David Jeremiah - A Life-Changing Prayer
Almost 100 years ago, a young missionary in Ecuador named Raymond Edman staggered in the jungle, desperately ill. «He be dead by morning,» the doctor said, and his wife dyed her wedding dress black, readying it for the funeral which, in the tropics, you have to take place on the same day as the death. A sense of shock and sorrow hung over their little home. Thousands of miles away, Edman’s friend, Dr. Joseph Evans, interrupted a prayer meeting, saying, «I feel we must pray for Raymond Edman in Ecuador». And the group stopped everything and prayed earnestly until Evans cried out, «Praise the Lord, I’m sure the victory’s won».
Edman recovered, went on to have a remarkable career. He eventually became president of Wheaton College and personally mentored hundreds of students, including Billy Graham. An intercessory prayer. I don’t know what happened to the black wedding dress, but I do know the story of the church has been repeatedly dyed in golden hues by the power of intercessory prayer. When we pray, God hears. Jesus Christ is our ultimate intercessor. Hebrews tells us he prays for us. Isn’t that amazing? And we’re to do the same. We’re to offer supplications and prayers and intercessions and giving of thanks for other people. Praying is for us, but it’s first of all for others. And to intercede simply means to pray for someone else.
Jesus closed the gap between us and God when he died on the cross. And because of that we can now stand in prayer for others, bringing their needs to God and asking God to work according to his will. So I want you to know that intercessory prayer isn’t just for super Christians who are called to a specific ministry. Maybe they’re on the prayer team. We’re all intercessors, whether we know it or not. I know that you have prayed for me and in that respect you have interceded in my behalf. It’s part of your calling, part of my calling, in Christ. And it’s a privilege to come every day before the Lord and ask his blessing on someone you know and love.
The Bible tells us to offer intercessory prayers for those in authority, for our friends, for the city of Jerusalem, for fellow countrymen, for the sick, for our enemies, for those who persecute us, for those who forsake us, and for all people it says. That’s what the Scripture says. So can you create your own prayer list from those items? You absolutely sure can. Can you become an intercessor? You’ll find all you need to begin in what we’re going to look at today from the book of Colossians and the first chapter. I want to show you this prayer from Colossians because it teaches us to pray without ceasing. That is, without getting discouraged and without quitting. That doesn’t mean you pray every moment. It just means you don’t ever give up on prayer.
Paul’s prayers for the Colossians were tireless and ceaseless, and by the time he wrote the Colossian letter, he had possibly been praying for this church for almost 10 years. It’s easy to give up on prayer. If you don’t get what you want after a certain period of time, if you don’t see your agenda being fulfilled, you think, «Well, I guess maybe God doesn’t want that to happen». I just have too many illustrations of people who prayed all of their lives for one thing, and then God answered in his time. Somebody said, «If he answers you, you quit praying. So he’s going to keep you praying».
Now this isn’t the easiest habit to form. Many of us fail to pray as we should and we admit that, but there are always ways of weaving this habit into the rhythm of our lives. John Wesley advised, «Storm the throne of grace and persevere there, and mercy will come down». Storm the throne of grace. I like that phrase. Our next lesson from Paul’s intercessory example has to do with his petitions, what he asked for, what he prayed for, maybe what we should pray for on occasion. His prayer for the Colossians actually begins in verse 3 of the first chapter and it’s in verse 9 where we find the heart of his intercession.
Here from the scripture was his prayer: «that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in wisdom and spiritual understanding». He’s praying this for the Colossian believers. He begged God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of God’s will and he prayed it in a specific way. He wanted them to get this knowledge in all wisdom and understanding. Those are some big concepts, so let’s break them down. The Colossian believers were facing a serious challenge. False gnostic teachings were creeping into their community and threatening to lead them astray. And they were teaching incorrect ideas about God and faith. And Paul wanted to replace the danger of those false ideas with true knowledge, knowledge of Christ. He understood that knowledge alone wasn’t enough. That is why Paul prayed not just for knowledge, but for wisdom and spiritual understanding.
Many Christians today face a similar disconnect. They accumulate a lot of information about the Bible, but they don’t know how it works in their lives. It doesn’t affect how they live. They know scripture, but they struggle to apply it to everyday decisions and relationships. That makes Paul’s prayer as relevant today as it could be. When you pray for each other, pray that God would give them knowledge and wisdom. Someone once told me that wisdom is doing the right thing without a precedent. And if that’s true, we need that more now than we ever have because we live in unprecedented times.
Things are happening that have never happened before, and when we think about what can we do, I hear people say, «Well, I guess all you can do is pray». All you can do? Come on, man, that’s the best thing you can do. That’s where you start. So when we’re concerned about a loved one who’s struggling, we can follow Paul’s example. Instead of just worrying or offering advice, we can pray: «Lord, fill them with knowledge of your will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding».
