Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 2 Corinthians 1. We're just going to be in
one verse, but I want to read a little bit to get the context
in our minds. We'll get to that verse here
in just a moment. 2 Corinthians 1, let's begin in verse 8. Apostle
Paul said, we would not, brethren, Have you ignorant of our trouble
which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure,
above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life? But
we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should
not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead, who
delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver, in whom we
trust that He will yet deliver us. Now here's our text. Ye also, helping together by
prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means
of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. Now the Apostle Paul declared
here that we should not trust in ourselves but in God. And then he glorified God alone
for delivering his people in the past, in the present, and
in the future. But then, speaking by the Spirit
of God, he also says the saints helped by their prayer. The saints helped by their prayer. Do you find that strange? He
tells us to trust only God. He tells us only God is our deliverer. And then he says, this deliverance
came by many helping through their prayer. Does God use the
prayer of His saints? What's the purpose of God in
prayer? What's He using prayer for? God uses the means of prayer
to edify the one praying as much as those for whom we pray. God uses prayer to edify the
one praying as much as the one for whom we pray. Now, first
of all, God indeed uses the means of prayer. He said there, ye
also helping together by prayer for us. Now, believers pray for
one another. That's so. Believers pray for
one another. We know that's true because prayer
is of God. It's not of us. Just like faith
is of God, just like repentance is of God, just like continuing
in faith and persevering in faith, just like righteousness and holiness
is of God. Prayer is of God. Turn over to
Psalm 27 again. Christ produces prayer in His
redeemed. Christ is the intercessor. He
is the intercessor. And He is the intercessor for
His people. Look here in Psalm 27. Before we ever had spiritual
life, before we ever even knew Christ, before we ever even were
able to pray, Christ prayed for His people. He made intercession
for His people. We saw here in 27 the faithful
obedience of Christ while He hung separated from God in darkness
on the cross. While He bore the sin of His
people to justify us on the cross, He was faithful to God. And this
was his prayer while he hung there, verse 9. Hide not thy
face far from me, put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast
been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. That was his prayer to the Father
while he hung on the cross. And it was a perfect prayer to
God. And now He's justified His people
and He's risen and He's ever living to make intercession for
us. And so whenever whenever we are in any trouble. And at
all times, Christ is there with the Father praying for His people.
Hide not thy face far from Him. Put not thy servant away in anger.
Thou hast been His help. He is praying this for us when
we are not praying. Thou hast been His help, O God
my Father. Leave Him not, neither forsake
Him, O God. Thou art the God of His salvation.
His wounds plead this for us. His righteousness pleads this
for us. His presence pleads this for
His people there at God's right hand. And when we suffer light
affliction, when we come into these light afflictions that
we think are so hard to bear or one of our brethren suffers,
we often cannot pray or we won't pray. We can't find it in our
hearts to pray. But remember what we saw in that
psalm, the life that I now live. How do I live it? What's the
strength of my new man? Christ lives in me. In the life
I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me.
and gave Himself for me. And so Christ comes in the power
of His blood, and He comes in the power of the Holy Spirit,
and He enters in, and He speaks effectually in our hearts, and
He says, Seek ye My face. Seek ye My face. And He speaks
that word effectually. When He does, we glorify Him
for making us willing and able. Then we say in verse 8, When
thou saidest, Seek ye My face. When you said it, you said it
effectually. Then my heart said unto thee,
Thy face, Lord, will I see. That's how Christ produces prayer
in His people. Just like He produced faith in
the beginning. Just like He produced repentance. Just like He continues
that work. This is how He produces prayer.
He tells you in your heart, Seek me. And that's when we'll seek
Him. That's the only time we'll begin
to truly pray to Him. And then He makes us pray verse
9. Then we pray, Hide not thy face far from me. Put not Thy
servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave
me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. Christ produces
that prayer. He prayed it on the cross, He
prays it at God's right hand for His people, and He makes
you pray it. And then look to Romans 8. Go to Romans 8 with
me. We're seeing how that prayer
is produced by God. We can't glory in praying. Prayer
is produced by God. Romans 8, look at verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought. We don't know what we should
pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. I just
said Christ brings us to pray what we read there in Psalm 27
and 9, but often it doesn't come out of our heart like that. We
can't even utter the words. We just moan and groan. And that really is prayer produced
by Christ. But when it comes up to Christ,
even the Spirit makes it a perfect prayer. He makes it come to God
like it ought to be. He makes intercession for us.
