Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world.
so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church. Located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Ephesians chapter 1. And um I I know there's only a difference of three feet here, and maybe it's easier TV-wise and everything else-wise to be up there.
But I like being down here with you. I can't necessarily do it on Sunday morning and all that. I enjoy Wednesday nights because I feel like I'm right there with you teaching and things. I don't know that I'll always do this, but I said, you know, can I just do this tonight? Um I just feel a little distant from you.
And um We're teaching about this. This is an emphasis on teaching tonight. As we're going to continue to abound in our prayer life, I want to give you a passage of scripture. that Paul lays out that really gives us a blueprint of how to pray. for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Do you know part of your prayer life should be a strategy for how to pray for your fellow church members.
Now we have requests, we have things, you'll hear things. And I want to encourage you. Paul lays out that these are the things that you should be praying. And when you have a church member or a friend that's a Christian. And they say, listen, would you pray for me?
This is the blueprint of what to pray for.
Now, next Sunday night, Lord willing, we're going to deal with the subject of how to pray. for someone who's lost. How to pray for someone you're not sure they're saved. Probably maybe somebody doesn't come to church here. Maybe someone that does come to church here.
Maybe, in addition to 10 things you're praying for your children, maybe you would say, you know, preacher, I have grandchildren, I don't know that they're saved, or even I have children that I'm just not 100% sure.
Well, in addition to the other 10 things we're praying for your children, this would be a good thing to pray for that also.
So we'll be dealing with that next week. But specifically tonight, I just want to go over with you. From God's Word, ten prayers. That we should be praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is how to pray for each other.
Beyond praying for my husband, praying for my wife, my children, my grandchildren, you are part of a body of believers. and the local church. And we are part of the body of Christ. But this local church, this is Christ. loves the church.
And everything that Christ decided to bring forth and to minister comes through the local church. And so you and I should be praying for each other, and this is a blueprint of how to do it. Let's begin, Ephesians chapter 1. And let's look at verse 1. Verses 1, 2, 3, and 4.
And like I said, we're going to start here. This isn't on the sheet, but we're going to start here. I think this will help us. Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Notice this.
to the saints. to the saints. So we have a specific category here. Of who we're praying for, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be unto you, peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. in heavenly places in Christ. One of the most important Verses in the Bible. is what we just read. It helps you to understand that through Christ, when you put your faith and trust in Christ, you have now been given access to all spiritual blessings in heavenly.
places.
Well, let me make it clear. That is an inexhaustible resource. It's more than you'll ever need. It has more than you'll ever be able to ask for. Here's the key.
We've been blessed. with all spiritual blessings. in heavenly places. That's what we have access to. That's What we were given beyond our salvation in Jesus Christ, our salvation has now.
Put us in the family of God, and we have been given access to spiritual blessings.
Now we're going somewhere. Notice verse 4. According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we Who's he talking to? Remember, who's he talking to? The saints.
He's talking here to the church at Ephesus. that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
So we have a task because of what we've been blessed with, because of what we've been given. We should be living a holy life. The people in a Bible-believing church should have a different philosophy than the culture of this world. Is everybody with me on that?
Now we can start, you know. Arguing semantics and how that all lays down, but God made it clear that we should be different. And sometimes there are unsaved people in this world that are high in morals and high in character and are good, good people, but they're just not saved. What we're talking about here is the fact that if we are saved, that we should be living a holy life. And in order to do that, it is not easy to live a holy life in an unholy culture.
And we all, knowing that, should be praying for each other.
Now that's the problem with religion. In religion we're fighting each other. In church, half the time, we got people arguing, blah, blah, blah, you know, all this stuff. We're missing the point. We're supposed to be in this together.
I'm supposed to be praying for you, not arguing with you. not fighting with you over our differences. What we can agree on is that if we're saved, we should be living a holy life, and that's difficult in 2023, and we should be bearing each other's burdens and praying for each other instead of arguing with each other. No, you all are staring like, you know, I'm not talking anybody specific here. I wouldn't know.
I am talking about corporately, this is the way it should be. We should be praying for each other. We need help sometimes, don't we? Last week we took my son to college and um They have Brother Kenny Baldwin preached a Bible conference, and I had been talking to him about it and got to spend some time with Brother Kenny. He's going to be here in March.
And um so We went down, but but part of going down was to be at that conference. And they have church at 6 o'clock on Sunday night. And Brother Kenny is doing well but frail and has to sit down when he preaches. And yet, man, that guy lets her rip, and it's fantastic.
