Lawson Road CoC Teaching
Paul, Teach Us To Pray
around walking out. If you have complaints about how effective our air conditioning was last week, just talk to us about that. No need to sabotage the whole system. But we'll get through this. If you're at home, enjoy your air conditioning or fan or whatever it is that you have going on. If you have a prayer card that you would like to be that we can pick up at this time, please just raise it and we'll come around and grab those. And there will be an opportunity later, as well. Also, if you missed picking up communion cups on the way in, you can do that now also. Let me get organized. So I've been working through the short series on prayer. And so last week, we kind of introduced Glen Oppmann as we sang the song, "The Lord's Prayer." And we're going to try that again this week with the recording. And we might even sing it again next week. But after that, we'll stop for a little while. So bear with us. I know it seems a little more repetitive sometimes than many. But that's because once we get to singing it, we'll have different parts coming in each time we go through the repeat. And so we're not up to that yet, but one day. And it also goes a little faster, perhaps, than we're accustomed to. But I'm confident we can adapt to that. So thanks, Dan. If you'll go to the next slide there. And-- Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. Give us this day our daily breath. Forgive us, forgive us. Forgive the ones who've sinned against us. Forgive them, and lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from the evil one. Let your kingdom come. Let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. Give us this day our daily breath. Forgive us, forgive us. As we forgive the ones who've sinned against us. Forgive them, and lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from the evil one. Let your kingdom come. It's yours, it's yours, all yours, all yours. The kingdom, the power, the glory, all yours. It's yours, it's yours, all yours, all yours forever. And ever, the kingdom is yours. It's yours, it's yours, all yours, all yours. The kingdom, the power, the glory, all yours. It's yours, it's yours, all yours, all yours forever. And ever, the kingdom is yours. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. On Earth as in heaven, right here in my heart. All right, we're making progress. All right, and if you could-- thank you. So we've spent a couple of weeks already looking at what we can learn from prayers in the Bible. And first, we looked at Jesus' model prayer. And last week, we looked at the life of Hezekiah. And this week, we just had read for us. We're going to spend time in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 15 through 23. But I want to take a moment just to recap what we have covered. And in Luke, Jesus undertakes to teach His disciples to pray. And this isn't working at all. So if you could go, please, Anne? One more. So when we looked at Jesus' prayer, things we can-- I want us to notice about that, that it's a wrote prayer. It's a repetitive prayer. It's saying, I want you to remember this, right? We don't ever say that on Sunday morning. We don't say, we had a prayer earlier this morning. Anybody remember it? Could anybody repeat it? Probably not, not certainly not word for word. But with Jesus' prayer, He's saying, I want you to remember this. I want you to learn this and to know this prayer. And the other thing we saw is that it's for the group. He uses us and our and we lead not us into temptation, to live us from evil. It's always for the group of people that are praying. It's not necessarily a personal prayer. He's saying, hey, when you guys are hanging out together, this is how I want you to pray. Pray for each other as a group that this can be who you are. So that's two things. Then last week we discussed three of King Hezekiah's prayers. And so Hezekiah, his prayers are different. His prayers are intimate. His prayers are between him and God. I know they're written down in a book for thousands of years, and everybody reads them. But they're between him and God. This is what I want, God. The Assyrians are outside our walls, look at what they wrote. Defend yourself, save us, save me. They share His emotions. He laid out the letter, and then He said to God, this is what the letter says. This is what's going on. This is what we're feeling. I'm feeling. This is what I'd like you to do. And so these are largely prayers for Himself. This is not just the model prayer. This is a prayer for Himself. This is what I want. Later He's told that He's going to die. And so He prays and He says, God, can you let me live? I've been a good guy. I've honored you. I've done the things you want to remember me. And God does and gives him 15 more years of life. And so unlike the model prayer that's for the group, this is a prayer for Himself, for an individual. And then we come to today's prayer. And as we look at Paul's, and we're going to spend our time in Ephesians 1, but as we look at Paul's prayer, we're going to see that the things that He's praying for is for people, the church there, to have a deeper relationship with God. And it's obvious that He is praying this for others, right? It's not for Him and His group. It's not for Him by Himself. This is a prayer that He has for other people. And so we see three different styles of prayer and three different people being prayed for. The group Himself and for others. So we'll come back to that, but this is where we get started. As we look at Paul's prayer for the Ephesian