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the
spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the
will of God. See, he knows the will of God
and he makes intercession according to the will of God, even when
we don't. So seeing it's by our Redeemer
and by the Spirit of God that we pray, we know that God's saints
do pray. Now let me... I want to give a word of warning
here. We don't glory in ourselves for praying. We don't praise
ourselves for praying. We glory in the Lord. Christ
is the one who produced it, so we give Him the glory. The Spirit
of God produced it, we give Him the glory. God the Father is
working His will even in prayer, so we give Him the glory. And
let me say this too, and I hope you hear this. I'm saying this
for you here and I hope others hear it too. I'm saying this
for you particularly. It's not good to be on social
media writing, I'm praying for you. That's not good. That's
not good. Indeed, we ought to comfort our
suffering brethren. We ought to let them know we're
praying for them, if we really are, if we have. But it's easy
to say. Very easy to say. It's much more
difficult to do. And I wonder sometimes how often
it even goes beyond just writing it or saying it. But beware of
writing it on social media because that's announcing it to the world
and that's very close to what Christ told us not to do. Look
at Matthew 6. Our Lord was very clear on this. Look at Matthew 6. Look at verse 5. He said, When thou prayest, thou
shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they
may be seen of men. Somebody might say, well that's
not why I write something like that on social media. The heart
is desperately wicked. Be careful. Be careful. Look at what Christ said. Verily
I say unto you, they have their reward. That's all it was. It wasn't really prayer. They
wanted to be seen of men, so they prayed to be seen of men.
Men saw them and said, boy, they really do pray a lot. That's
their reward. That's what they sought. That's
what they got. But watch this. Verse 6. But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet. He's just saying where it's just
you and the Lord alone. And when thou hast shut thy door,
that's making certain that you're alone, is what he's saying. Pray
to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly. You see that? I'm not discouraging
anybody from praying for your brethren. I encourage you to
pray for your brethren. But we ought never do anything
to be seen of men. We ought not pray in public and
Because it's just, the Lord said, don't do that. Don't do that.
You don't want anybody to look at you and think you're something. That's not the purpose of prayer
at all. And that's not really prayer.
God won't hear prayer except it's produced by Him. And God
won't hear prayer except it be between you and God. But then
He will hear. And I pray we hear that. But God does use the means of
prayer. He does. He produces it. We know He does.
He produces it. We glorify Him for doing it.
Now secondly, here's the first purpose of prayer. Here's the
first purpose of God for using prayer. Through prayer, God unites
His people together at Christ's feet. Through prayer, God is
uniting His people together at Christ's feet. Look here at verse
11. You also helping together by prayer for us. Our help preeminently
is God alone. Paul just said that. He said,
God delivered us. We were pressed so that we shouldn't
glory in ourselves but trust in God alone. He delivered us,
He is delivering us and He shall deliver us. God is the one who
delivers us. He did it in election when He
chose us in Christ. Christ did it by His blood on
the cross. He delivered us by His blood. Delivered us from
the curse and condemnation. Delivered us from our sins. And
the Spirit of God delivers us when He quickens us, brings us
to faith in Christ. And our God continues to deliver
us and shall deliver us till that day we're in glory with
Him. And He will not lose one that He chose and redeemed. And so we just saw that it's
God also who puts prayer in the heart. So I want you to understand
now, God's getting all the glory for what we're talking about
here, but it says here, God gave Paul this word, and God gave
Paul this word to say that we are helping together by praying
for our suffering brethren. God is gracious, doesn't He?
He don't have to use us. He don't have to use us, but
He does. That's grace to use His saints to pray for one another.
