Why Prayer Is More Powerful Than You Think

Why should Christians pray for the lost? 

In this sermon from 1 Timothy 2:1–7, Pastor Blake LaRussa explains why prayer is essential to the mission of the Church and how God uses the prayers of His people to advance the gospel.

This message explores:
Why God commands believers to pray for all people
Why Christians should pray for leaders and nations
God’s desire for all people to be saved
The power of persistent prayer
Jesus Christ as the only mediator between God and man
How prayer fuels evangelism and spiritual revival

If you’ve ever struggled with prayer, felt discouraged praying for unsaved loved ones, or wondered if your prayers matter, this message is for you.

📖 Scripture: 1 Timothy 2:1–7

At River Oak Church, we are a welcoming family of imperfect people who share a passion for God, a passion for others, and a passion for graciously sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.  We enjoy an informal environment and Christ-exalting modern worship, and we are committed to following the truth of God’s Word.  We welcome you to come as you are, from wherever you’ve been, and join us!

To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: https://riveroakchurch.org/give/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you have a Bible, I want to invite you to turn with me to First Timothy. To First Timothy. We're looking today at First Timothy chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. And as you are flipping there, I first want to say happy Mother's Day to all of you, amazing mothers who make our world go round. Thank you all so much for all that you do. And today, I want to tell you a story about one mother, a really, a really special story. You see, today we're talking about the subject of prayer and being a prayerful church. And how essential it is that if we're going to be useful to advancing the gospel in this lost and dying world, that we would be a prayerful church. And I want to tell you the story of this woman named Monica. Monica lived a long time ago in the fourth century A.D. And Monica was a mother and she really, really loved her son. And Monica knew the Lord. And she trusted in Christ and she knew that Jesus was the only way, believed in him, followed him as her Lord and Savior. But Monica was grieved because she had a son who did not follow the same path that she did. And her son rebelled against Christ. And her son would pursue satisfaction in all the things that the world had to offer. He pursued satisfaction in intellectualism. He tried to be a master in rhetoric and philosophy, but that didn't help. And he lived a lifestyle seeking fame and seeking pleasure. He lived an adulterous lifestyle, a lifestyle of fornication. And all the while his mother, Monica, would pray for him. And years would go by, and on a daily basis, this woman would pray adamantly to the Lord for her son's salvation, and years go by, 17 years go by, with no answer. And so first, I just want you to consider have you prayed for a long time with no answer? Then hear this story and consider this. This woman, Monica, she would pray and pray and pray, it seemed like to no avail, until one day her son, realizing that the world could not solve what he was looking for, it couldn't give him what his soul longed for. It couldn't remove his guilty conscience. And he turned to Christ. After 17 years of her praying adamantly, and this son's name was Augustine. Some of you may have heard of Augustine of Hippo, this man whose mother prayed for him adamantly for 17 years would go on to be one of the greatest theologians that God has ever used to bless the church. Thank God for praying mothers. Amen. I know many of us are in this room today because of a praying mother. And we as a church, this is true also for us. Our heart's desire at River Oak is that we would be a prayerful church. And as we've been walking through 1 Timothy, we're looking at what a healthy church is to be. What a healthy church is to look like. And we're not taking this from the greatest strategists in our world. We're trying to decipher this from God's word. And today, what we're seeing at, what we're looking at, is that we must, if we want to be useful to spreading the gospel, be a prayerful church. Evangelism starts with prayer. That's where it starts. And as we look in God's word today, we're seeing how God's desire for us, his command of us, is that we, as God's people, would pray for all people. I want you to look at the passage. