morning. Let us go to the father in prayer
that he may be with us and that he may help us this morning. Father God, we come before you
thanking you father for your wonderful grace, your wonderful
mercy, your wonderful love towards us. Father, thank you that you
allow us to be here father to worship you and also to listen
to your word as well. Father, we pray for Pastor Greg
in Canada, may we pray that you may bless those services, prepare
the ears that are about to hear the gospel, probably as clear
as they're going to be hearing it for a while. We pray for them.
We pray for all the services that they're going to have. We
also pray for us here. We pray for Brother Jeff as he
brings the word this morning. I pray for myself as well. We
pray for each other. We pray that your Holy Spirit,
the author of this word, may illuminate us, may give us light,
may give us understanding of your word. Thank you once again
for this wonderful privilege that we have to open your word.
We pray that your Holy Spirit, the minister of your Holy Spirit,
may be with us this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I don't know if I have a seat
over here. I don't know if I have my seat
or not. We are going to do a Bible study this morning. We're going
to be considering Paul's prayers for the believers. Paul's prayers
for the believers. We're going to go through certain
scriptures. It's not an exhaustive study
about his prayers, but it is, we're going to be looking at
about 10 prayers that Paul asks God about the believers. Those
believers are his hearers of the scriptures. We are not going
to be studying how to pray or should we pray more because I
certainly need to pray more, but that's not the topic of the
Bible study. The topic of the Bible studies,
what is it that Paul prays about, right? What is it that we need? What is it that I need, right?
And what is it that he prays for? So we are going to be looking
first at Ephesians. Let us go to Ephesians chapter
1. We're going to start there in
the wonderful book of Ephesians. And in the first chapter, verses
16 through 20, Ephesians chapter 116 to 20 says the following. This is his prayer. Cease not
to give thanks for you making mention of you. My prayers that
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory may give
to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of him. the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of your
calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints, and what it is the exceeding greatness of his
power to usward, who believe according to the working of his
mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly
places. Here, this is the first prayer
that we read in Ephesians. It says that he does not cease
to give thanks for them. He's giving thanks for the believers
in Ephesians, making mention of you in my prayers. So he's
always praying for them every time he prays. And what does
he pray for? Well, we'll see here in a few
moments. It says that God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give to you, number one, the spirit of wisdom. He
prays for them for the spirit of wisdom. Now, everything that
he prays for, we ought to, of course, pray for ourselves, right? Because we need different things,
of course, as believers, but let us pay attention to what
Paul feels that they need, and possibly we also need as well.
within the spirit of wisdom and revelation, but not just general
revelation, right? It's not talking about any general
revelation. The revelation that he's praying
for them is in the knowledge of him. He's talking about the
Lord Jesus Christ. So in this text, it tells me
that we need to pray for this. for the revelation of knowledge
of him. Now he's praying for believers.
He's not talking about unbelievers. So as believers, we need to continue
to be revealed Christ, his nature, his person, his love for us,
and we'll see what else. But I think we need to pray for
this wisdom And this revelation, of course, revelation is something
that you are not gonna be able to get by on your own, right?
This is not something you're gonna research and find out.
This is something that God gives, revelation, right? We have to
seek it, but this is something that we have to seek God for,
right? The spirit of wisdom and revelation
and the knowledge of him. in the knowledge of himself,
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he continues that the eyes
of your understanding being enlightened. This is, I think, the same petition. It's just seen in a different
way. The eyes of our understanding, not our physical eyes that we
have now, right? As we get older, we know that
as we get older, we see less, right? We need glasses. I remember
when I was in my 30s, and I used to go to the eye doctor. He would tell me, are you able
to read and see? And sometimes I'd say, of course,
of course, yes, I'm able to read. And he says, wait till you hit
40. And that's when it happens, and that's about the time that
it happened that I could no longer see both far and close, and I
couldn't read. I could read with our glasses,
but he was right. The vision hits at 40 or shortly
after. But it's not talking about that
type of eyes. It's talking about our spiritual
eyes, eyes of our understanding. They need to be enlightened,
right? They need to be enlightened.
And this, again, this is not talking about salvation. It's
not talking about unbelievers. It's talking about us, believers.
