 If anyone can lead in prayer, that would be nice. Are we able to hear the online students? Is it connected? Even online students can speak, right? Okay, thank you. Maybe someone from our online batch, if you can please lead in prayer, that will be great. Okay, who would like to pray this morning? Okay. Yes, Prince, please go in by mistake. Okay. All right. Okay, I'm not sure what time it is from where you all are connected. So don't make it convenient. So all right, maybe somebody here in the batch. Can we have someone pray quickly please so we can get into the class? Jesus, we thank you for this day. Thank you Lord that you have brought us all together again. And thank you Lord for this great day. And I pray for God that we would learn something today from Pastor Nancy and that Jesus that it's going to impact us in our lives and that it will become alive. So thank you Jesus for everything. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you for leading in prayer. Today we will continue with the theme of intercession. We have been talking about pray for others. We saw that is a very blessed ministry. Some are taught with the grace to intercede. Very specifically called, you know, with that kind of a role in the kingdom of God. You know, it's not a secondary role. God views that ministry as a very precious one. The last class, the more about the caring prayers of dedication of family members who are home. He also talked about praying for those who have wandered away from the Lord and the importance of the influence that we have as family members and how we must utilize it by praying for those we love. So today we will continue to look at praying for others. And here are certain points that we recognize that we can pray for believers and our local church. We can also pray for the people who minister to us. So pastors, leaders, those who are serving the Lord, right? We can pray for such people as well. So we are at chapter 15 and it begins with Ephesians 16 and 19 where we know that Paul called us to pray for all the saints. So all the saints are who? Primarily that term saints is sinners who have now been cleansed who are now sons and daughters of God who are part of the kingdom. So saints applies to every believer. So saints doesn't mean, you know, we are praying for some saints and so on and the way people perceive that word saint to be. But saint is every believer, a sinner who is saved by grace. So we have to pray for all the saints which means pray for believers. So we will today talk about how we can pray for the believers. Now when we see the incident when Jesus was talking to Peter and he revealed to him, you know, even the mistake that Peter is going to make but he still says that I have prayed for you. Peter even has a desire to see you as Jesus. I have prayed for you. So there is a practice that we see in the life of Jesus in the apostles' ministries because even later on as you read the epistles of Paul usually it begins with I'm praying for you or it closes with I'm praying for you. So praying for those who are in the body of believers is something that we have to do to pray for each other. So what are some prayers that we can pray for believers? We definitely want to pray for believers. We want to pray for them because we have the authority. We can pray. Second is maybe there are times when they are going through challenging situations. We've seen the life of Job when he also desired and said, oh, somebody may pray for me. Maybe those challenging times are such that we are not able to pray for them. And we stand the gap. We are able to beat the power of the king to release to their life. So it is that important. So that is why we used to stand in the gap. Stand between power and... But one thing we have to do in our faith is we should never become the ultimate mediator. Which, that's what happens. But when you consider intercessory ministry, what we do is we tell people, I will pray. And somehow the importance is on us reaching out to God. And people also start believing that. Let this pastor pray or let this man of God pray. Let this woman of God pray. But that is not the only way in which we should do our intercessory ministry. Otherwise people start depending on us. How about we must pray? And we also encourage people to pray. One best way to do that is to also teach them how to pray. So don't become a crutch for people. You understand? We did not become a crutch for people. Ultimate goal is that everyone should know how to pray for themselves. Everyone should know how to receive for their needs. Maybe healing. Yes, we can minister to people. But eventually they themselves should know how I can get my own healing. So intercessory ministry is not a ministry by which we must make people dependent on us. That's not the goal. But we can be mediators when there's a need. You understand? So when we are praying for sinners to come back to God. Yes, God needs an intercessor. When we are praying for healing, God needs intercessors to stay on course and pray. When we have believers who are wandered away. These are all situations where somehow there is a need for perseverance. Or the fulfillment of God's promise over someone's life. Perseverance is required in prayer. So that's where we come in and we can stand in the gap and we can pray for people. But also recall that the ultimate mediator. The person who's known as a mediator is who? Jesus Christ. So you and I, we can never mediate the way Jesus mediated. Our mediation is only by using our authority through prayer. Okay, that is the