If you remember, we've been going through Romans 15 the last month or so. Lord willing, we're going to conclude Romans 15 today. Last week we looked at verses 22 to 29, and we looked at how Paul's plans were that he was going to continue in ministry. He had another seven or eight years of his life, and he wanted to eventually make his way back to, or make his way to Rome to meet these Christians in Rome for the very first time. He was also bringing a gift to the Roman Christians, many of whom were Jews, and that gift, as you recall, was given by the Gentile Christians in Macedonia and Achaia. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Romans 15, where we'll be considering today verses 30 to 33. I appeal to you brothers. by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints so that by God's will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed by your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Well, how many of you have ever asked someone to pray for you? I'm sure we all have. It's such an encouragement to know that when you ask for prayer from God's people to know that, in fact, they will be upholding you in prayer. The expectation, and indeed the hope, is that when you ask for prayer that people will pray for you. This was Paul's expectation, that while he was away from Rome and, in fact, had never even met the Christians there, He could present a prayer request knowing, fully expecting, and being hopeful that they would pray for him. And no doubt these Christians in Rome were glad to receive that prayer request, and I'm sure did uphold him in prayer. So that's the overarching context of today's passage, the importance and the power of prayer. So I wanna consider this, it's on your handout today under four headings. First, we're gonna look at the Trinity. which yes, as you may have noticed, is in verse 30. So we're going to talk about that first before we deal with prayer. But then secondly, we'll look at the power and effectiveness of prayer, verse 30. Thirdly, what does Paul ask for in prayer, verse 31. And then finally, we'll look at this second benediction that we have in the book of Romans, which is in verse 33. Now, first of all, let's go Before we jump into the theme of the text today with prayer, let's look at the reference to the Trinity that's found in verse 30. Many people, even so-called Christians, have said that the word Trinity does not appear in Scripture and therefore does not exist. New research published just last month, March of 2025, from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University shows that only 16% of self-proclaimed Christians believe in the Trinity. That's 84% that do not. At our spring meeting this week of Calvary Presbytery, the question was asked of men being examined for gospel ministry, what do you believe or how would you describe the Trinity? And the question is not only one to be answered by ordained ministers, but also by you and by me. So what would you say? How would you describe the Trinity? Well, it's helpful if you look at the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 2, Section 3, which says this, in the unity of the Godhead, there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity. Then it goes on to say, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none. neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from both the Father and the Son." So essentially, the Trinity is three persons in the one Godhead. Now, how do we wrap our brains around that? I don't have the answer for that. But we know that it's true. We know from Scripture that it's true. And in fact, it's in this passage today in verse 30. We also know that all three persons in the one Godhead work together in salvation. God the Father ordains salvation, the Son accomplishes our salvation, and the Holy Spirit applies our salvation. In other words, God, who predestined a people to himself before all time, ordained that he would send his Son to atone for your sins. for my sins. Jesus the son accomplished our salvation by bearing the wrath of God due to our sins and dying on the cross for our sins. John MacArthur once said, and I'm going to paraphrase this, but he said, when God looked on the cross, he saw us. That is his elect people. Now, when God looks at us, he sees his son. What's he mean there? While on the cross, God saw our sins that his perfect son was atoning for. But now when he sees you and me as his beloved children, he sees his son shining through us because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. The third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, applies our salvation. Now certainly we know the Holy Spirit is responsible for regenerating our hearts, right? But also once we become Christians, the Holy Spirit illumines the Scriptures to us that we might see our sin, mortify it, and live to the glory of God. So in the context of verse 30, we see that Paul is exhorting the Christians in Rome to pray with him to who? What member of the Godhead? It's to God, right? Pray to God. This follows the pattern of prayer that Jesus, in fact, taught his disciples in Matthew 6. He said this, pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. In other words, we pray to God, our heavenly father. There's a lot of news going on right now in the Catholic church because of the Pope having died, right? Catholics don't just pray to God the father, they pray to saints, which is contrary to what scripture says. We're to pray to God, our