Christians, usually when I teach this passage, most of my focus is on the individual elements. And so we study it more topically. And so we, in verse 18, for instance, we'll spend time discussing what is the glorious inheritance? What is the glorious inheritance? I'm going to spend time looking at that when we might look at other passages, and we'll try to understand that better. What's going on? What's He talking about there? But today I want to step back from those kind of details. I don't want us to really hang out there. I want us to look at the types of things that Paul prays for his fellow believers. And we're going to see that obviously this is Paul, as I said, praying for other people. And he wants these people who are already Christians to know God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, more deeply than they already do. According to verse 17, he asked that God the Father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. That he may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. I'm convinced that the spirit of-- or not the spirit, I'm convinced that wisdom as a value is undervalued in our society. In this context here, it means deciding how to live in a way that honors God. He's saying to the church, I want you to have the spirit of wisdom. I want you to live and make decisions and act in a way that honors God. That's his wisdom, God's wisdom. And the word revelation is one that we don't really use in this sort of context, but it means here understanding. So Paul is praying that these Christians will be given understanding of God's will and wisdom to live by it. Now, I don't know about you, but that's a prayer that I'd appreciate being made for me, right? That I'd understand God's will better, whether it be for me, for the church, the community, the nation, the world, and that I would have the wisdom to live by it. Now, in addition to the obvious benefits of having greater wisdom and understanding, I mean, I think we all would like that just because it's better, right? Wisdom and understanding are good things to have. Paul says that possessing these will help the church to know God better. And so that becomes the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is that we know God better. It's not that we get wisdom and revelation. So like Solomon, we can become the richest man in the world, the most powerful man, have people coming and seeking advice from us, and we're respected and maybe accumulate power along the way. But that's not like Paul's praying that these people may have wisdom and revelation or wisdom and understanding. He's praying that the church may have wisdom and understanding so that they may know God better. And so it's important that we don't lose sight of our goal. Our goal as Christians is to know God better. Now, we'll have all sorts of benchmarks or milestones along the way. We start out as a new Christian and we haven't done anything. Maybe we haven't read very much of the Bible at all. And when we start with a gospel and say, I'm going to read a gospel. Maybe we start with Mark because it's the shortest. And then we sort of move on and we think, well, I should just keep reading the New Testament. So we go to Luke and John, maybe we come back to Matthew. And then we get ambitious and we say, well, I've done the New Testament. Now I need to read the whole Bible and say, we go to Genesis. And we get through Genesis and maybe Exodus. And we come to Levitic and we go, I don't know about this. Did I make the right decision? But the point of doing all of those things of investing at that time in Scripture and seeking to understand it and going to Bible class so that we can learn more about it and hear from the experience of others is so that we may know God better. We're not like Cracker Barrel. We don't get a star on our apron each time we read through the Bible, because that's not the point. The point is to know God better. But this passage, oh yeah, so the passage sees wisdom and understanding as stepping stones to this end goal. As we get to know Father God better. The passage here in 1 Corinthians also in Ephesians also tells us that we'll come to know some additional things. We'll come to know the hope that He's called us to. We'll come to know the hope that He's called us to. We've been studying Wednesday night, the book of Ecclesiastes over the last few weeks. And Ecclesiastes is really a book of hopelessness. And part of the reason for that hopelessness is that the writer doesn't see anything beyond this life. He's only living for the present. He's living for the now. And then everything that He's done just gets blown away in the wind. What He is missing is hope. Right, there's no hope for anything beyond what we see and do in this life. And so as we come to know God, we come to know the hope to which He's called us, that there's more to life than what we see here and now. We also come to know the glory of the inheritance that He's given us. And so we could, again, as I said, go into details about that, but part of that inheritance is simply that we become His family. We become children of God. And so as we get to know our Father God better, we get to understand the inheritance, the benefits, the blessings of being part of His family. And then the third thing that we're told is that we come to know His incomparable power. His incomparable great power. And I haven't put this up on the screen, but the rest of that phrase there, in verse 19, His incomparably great power for us who believe. Okay, for us who believe. So the power is not just