Wartime Praying

Me ask you to bow your heads. OK. OK. Let's just pray and ask God to just open our hearts to His glory, that an awareness of His glory would enlarge our requests.

And as our requests are enlarged, that God's work in response to our request would be seen, and that mighty things would be done to the glory of Jesus Christ. God, we, we are a needy people. we come to you and all we got is 5 loaves and 2 fish. We can't feed this multitude around us, but we know that in your hands, you can bless and multiply whatever efforts we have.

We also know, Lord, that we can labor, we can work, we can do all the right things, but unless you choose to show up and you choose to do a mighty work, then all of our work is in vain. And so we come to you right now, Lord, and we ask you to produce a gospel revolution in our midst. And then use this church along with other churches, Lord, committed to the same gospel to create a gospel revolution in this community, that lives that are now bound by sin, Bound by the guilt of sin.

And they see no way out.

Lord, may they see this insanely good news of the gospel. They need to hear the good news that their sins can be forgiven. Their conscience is cleansed, and it can happen in a moment as they put their trust in Jesus. God, we are sitting on the most incredible message.

And we do not well to just sit here. And keep it to ourselves, and even to share it with a few people here and there. But Lord, you want us here to get this message out, so that lives could be transformed, and your name could be glorified. And so we ask now, Lord, that you would do such a mighty work in our midst and through this church, that when other people behold what you have done, they would never accuse us of having done it, but that they would know this is the work of God.

And it is marvelous in our eyes. We ask these things, Lord, may your kingdom come. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Well, let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6, We're, doing a verse by verse study through the book of Ephesians, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come once again to Ephesians 6:18. And my goal this morning is to cover verses 18 through 20, which we were able to do in the first service, so there's no reason why we can't do it in this service. Ephesians chapter 6, and the title of the message is wartime, praying.

Again, we're understanding that when Paul gives us the instructions that he gives us in verses 18 to 20, he is doing so within the context of war. He has been teaching us about the war that we are engaged in, beginning in verse 10, all the way through verse 2. And so his teaching on prayer in these few verses, we need to understand in the context of war. War changes things, does it not?

we in our own society, we've been involved in A number of wars throughout our history. But in our lifetime, we've never really been involved in a war that that daily we've lived in fear for ourselves here in this country. right now, we're involved in a conflict over in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that's over there.

And the soldiers and their families are profoundly affected by that. And we need to be praying for them and their families. But we don't get up in the morning and worry about maybe there's going to be a military assault in our neighborhood, or whatever. but if we were involved in a conflict or a war that was being battled out on our own soil, how would that change our lives?

How would that change what we are concerned about? Martin Lloyd Jones in his commentary on Ephesians, talks about the effect of war. And he talks about it, by way of describing what happened in Spain, back in the 1900s, when there was a civil war that broke out in the country of Spain, and listen to what he says. He says before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, Madrid, and other places, there were psychological clinics with large numbers of neurotics undergoing drug treatment and others attending regularly for psychoanalysis and such like.

They had their personal problems, their worries, their anxieties, their temptations, having to go back week after week, month after month to the clinics in order to be kept going. So in Spain, there's a lot of neurotics in this country going to counseling and dealing with their own personal concerns and filling up these psychiatric clinics. But Martin Lloyd Jones says then came the Civil War. And what do you think he's going to say happened?

In Spain as a result of this civil war. Well, look at what he says. Then came the Civil War, and one of the first and most striking effects of that war was that it virtually emptied the psychological and psychiatric clinics. These neurotic people were suddenly cured by a greater anxiety, the anxiety about their whole position, whether their homes would still be there, whether their husbands would still be alive.

Whether their children would be killed. Their greater anxieties got rid of the lesser anxieties. And in having to give attention to the bigger problem, they forgot about their own personal and somewhat petty problems. Why did that happen?

He goes on to describe that the same thing happened in Great Britain leading up to and then the early stages of World War II, when Britain became involved in the war. But why does that happen? It happens because war makes a difference. And you can actually, it not only makes a difference in our lives and in what we're concerned about, but it actually makes a difference in the way that we pray, and the things that we pray for.

There's more urgency when we understand that we are at war. And there are certain things that we are more anxious about and concerned about when we know that We are at war than what we would be concerned about if we were not mindful of that. You can listen to a prayer meeting of Christians and you can tell by their prayers whether they understand that they are at war or not. Listen to me very carefully and don't take me to say something I'm not saying, OK?

