The Prayers of Paul – Part 3 Lawson Perdue

The Prayers of Paul – Part 3

In The Prayers of Paul part 3, Pastor Lawson Perdue continues to reveal insights from the most powerful prayers in the Bible. In this episode of Grace for Today, you’ll discover you to pray knowing that God has already granted everything you ask for.

The Prayers of Paul – Part 3 Transcription

Praise the Lord friends and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. We’ve been teaching all week about Paul’s prayers and we need to, as believers learn how to pray in a New Testament sense, it will make your prayers so much more effective. Too many people in the body of Christ are still praying Old Testament prayers. They’re still praying, oh God, if it be your will heal me, oh God, if it be your will bless me. Listen, it’s God’s will to bless you. It’s God’s will to heal you. That’s what the word of God says. And did you know what He has already healed you in a sense, when you understand what Jesus did at the cross, the Bible says by His stripes, you were healed. 1st Peter 2:24, “He has already blessed you.” Ephesians 1:3 says, “He blessed us with all spiritual blessings.” Every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. You know what? When you begin to understand that, you know what? There is a past tense of the word of God. Ephesians 1:3 is past tense. “He has already blessed us.” 1st Peter 2:24, “By His traps, you were healed.” He has already healed. You say, but I’m not healed. I’m having a hard time receiving the blessing. Did you know what? This is the deal in your spirit you’re already healed. In your spirit, you’re already blessed. The moment that you’re born again, that you’re blessed. My good friend, Ashley Tara has actually says this. He says, “There’s only two kinds of believers. There’s people that are blessed and know it and blessed that don’t.” And you know what? You need to know who you are. You need to know what you have in Christ. And when you know that it changes how you pray. I love these prayers of Paul. You know, we begin in Ephesians 1 where Paul says, “Listen, I want you to know Jesus. I want you to know what he called you to do. I want you to know what he invested in you so you can get the job done. I want you to know the exceeding greatness of his power.” That was released to us in Christ. When God raised him from the dead and set Him at his own right hand, far above all principality, power, might, dominion every name that are named in heaven and in earth. Praise God. So Jesus name is the highest of all names. We found it out in Ephesians 3, Paul prayed. And he said, listen, “I want you to get a revelation of the love of God.” And when you get a revelation of the love, that passes knowledge. When you come to know the love of Christ, that passes knowledge. That’s the language in Ephesians 3:19. If you study the Greek, He says that, “You may be filled with all the fullness of God for He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you can ask or even think according to the power that’s working in you.” What power is working in you as a believer, the power of the word of God. You’re born again by the incorruptible seed of the word of God, the power of the Holy Spirit. You have the same spirit the raise of Christ in the dead dwelling on the inside of you. Praise God. The power of the resurrected Christ. Amen, same scripture, Romans 8:11, “You have the power of the love of God.” That’s the context, the love of God shared abroad in your heart. By the Holy ghost that’s given to you, Romans 5:5. So He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above. I love those words. All that we can ask or even think according to the power that’s working in you. And when you begin to understand the power working in you, you could move into the things that are exceedingly abundantly above. I believe that I’m living in that today. Praise God as a result of what Jesus has done, but you know what? God has no respect of persons. He’s only respecter of faith. If He’ll do it for me, He’ll do it for you. So you just gotta believe it. Praise God, start believing the word. Now the third prayer that we find at Paul we’ve talked about Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 3 is found in Philippians 1:9-11. It’s a very short prayer, but it is a powerful prayer. And he says this, “I pray that your love may have bound yet more and more in all knowledge and judgment or in knowledge and discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, that you may be pure and blameless till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruit of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and the praise of God.” Now the message says it this way. I pray that your love would flourish. God wants your love to flourish. You know, my wife, Barbara has a woman’s ministry at our church. It is a powerful woman’s ministry and they call it flourish. God wants you to flourish, hallelujah. And he says, “I pray that your love would flourish.” You know, in Ephesians 3, Paul prayed this, that you get rooted and grounded of love that you would come to understand the love of God for you, that your love would flourish. Let love have its way, let love rule. You know what, we need to learn to let the love of God rule our life amplified it says it this way, “That your love may have bound more and more that your love would’ve bound. This is in Philippians 1 verse more and more and extend to the greatest development in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehension. You know what? We need to let the love of God govern our life. We need to let the love of God govern our relationships. In Romans 13:8-10. You know, the Bible actually says this. It says, “love works no ill to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” You know what? You can’t love your neighbor and steal from him. You can’t love your neighbor and commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife. You can’t love your neighbor’s wife and commit adultery with her. You can’t love your self and commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife. You can’t love God and commit adultery with your neighbors. