And tonight we will conclude with verse 18, which
says this, With all prayer and petition, pray
at all times in the Spirit, and with this in
view, be on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints. And pray on my behalf
that utterance may be given to me in the opening
of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come
to you this evening. And Lord, we ask that you
would bless our time in the word of God. Lord,
we ask that you would use your word to encourage.
the downcast. Lord, to strengthen the weak. Father,
we ask that you would use your word to stir up
a spirit of prayer in those who are struggling
to pray. Lord, comfort those who are hurting.
Lord, build up your people. Edify and sanctify
the people of God through the word of God. Father,
we thank you that we can come to you by the Spirit,
through Christ, to you, our Father. Lord, we
ask that we would never take for granted the
great reality and privilege that we have to come
to your throne. We ask these things in Jesus'
name. Amen. So we have seen in Ephesians chapter
6. The armor of God that the Christian life is
likened to an ongoing battle, an ongoing warfare.
The Christian throughout their life from the
time they are saved unto the time that they enter
into glory are in fact in a spiritual battle.
Every day. Every hour. Every moment. Paul exhorts
the believers in Ephesus to be strong in the
Lord and in the strength of his might. He exhorts
them to put on the full armor of God. He gives
them the pieces of armor. And he lists for them.
How to stand firm, he says, having girded your
loins with truth, having put on the breastplate
of righteousness, having shod your feet with
the preparation of the gospel of peace, taking
up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God. Now, when we come to verse 18, You notice
in the NASB, it begins with the word with. With
all prayer. Some translations that translate
this differently, they will have this included
with the armor. Others break and start a new
paragraph. But it seems a bit abrupt to begin
the next word with, with. What is he trying to
tell us about prayer as it relates to the armor?
Or is he trying to tell us anything about it?
What if I told you that in the Christian life,
the armor alone, the means alone that God has
given us, are not enough? What if I told you
that the armor, the belt of truth, and all of
these pieces are not enough by themselves, but
something must accompany them in order for them
to be vitalized, in order for them to be useful,
in order for them... to have their effect in
order for the power of God to be at work in and
through them. Paul wants us to recognize and
see that prayer is meant to accompany the armor
that he has just exhorted the readers to. So
he's not necessarily including prayer in the
armor. but he's showing that prayer must accompany
the armor in order for it to be effective and
vibrant. So prayer is an essential aspect of
the Christian life. In this text, we are given
a comprehensive view of wartime prayer in the
Christian life. Notice the emphasis on all in
verse 18. With all prayer and petition, pray
at all times in the Spirit. And with this in
view, be on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints. Paul wants us to
have a comprehensive and full view of prayer.
With regards to how it ought to accompany the
armor that he has given to the believer to stand
firm with. We'll begin considering this with
this. Wartime prayer must be continual and in
the spirit. Notice what Paul says in verse 18.
Pray at all times. In the Spirit. What is He
teaching us? The Christian life. The Christian
in their life. They are supposed to have a life
of continual and ongoing dependence and reliance
upon the Lord. On the power of the Holy Spirit
in their life. They are constantly To be looking
to the Lord for strength and power. We find,
Paul says elsewhere in 1 Thessalonians 5, to
pray without ceasing. Now, some in this room
might hear that and say, that seems very spiritual.
Isn't that overly pious? For the Apostle Paul
to be telling Christians to pray without ceasing,
meaning to continually be speaking and talking
with God throughout their day, throughout their
week, throughout their lives, throughout their
months. Isn't that overly pious? Brothers and
sisters, does the devil grow weary of tempting
you? Does the devil grow weary of seducing your
heart? Does your enemy grow tired of alluring
you to the world? Absolutely not. There is a
constant and a continual need in your life. You
are constantly battling sin. Don't tell me you're
not. You are constantly battling pride. Don't
tell me you're not. You are constantly battling
lust and anxiety and worry and stress. Don't
tell me you're not wrestling with things in your
heart. Therefore, we must pray at all times.
