AT WAR (12): ALL OUT PRAYER (Ephesians 6:18) Read Eph 6:18 Our subject is prayer. Prayer.

. I believe that this is the most talked about and least practiced discipline of the Christian life. Without question that has been true in my own life. I believe this is an area where our church as a whole is deficient, and if we truly want to experience Gods power, it will be up to us to change. Prayer is nothing more than talking to God. So, why is it so hard to pray. Why? Because the enemy concentrates there. He would rather see us doing anything than pray. Why? Because thats where the power is. Paul has outlined our Wartime Perspective in verses 10-13, identifying our major objective to stand, to keep our feet by being armed and empowered. Then he detailed our Wartime Provisions (vv. 14-17), the armor that God supplies, but that we have to put on. Now in verses 18-20, he is going to remind us of our Wartime Power. And his basic point is, you can do all the rest be fully armed and ready -- and still be absolutely useless. An atomic bomb, fully armed, is a useless hunk of metal, powerless to harm until the trigger is pulled, firing an invisible neutron which splits the uranium atom, igniting the chain reaction which results in a nuclear explosion. The trigger for spiritual power in spiritual warfare is prayer. The one and only trigger. Now notice that Paul says, praying at all times in the Spirit. This is the supreme qualifier and it has nothing to do with speaking in tongues or other ecastatic or dramatic physical manifestation. We way over-complicate some things, and this is one. Prayer is talking to God about anything. In the Spirit is praying in harmony with His nature and will. To pray in the Spirit is to recognize the goal of prayer is not to get from God, but to align with God. If you are in a boat and throw a line to the dock, you are not seeking to pull the dock to you, you are seeking to pull yourself to the dock. That is praying in the Spirit. Selfishness kills prayer. James 4:3 tells us, You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. To pray in the Spirit is to seek His will, not mine. This isnt difficult; its just that we are rebellious. We want what we want regardless of His will. To pray in the Spirit is to above all seek His will. Its not about God moving toward us; its about us moving toward God. Lets be clear about who is in charge. Jesus exhibited childlike dependence on the Father in His whole life which was lived in the Spirit and is our ultimate example. John 5:19: "The Son can
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do nothing of his own accord. John 5:30: "I can do nothing on my own. John 8:28: "I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me." John 12:49: "The Father who sent me has himself given me . . . What to say and what to speak." Only a child will say, "I only do what I see my father doing." But that is what it means to live and pray in the Spirit. Formal, heartless praying has nothing to do with praying in the Spirit. When Jesus tells us "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), he is inviting us into his lifestyle of dependence on his heavenly Father. Not our will, but His. Jesus defines himself only in relation to his heavenly Father. Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony with God until their little adventure in independence. That led to a sense of a separation. Jesus had no such sense. He had no identity crisis spent no time trying to find himself because He knew himself only relation to the Father. Prayer in the Spirit is about finding our identity in the Father. This is a lifestyle that triggers power in spiritual warfare. Paul defines it in Eph 6:18. I. All Times Verse 18: all-out prayer demands praying at all times in the Spirit. At all times. Many read this as saying, Pray all the time, but that is not what it says. The Bible does tell us that in I Thess 5:17, Paul says, Pray without ceasing. But that is not the message in Eph 6:18. The emphasis is different. There are two Greek words for time. from which we get chronology, speaks of the passing of time as when we say, How much time will it take, or I dont have time for that -- time counted in seconds and minutes and hours. But Paul uses -- a specific period of time, an epoch of time. This word is used in Scripture to speak of the present time, the end time, an opportune or favorable time, the time of harvest, the time of testing and so forth. The emphasis is not upon the passing of time but upon the occasion of some period of time. Thats Pauls word. So, to get the sense, we might translated praying on all occasions that is, in times of adversity, in times of joy, in times of crisis, in times of peace, in times of testing, in times of contentment. Now, why would he say such a thing? What point was he making? He knew these people were just like us motivated to pray in times of adversity, crisis and testing -- not so much at other times! Were into prayer as crisis management. Like the man who was asked what position he assumed when he prayed. He explained that he had once fallen down a well head first down and gotten stuck in the mud at the bottom. He said, The prayingest prayer I ever prayed I prayed standing on