kind of mediation or intercession which we are performing. So we must understand that. Okay, moving on. We know that we can pray for believers when there are ways needed. What else can we pray for the believers? So there is a list of prayers which Apostle Paul prayed for. He prayed for the believers. And in those prayers, he prayed for different things. But maybe you find that the emphasis is for the believers to be strong in their spiritual walk. For the believers to stay focused. You know to fulfill their purpose for their lives. The prayers were more for the believers to become like Christ. So a lot of spiritual, spiritual strength, spiritual growing up. That was the focus that Paul had. So there is an entire list here in our notes. So if you can go to page 65, you see there Paul's prayers for the believers. So I won't read through each of the verses but I'll just highlight the key points that Paul prayed for. So he mainly prayed that the believers will not fall into evil and deception. Okay. Any confusion? It's a different page number for you. Okay, maybe they have edited. Okay. 61. Okay. So the printed copies, please look at page 61. You're at it now. You've turned it. Okay. So the key points that they should not fall into evil and deception. That they should become more like Jesus. I already said that Christ should be formed in them. So these are the prayers which Paul is praying and what kind of a person is Paul? He's in the ministry. He is planting churches. He is a leader. He's overseeing churches. So you see the focus which Paul has. He wants believers to stay on course. So his prayers are directed towards that. He wants believers to become mature in God. So his prayers are directed towards that, that they should become more like Jesus. So that Christ may be formed in you. Okay. So ultimately that spiritual maturity and growth is the key thing that Paul is praying for. Some of the other things he asks for the believers is that God would give them revelation knowledge. Revelation knowledge simply means word of God is available to us. But the spirit man will begin to receive understanding of the word. Okay. And that understanding it will enlighten the spiritual man and not just that we will also be able to apply it. Okay. So that is Paul's desire. Yeah, you're all hearing the word of God. But I pray that you may have revelation knowledge or proper enlightenment from the word of God. Such was the prayer of Paul. So he prayed that believers may have revelation knowledge. I think we read that passage last week. Isn't it Ephesians 1 when we prayed for family members also. So similarly, there are other passages such as Philippians 3, Philippians 1 and Colossians 1, which one way about us for understanding revelation knowledge for believers to walk the Lord in a worthy manner. Asking for believers to be fruitful in their lives. Because God has called each one of us to do our part and God wants us to be fruitful. So these are the kind of prayers that he's praying. He's praying for spiritual strength. Okay. So we too can pick up these prayers and pray. Colossians 4 is another beautiful prayer where he prays that the believers may be perfect and complete in Christ. Okay. Perfect is not to say that one doesn't make any mistakes or there are no errors. That's not the meaning of that word perfect. Okay. But perfect is to denote maturity that believers will become mature. So such prayers he prayed. He also prayed that the faith of the believers would become perfect. Again, we understand maturing of faith is what he wanted to see among the believers. So we as people who love the body of Christ, we too can pray such prayers. We can pray such prayers over our congregations, other believers. But I think these prayers can be very powerful if pastors, leaders, those who are overseers of congregations, they pray over it. Again, because there is an influence that God gives. We will see later there are spheres of influence. Spheres of influence where you have authority figures. So for example, in the family, parents and children, parents are the authority over the children. In a church, you have a pastor, you have ministry leaders, they would be the authority over the people whom they lead. In an office setting, you have a boss who would be the authority over the employees. So God grants that authority. He is the one who first of all gives authority, but from that authority, there is an influence which we can exercise. So that's why I'm saying if these prayers, generally all of us can pray. But if pastors, leaders, overseers, we pray it over our people. It comes with that kind of an influence. So we bless our people. Same way, the way we discussed last time, parents can speak blessing or they can speak curses on their children. Both carry influence. In the same way, leaders, spiritual leaders, and you pray such prayers, it is going to be very powerful over the people. So Paul prayed such prayers for people's spiritual maturity. Now, a few more things which are covered here in the chapter are that there were prayers which were encouraged for individuals. So there are times they're not reading through each of the verses. You can take time and maybe go over those verses by yourself, but all the verses are given over there. He prayed for Timothy. You see that there is a place where he prays for philemen. So there are individuals that he's praying for. Even today, maybe you're sitting here and God has put burden on your heart to pray for another believer. That believer might be from your local church, or they might