Praying At All Times
Ephesians 6:18-24
This morning we come again to the 6th chapter of Ephesians, and for the last time because we're going to be finishing our study of this marvelous Book this morning.
I understand as I mentioned last week that this is about message62 or 63 in our study of Ephesians and I feel again as I always do when I close a Book, even though we've been well over a year studying this Book we haven't really begun to plumb all of the riches and the depths that are here. But God has really changed our lives as we've studied; God has done some marvelous things. As I look back on the themes of the Book of Ephesians we've been through probably in this Book in the last year plus the most exciting time of our church. God has confronted us in many ways and with many new thoughts, done some dramatic things in our midst, and it doesn't really come to an end now because we simply take all that we have learned, all that God has planted in our hearts and begin to apply it from here on out as we live our lives to His glory. So we don't leave the Book of Ephesians, we simply take what we've learned and begin to let it move through us to the glory of God as we live in this world.
But we come this morning to the last section of the Book, and we're going to take this section as one unit this morning and I want you to listen as I read verses 18 to 24. "Praying always with all prayer and supplicationin the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance ma y be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds; that in this I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. But that ye also may knowmy affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things; Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen."
In 1671 was born in Germany a man named Johan Bershard Fraystine. He wrote the following words to an old hymn, "Rise my soul to watch and pray, from thy sleep awaken be not by the evil day unawares or taken. For the foe well we know oft his harvest reapeth while the Christian sleepeth. Watch against the devil's snares lest asleep he find thee, for indeed no pains he spares to deceive and blind thee. Satan's prey oft are they who secure are sleeping and no watch are keeping. But while watching also pray to the Lord unceasing, He will free thee be thy stay, strength, and faith increasing. Oh Lord, bless in distress and let nothing swerve me from the will to serve Thee."
Over a hundred years ago Charlotte Elliot wrote the words for another hymn. "Chirstian, seek not yet repose, cast thy dreams of ease away, thou art in the midst of foes, watch and pray. Principalities and powers mustering their unseen array wait for thy unguarded hours, watch and pray. Watch as if on that alone hung the issue of the day, pray that help may be sent down, watch and pray."
Both of these hymns point up the reality that victory over Satan, victory over his hosts, victory in the warfare with which we are engaged involves a tremendous commitment to prayer. That's what both hymn writers are saying.
And that is precisely what the Apostle Paul is saying in chapter 6 verse 18. Now he has already discussed the warfare in chapter 6 verses 10 to 13, and he has discussed very clearly the armor in verses 14 to 17, and now he brings on to bear the theme of prayer and verse 18 begins, "Praying always." Now prayer then becomes the closing theme in the Letter of Ephesians. It is not mentioned as apart of the Christians armor, because it's more than that. The armor ended in verse 17 and prayer is in addition to that and more prayer is in concert with that. So the Apostle Paul is not saying in addition to these things add prayer but rather woven into this is prayer. All the while we are attending to the belt of truthfulness and the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of the Gospel of peace and the helmet of salvation and t he sword of the Spirit, all the while that we are engaged with those elements, the shield of faith, we are at the same time involved in prayer. "Praying always." All through the procedure of arming ourselves, all through the demands of the battle, all through whether it's the heat of the war or a lull we are engaged in prayer. Prayer is the very air we breathe.
I remember reading about the kind of animal that lives at the dark places of the sea, down deep in the sea, it's neither fish nor foul really but it lives there and it can stay there in the darkness for, for some period of time but then it must ascend all the way to the surface and gasp air and then go back again, and so the believer all the while in his life in all the vicissitudes and at all times of his life must ascend as it were to the throne of God to breathe the air of prayer and then and then alone can he be able to exist in the darkness of the world about him. And that's exactly what Paul is saying here, prayer is like our breath, I've told you before that it's like breathing you don't have to think to breathe because the air exerts pressure on your lungs and forces you to breathe, and so asa believer not to pray is to hold your breath spiritually and the results are all bad. All the while you live the Christian life, all the time you put on the armor, all the time you fight, you are breathing and breathing and breathing as it were in prayer. Prayer pervades all of that.
