Insights
Into Prayer
Pastor Darrin
Wright: November 25 and Dec. 2,
2007
Introduction
Following the parenthesis in verses
2-13, Paul gets back to his prayer he started in verse 1. Paul turns from exposition to
intercession. His prison cell became a
prayer cell. This prayer is considered
to be the most sublime, the most far-reaching, and the most majestic prayer
found anywhere in Paul’s epistles, or possibly in the whole Bible.
This passage is the second of two prayers recorded
in Ephesians, the first one being Ephesians
This prayer not only reveals the requests of Paul
for the Ephesians but also the desire and longing of God for all His people.
I.
The Principles Of Paul’s Prayer. (vs.14-15)
A.
The Posture Of Prayer. (vs.14a)
1.
“For this
reason I bow my knees”
2.
for this
reason – resumes Paul’s
thoughts in verse 1; it refers to all that Paul has been writing; it was Paul’s
desire that his readers would enter fully into their privileges in Christ.
3.
bow my
knees – a kneeling position
emphasized solemnity or unusual urgency; Paul’s prayer was full of intensity,
urgency, and emotion.
4.
The ordinary
Jewish attitude of prayer was standing with the hands outstretched and palms
upward. It showed a readiness to receive
whatever God chose to give.
5.
The Bible
nowhere commands any special posture for prayer.
6.
However, the
Bible does teach that God should be approached with reverence and awe.
7.
“Kneeling” is
a symbol of submission. It is saying,
“You are greater than I am”. It is
recognizing that we are in the presence of someone who is much higher in rank,
dignity, and authority.
8.
Our physical
position isn’t the most important. God
is much more concerned with the condition of our heart than the position of our
knees.
9.
illustration: Sam Walter
Foss:
The proper way for a man to pray
Said Deacon Lemuel
Keyes,
And the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees.
No, I should say the way to pray,
Said Reverend Doctor Wise,
Is standing straight with outstretched arms
And rapt and upturned eyes.
Oh, no, no, no
Said Elder Slow,
Such posture is too proud.
A man should pray with eyes fast closed
And head contritely bowed.
It seems to me his hands should be
Austerely clasped in front
With both thumbs pointing toward the ground, said
Reverend Doctor Blunt.
Last year I fell in Hidgekin’s
well
Headfirst, said Cyrus Brown,
With both my heels a stickin
up
And my head a-pointin down.
And I made a prayer right then and there,
The best prayer I ever said,
The prayingest prayer I
ever prayed,
A-standin
on my head.
B.
The Presence Of Prayer. (vs.14b)
1.
“before the
Father”
2.
Paul’s
posture helped remind him of the awesome majesty and nobility of the One he
knew he could address as Father.
3.
Prayer is a
declaration of dependence, not independence.
It is our way of telling God that we are dependent on Him for whatever
the situation may require.
4.
It is through
prayer that we lay hold of God’s riches that enable us to behave like
Christians and battle like Christians.
C.
The Picture Of Prayer. (vs.15)
1.
whole
family (NIV) – It is the
whole family for whom Paul prays – Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, male and
female, young and old, educated and uneducated; for it is in the family as a
whole that God’s great purpose of making known His manifold wisdom is fulfilled.
2.
Paul is
setting the example in his prayer that we should go beyond our own interests
and concerns and pray for the family of God.
II. The Petitions Of Paul’s
Prayer. (vs.16-19)
A.
A Prayer For Inward
Power. (vs.16)
1.
to be
strengthened with power through His Spirit – speaks of a strengthening that is effected by
the impartation of divine power.
2.
inner man – reason, conscience, and will; it is the seat of
intellectual and spiritual life.
3.
The presence
of the Holy Spirit in the life is evidence of salvation; but the power of the
Spirit is enablement for Christian living, and it is this power that Paul
desires for the Ephesians.
4.
Spiritual
power is not the mark of a special class of Christians, but is the mark of
every Christian who submits to God’s Word and Spirit.
5.
The obedient,
effective, and productive Christian must be spirit conscious, spirit filled,
and spirit controlled.