We must continue to pray. We must pray without
ceasing, brothers and sisters. The Lord Jesus
teaches on this in the Gospel of Luke, chapter
18. He teaches His disciples through a parable.
He says this. Now, He was telling them a parable
starting in verse 1. And listen to why He's telling
them this. Now, He was telling them a parable
to show that at all times... They ought to pray
and not lose heart. So the Lord Jesus, the Lord
Jesus is connecting prayerfulness to being discouraged
in one's heart. And he's connecting constant
prayer with being uplifted in one's heart. And
listen to what he says. In a certain city there
was a judge who did not fear God and did not
respect man. There was a widow in that city and
she kept coming to him saying, Give me legal
protection from my opponent. For a while he was
unwilling, but afterward he said to himself,
Even though I do not fear God nor respect man,
yet because this widow bothers me, I will give
her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually
coming, she will wear me out. And the Lord said,
Hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now, will
not God bring about justice for his left who
cry out to him day and night? And will he delay
long over them? I tell you that he will bring
about justice for them quickly. However, When
the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the
earth? Jesus is teaching them about the significance
of praying and praying and praying. And he connects
it to faith. Enduring, persevering prayer is
an expression of enduring and persevering faith,
brothers and sisters. So, wartime prayer must
be continual. This is set, we think about private
prayer, secret prayer, which the Lord Jesus teaches
his disciples about. Meaning going into your
closet, be alone. This is prayer we could say
on the go. C .H. Spurgeon referred to them as
arrow prayers. You shoot one up real quick. You
shoot a dart, an arrow, here, there. As you move,
as you go, as you need, you send up an arrow
to heaven. Arrow prayers. Now, wartime prayer
must also be in the Spirit. Paul says in this
text, in verse 18, pray at all times in the Spirit.
Now there's all kinds of erroneous and false
perspectives on this. Some would say when the
Bible talks about praying in the Spirit, it's
speaking of ecstatic speech, or tongues, or various
things associated with that. The New Covenant
is clear. It speaks of praying in the Spirit.
But what does that mean? What does it mean for
a Christian to pray in the Spirit? Not your Spirit,
but the Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit. Well,
notice also there's a similar statement in Jude,
verse 20. In Jude, verse 20, we read this. But
you, beloved, building yourselves up on your
most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal
life. Now, notice in this how this verse is kind
of sandwiched between these other two statements.
Building up, edifying oneself in the most holy
faith, and then it's between that and keeping
oneself in the love of God. So prayer, historically,
has been referenced as the chief exercise or
act of faith. Meaning, when a person prays, they
are acting or they are exercising their God -given
faith. Therefore, exercising that faith builds
them up, edifies them, and keeps them in the
love of God. It strengthens and develops the
muscles, we could say, that God has given us
in our souls with regards to holy desires, joy.
peace, and so forth. The graces that God has
given to us. Naturally, we do not want to pray.
A man, woman, child, in their natural condition,
ruled and dominated by their sin nature, do not
want to pray. They have no desire to enter into
the holy throne room of God and to come before
a thrice holy God. They have no desire to close
the gap between them and God. They have a desire
to separate from God. But because the Christian
is born again and the Holy Spirit dwells within
them, they have been given a spirit of supplication,
as Zechariah 11, verse 10 says. Meaning, God,
when He gives us the Holy Spirit, He works in
us a desire and a longing to commune and fellowship
with Him. He's given us the Holy Spirit that
cries out, Abba, Father. It's evidence and points
to our sonship. and our adoption in Christ. So
the Spirit is given to us, brothers and sisters,
to help us overcome our weakness. The Spirit
is given to us to help us overcome those natural
tendencies that don't want to pray. So the Spirit
is constantly working in the believer to weaken,
the old man, to quicken the new man, and to incline
their heart to fellowship and communion with
God. Let me read from the book of Romans chapter
8. Paul says this, starting in verse 26. In the
same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness.
For we do not know how to pray, as we should,
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groanings too deep for words. And he who searches
the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit
is because he intercedes for the saints according
to the will of God. The Holy Spirit is constantly
working in the believer, brothers and sisters,
doing the heavy lifting, So that we can and will
pray to God. So what does it mean to pray in
the Holy Spirit? Well I believe it means to pray
as those who are filled with the Holy Spirit.
As Paul says in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18.
It means to pray under the influence. under the
control, under the power, or in the power and
in the strength as directed and governed by the
Spirit of God as He works in us, bearing witness
to His truth that He has inspired. So as the
Spirit works in us, we pray. As the Spirit gives
us willingness to pray, We pray. As the flesh
is diminished and weakened in our life and we
have holy desires to pray, we pray. The Holy
Spirit is constantly working in the people of
God to sanctify them and to renew them and to
bring them more and more. to God experientially
in their lives. And He helps us in our prayers,
brothers and sisters. We have to pray in the
Spirit. All true and effective prayer is prayer
that is offered up in the Spirit of God. In Ephesians
chapter 1, We read this in Ephesians chapter
2. I apologize. We read this in verse 18. After
Paul has just elaborated on Jews and Gentiles
being brought together in Christ and they're
being made into one new man, he says this in
verse 18. For through him, meaning through Christ,
we both have our access. In one spirit to the
Father. He's talking about prayer there. So believers
pray by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father,
brothers and sisters. That's how prayer works.
That is the redemptive economy of prayer in the
life of the Christian. Now, wartime prayer will
also vary in its kinds or its expressions. What
do I mean by that? Well, what is prayer in general?
