Key to Powerful and Effective Prayer
CCCAG, March 13th, 2022
Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21
If I were to ask the question, how many people here would say they have a problem having a consistent prayer life?
Is your idea of prayer maybe the last thing you think about before falling asleep?
Is it only something you do at meals, or at church?
It’s my belief that many don’t pray because they don’t understand prayer or how to pray.
Growing up Lutheran we were taught various prayers that we were to recite as our prayer life.
The first and most important of course is the-
Lord’s Prayer (commentary)
Nicene or Apostle’s creed.
If you were Catholic, then you learned all of the ways to pray using the rosary.
Often prayer was used as penance after you confessed your sins to the priest. So prayer was often viewed as punishment to your average Catholic, which is very unfortunate.
Prayer is not a duty. It’s not a checkmark on a to-do list.
It’s a lifeline of communication between you and God Almighty. It’s our modern equivalent of God walking with Adam and Even in the Garden before they ate the fruit.
Prayer is to draw God’s presence to you by lifting up your spirit to meet HIS.
And that brings us to the subject of today’s message from the Book of Ephesians. Paul showing us how to pray, especially for others based on his own pattern of praying for people.
Let’s look at the pattern-
Eph 3:14-21
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Prayer
In your bulletins today, and out on the table in the foyer, are papers designed to help you as you pray. You can keep them in your bible, and if you want more let me know and I’ll make more. They are meant to help guide you as you lift others up to God and help you stay on tract.
Let’s look at the way that we pray-
I. Vs 16 That God would strengthen them with HIS power
The key phrase there that we need to focus on is that God strengthens people with his power.
With his power comes peace
with his power comes strength
With his power comes love
With this power comes direction, purpose, and his will.
When we ask for God's power, he can't send just a part of that power.
Asking only for God's wisdom or his power is like asking someone to come over to your house but they only send their arm.
When we ask Gods power to come, the rest of Him comes with it.
That word translated power, or might in the KJV, comes from the Greek word Dumamis which means ability, abundance, meaning, might.
It’s the same word used to describe miraculous power.
Eph 1:19-21
That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,
If you were here that Sunday, I spoke about God baring his bicep, showing us His strength, and ripping the gates of hell off their foundation and destroying them in the process.
That’s the kind of power we want to be asking God to give to our loved ones, and more and more as we see the day approaching where we will need that power to survive what is coming.
The second way we can pray for people is-
II. Pray that Christ would dwell in their hearts
As the weather warms up, most of us start thinking about spring, and spring cleaning. That time of the year when we can open our windows again and let the fresh air fill our homes.
It’s that time of year where we might move furniture and clean underneath things and do the heavy cleaning we have been putting off all winter.
It’s called spring cleaning- getting ready for the nice weather and being outdoors more often.
I think that some of us need a spring cleaning in our hearts. We may have allowed a few dust bunnies of the world hidden under our spiritual furniture that need to go.
This cleaning will happen when we have Christ in His proper place- on the throne of our hearts abiding there as King of our soul.
This is why the bible asks us to pray that Christ may dwell in our hearts, and in the hearts of the people we pray for.
III. Prayer that their faith would be strengthened
Faith is the currency of heaven. It’s what was destroyed in Eden and restored at the cross. It is the absolute requirement to live a life pleasing to God.
Faith that HIS word is true
Faith that HIS will is best
Faith that God will meet your every need
Faith that no matter what your circumstance, God is there in the midst.
I want to touch on that last on for a minute. We are facing uncertain times. We may be looking at a world war, that might go nuclear in some areas, maybe even here in our country.
We are definitely seeing the conditions that the bible speaks to in Revelation and Matthew 24 when the end of this age is approaching.
I want to remind you of a promise from Isaiah. This is God speaking of His Holy City Jerusalem-
Isa 49:15-16
"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget,I will not forget you!
16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.
Now consider this- Jerusalem is where they crucified the Son of God, but God still shows them love and affection, even to the point of writing their name in the palms of his hands, which I believe is a veiled reference to Jesus taking the nails to save them from their sin.
If God can look at a city that did all of that to HIM- how do you think he looks at you?
Do you think he cares of you?
Do you think he loves you?
Do you think he cares for your day to day life?
God stands ready to do that for the people we pray for also, even in the midst of the increasingly chaotic world we live in, HE is there.
In fact, it’s one of his names- YHWH Shammah- THE LORD is there.
So when you pray for yourself or for others and your heart is filled with fear of today, or of the future,
Remember- YHWH Shammah- He is there. Pray that they will feel God’s presence and power in their lives.
Because if YHWH Shammah is there, all HIS other attributes come with it-
Provision, healing, presence and power, and most importantly, faith all manifest in their lives.
IV. Pray that they would manifest the Power of God in their lives
I mentioned before the Greek word for power there is Dunamis, which is the base word for our English word dynamite.
It’s explosive
It’s powerful
It can destroy
Or it can clear the ground for a new building or in the case of an individual we are praying for- a new beginning with God.
That power is meant to be shared with others. It’s not meant to be hoarded or stored up.
I heard a person once say- Sunday church is where we come to recharge our spiritual batteries to face the week ahead.
I have to correct that thinking-
We aren’t batteries- this isn’t the matrix and I’m not Morpheus asking you to take the red pill.
If you are a Christian, we are electric wire- A Chrisitian is supposed to be a conduit for carrying God’s power to places that need them.
Anyone here ever lost electric power? Why did we lose power? The wires in the house are all connected, and the wire is connected to the pole…so what is the problem?
Somewhere between the power plant and our pole, there is a disconnection. That disconnection keeps the power from getting to your coffee maker to brew a cup of coffee….and that is the worst right?
The same holds true for you and I, and the people we pray for- if there is a disconnection between a person and God- there is no light in that heart, and darkness prevails.
Remember that when we pray for others, it’s critical that they can be connected to that power, so that light and life can reign in their spirits and their lives, and that they can help others connect to that same power.
And that brings us to our last point-
V. Pray that the Love of God would shine through them- the same love that held Christ on the cross would permeate their entire life That God's Will can be their guiding influence that determines their decisions, their actions, and their thoughts.
That’s the goal- that every member of the Godhead shows themselves present in their lives and that the power and presence of God flows through them.
If that is happening, everything else falls into place. Their wants, their desires, their needs will all line up with heaven, and they will know joy.
We are going to put this into practice today.
Take out your sheet that’s in your bulletin and think about a person you’d like to pray these things over.
Consider their needs right now, and write specifically on the paper what their need is, and how these 5 things can help them in that area.
Then I want to spend about 5-10 minutes praying about that before we dismiss.
Prayer
Landing Strip- all rise
Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
NIV
