Praying Always (Ephesians 6:18-25)
Ephesians 6:10--20 (ESV) --- 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
Prayer
Today we will discuss the value of prayer. Notice in verse 18 that he moves from armor that we are supposed to put on or take up to prayer. Why does he move from the illustration he had going to discuss prayer? Does prayer help us put on the armor of God?
Putting on or taking up the armor of God is something that we might stop doing. That is why he tells us to pray. We need God’s help, so Paul moves directly into a discussion on prayer. But, throughout this section, he uses the word “all” emphatically. He says, “Praying at all times,” “With all prayer,” “Keep alert with all perseverance,” and “Making supplication for all the saints.” Let’s look at these four statements to understand better how prayer helps us in our spiritual battle.
Praying At All Times
The first thing we see from Paul is that he wants us to pray at all times. How often do we pray? How many times do we feel like it is appropriate to pray? At some point, it might seem like we are asking God for too much or getting on his nerves. When we have children, they ask many questions and want to talk to us all the time. As parents, we might get annoyed at that, and maybe we feel as though God is annoyed at us. But here, Paul commands the Ephesians to pray at all times. This isn’t the only place where we find this type of command.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 (ESV) --- 17 pray without ceasing,
Jesus himself told his disciples always to pray and not lose heart in his parable about a widow who persisted with a judge and received justice. His point is that God is more righteous than any judge. God will indeed meet our persistence with justice. Another text is found in the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 7:7--11 (ESV) --- 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Those humble and submissive always have a place in the Father’s throne room to talk to God about anything they want to talk to God about. Jesus tells us to ask God for good things because he wants to give them. He encourages us to ask. We need to get rid of the perception that God doesn’t want to hear from us. Our sin separates us from God, but the blood of Jesus reconciles us so that we can draw near again.
Praying All Prayer
Another thing that Paul commands the Ephesians to do is to pray all prayer and supplication. Supplication means asking God to give us something. But what does pray with all prayer mean? We don’t typically talk like that, so it might not make complete sense. But this is telling us to pray for anything. There is no concern or worry in our minds that God does not already know about. He encourages us to bring it all before the Lord.
We don’t need to think that we have to work everything out before bringing God our plan to fix things. That’s not how it works.
We don’t need to think, “That’s too stupid of a thing to ask for,” “God doesn’t care about that,” or “This isn’t important to him.” If it’s important to us, it’s important to him because what is important to us affects our hearts and our love for him.
I might struggle with a passage like James 4, where James condemns those asking for things with total selfishness in their hearts. But he is not telling them to stop praying. He is condemning the selfishness in their hearts, not the prayer. God wants us to pray for everything we want, but more than that, he wants us to stop being selfish and to start focusing on the well-being of others. (More on this later).
But we need to realize that this text is encouraging us. As we pray every prayer and supplication to God, the answer is not always going to be yes, but we should pray it anyway because he wants to hear it, and he will take our requests into account as he does whatever he wants to do. God is not a machine. He is not a microwave where we push the right buttons, and out comes the well-cooked dinner. We make the requests knowing that God has infinitely more insight into our lives and that what he wants is even better than what we want. Ultimately, we aren’t making the requests to get what we want.
There are many struggles that I have had with this idea in the past. I would think, “If he is going to do what he wants and if we want him to do what he wants, why should we ask for anything? He already knows everything. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of asking?” Part of this is just stubborn pride, and part of it is laziness, but the biggest problem here is unbelief. If God tells us that he wants to hear from us, why don’t we believe him? If he says that our requests will impact his will, that’s pretty mind-blowing, but we have to believe it because he said it.
The best sense I can make of this is that what he wants for us individually is not set in stone. There are multiple paths we could go down. There are multiple options in some things.
Also, as we vocalize what we want from God, we might grow to understand what we need. We start to consider God’s word, which helps us look for the right things. That’s God working in us to bring about spiritual maturity. Prayer leads to greater spiritual maturity.
Praying With Alertness and All Perseverance
That might seem far-fetched to us, but it’s true. Notice that the next one tells us that “To that end (that is to say “in your prayers”) keep alert with all perseverance.” This is where spiritual maturity starts to come into play. The spiritually immature person prays and then forgets about their prayer. They assume that God will do something immediately, or he won’t do anything at all. They don’t have much faith or hope for it to work out. But the spiritually mature person perseveres in prayer. They keep at it even when it doesn’t seem possible. Satan is yelling in our ears, telling us that God doesn’t care about us. He tells us that God will not help us (like Jesus in the wilderness). But he does care, and he will help. We need to have perseverance in our prayers.
