The Prayers of Paul – Part 4 Lawson Perdue
Prayers of Paul Part 4
In the Prayers of Paul part 4, Lawson Perdue concludes his series exploring the most powerful prayers in the Bible. In this episode, discover how you can know God’s will and how to pray it from His Word! When you know that what you are praying aligns with what God’s will is you will pray with greater boldness and power.
Praying with Power
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The Praying with Power Bundle includes our two favorite CD series on prayer: The Prayers of Paul and Praying with Power.
Prayers of Paul Part 4 Transcript
Praise the Lord friends, I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. We’ve been teaching on the Prayers of Paul and we’ve been talking about how to pray in a New Testament way. When you begin to understand what happened through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and you begin to pray in light of that, your prayers are gonna become much more effective. In fact, I think some of the best prayers that we can pray as believers in the scripture are the prayers of Paul. And we find them in Ephesians 1 where Paul says, “I want you to know the love of Christ. I want you to know what God’s called you to do. I want you to know what God’s invested in you, so you can get the done. I want you to know the power that was released at the resurrection of Jesus.” And then in Ephesians 3 when he says, “I want you to get a revelation of the love of God so that you’ll be able to move into the things that God has for you. Do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you can ask or think.” And then Philippians 1 where it says, “I want you to prove the things that are excellent. I want you to find out God’s plan.” Now we’re gonna be in Colossians 1. In Paul’s prayers, he never talks about weakness, never talks about sickness, never talks about lack, never talks about inability. He only talks about who God is, who Christ is, right? Who you are, what God’s called you to do and what God’s invested in you so you can get the job done. And if you begin to pray like that, guess what? Your prayers will be effective and they will be powerful. They will produce good results, amen? And so we’re gonna look at this prayer in Colossians 1. Again, Paul’s prayers are in Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3, Philippians 1, and Colossians 1. There are four of Paul’s prayers and they are in light of redemption. They’re in light of what Jesus did and his death, burial, and resurrection. So we’re gonna go to Colossians 1 begin reading in verse nine through verse 14. I’m actually teaching from this series, “The Prayers of Paul” and I’ve got two series on prayer that you can get ahold of. We have a special offer at the end of the broadcast that you can get. But he says this, he says, “For this cause also since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you might walk worthy of the Lord and all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthen with all might according to his glorious power and all patience and long suffering with joyfulness. Giving thanks unto the father who made us sufficient to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who has delivered us from the power, from the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Thank God. Amen? We have been redeemed through his blood. We have been forgiven. It’s as if we never committed that sin. It’s as we’ve been pardoned and there is no more remembrance of it. Now, the first thing Paul praise here in Colossians 1 is that we would know his will. We need to know the will of God. You can know God’s will. How can you know God… You can know God’s will from the word of God, you can know God’s will from the spirit of God, you can know God’s will through Godly counsel, and you can know God’s will through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And you know what? You need a combination of those things. You don’t just take one of those things, you take a combination. For instance, if somebody came through a gift of the Holy Spirit supposedly and told you to do something the word would tell you not to do, you would never go against the word of God. The word of God is the highest authority. And you know what? You never go against what the word says, amen? So sometimes people say stupid things like God said he’s doing this and it’s completely against the word of God. And we’ll just say, no, that’s not God, because this is what the word says. Amen? Now, when Paul prays, the first thing he prays that we’d know his will. He says, “Since the day we heard it, we pray for you and desire that you’d be filled with the knowledge of his will in all knowledge and spiritual, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” You need to know God’s will by the spirit. And it flows from the inside. We talked about this earlier this week in the broadcast. In Ephesians 5:15, the Bible talks about walking circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. He says the will of the Lord. And he says, “Do not be unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is.” We need to know God’s will. How can you walk in God’s will if you don’t know what it is? And I’m telling you, some way to get outta trouble is find out what the will of God is. Walk in it. Did you know before I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, we went to a traditional church. And they basically preach, get saved, repent. Don’t