Well, would you take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter one. We're continuing a message that I brought last week on approaching ministry. Romans chapter one, verses seven through 13. To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken throughout the whole world, for God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. making a request if by some means now at last am I find a way in the will of God to come to you for I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established or strengthened that is that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me Now I do not want you to be unaware brethren that I have often planned to come to you but was hindered until now that I might have some fruit among you also just as among the other Gentiles. well as we said we're at the threshold of a wonderful book that Paul is writing and he's writing to a group of individuals a newly formed church that he's yet to visit but he longs to visit with them and he wants to lay out before them the essential truths of the gospel he wants to lay it out before them so that they can be established and grow in those truths and so that through those truths they might he might with them reach out to see others one to Jesus Christ and before Paul launches into his instruction he pauses and takes a moment to just clarify to them what his spirit is, what his attitude is, what is in his heart and his mind towards them as he approaches them with this instruction that he's going to give them. A person's head can be full of accurate biblical information and precise theology and still be quite useless in communicating the great truths of God to God's people. Quite useless in the instruction that God would have them give us and other individuals in order to bring that person nearer to God and in a sense through that instruction bring God in nearer to that individual. It's not enough that we should be knowledgeable or adept in our communication skills, knowledgeable of God's truth, adept in our ability to communicate those skills. This week I was speaking an individual who was sharing with me 17 different rules they follow in preparing their sermons. And I can't remember three or four, but actually they were good rules, every single one of them. But you can be good at all 17 of those rules. and still falter and fail in what it is that God would have you communicate to God's people. Actually, we can communicate God's truth in such a way that instead of bringing those truths forward in a person's life, instead of getting credit to the word of God and bringing the power of that word to an individual's lives, we can actually undermine it. by the very manner in which we approach people, by oftentimes the very methods that we use in approaching people, by the attitudes that we have. So Paul speaks about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, one. He says, if I speak with the tongue of men and angels, but I have not love, I become a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. James refers to this as well in his letter to the churches and he speaks of those who are brought forward to teach and instruct the body of Christ and yet he tells them that if their attitudes are not in accord with what they're teaching that they actually will be boasting he says and lying against the truth. If they're motivated by selfish ambition, if they're motivated and their ministry is in a sense placated or carried out by self-seeking, James says that they will appear to be boasting in the truth, but actually they'll be lying against it. Their boast will be proven to be false. their mindset, their heart will actually undermine the very things that God wants to express and God wants to explain and they'll be found, not that the truth is untruthful, not that their saying is untruthful, but they will be found untruthful in the very manner in which they say it, it undermines the message. But Paul here shows us the proper set of mind and heart from which God's truth and God's gospel is to go forward into the lives of others to their benefit and to God's glory. And so here he shows us, and I'm mindful of this, how the pastor is to behave and orient himself to those that he serves and ministers to. And here he shows us, you should be mindful of this, of how you should be orientating yourself towards one another in the body of Christ. And then how together we might orient our heart and minds towards those who are outside of Christ. I want to give a bit of a quick review of what we talked about last week and we mentioned that although Paul is not instructing at this point in time he's just explaining something that is hard to what he explains and reveals to us in himself is very instructive it's very informative and it's very rich and it's very deep and I do want to review but I want to point out another thing that Paul says here in the passage that we're looking at it's in verse 9 and it reveals to us in a sense the secret that holds together these words and this attitude and these actions that Paul is stating Paul says speaking of God he says I serve him with my spirit in the gospel of his son Now, there are individuals who have taken that path and said that what Paul is basically saying is, I serve the Lord with all my heart, or I serve the Lord enthusiastically, and that might be true. Paul might be saying, I serve the Lord enthusiastically in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think it means more than that. I think Paul is speaking to a transformative change that's taken place in his life where