7/27/25 - Prayer for Spiritual Strength - Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Originally this message was going to cover Ephesians 3:14-21
and I didn’t get that far
I figured that you would want to get out of here to eat lunch at some point
considering all the meetings and events this afternoon.
There are times when I’m studying for a message
and have great ideas about how that teaching is going to go
that the Lord says to me in my time
Stop
were you rushing or were you dragging?
well this time I was rushing
so I’m going at His pace this morning and not my own
If you remember Paul paused at the beginning of verse 1
now Paul will unpause his thoughts
and continue on
Unpause
Unpause
14 For this reason
This is how Paul began this chapter of the letter before
Last week, the message began with Ephesians 3:1
1 For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—
Then Paul began to describe two things
the mystery of Christ
this is the mystery that God knew
that Jews and Gentiles would be part of the same organization
we call it the church
There is no separation of people in here
except those that are lost and those that are saved
The second thing was the administration of God’s grace
this was the calling of God
both generally and specifically
God has called everyone to share God’s grace
to administer it
to everyone liberally.
Meaning, we should be spreading it to
everyone that we see and come in contact with.
We enter the mission field of our life
and begin to administer God’s grace to everyone we see
That being said,
Paul now unpauses his thought and begins with Ephesians 3:14
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father
After sharing the mystery of Christ
and Paul’s specific calling
to administer God’s grace to the Gentiles
Paul begins with prayer
Paul begins with prayer because
physically, he isn’t there with them
but Paul recognizes that God is.
Another preacher once said
He is praying for them because he cannot preach to them
Emotionally for Paul
this is the way he releases these things from his emotionally well being
and thereby helps him physically
so when you are feeling especially under stress or anxious
remember the Bible says in Philippians 4:6
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Spiritually, because the requests Paul is about to make
are not possible without God
Paul recognizes his dependence on God
to accomplish the things he is asking for
and that the Ephesian churches then
must also recognize their dependence on God
to receive them
Here’s what we can learn from this
prayer is the first place we should begin.
I’ve spoken about this before on Sunday evenings
and the Bible has a tremendous amount of examples of why
as well as what happens when we do use prayer first
and when we don’t.
I would encourage you to read 1 Chronicles 13-15 which
is all about how David made a mistake
to not inquire to God first about what he should do
and it costs him the life of one of his people
or Read Joshua 7-8 when
Joshua never prayed to the Lord
to ask if he should fight AI
and he lost 36 men
Or you could read Acts 16 when Paul wanted to go preach in Asia
and the Spirit of the Lord stopped him
The Bible is full of people that did things
without ever inquiring of God if they even should
They may have been good things all these men wanted to accomplish
In Joshua’s case,
Didn’t God tell Joshua to be strong and courageous?
Didn’t God tell Joshua that everywhere he stepped
that God was already there
and that God would give Joshua the land?
Didn’t David do a good thing by moving the ark into Jerusalem?
and yet they never asked God if they ever should.
It wasn’t that God may have said nw
it was that they forgot their dependence on the Lord
How many times do we in our individual lives
do something without ever inquiring God if we should?
Just because it’s the right thing to do
doesn’t mean it’s within God’s timing
or how God wants to do something
We pray because we are dependent on God
Even when God tells us to do something within His Word
We need to approach Him to ask
These are just several accounts from scripture
to give us the hint that God needs to be asked first
If we don’t take time to pray before we make decisions as Christians
even if they are good decisions
even if they are godly decisions
we begin to substitute good for God
Just because it’s on sale
doesn’t mean you should buy it
just because it’s a good thing
doesn’t mean we should be involved
We can make a lot of emotional decisions about things as believers
even as a church, we can make a lot of emotional decisions
it may be a good thing we want to accomplish
but if God’s not commanded it
or God’s not in it
Then it’s not a great thing to do
Why is prayer often the last resort?
Donald Whitney wrote the book, “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.”