We need to see more and more of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is
it that you may know? What is the hope of His calling? The hope, what is it that, what
kind of hope do we have? And what riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints here. Now, His inheritance of
the saints could mean two things. It could be the inheritance that
we get through the Lord Jesus Christ, or it could also be the
inheritance that God the Father gives to His Son, which is His
church, right? That could be also, and I'm thinking
that that's what that is, but we need to know what the hope,
what that hope is. A hope is gained through faith,
right? And when the believers, the stronger
the hope of the believers is, the less problems or the less
importance the problems of our life become, because we have
a strong hope. As our hope grows, the believers
probably will get depressed less, right? Because the depression
is basically taking our eyes of Christ, taking our eyes of
the hope that he has, right? That we have in Christ Jesus.
So it says, and the exceeding greatness of his power. And this
is again, this is Paul praying for us. There are eyes of understanding
being enlightened on these topics, in these areas, the exceeding
greatness of His power. This power is the power of God
to us who believe. This power is to our benefit.
This power is the power that was able to forgive our sins,
to get our salvation, right, to forgive our sins, and also
for all the riches of His glory that we have in Christ Jesus. This great power, Oswarth, to
believe, and what says Oswarth is to our benefit, is towards
us, who believe according to the working of His mighty power. And then he gives an example,
he reminds us of what type of power this is. This is His mighty
power, which wrath, this is verse 20, which wrath in Christ, when
he raised him from the dead, no less power that it took to
resurrect Christ Jesus, that power is us worth. And that power
will be the same power that is used to resurrect us as we resurrect
in his new body. And this must take place in the
believer's life. This is a promise that's for
sure. that Christ Jesus was resurrected and we were resurrected in him.
So this is a must that we will also resurrect by his mighty
power, right? And this mighty power raised
the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and sent him in the right
hand in the heavenly places. And that's where we see it in
him because there is a union between Christ and ourselves. So he's praying in this particular
passage that we might receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation,
that we may know God better, that we may understand the hope
of his calling, this is the desires of Paul towards us, that we may
grasp the riches of his inheritance, and that we know the immeasurable
greatness of his power. towards us. So we might rest
in his power. We might rest in his love towards
us. And this is things that we ought to pray for, I suppose,
because we are needy people. As believers, we have Christ,
but we need more him, right? As we grow in Christ, we become
less and less dependent on ourselves, right? We become less and less
independent. We become more dependent on him
because the Lord shows us how weak we are and shows us how
powerful he is, right? And that's his mercy and that's
his grace, growing in grace. Our next scripture we're gonna
go to is Philippians 1. Philippians 1. Philippians chapter 1. It's another
prayer of Paul. And when I say a prayer of Paul,
of course we know that it's directed by the Holy Spirit for him to
write as he did, as the Holy Spirit is the true author of
the scriptures. Philippians chapter one, we're
gonna go to verses nine and 11. Nine and 11. I mean, nine through
11. It says, and this I pray that
your love may abound more, yet more and more in the knowledge
and all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent,
that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by
Jesus unto the glory and praise of God." So here, He's praying
that the first, he says, that our love may abound yet more
and more. Remember that these Philippians,
I think, were commended by Paul for their love to one another,
right? The city of love, they call it
Philadelphia, is related to this word, to the Philippians. So
this is probably the church that's most commended about their mutual
love. This is what he prays for, that they may abound more and
more, meaning that our love for one another, especially for one
another, as Christians, has no limit. We can't come to
a place where we feel like we love each other enough. No, we
can abound more and more. And he's praying for them, for
this love to abound more and more, and this love between us
is what the Lord Jesus says that this is how the world will know
that you have followers of me. It doesn't say they will know
that you follow me because you follow the law, or they will
know that you follow me because of your faithfulness. No, that's
not what it says. It says they will know you, that
you follow me because of your love for one another. And that's
very important. That's very important in the
New Testament, in the New Covenant, this love that we have for one
another. But he says, you have to abound
it more and more in the knowledge, in all judgment. This judgment
has to do with discernment, discernment. We have to be growing discernment,
discernment of the word of God, discernment. We need to discern
false doctrine when we hear it. We need to discern lies and things
