Paul says, Brethren, pray for
us. Finally, Brethren, pray for us.
Now Paul was a man who prayed continually. That's what he told
us in the first letter to this church. He said, pray without
ceasing. Live in an attitude of prayer continually. And though he himself was a man
who prayed continually, nevertheless he often requested all the believers
to pray for him and to pray for other preachers.
He says, here brethren, pray for us. He's talking about all
those who minister the word. Now here's a question I would
pose. How does one pray for a preacher? We tell preachers, Pastor, pray
for me. Well, Paul is asking you to pray
for us. So I've jotted down three things
about which you can pray concerning your preachers, elders, teachers,
pastors, other pastors in other places. Number one, pray with
respect to his private study. A preacher who doesn't study
is no preacher. So you pray with respect to his
private study, that God would give him wisdom, wisdom beyond
himself, understanding of the Word. Pray this way, While I'm
out here in the plant working and in the store and other places,
and he's there in the study, studying the Word, teach him
that he might teach me. You can pray that. Teach him so that he can teach
me. He can't preach what he hasn't
experienced. So let's pray about his private
study, and then secondly, we can pray with respect to his
public ministry. We can pray, Lord, give him the
gift to preach. Everybody doesn't have the gift
to preach. The scripture talks about the
gifts over in Corinthians, and there's the gift of prophecy,
there's the gift to preach. Who's sufficient for these things?
Nobody. But our sufficiency is Christ.
He can give me the gift to preach. Pray that God will give him a
heart to preach. Preaching without heart... I had a pastor one time who was
in a Bible conference and he went to the young men and he
said, I wish you'd quit preaching to my head so much and start
preaching to my heart. But we can't preach to other
men's hearts if we don't preach from this heart, heart to heart. preach with heart. And thirdly,
ask God to give him the power to preach. There is, everybody
has the Holy Ghost. If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of his. We're all baptized into the body
of Christ by one Spirit. No man can call Jesus Lord but
by the Holy Spirit. But there are times when the
Holy Spirit comes upon men in special visitation. I experienced
that this morning. You weren't listening to me this
morning all the time. I know when God gives me power
to preach. He was here this morning. Power
to preach. You pray that about me and these
elders when they're up here and other pastors. Give him the power
of the Holy Spirit. Don't leave him to himself. I
don't want to just hear him. I want to hear from God. You
brought all I've got to say a dozen times or more. But I want to
hear him speak through his word from heaven. We've got to hear
him who speaketh from heaven. That's what he said. But he'll
speak through the lips of a man. You're not going to hear any
voices. Let me know if you do. and we'll send somebody to help
you. You're here through the preacher. Lord give him power and then
Lord give him a hearing. Give him some people to listen
to the message. I've always said if God sends
a man with a message, he sends him on purpose and that man will
get a hearing. And if he never gets a hearing,
evidently God didn't send him. Pray that God will open doors
and raise up people to hear the message. All right? Pray with
respect to his private study. Lord, teach him that he may teach
us. Pray with respect to his public ministry. There's so many
things. I go through every one of these
right here. Give me the gift. Give me the heart. Give me the
power. Give them ears to hear. Never
step up here without going through all of those things. Without
Him, we can do nothing. No, we can do something, we can
mess it up. Without Him, we can do nothing lasting, eternal,
or effectual, but we can sure mess things up left to ourselves.
I've done it. Thirdly, let's pray with respect
to His personal state, these pictures of ours. their families. Pray for their families. Pray for their safety. Our missionaries
down there, I pray for their safety. That's a dangerous place.
Brother Cody was talking about driving back because he didn't
have the money to fly with his three his three children, but
he said, I don't mind driving through Mexico, the 2,000 miles
or more, but I'm concerned about my children because it's such
a place of unrest and danger. So pray for their safety. Pray
for their general peace of mind. Pray for their continuance in
the gospel. I've seen some men leave the
gospel. who have pastored churches for
a number of years, I've seen them depart from the
gospel. Because a man preaches grace
doesn't mean he'll always preach grace. He will if God sent him. He will if God blesses him. But you pray that God's servants
will continue in the gospel. But you know Paul's got another
thing in mind here. Finally, brethren, pray for us.
