PRAYING FOR THE CHURCH
INTRODUCTION
We’ve now come to the sixth and last in our mini-series on prayer. We first looked at Gideon’s prayer for guidance. Then we spent two weeks on the Lord’s Prayer. Then we had two weeks on Daniel’s prayer of confession on behalf of his people. Today we’re going to look at one of Paul’s prayers for a church. Specifically, it’s the second of two prayers Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus.
All the prayers we’ve looked at have given us models for how we should pray. But the prayer that we’re looking at today is a model for how to pray that we, as western Christians, need to particularly give attention to.
I mentioned in one of my earlier talks that in the past four years, three surveys have been carried out in the UK to find out HOW MUCH Christians pray. Each survey found that about 30% of people who say they are Christians in the UK say they don’t pray! It’s like being married but never talking to your wife or husband. That would indicate that the marriage is really dead.
But what about the Christians who do pray? How do they pray? What do they pray for?
In the UK the organization TearFund commissioned a survey in 2017 which asked questions about how people pray. It used closed-ended questions, so people’s choices were limited, but the survey included the choice of praying ‘For the activities of your local place of worship.’ Out of all the options, this was the area that people prayed about least.
[Slide, survey results. Included at the end (A)]
So, it rather looks as though praying for our church is something which western Christians aren’t all that good at.
In this talk we will look at HOW Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus. But we may be jumping the gun to think about HOW to pray for the church if many western Christians aren’t praying for the church at all. We need to get to the starting line before we talk about how to run.
I keep saying ‘western Christians’ because there are some other groups of Christians who have been very good at praying for the church. I think particularly of Korean Christians. The percentage of Christians increased from about 2% in 1945 to about 30% today - and Korean Christians are renowned for being serious about prayer. As I was preparing this talk I came across a doctoral thesis by a Korean named Seung Kang. I have no idea who he is, but he wrote his thesis on the subject of ‘Prayer and church growth in the Korean church.’ I had a quick look at it. I can't summarise his thesis in one sentence but he clearly takes it as a given that a church which prays grows and a church which doesn’t pray doesn’t. Priscilla [my wife] and I spent a long period in Azerbaijan where we helped lead an underground church. Our experience there would absolutely support this principle.
Anyway, let’s move on to the passage.
DIFFICULTIES
At the outset we should recognize that this is a difficult passage! There are at least three aspects of the passage that are difficult.
DIFFICULTY 1. In verse 15 Paul talks about God the Father and says, ‘from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.’ That’s a difficult phrase to understand.
DIFFICULTY 2. In verse 18, Paul writes, ‘may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth…’ – and then he stops! The breadth, length, height, and depth of what?! We don’t know. So that’s difficult.
DIFFICULTY 3. Third, Paul’s prayer is one very long sentence. It’s difficult to know how the different bits connect. Paul says ‘that’ three times. But we’re not sure if he means ‘SO that’ or ‘AND that.’ No one is really clear if Paul is praying for something and then explaining why he’s praying for it or if he’s praying for two or three different things. The Bible translators don’t agree and the commentators don’t agree.
All these things make this a difficult passage. My strategy will be to tackle the first two verses and the last two verses quite quickly and then try to get to grips with verses 16 to 19. These verses are the core of what Paul is praying for the Ephesians. In this way I hope we’ll grasp the big things Paul is saying and not get bogged down in the difficulties.
THE FIRST TWO VERSES
We need to set this prayer in context! We can’t skip this. So please look at verse 14. Paul writes, ‘For this reason I...’ For what reason? If you have your Bibles, look at verse 1. Paul starts chapter 3 by saying, ‘For this reason I…’ Paul was about to launch into a prayer at the beginning of the chapter but then he got distracted. It happens to the best of us. So, when Paul says, ‘For this reason…’ we have to go back to chapter 2 to find the reason. There are two big headings in chapter 2 in my Bible and they’re really enough to show us the reason Paul is praying. The first heading is ‘By Grace Through Faith’ and the second is ‘One in Christ.’ So, Paul believes God is willing to give grace to those who approach him in faith. And he believes that Christians are ‘One in Christ.’ He has a connection with the Ephesians. He feels a sense of responsibility towards them, a concern for them. So, he’s motivated to pray. Hopefully we have a similar belief in God and feel a similar sense of responsibility towards fellow Christians in our church.