The Catechism says that prayer is talking with
God. We can expand on that a little bit and say
that prayer is... Fellowship and communion with
God. And we all know from the Bible that there's
different expressions or different kinds of prayers
in the scripture. Here in Ephesians chapter 6,
Paul says, with all prayer and petition. So all
kinds of prayers, brothers and sisters. What
are some of the kinds of prayer that we see throughout
the Bible? We see prayers of worship. We see
prayers of praise. We see prayers of lament.
The psalmist oftentimes brought his laments and
his burdens and his struggles openly and transparently
before God. It's prayer. He is lamenting before
God. But we also see that there are those arrow
prayers. There's cries for deliverance that we
see throughout the scriptures. There's prayer
of thanksgiving. Paul tells in Colossians, he
says, devote yourselves to prayer. And then he
says, stay alert with thanksgiving in prayer.
But here he specifically mentions petitions.
So wartime prayer necessarily involves and is
characterized by sincere and earnest requests
that arise from needs in our lives. Isn't that
appropriate for the context, brothers and sisters?
Do you have any... Unique needs and difficulties
in your life. That are possibly involved in spiritual
warfare. That possibly have to do with the opposition
of the devil. Have you talked to God about those
things? Or have you only talked to men about
them? Why are we so eager to speak to men? And
to speak to women. And to speak to people. And
to see the face of man. And to come before people
with our problems and our issues. Do you talk
to God about those? Do you bring your requests
to Him? Do you make your prayers and your requests
and your petitions and your supplications known?
To the Almighty in heaven, the Sovereign One,
who can actually do something about it. The One
who is King of kings and Lord of lords. The One
who made the world and sustains all that is in
it. What can we do? Go and talk to the One who
is on the throne, brothers and sisters. Bring
your petitions, your needs to Him. Do you bring
them to Him? Or do you just lay them out before
people? Bring your petitions, make your petitions
known to God. Charles Spurgeon said something
similar to, we should seek the face of God or
we should see the face of God before we see the
face of men. We could play on that in all kinds
of different ways. If we think about our needs,
In life, we could say our needs ought to be presented
to God before they're ever made known or presented
to men. There's all kinds of things, brothers
and sisters. Talk to God about those things in
your life. Bring them to Him. Cast all your cares
at His feet because He cares for you. Don't hang
on to the anxieties and the worries and the burdens
of your life. Give them to God. Now, wartime
prayer also has a necessary attitude that's involved
with it. We read in verse 18, And with this in
view, be on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints. A good prayer warrior
is aware of what's going on. A good prayer warrior,
brothers and sisters, is conscious and vigilant
of what is taking place with them as they are
praying. They are vigilant and watchful. They
are alert with regards to their own soul, their
own mind, their own thinking, their body. They're
in what's taking place between them and the living
God as they commune together. There's an alertness.
Do you remember in Matthew 26 where the Lord
Jesus is the night before his crucifixion and
he tells his disciples to stay and watch and
pray with him? He goes away and he comes back
and he goes away and he comes back. And what's
he find every single time? The disciples are
dozing off. And what's he say? Watch and pray.
We have a great need to be alert in our prayers,
brothers and sisters. We need a spiritual attentiveness
in our spiritual lives. Because we have such
tendencies to drift or be distracted or to follow
rabbits. Everybody knows what I'm talking about.
If you've spent any time in prayer, you know
that as soon as you sit down or as soon as you
kneel or as soon as you begin to pray, your mind
all becomes scattered like nobody's business.
All of a sudden you're thinking about your wife.
All of a sudden you're thinking about church.
All of a sudden you're thinking about finances.
All of a sudden you're thinking about the yard.
It's incredible. What do we do? We're alert.
We're attentive. We rein it in. We control our
minds as believers. We exercise discipline with
our minds. And we focus on communion with God.
If we think about our conversations with people,
and I am guilty of this, when we talk with certain
individuals, it is clear and obvious that they
are not really involved in the conversation.
Everybody knows what I'm talking about with that
too. They're over here. They're over here. They're
up here. And they're down here. They're off in
China, probably. They're clearly worried and
thinking about other things. Now, it's one thing
for us to do that with people. We shouldn't.
We shouldn't do that with people. We should listen
to people. We should... Be intent and focused
with people. But brothers and sisters. Imagine
doing that. At the throne of grace. The holy
of holies. In front of our heavenly father. The
sovereign of sovereigns. Brothers and sisters.
We ought to be alert and attentive. in our praying.
We have a tendency to fall into patterns or to
fall into unhealthy patterns in our prayer life.
Meaning we can just continue doing the same things
almost from rote memory. This is what I always
do. This is what I always say. And it's really
not impactful or meaningful. What do we do? We're
spiritually attentive. My heart is not involved
in this. I'm just going through the motions.
There's no warmth. There's no true piety or sincerity
in my heart. We're attentive to these things.
We have to be alert. But a good prayer warrior
is also diligent and they endure or they persevere.