But Paul's main concern expressed in these next three lines is
not so much for himself and his brethren, his fellow ministers,
but two very important things here. Listen, pray for us that
the word of God may have free course. That's our objective. Not just pray for me that I'll
have power, but power to preach the Word. Not pray for me that
I just might not have heart and affection, but I might have a
heart to preach the Word, that the Word might run well, that
the gospel we preach may accomplish God's purpose, go forth in the
power of God's Spirit. You know, true preachers are
runners. They're sent from heaven with
a message, like those two fellows that Joab sent. One of them he sent, one of them
he didn't send, but they're both runners, and we're running. We're
running with a message. Pray that God will make it effectual
to somebody's heart. Turn to Philippians. That's what
Paul said over here in Philippians chapter 2, verse 15. He talked
about being a runner. A runner with a message? That's
the way all messages used to be delivered. They didn't have
telephones and telegraphs and newspapers and postal service. They had runners, and they ran
with a message. They ran with a message. In Philippians chapter 2, verse
15, that you may be blameless, that is before men, and harmless
as the sons of God. without rebuke in this midst
of this crooked, perverse generation, that you might be examples among
whom you shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word
of life, that I, your preacher, who brought you the message,
that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I didn't run
in vain." That's what he said. I ran with the message. But did
you hear it? He said, I don't want to run
in vain. That's what he's saying there,
that you might be a light, an example, a blessing to people,
that I might rejoice in the fact that I didn't run in vain. Lord,
give people ears to hear this gospel. Give people an interest
in this gospel, in the word preached. Give the people hearts to obey
this gospel and remove the obstacles and the hindrances that would
cause this gospel not to run well. You see a stream flows,
but sometimes the beavers now drop trees and things like that,
and it doesn't run well. If he wants the gospel here,
you pray that it might run well. And then he said, secondly, pray
that the gospel might be glorified, magnified, the gospel. Well,
the gospel is Christ. You can't preach the gospel without
preaching Christ. Christ is the gospel. If the
gospel is magnified and glorified, Christ is glorified. When is
Christ in the gospel glorified? I'll tell you when it's glorified.
When it's heard with reverence. It's not just heard as a theory,
or as an argument, or as a doctrine, but it's heard with reverence. We're overwhelmed. I tell you,
when I read that Proverbs 8 that I read this morning, I'm overwhelmed. I'm just, I'm just, your breath
comes short, you know, that's awesome. It's heard with reverence. The gospel is glorified when
it's received in love, without resistance. It's received in
love. Paul asked this congregation,
he said, am I your enemy because I tell you the truth? The truth,
even when we are offenders, ought to come to us with love. We ought
to receive it with love. Precious are the rebukes of a
friend. Even when the gospel rebukes us and reproves us and
corrects us, we ought to receive it in love. That glorifies the
gospel. It's not just a man talking,
it's God speaking to me. And I receive it in love, I receive
the admonition. As a child ought to receive an
admonition of the Father. You correct your children, you
do it because you love them, you do it because it's true,
and if they receive it in love, That glorifies the gospel. If
you receive it thirdly, if it's believed with the heart, that
glorifies the gospel. I believe. Like I said, there's
more than those people that I named, they just didn't believe. They
just didn't say they believed God, they believed God. Abraham
didn't just believe there is a God, he believed Him. That's
when the gospel is glorified, when somebody says, hey, I believe
that, I believe Him, I believe Him. Oh, that gospel And I tell
you, the gospel is glorified when it's greatly prized. Bob
prayed, gave thanks for what we have here from this Pope here. Now just when I preach, but when
everybody who preaches here, I'm careful about who preaches
here, and everybody who preaches the gospel, you highly prize
it, don't you? I hear you talk about the messages
you hear when I'm not here. you're thrilled with the message,
you prize it, you rejoice in it, you cheerfully receive it
and obey it, Christ is all in all, and that's when the gospel
is glorified. Brethren, pray for us, that the
word of God might run well, without hindrance, and that that gospel
may be glorified, listen, even as it is with you. Even as it
is with you. Oh my, it has been blessed to
you, hasn't it? It has been blessed to you. I
look over this congregation, I know everybody here, I know
how you love the gospel, and it's changed your life, hasn't
it? Changed your whole life. Oh, and that's what he's saying,
I want, what's been done for you, he said, I want to be done,
you pray that God will do it some way, as it is with you. And he says, pray this, that
we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, because all men
have not faith. Paul's enemies, and I'm talking
about human enemies, I know we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but fear not them that kill the body, and after that
have no more that they can do. That's not the problem. Our enemies
are principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness, spiritual wickedness
in high places. But Paul still had enemies. And
your pastors do too, and preachers. And Paul's enemies were twofold.