sin, repent. Don’t sin, repent. Repent, repent. Don’t sin, repent. And you know what we did? We got saved and went on sinning because the focus was on sin. But after I got into Bible study that Andrew Wommack was holding in Lamar, Colorado in 1978. And I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and I began to get a revelation of who I was in Christ, I did not struggle with sin. I did not struggle with all this stuff, because we weren’t focusing on sin. We were focusing on him. The Bible talks about that there should be no more consciousness of sin in Hebrews 10. When the Bible talks about that, I think that what that means is there is not a focus on sin. There’s a focus on Jesus. And when you put your focus on Jesus and walk in the light, guess what? The darkness leaves. And it’s not that there isn’t an opportunity to sin, but that sin is not overpowering. Let me give you an example of this. In 1 John 2:15-17 he says, “Love not the world for everything in this world is lust the flesh, lust the eye, pride of life and it’s not of the father, but it’s of the world. And if any man love the world, the love of the father and the love of God is not in him.” And a lot of people teach that. In fact, I ask this question in Bible school many times and we’re talking about a charismatic bible school where most people have a charismatic, Pentecostal, or traditional Christian raising. And I’ll say, how many have you ever heard a message about 1 John 2 in these scriptures? And when I ask that and quote verse 15 to verse 17 about 50% of the hands go up. So if there’s 200 people there, did you know what? There will be 100 hands go up. We’ve heard a message on 1 John 2, “Love not the world, for all these in the worlds, lust of flesh, lust of eye, pride of life, not of the father, but of the world.” And then I’ll go back and I’ll read 1 John 2:12-14 the three verses prior to that. And basically it says, you are forgiven, it says, you have a right to a relationship with God, it says you are strong, you have overcome the wicked one and the word of God abides in you. He’s talking about little children and fathers. And basically what he’s saying and if you understand that you are forgiven, that you have a relationship with God, that the word of God abides in you, that you are strong, that you have overcome the wicked one. If you understand those five things that 1 John 2:12-14 talks about. If you understand these five things, you are forgiven, you have a relationship with God, the word of God abides in you, you have overcome the wicked one, and you are strong. Praise God. You are forgiven, you are strong, the word of God abides in you, you have overcome the wicked one, and you have a right to have a relationship with God. If you don’t understand those five things, then the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life are no problem. But here’s the problem, I’ll ask then, how many of you heard a message about these five things in verse 12 to 14? And generally, it’s like 1% or 2%. So two to four people have raised their hand. When a 100 people have heard this message about the lust of the flesh, the lust of eye, and the pride of life, a 100 people have heard about the problem, but the same group of scriptures right before it has the answer. And if you know the answer God’s given you, the problem is no problem. But the challenge is we don’t teach the answer. The challenge is we teach the problem and we don’t teach people who they are and what they have in Christ. And then we put ’em out there, tell ’em about the world, the flesh, and the devil and they just fall head over heels in that garbage and it’s not God’s fault, it’s not God’s will, it’s not God’s plan. Did you know what it’s? Because we in the church sometimes are ignorant. And the Bible says that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge, that my people are kept in bondage because they have no knowledge. But when you know who Christ is, when you know what he’s done, when you know what he’s done for you, that you are forgiven, that you have a relationship with God, that you are strong, that you have overcome the wicked one and the word of God abides in you, guess what? The world, the flesh, and the devil are no problem for you. But we focus in the traditional church, in the Pentecostal church, many times on the world, the flesh, and the devil. Jesse Duplantis came from a different background than me. Jesse Duplantis came from this background. He said, what we did is we went to confession, we went to communion, we went to sin. See, the focus is still sin. And then what we did do in the Protestant church, the background I came from, we repent. We don’t sin, we get saved. We repent, we don’t sin, we… Again, the focus is sin. And what we do is we make sin bigger because we focus on it. Where if you take the focus off sin and put the focus on Jesus, put the focus on him, then the sin is not a problem. Jesus already dealt with it at the cross. And we need to understand what Jesus has done for us. So he’s praying here and he said, I want you to be filled with the knowledge of his will. I want you to move into the light of God, move into the understanding of what he has and guess what, all this other garbage is not gonna be a big problem for you. He says then with all wisdom and spiritual understanding. We talked about how can you know God’s will? The word. Psalm 119:9-11 says “Wherewithal shall a young man cleans his way by taking he according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee oh my God, let me not wander from thy commands. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.” The word lets you know the will of God. The voice of the Holy Spirit lets you know the will of God. “As many as are led by the spirit of God.” Romans 8:14 shows you the will of God. Godly counsel shows you the will of God. Proverbs 15:22 “Without counsel, purposes are disappointed. In the multitude of counselors, there’s safety.” The gifts of the Holy Spirit lets you know the will of God. Paul tells Timothy in I Timothy 4:14, “Neglect not the gift that is in you that was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the presbytery.” You could know the will of God in all those different areas. Praise God. You could know the will of God sometimes by experience. Just you get out there and figure it out. Proverb 16:9 says, “A man’s heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Sometimes you just keep kicking the wrong door long enough, you figure out that’s the wrong door. You know what? If God’s closed the door, don’t kick it down. Go find the one that God’s opening. Amen. Know God’s will, but you get involved in the will of God and just get involved in doing what’s right and doing what’s right and guess what? You’ll walk out of darkness. Amen. Then he says, “Not only do I want you to know his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, he says, I’m doing this that you might walk worthy of the Lord under all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” So he says, I want you to be pleasing, fruitful, increase in the knowledge of God and then in verse 11, he says, “I want you to be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto patience and long suffering with joyfulness.” So be pleasing, fruitful, increase and strengthen in the knowledge of God. As you know his will, we walk in the pleasure of his will. In the “Chariots of Fire” that old movie, some of you have seen this, Eric Little said this. “When I run, I feel his pleasure.” You know what? I believe that you can walk in the will of God and you can feel the pleasure of God that you know what? God is pleased with you. The Bible says this in Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord Amen, giving thanks to God and the father by him.” We need to walk Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the father by him.” You know what, whatever you do, walk in what God wants you to walk in. The Bible says that faith pleases God, it says without faith it’s impossible to please God. Romans 14 I think it’s verse 23 says this “Whatever’s not a faith is sin.” You know what? If you can’t do something and do it in a good conscience, you shouldn’t do it. Whatever’s not of faith is sin. And so you know what, if you can’t do it with faith, if you can’t do it with a good conscience, then just stay out of it. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith, it’s impossible to please God because he that comes to God must believe that he is. And that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” When we walk in God’s will, we become increasingly fruitful in his kingdom. And as we grow in our relationship with Jesus, we increase in our experience of the grace of God. The goodness of God, the things of God. We are strengthened by the ability of the Holy Spirit in our life. It takes the ability of the Holy Spirit to walk out the will of God. We can’t walk out the will of God without the Holy Spirit. You know what, it’s impossible to live the Christian life without the Christ life. You need Jesus to live his life through you and Jesus is living in you. Now as a believer, you need to begin to get to this principle that just let Jesus live his life big in me. It’s not me, but it’s Christ living in me and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who love me and gave himself for me. Finally, he goes over here and he says this. So number one, I want you to walk. Know God’s will and walk worthy of the Lord. Number two, I want you to be pleasing, fruitful, increasing in the knowledge of God and strengthen by the spirit. But the third thing is I want you to continually give thanks. Now, what do we give thanks for? Look at this. This is some of the most powerful scriptures in the New Testament. Verse 12 through verse 14 Colossians 1, “Give thanks unto the father who made us sufficient to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” When I’m praying for you, I’m telling you some of the most powerful praying that you can do as a believer in a New Testament sense is the prayer of thanksgiving. So many people are praying God, if you will, oh God. And you know what? When you begin to understand that this is God’s will, you change from God, please. God, if you would to thank you. Thank you, Lord. One of the most powerful prayers that you can pray as a believer is thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus that by your stripes I’m healed. Thank you, Jesus that I’m blessed and highly favor of you. Thank you, Jesus that your spirit lives in me, that your spirit is leading me, and guiding me, and directing me. My steps are being ordered by the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Start thanking God. Some of the most powerful prayers you can pray are prayers of thanksgiving. The Bible says this in I Thessalonians 5:18 it says, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Verse 16 says, “Rejoice ever more, always be