Paul's Prayer Priorities (Selected Scriptures) | Adult Sunday School

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Good morning! Why don't you find your seats. Alright, well, welcome to Kootenai Church and we're excited to see you this morning.

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For those of you who don't know me, my name is Simon Pernides and since this is the first time for me to teach adult

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Sunday school class, I thought I would just introduce myself briefly. My wife, Jessica, and my crew of Pernideses sit over here normally and we have been coming to KCC now for about three years and it's been a huge blessing for us to be a part of this body.

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I can't tell you just how much the sermon we heard last week in Ephesians 4 talking about the unity of God's church and how we are to protect and guard and cherish that unity, how much that meant to me personally because we obviously are so dependent upon one another for sanctification, encouragement, challenging, exhorting, correcting, and this is where that happens.

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We need each other every single Sunday. We don't just come here just to worship God, that would be enough in and of itself, but he has given us a far richer and deeper opportunity to be sanctified together in Christ in the context of the body.

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And that's going to be the focus of our Sunday school lesson this morning and through the month of May. We're going to be taking the next four weeks in the month of May and do a series focused upon relational prayer, or simply praying for other people, principally believers, and we're going to draw that out of the book of Philippians.

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So today I want to start with a couple of questions. Now I thought about making you raise your hands or stand up and answer whether these are true for you.

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So you can all, those of you who don't like doing that, can all rest easy. You can answer these questions in your head and before God, but let me ask you the first question.

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This is an easy one. Hopefully this is an easy yes for all of you. How many of you have prayed for another person before?

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Yeah, good. Okay, we've established that nice fundamental baseline. I'm preaching to the choir here even though some of you would never get up here and sing in the choir.

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All right, second question. How many of you have prayed for another person at KCC in the past month?

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Oh, yeah, good. Okay, good. Definitely talking to the choir here. How many of you have prayed for someone else today?

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Okay, good. It's still early in the day. There's lots of time left for you guys to knock that one out.

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How many of you have prayed for me today? Okay, yeah. Sounds really egotistical.

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I know, I know. I knew there was at least a couple people over in this section who were going to raise their hands.

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So praying for other believers is a vital part of our sanctification and yet it can be challenging for us.

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So maybe you've experienced one or more of these challenges when it comes to praying for other people.

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First, you think to yourself, I don't know what to pray for others. Like, I just don't know that person well enough and I don't know anything about what's going on in their life and honestly,

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I don't know what I would pray for them. Maybe you don't like praying for other people.

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It's just easier to focus on yourself and God. It's like, I don't really like praying for other people.

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Well, sometimes other people are difficult and praying for them just really seems pointless.

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It's like, man, there's no hope for that guy. Some of you might have encountered this difficulty.

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I barely have enough time to pray for my own personal needs. Where would I find time to pray for other people?

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Some of you might be thinking, I just don't have time for prayer in general. Like, there's a lot on my plate right now.

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You don't understand. I have to get up really early in the morning for work. I don't get home until it's dark at night.

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There's a ton of chores when I get home at night. I just don't have time right now. Or maybe this last difficulty you think to yourself, well, honestly,

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Simon, prayer just doesn't seem to work. I pray, but it doesn't really seem to change anything, so why do it?

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Well, if we take time to have an honest assessment of our prayer life, it provides us the opportunity to humble our hearts before God and His Word and to re -establish the priority of prayer.

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That's my goal for us, is to re -establish the priority of prayer. Now, the good news is

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I could easily shame myself and all of you into praying, right?

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That wouldn't take too much effort to just guilt you all into at least a couple of weeks of increased prayer life.

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But that's not my goal, and that's not a sustainable pattern. Ultimately, I want to encourage you with the joy and the strength and the fulfillment that comes from a long -standing, increasing pattern of prayer, one that lasts for years, decades, that you can look back on at the end of your life and go, wow, that's what

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God produced. That's not what the effort of man produced. That's what God produced in my life.

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So the title of today's lesson is Paul's Prayer Priorities, and we're going to be focusing over the next four weeks on the book of Philippians and some of the aspects of prayer that Paul gives us from the book of Philippians.

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But today, we're going to focus on four prayer priorities from Paul that are gleaned from his prayer life, so that we will grow in love for others through relational prayer.

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We're going to look at Paul's prayer life, extract four of his prayer priorities, so that we here at KCC will grow in love for each other by re -establishing that priority of prayer.

