Unusual Praying for Other Christians (Part 8)

Transcription

1 Dartmouth Bible Notes Notes from the Pulpit Ministry of Dartmouth Bible Church Series: An Exposition of Colossians 1, lesson 9 Scripture: Speaker: Rev. Neil C. Damgaard, Th.M., D.Min. Date: November 30 th, 2014 Unusual Praying for Other Christians (Part 8) Ephesians 6:18 19 (NASB) 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, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 18 Διὰ πάσης προσευχῆς καὶ δεήσεως προσευχόμενοι ἐν παντὶ καιρῷ ἐν πνεύματι, καὶ εἰς αὐτὸ ἀγρυπνοῦντες ἐν πάσῃ προσκαρτερήσει καὶ δεήσει περὶ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων 19 καὶ ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ, ἵνα μοι δοθῇ λόγος ἐν ἀνοίξει τοῦ στόματός μου, ἐν παρρησίᾳ γνωρίσαι τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, Introduction I hope all of us had a nice Thanksgiving Day and at some point, an experience of gratitude for the goodness of God. It is that attribute of Who our God is, that we focus on at Thanksgiving. We ought to work on the quality and grace of developing thankfulness all year long not just at this time of year. However, it is good to take stock of the good things in our lives at this time too, and to be grateful to God. And that can take real shape in the gestures we DO which evidence gratitude. Today I return to the subject of PRAYER. When you pray, how do you start your praying? Do you say, Heavenly Father Or do you say, Lord, I want to talk to you. Or do you begin with a song Father I adore You, lay my life before You. How I love You. In Jesus pattern of prayer in Matthew 6, there is some point to the order in which He laid things out: Our Father, in heaven, holy is Your name. None of that is about me. May Your kingdom come and may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Still nothing about me. Give us this day our daily bread. Still no I but an us. And forgive us our debts as also we forgive our debtors. Hmm. Still no I but still us. And lead US not into temptation but deliver US from evil. Still no I. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for the ages. Back to Him. (Matthew 6:9-13). The reason I go through this is that I am impressed with the importance of Matthew 6 in the great QUEST to find out how to pray. And yet we do not pray much like this unless we just RECITE it and imagine that to be praying Jesus wanted His disciples to understand something about protocol. It wasn t appropriate then and I do not believe it is appropriate now for us to pray wrongly. So how do we

2 pray rightly? WE KEEP IN MIND THE WAYS THE NEW TESTAMENT LAYS PRAYER OUT. THERE we can be comfortable. Again, it is not by robotically or mechanically mimicking words from the Bible or people who pray a certain way. Prayer is to be what we re really feeling in the heart and being honest and transparent with God. But it is also approaching Him with a sense of protocol. If you were invited to a visit in the White House with the President, I daresay you would not wear a t-shirt and ripped jeans and sneakers. I do not think you would leave your hair uncombed or neglect to spray a little deodorant on. You wouldn t attempt to just walk through the checkpoint at the main gate and nod to the guards, Yo Sup? and expect to get through. You would, of necessity, pay attention to some protocols. When my daughter Jocelyn and I visited the White House in 1997 I noticed a sign near the entrance with little diagrams of all the things you cannot bring into the White House (interestingly at the time, the sign had a picture of a hand grenade, a rocket launcher and nunchucks!) That part of the protocol was clear! We pray as to our heavenly Father, not as speaking to one of our children, to a casual buddy, to our boss at work, to a police officer, to a clerk in Wal-Mart, to a judge in a courtroom or obviously not, as to an enemy or adversary. He has the unique position of being our heavenly Father. It is like no other relationship that we have and it holds its own place. We pray through the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray in the Holy Spirit. Prayer for us involves us personally, individually not just as part of the church, and every person of the triune God. Now we come to our two verses today: Ephesians 6:18,19 where to begin with, Paul wrote to them With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit This context is Paul s description of the armor of God which is a favorite passage for many Christians. Verse 17 reads, And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Our salvation in Christ we re going to 2

