Ministry: The Work of God’s People - 2 - Praying with Love

Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:14–21 NIV

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

7/28/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Bethel Mall Ministry Celebration

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 4: Ministry Celebration

Bethel Mall Sunday - Testimonies during Prayer Time

Opening Prayer:

Sustainer of the hungry,

like a mother you long to feed your children

until each is satisfied.

Turn our eyes to you alone,

that, aware of our own deepest longings,

we will reach out with Christ

to feed others with the miracle of your love. Amen.

Praying with Love

Mission

Last week, we read about God’s work of peacemaking through Jesus. We learned that we can do our part, allowing His peace to flow through us when we join in fellowship with others, especially those who are not like us. Fellowship is an important ministry and service we do as God’s people, and we have opportunities to do it every day, everywhere we go.

Today, we will focus on another vital service we do as God’s people: Prayer. Prayer is one of the most important things we do as a church. A couple of weeks ago, Bekah mentioned we are a praying church and that we could tell that as soon as we met you. We practice many kinds of prayer here because there are many ways that we can pray every day. We pray out loud, we pray silently, we pray together and individually. Sometimes, we pray short prayers, and other times we spend hours in prayer.

When we follow Jesus, we learn to pray like breathing. It becomes a part of our daily life. We talk and listen to God all the time. That’s not work. But there is a particular aspect of prayer that requires a little more from us than usual, and that is the kind of prayer, the kind of ministry Paul touches on in this passage today. It is intercessory prayer, or putting ourselves in the place to pray for others. This work of Intercessory Prayer is a tangible way for us to show our love of God and the love of others in a single act, and it connects us to greater love and power than we can imagine.

Paul’s Prayer

We remember the Apostle Paul best for the things he wrote. He never walked on water, and few healing miracles are attributed to him. Although he did some powerful preaching, he never received a response like Peter at Pentecost. Instead, Paul saw small pockets of slow growth in strange places throughout the Roman empire. At the time, he did not realize that those small outposts of faith he helped establish would become like post offices for the gospel message and his letters, which instructed the entire church on how to follow Jesus. The high point of his ministry was in writing these letters to his friends and family in Jesus while he was locked up behind bars, chained to a prison wall, or kept under house arrest.

So when Paul says he gets down on his knees to pray for these Ephesians, he does so as a homebound person who is no longer free to go and do as he pleases. I’m sure he felt like there was very little he could do to serve God other than pray. I'm sure he felt helpless. However, the prayers he prayed and the ways he interceded for the Ephesians have probably influenced every single Christian since the creation of the New Testament 1700 years ago. And I know his prayers touched even more people than that.

He tells us that he prays with purpose. Prayer is not a simple exercise he does to stay spiritually healthy. Prayer is not empty words and wishful thinking for Paul. The man whose words would define our faith for the rest of time got down on his knees in his prison cell and pleaded that God would do what he could not — send Jesus to live in their hearts. Paul knew nothing else he did, or they did would amount to anything if they did not have Jesus living in them.

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Love

Paul prays that the Ephesians, and all of us, would be rooted and established in God’s love. He is not praying for friendship, kinship, or romantic love. Paul asks for God’s never-ending self-giving love. The love that Jesus asked Peter for after the resurrection after Peter had denied him three times and that Peter didn’t think he could do—that is the kind of love that Paul prays will be the very foundation of who we are.

In a sinful, broken world where we struggle with sin and temptation daily, and the world wages war against our souls, this agape love is our home base. It protects us and acts as a guide, like bumpers at the bowling lane, keeping us out of the gutter and helping us hit the mark every time. Paul wrote to the Galatians that the things that grow out of this root of love, like joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, are fruits that God longs for from us, and there is no law against any of them. All of them are good, all the time. Paul prays that Christ would come and live in us and put His love in us, a stronger love, and we could ever have on our own so that every one of us would become gardens and orchards and fields of good fruit for God.

What an incredible vision! What a beautiful thing Paul would pray for us! But wait… There’s more.

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Power

What more could Paul possibly ask God to give us in the self-sacrificing love of Jesus, who is willing to give His own life for hours while we were still His enemy? The power of God that raised him from the dead.

