Power Of Prayer

[00:00:00] We are going to be concluding our study in Ephesians 6, the armor of the Christian. I would like to read once again through 10 through 18. I had a real interesting morning, I guess I could say. I did not oversleep. I was up by 5 o'clock. And when I got all done, I went to print the sermon. It didn't print. I tried three times. It wouldn't print. [00:00:38] So I tried to get back out of the lesson and promptly deleted it. That was a little bit discouraging. I had some of it on my laptop. I was working on the main computer. Some of it was on my laptop. We were trying to, my wife and I were trying to put things together. And she said, well, we might as well see if the printer is even going to work. She plugged the printer in and the lesson printed. It was gone off the computer, but it's still printed. So I do have my notes this morning. [00:01:11] We've been through all the armor. Today I'm going to focus on verse 18, prayer. But I would like to just go ahead and read the whole section there. 10 through 18. Ephesians 6, 10 to 18. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. [00:01:50] Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit [00:02:20] And watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints I kind of have my notes outlined as who, what, how, when, and where. Who should pray, who can pray, what should we pray, and so on. My first, who can pray? [00:02:54] And of course the answer to that is all. We all can pray. Hebrews 4, 15 through 16. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. I have also, in studying the subject of prayer, I came across a list of quotations. [00:03:25] I have quite a few quotations in my notes this morning. A lot of them are from Spurgeon. He was a noted man of prayer. And it's interesting to read his quotes and just realize how vital prayer is to the life of a leader. And I guess I would have to be honest with you guys, this is one area where I struggle in being disciplined the way I should. To actually put in the time to have, I often, through the day, you know, things come up whenever and I'll breathe a prayer, I'll think of prayer. [00:04:03] But to actually get up that extra half hour or hour earlier in the morning or whatever it takes to actually put in a meaningful time for devotion. I think is very important, but it's also very hard for me. I can't stand here and say, do this like I do this. I guess that's one thing I feel that through me preaching on this, I do feel like it's really been a good thing for me to study, and I have been convicted. [00:04:39] Spurgeon said, God the Holy Spirit writes our prayers. God the Son presents our prayers and God the Father accepts our prayers and with the whole trinity to help us in it what cannot prayer perform we have the utmost power in the universe at our I don't want to say at our disposal but at our is available to us and so often we neglect to to utilize that prayer to have a real [00:05:11] All communion with God. And that is another thing about being a Christian. If any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say it is that one word, prayer. One thing about being a Christian is that we have direct access to the Father. We do not pray to an idol. We do not pray to Mary that prays to God. Jesus is now, and in the Old Testament they had to go to the high priest. [00:05:44] That was how their sins were taken care of. We have Jesus as our high priest, and we have a very real relationship with God, one-on-one. Ephesians 2.18, For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Ephesians 3.12, In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. There again, it's just, we all have access to the throne. [00:06:15] There's no one that's excluded, I guess, other than if you have sin. As long as we are not harboring sin in our lives, we have access to the Father. Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. There again, just thinking about the power that we have through Christ, through God. Okay, what should we pray? [00:06:48] We all can pray. What should we pray? We all know the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, 9-13. I guess I'll just go ahead and read that. Matthew 6, 9-13. After this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil [00:07:18] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen I've talked several times in talking about the armor and different things If you have about not having sin in our lives, about having a clean conscience before God And here it is again. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We cannot have access to God if we have sin in our lives. And forgiving our debtors, forgiving those that have wronged us is the only way that we can have forgiveness from God. [00:07:53] We cannot ask God for forgiveness for something and have a right relationship with Him and have unforgiveness in our lives towards our brothers. What should we pray? for God's will to be done. Luke 22, 42 Saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done. That's Jesus before He was crucified. He had His own thing. He did not want to go through the suffering. [00:08:27] But He was willing to submit to the Father's will. Another quote, I used to pray that God would do this or that. Now I pray that God will make His will known to me. If we have the right kind of prayer. Another thing I read was so often we don't have our prayers answered. Not because we're not praying, but because we're not asking for God's will to be done. We have our own agenda. We're not praying in the name of the Son, in the best interest of God, for God's glory. [00:09:00] Pray for wisdom. James 1.5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. I think that's probably one of the most important things for us to pray for on a daily basis is wisdom. And also, not only the wisdom to know what to do, but the strength to actually do it. [00:09:31] To actually be willing to have the strength to make the right choices. For others, Luke 6, 28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. It's not just those that we like or those that are near and dear to us. We pray for the ones that curse and despitefully use us too. Colossians 1.9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you [00:10:04] and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. 1 Thessalonians 5.25 Brethren, pray for us. And in Ephesians 6 here, if you notice verse 19, Paul says, in 18 he says pray, and then in 19 he says, and for me that utterance may be given unto me. That's one thing that came out a lot, and a lot of the things that, a lot of Spurgeon's quotes, a lot of leaders, if you read, they realize, and Paul, you realize, you can tell that they realize the need for prayer. [00:10:46] of other people praying for them. To me, it is a boundless solace that I live in the prayers of thousands. We can do better without the voice that preaches than without the heart that prays. The petitions of our bedridden sisters are the wealth of the church. We can do better without preaching than we can without prayer. You think we come to church, of course we're going to have preaching. [00:11:17] How much time do we spend in prayer before we come to church? That God would actually bless the service, that God could work in and through the preaching. There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him. If there's someone that you really have a hard time loving, that you really have a hard time appreciating, grinds you the wrong way, whatever. If you sincerely and actively pray for that individual on a daily basis, whenever you think of him or her, you cannot hate him for long or her. [00:11:59] It's just, if you pray for them, it changes the way you feel about them. Let me have your prayers and I can do anything. Let me be without my people's prayers and I can do nothing. That's Spurgeon again. He just over and over, the importance of people praying for him. And I appreciate, just this morning again, several people told me they were praying for me. And I appreciate that very much for those that pray when it's whoever's turn to bring the message. [00:12:30] It's very important that we pray for those. Then there's more things to pray for, and this is not at all a comprehensive list. But for forgiveness, for deliverance from temptation, God's provision, the list could just go on and on. There's always lots of things to pray for and each individual has different things to pray for. What you're praying for might not apply in my life, but we all have things, there again, we have that access through prayer to God. [00:13:04] How should we pray? Let's pray. First of all, we pray in Jesus' name. We can only come to God the Father through God the Son. Jesus said, hitherto, in John 16, 24, hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. If Christians spend as much time praying as they do grumbling, they would soon have nothing to grumble about. I'm sorry, that's supposed to be under the next heading, gratitude and thankfulness. [00:13:38] Okay. How should we pray in Jesus' name? I already said that. Now, with gratitude and thankfulness. If Christians spend as much time praying as they do grumbling, they would soon have nothing to grumble about. You pray in your distress and in your need, which is good. We should pray in our distress and our need. Would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy in the days of abundance. Do we? I've often thought of the story of Job. Job had everything he could desire. [00:14:13] And Satan came to God and said, can I, you know, we all know the story how he took things and took things. And pretty soon Job was down to just basically nothing. I've wondered already how often Satan looks at us and says, Okay, God, can I attack this individual? And he knows what happens when he brings adversity. Usually, it will draw you closer to God. So he says, instead of that, I'm going to give him a lot of this. [00:14:45] I'm going to give him wealth. I'm going to give him, you know, whatever his heart desires. And instead of using what we would see as a way of attacking us, maybe Satan is going at it the other way. And how often are we assuming, Paul talks about assuming that godliness, that gain is godliness. We assume that what I'm doing must be right because God's blessing me. I've heard a lady told me that one time. It's obvious that it's what God wants us to do because we're being blessed. [00:15:19] We can't, uh, I'm not saying God doesn't bless us. Just make