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my head. We should certainly pray in sticky situations. God often uses those to wake us up. But it begs the question, why dont we pray with equal urgency when our head is right side up?! We are fair weather friends who treat Jesus like our bad-weather one-person rescue party. We only have time for Him when adversity hits. Paul is saying, on all occasions, in all situations, in every circumstance lets pray. If we are happy, express our happiness to God. If we are despondent, pray about that. Pray at and about work. Pray on vacation. We should pray when we are with friends and when we deal with enemies. There should be no situations in life from which God should be absent. Praying at all times in the Spirit. Why dont we do this? Remember in John 4 how Jesus stopped off in Samaria one day and met a woman at the well at high noon? Fascinating account. Jesus asks her for a drink of water. She replies, Man, this is too weird. You Jews hate us Samaritans, and you never talk to women in public and here you are asking me a Samaritan, and a woman to boot, for a drink of water? This is too much. And Jesus says to her in verse 10, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him you would be praying to Me! Beloved, there is a direct correlation between not knowing Jesus well and not asking much from Him. We dont pray because we dont know Jesus. "If you knew who was talking to you, you would ask Me!" John Piper says a prayerless Christian is like the driver of a broken bus, pushing his bus ignorant of the fact that Clark Kent is on board. "If you knew, you would ask." A prayerless Christian is like having your room wallpapered with Saks Fifth Avenue gift certificates but always shopping at Goodwill because you can't read. "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that speaks to you -- you would ask!" The more we know Jesus, the more we pray. It just becomes who we are. Sure we need defined prayer times. Jesus says in Mt 6: 6) But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. We only fool ourselves that we are living a Christian life and there is no regular, private prayer life. We are not. Set prayer times are essential. But He doesnt disappear when we walk out the bedroom door, right? Hes with us always, and the more we know Him, the more we talk to him about everything. Prayer without ceasing is a running conversation with our Father. Jesus gave His disciples one other reason to pray in the good times. Luke 21: 36) But stay awake at all times (same phrase as Eph 6:18), praying that you
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may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, (they havent happened yet, but they are coming) and to stand before the Son of Man. This is anticipatory prayer. Pray in the good times today for the testing that is coming tomorrow. Exactly where they failed Jesus on the night before His crucifixion. While He agonized, they slept. No wonder they ran away next morning. No wonder Peter denied His Lord three times before sun-up. Our failure may not be quite so dramatic, but our own denials before our friends will be just as cowardly and our downfall just devastating if we are not praying at all times, on all occasions in the Spirit. II. All Kinds of Prayer Now, lets look at verse 18 again. What is next? Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. All prayer and supplication. Prayer is a general term and supplication is prayer for particular needs. There are many kinds of prayer just like there are many types of conversation. Prayer can be praise, repentance, thanksgiving, requests, imprecations, venting, intercession, adoration, meditation, song. It can be a whisper, a normal voice, a loud cry, a thought, and it can be done while standing, sitting, kneeling, lying down with eyes open, eyes closed, at home, church, work, school, airports anywhere. All kinds of prayer just not ritual. God hates ritual going through the motions Here I am, Lord, and heres my list, and then going away with nothing having happened and no expectation that anything will happen. As R. A. Torrey says, The most important thing in prayer is making sure that we really are coming to God, meeting with Him and requesting of Him those things we need. Whatever its form, it must be from the heart -- urgently felt and spoken in faith. Let me suggest 4 kinds this morning with a little acrostic that may help remember these. ACTS Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplications. A. Adoration or Praise Thus, the Lords prayer. Hallowed be your name. Hallowed means holy. Literally, Let your name be holy. The word holy incorporates two basic ideas separation and sinless perfection. God is holy first of all in the sense that He is separate from us He is other. And He is holy in the sense that He is separate from our sin without any blemish, any taint of imperfection, flaw or sin. He is magnificent in His sinless perfection. It is for these two reasons that praise is a wonderful place to begin prayer.
