How to Pray for Fellow Christians

In the mid-1800’s, there was a famous British pastor by the name of Charles Spurgeon. Even today his sermons and books are widely read and are impacting people on a regular basis.

At one point in his ministry, some American pastors found out about his ministry and wanted to learn more about it. After some correspondence, they determined a time when they could travel to England and see what the secret sauce was to a ministry as effective as Spurgeon’s. You see, Spurgeon’s ministry was characterized by the Gospel. People were getting saved left and right, the church was growing, the community was being radically changed and cared for, orphans were being loved, the Word was being preached, and Christians were growing in their faith.

It’s no wonder these American pastors wanted to learn more about how to replicate Spurgeon’s ministry in America! But what they discovered was that the secret wasn’t really a secret at all.

As they walked with Spurgeon through his church on a Sunday morning, these American pastors were asking him tons of questions. Finally they asked, “What is the secret to how your ministry has succeeded?” Spurgeon began to lead them down into the basement of the church talking about how much this one part of his ministry could impact their own. He was baiting them and they were completely hooked—eager to learn what the secret was. “Now behind this door is the secret to everything you see here. Without this, you cannot replicate what God is doing here in London.”

Spurgeon opened the door to reveal what the secret was. And to the chagrin of the American pastors, there were no tricks, nothing unique, nothing special, nothing earth shattering. Instead, what Spurgeon showed them was a group of about 400 people on their knees pouring out their hearts before God in prayer for their fellow Christians.

As we continue the series, “Praying with Paul,” today we are going to be in Colossians 1. And the title for today’s sermon is “How to Pray for Fellow Christians.” At the beginning of this letter to the Colossians, Paul once again details an important part of his own prayer life. And that prayer serves as an example for us in our prayer lives. Today we will ask the question, “How do we pray for Fellow Christians?” And what we will see from the passage today is that “We should pray for fellow Christians.”

BIG IDEA: We should pray for fellow Christians.

After the sermon today, we are going to spend more time in prayer for one another. The sermon today will be split up into two chunks. First, we look at three characteristics of Paul’s prayer life.

Three Characteristics of Prayer

From there, we will look at the content of Paul’s prayer. What should we pray for fellow Christians?

So let’s jump into Colossians 1 starting in verse three.

From the start of the passage, Paul and Timothy express their gratitude to God for the Colossian Church. Colossians 1:3 reads, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.” From the start of the passage, Paul and Timothy express their gratitude to God for the Colossian Church. What’s amazing about this for me is that Paul had never met the Colossians. If you go through the entire ministry of Paul, it appears that he never visited Colosse. He didn’t plant the church. He didn’t visit them. He didn’t even pass through the town on any of his journeys. And yet, he always thanks God when he prays for this church.

How incredible is that? Paul did not know these people, and yet he thanked God for them regularly. When it says “always,” the verse is referring to the regularity of Paul and Timothy’s prayer life. We don’t know all the details about Paul’s prayer life. Perhaps he maintained the Jewish practice of praying three times a day, or perhaps he used the long hours of travel and of his work to hold his churches before God in prayer.

So when we are praying for fellow Christians, we should seek to be regular in the way we do this. That’s the first characteristic of prayer.

1. Prayer should be regular (v. 3).

Prayer time should be regular and should include prayer for other people. This can look a number of different ways. There are people who pray in the morning and in the evening. A couple examples in my own life is that I have recurring reminders set on my phone. On a daily basis I remind myself to stop and pray at 8am, noon, and 5pm. On Sunday mornings I will pray for different pastors and let them know that I am praying for them.

There are any number of ways to make your prayer time regular. Think through your schedule and determine when you can set aside some time for intentional prayer. Parents, a great way to do this is by praying with your kids every night before bed. As you are putting them down, add a time of prayer for them and for others into your bedtime routine. This will help with regularity in your life and theirs.

So in this first verse, we see that Paul’s prayers were regular even though he didn’t know the Colossian Church personally. So what did he pray for them? Why did he devote so much of his time to praying for people he had never met? The passage continues in verse four. Paul says, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. It is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace.”

Paul thanks God for the Colossian Church because of (1) their faith in Jesus Christ, (2) their love for others, and (3) because of the hope they know awaits them in heaven. Paul thanks God for them because of their faith, hope, and love. As such, prayer should also be characterized by totality.

2. Prayer should be total (vv. 4-6).

My wife and I planted our first garden ever this year. Three tomato plants and two peppers. My favorite plant that we are growing is my jalapenos. I love Jalapenos. They are amazing. They go with most food. They add some fantastic flavor to almost any food. However, the fruit is only growing because the rest of the plant has been growing. If the seed had not been planted, if the sprout had not been cultivated, if the plant had not been watered and in the sun, the jalapeno would be a dream. And what Paul does with the faith, hope, and love here in the passage is equate these to fruit. They are only present because the Gospel is growing.

