49 Preaching/Teaching: Ephesians 1:15-23

Powerful Prayer

ETS-Paul prayed powerfully for the Ephesians.

EOS-Praying Powerfully

DDS-Pray powerfully ACTS prayer-

FCF-

Heather said I am good at three things: Bibles, babies and Basketball-

Shooting-

Talk about the difference between telling someone to shoot and showing someone to shoot.

BEEF Method

I helped heather coach a girls basketball team recently and we saw some nasty shots

They needed BEEF

When I walked through this with a player and showed him how to do it they actually got a lot better at shooting.

Now i was a good basketball player, but could you picture Steph Curry actually showing you how to shoot.

You would get a lot better quicker.

Today Paul is going to show us how to pray powerfully.

Jesus did not just tell his disciples how to pray he showed them. This is a part of discipleship.

It is more powerful when someone walks us through how to do something.

When I became a believer someone showed me how to have a quiet time.

Luke 11:1 NASB95

It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”

Most people not just Christians know that praying is important but not many people have powerful prayer lives.

Today Paul wants to teach us how to pray so that we can have a powerful prayer life.

Paul wants not just tell us how to pray he wants to teach us how to pray

The first thing Paul Teaches us is that:

1. We pray powerfully when we are centered on God-(1-15a).

B for Beef is Balance-

Demonstrate this.

What are your prayers centered on?

Let me be clear: God wants us to pray for everything, even the small stuff. But our prayers are to be centered on God if we want them to be powerful.

Ephesians 1:15 (NAS)

For this reason I too,

Paul is adoring God, he is focusing on GOD and who he is.

We see that he started this verse off-For this reason-He is adoring God for what he has done in HIS (Pauls life) and the (Ephesians life) he just sits back and adores God.

He is giving us the motivation of prayer. Pauls prayer is centered on God. Since we see the For in the Bible we have to look back. Paul is praying for the Ephesians because what God has done in their lives.

God has blessed them with every spiritual blessing

He chose us

He adopted us

He sealed us with the holy spirit

This is just a summary-

Now Paul is adoring God because God did this in his life and their life. And if you are a believer in Jesus he has done this in your life as well.

God desires we pray for everything, but many times our prayers start with us and not with God and because of this they are small prayers with small impact.

Application:

A simple way to center your prayers on God is ADORATION:

Adoration begins with God

Brian Denman-Drove me crazy-lived with us-

He would spend hours on the phone just adoring Megan

Imitate this

Even though they live in Arkansas now I am pretty confident that they have a good marriage.

loved his wife

Application:

There are so many things we can adore God for: Take a second to tell him a few right now!

Take a minute and just adore God for who he is:

The next thing Paul Teaches us is that:

2. powerful prayer expects God to change lives (15-16).

One of my favorite quotes is expect great things from God, attempt great things from God. —William Carey

Paul had seen God move mightily in his life. He went from a man who wanted to kill Christ followers to a man who was a giant Christ follower. His life was radically changed. Because of how God moved in his life he wanted to see God move in others lives.

Paul’s prayer celebrated the heart of God

Ephesians 1:15 NASB95

For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints,

He was celebrating:

A. FAITH-

God’s heart is to see people put their faith in him.

These believers in Ephesus were once alienated from God and they put their faith in Jesus.

The story of the prodigal son is that a boy who was far from God came back to God.

PRODIGAL SON

Luke 19:10 says“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Do you expect God to change lives around you?

One of the things we talk about at RCC is having a top 5 list of people who are far from God. Are you praying for your top 5 people for God to change their lives.

Why was Paul convinced that they really turned to God?

B. They LOVED each other-

Their faith did not stop with them-it turned into love for God.

John 13:33-34-

Jesus said this is the greatest way we point a unbelieving world to the Savior who is worth believing in.

I love sharing the gospel and even doing it in some bold ways. We are supposed to share the gospel with words, we are supposed to share our testimony. But Jesus says our greatest way to share the gospel is how we love one another-He says all men will know that you are my disciples.