be somebody you met someplace, but you're seeing that God is calling me to pray for such and such a believer. Even you can pray for those individuals and commit to pray for them. So Paul also prayed for certain individuals. Jesus, remember Jesus told me, I have prayed for you. So we can pray at large, but we can also pray specifically for individuals. And at the end of this chapter, we notice that Paul has an incredible burden for the churches. We know that during his missionary journeys, he may have planted about 20 churches. Now after planting the churches, he could have just said, I've planted the churches. It's great. We've done a great job. The kind of heart which God gave him, we look at it as a very pastoral kind of heart, a very apostolic kind of heart. By which we mean that he carried a concern for those people. Once he planted the churches, he still thought about them. He used to get news about these churches. The church in Colosse, the church in Rome, he obviously spent time with the Ephesian believers. And when you read in the book of Acts, he went to say bye before he was moving to Jerusalem. He knew that he may never come back. And see the love which he has that they hug each other and he gives them instructions. He tells them, he wants them how to take care of God's people. So that kind of a burden he carried for those people. Really, you can say that there was that love which he had for the believers, which he had for the leaders. So, he writes in the book of Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 11 verse 28 to 29. He says, maybe somebody can read it. 2 Corinthians 11, 28 and 29. Yeah. Okay. So, you notice here, he's saying that what comes upon me, how often? How often does it say? Daily. So, there is a deep concern which he carries daily. And he says, my deep concern for all the churches. Deep concern for all the churches. Verse 29, it just shows us that he felt for the churches. Meaning, he empathized with the churches. Okay. So, he says, who is weak? And I'm not weak. So, Paul is saying, there are believers and leaders and congregations. If they are going through weakness, I feel the weakness. So, do you see that? He has a very genuine love for the people. He's saying, if they are weak, I am weak. Concern for all the churches daily. That kind of a love and concern he's carrying for the churches. No wonder. It is possible to pray perseverance. If we don't have that kind of a genuine burden. I'm not saying that our prayers will not be effective, but I'm saying, carrying that burden to see the fulfillment of those prayers or those promises. It may not last. Okay. But the place from where Paul is actually praying is this place. Genuine care. Genuine concern. Love for the believers. And that's why he says, who is weak? And I am not weak. I feel the weakness that is there in the churches. He also says, who is made to stumble and I do not burn with indignation. So, he's saying, even when I hear that he has gone away from the Lord, he's angry. And you wonder, why is it that Paul is rebuking people over here, over there? Why? Do it right. Give glory to God. Don't you know you're the temple of the Holy Spirit? All these instructions. Paul, why are you writing epistles? Because his ministry is about establishing the believers in the truth of God's Word. Ensuring that the believers become spiritually mature, that their faith will become mature. So, that is why the whole teaching, the encouraging, the prayer, everything is going into that. So, today when we think about praying for believers, why should we pray for believers? Just ask the Lord, Lord, give me a genuine concern. So, when we have a genuine concern, that's when we can pray like this and say, God, we want to see believers established in the faith. So, that is how Paul prayed with a deep concern. And even, you know, when people stumbled, he was angry. He just saw. Okay. Now, praying for believers, yes, we understand. Now, would it be wrong for ministers of God to say, pray for me. It's not wrong. For ministers of God to ask for prayer. Okay. So, we see, you know, some places where Paul actually asks for prayer. Ephesians 6, verse 19. You know, he says, and for me, he begins with pray for all the saints. And then in verse 19, he says, pray for me that utterance may be given to me. That I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel. So, you know, prayers like this, we can pray for preachers, pastors, that God, give them the words, give them the boldness. See, Paul is asking for prayer and he's saying, please pray that I will get the words to speak and the boldness to be a witness. So, in the same way, you know, we can also pray for ministers of God. One more prayer which, you know, I will share here is from Romans. Verse, chapter 15, verse 30, where he says, I beg you brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me. And he continues verse 31, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God and may be refreshed together with you. So, many different things. Basically, he's saying pray for protection. When I do ministry, you know, there's a lot of opposition that I face. So, just pray that I will be protected. I will be preserved. He's saying pray for favor. When I do the ministry, let the people be accepting of my ministry. Let them, you know, be open to what I have to say and share. He's also saying, please pray that we will have the opportunity to meet. Okay. That we can meet and be refreshed by one another's fellowship. So, these are the kind of prayers which Paul is asking for. So, it's