I think in reading Pilgrim's Progress of how God gives to Christian in that wonderful allegory a weapon called all prayer, and the else instruction that when everything/fails this will cause you to be able to defeat all the fiends that come in the valley of the shadow. But prayer is really more than Bunyan sees it there it's, it's more than an additional weapon, it is the atmosphere in which all our living occurs, all our fighting and all our arming ourselves. It is pervasive in that sense.
Now the fact that it is climactic in the Book of Ephesians is planned by God's Holy Spirit, it is not by accident. Our Lord urged men always to pray and not to faint in Luke 18:1. And He knows that in the battle when it gets hot you can faint, you can get weary, you can give up, you can abandon the fight if you don't pray. You really only have two alternatives, you either pray or faint, there's no middle ground. And so in the warfare that he's just talked about prayer becomes vital. But it's more than just that context, the reason prayer comes here is because it fits the ending of the total Book, the whole letter of Ephesians comes to a, a climax and a peak and a pinnacle at this point. It's as if prayer is like the musical crescendo in the great, the great anthem of praise that is the Book of Ephesians.
Now let me show you why I say that, if you go back in Ephesians you will find as we have in the time we've studied it that this Book probably more than any other Book in the entire Bible presents the resources of a believer. I don't ... in my mind I don't see any other Book matching it in stature as far as a delineation of the resources that are ours in being in Christ, it is incomparable in hat sense. It is a long cataloging of all that is ours as Christians. What Peter says in one simple phrase that, "We have all things that pertain to life and godliness." What Colossians 2 says in that one simple phrase, "You are complete in him." Is really magnified and exploded to its fullness in the Book of Ephesians. All our completeness is here, all our resources are here, and the key to that is chapter 1 verse 3, "Blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus."
And then he goes on to delineate them for 6 chapters. It's a monumentalcataloging of all that is ours in Christ, and it lifts us to great heights, it starts us as it were in the heavenlies, we start in the glories and we stay there for the whole Book until finally we come to chapter 6:18 and God demands that we fall on our knees. And prayer then becomes the key; now mark it, to appropriating the resources. They're all there, and they are all ours in Christ, but we cannot simply float around in the glory as it were we have to come to the reality of being on our knees before God, so that these things can be implemented in our lives. And so the Book that begins in the heavenlies ends on its knees, as Paul calls us to prayer.
Now you might think in a Book with such tremendous resources prayer wouldn't be very necessary, what would be to pray for? For example listen, according to chapter 1 verse 3, we are super blessed, according to chapter 1 verse 4 to 6 we are super loved, according to chapter 1 verse 7 we are forgiven and redeemed, chapter 1 verse 8 says we are given wisdom, chapter 1 verse 11 says we are made rich, chapter 1 verse 13 says we are secure, sealed with the Spirit, chapter 2 verses 4 to 6 we are alive with new life, chapter 2 verse 7 we are the objects of eternal grace, chapter 2 verse 10 we are God's masterpiece, again chapter 2 verse 10 we are called to a life of good works which God will do through us, chapter 2 verses 13 to 18 we are one with God and with every other Christian, chapter 2 verse 19 we are members of God's intimate family, chapter 2 verse 22 we are the very habitation of the Holy Spirit, chapter 3 verse 20 we are powerful beyond our own imagination, chapter 3:21 we are able to glorify God. What an incredible definition of a human being, amazing what God has done for us, beyond anything we can even imagine. And when you move from there into the 4th chapter it just keeps going, in chapter 4 verse 3 we are told we possess the living Spirit of God in us, in chapter 4 verses 4 to 6 we are members of the body of Christ, in chapter 4 verses 11 to 13 we have received gifts and gifted men to perfect us to do the work of the ministry. In chapter 4 verses 20 to 24 we have Jesus Christ to teach us to walk a new life, in chapter 5 verses 1 and 2 we've received the love of God so that we can walk in love, in chapter 5 verse 8 we have received God's very light so that we dwell in light, in chapter 5 verses 15 to 17 we have received the wisdom and the truth of God so that we can walk wisely in the world, in chapter 5 verse 18 we have received the power of the fullness of the Spirit of God, in chapter 5 verses 21 through chapter 6 verse 9 we have received the resources to make every human relationship all that God ever intended it to be. Finally in chapter 6 verses 10 to 17 we have received invulnerable, invincible, fantastic, powerful armor, against which Satan is hapless and helpless, if we use it. Climaxing itself in the sword of the Spirit, the magnificent weapon of the Word of God which is in the hand of every believer.
