How to Pray to Get Rich
EPHESIANS 3:14-21
It takes a special person to work in a bank, or for Brink’s, or to be employed at Fort Knox. To always be around wealth.
I can remember as a child going to Denver and visiting the Denver Mint.
Money everywhere, piles of coins, pages of bills in all denominations. To a little kid you wonder why you couldn’t walk out of there with your pockets full.
· As we come this last passage in the first half of the book of Ephesians. Paul has taken us on a journey describing our riches in Christ: For this reason/cause
1) Being a Christian means being a part of God’s family the church
2) The church was planned by God before the world was made
3) The church includes all: Jews & Gentiles made one in Christ
4) Heaven’s riches are available to every member.
· Verses 14-21 are a final prayer by Paul in which he prays that we might take possession of the riches that we have taught in these three chapters.
1) It is nice to know truths and memorize verses but Paul’s heart was that these truths become part of who we are.
Martin Luther: In 1540 he had an assistant and friend named Friedrich Myconius. Friedrich had become sick and was on his deathbed and wrote Luther a farewell letter.
Luther immediately sent a reply, ‘I command you in the name of God to live because I still have need of you in the work of reforming the church…the Lord will never let me hear that you are dead but will permit you to survive me. For this I am praying because I seek only to glorify the name of God’.
Fredriech, who had already lost the ability to speak, did soon recovered and lived an additional six more years but then did die TWO MONTHS AFTER LUTHER HIMSELF HAD DIED.
There is power in prayer, ‘The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much’.
Paul’s first prayer in 1:18-22 was for ENIGHTENMENT but his pray is for ENABLEMENT.
SIDENOTE: Important that we take note of how important prayer was to Paul, Jesus, Apostles, ‘We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word of God’.
1) DEVOTE: become one with, adhere to, be glued to
· FOUR REQUESTS BY PAUL (14) For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.
Not a Jew’s normal prayer posture. Common to Christians today but Jews would stand and pray.
1) Abraham STOOD before the Lord.
2) Story Jesus told about Pharisee/Publican they STOOD before the Lord.
3) Today, Jews at Wailing Wall stand rocking back and forth
This posture demonstrates the great extent of Paul’s concern in prayer that this be answered by God. Intense desire that the church become all that it should be in God’s grace.
1) Jesus knelt in the Garden and even Solomon knelt before God as he petitioned for all of Israel.
· See in verse 15 and the first half of 16 that Paul is not asking for anything that is not rightfully ours as members of God’s family.
(15) the Father, from Whom every family in heaven and on earth derives it’s name, (16) that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory,
1) Ask based on the fact that we are part of a family that stretched through two dimensions
2) Ask based on the fact that our Father is rich in glory.
3) Ask based on the magnitude of His wealth
‘According to His riches’. Not out of His riches.
If I walked up to a Billionaire and asked for $5 that would be out of his riches. But if I asked for $1 million that would be ‘according to’.
Paul is praying that we would be bold enough to believe and ask God according to His riches.
Story about a man who was returning home from work one night and passed a stretch limosene on the side of the road.
The man stopped and offered to help with the problem.
After he got the vehicle running the chauffer said the occupant would like to give him a reward for his help.
The man refused saying that he did not stop for the reward.
The chauffer relayed the message and came back and said that the occupant of the limo would just like his name and address so he could send some flowers to his wife as a thank you.
Some days later the flowers came with a card that read,
‘Thank you for you kind help, your home mortgage is now paid in full’ signed Donald Trump’
Flowers would have been ‘out of’ but ‘home mortgage’ was ‘according to’.
REQUEST #1: STRENGTH (16) ..to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; (17) So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
Remember reading Archie comics as a kid. Always on he back cover were different types of adds.
One was always about sand kicked in a skinny guys face on the beach. He answered the add and ended up musclebound and getting revenge. Strength is appealing to us.
1) Strength is not an automatic. Eph 5 reminds us that being filled
with the Spirit is not an automatic.
1. The first step in praying for strength is to recognize
our weakness.
a. Paul prays that we might be made strong with POWER:
dunamis – dynamic power(dynamite)
b. How often do you see what you would call a
DYNAMITE CHRISTIAN? (handful in a church?)
Paul is praying that the church would be full of them.
The opposite of this Greek word for Strength is the word ‘discouraged’.
Paul described a dynamic believer as someone strengthened with God’s power and not discouraged with doubts and fears.
#1 RECOGNIZE OUR WEAKNESS
2. The Second Step is to realize where Strength comes
from. Power through His Spirit in the inner man.
a. God’s strength is not about bicepts or brawn.