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Love doesn’t lie. Doesn’t cheat. Doesn’t steal. Doesn’t commit adultery, let love rule your life. He says, “I want to let the love of God a bound more and more.” Right? I want to let the love of God flourish. Not only he says, “In all knowledge, but in discernment.” You know what? We need to have wisdom in relationships that are governed by love. I wanna read to you from the book of James 3, he says this we’re gonna start in verse 13 and read through verse 18, James 3:13-18, “Who is a wise man and indeed with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good behavior his worked with uniqueness of wisdom, but if you have bitter, envy and stripe in your heart, glory not and do not lie against the truth. This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly central devilish for where envying and stripe is there’s confusion in every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable, gentle and easy to be in treated full of mercy and good fruit without partiality, without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sewn in peace of those who make peace.” You know, there are this wisdom that comes from God and there’s wisdom that comes from man. And we need the wisdom that comes from God. He says, “The wisdom that comes from God is pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be in treated, full of mercy and good fruit without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of those who make peace.” We need to let the love of God rule our lives. You know what, where envy and stripe is there’s confusion in every evil work. We need to have wisdom in relationship with love. He says, “I pray that your love would’ve bound more and more in knowledge and discernment.” “I pray that your love would flourish,” as the message says, the second thing he says in verse 10 is that, “You may approve or approve out the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ.” You need to prize, in other words, what is excellent and of real value, realize the high value that Christ puts on you, realize the high value of the things that God values. You see there are things that God values, and there are things that man values, and you need to learn to value what God values. You need to live with a sense of purpose. I love what Jesus says this. He says, “I must be about my father’s business.” That’s when He is only 12 years old and He’s answering questions in the temple, Luke 2:49. In John 9:4 he says this, “I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night comes when no man can work.” We need to prize what is excellent and of real value. We need to prize what God prizes. You know, we need to prove that things are excellent. In Romans 12:1-2, Paul says this, “I beseech you now therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your body, a living sacrifice, which is holy and acceptable to God and do not be conformed. Don’t follow the pattern or the mold of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ He says, “I don’t want you to follow the pattern. I don’t want you to be poured into the mold of the world. I want you to follow God and I want you to be transformed. Be changed by the renewing of your mind, by the absolute renovation of your mind.” You know, when you renovate your mind, when you renew your mind in the word of God, when you begin to see God for who He is and begin to see yourself for who you are and begin to see other people, like God sees them and begin to see the world, like God sees it, the world around you, you know what? You’ll see that there is opportunity all around, praise God. There is so much opportunity. I remember I’m from the country, I’m from a small place. And you know, we had neighbors and this was what they thought, they had a company it was called, Witch Dr. Welding, and on the back of their car, they said, “We’ve done so much with so little, for so long that we can almost do anything with nothing.” And man, there are people like that. And, you know, but I’ve had to break that way of thinking. And when I moved to Colorado Springs, it was challenging. You know, I had to go to six banks before I found a bank that would give me a loan to buy my house. And I had 50% down. It was challenging. It was difficult, but I’ve changed the way that I think I’ve renewed my mind. I’ve had an absolute renovation of my mind and because I’ve renewed my mind, I’m moving into greater things, I’m doing greater things, but I’ve had to get rid of some of that old way of thinking that, you know, little, negative, narrow, stingy way of thinking. And I’ve just had to break out of some boundaries that were placed on me. The other night, Barbara and I were watching some show and it had this guy and he went to a junkyard. He was like in the Hills of Tennessee. And he went to this junkyard to find a truck. And there was this, you know, this one ton pickup truck and it was blocked up on blocks and it had no wheels. I mean, it was all rested through in the front, man, it was a piece of junk, but he went to another. And I’ve done this. Man, when I started feeding cattle in Eastern Colorado, I had one farmer that helped me. And he said, “Go over to this junk pile and you’ll find this piece of equipment and go over to this junk pile and this piece of equipment