heavenly father. I knew it was going to be a really interesting Thanksgiving dinner some 30 years ago when my cousin prayed to God, the mother. It's true. It really happened. And yet, This is exactly what the liberals do. They don't take Scripture as the ultimate authority, even denying the way in which Jesus himself taught us to pray. Well, Paul not only tells us to pray to God, but also appeals by our Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to notice one word in that, and it's our. So our, if you look at grammar, is actually a personal pronoun, specifically a possessive pronoun. So we think about our home, our church. There's an indication of our sense of belonging when you say something is our. In like manner, we collectively as the body of believers have possession of Jesus Christ and he of us since we are united with him. We are united to him and therefore to one another because of his blood which was shed for us. Finally, Paul says to pray, by the love of the Holy Spirit. So if it is the blood of Christ which binds us together as believers, which it is, then surely the common characteristic that Christians should have for one another, that's you and me, should be love, which was poured out by the Holy Spirit. We saw this in Romans 5, 5, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And so we see Paul referencing here in verse 30 all three persons of the one Godhead as he exhorts the Christians in Rome to pray for him. Now let's look at the importance of prayer. Paul is asking them to pray for him. Let's look at why prayer is important. In answering this question, I want us to turn to another passage. This is James 5, 16 through 18. James 5, 16 through 18. In verse 16, it begins, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit." There's three main points in these verses. We're going to cover two of those. But the first is the importance of intercessory prayer. That's you praying for other believers. It's what Paul is asking for in Romans 15.30. Secondly, we'll see the power of prayer Thirdly, when we don't have quite enough time to dive into is the example of the power of prayer given in James 5, which is that of Elijah. But first of all, James highlights the importance of intercessory prayer when he says, pray for one another in verse 16. How important it is that we can share with other fellow believers and sisters in the Lord how God is working in our lives and what specific prayer needs we have. In fact, one of the greatest things that you can do for someone is to pray for them. That's why it's important that we share prayer requests, so we know what's going on in each other's lives. Let's not just pray for them, let's actually ask them later on, how's this going, right? Follow up with them, letting the person know that we've been praying for them. I found it particularly valuable in others' lives that when I say I'll be praying for you, which is good, but it's even something better if there's time to say, let me just pray for that right now. and just taking time and just stopping in the busyness of your day and just praying for that person at that moment. What wondrous ways the Lord will work if we carry this out and we take this verse seriously to pray for one another. Charles Spurgeon once wrote about this verse. He said, believer thou has a mighty engine in thy hand. Use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren. It's a mighty engine. That's how he describes prayer. Secondly, James discusses the power of prayer. How many of y'all have seen the power of prayer in your life? I think all of us have, right? In various ways. I remember last year I was preparing to teach. It was a section of verses in Romans 2. I got sick, fell ill with a cold. completely zapped my energy. I was feeling better on Sunday to teach, but still had no energy. As I was going through the lesson, just a few minutes before stepping up to teach, and I was praying, but it felt like God and Satan were just playing ping pong in my head. You ever had that? And Satan was saying, you can't do this, Kevin. You can't teach today. And God responding with, I've already given him my words, and he will win because I have won. It's a simple thing, but the Lord showed me in that small example the power of prayer. How many of you are parents or grandparents and pray for your children and for your grandchildren, and you've seen how the power of prayer has worked in their lives over and over and over? Consider Hannah's prayer for a son. In 1 Samuel, she prayed fervently and likely over a period of several years. Hannah recognized the sweet providence of the Lord at his birth when she said, I have asked for him, that's of this child, from the Lord, 1 Samuel 1.20. These are just a few examples of the power of prayer and the Lord blessing the prayers of the righteous. People often say there's not miracles today like there were in Scripture. Oh, but there are. There's miracles all around us. And there's miracles happening still today here at Second Presbyterian Church. And many of these miracles are precipitated with God's people getting on their knees, fervently asking, praying to the Lord, praising the Lord for what He's doing even through trial and petitioning the Lord for specific requests. Well, look at the last sentence of James 5, 16. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Other translations may say, availeth much. Now we know a righteous person is one who has been saved and whose sins are forgiven and thus are able to offer prayers in faith to the one who has saved them. Christ died for us. He took on our sins and imputed to us his righteousness. And so Paul writes, for our sake he made him who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, 2 Corinthians 5.21. So it is true that God hears your prayers. Why is that? Because he's declared you righteous through the atoning blood of his son. It's not because of anything you've done, it's because of what he's done. Dear believer, God doesn't just hear our prayers for who we are, in and of ourselves, but for whose we are. John Calvin writes, not that our prayers are founded on our own worthiness, but because the heart must be cleansed by faith before we can present ourselves before God. The King James Version renders verse 16 this way, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So why are the fervent prayers of the righteous effectual. It's because God makes them effectual. He answers our prayers in accordance with His perfect and pleasing will through the blood of our dear Savior and His Son, Jesus Christ. Our prayers have great effect because God is hearing them, using them, and answering them. Now some people in the broad evangelical world will say that our prayers we can use our prayers to change God's opinion or to change how God moves in a certain area. Is that true? Absolutely false. How do we know that's false? Because James 1, 17, there's no shadow of turning with thee. God doesn't change. So when we pray, who changes? We do. God uses this, uses prayer, as a means of grace in our life to grow us in holiness, to make us more and more like our Heavenly Father. And so we've seen so far the importance of intercessory prayer, which is, by the way, what Paul is requesting from the Christians in Rome, and also the power of prayer. Paul's requesting these Christians pray to him because he knows their prayers will avail much and will also grow them in holiness. But notice that Paul back in Romans 15 verse 30 writes this, to strive together with me in prayer. So the word strive here comes from the word that we get agony or agonize. The word was originally used to describe athletic events in which opponents would struggle against each other. Jesus actually used this word when he told Pilate in John 18, 36, my kingdom is not of this world, If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting. That word fighting is striving, which is the same word Paul's using here for prayer. So why does Paul use this same word to describe prayer? Well, it's because prayer is often a fight or a battle. Have you seen that in your own life? It's just a battlefield and it's a fight. It's a fight to do it. Prayer is hard work. It's a discipline. But as Pastor Phillips has often said, prayer is used as a last resort instead of a first resource. Of course, our example for how to agonize in prayer is our Lord Jesus. Again, that word agonizing or striving in prayer, which was used in Luke 22, 44 to describe the fervent prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And being in agony, As Jesus, being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down to the ground. When we pray, we are indeed engaged in a spiritual battle between good and evil, between our Heavenly Father and Satan and his minions, and yet we endure the struggle and we pray in agony at times. knowing the Lord has commanded that we pray and is pleased to receive our prayers and answer them in accordance with his perfect and holy will. Well, let's look next at what is Paul actually requesting prayer for? Verse 31, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints. So two things, he wants to be delivered from the unbelievers and he wants his service to be acceptable to the saints. So why is he asking to be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea? Well, it's because Paul was hated and he was threatened virtually everywhere he went. Acts 13, we see the Jews reviling him in verse 45. Paul was actually run out of Iconium. He fled to Lystra where he was stoned. Acts 14, 19, but Jews came Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing he was dead." How's that for a warm welcome? That's how Paul was treated where he went. Paul had endured much suffering for the sake of the Gospel, and he simply wanted to be delivered from the hands of evildoers. The Jews would catch up with him again in Jerusalem. We read in Acts 21, 27 and 28, when the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the entire crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help. This is the man who is teaching everyone, everywhere, against the people and the law of this place. Verse 30, they seized Paul, dragged him out of the temple, and once the gates were shut, and as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. Paul was once again saved from death yet another time because the leader of the Roman garrison sent soldiers out to get Paul to bring him into custody. So we can see why Paul would have asked for prayer that he'd be delivered from the unbelievers. Now he wasn't scared of death. He wasn't asking to be delivered from the unbelievers so his life would be preserved. Paul was one that said, hey, it's better for me to live, or better for me to die than to live, right? He was ready to go to heaven and be with the Lord for eternity. But why was he continuing to ask that the Christians in Rome would deliver him from the unbelievers? It's because he had a desire to see them in Rome. that he might eventually get to