There’s always power in praying that God will equip the one you pray for with the presence of God in his own life so that he or she will know what to do. Well, that’s the persistence of prayer from the Gospels and the petition of Paul’s prayer. But let me talk to you about the possibilities of Paul’s prayer. For the rest of this whole message, from 3 to 14 in the first chapter, there’s an unfolding of Paul’s requests for the people of Colossae. And I’ll tell you what, these are five life-changing realities that flow from prayer. This is what happens when you pray. This is what can take place in your life. This is who you become when you equip yourself to do that and make a purpose of it. And you do it every day or every day that you can.
Verse 10 says that when people are filled with wisdom and knowledge, they will «walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him». Walk fully pleasing the Lord. If we walk with knowledge and wisdom, one of the results will be we’ll be pleasing the Lord and walking worthy of our calling. When we study the Word of God, we develop an understanding of what really pleases God, and this knowledge enables us to walk worthy of God. That’s what it means. Walk in a way. Walk as if you know who you’re with. You’re with God. Walk in a godly way.
So we can please God continuously. And then number two, we can produce fruit constantly. There’s a lot in the Bible about being fruitful and a lot of misunderstanding about it. So I’m gonna, right in the middle of this message, give you and us together a little tutorial. And it’s based on places in the Bible where the word «fruitful» appears. What does it mean to be a fruitful Christian? And I have a little paradigm, if you write it down or think about it later you won’t ever forget it.
First of all, what does it mean? The Bible says we’re to be fruitful in every good work. That’s what we should pray for. We should pray for our friends that God would make them productive Christians. You know, we need some productive Christians these days. We need people who aren’t just saved and satisfied and waiting for the Rapture. We need people who’ll get busy serving the Lord. And frankly, serving the Lord is the only way you can ever express your love for the Lord in a tangible way, by serving others.
Galatians 5:22–23 uses the word «fruit,» first of all, to describe our character. The Bible says: «The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control». So what does it mean to be fruitful? It means to have good character. If you’re a Christian and you have good character, you’re being fruitful.
Second, the conduct of your life is also a fruit. Romans 6:22 says: «But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness». You don’t have to be perfect, but as you grow in the perfection of Christ, he uses you better when you’re walking in character and in the right conduct. We bear fruit through our character, which is who we are. We bear fruit through our conduct, which is what we do. And the Bible speaks of our conversation. Did you know that how you speak is fruitfulness? «Therefore,» Hebrews 13:15, «by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name».
The Bible says that when we sing or praise or glorify God it’s the fruit of worship. When we’re worshiping, we’re being fruitful. So we’re building a little construct here. What is fruit? It’s character, who you are. It’s conduct, what you do. It’s conversation, what you say. And the fourth is, it is monetary contributions to God. When you give money to the church or to the Lord through the church, this is what it says. I’m going to read to you from Philippians, where Paul illustrates this principle. «For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities». He’s talking about the offering that they gave him. «Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account». Paul says, «I’m not interested so much in the gift, but I’m really excited because when you give, that fruit abounds to your account».
When we fund God’s work that’s another evidence of being fruitful. As we grow in knowledge and in the wisdom of Christ we become fruitful givers. We rejoice in worshiping God in our tithes and offerings. So are you getting all of this? Character is who you are. Conduct is what you do. Conversations is what you say. Contributions is what you give.
Fifth, the Bible speaks of converts, who you win. Now I’m going to say this, most people think the only way you can be fruitful as a Christian is to win souls. And I don’t want to in any way downgrade the importance of doing that. But winning souls is only one aspect of being fruitful. It’s a very important one and in the respect of cause and effect, if you win somebody else you add someone else to the family of God, that’s really true. But Proverbs 11:30 says it this way: «The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise».
Paul called the new believers in Achaia the first fruits because they were the first of many who were coming to Christ. He called them the first fruits, the first Christians. Whenever we’re planting gospel seed, we’re always leading to a harvest. If we put the seed in the ground, we may not see it be watered, but we know if God is in it, he will see that it gets watered and finally harvested. Now think of how your prayers can begin to prompt these things in the life of someone else as they grow in knowledge and spiritual wisdom according to your requests for them. The result of having knowledge with wisdom is that these things happen. This is what Paul says.
We can please God continually. We can produce fruit constantly. And now it says we can progress in knowledge, too. For those for whom we pray, we can pray that God will help them to «walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God». That’s a pretty good goal to have. I don’t know if you ever do that, but I do it when I have an anniversary. Look back over your life and say, what more do I know about the Lord than I did last year at this time? How am I growing in my knowledge of God? It’s easy to just get in and coast, to know that you’re going to heaven and be thankful for that and then just go back to kind of a normal life that doesn’t really make a difference.
