Published: April 12, 2026 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 91 | Scripture: Romans 15:30-33
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Turn with me please to Romans chapter 15 as we finish out this chapter with the third benediction of Paul's closing chapters in this letter. We have one more, the fourth benediction in chapter
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16. Today we'll be looking at verses 30 through 33. I'd like to read those and ask Ariel if we pray for the ministry of the word this morning. Romans chapter 15 beginning in verse 30.
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Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may
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be delivered from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints, so that I may
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come to you in joy by the will of God, and find refreshing rest in your company. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Let us pray.
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Heavenly Father, we gather. We ask also that we would gather in his joy and will your will.
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Pray that the spirit would work in our hearts today all the time. We know that spirit has been given taught this morning by your
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victorious son. victorious son. I pray now that the work of your servant would be blessed through the spirit to our spirits all in you. Christ's name we
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pray. Amen. Over the years I've learned that there are two things that Calvinists do not believe in. We do not believe in
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evangelism and we do not believe in prayer. And yet during those years, as I have been told this by my learned Armenian friends and family, I've always
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wondered um why Armenians ask God to save their loved ones. What do they want God to do?
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Do they want God to overturn their loved ones free will? What is it that we ask when we ask God what what is it we're looking for God to
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We know that the sinner is dead in his trespass and sin. Do you want God to make him alive together with Christ? We know that Jesus said that you must be
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born again. born again. Do you want God to take out his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh? Many of our loved ones have been long
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stubborn in unbelief. Do we want God to make him willing in the day of his power?
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Don't look now, but you're praying very much like a Calvinist. When you ask God in prayer to intervene in the life of an unbeliever and to save
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him, do you expect God to return in response and say, "I'm I'm sorry. I've I've done all that I can. I've sent my son. My son died on the cross. He rose
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from the dead. What else can I do? It's up to you now, right? It's up to your free will."
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Frankly, I think there's a great deal of of confidence and expectation when a reformed believer prays because he is seeking the face of an
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omnipotent and sovereign God. And yes, the one who knows those who are his and yes, the one who has chosen his from before the foundation of the world. And
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yet, as I said, I think we alone are able to pray with great confidence and great expectation. great expectation. We have confidence because we know that
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all whom the father has given the son will come to him. So, we have every reason to believe that our prayers first of all are according to the will of God
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and secondly they will therefore be answered. And we have expectation because we know that the instrument of salvation is the gospel itself which is
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the power of God into sal salvation not any particular person's persuasiveness not evidence that demands a verdict and
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that's a very catchy title some of you remember the two volume work by Josh McDow very interesting things in that book but have you not experienced that manqu Mankind is quite capable of not
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giving a verdict when demanded. When faced with what appear to be irrefutable facts, man has an uncanny ability to ignore them and not give a
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verdict or having given a verdict, it's not the one that we think they should give. You cannot argue a person into the kingdom. They must be born again.
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And there is only one power in the universe that is capable of doing that. And yet if God has predetermined and predestined whatsoever comes to pass,
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what does prayer do? What what can prayer do? I I reject the notion that a reformed believer does not believe in prayer or
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evangelism. and and and that does not take away however the conundrum. If we believe in a sovereign God who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and
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the end, whose will cannot be thwarted and who will and has ordained whatsoever comes to pass. Have you ever wondered why pray? This is the canard. This is
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the straw man that the Armenian sets up that if God has chosen those who will be his, why bother evangelizing? If God has established through his will whatsoever comes to pass, why bother praying? These
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are valid questions. They don't necessarily, and in fact, I don't believe at all that they lead to the answer that the Armenian gives. And I think that answer is betrayed by how
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the Armenian prays to begin with. So, what is it that prayer does? Recently, there was a church marquee on the church that we drive by every day.
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Um, and their marquee is um, delightful to us, whatever they put up there because it gives us occasion to laugh. But this one was a simple one. It just said, "Prayer works."