Not the world now. The world doesn't care what we're
doing here, or what we say. They don't care. They're in the
fast lane. They passed you by a long time
ago. They did not look back. See what you said or thought.
But Paul's enemies, number one, were religious people. The religious
Jews, the preachers of law and works, self-righteousness, form,
ceremony, religious tradition. They hate the message of grace,
and they hate the man that preaches it. And that's our enemies, and
those are my enemies. is the religious people who believe in salvation by free
will rather than God's will, by their works rather than Christ's
precious blood. They are enemies. They certainly
are. And they're unreasonable men.
And they're wicked men. And secondly, Paul's enemies
were false preachers. Now listen, let me handle this
carefully. They were false preachers in the true church. That's right. I preached just
recently from 2 Corinthians when he was defending his ministry
against preachers in the church at Corinth, in the church at
Galatia. These men, their tares among
the wheat, these men professed to believe in Christ, even to
believe in the grace of Christ, that the glory of Christ was
not their chief concern. Their chief concern was their
own glory, and promotion, and vainglory, and to draw disciples
after themselves. A true preacher like John the
Baptist doesn't want men following him, he wants them to follow
the Lord. But these false preachers, they were trying to discredit
Paul. They said, he's not an apostle, don't listen to him.
His words are weighty, his appearance is weak. Don't listen to him. These men
were his enemies, men in the true church, tires among the
weak. Because he says here in verse
2, pray that we may be delivered from unreasonable men. They are
unreasonable, and they are wicked. Because everybody doesn't have
faith. Everybody who claims to have
faith doesn't have faith. He's not talking about Alchondor
in the wicked places in the world. They don't have faith. Now we
know they don't, but he's talking about here even those who profess
religion, who profess Christ, even some of them do not have
true faith. They may have a, Bishop Ryle
said, a historical faith, and a man be a fool if he didn't
have a historical faith. Anybody with good sense knows
Jesus Christ walked this earth and died on the cross. Anybody
with good sense knows God created all things. Anybody knows that
there's a living God. That's a historical faith. This
country was founded upon that historical faith. They may have
even doctrinal faith. They may be Calvinist. They may
be people, that's logical. Calvinism is logical. Who can say but God? That's logical. They may have doctrinal faith.
