A 4-year-old
boy was asked to return thanks before Christmas dinner. The family members
bowed their heads in expectation. He began his prayer, thanking God for all his
friends, naming them one by one. Then he thanked God for Mommy, Daddy, brother,
sister, Grandma, Grandpa, and all his aunts and uncles. Then he began to thank
God for the food. He gave thanks for the turkey, the dressing, the fruit salad,
the cranberry sauce, the pies, the cakes, even the Cool Whip. Then he paused, and everyone waited--and waited.
After a long silence, the young fellow looked up at his mother and asked, "If
I thank God for the broccoli, won't he know that I'm lying?"
That’s a kid
after my own heart right there. How many of you have some questions about
prayer? I sure do. How many of you still struggle with knowing exactly how to
pray; how to find just the right words in just the right way to pray in a way
that you know God will answer you in the way you want Him to? I struggle with
that too. How many of you, when faced with temptation, know you should pray but
you just don’t? I think we all do that sometimes. I believe our passage in
Ephesians addresses that today and I believe it will help all of us to
understand what Paul is talking about regarding prayer.
How many of
you remember what this is? You have seen it before at least a couple of times.
We talked about it in Boot Camp. It is the
P.R.A.Y.E.R. Gun. Does anybody remember what the letters stand for? It is the
Patriot’s Right And Your Every Responsibility Gun. As a soldier at war with
Satan, this is your most powerful weapon. You honestly don’t stand a chance if
you don’t use this weapon.
Today we are going to look at the big
gun in our arsenal in defending ourselves in the spiritual war we are in.
In the passage that we are going to read in just a second in Ephesians 6, Paul warns us to be ready
when the day of evil comes. He doesn’t say if the day of evil
comes. He said it is coming and for most of us we have to fight the devil
and his forces every day. If we have to fight this battle every day we
wake up then shouldn’t we be prepared? Shouldn’t we make full use of
every piece of armor and every weapon we have?
We have seen in Ephesians 6 that the armor available to us includes the belt of
truth and that everything else hangs on that belt. If the Word of God is
not truth, if what Jesus said and Paul and the others wrote is not truth then
every other weapon and piece of armor falls off and is useless. But since
the Bible has proven itself true over and over again, we know we can depend on
it and it will not fail us.
We also have the breastplate of
righteousness to protect our heart. It includes the imputed righteousness
of Jesus Himself that He gives to us when we believe on Him and accept Him into
our lives to be Lord and Savior. It also includes the imparted
righteousness that we live out, with His help, by keeping ourselves pure and
holy.
Our feet are fitted with the readiness
that comes from the gospel of peace and that means that when we are obedient to
God that we have horizontal peace with others, vertical peace with God and even
internal peace but we have to choose the benefits of obedience or we suffer the
consequences of disobedience.
Then we pick up the shield of faith
and when we don’t understand why we are going through something, we don’t know
why somebody else would treat us this way or we can’t imagine being able to get
through this difficult circumstance but because of our faith in God we are able
to survive and even thrive. Because God, like His Word, has been proven
faithful over and over again in our lives and in the life of our church, we
know that He is in control of this situation and when we resist the devil then
God is there to reward us.
We have the helmet of salvation
strapped on tight knowing that our salvation from this world has not yet been
realized but will soon be here when Jesus comes back riding His white horse
with angels singing and trumpets blowing; and He will take us to our ultimate
reward in Heaven. Come, Lord come!
We also have the sword of the Spirit
which means we have portions of scripture memorized and handy ready to pull out
of the scabbard and fend off the attacks of Satan by telling him, not what we
think, but what the Bible says just like Jesus Himself did in the desert.
All of that makes for some pretty
formidable armor and weaponry. That makes you a force to be reckoned with
if you choose to wear it; if you choose to put it on every day and every hour
because the day of evil is here and Satan is just waiting for you to forget to
put on one piece of the armor and then the worst thing in the world
happens. Sin happens and we lose the battle. We haven’t lost the
war but our relationship with the Lord is broken, our witness is shot and our
peace and joy lie bloody and dying on the battlefield and we are left to face
the consequences of our choices.
I Corinthians 10:13 should be part of our sword, part of the
verses we have memorized or handy. It says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God
is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be
able to endure it.”
So, let’s (finally) look at our
passage for this morning and let’s look again at all the ways we have to escape
with a concentration on the last part, the big gun. You may already be
there. Ephesians 6:10-18.
10Finally, be strong in the LORD and in his mighty
power. 11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against
the devil's schemes. 12For 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.
13Therefore 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. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist,
with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted
with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all
this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming
arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And 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.
Paul, being the good preacher that he
was, knew that all good sermons have 3 points so he laid it out with three
things for us to look at as we study what he says about prayer. We are to
pray:
·
In the Spirit
·
On all occasions
·
Always
Now I know some of you are tempted to
elbow your spouse and say, “Oh no, he’s
talking about prayer again. I’ve heard this. I could have stayed in
bed and now I have to sleep here.” And that’s fine but while Sam
Colt’s revolver was called the “Great Equalizer”, it couldn’t hold a candle to
the big gun of prayer, but you have to know how to handle it. Some of
what will be said you may already know. Some of it you may need a
refresher and some of it you may already be doing and didn’t realize it.
But it is vital that we follow Paul’s
guidance here and begin with praying in the Spirit. I have probably a
dozen different commentaries that talk about the armor of God in Ephesians and
I’m disappointed with every one of them. About the most I got from any of
them about this was that we are to pray with the power of the Spirit.