But the key word here is together. That's the key word here, together. God uses the suffering of our
brethren and He uses the means of prayer to bind His people
together at Christ's feet. Our prayer, now get this now,
this is not what the world will tell you. Our prayer is not moving
God to us. in any way. Prayer is God's means
of moving His people to Him. That's the purpose. Now, I want
you to picture prayer like this. You picture a flock of sheep.
They're out there in a field, in a pasture. There are shepherds
out there. One over here, feeding over here,
off to himself, and a couple of more together over here, not
far from him, but a little separate from him. And you got some over
here feeding and some over here. They're all in the same pasture.
They all got the same shepherd. But they're a little scattered
around in that field, feeding, you know. And as they fed, they
just sort of wandered. And they've gotten a little separated
from each other out in that field. And here comes the wolf. God
allows the wolf to come into the field, not to destroy his
sheep, just to cause some suffering, just to cause us to see our need
of the shepherd. So here comes the wolf into the
field and all those sheep begin to huddle up together. They are
defenseless. Sheep have no way of defending
themselves. And they all huddle up together
right at the feet of that shepherd. And that shepherd goes over and
he takes up that little lamb that that wolf is wanting to
prey on. He takes up that lamb and puts
it on his shoulder and the shepherd walks along and all those sheep
just follow right along behind him, right at his feet. That's
what God is doing through prayer. We get separated, we get out
from one another and feeding and we kind of get off to ourselves
a little bit and God causes a wolf to come. Not to destroy, but
just to work this purpose. And we all begin to huddle up
in prayer at God's feet, at Christ's feet, at the feet of our shepherd.
Whether we're right here together or whether we're in our homes
or wherever, we all huddle up in prayer for that suffering
sheep. We huddle up in prayer at Christ's
feet, all of us together. This thing is spiritual. We're
not separated by walls and streets and towns and all that. When
we begin to pray to God, all His sheep are coming together
at Christ's feet. And that's what God's working
it for, to bring us together. And very often we're here together
and we pray together, but it's to bring us together at Christ's
feet, to behold Him and see our need of Him constantly. That's
a good purpose, isn't it? He brings us together. That's
the first purpose of prayer. To bring us together at Christ's
feet. Now here's another purpose of prayer. It's to keep us acknowledging,
keep you and me acknowledging, every believer to acknowledge
and continue acknowledging that every gift we receive is from
God alone. Everything we receive is from
God alone by His free grace. And to keep us acknowledging
we need Him. to keep us. We need Him ever
keeping us together by the gift of His grace. Paul said there
that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons.
See, the gift was bestowed upon us. And that gift that he's talking
about was that deliverance. He delivered us from so great
a death And He said, and you help by your prayer. And He said,
that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons.
He sent that gift. God did it, but He used the means
of many persons to bestow that gift. He used the prayer of the
saints to bestow that gift. Now don't misunderstand. God
does not have to use means. God is the sovereign God of heaven
and earth. He made this place by speaking it into existence
out of nothing. He's all sovereign over everybody,
every ruler. From the greatest to the least,
He's ruling all. But He's chosen to use some means. God chose by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. He chose the means of
preaching. And He chose the means of prayer.
He chose the means of prayer. First, to bring us together,
like we just saw. but also to keep us always acknowledging
that we're ever dependent upon God for every gift. And it's
all by His grace. He makes us ever acknowledge
that. But now I want you to understand something. Go to Ezekiel 36.
Though this is the case, and this is surely certain. From eternity God already purposed
and predestinated the gift that God will give to each of His
children. From eternity, God predestinated
the time, the place that He is going to deliver each of His
saints the first hour He makes us believe. He predestinated
that time and place from eternity. And when we come into danger
and we are suffering and He is going to deliver us from that
trial, God purposed and predestinated the time He would deliver us
from eternity. Every trial. There is nothing new with God.
