WEBVTT 00:00:04.107 --> 00:00:08.335 How many of you have read the book Case for Christ by a guy named Lee Strobel? 00:00:08.335 --> 00:00:09.404 How many of you read that book? 00:00:09.404 --> 00:00:11.787 It's a fairly common book that's been out for quite a while. 00:00:11.787 --> 00:00:21.585 It is a true story of a man who did not know Jesus was not a believer, was a devout atheist if you could call it an atheist devout. 00:00:21.585 --> 00:00:37.753 And his wife came to Christ and that really miffed him, and so he was an investigative research journalist and he said I'm going to set out to disprove Jesus Christ. 00:00:37.753 --> 00:00:39.786 That's what I'm going to do. 00:00:39.786 --> 00:00:49.808 And so he began to apply all of the different techniques to go through and try to disprove that Jesus was an actual man that lived and died and was resurrected. 00:00:49.808 --> 00:00:53.966 Interesting enough, he couldn't. 00:00:53.966 --> 00:01:02.985 And it was a really powerful book and it's been used to really bring Christ to a lot of people, a lot of people to Christ. 00:01:03.860 --> 00:01:18.390 But there was a movie made out of it a few years back, called by the same name, case for Christ, and there's a really powerful scene at the end of this movie where he has exhausted all his ability to try to disprove and he's finally giving in. 00:01:18.390 --> 00:01:25.114 He's giving in and so he comes home and remember his wife had already become a Christian. 00:01:25.114 --> 00:01:32.786 And he comes home and he comes in and she's in the living room and he sits down on the couch beside her and he said I give up. 00:01:32.786 --> 00:01:42.706 And of course, she's overwhelmed because she's been praying for him all this time, right, and he's like I give up. 00:01:42.706 --> 00:01:47.001 He's real, he did live, he did die. 00:01:47.001 --> 00:01:50.865 And he said what do I do now? 00:01:50.865 --> 00:01:55.007 Now, what's so beautiful about that phrase what do I do now? 00:01:55.007 --> 00:02:06.748 Is it sounds an awful lot like Acts 2, when Peter preaches that powerful sermon on Pentecost and they said our hearts are torn. 00:02:06.748 --> 00:02:08.467 What do we do now? 00:02:08.467 --> 00:02:10.044 I mean, what do we do? 00:02:10.044 --> 00:02:11.628 And what did he say? 00:02:11.628 --> 00:02:14.901 He said repent and be baptized, and it was. 00:02:14.901 --> 00:02:19.250 What was so beautiful, though, about the movie part was that she said we pray. 00:02:19.250 --> 00:02:50.969 This man had no background in Christianity, no background in prayer, and so she gets on her knees, he gets on his knees and he says this very awkward but beautiful prayer he encounters God for the first time in prayer, and some of you who may have been like him and had never knew anything about God, who encountered him for the first time like that, you might be able to relate to him. 00:02:50.969 --> 00:02:58.987 I grew up praying because everybody in my church prayed, so that's how we grew up praying, but it was really a powerful moment. 00:03:00.161 --> 00:03:17.751 And so we're in the middle of a sermon series that we've entitled Encounter, in which we're examining the different ways that the early church encountered God, and Acts 2.42 has been our key verse for this, and it's talking about what the early church, the characteristics of the early church and what they did. 00:03:17.751 --> 00:03:30.550 And it says in verse 42, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer, and we've heard messages on three of these things so far. 00:03:30.550 --> 00:03:43.447 Kelly kicked it off by talking about Encountering God through the scripture, which was again a wonderful passage, because I mean, the disciples, the apostles, were teaching from the scripture, scriptures right Through Encountering God through relationships. 00:03:43.447 --> 00:03:56.984 Tyler taught on that, and then last week Tyler taught on baptism and the Lord's Supper, which we could call the sacraments, and so now we're going to be talking about prayer and how the early church encountered God through prayer. 00:03:56.984 --> 00:04:21.430 Now I want to do this by looking at the first chapter in Philippians, and the reason being is because the apostle Paul recorded a prayer for the church in Philippi that was beautiful, and in that prayer there's really four powerful elements of Encountering God through prayer that I want to highlight today and face it. 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:31.307 The apostle Paul was one of those teachers that taught the early church how to pray and he recorded those and therefore we need to go through that. 00:04:31.307 --> 00:04:35.810 So let me just make a couple of comments about this before we dive in. 00:04:35.810 --> 00:04:48.350 So the apostle Paul, he wrote four prison epistles and you probably are familiar with the concept of a prison epistle, right, he was Ephesians, philippians, colossians and Philemon. 00:04:48.350 --> 00:04:52.399 These were the philemon, depending on how you want to pronounce that Now. 00:04:52.399 --> 00:05:03.069 He was in prison in Rome, a pretty bad place, a tough place to be, but it gave him and afforded him time to write these beautiful epistles. 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:18.247 In the first three of these books there are sections that theologians have identified and biblical scholars have identified as Paul's prison prayers, his prison prayers, because what he does is he writes the epistle. 00:05:18.247 --> 00:05:27.185 He begins in this introduction by saying this is basically how I pray for you, and it was just beautiful and these are so rich in meaning. 