sort of power that's out there, that's sort of managing the fusion reactions of the distant stars, right? The power is for us who believe. It's something that we have access to that's there for on our behalf for our benefit. And then we're told that it's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and placed Him on the throne of heaven at the right hand of the Father. And so that same power is the power that is available for us. As Jesus was raised from the dead, we're able to look forward ourselves to being raised from the dead, but we also have access to that power before our passing, right? Well, we're alive, God's power is still for us who believe. And that's His prayer. That's His prayer for the church. That's His prayer for the people there. He says, "These are the things I want you to do. "These are the things that I long for you to be aware of." I want you to have wisdom and understanding so that you can know God better. Knowing God better, I want you to be confident in the hope that He's given us. I want you to value the inheritance that you receive as a child of God. And I want you to turn and to experience His incomparably great power. Does anybody do you think ever prayed that for you? So again, I can't speak for you, but most prayers that I've heard, many that I've prayed myself. They'll say, "Father God, "so and so is having a bad time. "Can you be with them?" Okay? I think God kind of knows what's going on and He'll do what it is that God does. But I wonder how it makes a difference if we say, "Father God, I know that this person is struggling. "I think what they really need "is to have a full understanding of who you are "and of the power that you have that's available to them." Like, you see how the prayer changes? As we wish that for that other person? And it's not only for them, but it reminds us in the process, doesn't it? Though we're not just asking God to be with someone. And I know we have a lot of meaning behind that, but God's always with those people. We're asking God to do specific things, perhaps to heal them, to comfort them, to care for them, to let them be aware of the presence, to be aware of the power, to be aware of the hope that is given to them. And so I think sometimes we miss out on some of the blessings of prayer because we tend to pray very often by bullet points rather than by paragraph. And Paul gives us an example of what a thoughtful prayer can look like. And I'd love to be on the receiving end of this. So here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to take a moment, look around this room and pick out someone who's not a family member, right? He's not sitting next to you, who didn't ride in the car with you. And then choose one of these prayer points that you see on the screen and pray for that person that you've picked out to receive this prayer point, to receive this blessing. You don't have to rush, I'm gonna give you a couple of minutes, it's gonna seem like forever. But what I'd also like you do then, is you say, I want this person to have this blessing, but then also go a step further and say, why? Why does this person, how will this person benefit from this blessing, okay? Why did I choose this one for that person? And explain it to God and do this in your head. If you're a guest today and you don't know anyone here, you can pick one of these and pray it for yourself, or for anyone else that you know wherever they are. And if you're online but not watching this live, you can pause the video at this moment and take as long as you like to work through this. But I'm gonna give us two minutes, starting now. And you pick the person, pick the blessing and then explain the why. (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) - Thank you Rose. (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) - Thank you. - I believe that in our prayer lives, one of the approaches to prayer that we often overlook is simply the praying of scripture. That we focus mostly on things that are needed, things that I need, things that other people need, and overlook some of the wisdom and the blessings that scripture reveals to us. And so all it requires is to take any passage in scripture, obviously some are more appropriate than others, the Psalms are terrific. In this case, in Ephesians, it already happens to be a prayer, but it could be a passage of teaching, it could be other thing. And then insert our own names or the name of another person, the name of a group, such as Lawson Road, or maybe the students at Lawson Road, the young people. And so if we take this passage of Ephesians 1, 15, through 23, and I want to give a couple of demonstrations of this, as we pray through, and it doesn't make it any less genuine. I want to firstly apply it to our elders. I think it would look something like this. Father God, ever since I saw and experienced the faith in the Lord Jesus and the love for all God's people that the elders at Lawson Road have, I've not stopped giving thanks for them, remembering them in my prayers. I keep asking that you, God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give Ron, Steve, Curtis, and Larry, the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they may know you better. I pray that the eyes of their hearts may be enlightened in order that they may know the hope to which you have called them, the riches of your glorious inheritance in your holy people, and your incomparably great power for all of us who believe. Amen. It takes a little bit of time. In this case, it's helped by a computer. I can cut and paste that passage from Ephesians and then go back and change the pronouns or insert different lines. That's what I put in the yellow there, the bits that I added or changed. But as we continue through this passage, let me pray this time for a different group of people. Thanks, Adam. Gracious God, I pray for the senior members at Lawson Road. I pray that they might know that the power you give them is the same as the mighty strength you exerted when you raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at your right hand in the heavenly realms. Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked not only in the present age, but also in the long to come. And God, you placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be had over everything for the church. And as these members age and naturally lose their physical strength, they may they increasingly draw upon your power and strength. Amen. And so in this way, we think of things that we may not otherwise think of. We pray for things or for people that we might overlook or just never come to our own minds when we do this. And so I've included these prayers this morning because I can talk about prayer until I'm blue in the face. We can read books about prayer. There are many, many books written about prayer, about developing spiritual disciplines. But until we actually develop a habit of prayer, the talk and the reading doesn't accomplish anything. Developing a habit of prayer usually requires establishing a time of prayer. Now, don't get me wrong, we can have a lot of conversations with God while we're walking through the neighborhood, while we're driving our cars, while we're eating a meal. But there's something about setting time aside and saying that this time is dedicated to me and God. It also gives us this quiet space, gives us an opportunity to listen to God. And that's harder to do while we're multitasking prayer with other activities. Now, as I said, there's no problem with that kind of multitasking in prayer. But if that's all that we're doing, if that's the totality of our prayer life, we're missing the opportunity of hearing God speak to us in the silence. So our day of prayer next Sunday gives us the opportunity to set aside 15 minutes out of our day just to talk with God. And I know for some of us 15 minutes seems like a long time and some of us are going only 15 minutes. And that's okay, whatever it is that you're experiencing. And so there are no rules about who or what to pray for. We'll have a handout with suggestions, with a guide, maybe some scriptures. But it's entirely up to you. Maybe you want to pray a scripture. Pick one out during the week that you want to pray next Sunday. Maybe you just want to pray for the city, for the upcoming elections, for our missionaries, family members, for your own concerns that you have. Maybe you just want to go down through the prayer list that we publish every week. When we get together on Tuesday morning for prayer, and that's a time that everyone's invited to at 9 o'clock each Tuesday, I know it takes us about 30 to 40 minutes to pray through that prayer list. So you can get a start on that in your 15 minutes. And any whatever you choose is perfectly valid. No one's going to come behind you and check if you prayed for all 15 or if you just ran out of juice at 12, okay? It's not that kind of exercise. It's between you and God. Some of you I know will put your name down and then forget all about it. I've done that before in this sort of exercise. And I've just made it up later and God can rearrange the time, right? God, there's no time in God's universe. So he fills in the blanks. And so I hope this was spent three weeks talking about prayer that you can see prayer is something that's flexible. It's about our connection to God, right? It's not about getting things right. What if we were saying the Lord's prayer and we skipped the line? Would it matter? If we look at the prayer in Luke and the prayer in Matthew, there Luke's quite a bit shorter and that's okay. You see, it's not about getting it right, so to speak as much as it is. Am I talking to God and having building my relationship with him? Our prayers can be written. They can be memorized. They can be conversational. We can pray as a group. It's usually more formally when we do that. We can pray for others or we can pray for ourselves. Old God's looking for on our part is a genuine desire to talk to him. That's what we're going to do now. Will you bow with me? Father God, I thank you for this time we've had to spend time talking about talking to you. And Father, as we've done that, I pray that some of the things that have been said have prompted us to say, yeah, I need to do more of that. I need to set aside some time. I need to tell God really what's on my heart, be honest with him. I need to give myself space for listening to God. Father, I pray that you speak to us. I pray that you hear our prayers. I know that you do. Help us to be aware of that. Help us to see you answering prayers and acting in our lives and the lives of those around us. Lord, we are so grateful that we have this opportunity, this avenue of talking to you and the intimacy that we can have knowing that you are listening to us, that you listen because you love us, that you want to know what's on our hearts. Father, I pray that through this process we may come to know you better and to be formed more into your image as your values become our values. We pray all these things in the name of Jesus who died for us and gives us the hope of eternal life with you. Amen. [ Silence ]