Rome to meet those Christians, which has been part of his plan all along. Furthermore, Paul asked them to pray that his service for Jerusalem might be acceptable to the saints. Why would he pray for this? Because there was a rift, and we've talked about that throughout the book of Romans, there was a rift between the Gentile believers and the Jews who had converted. Paul was asking that this gift he was bringing from the Gentiles in Macedonia and Achaia to the Christians in Rome be acceptable and create unity among the believers. Well, this brings us to the second of three benedictions found in the Book of Romans. Look with me in verse 33. Paul writes, may the God of peace be with you all. Amen. In order to understand this verse more fully, we need to remember that we had no peace with God. We who were born in sin under the law were at enmity with God, literally at war with God. We had no peace with God for we were at peace with the world and with Satan. We were opposed to God and everything he stood for, such as the unbeliever today. that God showed his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5, verse 8. Because of Jesus' work, not our own works, we have been reconciled to God, and now we have peace with the God of peace. This, of course, is the chief message of the cross, that God has given us peace through the shed blood of his son, Jesus Christ, to restore us to himself. This is what's meant in Colossians 1, 19 through 20, for in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. James Boyce writes, moreover, as Paul also shows, not only has God brought to an end the cause of hostility between ourselves and himself by the work of Christ, He's also transferred us from the status of rebels against his sovereignty to that of beloved sons and daughters. How's that? We were rebels and now we're sons and daughters of the Most High King. He writes in Romans 8, 15 through 17, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Father, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we might also be glorified with him." So we not only have peace with God, it's part of what he's saying here, but we also have peace with one another. And why is that? Because we're the covenant people of God. purchased by the blood of our Savior. We can and indeed should live together in harmony and peace as Christians. Ephesians 2, 14 through 16, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of the commandments expressed in ordinances so that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. so making peace and might reconcile us, that's me and you, both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. So do you see that? Do you see how the cross, in the cross, through the cross, we have peace with God and we have peace with one another? But we can also have peace of God. Philippians 4, 6 through 7, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, it's not the peace with God there, it's the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. James Boyce writes, the peace of God is different than the peace with God, which is what Romans is mostly about. Peace with God is something that's achieved for us by God himself through the work of Jesus Christ. It's the result of his making atonement for our sins. But the peace of God is something beyond this for those who have given themselves to Christ. Perhaps you are anxious today over a difficult relationship. Maybe it's a difficult diagnosis. Maybe it's a difficult financial situation. Friend, whatever you are anxious about, know that you can have the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. As the hymn writer once said, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. It's a great hymn. And who forfeits the peace of God? It's us. We forfeit the peace of God when we're not living for Him, when we're not coming to Him in continual prayer. He desires to give you peace. We have peace with God. We have peace with one another. And yes, we can have the peace of God. Why? Because we have been reconciled through the mediatorial sacrificial death of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so in light of these verses today, let us not forsake the importance of prayer, praying with and for one another, knowing that God has made the way of peace with him and with one another. Let's pray. God in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you that we can pray to you as our heavenly father through the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the love of the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. Father, help us to be a praying people. This is one of the most probably underutilized weapons we even have as Christians today is that we don't pray. So help us to pray. There'll be needs that we have, but there's a lot of needs for others. Help us to pray intercessory prayers for other people, to pray on their behalf. And Father, we thank you, Lord, for the peace that you've given to us through the sent-atoning death of Jesus Christ. We pray that as we pray, Lord, and we present our petitions to you, that you would give us your peace in all circumstances that surpasses understanding, that we would not be an anxious people, that we would not be a people that are worried about things, but we would be a people that wholeheartedly consecrates our lives to thee. All of our needs, all of our requests, knowing that you have met them and that all we need is Jesus Christ. We thank you for that blessing and it's in his name we pray, amen.