of this world. We'll be able to know that they
don't come from God, and discerning the word of God as well. So he's
praying for them to abound more and more, the love and the knowledge
of all discernment, that you may approve the things that are
excellent. Now, in order to approve things that are excellent, you're
going to need discernment. That's what you need, to approve
those things that are right, those things that are good for
you. those things that are good for your family, those things
that edify, all these are gathered, attained by discerning that you
may be sincere without offense to the day of Christ. Sincere
without offense, we're going to see that a little further
in some of the other prayers, as close to being without reproach,
right? Being filled with the fruits
of righteousness. These are fruits of righteousness,
which are by Jesus Christ. This is the fruits of the Holy
Spirit that the Lord Jesus Christ is the producer of, and he produces
them in us, right? That we're filled with the Spirit,
and we're filled with fruits of righteousness. Fruits are
always a result. A fruit doesn't make the tree,
right? A tree makes the fruits. It produces
fruits. So this righteousness is the
righteousness in Christ that we have, the righteousness that
he gives us as we are born again, and that produces fruits. So
Paul's prayer here is that our love may abound more and more
in the knowledge and discernment. We might be able to prove what
is right, right, have good discernment, and that we may be pure and blameless
in the day of Christ. Blameless doesn't mean perfect. If you remember, Paul writes
to Timothy about the elders, that they may be blameless, meaning
that they don't have outward sin that may compromise their
testimony. And that no one can point to
us and say, I know about this man, certain sins, point out
certain public sins or sins, but that's what it means by blameless. It doesn't mean perfect. And
that we may be filled with the fruits of righteousness to the
glory of God. Why to the glory of God? Because
they come from God. They're produced by the Lord
Jesus Christ in us, right? And that is what Paul prays for
them in that particular passage. The next passage we're gonna
look at It's Ephesians 3, Ephesians 3, 14. We're going to go back
to Ephesians. Ephesians 3, 14. For this cause, I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So for this cause, is
that Paul is praying for them, of whom the whole family in heaven
and earth is named. He's saying that all the family
in heaven is named, God gives them their name. We know that
whoever gives the name has authority over when you have children.
You are the ones that give them the name because you have authority
over them. It happened back in Genesis also in chapter 1 and
chapter 2 where Adam names all the animals. They go before him
because they have authority. He names Eve as well. But it
says that the whole family, both in heaven and on earth, is named
by God. He has authority over us, that he will grant you according
to the riches of his glory, to be straightened with might by
his Spirit in their inner man. Now that he may grant us, he's
praying for them that God will give them. Now this, when it
says according to his riches of glory, think about this a
little bit, but let us meditate what he's saying, according to
his riches of glory. If somebody comes in here and,
like myself, and we donate maybe, I don't know, $50 to the church,
right? $50 is different according to
who's giving it, right? For us, $50, we give a nice amount. But if a millionaire comes in
here and he gets $50, it's a lot less than what we give, our $50. Or if a billionaire comes in
here and gets $50, that's nothing, even though it might be something
for us. It's kind of like that parable
when Jesus said about that lady, a very old lady, a widow, that
she gave a mite, and the mite wasn't a lot of money, but it's
all she had. So she gave out of her riches,
or her porn that she gave, right? And when it says, according to
the riches is glory, we have to imagine this riches of God's
glory. This is wonderful. This is more
than we can imagine, right? He's wanting for us to rise according
to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened. So this strength
comes according to the glory, to the riches of his glory, with
his might of his spirit in the inner man. This inner man, I
think, is our soul, is our inner man. I'm not convinced this is
the new man, but this is our soul. their inner man, right?
This is our soul, the heart, our heart, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith. We know that God, the Holy Spirit
comes when every believer has the Holy Spirit, but I think
this is when it says Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith,
it's talking about more of Christ dwelling in our hearts, meaning
that he's He's everything for us, right? He's very important.
He's ruling in our hearts. Everything we think about it,
we think about it with the mind of Christ, that He may dwell
in your hearts by faith. We know that when we first believed,
it's different now. We see Christ differently as
we grow in grace than we saw Him even when we first believed,
right? He's more important to us, right? He's more and more.
He becomes more and more. of us. So he wants Christ to
dwell in our hearts by faith that you may be rooted and grounded
in love. This is a result of the Lord
Jesus Christ dwelling in us. The results of him dwelling is
that we root it. We root it means that we are
firm. And this is by faith, right?