okay for us to actually pray for ministers of God and also if ministers of God ask and say, you know, pray for me. There's nothing wrong in that. Okay. So, I've tried to be somewhat quick to address the key points. Any questions, any thoughts? Yes, Anand. Yeah. Can you please use the mic because, you know, in the recording, there's like a pause. So, it's best to use the mic. You said about the believers, we have to teach us to be healed by themselves. We have to teach how to pray. Right. So, most of the times we'll see in the normal, the normal churches. So, people used to pray for months and months, years and years and they'll not be healed and they will not be delivered from their problems. When they go to a particular pastor or a particular preacher, they will be healed or they got converted at the time only. So, how can we see this? Is it an authority that have a preacher or is there anything what makes the difference from praying? Okay. Sure. Yeah. So, what Anand is saying is, though we can, I mean, in general, we see that there are people who minister healing, particularly healing. But, you know, I mentioned that it's possible for us to equip the believers to walk in healing. Okay. They can receive their own healing. So, how does this work? Is what you're asking? Yeah. How does this work? Okay. So, see when we look at the word of God, we know that the atonement or what Jesus has done on the cross, right? He became that perfect lamb who was sacrificed. He paid for, you know, our sins. And so, the punishment which was due us was taken away from us and the blessings of God were directed towards us. So, you know, we understand all that like Galatians 3, 13, 14 says that Jesus became a curse for us that the blessings of Abraham may come upon us. So, it has already been done and the blessings of the cross have already been provided. Okay. Now, the way it is released through faith and even when ministers of God, you know, go and minister, maybe, you know, people pray for others through their faith, healings happen. Okay. So, the person who's ministering, I mean, and also we know the value of the faith of the person who believes which is why we teach the word. You know, we teach the word, we talk to them about who Jesus is and all. Then what happens? Faith comes in people's hearts and that's when generally you would see that, you know, we'll talk about Jesus, we'll share from the word and then people begin to believe and then we pray, they receive the healing. Okay. Now, all this is fine. All this is fine. But, you know, if the people don't know that healing is in the atonement, if they don't know, you know, God's word on healing, God's will on healing, what happens is once the preacher goes away or the minister goes away, they will wait for the next meeting or they will wait for the next person of God to come and pray for them. Okay. But what is the fact? I just said it's already been provided in the cross. So, believer must be made aware. So, that's where teaching them comes into picture. So, we teach them about the cross. The thing is, sorry for this. The thing is when they are praying since from months and months and years and years, they'll not get healed by themselves. They'll not get healed by themselves. When we practically also, the things happening is the same. So, they're not healed by themselves when they are praying since months and months. But when they went to a particular preacher or pastor, so they got healed and we saw so many incidents like live yours. I've also saw that. So, what makes a difference? I mean, is there a particular authority for the pastors? But we say we, every gift so spirit are same for everyone. But is there a particular authority for them? That's why some of the preachers and pastors are in nowadays very big. So, by their healing or the things. So, what makes a difference praying by themselves and going? Yeah. See, Anand, what I'm saying is, I'm saying that the word of God reveals that every believer has access to healing. Now, the fact that we depend on, as you said, preachers and their special authority or whatever, many times it's because the believers are unaware that they themselves can receive it. So, as Romans 10 17 says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith will come to them. If they know, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. You know, the Bible says. So, we can equip the believers as a norm to walk in divine healing all the time. Okay. It is possible. If we teach the word, if we teach the truth of God's word, people can have the faith they need to receive their own healing. However, somewhere in the Christian circle, we have seen that we have verified healings through this method. What you're saying. Somebody, some preacher going and using their faith, their authority. Yes, there is a special grace given to, you know, that person because of the anointing which they carry. But what I am saying is that is occasional. That should not be the only way through which believers should receive their healing because, I mean, it's like a bonus. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. It's about the knowledge, right? My people perish for lack of knowledge. That's what scripture says in the Old Testament. There's nothing wrong if a preacher prays and they get healed. I would say that's like the starting point. They understand that healing is in the covenant. Okay. But in the long term, it is good for us to equip the believers to walk in their own divine healing. And it is possible. If teach them, they can. But thank God for men and women of God and the anointing over their lives. And also one more thing is, you know, when they minister, they minister by faith, the authority which they carry by the anointing. And also we have the operation of the gifts of the spirit. Okay. So sometimes what happens or most times what happens is when you have all these meetings, right? Ministers of God operate through the gifts of the spirit. So there's something known as gifts of healings. Okay. Miracles. So when one is ministering in that anointing, it takes place. Like people just get healed. They just get. But what's happening? These are all things that people probably don't know. When you, when they learn the word, they can also grow in their faith, right? And if they use their faith, the best way is to teach people to walk in constant divine healing. And that is possible when people know the word and they know how to apply it. Okay. So you got my point, right? Yeah. Great. Yeah. So if they get healed, it's a good thing, right? That they still believe in God and the way the healing happened, right? Okay. So you're talking about a situation where if somebody has believed God but never got the healing, but got it through a pastor's ministry, they will think that they don't have the kind of faith which they need. No, but we should teach them, no, that that's not true. We have to teach them that, you know, believers have authority and their faith can also work. See, it does work like that sometimes, but it doesn't mean that their faith is not effective. Okay. So you tell me, somebody has prayed for, I'm just giving a situation, let's say three months. Maybe they've prayed, they've meditated in the word, all that. They go and somebody prays for them, a pastor prays for them. They're healed. Now tell me, on the basis of what did they get healed? Was it the pastor's prayer or was it their prayer for three months? Their prayer. Okay. One person saying their prayer. Both. Okay. One person saying both. Yeah, Sean. Okay. So Sean is saying depends on that moment. It depends on that moment. You know what? Frankly, we'll never know the answer to that question because we are not God, right? Who is to, who is to test whose faith and say how strong it is or how weak it is. We can never tell. So the point I'm making is what we know from the word, let's do it. We know that, you know, a pastor will carry authority, anointing, gifts of the spirit, all that wonderful. Normally, a believer should, you know, put their faith in the word and all these things will operate even in the believer's life. So by faith, one can receive the healing. So just keep doing these things. When it comes, how it comes, because of what it comes, you know, these are all questions we don't have answers for. We can never tell. Nobody can ever tell, you know, did he get healed because of the operation of healings or was it, was it the, you know, flow of the anointing which was present in that place because he touched the hem of the pastor's garment. We don't know and we will never know. So don't worry too much about it. That's all. He got his healing. No, that's all. So that's all we want. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. I'm saying, educate the, educate the believer. If you educate the believer, he won't get into. See, basically we're asking the wrong question. No, who's faith healed me? That's not the question. The, I mean, if you genuinely are asking, I understand, but more importantly, God healed me and healing is in the cross. Praise the Lord. Finished. Instead of believer thinking, oh, it was pastor's faith. So sad. I'm not going to pray ever. I'll only go to pastor every time. Okay, fine. So Vimal is adding. Faith is not important, but who you, your faith is in is more important. Okay, fine. Yes, Sean, you want to say something? Sorry. You say it. I am, if they say, okay, Sean's question is somebody comes, they ask for prayer and they tell not to pray. Okay, so you're saying that we pray for these people, but they themselves don't pray for their children. It will work, Sean. Okay, see prayer will work. No, like the norm is it will work. But when parents pray for their children, there is a greater influence is what I said. So our prayers, outsiders, our prayers will also work. And we can encourage them to pray for their children. Yeah. Okay, great. Anything. Okay. So see the point is we are talking about praying for believers. All I'm saying is let us pray. Let us, you know, go by the kind of prayers which Paul prayed and other prayers in the Bible. But wherever possible, teach the believers to also pray for themselves. Don't make them dependent on us. That was my bottom line. You know, otherwise, what happens when they think, oh, you are an intercessor. They will never pray. They will run behind you because for them it's easy. You do the praying. You do the fasting. Pastor just lay hands on me. Finished. But that's not what the Bible says. Each one, they have a covenant with God and we have to teach them. If we don't teach them, they will be 100% dependent on us. That is not the way intercessory ministry works. Okay, you all got what we are saying, right? So it's a blessed ministry. Let us pray for believers, but don't make them dependent. That's all. All right. Great. So that is about this chapter. Okay, so we will move on to the next chapter, which is interceding for the lost. Let's take a break. It's 948, but yeah, let's take a break. We'll come back at 10 o'clock. Let's come back at 10 o'clock and then we will get into the next chapter.