6.
J.B. Phillips – “And whatever happens to us down here we cannot
do without his power in the inward man.
The outward man is perishing by the hour, we are wasting away, but the
inward man can be renewed on a daily basis.
And that only happens when we are a people controlled by the Lord who is
the Spirit. We have available to us the
third person of the Godhead – the Holy Spirit – and he will reinforce us.”
7.
according – in proportion to His riches, not out of His
riches.
8.
the
riches of His glory – Paul
had in mind the limitless resources of God, and he is asking that we would
receive these benefits in accordance with god’s ability to give; Paul wants us
to live lives that correspond to the spiritual wealth we have in Christ.
9.
Let’s learn
from Paul that we can never strain the resources of God. He does not give grudgingly nor in meager
proportions, as if He were afraid He might exhaust His
wealthy. He gives according to the
measure of His infinite fullness.
10.
John Newton: “ Thou art coming to a king, Large
petitions with thee bring, For his grace and power are such, none can ever ask
too much.”
B.
A Prayer For Inward
Presence. (vs.17a)
1.
“so that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”
2.
“to settle
down and be at home, not to be just a casual resident”
3.
John MacArthur – “Paul’s teaching here does not relate to the
fact of Christ’s presence in the hearts of believers but to the quality of his
presence.”
4.
It is the
difference in your being in a house and being at home in a house.
5.
Paul is
praying for a deeper experience between Christ and His people.
6.
Through our
ever maturing faith, we would let Christ more and more “be at home in us” –
that we would more consistently put and keep Christ at the center of our lives,
letting Him shape our attitudes and choices and form us into His likeness.
7.
Graham Scroggie – “Christ’s presence in us has its degrees and
advances, its less and more, its outer and inner. A life may be truly Christian and yet far
from fully Christian. It is this which
distinguishes one Christian from another.
Some have made little room for Christ, some give Him more, and in some
He has the whole house. Or, viewed from
another standpoint, in some Christ is just present, in others He is prominent,
and in others again, He is preeminent.”
8.
It is Christ
living His life through us.
C.
A Prayer For Inward
Position. (vs.17b)
1.
“and that you
being rooted and grounded in love”
2.
Paul uses two
contrasting spheres to illustrate the importance of a right start: the world of the biologist and the world of
the builder.
3.
rooted in
love – a tree must get its
roots down deep into the soil if it is to find nourishment and stability. Our roots must go down deep, deep, deep into
the depths of the love of God.
4.
If our Christian
lives are not rooted in love, they will wither and fade.
5.
grounded in
love – relates to the
foundation of a building.
6.
God’s love is
the foundation on which we must build our lives.
7.
Revelation 2:2-5(NASB) – “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance,
and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call
themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you
have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown
weary. But I have this against you, that
you have left your first love. Therefore
remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at
first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand
out of its place – unless you repent.”
8.
If we don’t
go down deep, we cannot go up high.
D.
A Prayer For Inward
Perception.
(vs.18-19a)
1.
be able – to be mighty; to be eminently able; to have
full capacity.
2.
comprehend – apprehend; laying hold on something so as to
make it one’s own.
3.
with all
the saints – It is not a
matter of private experience, but in fellowship with the family of God that we
explore the measureless riches of Christ’s love.
4.
breadth – reminds us that God’s love reaches around the
world; it is wide enough to embrace the world.
5.
length – the length of God’s love stretches back beyond
our farthest thought and forward on and on forever.
6.
Charles Spurgeon – “It is so long that your old age can’t wear it
out, so long your continual tribulation cannot exhaust it, your successive
temptations shall not drain it dry; like eternity itself it know no bounds.”
7.
height- reminds us that His love lifts us up to the very
throne of God itself where we may enter with boldness to find grace and help in
time of need.
8.
depth – reminds us that God’s love extends from glory
to the grave.
9.
illustration: Years
ago sailors venturing into uncharted seas would let out a sounding line to
locate the bottom. “No bottom in this
line”, the sailor might report to the bridge.
