Prayer

Good morning. Anybody else love that video? Yeah, it's like you just. You want to get up and preach after you see that video. Yeah.

Just a big shout out to our worship and production team who does a great job leading this every week. Would you join me?

Yes. We are super, super blessed. I said earlier in the series, dudes are going to love that video, and I am one of the dudes, and I've loved that video. When I was in grade school, my family went on vacation. We visited some out of state relatives and I remember going to a city park.

I think my dad and my uncles went to play tennis. But while that was going on, I mean, I was in grade school at this time. My brothers and I were at a playground near that area. And a couple of these, probably more than a couple, it seems like there were three or four of these older, bigger kids that just showed up and they started hassling. Now, I don't remember exactly what they said.

I just remember as a much smaller guy feeling intimidated and scared. So a lot about that day is not very vivid in my memory. But what is vivid is this, my dad walking up behind those bigger kids that didn't see him coming and just saying to the kid doing most of the talking, you've got a big mouth. Would you like to close it? And.

And he decided he would. And without another word, those kids left. And my brothers and I were fine. And even though it was a briefly scary situation, it was okay because I had backup. We've been looking for the last several weeks at the Armor of God, which is a reminder to us from the Apostle Paul that we have backup when it comes to anything that life throws at us.

We've been camped out for the last few weeks. In this book of Ephesians, chapter 6, the apostle Paul wrote this letter to Christians at the church in the city of Ephesus. And we've been reading this text in its entirety every week. And I want to do that one more time this morning. Paul writes in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 10, finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm. Then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word God. Now, in that text, Paul emphasized that our enemy is not other people. Our enemy is the devil, a lying, accusing murderer, a predator who opposes God's work in our lives and wants to destroy us. But even though we have a formidable adversary, we are not alone. We're not unarmed in this fight because God offers us the belt of his truth that defines reality.

The breastplate of righteousness that covers our sins and makes us right with Him. The shoes of the gospel that gives us peace with God through Jesus, the shield of faith that extinguishes the flaming arrows of Satan's attacks, the helmet of salvation that gives us confidence that God will do everything he's promised, and the sword of the Spirit, God's word, which arms us for battle. That is powerful and, and it's dramatic imagery, but it's also metaphorical. I mean, the armor of God isn't something we literally put on. A few days ago, Sarah Hodson sent me a meme that said, so I got on my bathroom scale this morning, and let me tell you, the full armor of God is heavy.

That's not what we're talking about. The devil doesn't fire actual flaming arrows at us. The Bible is not a literal sword, otherwise you'd come home from Bible study missing fingers. These are all symbolic images. It's spiritual, symbolic imagery.

Satan doesn't have the power to simply snatch us away from God. So his tactic, his strategy is often to try to undermine our faith, to weaken our confidence in God and tempt us to wander away from God where we become much more vulnerable to attack. Our belt and our breastplate and our shoes and our shield and our helmet and our sword are not physical objects. These are all symbols of a mindset that grounds us in who God is so that we can stand strong against the spiritual attacks of our enemy. Now, last week we talked about the sword of the spirit, a metaphor for the word of God.

And just as there are incorrect ways to handle and use weapons, there are some wrong ways to use Scripture. We talked about several of those last week, but one of them in particular is just our failure to pay attention to Scripture in its context. We have to let Scripture interpret Scripture so if it's not about actual armor that we're talking, if it's not about literal swords, then what exactly is spiritual warfare and how do we engage in it anyway? Well, if we keep on reading the context of Ephesians, chapter six answers that question for us. Because Paul goes on to say this.

And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Prayer.

Prayer is how we engage in spiritual battle. It was never God's intention that we would fight alone. In prayer, we enlist God as an ally against our common enemy, the devil. A number of years ago, a novelist by the name of Frank Peretti wrote a book called this Present Darkness that sparked a lot of imagination around spiritual warfare. It's been a few years, but I'm curious how many of us in this room have read that book?

Yeah, it's one I would recommend that you read. It's a story that's set in the physical world that you and I live in, but it also takes place in a parallel world, an invisible spiritual realm where demons conspire to corrupt and deceive and angelic warriors battle against them in response to people's prayers. The book's title was taken from Ephesians 6:12, a verse we just read. But in the Revised Standard Version of The Bible, Ephesians 6:12 goes like this. This.

