Ephesians 6:18-24 - “Reflecting Jesus in Prayer”

[Music] hey good morning I know you guys are waiting for me to come up on the other steps are you where is a-okay it's good to be with you guys do me a favor let's open together to Ephesians chapter 6 we are now in the last paragraph of the sixth and last chapter of this letter we've studied verse by verse paragraph by paragraph chapter by chapter through Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus and it's been a wonderful experience today we're gonna be focusing on the theme of prayer and I appreciate that presumably every single one of us here has a desire to pray every one of us would love to grow as people of Prayer we have an understanding that God's community of faith is to be a house of prayer and yet most of us dare I say many of us perhaps even all of us would agree that we don't pray as we could and we don't pray as we should we recognize that praying zealously to a false god is futile and similarly not praying to the true and living God is equally futile and so we need to discover how to be people of Prayer that we don't want to come to God like children with broken toys asking him to replace them or to repair them that we don't want to approach God like some cosmic genie that we're asking him to keep something bad away from us or to give us something that we perceive as good we want to understand that fundamentally we want to pray like Jesus prayed we want to reflect Jesus in prayer Jesus's prayers are characterized by intimacy with God he approaches God as Abba Papa father he prays not only with intimacy in his relationship with God he prays with intensity as you look at Jesus in the garden of gets many hours before the cost he is agonizing impaired to the point that blood and sweat are mixing and dropping from his forehead now I've had some times of intense prayer but never like that and I would assume that most of us as we contemplate this idea would recognize that in its essence prayer is simply intimate communication with God it is worship because through prayer we are declaring our dependence upon God and we're recognizing that God responds in prayer in ways that he wouldn't otherwise that not only this prayer move mountains and transform issues and circumstances prayer transforms us amen and there's arguably the most important of the spiritual disciplines it is the most difficult because it is a purely spiritual work so please join me as we pray before we open the scriptures father we are asking that in this place you would pour out your Holy Spirit Lord as we open up the Scriptures to learn about prayer that it wouldn't simply be an intellectual understanding Lord it wouldn't be something that we would just wrote in and make ritual and religious but Lord by your spirit you would move us and transform us to be like Jesus and be a people of Prayer grow us as people of Prayer today for your glory and our greater good and we ask this now in Jesus name Amen if you would stand with me we're in Ephesians chapter 6 we're gonna pick up right where we left off I'm gonna start reading at verse 18 and I asked you to follow along silently and we're gonna stop at verse 20 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication and for me that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I an ambassador in Chains that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak please be seated so what we're talking about today is prayer and the spirit filled life prayer and the spirit filled life and really the objective that I think God intends for us is that we would be people of prayer that we would be a people of Prayer now before we get into the text let's just remember the context and the fourth chapter Paul had talked about walking worthy of Christ he explained what the spirit filled life looked like in the personal realm what it looked like in a community of faith what it looked like in a community at large what the spirit filled life looked like in marriage in family in the workplace and then he went on to explain as we saw last week this spiritual battle the the forces of good and evil that are at play in this supernatural world that we occupy as natural and supernatural beings and then the midst of that conflict that exhortation to take on the whole armor of God to take on Jesus and then in this final section this spiritual victory that we experience the spirit filled life that we experience through prayer and so it's in that context that we're going to consider five essential elements of a spirit-filled prayer life five essential elements of a spirit-filled prayer life so first of all pray constantly pray constantly as you look at verse 18 Paul says praying always and so sometimes when we have an association about prayer we think like well I pray at mealtimes and that's always funky when you're with Christians and your dining somewhere because it's like do we pray over the appetizers or just wait for the entree before we pray and it's like well how much did the appetizer cost $15 yeah you better pray for right so we think I gosh it would close my eyes or perhaps a time of prayer whether it's a church or an home it's such and we have this kind of a thought that the only time that I'm really praying that when I close my eyes and I fold my hands and we