Patrick Prays For Me Series

Ephesians - Finding our Identity in Christ

Ephesians 1:15-23

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

03-01-2026

Patrick Prays for Me

Maxine’s step-father, Patrick, was one of the wisest men I’ve ever known. He was kind and passionate about his bride and His Savior. And he was a man of prayer.

For four decades, he had a group of five other men that prayed for each other daily. He prayer-walked the large auditorium of his church before each service, asking God to use His Word to do mighty things. He and Maxine’s mother would stay up all night praying for missionaries and other friends.

And Patrick prayed for me. Every morning. For more than thirty years. Patrick believed in praying God’s word back to Him.

Every morning, Patrick would pray the verses, from memory, we are going to study this morning for me. Every single morning. Much of what has happened in my spiritual walk is probably directly connected with Patrick’s prayers.

What is it that Patrick prayed for me?

Let me read you the prayer and then we will begin.

[Read Ephesians 1:15-23]

I’m so thankful that Patrick prayed for me. Do you have someone who prays for you every day? Do you pray for anyone specifically every day? ?

Turn with me to Ephesians 1 (page 1818 in pew Bible)

Prayer

From Blessings to Prayer

In the first section of Ephesians 1, we learned

v. 3-6 God the Father has chosen us

v. 7-10 God the Son has redeemed us

v. 11-14 God the Holy Spirit has sealed us

Paul is going to transition from praising God for the blessings that He gives us to thanksgiving and prayer. He often does this in his letters. But Ephesians is a little different.

In many letters, he spends much of his time putting out fires in the church. (We are looking at you Corinthian Church!). But in Ephesians, Paul has a much broader view and wants to help the believers to live for Jesus in a lost and dying culture.

This section, like the last, would make your English teacher lose his or her mind. It’s another long run-on sentence, 169 words in the Greek! But Paul gets excited about prayer and wants them to know that he is thanking God for them and that he is praying for them, specifically and regularly.

John Calvin gives us six biblical reasons to pray like Paul prayed:

to learn to depend upon our heavenly Father

To purify the desires of our hearts

To be content with whatever He provides

To appreciate more deeply His generous faithfulness

To enjoy without guilt the many gifts He provides

To trust Him to consistently provide for our daily needs.

Thanksgiving

“For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” (V. 15-16)

Paul blesses God for having blessed use in Christ. Then he prays that God would open their eyes to understand the fullness of the blessing.

Looking back to the blessings, for this reason, he transitions to thankfulness.

Paul had a hand in starting the church at Ephesus but hadn’t been there in a few years. He heard through others about their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all God’s people.

If you wanted a very simple definition of what a Christian is, you couldn’t do much better than this - Love God (vertical / Love others (horizontal).

To Paul, faith and love always go together. It’s what makes a healthy Christian and a healthy church body.

He writes to the Christians in Thessalonica:

“We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.” (2 Thes 1:3)

When he heard of their faith and love, what was his response? Overwhelmed, continually thankfulness! He is so thankful that in the midst of a pagan and dark culture, the Ephesian believers were holding firm to Jesus and to each other.

In fact, the Apostle John wrote that if someone claims to be a Christian but doesn’t love other Christians, is actually an unbeliever:

“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” (I John 3:14)

Was their faith and love perfect? No, but Paul recognized spiritual growth and cheered them on.

Notice that he thanks God for their faith and love. Why? Because faith is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8) and love is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Neither faith nor love are natural responses. Thy only happen when God moves in our hearts.