Knowing Our Adversary and the Armor of God Week 10: (Ephesians 6:18-24) Praying Always December 9 th, 2015

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1 Knowing Our Adversary and the Armor of God Week 10: (Ephesians 6:18-24) Praying Always December 9 th, 2015 Introduction A. Review our series: Ephesians 6:10-13 spoke of our adversary and our conflict and Ephesians 6:14-17 of the armor we must wear. We conclude tonight with one final section, Ephesians 6:18-20, as Paul speaks of the need for continual prayer. B. Since the armor God provides depends upon our intimacy with God and His Word, so prayer will help us maintain our nearness with God as we face spiritual battles each day. Though not a specific piece of armor, prayer is the oil that keeps each piece of armor working smoothly. C. We would like to focus on prayer tonight in terms of the context of these verses that follow the armor, with prayer actually being mentioned in the same verse as the last two pieces of armor. Verse 18 A. Notice Paul speaks of prayer three times in this one verse, along with the word always. B. Jewish religious practices set aside specific times each day to pray and the early church followed these practices for some time before prayer became an individual responsibility. Yet the early saints quickly learned how vital prayer was to their lives (Php.4:6)(1Th.5:17) and Paul stresses that here with the word always. C. Cornelius was a man who prayed often, who sought the Lord and found Him as a result (Acts 10:2). The early church also spent much time in prayer, even if at times they were not at all expecting to see God answer them (Acts 12:5,12-16). D. Access to God in prayer is one of the great privileges God gives to us when we come to Him by faith (Jer.33:3)(Heb.4:16)(Heb.10:19-23)(Eph.3:11-12). Jesus on more than one occasion stayed up all night to pray. That kind of determined effort tells us He was convinced of its value, importance and power. E. Perhaps we don t share that conviction since attendance at prayer meetings does not number into the hundreds and even when 50 men show up to pray, they are handed prayer requests from hundreds who see the need for prayer but might not have the assurance that God hears! F. Because prayer is defined as communication with God and Paul calls us to pray always, this kind of prayer is not simply folding our hands or bowing our heads but rather living in an awareness of His presence with us, practicing the presence of God, and having Him be involved at each turn is a necessary biblical pursuit (Col.4:2). G. God desires fellowship with us; He made us and saved us for that very reason. Fellowship that is daily, not sporadic or relegated to the emergency-call only type of relationship. Prayer requires steadfastness and perseverance and a conviction as to its value and importance. H. That concept is taught to us by Jesus in several places in the Gospels, two of which are most revealing: (Lk.11:5-13)(Lk.18:1-8). 1. Both parables have the same method of teaching us the heart of God and His willingness to hear and respond to our prayers by setting Him in contrast with wicked, self-serving men who would only help someone if, in the end, it helps them more. 2. Persistence in prayer is always for our benefit as we learn to wait upon God, overcome the temptation to handle it ourselves in the flesh, and forcing us to stay close to Him constantly as we wait for Him to work.

2 3. Prayer is not a place for you to make your case or inform God of the situation but rather, a place where we learn to let God work and rest in His care; this is especially true as we don the armor and stand for the battle. More on Prayer I. So we have frequency of prayer (always) and variety of prayer. Prayer (proseuche): the general word for prayer found most often in the scriptures. Supplication (deesis): specific prayer for a specific need. J. In the Spirit: refers to Spirit-led praying as we walk with Him, as opposed to canned prayers, written prayers, or even the much praying Jesus frowned upon in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt.6:7). 1. True prayer stands in stark contrast to all the ritual and liturgy of man. We seek God according to what we know and have learned of Him (1Jn.5:14-15), balanced with His glorious promise (Jn.14:13-15), and helped in seeking Him by His Spirit who dwells within us (Rom.8:26-27). K. The focus of our prayers here is for others with all perseverance and supplication. Constant prayer, all manners of prayer, and focused heavily on watching out for each other as the enemy seeks to battle the saints of God. 1. The devil accomplishes much when he isolates us in our difficulties and is quickly turned back as we stand together seeking God, equipped with His armor (1Co.10:13)(1Co.12:25-26)(Rom.14:7)(2Co.1:8-11). 2. Epaphras caught that vision and was known for his constant intercession (Col.4:12-13). Verses A. Paul concludes with the request that they might intercede for him in the place of ministry God had placed him. B. He also tells them he is sending Tychicus to more fully inform them of his situation so they might pray even more specifically. C. Paul prayed often and much for the new believers in Colosse (Col.1:3-4,9) while he was in jail in Rome, some 3 months travel away from them but he knew the power of prayer. D. We can be a part of the work of God anywhere and anytime through intercessory prayer; it is by far the most powerful ministry we all can participate in. E. Prayer is a place of accomplishing, of doing, of victory in Him for you and others. As you begin to fervently pray on the offensive for the needs of others, you will also experience His power at work. Jesus is also interceding for us (Heb.7:25).

