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It's been kind of a sad week for me this week. For the last three years, I believe, we've been in the book of Ephesians, going through it verse by verse, just getting all the depth and riches found in this glorious epistle about the triune
God and how he builds his church. I usually study from about 30 or 40 commentators, commentaries every week, and read them, and I've lugged those things home, home, here,
Nebraska, California. They've just been my best friends almost, these 35 commentators.
And I had to put them away this week because we are almost finished with the book of Ephesians. It was kind of a sad moment.
Lord willing, this Sunday, we'll have Ephesians 6, 18 through 20, and then we'll wrap it up next Sunday as we come to a close in Paul's treatise on the glory of Christ Jesus in a local church.
How do you start a sermon on prayer? The very first line in my notes reads as follows.
Put convicting prayer quote here. So I found a couple to convict you as they have convicted me, and then we'll see our plan of attack, and then we'll look to our savior.
Jacques L. Allul said, it is futile to pretend that prayer is indispensable to man.
Today, he gets along very well without it. Ravenhill said, the self -sufficient do not pray.
The self -satisfied will not pray. The self -righteous cannot pray.
Do you fall into one of those three categories? I'm afraid the local churches in America and maybe elsewhere have an
Achilles heel, and that could be the lack of prayer. Remember Achilles, Homer's hero?
He killed Memnon, and then an arrow was shot, and the god Apollo directed that arrow right to that spot where your heel would be.
Here's the good news. God will call us and charge us and command us and show us by example to pray, but we're not left there.
Can you imagine this is the Christian gospel to some? You don't pray enough, go pray more. That's kind of hard, isn't it?
Haven't you heard those kind of sermons before? Do you pray very often? No, okay, go pray more.
And here in the book of Ephesians, when you look at chapters one, two, and three, you think about who
God is and how he has supplied everything we need. And he's certainly not going to be a father bird that says to a one -day -old bird, kicking them out, say, fly, when they have no resources to do it.
And so here God, in the book of Ephesians, shows us that in Christ, we have the ability to obey, the power to obey, that we are not told to pray to keep our salvation or to get our salvation, but Paul shows us an example of prayer and he shows us the resources that we have so we're able to pray, so we can pray.
And if you'll turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter six, let's look at Paul's example of prayer that's almost attached to this series of armor, attached to the series of armor here.
You could probably summarize the book of Ephesians with these three words, one, seated, that we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Ephesians chapter one.
Secondly, in chapter four, we are to walk. We are not only seated, but we walk worthy of the calling of God.
And then now we come to the third word, stand. Sit, walk, and stand. And let's read
Ephesians 6, 14 through 20, and I'll make a couple of comments as we go. If you don't have your
Bibles, I encourage you to find a Black Pew Bible and you'll wanna get it out. If you follow along as we go verse by verse, the time will go fast.
If you have no Bible, the time will go very slow. Believe me.
And it gets a little warm in here. And there are those who preach for two hours and it seems like one, and there are those who preach for one hour and it seems like two.
And there are listeners who have their Bibles open and they are engaged in writing notes and listening and learning, saying,
God, speak to me. And the hour goes by fast. And there are those who are saying, I've gotta put up with another long sermon now.
That ends up being a long sermon. This is a time of worship and I don't stand here with my own authority.
I'm just a regular person, as most of you know. And when I step into the pulpit,
I want to proclaim or speak forth the very words of God. And that's what a preacher's supposed to do.
This is not supposed to be psychotherapy and let's all love one another and I fail and you fail. Let's all fail together.
And no, the man of God who is frail and weak and fragile deals with the
Lord in his word all week and then steps in the pulpit and says like a herald, thus says the Lord.
And God, amazingly, through the proclamation through a weak, fragile vessel, the
Spirit of God takes that word and begins to conform you, the Christian, more and more into the image of Christ, acting more righteously, saying no to sin more.
How does God do that through the preached word? Isn't it kind of preaching passe? I read this week that a
Baptist General Conference memo came out from a pastor, it wasn't from the headquarters, and it said, if you want to have a good church, quit with the sermons.
It's too boring. I don't know what else I would give you if you're bored with the word of God, what am
I going to do? Tap dance? Get the riches of God's word.
It's like finding treasure, the psalmist said. And look at all the treasure here that we've unpacked the last several weeks.
Ephesians 6 .14, stand firm therefore, 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.
In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now, the
New American Standard, and most likely your translation, has a period, but there should be a comma there. We are not finished.
Technical terminology of the armor is done, but the sentence is not completed. There is no period in the original.
The sentence reads on. This is the rest of the story. Part and parcel with the armor comes the talk of prayer in verse 18 through 20.
Notice the word all four times in the original and in the New American Standard. 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, Paul says, that the utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which
I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
Even reading that passage makes me wanna pray, so let's bow, please, together. Lord God of the universe and author of this epistle, we would ask that you would help us today to understand this passage.