So this Sunday, my wife decided to finally go to choir practice today. And um Faithful, faithful choir member. She's don't take that shoe off. Don't you dare take that shoe off. And um Baptist habit is what time is church on Sunday nights?
Baptist habit. That's where all spiritual people have church at 6 o'clock, right? We had it, how many years here at 6 o'clock? That's what we went last week. We had church at 6 o'clock.
Some sitting on the recliner. The Eagles and the 49ers are playing. Had my little blanket over my legs. It is 440. this afternoon.
I had my alarm set on my phone at 520. to make sure I got up to get ready for to come to church. I mean, I thought ahead, I had the alarm set. 440, I'm sitting there. 49ers are just absolutely blowing it.
Caden comes in and says, Dad, are we going to go to church tonight? I said, Well, yeah. Five o'clock.
Some scrambling like crazy, you know, kind of a thing. Just be glad I got my clothes on before I showed up. Just be glad. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry.
I really appreciate it. I don't know what's going on. What does it mean? I said, Caden, thank you, buddy. Pastor of Corona Church needs some help sometimes.
He needed help from a child. We're going to church. I said, buddy, you saved the day. Thank you, Caden. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And listen, we need help. We need help from each other. The people in this room. ought to have our backs. Amen.
Yeah. Amen. The people in this room, you should have their back. Yeah. Not their throat.
You should now you don't know all of them and when and and and some know more than others and some say I know I know a few people here, it don't matter. It don't matter. It don't matter. If you're saved by the grace of God. We should have each other's back.
And if we saw things that way. that would change church. Yeah. If I'm going to have your back. More than anything.
I need to know how to pray for you. And if anybody could teach us that. It's Paul. He says we've got access to all spiritual blessings. We're to be holy.
We're to live that kind of life. And he begins a prayer. If you'll notice, In verse 15. He says, Wherefore I also After I heard of your faith, In the Lord Jesus. This is on your sheet if you don't have your Bible.
and love unto all the saints. cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you, In my prayers, Verse 17, that, and he continues, with saying this is how I have been praying. For you. Let's pray. We'll go through it, and we will not be long tonight.
Lord, we love you. Thank you for all that you've done. Help us to get a burden to pray for each other. If we start praying for each other, we're going to get along a lot better. There's going to be a lot less contention.
There's gonna be a lot less hard feelings. We start praying for each other. Please, Lord, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Number one.
When you are praying for your brother and sister in Christ, Give thanks. for your brothers and sisters in Christ. What is the first thing Paul said in verse 16? He says, As I've looked at your faith, the fact that you've been saved, you're a wonderful church. He says, I have ceased not.
to give thanks. For you. in my prayers. I mean, I say that you might say, well, I don't know if I really am thankful for this particular person or whatever the case might be.
Well, you start praying that way, you will be. We ought to be thankful. You know what? I think sometimes we underestimate the blessing that our fellow church members are. We underestimate the blessing that our choir gets up and sings.
That's a blessing to me. They put a little more effort and spend a little more time. to come to worship the Lord. But may I say it's not just worshiping the Lord Why do we have a group of people come and sing in front of another group of people? Because this smaller group of people wants to encourage the larger group of people.
Because not everybody shows up ready to serve God. Not everybody shows up on the mountaintop. Because you guys have had rough weeks and you've had to work in the world, you've been cussed at, and you've heard filth, and you've heard horrible jokes, and you deal in a culture like that, many of you, and you show up at church. And you know what? To me, it's a blessing to me that we have a choir, that we have a pianist, that we have instrumentalists that want to help get me out of that yuck and out of that rut, and out of because you're tired and you're distracted and wants to help us as we worship God in church.
You and I should give thanks for each other. Start doing that. And I don't mean, hey Lord, thanks for everybody at church. You and I, if you've heard anything over these last few weeks that I've been trying to teach you this, we need to be specific in prayer.
So we ought to give thanks for your brothers and sisters of Christ. Notice, secondly, call their names out to God when you pray. Why? He says, making mention of you. in my prayers.
Apostle says, I've been praying for you specifically. Do you know what a blessing is when people come up to me and say, Brother Daniel, I've really been praying for you. I've been praying for you specifically. That means a lot. And I'm not just He's not here, so I'll say it when he's not here so you don't think I'm trying to.
Schnooze him or something, you know, but Kenny Baldwin. Every Sunday morning. Daniel, I've prayed for you. I've prayed for your son at Pensacola. I've prayed for your other two boys.