00:05:27.185 --> 00:05:34.204 And so when I got this assignment, I was looking at verse 42 of Acts 2 and I'm thinking so how did the early church pray? 00:05:34.204 --> 00:05:37.024 Well, I know how they prayed. 00:05:37.024 --> 00:05:46.125 They prayed how they were taught to pray, and if these were the men like Paul that taught them to pray, we know that of course he followed what Jesus taught them to pray. 00:05:46.125 --> 00:05:54.089 But I'm like there's no better place than to look at a prayer that was recorded as a part of a teaching and an encouragement to this church. 00:05:54.089 --> 00:06:01.509 So, with that as a focus, let's just jump into the passage we're going to cover and use as the main text today Philippians 1, verses 3 through 11. 00:06:02.701 --> 00:06:08.247 I thank my God and this is the ESV, by the way, and the first parts worded a little bit awkwardly, but we'll walk through it, you'll understand it. 00:06:08.247 --> 00:06:29.805 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 00:06:29.805 --> 00:07:01.370 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel for God is my witness how I yearn for all, for you, all, with the affection of Christ Jesus, and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. 00:07:01.370 --> 00:07:09.749 And finally, verse 11, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. 00:07:09.749 --> 00:07:16.326 Father, as we come before you now with this precious word opened in front of us, father, we ask that you would speak to us. 00:07:16.326 --> 00:07:23.060 Father, we know that you want a relationship with us and you want us to encounter you through prayer. 00:07:23.060 --> 00:07:27.105 We know that because it's so clear in Scripture. 00:07:27.105 --> 00:07:33.050 We know that because, when Christ died, that the veil of the temple was torn from the top to the bottom. 00:07:33.050 --> 00:07:46.810 You open up this avenue for us, and so, father, as we look at what the apostle Paul taught, may it convict us, father, may it convict us to pray as you intended and how you taught. 00:07:46.810 --> 00:07:51.209 And so we pray this and we ask this in Christ's name, amen. 00:07:51.209 --> 00:08:01.925 So this is a wonderful passage of Scripture and if you're like me and you read this, if you're a teacher, you go okay, there's about a dozen sermons right there in those first 11 verses, right. 00:08:01.925 --> 00:08:08.033 But I read through this and I read through it again and again and again and I began to see themes that came out and I want to focus on them. 00:08:08.033 --> 00:08:15.805 So there's four themes and the first one is thankfulness, and it really begins in that first verse thankfulness. 00:08:15.805 --> 00:08:18.747 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. 00:08:18.747 --> 00:08:24.480 The New Living Translation says this way every time I think of you, I give thanks to God. 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:33.384 Now, the concept of thankfulness and prayer would not have been foreign, especially to the Jewish converts. 00:08:33.384 --> 00:08:40.982 In fact, in many, many Jewish prayers, thankfulness was really the key part of it. 00:08:40.982 --> 00:08:47.288 From the very beginning, jews used to use the term we bless you, lord, in many of their prayers. 00:08:47.288 --> 00:08:54.248 We bless you, lord, and it's not we bless you in the concept that a lot of us might think of in the American church. 00:08:54.248 --> 00:08:57.970 We think about blessing as conferring a blessing on somebody. 00:08:57.970 --> 00:09:10.206 It was very different in the way the Jews use it, because the word bless is the Hebrew word barak and it literally means to kneel and it shows an attitude of worship and an attitude of thankfulness. 00:09:10.206 --> 00:09:12.625 It's kneeling before God. 00:09:12.625 --> 00:09:13.929 We bless you, lord. 00:09:13.929 --> 00:09:23.047 In Deuteronomy 8, verses 11 through 12, moses stated this, and I think this was really important to understand this attitude of thankfulness. 00:09:23.047 --> 00:09:30.946 He says when you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord, your God, for the good land which he has given you. 00:09:30.946 --> 00:09:36.849 Beware this is interesting beware that you do not forget the Lord, your God. 00:09:36.849 --> 00:09:48.128 Thankfulness was a way not to forget who God was, that he was the one that provided everything, and so this attitude of thankfulness was there. 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:56.945 Now, many of the Jewish prayers were memorized prayers and they were used and given and prayed at very specific times. 00:09:56.945 --> 00:10:02.448 How many of you had the blessing to be able to be a part of a Seder service of any kind? 00:10:02.448 --> 00:10:07.644 Neal's been, he's done Seder services here multiple times and I think we're overdue. 00:10:07.644 --> 00:10:08.964 By the way, we need to do another one. 00:10:08.964 --> 00:10:15.701 Neal, we are Well see there, that was prophetic or pathetic. 00:10:15.701 --> 00:10:16.605 I didn't read the schedule. 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:30.407 Well, part of the Seder is the blessing of the different elements, and one is the blessing of the wine, and this is a really good example of this exact concept of how the Jews would bless the Lord. 00:10:30.407 --> 00:10:39.908 And I'm gonna speak to Hebrew, and I got coached a little bit between the first service and now to get some of the words right by Rick and Neal. 00:10:39.908 --> 00:10:40.750 So it's still not. 