Now that's a tremendous picture. That's all what it is to be a Christian. Now by the time you've gotten all that in your head, and you recognize your exalted position in Christ and you see the resources for effective Christian living and you know you lack nothing, you immediately then face a problem, and the problem is what you might call a kind of doctrinal egoism, a problem maybe defined in First Corinthians 10:12, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he (what?) fall." You can actually become what I would call a spiritual atheist. In other words you have a full belief in God you just don't need Him. And I suppose this would be one of the grave dangers in a church like ours. We are, so adequate, we have so much knowledge, we have so much information, we have so many resources, we understand our position, we know our gifts, we've seen God's blessing, we've had so much success and very little failure, and so it's easy for us to just move along and not really acknowledge God at all. And we can fall into a terrible sin of feeling we're adequate and losing a sense of dependence on God. I guess we should pray as one brother prayed that God would give us enough success to know He's there and enough failure to desperately need Him. We have so many things going for us in our society, in our church, in our lives, we've seen such tremendous blessing of God that it's easy to become smug and reduce everything to the how to's and the gimmicks and the programs and the methods and we've got it all and we've done it all and it's all great, you know, maybe our marriage is working out, our kids are good, everything's fine at the church, it's all wonderful, and we become spiritual atheists, we just tune God out. And that kind of passionate, deep, longing, yearning, earnest prayer that God calls from our hearts just isn't there.
We have some dear friends, Pedro and Lilia Marevus, with whom we have visited many times when they were in the States and with whom we shared much rich fellowship while we were ministering in Nicaragua. In the last week or so in the terrible fighting and slaughter that's gone on in Nicaragua these dear people have had to flee the country. To gather what they could and get out. He has a little plant where they made cosmetics, had his own business, and the government demanded of course that he use it to produce some kind of ammunition, and the rebels said if he did they'd kill them all, and so he was trapped and they had to flee for their lives, and I very seriously doubt whether they have much trouble thinking of something to pray about. They've lost everything, everything, their home, everything. They must rebuild again, their children are being educated in the United States, I understand they'll have to bring them all home because they have no money to support them anymore. But we get along so well, sometimes, that we lose the perspective and I think sometimes if we lose it God may just bring things into our lives to help us get it back. And that's what Paul is saying. You've got it all but it still all depends on Him.
It's kind of like a football coach, a professional football player has mastered his techniques, by the time he gets into the professional football ranks he knows what he's doing, he knows exactly what he's doing. He understands how to play his position, he understands football, he's trained, he has the skills, the equipment, the talent, the whole thing and yet that great big hulking man who has mastered the form of profession that he's in, who knows the whole thing inside and out has to listen to a little guy on the sidelines with a clipboard telling him every move to make. I have heard from some of the men on the Dallas Cowboy's that it's a typical speech that Tom Landry gives after a game, when Dallas loses he walks in the locker room and says this to them, gentlemen, I told you how to win the game, you didn't do what I told you so you lost, turns around and leaves.