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 2. And I want you to notice where in this passage you see the word all. We see it all over the place. Look at what it says at the end of verse 1. Prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people. Look at verse 2. It says, for kings and all who are in high positions. Verse 4. God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved. Go on to verse 6. Who gave himself as a ransom for all. God cares about all. And really, this is what we see in the Great Commission. Right before Jesus ascended into heaven, we see in the Great Commission, Jesus say these words in Matthew 28, 19: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is what we're looking at today. In the stakes, the stakes could not be higher. You know, if you're anything like me, at times in my life and in times in our lives, we find ourselves devoting ourselves to prayer before God only once we finally hit this rock bottom, desperate situation, don't we? Oftentimes, prayer can be the last priority. Or prayer can be something that we go to just as a reaction. You get bad news. You find out something that's crushing. And only then we go before the Lord in prayer. And so my aim for us today is that as God's people, and if we want to be a useful, healthy church that is adamant about advancing the kingdom of God in this world, that we would give ourselves today and every day to praying for all people. This is what God is urging us to. And again, the stakes couldn't be higher. The situation really is desperate. You may not feel it today, but the situation is desperate. And the reason I say that is because every day, every minute of every day, people are dying and going to hell, separated from God for all eternity. That's our situation. If you want to know why we should be a prayerful people, understand that is why. For the glory of God and for the souls of men and women in this world, we want to be a prayerful people. This is our hope. This is my hope today. It's my hope for us as a church, my hope for you and I as individuals. The kingdom of God advances on our knees. It advances on our knees. And I want to give you three reasons today. As we look at God's word in 1 Timothy chapter 2, I want to give you three reasons from the text why we should be a church, be a people who prays for all people, who prays for everyone. The first reason is this God commands us to pray for all people. He commands us. Look at verse 1 and 2 of our passage today, and look what it says. Paul, writing to Timothy, says, First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Paul is urging them to pray. He's urging them to pray for all people. Now I know and I bet all of us in this room have probably been urged even this morning. I bet you this morning somebody urged you to hurry up and get ready. To the children in this room, first of all, I want you to know, children, that we love you being here. And for you, children in the room, I'm sure your parents urged you today to get dressed, to put your clothes on, to brush your teeth, pleading with you to go do that. We know what it means to be urged. And what is Paul urging Timothy, and therefore, what is God urging Riveroak Church today? He is urging, he is begging, he is pleading with us to pray for all people. He says supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving. That is all kinds of prayer. Interceding on behalf of others, out of pity for those around us, even with thanksgiving to God and thanksgiving for others, going to God in prayer on behalf of the lost world around us. He says in verse 2, pray even for kings and all who are in high positions. Now, I want you to consider for a minute who the ruler was when Paul wrote this letter. He's telling them to pray even for kings, for those who are in high up positions. During the time of this writing, the emperor of Rome was Emperor Nero. And if you've heard anything about Emperor Nero, Emperor Nero was a cruel ruler. He was cruel. He despised Christians and he persecuted Christians. It's said that both Paul and Peter were martyred during the reign of Emperor Nero. He would crucify Christians, he would blame Christians for the problems in their society. He used them as a scapegoat. He burned people alive. This ruler was cruel. And it makes us wonder then, how in the world could he say for kings and all who are in high positions? Well, if he can say that with Emperor Nero being the ruler, then I can't think of any scenario where we as God's people today would not be called to pray for our nation's leaders, for our state's leaders. And this is hard because I'm sure many of you in this room, if you're praying for certain people, you're praying for leaders, you may be praying that they're ousted. Think about what God's word is calling us to today. We are to pray for our governor. We are to pray for our president. We are to pray for these people that God would have mercy on them. We're even to pray for our local leaders. That we as Christians would be a people who pray for everyone. That they would know Christ and follow Christ, repent and believe in the gospel, that they too would be saved from their sins. If he can say it while Emperor Nero is reigning, then for all of us, no matter what we face, we should pray. We should pray for those who do not know the Lord, for those who do not follow him, no matter the case, and we have to be careful as Christians, we can find ourselves in a place of bitterness. We can find ourselves fussing about certain people more than we are on our knees before the throne of God praying for their salvation. Do you pray? Do you pray for the leadership? Do you pray for mercy upon them? This is what God's word is calling us to. And he gives us a reason, even. He says in verse 2 that we may, uh, for kings and all who are in high positions, then he goes on. That here's one purpose, here's one reason to do that. That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. Godly and dignified in every way. This is what we pursue as