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:43.323 It's still gonna have a Canadian ring to it, so forgive me for this. 00:10:43.323 --> 00:10:57.764 So the Hebrew blessing goes like this Baruch hatha adonai Elohenu halolom boriya pareh hagafin, should have just given you the mic. 00:10:57.764 --> 00:11:05.907 Not bad, not bad for Canadian right, but it literally means blessed. 00:11:05.907 --> 00:11:10.889 Are you, lord, our God, king of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine? 00:11:10.889 --> 00:11:12.462 And this is. 00:11:12.462 --> 00:11:16.027 It was repeated and they've been saying this prayer for hundreds of years. 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:22.967 So the concept of being thankful in prayer was something the apostle Paul was very familiar with. 00:11:22.967 --> 00:11:25.126 He prayed these prayers. 00:11:25.126 --> 00:11:34.788 I mean again, he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, right, he knew all this right, and it was an expression of thankfulness that he carried over now into his salvation. 00:11:34.788 --> 00:11:36.986 But just think of Paul. 00:11:36.986 --> 00:11:49.325 Remember, he was, you know, taught at the feet of Gimeliel, right, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees and all that stuff, but he didn't have the love of Christ, he didn't have the Holy Spirit. 00:11:49.325 --> 00:12:03.030 And when all that happened to him, when God changed him, can you imagine how his thankfulness, these prayers that he recited more, maybe out of obligation, suddenly now became sincere, powerful prayers of thankfulness. 00:12:03.030 --> 00:12:05.187 It would have been a tremendous change that he went through. 00:12:06.139 --> 00:12:09.205 And Paul's prayer to the Ephesians again, remember the prison pistols. 00:12:09.205 --> 00:12:11.246 Three of them had these prayers that were recorded. 00:12:11.246 --> 00:12:17.168 It echoes this same Thanksgiving In Ephesians one, versus 15 through 16, this is what it says. 00:12:17.168 --> 00:12:28.485 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you and my prayers. 00:12:28.485 --> 00:12:30.182 He's teaching them. 00:12:30.182 --> 00:12:36.370 I pray for you all the time and they should then pray for others the same way. 00:12:36.370 --> 00:12:37.844 So he's teaching that. 00:12:38.299 --> 00:12:40.066 Now, what do we thank God for? 00:12:40.066 --> 00:12:45.249 Well, I don't know if you're like me, but I could pray all the time just thanking God. 00:12:45.249 --> 00:12:46.745 There's so much to be thankful for. 00:12:46.745 --> 00:12:54.145 I mean, I think most importantly I thank him for the calling for opening my mind up, realizing I was dead in my sins. 00:12:54.145 --> 00:12:55.107 I couldn't respond. 00:12:55.107 --> 00:12:56.884 It's not like I heard something go. 00:12:56.884 --> 00:12:57.687 That sounds good. 00:12:57.687 --> 00:13:00.606 He literally had to raise me from the dead. 00:13:00.606 --> 00:13:13.907 Okay, he opened my mind to understand the gospel and then the resulting salvation, that every morning I wake up under this beautiful umbrella of salvation that informs everything I do every day. 00:13:13.907 --> 00:13:16.466 But I also thank God for my family. 00:13:16.466 --> 00:13:22.605 I thank God for my job, I thank God for the provision, I thank him for all the goodness he's done. 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:27.408 But what was Paul thanking God for here? 00:13:27.408 --> 00:13:34.370 Specifically Cause all those are good, but he was thanking God for the church. 00:13:34.370 --> 00:13:37.885 He was thanking God for the church. 00:13:37.885 --> 00:13:42.764 You know, for most of us, if it wasn't for the church, we wouldn't have heard the gospel. 00:13:42.764 --> 00:13:53.390 We wouldn't have heard the gospel, we wouldn't have been transformed the way we were and have been thanking God for the church. 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.068 And as I read this, I began really to be convicted. 00:13:56.068 --> 00:13:56.701 I'll be honest. 00:13:56.701 --> 00:14:06.941 I mean, I pray for the church, but not as much as I need to pray for the church, and I don't pray in thankfulness for the church as much as I should Remember. 00:14:06.941 --> 00:14:10.384 You know, every time we preach we always say the sermon first preached to the preacher. 00:14:10.384 --> 00:14:12.946 Right, and I do really get convicted of this. 00:14:12.946 --> 00:14:20.625 I'm like, and I pray for people in the church, but I just realized there was a passion that he had here that needs to be reflected in me as well. 00:14:20.625 --> 00:14:30.625 He was focused so deeply on the people in the church and you see it all through his writings. 00:14:30.625 --> 00:14:36.927 You know, at the end he names people my name, thank them for this and that he was so focused on that. 00:14:36.927 --> 00:14:56.888 You know, in Ephesians 4, paul was talking about excuse me, ephesians 5, paul's talking about the relationship in a marriage, right, and if you read that section in Ephesians 5, what's really neat is three or four times in that he says like Christ and the church, like Christ and the church, christ in the church. 00:14:57.740 --> 00:15:04.082 And there is a significant anti-church movement that is spread through Christians and we understand why. 00:15:04.082 --> 00:15:06.210 I'll prove why. 00:15:06.210 --> 00:15:10.626 How many people here have ever been hurt or offended by a church? 00:15:10.626 --> 00:15:14.105 Oh no, how many of you are not. 00:15:14.105 --> 00:15:21.355 Being honest, I've had to repent this week of things I've done and said. 00:15:21.355 --> 00:15:33.350 The church we are not perfect and we make mistakes, but yet the church is Christ's body. 00:15:33.350 --> 00:15:35.565 He loves the church. 