3 Transcription of 15TS324 Ephesians 6:18-24 Praying Always December 9, 2015 All right. Let s open our Bibles tonight to Ephesians 6:18. And while you re doing that if you can find Luke 11, then you ll be kind of ahead of the game when we get there. I think tonight the Lord is going to be able to teach us something about praying and then praying when not getting answers to prayer and wondering why God is waiting so long. And there s a pretty cool principle in the Scriptures that I think is going to help us tonight to be able to hang on to. Introduction A. Review our series So tonight we re looking at our last study, and I think it s a fitting end to what we ve been applying for the past several weeks ten weeks to be exact on Knowing Our Adversary and The Armor of God. If you ve been with us for the whole series, we spent a couple of weeks looking at who the devil is and why is he our adversary, and what are his limitations, and who is he, and where did he come from. And we ve spent the last what will be eight weeks tonight looking at the armor that God provides for us in our spiritual warfare. Because indeed we re in a spiritual warfare, aren t we? And Paul, as he ends this Ephesian letter, said, Look, when everything is said and done, we want you to be able to stand and withstand and having done all to stand. Well tonight we start at verse 18 of Ephesians 6, and we re going to look down near to the end of the chapter, anyway, as Paul kind of comes through this stressing of prayer and is directly attached, if you ll notice in your Bibles, to the very last two pieces of armor the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. Notice there s no break really there s no period at the end of verse 17. It kind of is thrown together and presented, if you will. So, though prayer is not given as a separate piece of armor, it is the covering that kind of lubes all of the joints that need to move. And so as Paul began, back in verse 10 of this chapter, talking about our need to be strong in the Lord and have His power and put on the armor that He provides, and then speaking to us clearly about what those pieces were beginning in verses 14-17, if the armor of God is put on by faith, it s kept on by prayer. B. Prayer helps us maintain our nearness with God And there s something about praying that I think we need to learn. The armor of God, and I think we ve mentioned it several times, is only effective as you maintain your relationship with God. Really His promises keep that armor on. The minute you forget about what God said or don t believe what He has said, really what you put on becomes an exercise in futility because it is our fellowship upon which this armor depends. And so prayer maintains that constant fellowship that you have with God. The armor of God could quickly be reduced, I think, to truths in your head that aren t experienced in your heart, and that doesn t give you much strength. So prayer, I think, is to our spiritual lives what air is to your physical body. To not

4 pray is like spiritual suicide; it cuts you off from God, and it keeps you from what He wants to do in your life. C. Prayer in terms of the context of these verses that follow the armor So, tonight we want to just focus on a few things about prayer that I think are important. And hopefully the things that you know. But if not, hopefully you ll learn some things about prayer tonight that will help you as you set out to spend time in prayer with the Lord. Verse 18 A. In this verse, Paul speaks of prayer three times, along with the word always Well Paul had said in verse 17, Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; and then we read in verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Notice that Paul uses the word all three times in one sentence and then throws in the word always as well. So, he couldn t stress enough the need for all of us to be praying and seeking the Lord. Using all prayer necessary, praying for all the saints, using all your persevering heart especially as it relates to warfare and having victory in the Lord. B. Praying at specific times was a Jewish religious practice as well as an early church practice One of the things that you discover about the Jews is (at least in the Old Testament) there were certain times each day that were set aside for prayer, and everyone ritualistically followed them. In fact, even in the book of Acts, as you begin to read about the development of the early church, most of those practices were incorporated by the church for quite some time. And then, over time, those habitual, if you will, times of prayer began to be more of an individual responsibility. There was corporate prayer in the church, but it wasn t at set times as much as it was kind of an ongoing practice often in the life of the church. When Paul wrote to the Philippians thirty years after he got saved, he said, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6). So his advice to the church thirty years later was, Rather than fearing and worrying, pray. He wrote to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 just these words, Pray without ceasing. In other words, pray and don t stop praying. And you get the idea from God s Word that it is vital for us, and it is certainly the will of God, that our relationship with Him is maintained by an active and a robust and a consistent present-tense life of prayer; a true relationship with God. C. Cornelius often prayed, sought the Lord, and found Him as a result One of the things that Luke wrote about Cornelius, that Roman centurion, before he got saved and you remember that he was the house there in Acts 10 where the Lord sent Peter to preach the gospel for the first time in describing him, in verse 2 of Acts 10, it said of Cornelius the

