Pray Like Paul

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, it’s good to see you all here and good to see that you remembered to set your clocks forward and that the wind yesterday didn’t carry you away. Welcome to March in Virginia, right? And we’ve all had a second cup of coffee, right?

I have a few announcements to mention before we begin our worship.

The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:00. The scripture focus will be on Luke 23:42-43.

Don’t forget your donations for our Eggstravaganza coming up on April 9. If you’re able to volunteer for that, please see Jesyka.

We have some free Bible study books back there in the vestibule. If you’re interested in one of those, please take it.

And anyone wishing to place a lily in the church for Easter, please fill out the form you’ll find there in your bulletin and return it before March 20. Just drop yours in the offering plate.

Jesyka, do you have an announcement?

And Sue, do you have anything this morning?

Opening Prayer

Father, you are great, and all of creation speaks of your glory. We worship you today and ask that you accept our worship in Jesus name. As we continue in today’s service, we ask that your great power moves among us. Let every one of us encounter you in a different way. Bless us in every part of our lives and give us everlasting joy in you. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, amen.

Sermon

We’ve been talking about prayer these past couple of weeks. We’ve learned about the importance of faith and trust in prayer through Hannah. Last week, we learned about the importance of continually going to God in prayer through Heman.

And today we’re turning to the New Testament, and one of the greatest praying people in history, the Apostle Paul.

If the Psalms contain the largest collection of prayers in the Old Testament, Paul’s epistles contain the largest collection of prayers in the New Testament. All through his letters, we find him praying. That was the anchor in his life. Prayer was what held Paul together.

We look through all of his sufferings, all of his hardships and see a man who had the sort of faith that seems impossible to us — a hero of the faith, someone with a trust in God so deep and so complete that almost anything was possible for him. And we ask the question, How did he get like that?

Was it because of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus? Was it the special visions that God gave him? Was it his brilliant intellect?

Those things certainly had an effect on the person he became, but none of them are the reason why Paul became Paul. The only way he did, the only way he could, was through prayer.

Last week we looked at Psalm 88, and how important that Psalm is to living the Christian life. It’s all about dark times, and how every one of us will experience those dark times but how we have to cling to God in the midst of them. We have to pray more during our spiritual dryness than at any other time.

Today I want to talk about the part of life that’s the opposite of that, a part of being a Christian that’s more rare than those dark times but that makes those dark times more bearable, and it’s this: through prayer, a Christian should expect experiences of God’s love and joy that are life-changing.

We’re going to look at this truth about prayer in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 14-21. Turn there and follow along with me:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

And this is the word of the Lord.

There’s a reason why I wanted to make sure Paul was included in this short series on prayer, and it’s not just because Paul has so many prayers throughout his letters. I wanted to include Paul because of what he never prays for.

I mentioned earlier the fact that Paul suffered through many things over the course of his ministry. I want to give you a short list.

In 2 Corinthians 11, he offers a sample of the things he’s had to endure. And keep in mind that when Paul’s writing this to the Corinthian church, he’s not finished yet. He’s still out there serving and ministering, and still suffering. Here’s what he writes:

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

Paul has a stressful life, doesn’t he? Far more stress and danger than any of us are having to endure.

And think of the churches Paul is writing to all through the New Testament. These are people who are being persecuted. People who are constantly under some sort of threat to their lives and safety. Being a Christian at this time is a dangerous thing. Being an apostle is an even more dangerous thing.

But now listen to me, because this is so important to what I’m going to tell you today. In all of Paul’s prayers in all of his letters, no matter what he’s going through and no matter what the people he’s writing to are going through, not one time, ever, does Paul ask God to change anybody’s circumstances.

Not once. Not his own circumstances, not the Corinthians’, not the Galatians’ or the Ephesians’, not Timothy’s, not Titus’s, not anyone’s.

That hit me right between the eyes when I read it. Because I realized that, honestly, just about all of my prayers are asking God to change something outside of me. Take this obstacle out of my way, God. Change this situation, Lord. Make this go away. Please make sure this happens, Father, or please keep this thing from happening.

Paul never asks for anything like that. He’s going through all kinds of physical hardships and so are the churches to whom he’s writing these letters, but he never asks God to change THINGS.

Instead, what Paul is asks God for is peace, strength, joy — not a change in circumstances, but a change in how we deal with circumstances, changes on the INSIDE, a change of heart in the Christians he’s writing to.

That isn’t to say that Paul is never concerned with what’s going on outwardly in what people are going through.

All through his letters, he’s giving wisdom about that. But when it comes to praying, when it comes to going to God for help, the help he always asks for is help on the inside, not the outside.

And here in Ephesians, the help he asks God to provide is to give every believer these profound experiences of Christ’s joy and love.