00:15:35.565 --> 00:15:45.936 When he returns, as Aaron was preaching, when he returns, he's going to, he's going to greet his bride, and who's the bride? 00:15:45.936 --> 00:15:46.788 It's the church. 00:15:46.788 --> 00:15:50.171 The great wedding feast why didn't you say we're going to have a party? 00:15:50.171 --> 00:15:51.750 He said, no, we're going to have a wedding feast. 00:15:52.264 --> 00:16:05.871 Because that is the unity that we have and as a body of Christ, we need in our personal corporate prayers to include thankfulness, not just for what God's given us individually, but what God has given us in the church. 00:16:05.871 --> 00:16:11.311 I can't tell you how blessed my wife and I are to be a part of Trinity Community Church. 00:16:11.311 --> 00:16:28.369 We constantly tell each other how blessed we are that God brought us here, the friends that we've made, the people that have been able to speak into our lives and love us even though we make mistakes and fall down, and they're there for us, they love us and it's just beautiful. 00:16:28.369 --> 00:16:39.908 So if we want to encounter God in a powerful way, through prayer, we should be expressing thankfulness to him for both the blessings that he's given us, but also thank him for the body of Christ that he's placed us in. 00:16:39.908 --> 00:16:41.955 That's important. 00:16:42.085 --> 00:16:45.475 So, number two what was the second part of this prayer? 00:16:45.475 --> 00:16:53.115 That quality of prayer we're encountering the Lord, and that is prayer should involve an expression of joy. 00:16:53.115 --> 00:16:55.753 Again, I'm going to pick up in verse three where we started. 00:16:55.753 --> 00:16:57.972 I thank my God and all my remembrance of you. 00:16:57.972 --> 00:17:04.569 Verse four always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy. 00:17:04.569 --> 00:17:11.792 Making my prayer with joy Hmm, making my prayer with joy. 00:17:12.565 --> 00:17:18.277 It's interesting, he said he literally formed his prayers based on joy. 00:17:18.277 --> 00:17:25.670 Based on joy you know the word joy appears 16 times in various forms within the book of Philippians. 00:17:25.670 --> 00:17:31.868 If you're ever down and just feeling down in the dumps, just read Philippians, galatians might be a little hard. 00:17:31.868 --> 00:17:40.673 A lot of correction in the Galatians, but this one is just so filled with joy and a lot of people will say that book of Philippians. 00:17:40.673 --> 00:17:45.431 There's such an expression of joy here and love, and we'll talk about that in a minute. 00:17:46.565 --> 00:17:55.872 You know, paul and the other apostles taught that the members of the early church should encounter God through this expression of joy and that joy really comes from one place. 00:17:55.872 --> 00:17:57.770 It comes from here. 00:17:57.770 --> 00:18:12.555 And it comes from here because when you became a follower of Jesus Christ, when he imparted salvation to you and you were filled with the Holy Spirit, it says in the whole Testament. 00:18:12.555 --> 00:18:23.772 It says your heart of flesh or your heart of stone has turned to a heart of flesh and you now have this capacity for joy, a capacity for joy that you didn't have before. 00:18:23.772 --> 00:18:26.150 Now it's interesting. 00:18:26.150 --> 00:18:29.012 When you look at that you say, well, what's this capacity for joy? 00:18:29.012 --> 00:18:30.349 Well, I'll tell you. 00:18:30.349 --> 00:18:32.950 The apostle Paul just didn't say this. 00:18:32.950 --> 00:18:34.554 He lived this. 00:18:34.554 --> 00:18:47.173 He lived this, he had joy in his life and I realized, by the way that expressing joy is difficult when we're experiencing trials and tests. 00:18:47.173 --> 00:18:52.527 But it's possible, in fact. 00:18:52.527 --> 00:18:57.134 Not just possible, it is an evidence of what Christ has done in your heart. 00:18:58.045 --> 00:19:00.492 For instance, in James 1, verse two. 00:19:00.492 --> 00:19:04.032 We all know this one count it all joy when you fall into various trials. 00:19:04.032 --> 00:19:07.625 What, what? 00:19:07.625 --> 00:19:15.851 I don't know if you're like me, but when I fall into a various trial, it's usually not the first thing on my lips Thank you, lord for this trial. 00:19:15.851 --> 00:19:22.252 I wish it was, and a lot of times it's my second, but it's hard sometimes to that be my first one. 00:19:22.252 --> 00:19:30.214 You know you have a car wreck and you're like thank you Lord for that truck that just cut me off and threw me down that embankment. 00:19:30.214 --> 00:19:38.664 When I say, when I talk about joy, I'm not talking about that, you understand what I'm saying is it informs, it's overarching. 00:19:38.664 --> 00:19:46.596 You have the concept and the understanding that everything God's doing has a purpose and he will bring great things out of it. 00:19:48.469 --> 00:19:54.536 In Acts 16, 25, paul, there's an account with Paul and Silas in a prison. 00:19:54.536 --> 00:19:57.307 Okay, and I love this scripture. 00:19:57.307 --> 00:20:01.451 It says around midnight remember, paul and Silas are sitting in a prison. 00:20:01.451 --> 00:20:05.093 They've probably been whipped so they got open wounds. 00:20:05.093 --> 00:20:06.848 They're probably cold. 00:20:06.848 --> 00:20:08.365 They're sitting there, they got. 00:20:08.365 --> 00:20:09.611 They're probably chained together. 00:20:09.611 --> 00:20:12.708 It's not a happy place. 00:20:12.708 --> 00:20:14.192 They're probably hungry, cold. 00:20:15.345 --> 00:20:21.173 Around midnight, paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God say what? 00:20:21.173 --> 00:20:26.448 That's what they were doing and I love what it says. 00:20:26.448 --> 00:20:29.035 And the other prisoners were listening. 