5 Roman that he was a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and then you read, and prayed always to God. I mean, here was a guy that wasn t saved yet, but he was crying out to know God. And in his always praying, God sent him the answers that he needed to know. The Lord met him there. The early church gave themselves over to much prayer. If you read through the book of Acts, and you begin to circle every time the church was praying or people were praying, sometimes they prayed and they didn t even believe it, but they prayed. You remember the story, there in Acts 12, of the early church praying for Peter, who was scheduled to be executed for his faith the next day; and how the whole church met over at the house of John Mark s family, and they were just crying out to God, and Peter was released from prison. God had an angel bust him out, and Peter went right over to the prayer meeting; knocked on the door and said, Hey, it s Peter, and everyone went, No, it s not Peter. He s in prison. But they had come specifically to pray for him. So, they prayed even at times when they didn t believe, themselves, that God might answer their prayers. D. Access to God in prayer is a great privilege given to us by God Prayer should hold and I don t know if it does in your life a prominent place in your life because it s one of these great privileges that you get when you get saved. You get to come into the presence of God. You couldn t get in before. Sin separated you. There was a door that was locked that you couldn t open. But when you got saved, things changed. You had access. Jeremiah 33:3 the Lord made this promise He said, Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know. That s the privilege that you have as a believer. When Paul wrote to the Hebrews, he said to them in chapter 4:16 about their access Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus opened this door for you and me. So we have access where other people can t go. Right? You have a membership. You re part of the inside group. Because of Jesus, you can get in and talk to the Father. So we have this tremendous, if you will, privilege to come and to seek the Lord, to draw near with a true heart and with full assurance, as Paul said to the Hebrews (10:22); bold access Paul said to the Ephesians (3:12). We can come to the Lord. Jesus, on more than one occasion, in the gospels, spent the entire night praying. Now, I don t know what it would take in your life or what you would have to be facing for you to stay up all night praying, or an hour or two. I don t know if you ve ever stayed up all night praying. But I suspect that if you have, it s because something serious was going on. It was more important to you than sleep and everything else. Or maybe it was just you needed to know from God what He was doing and with great joy. I think to pray all night would take a genuine conviction that prayer has value, that God is listening and that it makes a difference; or else you wouldn t stay up all night. You d go, All right, Lord. You know the rest. I m going to bed. You know before I ask, so figure it out. And you d be off to sleep. It would require real victory over our flesh because I don t know.your flesh is so demanding, right? You can talk to your friends all day. That seems easy. But talk to God for an hour, and, Oh, man! Lord, I m the most spiritual guy on the planet right now I think. I ve been an hour!

6 E. Perhaps we don t share the conviction that prayer is valuable/important Perhaps we don t do that because we don t have a conviction or an assurance about prayer that you find in the lives of the early saints and what it can mean to us. Maybe that s why you don t ever find hundreds of people showing up at prayer meetings. You find thousands of prayers and I should tell you we have prayer meetings every Saturday morning at 8:00, besides a hundred other places, as a church; and we come - men one week, women on the next - just to pray for the needs of the body. There are prayer slips in your pews, they re in the back, they re everywhere. We get literally hundreds, sometimes more hundreds than not, of prayer requests. We are fortunate if 25 people show up to pray. So these poor folks that show up to pray are running around five and ten and fifteen prayer requests of the needs of the church every week. And you say to yourself, Gosh. Why wouldn t more people come to pray unless they truly believed somehow that it wasn t so effective? Because if we believe that it is, man, you d want to pray more, not less. Right? Here at the end of Paul s teaching on the armor of God, he ends with saying to the warrior, Make sure you re always praying. F. Prayer is defined as communication with God And since prayer, by definition, means communication with God, it really says that constant prayer is more than just bowing your head or folding your hands. But it is being able to live with a conscious awareness of the presence of God in your life so that He s actively a part of all that you do. He s included as you go your way; that you re aware of Him, that you speak to Him, that you consider Him, that He s involved, that you re in contact with headquarters. That s really what it means. And Paul said, Pray always. Always have a time of prayer. G. God desires fellowship with us God has, after all, made you, and then He saved you so that you could have fellowship with Him. Unfortunately, when it comes to our relationship with God, so often we compartmentalize Him. We live our life the way we want, and then at 7:00 on Wednesday we go to church. Now it s God time. God gets till 8:25, and then, That s it! I m outta here. And then on Sunday morning, I m squeezing Him in. If there s a football game at 11:00, I m going at 8:00. If there s a football game at 11:30, I m going at 9:45. I ve gotta squeeze Him in. And I ll throw in a few extra minutes if it s a holiday or a holy day. But yet God desires constant fellowship with you. He doesn t just want emergency phone calls. I don t know if you have any friends, but we had a friend who would always call only when he wanted something. We ll just call him Joe not his real name covering up all the problems. But my wife would say, Hey, honey, Joe is on the phone, and I would say, without ever blinking an eye, What does he want now? Because that s the only time he would call. He wouldn t call to say, Hello, how you doing? You want to go to dinner? He would always call when he wanted something from us. So I never liked that very much. And I suspect God doesn t appreciate that very much. Hey, Lord, it s me again. I ve got a problem. I know. That s the only time I see you is when you ve got a problem. So, in the area of our spiritual warfare and spiritual growth, practicing the presence of God or being aware of His presence with you, His promises to you, the relationship that you can have pretty important. It s called prayer. It s called that fellowship that you have with God.