God created the world out of nothing by simply speaking. He flooded the earth and restarted life without lifting a finger. He worked through broken, sinful people to call down plagues, turn back entire armies, hold back the waves of the sea, provide food and water for a whole generation, inflict disease, and heal people instantly. In Jesus Christ, He conquered death, and He continues to do that through us today. In all of existence, the only thing is great as the power of God is the love of God.

The world wants us to choose between the love and power of God. Some of our deepest questions are whether God can be powerful and loving. In our experience, power tends to corrupt. Love seems to be the nature of the weak, not the strong. But God is not like us. His power is made perfect by His love. His love is given life by His power. He is not sentiment. He is not an unfeeling force. He is everything we need and more. And in Jesus Christ, who holds all that love and power, He redefines what it means to be human.

Paul’s prayer of intercession for us and all Christians is that Christ would come and live in us, and we would be established in His love and filled with His power. It is a beautiful reflection of the prayer Jesus prayed for us when He asked God to make us one with him and one with each other, just as Jesus was one with God the Father. Rooted in His love and filled with His power — Jesus living in us.

Paul could not make that happen. Even Jesus could not make that happen. But they knew there was nothing more important for all believers. So they prayed.

They got down on their knees, humbled themselves before God, and let God fill them with His love and power. They let God lead their prayers as they prayed for their brothers and sisters. Paul prayed for blessings, help, miracles and guidance, wisdom, power, discipline, and spiritual fruit to fill and overflow in people he would never meet. He prayed that God would grant them all of this and more in ways that far exceeded his wildest imagination.

And he did that with confidence and faith because he knew the prayers he was praying in those moments alone in his jail cell were not his own prayers. He knew they were the prayers of Jesus coming through him through the power of the Holy Spirit because he was receiving the same love and power of God he was praying the others would receive. Through his intercessory prayer, Paul allowed Christ to live in and through him.

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The Driver’s Seat

We’ve gone to the mountaintop and looked up to see that the sky’s the limit on what God can do through us through prayer. But how do we get to that kind of prayer from where we are today? It takes God growing us in His time, and you and I asking ourselves one question:

“Who is in the driver’s seat?”

Prayer can be a challenging subject for people. We can say that it is as simple as talking to a friend, but we know it is also more. When we speak with Jesus, we have different kinds of conversations than when we talk to our friends and family. Most people don’t have a problem talking with Jesus, but they get nervous about talking to Jesus out loud in front of other people.

Almost all of us have things we say routinely in our prayers, and that is completely normal. We also have things we routinely say when talking to each other, so expecting to be able to say “Dear Lord” and then fill the next two minutes with beautiful and original poetry is not going to happen—nor is it what God ever asked for. When asked by His disciples, Jesus gave them a single prayer to pray every day for themselves and others. The question is never, “Am I doing it right?”. We must ask ourselves, “Who is in the driver’s seat of this prayer?” Is it Jesus or me?

If Jesus is driving, it may be challenging and require a lot of trust. You won’t feel in control. You may feel like you are trying your best and unsure if it is right. And that is where you have to trust that Jesus will steer you in the right direction. He will give you what you need at that moment, whether you are in your prayer closet by yourself or in front of a multitude of people. When we pray in His Spirit, we pray with His love and His power, and God will work through our prayers in ways that we may never see entirely, but He allows us to be part of that work because praying like Him makes us more like Him.

As we allow Jesus to drive our prayers with His love and power, as He shapes and changes us through that process, His Spirit will awaken us to see what He is doing to answer those prayers, and it will then move us to partner with Him not only in praying those prayers but also in being part of His answer to them.

What nourishes that love of God that is rooted in your heart?

How do you need to humble yourself more so You trust in God’s power instead of your own when you pray?

Will you let Jesus sit in the driver’s seat the next time you go to pray?

Closing Prayer

Jesus, You are so much more than we can imagine. Your love burns brighter and stronger than a thousand sons, and your power makes the oceans of our world look like puddles on the side of the road. We cannot grasp You or hold You. Yet You desire, more than anything else, to come and live in us. We are not worthy, but today, we say that You are welcome here. You are welcome to establish Your home in us and draw us close to You until we are forever in Your presence, and we see what no eye has seen and hear what no ear has heard as we find ourselves, with the rest of creation, redeemed, in You. In Your Holy name. Amen.