Paul Given Back To The Church Through The Prayers Of His Christian Friends.

Adapted From A Sermon By

Philip Doddridge

At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.

(Philemon 1:22)

This morning, we turn to a short but profoundly encouraging letter from the Apostle Paul—one that overflows with grace, reconciliation, and the power of believing prayer. Our text is found in Philemon verse 22, where Paul writes these remarkable words:"At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you."

Picture the scene for a moment. Paul sits in chains in a Roman prison—not for any crime against Caesar, but for the sake of the gospel. He has just poured out his heart in this tender letter, pleading with his dear friend Philemon to receive back the runaway slave Onesimus, not as a mere servant, but as a beloved brother in Christ. Paul has appealed to Philemon's love, reminded him of their shared faith, even offered to repay any debt Onesimus owed. And then, almost as an afterthought that carries the weight of confident hope, Paul adds this request: "Prepare a guest room for me."

Why? Because Paul believes that through the fervent prayers of Philemon and the saints in Colossae, God would set him free. He speaks of his own release not as a distant possibility, but as something that is quite possible: "I will be graciously given to you." In other words, Paul believes the church's prayers are powerful to give him back to them—restored to fellowship, to ministry, to face-to-face encouragement.

This is no casual postscript. This is Paul modeling for us the astonishing truth that prayer matters, that the intercession of God's people moves the hand of Almighty God. In a season when Paul could have despaired of ever walking free again, he instead looks forward to hospitality, to breaking bread together, to continuing the work of the gospel side by side.

And so this morning, under the title "Paul Given Back to the Church Through the Prayers of His Christian Friends," we will unpack this beautiful reality: how the prayers of faithful believers can become the means God uses to deliver His servants, to heal relationships, and to advance His kingdom. May the Lord open our eyes to the power He has placed in the prayers of His people—and stir us to pray with the same bold expectation Paul had.

Philip Doddridge had been afflicted for some time by God's correcting hand, which interrupted his pastoral duties—duties he regarded as among his greatest comforts.

He reminded his congregation that it is the duty of everyone to reflect on how Divine Providence deals with them and to gratefully acknowledge every gracious intervention in their favor. Private believers, after being kept from the house of God for several successive Sundays due to confinement or illness, owe a public song of praise to God their deliverer upon being restored to worship there. Those who hold a public ministry, however, bear an even greater responsibility for such thanksgiving when similarly restored. It is fitting for them not only to praise God personally but also to invite others to join in that praise.

Doddridge illustrated this with the example of David, who, after God rescued his life from imminent danger, declared not only, "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth," but also added, "let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together."{Psalm 34:1-3} Similarly, in Psalm 118, verses 18-21, after stating, "The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death," David continued, "Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation."

After the apostle Paul had concluded the matter concerning Onesimus—the reason for his letter—and given the one pleading, the cause pleaded, and the skillful manner of management, there was strong reason to believe he had succeeded. Paul then mentioned a few additional details, including this hope: that Philemon would prepare a lodging for him, likely in his own home, because Paul trusted that although he was currently a prisoner of Jesus Christ, he would soon, through the prayers of Philemon and his other Christian friends, be released and restored to them.

From this statement, Doddridge invited his hearers to observe four points worthy of reflection:

I. That the apostle was deeply aware of Divine Providence actively involved in his imprisonment or his release.

II. That he regarded continued life and liberty as highly desirable, if it were God's will.

III. That he viewed the prayers of his fellow believers as powerfully effective toward this end.

IV. That he described himself, assuming such release and restoration, as belonging to the church and as given back to them.

We observe then,

I. That the apostle was deeply aware of the intervention of Divine Providence, as it concerned itself with his imprisonment or release. I am hoping, says he, by the grace of God, that I will be graciously given to you; that he will be pleased to stretch out his hand, and to break my fetters, and give me the opportunity which I have so long desired of conversing with my Christian friends again, and of ministering to them in the public offices of my function. Paul had particular reason to recognize this. The importance of his position in life made him seem, in a special way, the object of the Redeemer's care, since he was the Redeemer's special messenger.

