Philippiand 1:18-20: Pray Like It Matters

We dig into Philippians 1:19-20 and why Paul ties his courage and deliverance to the prayers of the church and the help of the Holy Spirit. We define prayer simply, wrestle with God’s sovereignty and our petitions, and leave with practical ways to pray for others when trials hit. 
• Paul’s joy and confidence while facing real suffering 
• Why Paul asks churches to pray for him consistently 
• Prayer as conversation with God that stays simple 
• Why God commands prayer even though he knows all 
• Intercessory prayer and God’s sovereignty working together 
• “Your will be done” as the guardrail for every request 
• Biblical examples of prayer leading to boldness and healing 
• A family story of timely prayer during crisis 
• Practical prayers for others including temptation and deliverance 
Pray. Be a praying people.

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Transcript

Welcome And Philippians Context

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Good morning once again. As always, it's a supreme blessing to be here. I love you guys. I love doing this, and I want to say happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. This is not a Mother's Day uh sermon, but I do want to just say thank you to every single mom, including mine and including my wife. Thank you so much. We've been working our way through Philippians, this letter that Paul has written from prison to the church in Philippi. I'm not going to rehash everything that we have been talking about over the past couple of weeks. Hopefully you've been paying attention. But last week in particular, we talked about rejoicing in the prosperity of the gospel despite the circumstances surrounding that, whether good or bad. In fact, the prosperity of the gospel is not only in a life lived for the gospel, but even in a death for the gospel. And this is an attitude that we have to adopt in our lives. It should become a natural outpouring of what we believe about Jesus, what we believe about the gospel and how it flows out of us. Paul, Paul, he has this attitude, and it's this attitude that gives him the confidence to face any situation and still rejoice and know that God is in control and that God has a plan and that the gospel will be proclaimed. At the beginning of the set of scriptures that we read last week in Philippians chapter 1, verses 18 through 26, there were two verses there that stand out that I think deserve a little more time than what we are able to give them last week. That's verses 19 and 20. I'm going to go back to verses 19 and 20 here, read them again, and then talk about them in greater detail. And we will probably also talk about this next week as well. Philippians chapter 1, we'll start in 18 and go through verse 20. What then? Only in every way, whether in pretense or

Philippians 1:19-20 Read Aloud

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in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. Some translations say salvation, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death, powerful and profound. The joyful, undefeated attitude that Paul displays and talks about, it is not natural to him, just as it is not natural to us. You don't reach this attitude on your own. You don't reach this level of maturity and discipline on your own. You're not born with the strength to be exactly who Jesus has called you to be on your own. Paul himself was not born this person ready to step into this role, ready to face this trial with this attitude. It all started, of course, with grace and mercy and salvation given to Paul by Jesus. But here, very interestingly, Paul specifically points to the Philippian church's prayers and the help of the Holy Spirit as what he needs to attain, I guess, a completion of this attitude in his situation. It's through prayer in the Holy Spirit, right? That's what it says. It's through the Philippian church's prayers, it's through the Holy Spirit's presence that Paul desires in order to have confidence that he will make it through with courage and joy, that his deliverance slash his salvation is partially connected to the prayers of others and to the moving, or even you could say, the supply of the Holy Spirit. And that's what we're talking about today and next week. Prayer this week, the Holy Spirit next week, because we need help. We are not doing this thing on our own. We can't. And as we continue this journey of being in a relationship with God, there will be times, as we see in Paul's