Christians, y'all. As Christians, we want to pursue simply a peaceful and a quiet life. We want to pursue that. We're not looking to stir up trouble. We're looking to simply obey God. We're simply looking to serve the Lord and serve others, to be a light for Christ and to obey Him with our lives. That's what we're seeking: a peaceful and a quiet life. But we have to clarify this. Quiet and peaceful does not mean silent and compromising. It doesn't mean that. No, you think about even Paul, who's writing this letter, we know that in Acts chapter 17, we see a passage where Paul and Silas are in Thessalonica and they're simply there, they're teaching God's word. They're proclaiming the truth of the gospel. And you know what happens? An angry mob forms. Sometimes that's what God's word does. And so the point of this passage is not to say, be quiet, don't say anything. No, the point of this is for us to know that we're simply looking to live our lives to serve God, to please Him, to glorify Him with our lives. You know, there is a difference between being prepared for persecution and trying to stir up trouble. It is not a godly thing to try to stir up trouble. That's not godly. But Jesus did warn us, he said, that if they hated me, they will hate you. He said that you can expect persecution, but for us to know this, only a fool wants persecution. Only a fool wants persecution. You know, for us in our day, we have to understand something. We live in a time that really is an anomaly. Right now, we're able to gather on a Sunday morning and sing songs that have rich, amazing truths about Christ. That is amazing. Can't do that everywhere in the world. Right now, today, on a Sunday morning, we are able to sit here with a copy of God's word and read it together and proclaim it together and study it together and hear from God's word together and then seek to live it out when we go home. That is amazing. You know, in India, just this year, in one city in India, house churches were banned in the name of cultural harmony. Just this year. Not only can you not gather like this, but you can't even gather in your house. Why? In the name of cultural harmony. Think about what opportunity we have here. Think about if it were against the law for us to gather like this on a Sunday. We have so much opportunity before us. What a blessing of God. Now we seek to live a peaceful and a quiet life. But advancing the gospel, serving the Lord in everything that we do. My question for us today is in this in this freedom, with our with just this ability to live a peaceful and quiet life, how are we using it right now? Do you pray earnestly for lost souls? Do you pray earnestly for those who you know who don't know Christ? Do you pray? Do you plead for them in your heart before the throne of God to repent and believe in the gospel? That they too would taste and see that God really is good? Do you pray? This is what God's word is calling us to do today. And as we pray, I want to encourage you with something. Don't pray generally when you're around the dinner table at home and you give God thanks for putting food on your table. Pray for lost souls and pray by name. It's one thing to pray before the throne of God. God, please reach the lost. It's another thing to bring before the throne of God your next door neighbor's name. Pray specifically. Bring before the throne of God names. Be specific in this. Be specific and continue in this. You know what's amazing is that as we do that, we are pleasing the Lord for the children in this room. Pray for your teachers. Pray, children, for your teachers by name, especially if your teacher is your mother. Pray for them. To the church. We need to pray for our state leaders. We need to pray for our nation's leaders. God has commanded us to this. We all see it here in the word now. It's there. We must pray for our leaders. Number one, that's the first reason. That we pray for all people. Because God commands us to do so. But number two, a second reason to pray for all people is because God desires to save all. He desires them. Look at verse 3 and 4. He says, This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Do you know that when you pray, God is pleased? God delights in it when you pray. Do you know that? Look at what the word says. It says, this is it's pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. In other words, God sees you when you pray to him. You may not feel it, you may not think it, but the word of God declares that he sees you. The psalmist wrote, The Lord hears when I call to him. God sees you when you pray to him, and God hears you when you pray to him. It's pleasing to him. You know, I find myself in a season of life right now where it is not uncommon for me at 1.30 in the morning to get a tug on my shoulder, and not from my wife. My two-year-old often finds herself scared of the dark. And she will come to me and wake me up seeking comfort from me. And this is very bittersweet for me. On the one hand, it's bitter because I'm weak and I am tired and it's exhausting. But on the other hand, it's very sweet for me because she's my child, and because I love her, and because it is my delight to meet her needs, because it is my delight to comfort her, even at my own expense, because she's my child, because