These new believers were living out their most powerful command.

Church as we went through COVID together as a new church-I have seen us love each other well. Let’s keep doing that.

Ephesians 1:16 NASB95

do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary a. The Request for Wisdom and Revelation (1:16b–18a)

Again, the reason Paul made this request was because of his great desire that they know God more intimately. Why did he want this for the believers? This will be discussed next.

The next thing Paul Teaches us is that:

3. powerful prayer is rooted in intimacy (17-19)

Ephesians 1:17 NIV84

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

We were created to know the God of the universe. Not just to know about him but to know him in a real way. This is the end goal.

Paul’s greatest desire in life was to know God. As a matter of fact he wanted this so bad that in Philippians 3, he tells that audience that everything else is like dog dung compared to knowing Jesus.

If you want to have a great marriage you don’t just invest in it your first year of marriage, you keep investing in it over and over again.

In the same way in our relationship with God we are called to know him more and more and more.

Knowing God is a journey that never ends

In the song amazing grace, the writer writes when we have been there 10,000 years.

What do you pray for your friends. Here is what paul prays.

Notice he says, I keep asking. How do we do this we ask God that he would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

We don’t arrive at knowing God it is a lifetime journey fueled by prayer.

He prays that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened.

Ephesians 1:18 NASB95

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Look at what happens when this prayer starts being answered.

We know the hope of your calling-

The end goal of our calling.

Ephesians 4:1 NASB95

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (1) What Is the Hope of His Calling (1:18b)

Hope for believers is not the world’s wishful thinking, but the absolute certainty that God will make true what he has promised.

What are the riches of His inheritance in the saints

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (2) What Is the Wealth of His Glorious Inheritance (1:18c)

The reason for using “wealth” rather than “riches” for our translation is because it expresses singular abundance rather than just one of many kinds of riches.

Our greatest inheritance is when we will be with God forever in heaven.

But God’s greatest inheritance is us as well.

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (2) What Is the Wealth of His Glorious Inheritance (1:18c)

He will fully gain his inheritance when the saints are removed from this earth and come into his presence. Therefore, not only do we have an inheritance (v. 14) but he also has an inheritance (vv. 11, 18).

Since this is true, let us not n

Illustration:

I was talking to a counselor recently-

Many marriages fail because once couples have kids, they become so busy with so many things that they stop investing in their marriage.

I wonder if the same is true with our prayer. We get so busy with so many things in our relationship with Jesus, we even do a lot of good things but we are not intimate with God like we once were or like we should be.

Application:

Are you intimate with God right now?

Are you spending time with him?

Communication:

Are you talking to him?

Are you listening to him?

The next thing Paul Teaches us is that:

4. Powerful prayer must be accessed now (19-23).

F-Follow through

Maybe the most important thing in a shot.

Powerful prayer is available right here and right now.

Ephesians 1:19 NASB95

and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might

Look what this verse says-We have power working toward us who believe.

It is categorized as:

Surpassing greatness

In Accordance with the working of his might.

We are in a spiritual battle, where people are battling Depression, poverty, where people’s souls are on the line. And we have a God who has literally defeated death and we are not going to get into the battle and call down airstrikes from on high.

Illustration:

We view war like a cruise ship

Maybe it is more like a battle ship

We can call down airstrikes on this spiritual battle we are in

Or the Bull dozer illustration

Ephesians 1:20–23 NASB95

which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Application:

The girls team Heather and I coached was pretty good because we had Bella, who is a good player and Berlin. But we had a lot of other girls who had never played before. We had our last game of the year and we had to win it. Teams started beating us because they would just double team Bella and Berlin. So as the season was going on we lost a game we should not have lost. But we kept challenging the girls to keep growing as players and they did. The game we had to win was here. And there were some girls who we had taught how to shoot who were going to have to take some shots and make some shots. In the last game we did, and we won.

Today Paul showed us how to pray powerfully

Our prayers must:

Be Centered on God

Expect to see lives changed

Rooted in intimacy

It must be accessed now

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is available now!