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And it must because they took it down a few weeks later. We don't know what it worked. We don't know what happened, but it's not there anymore. So, it must have worked. But did prayer work for Paul? In
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this passage, prayer is asking him not just to pray for him, but to strive together with him in their prayers to God on his behalf that he might be
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delivered from those who are disobedient in Judea. Was he delivered from the disobedient in Judea? Well, we know that he did make it to
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Rome in chains. in chains. things did not go as he had hoped in Jerusalem. And in fact, he had to pull the Roman citizen card
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citizen card in order to make it even to Rome. So, were his prayers answered? Or or maybe we could say, "Oh, you know what? The people weren't praying for
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him. That was the problem. that God had intended to deliver him from his enemies in Judea, but there weren't enough people praying a and
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therefore he wasn't delivered from his adversaries. In fact, he was basically handed over to them. And if you remember the narrative in Acts, he was almost torn apart by them.
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And so what happened here? Have Have you ever wondered that? What does prayer do? What what is
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prayer? It's kind of a multiple choice. Is it a magical force magnified by the number of people praying? Now, be honest.
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Some of us think that. Some of us think that the more people pray, the more likely the prayer will come about. come about. And and I would challenge you if you do think that, what does that say about
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God? Is he hard of hearing or just doesn't want to be annoyed? So is it is it that magical power at magnified by num the number of people praying? B is it an omnipotent influence
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that changes God's mind? I is God at any time not sure what he's going to do in a circumstance and he's looking for his people through
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their prayers to help him make up his mind. And and I've I've often, you know, thought about the the um the dichotomy
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of a Christian farmer and a Christian picnicer.
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One of them is praying for a sunny day and the other's praying for rain. Who gets it? Now, I guess God is able to rain on the farm and not on the picnic.
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But again, how how do you consider prayer? Do you consider prayer to be an omnipotent force that can actually change the mind of God so that he does something that he had not from eternity
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past planned on doing? Is that what prayer is to you? C. Is it a psychological balm that calms anxious minds
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or sav's guilty consciences? Or D, Or D, is it something that we do when we can't do anything practical?
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Is it something that we fall back to when we don't have any solution to hand? Well, I'll I'll pray for you because I don't know what else to do. Is it a
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matter of last resort or E? or E? None of the above.
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So, get your number two pencils out. It's E. But I wish I could then stand up here in the remainder of of today's sermon and tell you what prayer is.
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And I'm still working on that. And I think you all are still working on that. And and I think we'll continue to work on that until we appear before the Lord
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and find out what our prayers meant that they were in fact incense that ascended into the nostrils of God and were e either a pleasing aroma or a foul one.
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So what is prayer? Well, I think what I can present to you first, I can pre present to you the biblical context of prayer, especially here in Romans 15,
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but also elsewhere in Paul's letter. First of all, the context of the prayer of God's people is warfare. Spiritual warfare.
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Spiritual warfare. If we do not understand the context of biblical prayer as well as biblical praise, then there's little chance we're going to get either one of them right. Paul is going to Jerusalem and he knows
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that he has many enemies there in Judea. And I don't think he was limiting that to the unbelieving Jews. He knew from experience that he had
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opponents among the church in Judea who believed that he had gone too far in his ministry to the Gentiles and had blasphemed the name if not of God at
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least of Moses. And so he knew he was going right into the the lion's mouth as he was returning to Judea. That's why he's asking them, "Oh no, pray for me. I've got a you
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know, I've got a I've got a flight to Jerusalem. Would you give me Would you pray for me?" No. Would you strive in prayer with me to God for me?
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Because I know where I'm going into what a maelstrom of jealousy and hatred I am going into what warfare I am entering.
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Will you pray for me? The context we we we cannot get it right if we do not realize the reason that God has given us
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prayer. Ephesians 6, Paul says, "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is
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the word of God, with all prayer and petitions, pray at all times in the spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert with all
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perseverance and petition for all the saints." You know the chapter, right? You you've known it since Sunday school. This is the armor chapter. Okay. The
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context of what Paul says here is earlier in that chapter. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against
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the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
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when at all times with all perseverance with all petitions praying at all times for the saints.