If Christians do not understand that they're at war, their prayer requests are pray for my back, it's aching. And pray for my toenail. I've got an ingrown toenail, be praying for that. There is nothing wrong with praying for those things.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with sharing prayer requests regarding those things. But if that's all that we're praying for, that's evidence that we don't understand that the stakes are extremely high, and there are greater anxieties in addition to those that we need to be consumed with concern for and prayer for. And if we as Christians would actually let sink in, what Paul has been teaching us in Ephesians that we are living in evil days, lives are being destroyed, people are bound by sin.

And every day, there are thousands of casualties going off into eternity, into a Christless eternity suffering the judgment of God.

The devil is always scheming and he's implementing schemes against us. And even when we're not being attacked, that's a scheme. He's just laying low for a day or two. To to set us up for an attack that's coming.

So he's always scheming, always up to something, even when it doesn't appear to be so. And flaming arrows are coming at us every day and coming at our brothers and sisters, and flaming arrows are coming at your wife, coming at your husband, coming at your children, every single day. Powerful spiritual forces we've learned are wrestling against us constantly. Satan is blinding billions on and on the list can go, as we have learned from scripture that we are involved in a colossal, high stakes war, where the stakes are higher than any war that has ever occurred in the history of the world.

Every battle, every war that's ever occurred in world history is just a skirmish. That is a part of this larger war. And so let me quote again from John Piper. It's a different quote, but where he's saying basically the same thing, different quote that I gave you last week.

It's in this context that we learned that prayer is the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls on God for courage. It calls in for troop deployment and target location. It calls in for protection and air cover.

It calls in for firepower to blast open a way for the word. It calls in for the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers. This is the place of prayer on the battlefield. Of the world.

So if we come to comprehend these realities, then there will be an urgency to our prayer. We would actually say, I want to know how to work this walkie-talkie. I want to know how to pray, when I should pray, how do I use this in a way that would help me to be effective in battle for the cause of Christ. And so we've begun in verse 18 to look at some urgent truths about prayer that we must know in order to be victorious.

By way of review, #1, we learned that we must pray continuously and at every opportunity. Verse 18, with all prayer and petition, pray continuously at all times. And so we need to pray without ceasing. We need to pray individually, just living in a spirit of prayer.

But even beyond that, I think Paul would be encouraging us to be praying together at every opportunity. and so we need to be more open and more willing to do that. One of the things I've been blessed by in this church is that as I have interacted with various people in this congregation, there's an increased readiness of people to just say, hey, can I pray for you right now? like I'm sharing some struggle or something I'm going through or whatever, and just, hey, can I pray for you right now and boom.

We're in prayer, applying our strength to prayer, and we need to be doing that thing, praying together at every opportunity and asking God to work. A second truth we learned is that when we do pray, it is God to whom we pray. The word that is translated prayer twice in this passage, universally in the New Testament speaks of praying to God. So he is the one that we Address.

He is the one to whom we speak. A third truth that we learned last Sunday about prayer is that we must pray asking out of a sense of urgent personal need. The word petition that shows up twice in this text speaks of that which is asked with urgency based on presumed need. And so we're not just praying because it's the right thing to do or it's the godly thing to do or the spiritual thing to do or because it pleases God.

Although all of those reasons are legitimate, we pray because we're desperate. That's what drives us to pray because we are terrified to live without prayer. We are terrified of who we become, apart from prayer, we are, we understand that the war is such and our enemy is such that we dare not go out into battle without Prayer cover. And so we pray, asking out of a sense of urgent personal need.

I, I, I read from time to time, stories and some of the magazines I get of stories of like the failure of a pastor, a moral failure of some sort. And, and as I read those, inevitably at the end, the author reflects by way of interviewing the pastor, for example, like what, what were the early stages? That, that as you look back, that you observed that were the earliest stages of your failure morally and almost universally, what they say is, I stopped praying. I stopped praying.

Not praying may not seem like a big deal. But if down the road you end up doing something crazy, stupid, offensive to God that you're ashamed of, what, you will look back and you will almost certainly identify ceasing to pray as one of the early stages of your failure. And so, let us pray out of a sense of urgent personal need. 1/4 truth that we learned is that when we pray, we must pray in the spirit, and this means we pray by the Spirit's enablement.

We pray in the company of the Spirit who is also praying with us and for us, according to Romans 6 or 8:26, and then we also pray in the Spirit's will by the Spirit's guidance. And we do that primarily we saw last Sunday by, interfacing with God's word, reading his word, and then interlacing our prayer life just into His word. We read and then we respond through prayer, confession, thanksgiving, praise, and petition for ourselves or for somebody else. Let me encourage the care groups to do something.