So the first question we have to ask is, Why do we need these experiences so much? Because on the surface it seems like we don’t need this at all.

Remember, this is a prayer for Christians, isn’t it? This is a prayer for the Ephesian church and by extension for every Christian who’s ever lived. And what does Paul pray for specifically?

Look in verse 17. Paul prays that Christ will dwell in their hearts.

But now wait a minute. Don’t we already have that? If you turn back to Ephesians 2:22, here’s what Paul says: “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

And in verses 18 and 19, he prays that the Ephesians will know the love of Christ.

But wait a minute again. John writes in his first letter that you’re not a Christian unless you know the love of Christ. He says all Christians are in-dwelled by Christ.

Paul prays that they will be filled by the fullness of God, but in chapter one he says that all Christians are united by Christ and filled with the fullness of God.

What’s going on here? Why is Paul praying for these Christians to get what they already have?

Here’s what Paul is saying: It’s one thing to believe in the love of Christ, but it’s another thing to know it. It’s one thing to read about the joy that Christ brings, and it’s another thing to feel it. To experience it in your heart of hearts.

Here’s an example. You can be a millionaire. You can have a big house and fancy cars and nice clothes and all the money in the world.

But imagine you have all those things and you’re traveling somewhere away from home and you run out of gas, or your car breaks down. Now imagine it’s late at night. Everything’s closed. Your phone doesn’t work. And worst of all, you’ve lost your wallet. No cash, no credit cards.

You’re still rich, aren’t you? But you don’t feel rich. Because now you’re stuck in a strange place with nowhere to go and no money to get you there, and all of a sudden it doesn’t matter how rich you know you are if you don’t experience what it’s like to be rich.

That’s what Paul’s praying for here, only it’s not outward riches he’s asking God to give us, it’s inner riches. And he’s not just praying, he’s praying hard. He’s praying deeply.

He’s praying passionately with all his heart for Christians to get what they already have, and so what does that mean?

If Paul is praying so hard for us to be deeply affected by what we know is true, then what he’s saying is that our normal situation is to not be affected by what we know is true.

We know Christ loves us. We know Christ gives us joy. But we don’t feel it. And I can prove it.

If I would ask you if you’re a good Christian, what would you say? Chances are you’d say something along the lines of, “Well, I’m trying. I’m trying to be a good Christian.”

But hang on. That’s not true. You’re not a Christian because of anything you do. You’re not a Christian because of your works. You’re saved because of what Christ has done for you. Being a Christian isn’t something you do, it’s someone you are.

And then you say, “Well sure, yes. I know that.”

But when you say that, you might be a Christian, you might do all the things a Christian should and believe all the things a Christian is supposed to, but the love of Christ isn’t affecting you.

You’re not experiencing it. You are absolutely loved and accepted because of Christ’s sacrificial earth on the cross, but it’s not changing your life.

And Paul says that’s the normal situation. That’s what’s true for almost all of us, and so that’s why Paul prays. For God to change us inwardly instead of changing our outward circumstances. Because that inward change is a whole lot more important than anything we might be going through.

Paul knows that. He knows how important it is. Which is why he doesn’t just pray, he bows his knees, he says in verse 14.

People in the Bible normally prayed standing up. When they did bow their knee, it meant they were praying with intense emotion.

Paul is saying he bows his knees in prayer so people can have this. THIS. The Ephesians were facing constant warfare, constant sickness, a constant threat of invasion and death, but he prays for THIS instead.

We think the only thing we need is to have our financial problems fixed, or our physical problems fixed, or the problems in our relationships or workplace fixed.

Paul says no, this is what we need, to experience the love and joy of Christ through prayer, because that is the thing that fixes everything.

Now remember last week. Psalm 88. What’s the lesson that Psalm 88 teaches us? Even as a believer, you can do everything right and say everything right and still go through long times of spiritual darkness when God feels absent and there’s no blessing in your life. But you still have to obey Him. You still have to go to Him in prayer.

Psalm 88 is all about God’s grace, isn’t it? It’s about how those times of darkness actually make us better and stronger. We actually need those times spiritually.

What Paul’s saying here doesn’t contradict that. Not at all. But what he does say is that you also can’t become who God wants you to be without experiencing His overwhelming goodness and love through prayer.

You have to expect both in your life. Without both the darkness and the light, you’ll never be who you really want to be.

Both. That’s the secret. And almost all churches will prepare people for one or the other but not for both.

Some churches preach that the key to a happy and fulfilling Christian life is to know the truth. To obey the rules. You have to be faithful, you have to be stringent, and you can’t expect or seek those experiences of God’s glory, joy, and love. You can’t rely on them, because they’re emotional.