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Every human instinct is to bring God down to our level, to imagine Him in our image, to limit Him to our vision, to confine Him Him who cannot be confined, Who cannot be defined in human terms, Who is without limit or boundary, Whose ways are not our ways, yet Who loves us with an everlasting love. Our inclination is to bring Him down to our size, so by far the most important thing in prayer is to catch once again the awesome magnificence and glory and perfection of God. Nothing can calm the human heart better or glorify God more than our seeing how big is God and how small are we. It creates a much needed perspective and it comes from praise. Because God allows us to address Him in the most intimate terms to call Him Father, we see Him as our buddy and lose our sense of awe. Someone once quipped, "In the beginning, God created human beings in his own image -- and then we quickly returned him the favor." Francis Chan comments in Crazy Love: The core problem is not the fact that were lukewarm, halfhearted, or stagnant Christians. The crux of it all is why we are this way, and it is because we have an inaccurate view of God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives. Jesus came humbly as a servant, but He never begs us to give Him some small part of ourselves. He commands everything from His followers. Thats why we praise Him. To reorient ourselves, to recast our image of Him, to renew our faith in Him, to glimpse again His Glory. Thats why we praise Him. To glorify Him and to raise hope and faith in our own hearts. B. Confession Confession repentance of the sin which so easily besets us. This is like breathing to a Christian. John said addressing believers in I John 1:9, If (or since, or as) we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is another one of the almost unbelievable promises of Scripture based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this case, the promise is, You confess your known sins, and He will forgive all your unrighteousness. All of it. Every bit of it. The slate is wiped clean -- a stupendous promise. The word confess, , literally means of one mind. Theologically, it means to be of one mind with God regarding His assessment of our sin
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--which includes of a determination to leave it behind. We agree with God about the fact of sin, and the need to depart from sin. Thats confession. A fellow went to confession at his Catholic church in Ireland. He confessed he had stolen some supplies from the local store. The priest asked, How much did you take? The man replied, Well I might as well confess it all, cuz Im going back tonight to get the rest! Thats not confession thats rationalization! True confession knows no excuses, no finger-pointing, no rationalization, no going back. It is a heartfelt determination to leave it behind. Keep short accounts. Repent as soon as you see sin. Unconfessed sin hinders prayer. David said in Psalm 66:18, If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. You cant hold tight to sin by the one hand and Christ by the other. You have to let go one or the other. C. Thanksgiving It is interesting that in the model Lords Prayer, there is no thanksgiving. But we see it often in the actual prayers of Jesus. In John 11:41 He gives thanks to the Father simply for hearing Him. He gives thanks for 5 loaves of bread and two fish when he has 20,000 people to feed. Thats impressive. But most of all, He gave thanks at the last supper for the cup representing His blood blood that he would give within hours and He knew it. Jesus knew how to give thanks in some pretty tough situations, wouldnt you say? We need to pray even when there is not enough; when its tough. Right now we need space for kids. So we have some people starting to pray about a possible new building. But at the same time, we need to be thanking God for what we have. That doesnt guarantee that something more is coming, but it wont if we dont! You know, its a strange phenomenon, but the more you cultivate thanksgiving, the more other graces just naturally fill your life. Its true. The story is told of one old grump who never had a good word to say. No matter what his wife did, he complained. If she poached the eggs, he wanted scrambled. If she scrambled them, he wanted poached. Finally, his wife thought, Ill fix him. She gave him one poached and the other scrambled. The husband just scowled, Well, woman you poached the wrong one! Had he simply been thankful for what he had, the grumpiness would automatically have gone by the wayside. See what I mean? Cultivating a thankful heart automatically takes care of a lot of other character deficiencies. And lets face it we all need help!