He also tells us to have alertness. Why would we need to be alert as we pray? I think there are at least a couple of ways to take this, maybe more. First, I feel that God wants us to look for him to fulfill his promise to be with us and provide what we need. We should expect God to work in our lives. We might not always understand what he is doing, but we should be anticipating him doing something. That’s what someone with extreme faith in God would do. I bet Abraham was pretty alert when God commanded him to stop killing his son. We are told that he expected God to raise him from the dead, but I would be relieved that I didn’t have to go through with sacrificing my son to prove my love for God is greater.
We should all be on alert and looking for the opportunities that God might give us. Maybe the answer to our prayer is something different than what we were expecting it to be. Maybe he helps us see that we don’t want what we were asking for, so we need to stop praying for it.
Second, we need to stay alert and aware that we are in a spiritual battle. There is an enemy constantly trying to pull us into the world. We need to be ready to go to God in prayer at any moment, as soon as we feel the pull. God wants us to persevere in faithfulness, and prayer is an excellent way to find help during our times of extreme need.
Praying For All Saints
The fourth and final, “all,” is a statement that we should be praying for all the saints. How much time do we spend thinking about other people when we pray? Our goal in spiritual warfare is not to fight alone. God graciously gave us a spiritual family to fight alongside us. We are here to pick each other up when we fall and to fight alongside one another. When you are going through something, you have an army behind you praying for you and, in some cases, willing to be the answer to your prayers.
To be a part of this covenant family and make it operate, we need everyone to do their part. Everyone needs to be mindful of one another in their prayers. I don’t send out newsletters for the fun of it. I send them out so our prayer warriors can be praying for you and me and others. I send them out to remind myself that there are brethren here going through some severe spiritual battles. Have you ever poured out your heart to God on behalf of a brother or sister in Christ? I bet there are people here who have done that for you. This is a critical part of our spiritual warfare. We should be praying for each other all the time.
But notice that it’s not just about us. Paul always points to the saints everywhere. The mission is not just for the Ephesian church to succeed. This mission is for God to be glorified in His church worldwide. We need that kind of outward mindset when we pray. We want to pray for the churches around us and any sincere followers of Christ who might be there. We want to pray for the saints in our state, country, and even worldwide.
Do We Need Prayer?
Ephesians 6:19--20 (ESV) --- 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
Notice that Paul asks for their prayers on his behalf at the end of this. He says that he needs their prayers to declare the gospel boldly. We might overlook this, but consider that the Lord’s apostle doesn’t feel like he can fight in this spiritual battle alone. He needs their prayers. Without the prayers of saints for Paul, he might not have accomplished half as much as he accomplished.
Do you need prayers to be bold and evangelize? Why would we think we don’t need them if Paul needs them? I need all the prayers I can get. Your prayers fuel my opportunities. They fuel the opportunities others have as well.
Application
All of this book has been telling us that we have a purpose much more significant than ourselves. We are here to live in a way that brings praise and honor to God’s name. It’s a tremendous responsibility, and it’s too big for one of us to do on our own. We need to work together. Jesus has set us free from sin and death and added us into his body, but he has also made us enemies of Satan. We have a spiritual enemy who wants to deceive us and destroy us.
Above all, we need God’s help. We need to put on his armor, and we even need help putting it on. Prayer should be a major part of our lives from now on. It should be something that we are constantly working on and growing in.
To apply this, I think we must ask ourselves the question, “Why aren’t we praying at all times, all prayer, with all perseverance, and for all the saints?” What is getting in the way? How could our prayer life be transformed?
I recommend developing good habits of prayer. I see four rules from this text that have helped me.
1. Whenever you think about praying, pray. It can be a long prayer or a short prayer. It can be while you are in the shower, driving, working, or conversing with someone. This will help us pray more
2. Don’t hold anything back. Eloquence seems vital to us, but God shows us repeatedly that he cares about the heart. We want to be respectful and reverent, but we also want to lay our heart before God. There is not a thing that he doesn’t already know. This will help us pray more meaningful prayers.
3. Ask Again. The most important things to you are the most important things to pray for. Maybe there is a prayer that you prayed all the time but recently haven’t prayed. Pray again. Don’t stop praying until you are sure that God doesn’t want to answer that prayer, yes. Please don’t get stuck on that request and stop doing anything else until it happens, but don’t stop asking. Even when it seems like it will never happen, ask anyway.
4. Remember Others. Other people might be praying for you, so don’t forget to pray for them. Pay the love forward in your prayers, and, like Paul, share your most important request with someone else so they can pray for you as well.
Conclusion
It should blow our minds to think that God wants to hear from us and help us be what he has called us to be. We can pray to him and find assurance that he is listening. If you aren’t in a relationship with him through Jesus, none of this applies to you, but it can. Will you submit your life to Him and have God as your loving father?