Now you can have all the talent and all the resources and all the training and all of the innate ability but if you don't do it the way God directs it to be done you lose. That's essentially what Paul is saying, don't think that because you have all these resources and you have all this history of success and you have all of this in being in Christ that you can become a spiritual atheist and live as if you didn't need God. It can't be done. The armor is not mechanical and the armor is not magical, it needs God, God infuses into the armor and God infuses into our resources His power and His energy. So there is the latent danger that Christians who have a knowledge of doctrine and some kind of a history of success and a fairly effective grip on practical spiritual principles can become satisfied and they don't need a heart rending passionate constant prayer, and that's a tragedy. And that's why the Epistle that begins in the heavenlies ends on its knees, because all of that is dependent on prayer. Maybe you look at your life and you say, you know I know so much. Why some of you people, some of you young people, some of you people in seminary and some of you people who've come out of seminary, you look at your life and you say, I know so much but I don't see too much happening. Well you think the armor or you think your resources are either magical or mechanical and they're not. They're dependent on prayer. The soul of man moving in the presence of God.
Now that's what Paul wants us to see so let's look at it, and we're going to cover all of these verses believe it or not, somebody came up to me after I did it in the first service and their mouth was hanging open and they said, I didn't think you could cover that many verses, I'm shocked. We will. We're going to skip the last four. First of all I want you to see the general instruction in verse 18, the general instruction, verse 18, and you'll notice there are four alls, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Now here you have the four all's of prayer, four times all is emphasized. This is so great, each piece put on with prayer, prayer pervades all that we are and we do, it is the all encompassing element of our lives. That's why I say it is the air we breathe. There's no time in our lives when we should not be in prayer.
Let's look first of all at the frequency of prayer; we'll take these alls one at a time, the frequency of prayer, verse 18, "Praying always." When are we to pray? Always. Now some of you have come out of backgrounds where you prayed reading out of a prayer book or where you prayed at a certain set time you know the Jewish people used to pray at certain times, and even in the Book of Acts when the early church met they met for the prayers, it says, and that was really a hold over from their old Judaism, the set times of the day for the prayers. But the New Testament and the new covenant and the birth of the church brought a new era, and that is that there is to be an always character to prayer, we are notpraying at the set times anymore, we are praying at all times on every occasion at every time. Jesus gave us indication this was coming when He said in Luke 21:36, "Watch ye therefore and pray always." And the early apostles said it in Acts 6:4, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer." Continually, not only to those prescribed prayers but to all prayer.
It was said of Cornelius in Acts 10, "He was a devout man and prayed to God always." In Romans 12:12 it says, "Continue diligent in prayer." In Colossians 4:2, "Continue in prayer." In Philippians 4:6, "In everything by prayer." And summing it up First Thessalonians 5:17, "Pray without (what?) ceasing." Second Timothy 1:3 the Apostle Paul indicated that he did that, to Timothy he wrote, "Without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day."
We are to pray always. In Acts 12 we find the church praying constantly and even though their prayer was somewhat weak in faith God answered. So that there is a pattern of praying at all times. I used to wonder what this meant, because my life was filled with so many things there was just seemingly no way I could pray at all times. And obviously you can It run around ah, with a little book reading prayers all through the day, you know you go to Israel and you see those Jewish people genuflect in front of the Wailing Wall and go on hour after hour through their prayers.
Ah, you, you may have been from a background with the Catholic Church where you run through a series of beads again and again, again and again, time after time after time, none of those things is what is meant by praying always. It isn't just walking around mumbling certain formulas, vain repetition. It is simply living your life in God consciousness; it is that your whole life rises before God in communion and communication. I can look at my own life and I used to wonder how you could pray always, and now I find very few times in my life when I'm not conscious of God. Everything I see and everything I experience in my life simply becomes a prayer, that is it's something I share with my best friend; it's something that instantly is communicated with God. If I am tempted immediately I find that temptation becomes a prayer, Lord, You know what I'm going through, help me in this. If I see something good my first thought is, God, You're the source of every good and perfect gift, thank You for that. If I see something evil I say, Oh God, that evil should rein, or oh God make it right. If I see somebody without Jesus Christ and I have occasion to meet them my first response is always, Oh God it's so sad that they don't know You, draw them to Yourself. If I see trouble I say, God You're the Deliverer.