rejoicing.” Verse 17 says, “Pray without ceasing.” “Continue in prayer. Watch in the same with thanksgiving” Colossians 4:2 says. But then he says here, “In everything give thanks.” Man, no matter what you’re dealing with, give thanks. It’s God’s will that no matter what you’re dealing with, you would be thanking God. If you’ll sandwich your supplications where you’re asking God for something, your request, if you’ll sandwich your request in between thanksgiving, you’ll get a lot more of your prayers answered. The Bible says this talking about thanksgiving in II Corinthians 4:15, “All things are for your sake that through the thanksgiving of many might read down to the glory of God.” All things, we do all things for your sake. But as we begin to thank God, it works out to his glory. We need to thank God for what he’s done for us in Christ. I wanna go to this scripture in I Timothy 2 where Paul talks about prayer and he says this in I Timothy 2:1 he says, “I exhort first of all.” One of the first things that we ought to be doing is praying. The supplications. Ask God about it. So many people, they think about running to the doctor or running to the attorney or running somewhere else before they run to God. Our first thing ought to be run to Jesus. Man, run to God. First of all, supplications. Ask God about it. Prayers, different kinds of prayers. There’s all kinds of different ways to pray. Pray in the spirit, pray with your understanding. Pray the prayer of faith. There’s all kinds of prayer of agreement. The prayer of faith, prayers of intercessions. He says intercessions. Intercession is just praying for somebody else, praying to God for somebody else. Giving of thanks. Thanksgiving is a type of prayer. Again, one of the most powerful prayers that you can pray as a believer is thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus that I am healed. Thank you, Jesus that I am blessed. Thank you, Jesus. Amen? Start thanking the Lord. I had a tremendous loss a number of years ago and we went through a blizzard. I mean, we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was discouraging and God told me, Lawson, don’t look at what you lost, you look at what you have. And I laid on my couch and I thanked God. I started thanking God for my children, thanking God for my wife, thanking God for my church. I started thanking God for every good thing I could think of. And God brought me completely through that. I lost about a quarter of a million dollars in that situation where there was a huge blizzard in Colorado and it was in 2004, 2005 in the winter. Man, I was rebuking it. I was doing everything I could. I owned about over 3000 herd of cattle. Man, I owed the bank a lot of money. I owed the feedlot a lot of money. And man, I went from making $50 ahead to losing $250 ahead on the ones that went through that mess. It was a huge, and I had one of my good friends tell me after it was over, you’re lucky that you didn’t go completely broke and I’m telling you, I was fortunate. I was blessed that I didn’t go broke, but God in the midst of that challenge told me, look at what you have and not what you lost. And this is a principle. If you’ll start looking at what you have and not what you lost, if you’ll start looking at what God gives you, you’re looking at that, you are forgiven that you have a relationship with God that you are saved. Amen. You start looking at what’s right in your life. And you know what, that will help you deal with this challenge and overcome and get everything back. I know the Bible says if a thief is found, they have to pay seven time back. So I started believing that when I lost that quarter million dollars, it’s a miracle I only lost a quarter million, Jesus, he helped me so much. I owed over $3 million between the banks and the feedlots. And you know what, God brought me through that and I didn’t lose everything is the grace of God. But I started believing that thief be found. He’s gotta repay seven times. And you know what, I got that quarter million back seven times. Amen. I got seven times. Amen. If I got it once and I got it all back seven times over. If the devil tries to beat me, I just believe the word and beat him back. Amen. Some of you need to beat the devil back, go the enemy’s camp and take back what he stole from you. Amen. Take back what the devil stole. I had another challenge where we lost a 100,000 in winter. I had preacher gonna come and preach for me. He was actually… We were in Kit Carson and he was landing in Denver and he was gonna land in Denver, flying from Kentucky. And I said, listen, don’t come to Denver. You couldn’t even get outta the airport in DIA. That was in 19, I don’t know, 1997 I think. 