And then you have churches who go the opposite direction. Everything is geared toward experiencing God, everything is about feeling. If you don’t have that emotional experience, they say, then something is wrong.

The truth is that we need both. We need the truth and the feeling. They go hand in hand, just like times of darkness and moment of light. You have to experience and expect both of them.

Okay, but what exactly is this experience that Paul’s talking about? What exactly is he praying for us to have as Christians?

It’s hard to define, really. But we can describe it. Look at the three specific things Paul is asking for here. First, look at verse 16:

“ ... that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being ... ”

Let’s focus on that phrase “inner being.” That’s a synonym for the heart, but it goes much deeper than what we think of as the heart.

In the Bible, the heart isn’t where our emotions live, it’s the center of our entire personality. Your inner being is where you keep the things you most hope for and believe in. It’s where you store everything that you place your joy and happiness on.

Whatever your foundation is, it’s right there in your inner being. In your heart. Whatever is kept there affects the three parts of you — your mind, your will, and your emotions. Your inner being determines the things that make sense to you, the feelings that will move you, and the things you will do.

And the first thing Paul prays for is that the Holy Spirit will strengthen and empower that — your inner being.

Okay, so what’s the object of that strengthening and empowering? What does Paul want our inner being strengthened to do?

Look at verse 18 — to what? To comprehend. And that word “comprehend” can be better translated as two things working together — to grasp, and to know.

To grasp and to know “the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

But again, don’t we already know this? Maybe. But most likely no, we don’t. We have a few teachers in this church. Ask any teacher, they’ll tell you that not every child gets the love they need from their parents.

Now, those kids may see that their parents provide a home and food and clothing, so based on that the kids know their parents love them. Those kids might even not doubt their parents’ love.

But a lot of them, too many of them, don’t experience that love. They don’t feel that love from their parents through quality time, or physical touch, or acts of service, or gifts, or words of encouragement.

You see? It’s one thing to know in your thoughts that your father and mother love you. Quite another to feel it in your heart, in your inner being.

When Paul prays for the Holy Spirit to empower our inner being to know the love of Christ, he’s not saying that he prays we’ll know it in our heads. He’s praying that we’ll know it in the core of our being.

Because when we experience the love of Christ there, he becomes as real to us as any person. His love and approval is more real, and in turn that love and approval start to mean everything. That becomes more important than anything we desire.

All those temporary things that we think we want — the money and the job and the house and the car — become less. We’re no longer possessed by them, because we’re experiencing the actual love of Christ in our inner being.

That’s what Paul is praying for. Not that our sickness can be healed. Not that our bills will be paid. Not that the people we love will be kept safe. He prays for us to experience the love of Christ.

And that experience can be great, or it can be mild. No one has it all the time or even often, but when you experience it, it’s real and lasting.

Read through the journals and diaries of great Christians, and you’ll see that most of them experienced a moment like this.

The evangelist Dwight Moody did. He was walking in New York City one day in the late 1850s and praying for more of God.

He wrote in his journal, “Suddenly God came down in a way I’ve never forgotten, and I started experiencing so much love poured into my heart that I begged him to stop.”

That’s a common theme in these experiences. Everyone who has them describes this overwhelming sense of being completely and totally loved. And that feeling is so powerful, so encompassing, that you just can’t stand it. It’s so great that it almost hurts.

I felt this exactly once in my life, one night about four years ago. I was in bed, saying my prayers — and I just asked God to show me who He was. Just a glimpse. And I meant it in a way that was like, “Show me sometime. Show me tomorrow or next week.”

But then I rolled over and closed my eyes, and just before I fell asleep, it was like a wave of joy and love and peace crashed into me.

It’s hard to describe, really, and I really didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was nothing that could come out of me. Out of my own heart. Out of my own emotions. It was just too big. Too pure. Too much.

It was, to put it as plainly as I can, God. Or at least the tiniest bit of Him that I could handle.

And I lied there that way, feeling that, for six hours. I finally fell asleep at four in the morning and then had to get up at five-thirty to go to work.

I’ve never felt anything like that again. Maybe I never will.

It was six hours, just six of the 429,240 hours that I’ve lived, give or take. But I’ll always remember them, because I think that’s as close to heaven as I’ll ever get while living in this world.

That’s what Paul is on his knees praying that we all experience. And we all can. Believe me, if something like that can happen to me, it surely can happen to you.

But how? How do we get something like that?

Paul gives us some clues here, and the first clue is in the very act that he’s doing right here. What’s Paul doing? He’s prayerfully seeking.

Paul knows it’s not enough to know the love of Christ. It has to be brought into your innermost being. There can’t be a formula for that. There can’t be a series of steps to take or buttons to push, because this experience of feeling Christ’s love and joy and peace is a gift.