As the gospel grows in the lives of God’s people, faith is strengthened and love is poured out generously. This is all fueled by the hope that Christians look forward to. What enables Christians to continue in the faith? The hope of what is to come. What presses us further into love for other believers? The hope of heaven.

Like a seed that grows, the gospel affected every aspect of the Colossian church. And it is the growth of the Gospel that Paul takes notice of. The Gospel affected the Colossians in total. So the prayer of Paul reflected that totality in his thanksgiving for the church.

This is important because our prayers are oftentimes partial. When we ask how we can pray for someone, we get requests about health, difficulty, or adversity. These prayer requests are good, but they are not the total picture. When we pray for other believers, we should look more at the Gospel than we do at them. Our prayers should primarily be based on growth in faith, hope, and love. As we pray for fellow Christians, we should thank God for how he has worked, is working, and will continue to work in their lives.

This gospel should do for us what it did for the Colossians—affect them in total. Prayer for one another should reflect this totality.

What we also see from these verses, however, is that Prayer should also be informed.

3. Prayer should be informed (vv. 7-8).

Colossians 1:7-8 say, “You learned this from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has told us about your love in the Spirit.”

Epaphras was a convert of Paul’s. After Paul continued in his missionary journey and went to a different town, the Gospel seed had been planted in Epaphras. That gospel seed grew in Epaphras into a fruitful plant. As he looked around his city he started to realize that there were more cities nearby that had not yet been reached with the gospel. So Epaphras took it upon himself to go and preach to the Colossians. And what a reception there was! People began to give there lives to Christ left and right. The gospel itself was bearing fruit and growing.

But Paul had no clue that this was going on. It wasn’t until Epaphras brought news of this to Paul that he was able to rejoice in thankful prayer for the Colossians. This is how it should also be for us. We can’t pray for people that we don’t know about. So when we pray for other Christians, we have to know what is going on in their lives. This does not, however, mean that we need to know everything about someone in order to pray for them.

And when we take a step back and look at these verses all together, in one sense, we see the Colossian church. In another sense, we see it entirely about God. It’s about his gospel and what he’s done. And it is on that basis that we pray for others. We pray regularly because in Christ we are always acceptable before God and because the needs of other Christians are always present. Our prayers are total because the gospel affects every aspect of life—past, present, future. Our prayers are informed because the gospel is universal, because it affects all of us in the same way.

From here, Paul moves on to the content of his prayer.

The Content of Prayer (vv. 9-14)

And so we ask the question, What should we pray for fellow Christians? Too often, our prayer is relegated to relief from personal hardship or difficulty. These are good and important things to pray for, but they are not all that we should pray for. What else should we for? What should the content of our prayers be for fellow Christians? We will quickly see five requests that we should ask God for on behalf of fellow Christians.

First, we read this in Colossians 1:9: “For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,”

The first request is that we should, “Pray that they may know and live God’s will.”

1. Pray that they may know and live God’s will (v. 9).

So what is God’s will? How do we determine God’s will?

When we think of God’s will, we often think of the big questions: Who should I date? Who should I marry? What job should I take? What college should I go to? When should I retire? How many kids should I have? While this is part of what the will of God is for your life, it is not the thrust of this passage.

God’s will is not a spiritual easter egg. It’s not something that God hides from us and tries to make us find. God’s will is not something that can be learned like anything else. Instead, God’s will is something that he freely gives to us. Divine truth must be revealed! And he reveals it to us in his word.

This will is revealed to us through wisdom and spiritual understanding. In other words, it is more than teaching us the right way to act, it is understanding all of what God has saved us for in Christ. As such, it is knowledge of God himself. To know God is to know God’s will.

As we grow up in spiritual understanding, as we learn more about who God is, we will begin to think coherently and practically as well. This is where wisdom comes in. We don’t just learn what the right thing is to do. We also learn how to do it.

Over this past year, I had a diagnosis of skin cancer that I needed to deal with. Fortunately, my doctor had not only ever read books about performing surgery. At some point, he had to observe surgery being done, shadow another surgeon, practice and practice and practice different facets of the surgery. As he gained knowledge from the books, he became more equipped for surgery. As he practiced doing surgery, however, he came to a better and deeper understanding of what those books were talking about. There was a symbiotic relationship between the two. One affected the other.

This is what the will of God is like as well. We study God in his Word and come to an understanding of who he is and what he wants us to do. Then, we act. The Word does not return void. We are not hearers only, but doers of it. As we walk in the shoes of Christ, we learn more about who he is. This then pushes us to know God more deeply in his Word which compels to act in ways that are pleasing to him. Which is where the passage now turns Paul prays that the Colossians may please God.