00:20:29.035 --> 00:20:32.211 Why did he have to record that? 00:20:32.211 --> 00:20:35.472 Of course they were right there in the next cell. 00:20:35.472 --> 00:20:36.409 Of course they were listening. 00:20:36.944 --> 00:20:38.211 I tell you why I think this is. 00:20:38.211 --> 00:20:42.593 I can't prove it scripturally, but I tell you why I think that detail is there. 00:20:42.593 --> 00:20:48.709 Remember, luke, you know, very detailed, very detail-minded. 00:20:48.709 --> 00:21:01.951 I think what it was is because they weren't just hearing, they were listening, meaning what Paul and Silas were doing was having an impact on these people that were there beside them. 00:21:01.951 --> 00:21:12.290 It wasn't, their joy wasn't dependent upon their circumstance, and you've probably heard many sermons before about the difference between happiness and joy. 00:21:12.290 --> 00:21:14.609 There's a big difference between them. 00:21:14.609 --> 00:21:16.930 Happiness is a feeling. 00:21:16.930 --> 00:21:19.568 Okay, it's a feeling you know. 00:21:19.568 --> 00:21:30.728 You go out and have a good meal, you're happy about the meal, or your kids come over, you're happy to see them, or you watch something funny on YouTube, you laugh at it and you're happy. 00:21:30.728 --> 00:21:37.036 Joy is a state of being and nobody can take that away from you. 00:21:37.036 --> 00:21:40.166 Nobody can take that away from you. 00:21:40.186 --> 00:21:52.364 You know, I think of my brother Paul Queen, our brother Paul Queen, and he that man's you want to talk about, a true believer of Christ. 00:21:52.364 --> 00:22:05.411 For those of you who don't know, paul was a long-time elder here at our church he's we still consider him an elder, but he's been basically because of some really bad neuropathy in his feet. 00:22:05.411 --> 00:22:08.392 He's in constant pain and he can't attend. 00:22:08.392 --> 00:22:10.119 He's got problems with his heart as well. 00:22:10.119 --> 00:22:12.185 I mean, it's and this is a dynamic man. 00:22:12.185 --> 00:22:15.423 This guy is like you know, winning over the woo. 00:22:15.423 --> 00:22:18.442 You know, if you go through Strength Finders, the woo he's like big-time woo. 00:22:18.442 --> 00:22:19.288 Right, this guy is just. 00:22:19.288 --> 00:22:20.855 He loves the body of Christ. 00:22:20.855 --> 00:22:22.583 But there he is at home. 00:22:22.583 --> 00:22:25.617 He can't get out of this situation and he's prayed. 00:22:25.617 --> 00:22:27.923 We've prayed, we've all been praying for him to be healed. 00:22:28.865 --> 00:22:34.144 But if you talk to Paul, the first thing out of his lips is not going to be complaints. 00:22:34.144 --> 00:22:40.017 If you talk to Paul, oh, if you pull it out of him and say, well, how are you feeling physically? 00:22:40.017 --> 00:22:41.747 I don't know, he'll tell you a little bit. 00:22:41.747 --> 00:22:47.711 But then, you know, the first thing he'll say is I'll tell you what I have encountered the Lord in powerful ways. 00:22:47.711 --> 00:22:52.288 In my time here, I have heard. 00:22:52.288 --> 00:22:53.553 I've been reading scriptures. 00:22:53.553 --> 00:22:54.798 I've read for my whole life. 00:22:54.798 --> 00:22:56.065 They're coming alive to me. 00:22:56.065 --> 00:23:08.185 The Lord has just ministered to me in such powerful ways and I just listened to him and I'm thinking, if there's anybody has an excuse to have their joy removed from them, it would be Paul. 00:23:08.185 --> 00:23:11.272 But it's not Paul. 00:23:12.280 --> 00:23:20.230 Our brother Paul is in his own prison right now, but he's not in prison because he has that joy inside and it comes out. 00:23:20.230 --> 00:23:21.994 You can't fake that. 00:23:21.994 --> 00:23:25.911 You can't fake that and please continue to pray for him. 00:23:25.911 --> 00:23:33.101 We're still believing that he will be healed and he will be back in this room sometime, because when he is, you'll know he's back, by the way. 00:23:33.101 --> 00:23:49.381 But you know, unfortunately in the church today we're influenced by our culture where we only celebrate when things are going well and then, when the wheels fall off, we get thrown into turmoil, and that's not the way it should be. 00:23:49.381 --> 00:23:57.009 When we pray, we are to encounter God through the expression of joy that almost always accompanies thankfulness. 00:23:58.232 --> 00:24:02.163 All right, the third point Prayer should be informed by the gospel. 00:24:02.163 --> 00:24:14.362 Prayer should be informed by the gospel, verse 3, again picking up there through verse 5, I thank my God with all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy. 00:24:14.362 --> 00:24:28.567 Verse 5, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, you cannot read the Apostle Paul's writings without getting slapped in the face multiple times with the gospel. 00:24:28.567 --> 00:24:31.958 He loved the gospel. 00:24:31.958 --> 00:25:00.455 It informed everything that he did, including his prayers, and Paul really viewed all believers as partners in the gospel, as partners, you know, in the word partnership in this phrase in verse 5 is translated from the Greek word coindonia, which I think you know Tyler shared a few weeks ago, and when it's used in the context of this passage and in many other passages within his letters, it has this meaning of close association or fellowship. 00:25:00.455 --> 00:25:03.364 Close association or fellowship. 00:25:05.127 --> 00:25:08.021 I don't know how many of you are fans of the Lord of the Rings series. 00:25:08.021 --> 00:25:11.288 My wife hasn't memorized. 00:25:11.288 --> 00:25:17.068 She and my daughters will get together and they'll say let's watch Lord of the Rings. 