he has been renewed by the Spirit of Christ and in this state of being a new man, he now brings forward a ministry that is authored and carried forward by the Spirit of God himself. You'll remember that when the Lord Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well, the woman who had had multiple husbands and the first person that she was with at that time was not her husband she asked where should we worship God she's a Samaritan should we worship God in this mountain or should we worship where you Jews say that we should worship God in Jerusalem Jesus answers and says I tell you not in this mountain or any other mountain but the day is coming when all people will worship God in spirit and in truth for the Spirit of God is searching or looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth Now you have to kind of juxtapose that declaration by Jesus to the conversation he had just prior to that with the man Nicodemus in the middle of the night. Nicodemus is a leader of the Sanhedrin. He's a man whose worship everybody would think was quite wonderful and quite profound. He was a man who with all of his heart and with all of his enthusiasm gave himself to following all the laws and following all the prescriptions of worship in the temple. And yet when he came to the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus said to him, you must be born again. Your worship is inadequate, your religion is inadequate unless you have a new life in you. Now when you come to Christ and you believe in him and you receive him as your savior, in that moment you're born again and you receive a new spirit and you're a new creation, you're a new being. And it's with that spirit that Jesus is speaking about when he speaks to the woman at the well. So to Nicodemus he said, you must be born again. And in essence to the woman at the well he says, you can be born again. but it's the basis from which we bring forward our ministry and our worship. So when Paul says of God, in whom I serve in my spirit, the gospel of Jesus Christ, he's not saying, in whom I give it my all, in whom I do it with great enthusiasm, in whom I do it with all my heart. He's saying my very life has been changed. I have a new spirit. I'm a new man in Christ. And by that spirit, I commune with the spirit of God. And in that fellowship with the spirit of God, He is working in me and producing in me this ministry that I engage in. And we'll notice here, by the way, that the context in which Paul says this is in the context of his unceasing prayer. for the church in Rome. It's this application of ministry that he gives in praying for the church at Rome. But here as well, he's not saying, I just do it with all my heart. I'm very enthusiastic when I pray for you. No, he says, I pray for you unceasingly. Listen, no matter how enthusiastic you are, if you just draw upon all your strength, you will not be able to pray unceasingly. only as God working in the transformed heart, the transformed believer who has received new life through Jesus Christ and the spirit works within that individual that he produces this kind of worship, this kind of religion, this care for others in the spirit of prayer and so in Ephesians chapter 5 when Paul is addressing the church and he's describing to them their conduct that they should have among one another and within their own homes and with each other and within the community that they live. And he's gonna call upon them to join, to gather together, to sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs to one another. He tells them first that they must be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's a spiritual enterprise. It's a spiritual work that God must produce and God must develop. And that is, in essence, what Paul is referring to here. And that's the secret to what we see in his attitude and his actions. This is not born out of his flesh. This is not the orchestration of his own willpower, refining of his own skills and his own ability or his own intellectual capacities and his ability to communicate that to others. This is a man who comes before these individuals transformed by the Spirit of God and in communion with the Spirit of God, bringing forward by the Spirit of God the ministry that the Spirit of God is authoring in his life. and that's what precedes all this now here are the things that begin to flow out of this life in the spirit and we mentioned two of them last week and we said the first thing here is that Paul identifies those that he's speaking to in Rome who are mostly Gentiles as belonging to the people of God he takes the words and the descriptors that are given in the Old Testament to the nation of Israel to the chosen people of Israel of God and now he applies it to these Gentiles in Rome and you know later Paul is going to explain to them that because of Israel's disobedience they have been taken out of the branch of God's covenant promises and that these Gentiles have been grafted in and he's going to remind them not to boast against Israel because God still has a plan for them But Paul is explaining to them, you now are a part of this community. You're a part of this covenant relationship. And he addresses them in that condition, in that state. And we said, listen, when we approach one another and we commune with one another, how do we see one another? Do we see one another as people who are the people of God? Do we identify one another and do we engage with one another as members of the family of God, chosen by Him, loved by Him, called by Him? Recipients, special recipients