We would ask that you would give us assistance as we want to pray, want to have fellowship and communion with you.
Father, guard us from legalism, guard us from somehow thinking our standing before you comes in the terms of how much we pray or how many minutes of devotions we have.
Yet, Father, certainly, we want to pray like the apostle Paul discusses here.
And we know we need your spirit's power to do that. Father, we'll look forward to the day where we won't have to pray in faith to an invisible
God, to a God we can't see. Yet, we'll see your dear son face -to -face in heaven, the glories of heaven, and faith will then turn into sight.
But in the meantime, Father, would you help me to preach, as Paul even says, with boldness, with clarity and as I ought to.
And then, Father, help these dear people to listen and to learn. And, Father, that you would take your word that's like a hammer and to conform them and to mold them into the image of Christ.
And you'd also take your word, which is very comforting at times, to come alongside of these dear people.
In Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's analyze this a little bit. There's no more armor talk here.
Now, if you look at an armored Roman soldier in those days, they have things that they would carry or use that are not found here in Ephesians chapter six.
That is to say, this is not a comprehensive list in Ephesians six. For instance, there could be a battle axe.
There could be the lance. But Paul is just trying to use language that will help us remember the importance that will help place our minds in the context of a military battle.
So when we think of the hope of salvation, which is the helmet, it's put in the context of war and battle.
But he stops that now. He does not say, this is the lance. If I was writing the
Bible, by the way, I would say, prayer is the lance. It's the pylum. Our prayer is the battle axe.
So we could just continue this theme. But he doesn't, but he adds it into that same sentence.
It's all tied together. 14 through 20 is one of those long sentences of Paul in Ephesians.
And listen to a poem, a hymn, that maybe will give you insight into how armor and prayer are related.
Restraining prayer, we cease to fight. Prayer makes the Christian armor bright.
And Satan trembles when he sees the meanest saint upon his knees.
Paul has just said in Ephesians 6 .12 that there's a war, that Satan and his hordes are after us, that we're in a spiritual battle.
What do we do when he gives us divine armor? Isaiah chapter 59 and Isaiah 11, he gives us his very armor so we might be able to withstand the fight.
And it's amazing, the last several weeks, I've talked to several of you who are in some kind of battle, a battle with issues at home, at work, spiritual issues, unbelieving family members.
What do we do? Just lay on the sovereignty of God, hope it will all be okay? Well, that's certainly part of it, but we're to say,
God, you're sovereign, and so we rest in that. We can trust you. You won't let Satan thrash us.
On the flip side, we're also called to duty, and that's almost the mirror of the book of Ephesians. Here's who we are in Christ, Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, and here's what
God calls us to do in response to who we are in Christ. So we do have a duty, we just can't lay back and let
God. And here he shows the importance of prayer.
Now let me give you two charges this morning, two charges of prayer as we take Paul's writings and then see how they're applied to our life today.
True or false? The preacher makes the Bible relevant for the congregation. False. True or false?
The preacher should show the relevance of the passage to the congregation. True. Scripture's relevant, but we don't make it relevant.
I can't make it relevant to you, but I can say as Paul prayed, as Paul talked about the importance of prayer, so too must you pray.
And Paul prays for two specific prayer requests here, and that will be our outline, two charges for the church to pray.
The first charge is in spiritual warfare, in a battle, you are to pray for other
Christians at this church. Now certainly you can pray for other Christians in other countries. The context here was always the local church, and so let's just focus a little bit.
You are to pray for other Christians in spiritual warfare. And if you're tempted, here's what you'll do.
When you're in spiritual warfare, you pray for who? For whom do you pray? You pray for yourself. And here, the whole issue is body life.
As the shields were not solo, the shields were put together, almost locked together, so too this is talking about corporate prayer.
We're to pray for other Christians. I find it interesting that Paul elsewhere has commanded us to pray for unbelievers.
He's commanded us to pray for the government. He's commanded us to pray for all kinds of situations. And here he says,
I want you to pray for others. By the way, that's one of the reasons we have a church directory. There are two main reasons we have a church directory.
The main reason is so you don't call me for someone's phone number. That's the first reason. And then secondly, more importantly, it's so that you would see faces of people, get to know them, and as you get to know them, you can pray for them.
And on the back, there's nothing on that page per family, and so maybe you could just write prayer request right on the very back as you hear
Paul's commendation and illustration and example to pray for other
Christians. Let's read verse 18 again. Pray for others at this church.
Pray for other saints. Pray for other Christians. 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.
He's talking about praying for the local church. And he uses that first word pray. See the verb?
Not prayer and petition, but pray all times. That's the key part here of this portion of the sentence, to pray, and this is a term that's used to designate worship with only
God as the recipient. This is not something you do to men. Only God receives this in the
Bible, prayer. Never use when men are addressed. And then he gives us ways to pray.