That’s true and I hope that helps you come Monday morning when the day of evil
comes and Satan starts hammering on you. I hope those pretty words
benefit you but for me I want to know more.
This is the most difficult of the 3
points to understand and the one on which I will spend the most time. It
is difficult because some people think Paul is talking about our own spirit or
they think that to pray in the Spirit means you have to pray in tongues or that
you have to work yourself into a frenzy for God to hear you but since I don’t
see anywhere that Jesus did any of that I don’t think that’s true.
On the other end of the spectrum I see
people who go long periods of time, sometimes their whole lives, without ever
tapping into the power that they have available through the Spirit of
God. They try to live their lives on their own power, go to work, keep a
marriage alive, raise kids, worship, even pray without ever connecting with and
utilizing the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit should be a normal
part of our lives not an extreme part.
The question before us now is, “How do we do that?” Well, we have
the Sword of the Spirit mentioned earlier. What is that? The Word
of God. It is called the Sword of the Spirit because as II Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed…”
It is the inspired word and inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and just like
every passage of the Bible was written by a person who was inspired to write
it, so can our prayers be inspired. Do you believe that our prayers can
be inspired by God?
How did the Spirit speak to the
authors of the Bible? With loud words and thunder and smoke and lightning
using blood on the walls and clouds to form the words in the sky?
No. He spoke like He spoke to Elijah; with a still, small voice; a voice
so quiet that you have to be very close to Him to hear. That is how the
Spirit speaks to us today. What we need to do to pray in the Spirit is to
go to God and say, “God, your word says
to pray for my friends and so I am. It says to pray for my enemies and so
I do that now. It says to pray for my leaders and to pray without ceasing
and to pray fervently and so I do all of that. But right now, God, what
do you want me to pray for?”
Have you ever done that? Have
you ever prayed about what to pray? Do you think that is a prayer God
wants to answer? When you tell God you want what He wants and you want to
pray for what He wants, do you think God will answer that? When there is
no barrier of sin between you and God and you are so close to Him that you can
hear His still, small voice and you ask what prayer would please Him, He will
answer you.
Especially in the context that Paul is
telling us to pray so that we resist temptation, God wants to help you.
He wants to answer that prayer.
“God, I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I’m not tough
enough. I have to admit that it looks like fun but not my will but
Yours. Tell me what to do and how to do it and then help me do it!
Please God. Amen.”
That’s praying in the Spirit.
That’s praying like Jesus prayed. And that is a prayer God is anxious to
answer. Praying in the Spirit does not mean having just the right
words. In fact, it means just the opposite. It’s not using your own
words but the words God gives you, either from scripture or through
prayer. When the day comes that you think you really have this whole
“praying in the Spirit” thing down and you know just the right words to
say…then you don’t.
Romans 8:26 tells us, “In
the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought
to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words
cannot express.” The opposite of praying in the spirit is telling God
what you want Him to do and how you have all this figured out and all He has to
do is just answer your prayer and everything will be just fine.
When you really pray in the Spirit,
you are falling on God’s grace and mercy and saying, just like Jesus did in the
garden, “Not my will but yours,
Lord! Tell me how to pray. Show me what to do and where to go and
what to say and I will do it in your power, God.” That’s praying in
the Spirit.
The next two points are similar but a
little bit different in that we are to pray on all occasions and to pray always.
I was talking to my Mom a while back about prayer and she told me she sometimes
gets embarrassed because she finds herself at the store praying that God would
help her find the best deal on something. If you know my Mom you would
believe that – not just that she prays on all occasions but also that she wants
a good deal.
She says she prays and then feels like
she needs to apologize to God for wasting His time praying about such trivial
matters but I tried to assure her that Paul said we are to pray on every
occasion. Then she said she finds herself sometimes praying as she plays
Solitaire that God would help her. I said that’s probably pushing it too
far. 😊
But that comes from a woman who is so
used to praying about everything that it is just natural and normal to her no
matter what she is doing to include the Lord. That ought to be the way we
all are that because God has proven Himself to us over and over again that we
know the value of prayer. We know from where our salvation comes.
We know the truth. We have the peace. Faith is our shield and while we
are not perfect and we are still learning, we know how to wield the sword and
wear the armor. We continue to make that choice.
Mama would also tell you to make the
choice to keep on praying as Paul says. Keep on praying on all
occasions. Keep on praying in the Spirit. Don’t give up. She
has been known to keep on praying. I won’t mention names for fear of
embarrassing somebody (me) but she has been known to pray for long periods of
time for some pretty stiff-necked people.
If you look at what is probably the
very next page in your Bible Paul tells the church at Philippi that he thanks
God for them every time he thinks of them. He knew how to pray in the
Spirit, on all occasions and how to keep on praying. James 5:16 says those prayers are powerful and effective.
Isn’t that what you need in a big gun, one that is powerful and effective
especially since we live in the days of evil? Make the choice to put on
all the armor every day and when the day of evil comes, then you can
stand.
I pray right now that you are a true
believer in Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no man
comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). There is no other way
to Heaven, no other way to peace and joy in this life other than making Jesus
Lord of your life. It won’t be easy. First you have to repent of
your sins – turn away from it – and then ask forgiveness of that sin and then
live like it. Then you will be able to put on the full armor of God that He
wants you to have so that you can stand – in His power – against the schemes of
the devil. Do that today.
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