of the grace of his salvation, extending out throughout our lives. Recipients of the unique position of peace and reconciliation with God and learning to live in the presence of God in that fullness. If we did see each other in that way, it would change the way that we engaged one another and we interacted with one another. And Paul says that's his attitude towards these people in Rome. And the next thing we said is that not only does Paul say, this is how I see you, but then Paul says, I'm thankful that that's the case. I'm glad that it's so. He's not begrudging that God somehow has extended to the Gentiles what God had given to his nation, the Israelites. Paul had been an Israelite. He was proud of his nation. You can see as we go through the book of Romans that Paul still has a great affection for the people of Israel and a great sense of identity with their identity with God and what God is planning for them. But now Paul realizes that God has brought into his plan the Gentiles and called them to himself through Jesus Christ. And Paul acknowledges that truth initially, and he says, this is how I see you. But then the next thing Paul says is, I'm glad that that's the case. I'm happy, I rejoice that that's the case. So again, We made the comment that there is something within the body of Christ that should see one another as belonging to the body of Christ, but then also we should be glad that we belong to the body of Christ. We should rejoice that just in the testimony that we have trusted and believed in Him. Now, having said that, we've come to this third observation that I want to make, and it's this. Starting with these attitudes and the spirit, this identifying the church and these new believers as members of the people of God and rejoicing that this is the case, then these wonderful attitudes set upon Paul and bring into him an activity of vigilant prayer for those that he's writing to. So, this is what we read in verse nine. We've referenced it already. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son. Without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers. Paul doesn't tell us in this passage exactly what he prays for when he's praying for them, but he does in other places. In fact, if you'll see, Paul in his letter to the Romans describes the prayers that he prays for the people in Romans. When he writes the church in Ephesus, he describes at length the prayers that he prays for them. When he writes the church in Philippi and also in Colossae, in Philippians and Colossians, he begins again expressing the prayers that he's praying for. Then he does this when he writes to the Thessalonians in the book of Thessalonians. And he does this also when he writes Philemon, the individual Philemon. He tells them how he's praying for them. We see this pattern in Ephesians. He prays, for example, for their knowledge to increase in who God is. their understanding in that knowledge of all that they possess and all that they have in God. He prays that they would also recognize God enriches himself in them. That God finds pleasure and joy and a richness in possessing them for himself. He prays that they would grow more and more in an understanding of the greatness of God's power and an experience of that power and relationship with God. As they relate to God and they know God and they walk with God that the power of God might be released more and more in them so that they might know it by experience. in their lives. The very power that saved them might be expressed and continually working through them and deepening sanctification. This is what he's praying for. He'll pray that they will be strengthened in their inner life, in the life of faith, that they'll be filled with love. He'll pray that they will be filled ultimately with all the fullness of God. In essence he's praying I want you to live in the filling of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in your life. And then after Paul prays all of these things, he begins to instruct them. It tells us something, by the way, that instruction, good instruction, should always follow after our prayers. Prayer should come first, always first. So you see the flow here. Paul first welcomes them, those that he writes, into the family of God. Then he expresses to them that he's so thankful and he rejoices that that's the case. And then out of that, he begins to pray for them, a lot. He prays for them always, he says, but that's not enough. He says, I pray for you unceasingly. I pray for you all always unceasingly, he says. In my spirit, in this great work of the spirit of God, working upon this redeemed man, this transformed man, he takes that work of God in his life and he focuses it upon these he's praying for. Now I gave this illustration last week at the close, but I think it's worthy of giving it again. It's kind of like this. a couple gets married, they start a new family, and then their first child comes. They're waiting for that child to arrive, and the child arrives, and whether the child likes it or not, at that moment, they become a member of that family, and they begin to fill out that family. More children will come, but that child now is a member of that family, they're an heir of that family, they're, you might say, locked into that community where they're gonna grow, and they're gonna be raised, and they're gonna be formed, and so the parent receives them in that moment in their family, and the parent rejoices that it's so. They're glad that that's the case. I remember when my wife and I were first married that, you know, we