I could say pray for other Christians. Okay, I will. You may ask the question, well, how should I pray? And Paul gives us several ways, not an inclusive list, but several ways to pray.
And let me give you four ways you can pray for other Christians. Four methods, four ways.
The first one is found right there in the text. We'll just chop up the text. My goal is to have the passage, the point of the passage is the point of the sermon.
The sub points of the passage are the sub points of the sermon. How to pray for others. First of all, with all prayer and petition.
In other words, you should pray for others with every aspect of prayer. He gives two definitions of prayer here.
One is prayer, very general word of prayer, seeking the face of God. And the other one's very specific, supplication, or maybe your text says petition.
When you pray for others, you should pray in a general sense and very specific. This word petition means to entreat, ask for a need.
If there's a want, a specific request, particular petition. And Paul, wanting to have the sense of fullness says,
I want you to pray in a general way for others. And I want you to pray specifically for others and everything in between, pray for other people.
All kinds of prayer. That could be prayer for family, prayer in the closet, prayer when other people are tempted, prayer at unusual hours, all kinds of prayer.
Well, let's keep moving because I think it'll help us understand the passage. Not just comprehensively with all kinds of prayer, but at all times.
How are you to pray for other saints of this church all the time? Are you doing that right now? What does he mean by that?
First Thessalonians 5 .17, I believe, pray without what? Ceasing, how do you do that and go to work?
How do you do that when you wake up at work? Pray on all occasions. Literally, it's not time, but pray in every season.
And every occasion might be good, but literally the text is pray during every season. Have the attitude of prayer.
As one man said, have a God consciousness of prayer for other people. Here's the way one man put it, very insightful.
To obey this exhortation means that when we are tempted, we hold the temptation before God and ask for his help.
When we experience something good and beautiful, we immediately thank the Lord for it. When we see evil around us, we pray that God will make it right and be willing to be used of him to that end.
When we meet someone who does not know Christ, we pray for God to draw that person to himself and to use us to be a faithful witness.
When we encounter trouble, we turn to God as our deliverer, end quote. And that's all true, but the context here is praying with a
God consciousness, with an awareness for other people, not just yourself. I think we naturally pray for ourselves.
And Paul here is praying, saying, pray for other people. By the way, if you were in jail, let's flip it around.
Paul's in jail. He's writing to the church at Ephesus and other churches. And I wrote you a letter.
What do you think I'd say about prayer? Get me out? What would you be praying for me if I'm in jail for the wrong reasons?
If I'm in jail for the right reasons, your prayer should be, God, teach him a lesson. If I'm in prayer, in prayer jail, if I'm in jail for the right reasons, what would you be praying?
I find it interesting here that Paul pastorally, with a heart, is saying, Christians, I want you to pray for other
Christians. We'll see specifically what Paul prayed for himself in just a minute. Pray at all times with this deep awareness that we're in the presence of God.
And because of Christ and what he's done, we have access to the throne of grace. How often? When you study the
Bible and you see thrones, thrones are always of judgment. And you would never wanna go into the throne and the judgment hall in the
Old Testament or Solomon's judgment hall because thrones always symbolize in the Bible judgment.
Yet we, and for the first and only time in the Bible, Hebrews chapter four, we go before God to the throne of grace.
And we can always ask for other Christians that God would help them. Praying at all times.
This doesn't mean ritualistic. This does not mean some kind of repeating thing, praying all the time, things over and over and over.
Here's what it doesn't mean. How about Matthew 6, 7? And when you're praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the
Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Praying always is not saying, well,
I don't know what to pray, so I'll just start going, find something. How about this? Here's what Matthew 6 says in the
Greek. When you're praying, do not use meaningless repetition. That word is bata logosete.
That word is saying bata over and over. When you pray, don't pray like a Gentile does who says bata over and over and over.
When you pray, don't pray this way. Bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata, bata. Don't pray that way.
That's not praying, A. B, it's not praying at all times because it's not a matter of you actually saying things and thinking things and giving them up to God.
It's just you're always aware of you're living before the face of God, Coram Deo, and that you have access to Him all the time and you see needs in people, and you should automatically just say,
I think we should pray right now. Matter of fact, Kim's grandmother, Grandma Evie, is infamous for this.
If you want to have a short phone call with Grandma, don't ever tell her what's going on at the church, in your life, in the president's life, in anyone's life, because immediately
Grandma will say, let's just pray right now. And I can't see her on the other end of the phone, but I know she's got her head down and she's just praying.
That's a good thing to do, by the way, if someone says, would you please pray for me? Boy, we get so busy and I hate to say, yes,
I will, and then I never do, and how bad is that? And so the best thing to do is just say, let's just pray right now.
It's that kind of thing. You see things, good or bad, and then you say, Lord, let me respond to you with prayer for these dear people in the church.