7 Over in Colossians 4:2, Paul said to the Colossians, Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. He chastises the church. The Greek word for continue is kartereo, and it really means to endure. But in the Colossians word, Paul adds the little portion at the front proskartereo which means struggle with great intensity. And he suggests to the Colossians (and to us) that praying requires a real commitment. It s not going to be an easy task. It s not going to come naturally. It requires some steadfastness and perseverance on our part. And I think you d agree that that s true. If you start praying, you might start praying and end up in Hawaii in your mind. Our minds love to wander, don t they? I can hardly concentrate on reading a book let alone prayer where I can t see God and yet He s there, and I have to put myself in that position of listening. We re so easily sidetracked. I think we would rather do it ourselves than let God handle it. And then there s your flesh which just fights you every step of the way, doesn t it? I ll tell you where not to pray on your back, on your pillow, covered up in your blanket at 11:30 at night, ready to go to sleep. Dear Lord.. (snoring sounds) Yes? Oh, there he goes again. Checked out. H. That concept is taught to us by Jesus in several places in the Gospels I want to take you to Luke 11, and I d like to teach you something that I think maybe isn t something that you naturally consider about the Lord s heart towards you when you pray. And we ll start in verse 5 of chapter 11, and it s one of two places we want to look, but let me just read this to you real quick. Jesus is now speaking to His disciples, And He said to them, Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and he will answer from within and say, Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise to give to you? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! Now, go back to verse 8 because the highlight of the story is in verse 8 where Jesus has told the story, gives the application, but in the middle He makes the principle known. Notice the words, I say to you. And here s His point you can have a friend, but sometimes that friendship only goes so far. Right? In other words, if you go to your friend s house in the middle of the night and knock on his door and say, Hey, I ve got unexpected company, we don t have anything to eat. Could you send over some frozen TV dinners? He said he might not get up just because he s your friend because he s got plenty of reasons to stay in bed especially in the culture. (Everybody s asleep upstairs; all the animals are gathered underneath. It would cause a ruckus. Everyone would be disturbed). He may not be happy to give you the loaves that you need because he s your friend. Or if he gives them to you, they may be coming at you at a

8 high rate of speed, but you ll get them. However, and notice the words though and yet (and those are the two key words there), he will get up to keep you from pounding on his door. You re a pain, and I want to get rid of you. It s like the old Dennis the Menace. Mr. Wilson (whining tone), and he won t shut up. What is it, Dennis? (irritated tone) But here s the deal. Here s the lesson. And you want to be sure you get the right lesson from Jesus example here because some people read this, and they immediately teach this, If you really want God to move, keep asking. I mean, just be persistent in your prayers because you ll need to push and to knock and to not go away and to hang on; and if you don t, maybe you won t get what you want. But if you ll do that, the Lord will come through. Which is an absolutely wrong lesson. Though God longs for us to come after Him in prayer, it is absolutely wrong to equate God with this guy lying in bed. In fact, it s one of those lessons in contrast as opposed to a lesson by comparison. If this were a contrast parable or story, then you d have to say Jesus is this friend who lies in bed, and you would have to conclude that God can be inconvenienced; that if you really want something from Him, you have to bother Him. Right? You have to upset Him. You have to irritate Him. You have to keep after Him until He is so frustrated by your intrusion and put out - not concerned with your needs; your friendship, your relationship is of absolutely no value. But He will finally just go, Oh, get off My back! Here! You ve badgered Me into helping you. You ve been shamelessly pushy in your demands. You won t take no for an answer. That s the picture you d have to paint of God. Well, we know God better than that, don t we? Psalm 34:15, The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. That s what God s heart is. Psalm 34:17, The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. You get the picture from the Bible that God is not at all like this guy in bed. That s a lot like us, not a lot like Him. Begging and bugging God endlessly to get Him to help you is not necessary nor is it a right concept of God s love for you. He longs to hear from you. He looks forward to hearing from you. The concept that God somehow can be pushed around through whatever it is much praying, say these words, read this book How to Manipulate God in Three Easy Lessons is all ridiculous. You know who believed that? The servants of Baal. Go back and read in 1 Kings 18 about how they built that altar, and they wanted Baal to answer. And remember, they were being chastised. Well, maybe your god is not listening. No one was speaking. And about noon, Elijah said, Maybe you should wake him up and cry a little louder, and boy, they did. They cut themselves, they took knives and lances, and they yelled out until the evening service, and nobody listened. But they believed that the god they served could be manipulated, could be moved around. Rather, I think, we should look at the contrast. This man is bothered even by his friend who needs his help. And yet, if you bother him enough, he won t help because he s your friend; he ll help because you re a bother. God, on the other hand, is not bothered when His children call. He is never put out. He is always available. There s not a bad time to pray. He is willing to wait to hear from you. He is quick to respond. He is eager to help. He loves to be asked. You should come praying, knowing all of that. And Paul says, You should always pray. You should understand that the heart of God is to hear from you. That s what He wants to hear. In fact, the next few verses here in this text help us complete our understanding and our outlook of how we should view prayer when God doesn t immediately answer. You might say, Well, I ve been praying. God hasn t done anything. Okay.