Our faith gets stronger in him, not in ourselves, but in the
Lord Jesus Christ, because our foundation is the Lord Jesus
Christ. So we are When you have faith
in something strong, you have strength because you're based,
you're trusting in something that is strong, and your faith
is strong, and you feel rooted and grounded, and this is in
love. It's always in love because that comes hand in hand with
being rooted with Christ. He says, may be able to comprehend
with all the saints what's the breath the length, and the depth,
and the height, and to know the love of Christ. I think that's
all that breadth, length, depth, and height is related to the
love of Christ. This love of Christ towards us
is greater than ourselves, and it's greater than we comprehend
at this time. And we got room, lots and lots
of room to grow in that comprehension the breath, the length, the depth,
and the height of Christ Jesus, and the love that he has for
us. And this love passes knowledge. It's more than knowledge. It's beyond our knowledge, and
it's more important than knowledge. And it also lets us know that
we cannot achieve the complete knowledge of this love, that
he might And that ye might be filled with all the fullness
of God. This is great. This is mighty,
to be filled with all the fullness of God, right? At first, when
we come to Christ, it's like a little illustration. We might think God of like this
water, a bottle of water, and we have it. I have it in my hand.
And I think of God this way, and I have the knowledge of the
fullness of God. But then as we grow, we see that
God is more like a lake, not so much a bottle of water. And
as we keep going, he becomes like an ocean in his fullness. We know more about God. We know
more about Christ. We know about his love towards
us. We know about his sovereignty,
about why he has everything in control. And our growth and the
fullness of God continues growing. He says that we may be filled
with all the fullness of God. So this is unlimited growth in
the knowledge of God and in our perception of how wonderful,
how, what his glory is. We continually need to grow in
this. So he, in this particular passage,
is praying for strength, power through the spirit in our in
and being. We have Christ to dwell in our
hearts by faith. So we need to grow in all these
areas to be rooted and grounded in love, comprehend the breadth,
the length, the height, and the depth of Christ's love. We're
not going to fully comprehend Christ's love towards us just
yet. But that does not discourage us from growing in that knowledge,
growing in knowing the depth of his love. We continue being
amazed. We are amazed, we grow in grace
because we realize how large the grace has to be, or had to
be, to save us, right, as we grow in Christ. So we'll be filled
with the fullness of God. The next passage we're gonna
look at is Colossians 1. Colossians 1. Colossians 1. These are all,
I remind you, prayers that the Holy Spirit directed Paul to
pray for the believers, Colossians 1, 9 through 12. For this cause,
we also, since the day we heard of it, cease not to pray for
you and to desire that you might be filled. Some of these prayers,
of course, they're going to be repeated. And if we heard it
before, it gives us more of a sense of how important these things
are. that he's praying for different believers in different churches
about the same topics or the same needs that we have. He says
that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will and
all wisdom and spiritual understanding. We heard about spiritual understanding
in the first passage, right? And we heard about wisdom and
also knowledge of his will. Knowledge of his will is knowledge
of his word. knowledge of his revealed word.
Uh, that's the will of our lives, right? Um, a lot of times we
sometimes spend more time thinking what that looking for a special
will for him for our lives of what job should I take? What
person should I marry? What decisions I should make?
But we need to spend more time in God's word to get this knowledge,
this wisdom that we may know that God will give us the wisdom
to make those decisions. But this is that we may be filled
of knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding
which we which he prayed for before. So the spiritual understanding
must be important that he might walk worthy of the Lord and all
pleasing. So he prays that we are walk
might be worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful and
every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. This is
our walk, our daily walk, our testimony, and how we walk before
the Lord. This is important. He's praying
for it. This is important that we might
not bring shame to the gospel, to his name, and that we might
work worthy into all pleasing. All pleasing, he's talking about
pleasing God. And that's through his will,
right? knowledge of his will, it goes
hand in hand. Strengthen with all might according to his glorious
power. Meaning that we're gonna do this,
this fruitful in every good work, increasing the knowledge of God,
this comes not by strength. Verse 11 says, strengthen with
all might according to his glorious power. Remember the according
to? This is according to his glorious power. His power is
very, he has glorious power, It's unlimited power, and this
is what gives us strength. This is what we need to seek.
It's his strength, not ours, because our strength is weak
at best, if we have any strength, right? Unto all patience, longsuffering,
joyness. This is all difficult, difficult
in the flesh, isn't it? Difficult in the flesh, this
having patience, being longsuffering, joyness. All these are fruits.