They may have temporary faith. Christ talked about a faith of
miracles. But these men he's talking about
here, he says, all men have not faith, he's saying they do not
have the faith of Christ. They do not have the faith of
God's elect. They do not have that saving
faith, which is the gift of God, which is the operation of the
Holy Spirit and the That faith which makes a man a new creature
gives him a new heart, new spirit, new nature. Old things pass away,
all things become new. They don't have that faith where
Christ and his glory is paramount and uppermost in their thoughts
and in their work and in their labor. Christ. Now the reason we have faith
is we're his sheep. He said, my sheep, hear my voice. He said, other sheep I have which
are not of this foal, I bring them, I must bring them, I must
bring them, them I must bring. And they will hear my voice,
and there will be one foal and one shepherd. And then these
fellows came to him and they said, well now, if you be the
Christ, the Messiah, you tell us, tell us plainly. He said,
I told you, but you didn't believe me. And you didn't believe me
because you're not my sheep. So, we can't take any credit,
can we? If we believe it's because we're
his sheep. And if they don't believe it's
because they're not his sheep. All men do not have faith. The elect of God have God-given
faith. God-given faith. Now, verse 3, But the Lord is faithful, who
shall establish you, and keep you from evil. Now he follows
that second verse, that's kind of a shaken, that second verse
is a verse that has a tendency to, somebody said this, Paul
had been writing about these tares among the These professors
of faith, these preachers, even preach the Bible if they don't
have true faith, even among ministers of the word who do not have true
faith. And the apostle realizes that the Lord's people, when
they read that and hear that, some of God's dearest people,
they take it seriously. They take these warnings seriously.
And these words may cause them to doubt themselves. They'll
go, do I have faith? If these fellows that are schooled
in the seminaries and the colleges and read the Bible, they don't
have faith, do I have faith? It may cause them to doubt themselves
and be fearful that their faith in Christ is not genuine. Or
knowing, even if they know, well I know I believe, but will I
always believe? You said this preacher preached
20 years in the church and then left the gospel, maybe I'll leave
the gospel. Will I lose my faith or depart
from faith or fall away from faith? Not if you have the faith
of God. And how do I know that? Well,
he says here in verse 3, the Lord's faithful. Even when you're
not, he is. The Lord's faithful. Where does
he take these people that get disturbed and are filled with
doubt? who doubt themselves, being fearful
that their faith in Christ may not be genuine. So where does
he take them? He takes them to the Lord's faithfulness. He says, but the Lord is faithful. He's faithful. Wherefore the
apostle takes them to the true fountain of life and comfort
and assurance, and that's the great is his faithfulness. Let
me read you some scripture. Don't turn to it, just get familiar
with it. 1 Corinthians 1.9, God is faithful,
by whom you are called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus
Christ. He said, God's faithful, who
called you. 1 Corinthians 10.13, God is faithful,
who will not suffer you to be tempted, above that you are able. But will with the temptation
make a way of escape." Why? He's faithful. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 24.
Faithful is he who calls you. He also will do it. He will. 2 Timothy 2, verse 13. If we believe not, do you ever
believe not? Do you ever doubt? Do you ever
act like you ought not to act? Sure. So he says, if we believe
not, he abides faithful. He cannot deny himself. You're
his. Sometimes you may not act like
it, but he'll never forget it. You're his. You're his. And that's
the reason he says here, all men do not have faith. But God's
faithful. He's faithful to his sheep, he's
faithful to his children, he's faithful to his elect, he's faithful. And Lamentations 3 says this,
this I call to mind, therefore I have hope. It is the Lord's
mercies that I'm not consumed. Because his compassions fail
not. His love is new every morning,
and great is his faithfulness. So when you want assurance, don't
look in here and see if you see some strong faith or perseverance
or how to endure to the end. You look up there and you see
him, and he's faithful. And what he'll do is this, verse
3. The Lord is faithful and he'll establish you. He established
you. Now let me say two things here.
He established you. We are already established. We
are already in a sure, safe, established state. We are in
Christ. We are already, by God's grace,
seated in Christ, with Christ in the heavens. We are in the
arms of everlasting love. We are in the hands of Christ
our sheriff. No man, they're in my hands.
No man can fuck them out of my hands, he said. We're chosen
in a covenant of grace. David, who had so many ups and
downs and the ins and outs, he said, but this is my salvation.
God made with me a covenant. We're built on the rock of ages.