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Now, let's set some background here for Philippians briefly before we dive into Paul's prayer life.

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And this is a an opportunity for me to count on the reality that many of you know

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Philippians really well. It's a great book. I'm smiling because a whole bunch of men here in the congregation smiled back at me when

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I said that. We just finished a men's Bible study on Bible study tools and methods, and guess what book we studied?

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Philippians. So there's a couple of men here in the congregation, I won't name any names, who've read Philippians a whole bunch of times in the past six weeks.

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And so they're really looking at me going, gosh Simon, you're you're going to really do this to me? You're going to go back to Philippians?

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Yep, guess what guys, I'm a simple man. I'm the bottom of the shelf cookie jar kind of person.

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But Philippi was a city in eastern Macedonia, think about modern day

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Greece, and it was the first city in Europe where Paul planted a church.

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And so all of us who descend from modern Europeans can be really thankful that under God's sovereign direction,

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Paul moved across the Aegean Sea into Europe and planted the first church in Europe and proceeded to continue church planting throughout

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Europe. We are the descendants of that sovereign choice of God. Now the book of Acts records only two personal visits by Paul to the city at Philippi, and neither of those visits could have been longer than more than a couple of weeks or maybe a month in duration.

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Paul didn't spend a tremendous amount of time in Philippi like he did in other cities, but a strong, vibrant, relational bond formed between him and the people of the church at Philippi.

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And it persisted throughout his ministry all the way to his Roman imprisonment.

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What forged that bond and how did it endure the separation, the limited communication, right, no email, no text messages, no phone calls, and the mutual difficulties that Paul and the

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Philippian church endured? How did that bond survive all of those challenges? Well, we can begin by just recapping briefly the history of how it formed.

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So I want you to open your Bibles up to the book of Acts, chapter 15, and we'll start in verse 36.

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The book of Acts in chapter 15, 16, and a little bit in chapter 18 gives us a picture of this history of how

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Paul and the Philippian church interacted and how the relationship formed.

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In AD 50, approximately 17 years after Jesus died, Paul and Barnabas determined to leave

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Antioch. Now, they had a twofold intention. They wanted to go back and strengthen all of the new churches that they had planted and formed on their first missionary journey, which we read about in Acts 13 and 14.

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And secondly, they wanted to plant more new churches among the Gentiles there and then move beyond where they originally had planted.

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Now, there was a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over Mark and his trustworthiness, so Barnabas and Paul split and Barnabas and Mark go to Cyprus, the island of Cyprus, and Paul and Silas instead go to Syria and then

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Cilicia, which is modern -day Turkey. We read about that in Acts chapter 15 there.

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Look down at verse 40 and 41. It says, But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the

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Lord. And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

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So now we arrive at Acts 16. This is where the action starts with respect to Philippi. So Paul and Silas go through Derbe, they go to Lystra, they pick up a young man named

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Timothy, and so Timothy joins them along their journey. And then in Acts 16 .6,

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it says that after passing through the Phrygian and Galatian regions, Paul and Silas intended to go north and then back east, across the northern part of what we think of as Turkey, into a region referred to as Mysia and Bithynia.

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But God had other plans for Paul, right? We read about the

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Macedonian vision in Acts 16 .9, where it says, A vision appeared to Paul in the night.

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A man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us.

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When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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So God's sovereign will inserts itself in the life of Paul and says,

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No, you are not going to Mysia and Bithynia like you had planned. I'm taking you over into Macedonia.

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It's God's sovereign will being revealed in the life of his people and the choices and the circumstances of their lives that creates relationships.

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Now I want you to stop and think. Can you think of times in your life where God's plans for you have led you into circumstances where new relationships with either current believers or potential believers have formed, right?

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God puts you in a new circumstance. There's a new group of people around you, some of whom might be believers already, some of whom may become believers.

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And are you ready for the relationship? Are you ready to pour yourself into the friendship, the difficulties that sometimes come from being in relationship with other people?

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All right, Paul was ready, right? So Paul, Silas, Timothy, and by virtue of the we that we see in verse 10, we believe

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Luke joins him at this point. So there's four of them, Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke in Acts 16 .11,

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leave Troas, they cross the Aegean Sea by boat, and they arrive at the port city of Neapolis, and then they walk, right, they don't get to drive, 10 miles inland to the city of Philippi.

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Now Philippi was a colony of retired Roman soldiers who had been given land rights because of their service to the emperor.

