“Intercessory Prayer”  (Paul’s concern for fellow believers)

We have been looking, for several weeks now, at various examples of prayer and intercession in the Scriptures.

Tonight, we go on with Paul to concentrate on the next element of Paul’s prayer for the saints.

Last week, we looked at Paul and picked up one of the main elements of his prayers - that of thankfulness, gratefulness.  

When he met Christ, everything Paul was doing in his zeal for God was drastically changed.

As much as he had opposed Christ and His Cross by his furious persecution of the Christians, so much did he zealously live and serve Christ now.

It was a profound turnabout for Paul.

He was now praying for them when, he said, in Rom 1:8-9, ‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all...without ceasing, I make mention of you in my prayers...’.

This is the Scripture we started with last week and we continue in it tonight.

Now, let us look at Paul’s example of prayer for his fellow brethren and see what it was that gave him the burden to pray for his fellow brethren.

I would like to read just a verse from Rom 15:30: ‘ Now, I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me;...’. 

Starting in verse one, of the first chapter in Romans, let us note the three big changes that caused Paul to say later in 15:30: ‘...I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the spirit...’. pray. 

Rom 1:1: ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,...’. 

First, we see that Paul began calling himself a ‘servant of Jesus Christ’: ‘...Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ...’. 

Imagine - a persecutor of those who acknowledged Christ to becoming Christ’s slave, for that is what ‘servant’ means.

He labeled himself a ‘bondslave of Jesus Christ’ - considered himself entirely given up to Jesus Christ - his life no longer his own property but the property of Christ alone.

He had gained new understanding of the Christian life and character. 

By the saving faith in Christ, he became Christ’s servant.

He learned what it was that God required of him now through Jesus Christ.

This was the first big change in Paul.

Then, Paul said of himself, that he had been ‘set-apart for the service of the Gospel of God’ - ‘set-apart’, ‘...separated unto the Gospel of Christ.’ 

He was consecrated to Christ in such a way that there was a gulf that separated him from what he was to what he now is in Christ.

This was the faith that sanctified him - he was separated from every trace of the old life.

He was separated from sin, separated from the world’s allurements, from being occupied with them.

He was separated from his old friends and the ways he and they walked together at one time.

He was ‘set-apart’ unto Christ and unto His work on the earth, ‘unto the Gospel of God.’

He thereby learned how to actually serve God aright. 

Therefore, not only was his conception of the Christian life and walk changed, but he had found out how he was to go on ‘to preach the Gospel of and from God.’

Then, third, Paul called himself an ‘apostle of Jesus Christ,’ a ‘sent-one’, or ‘he that is sent’ for that is what the word means.

In his case, it meant a special apostleship into which he was specifically called by God - called as a messenger.

So Paul learned, by being called to apostleship, that he had been called to a life of holy service and fruitfulness unto God. 

He had been given the direction he was to go with this new life.  

Did he not give us an outstanding expression of the life and soul of a Christian?  

By the saving faith of Christ to a new life, he was now Christ’s servant. 

By the sanctifying faith of Christ, he was separated unto the Gospel of God.

And, by the consecrating faith in Christ, he was called to a life of service and fruitfulness.

He could not have known change any greater than that! 

This set his heart and mind to go straight forward, to promote the Gospel by proclaiming it, as the heart of all that lay in Jesus Christ.

He laid stress on the Person and the work of Christ - you cannot get around that one fact when you look at Paul.

Men today would and do object to this, I know - but when Paul spoke of Christ, he held Him up as a real man, as the One the prophets promised would come.

He held Christ up as the One Who was crucified, Who was buried, Who arose and Who ascended on high, Who is now ministering from His exalted place at the throne of God.

He did not hesitate to include Him in the Godhead as the Son of God with power, as the Son of the Most Highest, when he said: ‘Grace and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ...I thank my God through Jesus Christ...’.

By claiming this, he was holding Christ up as the One ‘...in Whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.’ 
(Col 2:9)

He had accepted both His divinity and His humanity - worshipped Him as very God of very God.

This was the basis of all his praying and teaching: to know of no one or nothing except ‘Christ and Him crucified’.  

His letter to the Corinthians verifies this.

And - remember - Paul was a Jew who had been thoroughly convinced by the One Whose Name he despised at one time.

He was a man who was well known throughout the Jewish and Gentile world, a well-educated scholar, someone respected in the aristocratic circles in his day.

The critical skill of our current contemporaries seeks to undermine Paul’s thought of Christ - would call him ‘discriminatory’. 

He certainly would be labeled a ‘bigot’ or ‘narrowminded’ by some today when he said, in 2 Cor 2:15-16, ‘...we [Christians, that is] are unto God a sweet fragrance of Christ...’. 