doesn’t run because the carburetor’s bad. But over in this junk pile, I’ve got a wreck truck and you take that out, that’s the same carburetor that’s on this loader over in this junk pile. You know, and those loader man, they were nearly 50 years old. I went over this other junk pile and I got this, you know, carburetor out there. And I took it over to the other junk pile and put it on that. I cranked that thing up and we put a hand choke on, I just start it with a screw driver, you know, shortened across the start to make the thing go. But I used that thing for years and years, and God, you know, blessed me and helped me with it. But, you know, I understand that kind of living, but God’s had to bring me in a way where we don’t just go to the junk pile once in a while, we can’t find something new because, you know, whatever’s going on in the world. So I tell people, go see if you can find it used. And if you can find it used pray. But you know, at the same point in time, you know, I mean, we try to make good use of the money that God gives us, but you know what? I’ve come a long ways in my thinking and you gotta change what you think to move into what you gotta renovate your mind. I can’t live with this mentality that I’ve done so much with so little, for so long. I can almost do anything with nothing, but anyway, we watched the show and Babra was like, that’s the story of your life. You should have filmed yourself. And so this guy had to, he went and got a barrel top and put the bottom of a barrel out of a 55 gallon barrel in the floorboard and welded it in there to cover up the holes that were rusted through the floor. And, you know, he went got tires off another old wreck vehicle and put them on the back. And then, you know, he got the battery out of another wreck vehicle, made it start. It didn’t have a seat in it. He wanted to seat on it. He went to another wreck vehicle and got a seat. And then the guy wanted a thousand dollars and he said, I’ll trade you a thousand dollars for the wood that I’m gonna haul with this. And so the guy said, okay, I’ll take $1,000. So he went and got him, all this saw note was over $1,000 worth and brought him a pickup load of wood and paid for this truck outta the junk pile. I thought, man, praise God, we’ve come a long ways. We don’t have to think like that glory to God, but you know what? You gotta change the way you think to move outta. Like, that’s like a poverty mentality and we’ve gotta change the way that we think to move into the things that God has for us. You know, some people are so bound with where they’ve been. They can’t move in to where God wants them to go. And he says, look at these. He says, “I want your love to flourish. And I want you to prize what is excellent of real value.” And you get focused on the purposes and the plans of God. Do you know God’s purposes for you are good. Amen. Do you know when I pastored in Eastern Colorado and Kit Carson, Colorado, they accuse me of being so tight that I not only got Lincoln’s face off the front of the penny, I got the Lincoln memorial off the back and I’ve had to change so much to do what God wants me to do. And I’m not done changing yet. Praise God, I’m continually renewing my mind, but you know, to move into God’s purposes, you gotta let go of old things. You gotta let go of old ways of thinking. Paul talks about this in Philippians 3:12-14. And he says, “Not that I’d already attained either were already complete or perfect, but I follow after that. I may apprehend that, which I’ve apprehended up by Christ.” I follow after that, I can get a hold of what Jesus got a hold of me for. You know what? You need to get ahold of what Jesus got ahold of you for. Rather not count not myself to have apprehended to have arrived, but this one thing I do, I forget those things, which are behind me, you know what? I’ve had to let go of certain ways of thinking. So I could move into greater ways of thinking. And he says, “And I reach forward to those things, which are before me, I press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” You know what? Most pastors who grew up in a church of 100 will never pastor a church that’s over 100 people. Most people that grew up and their parents had a certain level of education, will never have a higher level education than their parents. you’ve gotta renew your mind. You gotta go to new areas in your mind to get to new places. Do you know what, all of my children have grown up and they’ve got good education. My oldest son has his undergrad at Carnegie Mellon university, and he’s got his master in doctorate from Rice University. My middle son has his masters from Colorado School Of Mines. My youngest son, Peter went to Princeton and graduated with honors. All of my children have gone farther in the areas of academics and education and done more than me and that is helping them in life. But you know what? I had to change my mind in that area because my dad would see this poor guy on the street in Lamar, Colorado, this wine on, he said, “That guy has a doctorate.” And so I didn’t really value education. I learned how to, you know, to value education because I learned that if my kids are gonna go higher and do more, they have to have a certain amount of education. You know, Kenneth Hagen wrote this in his book. The mightiest touch, that a lot of believers want to go to high levels, but they don’t want their children to get education and stuff. And he said, “If your children’s gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or gonna be different things, if God’s called them and gifted them in those areas, they have to have education to be able to get to those areas.” You know, train up a child in the way that they should go. And when