He's our refuge and our hiding place. We've been called, forgiven,
justified, and sanctified, and we're in a state of grace and
adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father, not just today, but tomorrow
too. And if you meet me just before
I leave here, to go to be with him, I'll still be Father, won't
I? That's right. They'll never finally and totally
fall. Then what does it mean, he shall
establish you? Well, with all that in our favor
and on our behalf through our blessed Redeemer, yet we in this
flesh are often so unstable. Unstable in our thoughts and
in our minds. God said he remembereth our frame. He knows your dust. He knows
your dust. And we need to be established
every day. We need to be comforted every
day. We need to be exhorted and encouraged
every blessed day. That's the reason you ought to
never neglect the Word. If you can get out of the bed
in the morning, get you a cup of coffee, sit down and read
a psalm. You need establishing. You need
comforting. You need encouragement. And through
the Word of God, we need a more firm persuasion of our interest
in Christ. And that's how we get it, through
the Word of God. That's just so. And I know what
an advantage I have, being all you make it possible for me to
study, and be in my study and be in the Word all the time.
But you need it too. Don't neglect the Word of God.
I beg of you. It's the children's brilliance.
It's the child's comfort. It's the way faith grows, the
Word of God, every day. You establish it, but I tell
you this, I promise you it will be through the Word. That's how
you establish it, through the Word. That's the only way. Not
looking at a pine tree, you know, and a bird flying in it. It's
the Word. That's how you establish it. And then he says, he'll keep
you from evil. You say, maybe I'll follow. No,
you won't. No, you won't. He'll keep you. He'll keep you
from the evil of sin. You mean no sin? He has you in
sin. But he'll keep you from being
overwhelmed by it. He'll keep you from the dominion
of sin, from the reigning power of sin. That's what he says. Sin shall not reign over you.
Why? Because I'm stronger than other people? No, because He
is. He's faithful. He'll keep you. The Lord's faithful,
and He'll establish you, and He'll keep you from evil, and
He'll keep you from the evil one. I hear these preachers on
television. They talk more about the devil than they do Christ.
Somehow the devil's bothering everybody and upsetting everybody.
He'll keep you from Satan. You keep you from his snares
and his traps, God will keep his people. He's not going to
let Satan have his people. That's ridiculous. You love your
children, you give good gifts to your children, you protect
your children, you keep them from danger. He loves his more
than you love yours. That's right. Nothing going to
happen to you. Not far as Satan's concerned.
Nah. He'll keep you from the evil
ones. And he'll keep you from evil religious men who would
turn your heart from Christ and back to Moses' law and legalism. They'll deceive many. They're
not going to deceive you. There's no way. It can't be done. John said if they leave us, it's
because they never were of us. If you're of the faith of God's
elect and you're of God's people, in Christ, you'll never fall.
You'll keep it. The songwriter said, Rejoice,
believer in the Lord! He makes your cause his own.
That hope that's built on his word can never be overthrown.
Though many foes beset your road, and feeble is your arm, your
life is hid with Christ in God, and you're beyond the reach of
harm. Because his honor is engaged
to keep the weakest of his sheep. Find the weakest one here, and
every one of us raise our hand. He's engaged to keep you, the
weakest of his sheep. His honor is engaged to keep
the weakest of his sheep. All that his Heavenly Father
gave, his hand will surely keep. When God begins his gracious
work, That work God will complete. Around the objects of his love,
his power and mercy meet. The precious blood of God's dear
Son shall never be shed in vain. The soul that believes on Jesus
Christ shall, I promise you, with Christ forever reign. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word And believe it,
on him that sent me hath, h-a-t-h, hath everlasting life, and shall
never come into condemnation. But he's already passed from
death to life. So verse 4, Paul says, I have
confidence in the Lord as touching you. What's that word, touching
you? Well, I like to, he touched me. But that's not what the word
means, concerning you. I have confidence in the Lord
concerning you. Paul, when he left the elders
at Ephesus, he said, I commit you to the Lord, to his word. I've already done that. And I
have confidence in the Lord touching you. My confidence is not in
your faithfulness. You will be faithful. But it's
not in your perseverance, it's not in your obedience, it's not
in yourself, it's not in your strength, it's not in your wisdom,
it's not in your good behavior. It's in your Savior that I have
confidence concerning you, in your Savior. And listen to this, and I have
confidence that you will both do And you have done, are doing,
and will do the things we command you." Could I give you something
I found so applicable to this day? He said, you will both do and
will do the things which God commands you, God's commandments.