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That's the context of prayer. It It's not our health. It's not our wealth. It's not our marriage. It's not our job.
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It's the victory of Christ's kingdom over the forces of darkness. We've lost sight of that. The devil has scored an incredible victory in the modern church
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modern church because it is at ease. Some of you remember the Christian singer Keith Green. While I
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While I don't agree with his theology, which might have improved had he had the Lord granted him further years. He died very young. But I do agree with his with
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his diagnosis of the modern church. We're asleep in the light. The forces of darkness rejoice.
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I think they rejoice. I think the devil rejoices at the prayers of God's people. I think he does. I think he hears them and say, "Oh my word, I got them. I got
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them right where I want them." Because not one of them is fighting the battle. They have all gone to the sidelines. They have all laid their armor down. They've taken off the helmet of salvation. And some of them wouldn't
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recognize the sword of the spirit, the word of God, if I hit them on the head with it. And how does he know that? He just has to listen to the prayers of the
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So the context of prayer is warfare. And that is what Paul is saying. It it's it's not it's not that we have enemies of our faith and of our Lord. That that's that's true. But
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but it's more than that. We are in enemy territory. We're behind the lines.
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These enemies are are not just outside the doors of the church either. They're inside. Paul warns the elders of Ephesus that after his departure among them among the elders
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wolves would come in seeking to devour the flock. Be on your guard when? At all times with all perseverance
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with all petitions at all times praying in the spirit because we are in enemy territory. And we And we in the name of the love of God
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fraternize with the enemy. We befriend and fratonize those who blaspheme our God and our Lord.
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This morning, Mark referred to Matthew 12 when Jesus defends himself establishing also the sin against the Holy Spirit and
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other controversial topics. He says, "He that is not with me is against me, and those you do not gather to me scatter
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abroad. But where do your loyalty loyalties Frankly to Paul as he speaks of
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the men like Deeus, Alexander, several others in First Timothy whose name I forget.
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Those who departed from the Lord departed from Paul.
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What fellowship has Christ with an unbeliever? 2 Corinthians 6.
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Even the Jews, Paul's countrymen says, for the sake of the gospel, they are your enemies. your enemies. Now, keep in mind, as I have said earlier, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The weapons of our warfare are prayer.
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are prayer. And yes, we do pray that that unbelieving person would become a believer or that apostate would return to the faith that they once professed.
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But in the meantime,
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And the tolerant and loving and really very weakwilled attitude that we have in the modern world is doing them no good at all. And it is in my opinion blaspheming the name of God among the
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If he is our Lord then he deserves our undying loyalty. if he is our Lord. As the Psalmist says, as David says, "I
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hate those who hate thee, O Lord."
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warfare. The military metaphor is very common in Paul's letters. Paul's letters. He talks about in Ephesians 6 and elsewhere, he talks about the discipline
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of a soldier, but he's not talking about the discipline of the modern soldier who rarely sees any combat at all. He's
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talking about the re the Roman legionnaire who saw comed all the time because the Roman world was expanding and the Roman
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Empire was subduing the nations. And so he talks about the military metaphor in terms of combat. He says you
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need to be properly dressed. You need to be in your armor. Your head needs to be protected by the salvation God has given you through Jesus Christ. You need to be armed with the word of God. And then he
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says, "Praying at all times." I I I firmly believe that the two things God has armed us with in our warfare, the two things that that constitute our
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divinely powerful weaponry are praise and prayer. and prayer. But do you understand that when you are singing the praises of God,
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you are tearing against the bastions of the powers of wickedness in dark places. You are fighting against the ruler and the prince of the air of this world.