Last Sunday, for our prayer time, rather than taking requests, which we, which we most often do, we just decided we would do the George Mueller method that we talked about last Sunday. And we would just read from the text of scripture, and then just people pray however you feel led. Whatever we read in the passage that provokes you to confess sin, or to give thanks to God, or praise to God, or to make requests for yourself or for someone else or some ministry that you're engaged in, just however the Spirit leads from what we've read, go ahead and utter those requests to the Lord.

And so we had someone read like Ephesians 4:1 through 3.

and then we had a season of prayer. I fully thought that we would stop praying and then we would read a few more verses, but we read Ephesians 4:1 through 3. 20 plus minutes later, we still were not done with just praying through those three verses. And so, I want to encourage you guys individually to really do this in your life.

and, and experience the, the richness of it, but also in the care groups for your prayer time tonight. I would encourage you to, to try this if you did not already do that last, last week. We must be into the word of God. That is how God speaks to us.

That is where we experience power and direction in our prayer life. Well, there is a 5th truth that we're going to get into today, and that is that we must pray with persevering alertness. We must pray with persevering alertness. look at what he says in verse 18.

He says, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. And with this in view, and what he means is with praying in view, with praying the way that I've been telling you, with that in view, be on the alert, with all perseverance. And so at the very least, Paul is saying, when you pray, be on the alert, right? Don't be falling asleep when you pray.

This is a challenge. I don't know if I'm unique in this, but, I was sharing with my care group last Sunday that, that if I sit down and I close my eyes and I pray, I almost always fall asleep. I just, for me, to stay alert when I pray, I have to stand and pace. And I've walked many miles praying.

And so, and sometimes you have to choose the right time of day to pray. If you try to get up, extra early in the morning, that may actually work for you, but for some, maybe that's not a good time to give yourself to a season of prayer because you may find yourself falling asleep and so target the, Times of day when you are at your most alert, give those most alert moments to prayer and even your physical posture when you pray, let it be such that helps you to be alert when you pray.

One of the reasons you need to be alert when you pray, It's because the devil doesn't say, oh, he's praying. I'd better leave him alone until he's done.

Is that any of your experience? No, that's like, that's his time to attack. And we find ourselves, there have been times I've started praying to God, and before I knew it, my mind was thinking sinful thoughts or I'm fuming with anger, and it's like, how did this happen? So we got to be alert even when we are praying to God.

But Paul is going beyond that. He's not just saying, be alert while you pray. He's basically saying be continuously on the alert with all perseverance. Let that be your mindset.

At all times and then inside of the context of that alertness, you pray. All right, your prayers are being informed by alertness. Some of you may say, man, I got to pray all the time. What is there to pray for?

I'm going to run out of stuff to pray for. I don't know what I'm supposed to pray for. The reason you don't know is because you're not on the alert. If you were on the alert, you would see plenty of things to pray for and to be concerned about for yourself, for your spouse, for your children, for your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

And so Paul is basically saying to enrich your prayer life, to inform and guide your prayer life, you must constantly be in a high state of alert. With all perseverance. Now, to be alert, we know what that means. It means to be awake, to be watchful, to be aware.

The illustration I like to use with this is that, sometimes when we are driving, we are not on the alert. there have been times where I've gotten in my car at home, I've driven 7.5 miles to church and I pulled in the church parking lot, and I thought to myself, how did I get here? How did I get here? How did this happen?

I don't remember consciously making any decision to turn here or whatever. It was just autopilot. I was not alert, but if I, and this has happened, driving into work and I look in my rearview mirror and there's a police car right behind me, suddenly I go into high alert. This has happened, I think, to all of us, and it's like, is my seatbelt on and is my, Registration in the glove compartment.

I don't know. what am I going to do if I get pulled over and, where's my cell phone and I got both hands on the steering wheel and I'm noticing everything that I'm doing. I am in high alert and that is basically what Paul is telling us that we need to be. When we're living our Christian life constantly in a high state of alert.

And so if we're going to be alert, we're going to be aware. The next question is, well, what do we need to be aware of? All right? If you're going to be in a high state of alert, what do you need to be alerted to?

There's many things that we're all alert to, but are those the things Paul is talking about when he tells us to be on the alert? Let's look at a few things that at least we know for sure that we're supposed to be aware of constantly. First of all, we need to be aware of and alerted to who our God is. Guys, this is, this is like the biggest mistake that we make.