Or, ‘we are the fragrance of Christ ascending to God...’.

And we are a life-giving perfume to those who believe the Gospel.

And - about those who are not Christians, he said, ‘...we are like a death-dealing drug to those who repudiate the Gospel and are perishing.’  

Listen - he was speaking from his own experience - from his ‘pre-Christian, hateful, and avenging-days’.

But there was no doubt in Paul of the difference between his religious life and his Christian life - the two were as diverse as the night is from the day.

And - he was not ashamed of the change - he knew Christ to be the power of God unto salvation - period!

He knew Him to be the only agency that can truly save men.

He knew Him to be everything He said was and is - no question about it!

This is why he expressed the whole principle and secret of his life when he said, in Rom 1:15: ‘...that is why I am so eager to preach the Gospel also to you who are in Rome...’.

He prayed for them - he was ready to share all the revelation of the deeper fullness of Christ that he received.

He knew the successive stages and degrees of faith that believers experience.

He prayed for them to go on to the higher experience of God’s grace and righteousness - to advance, step by step, from the faith that saves, to the faith that sanctifies, to the faith that consecrates them to a life of holy service and fruitfulness. 

So, now, when he prayed, he was praying for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ - that by their enrichment in Christ. 

Paul could ‘impart some spiritual gift that would give them fresh strength’ - a solid foundation for Christ’s Kingdom.

He certainly did not want them to be ignorant.

He knew spiritual ignorance leads to error just as it leads to instability.

And it leads to spiritual grief, to spiritual uncertainty, to spiritual deceptions.

Paul prayed they would avoid those pitfalls.

So, it was important that they would be soundly taught in the things of God in Christ Jesus.

It was not that they were ignorant about the knowledge of Christ saving them - translating them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His dear Son.

They knew well about His redeeming work He had wrought for them.

But - that was not the only knowledge they were to seek after - for it is in the gospel that the righteousness that comes from God is fully revealed.’ (v 17)

The marvelous light of His grace - how it was to operate throughout the rest of their lives, every day of their lives - that, too, needed to be sought and become their own.

He desired for them to have that comforting, strengthening, edifying, sanctifying, directing knowledge that they receive by learning the ever-present grace of God in themselves.

And then they were to seek after being thoroughly furnished
for His good works through them, consecrated to a life of service and fruitfulness to Him.

How wonderfully refreshing it is to be able to show our love for one another in this way - to pray for one another, as Paul prayed for the saints, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake.

Yes - that is the pinnacle for all true prayer.

This is the spiritual nourishment that the Lord desires to flood His people with - the Holy Spirit teaching divine truth to the heart as the outcome of someone having prayed with this one reason in mind.

If we would have a friend converted to Jesus Christ, if we would want him taught of God, if we would want him aroused to a higher consecration to the Lord, if we would want to do him the greatest service this world has and will ever know, then let us take his case to the Holy Place, the Secret Place, of God in Christ Jesus.

And, when we do, we will have gone the wisest way to work the work of Christ.

We can hardly realize the value to the Church - and to the world - of intercessory prayer - of that state of readiness before God, in the bosom of Christ Jesus, that ascends to His throne without fail.

And how it is increased in value when the whole Church joins together in prayer.

Look at the divine promise given in Lev 26:8 in chasing the enemies: ‘...five of you shall chase one hundred, and one hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight.’

‘So shall your enemies bite the dust at your approch’, says the Knox translation.

Those are mind-boggling odds given believers by divine decree.

If two of you agree as touching anything concerning the kingdom, you have that blessing secured to you by the promise of God. 

And, remember, two or more make up His Church.

Look at the results of the Church praying in Acts 4.

When Peter and John were released from prison and threatened by the authorities to no longer speak or teach in the name of Jesus, the two disciples headed straight to the Church to present their case before it.

And when the Church heard of it, what did they do - why, they prayed, of course!

‘They lifted up their voice to God with one accord...’ (v 24) and said to the Lord, in v 29, ‘Lord, behold their
threatenings...grant unto thy servants boldness to speak Your Word.’

And, in v 31, ‘And when they prayed, the place was shaken...they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word of God with boldness...’.

Was their prayer effectual?   

Oh, yes - it was!

You can read on to see the results for yourself.

Yes - the Church profits by uniting in prayer.

Praying together is effective.

It turns the Church into a well of blessings that God gives to it in Christ.

And, believe me, when I say, this world desperately needs the blessing of Jesus Christ to be lavished upon it.

It needs that blessing where it no longer sees Jesus Christ as an alternative among other choices to Life - but where it sees Him as the only Way!  