This is one of many books on Habits of Grace or Spiritual Disciplines
He gives a couple of reasons why God’s people don’t pray as they should
Why Christians Don’t Pray as They Should
Why Christians Don’t Pray as They Should
1. Lack of Discipline
1. Lack of Discipline
Prayer is never planned
How many of us take time or a vacation?
When you take a vacation,
how much time do you spend planning it out?
How much time do you spend on reservations for the hotel
reservations for the travel
be it airlines or rental cars or some other way
probably the most time could be spent on
planning on how to spend your time while you are wherever you go
how much pool time will there be?
how many shops are you going to visit?
how many books are you going to read?
reading the menus of the local restaurants?
Maybe you don’t take vacations
everyone goes to the grocery store
or even if you order food online
how much time do you take to plan what you are going to buy?
making the list
adjusting the list
planning the visit to get in and out
without anybody seeing you with the twelve packs of Oreo’s under your arms
We make time for what we want to do
Martin Luther said it this way,
As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.”
I’ve also heard from another preacher
that praying is the only discipline that doesn’t feed the flesh
in other words
it doesn’t puff up, give knowledge, make you look good
matter of fact, most people don’t pray out loud
because they feel like it makes them look stupid
Not just a lack of discipline but
2. We doubt that anything will happen
2. We doubt that anything will happen
We don’t ever admit this publicly
I think if we saw visible results in 30 seconds or less
from every prayer we said
we would be wearing out the knees in our pants.
Let me say this lovingly
God does promise to answer ever prayer but
God never promised immediate answers to prayer.
Often times prayer is answered in ways
that cannot be seen in this material realm
Prayer involves communication in the spiritual realm.
I keep a prayer list for people that I know need to be saved
People that I don’t have contact with anymore
Let’s say one of those gets saved somewhere else
and I didn’t havae anything to do with it
praise God!
It was a spiritual answer to prayer
Many prayers are answered in ways different from what we asked
and we should be eternally grateful that they were.
Sometimes the answer to prayer is not yet
God always knows what’s best for us and His kingdom
and He will vehemently protect His will from being damaged
usually when we don’t pray and do our own thing
It’s within our own power and that never turns out well
By not praying, you essentially have told the world
how big your god really is.
and have told God that you don’t really need Him.
3. A Lack of Sensing God’s Nearness
3. A Lack of Sensing God’s Nearness
People don’t pray because they don’t sense God’s nearness
No one needs to be encouraged to pray when we feel like God is near
but when we feel like God is distant
often times we let our emotions take over
and we stop praying
because we don’t feel God is near.
The truth of Scripture is that
God is always near
Jesus told us in the Great Commission
20And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
or in Hebrews 13:5
5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
We should live by the truth of Scripture
and not how we feel.
4. When there is no real need, there is little real prayer
4. When there is no real need, there is little real prayer
There are times that drive us to our knees is prayer
but there are times that we may think
“I got this”
Let me remind you that Jesus said in John 15:5
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.
We’ll dive into this a bit more this evening
When our awareness of the greatness of God and the gospel is small
our prayer lives are small.
5. Never Learned About or How to Pray
5. Never Learned About or How to Pray
Some may think, that’s absurd!
What do you mean they don’t know how to pray?
It would be no different than saying
that people have never heard the name of Jesus
and yet even in our own community
there are many that don’t know who Jesus is
so why would we assume they know how to pray?
or have ever been taught how to pray
even if they are believers and followers of Jesus?
Think about his in your own life
Statistically, I would guess that more than 50% of this room
have never been discipled by someone else
Let me define that
You have been saved
You have bee going to church maybe all your life
or maybe are relatively new to church
But have you ever been taught how to read the Bible and pray and share the gospel?