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Now this Present Darkness is a great read and it provides a thought provoking vision of spiritual warfare. But it's a powerful reminder that we have a spiritual enemy and that we are not alone in faith in him because God has given us prayer as a weapon of spiritual warfare. Now, Paul's Armor of God analogy that we spent the last several weeks walking through is actually a lead up to six strategic instructions about prayer, beginning with this one. Paul says, pray in the spirit.

Well, what does that mean exactly? Well, just a few things to think about. The New Testament says a lot about the Spirit of God, But John chapter 4, Jesus said that God is seeking people who will worship him in the spirit. And in truth, in that context, What Jesus was really talking about is that God is a spiritual being. He is not confined to a specific place like a temple or a church building.

And we worship God most honestly, most truthfully, when we don't try to shrink him down to a size that we find more manageable. Before Jesus left the earth, he promised to send his Holy Spirit to live within his disciples. And shortly after Jesus returned to heaven, he kept that promise. And his disciples had their first opportunity in the power of the Spirit to preach the message of his death and resurrection. So Peter preached a sermon on that day of Pentecost in the city of Jerusalem.

And in that sermon, he convinced a large crowd of people that just a few weeks earlier they had unknowingly murdered the Son of God, Jesus, the Messiah. And when they realized that they were convicted of their sin and they asked Peter what they should do, and this is what Peter said, he said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. In other words, Peter said, turn away from your old life, change direction, surrender to Jesus as Lord and ask him to cleanse you of your sins. And, and then he said, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then.

I love this next part. Don't miss this next part. He said, the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off. In fact, for all whom the Lord our God will call. In other words, Jesus promise of forgiveness.

This promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit was not a one time offer just for that particular audience on that day. God offers these gifts to everyone who comes to him for salvation. If you are trusting Jesus as your Lord and Savior, His Spirit is in you. In First Corinthians, chapter 14, Paul wrote about praying with our Spirit. And he also talked about worshiping in the Spirit.

He distinguished between praying and singing. That we do with our understanding, meaning in a rational, conscious way that just comes from our minds. And praying and singing with our spirits as we're led by the Holy Spirit. Prayer isn't just words we say. Worship isn't just songs we sing.

Both of these things come from within us and they are prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit. Now one of God's promises about the Holy Spirit is great news for any of us who've ever struggled to pray, because we just feel like we don't know what to say. Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8 that the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Paul says we do not know what we ought to pray for. Ever been there but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. You and I sometimes struggle, and we hurt in ways that we don't even know how to put into intelligible words. And when that happens, God says, I've got you. His Spirit knows our hearts. And at a level even deeper than our words can begin to express, he relays our requests to God.

The Holy Spirit helps us to pray when we live in the Spirit, when the Spirit lives in us, we pray in the Spirit. Now, Paul's second prayer strategy was to pray on all occasions, in all kinds of ways. That's what he said. Pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. So when is the right time to pray?

Always. When is the wrong time to pray? Never. Paul said to pray with all kinds of prayers and requests. How many kinds of prayers and requests are there exactly?

Well, I don't know for sure, but there are a lot. There are prayers of gratitude and praise. Prayers of fear, desperation and grief. Prayers of hurt, frustration and anger. Prayers for help and comfort and healing.

Prayers of repentance. And we find examples of all of these kinds of prayers in the Book of Psalms. There are prayers we offer for others, prayers that we offer for ourselves. There are spoken prayers and silent, unspoken prayers. Prayers we sing, prayers we write down morning and mealtime and bedtime prayers, and middle of the sleepless night prayers.

And right before a test, prayers, and right before an interview, prayers and prayers we offer all by ourselves, and prayers we offer up with other people. What Paul is saying is we can make quick, specific prayers, our habitual response to every situation. It can become a reflex for us. We can pray anytime, anywhere, with anyone, about anything. Nothing is too big to pray about.

Nothing is too small to pray about. And for this reason, with this in mind, Paul urged us, number three, to pray alertly. Now, you and I are mortal, finite human beings. That means we are confined to time and space because we are right here, right now. We can't be anywhere else.

And that means that we never know everything that's happening, let alone what we should do about it. But we can pay attention to what we do see in here and all of the things that we think and feel about that, and we can take that to God. So when you hear something on the news that is just disturbing and unsettling, pray. When you're driving in your car and an Emergency vehicle races past you with lights flashing and siren blaring. Pray when the diagnosis that you receive or that a loved one receives is scary.