Will you listen real carefully now? You'll do what God says
to do. I know you will. Paul did not put upon God's people
anything but the commandments of the Lord, that which is written
in the New Testament. What did he tell them to do?
Believe, rejoice in the Lord, love one another, be patient,
be generous, worship God, study the Word, grow in grace and knowledge,
keep the unity of the Spirit now, pray for one another, Forgive
one another as God for Christ's sake forgave you. That's just
what God says. That's all Paul puts on you,
Mike, is what God says. But now these false preachers,
they bind upon their followers the laws of Moses. Keep a day,
pay a tithe, obey our rules, follow our standards, do what
we practice. Orders from headquarters. What
you supposed to do? Five star Christian, all that
sort of thing. Don't you see them doing it?
They put on their people their rules and regulations and standards. I read one church in town used
to have a slogan, the church with a standard. I wanted to
write ours next to the church with a savior. That's a difference. But you know the thing about
all these standards, now listen to me. All these rules and regulations
and practices and the way to dress and the way to walk and
the way to so forth and so on, they all vary with the preacher.
Depending on who the preacher is, the standards change. Do
you find that true? It varies with the situation. It even varies with the age of
the people, if it's a young church or an old church. What they're
expected to do will vary with the situation, with their age,
it'll vary the country in which they live. But God's commandments, our Savior
said, this is my commandment, you love one another. And he
said, if you love God with all your heart and your neighbor
as yourself, I'll take care of the rest of it. And God's commandments
in Christ are the same for all believers in all generations. male or female, old or young,
in every country, in every generation, in every era, God's command was
never changed. I think that just describes our
days, all these things. Preachers are laying on people,
laying on their backs. They sell bonds to build buildings.
If you don't buy a bond, you're kind of a second-class Christian. If you don't do what he says,
if you don't have 200 in Sunday school the next Sunday, you're
kind of a second-class Christian. You're not with the spiritual
bunch. But God's commandments are the same for all His people,
no matter who they are or where they are. So, Paul, I'm going
to close with this. And the Lord directs your hearts
into two things, into the love of God. This is, first of all, his love
for you. That's right. I need you to read
Ephesians 3. The Lord directs your minds and
your hearts into the love of God with a love for and appreciation and
knowledge of his love for you. He loved me for I loved him."
Ephesians 3, verse 17, listen, "...that Christ may dwell in
your hearts by faith, and you might be rooted and grounded
in love, and you may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth, length, and depth, and height, to know
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that you might be
filled with all the fulness of God." God directs your heart
into an appreciation and His love for you. But also, God directs your hearts
into your love for him, and your love for one another, because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and he that loveth
is born of God, and he that loveth not knoweth not God. So I want
my heart to be directed primarily toward his love for me, but I
want me to examine my heart Be sure that I love him and one
another. That's right. Until a man's love
is set upon God, the motions of his heart are crooked. But
when the heart is turned toward God in love, it makes his path
straight. This is the work of God in beginning,
in continuation, in perfection. So Paul prays here that the Lord
will direct your heart into the love of God. that you may grow
in faith, hope, and love, and secondly, into the patience of
Christ." And that's twofold. That's our, Lord give me patience. Patience to wait on thee, to
wait on the Lord. Patience of Job in trial and
suffering, submission to the will of God, knowing that he
doeth all things well. waiting for Christ, but secondly,
patient, waiting for his return. He's coming back. He's coming
back. And we're looking forward to
his return, and patiently waiting that I am too. Even so come,
Lord Jesus.