All right, well, you're there in John chapter 17.
And what I want to talk about this morning, we've been going through a few soul winning
tips on Saturday mornings.
And you know, as a pastor, one thing that I've noticed is that sometimes those of us
that go soul winning and those of us that are soul winning are our soul winners.
We can just because of our human nature, because of our flesh, we can grow cold, maybe even
callous to soul winning.
Sometimes we just kind of lose our fire in regards to the fact that there are lost people
that need to be saved.
And from time to time, our hearts need to be kind of refreshed and revived.
And we need to be reminded why we do what we do and why we give up our time on Saturdays
or Sundays or Thursdays or whenever it might be.
And you know, this can happen through multiple different ways.
It can happen, of course, through Bible reading, through reading the Word of God and having
the Word of God kind of revive your heart.
It can most definitely happen through preaching.
And because of that, I try to systematically throughout the year make sure we're hitting
soul winning and talking about soul winning and preaching sermons about soul winning.
But one thing, one way that I believe that is underutilized by soul winners in regards
to keeping our hearts just kind of soft towards the lost is prayer.
And what I want to talk about this morning is just the use of prayer in soul winning.
And I want to encourage you to become, to use and leverage the power of prayer in your
soul winning.
Now, you're there in John chapter 17.
And the reason I had you go there is because in John 17, we have this famous passage of
the Lord Jesus Christ and he's actually praying.
This is oftentimes people refer to the Lord's Prayer, the passage of scripture where Jesus
was instructing his disciples to pray.
This in John 17 is actually Jesus praying.
We're listening in on one of his prayers.
This would be the actual Lord's Prayer.
Often this is referred to as the high priestly prayer.
Notice there in verse one, the Bible says this.
These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hours
come glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee.
And of course, we're not going to go through the whole passage, but he begins to pray.
And I want you to notice in verse nine, he says this, I pray for them.
I pray not for the world, but for them, which thou has given me, for they are thine.
He's talking about his disciples and those that have already believed on him.
He says, I pray for them.
Notice verse 15, he says, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world,
that thou shouldest keep them from evil.
So again, he's praying for the disciples.
He's praying for his converts.
And here's why I'm bringing this up.
And here's point number one in regards to leveraging the power of prayer and soul winning
or utilizing prayer and soul winning.
And it's this, that you and I as soul winners ought to pray for the unsaved.
Notice verse 20, what Jesus says.
He says, neither pray I for these alone.
So he's been praying for his disciples.
He's been praying for those that believe on him, that trust on him, that are following him.
But then he says this, he says, neither pray I for these alone, but also for them also,
notice what he says, which shall believe on me through their word.
So notice he says, I'm not praying just for those that already believe,
but I want to pray for those also which shall believe.
He's like, there's people that are not even saved that are going to believe one day.
And honestly, he's praying for you and I here.
He's praying for anyone and everyone who will believe on him.
But I want you to notice that Jesus took the time to pray for the unsaved.
He took the time to pray for those that would believe in the future.
And I wonder how much you and I utilize the power of prayer and utilize the effectiveness of prayer.
And I don't want you to answer this out loud, but I do want to ask this question.
And I want you to answer it in your own mind.
How often or how much time you spend praying for the unsaved and how effective would your
soul winning be if you spent a day, if you spent every day, maybe or just maybe the day
that you're going soul winning or whatever, and you took some time before you went out soul winning.
And like Jesus prayed for those that which shall believe,
prayed for those that we're going to come in contact with,
prayed for those that we're going to be talking to.
Sometimes when I pray for the unsaved, I will pray something like this.
I'll say, I'll ask, you know, Lord, would you please begin even now to work in the hearts of the individuals
we're going to talk to, the doors we're going to knock, Lord, remove all distractions now,
help us to have a clear mind now, help us to be able to communicate the gospel clearly as we go out.
So I want to encourage you, if you're not doing it already, to pray for the unsaved, to take time to schedule it.
And again, it maybe it'll be you come out sowing on Saturday mornings.
You just make make it a habit, make it a routine on Saturday morning before you even come out
to take some time to pray for the unsaved.
Maybe it's something you could do every day.
And I'm not saying you need to do it every day.
Obviously, you can't pray too much.
But one area that you should pray for in regards to soul winning is to pray for the unsaved.
We see the Lord Jesus Christ saying, neither I pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.
There's another area that you could pray in regards to soul winning.
You're there in John, if you go to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter number six.
And of course, you've got John, Acts, Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Ephesians, chapter number six.
When it comes to prayer or praying and utilizing prayer in our soul winning.
Number one, we ought to pray for the unsaved.
But number two, you ought to pray for your soul winning.
You ought to pray for your personal soul winning.
Ephesians chapter six and verse 18.
The apostle Paul just got done giving us this great passage on spiritual warfare and the the armor that we should put on spiritual armor as a Christian.
And then he ends that talk by saying in verse 18,
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.
So he just got done telling them, you need to battle.
You need to be spiritually engaged in spiritual warfare.
And then he ends up by saying, and don't forget that you need to be in prayer,
praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit.
Make sure that you are watching thereunto with all perseverance.
And then because he's talking about prayer in verse 19, he kind of gives his own prayer requests,
kind of like you and I write in a prayer request on Wednesday night in our communication card.