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When you pray, do you pray as if one girded for battle, taking on not your own enemies, not flesh and blood, but the enemies of your
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Lord, who must be your enemies. You may pray for their salvation, but you cannot treat an enemy of your Lord as a friend. That is treachery. That is
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and your best intentions don't cut it because the enemy sees the weakness of your stand. Prayer is a weapon. I can't tell you what it does. I can
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tell you what I think it does. And there are some things that I think prayer does when we pray. I can tell you first of all, it does not change the mind of God. He is not a man that he should repent.
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And even the instances where it says God repented and did not do, it does not mean he changed his mind. In fact, if you read the stories carefully, you'll find that he brought
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about his will, especially in the one who interceded, who interceded, especially in the one who prayed. So, one thing that prayer does
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is it calls forth reinforcements. And we have some biblical examples. For example, Daniel earnestly praying for weeks on end, not getting an answer
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until finally the Archangel Michael comes to him and he says, "I I've been trying to come to you now all this time since you've been praying, but I have been hindered by the prince of Persia,
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who most interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, Christian, recognized as Satan himself." Satan himself." Now, we don't get answers from archangels, but we do get answers from God's word
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through his Holy Spirit. We don't need visitations from Gabriel or from Michael or from any other archangel or any other angel. We have
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the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which means we have the mind of Christ. Prayer opens up that word to us, giving us reinforcement.
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us reinforcement. Jesus himself when he was in the wilderness 40 days fasting and then that battle that conflict with Satan when he was tempted and and he won he defeated
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him with what? The sword of the spirit the word of God. It says afterwards in Matthew that angels came to minister to
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him. If we continue the military metaphor then prayer calls forth reinforcements. And I think that's the strength of the number of prayers. Not that it's going to change God's mind anymore, but rather
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that we have we develop a oneness of mind. That's reinforcements. Another thing, it's a form of reconnaissance.
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When we pray, if we pray, I think in the way we ought to pray, we're not just looking for the answer to our prayer.
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our prayer. We're surveying the battlefield itself and by the Holy Spirit we gain the wisdom to understand the the nature or as Paul says the schemes of our enemy.
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He says we are not unaware of his schemes. We learn that even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Why not his his minions? So prayer is a form of reconnaissance.
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It teaches us more and more about the enemy against which we strive in prayer.
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I think one of the most important ones, one of the most important aspects of prayer is it aligns us with the commander's battle plan.
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When you pray, do you listen? When you pray, do you pray according to his will? his will? And if you're praying and you don't know his will, are you listening for it?
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I think that prayer is not meant to change God's mind as much as it is to change our own. Prayer is not so much to try to alter his will as it is to align our will with
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his. Which is why we pray not my will but thine be done. Now, honestly, most time we pray that is because we kind of
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half expect that God's not going to give us what we're asking. But I don't think that's what it means. I think fundamentally what it means is that I might know your will, that your
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will be done, that your will be done in me and through me, and that my will will be aligned with your will because your
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will is perfect. Prayer does that. If we're listening while we're talking, but if all we're doing is asking, then we're not in a
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very good place to be listening. But Paul here is praying not only deliverance, he's praying for something that in my
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reading of military history is about the most delightful thing that a soldier in combat ever experiences
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and that is refreshment. He is praying that he might be able to make it to Rome, that he might be
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refreshed. I've said already, you know, when when uh Jesus had finished the temptation and and Satan had departed from him for a time, the angels came and refreshed him.
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The angels came and ministered to him. An echo of the the ravens bringing the food to Elijah and refreshing him. prayer and earnest prayer. The prayer
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the the earnest prayer of a righteous man availth much. Well, one of the things that avails is is refreshment. We come to know better the will of God, which means we come to accept better
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that will as it works itself out. We come to know one another better. And through prayer, we refresh one another. And so refreshment is one of the most
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beautiful of all of prayer's benefits. The promise of the gospel itself came out of Peter's second sermon when he said, "Repent, therefore, and return that your sins may
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be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."