00:25:17.068 --> 00:25:19.467 Now I know what let's watch Lord of the Rings means. 00:25:19.467 --> 00:25:21.957 It means we're all going to sit down. 00:25:21.957 --> 00:25:27.382 I'm going to try to watch it, and they're going to talk and knit and jail can talk through the whole thing. 00:25:27.382 --> 00:25:31.304 I'm going to put the captions on and hope they don't include me in the conversation. 00:25:31.304 --> 00:25:44.465 They, but they love this, they love this movie so much these movies because, by the way, there's so many wonderful godly parallels inside of there of course was written by a Christian, right, so it's just beautiful. 00:25:44.506 --> 00:25:48.263 But what's interesting is that group, that fellowship of the Ring. 00:25:48.263 --> 00:25:52.240 They were all together and they were very odd, just like the church. 00:25:52.240 --> 00:26:00.492 There were very different people, but they had one main purpose and they were all working towards that purpose and I love that. 00:26:00.492 --> 00:26:03.104 And that's really what we are in the church. 00:26:03.104 --> 00:26:06.960 We are a fellowship and we part of what brings us together. 00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.310 The main thing is bringing us together. 00:26:09.310 --> 00:26:10.858 That holds us together is the gospel. 00:26:10.858 --> 00:26:14.175 Now you might say, okay, scott, you need to, you need to. 00:26:14.175 --> 00:26:16.386 You know, give me some more meat on that. 00:26:16.386 --> 00:26:18.759 What do you mean by partnership in the gospel? 00:26:18.759 --> 00:26:21.854 That prayer should have be informed by the gospel. 00:26:21.854 --> 00:26:30.089 Well, all you have to do is look at what are the elements of the gospel, what are the parts of the gospel that make it the gospel, and I just wrote a few down. 00:26:30.813 --> 00:26:31.895 Let's start with forgiveness. 00:26:31.895 --> 00:26:42.813 Our prayers should be full of expressions of forgiveness towards others, others that have hurt us and thankfulness for the forgiveness that's been extended to us. 00:26:42.813 --> 00:26:51.075 I cannot pray in the mornings, you guys, without thanking God for the forgiveness that's been given to me through Christ Jesus. 00:26:51.075 --> 00:26:51.698 I can't. 00:26:51.698 --> 00:26:54.125 I can't because it informs everything else. 00:26:54.125 --> 00:26:55.247 That's the gospel. 00:26:55.247 --> 00:27:01.307 That's your prayers being informed by the gospel. 00:27:03.272 --> 00:27:03.614 Grace. 00:27:03.614 --> 00:27:04.576 How about grace? 00:27:04.576 --> 00:27:09.698 Does grace come out in our prayers as we pray for those who are lost or those that have hurt us? 00:27:09.698 --> 00:27:14.417 Do we extend grace to people that should be there? 00:27:14.417 --> 00:27:24.356 That should be part of your prayer when you're praying for someone, to ask yourself am I praying with grace, especially people that have hurt us or we've done things wrong? 00:27:24.356 --> 00:27:33.256 You know, and sometimes it's even with a lost, because you know it's tough sometimes to pray for people that are just totally walking away from God. 00:27:33.256 --> 00:27:34.982 Do we pray with grace on those? 00:27:34.982 --> 00:27:37.652 Do we pray for them with that focus? 00:27:37.652 --> 00:27:39.699 How about repentance? 00:27:39.699 --> 00:27:43.694 Do we repent for our sins or do we justify our sins? 00:27:43.694 --> 00:27:50.086 You know, god, I know I shouldn't have got mad or I shouldn't have said that about that person, but you know I had a right. 00:27:50.086 --> 00:27:51.049 They really triggered me. 00:27:51.049 --> 00:27:53.960 I'm just going to tell you something. 00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:55.424 God doesn't care about your triggers. 00:27:55.424 --> 00:27:58.756 He doesn't care about your triggers. 00:27:58.756 --> 00:28:00.560 The Eagles. 00:28:00.560 --> 00:28:09.950 When the Eagles got together for their Hell Freezes Over Tour, they wrote a song called Get Over it and I think it was really spot on. 00:28:09.950 --> 00:28:14.424 Get over it, get over your trigger, submit yourself to God. 00:28:16.147 --> 00:28:17.029 How about justice? 00:28:17.029 --> 00:28:25.490 Do we express to God that justice is His, not ours, it's His, it's not ours? 00:28:25.490 --> 00:28:30.923 Do we say to God you know God, this person hurt me. 00:28:30.923 --> 00:28:33.670 I can't wait to watch you hurt them. 00:28:33.670 --> 00:28:36.042 In fact, I'm going to have popcorn. 00:28:36.042 --> 00:28:41.709 I want the front row to see, to watch you deliver the justice that is mine and deserve my wait. 00:28:41.709 --> 00:28:51.746 A second you want, you know, god's gospel informs that, because if you got what you deserve, if I got what I deserve, we wouldn't be here. 00:28:51.746 --> 00:28:55.381 So who are we to sit there and demand justice? 00:28:55.381 --> 00:29:01.792 I love to say justice is a robe you can't wear. 00:29:01.792 --> 00:29:04.057 I can't wear. 00:29:04.057 --> 00:29:14.346 It's not mine to meter out and, by the way, every action movie you see totally contradicts that right and we like to see those. 00:29:14.346 --> 00:29:20.805 You know the bad guy gets it because justice is not executed speedily. 00:29:20.805 --> 00:29:23.049 Remember that scripture. 00:29:23.049 --> 00:29:27.310 We have to be patient and we have to realize that God's the one to do that. 00:29:28.296 --> 00:29:29.583 How about submission to Christ? 00:29:29.583 --> 00:29:32.597 That's another element of the gospel, submitting fully. 00:29:32.597 --> 00:29:36.537 Do we pray with the heart of someone who's submitted totally and fully to God? 00:29:36.537 --> 00:29:38.806 That's how the gospel informs your prayers. 