‘Brethren, pray for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake’, Paul pleaded.

This is what the Church is to pray for today. 

The Lord gives the Church many opportunities to pray to this effect.

We have them every day, do we not? 

They surround us constantly.

I remember the sixties, when we saw the hippies’ culture roaming about, trying to find its way through life.

How the Lord would lay on many hearts of believers to pray - pray quietly for some, not all - as we saw various ones throughout the course of our days.

For one reason or another, there were those for whom that spirit of prayer did not arise within us.  

Why that was so, I will not speculate, but - for many, there was the response of prayer that arose on their behalf.

And what the Lord has done in them, as the result of praying for them, is His knowledge alone.

The point is, we do not know the influences we set in motion when we bend in obedience to the spirit of prayer within, as long as that prayer always is for the ‘sake of Jesus Christ’.

As an example, an opportunity came along just a few weeks ago.  

Someone wrote a letter to the newspaper editor, complaining about a recent article it had printed about a dedicated missionary couple.

The article included the fact of the wife now suffering from a rare birth defect.

The letter, in response to this article read, and I am only citing excerpts from it: [quote] ‘...their faith has done nothing to help them avoid adversity...’ [unquote].

And he asked the question: [and, again, I quote] ‘How does one being broke and having one of the partners go through a grueling degeneration of health show that they were wise to ‘trust in God’ and that their faith has ‘served them well.’?’ [unquote].

He was criticizing them for their Christian walk and condemning the newspaper for printing such an article.

But - here, now - is an opportunity pitched to the Church to pray - to pray for the sake of Jesus Christ to be able to set up His kingdom in the heart of this person.

If He did it fo Paul, can He not do it for others, as well?

This person needs Jesus Christ - he needs to see the only living Way of life - he needs prayer, prayer for the scales of blindness to drop from his eyes and prayer to be translated into the kingdom of the light of Jesus Christ. 

Does your heart rise toward prayer for cases like this?

If so, obey that call to pray.

There is a desperate need today to bring the influence of Christ and His kingdom upon the earth. 

These are the days of opportunity for believers to fill this atmosphere with prayer - the prayers of all the saints rising to God’s throne for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Do what Paul did!

Pray for fellow believers - pray for the unsaved - pray for your husband, pray for your wife, pray for your children, pray for students, pray for teachers, pray for our leaders - pray - so that the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord - for the sake of our Lord Christ!

The time is now for this to happen.

I look at Rev 5:6-8 and see there the vials full of the fragrance of Christ which are recorded there as the prayers of the saints.

These are petitions rising to God for, among other reasons,  extending His kingdom upon the earth.

In Rev 8, the prayers are recorded as incense that rise before Him and cannot escape His notice.

And these prayers of the saints are effective for they provoke an answer from Him as you can see in v 5, 
of Rev 8.

‘The angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the alter and poured it on the earth and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.’ 

You see, when God takes notice of the prayers of His people, He takes decisive action.

And, in looking at that, why then should we not fill the atmosphere with prayer? 

Why should we not let the whole world be surrounded with the prayers of the saints in Christ, rising to God’s throne?

Fill up the vials to overflowing - why should we not do this? - why should we not so fill the air, the sky, the heavens, with the light of Christ, prayers for His sake alone, so that darkness would no longer be able to thrive?

I wonder!  I wonder if this is not God’s appointed time for the Christian world to see this?

If we were to see prayer in the magnitude shown in Revelation, we would realize - once and for all - this is serious business!

It cannot be just words - nice-sounding words, words that come from knowing the ‘language’.

It must be birthed from the depth of our hearts, from the wellspring of the Holy Spirit.

We cannot afford to enter the Lord’s Holy, Secret Place of prayer with a jesting, flippant mind and heart - this is not a game we play!  

The Lord knows, we Christians have played enough games in this Course through life!

This is for real!  THIS IS FOR REAL - believe it!

It has to do with the work of Jesus Christ Who has promised to establish God’s Kingdom among us and upon this earth.

And - with this in mind, do we not realize we have come to the Church’s place of one heart, one mind, one united shoulder - prayer for the sake of Jesus Christ?

Again - I repeat - this is serious business - it is Christ’s business upon the earth through the Church, and it is vital, urgent, and genuine.

Should we not give ourselves to prayer when we consider these things?

Again, I say, pray - pray for the sake of Jesus Christ - pray - pray - pray - and never cease to pray for His sake!

And, by so doing, you enter into the life and fruitfulness unto God that life-giving increase rising to His throne.

Just let us keep on praying to that end - ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, upon earth, as it is in heaven.’

Please, pray with me the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray, when He prayed:

‘Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: 
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
forever.             
                                Amen!