3 heaven with all our sins paid for, free of charge the GOSPEL, this protects our head and we defend ourselves and go on the attack too with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, the things God has said which we have written down in the Bible. WITH THIS THOUGHT IN VIEW, Paul says, now pray too while you re in this combat-life, this spiritual warfare that we do often feel and which occupies so much of our Christian consciousness. PRAY. This is not usually IN the list of the armor of God but it ought to be! PRAY IS THE MOST POWERFUL ASSET WE POSSESS IN THIS LIFE. We know that we will receive the riches of His glory of the inheritance in the saints (Eph.1:18) in the times to come, but NOW prayer is our MOST EFFECTIVE WEAPON, our MOST USEFUL TOOL and our GREATEST COMFORT. We talk to God, maybe we even hear Him speak to our hearts if we listen hard enough, and when He speaks it never contradicts what His Word says. Paul wrote to the Ephesians in superlative terms: with ALL prayer and petition. Not just some. Not just the things we want. Not just supplication and uploading requests. Not just at times when we have little else to do. Not just when we re laying in a hospital bed. Not just at church. Not just on Sundays. Not just for those we like. ALL prayer, he wrote. Some of the time when we pray, we can just talk to Him about Him. Holy is Your name. Just sit there Think about His love, think about His goodness, Think about His love, that s brought us through For as high as the heavens above, so great is the measure of our Father s love Great is the measure of our Father s love How could I forget His love? How could I forget His mercy? He satisfies He satisfies He satisfies my desire! Great is the measure of our Father s love. His name is wonderful magnificent! With ALL prayer And petition, which is, yes indeed, to DO some asking. Yes Father, give US this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts And we ll forgive those who have offended us, who have ripped us off, who have violated us. We will try, and you must help us to forgive even as we revel in YOUR forgiveness. Pray at all times in the Spirit KJV says watching thereunto. We can pray much more than we imagine we can pray. I don t mean just as duty or obligation, I mean as privilege! We are ON ALERT, we might say. But I mean as delight and as a sense of privilege. I imagine being a soldier on one side in a 3

4 conflict, then being captured and shown mercy, and placed on the wall ON WATCH instead of being executed as an enemy. Lately I ve been walking early in the morning. That has become a great prayer time for me. I pray before I go to sleep that s usually when I pray for our daughters and son-in-law and grandchildren. I pray with the staff, I pray with the elders, I pray with people when I visit them and sometimes on the phone. I pray with people via Facebook messaging sometimes. I talk with God when I m in the truck and every time I walk on to the UMass Dartmouth campus. These are not ALL TIMES but the times are growing in my life, and I am glad for it. All times implies that we can pray at strategic times too and we should do this more. We should pray BEFORE EACH Sunday morning. We should pray before conferences and retreats. We should pray before major outreach ministry and we should pray before big national events which would have impact on people s lives (I don t mean the SuperBowl or the World Series.) God invites us to remember our brothers and sisters frequently and at important times. Am I praying IN THE SPIRIT? I don t know. Charismatics and Pentecostals want to make this mean something mystical, but I have never bought that because I don t think Paul meant something mystical. But I m not always sure IF I am praying in the Spirit However, I can tell you I m pretty aware of it if I am trying to pray NOT in the Spirit! That s when I find my mind drifting over to some stupid place where I m trying to impress God, or even stupider when I might even try to convince Him to do something which is clearly against His will. Jonah probably prayed for God to smoke the Ninevites. That, as it turned out, was not in the Spirit. Paul maybe prayed that the high priest, Ananias and the henchmen he had with him who hit him in the mouth, would be burned down by God and I could sympathize but probably such a prayer of vengeance would not be in the Spirit. (See Acts 23) Even Jesus prayed that He might be exempted from the cross (this cup) but quickly qualified that with Your will be done which is to pray IN the Spirit. (See Luke 22:42) To not do the will of God, would not be in the Spirit and Jesus of course, was controlled by a passion to do God s will. So, Paul wrote, with this in view With WHAT in view? With us praying as a frequent and routinely spiritual thing, SINCE we re talking to the Lord often, and working on keeping our praying biblical and Spirit-filled, PRAY with all petition for all the saints. Another superlative! ALL the saints. How many people is that that they were supposed to pray for? A lot. 4