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And Philippi was strategically located on this trade route across Asia, right, from between Europe and Asia, the

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Via Ignatia or the Ignatian Way is what it was called. And Paul, the ever strategic church planter, could have chosen

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Philippi as his first church planting site there simply because of that reason, right, the strategicness of this way that he, that it was on.

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Or because of the fact that it was a Roman colony with Roman people, a government system, and a society that allowed

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Paul to use it as a starting point for his successful endeavors in taking the gospel to Rome and throughout

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Greece and throughout the Roman world there. When we look at Acts 16 .12, and it says from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a

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Roman colony, and we were staying in this city for some days. So again, we don't know precisely how long some days is, but it wasn't long.

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Now, Paul did not find a Jewish population there. That hadn't been his custom throughout

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Asia. He'd gone to many churches, he'd found the Jewish synagogue, he'd started there and ministered to the

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Jews first. But instead, this time Paul identifies a group of potential believers in this group of women led by this lady

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Lydia, who's described here in Acts 16 as a worshiper of God.

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And these women had a prayer gathering outside of the city by the river. So Paul's relationship with the

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Philippian church starts in the context of prayer. He finds this group of women out praying, and he joins them and teaches them, right?

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And what does God do? Well, look at Acts 16, verse 14, right?

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It says in Acts 16, 14, a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, worshiper of God, was listening, and the

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Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

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Lord, come into my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us. I love that.

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The Lord opened her heart, and she responded, right?

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Isn't that what we are praying for when we're praying for other believers, is that God will work in their heart, right?

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We can't do it by ourselves, right? And our prayers are not going to be sufficient without God doing that work.

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But the foundation of this relationship with Lydia, her household, and then subsequently the church at Philippi starts with God opening her heart.

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Now, I'm going to move more quickly here because you guys know this, but if you don't, you can go back and review some of this, but Paul's relationship with this

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Philippian church doesn't last long because he starts making trouble, right? He casts out the spirit of divination from this slave girl, thereby inciting the anger of her masters and resulting in the arrest, beating, and imprisonment of Paul and Silas.

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So, we get down to Acts 16 .25. Skip ahead in your Bible there. It says about midnight,

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Paul and Silas were praying. Now, if you had just gotten beaten and falsely imprisoned, and it's midnight, what would you be doing?

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I'd love to aspire to that and say, oh yeah, I'd be right there with Paul. I'd be praying. I'd be singing.

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Well, I don't know if I would have been, but Paul was the kind of man who was praying and singing at midnight.

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And God rescues Paul and Silas by virtue of an earthquake that leads to the salvation of the jailer and the members of his household.

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Paul is then confronted by the chief, or I'm sorry, Paul confronts the chief magistrates who had him beaten in error and is instructed to leave the city.

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And then we get to Acts 16 .40. It says, they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia.

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And when they saw the brethren, they encouraged them and departed. So we come to the end of the first episode of Paul's relationship with the

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Philippian church. And so Paul continues his second missionary journey based upon the pronoun change, we to they, us to them.

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We think he leaves Luke behind at Philippi and continues on with Silas and Timothy, and they journey into Macedonia.

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They go to Thessalonica, they go to Berea, they go to Athens, and then ultimately into Corinth.

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And we know from Acts 20, go ahead and skip ahead there. Acts 20 verses one through six, that Paul will visit the church at Philippi again, as he's returning on from his third missionary journey.

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Let's look at that briefly. In verse one of Acts 20, it says, after the uproar had ceased,

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Paul sent for the disciples. And when he had exhorted them and taken his leave of them, he left to go to Macedonia.

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When he had gone through those districts and had given them much exhortation, he came to Greece. And there he spent three months.

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And when the plot was formed against him by the Jews, as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.

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And he was accompanied by Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus, and by Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and Tychicus, and Trophimus of Asia.

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But these had gone on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas. We sailed from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and came to them at Troas within five days.

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And there we stayed seven days. So here, his second personal visit to the

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Philippians, but it couldn't have been long. It looks like it's about seven days, maybe a little bit longer, but he's on his third trip home and he's not sticking around very long.

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Right? But there's evidence of further interactions, even though these are the only two personal interactions, there's evidence of further interactions between Paul and the

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Philippians. Go over to Philippians four, verse 16. Philippians four,

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I'll start in verse 15, says, you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left

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Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, but you alone. For even in Thessalonica, you sent a gift more than once for my needs.