In our lives, and that is that we lose our sense of awareness of who God is. the children of Israel stand on the threshold of the Land of Promise, and the spies go in and they come out and say there's giants in the land, and the Israelites are, oh, we can't go in there, we can't beat them. why? Because they lost sight of who their god is.

They were looking at the giants in the land, comparing those giants to themselves and saying they're bigger than we are, so we can't beat them. It's over. We can't go in, when God basically would say, you need to look at me and compare those giants in the land to me because I can take every one of them. And so when we find ourselves in the midst of difficulties and trials, and in the midst of battle, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and not lose sight of who he is.

We need to be constantly aware of who our God is. And Daniel 11:32, it's talking about how many are going to be turned from righteousness to wickedness. They're going to be deceived and plunge into wickedness, but then he says, but those who know their God, Will stand firm and do great exploits. Everyone is plunging into sin, being deceived, but those who are aware of their God.

They're going to stand firm. They're going to take action. They're going to do great exploits. Paul 12 Timothy 1:12 says, I'm not ashamed.

Because I know whom I believed in. Do not lose sight of your God. Be alert to him. also, always be alert to gospel truth.

Always be aware of and alert to gospel, truth. when you find yourself in the midst of trial, be alerted to the fact that, what, God has justified me. I am forgiven of my sins, and I've been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, and now as a justified one, I know that this trial merely fits inside the story of God's redemptive plan for my life and that God has subjugated this trial, and He will force it to do good. To me because I am a justified one.

That's a gospel truth. And there are many other gospel truths that we need to always be mindful of as we live and breathe in the atmosphere of the gospel. Another thing that we need to always be alerted to is our weapons, our weapons, we need to always know what our weapons are, where they are, and how to use them, effectively. You talk to Christians sometimes and they just act like, temptation just comes.

I want to be free, I want to be victorious, but temptation comes and, and I just get defeated and I don't know what to do. Well, these are Christians who don't know what their weapons are. They're not aware of and alerted to the weaponry that God has given to them. I was reading, my son Benjamin, I homeschooled him in the morning hours of the day, and this past week we were reading for his reading class about Jedediah Strong Smith, the mountain man of early American history, and the story was told about how when he was a younger man, he had killed a deer, was, he skinned the deer, prepared it and stuff, and then he was dragging it behind him through the snow.

On his way back to his house where his parents lived and But as he was walking back to his cabin, he had his dog with him. A wild boar just came out of the bushes and started, went after Jedediah. Well, Jedediah's dog got between Jedediah and the wild animal and attacked the boar, but the boar basically just tore the dog to pieces and left the dog in just a crumpled mess on the ground, severely wounded. Jedediah Smith immediately thought, what do I do?

And he says, I have a rifle, and he went to shoot the wild animal, but then he realized I never loaded this after my last shot. And so the wild animal was coming at him and just in the nick of time, Jedediah Smith realized, that's right, I have a knife. And he reached for the knife, and when the animal was right at him, Jedediah flung with his knife and severed the hamstring of the wild animal. The wild animal fell back on its haunches.

Jedediah Smith then took the butt of his rifle and just smacked that animal right across the nose and killed it. Isn't that a cool story? Just in the nick of time, he realized I have a knife. He only had a split second to be alerted to that fact and was able to pull it out in time.

And what, a lot of times we don't have a lot of time. Attack comes and it's surprising. We have to know our weapons and be ready to wield those weapons. And we have the weapon of the gospel.

We have the weapon of the word of God, that sword that we have, that we can wield in times of temptation. Can I also give you guys another weapon that I'm learning to depend on more and more, and that is your, I don't want to call it a weapon, but a resource, and that is your brothers and sisters and the Lord. sometimes in the midst of temptation, I'm actually learning. I've, I've, I've gotten to a point in my life where it's like, what, the cross has already exposed the worst things about me.

The worst gossip that could ever be whispered about me has been screamed from Golgotha's Hill. So I have nothing more to hide. And so if I'm in the midst of temptation, No matter how embarrassing it is, I have more freedom now to just say to my wife, hey, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm being tempted with.

Can you pray for me right now? Or to say that to a brother in the Lord, Forget the embarrassment. The most embarrassing things to ever be revealed about me have already been exposed by the cross. So, what I have found is temptations can become overwhelming and powerful, but when I reach out to a brother or to my wife and I say, hey, can you pray over me right now?

