Praying Always

Dependent on God

Ephesians 6:10–20 (NIV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

Prayer is a key to this success.

Not a piece of armor or weaponry but is the undergirding or strength of successfully putting on God’s armor.

What a blessing prayer is. Because God is eternal, living outside of time, when you pray, he has all eternity to listen to it and in the midst of billions of people on earth - listen and attend to you as if you were the only one.

We are to be strong in the Lord, it’s his strength and power and armor.

His truth - Jesus is truth

His righteousness

His Gospel and He is our peace

He is the author and finisher of faith

He is the Savior, the rescuer, the healer, the desire of the nations

He is the Word made flesh.

Strength in battle is totally correlated to our dependence and trust in Jesus. The metric for dependence - prayer. Prayer = dependence. No prayer = independence. The consequence of a thriving prayer life is dependence.

With prayer we do not need to fear the enemies attacks, his attacks are always counterproductive and work against them when we pray. The more opposition we face, the more and harder we pray and the harder we pray the more miracles God does.

The more Pharoah resisted God the more he hurt himself. The more the enemy and his minions fight against you, the bigger God’s miracle.

Different Translation

Here is what Paul says in a different translation, this is the AITB translation (standing for the American I’m too Busy translation)… “Pray in the spirit on some occasions when convenient with some kinds of prayers and some requests [definitely don’t pray about small things, you can handle those]. With this in mind, be alert and try your best to pray with perseverance, but after you get discouraged and tired of praying, let it go… It must not be God’s mysterious sovereign will.”

Roots of a prayerless life:

Busyness

Apathy (If we aren’t hungry for God - we have filled ourselves with something else),

Self-sufficiency are the 3 big reasons why we don’t pray.

No peace time, we remain alert and on guard, therefore we:

Pray on all occasions

All kinds of prayers and requests.

Always keep on prayer (perseverance = no quitting)

For all the Lord’s people

Here are 3 points to help us pray

Those who pray dream with God

Imago Dei - we are made in the image of God. We were created for intimacy and communion with God. We were created with the capacity unlike any other creation to actually commune with the God of the universe. To hear his words, think his thoughts, receive his dreams for him to bring to pass through us.

We are the creation that God has revealed things to: Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

It is the very things that have been revealed that cause us to hope and to dream and to see.

What God has revealed to us, only He can bring to pass. As Jesus said in John 15:5 ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

We are dependent on God to make the impossible a reality. God calls us to the impossible so that through our work and prayer, His will is accomplished.

The day we stop dreaming is the day we start dying. Paul was consumed with purpose. His purpose could not be accomplished on his own, he was dependent on God and his dependency led to prayer.

Perhaps a reason we don’t dream and pray impossible prayers is because we have a low view of God, as one said, “A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils, a high view of God is the solution to ten thousand temporal problems.”

How big is your God?

Genesis 18:14 “Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.””

Numbers 11:23 “The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.””

His is the omnipotent one. There is nothing that is difficult or hard. All things are the same, there are not somethings that require more strength or more difficulty for him. There are over 10 galaxies in existence to every one person.

Through prayer we leave the impossible and enter the possible.

What we need then is purpose.

Perhaps we don’t ask God to stretch his arm because we don’t know his heart.

Is your dream something you can do?

Unanswered prayer is a blessing

One, I am still being sanctified...

I still have selfish tendencies and I still can pray selfish, self-centered prayers. Selfish prayers God will not answer because it will take us off God’s plan for our lives. God wants to cultivate character in us, it isn’t only moral character but hope infused perseverance. He is more interested in who we are being - that will lead to right doing.

Which is why Paul in other places encourages us to pray with thanksgiving to God.

Jesus teaches us to pray, beginning with, “Our Father… Holy is your name… Your Kingdom/Will be done.

God centered

James 4:2–3“You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives (notice it isn’t the thing you are asking for but rather the motivation of the ask), that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Asking for my own glory or his?

If God was simply a genie in the sky answering every prayer I prayed, my imperfections would destroy me and those around me and short-circuit God’s plan and purpose for my life.

Two, I am not omniscient and all wise...

I am limited in my perspective and knowledge.

Thank God some prayers are not answered because that would mean that God didn’t have any other perspective or wisdom but that He in his discretion does not answer means there is something better.

God’s thoughts are infinitely higher than ours.

Isaiah 55:9 ““As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Cosmic scale tour:

Stars in the night sky are in our own galaxy - still in your house but in the other room.

The house next door would be our closest galaxy - Andromeda. 2.5 million light years (for some perspective if you traveled at the speed of light, it would take you 8 minutes to get to our sun - 186k miles per second).

Unanswered prayer is a blessing because it means there is either something better or a better time.

Pray without quitting

Luke 18:1–8“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?””

Contextually this parable deals with the vindication of saints during the time before Christ returns to vindicate His people. God will judge those who persecute the righteous. God longs to vindicate the saints, and he will do so, when He does, his justice will be swift and sure, and our suffering will seem short-lived compared to the glory to follow. In the meantime he protects us.

The quality Jesus exemplifies is the woman’s persistence.

Jesus’ argument goes: if a judge, who is no respecter of persons, hears the cry of the widow, how much more will a compassionate God hear the cries of his people!

The question he leaves us with is: Will the delay that is assumed in the parable affect the faith of some??

The only true metric for failure is quitting, not that it was unanswered because unanswered prayer may simply be “not yet”

My part is to pray without quitting. His part is to answer according to His own will and His own way and in His own time.

God is not hiring consultants on how and when to answer prayers. I imagine that much of our discouragement or disappointment from unanswered prayers are not because he said not but because they haven’t been answered in the way we planned.

If I was God I probably would have built Noah’s ark for him

I probably wouldn’t have had Abraham and Sarah wait 17 years for the promise of Isaac to come to fruition.

I wouldn’t have let the Egyptian army make it all the way to the children of Israel cornered at the Red Sea.

I wouldn’t have had David running for his life for 13 years waiting to be king

I wouldn’t have waited 4000 years for the Messiah to come

Can you trust Him and continue to pray?