1997 or eight October 24th my son Andrew’s birthday. And it was a Friday night. We had a football game and there was a blizzard hit. And I had, again, a bunch of cattle. It was terrible. And there were people that died. There were all kinds of problems, but that preacher wasn’t able to… I flew him out two weeks later, it took two weeks to get the mess cleaned up. And I flew him into Denver, picked him up, brought him down. I still didn’t know. I had turned out 207 cattle Southwest Llama, way out in the boondocks, about 30, 35 miles Southwest Llama, Colorado on a ranch. And you know what? They didn’t even know how many cattle I had. Most people in that area lost 50% of their cattle. And this preacher came and he gave me a word. And we didn’t know how many we had. And he said, fear not for you shall recover all. And that’s from I Samuel 30. The Lord told David when he had this great loss at Ziklag the place of utter depression discourage but that desert fire. He said, “Pursue for you shall recover all.” And you know what, David pursued and he got everything back. Not only did he get back what the enemy stole, he got back more because these people had been raiding more than his village. And he came back, praised God victorious. And you know what? This preacher told me, fear not for you shall recover all. And you know what, I got every last thing back. I turned out 207 cattle. I got 203 back. You know what, four of ’em could have died from something else than the blizzard. But it was a miracle when people were losing half of their herd, praise God that I got 50% of my cattle back. And you know what, it took me about a year to get all that blizzard cost me back but I got every dime back. I just keep believing God, I never quit believing God. And I never blamed God for my problem. You know what, if you want things to get better, you gotta start thanking God. But he says, first of all, I want you to pray. Supplication, ask God about it. Prayers, different kind of prayers, prayers of agreement, prayers in the spirit, prayers in understanding intercession, praying for other people and giving of thanks. Thanksgiving, pray with giving… You know what, if you’ll put your request in between thanksgiving, if you’ll sandwich it in between thanksgiving, you’ll get a lot more of your prayers answered. We need to keep thanking God. We need to glorify God. And so he says, we give thanks to the father who made us efficient to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and.. We are qualified for God’s best blessings today because of Jesus. He says in verse 13, “Who has delivered us from the power, from the dominion, from the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Into the kingdom of the sons of his love.” We are the children of God. We are the children of his love. He says, “In whom, in Christ, we have redemption.” Glory to God. We have been purchased through his blood even the forgiveness of sins. We are forgiven for every sin and redeemed from every curse. Thank God for what God has already done for us in Christ. Amen. Thank God for what Jesus has done for us. So we need to be continually giving thanks. Amen. Thank God. And don’t look at what you don’t have. Don’t look at what you lost. You look at what God has given you in Christ. This is a word for somebody you need to receive it. You’ve been just mourning this loss that you’ve had, and you need to quit mourning that loss and start thanking God for what he’s already given you in Christ. And you know what, when you do it, there will be doors open. There will be things begin to come to you. People begin to come to you. Things will be restored to you. Do you know what, God wants to restore sevenfold anything that the enemy has stolen in your life and you can believe God and get everything back that the devil has tried to steal from you. I hope you’ve enjoyed this broadcast. I’ve been teaching from my series, “Praying with Power” and “The Prayers of Paul.” We made this all available in one package or you can get either series. These are great teachings and they will put your prayer life on a new level when you begin to understand how to pray in light of what Jesus has already done for you. Too many New Testament people are praying Old Testament prayers. If you want that product package, you just give us a call at the church. We would love to hear from you. And do you know before I get off this broadcast, I wanna pray for you, but I wanna just say a big thank you today for our partners. We wouldn’t be able to do all the things that we do. I employ over 20 people. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on broadcasting, time, equipment, all these different things. We couldn’t do this without our partners. And I wanna say a big thank you. We get praise testimonies from all around the world. Different people call in and they’re being saved, healed, and set free by the power of God. And I wanna say, thank you to our partners. If you wanna become a partner, we would love to have you partner with us. I believe you know what, it’ll bless you. I believe that this church has an anointing of increase. This ministry has anointing of increase. And if you sow into this ministry, believe in God, I believe that you’ll get increase and you’ll get more that you’ve given. You’ll multiply. We have people tell us this all the time. Praise God, we have bunches of testimonies of people that sow into this ministry and their income triples, different things happen. Amazing things. Barbara gave a word recently and you know what? I had a man come to me and he said, listen, she gave a word that we’re gonna have increase and the next day I got a call. This has never happened to me in my life. And they just raised me. He said, I’ve never had that happen with this company. And I’ve always had to do different things. And another person, they had lost a job and I was preaching on breakthrough and I had this big wave and I was talking about a wave of the spirit and this man’s wife pointed at that wave. She was in the nursery and said, God, I receive it. And her husband was a high paid, had a high paid professional job. He got a job that week, amen and was blessed in it. God wants a bless you and help you gives us a call we’d love to pray.