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Now, listen dear people. Listen. When we find ourselves being impatient as I am constantly or complaining its a sure bet that we are lacking gratitude. Those are huge red flags. And if in prayer, you find yourself complaining about Gods timing, or why youre on your third business failure while your neighbor is doing fine, or you are impatient that God has not answered your prayer for a prodigal child and its been 15 years now whatever it is that is causing impatience and dissatisfaction with the heavenly Father you can be sure that gratitude is lacking. So change it gear up for thanksgiving. Thank God for what He is doing in the hard things and it fixes a lot else, too. D. Petition Petition. Asking. Beloved, I am incapable of expressing how much our Father in Heaven wants us to be asking things of Him. He loves us to bring our petitions, our supplications to Him. He wants to be an active part of every Christian life. James says in 4:2, You do not have, because you do not ask. What a serious indictment. But there is an even more serious indictment in the next verse: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. Two vital principles. First, you have to ask in order to receive. Second, asking selfishly ties Gods hands. God cherishes our coming to Him and asking for things, but He wants that to be because we are so anxious to see His will done. We must get this through our heads. Prayer is about changing our will to His, not changing His will to ours. Praying in the Spirit. Hes not a magic dispenser machine for our desires and benefits. Listen to Jesus in John 14:13-14, Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. Theres the caveat. Whatever you ask in my name. Now, in my name is not some magic talisman that we add on to a prayer to give it credibility. Some people really believe that. Not true! Asking in Jesus name implies two things. First, it allows access. Hebrews 4 talks about Jesus as our great high priest. What did a priest do? He brought God and man together. Our high priest is Jesus Himself, so the writer says in verse 16, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Paul Miller pictures it this way. We arrive at the gate of heaven with our petition dressed like a beggar, reeking of failure wholly unfit to enter such a place. The guard stiffens and denies entrance denies it until we whisper that we come in the name of Jesus and the gates swing open wide. We have access only through Him. But in His
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name also implies that our desires are His desires. And His one desire His whole life long was what? To do the will of the Father. Jesus knew the great goal of all history is to get back to one will in the universe that of the Father. He was about teaming with the Father to bring that about at any cost to Himself. Can we say the same? Are we asking in His name? Now, I know some of you still doubt this. You believe that prayer is about getting God to give us what we want. It is not; never has been. And the ultimate example of this is Christ. Jesus dreaded the death that He knew was coming. His last 6 months in particular it was heavy on his mind. I dont think for one moment that it was the physical pain he would face bad as that was, and it was awful. What weighed on him was that He knew the whole plan was for Him to become a curse on behalf of mankind. The plan was for him to become the worst thief ever, the worst betrayer and the most horrendous murder and rapist. He would be taking on himself every sin of mankind and he would absorb the wrath of the Father for all of it. That is what was unthinkable. We have no idea what our Lord suffered on our behalf. It was excruciating for him. So he prayed. He prayed that if possible the cup be removed from him that he not have to suffer that devastation that decreation of all that he was. And we are told in Heb 5:7, In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Jesus was heard. He was heard for His reverence for and submission to the Father. But He was not saved from death the wording literally reads there that he was saved out of death. He still had to go through death in accordance with the Fathers will but He was resurrected saved out of that death also in accordance with the will of the Father. Do you see the Savior asking, but at the same time submitting to the will of the Father? Thats the model, Beloved. Conc Solomon Ginsburg converted from Judaism to Christianity in the late 1800s. He was much persecuted in his native Poland, being beaten unmercifully and left of dead more than once. Oh, those were glorious times, he later said. He became a fiery and highly effective evangelist in both Europe and South America. By 1911, after almost 40 years, he was in need of a rest and determined to go to America on furlough. His route took him to Lisbon through the Bay of Biscay to London and then to the States. However, arriving in Lisbon, Ginsburg found warnings everywhere warning of bad weather in the Bay of Biscay. He was strongly advised to delay a week. His ticket allowed him to do that, but he prayed earnestly. Next morning he found Deut 2:7 on his
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prayer calendar: For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing. This reassured him that his long, worldwide travels were under divine protection. He crossed to London without incident and then on to the US on a smooth, restful journey. Only on arriving in the US did Ginsburg learn that had he delayed in Lisbon, he would have arrived in London just in time to board the Titanic. Beloved, it was great that Ginsburg lived but the point is, whether life or death occurs, sincere honest prayer places us right in the center of Gods will. Paul prayed in Phil 1:20, that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. The only way to guarantee that outcome is to be a man or woman of prayer. Thats where Gods will is. Thats where the power is: thats where we want to be. Lets pray.