These are fruits of the Holy Spirit. is a fruit of his glorious
power in our lives, giving thanks unto the father, which have made
us meet, uh, us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of all the
saints and the light. This is also again repeating
inheritance. So in this passage, Paul's praying
for us to be filled with the knowledge of his will. That's
that's God's will for us. Uh, walk in a manner worthy of
the Lord. This is what Paul's praying for
the believers, that may be pleased in every way, being fruitful
in every good work. We know about Ephesians 2, 8,
9, and 10. I believe that the Lord has prepared
good works for us to walk in them. That's bearing fruit. Growing in the knowledge of God,
being strengthened with all the power for the endurance of the
patients. with joy and giving thanks to
the Father for our salvation. This is all by his power, not
by our power. Also, in 1 Thessalonians, we're
going to see another prayer of Paul in 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 3, chapter 3. We're going to see there in verse
12 and 13, where it says, and the Lord may make you to increase and abound in love for one another. This word, one another, is mentioned
58 times in the New Testament, 58 times, lots and lots of times. This is a very, very important
word in the New Testament about our church, to abound in love
with one another towards all men, and towards all men meaning
all men. not just believers who have to
be walk in love, even as we do towards you, to the end, that
he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before
God. This is God's word. Notice that
it doesn't say that you may establish, that God establish our hearts
unblameable in holiness before God, even our father, at the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with him, with all the saints. This is what's going to take
place when the Lord Jesus Christ returns. We will be unblamed
almost, with holiness before God, as Jesus Christ himself
has provided this holiness. He has provided this righteousness.
So he prays here in the dispatches that the love may increase and
overflow for each other and for other people. and that their
hearts be strengthened in holiness and may be blameless at the coming
of Jesus Christ. This is what his prayer for the
Thessalonians is. He has an additional prayer,
one more, in chapter 5 of the same book, chapter 5, Thessalonians
5, 23. It says, and the very God of
peace sanctify you wholly, completely, separate you. meaning to separate
you from this world. And I pray to God your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless into the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we are blameless
before the Lord Jesus Christ. Before God the Father, we are
sinless. Christ has taken all our sin.
And I think in this world, the Lord can keep us blameless as
he required for the elders to be blameless without any sin
that might compromise the gospel, the testimony. Faithful as he
hath called you, who also will do it. So he's praying for them
to be faithful. And we are to be faithful. And
also, he will do it. He reminds you that you're not
faithful because you're good. You're not faithful because your
strength. You're not faithful because your
commitment, even though we are committed to Christ, but we are
faithful because he does it, his power, his work in us. So God sanctifies them completely.
It's one of their prayers here. And that our whole spirit, soul,
body be kept blameless at Christ's coming. Next prayer is 2 Thessalonians. Let's go to the next book. And
look what Paul prays for the Thessalonians again, in chapter
1, verse 11 and 12. Chapter 1, 11 and 12. Wherefore,
also we pray always for you, that our God would count you
worthy of his calling to fulfill all the good pleasure of his
goodness and the work of the faith with power. that the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in
him according to the grace of our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. So he makes them, that God may
make them worthy of his calling. Now he's talking to everyone
there in Thessalonians and the believers, this will take place
with the believers, right? they're going to be worthy of
his calling. If they continue being faithful, it demonstrates
that they are elect, and this will take place. He fulfills
every result, the good work of faith in his power. It says that
fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work
of faith with power. It says with power because it
takes power for this to take place. Anything that the believer
achieves, it takes the Holy Spirit to do. He's the one at work in
our lives. So it does take power. And in
2 Thessalonians, again, in chapter 2, we go to chapter 2, 16, another
prayer we find here that Paul pays. 16, verses 16 and 17. We're almost done. 16 and 17. It says, now our Lord Jesus Christ
himself And God, even our father, which have loved us, have given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort
your hearts. It's his prayer now that God
comforts our hearts and establish you in good work, word and work. So he wants us, our hearts to
be comforted. He wants us to be established
in every good word and work. And this is says, now that Jesus
may do this, Jesus himself and God the Father, we have loved
us. And he has given us everlasting consolation. Now, because he
has given us everlasting consolation, we are to take heart. We have
to comfort our hearts in what he has done. If we meditated
what God has done for us in Christ, All comfort comes from that,
okay? Comfort and peace comes from
what he has done. If not in what we do, but what
he has done for us, this is where true comfort comes from, right?