In other words life becomes a, an ascending prayer, all of its thoughts and all of its deeds and all of its circumstances become a cause or a, a point of communication with God. That's the way to live, see, That's what it means to set your affections on things above, that's what it means to think about Christ, to have His conscious presence in your mind. So that everything becomes a prayer, all your life and all your thoughts. And I guess really that's the whole point of the Christian life, you see. You see the reason God saved you was for fellowship, did you know that? He saved you for fellowship.
That's what First John says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you," why do you declare the Gospel? "That you also may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." God saved you for fellowship, He wants your fellowship. And there's no greater expression of fellowship than prayer, that's when you commune with God. And if you've been saved and you don't commune with Him you're denying Him the purpose for which He saved you, you're denying Him the purpose for which He redeemed you. You're saved to enter into fellowship with Him. And so we are to continually pray. The root word in Colossians 4:2, "Continue in prayer." Is the root kartereo, it means to be steadfast, to be constant. It's used of Moses when it says he endured in Hebrews 11:27. The term is used in its intensity in, in Colossians with a preposition added to the front and it means to be intense, to hang in there in constant prayer. The idea is not just some kind of easy going once in awhile dropping a prayer to the Lord but a whole life of strong persevering struggling over deep issues. And you know it's just a, it's just a way of life, when your heart is open to God, earnest, strong, courageous, persistent prayer, holding on and not letting go till you're blessed.
You know how our Lord Jesus gives two illustrations in Luke 11 and Luke 18? And He talks in one portion about the, the unjust judge and the woman kept coming and begging and begging and begging and finally the unjust judge did what she wanted, and he Lord is saying, if an unjust judge will give something to a persistent lady, what do you think a just God will give to His own child? If he persists. And later on, do you remember the guy bangs and bangs and bangs on the door and the man says, the store is closed go to bed, I'm in bed with my wife and kids I'm not getting out? And he bangs and bangs and finally the guy says, okay and he gives him the bread, and what Jesus is saying if ... is if a sleepy man who's tucked in and asleep will come down and give bread to somebody banging on his door, what do you think a loving Father will give to a son who has a need? And the point in both of them is they kept persisting and they got what they wanted, and God is saying, if you're persistent and faithful in your prayers and you pray with importunity then He'll hear and answer. And so life is to be a constant exercise of prayer. Oh beloved, you can know so much and never think about God, all you ever think about is the things that you've learned, and the whole purpose of what you have learned is to draw you into the presence of God. We'll see more about that in a minute.
First of all then, the frequency of prayer, always. Always, whatever you see in life ascends to God in a prayer, because the communion is so open. By the way the word fellowship is the word communion.
Secondly we see not only the frequency of prayer but the second all shows us the variety of prayer. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication." All prayer and supplication? The word prayer, simple word just generally means requests, proseuche, prayer in general, conversation. Then the word supplication, deesis, it means aspecific. So there are general ... the general area of prayer, we pray more generally, we pray specifically. But notice, we are with all prayer and all supplication to be praying at all times.
Now what does he meanby all prayer and all supplication? Simply all kinds that's all. There's all different ways to pray. Some people think the only way you can pray is on your knees, some people think the only way you can pray is with your hands up, others think you have to have your hands folded like this or like this. Some people think that ah, you've got to pray out of a prayer book or you've got to have the prayers told to you. Listen, he says, pray all the time, with all kinds of prayers. And if ... by the way if you're going to be praying all the time you're going to have to have all kinds because you're never going to be in the same position. You can pray public or private, you can pray verbal or silent, loud cries or quiet whispers, deliberate and planned or spontaneous, there can be requests or thanksgivings, confessions and humiliations, praise, you can be kneeling, standing, lifting up holy hands, lying prostrate, he's simply saying, pray all the time in all ways. And that's, that's a good indication that he means just pray through the whole flow of life. I'll sometimes, well usually every night I'll kneel and pray with our children, and we kneel, Melinda lies down, the rest of us kneel, and we pray. Then I'll go to bed sometimes and I'll lie in bed and my head will just look up and I'll just pray and I find myself waking up in the morning never having said an amen.
