Effective in Prayer & Purpose
Notes
Transcript
I invite you, if you have your Bible with you this morning, to open with me to Romans chapter 1. I encourage you to bring your personal copy of God’s Word with you when you come to worship. If you didn’t, we will have the text up on the screens for you to read along with us this morning, but having your own copy of God’s Word with you allows you to mark verses and to better take notes.
In fact, this morning, I want to encourage you, again, to be in God’s Word every day. Have you ever read the whole Bible, cover to cover? I’m afraid there are too many Christians that would have to say no to that question. And as we start a new year, what better time is there to try to read through the whole Bible than the present. I put a reading plan for reading the whole Bible in a year on our website. If you read 15 to 20 minutes a day, less time than it takes to watch a t.v. show, you can read the whole Bible in a year.
You don’t have to worry about catching up. This isn’t a race. Just start today, and let today be the first of your year. But I will tell you that I think this is something you need to do. Think about it like this. As a Christian, the Bible is the book that you stake your life on. It is the Word of God, that teaches us about Him and that directs us how we are to live our lives before Him. Don’t you think that it would be good for us to know what it says? If you are staking your eternity on it, shouldn’t you know what it says? Maybe you are here today, and you aren’t a Christian, and to you I would say that the Bible is worth the read for you as well. The Bible is the best selling book of all time. It has been constantly challenged, studied, critiqued, and yet it still stands. Isn’t it worth seeing what all of the fuss is about?
Open your Bibles with me, if you have them to Romans 1. Last week, we began our new teaching series on the book of Romans, I’m calling the Roman’s Road. We talked about Paul’s reasons for writing to the Romans, and how you and I have the same job as Paul in knowing Jesus and making Him known. We carry a message of truth in the name of Jesus. The message isn’t ours, but it is a message of power and truth and we are compelled to share it because our God has saved us from our sins specifically for this purpose. And so, that was last week, and as we continue together this morning, I’ll remind you that Paul is writing to a group of believers that he has never met. And yet, what we find as we return to the text where we left off is an exposition of Paul’s personal prayer life. Let’s read the word of God together. We’re going to pick up this morning in verse 8 of Romans 1, and as we do so, I invite those who are able to stand where you are as we honor the Lord together at the reading of His Word:
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.
For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,
always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.
For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established;
that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.
I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we are gathered here to study Your Word, that by doing what it says, we may bring You honor and glory. Would You come and be our Teacher this morning? Help us to understand what You show us, and to do what it says. Bring us conviction, Lord, for the things in our lives that need to change, and empower us by Your Holy Spirit in boldness to make those changes, that through them we may become better reflections of Your Son, Jesus. It is in His Name that we ask these things, Amen.
Thank you, you may be seated. And as you take your seat, you may want to go ahead and pull out your listening guide for this morning so that you can take notes. But, as we get started, let me ask you, do you pray? How do you pray? When do you pray? Is prayer something that you do every day? Do you pray, mainly at meal times? Are your prayers route repetitions of the same words that you always pray as a customary obligation? When you pray, what do you pray for? What makes up the content of your prayers? Do you pray for your food? For your health? For the health of others? Are your prayers centered around your physical needs and the needs of those that you love? Why do you pray? Do you tell others that you will pray for them? When you say that, do you do it?
There is probably a sermon for each of these questions. These questions are crucial for us to answer because Scripture tells us over and over again that prayer is critical.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
“And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
Speaking of casting out Demons, Jesus says
And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”
The list goes on and on. James 5:14-16 tells us that we should pray for the sick to receive healing, that prayers in faith can bring us to the Lord’s forgiveness for our sins, and that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful. Psalm 107 talks about deliverance that comes through seeking the Lord. Prayer is powerful stuff, and so when we encounter prayers in Scripture, it should get our attention because these prayers can give us a better picture of what our own prayers should look like.