Why Paul Asks For Prayer

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life, when we need some help. We need the prayers of the people around us. We need the help of the Holy Spirit. And today we're going to talk about prayer, being a praying people, believing in prayer, having a faith that God will use your prayers. Paul is consistent in his letters and asking the churches that he is writing to for prayer. He asks for prayers for safety in Romans chapter 15, in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, in the book of Philomene, just to name a few of those times that he does that. He asked for prayers that his work would not be hindered in 1 Thessalonians chapters 3 and chapter 5. He asked for prayers that he would proclaim the gospel clearly and boldly. We see that in Colossians chapter 4 and Ephesians chapter 6, and here in Philippians. He is asking for a prayer tied to his desire to survive the trials before him and to finish the fight the right way. Not just physically, but mentally and spiritually, it seems, in totality. And so out of that, we have to ask some questions. First, what is prayer? If you've been a part of this church for a while, we've talked about prayer before. I tend to do a series on it every year. I'm not going to rehash all that at once, but let me just lay it out simply. Prayer is a conversation with God. Just like you can have a conversation with a parent, with a friend, with a child, you can have a conversation with God. It does not have to be complex. It can be fairly simple. You can recite the Lord's Prayer, and that can mean something. That can be a large chunk of your prayer life so long as you're consistent and you mean what you're saying. Or you can view prayer almost like a text chain that you have with a group that never ends. It's a never-ending conversation with God. Why do we have to talk about prayer? Or talk about why do we have to talk about God? He knows everything. This is one of the things that we believe. He sees everything, another thing that we believe. So he's not surprised by anything. So why do we have to tell him what's going on? Why do we have to pray? Well, I sort of view it this way as I was thinking about this. There are times when my one of my daughters, she has a habit of essentially describing her life as it happens in front of me. She could be setting up a baseball tee and a baseball the bat, and she's going to describe to me, Daddy, look what I'm doing. I'm setting this up. Daddy, look, I'm putting this ball here. Daddy, look, I've picked up the bat. Daddy, look, I'm swinging. Daddy, look, I hit this thing and it went 30,000 feet. And uh she is an athletic uh prodigy. No, no, no. But but that's exaggeration, obviously. But you you see what I'm saying? Sometimes, if we're not careful, we think we're wasting time. But if you're a parent, you know this, you love that stuff. You you love the fact that your child wants to make

Prayer As Real Conversation

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sure that you are taking notice of their life. And and sometimes I just think we're sort of like that with God. We he knows what we're doing, he sees it. But it's just nice that we want to go out of the way and describe to him what's happening. On a technical level, one of the reasons why we have to pray, just getting out of personal example here, is because he tells us to pray. It's sort of assumed we're going to pray. In Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us instructions on how to pray. And he starts his lesson on how to pray by saying, when you pray, not if you pray, but when you pray, there is an expectation of prayer. Next, even though God knows everything about you, he sees everything about you, he knows your innermost thoughts, he knows every struggle, every success about you, he knows you better than you know you. You're called to a personal relationship with Jesus. You are gifted this opportunity. And just like with your spouse, with a best friend, with a child, that relationship between you and God is strengthened and grown out of communication, consistent communication of that. Prayer is assumed, it is a theological necessity, and it is also a personal, relational communication with God that should be at the centerpiece of who you are. And it doesn't have to be complex. Recite the Lord's Prayer if that's all you've got. Say a five-second prayer if that's all you got, but do it and do it consistently. Talk to God, pray. But Paul here is not just talking about prayer to God in a relational sense, though that's part of it. He's not just talking about praying on a theological level like he knows he has to pray. He is specifically talking about petitions in prayers. He needs help. He's asking for specific prayer, for God's intervention in a specific situation. He seeks prayer, people talking to God about him for specific things. That's a whole different phase of your prayer life. And that does raise the question because another thing that we believe about God is that he is sovereign, his will will be done. He is going to have his way, he's gonna do what he needs to do. And so, if that's the case, and if he knows everything, if he sees everything, why do we need people to pray for us? Why do we need intercession if God is already seeing us and He He has all the power? What is the role of our prayers for our needs and the needs of others in that sovereignty, in that all-powerfulness? I think it's important to recognize, as one commentary uh says, that God ordains the prayers of his people as a means through which to accomplish his purpose, including his purposes for the perseverance of Christians in the faith for their ultimate salvation, even. This is part of what Paul talks about over and over again. This is not a brand new thing Paul