And that’s what most of the world would say would be fine, but it’s not fine according to the scripture. So we can please God continuously, we can produce fruit constantly, we can progress in knowledge consistently, and here’s one for all of us right now: we can persevere under pressure, cheerfully. Look at Paul’s prayer again. He asked God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of his will, with all spiritual understanding so that «they might be strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy,» wow. One thing leads to another. When you pray for someone, it triggers a domino effect of grace in their lives, leading to their ability to persevere under pressure.
Now, in the past when I’ve seen these words «power» and «might» and «strength,» I’ve thought, «Well, that’s for the big test. When the big test comes, that’s what you need». When I have had to stand up against some daunting problem, and I’ve had a few of those in my life, but I’ve also been learning something else. I think where you really need power, might, and strength is not for the momentary challenges, but for the long haul.
The Christian life isn’t a 100-yard dash, it’s a marathon. And Paul’s prayer for the patience and endurance of the Colossian believers, they were having their issues. And he was praying that God would give them real strength and power, not so they could get over the hump, but so they could maintain the ministry and the reality of the Christ life for a long period of time. Paul goes on to say that when we are filled with wisdom and knowledge, we please God continually, we produce fruit constantly, we progress in knowledge consistently, and we persevere under pressure cheerfully. Note, it’s not just get through it, but get through it with joy. Oh wow, that adds a little to it too.
And number five, we praise God correctly. He ends this with verse 12 which says: «Giving thanks to the Father». And it brings us all the way back to the praise and thanksgiving with which the prayer began. If you study verses 12 through 14 you will see how Paul settles into this theme giving us four great reasons for praise. He says: «Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin».
In my notes, I outline these verses. These verses are very powerful. First of all, we thank God because he remade us. When we were saved, we were remade. God made us so we could claim our inheritance, the inheritance of the saints and the light. Because we’ve been remade, now we’re able to live for God in the darkness of this world. We’ve come out of the world of darkness into the kingdom of light and God made it possible for us to live in that kingdom. We couldn’t live in that kingdom the way we were. There was nothing holy about any of us, let’s face it. You don’t live in the kingdom of righteousness with an unholy life and an unholy heart.
Next, we can praise God because he rescued us. Paul says: «He has delivered us from the power of darkness». How many of you remember the day you got rescued, you know, when God came into your life and he just took you over, amen. And then the Bible says that we praise God because he relocated us. He conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. We once lived over here, but God came into our lives and changed everything, and he moved us over here. Now we live on Kingdom of God Street, amen? And all this happens because, as Paul told the Colossians, he has redeemed us. He wrote: «In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins».
Now to redeem someone means to buy them back and to set them free. Jesus’s death was the price that was necessary to buy us back. We were on the market of sin. The Bible says when we’re not saved, we’re like people who are slaves. And we have no will of our own until Jesus comes and sets us free. And then we become his people and we become set free from slavery. And that’s why he has given us this prayer to offer for ourselves and to others. If it was good enough for him to pray this prayer for the Colossians, it’s good enough for him to teach us this prayer as well.
I began this chapter with a story about a missionary named Raymond Edman, and I want to end this chapter and this message with another missionary story. In 1908, James Fraser left a promising engineering career to become a missionary to the Lisu people of China. The remote mountainous region made gathering for church services nearly impossible in winter, frustrating his plans, but he came to believe God was in the obstacle.
Realizing it took three to five days for each church visit, Fraser asked, what if I spent that time praying instead? He committed to interceding for the highland believers during the snowy months rather than trying to get to them through the troubling times. And when spring arrived, Fraser climbed the mountains to find his converts thriving. Their personal Bible study and prayer had strengthened them more than when he had visited them before. From that day on, he was determined never to fret when he could not gather people, but always to seize it as an opportunity to pray for people instead.
And by the way, today there are 935,000 Lisu in southern China. More than 400,000 are Christians. Raymond Edman, the apostle Paul, and James Fraser were all convinced of the power of intercessory prayer. Take out Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1:9-14 and make it your own. Ask God to give you the name of someone for whom you can pray and then put their name in Colossians 1 and you will never know what will happen. We believe in the power of prayer, we just don’t believe in the practice of it. And you know, it’s one thing to say, «Oh yeah, prayer’s wonderful,» until you don’t do it.
And I’ll be honest with you, becoming active and religious and disciplined in that prayer discipline is one of the hardest things you do as a Christian. But once you get there and you get in the right place, you’ll discover there is a sanctuary in your prayer time with the Lord that takes you away from every pressure and burden in this world. And for a short time, you can understand sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer. That’s what the Bible teaches. We believe it. Now let’s go and practice it, okay? Amen.