I don’t think that in these verses Paul was trying to model prayer for us. He didn’t say, “this is how you should pray,” or “pray like this.” However, what he does say is this is what I am praying for. This is what my prayer looks like. And as this prayer is recorded in Scripture, it is instructive for us. And I think this is important, because Paul’s prayer looks vastly different from what I think that most of our prayers look like. Let’s be honest with each other this morning. Most of the time when we pray, we, or someone that we love has a need or a health issue we are asking the Lord to take care of. Or, we are facing a personal problem and we need guidance. There is nothing wrong with praying for these things, Scripture tells us to pray for these things. We’re in the midst of a pandemic. The numbers locally, regionally, nationally, they are all going up. If you aren’t praying for your health and the health of others around you, you need to wake up. But here’s the thing: these things shouldn’t be the only things that we pray for. And while we’re being honest, for some of us, most of our prayers, the largest percentage of our prayer times, surround the ritual of blessing our food before we eat. And while we should thank God for our food, this is not what I would say is an example of a strong prayer life.
See these things are prayers we repeat, and they are prayers centered on our needs. And Jesus said that our prayers should look different than this. Jesus said that the Gentiles, people that don’t know God, pray for these things. Their prayer centers on their needs, and it is repetitious because they think more words means a better prayer. And Jesus said
“So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
Our Father knows what you need before you ask? If God knows what we need before we ask, why pray at all? Is that what Jesus is saying? No! Of course not. Jesus prayed all the time, and commanded us to as well. And I think that in this we start to get a picture of why our prayers should look different. See, if God already knows what we need, then our prayers aren’t about informing Him.
God isn’t sitting in heaven with a notepad and pen: “thank you for telling me that! I had no idea!” God already knows your needs, and so what that means is that our prayers are not really about telling Him anything. Rather, I think that what we are going to see in Paul’s prayer this morning is that the reason prayer is so important, and the reason that prayer is so powerful in our lives is that it is about two things: relationship and purpose.
Lets look together at verses 8
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.
Paul’s prayer is centered on relationship and purpose, and so both of these things are what come shining through to us. There are aspects of both of these things throughout this passage, and in them, Paul helps us to see a road map to effective prayer. First, if you have your listening guide, in verse 8 we see that
Effective prayer relies on your relationship with Jesus
Effective prayer relies on your relationship with Jesus
Paul tells us that his prayer begins with thanksgiving. Now, at first glance, the way that Paul starts verse 8 is strange. “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.” Why does Paul say it like this? He could have said it easier, right? “I thank God for you”, or “I thank the Lord, Jesus Christ for you.” He could have said it easier, and in other places he does. So, why does he say it like this? He says it because he is emphasizing relationship.
Who is Paul thanking? my God. Is He King of the Universe? He is. Is He Lord and Creator of everything? He is. But He is also my personal God. He is the God that I know. He is my Father. When my children feel insecure, when they want to feel loved and secure, they crawl into my lap, or they snuggle into me, and I cherish every second that I have with them like that because I am theirs and they are mine, and this is the picture we get of Paul with the Father here. He isn’t just King of the universe, He is my God. He knows me. Relationship is key here. And that relationship comes through Jesus Christ. In John 14:6,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
How do we go to God, the Father? Through Jesus. How can Paul have this intimacy with the Father? Through Jesus Christ, the Son. God is the righteous, holy, powerful, glorious, and awesome King of the universe. Sinful men cannot just approach him. Job lived before the days of Christ. Job was a pure and innocent man, who God Himself had said was righteous. Yet, in his suffering, Job longed to approach God and could not. He cried out in Job 9:33
“There is no umpire between us,
Who may lay his hand upon us both.
Job had no mediator, but you and I do, and His Name is Jesus Christ. By His sacrifice on the cross, we have been given access to God the Father. We can come to Him as adopted sons and daughters because of Jesus. Because of Jesus, we know the Father. And because we know our Father, we can come to Him. Effective prayer relies on your relationship with Jesus. Secondly, look at verses 8-12
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.
For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,
always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.
For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established;
that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.
Why is Paul thankful to the Lord? He is thankful for the Romans. He is thankful for their relationship with the Father. He is thankful that they are among the saved. But Paul has never met them? Why is He so thankful for the salvation of people that he has never met? Because this is our purpose on earth. This is the reason that you have been saved, it is the reason that there is air in your lungs.