After all, the people in the church are the bride of Christ. These are the ones that the Lord loves and sent his son to die for, and so we're to be praying for them.
If God has ordained prayer as the means to the end, then we're to pray. When you look at the scripture, when you look at the corpus of scripture, how about these examples of praying all the time?
Early Christians in Jerusalem were continually devoting themselves to prayer, Acts 2 .42. Cornelius, Acts 10 .2,
prayed to God continually. Paul told
Timothy that he prayed for him in 2 Timothy 1, night and day.
David said in Psalm 55, evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur and he will hear my voice.
Praying at all times. Well, what else does the text say? If you'll take a look at your
Bibles, right there in Ephesians 6, it will say thirdly in a way we should pray is found by the words in the spirit.
We're to pray in the spirit, with all prayer at all times and now in the spirit.
What does that mean? Actually Jude verse 20 says the same thing, pray in the Holy Spirit. I believe it means this, we're to pray under the
Spirit's power, we're to pray by the Spirit's enabling, we're to pray by the Spirit's guidance, we're to pray for the things that are biblical as the
Spirit directs us to. Zechariah 12 .10 says that the
Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, listen to this for a neat name for this Holy Spirit. He's called the
Spirit of grace and of supplication. He's a Spirit of grace and petition.
The Holy Spirit provides the direction and energy and the empowering of our prayers and so we're to pray with this strength and we're to pray for God's end and God's goal and God's glory and again, this has nothing to do with speaking in tongues.
You'll read some commentators, they'll say praying in the Spirit is speaking in tongues. Good scholars, Gordon Fee and others will say that and it has nothing to do with that.
That's an imposition on the text, not an exposition out of it. I like John Bunyan's definition of prayer that contains this assistance of the
Holy Spirit. That's his exact quote. Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate, pouring out of the heart, our soul to God through Christ in the strength and assistance of the
Holy Spirit for such things as God has promised or according to the word of God for the good of the church with submission in faith to the will of God.
That's exactly right, that's good. And then lastly, how are you to pray for other Christians?
All the time in all kinds of different ways with the Spirit's power for Christian -like petitions and then he says with all alertness.
Do you see that in the text, Ephesians 6? With all alertness, with perseverance.
What does alertness mean? You can imagine in the military metaphors, stay awake, don't sleep on your watch.
What would happen by the way if you were a guard and you fell asleep on your watch? How about even
Jesus in Mark chapter 13? He used the same words, be alert, be alert, be alert three times, just a few verses.
Watching for opportunities to pray. How could I pray for this situation?
I wonder how I could pray for that situation. Being alert as a good soldier.
Colossians 4 .2, a parallel passage says, devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.
Be villagent, don't get off your guard when it comes to praying for the saints. After all, Satan's not sleeping.
Satan is roaming, Satan is devouring, Satan is trying to get after the saints so we should be praying for the saints.
Like Anna who watched in the temple, Luke 2 .37 says, she served God night and day with prayers and fastings.
And you know, I love this because it's very beneficial when you pray for other Christians. What are some side benefits could be the question for praying for other
Christians? Well, one would be that it increases unity when you pray for other
Christians. What a good way to increase unity. How about this one? When you pray for other
Christians, it increases your love for them. If you don't like someone at the church, not that that ever could be the case here,
Bethlehem Bible Church. The good news is twofold.
Number one, you don't have to like them. You have to love them, but you don't have to be friends with everyone at the church.
You don't have to really like them, but you need to treat them and love them. Love your neighbor as yourself.
But something's better than that. It is hard to hold grudges. It is hard to be bitter.
It is hard to not like someone when you keep lifting them up before the throne of grace as God changes them.
William Law said, there is nothing that makes us love a man so much as for praying for him.
And other Christians need it. We need to pray for one another. We're weak, we stumble, we're fragile, we're lured into the world system and we're lured by that system.
Sometimes we're cold and lukewarm and sometimes we're anxious about provisions, all kinds of issues and we need to be prayed for.
We need to pray that we might have a good prayer life. We need to be praying that we would be like Christ in a trial.
There's all kinds of issues. And it's really a love for your neighbor.
When God says, love me with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, that's one of the best ways you could do that. Loving your neighbor by coming to the throne of grace for them.
Now, I don't want you to do it for this reason alone, but this is a helpful reason. For those of us that get so focused on ourselves, prayer is one of the best ways to focus on other people.
As you know, Martyn Lloyd -Jones, the great preacher in London, has a six volume commentary, excellent information in there.
And he gives a side benefit of praying for others through an illustration of the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War. And before the war, that country had all kinds of neuroses and there were all kinds of depressions and things going on in their mind and what we would call today mental illnesses.
And the psychiatrists could barely handle them all. And Lloyd -Jones said this war, a terrible and destructive war came along and it had a side benefit by unexpectedly curing the neuroses in Spain.