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So when Paul left Philippi the first time he went to Thessalonica, it seems that the church in Philippi immediately sent financial support after Paul into Thessalonica to provide for him.

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Now it's likely based on Acts 18, that Silas and Timothy also brought a financial gift from the

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Philippian church, as well as other churches in Macedonia, to Paul when he lived in Corinth, which enabled him to stop working part -time and focus full -time on his ministry there in Corinth.

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So the church at Macedonia was a giving church. They gave to him in Thessalonica, they gave to him in Corinth, and then if we look in Acts chapter four here, continuing on, it says in verse 17, not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account.

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But I have received everything in full, and having an abundance, I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well -pleasing to God.

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So the church at Philippi had sent Epaphroditus with a financial gift to Paul, likely while he was in his imprisonment in Rome, to provide for his needs.

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And I don't have to go into the detail there that you know if you're in prison, right, you don't have anything other than what is brought to you by the people who are financially and physically supporting them.

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So what can we conclude from this very brief history lesson about Paul and his interaction with the church at Philippi?

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Well, I think it's pretty obvious. Paul and the church at Philippi loved God, and they loved each other, right?

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They loved each other, and they were willing to give time, attention, and money to each other.

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And their concern for one another, this is important, was not contingent upon consistent time together or regular communication.

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This relationship that God created between Paul and this church existed whether or not they lived together and whether or not they talked together regularly.

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It was much deeper, much stronger than that. Now how does one sustain this level of a relationship over years of time, thousands of miles, and the cares and difficulties that life brings into it?

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Well, I think the answer is simple. Prayer. That's exactly right. That's how you sustain a relationship with a person who lives in Bonners Ferry when you live in Sagal, or where they sit on that side of the church and you sit on that side of the church, or they're 75 and you're 15, right?

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It sounds silly, but because we look at it in context and we say, well, how did Paul sustain this relationship with this group of people that he'd only spent a couple of weeks with for years and separated by thousands of miles without any means of communication other than people walking back and forth bringing letters and personal anecdotes to each other.

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So as I mentioned, next week we're going to dive into the book of Philippians and we're going to spend three weeks together looking at some of Paul's prayers to and about the

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Philippians in Philippians. We'll look at Philippians 1, 3 through 8 next week and we'll see the characteristics of Paul's relational prayer.

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In the week after that we'll look at Philippians 1 verses 9 through 11, Paul's very specific prayer requests for the church at Philippi, and finally we'll finish

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May with Philippians 4, 6 through 7, which is Paul's pattern of protective prayer.

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Now before we examine Paul's prayer life in Philippians, we can ask ourselves a question.

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What would the Philippian church, the believers in Philippi, what would they have observed about Paul's prayer life during their personal interactions with him?

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Now we cannot see Paul pray personally. I'm sorry I just can't produce that for you.

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There were no video recorders, audio recorders back then, but we can glean so much about his prayer life from the rest of his epistles.

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And so we're going to spend time this morning outside of Philippians just looking at his prayers.

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And remember we're going to look at four prayer priorities, the first of which for you, that was all by way of introduction, is to strive faithfully and urgently in intercession for others.

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Paul knew how to pray faithfully and urgently as he prayed for other people.

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So if you as a young person were exceptionally good at Bible drills, you're going to love this morning.

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We're going to be in a lot of different passages and I'm going to give you a little bit of time to get to each one because I'm going to turn to them myself.

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So as fast as I can turn to them, you can turn to them. If you're a person who just gets frustrated if you take a little bit longer than the person who's teaching and by the time you get to it you're halfway through the prayer and you just rather listen and take notes, then you have my permission.

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I will not be grading you on your ability to keep up with my passages. But we're going to read

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Paul's, a significant portion of Paul's prayers this morning. And if you would like to do this on your own at home,

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I'm going to commend to you this book. It's fantastic. D .A. Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation looks at the prayers of Paul and he specifically writes them all down in one of the chapters and gives you the opportunity to just read through them kind of in Bible order.

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Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and so forth. So I really recommend that book to you.

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So let's start in Ephesians 6, 18 through 20. Paul's letter to the

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Ephesian church, chapter 6, the last chapter, verse 18. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit.

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And with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

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And pray. All right, are you awake now?

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And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which

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I am an ambassador in chains. That in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

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Paul's exhortation to the Ephesians is to be alert in their prayers as they persistently prayed for him and for others.

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Turn back to the book of Romans, chapter 1, verse 8.

