08302020 Eph 6:18-20 The Word and Prayer

Introduction

For the past few weeks we have been considering this section of Paul’s letter to the church.

We have been reminded that there is war going on - our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

The battle that we’re in is not one that we have the ability to win in and of ourselves, because our opposition is not human. The opposition is described as powers and principalities, the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.

Since our opposition isn’t ultimately human, but is spiritual, we need divinely supplied spiritual protection in order to engage in this spiritual battle. So God supplies armor....

Advance to Next Slide

The Armor of God

In verses 13-17 Paul names five particular specific pieces of armor that every Christian, as a soldier in the Lord’s army has been issued so we can be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might and stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

There is the belt and breastplate, and boots, and shield, and helmet and sword included in this set of armor.

These items of armor correspond to the Christian’s need for truth (belt), for righteousness (breastplate), for the good news of gospel of peace (boots) - reconciliation, for faith (shield), and for salvation (helmet).

Verse 18 calls us to take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. If we’re to stand firm in the day of evil we must be outfitted with these defensive pieces of battle armor but we also must take up that one offensive weapon – the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Advance to Next Slide

The Word of God

We’ve got to have truth in our inner parts.

The truth of God’s word has to be so worked deep down in us that we are girded with it, we are wrapped around with it. And if that truth has taken hold of us inside out, then what we are inwardly we will be what we are outwardly by God’s grace, and we will be enabled to stand in the battle that the Lord has called us to as soldiers in our Lord’s Army.

The Word of God – the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are God breathed – able to make us wise unto salvation – profitable for equipping us for every good deed. It is this word that we must believe, that we must study, that we must take to heart.

It is this word that is living and breathing and active and sharper than any double-edged sword (Heb 4:12)...

Read Eph 6:10-20 (with emphasis on vv 18-19)

Prayer of Illumination

Advance to Next Slide

People of the Word

The Apostle Paul is reminding us of two very simple things—things that we have known since we were children in Sunday School, on our mothers’ knee, Vacation Bible School—and that is simply this:

If we’re going to stand in the battles we are confronted with in this fallen world, then we must be people of the word, and we must be people of prayer.

As any soldier going into battle puts on his battle gear - as Christians we need armor because we are in a fight. And yet as we’ve already admitted several times over the past few weeks, one of the challenges for us is that we don’t fully realize the fight that we’re in.

Called as soldiers of Christ – enlisted in our Lord’s army – God gives us his armor and tells us we must put this armor on and stand firm against the enemy in the strength of HIS power.

We are called to be God’s people – people of the WORD who take the WORD of life to heart as if our lives depended on it - as if it were food for us...

Advance to Next Slide

John 4:34 NASB95

34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.

How do we know what the will of God is? He tells us in His Word - our only rule for faith and practice - for doctrine and doing.

It’s this word of God that calls us to faith; it’s this word of God that calls us into His army. It’s this word that calls us into battle. It’s this word that equips us. It’s this word that gives us our marching orders.

Advance to Next Slide

The Word of God Calls Us

Abram, a pagan - saved by God’s grace was called out of Ur of the Chaldees—deepest Iraq—is called by what? “The word of God” in Genesis 12, to become the father of the faithful.

Prophets called by God to proclaim the Word of God...

Jesus, walking among the children of Israel, a people who had failed to heed the message of the prophets for hundreds and hundreds of years—and what does He do?

He calls to them with the word: “Come, follow Me.”

It is by that word He calls them into discipleship, He calls them to salvation, He calls them into service, He calls them to grow in grace.

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14) but everyone who hears - truly hears that word - understands that “faith comes from hearing and hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Ro 10:17).

It’s the word of God that calls us to salvation to God, to Christ, in the gospel. It’s the preaching of the word that is the primary means of salvation.

It is the word of God that builds us up and equips us to do the will and the work of God.

The Apostle Paul has made that clear.

Advance to Next Slide

2 Timothy 3:16–17 NASB95

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

The Word of God Equips...

It corrects us. It instructs us. It challenges us. It rebukes us, to change us; to build us up into what God intends us to be in Jesus Christ. It is the essential component of the Christian’s battle against these principalities and powers that are waging war against us even now.

Listen to what Charles Hodge (a Presbyterian theologian and principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878. ) has to say about this WORD:

Advance to Next Slide

“The only offensive weapon of the Christian is the sword of the Spirit, meaning the sword which the Spirit gives, that is, the word of God. There is nothing to limit this expression. It is that which God has spoken: His word, the Bible. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It is the wisdom of God and the power of God. It has a self-evidencing light. It commends itself to the reason and conscience. It has the power not only of truth, but of divine truth.

Advance to Next Slide

Psalm 119:98 NASB95

98 Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine.

This true for us individually, but is also true for the church. All her triumphs over sin and error have been effected by the word of God. So long as she uses this and relies on it alone, she goes on conquering; but when anything else – be it reason or science, or tradition, or the commandments of men – when anything else is allowed to take the place or share the priority of the word of God, then the church or the Christian is at the mercy of the adversary.