Here’s some help
This is not an exhaustive list
but here are the bullet points in learning how to pray
You learn to pray by praying
You learn to pray by praying
That doesn’t mean that I’m going to ask you to pray in front of the congregation
That does mean that you learn to pray by praying on your own
But, you wouldn’t learn a foreign language without using it
You have to continually speak a language
to get a real handle on it
prayer is no different
You learn to pray by being in the Bible and meditating on Scripture
You learn to pray by being in the Bible and meditating on Scripture
this isn’t just reading the Bible and checking it off your list
This means reading and meditating on it
There should be a smooth transition between
reading the Bible and praying about it
that time in between is meditation and thinking about what was read
it puts it into your subconscience
and helps us to think about how to apply it to our lives
1 Listen to my words, Lord; consider my sighing.
The word for sighing is meditation
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
There is a time to stop and think about what was just read
then we go to the Lord with what was on our heart
and ask Him to help us apply it throughout the day
It could be that we didn’t understand a thing we just read
or the Lord may reveal something that we need to talk to Him about
Either way it teaches us to pray
A preacher once told me
knowledge and instruction and prayer must always go together.
they can never be separated
Paul, in the first two chapters
writes this incredibly rich and profound doctrine
He knows that the Ephesians
were going to read it and study it together
But he also knows that isn’t enough
so He is praying that his teaching may be made real to them
and he knows it can never be made real
unless it has the direct blessing of God.
The best teaching in the world is useless
unless the Holy Spirit takes hold of it
and applies it and opens our understanding to it
and gives it a dep lodging place in our whole being
You learn to pray by praying with others
You learn to pray by praying with others
We learn to pray by praying with others
because we learn from others that know how to pray
I love to hear when the congregation on Sunday nights prays out loud
It’s not an American thing to do
but overseas, that’s the normal
Here, when someone prays, people want to be respectful and quiet
again, it goes back to not wanting to be heard praying
maybe because they don’t think they pray very well
Overseas, it’s loud and part of the praise time
It’s hard to hear yourself when in a prayer service overseas
I’ve said before that there are a few people in my life
I love to listen to pray out loud
It’s like when they pray
God is standing next to them
and they have His ear
It’s not that I pick up words and phrases from specifc people
like some magical incantations
but the attitude of their heart
and the conversations they have with God
it’s obvious they have spent a lot of time praying
verse 15 is the beginning part of Paul’s prayer
it’s what is known as an invocation
that’s a really fancy name for
appealing to someone for assistance or authority
a lot of times depending on what church you may be in
you’ll read in the bulletin
the prayer of invocation
It’s the beginning prayer of the service
to ask the Lord God for His blessings on the time together
Paul is about to invoke the blessing of God
for the Ephesian church
and through it we can learn a lot about prayer
The Invocation:
The Invocation:
Paul begins his prayer the same way that Jesus taught His disciples to pray
If you remember when we talked about the Disciples’ Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13
9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Notice where Jesus begins is with glorifying the Father
9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Paul begins his prayer with the same glorification of God
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father
Notice Paul is kneeling
That would be an interesting thing
Paul, chained to a Roman soldier
kneeling and praying
So does this mean that we have to kneel every time we pray?
Nowhere in the Bible does it command that we kneel to pray
From Abraham in Genesis to Jesus
there are many different physical postures of prayer
some people stand, some are seated, some are lying on the floor prostrate
it’s not the physical kneeling
it’s the spiritual submission
From the beginning of Ephesians
Paul has taught that we are spiritually dead
walking around like zombies without life
But when we trusted in Christ
He raised us from the dead
and seated us with Christ in the heaven with Him
Because we are seated with Christ
We can now walk with Him
and do the work He has for us to do
We can stand against the Devil
All of these different physically metaphorical positions
goes right along with kneeling before the Lord
Whether we actually bow our knees is not important
That we how our hearts and wills to the Lord
and ask Him for what we need is the vital matter
There are days in the morning
before I go to read my Bible I will always pray
but my heart and soul aren’t in it to be honest.