9 But you have to learn that He s willing and eager and wants to hear from you and wants to respond. Never change that part of the equation. So you get to verse 9, and Jesus said, Let Me say this to you. He says it in verse 8, Let Me say this to you; and in verse 9, So I say to you, and then He gives them three orders. You should ask, you should seek, and you should knock. They are all present-perfect word tenses that literally mean keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Don t get discouraged, for you know God is not that less-thanfriendly friend. He works all things together for good. He wants to answer. He wants to respond. He longs to hear from you. So if there s a delay, don t come to the wrong conclusion, Gosh, I need to pray more, knock harder, yell louder, somehow make a deal, I ll do more tithing if You ll do more blessing. Instead, you should realize that He s not the man in the story. It s not your persistence that gets His hand to move. It s His heart for you. Your prayers should be persistent; just not for the reason you think. We equate, If I pray a hundred more times. It s not persistence simply to be heard by God. He knows what you need, the Bible says, before you ask. Isn t that what it says? Matthew 6:8. Before you ask. Verse 7 says, Don t pray a lot with your much words thinking somehow you ll be heard on high. God knows what you need before you ask. So that s the issue, right? God desires to be an active part of your life. He longs for daily communion. Unless you abide in Him, you can t move forward. So like Paul said to the Thessalonians there, that we mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, you should pray without ceasing. And in Romans 12:12, it says, Continuing steadfastly in prayer. Just stay at it. But not so that you can convince God. God s already convinced He wants to help. He loves you. He s your Father. But that you might be drawn in to have that relationship with God that s consistent and constant; that God is just wanting to bring you to that place where you are drawn in. You re shameless in prayer because it is the place of God s blessing. It ll teach you about faith. It ll bring you close to the Lord. It ll make you dependent upon God. And the very actions ask, seek and knock that s our part to play. Right? We just have to, God, get into my life. Do Your thing. Have Your way. And God will answer in His time. He ll do what s best for you, and He ll take the whole picture together and the spiritual aspects, the important things, will go first. But never think that you ve got to badger God into helping because the Lord said in the teaching that He gives to the disciples here, right after the model prayer the Our Father, the Lord s prayer (we call it) that is really the disciples prayer He teaches them that the heart of God is to help and to respond. So, ask; not beg. Just come and ask. That s what the word means. James said in chapter 4:2-3, You have not because you ask not, and then, You have not because you ask amiss. You re, Lord, give me the Porsche so I can take someone to church. That s not going to work. Lord, I ll take them to church, and the Lord ll say, You can only take one person. I ll get you a van. Oh, no, Lord. I don t want a van. I want the Carrera. So, what a friend we have in Jesus. Come ask. The word seek is an action word in Greek. In other words, prayer should be more than just isolated passiveness like, Oh, God, here s my stuff. That s asking, right? But then we have to seek. So we pray to know God better. But then you ve got to go to church. You pray for God to speak to you, but then you ve got to get your Bible out. Lord, get me a job. Well then you ve got to go out and knock on doors. There s an asking, and then there s an action. If you re sitting at home going, I m out of work, and you go, I m just praying, asking, really dumb. Good to ask. Better to get up and seek now. (Sound of knocking on a door) Hi. Could I fill out an application? I want God to get me a job. Because now you re seeking, and