need to understand that prayer is much more than that prayer is really being able not only to speak the requests that God puts on her heart but also to listen to his voice and this is why Paul is saying praying always in other words that the this regular rhythm of your life of being able to hear God and be able to intercede not only for your requests or the requests of others when he was writing to the church at Thessalonica and 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 at verse 17 he says pray without ceasing it is that that same idea a lifestyle characterized by constant prayer regular prayer it's challenging first of all the ability to recognize God's voice Jesus said that I'm the Good Shepherd and my sheep hear my voice and the challenge to recognize God's voice in 1st Samuel Chapter three young Samuel before he became a leader over the God's people before he was recognized as a prophet as a young boy he is serving in the temple in the middle of the night God starts to speak to young Samuel and he runs down the hallway to the high priest Eli yeah you I what do you want looks like go back to bed you're having a dream and then the same thing happens the second time and he comes running down the hallway and again Eli was like I didn't call you're having a dream go back to bed the third time finally the high priest AHA God's trying to speak to you so this time he instructs Samuel to say speak Lord for your servant the lights to hear your voice and I think that is a good reminder for all of us to learn to say that to learn to say Lord I want to hear you speak I want to hear your voice I want to recognize your voice I want to recognize when you're urging me to do something to not do something to stay to go turn left turn right do this don't do that whatever the case might be to recognize his voice and one of the biggest obstacles I think to us hearing God's is the number of voices that surround us we're just surrounded with our social media we're surrounded with media generally we are really generally speaking culturally uncomfortable with quiet and so in what could be time of quiet reflection or contemplation oftentimes we want to fill that with our music or a podcast and those things can be great and edifying but as a people we don't do quiet well and with all that distraction it is very difficult to hear God speak as clearly as you would want and so we're urging them Martin Luther observed to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing that the spirit filled prayer life is something that is near and dear to each and every one of us it's not for the super spiritual this is what Christian living contemplates so we see at verse 18 not only praying always but with all prayer and supplication with all prayer and supplication literally in the Greek that means prayer upon prayer prayer upon prayer in other words that all kinds of prayers and so an easy way to kind of a memory device to make it easy for us to remember these different types of prayer if we think of this acronym like the book of Acts a c TS so that a is adoration part of our prayer is expressing adoration to god declaring our love for God declaring his praise for who he is and what he's done expressing adoration a second type of prayer is confession and so we acknowledge the areas that we are aware of we we as individuals and as a community of faith don't measure up a third areas Thanksgiving it is good that we give thanks that God has blessed us we live in the land that is truly a pleasant Valley a land flowing with milk and honey and we should give thanks to God and perhaps even more importantly as we're reminded at the beginning of this book God has given us every spiritual blessing which is in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus and we need to be thankful for that and we need to be reflective of that and Express Thanksgiving to God for all that he has done and then the S the S is supplication supplication is making requests known so you have your own prayer needs your own prayer requests and and you want to communicate those to God those there's nothing wrong with that and also we ought to intercede on behalf of others and their prayer requests and so as you contemplate this it's all types of prayer prayers upon prayer but then it says in the spirit that ideally our prayers are not simply a work of our intellect but it's inspired by God's Spirit in Romans 8:26 and 27 we see that we pray to the Father through the son by the Holy Spirit that all of our prayers ideally are inspired by God's Spirit so I would encourage as you contemplate for example there may be certain things on your list you're praying for relatives for their salvation you're praying perhaps for a work situation the healing situation for a loved one or yourself there's nothing wrong with those nothing wrong with those lists there's nothing wrong with routine or wrote prayers per se in that sense but ideally you sense the God by his Spirit is causing you to pray for something that maybe otherwise you wouldn't have thought to pray for that God is moving by his spirit to motivate to inspire your prayer life it's a wonderful experience when you pray with somebody and perhaps you've prayed with them on multiple occasions and on this occasion they just say something they're