don't do this in our church, but most churches back in those days, you had the mothers all stand up on Mother's Day. We do it sometimes, you know, and then we prayed for them, and what a kind of a thrill it was that we were able to, my wife was able to stand up on Mother's Day. that we were able on the very first Sunday we could bring our little child to church and introduce this new member of our family and rejoice that was the case and the church also received them into the family of God at that moment and they rejoiced the child belonged to them as well in a sense you know after that happens what happens is we parents start praying for our kids and we pray for them a lot sometimes it seems like we're always praying for them sometimes we're unceasingly praying for them and we also discover that we can't sustain that prayer in our own flesh You might initially pray for somebody in your flesh. Oh Lord, this person's such an irritation, do something in their life. That only lasts for so long. But you won't endure in that kind of prayer, no, to incessantly and always pray for someone the Spirit has to take over and guide you in that prayer. Well, what's to happen in the life of a family, your immediate family, is what Paul is describing is to happen in the life of the church. This life of prayer. That's how we approach one another in ministry. In fact, we shouldn't speak to each other. We shouldn't exhort one another. We shouldn't teach one another God's word if before it doesn't come this life of invested, committed prayer for one another. Some time ago, we had started a radio ministry in the valley, and for a number of reasons, we weren't able to sustain it. We took a half hour of radio program, and we invited a number of pastors to come and host, each day, a half hour of intercessory prayer that would come to the radio station, and prayer for their church, and prayer for our churches, and prayer for our community, and we basically outlined that prayer through the Lord's Prayer. And we would have a little devotional, and it was just praying, and so the people can listen to the radio station, would just, hear prayers being made over our community and over our valley, and prayers maybe for specific requests that came in as well. And then the church that hosted it for that week of prayer, the pastor would be in the studio with the person that would guide them in that prayer, and then other members of the church were invited to come to the radio station that was hosting it for that week and pray while that prayer was going on. Anyhow, it was a very good ministry. I think it was a very important ministry. I regret that we weren't able to sustain it and keep it going, but At that time, I contacted a pastor who had quite a reputation as a good Bible teacher in our community, and I asked him to join us and be a part of it, and this church to be a part of it. And his answer to me was, well, you know what? Prayer is not my thing. Now, he may have been inarticulate. I may have caught him on a bad day. He may have been just being brutally honest, and then again, he may have misspoken, and that's not what he meant to say, but what we can say is what he did say was incorrect and wrong, or it should not come from the lips of an individual who teaches God's word and instructs God's people. Prayer should first and foremost be our thing. Paul doesn't ever come and write a single letter that he comes to the letter before he comes to it by way of prayer for the people of God and pouring his heart out before the people of God. The church in my mind is to be made up of a few leaders, but many, many, many, many priests who are interceding and praying for one another. That's how the church grows. Here's another thing that I want you to see in this observation. This is where we'll pause here for the most, our most part here, because we're gonna break this down a little bit more. But I want you to see here that as Paul prays for these people, he has building within him a desire to be with them. desire to be with the people of God and to minister to them a spiritual gift he says in verse 11 for I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gifts so that you may be established and so let me just pause here for a second this is the fourth thing that we see developing a Paul first he sees him as the people of God second he's thankful that it's so then this births a vigil prayer in his heart for them and now he longs to be with them so that he might impart to them some spiritual gift. But under this point four, let me give you four observations. I don't want you to be confused by what point we're on here. So now we're gonna restart four other points, and it's just under this point four, and this is what we're gonna see here. And the first thing I want you to see here is that Paul's prayers have filled him with a desire to be with the individuals that he's praying for. Paul's prayers have filled him with a desire to be with those that he has been praying for. In fact, Paul says that multiple times he's attempted to go to them, yet God, for some reason, has not opened the door and allowed him to arrive in their presence. But listen, I've longed for this. I desire to be with you. And I think I can say it this way, that nothing will drive us into consistent fellowship with the body of Christ and with one another more than praying for one another. you tell me if this is not the case haven't you found this to be true that as God lays upon your heart someone that you're to pray for and you begin to enter into that mode of ministry and you