10 you re continuing to seek God s heart and to look after what His will is for your life. So, you ve got to kind of give it your all. Jesus said to the disciples, in John 7:17, If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or of man. In other words, you ve got to put it into action, you ve got to do your part. Nehemiah was one who sat and prayed for an opportunity to go and serve the Lord, to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls. That s what he wanted. And he spent four months in prayer. Nobody knew he was praying except God. And yet, during those four months he spent all kinds of time seeking out, If I ever get the opportunity, here re the things I m going to need, here re the people I ve got to talk to, here re the supplies I m going to have to somehow have handed to me, here s what the work s going to cost me. And by the time the king, four months later, said, Hey, Nehemiah, what do you want? he said, I want to go home and build. The city of my ancestry (he d never been there) lies in waste. I want to go build it up in the name of the Lord. And the king said, What will you need, and how long will you be gone? and Nehemiah immediately had an answer. He didn t just ask. He sought the Lord. He prayed, and God opened the door. Later, when he faced his enemies (in chapter 4), and the people began to gather in opposition, it said that Nehemiah led everyone in prayer, and then he set a watch. He asked, and then he did his part. He didn t just ask. So, seeking means to pray and then do what you can. Do your part. And then knock. And the word knock is an interesting word because it s the word for persevere. So you ask, you give it your all, and then you stick with it. I want to know God s will. I want to see where that open door is without being discouraged. I m not going to quit. God wants me to come. Well, I need the answer. Well, I don t know. Maybe He just needs you to pray more because if He gave you everything you wanted right away, you wouldn t hang around much. Oh, you d run in with a bigger list. Pretty soon you wouldn t even read it to Him. Here, Lord, You can read this. I ll be back later to pick up the bag with all the stuff in it. No. He keeps us close. That s His desire. He s not the fair-weather friend who just will come out when things are easy. All the things that He delays on are for my benefit. And then notice at the end, in verses 11-13, Jesus returns to the model that the relationship we have with God as our Father in heaven demands a loving response. In fact, He uses us as an example again of comparison and contrast. He said, Look, your earthly fathers, you re sinful people, and yet in love, you would bless your children with good things. That s a father s love. The exception is the abusive and wicked person to his own kids. But as a matter of course, parental love is found even among sinful men. By contrast, how much more then would you expect your heavenly Father, who is without sin and is perfect, that He would give you His best in His time? To those who ask, to those who seek, His Spirit to provide and protect and direct and enlighten. That s the heart of God. Okay, now look at Luke 18 (which is the other), and Luke covers both of these within seven chapters, and it s almost the same lesson; a couple of things to be added, but you ve probably read this one, and we ll read it again quickly in chapter 18. Beginning in verse 1, it says this, Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray (remember, that s what Paul said praying always) and not lose heart, saying, There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, Get justice for me from my adversary. And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I

11 will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. Then the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though he bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? Now this is the second example that shows the need to persist in prayer as we see persistence brought action this time from an unjust man who was only motivated and driven by self-interest. Powerful guy in town. He has a widow who has no authority, no strength; she has nothing by which to motivate him except her persistence. And so this guy, who could care less about God, who didn t really care about anyone else, is bugged by her constant coming. And then again, here s the lesson in contrast. Notice what you read here in verse 7, Shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? So, by contrast, how much more quickly would a loving Father respond to the cries of His children when this unjust judge can be moved simply by persistent knocking? And yet notice in verse 8 that the Lord said even with that assurance, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? In other words, knowing God as we should, shouldn t that motivate us to pray and believe and trust Him and walk with Him? So, constant prayer to God produces great results because God longs to respond. And it is a lack of prayer that keeps us from what God would want us to have. I read this, and I want to pray more not less. Right? I want to meet the Lord where He calls me to pray. Why do you suppose God wants you to pray without ceasing? Do you think He gets pleasure out of not answering your pleading? You think He likes to get up and go, Oh, God, You ve got to help me, and He goes, I m not doing nothin yet. Squirm, buddy. That doesn t exactly sound like the Lord. Do you think He delights in squirming saints? If one prayer doesn t get an answer, why would ten or twenty or a hundred? Do you think God s counting them off? I used to be a Catholic. We used to pray the rosary. Any of you guys pray the rosary when you were a Catholic? Man, I could knock those out while watching TV. I would just rip around the whole deal ten Hail Marys, Our Father, here we go; and then I d come down, and, Ahhh, got another one done. And then I d start over because I figured if I could knock a few, God would have to respond because I was building up a treasure. That was my mindset. And I think we miss the boat with thinking like that. Prayer is always used by God to accomplish His purpose in your life. It s not used to inform Him. He already knows. It s not used to persuade Him. He already has decided. It is used to bring you to a place of surrender and that God might then begin to work and you begin to look for His answers, Yes, no, or wait. Well, whatever it is, it bows you before God. But the parables the two that we read assure you that God is interested in answering, God is interested in responding. God is not holding out, seeing if He can break you or how much can He push you. He wants to help you, but He s got things in mind for you. And when you don t get prayer answered right away, that s the work of God. He draws you in and brings you close. Persistent prayer overcomes the temptation of our flesh to go it alone. It challenges you to not forget God s ways. It pushes you to know His heart. It develops your need to know that you have to stay close to Him, to keep Him in mind, to look at Him for help until His responses come your way. And that just becomes a surrendered life. So when you read Paul saying, Pray without ceasing, you ve got to have the concept or the understanding of God s heart for you in place. Right? In place. You learn to die to yourself, you wait for His direction His plans unfolded. And like I