I've prayed for Dr. Joe Myers. Because I asked him to pray for Brother Joe every Sunday specifically. He'll text about 5:30 in the morning on Sunday morning. I pray for you specifically.
Now listen, he doesn't have to do that. He's not even a member of this church, but he's my friend, so he does that. He does that, I'm sure, with a number of men. But may I say something? Listen, that's the kind of stuff that you and I ought to be doing with each other.
And I'm not saying to do it just to do it, but you know what?
Sometimes God lays other members of this church on your heart. Pray for them, text them. Say, you know what, God, I prayed for you specifically this morning. I prayed for you this afternoon. I was driving in my car, and I prayed for you.
When you have time, start trying to think of people that have been a blessing. Your Sunday school teacher and those that have ministered to you, or somebody that sang a song and they ministered and it blessed you, or whatever the case may be, or somebody spoke to you and smiled at you and said hello to you at church or whatever the case might be. I think that you and I are blessed way more than we think we are. We walk into church sometimes and we're analyzing everything we don't like. And you know what causes that?
An ungrateful spirit. Give thanks for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Call their names out to God. when you pray making mention of you in my prayers. I want you to notice number three.
Pray that God will give them wisdom. Every once in a while, you'll have somebody here at church say, Oh, we're thinking about, you know, we've got an opportunity, I just don't know. Look what Paul says here in verse 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you. The Spirit.
of wisdom. Paul says, Listen, I've prayed for you. I've called your name out to God in prayer. And I have prayed that God. would give you wisdom.
That's one of the first things. that you ought to ask on behalf of. Your family. friends, church members. God give them wisdom.
God give them wisdom. Notice number four, verse 17. Pray that God will reveal. himself to them. Look what Paul prays.
And Not only that God will give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. What does that mean? Paul is saying, I'm praying that God will reveal to you. not just reveal himself, but give you wisdom in situations and reveal his will. to you.
Man, that's a prayer we ought to be praying for our kids, for our fellow church members, for our grandkids, for our husband, for our wife. God, reveal your will to them. Reveal yourself. Let them know that you're real. You got a call today.
I asked this church to pray for a lady that's kind of like my sister. Um years ago My mom and dad was precious. friend of ours, her name is Darla White. They met her as a teenage girl. She was a piano player, phenomenal piano player.
So later on, she was in her later 20s, and they just talked to her. She was working a job, and they said, Listen, if we can try to make it work, would you travel with us? Because my mom's saying, Every night, And of course mom and dad would sing and all three of us would sing, but one of the things you struggle with, you go to a week, they might not have a piano player or the piano player might not really be able to play your stuff, and we always depended on a piano player. And so it was just difficult. And so it added a thing that we got to take our own pianist, and then she could play pianist specials, and she sang too.
And of course, nowadays, a lot of evangelists take a musical team with them and stuff, but we just couldn't afford to do that. But it worked out that she came. And so here she was in her 20s, and I was in my late, you know, my mid-teens. And it was probably years 13, 14, 15, 16 that she traveled with us. What a blessing.
And we're like brother and sister. I didn't have a sister, didn't have a brother. And she's a little bit older than me, but we just have been kind of like brother and sister all these years. And I asked you to pray for her because she had some internal horrible things and they had to go through and and do a very drastic surgery. And she has feeding, you know, tubes and all these things.
And so today I was. See, been out of the hospital in Indianapolis, back home, it's been a struggle. And today, I got a text and said, please send me your phone number. And I'm thinking, if you just texted my phone number, You've got my phone number. How am I going to send you my phone number?
But she was in a room and she needed to try to call from the motel phone. I mean the motel, the hospital phone.
So I sent her my number and she called and Just weeping. And she said, Daniel, I'm dying. They rushed me last night from the hospital. In an ambulance, over 200 miles in an ambulance to get to Indianapolis Hospital from where she lived. And she says, I'm dying.
She says, This stuff that she did, there was a stint left up in her And her system that they didn't know about and obstructed, and she couldn't eat, and couldn't eat, and she hasn't eaten in so long that now she can't eat. And she's dying. She was just weeping. And as I was, I said, you know, I talked a little bit, I want to know specifically how to pray. And I said, darling, I want to have prayer with you.
And I prayed. I said, Lord, you're the bread of life. You were literally the bread. of life. And I said, somehow God, right now.