they’re old, they’ll not depart from it. That’s according to their gift. For certain kids’ giftings and anointings on their life, they have to have certain education so they can fulfill certain things and do it. Praise God. We need to realize. Praise God. Sometimes we’re just so stuck in the past that we can’t get out of it. You know, sometimes we’re in a rut. You know what a rut is? it’s a grave with the end knocked out. And I remember one time I was driving in the country. This was years and years ago. And I was out at night and I was up about four or five miles north of our house, about five miles, probably north of our house, where we lived in Eastern Colorado. It was in January or February, it had been a blizzard. It had snowed over these places, south of these lakes up there, on the dry land, in the prairie grass. And there was a two wheel track where people had driven back years and years back and forth. It was down about 2″ or maybe a foot and a half below the surface. And that had drifted full of snow. Then it melted. Then it froze over with the ice. And there was drips of snow along the side. And man, I was driving down this two wheel track and I hit this ice. I was in a half ton Chevy pickup. And when I hit it, I was going along on top of the ice, pretty good. I was probably going close to 50 mile an hour and you know, but then the pickup broke through and when it broke through, you know what I did, I dropped that thing from fourth. It had a four on the floor, I crammed it into third. I hammered the gas and I popped the wheels to get out there. You know why? Because it was probably five below zero. And I did not wanna walk home five miles at five below zero in the middle of the night. And so, you know, sometimes you get in a spiritual rut and once you’ve been stuck for a long time where you’re at, and if you wanna get to new places and do new things, you gotta pop the holy ghost gas. You gotta pop the clutch, drop it into another gear and you gotta get out of that rut and jump up on the high ground and move with God, hallelujah. And so Paul says, listen, ‘I’m letting go of things that are behind me. And I am pressing toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” And that’s what we need to do. Sometimes we need to let go of something so that we can move into the things that God has for us. Amen. You know what? You gotta let go of the wrong things and get ahold of the right things and move into what God has for you. So he’s praying for this church here in Philippians 1, and he’s praying that their love would’ve bound in knowledge and discernment. He’s praying that their love would flourish. You know what? We need to let the love of God rule our life. We need to let the love of God rule our relationships. We need to let the love of God direct our life. And then he says, I pray that you would prize what is excellent and value, that you would approve the things that are excellent and of real value. That you may be sincere and without offense, that you may be pure and blameless, that you would get ahold of what God got ahold of you for Amen, that you would move into those things that God has for you. Praise God, God has a plan for you. And you know what God’s plan for you is better than your plan for you any day of the week. You know what? When my wife Barbra was in college, we started dating at the end of her college and they wanted her to ride out like a five year plan for her life. And we wrote how we were gonna run this horse ranch and travel and do ministry. And did you know what? That’s okay, but it wasn’t God’s plan, It was our plan. And you know what? We need to move into God’s plans. God’s plans are better than your plan any day of the week. And you know what? We totally moved away from that. We went to Bible school, we went to kit Carson where nobody almost nobody want to go. And we started this church because God called us to go there. And we prospered there and God blessed us in this village of 300 people in Eastern Colorado, there is less than 2,200 people in Cheyenne county, Colorado where Kit Carson is, and there’s 2,400 square miles. There is less than one person per square mile. And that’s where we started our ministry. And we pastored there for 13 years and did you know what? God blessed us, and then God called us to Colorado Springs. And we started over and we started here in Colorado Springs with one blind man and his wife and one bachelor. And you know what? God has blessed us and helped us. And we have a couple of thousand people that call our church home. We generally have about 1,000 week intendance, sometimes more, but you know, God has blessed us. God has been good to us. And we are doing more all the time with the things of God. But you know, we’ve had to learn to let go of some things that held us back to move into what God had for us. And sometimes you’re holding onto the past so tight. You can’t let go of it to move into the future, to move into what God has for you. But you gotta let go of some things so that you can move into what God, you know, God some of you have been wounded and hurt in relationships, but you are holding so tight onto that wound and onto that hurt. And you’re trying to hold onto that old relationship so tight that you can’t move into the new relationship that God has ahead of you. That’s a word for somebody today and you need to get ahold of that and you need to let go of the wound. You need to let go of the pain. And some of you need to let go of those old relationships. So you can move into the new relationships that God has for you. You know, I recently had a friend, he was a close friend. I counted him a close friend of over 30 years and he separated relationship with me and it somewhat hurt me. It