IT’s real easy to claim the verse “pray without ceasing”
but the problem is getting started on some days
I don know this
if I don’t take time to pray
whatever I read that morning often becomes information
and not transformation
I may not physically get on my knees and pray
but I have to get to the point that
my heart, mind, body and soul
are ready to receive the infinite, timeless Word of God
and that sometimes takes more prayer than reading.
I have to spiritually bend my knees to the Lord
before I can receive what He has for me.
Paul then continues with glorifying God
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
This statement does a few things
It shows who Paul believes God is
It follows the pattern that Jesus set in His model prayer
and it places us in dependence on God
and it shows where we all came from
Every family in heaven and on earth
shows that God is the Creator
not only does God create families
but he has already named them
shows that God is the Lord of all
This also shows that Paul believes that
we are all part of a family
that includes Jew and Gentile
rich and poor, male and female
young and old, educated and uneducated
Yankee or Southerner, Black, white Asian, Indian
every nation, people, tribe and tongue
We are all common stock
and God is the Father of us all
He is the Father of all families
the Father of every family
He is the One from whom every subsidiary parenthood or fatherhood is derived.
Not just here, but in heaven as well
Paul is saying that
all the divisions in heaven of the angels
the angels, archangels, and other subdivisions that may exist
every family, tribe, in heaven
all of these are also under His Fatherhood
When the Bible refers to the angels as the Sons of God
they are exactly that
the children of God
and God is their Father
I think Paul is trying to tell the Ephesians
and trying to tell us as well
that when we come together as the Body of Christ
We come together and in once sense
we are not Jew and Gentile
there is no separation between us
There are no second class citizens in the Body of Christ
I remember the church I grew up in New Jersey
Old Tennent Presbyterian Church began in 1692
the church will celebrate it’s 333 birthday this year
The church building is on a hill
it was built as a barn, because back then
that’s what they knew how to build.
One of the fascinating things about the church
is the pew boxes and the balcony
instead of straight pews across
there are boxes around each pew section
those were family pew boxes
and you bought your pew boxes so you could havfe your same seat every time
and it helped to support the church
the closer the box, the more money you gave
The balcony was always where I would go sit as a student
I could go up in the balcony
and hide, or draw, or whisper to my friends.
The balcony was reserved for the lower class and the slaves
This was church as I knew it
I remember hearing about the history of the church
and about the slaves in the balcony
and I thought to myself
that’s horrible
why would they separate people in a church?
We do it similar today
albeit, slavery in the US isn’t as big an issue as it was back then
but if you want to tick someone off
go sit in their seat on a Sunday
I’m happy to say that that has mostly gone away
and if you sit down and someone looks at you side eyed
let me know and I’ll make them a sermon illustration the next week.
That was what Paul was saying
there is no separation between people
we are unified in Christ
As an aside, I would agree with Pastor Derwin Grey who said
that we shouldn’t be colorblind, but color blessed
Color blind says “I don’t see color”
but remember that God created all different ethnicities
and each ethnicity is a mirror that reflects
God back to the world
It also creates a false sense that everything is OK
it acts like a spiritual sleeping aid
that causes some of my white siblings in Christ
to ignore certain injustices they will not experience.
It takes great gospel-humility to care about issues
that may not affect people who look like you.
Color blessed allows us to celebrate our ethnic and cultural diversity
It allows us to be family
but also allows us to pursue justice for each other
We lay down our lives for each other
16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
That’s family.
and God is our Father.
We start here recognizing Who God is first
then we can move into what we are asking of God
We humble ourselves to have a posture of reverence before God
Spiritually kneeling before God
and recognizing that He is our Father
and every human being bares His image
whether we like them or not.
We made it a whole 2 verses this morning
I hope that you may be able to take something from the verses
and apply it to your life
maybe it was about how to begin learning about prayer
maybe it was hearing out loud
a reason that you may not be praying regularly
maybe it was about how both Jesus and Paul
address the Lord before they begin to pray
next time we get together next week
we dig into the particulars about what Paul was going to ask for this church