12 said, if every time you knocked on heaven s door God answered, I don t think you d hang around much. But we need Him. We need that fellowship with Him. More on Prayer I. Frequency and variety of prayer All right. Let s go back to Ephesians so we don t miss out on the concepts that Paul is laying out here. Praying always. That s a frequency word, isn t it? Praying sometimes - that s what we do. Praying rarely - that s what some of you do. Praying almost never? Unless there s a need, that s the 911 approach. Always. Praying always with all prayer. So you have the frequency of prayer always; and then prayer and supplication that s the variety of prayer. Prayer is the Greek word proseuche. Proseuche is the general term for talking with God. Either publicly as a group, when we pray together, or privately when you do it, it s the same word. The word supplication, deesis, means to specifically pray with need with an exactness of petition. There s something very specific that I m praying for. Proseuche just says I pray; I talk with God. Deesis says I ve got something to talk to God about that s very specific. And then we have intercession and all praying for others. But with all prayer, notice, you come constantly to God. With all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, always. There s a problem when your prayer is spasmodic or you have fits of prayer. Oh, I came to church, and I prayed. When was that? Last week. I come, and I don t always come. We have to fight this tendency, that s found in every Christian life, to go from total dependence upon God when I m saved; to interdependence a few years later when I figure stuff out; to total independence of God when I ve been saved for twenty years. We re like kids. Kids are born totally dependent upon you. And then, as they grow up, they sort of need you. They think they don t, but they do. And then somewhere, they just don t need you anymore. It doesn t work like that spiritually. We have to have a relationship with God that s completely dependent without interruption, if you will. We have to stay continually dependent. J. Praying in the Spirit So notice you should pray always with all general prayer and specific prayer in the Spirit or literally led by the Spirit. Don t settle for canned prayer. Don t settle for spiritual prayer, vain speaking (Matthew 6:7) racing-around-the-rosary deal; not liturgical prayer, not pre-recorded fellowship. I watched a man read his prayer. That scares me. You know, the guy (I think) at the Obama (well, we don t have to pick on people) came up to pray, and he did this, Dear Lord, we are gathered here (reading from a piece of paper). I m thinking if anybody talked to me like that, I d be angry. Pastor Jack, it s good to see you today. How are you doing? I m doing fine as well. I hope that we can meet each other again soon. (Reading/speaking in a monotone) Really? I feel so close to you. It s so personal. Pray in the Spirit. You have a relationship with God. You don t need to I ask people sometimes to pray, and they go, Oh, I can t pray out loud. (whining tone) I ll bet you could. You just told me you couldn t pray out loud. Just tell God what you want, and you ll be praying out loud. Oh, I can t. I don t know. (whining tone) In the Spirit, right? Watching a man reading his prayers is frightening. That s not the most convincing to me.

13 True prayer is the opposite of relying on form and ritual. If you ve ever heard someone pray that doesn t know the Lord, you can hear how strained it can be. I did a funeral a while back that a gentleman wanted to come up and pray, and we didn t know who he was. But the family said, Oh, yeah, it d be great to have him. I m sure this guy was not saved. And he prayed for a while, and it was weird. He wasn t talking to anybody. He had no connection. The prayer would go up like this, and you could just see it fall down. Never made it out the building, you know? No relationship with the Lord. Not led of the Spirit. So, it was very strained. But if we know the Lord, and we are walking with God, and we pray according to what we know about God John said something really good in 1 John 5, towards the end of the first epistle, and he was in his nineties, but he said there, If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him (verses 14-15). It was kind of like, I m praying right where God wants me to be. I know that God is pleased with this, and I m sure He s going to answer and hear. And that s an important place to find yourself where you just know that God is going to hear, and God is going to respond. And yet it s mixed in with that, Ask whatever you want in My name, and I ll do it. So, we have His name to come to Him, but we also need to know His will; and sometimes that requires a lot of prayer. And then we are led of the Spirit. K. We should pray for others with all perseverance and supplication So you have frequency in prayer, and then you have the variety of prayer, and then you have the power behind your prayer, and then you have the focus of prayer. Notice he said we should be watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Watch, stay alert, be ready, and pray with all manner of perseverance. Don t give up as you intercede supplicate in this case for others. It s hard to pray for others if you don t know what s going on with them. Right? These are specific prayers for the needs of others. So, keep yourself close in prayer. Then use that position of faith and relationship with God to pray for others. And I think it comes at the end of this battle because the church, in God s eyes, is a body. It s one. And any war that s ever been fought is won when people work together to win. You can t fight a war by yourself. You ll lose. You can t win that way. So, teamwork in battle fits, and since we re all facing the same struggles and battles to walk with God, we can easily relate. I think we can all pray accordingly. Jude wrote in his little book we should all contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (verse 3). We re in this together. 1. And one of the devil s tricks is certainly to isolate us and have us believing that our situation somehow is unique. That s not true. Right? But we should learn to pray for each other because prayer is so powerful. Did you know that, from the standpoint of doing the research that people have done in prayer lives and the interviews with folks, most people conclude that 90% of a person s prayer life is for themselves? We spend 90% of our time praying for us and 10% of our lives praying for others. Probably things like, God, get him out of my life. It s still kind of a personal prayer. Yet, the minute you begin to see the power in prayer and then apply it into the lives of others, you lose the subjective view of life that usually controls you my problems, my needs, my wants, my fears, my difficulties; and instead I begin to see that God can use me to make a difference by praying for others. And as you do that, interestingly, if in