Paul isn’t just thankful for their salvation, He is thankful because they are sharing their faith! In fact, they are sharing their faith so much, and are standing in their faith so strongly that Paul is hearing about it other places, and so in his prayers he gives thanks for them. You see, what Paul says in these verses is that he is thankful to God because they are sharing in the task. His task is their task. And Paul is excited about it. He is excited about the work that they are doing. Moreover, Paul wants to come to them. He is praying that God will give him a chance to go and to be with the Romans so that they can work together, and strengthen each other, and encourage one another. Paul’s prayer is for the growth of God’s Kingdom, and the maturing of the saints. In other words, Paul is praying for Kingdom purposes. And this is another key to effective prayer, that you and I can take away from this. The second thing that we should note this morning is this:
Effective prayer is focused on Kingdom purposes
Effective prayer is focused on Kingdom purposes
Thank you, God, for these brothers and sisters that are joining in the work of Your Kingdom! Thank you that they are proclaiming the Gospel! Lord, Jesus, would you allow me to work alongside them, that I can encourage them, and that they can encourage me, that we can strengthen each other, and that Your Kingdom will advance.
Do you pray like that, friend? You ought to. This is what our prayers should look like. We need to pray for each other like this. We need to pray for other churches like this. God, thank you for the might work you are doing at Philadelphia Baptist this week. Give them your fire for the lost! Lord, use African Baptist to be a strong and mighty tool in your hand for the Gospel. Lord, lift up our church family. Help us to lock arms in the sharing of the Gospel. Let it start with me! Let us lock arms with these other churches, Lord, to reach our community with the Gospel.
We can pray for other things, beloved. We can pray for our needs, and our health, and our problems. We need to pray for these things, but the center, the focus, the drive in our prayer should be for Kingdom purposes that are born out of our own growing relationship with Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 6:33
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
He didn’t say not to pray for these other things, He said to pray for His Kingdom purposes first! Our focus and our drive in our prayer should be His Kingdom purposes. Our prayer life should be centered on the work of His Kingdom that He is doing, and our desperate pleas to be a part of it. And when your prayer life is focused on His Kingdom, all these things will be added to you.
The focus of your prayer life shouldn’t be your needs-God already knows these things. Yes, you can pray for these things, but the focus of your prayer life should be on His purposes. Let me tell you something, you can learn a lot about your walk with Christ by looking at your prayer life. Look at verse 13:
I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Why has Paul been praying that God would give him opportunity to go and serve Him among the church in Rome? Because Paul had tried again and again to go there for that purpose and had been thwarted! Paul was praying for the chance to go and share the Gospel in Rome because he was desperate to do so. He wanted to share in the harvest in Rome. He wanted to have the chance to lead others to Christ alongside his brothers and sisters in that church. He longed for the chance to disciple younger believers and to be encouraged by them, and it showed in his prayers.
There are two words that stand out to me here: obligated and eager. Paul says that we obligated. That means that he was responsible for the task of preaching the gospel. And he uses a literary tool called an inclusio, where he uses two categories of people as bookends so that we understand he is talking about both groups and everyone in between. Paul was obligated to share the Gospel with the Greeks, those who had studied, and the barbarians, those who did not and everyone in between. He was compelled to share with wise men and fools, and everyone in between. In other words, Paul says that he is compelled to share the Gospel. It is his responsibility to tell any and everyone that will listen.
The other word that stands out to me is eager. Paul is eager to share the Gospel in places he hasn’t been. He had a job to do in the Kingdom of God, and he was focused on it. He was jumping at the bit to get it done. He couldn’t wait to share with others. Paul had grown close to the Father through Jesus Christ. He was convinced of the power of God because he was seeking kingdom purposes and had seen God at work. And he couldn’t wait to see God do more in and through him. Friends, don’t miss this. The third point in application that we can take away from Paul’s prayer is this, that
Your prayers reveal the center of your relationship with God and what you’ve purposed in your heart
Your prayers reveal the center of your relationship with God and what you’ve purposed in your heart
Isn’t the purpose of Paul’s heart evident in these verses? Anyone can see that Paul is crazy addicted to sharing the Gospel. He wants to know God to the very fullest extent possible, and to make Him known to anyone and everyone that will listen.