Everything He is determined to do In the end, He purposed from
the beginning. So the bestowal of His gifts
is not a new thing with God. It's not new with God. When He
delivers us, it's not new with God. But watch this. Ezekiel 36-33, Thus saith the
Lord God, In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your
iniquities. See, God, He said, I shall. He's already determined it. It's
going to happen. He said, in that day, I'll also
cause you to dwell in the cities. He said, I will. I'm going to
cause this to happen. He knows it's going to happen
for all His people. And the wastes shall be builded. God's determined it would be
built. All His church shall be built. And He says, and the desolate
land shall be tilled. That desolate heart of yours
is going to be tilled and mine is going to be tilled and so
it will be in all His children. He already determined it, whereas
it lay desolate in the sight of all that pass by. And they
shall say, this land that was desolate is become like the garden
of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become
fenced and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left
round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places
and plant that that was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it.
I will do it. Nothing new with God. He knows
every deliverance He's going to work for His people from the
beginning. But watch this, verse 37. Thus said the Lord God, I
will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to
do it for them. God said, in other words, you're
going to pray to me and ask me to do this. You see, He already
knows what He's going to do. He already determined it from
the beginning. But He said, but you are going to pray to Me and
ask Me to do this for you. And I'll increase them with men
like a flock. God has chosen the means of the
prayers of His saints not for us to persuade God to do something
new or to persuade Him to do what we will. That's not why
God uses the means of prayer. God has chosen it to bring us
to ask God to bestow what God already purposed and predestinated
and promised. That's the purpose of prayer.
The purpose is to keep His saints ever acknowledging that our God
is eternal. Our God is sovereign. Our God
is working His will at all times in all His people, even in the
heathen. and He is going to bring His
will to pass. He is going to plant His people and He is going
to build up His church and He is going to save all and none
shall be lost. And the purpose of prayer is
to bring us to acknowledge God alone can and shall do it and
to make us to ask Him, Lord, do what You will. Do what You
have purposed. That is the purpose of prayer.
It is not to try to turn God to do what we would have Him
to do or to turn God to do something different is to bring us to His
feet to acknowledge every gift is from God, already purposed,
already predestinated. God is going to do His will.
And He is going to bring His child to say, Lord, not my will,
but Thine be done. And that is true prayer. You
cannot pray a better prayer than, Lord, Thy will be done. Then you will have for certain
what you ask for. Because God's will shall be done. And that's the purpose of it.
The first purpose is to bring us together, His saints together
at Christ's feet. The second purpose is to bring
us to acknowledge that every gift is from God and we depend
upon Him to give it according to His will and His purpose.
And here's another purpose of prayer. He is to bring us all
as His saints to glorify God. He said there in verse 11, that
for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons,
thanks may be given by many on our behalf. In other words, now
that many people have prayed for us and God has delivered
us, there will be many people thanking God and glorifying God
because He delivered us. Now, after we've asked God to
help us, and after God's worked His will, do we thank God? That's as much a part of prayer
as asking Him to do. It's thanking Him once He's done
it. Do we thank Him? I hear and read a lot about people
saying, I'm praying for you, but I don't find very many people
writing, I prayed, thanking God for hearing and doing what he
purposed to do from eternity. You don't read that very much,
do you? I'm thanking God for you for doing what he purposed
to do from eternity. I'm not suggesting that they
should write that and announce it to the world. I'm just using
it as a point to say, do we thank God? when He's done what we asked
Him to do or turned us to see that what He's willing to do
is better than what we even asked Him to do. Do we thank God for
that? God's saints do. God's saints
do. I know they do. Because the same
one that put the prayer in the heart brings that thanksgiving
out of the heart too. And it's all of Him. He puts
thanksgiving in our hearts just like He did put the prayer in
our heart in the beginning. David suffered trial. He suffered
a lot of trials. And when he suffered them, he
employed all his power and all his thought and all his action as he suffered the trial. He
was active. He employed whatever power God
put in his hand to use, he employed it. And he was served by many
human helpers. A lot of people prayed for him.