like oh that was a god cuz I've prayed with you before and I know how you pray and you just sense that God really spoke and it's a wonderful feeling to have that that sense that God is inspiring your prayer Charles Spurgeon commented the true prayer is neither a mental exercise nor a vocal performance it is far deeper than that it is a spiritual transaction with the creator of heaven and earth then Paul goes on to say at verse 18 he says being watchful to this being watchful to this end the idea of watchful is the idea being spiritually alert remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane hours before going to the cross he entered into the garden with now the eleven disciples Judas is gone eight of them stopped at one place in the garden and Jesus goes what Luke describes as a stone's throw further deeper into the garden with Peter James and John and he says to his three closest friends on earth he says pray with me I'm exceedingly sorrowful and you just imagine that here is Jesus all God but all man and in his humanity he's just saying to his three closest friends pray for me please he is almost begging them to pray for him and Jesus goes further in and starts to pray father if there's any way for this cup to pass in other words the cross and others if there's a way for God man to be reconciled other than me going to the cross let this cup of suffering pass but not my will your will be done now Jesus had predicted that all the disciples would flee as he is arrested as he is going to suffer and you might recall that Peter stood up and said yeah all these guys they're pretty flaky Lord but you can count on me Peter of the rock I'll be there for you it's like no I said all of you and they meant you too and peers like no way I'm ready to die friend she's like oh Peter why are we arguing because if we're arguing you're wrong I'm right umm just like no bro really this how it's gonna go down before the rooster crows in other words before the Sun comes up you'll have denied me three times and so here they're in the garden and Jesus is saying watch him pray and so he goes and prays and then he looks he found those guys just praying fervently for him no that's not how it went down what did he find he found them all asleep and so he goes over to Peter Peter said don't worry I'll be there and says to him here's this watch and pray the spirit is deed is willing but the flesh is weak watch and pray lest you fall into temptation now he's not talking about the temptation to engage in some sin you know hey you're gonna struggle with alcohol if you're not praying hey you're gonna struggle pornography or any other sin that you could think of here's the thing it was the temptation singular and here's the temptation if you're not spiritually alert if you're not a person of prayer you will deny me my rightful place as king of kings as Lord of your life that if we are going to be controlled by God's Spirit spirit-filled then we're going to be watchful people spiritually alert people who are people of prayer and if not Jesus will get bumped from his rightful place as Lord in our lives it's a sobering thought and here's the thing nobody in this room wants to think is it I had a buddy when uh gosh quite a while now but my friend Scott with the king of the snooze alarm and so the snooze alarm would go off and he would literally hit the snooze alarm ten to twelve times before he would actually get out of bed and he recognized that he had a problem and there's like no 12-step program for snoozers Anonymous or saying so what he would do is he moved his god this is so long as it wasn't his phone that was gone he moved the alarm to the farthest end of the room away from his bed so he had to get out of bed to hit the snooze button and he was so snooze phille that he just hit the snooze button and when under the covers 10 to 12 times before actually getting out of bed and you're sitting there today you think I got is so ridiculous are you kidding me how many times is Jesus going to say to us be watchful pray I'm really telling you if you don't wake up this is not going to go well for you how many times will take before we actually wake up and I think he's really urging us to heed this warning then Paul tells us that we should pray in all supplications with perseverance that we should be enduring in our prayers in other words as long as you sense God urging you to pray for something even though you're not getting that answer typically when we pray if we if we want to pray about God do you want me to take this job of this new job or keep my job God do you want me to relocate God what school do you want me to go to and we come and we seek them in and then we get almost frustrated that he didn't give us an instant answer it's like come on I've been praying for 10 minutes all right you think you got in the universe you could at least shoot me an answer and sometimes the reason why God doesn't answer immediately it's because he doesn't have an answer for us or doesn't want to affirm and say yes to our request sometimes he knows that if he gave us the answer we would stop praying with that passion and zeal that when something heavy is going down all of a sudden we get all spiritual and start praying and God likes that we're coming into his presence to spend