Another length of line might be added.
“Deeper than that sir”, the officer of the watch might report. The sailors might even attach all the line
they had on board to the sounding weight.
“Deeper than that” they might note in the log.
10.
William Barclay – “It is as if Paul invited us to look at the
universe – to the limitless sky above, to the limitless horizons on every side,
to the depth of the earth and of the seas beneath us and said, The love of
Christ is as vast as that.”
11.
to know
the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge – paradox; we know deeply, and yet all the while
there are infinite stretches of love beyond our highest experiences.
12.
know – knowledge gained by experience; Christians with
their minds lay hold of Christ’s love and in their personal experience with the
Holy Spirit they come to have an enlarging experience of Christ’s love.
13.
illustration In the nineteenth century, when Napoleon’s armies
opened a prison that had been used by the Spanish Inquisition they found the
remains of a prisoner who had been incarcerated for his faith. The dungeon was underground. The body had long sense decayed. Only a chain fastened around an anklebone
cried out his confinement. But this
prisoner, long since dead, had left a witness.
On the wall of his dismal cell this faithful soldier of Christ had
scratched a rough cross with four words surrounding it in Spanish. Above the cross was the Spanish word for
“height”. Below it was the word for
“depth”. To the left the word
“width”. To the right, the word
“length”. This prisoner testified to the
surpassing greatness of the love of Christ, perceived even in suffering.
E.
A Prayer For Inward
Provision. (vs.19b)
1.
“that you may
be filled up to all the fullness of God”
2.
No prayer can
reach beyond this, for in this filling every other blessing is included.
3.
fullness of God – an expression standing for the sum total of all
the energies, powers, and attributes of God; to make full, or fill to the full,
speaks of total dominance; to be totally dominated by God, with nothing left of
self or any part of our old nature; to be emptied of self; it is not to have
much of God and little of self, but all of God and none of self.
4.
Paul is
requesting that our whole being may be filled with God’s presence and power, so
that there will be no room for more.
5.
Paul was
praying that in our character, in our conduct, and in our conversation we might
be like Jesus.
III. The Power In Paul’s Prayer. (vs.20-21)
A.
Paul’s Confidence. (vs.20)
1.
Paul was
confident that God could meet our every need.
2.
When the Holy
Spirit has empowered us, and Christ has indwelt us, and his love has mastered
us, and God has filled us with his own fullness then he can “do far more
abundantly beyond all that we ask or think”.
Seven Stages Of Paul’s
Confidence
1)
He is able to
do or work for he is neither idle, nor active, nor dead.
2)
He is able to
do what we ask for he hears and answers our prayer.
3)
He is able to
do what we ask or think for he reads our thoughts like a book and sometimes we
imagine things which we dare not and, therefore, do not ask.
4)
He is able to
do all that we ask or think for he knows it all and can perform it all.
5)
He is able to
do more than all that we ask or think for his expectations are much higher than
ours.
6)
He is able to
do immeasurably more than all that we ask or think for he does not give his
grace by calculated measure.
7)
He is able to
do very much more – far more abundantly than all that we ask or think for he is
a God of superabundance.
3.
abundantly – doesn’t just mean to make minor improvements in
our plans; God can take what we ask and enlarge it and give it the magnificence
worthy of Himself.
4.
power – dunamis; dynamite;
this power is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
B.
Paul’s Confession. (vs.21)
1.
Westminister
Catechism: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy
Him forever.
2.
Because the
power comes from Him, the glory must go to Him.
3.
glory – God’s majesty and splendor.
4.
According to
Paul, we are to glorify Him publicly, personally, and perpetually.
Conclusion
The Message:
“My
response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father
who parcels out all heaven and earth. I
ask him to strengthen you by his spirit – not a brute strength but a glorious
inner strength – that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite
him in. And I ask him that with both
feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the
extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.
Reach out and experience the breadth!
Test its length! Plumb the
depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of
God. God can do anything, you know – far
more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest
dreams! He does it not by pushing us
around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!”