He says thousands of neurotics were healed when they concerned themselves, quote, about the welfare of their families, friends and country instead of their own, their neuroses disappeared in the hospitals and clinics were almost emptied of such cases.
These neurotic people were suddenly cured by a greater anxiety, an anxiety that reached beyond their own selfish welfare.
How insightful. When things are all going kind of like nothing's right in my life and focused on self, you say,
Lord, I wanna be praying for others and things get put in their proper priorities even though nothing really changes.
Praying with perseverance. You remember the widow going to the judge in Luke chapter 18, in a time of trial, in a time of desperation.
And she just keeps knocking, right? The judge finally says, you're gonna give me a black eye, literally.
You're going to damage my reputation. You just keep knocking. And I could care less about you and you just keep knocking, but I'm so selfish.
I don't want the knocking. I don't want a bad reputation. So I'll go ahead and take care of you, the widow. And he was already under charge, by the way, as a judge to take care of these widows.
But he finally gives in. And then Jesus, by contrast, says, if a wicked judge answers the persistent knockings of a widow, how much more will the good
God of the universe answer prayer from the persistent saints?
Boy, typically I don't like to weed through Matthew Henry because anything good that he says, somebody else has already used.
But he goes through in a wonderful way. By the way, if you have non -abridged
Matthew Henry, keep it. If you have abridged Matthew Henry, it's good kindling, as they say in the
South. You want to get the abridged things. Why would we go for anything abridged? It's like I have the
New Testament in cliff notes in my office I got for $1. Paid a little too much for it. All this abridged stuff.
365 one -minute devotionals through the year for the Bible. Or give fast and you go to McDonald's and it has to be in 32 seconds or else.
Is that about right? Matthew Henry said, the widow was a stranger and we're
God's elect, His chosen ones. The widow goes to the judge and we go to Abba, Father.
The judge was unjust, yet God is completely just and righteous. She didn't have a friend to come alongside and say, help me.
And we have the advocate, Christ Jesus, the righteous, who's our intercessor. She couldn't come to Him all the time, yet we have access day and night to the throne of God.
So we sang. The judge thought it was provoking and needling and punching
Him in the eye. And God says the prayer of the upright is His delight. What a great way to love your neighbor as yourself when you pray for them.
We had a Pop Providence a while ago. It was before my mother died and I sat next to Ruth Bolivar.
Can I tell the story? I'm gonna tell it anyway. Just kidding. We were sitting, talking and I was getting ready to go home and visit mom.
And she said, I just want you to know, I've been praying for your mom every day. Pray for your mom every day.
She said, what's more? I've been praying that your mom will stay alive until your sister repents and God saves her so your mom could see that.
And I said, I don't know my exact quote, but my mind was, I'm never gonna forget you.
What you've just bellowed from the rooftops is I love you.
Certainly I love God and want to see Him infect and invade a life, but I love you.
And here's this church, the church that God loves. Jesus loves the bride. And so we're to love the bride too, yes?
And that's a great way to show it. I love you. Sometimes, you know, people get tired of people saying,
I love you all the time and they have no actions to back it up. I love you and let me show you how I love you as I pray for others.
I pray for you. We have Thursday night, by the way, the men get together and have a prayer time.
And if you're a man and you want to come, and matter of fact, if we want to open up to ladies, we'll have to talk to Jack or Bill, but praying for the saints, if you sign a little card and say, we want this prayed for, those men will get together and pray for you.
And I'm glad we have about four people that show up or sometimes two or one, but I would love to see dozens.
Say, I don't have a ministry in the church. You come Thursday night, that's a ministry I need before the lawn is mowed, is men and women to pray for one another.
Secondly, you'll say this is selfish, but it's not because it's biblical. You should not just pray for others at BBC, you should pray for the pastor.
Number two, you should pray for the pastoral staff, leaders, elders. Let's look at 619 through 20.
And if you were in jail, I wonder what you would pray for. If I was in jail, I wonder how you would pray for me. Paul does it differently here.
He doesn't pray for escape. He doesn't pray for release. He doesn't pray for comfort.
He doesn't pray for better vittles. He doesn't pray for any of that stuff. And pray on my behalf, verse 19, that utterance may be given me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which
I'm an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
Basically, he says, I want to be effective in ministry. I want to be effective in the gospel. And so these are the two -pronged prayer request from Paul, and then
I'll make them from you to me. He prays for boldness, and then he prays that he would speak as he ought to.
For boldness and as he ought to. Let's look at both of those. Paul knows that he may get out soon, and that he may stand before the empirical court,
Caesar himself, Nero himself, and the context is not, Paul's gonna get up and preach a sermon in the pulpit, therefore, he says, pray for me.
But the context is, Paul is going to go before, really, the God of the universe, speaking from everyone else's terms,
Nero, small g, God. He's gonna go speak before him, and he has these prayer requests for the people at Ephesus and the other places that this letter would go.