She just said, I don't think I can go on. This has been a nightmare for two years. And I said, Right now, God, somehow. Do whatever it takes to reveal and remind her that you're real. Listen, I know we know the truth of God's word, but you can get in some situations that that old mind will start playing tricks on you.
And physical suffering will wear you down. It'll drive you crazy. I mean, those walls come closing in on you. I've had a little bit of a taste of it. And I am telling you, old Satan shows up at times like that.
And we know the truth. We know what the verses say. But I don't know about you. But what I want to pray for you, and I have prayed this specifically for some of you, when you've gone through things, is God, somehow, reveal yourself to them right now so they know you're real. Paul says, I pray that God would reveal.
We love that. Number five, verse eighteen. What else did Paul pray? He said, I prayed the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. What does that mean?
Paul said, um pray that God will give them discernment. Understanding and enlightenment, what does that mean? That I understand, but I also see through what's obvious. To be enlightened means we're looking beyond what we see. We kind of see the whole situation.
We're not just we don't just see what we're shown, we kind of see all of it and and by the way, that's missing in 2023. We have a generation that's just swallowing what they see. Men don't even see the bad. But understanding is being able to understand something. Enlightenment means that I can see more than what.
is shown and what is that? It is old-fashioned Holy Ghost discernment. And we ought to be praying for each other. that will have discernment. May I say sometimes you need to quit praying.
for what they asked you to pray that God would do. They might be asking wrong. I've had people say, Preacher, would you pray? That God would somehow make it where my boss gets fired. Because he is making my life an absolute miserable experience.
I don't know if that's what God wants. But what I can pray for for you is that God would give you. discernment. Oh, do we need discernment? That God will give you discernment when someone speaks to you.
When someone communicates with you, the things they're saying, Look through that, see through that. Don't jump on board and be negative and critical and all those things. Have some discernment. Notice what he says here, number six of verse 18. He says, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling.
One of the most important things I always pray for for my boys, for my wife, for me, for my life. Pray that they will find and know God's will. The hope of his calling. What has God called you to do? Pray.
that they will Find and know God's will. It's always what's best. Notice number seven, and I'm going through these because, like I said, I don't want to keep you long tonight. Verse 18. And what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
Did you see that? Remember what Paul said at the beginning of the chapter? We have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. And then he says here, what does he say? What the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
Number seven, pray that they will rely on God's resources. Listen to me, where you and I get in trouble is where we start going ahead and trying to meet a need before God does. God's the one with the resources, not us. Everybody with me, say amen. God's got plenty.
So here's what I've started praying. For specific people, and they ask for something, and I say, I'm going to pray for you. I pray this, say, God, I pray that they'll depend on you. I pray they'll rely on your resources. I pray that they won't get impatient.
and start trying to make something happen because they're tired of waiting for an answer. God's got the resources. Notice the verse. Please get this. You and I have an inheritance.
What is the inheritance? We've been given all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Inheritance isn't just our home in heaven. It's God's resources here. Notice that Number 8, verse 19.
And what is the exceeding greatness of his power? Paul says, I've been praying for you. that you'll know The hope of his calling. the glory of his inheritance, but that you'll know What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power?
So, number eight, pray that they will experience and depend on God's power. Can I have an amen right there? Let's quit depending on our power. Let's just start praying for each other. Lord.
Help my brother. And Lord, help my brother not depend on himself and not depend on his education. Help him not to depend on what all of his friends have to tell him and advise him about. God, I pray that they'll depend on your power.
Now, here's what's interesting. He gives this list, but oh, he begins to really go in detail describing the importance of praying for the power of God.
Now notice the verse. Look at verse 19. Notice this. First, God's power always exceeds the need. What does he say?
What is the exceeding greatness of his power. God's power is so great, it always exceeds the need.
So, whatever you need in your life, God's got enough power for it because His power is always greater than your need. It's not just great power, that would be good. But it's exceeding That's almost as important as the great. It's the fact that whatever it is you need, his power exceeds that. That's why it's important for us to start praying for each other on these lines.
Because once you and I begin to realize God's power exceeds my need.
Well just calm down start trusting him Notice, secondly, God's power is available. Yeah. What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us? To us. It's available.
This exceeding great power you have access to. And who is it to? Those who believe. The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with the sin nature. Romans 3.23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try, We're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven.
Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's Gift.
salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept him as our Saviour. Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5:8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour.
Romans ten nine says That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way. and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever, that's any one.
can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Savior? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at Curlin Baptist Church.
Dot com. or visits that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you. Mm-hmm.