sustain in that mode of ministry in other words you don't just pray over your cereal in the morning one night, or you don't just mention their name one night before you go to bed, but as God lays it in your heart and you begin to follow that individual in your prayers, and you lay up for your prayers for that individual, that there comes growing in your spirit a great desire to be with them, to commune with them. depart life to them and to see how they're doing. Sometimes it's not possible. Sometimes you can't do it. Sometimes they're on the other side of the globe, but you know what happens? You end up writing a letter to them and you're hoping to get a letter in response or you send a word out to them. I'm praying for you today, but if you could, if it were possible, you'd want to be with them. I mentioned to you last week, just somewhat comically, that we had thought of extending out to this last Wednesday our last fellowship meal before the summer break. And my wife wanted to do it, stop the week prior to that, which we did, by the way. We stopped the week prior to that. I listened to her, I took her advice. But I wanted to extend it out one more week. But then I realized that this last Wednesday, which in the last week would have done it if I had my way, was June 1st, which was my anniversary. I thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to make my point by having one more meal together on my anniversary instead of being with my wife. So the plan was that we would just have a special day together. but prior to that for about a week or so the Lord had laid on our hearts to pray for our youngest daughter and we've been praying for together and regularly throughout that week then last Sunday night as we're praying my wife said you know I I think it's really important that you go and be with her So Monday morning I got in the car and I drove up. I didn't spend the day Wednesday with my wife. I drove up at her request but because we both desired it to be with my youngest daughter in Sagal, Idaho. You pray for somebody. Your heart opens up to them. You begin to bathe them in that prayer. The Spirit of God moves upon the new man that's in you to intercede for them and you begin to unceasingly and always have them upon your mind and you want to be with them. You want to impart to them life. You want to see them. You want to see how God is working in their life. You want to know how to better pray for them. So you want to be with them. What's the application to all that? Well, I think you'll discover if you find in your life or you find in the lives of individuals increasingly a less and less of a pull to be in the body of Christ. A diminishing need for fellowship within the body of Christ in the church. An ability to replace it with streaming online or a radio program or whatever. I think what you'll discover in that person's life is that they are not praying for the body of Christ. They're not living a life of intercession. A church that prays together stays together I mean we're drawn together we want to be with one another a body of Christ where we intercede and pray for one another there is a pull for us to be with one another the early church on that first day which was born in Pentecost they begin to gather together for the Apostles doctrine for instruction and it says for prayer and they were continually with one another prayer helped them fast And not only this, by the way, that I know why people leave the church at times. They become disillusioned with things they discover in the church. They discover that they need too much prayer, and they don't want to give themselves. These people need just too much prayer. I don't want to be here. And so they leave the church. They're disillusioned or they're disappointed. And by the way, Paul writes the most of the churches that he writes to because there's a problem there. And yet Paul still wants to be with them and be among them. Why? Because he's praying for them. He's interceding for them. well if you just find that you can because of your disappointments because of your disillusion that you feel the tug just to be depart and just kinda keep yourself separate and this is fine with you it doesn't matter what the problems are in the church because they're there and the problems with people of God because we have them but the real issue here is what it reveals is you're not interceding for them you're not praying for them you're not holding them up before the Lord we're to pray for one another Paul wanted to be with the people as he prayed for them he wanted to be with them and to in their presence impart to them the very spirit and very life that the spirit was pouring out upon him in his prayers as he prayed for them this is just the case Let's look at another thing here we see. We see here that Paul recognizes, as he prays, that he has spiritual gifts of grace to give to the body of Christ. That he has these spiritual gifts or grace that God has put upon his life that he wants to share with them. Paul here isn't wanting to come to impress them with himself and his abilities. He's not coming here to show them what talents he has gained because he thinks nobody can do it as well as I can do it, so I want to come and show them how it's done. He's wanting to share with him instead the life, the spiritual life, the Spirit-filled life that God is working upon him and working in him and uniquely working in him as he prays as we see in verse 9. As the Spirit of God is moving in prayer. I would only say this, when you commit yourself as a people to pray