Going to stand before the president, help me to say the right things. And you can already imagine, and we had this with our last president, evangelical leaders would all go there, and they would just go tell our last president exactly what he wanted to hear.
I remember Alistair Begg one time said, I wish I had one opportunity to go to the president, at the time,
President Clinton, to go for the prayer breakfast as I would go proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to him, and it'd probably be the last time
I was invited back. But all of a sudden, there's the presidential seal, there's a presidential symbol, there are all the
Secret Service people, and it's better people than us have capitulated to that.
Paul says, I'm gonna go before the empirical court, and I wanna speak for God. And even the text, if you notice, it says that utterance may be given to me.
I wanna speak God's word. One man said the Bible is God preaching. I want to represent God well.
And the passive in the original Greek is may be given, that God is the one who's going to have to give me this utterance.
I'm not going to speak my own two cents. I have to speak for God. Like the prophets of old, what does your text say?
They opened, that he might open his mouth. The opening of my mouth, what does that mean?
I'm gonna talk like a ventriloquist. God, I don't wanna talk like a ventriloquist when I get before the king. What is that?
That was a statement back in those days that meant bold, open, frank, public defense or proclamation.
If you can't understand a New Testament concept, where's the best place to go to understand what the New Testament teaches? How about the prophets of old?
Listen to this, Psalm, excuse me, Isaiah 59, 21. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the
Lord. My spirit which is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring.
Ezekiel 3, 27, when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them, thus says the
Lord. God help me open my mouth and out comes biblical truth. And he says here, boldly.
You see that in your text with boldness, fearlessly. The word means frankness, it means uninhibited.
It means that you don't hold anything back and boy, that's so tempting to do. I don't think I'm really a man pleaser in my life, but I'm tempted to do that sometimes.
And I'm sure I've failed sometimes to please men instead of pleasing God. You see it all over TV.
You can turn on TV now and watch the number one largest church in all America, Joel Osteen, 35 ,000 people and the guy doesn't even know the gospel, let alone know about sin.
And he has said, I will not preach about what? Sin, because who's gonna fill up the Houston Compact Center if you talk about sin all the time?
When I get up and talk about sin or hell or wrath or damnation, it's not that I'm thinking, oh, this is just so fun.
And I'm thinking you've just brought your grandmother or you've brought your daughter or you brought your next door neighbor.
And that guy's gonna think I'm wackier than what I really am. And Paul knows he's gonna stand before a man and there is something in all of us, sadly, naturally, that shirks and bows almost to men.
And Paul said, I don't wanna do that. I want to conceal nothing, hold back nothing. That's why when people preach the gospel today, well, let's forget about lordship that God made him
Lord. Let's forget about the implications of if you believe this, what about your grandpa and your grandma and your mom and others who have died without Christ?
Let's forget about that kind of really that horrible word repentance. The gospel of John is the evangelistic gospel and it only has the word believe.
And so we just don't wanna talk about those things. And Paul says,
I, when I'm in the presence of those in high rank and authority, I want to hold nothing back.
Pray for me. Can you imagine Paul? Paul's the man who stood before Festus, he stood before Felix, he stood before all kinds of,
I mean, at Ephesus, he went there and he was preaching in the synagogues, what? For three months, was it? Two months? In a
Jewish synagogue. He's not afraid of people. By the way, Paul was in jail for what reason?
Because he was preaching this very thing. And he said, now I've gotta go to the big court and preach everything. I want the freedom to preach the gospel.
I don't want freedom from confinement. I need to say the right thing. I have to have a liberty and no restraint when
I preach. Sadly, our pulpits today in America and probably elsewhere are just emasculated.
They are so feminine and they just won't hold back, they'll hold back those doctrines.
By the way, if you wanna trace it sometime, an excellent information, but a hard read, Ann Douglas wrote a book called
The Feminization of America, written about 40 years ago. And she says as her thesis, as an unbeliever from Harvard, maybe she's a believer,
I don't know, that when the high view of the sovereignty of God in New England in the 1700s went out, that God's sovereign over salvation, that God's in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases, that God is just, that God is wrathful, that God has satisfied his wrath on his son as a penal substitute.
When that preaching went out, feminism came in. And I think pastors are up in the church pulpits now thinking, what will the ladies say in the church who run all the boards, what would
I do? Just several weeks ago, I was at a church and I was preaching and it was a dead church. And as I was talking about the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world,
I could see the people in the background. It could have been men, but this happened to be ladies and they were beside themselves that I was going on about this little three day old, this lamb that's been in your house for three days, this year old lamb and wages of sin is death and sin costs and without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness.
And the dad would have to just kill that lamb and oh, just the sadness of the tears of the kids and all that and so I was going on and on.
