"What We Pray For, Part II"

Introduction: Why do we pray? I think that question is one that is often asked, mostly in a theoretical way. I hear people ask if God knows everything and has a plan, why should we pray? That is not something that is unimportant. Something that should be discussed. But that is is also not what I’m asking. Why do we pray? To what end is our prayers going to? Is it for us? Our comforts? Our desires? What do our prayers reflect about our outlook on life and on who God is?

Prayer is much more than just God being our genie in a bottle. God calls us to pray, so that we would pray according to His will. And His will is much more than the temporary things of this life. His will is primarily concerned about the eternal things, things that have eternal value. Paul for a second time prays towards this end, praying for the church. This is his primary prayer list, and one that we should think about ourselves and apply to our own prayer lives as God’s people. So, what do we pray for?

CTS: Because God is able and willing to accomplish His plan and purpose for His church, pray for the spiritual strength we need to glorify Him!

I. Pray Reverently (14-15)

A. The position of our prayer

Bowing was not the common way of prayer as much as it is now, but it communicated an act of great earnestness from the one praying. Ezra prayed kneeling as he confessed the sins of the people. Jesus kneeled in the garden as he was about to face his crucifixion. Stephen kneeled as he faced his martyrdom. Paul even prayed for the Ephesians elders in Acts 20:36 with kneeling.

This should remind us we are to be earnest in our prayers, reverent toward the one whom we pray to. Do we have to kneel every time we pray? No, but sometimes the physical act can move our minds to the spiritual. Sometimes we might need to kneel, showing our submissiveness and humility. Sometimes we lay prostrate, low as can be, because we understand our state before the Lord. Regardless, the heart is the issue of our prayer. Let us be earnest when approach throne of God in great expectation.

B. The audience of our prayer

The audience of our prayer is the Father himself, who is the source of all fatherhood in the world. Every family in heaven and on earth is named by him. But even more importantly, His own people, His spiritual heritage, the church, is named by Him. He redeemed them by the blood of His own Son, and gave them new life, made them new creations, through His Son and the Spirit who indwells them.

This is our Father, the one who physically made us and the one who spiritually rebirthed us. He has made us His own. We can come to him with great earnestness and great expectation and confidence, as evident in the previous paragraph in verse 12.

II. Pray Spiritually (16-19)

A. To be strengthened

To have power that comes from the Holy Spirit

Paul understood that first and foremost, in line with what he prayed and taught earlier, is that the spiritual state of people far outweighs their physical.

2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

The desire of Paul for the church was two-fold. First, it was that they would be spiritually strengthened by the Spirit. He didn’t want brute force physical specimens to wage war against the pagans. God could use the weakest of the bunch of Ephesians and do the greatest work of the Gospel.

I think about a preacher currently today named Daniel Ritchie. He graduated from the College of Southeastern, the same campus that I went to as an MDiv student who was born with no arms. Yet He is a powerful example of God’s grace as he preaches the Gospel. His power comes not from his ability to move his arms. As a matter of fact, its not how anyone’s physicality is able to get a message across. It’s the power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit that does its work in the hearts of people.

The church needs Holy Spirit strengthening. Are we praying for that first and foremost in each other’s lives? Is that the first thing on our prayer list for each other?

That Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith

That strengthening is vitally coupled with the indwelling of Christ, which is one and the same. The Holy Spirit whom dwells in every believer, Jesus said He would send, but that we would abide in him and he in us through the Spirit.

But what does this mean? Aren’t we already united with Christ at salvation? Why would Paul pray this?

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UNION AND COMMUNION

As Jesus abides in us, our lives our then ordered around him. He rearranges the furniture in the home and sets it properly. He addresses the heart and transforms its desires and centers it upon His will, rooting it in the love that He has given us, that we would love God and love others.

Galatians 2:20 ESV

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

B. To grasp Christ’s love

Illustration: When we would watch LOST together, after every episode and between every season, we would talk, theorize, and try to grasp what was going on.

Rooted and grounded in love

The botanical and construction of our lives is love. Our strength derives from this love, and our foundation is this love. The love of Christ, as we comprehend it, abide in it, and make it our foundation, compels us to love others as He loved us.

Colossians 2:7 ESV

7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

To comprehend in community the extent of Christ’s super-abundant love for us and for others

John Stott’s descriptors of this:

Broad enough to encompass all of mankind (Jews and Gentiles!)

Long enough to last for eternity

Deep enough to reach the most degraded sinner

High enough to exalt the sinner to heaven

C. To be filled with the fullness of God

That the church would be filled with all that makes God, well, God!. His power. His love. His mercy. His justice. His wisdom. His passion. His will. Jesus fulfilled this perfectly, and then he fills us, dwells with us in our hearts!

Application:

John 14:23 ESV

23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Church, do we toil and struggle with our own energy, or with the energy of God? The power of the Holy Spirit. Do we all live as though Christ is dwelling with us?

Is the love of Christ evident in you, while you are at home, at work, at church? Is the love of Christ evident in us as a church? Are we striving to comprehend the Gospel, the love of Christ, and growing? Are we doing things out of the power of the Spirit or on our own?

Praying these things must be a priority. This is what we pray for. The spiritual strength of one another as a church.

III. Pray Confidently (20-21)

A. God is not limited

Far more abundantly. What you think you can ask God to do, he can do more. According to His power and according to His glory, He can do more than we can think. So, when our inner-self is strengthened, Christ dwelling in us, and filled with the fullness of God, we therefore begin asking for the most important things, for His will to be done.

We can pray confidently because God is not limited in what He can do. Whatever he ask, he can do better.

Illustration: Did you ever think one of your parents was just a superhero, especially when you were younger? I felt like I could ask my Dad to do anything, and he could do it.

B. God glorifies Himself

The church and Jesus are intimately united, bride and bridegroom. We reflect the glory of Jesus, but only by the power at work in us. We glorify God because Jesus is glorifying the Father.

John 14:13 ESV

13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

C. God’s glory has no end

Revelation 21:22–27 ESV

22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The power comes from him; the glory must go to him. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus together, in the body and in the Head, in the bride and in the Bridegroom, in the community of peace and in the Peacemaker, to all generations (in history), for ever and ever (in eternity), Amen. - John Stott