5 And with perseverance. Prayer for other people can be hard work! I might wear myself out praying for myself, or for my favorite peops. I might pray LOTS at the times I ve allotted for prayer in my schedule. But praying in the Spirit means a heavy ministry of praying for other people. And I BELIEVE not telling them necessarily that we re doing it, lest we have our reward. We pray with a steadfastness and perhaps for years. We are vigilant and undaunted and (I like this word) indefatigable (which means persisting tirelessly ) in praying for people. This is what is spiritual. If a new ministry begins in town, I would ask how much are they praying secretly? If a new Christian singer is tearing up the KLOVE charts, I would ask is he or she a person of much prayer. If a conference speaker becomes popular and everyone wants to book him or her, is that person a person of much secret prayer? Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators ministry, put a map on the wall and decided to start praying for specific countries. Man, that s all the saints all right. If we began to pray for Christians in other countries that they might be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that they might really GET the dimensions of God s love, what would that do to OUR church? And the second time he used the word petition in the same verse. When we think of other Christians, we thank God for them (even if we don t know them) and we pray on their behalf. We support them in prayer. We ask God to give them the things WE crave the most. Then Paul wrote (verse 19), and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel Here is a rare occurrence of an apostle asking a church to pray for him. But in the moment that Paul thought to ask for prayer for himself, what does he ask for? Safety? Release form prison? Enough food and shelter and clothing? Prosperity? He asked them to pray for the effectiveness of his speaking and teaching and evangelistic ministry. Ministry, if it is to make any difference and do anything useful to the Lord, needs to be prayed over and for. And the PEOPLE who are doing it need prayer for their verbal, speaking ministries. Our faith is very dependent on the words we say, especially people in speaking and reasoning ministries. So, I would suggest to you, that you and I can pray for each of our Sunday School teachers, and Bible study teachers. We can and should pray for this pulpit each week and never take it for granted. We should pray for those teachers and musicians that minister in song and reflection in front of us our worship team, each singer who comes to Coffee House. We should pray for the person or persons who teach Children s church and Awana and Youth groups. 5

6 Paul was keenly aware that among non-christians he was bearing a great mystery. By that I think he meant he knew he needed courage. He knew he might easily cave to fear to speak of Christ, and to really SAY what we re saying! Jesus is the only Son of God. Jesus is the only way to salvation and to heaven. There is NO OTHER name under heaven by which people can be saved. Jesus shares His glory with no one else. No people, I don t have all the answers to all your questions and objections about the Gospel or about the identity of Jesus Christ. I know what I m saying is mysterious to you! He needed boldness which is to say courage, and he needed them to pray for that. What a great prayer request and what a RARE thing that we pray for, for people leaders or just normal believers. You and I stand in the places where we are, in the places outside the walls of this church or our homes, where non-christians see us, work with us, wonder about us. And if we are testifying in those places to who Jesus Christ is, we need courage and boldness and to keep that up over years we need prayer support. We need people asking God at all times, Lord, give them a steadfast and consistent testimony for the Gospel. Strengthen them to not give up, because they MIGHT give up! Think about His love, think about His goodness, Think about His love, that s brought us through For as high as the heavens above, so great is the measure of our Father s love Great is the measure of our Father s love How could I forget His love? How could I forget His mercy? He satisfies He satisfies He satisfies my desire! Great is the measure of our Father s love. 6

7 OTHER PAUL PRAYERS 1 Corinthians 1:4 5 (NASB) I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, Philippians 1:3 5 (NASB) I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, 5 in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. 1 Thessalonians 1:2 4 (NASB) We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; 3 constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, 4 knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; 2 Thessalonians 1:3 5 (NASB) We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater; 4 therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. 5 This is a plain indication of God s righteous judgment so that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. 1 Timothy 2:1 3 (NASB) FIRST of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 2 Timothy 1:3 4 (NASB) I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy. Philemon I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love, and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the a saints; 6 and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective a through the d knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. 7