time with him when our sons were small me and a group of dads at the church all had kids about the same age we decided to take the kids to Chuckie Cheese we're gonna be the dad heroes and so we pull all our money together you with all that money you can get a lot of really bad pizza a lot of flat soda and a lot of tokens and so they gave us the bucket o tokens and we give all the tokens distribute them to the kids have fun and then the pizza comes out we cannot find any of the kids as a grown man crawling through that tunnel of shame you just discover things in there that should not be anywhere and so after we wrestle up all the suspects get all the kids there I come home and explain to my bride what happened because hey your first mistake was givin the kids all the tokens she'd never do that give them five tokens that way they have to keep coming back all the moms I'm looking like yeah what's wrong with you guys of course like all the moms like how do you know this is there something that and said it's a chromosomal thing that you're just born with that knowledge we had to learn it the hard way so God isn't giving you all the tokens at once because he wants you close he wants you coming back it's not that he doesn't want to answer George Mueller renowned for starting orphanages in Bristol England the mid-1800s completely reliant upon faith and upon God Mueller's great man of Prayer so there were three of his friends that he was praying for all of his life and at one point after decades of this someone said to him like do you really think God's gonna answer this prayer that's been decades and there's like no movement whatever for these guys to receive Christ as Savior and Mueller's response was I don't think God would have put it on my heart to pray for them this long if he wasn't going to answer that prayer one of them came to faith shortly before Mueller's death the second came to faith that Mueller's memorial service and the third came to faith shortly thereafter and so as Jesus encouraged us persevere in prayer as Paul encourages us in during prayer as long as God keeps putting it on your heart keep praying second pray for others at verse 18 and pray for all the saints it reminds us that we should be praying for other believers so when we see the term Saints in the New Testament it's always speaking about believers so we're to be praying for other believers we we don't pray to the Saints we pray for the Saints we pray to Jesus and so there is one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus first Timothy 2:5 we read in Hebrews chapter 7 at verse 25 the G this ever lives to make intercession for us so check this out right now God is there in his throne and that his right hand the place of authority is God the Son Jesus and Jesus is processing all of the prayer requests that are lifted up from over 2 billion followers of Christ on this planet and we never get a busy signal it's not like God's not available right now but if you like to leave a message this prayer request will be handled in the order in which it was received please stay tuned your standby wait for an angel to pray and intercede and we just never hear that ever it's always Jesus who is interceding he ever lives and right now his ministry is to intercede on these requests and we enter into that work with Jesus when we are interceding on behalf of others when we start praying for others and so some ways to do that first of all we have prayer gatherings here Sunday morning at 8:15 in the cafe Thursday morning at 8 o'clock in the cafe the college and career young adults group six o'clock they gather for prayer and these prayer groups are a great way to be praying for others as we want to encourage you every Sunday we receive hundreds hundreds of prayer requests which I rejoice and so some are written and many are typed on our app and then they provide a list of hundreds of prayer requests that gets sent out to a distribution list that's now about 300 people and those people have agreed to pray over all or part of those prayer requests which i think is fantastic and so let me encourage you if you want to receive that list so that you could pray it's really easy all you have to do is send a note to prayer at Calvary Nexus org let me repeat that for those of you who are standing by that's prayer at Calvary Nexus org you'll be added to that distribution list you receive those lists and you might think man I don't have time to pray over hundreds of prayer requests that's okay what I would encourage is as you look at those prayer requests the ones you feel called to intercede intercede that might be one it might be multiple it might be all of them but grow as a person who would be praying for others what are you praying for all the saints praying for others similar request prayer look with me at verse 19 and Paul continues and pray for me Paul recognizes the need for his own prayer the Holy Spirit not only produces in us a desire to pray for others but a humility where we're able willing and desiring to tell other people our prayer requests you think about the Apostle Paul I mean you know he's like this super hero of the apostolic era and yet Paul is keenly aware that he needs prayer I love that hundreds of people fill out prayer requests every Sunday I think that's