God’s Sovereignty And Intercession

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is bringing up here. We see this. Paul is consistently asking churches in Corinthians, Ephesians, and Philippians and Colossians and Thessalonians. In all of these letters, Paul shows that his own prayers include prayers for the sanctification, the deliverance, the final salvation of the believers. Those prayers consistently laid out in the New Testament show how seriously he took his duty for prayer about helping people through the troubles of life to reach the end in a way that glorifies God. And Philippians 1.19 shows that he expected his churches to take it seriously as well on his behalf to pray for him like he prays for them. Maybe you've never really thought this through before about the sovereignty of God versus our free will prayers. But Paul has made a habit of praying for people to finish the race strong, and he expected the same from his churches. God wants us to pray, and he responds to our prayers. He doesn't have to do it that way, but it seems that in his sovereign will, he has designed it to be that way, so that we are invited to be a part of how he wants to work here on earth. So pray because he desires you to pray, because he wants to answer your prayers for his glory and for his honor. Paul has an a has a reasonable expectation as he says this to the Philippian church that they are going to pray for him and God will respond. Something will happen from this. It'd be a waste of time to write this or say this from Paul's perspective if he did not believe that it mattered. It's going to do something for him. Your prayers matter. Have some faith. And they matter not just on a relational level, which is great. Right? It's a good thing that they matter on a relational level, but that's it goes beyond that. It matters more than just on a theological level where we know God expects us to pray, because that's just how it's supposed to be. It matters because he hears us, he responds to us, he moves for us, he cares for us. There is an expectation that when we pray, God moves. Not because we're powerful, but because God has designed it that way for his glory and for his honor. Now, here's a very important caveat, and I won't stay here long. I've talked about this before. When you look at how Jesus teaches us to pray, at the very beginning of his prayer, when you give him uh his relational and positional honor in your life, right? Uh honor, you know, our Father who art in heaven, right? That's relational, that's positional. And then there is this instruction: your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it's done in heaven. Meaning simply this: that above any petition that you might make for your own life, for your own needs, or even the needs of someone else's life, you are submitting yourself first to the perfect will of God so that he will do what needs to be done no matter what. And that simply means that sometimes when you pray for things for yourself, because you are first including his will first, it might mean that he says no to your prayer, your petition, in order to make sure that the first prayer that we're praying for his will to be done is done. Does that make sense? It's not an easy thing to wrap your head around that if we believe and pray for God's will to be done, it might mean that he says no to our petitions sometimes. Despite all of that, and Paul knows all of this just as well as we do. Despite all of that, Paul still wants the prayers of the Philippian church. There's no way around it. Pray for people. Prayer does things in the kingdom of God for the church. Peter and John, shortly after the birth of the church and the giving of the Holy Spirit, are walking to the temple to worship, essentially to have church. And you know the story. There's a there's a layman there, he's wanting alms, they don't have alms, and what they do is

Scripture Examples Of Prayer’s Power

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they basically petition Jesus in the name of Jesus for something to happen, and it happens, which is a fantastic thing. They they they petition Jesus, they go to Jesus, and Jesus works and moves on the behalf of them and the layman. Later in Acts 4, Peter and John are released from arrest after uh this whole thing has happened, and the believers gather together and they're celebrating and they're praying. And scripture says the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Elsewhere we see that people desire Paul's prayers, that God responds to them and that that miracles happen. Paul gives us a plethora of commands about churches and Christians being uh praying groups, being praying people, to bring your supplications, to bring your concerns, to bring your anxieties to God in prayer. Not just because it's going to make you feel good, but because there is an underlying belief that God hears you and will do something about it. James 2 says, Is anyone sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him. James chapter 5 also says, Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And then, of course, uh James talks about Elijah, who was a normal guy who prayed for no rain, and then it didn't rain for three and a half years, and then he did pray for rain, and then it did rain. God does things with our prayers, and so we have to be a praying people. God has chosen to use our prayers to do his will on this earth. We we pray because we're commanded to, we pray because it's relational, and we pray because we need prayers, other people need prayers, because God desperately needs to intercede on our behalf and on other people's behalf. He needs to step into situations that we have no control over to do something about it. I pray for you. Hopefully, you pray for me, and we're both faithful together that those prayers matter. Paul in this moment needs prayers of encouragement and intercession as he faces this great trial before him. He has confidence that he's gonna make it. He does. But it's through specifically, he says, the prayers of the church and the Holy Spirit, the intervention of God, that he will do this thing successfully. We have to pray. We have to pray. My father, when he was 17 or 18 years old, had a very severe car accident. He was DOA. Dead on arrival, if you don't know what that means. They were picking him up to put him in a body bag, and they felt a pulse in his ankle,