In verse 19, he says, let me give you my prayer request to the church at Ephesus.
He says this, and for me, that utterance may be given unto me,
that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in bonds,
that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
I think it's interesting that Paul, who was arguably the greatest soul winner that ever lived outside of the Lord Jesus Christ,
of course, the greatest evangelist that ever lived, the greatest missionary that ever lived,
the most effective individual to take the gospel and spread the gospel in the entire world.
And here we have Paul saying, would you pray for me in my soul winning,
that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel?
And here's what I'm saying. If Paul can pray for his soul winning time, you and I can dead sure pray for our soul winning time.
I mean, if Paul felt the need to involve God in his work in the ministry of reconciling men to God,
if he felt the need to bring God into this thing, then you and I should not think ourselves too highly
to take some time during the week and before our soul winning and say, Lord, would you pray?
Would you help? I'm praying that you would help my soul winning time.
I mean, we're going to go out there anyway, right? We're going to spend a few hours anyway.
We're going to get dressed and put our jackets on and go out there in the cold and knock doors.
If we're going to do the work anyway, why not ask God to labor together with us?
So when it comes to utilizing prayer in your soul winning efforts,
who ought to, number one, pray for the unsaved, Jesus prayed for them which shall believe on me.
And then number two, we ought to pray for our soul winning time.
And sometimes we as soul winners, we struggle. We are timid. We're shy.
We say, oh, I'm scared. Well, Paul here, he prayed that utterance may be given unto me.
He says that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.
He says for which I am an ambassador in bonds that there and I may speak boldly.
Notice Paul's emphasis was that I would be able to be bold,
that I would be able to communicate the gospel clearly, that utterance may be given unto me,
that I may make known the mystery of the gospel.
So we ought to pray for the unsaved.
We ought to pray for our own personal soul winning and our soul winning time.
But lastly, this morning, you ought to pray for your converts.
And I don't want you to turn to these passages. I'm just going to read a few examples here.
I've done this before, but I want you to see it again.
The apostle Paul, again, one of the most effective soul winners who ever lived.
We notice in his writings that he had a habit of praying for his converts.
And we could spend a lot of time on this. I'm not going to. I'm just going to read a few.
You don't have to turn here. I'll just read these for you.
First Corinthians one four, Paul says, I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God,
which is given you by Jesus Christ. In Ephesians one sixteen,
he says this, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.
In Philippians one verses three and four, he wrote this, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
always in every prayer of mine for you all, making requests with joy.
Colossians one three, he says this, we give thanks to God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
praying always for you. Colossians one nine, he says this, for this cause,
we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and in spiritual understanding.
In First Thessalonians one two, he said this, we give we give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.
And here's all I'm telling you, here's all I'm saying. Paul, the most effective soul winner that ever lived outside of the Lord Jesus Christ,
had a habit of praying for his converts. And I'm just wondering, I'm just wondering how well are you and I doing in that area?
Do we pray for our converts? When someone gets saved, do we take the time to invest the time and spend the time praying for them?
Would we be able to say, we cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers?
Would we be able to say, we give thanks to God always for you, all making mention of you in our prayers?
Do we even remember the names of the people that we got saved?
And I'm just saying this, we've got this great power, this access to God called prayer.
And you and I go out here every week and spin our wheels and come out soul winning, trying to do it in our efforts.
And then sometimes we get frustrated with our efforts and we complain about, I got stuck with this partner again,
and I'm in this group and I've got to do this and nobody, this place isn't receptive.
And I did this map two years ago and this and that. I just wonder how better, how sweeter, how greater our soul would be.
If we prayed up before we went out, if we involved God in this, if we saturated the work that we do in prayer,
and if you're not sure how to do that, I'm just trying to give you some tips.
Maybe I ought to pray for the unsaved. Maybe I ought to pray for your own soul winning time.
Maybe I ought to take time to remember, to remember your own converts,
the people that you've had the privilege to get saved and pray for them,
ceasing not to give thanks always in every prayer of mine for you all, making requests with joy.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that you would help us, Lord, to realize that we've got a great, great tool called prayer.
And Lord, I pray that you would help us to become just not only soul winning soldiers, but to become prayer warriors.
And Lord, I pray that you would help us to involve and engage in soul winning.
Lord, I believe that one of the reasons that we as soul winners get cold and callous,
we complain and we quit is because we're not praying.
And if we would involve you in prayer, we would take time to pray for this great work of the ministry.
Lord, I believe that our hearts would be soft and our hearts would be revived.
Lord, we ask that you would be with us today.
And Lord, even now we pray for the unsaved.
We ask for the individuals, the doors that will be knocking.
I know that many of them will not be receptive.
But Lord, I pray that you would help us to find those that are receptive.
Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would even go right now and begin to work in the hearts of those individuals.
We pray that you would remove distractions.
But I pray for these soul winners, that you would give them utterance to be able to communicate the gospel clearly.
Lord, I pray that you would help them to not go into this in the flesh, not go into the spinning of their wheels,
or that they would go into it filled with the spirit, that they would have the boldness that they need to be able to preach the gospel clearly.
And Lord, we pray that you would help us not to forget those that we do get saved, that we might love them.
And at the very least, if we're not going to follow up with them, to at least pray for them and to pray for their spiritual life.
In the matchless name of Christ, we pray. Amen.