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Romans chapter 1, Paul's letter to the church at Rome, starting in verse 8.

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First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

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For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of his son, is my witness as to how unceasingly

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I make prayer mention of you. Always in all my in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.

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Now, don't get confused here. Paul was not a superhuman.

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He didn't have the capacity to pray a hundred percent of the time, right?

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And he's not just using hyperbole here, right? His pattern was to consistently pray, and it allows him to say,

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I can call God as my witness, right? I'm not just making this up to impress you all, right?

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I unceasingly make mention of you, the church believers in the church at Rome, always in my prayers making request for you, right?

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Paul prayed earnestly and consistently for other people. Now you might ask yourself and say, well, okay, well, the church at Rome, it's a pretty good church.

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Church at Ephesus, pretty good church. So it's easy to pray for people when they're easy, when they're, when they're walking with God.

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Look at Romans 10, go to Romans chapter 10, verse 1.

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In the context of Romans 9 through 11, Paul's talking about the unbelief of his brethren, the

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Jewish people. And in chapter 10, verse 1, he says, brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

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Paul prayed earnestly for difficult people. He didn't just cherry pick the easy people, right?

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He prayed earnestly and diligently for difficult people. So Paul's first prayer priority is to pray urgently and faithfully for other people.

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There's many other verses in Paul's prayer life that highlight this. I wish I had time to read them all for you.

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But his second prayer priority is to make specific requests focused on the sanctification of others.

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First priority, strive faithfully and urgently in intercession. Second priority, make specific requests for the sanctification of others.

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And for that, I'll take you to 1 Thessalonians 3, Paul's letter, first letter to the church at Thessalonica.

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Chapter 3, verse 9 is where we're going to start our reading. I love this chapter and this verse, these verses in particular here.

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This is rich stuff. Paul says in chapter 3, verse 9, for what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our

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God on your account. As we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith.

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Now may the God, our God and Father himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you and may the

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Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all people just as we also do for you so that he may establish your hearts without blame and holiness before our

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God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. You can just hear the joy pouring out of Paul in this section.

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And remember my goal this morning is not to shame you into praying more. I do not want you to walk home with your head hanging down going, man

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I just, I have got to get up tomorrow morning, I've got to pray because I feel so guilty that I don't pray consistently.

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No, I do want you to get up tomorrow morning and I do want you to pray, but I don't want you to do it out of guilt.

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I want you to feel the joy that Paul has in praying for the church at Thessalonica, right?

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He says it there so clearly, he says what thanksgiving, how thankful I am and all the joy that I feel for your sake and I pray earnestly night and day.

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What did he pray for? Well I hope this guy gets a job next week and I hope his dog starts to feel a little bit better and I hope that the rain does not ruin his hay crop and now

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Paul knew how to pray for people's personal physical needs and I'm not saying it's wrong to pray for personal physical situations that are going on around you.

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It's a good thing to do those but Paul has something far greater, far more powerful to pray for.

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It's that the Lord will increase, make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we do for you so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our

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God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. When you run out of things to pray for people, pick up God's word and go to the prayers and so for that I'll commend to you another book.

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This book is by Herbert Lockyer, All the Prayers of the Bible. It says there's over 650 recorded in here so you can you can pray the prayers of Daniel, you can pray the prayers of Moses, you can pray the prayers of Jeremiah.

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Obviously we're focusing upon Paul. I'll also commend this one. This one I just picked up this year and it's been so helpful.

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It's called The Handbook for Praying Scripture by William Varner, Will Varner who's a professor at the

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Master's College in Southern California and this book has a structure for prayer, right?

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It uses a monthly structure, 31 days of prayer and gives you verses of scripture that you can use to fill in the patterns of adoration, affirmation, thanksgiving, confession and it changes every single day and so if you if you don't know what to pray you just say okay what day of the week is it?

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Okay it's May 6th. I'm going to go to the sixth day and I'm going to start and it's going to give me scriptures that I can use to enhance my prayer life.

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Great, great book here. Let's continue on. Let's go to 1 Thessalonians 5.

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Just flip over your page if you have to. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 23, the end of the book of 1

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Thessalonians. It says, Now may God, may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you and he also will bring it to pass.

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Paul prayed here for the Thessalonians and he expressed his fervent desire that they grow in complete sanctification, that God would sanctify them entirely.

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Flip back to Romans chapter 15 verse 5. Paul is finishing the practical section of Romans, the exhortation to holiness, godliness and holiness.