I love her, and I love for her to express dependence on me. I love that. You know, this is how when it says that it's pleasing to God when we go to Him. Think about how pleasing it is when we collectively go before the Lord, and when you individually at home go before the Lord, it is pleasing. To God. We think for those who in this room who are mothers and fathers, think about the love for your children. Think about the weight of that love. Well, the Bible tells us that if we compare our love for our children compared to God's love for us, then our love is compared to evil. That's how great, that's how mighty and infinite God's love is. How pleasing then is it when you go to him in childlike faith on your knees before him to pray? It pleases him. He delights in it. Especially when you go to him to pray, not just for your needs, but when you go to him in prayer on behalf of others. When you go to him in prayer on behalf of the lost souls that you know in your life, this pleases him. Why? Look at verse 4. Verse 4 it says, Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth? He desires all people. You know, this was a contradictory thing. This was a controversial thing in their day. You see, many in their day, the Jews in their day, they struggled. They struggled that this gospel would be for all. They struggled with that. And so for us today, this is the glorious news of the gospel is that God, through Christ, has made a way for all people, for all nations. And there's only one way through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And he desires all people, that's what we see in the Great Commission. He desires them to come to the knowledge of the truth. Think about this for us, because even us today, we can get very tunnel-visioned. We can live and act and think like God cares this much for us, but not so much for everyone else in the world. Think about this. What this means, what we're reading here. This means that God wants those in China. He wants those in Afghanistan. He desires them. He wants those in Belize. He wants those in Lesotho, Africa. He wants those in South Africa. He wants those in Canada. He came and he desires that all would come to the knowledge of the truth. And really, this is what he's doing. He's equating this with salvation, knowledge of the truth, with being saved. And that tells us something about what it means to be a Christian, to believe. You always hear it said, well, you need to believe, you need to believe, you need to believe. Believe in what? The gospel has truth in it. And to come to Christ is to come to believe in the truth of the gospel. Our faith that we talk about, it has an object behind it. It doesn't make sense to say, I trust in trust. That doesn't make sense. Trust demands a recipient. Trust demands an object of the trust. I trust in my dad. I trust in my sister. There's always an object behind it. And there's knowledge accompanied with it. You see, our world today, we've got to be careful. In our postmodern world, there is this pushback against absolute truth. There's a pushback even against knowledge itself. This knowledge of the truth is the gospel that we preach. This knowledge of the truth is the truth about God and the truth about we as people made in God's image, yet people who are sinful and broken. It's the truth about Christ, God's own Son, who lived the perfect life and died on the cross to be a sin bearer, to pay the penalty for sin that we deserved. It's the truth that this Son of God who died willingly for sin also rose to life on the third day. And it's the truth that he offers salvation to all who would come to him in repentance and faith. Have you turned to Christ in a room this size? Have you turned to Christ? Have you repented and believed are and are believing in the gospel? Does Christ Jesus reign supreme as number one in your life? Are you trusting in Christ alone and not trusting in your good works for the forgiveness of your sins? Turn to him today if you are not. Trust in Christ today if you are not. If you are plagued by a guilty conscience in here today, then turn to Christ and walk out of here free because he died for that. God, according to the word, desires, he desires to save all. And one of the ways that we advance the gospel is through prayer. We advance the gospel through prayer. And so that means we need to ask this question in our own lives. What are the things, and I want you to think about this for yourself. What keeps you from prayer? What keeps you on a daily basis from going before the Lord to pray for the salvation of the lost people around you? What keeps you? I know that there are a lot of things that can keep us from that, but I think one of the first things that keeps us from that is weak faith. The truth is we don't depend on the Lord like we ought to. And really, this is true. If you if you want to examine you as a Christian, even, to what extent are you dependent on the Lord for your life? All you need to do is look at your prayer life. If you just look at your prayer life, you will see very tangibly the extent to which you, as a man or a woman, are dependent on your father. Nothing shows dependence on God like a person who prays. Nothing at all. Think about it. Even when we read our Bible, there's something