fantastic but I'm also keenly aware that not everyone does and this is not to guilt you or shame you or toss a stone in your direction what I want to do is to urge you to urge you to see the importance of prayer to urge you to see that by filling out a prayer request you're allowing others to pray for you which gives them the opportunity to grow to be a blessing for you if you're thinking about your life right now and you're like mmm I'm good nothing I have need for praise the Lord for that at least then without a break everything's awesome thanks I pray for others complete a prayer request let's become that people of Prayer Jesus said my house is to be a house of prayer that means he wants our life as a community of faith to be characterized by being people who really understand that prayer matters it matters in every sense and to be that people of Prayer that would make it a priority in our lives I love the Peter said in first Peter 5 and verse 7 cast all of your cares upon the Lord knowing that he cares for you that we can come to him and we can pray for cancer we can pray for a coal we can pray for spiritual needs forgiveness to love better to show kindness to be generous to have a heart that seeks to serve rather than to be served we can pray for tangible needs work finance healing we can pray for it all to be people of Prayer yeah it's awkward for me standing up here because part of the the challenge is in talking about prayer requests hypothetically okay hypothetically if I told you that my wife and I or family was struggling financially hundreds of people in this room would be moved to try to help us I understand this whole dynamic so if I told you hypothetically that I was having problems with my kidney and pray for a donor chances are before the next Sunday arrives somebody would come forward and say hey I might be a match for you I'm willing to give you an extra kidney and so I have to be cognizant when I'm standing on the platform I don't want to abuse that dynamic but I'll tell you what you can pray for me you can pray for me for a wisdom I've been blessed to serve in this church for 22 years it's a great church it's a large Church and so the responsibility lots of moving parts and lots of pull in countless directions and I really need to hear from God and we as spiritual leaders that the pastoral team really need to hear from God that we would know his direction wisdom strength you can pray for me for for strength I've been running this race for awhile God has blessed me with endurance I didn't get to this opportunity because I was the best-looking so I see a lot of people nodding their heads like yeah you got a face made for radio bro you know it wasn't the strongest the smartest the fastest God has been very gracious and so I pray for his continued strength that I would continue to serve well pray for me to be a better husband to my wife pray for me to be a better father to our sons pray for me to be a better friend and a better servant to you I welcome your prayers so we should be praying when the spirit is moving we request prayer pray for boldness to advance the gospel look with me if you would at verse 19 Paul specific prayer requests for boldness twice here in beginning of verse 19 he says that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in Chains that I may speak boldly as I ought to speak so hear what Paul is praying for is lord give me boldness that I can communicate the faith the gospel with clarity and with courage with clarity and with courage and he's recognizing that this is a work of God's Spirit this is a work of God responding prayer he describes himself as being an ambassador in Chains this was during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome and so he's recognizing that he's in prison but the gospel isn't chained the way it went down was every six hours a different Roman soldier would have a shift with Paul and they would be chained to Paul so the Paul couldn't escape Paul just looked like dude you are a captive audience for the next six hours you're gonna be hearing about Jesus and so here Paul was just talking to them and testifying to them of the goodness of God and he's praying God give me boldness to do this give me boldness and one of the things that they think we need to see here he says give me bonus as I ought to speak verse 20 he recognizes that this is what we should be doing we should be sharing our faith we should be sharing the gospel we should be telling people about Jesus and part of the reason why we don't is because we are not like Paul asking for boldness God give me boldness because we think he might actually do it and then we'd have to talk to somebody about Jesus it was like well I'm not sure I'm ready for that but if we trust the work of the Holy Spirit if we trust that as we have befriended and engaged and built relationships with neighbors where we live where we work where we study where we play and we said God give me boldness that I am NOT trying in my flesh to convince them or Jam the gospel down their throat but I'm sensing that your spirit has opened a door for me to walk through and talk about things of God and I trust you in the results that's not my responsibility that's a work of your spirit but I sense that you're opening this door and I'm gonna