And this has established us in every good work and work. So
he, in the next one, Second Thessalonians, we're almost done. Second Thessalonians
3, 5, and 16. First, I'll read verse 5 and
then I'll read 16. Verse 5 of 2 Thessalonians 3
says, and the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. He explained that the Lord direct
us, our in heart, into what? Into the love of God, of what
he loves us, and into patience waiting for Christ. This is what
gives us peace here on earth. This is what gives us comfort
here on earth, is to concentrate in the love of God and patiently
waiting for Christ. This is what's going to make
the Lord direct our hearts into that. If we concentrate in our
love for God, we're going to be discouraged. We always will
be discouraged. If you don't get discouraged
in your love for God, then there's something wrong. You're not seeing
yourself correctly, right? But we are not to concentrate
on our love for God. We're not to get encouraged by
our love to God because our love of God will discourage us, will
always do if we're honest, right? But our hearts are to be directed
to his love towards us. And his love is the love that
does things for us, right? His love for us is what accomplished
everything he accomplishes for us, right? And our peace ought
to come from his love of God. And we have to patiently wait
for Christ. And verse 16 says, now the Lord
of peace himself give you peace always by all means, meaning
by all means is he gives us peace different ways. different people. He gives us peace that the Lord
be with you all. So he's saying that here that
the Lord of peace himself is going to give you peace. You
know, when we when we need peace, we need to go to only one source,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that's going
to give us peace. He's the only one that's going
to give us comfort in our time of need. We are not to give go
to anybody else. Other other than the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, because he's the only one that could give
it. He's the Lord of peace. Now in Romans 15, this is the
last one here, Romans 15, five, six, and also verse 13. We'll finish with this. This
is, now the God of patience, this is Romans 15, five and six. Now the God of patience and consolation
grant to you to be like-minded, one towards one another, according
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's here praying for peace among
us, amongst the believers, right? May this God of patience and
consolation grant us, grant to you, which means grant to us,
to be like-minded, one towards another, according to Christ
Jesus, that ye may be one mind and one mouth glorify God. Now, if the believers have the
mind of Christ, we're supposed to have one mind, right? And
as we grow, if we're growing right, we're supposed to be growing
like each other. Being the same is, by the world,
a negative thing, isn't it? The world emphasizes individuality. different diversity, right? But,
you know, the world teaches, the world promotes everything
that's against God. God is the total opposite. You
know, when we are with Christ, when we have glorified bodies,
we're going to be very, very much like each other. We're going
to be like Christ. And we, as we grow and we become
more like Christ-like, we'll be more and more like each other.
And that's okay. That's okay because that's good
because We need to be like Christ. So as we grow one mind, one mouth,
we glorify God. We all do the same thing. We
glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
verse 13 says, now God of hope filled with all joy and peace
in believing. Notice what you get by believing. You get joy and peace. So when
we lack joy and we lack peace, it's an indication that we're
not believing, indication of our lack of faith, right? That
ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
And if we all do this, we're going to be like each other.
So here, he's praying for all these things. And the very last
one is Philemon 1.6, that the communications of thy faith may
become effectual. So our sharing of our faith may
be effective by acknowledging every good thing which is in
you in Christ Jesus, of course, in Christ Jesus. So those were
the prayers that Paul was directed by the Holy Spirit to pray for
the believers. And I suspect that we all have
special needs that were among these prayers, right? And this
is enlightening. for our better understanding
what God wants for us, right? Because when Paul is praying,
and it's written in the scriptures, it means it was directed by the
Holy Spirit, and meaning that God is wanting these things for
us as well. And I'm gonna close with a word
of prayer, and then we'll have the first break. Father God,
thank you, Father, for your wonderful grace. Thank you for all the
spiritual blessings that we have in Christ, Father. We recognize
we are needy people, Father, and we pray that we might come
to you for those needs. We might consider all these things
that Paul has prayed for the believers, Father, and we might
grow in Christ. We might grow in love to each
other and we might grow alike because We want to grow in grace
and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you once
again for your wonderful time here. Uh, in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you.