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This was for the apostles. This was for us as well. Refreshing, I think, most often does take the form of believers striving together for the faith of the gospel. When believers turn their hearts to the
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Lord Jesus Christ and to his glory, to the spread of the gospel, to the life of holiness in the community of God's people, I think there is
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refreshment. There is a refreshing that the Holy Spirit uniformly because he dwells in all believers uniformly pours out over an anxious people. A people who
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is scared. A people that is ner nervous. A people again anxious because it dwells in this present darkness. It dwells in enemy territory.
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It dwells behind the lines of someone that not one of us would want to stand up against alone.
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That that is what I think prayer, biblical prayer is. Paul was able to write in his letters of the hardships and the battles and the
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conflicts that he both underwent and was looking forward to. But I think the writing, the strokes of
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his pen that gave him the most satisfaction were passages like the seventh verse of Phileiman. For I have come to have much joy and
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comfort in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed been refreshed through you, brother.
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or in Romans earlier in chapter 1 and I think that is exactly what he's referring to here toward the end of his letter. He says that is that I may be
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encouraged together with you while among you each of us by the others faith both yours and mine. When we stand beside one another for the faith of the gospel of
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Jesus Christ we encourage one another in a way that is magnified by the Holy Spirit. We refresh one another. We strengthen one another. We dip our rod,
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our staff into the honey of God's word and our eyes brighten. That's what prayer does. That's spiritual warfare according to
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divinely powerful weapons and it cannot be overcome. It cannot be conquered. It is divinely powerful. Prayer and praise
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are omnipotent. That is what we have at our behest. That is what we have to hand for our battle.
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But as I said earlier, if we don't even recognize that we're in a battle, then we're not likely to wield our weapons in any way effectively.
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Paul is anticipating conflict in Judea and Jerusalem and that is exactly what he will encounter. He will not be disappointed in his expectation. He knew that as he says all who wish to live godly in Christ will suffer perse
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persecution. He would have been surprised otherwise. Jesus says in the biatitudes that you should you should be concerned when all men speak well of you and yet blessed
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are those who are persecuted for my name's sake. name's sake. So there there's no evidence in the scriptures that we should expect a nice peaceful
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walk forward until the day we die but rather that we should anticipate conflict. If we desire to live godly in Christ, we should expect persecution.
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We should expect apostasy within the body. We should expect abandonment by those who once professed faith in Jesus Christ. We should expect blasphemy from
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the mouths of those who are closest to us. This is all part of the warfare that we are a part of. This is all part of the
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enemy territory in which we dwell. We are mercenaries. are mercenaries. We are an embedded encampment of God's people. A new humanity, a new creation
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in the midst of the old. We are light, children of light in the midst of a perverse and dark generation. That is what we are. But we have weapons that are so much
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more powerful than anything that the arsenal of the United States can put together. praise of Almighty God and prayer to omnipotent God. And so in the
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midst of all of this warfare talk of conflict of the anticipation of opposition in Judea, we have the third benediction, Paul says very simply,
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may the God of peace, may the God of peace be with you all because the God of peace is with us always. Let us pray.
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Father, we ask as the disciples asked, teach us to pray. We are not so bold as to ask what prayer does,
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the mechanics of prayer. As you hear our prayers, we know that you are eternal God. You know the end from the beginning. You
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do not change your mind. And yet you bid us to pray. You bid us to strive in
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And so we we don't ask what does that do in your mind, but rather what may it do in ours? in ours? Help us to understand the enemy terrain in which we live. Help us to to to pray
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that every thought might be taken captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. and help us to receive those times of refreshing that come not only from your throne by the Holy Spirit, but
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also from your bre from our brethren as we lift one another up, striving with one mind for the faith of the gospel, striving in prayer for the faith of the
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gospel, for the for the glory of the gospel, for the spread of the gospel, for the success of the gospel, for the glory of Jesus Christ. For we ask these
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things in his name. Amen. Please stand for the benediction from 1 Timothy chapter 6. More of a doxology.
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Paul writes, "He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable
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light, whom no man has seen nor can see. To him To him be honor and eternal dominion.