This word means to overcome. in spite or in the
face of difficulties. The Christian life is not
easy. Prayer life is not easy. In fact, I believe
that prayer is the most difficult, the most challenging
of all the spiritual disciplines. Because it
is the chief act of faith. And every time we
pray, it requires that we mortify our flesh's
desire and enmity to rule over us. Every time.
Why is it that you don't want to pray? Because
the flesh fights against holy and good desires
in your life. Prayer forces you to mortify those
desires. If you are to pray, you must overcome
your unwillingness to pray. If you are to lay
hold of the willingness of God in prayer, you
must overcome your unwillingness to pray. Brothers
and sisters, it is hard to pray and it requires
perseverance and diligence. It's hard work. The
spiritual disciplines are hard work. Paul in
Romans 15 requests that the recipients would
join together with him in prayer and that they
would strive together with him in prayer for
him and his deliverance, but also for the success
of his mission work. That word he uses for strive.
It comes from the Greek word where we get the
word gymnasium. What's he saying? Strain yourself
in prayer. Work out in prayer. Exert energy.
Exert force. Exert discipline in prayer. That's
what Paul is saying. At the end of Colossians,
I do want to read this just because it's one
of my favorites. Snippets regarding prayer. In
Colossians chapter 4 verses 12 -13 we read this.
Paul is walking through his fellow prisoners.
His fellow prisoner lists. And his friends and
his co -workers and co -laborers. And listen
to what he says about Epaphras. What a remarkable
testimony regarding a man. And Paul obviously
witnessed this. He saw this. Because they are
in close quarters and they are near and they
work together all the time. Epaphras, who is
one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ,
sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly
for you in his prayers. That you may stand perfect,
fully assured in all the will, Always laboring
earnestly for you all in prayer. What a testimony
from the Apostle Paul. In the beginning of Romans,
Paul talks about how God is his witness, how
he constantly remembers them in prayer. Meaning
God witnesses Paul's prayers. he can witness
how often Paul prays for them. It necessarily
requires perseverance and diligence. We're in
great danger when prayer becomes occasional,
periodic, and neglected. Great danger. Remember,
this is warfare. I can almost guarantee you that
if the person has fallen into sin, they have
first fallen out of prayer. If a person has willingly
caved to the devil's temptations in their life,
they have been unwilling to go to the throne
of grace for help because of the strength. and
power of corruption within them. It's significant,
brothers and sisters. When prayer is constant
and regular, we must expect that sin won't be.
When prayer is neglected, when prayer diminishes,
we ought to expect that sin and transgression
and desires and lusts will increase and multiply.
We must be constant and continual in prayer,
going to the throne of grace for help. Lastly,
we see that wartime prayer comes to the aid of
others. Notice the last portion of this verse.
Be on the alert with all perseverance and petition
for all the saints. So wartime prayer. is intercessory
prayer. It is prayer that intercedes and comes
to the aid and the side of all those who are
in the battle with us, other believers in Jesus
Christ. As believers, we all have a unique trial.
In a sense, the church in the world At this time.
Every single Christian. Is in the trenches. Together.
And you know. The scourges. Of the devil in your
own heart. And your own mind. And your own soul.
You know the difficulties. You know the hardship.
You know the trial. And all your brothers and
sisters around the world, in this area, in this
place, in this church, they're going through
the same things, brothers and sisters. So what
does wartime prayer do? It comes alongside and
helps your brothers and sisters by interceding
for them. It's amazing how often in my own life
I find holy prayer turning into unholy prayer.
Because it's so focused on me. True Christian
maturity in prayer will inevitably lead outward
to brothers and sisters in Christ. To support
and strengthen and aid the saints in the world
because they're all the object of the devil's
John Bunyan said this. He said, pray often for
prayer is a shield to your soul. A sacrifice
to God and a scourge to the devil. Meaning a
whip to the devil. I want to close by reading
a hymn from John Newton. It's called The Power
of Prayer. I love this. Listen to these words
and then we'll close in prayer. In themselves
as weak as worms, how can poor believers stand?
When temptations, foes, and storms press them
close on every hand. Weak indeed they feel they
are, but they know the throne of grace and the
God who answers prayer helps them. When they
seek his face. Though the Lord a while delay.
Help they at length obtain. He who taught their
hearts to pray. Will not let them cry in vain.
Wrestling prayer can wonders do. Bring relief
in deepest straits. Prayer can force a passage
through. Iron bars and brazen gates. Hezekiah
on his knees, proud of serious hosts subdued,
and when smitten with disease, had his life by
prayer renewed. Peter, though confined and chained,
prayer prevailed and brought him out. When Elijah
prayed, it rained after three long years of drought.
We can likewise witness bear that the Lord is
still the same. Though we feared he would not
hear, suddenly deliverance came. For the wonders
he has wrought, let us now our praises give,
and by sweet experience taught, call upon him
while we live.