And he prayed to God. But when it was all said and
done, David only gloried in one. He gloried in God for working
his will and saving him. You get what I'm saying? You
can use what God's put in your hand to use and pray and others
pray. But when it's all said and done,
who do we thank? We thank God. God did it and
we thank Him. All gifts and all powers given
us for us to help ourselves with it. Whatever He has given you
to help yourself with, He gave it to you to help yourself with
it. And all human helpers are gifts that God has given. But when all those things are
used, the only way any of it is effectual is by God. If it's means He's put in your
hands to use and you used it and God worked it together for
your good, you can't glory in the fact that you used the means
He gave you. God worked it for your good. And He gave you some
helpers. He gave you some saints, some
brethren to pray with you and pray for you. But who made them
pray? God did. And who worked that
for which they prayed? God did. And the same is true
of our prayer. So we are only glory in God. And notice it says here, it's
the thanks of many that goes up to God. Not just the one who
suffered. If I suffer and I pray to God
to help me and deliver me, I've received so many nice texts and
emails and comments from you all because you knew, I had told
you last week I've been having some trouble. And some of you
were very kind and said, And that was comforting to me, and
I appreciate it. You did it privately. You let me know. We're praying
for you. And I'm thankful for that. That
was encouragement to me. So we all prayed together, and
through the means of many persons praying, when God works His will
and gives you that comfort, delivers you from that trial, then there's
many people praying and thanking God for what He did. You see
how, I don't know what else to say, but our God is all wise
in everything He does. Just like He brings us to the
dust and He brings glory to Himself by using the means of preaching
the gospel, He does the same thing using the means of prayer.
He keeps us right where we need to be. He uses the means of prayer
so as He enables you to pray. Paul said, pray without ceasing.
Prayer is a spirit of prayer. It's a spirit of constant dependence
upon God. God's people pray and we learn
to pray without ceasing by His grace. And then prayer brings
His sheep together at the feet of Christ. So remember that's
God's purpose and remember it as you pray. Don't make a show
out of prayer. That's not going to bring anybody
together. But in secret, as you pray, remember
this is to bring all His sheep to Christ's feet, where we need
to be, together. And then by prayer He keeps us
acknowledging that all our help is God alone. So in all our prayer,
we acknowledge, Lord, we need You. We need Your grace. We need Your power. We need You
to work Your will. And by prayer He keeps us crying
out to Him in thankfulness, giving Him all the glory. So remember,
this is something I need to be reminded of. When God has delivered
you, thank Him. Go to Him and pour out your heart
with as earnest desire as you did when you prayed for Him to
help you. And thank Him because it's all of God. Everything He
does. Doesn't that give a lot more
meaning to prayer than what the world gives to it? You know,
when I first came here, I came out of the deep south, and they
make a show out of prayer down there. I mean, it is a show.
See who can pray. They get together, and they got
prayer captains and prayer warriors, and they give them their prayer
teams' names. It makes me sick. It makes me
sick. God's saints pray. We do, because
this is the means and purpose for which God gave it. So let's
remember these things. Thank you. Let's stand together,
brethren. Our Heavenly Father, we are continually
seeing the wisdom, Your wisdom in the way that You do everything.
This thing of praying, we take for granted. and yet you've worked
these wise purposes for it. And we do thank you for that,
Father. We thank you that you've caused us to pray. How often we pray just saying
prayer, but then you did for us what you did for Paul, and
you made us to truly pray. Lord, make us pray. Intercede
for us. Make us to come together. Make
us to see our need and our dependence upon you. Make us acknowledge
the gifts that you give to us. And make us thankful, Lord, for
this work. How wise and how how powerful, how good you are to work your
will in this earth. And Lord, we pray. We don't know
what to pray for. We don't know what you're doing,
what you plan to do, what your purpose is in particular. But we do know, Lord, that you
purpose to save your people. And you purpose to do it in a
way that gives Christ all the glory. And we pray, Lord, that
you do just that. Work your will. and honor your
son, and call out your people, keep your saints together, and
Lord, bring us home, bring us to your feet one day, all together
in person, face to face, where we'll continue forever thanking
you for this great work you've done. We pray these things now,
Lord, in the name of our great intercessor, Christ and Him crucified. Give us, Lord, of our sins. We
ask it now. By Your grace, by Your mercy.
Amen.