It breaks the spell. Either they can speak scripture and that weapon is being wielded, or just their prayers, the fact that they come into that private battle and they're now battling as a fellow soldier with me, that it snaps the temptation and either completely eliminates it or reduces it down to something extremely manageable. And so we need to be alert to what our resources are, the Word of God, the gospel of God, our brothers and sisters and the Lord, and many others. Also, we need to be alert to our own weaknesses.

Many times we get into trouble spiritually because we are not mindful of what our weaknesses are. So we let ourselves get into situations that, that we should not have allowed ourselves to be in. We allow ourselves to be exposed to the view of certain things that maybe other people can handle, but given our weaknesses, we should have known that we should not be there. And also alerted to situations that render us vulnerable to, temptation.

Again, there might be situations that others can handle, but what, given my weaknesses, I cannot go there because If I go there, then I will likely succumb or I may be victorious, but the energy it will take to be victorious is such that, what, I don't want to consume that energy unnecessarily. I want to avoid that altogether, so my energies can be better spent. We also need to be alert to steps that we need to take to Avoid certain temptations altogether or bring an end to temptations or get help during temptations.

This list could be so much longer.

These are just a few things. there are some temptations that are inevitable. We're just going to be confronted with them. But many times, guys, we face temptations that was never in God's perfect plan for us to face.

But we encountered those temptations because we carelessly allowed ourselves to just wander into situations that we should have never allowed ourselves to end up in. And so we just, basically, he's saying you need to be in a high state of alert, a high state of alert continuously. Now, some of you are thinking, that sounds exhausting to me. So I got to always have both hands on the steering wheel and just paying attention to everything.

That's, that's exhausting to even think about every day of my life, always, morning, noon and night in a high state of alert. I have to be that way all the time? The answer is yes, yes. And you say, but that's so exhausting.

It is something that requires a lot of energy, guys, but let me tell you something that requires even more energy. You ready? Not being on the alert. When we're not on the alert, That requires so much more energy of us because we're being careless and we wander into situations that now we're being tempted to a degree that we could have avoided had we been careful and on the alert.

and the temptations are greater than what they should be. They're temptations because of our carelessness that we're facing that we would have never had to face if we were being careful. And then also because of carelessness, and we're not on the alert, something happens and before we know it, we are acting, out and speaking and saying things that we should have never said. And now we've hurt and wounded other people and talked about other people behind their back.

And now we're wanting to get right with the Lord and we got to go back and clean up that mess that would have never been made if we were on the alert. Yes, it takes energy to be always in a high state of alert, but guys, we know from experience it takes even more energy to be careless and to not be in a high state of alert because we do the dumbest things and have messes that now we have to expend energy to clean up because we were not alert. So Paul says be on the alert and look at what he says with all perseverance, literally with all strength towards, you need to apply strength and energy towards being on the alert.

If we apply our strength smartly towards being on the alert, then There will be less energy that we have to expend on cleaning up messes and dealing with temptations that are stronger than what they otherwise would have been had we put our energy into being on the alert.

And so, he's actually saying, literally, when he says with all perseverance, he's saying you need to take your strength that God gives you and apply that strength, put that strength into being on the alert continuously with all perseverance. I think Paul is also encouraging us to persevere in alertness because, If you, for example, this week are alert on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, wow, what a week of high alertness. But then on Saturday, you're not on alert.

What's going to happen on Saturday?

The devil knows this is the time to attack. The devil doesn't say, Well, he's been alert all week. I'm going to lay off of him now that he's not on alert. No, it doesn't matter how alert we've been in the past, we have to be alert now because this is the time of possible attack.

There's another truth that we learned from this passage, and this that I just gave you is truth number 5. I told you last week there were 8 truths, I think. There's actually 7 because I took 2 of them and I put them together, and it's this one, truth number 5, but I did not correct this on the slide. It says truth number 7.

This is actually truth number 6. Truth number 6, and that is the, the 6th urgent truth that we need to learn from this passage is that we must pray alertly for our fellow saints. We must pray with alertness for our fellow saints. Look at verse 18, with all prayer, petition pray at all times in the Spirit and with this praying in view, be continuously on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, for all the saints.

Now we begin to realize that we're not just being told to be on the alert for ourselves, but we're told to be on the alert, prayerfully on the alert for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. And so if you thought being on the alert for yourself took a lot of energy, actually, God calls you to be on the alert on behalf of all the saints, on behalf of your spouse, on behalf of your children, on behalf of your brothers and sisters in the Lord. We are on the alert for each other.

Now, for me, and this is what all of us need to think when I read an instruction like this, two thoughts come to mind.