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Chapter 15 verse 5 and 6 he says, Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This hearkens me back to what we heard preached last week, the exhortation to unity.

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If you have one thing that you can pray for, for this entire body at KCC is pray for unity.

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Pray that God would keep our hearts and minds focused on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and that we would live in unity with one another.

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So Paul's first priority for prayer was to strive faithfully and urgently in intercession for others.

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Secondly, he wants us to make specific requests for the sanctification of other people around us.

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Third, he wants us to express our genuine thanksgiving to God for his work in others, even the difficult people, right?

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He wants us to be genuinely thankful to God for his work in others. And for this

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I'll turn you to first Corinthians chapter 1. First Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 4 is where I want you to land.

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Now I probably don't have to tell you this, but for those of you who have not read the book of first Corinthians before, you know that this was a church that caused

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Paul a great amount of grief. This is not the easy squeezy lemon peasy church of Philippi, Thessalonica, Colossae, right?

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This is the hard case. So if you know any hard cases here at KCC or elsewhere, model

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Paul's example in first Corinthians. Chapter 1 verse 4, he says, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God, which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with his son,

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Jesus Christ my Lord. Paul was thankful for the work of God in others, even the immature believers at Corinth.

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Flip over to second Corinthians, Paul's letter to this church continues.

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Let's go to chapter 2 of second Corinthians, all the way down to verse 14, second

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Corinthians 2 verse 14. Paul prays there, but thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him in every place.

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For we are a fragrance of Christ to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.

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And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

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Paul prayed with thankfulness to God for how Christ was working in him and through others to bring about life for those for whom life was intended and judgment, death for those for whom death was intended.

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He was thankful to God that God was working in the lives of the fellow believers. Flip over to Colossians chapter 1, the first chance to look at this letter of Paul to the

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Colossian church. It's so wonderful for me to contemplate that Paul had not met the people at the church at Colossae and yet he writes them a letter and prays for them.

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Now this is really expanding your prayer cycle circle, right? It's hard enough to just remember to pray for the people around here that you have met.

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But what about people that go to a church somewhere where you haven't been before? How do you pray for them?

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Well, Paul shows us chapter 1 verse 3. He says, we give thanks to God, the father of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. When we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

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Paul had heard of the church at Colossae and he was capable of praying for them and thanking

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God for them. And finally, let's look over at 2

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Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 3. Paul's second letter to the church of Thessalonica chapter 1 verse 3 says, we ought always to give thanks to God for you brethren as is only fitting because your faith is greatly enlarged and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater.

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I love that. He loved the reality that their love was ever greater.

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It was always growing and that is the antidote to what

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I refer to as the prayer plateau. Right? You get going, you start praying, you develop some consistency in it, and then what happens?

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You just kind of plateau. You can't go any further.

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You've kind of exhausted your library of prayers and you find yourself just going back to the same words and the same requests and you're like, gosh, it's just getting dry and boring and I don't really see this doing anything and I'm struggling here.

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I'm fighting. Well, fight on, right? Because God wants us to rejoice in the reality that our love for others can continue to grow deeper and deeper and deeper.

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So priority number three, express genuine thanksgiving to God for how

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He is working in other people, even the difficult people.

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Finally, prayer priority number four is to grow in confidence in God's sovereign ability to work gloriously in others through both their joy and their suffering.

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It's a big mouthful, but right, we need to grow in our confidence. Trust God that He can sovereignly work in other people as we pray for them.

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He can work through both their joys and through their times of suffering. For this, I'll turn you to 2

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Corinthians 1. We'll start in verse 3 of 2

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Corinthians 1. Paul says there, blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

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For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

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But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. For if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.

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And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.

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Paul was confident that God was using his trials so that he could comfort others, and he was therefore able to pray for the

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Corinthian church who were going through trials and say, God's going to use this in your life.

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Because you went through this, you'll experience his comfort. And when you experience his comfort, you'll be ready to pass that on to the next person down the line who needs to know the comfort of a great

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God who does not make mistakes, whose sovereign watch care includes your sufferings as well as your joys.

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Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 7, 2

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Corinthians 12, almost all the way to the end, verse 7,

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Paul's praying for himself here. But he's willing to pray, tell the

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Corinthian church what he's praying for. Let's look at it. He says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.

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Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you.

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My power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

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I talked about the reality that it's hard to know what to pray for other people sometimes, right?