00:29:38.806 --> 00:29:47.761 You know you run a risk every time you come to church and hear a sermon because something might be said that's going to go. 00:29:47.761 --> 00:29:50.391 Oh, that hurts. 00:29:50.391 --> 00:30:02.035 Every time you open your Bible and you read, you run a risk of reading something that the Holy Spirit is going to go gotcha and it's going to require us to submit something to God. 00:30:02.035 --> 00:30:03.039 And those are tough to do. 00:30:04.124 --> 00:30:07.417 Sometimes A lot of us say I'm going to obey right up to this point. 00:30:07.417 --> 00:30:13.940 But, god, I believe 95% of what you said, but this 5% over here, nah, I'm not submitting that. 00:30:13.940 --> 00:30:15.144 Is that enough? 00:30:15.144 --> 00:30:15.465 God? 00:30:15.465 --> 00:30:16.891 Can I still make it? 00:30:16.891 --> 00:30:18.538 Does that qualify? 00:30:18.538 --> 00:30:22.858 I was having a conversation with somebody after the first service and it was funny. 00:30:22.858 --> 00:30:31.750 He said so many people are performance based and they don't know it and they think you know it's past fail. 00:30:31.750 --> 00:30:33.635 75% is past right. 00:30:33.635 --> 00:30:36.243 So as long as I get past 75%, I'm okay. 00:30:36.243 --> 00:30:38.211 They've missed the point. 00:30:38.211 --> 00:30:40.257 They've missed the point. 00:30:40.257 --> 00:30:42.384 They've fallen into workspace salvation. 00:30:44.089 --> 00:30:46.217 So obedience is a big thing as well. 00:30:46.217 --> 00:30:51.991 Do we ask God for the strength to obey the teachings of Jesus and turn away from wrong behaviors. 00:30:51.991 --> 00:31:11.949 I will tell you that one of the things just be transparent about the eldership here One of the things that we find ourselves talking about and praying about in eldership meetings is asking God to give us wisdom to obey and the courage to obey the truth. 00:31:11.949 --> 00:31:16.349 You might say, well, scott, what's the big deal with that? 00:31:16.349 --> 00:31:17.894 I'll tell you what the big deal about that is. 00:31:19.029 --> 00:31:22.419 If we wanted to fill this sanctuary up, we could do it. 00:31:22.419 --> 00:31:24.694 It's no problem, we could fill it up. 00:31:24.694 --> 00:31:29.500 We know the equation for building a big, big, big, big church. 00:31:29.500 --> 00:31:35.153 All you have to look is a lot of the big, big, big churches and follow what they do. 00:31:35.153 --> 00:31:36.976 You can water the gospel down. 00:31:36.976 --> 00:31:42.450 You could quit talking about those things that offend people like the gospel and you could make everybody feel good. 00:31:42.450 --> 00:31:51.430 And we'd find one guy that was just our best preacher and then we crown him with a crown and he would be our spokesman, and now we would just try to gather people in. 00:31:51.430 --> 00:31:57.449 We won't do that because that's not the gospel, that's not truth. 00:31:57.449 --> 00:32:05.942 And so and you gotta realize, we're not afraid of you guys, we fear God, because he's the one we're gonna answer to. 00:32:05.942 --> 00:32:16.616 Tyler someday will stand in front of Christ and be accountable for everything he did as the lead elder of this church, you could be his biggest fans. 00:32:16.616 --> 00:32:18.201 God won't hear you. 00:32:18.201 --> 00:32:20.109 It's between Tyler and God. 00:32:20.109 --> 00:32:23.869 You understand what I'm saying about that and that's how we take this is so important. 00:32:23.869 --> 00:32:26.029 So seeker, friendly, all that stuff. 00:32:27.140 --> 00:32:33.109 We pray against that all the time, because sometimes it's easy to see it slip in and sometimes we catch something. 00:32:33.109 --> 00:32:35.109 No, we can't go that direction. 00:32:35.109 --> 00:32:37.369 We wanna be obedient to the word of God. 00:32:37.369 --> 00:32:46.736 If we were not that way, you wouldn't have heard sermon series like we gave last summer about let's talk, can we talk? 00:32:46.736 --> 00:32:53.990 Thank you, by the way, tyler's doing a small group on that, a community group this semester on that, which takes that further. 00:32:53.990 --> 00:33:02.875 We said some hard things, but those hard things were all truth and that's what we base our truth on and that's what we follow. 00:33:02.875 --> 00:33:10.878 So, as we pray, the core elements of the gospel should be evident in our prayers and that's how we encounter God. 00:33:10.878 --> 00:33:23.549 Now, the last part of the element, the last part of encountering God through prayer, is that genuine prayers should be intercessory in nature and motivated by a genuine love for others. 00:33:23.549 --> 00:33:31.517 Now I'm gonna read a big section of scripture here, the rest of this passage, and I want you guys just to listen very carefully to what he says here. 00:33:33.314 --> 00:33:40.349 Verse six and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 00:33:40.349 --> 00:33:43.680 By the way, your salvation is sure. 00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:45.576 Hold on to that, okay. 00:33:45.576 --> 00:34:00.109 Verse seven it is right for me to feel this way about you because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 00:34:00.109 --> 00:34:01.876 There's that word again, gospel. 00:34:01.876 --> 00:34:10.364 Oh, by the way, the greatest theologian that ever lived, apostle Paul, literally talked about feelings. 00:34:10.364 --> 00:34:15.335 It is right for me to feel this way about you because I hold you in my heart. 00:34:15.335 --> 00:34:19.501 Listen, knowledge and emotion can work together. 00:34:19.501 --> 00:34:21.456 It should work together in our hearts, right? 