14 battle, you re delivered from yourself because you re now interested in others. So, we re in this together. Paul said there should be no schism in the body..and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it (1 Corinthians 12:25-26). We should have the same care. Prayer is powerful. We could use that to pray for each other. What did Paul say to the Romans in chapter 14? For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself (verse 7). There s a life that we have that God has placed us in the church. So God could do all of this without us, but He s chosen that this is the method He was going to use. We re going to have to pray for each other. 2. I always liked that fellow, Epaphras, in Colossians 4, who caught that vision early on. And Paul writes of him that he was always laboring fervently for you in prayers (verse 12). In fact, this was a guy that was just devoted to praying for the church, and he was one of them. He just had left Colosse to go see Paul, and he said, He s just praying that you can stand complete in the will of God, that you could just know what God s will is. And that s what he said to the church. Epaphras is a guy whose life is all about praying for others. You might remember (or have heard) that before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, the psychiatric hospitals in Barcelona were absolutely overflowing with patients. But then World War I broke out, and, interestingly enough, one of the effects was that the psychiatric hospitals were virtually emptied overnight; 95% of clinically psychotic folks locked up got out. And the reason they got out was the war had broken out, and they were more concerned for their families than they were for themselves. They had someone else to think about, and it cured their psychosis. They weren t locked into themselves. I ve got to get to my mom and my dad and to the kids. There s a bigger problem than me. And it brought deliverance. It s an interesting picture. But losing yourself for the needs of others dying to yourself is a biblical thing. How much more so spiritually. So, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints because of this big battle that we re in. Verses A. Paul concludes by requesting their intercession on his behalf And then Paul says in verse 19, and (pray) 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 am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Paul, While we re on the subject of intercession, I could use some prayer, he says. Now he s in jail, and he could get killed. And I would read this and expect him to say, Pray I get out! Jailbreak. I want a Peter experience. I want an angel. But he doesn t say that at all. He just says, I m locked up. I want to be bold. I just want to preach boldly. I want to hold nothing back. That s what the word boldly means. Paul prayed that he might be delivered from the fear of man. I don t know how much you pray for others. Certainly our Saturday morning prayer meetings are usually not for you; they re for others. We give out prayer slips. People write down needs.

15 Their lives are in difficulty. We need to pray. And certainly we do. But how much do you pray for others? I know when people come up and ask me to pray for them, I always say to them, Come back and tell me what God does. Come back and tell me. I d like to know. I might forget because there s lots of prayer. But you come remind me. I ll be encouraged. Here s what the Lord did. We prayed a month ago, and this is what God did. We need to pray, and I covet your prayers. I know our pastors love when you pray for them. B. Paul sends Tychicus to give them more information about his situation But I like the fact that Paul was so specific. He said, I want you to pray that I m bold, and then he says (in verse 21), I ll let you know how I m doing by sending Tychicus. He s a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, and he ll make all things known to you; whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs, and that he may comfort your hearts. I want to fill you in. C. Paul prayed often and much for the new believers in Colosse Wherever I read Paul s letters, there isn t a place, almost, in the epistles where he doesn t start off or end up saying, I m praying always for you. Colossians 1:3, We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith.. In chapter 1:9, same book, We do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will Paul was certainly a great example of a guy that prayed for others. He spent his time in jail extremely well just lifting up the needs of others. So here s a prayerful guy, a faithful guy. He s in jail in Rome, he s three months travel away from Colosse, but he knows that there s power in prayer. I think if you re aware that God wants to answer and that if He delays, it isn t because He s waiting for you to put Him out, but He s doing something else, and He wants to keep you close, then you ll do a lot of praying, and you ll find that there s real strength. D. Through prayer, we can be part of God s work anywhere and anytime We can get, sometimes, trapped by our responsibilities and feel like we ll never get out to serve the Lord and lament about it. But, look, you can pray anywhere. And I am sure that prayer is the most powerful ministry you can participate in. More than going to the mission field, you pray for missionaries. You can get more done. You can move the world from your living room. Oh, I ve got four kids to take care of. Great. While you re taking care of them, pray. Let God in. E. Prayer is a place of accomplishing, of doing and of victory Far more than a place to seek to get from God, it s a place of accomplishing and doing and finding victory in Him. When I get to Hebrews 7:25, and it says, Jesus always lives to make intercession for me, He s praying for me. Right? He s interceding for me, and now we get the privilege of interceding with each other.