go through trusting that you'll give me the words to say and you know would happen if we did that not only would more people come to faith not only would Jesus be exalted more but we would have the comfort of knowing that God was moving in our lives by his Spirit to live on mission and we're in the Spirit is moving people are praying for boldness to advance God's kingdom to advance the gospel and then the fifth element that we see here beginning of verse 21 is to share your life with others but that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing to Keiko's a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will make all things known to you whom I've sent to you for this very purpose that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts peace to the Brethren and love with faiths from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity a men so Paul is sending his fellow laborer to cus with this letter from Rome to Ephesus to share with the church at Ephesus and he charges to cus tell them how I'm doing I'm sure they're worried about me and they want to make sure I'm okay during this time of imprisonment let them know that it's you know it's not the ritz-carlton but I'm doing good and the kingdom of God is being advanced and God's using this time that I'm writing letters to the churches and encouraging them and strengthening what would later become part of our New Testament tell them how I'm doing and similarly Jude guests would come back to Paul at Rome and report how the Ephesians were doing like hey Paul you know you were there you remember that dude that guy who just didn't seem like he'd ever get it together with that guy's a deacon in the church now rejoice and you know that couple that they were just doing so good when you were there while they're struggling right now he's got a health issue they've got a problem with their children pray for them and you see what would happen is when you share life with somebody you discover the things that are going on in their life and your move to pray and similarly they discover what's going on in your life and their move to pray and that's healthy and that's good and that shouldn't be rare that that should be a normative experience between God's people that's why we so encourage you to be involved in a small group I love the neighborhood group that meets at our house on Wednesdays I love that people in that group are so dear to me and regularly we will spend time and see how people are doing in the group and we'll share and we'll be vulnerable and transparent and intimate with one another and we'll spend some time praying together but those prayers don't end when people leave our place I know that friends in that group are praying for me and I know that I'm praying for them and I love the fact that we share life together and if you you're not doing that you're missing out on one of the most wonderful elements of this spirit filled life to share life so that spirit filled prayer is an outflow of that experience so we talked about this spirit filled life and we've talked about sharing life with others we've talked about praying for boldness we've talked about praying for ourselves we've talked about praying for others we've talked about praying constantly amen and then in the wisdom of those great theologians at Nike just do it so what we're gonna do and I know first service there were over 50 people in the cafe and and so we're gonna ask you those friends in the cafe we're gonna ask you to do just what we're about to do here in the sanctuary we'd encourage you to in a moment we're just gonna form groups small groups we're gonna ask instead of spending time talking about the various prayer needs instead of even spending time right now to introduce yourselves we just want to start off by praying and so just ask one person in the group to pray if you don't know what to pray for pray for boldness that's something that we learned here prays for some need pray for your own need whatever you feel led to pray and then whoever in the group wants to pray can pray if you don't want to pray you don't have to pray but we want to encourage even if you're feeling a little apprehensive try if God leads by spit and whatever comes out it's going to be great don't compare your prayers some oh my gosh when they prayed it was like angels talking and I'm just like so this it's not a comparison we're just talking to God okay all right so go go go go turn turn around let's do this dear God we thank you we thank you for inspiring us to pray we thank you Lord for making us a people of Prayer we pray father that the seed that has been sown today would fall on good soil that it would produce much fruit that would bear eternal fruit and thank you Lord for teaching us to pray we ask this in Jesus name Amen [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Nexus

Views: 209

Rating: 3 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, God, gospel, Bible, Ephesians, in Christ, prayer, intimacy with God, Spirit-filled prayer life, people of prayer, passion, faith, pray constantly, prayer requests, outward prayer, inward prayer, boldness, ineffective prayer, communication with God, Bruce Zachary

Id: CROPZL7Jysc

Length: 38min 50sec (2330 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2018