There had also been remarkable predictions about this very event. When he was traveling to Jerusalem and speaking to the elders at Ephesus, he noted that the Holy Spirit warned in every city that imprisonment and hardship awaited him;{Acts 20:23} and Agabus,{Acts 21:11} while they were at Cæsarea, not only predicted these coming troubles but also gave a symbolic sign of them. When the great apostle was arrested in Jerusalem,{Acts 23:11} a further vision from Christ assured him that he must go to Rome and bear the same testimony there that he had given elsewhere.

Paul understood the teaching of his Divine Master so well that he knew his own affairs, and those of his fellow Christians, were under the control and direction of Divine Providence. He also knew that God's rule extended even to irrational creatures and to the lifeless world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground, and not a drop of rain comes from heaven, without our Heavenly Father. We know this truth, and we believe it too. Let us apply this thought to every situation in life, especially to the most painful ones.

"Am I, like Paul, interrupted in a course of active services? Am I confined by one kind of circumstance or another? Are my capacities for service brought within a very narrow sphere, perhaps for the present entirely cut off? It is a dark dispensation; but it is a dispensation of providence."

Paul knew that God could easily have changed the minds of the Jews so they would not want his imprisonment. He could have changed the minds of the Romans so they would not allow it. He could have changed Paul's own mind so he would not appeal to Caesar. If Paul had not appealed, he would have been freed. Indeed, if the Almighty had chosen, He could have rescued him as He did Peter, by sending an angel to remove his chains and open the prison gates. But Paul was wisely convinced that God had good reasons for not doing any of these things, and he accepted them.

He could see some of those reasons. He noticed that what had happened to him had advanced the gospel. In other ways, he believed everything was right. He felt complete satisfaction with what God had done and was doing for him. He knew that deliverance would come in one way or another. When it came, he understood that it would be a providential deliverance. The One who had brought him low would lift him up. The One who had handed him over to the anger of his enemies for a time (yet always under strong restraint, so they had no power over his life) would hand him back to the prayers and welcome of his friends, if he was ever to enjoy the freedom of speaking with them again.

"I trust in you, O Lord; I say, You are my God. My times are in your hand".{Psalm 31:14, 15} How it revives my soul to realize that my times are in His hand! If I am confined to my room and my bed, you carry out what you have planned for me. You determine the days and hours of my confinement. In your chosen time you open the doors of my own house so I may leave it, and the doors of your house so I may enter it. Then I may join my praises with those of your people, and I may speak your word in the great congregation.

II. It further suggests that he regarded it as a highly desirable outcome, if it were the will of God, that he might continue to enjoy life and freedom. He describes this fulfillment as the object of his hope and his desire, that he should be given back to the church again. We know well that this attitude did not arise from any excessive attachment to the world or from any reluctance to leave the things of time and sense behind and enter the unseen state. Through divine grace working in his heart, Paul was dead to the world: it seemed a very small thing to him. He had declared before his imprisonment, "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course"{Acts 20:24} and while imprisoned he had said, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."{Galatians 6:14}

The believing contemplation of my crucified Master has rendered me entirely like a dead man to the world and has completely destroyed its attractions in my sight, just as all natural beauty vanishes from a man who is dying in the torments of crucifixion. As for the other world, it presented the most comforting prospect, so much so that, as he had earlier stated that while the outward man perished the inner was renewed day by day by looking at things unseen, so under this very imprisonment, speaking of his outlook, he says, "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better,"{Philippians 1:23} incomparably better, beyond anything I can express: to be dissolved, to be set free, to weigh anchor and set sail for that pleasant land where my Redeemer dwells and reigns! A single moment there surpasses a thousand years here, if we considered only personal enjoyment.

When martyrdom drew nearer in prospect, his soul felt no terror at all: "I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come,"{2 Timothy 4:6-8} and so forth. Yet despite all this, because he believed, he did not hurry matters. He recognized that Christ had an interest on earth as well as in heaven. Though he held very humble and lowly views of himself—as in some ways the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, indeed less than the least of all saints—still he knew that through grace he was a chosen vessel, that God had equipped him for certain unique services, and that after preaching Christ from Jerusalem round to Illyricum, large areas of labor still lay ahead.