for other people, not simply as a passing thought, but really to intercede for them, to study their lives and know their lives and pray for one another, you'll discover that as you begin to pray in that way, that there's a certain kind of authority, especially as the Spirit of God is leading you and guiding you, which is the only way to sustain this, that there's a certain authority that God gives us and that we gain in our prayer for others as we intercede for them over time. God assures us of his empowerment to minister to others. And this isn't pride. Actually, there's humility in this. We have to submit ourselves, but we go willingly forward as God leads us and guides us. to minister to them, because as we're praying for them, as we're giving ourselves to them in faithful prayer on their behalf, the Spirit of God begins to work in us, and He begins to pour His own life out upon us, and we wanna share that life with them. Look at Romans 8, verse 26. Paul speaks about this life of prayer, and he says, likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses, and I love this, because Paul's acknowledging that this is true of himself as well as everybody else, for we, Paul includes himself in this, we do not know how we should pray as we ought, but the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. It's a spiritual exercise. As we're praying, and as we intercede, where the spirit begins to help us and guide us in our prayers. In fact, as you really begin to give yourself to intercede for somebody, and you begin to recognize what's needed in their life, and the requirements for God to work in their life, and the desires that you have grow for them into something that's substantial and becomes deeper and deeper, one of the things you'll find yourself saying in your prayers is, God, I don't know how to pray for them. God I don't know what to ask you. Groan for them as the spirit pours out the eloquence of his own desires for them in your heart. This is a spiritual ministry. The Holy Spirit-led life that begins to flow over us in that time as we pray, begins to place within us a longing to live that life and share that life out with others. In a sense, what happens is, as we're meeting with the Spirit and He's guiding us in these intercessions and in these prayers and He's shaping these prayers in our lives for one another, there's a sense in which we want to go and be with these individuals so that we can minister to them the Holy Spirit, that we can bring to them the life of the Spirit that He is bringing to us. as we pray for them and as we pray for one another. This explains the drive in Paul's life to be with the people of God, and it also explains the confidence that Paul has when he comes before them. He's not confident in his communication skills, he's not confident that he's just the one who's the best at this job that he's been given, but he knows what God is doing in his life, and he knows out of his prayers the authority that God has given him to minister that life to others. Now take your Bibles and go to 1 Corinthians chapter two. Paul speaks about this. He speaks to the Corinthians and he says, now I came to you with fear and much trembling, but at the same time, Paul says, I came to you knowing the message that I wanted to bring to you. I wanted you to hear the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ found in his cross. And he says, I also came to you with a confidence, knowing that in my life and through this ministry, God was working out his own spiritual power. I wanted to impart this to you. Look at what he says. Verses one through five of 1st Corinthians chapter two. And I brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testament of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I wanted you to know about Christ and his gospel. And I was with you in weakness and fear and a much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom. But in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Paul has come to these people and he's come before them praying all the way. And as he's come, he's had this great desire to bring before them the message of Jesus Christ. And in his prayers and as he comes, he knows and he senses that the Spirit of God is poured out and authorized him to minister to them. As you pray for individuals, as you give yourself to individuals, and you intercede for individuals, God will begin to steal within your heart a ministry of His own life that you know He wants you to impart to them and share with them. So you want to be with them in order to do that. Here's another thing I want you to see here. Number three, if you approach others prayerfully if you approach the way you minister or serve others or your fellowship within the body of Christ prayerfully you will begin to understand that what they need above everything else is to be strengthened in the Lord Jesus in other words you begin to realize that what they need is the Lord Jesus to live in him to live for him to surrender to His words and to His will and to His presence and to His power, to be done with the wisdom of this world and to gain instead Christ in His life as the means by which they should live a significant and abounding and overcoming life. Your whole desire will be to give to people the Spirit of Christ and the life of Christ and to proclaim Him to them. Again, go to Colossians chapter one. We won't look at this. I thought to do this this morning and just take you through Philippians and Ephesians and Colossians and Thessalonians and show you the prayers that Paul is