Number one, wow. My brothers and sisters need me to be on the alert for them. Yes, they should be on the alert for themselves, but apparently they need me to be on the alert on their behalf also, to where I'm praying alertly for them. I'm on the alert for them to where there might even be times where I need to go to them.

And talk to them about a blind spot or something I see in their life, or maybe they're heading in a direction or into a situation that's going to be fraught with danger. So, I need to be on the alert for them. But a second thought comes to my mind, and that is apparently, I need my brothers and sisters to be on the alert for me. Yes, I need to be on the alert, but apparently God is saying that there's only so much that I can see myself.

And so I need other people in my life that are looking out for me, that are on the alert for me. They're praying with alertness, and they're able to see things that perhaps I don't see myself, and they can come to me and they can tell me what they see, and I can learn from it and grow from it and avoid danger as a result of someone who is alert on my behalf. What's her name? Nancy Demas, lies that Women Believe and the Truth that Sets The Free.

I don't normally read women's books, but somebody told me about this in the book, so I went to the book and I read this. but Nancy Demas had a, a sister, I think in her church that was getting involved in a, in a serious entanglement that was going to lead to this sister's spiritual ruin. And Nancy Demos was like really just thinking, man, what do I do? Do I just let this go and let God take care of it, or do I go to the sister and confront her?

and if I do that, is she going to get angry with me? Am I going to lose this, this sister's friendship? But finally she summoned up the courage to go to the sister. She called the sister on the phone.

And after a few pleasantries, just launched right into it and said, I love you, I care about you, but frankly, you are walking right into ruin and danger. And she confronted her sister in complete love and grace, but with the firmness that was required, given the situation, the sister received it, repented, and began a process of restoration and repentance and was spared. From the destruction of her marriage and possibly even the destruction of her relationship with the Lord.

Why was she spared?

Because the sister was alert. On her behalf. And so let us not be naive and thinking, well, what, I see everyone else's blind spots so well. I'm sure if I had any, I would see them.

we're so good at seeing sin in other people that we just assume we're just as good at seeing sin in ourselves and that we are. alert as we need to be. And if I'm alert the way I should be, I will see everything I need to see. I don't need anyone to ever come to me and tell me something that I'm not already seeing.

That's not what is implied in this passage. Implied in this passage is your brothers and sisters who should be on the alert for themselves, need you to be on alert for them. And you need brothers and sisters that are prayerfully on the alert for you as well. There are times where you might be praying for a brother or sister and just in your prayer, you feel burdened.

It's like, man, I just feel like I need to. these, these thoughts keep coming to my mind and I feel like I need to go to this brother or sister and just say this by way of encouragement to them. I don't even know what they're going through, but I just feel like I need to call them, see how they're doing, or give them this truth or promise. what, when that happens, act on that.

You're praying with alertness. You're reaching out to someone at a strategic time of need. There have been times I've received phone calls like that, and I could not believe how perfectly timed they were. And how loved I felt by God in that moment that God was working in someone's heart, and they reached out at exactly the right time.

That's praying with alertness for your brothers and sisters. So we must pray alertly for our brothers and sisters, in the Lord. By the way, Paul, the great apostle, who saw Jesus on the Damascus road, he wrote tons of scripture, he was an inspired writer of scripture. He even was taken up into the third heaven and saw stuff that he couldn't even write about.

The great apostle Paul, he understood that he needed people to pray for him. In fact, look at what he says in various passages. Ephesians 6:19. He says, pray also for me, Colossians 4:3, pray for us also.

2 Thessalonians 3:1, pray for us. The great apostle Paul understood, I need people praying for me. And he solicited that. He asked that of other people, and if Paul need other people, needed other people praying for him, then my goodness, We need that in our own lives.

Truth number 7, it says 8 on the screen, but it's actually 7. Truth number 7, and the final truth that we can learn from this section of Ephesians 6 is that when we pray, we must pray for the success of the gospel or the ministry of the gospel. We pray gospel prayers for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Look at what he says in verse 19.

He says, and pray while you're praying for the saints, while you're at it, pray on my behalf, that 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. Paul is in prison.

He's going to be standing before the emperor. Paul knows I need to give an account and I don't want to just defend myself. This is my opportunity to speak the mystery of the gospel. And so Paul says, pray for me.