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Now, if you're not on the church's prayer list, you can get on the church's prayer list and Aaron and the team do a great job of pressing those requests on.

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But how many of you would share on the church's prayer request, well, my wife and I had a disagreement last night and I sinned against her by being angry with her.

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I don't know that I would publish that so that the entire church body was aware of that, right? But do

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I need prayer for that? Yeah. How are you going to know? Yeah, but how are you going to know to pray for another person?

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You need to press in and you need to develop relationships with other people. Not everybody in the body knows everybody's sin problems, but you need to have some people in your circle that you can pray for that specifically.

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You need to be able to talk to each other about the things that you need real prayer for, okay?

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Let's finish with 2 Corinthians 13. You're already there. Just look over at 2 Corinthians 13, verse 7.

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It says, Now we pray to God that you do not, that you do no wrong, not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear unapproved, for we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.

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For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong. This we also pray for, that you be made complete.

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Paul is praying that the sinful believers here in Corinth would be restored to faith, would be restored to their momentum forward, and he's not afraid to rebuke them and to then pray for them subsequently.

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We, in turn, can pray for sinful believers around us to repent, turn to God in Christ Jesus and experience the joy of the restoration, and we can pray confidently that God will use that sovereign power that he has to transform even horrible, ugly, sinful situations into his magnificent glory.

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So what have we learned here? Let's summarize here. We know that Paul's prayer life was saturated by relationships.

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He prayed by virtue of his relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, by the power of the

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Spirit, and then he extended that prayer to the relationship with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of believers spread from Jerusalem all the way to Rome, right?

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Paul knew people everywhere, and he prayed for them passionately, consistently, faithfully, urgently, right?

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And he developed, and he refined, and he increased, and he maintained that relationship with those people by consistently praying for them.

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D. A. Carson, who wrote the book I referenced here earlier, says our praying will be shaped by our profound desire to seek what is best for the people of God.

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So I hope this morning that you are motivated, like Paul, to pray for the people in this body.

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I'm going to give you a couple of brief applications that you can start with. First of all, make a list of people to begin praying for.

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Now, some people benefit from and may need daily prayer. You might want to say, all right, I'm going to pray for this person every single day of the week.

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Not everybody can be prayed for every single day of the week, so maybe there's a list of people that you pray for every three or four days.

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Maybe you pray for them weekly. Maybe you pray for them monthly. Now, you're like, Simon, I don't, how do you keep track of all this?

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Well, we have these toys, or I refer to them as time -wasting devices. They have these excellent things like reminders in them.

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So one of the things I recommend to you is get your phone out this afternoon and set up some reminders and say, I'm going to pray for this person every week, on Fridays, or every other day, or every three days, or every four days, and start making some notes in that reminder of what you're praying for.

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If you don't know what to pray for, then go to one of Paul's prayers, grab some of the prayers for their sanctification, and pop it in there so that you remember what to pray for for that person.

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Start praying regularly for other people. Secondly, avoid the prayer plateau.

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If you're on the prayer plateau right now, you need to go find a hill and start climbing.

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There's always a hill that you can climb, right? Lean in. Increase the depth and the breadth of your prayer life.

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Third, ask God to give you an increased level of relational love for Him, and therefore for the people that He has placed you in fellowship with.

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If it's difficult because you don't know who they are, and they don't know who you are, and you're like, hey, I see that person in the grocery store, and I know they go to KCC, but man,

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I shouldn't even look at them because they know that I know that we don't know each other, and so forth. Lean in.

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God has saved the two of you and placed you in the same body. Get to know them. And finally, your last application here is ensure that you set aside time for confession of your sin so that you do not cut yourself off when you start praying for God to intercede in other people's lives.

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Your own sin can get in the way. Isaiah 59 verse 2 says, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your

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God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

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Now, you're sitting there saying to yourself, of course God hears me, especially when I'm praying for other people. Have you confessed your sin?

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Is there something between you and God that's damaged that relationship? If there is, you've got to start with your own relationship with God.

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Fix that before you start praying for other people. Now, my homework for you, read

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Philippians at least once before next week, and it will enhance our lesson together.

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May God grant us the grace to pray like Paul. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your exhortation and encouragement to us this morning.

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Thank you for giving us a man like Paul who demonstrated how to pray and how to pray better.

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I pray that we would take this to heart, that we would pray consistently and faithfully for the sanctification of the people in this body, knowing,

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Father, that you will transform us into the image of your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray all this in your