praying, but what I want you to see here in Colossians chapter one is the ministry that's drawn out of the prayers that Paul prays for the people. And it's in verses 25 to 29. at the beginning of Colossians chapter 1 Paul speaks of how he prays for them and how he desires that they would grow in wisdom and that they would have imparted to them this knowledge of God but in verse 25 he says now I became a minister according to the stewardship of God which was given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God God has laid upon my life a ministry to give to you from God's Word the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from generations but now has been revealed to his saints To them, God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. Remember, Paul has called himself the apostle to the Gentiles. And here's the mystery. Here's the message that he wants to proclaim to them, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. I want to come to you and I want to proclaim Christ to you and what he will do in you and how he'll express his power in his life and his glorious virtues in your own life. Him we preach. warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ and to this end I also labor striving according to his working which works in me mightily all the instruction that Paul will give in the book of Romans all the instruction that Paul will give to those who he is praying for gathers around and finds its point of reference in Jesus Christ. There's no wisdom that we can give to anyone if it doesn't ultimately lead them to the necessity of building their life in Christ and living their life in the fullness of Christ. There is no wisdom that we will give to anyone that will be nothing but sinking sand unless we teach them that it's all about Jesus and him. You listen to the things that are being preached. If what you just hear are the warmed over virtues and pragmatic systems of this world and wisdom, they may be good. They may even work. We live in a moral world. You know, we're governed by moral laws. You follow those laws, life goes better for you. You go against those laws, life gets harder. But simply learning how to construct your life, following the various moral laws that govern the universe, Without drawing upon the life of the Lord Jesus, and founding your life upon the Lord Jesus, and living your life for the glory of the Lord Jesus, and living your life in communion for the Lord Jesus, you're building on the wrong foundation. It's all going to fail. It ultimately ends in judgment, and it's worthless. In fact, sometimes we do a disservice if we teach people how to live well without Jesus. But if they're strengthened and they're brought to the Lord Jesus and established upon the Lord Jesus, they grow and they develop in Him. And so I simply say this, that people that intercede for one another in a church that is a praying church, praying and interceding for one another is also a church that proclaims and lifts up Christ to one another. He's the one we want to know. Here's the fourth observation I'll make. And we'll just for today, make this our last observation. when you come to this ministry through prayer, you see these people as the people of God, you see one another as the people of God, you rejoice that it's so, you now begin to pray for one another because you want to see each other, we want to see each other inhabit all of the grace that God would have us inhabit, receive and live in the power of the riches of the saving grace He wants to pour out upon us because we want to see each one of us grow and flourish in the presence that we have with God and that we have from God and enjoy with Him and the peace that we have from Him. And as we rejoice that this is the case, that this is our prospect and this is our future and we want to nourish one another in that and we don't want to see any of us miss out on the privileges that are ours in Jesus Christ. In fact, the great loss in the church is the loss of us not acquiring and claiming by faith the privileges that are ours. I see one another live in those privileges. Begin to pray that we would, each one of us, come to see them and enter into them and claim them and live in them and bow to them and find that there's joy in life when we surrender to the Lord Jesus, we pray for one another. When we do that and we give ourselves to that, we'll discover that we cannot impart to individuals the great truths and the graces that God has given us and God is teaching us as we pray for them in our own power. but only as the Spirit of God fills our surrendered lives with the life of Jesus Christ. We realize that we cannot bring to them, and we don't even want to bring to them, the persuasion of our own abilities. We don't want to impress upon them our own instincts, and we don't want to say to them, you know, just try to be a little more like me. See how disciplined I am? Why don't you discipline yourself like I am? We don't want to do that. We want to place upon them, and we want to bring to them the life of Jesus, not ourselves. Changes the very way we approach individuals. It changes the methods that we use. We don't want to use carnal methods. We're not simply trying to acquire an audience so that they can listen to us. We're not simply trying to find individuals that will adhere to our standards and our rules and our systems of development. We don't want to be a celebrity preacher. In fact, we just want people to meet Jesus and know Him. Here's what Paul says as he's praying for these people. I want to be with you that I