He doesn't say pray for me. These chains are killing me. although that would have been fine. But Paul's smaller anxieties were swallowed up in a larger anxiety, and that is I'm going to have opportunity, To bring the gospel to the most powerful people in the Roman Empire, pray that I will be faithful, pray that God will give me boldness, literally freedom of speech, to where when I open my mouth, the words are just there and with boldness and with freedom, I can clearly communicate the mystery of the gospel and make it as clear as it ought to be made.

the 3 times that we have in the epistles where Paul solicited prayer from others. It's interesting, the things he asked for on those three occasions. Look at this. Ephesians 6:19, pray also for me that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness, the mystery of the gospel, Colossians 4:3.

Pray at the same time for us as well that God will open up for us a door for the word that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ. 2 Thessalonians 3:1, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified. When Paul asked prayer from other people, it's like, pray that God will use me to spread the gospel, to spread his word. They were gospel oriented prayers.

And by the way, whenever Paul prayed for Christians, if you want to know what Paul prayed for when he prayed for his fellow saints, read through his epistles, and almost every one of them, he says, I'm praying for you. This is how I'm praying for you. And he tells them the prayer requests that he was taken to the Father on their behalf, and every one of them. Every one of them were gospel prayers, that the gospel would succeed in their own personal lives, that they would experience the fullness of God, the riches that were theirs in Christ.

When Paul prayed, he prayed gospel prayers. He asked for gospel prayers regarding him, that the gospel would go forth through him. And when he prayed for others, he prayed that the gospel would go deeper into them, and that they would experience the fullness of the gospel. And it is totally fine, guys.

Totally fine. In fact, God says, hey, talk to me, pray to me about everything, in everything. So the ingrown toenails, don't want to demean that. God says, talk to me about those things and the backaches and, and, and, and the small concerns that you have, bring those to me, share those with your brothers and sisters, pray for those things.

I want to be involved in the smallest details of your life. But God would also say, listen, you're in a high stakes war here, and there are large anxieties and realities that you need to be concerned about. And you have a mission in the midst of this war. Come to me with these gospel prayers, that I will bless you and open your mouth to speak the gospel to other people.

Pray gospel prayers for your brothers and sisters. These are the prayers that I also wish to answer. I was so blessed in the weeks leading up to the Easter service, how it was changing our prayer time in our care group. The types of things that we were praying for, pray that I'll have an opportunity to talk to this person, or I talked to this person this week and invited them, pray that they'll actually come.

And then after, the amazing thing was after the Easter service for our prayer time, we took about half an hour, didn't plan this, half an hour of just praises. His praises, how God answered those gospel prayers. And as I listened to all the praises, I'm thinking, what, God seems to relish answering gospel prayers. Ask great things of me.

Ask, come to me and ask me to do great gospel things in you and through you in the lives of other people, and my hands are full of these answers, and I will pleasure to answer them. Let me close with this. Illustration. DL Moody was an evangelist in the 1800s.

He died, I believe, in 1899. But great evangelist, he preached the gospel to well over a million people during his lifetime. And, and saw literally hundreds of thousands of people come to faith in Christ. Dal Moody tells a story about how at one point in his ministry, he traveled across the ocean.

To, just chill out for a little bit. He wanted to meet Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher, and George Mueller, the man of prayer. He wanted to sit under the preaching of these men. He didn't want to come into Europe, into England, preaching and stuff.

He just wanted to take in. But before he knew it, a man named Dr. Vesey, a pastor of a congregational church in London, asked Dal Moody to preach at his church on a given Sunday while he was there in the morning service and the evening service. Deal Moody, for reasons beyond him, said, Yeah, I'll do it.

but then he regretted it. He didn't want to do it. His heart was not in it when he stood in the pulpit in the morning service and began to, to preach the word. look at what he says about his own experience.

He says, I had no power, no liberty. It seemed like pulling a heavy train up a steep grade. And as I preached, I said to myself, what a fool I was to consent to preach. I felt that way at times.

As I drew to the close of my sermon, I had a sense of relief that I was so near through. But then the thought came to me, but I got to preach again tonight. And so he gets done with that sermon, goes to Dr. Vesey's house that afternoon, begs Dr.

Vesey, can you just preach tonight? And I don't want to preach tonight. He tried to get out of preaching for that evening, but Dr. Vesey said, No, you told me you were going to do it, and And you need to preach tonight.

So, Dion Mooney goes back to that evening service. He says, I went to the evening service with a heavy heart. At the point in the service, he gets up and begins to preach, and he says, but I had not been preaching long when it seemed as if the, The powers of an unseen world had fallen upon that audience. As I drew to the close of my sermon, I got the courage to draw the net.

In other words, they have an invitation. I asked all that would then and there except Christ to rise, and about 500 people arose. To their feet. Then Deal Moody did something that no evangelist should ever do.