tangible to me reading my Bible. I can flip the page, I can see progress. When I read my Bible, I can also grow in knowledge. But when I pray, when I close my eyes and I pray, think of it. If God is not there, then there is no use. It's totally useless. And this is why God calls us to pray. Because in your praying to the Lord, you are demonstrating real faith. You're demonstrating confidence in him. One pastor said prayerlessness is practical atheism. And that's true. You know, another thing that can keep us from prayer, I'm convinced, is just we are such a productive-driven culture, aren't we? Some of us, myself included, it's there's times where it's hard to even rest. There's always something we can be doing. Maybe for you, the nighttime comes and your temptation is just, oh, I need to look at emails. Or maybe the temptation is, oh, I need a plan for the next day. There's things I could do to get ahead. Or maybe for you, you can't do anything until every speck of dust is cleaned up in the house. Think about the things that keep us from prayer. I'll never forget in my ordination council a number of years back. Uh this is where you're ordained as a pastor, and pretty much at an ordination council, it's a group of godly men who just grill you. And it's useful. It's useful and it's sweet. But for the first bit of it, they're just grilling you with questions, questions, questions. But then after that, you get to the really sweet part, the really good part. And that's where these older, much wiser men give you encouragement. And I will never forget what one pastor said to me at my ordination council. He's the pastor at London Bridge Baptist Church. And I'll never forget to this day what he said to me. He said, Blake, I wish I knew much earlier how much can be accomplished through prayer. I wish I knew it much earlier. That God would do so much just through prayer. We never graduate our need to pray. Even the apostles. You know, we would think with the apostles like they would have some secret, some really strategic and clever plan to advance the gospel. Something that would be so amazing, something so extravagant, like some 15-point plan. No, you know what they did? Turn to Acts chapter 6, verse 4. And we see clearly, what did the apostles do? What did they give their lives to for the sake of advancing the kingdom of God and the world around us? Acts chapter 6, verse 4, it tells us. It says, But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Not complicated. They devoted themselves to prayer. What that tells us is that we as a church recognize this. God desires all to be saved. He desires those to come to Christ, and we get to join him in the work. You don't need to go to Africa necessarily. God may not call you to that. He might. And you should be willing and ready. The ministry of the word means that some need to go. But every person who is a Christian, every single person who is a Christian, we devote ourselves to the Great Commission through prayer. By praying for the gospel and by spreading the message of the gospel to those around us? This is what we devote ourselves to. He desires lost souls to come to him. I want you to think for a minute, church, who is in your life? A family member, a neighbor, a coworker? Who in your life doesn't know Christ? Who in your life doesn't follow him, doesn't know that God is good and loving, and doesn't know what Christ has done for them, and has not yet surrendered to Christ as their king? Who comes to your mind? My challenge to you is that you would pray for that soul by name every day. I really believe that the church, that the world would get turned upside down in the best way if God's people would simply devote themselves to pray for the lost. This is what we're gonna be doing next Sunday night at our membership gathering. We're gonna get together and we are gonna pray for the people in Northeast North Carolina. And we're gonna pray for the people in Moyak and Kuratuck, that we would pray that the gospel would go forth and it would be very fruitful for the sake of his name and for the sake of the souls of those who live there. So I would invite you to join us for that. We want to be a prayerful church. And if we really want to be productive, then we should pray. That's the second reason is that God desires to save all. Many people say, you know what? Look, all these different religions in the world, we're all worshiping God and just calling him different names, right? It's really the same thing. Look what the Bible says. Acts 4.12. Acts 4.12 reads. And there is salvation and no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Listen and rest assured of this. If you have ever had that thought of maybe we're all just uh doing good and we're all just worshiping God just in different names, listen very closely and settle this in your heart today. Jesus Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life. And it's said of Jesus Christ alone that no one comes to the Father but by him. Don't be tricked, don't be deceived. We must go to the people throughout the world who are not worshiping Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We must go to them because of that reason. He has commanded us to go, he desires us to go, and he has provided a way. It