It appears that Spain and Britain remained to be visited by him, the eastern regions to be revisited, new churches to be established, existing ones to be strengthened, and further letters to be written by him for the comfort and building up of the church in the present generation and in all those to follow.

This consideration made him willing to postpone glory and to endure the hardships and sorrows of life for the sake of future days and years. Thus he plainly expresses the situation: "to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account"; and with this confidence, "I know that I will remain."{Philippians 1:25} In this light I desire to remain in life.

A soul as active as Paul's must long for freedom, not primarily or chiefly for his own benefit so that he could go wherever he wished and do whatever he pleased, but so that he could serve Christ and benefit souls without the restrictions now placed upon him. Those restrictions had indeed been eased: he had not spent the entire time in a dungeon, though he remained in chains; instead he lived in his own rented house where he welcomed all who came to him.{Acts 28:30}

But he yearned to travel from city to city and from region to region, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of immortal souls through him. It was this purpose that made freedom, light, and life truly precious, that sanctified his natural pleasures and his natural longings.

We are to add that,

III. He regards the prayers of his Christian friends as possessing great power toward this purpose of his deliverance. Paul himself prayed much. He used the opportunity provided by his confinement to devote himself earnestly to prayer. He often knelt before God in intercession for the various churches he had established and in which he had labored. It is clear that he placed great value on their prayers to God on his behalf. Therefore he urges them in the most urgent terms: "Brothers, pray for us; pray for all saints; and also for me, that words may be given to me," and so forth.{Ephesians 6:13} Nowhere does he plead more solemnly and earnestly than in these words: "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," and so forth.{Romans 15:30} And here he declares, "I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you."

We can hear Paul saying: "My dear friends, as I hope God will deliver me, and as, in humble submission to his will, I pray for that deliverance, so I assure you that I hold no such arrogant view of myself as to suppose that this blessing will come merely or chiefly because of my own prayers. No, I highly esteem yours. I desire the prayers of every one of you, even the least and the humblest, and the combined prayers of all. I already see the answer to your prayers in the support God has granted me during my confinement and in the release from it which I now expect soon. If I am delivered in this way, I will, as it were, inscribe it upon the mercy itself in clear letters: this is an answer to the prayers of my Christian friends and brethren. However quietly those prayers may have been offered by day or by night, however far my praying friends may have been from me—some in Judea, some in Asia, some in Greece, while I have been confined here in Rome—they have reached the ears of God. With humble submission and thankfulness let it be said that they have set the hand of divine omnipotence in motion on this joyful occasion."

It is no surprise that Paul held such a view of the matter. He had read these things in the Old Testament. He had witnessed them in his own experience. He had seen them among his Christian friends under the New Testament. He had often read that "the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry"; that "when the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them."{Psalm 34:15, 17} "Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."{Psalm 50:15}

He knew that the prayers of the church had secured Peter's full release on the very night before he was to be led out to execution. The answer arrived before the prayer meeting had ended. He also knew that it was while he and Silas were praying and singing praises to God that the foundations of the prison were shaken and every man's bonds were loosened. He understood well that the hand of God could work just as truly for his deliverance in response to prayer now, through ordinary second causes that appeared to follow the natural course of events, as if the splendor of each of those miracles had been repeated or as if both had been combined into one.

Let it always be remembered that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man has great power. Let each of us take care to pray daily for ourselves. So that we may have stronger encouragement to pray for our Christian friends in their afflictions. So that we may possess greater influence at the throne of grace for the entire church of Christ.

IV. Paul describes himself, on the assumption of his being thus released and restored, as belonging to the church, as given to them. Indeed, he had long been accustomed—and quite rightly so—to regard himself and other Christian ministers in this light. He understood that just as magistrates are not appointed for their own sake but for the benefit of those over whom they preside, so that society may be ordered, in the same way ministers exist to serve the churches, as their very title indicates.