A Family Story About Prayer

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and they basically hooked him back up to everything, but he broke like all of his ribs, crushed his sternum, crushed a kidney, had a nasty scar across the lower part of his back. For years, if he was doing yard work and he started sweating, he would bleed out beads of glass and blood from the glass that was still embedded all over his face and in his head. Busted out his teeth. Pretty horrible thing. But he survived. Now, here's the thing about that survival. I don't know if he would have survived without prayers or not, but I do know this. The night that he had a wreck, his praying grandmother woke up in the middle of the night and started praying for her grandson, not knowing anything. This wasn't modern times. News did not travel that fast back in the 70s like it does today. She just woke up and she just started praying while this was going on, and my dad survived. Later, when my dad met my mom, and I don't know exactly when they figured this out, but I'll just say this. One night my mom was woken up, and it was around the same time that my dad had his accident, but there's no way to really 100% know this. And the Holy Spirit told my mother, you better start praying for your future spouse. And she did. And here I am prayer matters. Pray for people. Pray for things that you have no control over. Almost finished. There's some practicalities I want us to take home from this. Very simple things. The first one is this is when we pray, pray for others, not just for ourselves and the things that directly affect us. That seems like it probably should be common sense, but we live in such a self-centered society, and I know firsthand in my own prayer life how quickly my prayers turn to me, me, me, I, I, I. And while there is nothing wrong with praying for yourself and your own needs, I just think it's good practice and spiritual maturity to fixate your prayers on others first and for the majority of the time that you're praying.

Practical Ways To Pray For Others

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The next thing is that when you pray for others, one of the things that the Lord's prayer teaches us specifically to pray for is the avoidance of temptation and deliverance from evil. Pray that for yourself and pray that for others. That's essentially a piece of what Paul is asking for here. He's facing this trial, and there's always a temptation to give up. There's always a temptation to do the easy thing. In his case, probably to recant and to sort of uh find a way out of this by getting rid of the Christianity, all the tough things that he was saying. And what Paul is asking for is through prayer and through the Holy Spirit that he would have the right attitude and mindset to bring God glory, to not give up, to make it to salvation, and to be delivered in a practical way and maybe even in a spiritual way. Paul is so far from presuming that his own standing before God is perfect on the final day, that he would say in in 1 Corinthians, I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. He is secure in his salvation. And we've read that, we see that, we know that about Paul. We know how he describes salvation for us. Excuse me. But he also said things like, What I just read in 1 Corinthians. Why? Because he knew firsthand how hard this life can be and how hard it is to go through it. Just as Jesus did when he taught us how to pray. And so this is why he covets the Philippian church's prayers during his present time of testing, because he knows he needs them. He needs help. And we let me just end here and say it this way, very simply. We need help and other people need help. Pray for it. Pray that God gives us what we need, the grace and mercy we need, the supply of the Holy Spirit that we need, which we're going to talk about next week, in order to make it through, to be saved, to be delivered in a way that brings glory and honor to God. Pray. Be a praying people. Amen. With that being said, I think we should end in prayer. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we come to you and we say that we love you. And above all else, we pray that your will be done here on earth as it is done in heaven. Give us help, Lord. Help us. Lord, we're all going through life and we're all going to face things. We're going to have good times and bad times. And I simply pray

Final Encouragement And Closing Prayer

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that you would help your people. Help the people who are hearing this. Help them with your Holy Spirit. Give them the supply of who you are exactly when they need it for your glory and for your honor. Let us believe in the power of prayer. Let us know that you desire to hear our voices, to hear about our days, to hear our concerns, even though you already know them. But Lord, I pray that you would give us a monochrum of faith to believe that we are not wasting our time. And that when we pray and we bring our petitions to you, that you are faithful and you are good and you will do work. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Through Jesus' grace and through our connection to you, Lord, we believe that you care. In Jesus' name we pray and we believe and say. Amen. Amen.