And the people in the background, as I was trying to bring us up to date as God in love killed his son,
I could tell they were like, I've had enough of this. They could not sit still because of the power of the word of God was after them and I thought basically the pastor who was on the stage with me,
I thought you have become emasculated. You won't preach what you're supposed to preach because you're too afraid.
God never let me be so afraid that I can't stand up and say, this is our next series in Ephesians, this is the next set of verses and this is what
God says. It's like that bumper sticker. God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
That's wrong for the preacher. God said it, that settles it, proclaim it. That's the three points there.
And if you should pray for Paul, if Paul needed the prayers of the saints, you think you should pray for Paul more or me more?
I mean, come on, stack Pastor Dave, Pastor Steven, Pastor Mike together, put us all in one big conglomeration and we're still not
Paul. If Paul needs prayer, what about us? That we would be faithful to the end, that we could be humble.
You could pray that we would be kind as we got older. I love A .W. Tozer and I love
A .W. Pink, but those guys got tired of people coming up saying, if man's will is free, how can
God be sovereign? And if I've answered that question once, I've answered it a thousand times.
Even this week, someone said, I think it's better if I kind of view God this way, where he's not quite as sovereign, that man's will is a little more free.
And I thought, if I'm not careful, I'm just gonna get grumpy because I've heard that question too many times. How many times do I have to answer it?
And that's what happened to Pink and Tozer, they just became grumpy at the end. Quit asking me all these questions, where did
Cain get his wife kind of thing, I'm tired. I don't wanna be that way. And you say, you're already that way. Pray more.
Pray that I wouldn't compromise. Pray that a pastoral staff would not base things on expediency.
Well, we're drawing a crowd, it must work. Oh, we need prayer for boldness, outspokenness.
Oh, your pastor's too outspoken. Paul prayed, help me to be outspoken, God, to speak forth your words.
So one man said, the pulpits have become sissified. Because if you say something, you will step on people's feet.
I remember when I first got to the church here, I thought, this is a landmine. This is a maze of things.
I'm thinking, okay, wait, if you stub one person's toe from the pulpit, there's a domino effect.
Let's see. Scott's dad is Dave. He's married to Vida.
Charlie and Cindy, brother and sister. All of a sudden, the web, and you just go, if I offend one, they're done.
They're like, I gotta run those families out first, is what I need to do. And they're the only ones that survived.
All the others got ran out, run out. And in love, you just need to keep proclaiming the truth.
When that pastor gets up to speak at a wedding, a funeral, a Sunday school, whatever it is, that he gets up and says, open your
Bibles, please, and proclaims the truth of God. Pray for me to be bold.
Secondly, with Paul, pray that preachers speak as they ought to, to use the language of Scripture, for boldness and as they ought to.
This is all linked together, but I'll separate them for emphasis sake. Verse 20, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it,
I may speak boldly, he reiterates that, as I ought to speak. That's the prayer request for pastors.
Pray that we're not only bold, but we preach as we ought to. Look what he calls himself, by the way, an ambassador.
Last time I checked, ambassadors have diplomatic immunity and would never get thrown into jail, would they?
Except he's not a temporal ambassador. He's not an ambassador in the Roman government's eyes.
He's an ambassador in chains, according to God himself. He's a prisoner and he's in a chain.
If the Bible says he has chains or in bonds or stocks, that usually means both hands and both feet.
Here, literally in Greek, it says he's in a chain. He's in a chain. So it's probably just one around his arm, hooked up to the
Roman soldier. But it's interesting and it could be true.
One commentator said the chain signifies, among other things, the golden adornments worn around the neck and wrists by rich ladies or high -ranking men.
On festive occasions, ambassadors wear such chains in order to reveal the riches, power, and dignity of the government they represent.
Isn't that interesting? If that's true, I'm an ambassador. And instead of having all the gold and all the jewels around my neck as ambassadors would, oh, the ambassador's here.
He says, I've got a chain. And it's the chain because I preach the gospel. He doesn't call that shameful.
That's an honor to Paul. He's honored. He's an ambassador in chains. God's ambassador.
Paul says in a parallel passage, Colossians 4 .4, that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. And it's hard because some of the scripture is comforting.
There's a friend that sticks closer to you than a brother. And sometimes, Paul says, even in 2 Timothy in a swan song, you need to reprove people.
You need to rebuke them. George Whitefield said, it's a poor sermon that gives no offense, that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher.
That's Luther. I'm preaching in such a way that you'll either hate me or hate your sin. And so you need to speak as you ought to.
And we're so used to the culture saying, I'm okay, you're okay, everybody's fine, everything's copacetic, we're all children of God, we're all going to the same place, we're all...
And you start listening to that over and over and over, and what do you start thinking? The Bible says you start thinking the way the world thinks.
Preaching as we ought to, the words of God. And if Paul, with his spirituality and his intellect, needed this prayer, so do
I. There's a little booklet written in the days of old by Gardner Spring, and it's called this,
A Plea to Pray for Pastors. Now I could say this, I could say, if you want a good sermon, pray for it.