says here that he is the mediator and he is our ransom. And this here is what Paul came preaching. He came to devote himself to prayer and to the ministry of the word. He came preaching the gospel and praying. It says Jesus is the mediator. Think about what a mediator is. If you have two parties who are in conflict with each other, a mediator is somebody who goes between for the sake of seeking reconciliation. We were born into this world separated from God. And because of our sin, not only separated from God, but in conflict with God, enemies of God. Romans chapter 8 would say, hostile toward the God who created us. And this is the good news of the gospel is that God sent us a mediator. This is the good news of the gospel that God sent Christ to be a ransom. Every single sin, every sinful thought, every sinful look with the eye, every sinful bad attitude of the heart, every single sinful action, and every single thing that we have done that is sinful that we should have done but failed to do. Every sin has to be paid for. It must be paid for because God is holy. He is righteous. Yes, he loves you, but he does not erase and sweep sin under the rug merely because he loves you. Because if he did that, he would cease to be holy and cease to be just. You know, we as Christians, we can get discouraged with our prayer life because we're praying for somebody to come to know the Lord, and it seems like there's no fruit. It seems like day after day we pray and nothing happens. Hear me today. Keep praying. Keep praying. Keep praying for your next door neighbor. Keeping for your son or your daughter, for your grandchildren. Keep praying for that brother or sister. Keep praying for that coworker of yours who doesn't follow Christ, that God in his sovereignty has put you and only you right there. Keep praying. Don't let off the gas. God is seeking to save, and he uses us. Isn't that amazing? He uses us to accomplish his purposes. And so we should pray confidently, and so we should pray boldly. And so now here's what I want to do: I want us to pray. It's easy to talk about prayer and then forget to pray. And so what I want to do is I want to pray about some specific things. And I'm inviting you to not just close your eyes, but I want to invite you to join me as we pray, knowing that God really does hear. Knowing that He's seeing this. And I want to invite you to say amen with me after. You know why? You know what amen means? It means I agree. It means this is true. It means we're together in this, that this is not Blake's voice, but this is our voice before God. Would y'all pray with me? Father in heaven, we want to confess before you, God, knowing that in so many times and in so many ways, we have chosen everything else but to come to you in prayer. We confess to you, Lord, our prayerlessness, even though you love us. You desire us to come to you and depend upon you. So often we go to other things which are vain. Please forgive us. Father, would you please help us to be a prayerful church? Prayerful individually, at home, in our own day-to-day lives, but also prayerful when we come together. Help us to do as your word says, which is to pray without ceasing. Father, we come before you to pray for the lost family members of the Christians in this room. For the sons and daughters and parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins that we know and that we love, but who have not yet trusted in Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins. Father, have mercy on them. Would you bring them to repentance? Would you please, Lord, for your name's sake, save them? Father, we pray for our leaders, the leaders of our state. We pray for our governor, Lord. We pray that you would have mercy on her and be with her, Lord. We pray for our president, Father, that you would be with him and protect him and have mercy on him. We pray for those leaders in our cities, that you would give them all wisdom and counsel from above, that they would depend not on worldly wisdom, but on godly wisdom. Father, we pray for the other gospel believing and preaching churches in our area, in our community. We want the gospel to go forth in Hampton Roads, Lord, recognizing that we're not the only church that exists here. So, Father, we pray for Calvary Reformation Church right down the road from us. Father, would you please use them to advance the gospel? Would you protect that body and grow that body and use them to reach many lost souls for Christ? Father, we pray for those who are in India, for the multitude of people who hate Christ and who even seek to persecute Christians there, Lord, we pray that you would have mercy on them. We also were foolish, Lord, before Christ. Please save them. And for our brothers and sisters who are suffering today in India, would you please sustain them by your grace? Would you be near to them and continue to use them to advance the message of hope, the message of light, the message of truth. Father, we expectantly wait for you to answer these prayers, knowing that you hear us. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We pray that this message speaks life into your walk with Jesus. If you don't have a home church, we'd love to see you in person. And don't forget to subscribe for all of our content.