Let’s return to chapter 3. In verse 15 Paul then says, ‘I bow my knees.’ We don’t know if Paul meant that literally but there’s no reason why not. Lots of people in the Bible knelt to pray. People often knelt to pray when they were especially serious. For example, Jesus knelt to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. So, Paul is showing he’s really serious about praying for the Ephesians.
The next thing Paul says is ‘from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.’ I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. I think I made a bit of progress, but I’m afraid we won’t get to the core of Paul’s prayer if we spend time on it now, so I’m going to skip that.
THE LAST TWO VERSES
Let’s look briefly now at the last two verses. They are what’s called a ‘doxology.’ Paul is praising God. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on these verses. But I’d like us to observe one thing. Paul praises God for how much God is able to do for the Ephesians and he adds the phrase, ‘according to the power at work within us.’ He’s talking about power within Christians. Paul is no doubt reflecting on what he’s been praying for the Ephesians, so this gives us an immediate clue as to what he is praying for them: power within them.
That’s all I intend to say about the first two verses and the last two verses.
THE CENTRAL FOUR VERSES
Now I’m going to concentrate on the central four verses, verses 16-19. These are the heart of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and they are the verses where Paul is asking God for something on behalf of the Ephesians.
These are verses which we should be especially interested in as a model for the things we should pray for, for our churches.
I said earlier that it’s difficult to see whether Paul is praying for two or three different things (in other words ‘and that … and that’), or if he’s praying for one main thing ‘so that’ some other things will happen. I don’t know which is right, but I don’t want to talk about more than one variant, so I’m going to assume that Paul is talking about one main thing so that some other things will happen.
In verse 16, Paul writes that he’s praying for the Ephesians,
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being…
I don’t think this is too difficult so far. Paul’s prayer is for the Ephesians ‘to be strengthened with power.’ The other parts of this prayer add information to this.
The prayer tells us HOW MUCH the Ephesians should be strengthened, namely, ‘according to the riches of his glory.’ That’s good. God has more riches than Fort Knox. So, the Ephesians should be strengthened a lot.
The prayer tells us WHERE the Ephesians should be strengthened, namely, in their inner beings. Paul isn’t praying that the Ephesians will do their biceps curls. They don’t need six-packs either. Paul wants the Ephesians to have inner strength, strength of character.
And the prayer tells us HOW the Ephesians will get that strength. It will be through the Holy Spirit.
All good so far, I hope! Are you starting to get some ideas about how you can pray for your local church? Are you surprised at Paul’s focus on strength? Did you imagine that strength isn’t very important for Christians? In 1 Corinthians 16:13 Paul says, ‘Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.’
[Just as an aside, more than a third of English-language translations leave out the word ‘men.’ Why do they do that? Should we judge the Bible’s worldview as sexist, or should we take it as it comes? The Bible’s worldview is different to the 21st century western worldview. But maybe we shouldn’t consider that the 21st century western worldview is necessarily superior to the Bible’s!]
The point is, Paul wants Christians to be strong. Strength is a desirable quality! It’s something we should pray for. Jesus also wants Christians to be strong. Before he ascended to heaven, he told his disciples, ‘And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’ Jesus wanted his disciples to have power. We need strength and power. We have a powerful enemy. There are battles to be fought. So, Paul prays here that God would grant that the Ephesians might be strengthened with power.