In the epistle to the Ephesians, he explains that our ascended Lord gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, and for the building up of the body of Christ. He expresses this truth in the strongest and most vivid language to the Corinthians when they were too eager to argue over one minister or another: "All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas."{1 Corinthians 3:21, 22} Therefore, he says elsewhere, "what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake";{2 Corinthians 4:5-6} and in what appears to be his final epistle, written long after the one to the Corinthians, he declares, "I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."{2 Timothy 2:10}

This conviction sustained him even while he was in chains. When he anticipated his approaching freedom, he still viewed it as freedom to be used for Christ his Master and for his beloved brothers and sisters in him. "None of us," says this good man, "lives to himself."{Romans 14:7} God forbid that we should entertain such a mistaken notion. "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price";{1 Corinthians 6:19-20} and since Christ loved me and gave himself for me, I am not my own. When free, he recognized that he remained Christ's servant and therefore the servant of the church.

"I hope I shall be given to you." "If I am restored, as I have great hope that I shall be, I will owe it in large part to your prayers; and I will regard it as giving you an even stronger claim to the best service I can offer you. Through the earnestness of your intercessions at the throne of grace you have been the instrument of extending my life, which otherwise might perhaps have been cut short, and of securing my freedom. Had I not been blessed with such kind and praying friends, I might have remained confined for a much longer time. From the depths of my heart I hope that you will find real advantage in my release: I hope it may please God to make my labors, once I am restored to you, truly useful. Nevertheless, as God enables me, I will strive to do good; I will regard my time and my strength as belonging to you, and my gifts and my Christian experiences as yours, to the extent that I can employ them for your benefit."{2 Corinthians 1:6} Surely these were the sentiments in the heart of the apostle Paul.

And so we come to the close of this meditation on Paul’s trust in God’s providence, his longing to be useful to the church, and the power of believing prayer. Though we have has not lately passed through the same kind of trial that Philip Doddridge described—neither a sudden and severe illness nor a night of fervent intercession followed by remarkable deliverance—the lessons remain the same for every believer and every gathered people of God.

First, learn from Paul that our times are truly in God’s hand. Whether life brings health or sickness, freedom or limitation, abundance or want, nothing falls outside the wise and loving government of our Heavenly Father. Not a sparrow falls, not a day lengthens or shortens, without his appointment. Therefore let every circumstance—pleasant or painful—drive us back to this confidence: the One who orders all things can be trusted to do what is right.

Second, see in Paul’s heart a pattern for every Christian servant and every member of Christ’s body. He did not live to himself. He counted his life, his strength, his gifts, and his time as belonging to the church for Christ’s sake. So too should we view ourselves—not as owners of our days, but as stewards given to one another. Let no one among us live for private ease or personal advancement alone. Rather, let each ask: How may I be of service? How may I advance the gospel in this world? How may I build up this body so that Christ is more clearly seen?

Third, remember the great value God places on the prayers of his people. Paul did not trust in his own faithfulness or in natural circumstances alone; he looked to the prayers of the saints as a mighty means by which God works deliverance, strength, and fruitfulness. Even when no visible crisis presses upon us, the church still stands in constant need—of clearer vision, deeper repentance, bolder witness, stronger unity, and greater holiness. Therefore let prayer be our regular and earnest work. Pray that ministers may speak the word with faithfulness and power. Pray for one another, that faith may not fail and love may abound. Pray for the whole church of Christ in the world, that the gospel may run and be glorified. The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous is still very powerful.

Finally, take comfort and courage from the gospel that sustained Paul in chains and Doddridge on his sickbed. The same promises hold for us today. God can make every trial peaceful. He can fill the soul with the sweetness of his Word even when outward comforts fade. He can quiet every fear and pour the assurance of his love into the heart like a steady stream. And when the day comes—as it will for each of us—to face our own departure, we too may rest in joyful confidence that all our concerns lie safely in the hands of our Heavenly Father, who will deal well with us according to his word.

Therefore let us thank God for his unchanging faithfulness. Let us cast every care upon him. Let us resolve to live today fully for his glory and the good of his church—whether in activity or in waiting, in strength or in weakness, in life or in death, as he pleases.

And let us look forward to the day when, by his grace, we will join the great company around the throne, where every tear is wiped away and every promise is fulfilled forever.