I pray when I'm walking, I remember when I was in college and I was learning how to preach, they used to take us out in a car, five of us would pile in a car and we'd go and they'd drop us at different bus depots in cities and make us preach. And they'd take me to the Greyhound Depot and they'd say, here's your depot, you preach you have ... we'll be back in two hours, preach a sermon and then take a 15 minute break and go witness and then preach another sermon. And so that's kind of a frightening thing for a young 'guy I'll tell you it's still frightening, I wouldn't do it now. But anyway, anyway all the way up there we'd pray, and we'd be praying driving the car and I remember when I first ... time we did this I thought it was kind of strange the guy driving would pray and he wouldn't close his eyes, and the more I thought about it the better I liked it obviously, a living testimony to the fact that that's a good way to pray if you happen to be driving.
But anyway, you pray driving a car in fact Bill Clutterham told me this morning that his wife can always tell when he's praying driving because his speed gets slower and slower and slower and slower, the closer he gets to God the more sensitive he is to the speed limit. But anyway, you can pray at all times and in all circumstances in whatever situation you're in, and that is exactly what Paul is saying, don't you ever having counted on all of the infinite resources that are yours in Christ think for a moment that you're not every moment dependent upon the power of God. Because you are. Let everything become a prayer. And so does Paul say to Timothy in First Timothy 2:8, "I will that men pray everywhere." If you study the prayers of the Bible you'd find there were all kinds of prayers in all kinds of positions at all kinds of times, it's a way of life. A soldier is praying at all times so that whenever the battle comes even if it's a surprise attack he is ready. He has the kind of a life that's open up to God totally.
Listen, I remember going to a pastor's conference with some of the staff and a guy got up and he preached on the fact that we ought to pray in the morning, and I mean he preached we are to pray in the morning. And he went to every passage like I did this morning, Psalm 63, "Early will I seek thee, oh God." And he went to the guys who prayed in the morning and here they were in the morning and we are to pray in the morning! Was his great sermon. And all the time he was preaching it I kept looking up all the Scriptures that talked about praying in the evening, and at noon, and so forth and so on. I mean he had a good point; we are to pray in the morning but not to the exclusion of any other time. Even Psalm 55:17 says, "Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray." And Daniel prayed three times a day, and of Jesus, Luke 6:12 says, "He continued all night in prayer." And First Timothy 5:5 says, "The widows prayed night and day." It is a way of life. Prayer in a sense beloved is more important than knowledge, and that's a good word for us here. In a sense it's a more important element than knowledge.
Martyn Lloyd Jones says, "'Our ultimate position as Christians is tested by the character of our prayer life." You may have a lot of knowledge, you may be a seminary student or a seminary graduate or a, a minister a pastor, a missionary, a Bible teacher but your prayer life will be a monitor on how really deep your knowledge of God and your relationship to Him is. Why do I say that?
For this reason listen, theology, listen; is ultimately the knowledge of God, right? Theology is the, is the knowledge of God so the more theology I know the more I know about God, and the more I know about God the more I ought to be driven, as the Psalmist said, to follow close behind Him. And if I say I have all this knowledge, but I am not driven to be in His presence all my waking hours then it's questionable the effect that knowledge has had on my life. ;It is that they may know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent that I study. It is that I want to learn the Word that I may know God and the more I know Him the more I want to be in His presence. And if you know all of that but you don't hunger and thirst to be in His presence, and your life is not an open communication line to Him every waking moment then it's questionable that your theology has had the proper effect. And you see then we are to pray at all times, all kinds of prayers as