Let’s move on. My version of the Bible then says, ‘so that Christ may dwell in your heart…’ There’s no ‘that’ in the Greek at this point. We don’t need to see this as a result. It seems more like an aspect of being strengthened with power than the result of being strengthened with power. If Christ is in us, then we have power! You may say, ‘But Christ IS in us. We have put our faith in Christ.’ But Christ can dwell in us more and more. We can make his kingship more and more of a reality. That happens through faith. We need faith to surrender control of our lives to Christ’s control. As we do, we experience his power. If we don’t it’s like having Lewis Hamilton in the car with you and not letting him drive.
Then Paul says, ‘rooted and grounded in love.’ That’s great, isn’t it? A plant needs to be rooted in order to grow. The word ‘to ground’ means to set something on a foundation. Some foundations are secure; some are not. Some ideas are grounded on facts; some ideas are grounded on ignorance, hatred or tradition. Paul wants the Ephesians to be rooted and grounded in love. Not knowledge, note! Paul would be very cool about grounding our lives on knowledge.
We’re doing brilliantly! On to verse 18. Paul is still talking about strength. Paul previously said that he wants the Ephesians to have strength in their inner beings. Now he says, ‘strength to comprehend…’ That doesn’t really sit right. We probably wouldn’t talk about a maths student having the strength to comprehend calculus. Fortunately, the commentary comes to our rescue here. It tells us that the word that’s used for ‘have strength’ means ‘to be fully capable of doing or experiencing something.’ So, Paul wants the Ephesians to be fully capable of comprehending something. But what?!
I mentioned this as a difficulty. The NIV solves the difficulty by providing the answer. It says, ‘the love of Christ.’ But the Greek doesn’t have that. The NIV has assumed this is what it means. Commentators don’t all agree with the NIV’s solution. Remember, we said that the theme of Paul’s prayer is God’s power. It’s what Paul talks about in verse 16 and what he praises in verse 20. Some commentators think that Paul is talking about how wide and long and high and deep God’s POWER is. That sounds possible, but I can’t spend a lot of time on it in this talk.
Let’s move on to our last verse. Paul prays that the Ephesians would know the love of Christ. But he acknowledges that Christ’s love is unknowable. We can’t fathom the extent of Christ’s love.
Finally, we come to the last phrase: ‘that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.’ My English Bible has the word ‘that’ and the Greek has the word ‘that.’ I don’t think this is an ‘AND THAT.’ I think it’s a ‘SO THAT.’ I think it’s the end purpose of Paul’s prayer. Paul wants the Ephesians to have strength in their inner beings, so they may have the capacity to comprehend God’s love (or maybe, his power), so they might be filled with all the fullness of God.
You’re probably thinking, ‘That’s impossible! Man can’t be filled up to all the fullness of God.’ But all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ. That’s what Colossians 2:9 says. And Jesus is fully man. If it was not impossible for Jesus, I don’t think it’s impossible for us. On the contrary, it’s God’s ultimate goal for us.
Surely, we all want to be filled with the fullness of God!
Paul has set out how that can happen. It’s a little complicated. It involves strength in our inner beings, faith and the ability to comprehend Christ’s love. That whole process is moved along by the Holy Spirit. It’s also moved along by prayer! Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians because he believed that God listens to our prayers.
So we've see a little of how Paul prayed for the Ephesians. It’s a great model for us to use as we pray for our churches. The challenge now is to do it!
Simon Bartlett
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK 12 July 2020
Slide (A)
Area of prayer Percentage
Family 71%
Thanking God 42%
Friends 40%
Healing 40%
Guidance 37%
Yourself e.g. your relationship with God or your needs 28%
Worldwide problems e.g. poverty, wars, natural disasters 24%
Confessing sins and asking forgiveness 23%
Praising and worshipping God 18%
Material needs or your work 10%
For others to come to faith 9%
UK issues e.g. the government, society 9%
For the activities of your local place of worship 7%
https://2sjjwunnql41ia7ki31qqub1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Tearfund_Prayer-Survey_all-respondents.pdf