sure that when God does bless you, it draws you to him and not to where you have a dependence on your things and a, uh, I, I've accomplished much. My barns are full and I can eat, drink and be merry. Make sure that we are trusting God for our things. With gratitude and thankfulness, how should we pray? [00:15:51] With gratitude and thankfulness. Philippians 4, 6 Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Colossians 4, 2 Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. I was amazed how many verses, when they talk about prayer, mention thanksgiving. It's not just gimme, gimme, gimme. We come to God with thanksgiving. And how, on a much smaller scale, how much does it mean to us when our child asks us for something, we give it to them, and they just turn and walk away. [00:16:30] They don't say thank you. We say, hey, what do you say? We want to hear them say thank you. Well, we're trying to teach them when we do that to say thank you. But it's important for us to say thank you when we come to our Father. We pray with faith and sincerity. James 1.6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. [00:17:04] How many times do we pray and we say, God, I want this. I don't really know what you think or what, but I guess this is what I'm asking if it's all right. First, we need to make sure that it's something that will not be contrary to God's will. But I think we need to maybe be a little more, not demanding, but expectant, I guess. When we pray to God, we should expect God to answer our prayers. [00:17:35] We should be praying with faith. There again, as long as we are praying according to His will, not praying for our own gain and our own things we would like to have done. The Lord does not play at promising. Jesus did not sport at confirming the Word by His blood, and we must not make a just of prayer by going about it in a listless, unexpecting spirit. Same thing again. If we're going to pray, pray a sincere prayer. [00:18:09] Not just, you know, whatever happens, happens, and we'll just kind of just pray that Lord, you know, not really have a goal when we pray. And then I put down, not sure. There's times when you really don't know how to pray about a situation. What do you do? Romans 8.26 has been a real encouragement to me I guess Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities For we know not what we should pray for as we ought [00:18:41] But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered We have that high priest praying there He knows the situation He knows what's best for us And he knows our hearts desires And he is making intercession for us with groanings That sounds like a very concentrated effort, I guess, that he would actually be groaning before the Father on our behalf. A little bit of a humorous one. [00:19:12] Some men's prayer need to be cut short at both ends and set on fire in the middle. Sometimes we have long, repetitious prayers, and about, especially public prayer. Don't make your prayer so long and so flowery and eloquent that about halfway through you've lost everyone. Pray with a goal, pray with sincerity, and make it a real prayer. And then also, Harold, I've been sitting in on the instruction class over here for the ones that are getting baptized. [00:19:52] and he's been talking to them a little bit about how our spiritual life relates to our physical life and prayer would be related to our breathing. If all we ever do is exhale, we will soon die in our physical life. We have to breathe out, breathe in. And prayer is the same way. If all we ever do is come to God and pray, pray, pray and then leave, all we're doing is exhaling. We're telling God what we want. We're maybe thanking Him or doing whatever, but we're not taking time to simply meditate and inhale what God is telling us. [00:20:36] The most important thing in any prayer is not what we say to God, but what God says to us. We are apt to pray and then hurry away without giving God a chance to answer. How often do we say, I've been praying to God and praying to God, and I'm just not hearing from God. And I'm not saying this is always the case, but are we giving God time to answer during our time of prayer? And here again, like I said, I am not one to say that I do well in these areas of really taking the time it takes to really have a close, a good prayer life, a real meaningful one. [00:21:17] When should we pray? What do... I remember probably, oh I don't know, several years ago, maybe 5, 8, 10 years ago, I don't know how long ago it would have been. On a Wednesday night, I gave a list of people and asked for a common theme. What do all these have in common? Jacob, Samuel's parents, Hezekiah, Job, David, Jesus, I believe Hannah is in that list. [00:21:56] Can anyone tell me what they have in common? They're all said to have this in common. Every, they're not all in a certain list somewhere in a passage, but every one of those it gives as saying they rose early in the morning and went before the Lord or something along that line. But they rose early in the morning, I guess is the point there. They had a devotional life where they went early before the Lord. [00:22:30] and here again I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone but when I worked