Sermon Tone Analysis

*Kingdom Praying - The Prayers of Paul*/ \\ *  */

2 Corinthians 1:8-11; Romans 15:5-6,13

January 25, 2009

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In ”Experiencing God Day-by-Day, Henry Blackaby tells us to be “ Steadfast in Your Resolve”.

He begins by quoting Luke 9:51* */When the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem/

It is easy to become distracted in the Christian life!

The moment you understand what God wants you to do, it will seem as though everyone around you requires your time and attention!

When the time came for Jesus to go to the cross, He “set His face” toward Jerusalem, so that nothing would prevent Him from accomplishing His Father's will.

So obvious was His resolve to go to Jerusalem that the Samaritans, who hated the Jews, rejected Him because they recognized that He was a Jew traveling through their village to the hated city of Jerusalem.

Jesus determined not to digress from His mission, but He took time to minister to many people along His way.

He sent out seventy disciples into the surrounding towns (Luke 10:1).

He healed lepers (Luke 17:11–19).

He cured a man of dropsy (Luke 14:1–4).

He brought salvation to the home of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1–10).

He continued to teach His disciples (Luke 15:1–32).

Jesus did not refuse to minister to others as He went to Calvary, but ultimately He refused to be deterred from His Father's will.

If you know what God wants you to do, set your sights resolutely toward that goal with full determination to accomplish it (Prov.

4:25).

Your resolve to go where God is leading ought to be evident to those around you.

Beware of becoming so sidetracked by the opportunities around you that you lose sight of God's ultimate goal for you.

Do not succumb to the temptation to delay your obedience or to discard it altogether.

Once you have received a clear assignment from God, your response should be unwavering obedience.

So, where do you begin being steadfast in your resolve?

One good way would be to look at the Apostle Paul.

He gives an interesting picture of prayer in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11.

He talks to the Corinthian believers about all the hardships he has been through on the missionary trip which he and his team have taken.

He says: /"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.

We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.

Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.

But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us."

//The team had sensed that death could come to them at any moment.

But then he goes on to say: "On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.

Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many."/

Here Paul was not talking about prayer in a casual way, not simply stating that when he was on this missionary journey he knew that some people were back home praying and that gave him comfort.

No!

He believed that there was a battle going on in the heavenlies which required a different kind of praying, prayer like that spoken of in Matthew 11:12: /"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it."

/The way /"forceful men lay hold" /of the kingdom, overcoming the gates of hell, is through prayer.

Paul believed forceful men among the Corinthian believers were laying hold of the battle through prayer and that prayer had a profound impact on what was happening!

Paul, when encouraging people to join in prayer, writes in Romans 15:30/: "I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me."/

Paul needed prayer warriors and so do we!

Paul uses another image in Colossians 4:12.

Here he was talking about a friend whom the Colossians knew, Epaphras: /"Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings.

He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured."

/If we were wanting people to pray for us, how many would want that kind of prayer: "…join me in my struggle," "…wrestling in prayer."/

/Wrestling is hard work.

The Apostle Paul prayed differently than most of us pray in church prayer, didn’t he?

We don’t see much wrestling in prayer going on, do we?

The way most believers are praying is what I call, "little answerables."

Most of us are praying for the everyday "fix it" needs of our life.

Life may be going along all right.

Something happens to upset it, and we want to pray that away and get back to normal.

As Western believers, many of us have this sense of entitlement that for the believer, life should be good.

Much of the prayer efforts of any given church, and of my own life as well, are probably "fix it" prayers.

"Get this turned around, God," "change this so they can be free of that pain or of that illness, or so this financial need can be taken care of."

Most of the time prayers offered for such situations are made out of love for the one who requested prayer.

Because we want to show love for them we pray as they request.

We pray the obvious – not thinking about what God wants to do through this situation.

Nothing is wrong with people asking for these needs, and nothing is wrong with people praying for them.

It is a way to show love to the body.

But most of the time we don’t pray about the bigger kingdom things.

We need to focus a greater portion of our prayer times on kingdom kind of things.

How can we move our prayers to become more kingdom focused?

What is a kingdom prayer?

This is what we’re going to focus on this morning.

We’re going to follow Paul to learn how to pray kingdom prayers.

And, by the time I’m finished, I hope you will know what kingdom praying is all about.

First, let’s define a kingdom prayer.

A kingdom prayer is something that has lasting value, eternal value, and importance in the kingdom of God.

For example, praying for someone’s salvation.

God wishes that none should perish (2Pet 3:9).

For this reason, we should be wrestling in prayer for the lost, or for a certain country to be open for the Gospel, or for opportunities to spread the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection to our unsaved family and friends and neighbors.

If you don’t feel a real heavy burden for the lost, then you should be wrestling in prayer that God would give you that burden.

Kingdom prayers have etrernal value.

Second, we can also pray kingdom prayers in "little answerable" situations.

We are praying a kingdom prayer when we know we are praying in God’s will.

In Romans 8:26-27 we have the Holy Spirit’s role in prayer.

It says that when we don’t know what to pray for, "the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will."/

/Sometimes I am so focused on what I want to see God doing that I miss what God wants.

The Holy Spirit helps me to pray according to the will of God.

Kingdom prayers are in God’s will.

Thy will be done.

Thy kingdom come!

(Matt 6:10) That’s kingdom praying – wanting God’s will done on earth as it in heaven!

To help us focus more on kingdom things, let us look at some of Paul’s prayers.

They can be a model for us.

Paul had a lot of people under his care with needs.

He had started churches throughout Asia Minor and people were being persecuted for their faith.

There are twenty-one places in Scripture where Paul is asking God to do something, but in all of the prayers of Paul, I seldom see Paul praying for a specific need for a specific person.

I would be surprised if Paul never prayed for answers to specific personal needs, but we do not see that in Scripture.

When Paul lived it would be difficult to keep up with praying specific needs for specific people because communication was not what it is today.

It could take a month or more to get a word from a church a distance away and to know what is happening.

In Second Corinthians 12 Paul did pray something very specific for himself.

He prayed that the "thorn" in his flesh would be removed.

We do not know what it was, some theologian conjecture it was his failing eyesight.

Paul felt it was something that was hindering his ministry, keeping him from being as effective as he could be, and so he asked God to remove it.

What did God say?

He said, /"My grace is sufficient for you"/ (v.

9).

God would get greater glory by that “thorn” being in Paul’s life with God giving him the enablement to overcome it and to function with it.

Many believers observed "The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church."