2. Pray that they may please God (v. 10a).

Paul’s prayer was goal-oriented. It was not simply that the Colossians would know God’s will, but that intimate knowledge of God’s will result in holy living characterized by the Gospel.

Colossians 1:9-10 say, “For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him”

Being controlled by God’s will should press us into living differently, into acting in ways that we would not otherwise act, into holiness when previously we would only live for ourselves.

So as we pray for fellow Christians, we must pray for their lives to be pleasing to God. What does that look like though? the rest of the passage gives the answer: First, the end of verse explains this as “bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.”

3. Pray that they may bear fruit and grow in knowledge (v. 10b).

This same language is used earlier in the passage when Paul is discussing the work of the Gospel as bearing fruit and growing all over the world. It is no coincidence that he repeats this metaphor when talking about living a life pleasing to God. Living a life pleasing to God is only done through the Gospel. More than that, it is accomplished in verse ten through growing in the knowledge of God. This is knowledge gained both from study of the word and acts of Christlike service. In this way, bearing fruit and growing in knowledge are synonymous. They are two sides of the same coin. Because the Gospel bears fruit and grows, so can believers in the Gospel.

Verse 11 continues by addressing difficult in times of life as well. And for these times of difficulty, we should pray for strength.

4. Pray that they may be strengthened for difficulty (v. 11).

Colossians 1:11 says, “being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience,”

As we pray for fellow Christians, we must not forget that difficult times will come into their lives. Whether they are currently going through a difficult time or are unaware of the one that is coming to them, we must pray that God will strengthen them with his power and might by granting them endurance and patience. Endurance carries the idea of being able to bear up under difficult circumstances. Patience is the manner in which we bear up under these circumstances.

Endurance is the ability to make it through. Patience is not losing our heads and emotions in the middle of it. This can only be accomplished through God’s power. And it is for that that we pray for other Christians.

Finally, in the last few verses, we see the last request we should pray for. We should...

5. Pray that they may thank God for salvation (vv. 12-14).

We read the end of this prayer in Colossians 1:12-14, “giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Thankfulness is the glue that holds all of this together. All of the requests that we have looked at are confirmed and ratified in the last one. As we thank God for salvation, we grow in the knowledge and application of God’s wIll, we please God, we bear fruit and grow in the knowledge of God, and we are strengthened for difficulty. All of these requests are interdependent and flow out of gratitude to God for what he has done. And what has he done for us?

He has enabled us to presently share in the saints’ inheritance. The reality of what we will be in eternity is applied to us now because of what Christ has done for us. We share in the inheritance of Christ now because we are no longer bound by sin. Christ is our head. Christ is our strength. Christ is the revelation of God. He has rescued us from sin. He has given us his righteousness. He has redeemed us. He has forgiven us. It is all Christ. Only Christ. Always Christ. Nothing we have done. Only his mercy. And for that we thank God. And we thank God for doing that in the lives of those around us.

And all of this goes back to the reality that this passage presents for us. If we want to pattern our lives after the Apostle Paul, for that matter—if we want to pattern our lives after Jesus, we should pray for fellow Christians.

BIG IDEA: We should pray for fellow Christians.

This will look different for each of us and will change as we move from season to season in life. So instead of providing you with a template for how to do pray for fellow Christians, I want to conclude our time today by giving you an example of some people at Soteria who embody this.

There are two ladies in the church who regularly, faithfully, consistently come in to the church on Thursday mornings. Nothing else is going on at the church, there’s no fanfare. Yet they faithfully come into the church and walk through every single room of the building.

As they walk, they pray together for our church. As they walk through the student’s wing, they pray for God to work mightily in the lives of the students at Soteria. As they walk through the kid’s wing, they pray for God to grow those children into the image of Christ. As they walk through this room, they pray that God’s Word will work effectively in the hearts and minds of fellow Christians. As they walk through classrooms they pray that people will grow in their knowledge of God in ways that transform how they live for him.

It is a joy to see them praying for our church every single week. So as we continue in the service today, I want you to begin to think through how you can incorporate prayer for fellow Christians into your own life.

Take a minute to pull out a connect card, you can grab them from the back of the pew in front of you or fill out a digital one by scanning the QR code. Every week, the pastoral team prays for any requests you might have. And for next steps this week, please write down any prayer requests that you might have. We want to pray for you. We want to be informed in how we pray for you. So write down some prayer requests that we can pray for.

We want to pray for you because we should pray for fellow Christians. What are some ways that you can pray for fellow Christians in the week ahead?

Benediction/Prayer Time #3

Pray that they may know and live God’s will.

Pray that they may please God.

Pray that they may bear fruit and grow in knowledge.

Pray that they may be strengthened for difficulty.

Pray that they may thank God for salvation.

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