It’s a gift. So we have to pray for it. We have to seek it. And before we do either one of those, we have to want it.

That’s the first and most important point. To experience the love of Christ fully, we have to want it completely. And if we want something completely, then that has to mean we don’t have it yet.

Right? We can only want something if we don’t have it. That’s where we start. We have to know we don’t have these experiences of feeling the adoration of Christ. We have to know that there’s a difference between understanding in our minds that Christ loves us, and feeling that love in our innermost being.

Why is it so important during our dark times to keep praying? To keep going to Him? Because then you’re worshipping God for God and not for what God can give you, right?

But what else are you doing in all of that pain and suffering and doubt? You’re seeking, aren’t you? You’re prayerfully seeking. And when you do that, you find something truly wonderful. You find grace.

And that grace you find says this: a sense of God’s absence is actually a sign of His presence. To long for the presence of God is to experience the presence of God. That is the beauty and the love of God.

If you’re on your knees like Paul is and you’re saying to Christ, “I want to experience your love,” then Jesus is as closer than the person sitting beside you. He has to be, because otherwise you wouldn’t want that experience at all.

So that’s the first thing you need. You need prayerful seeking.

Here’s the second thing Paul says you need: aggressive wrestling. Now what does he mean by that?

Look in verse 18. What does Paul pray for? That we “may have strength to comprehend the love of Christ.”

That word “comprehend” is a fascinating word. In the Greek it means to overtake someone, wrestle them to the ground, and rob them. It was used often in Greek literature to describe plundering a city and taking its wealth for your own.

Paul isn’t saying that we’re supposed to wrestle God to the ground and rob Him, but we are supposed to do that to the truths and the texts about God.

It’s isn’t enough to just read the Bible. Not enough to just do a little daily devotion. You have to dig into there, you have to study and think, you have to wrestle and grasp with those verses until they come alive inside and catch fire and warm you when you’re cold.

And we have to do that, Paul says, together. Look at verse 18 again. We have to comprehend these things “with all the saints.” And who are the saints? Who are the saints?

Us.

To get these experiences, you have to be part of a community that is centered on Christ. In other words, get to church.

Because your worship here gives you riches that you can’t get by yourself. You learn things in singing hymns, in listening to the praise team and the orchestra and the bells, in hearing the sermon in person, that you just can’t get when you try to go about worshipping on your own.

And what are these things we have to learn? If we’re going to have these experiences, what do we need to base them on?

Again, verse 18: the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of Christ’s love.

Have you ever truly thought about the breadth of Christ’s love? How in John 12, Jesus says he will draw all to himself. Any class, any race, any nation, any people. The breadth of Christ’s love means there are no limits to that love, and that he rejects no one who seeks him.

Have you ever truly thought about the length of Christ’s love?

In Revelation, John says that Christ was slain before the foundation of the world. From the first moments of time, Christ decided to save us. Nothing stopped him.

And just as from that first moment Christ vowed to save us through his own sacrifice, we’ll be rejoicing in that sacrifice for all eternity. That is the length of Christ’s love. It’s so long that it stretches past eternity.

Have you ever thought about the depth of Christ’s love?

In Philippians 2, Paul writes that Christ was equal with God but emptied himself and became human for us. Would you like to become a slug? Or a worm? A dung beetle?

That’s what Christ did when he took off his glory to put on flesh and bone. He endured the cross and the depths of the ultimate darkness — separation from His father — for you. That is how deep Christ’s love for you is.

Have you ever thought about the height of Christ’s love? In John 17, Jesus says that he’s giving himself to save us so that we can have the glory that the Father and the Son have.

Because of his love for us, we are going to one day enjoy the ultimate existence. We’re going to live atop the highest mountain.

These broken bodies of ours that hold dirty souls are going to be made perfect beyond perfect, gleaming without flaw, and bright without the thinnest shadow. That is the height of Christ’s love. For you.

Paul’s prayer isn’t that your days will become easier. Or better. Or more successful. He doesn’t pray that because he knows that none of those things really matter in the end.

What he’s praying for, and what we need to be praying for, are for the only things that matter in the end. For us, for you, to experience that overwhelming measure of Christ’s love for you. Let that prayer be on your lips today and every day.

Let’s pray:

Father so often we come to You with our physical needs, and that’s only because we understand that You are the giver of our blessings. You bring healing, you bring prosperity, you bring peace. But Father help us to remember that what we really need is You. We need the feeling of your love. We need the experience of your peace and joy. Help us to worship you for your own sake rather than for our own. Help us to understand that all the world’s treasures can’t compare to one encounter with you. Help us, father, to know that your presence means more than anything. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.

Benediction

May the God of peace who raised Christ from the dead Strengthen your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit Rest upon you and dwell within you This day and evermore. Amen.