because the devil is always putting hindrances in the way, but our God is also always working through the prayers of his people to remove them. Let us pray and trust God to remove obstacles, whatever form they may take, so that the gospel can advance speedily.

Conclusion

Christ has removed the wrath of God, reconciled us to God, established peace between us and God, the Spirit has yoked us together in the bond of peace as a family under one Lord, and, based on these and motivated by them, let us be a church that empathizes with each other, striving together for one another in prayers to God for the progress of our faith and the gospel. One of the best ways we can love each other is by praying for each other. Someone may not know how much you love them on your knees, but they will see you sincerely rejoice with them when God works in their lives. Let us love on our knees. Let us advance the gospel on our knees. Let us build the church on our knees. If we must stand, grow, reach the nations with the gospel, we must be growing as a kneeling church. Those who kneel constantly in prayers can walk any distance with the Lord.

[1] D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 85.

[1] The other instances that are not directly related to prayers are Mark 3:9; Acts 10:7; Rom 13:6)