may give you some spiritual gift. There's some people that are confused by that because they say, well, listen, Paul's, the word here is I want to give you a charismatic, I want to give you a grace. It's the same word that's used in terms of the gift that the Spirit of God gives the church in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12. And so they're saying, well, that's not what Paul's saying. Paul can't be saying that because only the Spirit of God gives those gifts to the church. They belong to the Spirit. It's the life of the Spirit. Jesus is the one in Acts chapter 2 that pours out the gift of the Holy Spirit. So this is something Jesus does and this is something the Holy Spirit does. That can't be what Paul is talking about. Paul must be saying simply, I want to do ministry among you. I want to express the unique ministry that God has and given me to you. And that's what really Paul is saying. I just want to use my gifts among you. I think there's some truth to that. I think there's some truth to that. But I also think there's truth in this way. Anything that we have to offer that has a value, anything that we have to give to one another that's any good is what the Spirit of God is doing in us. It's what God by His Spirit is working in us by His power and by His grace. We're not saying, hey, I want to show you what the Spirit of God is doing. I want you to know the Spirit. I want to minister to you the life that God is producing in my life as I surrender and submit to Him. I want to minister to you the life of the Spirit and His truth, His grace, His power. Again, that's a humble thing. Listen to these words that Paul says in Quentin's chapter four, verses five through seven. You'll see that what Paul is saying is not, I want to give you myself and my talents, even what God has given me. He says, for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves as his bond servants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine in the darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's shining all into our lives and we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be from God and not from us. God pours His Spirit and His life in these spiritual ministries into earthen vessels, and what we say is we're all a bunch of cracked pots, right? But God shined through me. God shined through me. The application is this, in your prayers for one another, attend to the Holy Spirit. Surrender yourself to His life. Let Him fill you for the work of prayer and in that filling you will find a quiet authority to extend that work of the Spirit and the ministry of His life to others. Pray in that way. Pray in that way. In fact, It may be that individuals have become disillusioned with the church and so they're departing from it. It reveals they've not been praying in that way. Maybe they've had ministry they believe God has given them and they're a little bent out of shape because people haven't recognized and received it. I would share with you that they're not praying in that way. They're not interceding in that way. Maybe they're insulted by all the labor they've given and it's never been recognized and it just shows you that, well, some extent they're not ministering in that way. But if we're together, let's be together doing these things. Let's pray for one another. I'm convicted by this. We're going to move to the table It's called the communion table. It's where we unite around the body of our Savior that was broken for us. And we unite around the blood that was shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. And not only that, because life is in the blood. It's the life that he gave to us and that we mutually share together as members of the body of Christ. As we commune around it, we gather and we remember these things. Let's pray for one another. Let's bow our heads. Lord, there's so much more here to learn and yet what maybe we've considered this morning may be too much to absorb. So much information. Spirit of God, take a couple of arrows. Take one, fire it to the right place and the right point. Start there. For us, dear God, may the application be a commitment to Approach one another the way Paul seems to approach those that he ministered to, prayerfully. May it be that we begin to learn how to harness the day that we spend, moving from morning till evening, learning to set up points in time in which we come before you, and we not only thank you for things, and we meet you and talk to you ourselves, but that we interject one another in the conversation. We pray for one another. Lord let us be open to being impressed by your Holy Spirit on who we should pray for and then having been impressed may we just keep praying until you release us from that. Let us become a people who are driven to be with one another and find the necessity of fellowship by a deep longing that is formed in us by praying for one another. God, work in us the spirit that was at work in Paul who was looking for ways to get to the people in Rome, who was frustrated because the door wasn't opening itself up. God, may we have that kind of movement in our lives where we're We're drawn to one another. How will that happen? How will that happen, Lord, unless in our spirits, in our renewed, transformed spirits, the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the one who even now ever lives to intercede for us. His Holy Spirit is moving us on the life of intercession for one another. What discipline steps might we take to be obedient to you in that call? Help us to be wise and do them. In Jesus name, amen.