at Jayco it seemed like it was hard to get up early enough to get in there by 6 o'clock and still have time to have devotions you know you just be able to get up in time but I was never late I mean I don't know if I was ever late for work at Jayco if I was it was rarely But my point is, I went, you guys know I do fencing so I'd be in the winter time and go back to Jayco usually. [00:23:08] The last time I worked at Jayco they were starting at 5 instead of 6. Somehow I was able to get up that extra hour early and make it by 5 o'clock. Before I never was able to get up early enough to make it, have time for devotions and still be there by 6. Now I was able to get up what amounts to an hour earlier and still make it to Jacob on time by five. I guess my point is, and I'm not saying that you guys should get up at 1.30 in the morning to go to work or smart or anything, but when you have to be there, work was something I had to be there for. [00:23:47] Do we see it as important enough to get up whatever time it is? We need to get up that extra, and I'm not going to say a time frame, whatever it is to you, but do we make it a priority to get up early enough in the morning that we don't maybe get a bite to eat or even skip breakfast and get out the door and go to work and we didn't have time for our devotions this morning because, well, there just wasn't time. Usually we can, if we have an appointment in the morning, no matter what time it is, we can be there. [00:24:20] And yet, we don't have time for that prayer time. Psalms 5 verse 3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Another thing I want to say is I'm not saying that it has to be in the morning. That's not my point. My point is that it's probably easier to make it in the morning. If you have your regular time in the evening or whatever, that's not the point. I guess the point is to have a real set-aside time where you and the Lord meet every day. [00:24:56] Matthew 6.6 No, I'm sorry. Where should we pray? Well, I'm getting all ahead of myself. Okay, when should we pray? 1 Thessalonians 5.17 Pray without ceasing. Always. So early in the morning is a good time. Throughout the day is a good time. Pray without ceasing. We should always be in a state of prayer. We should never, well, like the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, Where do we go to pray? You know, we say here and the Jews say there. [00:25:29] We can pray wherever we want to pray. I'm sorry, whenever. Where should we pray? Everywhere. 1 Timothy 2.8 I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In your closet, Matthew 6.6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. At church, Hebrews 10.25 [00:26:01] Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Prayer is a very important thing, I believe. Coming to church for prayer. Prayer is the breath of faith. Prayer meetings are the lungs of the church. The church cannot survive without prayer. And then I would just like to once again point out that we have this power available. [00:26:39] What are we doing with it? 2 Timothy 3.5 says, Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. Anyway, if we have a form of godliness and yet we're not using the power that's available, we're missing the mark. We need to have a vital, real relationship with the Lord. My closing thought is, we notice immediately if the electricity goes off at home. [00:27:11] How soon would we notice if the power of God was turned off in our lives? We're sitting there. How often do you sit there in the house and you think it's quiet. There's nothing going on. The power goes off and all of a sudden there's about three things that quit running. You notice it instantly. How soon would we notice if God's Spirit was withdrawn from our lives? If suddenly we did not have access to God. I just challenge you, and like I said, it's a challenge to me, to have a vital prayer life, a real prayer life. [00:27:51] Let's stand for prayer. I do not like to ask people to make vows. God, the Bible says that if you're going to make a vow, it's better not to vow than it is to vow and not keep that vow. I guess I would just like to ask, let's close our eyes, bow our heads. If there's anyone that would like prayer in this area, it would be easier for them to make time for prayer. [00:28:23] Just raise your hand and we'll pray for you. Thank you. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for this day. Thank you, Lord, that we have access to you. Thank you, Lord, that we have a high priest that is accessible, that we can come, that we can approach the throne boldly. Lord, we just thank you so much for making yourself available to us, that you are a God of power and yet a God of love. We ask, Lord, for each one that raised their hand this morning. [00:28:55] I pray, Lord, that you would help us all to be able to make that time to meet with you, to take you with us through the day, to have you working in our lives, to be in tune with you. Thank you for each one that's here. I pray that you would bless our day today. Help us, Lord, to be a light and a witness for you wherever we go throughout this week. Thank you for caring Lord. Thank you for all that you do for us. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.