Pray when you feel division brewing in your family. Pray when you encounter someone on the other side of a cash register or some kind of a customer service transaction who is obviously having a bad day. Pray when you see people drawing up battle lines over political issues. Pray when you hear about violence in a workplace or a school or a church. Pray now.

Prayer is not our only response to crisis. But oftentimes the pain that is going on in our world is bigger than we can fix on our own. So we enlist God as an ally. The more we pay attention to the world around us, the better we'll know what to pray about. The things that we see and hear and the emotions that they prompt will be reminders to us to pray.

And the reality that we can pray in the Spirit at any time about anything is the reason Paul urged us. Number four to pray always. Here in Ephesians, Paul said, always keep on praying. In another of his letters, in First Thessalonians, he said, pray always, continually. But however Paul worded it and however we choose to say it, this much is clear.

If prayer is something that we can do always, if it's something that we can do continually, then prayer has to be something bigger than what we often think of as prayer. I mean, we can't continually be on our knees. We can't continually have our eyes closed. We can't always stop everything we're doing. We can't always find a completely quiet place because.

But we can always pray because at its core, prayer is a mindset of attentiveness to God. We pray when we notice God's blessings and we thank him for them. We pray when we just take a moment to just think about the blessing that is ours. Because we belong to God through faith in Jesus. We pray when we take our emotions, the good ones and the bad ones and the ugly ones, the pleasant ones and the unpleasant ones, when we take all of the things that we think and feel to God.

We pray when we trust that God is at work in situations, even when we don't see it, even when we don't know exactly what to say or what to do. We pray when we speak God's word over one another. We talked about that last week, the power of taking the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, and making it our own and speaking that over one another. Paul went on from there to urge us to pray for all God's people. You know, I think, how's that supposed to work?

I mean, I don't even know all the people in this church. I don't even know all the people in this room. I don't even know all the people in the row that I'm sitting in. So how am I supposed to pray for all the Lord's people? And the answer is, you can't and I can't.

But together, as the body of Christ, in collaboration with Jesus followers all over the world, we can cover his entire church with a blanket of prayer. When you drive by a church building, pray for the people that gather there. When we learn that our Christian brothers in faraway places like India and Nigeria and Iran are encountering intense persecution, we can pray for them. When you pull onto our campus on Sunday morning, you can pray for the others who will be worshiping alongside you. When you hear a worship song that you love, pray for the people who wrote it.

When you walk into this room and you sit down for our service, pray for the people seated near you. Better yet, arrive a few minutes early so you have time to say hi and to learn how you can pray for them. Attend to the 1050 service, not the 1110 service.

When we send a team on a mission trip, we can pray for them. We can pray for the ministry partners that we'll be serving with and the country that we'll be ministering in. When you know that some of your neighbors are followers of Jesus, pray for them and the churches that they're a part of. And when you know of friends and neighbors who are not followers of Jesus. That's where Paul's final strategic prayer instruction comes into play.

That is to pray for bold, fearless proclamation of the Gospel. Paul had some really determined opponents. He had been accused by the Jewish religious leaders, these are actually former colleagues of his, of stirring up trouble. He'd been accused of insurrection, treason. And as a Roman citizen, Paul had appealed his case directly to the emperor.

So in preparation to stand trial, Paul had been taken to the city of Rome. And as he wrote Ephesians, he was under house arrest there. There are a lot of people who would find themselves in a situation like Paul's, and they would think, I'm in prison, so I don't see much ministry in my future. They might think, I mean, look where my preaching has gotten me. Seems like a good time to find something else to talk about.

But not Paul. Wherever he was, he continued sharing the message of Jesus. While Paul was in prison, he wrote letters to churches and to friends that he had mentored. He spoke about Jesus to the friends who came to visit him. He spoke about Jesus to government officials each time he stood trial.

And he spoke about Jesus to the soldiers who guarded him. There would have been a rotation of those. I'm fairly convinced that one of the reasons Paul chose to write about the armor of God in the book of Ephesians is because he spent a lot of time every day looking at dudes wearing that armor. It was easy for him to grab that illustration. Paul wrote in another of his prison letters, the book of Philippians.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Anybody who thought they were going to stop Paul from preaching by putting him in prison just got it wrong. I mean, if you guarded Paul, you were going to hear the gospel of Jesus, and you were going to hear it on repeat. And Paul didn't take that courage and that determination for granted.