And so if you think today's a bad sermon, then you must not have prayed. I can do that route. But how about Gardner Spring's route?
If the prayers of good men were entreated by such a man as Paul, and if with his giant intellect, his eminent spirituality, and his intimate communion with God and things unseen, this holy man needed this encouragement and impulse in his work, who will not say, brethren, 2
Thessalonians 3, pray for us. If nothing short of the omnipotent grace can make a
Christian, nothing less than this can make a faithful and successful minister of the gospel. And who are ministers themselves?
Frail men, fallible, sinning men, exposed to every snare, to temptation in every form, and from the very post of observation, they occupy.
They are an easier target for the fiery darts of the foe. Would you pray for the pastoral staff here?
And I think you could divide it up this way. Let's even talk about praying for the message on Sunday.
Pray for the message on Sunday and use this little trifold idea, before, during, and after. Pray for the sermon before, during, and after.
Before the sermon, God, would you give the pastoral staff eyes to see what the text says?
Would you help them to be faithful to the text? Would they represent the text with fidelity? Would your spirit be pleased to illumine their minds so they can understand what this text says and means?
Would you give them wisdom so they show the relevance of the text to the congregation? Pray during.
I don't mean pray during the sermon now, although that's fine, but in the week prior, you pray for the preaching of the message, the clarity of it, the understanding, the conviction that the spirit of God would convict, that the people would hear, that the people would come when they have been fed.
You know, there's nothing worse than coming to church when you're hungry. And my wife's out of town now and I just didn't eat well this morning.
I'm sitting there singing songs thinking, should I walk into my study and I've got a little protein bar there and I could just eat it like in five minutes, come back out and finish singing.
I mean, it's just preoccupation. So that the people would come ready to hear, oh God, we wanna hear from you.
And then after, would you pray this week so that after next Sunday's message, that people say, I'm going to be resolved to do that by the grace of God, that they'll remember it because here's the typical congregation.
Week in and week out, you get fed the word of God and then when you walk out that door, it's just, it's over.
Some guy cuts you off on the road and you're like, what are you doing? And then you forget it when that's the bad news.
You need to hear the message and say, God, I need to apply this to my life. That's why Sunday night is good to have the saints get together, our
Monday night for dinner and dads, if you're a dad at home, you say to the kids and the wife, how could we ask the spirit to help apply this sermon to our life, to what we do in our home, the way we treat other people.
Pray before, during and after. Say, well, I fail and I don't know what to do, but I don't pray like I ought to.
And if Lloyd -Jones is a right that your true character as a Christian life is tested by your prayer time,
I fall short, I don't know what to do. And as I alluded to earlier, the good news is there's someone who is a faithful prayer partner for you.
I've met several people in my life, like Ruth, who have said, I prayed for you every day. And some of those people that have said that,
I've been praying for you every single day before I even met you. I've been praying for Kim's husband to be every day of my life.
And it was like 30 years. Some of those people have died and I think I've lost my prayer partner. It's a prayer warrior who will be praying for me every day.
And then I'm thankful that even though some might not pray, that I take my comfort in knowing that Hebrews 7 .25,
oh, it's amazing. Therefore, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him.
Since Christ, He always lives to make intercession for them. Can you imagine
God, the Son, praying for you? I wonder if He'll get His prayers answered. What do you think?
How about this, Romans 8 .26? And 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. He keeps on and keeps on, present tense, continually, always interceding with a word that's just jammed full of emphasis with a compound word.
He's always taking hold of us, always bringing us before the throne of God with groanings too deep for words that's not our groanings, that's the
Spirit interceding Himself in a wordless fashion. And the Father hears these prayers.
Verse 27 of Romans 8 says, And He who searches the hearts knows that the mind of the
Spirit is because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And beloved, we see today
Paul's charge to pray. Pray for other Christians. Pray for the pastor and the staff and the elders.
And yet the great news is we serve a risen King. And so when we fall short, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
God, I don't pray like I ought to. God, help me. And I am so thankful that we have one who has been faithful to pray,
Christ Jesus Himself and even His Spirit. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice this morning that we can come to your word and that you answer prayer.
And Father, we ask that you'd protect us from probably our tendency of thinking you're so sovereign we don't have to pray and you're so sovereign we don't have to evangelize.
Lord, you have told us to pray. You have given us examples of prayer. You having your son, the
Lord's Prayer in John 17, giving us wonderful illustration of how your son was always having that attitude of prayer.
Father, we want to pray for this church better. Would you help us this week? Would you have your Spirit bring up to people, bring up in our minds people that need prayer?
And then maybe we take them before your throne knowing that you'll answer our prayer. It might be yes, it may be no, might be something else, but Father, we know that your son's prayers will always be answered.