Advance to Next Slide

I’ve looked through many Bibles in preparation for funerals and can confidently say, like Vance Havner: “Show me a Christian whose Bible is falling apart, and I’ll show you a Christian who isn’t.”

If your Bible is falling apart, if the word has been worked deep into your bones, into your being, you’re not going to fall apart in the day of battle.

Paul’s saying that to us here: Take up the word of God, so you can take on by the power of HIS might the god of this World.

illustration: getting to know your weapon so well that it literally becomes part of your hand...

If we’re going to stand firm in the battles we are confronted with in this fallen world, then we must be people of the word, and we must be people of prayer.

Advance to Next Slide

People of Prayer

Look at what he says:

Advance to Next Slide

Ephesians 6:18 NASB95

18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,

As People of Prayer we must be...

Watchfully disposed

Persistently determined

Who have a sanctified direction

Notice the four all’s in that passage:

First of all, Paul says pray all kinds of prayers, at all times; go on praying...or we could put it this way,

“Pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17)”

Let’s think about each of those four "ALL’S” that Paul refers to.

Advance to Next Slide

With ALL Prayer and Petition (ACTS)

First of all, “With all prayer. He mentions two kinds of communication to God - prayer and petition

Prayer = speaking to God

Petition = urgent requests spoken to God

ACTS = Adoration - Confession - Thanksgiving - Supplication

Advance to Next Slide

ADORATION

You know, sometimes the battle is won and lost in our prayers to God in the words of adoration, because small thoughts of God are the root of distrust of the greatness of God in your situation.

Psalm 86 = a psalm of supplication and trust - one commentator had said that it was “David resting his head on the pillow of God’s sovereignty.”

Big thoughts of God lead to great comfort in the big God who comforts us, and so small thoughts of God do what? They rob us of comfort. And so Paul is saying with all kinds of prayer, when you’re in the battle you need to go into prayer with big thoughts of the living God, so we mustn’t skimp on the adoration.

Advance to Next Slide

CONFESSION

To go to God confessing your sin...

I remember a time when we were growing up in the Spellman household. I had done something that I wasn’t particularly proud of and one of my sisters said she was going to tell Mom and Dad. So, I beat her to the punch and went and ‘confessed’ to them so they would hear it from me first. And what did that do?

It takes all the sting out of what my sibling was going to tell Mom and Dad, because I’d already done it.

Satan, the accuser, will come and say to you, “You miserable hypocrite - why do you even try?” Go into your Father’s throne room of grace and beat him to the throne of God.

“Lord, I need to tell You something. I’m a miserable hypocrite. I deserve hell, but You’ve given Your Son so that I won’t get what I deserve - that’s mercy and He pours out what I don’t deserve - His grace.

And Satan’s accusing me right now, and I need some assurance of Your love and mercy and grace.” Beat him to the throne of grace! It robs all power of Satan holding that over your head—“You miserable hypocrite”—“Yep, I am, but I’m God’s miserable hypocrite, and I’m running to Him right now and I’m confessing that, and I’m asking Him to help me hate that sin like He hates that sin.

Advance to Next Slide

Philippians 4:6–7 NASB95

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

A-C-T-S - There is adoration and confession, and thanksgiving.”

Advance to Next Slide

THANKSGIVING

Do you go to God with thanksgiving and praise Him? So often it’s in the very act of thanking God that you remember how many prayers that God has already answered for you, and it gives you hope that He just may well answer that hopeless petition that you’re getting ready to lift before Him now.

1 Thessalonians 5:17–18 NASB95

17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

So in the very act of thanking Him, what happens?

You’re encouraged to go to Him again and ask again.

Advance to Next Slide

SUPPLICATION

Don’t forget to pray for one another, to petition for one another.

Samuel Rutherford (a Scottish Presbyterian pastor, theologian and author, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.) said that he had found throughout his whole life that he never ran an errand to the throne of grace (he never started to pray for someone else) when he didn’t fetch back a blessing for himself.

He never started to pray for somebody else without realizing that he had himself received a blessing from the living God, even though his purpose for going to God in prayer was to pray for somebody else.

And so the Apostle Paul is saying ‘Christian, don’t neglect any aspect of the arsenal of prayer.

With all kinds of prayer and petition, Adoration - Confession - Thanksgiving - Supplication - pray’

But prayer with your eyes open - Keep on the Alert

Advance to Next Slide

Keep on the Alert

Mark 13:33 NASB95

33 “Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come.

Jesus is speaking of the end times, ultimately of the time of His return, 'watch and pray’

He spoke to the disciples similar words in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt 26:40; Mark 14:38).

Isn't that what we're meant to do? Keep watching - keep praying - keep on the alert at all times, praying....

Luke 21:36 NASB95

36 “But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Watch and pray! Keep awake! Be alert! Pray with your eyes open. Take account of the times around you, the signs of the times, what is going on, look for My coming, wait and watch for it. That's the sense of the word: keep on the alert!

With all these prayers be on the alert. Have a watchful disposition . . . be persistently determined.