He had a rough road ahead. Paul had some people that he knew wanted him dead. So he made this very specific request. Paul said, pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. I'm a prisoner, but I'm also an ambassador.

Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Paul had preached boldly and courageously. That's a big part of what had landed him in prison in the first place. But he didn't want to stop. So he asked for prayer to keep on preaching without fear that whenever he had the opportunity to speak, God would give him the right words.

Because at the end of the day, Paul wanted everyone, even the hateful people who wanted to get rid of him, to know Jesus. Our calling as followers of Jesus is to share his message whenever and wherever God gives us the opportunity. We all have people in our lives. You have them, I have them. People who are living every day and eventually dying without Jesus.

And yet we're often hesitant. We're often distracted. We're often just oblivious about sharing Jesus with others. So we pray. Who do you need to pray that God would give you the courage to engage in spiritual conversation?

See, as Paul wrote this letter, he knew that his ultimate enemy was Satan. There were people who wanted him silenced. There were people who wanted him dead. Paul knew that those people were not his ultimate enemy. He also knew that through Prayer.

He had access to the power of God, who created us and who loves us, and who conquered death for us, and who redeems us, and who is infinitely greater than the enemy who comes against us. So Paul engaged in spiritual warfare through prayer, and you and I can too. In prayer, we enlist God as an ally against our common enemy, the devil. And that's really the big idea for this entire passage that we've spent the last several weeks in, in Ephesians, chapter six. Now, I don't want to make the mistake of sharing a message with you about prayer, then just putting it away and moving on before we take an opportunity to think about and to practice that.

So we're going to close our service today with a time of prayer. And as we've just seen, there are a whole bunch of different ways that we can go about that. But just to make this practical, because this isn't something that we do every single week, let me just offer a few suggestions as to how we might spend these next few minutes together. First, I'm going to invite our Next Steps team to go ahead and make their way down to the front. We do this every single week.

During these next few minutes, if you'd like someone to pray with you, we'll have a whole team of people along the front of the stage here. And you're welcome to just get up out of your seat, come to any of them at any time. They would love to pray over you. And we'll be available after the service as well. Near the stage, both of the corners over here, you'll find on these tables some baskets that have some plastic colored balls.

And for us, those balls would just become a tool that we use. If you have a person in your life who is close to you in relationship, but who doesn't know Jesus, we would just invite you to write their name using one of the Sharpie markers also on that table, write their name on one of those balls, and then drop that plastic ball in the clear plastic box you see on the stage, and those will eventually migrate to the giant number one that's out there in the commons. That, again, is just a reminder to us every time we see it that there are ones, there are people close to us, but not in personal relationship with Jesus that we have an opportunity to pray for and help them to get there. You might use this time to do that. You might use this time to thank God for something that's just beautiful and joyful and life giving that you're experiencing right now.

This might be a time for you to talk to God about some things that are causing you a lot of stress, fear, and anxiety. You might choose these next few moments to pray for someone who is seated near you. You might pray for a church or several of them that you drove past on your way here this morning. You could pray for a friend who's going through a tough time right now. And if that friend happens to be present here today, you might just go find them and put a hand on their shoulder and pray over them right then and there.

If you've been on a mission trip, pray for the country you visited and the people who are continuing to do ministry there even after you've come back home. And here's the the thing I want to make sure we don't forget like we talked about From Romans chapter 8 and what we saw Paul talk about praying in the Spirit. If you feel a burden this morning that you're not even sure how to pray about, you can't even begin to put it into words. You couldn't begin to write a comprehensible sentence to describe it. That's okay.

You can just sit down and just ask the Holy Spirit right where you are to help you sort out those emotions and to give you peace. And we have God's assurance that because the Spirit within us is his own spirit and they communicate effortlessly, God knows exactly what's going on, whether or not we can put it together in a sentence that you could diagram or not. In prayer, we enlist God as an ally against our common enemies, the devil. That's how spiritual warfare works. We can pray anywhere, anytime, with anyone, about anything, including right here and right now.

So in just a few minutes, after we've had a time to employ some of the things we've just talked about, I'm going to lead us in a closing prayer, and we'll use that to conclude our service. But between now and then, let's lean into God in prayer. If you want to stay where you are, that's great. If you want to stand up, if you want to get on your knees, if you want to move into the aisle, if you want to walk around the room, that is entirely up to you. But let's take these next few minutes and accept God's invitation to bring things to him in prayer.