I thought there must be some mistake, so I asked him to sit down. And then I said, there will be a meeting in the vestry after the service. And if any of you really want to accept Christ, meet me in the vestry after the service. All right.

And he thought, well, that'll weed some of these people out. Well, it turns out all 500 people immediately after the service, rushed to the vestry room. And D Al Modi shows up there and there's the same 500 people. So what does he do?

He says, I went into the vestry, and I repeated the invitation in a stronger form. In other words, he tried to make the gospel a little less appealing, in a stronger form, and they all rose again. I still thought that there must be some mistake. So I asked them to sit down.

I repeated the invitation in a still stronger form. And again, they all arose. I still thought there must be some mistake. So I said to the people, I'm going to Ireland tomorrow.

But your pastor will be here tomorrow night. If you really mean What you have said here tonight, meet him here tomorrow night. He didn't even lead him to the Lord. He didn't know what to do with these people.

They keep standing. Do they understand? I'm going away. what, if you're really serious about this, show up here tomorrow night, and your pastor will meet with you.

Well, it turns out, Dion Moody leaves the next morning. All 500 of those people show up and they bring other people with them. There were hundreds more that they brought with them. And they all accepted the Lord that Monday night.

Almost immediately after Dal Moody got to Ireland, he got a telegram from Dr. Lessy saying, you need to get back here now because I don't know what to do with all of these people. You come in here and preach and then take off and, you got to come back here and help. And so DL Moody comes back into town a few days later and preaches more messages and more hundreds of people come to know the Lord and are brought into the church in a glorious fashion.

Isn't that amazing? Here's the amazing thing. I'm not even done. DL Moody is a smart man.

And he got to thinking, this doesn't just happen. This doesn't just drop out of the blue and happen. Somebody somewhere was praying. So he went on a hunt.

He's like, I'm going to get to the bottom of this somewhere, somehow somebody prayed for this to happen. And he started asking around and one person let him to another, and he ended up at the bedside of a bedridden woman. And when he walked into the room, that woman showed him, This is in London, England. She showed him a newspaper clipping from an American newspaper and she said, DL Moody, I read this a while back about how God was using your ministry in America.

And from that day to this, I have prayed every day that God would bring you to our city and bring you to our church to preach, that God would use you as an instrument to bring salvation and revival. And she said, the morning you preached at our church, my sister came home that afternoon and said, you'll never believe who preached in our service this morning. DL Moody. And she told Deal Moody, I got so excited.

I told my sister, leave the room, lock the door, don't let anyone come in or out. Don't even bring me food. I am fasting through the rest of the afternoon and the evening. I am going to pray for Dal Moody that God will blast and pour down his power upon his ministry.

And she prayed through the afternoon and the evening. And DL Moody, a short time later, walked away from the bedside of that bedridden woman, knowing why. Such an amazing thing happened. A woman who was reduced to her bed and could do nothing but pray.

prayed and asked great things of God, and God poured down his blessings in answer to her prayers. Guys, God has placed us in this city, in this location, because he wants to do some awesome stuff in this church, through this church in this local area, and he, he's in heaven. If we could see him, his hands are full, his storehouses are packed, and he would say, you have not because you asked not, but just ask. And I am ready to answer your gospel prayers.

Ask me to do a great work in you. Asked me to do a great work in this local area. Guys, last night I drove here to the church at 8 o'clock. And I see people running out of this facility or through the parking lot down Lindon Street with stuff that they had stolen from this building.

Kids So, I get in my car and I chase them down. And I get everything back that they had stolen, but I had this weird feeling come over me after it was all done, and that is, what are we doing here? But then the next thought was, this is exactly the perfect place for us to be. Because there are lives that are broken with sin.

There are people in this area, local area whose hearts are wracked with the guilt of sin. They are imprisoned by that. There is such a great need for the gospel in the hearts and lives of people. And God has planted us here, not so we can gather on Sunday and play church and go home feeling good.

But God has placed us here and his hands are full, and he's ready to give. And he is ready to answer our prayers for a gospel revolution in this local area. What all that looks like, who knows? But are we willing to ask for great things of our God?

Are we willing Will we do that? 50 years from now when the story is told of this church, may it be said that amazing things happened. And they happened in answer to the prayers of God's people. Every great work of God throughout the history of the church was always preceded by strong, passionate, intercessory prayer.

And so may we be a working people. Spreading the gospel, but just as much so be a praying people. This is what we're commanded to do and what we learned from this passage.