00:34:21.456 --> 00:34:28.219 Verse eight for God as my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 00:34:28.219 --> 00:34:43.760 Verse nine and it is my prayer again, he's teaching them to pray that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:51.539 Verse 11, filled with a fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. 00:34:51.539 --> 00:34:51.980 Amen. 00:34:52.050 --> 00:34:53.757 What a beautiful passage of scripture. 00:34:53.757 --> 00:35:00.755 What's so powerful about this is that God or, excuse me, paul loved the church. 00:35:00.755 --> 00:35:08.201 He loved the church and his prayers were laced with intercession for the church. 00:35:08.201 --> 00:35:21.597 Intercession and, by the way, the word intercede it's just the act of intervening for somebody, but when you put it in the context of intercessory prayer, it's going before the Lord on behalf of somebody else. 00:35:21.597 --> 00:35:34.735 Paul prayed intercessory prayers for the members of the church by name and we know that because if you read through these epistles you'll see he mentions people by name, expressing gratitude for them. 00:35:34.735 --> 00:35:38.177 He really prayed over them, like a father would pray over his children. 00:35:38.177 --> 00:36:05.360 You know, some of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard are prayed right up here or in a house church where I heard somebody praying for another member, another Christian and who they loved, and that love just oozed out of them through their prayer and they were interceding for them, interceding. 00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:13.233 We've had some tough times in this church where we've had people that were sick and I heard the most beautiful prayers of intercession for these people. 00:36:13.769 --> 00:36:16.697 That's what our prayers should be informed of. 00:36:16.697 --> 00:36:25.157 We should be interceding for people because not because we have to, not because, oh, it's something I gotta check off. 00:36:25.157 --> 00:36:27.418 Oh yeah, did I intercede for Tom? 00:36:27.418 --> 00:36:28.574 Yeah, I interceded for Tom. 00:36:28.574 --> 00:36:31.077 No, it's because we want to intercede for them. 00:36:31.077 --> 00:36:35.333 We want to do that because we have a love, a deep love, for them. 00:36:36.150 --> 00:36:41.333 You know, the apostle John stated this in 1 John 4, verse 11 and 12. 00:36:41.333 --> 00:36:42.512 He said beloved. 00:36:42.512 --> 00:36:45.996 If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 00:36:45.996 --> 00:36:50.210 Amen, absolutely Okay. 00:36:50.210 --> 00:36:54.679 Then he says something really odd no one has ever seen God. 00:36:54.679 --> 00:37:02.121 Oh, and then he jumps to this If we love one another, god abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 00:37:02.121 --> 00:37:05.670 Why did he say no one's ever seen God? 00:37:05.670 --> 00:37:07.389 Why did he stick that in here? 00:37:07.389 --> 00:37:09.619 He sandwiched it. 00:37:09.619 --> 00:37:11.489 You want to know what he did? 00:37:11.489 --> 00:37:13.168 I believe this fully. 00:37:13.168 --> 00:37:15.909 I believe he said no one's ever seen God. 00:37:17.476 --> 00:37:31.222 But they can see you, and when you intercede for them and when you pray for them, they see God in you, they see God in you, they see God in me. 00:37:31.222 --> 00:37:45.510 And that's the way it should be, and I think it's really vital that we understand that when we intercede for people, we are literally representing God and sometimes they see God, have you ever just prayed for a stranger? 00:37:45.510 --> 00:37:48.670 You know, you see somebody and Holy Spirit moves you. 00:37:48.670 --> 00:37:49.793 And Holy Spirit moves. 00:37:49.793 --> 00:37:51.179 You say I just need to pray for that person. 00:37:51.179 --> 00:37:56.577 And sometimes the look on their face. 00:37:56.577 --> 00:38:04.079 You say, excuse me, I don't know you, but I just feel like I'm supposed to pray for you. 00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:08.056 They go really yeah, can I pray for you? 00:38:08.056 --> 00:38:09.255 Is there anything you want me to pray for? 00:38:09.255 --> 00:38:21.179 And sometimes they say things like I can't believe this, I am going through a terrible divorce or whatever it is, and I'm like, yes, I need prayer. 00:38:21.179 --> 00:38:22.735 And then you pray for them. 00:38:22.735 --> 00:38:36.536 Do you realize that you were in answer to prayer, that they got to see God through you and what you did, you interceded for them and what motivated you was love that God's given you and that can only come from him. 00:38:36.536 --> 00:38:39.315 That can't be something you can work out. 00:38:39.315 --> 00:38:40.896 And, by the way, you can fake love. 00:38:40.896 --> 00:38:42.675 You can fake love for people. 00:38:44.329 --> 00:38:46.978 But don't come to church very often. 00:38:46.978 --> 00:38:50.735 Don't join a community group, don't go to a house church. 00:38:50.735 --> 00:38:54.632 Just stay by yourself, because if you want to keep that shurot up, it's gonna be. 00:38:54.632 --> 00:38:55.536 It'll eventually. 00:38:55.536 --> 00:38:57.793 If you've drowned a brethren long enough, it'll be revealed. 00:38:57.793 --> 00:39:03.800 No, no, this love comes from Christ. 00:39:03.800 --> 00:39:04.753 That's where it comes from. 00:39:04.753 --> 00:39:08.936 To infectively encounter God in prayer, we need to have his heart for the brethren. 00:39:08.936 --> 00:39:18.394 Our prayers should be saturated by prayers for our brothers and sisters in Christ not just in our church, by the way, but in our nation and around the world and including prayer for the lost. 00:39:19.550 --> 00:39:20.896