Advance to Next Slide

Pray at All Times

Martin Lloyd-Jones (minister of The Westminster Chapel in London for 30 years) - “He lived a life of prayer, interrupted by seasons of prayer.”

“The one urge that a Christian must never resist is the urge to pray.” - Pray without ceasing...

There are times when you’ve got to resist dessert, and resist seconds, and resist looking, and resist jealousy, resist those temptations to sin, times we we ought to just say “no” - to resist....

But prayer—we should never resist. Whenever the urge, the thought of prayer comes into your mind, pray! Pray at all times.

And persevere in prayer. Keep on praying. “With this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition.” Don’t stop praying.

During the first century when the church was beginning to spread and grow throughout all the world we hear in the book of Acts, 1:14

Advance to Next Slide

Acts 1:14 NASB95

14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

We find the disciples on their knees waiting for the promise from on high of the Holy Spirit they are continually devoting themselves to prayer, seeking the face of God through prayer.

After Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit comes in chapter 2 and verse 42

Advance to Next Slide

Acts 2:42 NASB95

42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

They're still seeking! The Holy Spirit has come, and they are continuing in prayer - They are persistently seeking, after He came they were still seeking - they're persisting - then in verse 46 you find them continuing steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers - continuing steadfastly!

Advance to Next Slide

Acts 2:46 NASB95

46 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,

It's a personal thing. But it's also a corporate thing. That's why the apostles, in Acts 6:4 are devoting themselves to the ministry of the word and prayer....with persistence, continuing toward a specific goal

Acts 6:4 NASB95

4 “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

How did Jesus end His Sermon on the Mount? With a reminder to persistently pray....

Advance to Next Slide

Matthew 7:7 NASB95

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

All these statements are in what is called 'the present imperative', which means this:

keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking

Is this the way we pray? Do we pray like the stranger coming to the door and knocking, and knocking, and knocking - and because of our persistence - importunity - persistence even to the point of annoyance - God comes down and answers us.

We are to have a watchful disposition . . . a persistent determination . . . and a sanctified focus.

Advance to Next Slide

Petition for All the Saints

Ephesians 6:18 NASB95

18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,

as we In Matthew 6:9-13, when the Lord taught the disciples to pray, He said:

Matthew 6:9 NASB95

9 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

He said 'Our Father', not 'My Father' - for we are all a body. The Lord Jesus, in all of His teaching about prayer, impressed the importance of praying for others - and He showed it in His own life, as He did pray for others.

The miracle of the Gospel is that He came, He died, He was buried, He rose, He ascended, and the ministry that He has now -is that He is living to intercede for others (Heb 7:25).

You remember Samuel, after the people cried for a King and he gave them a King - Saul. The old prophet came to the people and he said:

1 Samuel 12:23 NASB95

23 “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way.

'It's a sin to say the wrong thing, isn't it? It's also a sin not to say the right thing'.

There is a sin of silence, and it is no greater a sin than in the very presence of God, when we do not pray for all the saints.

The Apostle Paul says pray with all kinds of prayer, at all times, keep on praying, and pray for all the saints; because that’s the only way that we’re going to get through these battles and stand firm in the day of evil - not alone, but together in Christ...

Advance to Next Slide

We must be a people who are...

Watchfully disposed to prayer

Persistently determined in prayer

Who have a sanctified direction of prayer

Remember that old saying, “Prayer changes things” - The reality is

Prayer changes us.

There is nothing like prayer to knit our hearts and our desires to God, and there is nothing like prayer to remind us of how dependent we are on Him.

Advance to Next Slide

C.H. Spurgeon quote from Morning and Evening (Feb 6).

He says this:

“What a multitude of prayers we have put up from the very first moment we learned to pray. Our very first prayer was a prayer for ourselves. We asked God that He would have mercy on us and blot out our sin. He heard us. But when He had blotted out our sins, we had some more prayers for ourselves. We had to pray for sanctifying grace, for constraining and restraining grace. We’ve been led to pray for a fresh assurance of faith, for a comfortable application of God’s promises, for deliverances in the hour of temptation, for help in the time of duty, for aid in the day of trial. We’ve been compelled to go to God for our souls as beggars asking for everything.

Bear witness, children of God: You have never been able to get anything for your souls from anywhere else. All the bread your soul has eaten has come down from heaven. All the water which it has drunk has flowed from the Living Rock, Christ Jesus the Lord. Your soul has never grown rich in itself. It has always been a pensioner upon the daily bounty of God, and hence your prayers have ascended to heaven for a range of spiritual mercies all but infinite.

Your needs are innumerable, and therefore the supplies have been infinitely great. Your prayers have been as varied as the mercies have been countless. Therefore, don’t you have cause to say, “I love the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplication”? For your prayers have been many, but so have been God’s answers to them.

He has heard in your day of trouble; he has strengthened you; He has helped you even when you dishonored Him by trembling and doubting at the mercy seat. Remember this, and let it fill your heart with gratitude to God, who has thus graciously heard your poor, weak prayers.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of His benefits.”

Ephesians 6:18 NASB95

18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,