bothered me, but I went to a counselor and I talked to, I got a counselor, Dr. Doug Weiss that comes to my church. He is a personal friend. He is a great friend of me. And I talked to Doug and he’s like, Lawson, you gotta let this go. There’s gonna be more of this happen in your life. And you know what? My son, Aaron had been wanting a certain man to be on our board, Mark Hankins for two years. And I said, you can’t do it with this other person because that person doesn’t get along with Mark. They had a fallen out not only with me, they had a fallen out with Mark years ago. And you know what? Once this happened, my son, Aaron and I said, Hey, we can ask Mark. We asked mark to be on the board. We had our first board meeting. It was tremendous. There was a tremendous blessing. There was a tremendous encouragement. It was refreshing being in that meeting. And you know what? That one, I was grieving the loss of this one relationship, but God, you know, I’ve had this relationship with Mark Hankins. It’s been good, but God took it to a new level. And you know what? We had this first meeting and good things happened in this meeting. We begin to move forward in a new way. I believe ultimately this was the will and plan of God, even though it was somewhat difficult. And you know what? Some of you’re holding onto some things that are difficult and that are painful. And if you’ll let go of them, God has new things ahead of you. God has good things ahead of you. And he wants to bring you into those things. And so Paul is praying for this church. I’m praying that your love would flourish. I pray that you would value what is excellent and what is of real value prize that and recognize the high calling of God, move into what God has for you. Finally, he says this in verse 11, I pray that you’d be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which are by Jesus to the glory and praise of God. I want you to be a bound and be filled with the fruit of righteousness. You know, we’d read this scripture in James 3:18 that says the fruit of righteousness is sown of peace in those who make peace. You know what? We need to a bound in the fruit of righteousness. You know, the fruit of the spirit, the Bible says in Ephesians 5, is in all goodness, righteousness and truth. It says, I’m gonna read Ephesians 5:8-14. He says, “For you were sometimes darkness. That’s who you were, but now you are a light in the Lord, walk as children to the light, for the fruit of the spirit is in all, in everyone it’s good, right and true. It’s goodness, righteousness and truth. If it’s not good, right, and true, you don’t need to be involved in it. Proving what is acceptable to the Lord, prove it out what is acceptable to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them, reprove them for it’s a shame to even speak of those things that are done of them in secret. But all things that are approved are made manifest by the light for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore he says awake you that sleep and arise from the dead in Christ shall give you light.” Amen. When you begin to look at this, you know what? The fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth. He says, “I want you to be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and the praise of God.” You know, God has fruit in your life that will bring forth glory and praise to God. You need to look for God’s work, God’s purpose, God’s plan, God’s direction. That’s gonna bring forth glory and praise to God. Friends, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this time that we’ve had together. I’ve been teaching for my series. We have a special offer on these, on prayer, on Praying with Power. And then the Prayers of Paul. You can get either one or both of these. We have a special offer. We’d like to get them to you. You need to learn how to pray in a new Testament way and it’ll make your prayers so they’re not just hitting the ceiling and falling down. Man, they’ll come right outta your spirit, right straight to the throne of God. You know, the Bible says the heartfelt hot prayer, the earnest prayer of a righteous man, the heartfelt hot prayer of a righteous man avails much. And you are the righteousness of God in Christ. And when you pray, God, here’s your prayers. And God answers our prayers. I’m amazed sometime when I look and see, hey, I prayed about that. And God answered that. I mean, little things, big things, all kind of things. And you know, if you’re having a challenge and you need prayer, I wanna encourage you to call. We have prayer ministers that are here, that are available to pray in the midst. You know, we’ve had people that have tumors fall off. When people pray for them over the phone, we’ve had amazing things happen. But if you need to be healed, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to receive Jesus as your savior. Give us a call today. You know, we would love to hear from you. God is good. Amen. God wants to heal you. God wants to help you. God wants to bless you. Amen. And if you need prayer, give us a call. I wanna say a great, a big thank you to our partners. If it wasn’t for our partners, we could not accomplish all the things that we are accomplishing today. And the word of God is going forth. We’re seeing people set free by God’s power on a regular basis. And it’s because the people that are partnering with us and partnering in the gospel. And you know, I employ over 20 people that help me to accomplish what God called me to do. And recently we’ve added some really good staff and you know what? It costs more money. My pay won’t cost more, but you know what? It is helping us move into the things of God. So thanks for your help. If you wanna help give us a call, blessing.