See, your prayer life isn’t about telling God anything. You aren’t going to give new information to the God of the universe. He made you, He has seen the fullness of your days, He knows everything that there is to know about you. But when you pray the way that God has commanded us to, the focus is taken off of you. You aren’t the center, because God is. And when your prayers are as they should be, his purposes will be at the center of your prayers. Prayer is a re-centering on what is really important and what really matters. And it is a barometer of the health of your spiritual life. If you are centered and focused on the Kingdom of God in your life, you will pray about Kingdom of God things. If God is the center of your relationship with Him, will praise His Name in prayer because that is the only right thing to do.
“Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.
‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’
Holy is Your Name! Let Your Kingdom come! Let Your will be done. Provide for our needs, Lord, but also forgive our sins! Deliver us from those things that would lead us off of Your purposes because it’s all about Your glory!
The Lord’s prayer isn’t Jesus giving us a ritual of words to say, it is a pattern for effective prayer. Prayer that is centered on the Kingdom. Prayer that is focused on right relationship with God and right purpose in our hearts. If this isn’t the center of your prayer life, of my prayer life, friends it has to become the center because otherwise we’re praying wrong. And wrong prayer is merely a reflection of an off-center relationship and wrongful heart purposes.
As we close this morning, I want to take you back to the last two verses, verses 16 and 17.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Paul was centered on Christ and he was focused on the proclamation of the Gospel because he was convinced of the power of God to save lost sinners like me. Paul really believed that those that put their faith in Jesus would be declared righteous by His blood. He quotes Habakkuk 2:4, The Righteous man shall live by faith, and what he is saying is that faith in Christ is life.
I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, because the Gospel is my life. I proclaim the Gospel wherever I go, because the Gospel is my life. I pray night and day for those that are also sharing the Gospel, and I desire to be with them sharing together, because the Gospel is my life.
Friend, this morning the Gospel is your life. It is life to those that are perishing, it is life to the saved. It is the purpose you have been given. . . but is it the purpose in your heart? Do your prayers reflect more concern for the cares and troubles of this life or for the purposes of His eternal Kingdom. This morning, it is time right now for Paul’s prayer to become our prayer. It is time for us to re-center our relationship with God on God, because He deserves all of the attention. Let Him be the center because only He can save you. It is time for His purposes to be the first thing on our tongue, and the drive of our daily schedules because His purposes are the only ones that can save a lost and dying world. His purposes are the only ones with staying power. My dentist says only floss the teeth you want to keep. In this life, focus only on the purposes that you can keep.
This morning, the altar is open. If you have not surrendered to Christ, if your life is not yet hidden in Him, if you have not begun to follow Him as the King of your life, the altar is open. And if, where you are seated today, there is a great stirring within you because what your prayer life reveals about your relationship with God and the purposes of your heart is a life that needs to change, then the altar is open. My friends, prayer is a powerful weapon among the people of God as it draws us into right relationship and purpose with our almighty and powerful God. If today you hear Him calling, harden not your heart.
Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, we come before You this morning to magnify Your Name. We desire that among us You would have first place in our hearts. We desire that in our prayers, we would draw closer and closer to You, as we focus our requests on the works of Your Kingdom and on Your righteousness that You have called us to. Forgive us, Lord, for making our time with you about ourselves. Forgive us from getting lost in the fray of this day to day life, and for making our own purposes instead of taking on with eagerness the purpose You have given us in knowing You and making You known. Father, would You re-center our hearts on You and Your glory? Would you help us to fix our lives and our plans, and our prayers on Your Gospel, and to trust You with these other things You have promised to add to us when we put You first. Would You reach the lost with the Gospel, Lord, would You grow maturing disciples in Your church, and would You use us to do it. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.