I enjoy watching the POWER TEAM from time to time
and I know they draw a lot of people. But God’s
emphasis is not on the outer man.
b. We love the OUTER MAN: gets a lot of attention.
We dress it, clothe it, feed it, comb it, primp it, wash it,
dry it, smear it with cream, diet it, exercise it, take
pictures of it (it can have a bad hair day, teenager’s
day destroyed when outer man has a pimple)but we
need to recognize that it is secondary in priority.
Just ask Christopher Reeves. When I was in college there was a search in America for the perfect Superman.
Considered lots of actors, recent Olympic Champion Bruce Jenner was considered, (they never came and asked me) but the finally settled on an unknown actor named Christopher Reeves.
SUPERMAN – indestructible – A role that is all about the outer man.
Reeves’ last movie role before his accident was one in which he played a paraplegic. He said that every day he would get in his car and drive away and with smugness be thankful that it was a role and not really him.
7 MONTHS LATER: it was him. His outer man was broken, his new life was in a wheelchair. Now all that mattered was the inner man.
Imagine the idea of putting more attention on the Cocoon rather than the butterfly inside.
c. The Inner man is only strengthened through the Holy
Spirit. Strengthened with power through His Spirit
1) Can’t be made strong at the YMCA, lots of money to join a fitness center.
2) Muscle bound man who spiritually is a wet noodle.
ACTS 1:8 ‘Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…’
1) If God took the Holy Spirit out of the world I am afraid that most of what Christians are doing would go right on BUT not in the lives of DYNAMITE CHRISTIANS.
2) Jesus said to them, “Apart from Me you can only do 50%?….NOTHING’.
3) Inner man can be strengthend only by surrendering all to God. To allow the Holy Spirit through prayer, study of God’s Word, and surrender to His will to make us dynamic, dynamite believers.
#1 RECOGNIZE OUR WEAKNESS #2 REALIZE WHERE STRENGTH COMES FROM
3. The Third step is to realize the purpose of Strength.
So that Christ may live in your hearts through faith.
a. Ever have a person make a big deal about ‘where does it say that I am to invite Jesus into my heart?’ Where does it say He lives in my heart’. RIGHT HERE.
b. Word live is literally ‘house down’ ‘to dwell, inhabit, take up residence’.
c. In many of our lives Jesus is just a tolerated guest but the idea of this word means to be a resident manager.
Stay in someones home: ‘Just make yourself AT HOME’. Feed you something, give you some space: your bed, this bathroom…etc. Tolerated Guest
Back in kitchen: ‘I am more hungry than that’.. Check pantry, freezer, start up stove, pull some steaks out of fridge about midnight and fire up the barbeque on the deck. ‘What is going on?’ Doing what you said! Making myself at home. HOUSE DOWN.
By the way, watch were you walk in the upstairs hall, I am taking the wallpaper out of that bath and painting it a nice peach color.
Take offense if a TOLERATED GUEST did such a thing but if a RESIDENT MANAGER did it was His option.
Jesus come into my life and be Savior and tolerated guest. LORD
Jesus come into my life but don’t remodel anything, rearrange any furniture, change anything I have become comfortable with.
A SIGN OF SPIRITUAL STRENGTH is allowing Christ to live freely and comfortably in you as a dwelling place. To desire Him to take complete charge of our lives. To House Down.
How comfortable would Jesus feel in most
church member’s hearts.
If we were honest we would have to admit that
most of our lives are less than a desirable
dwelling place for the holy son of God.
Looked at dozens of homes when we were trying to find a place to live in the South Tulsa area.
One thing I learned is ‘you cannot be sure about the inside of a house by just looking at the outside’.
PURPLE LAUNDRY ROOM(in honor of the horned frogs of Texas Christian) Ever see a frog with horns I am going to steer clear, especially a purple one!
One particular house had all the outside you would desire, nice yard, shady trees, attractive look, pool a block away but inside was dirty, dingy, full of holes in the walls.
Can’t tell the truth about people by just looking at the outside.
Also can’t tell the truth by just looking at them on certain days, Sunday.
Some years ago when looking to buy in Hannibal. It so happened that it had rained for days. A couple of houses that looked good, inside and out, and even had comfortable prices we found out also had pretty good leaks.
Right situation showed the real condition of the inside.
EZEKIEL was a prophet that God often dealt with in strange ways to prove a particular point. He was once taken in the spirit to Jerusalem. 8:7-12
(7) Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. (8) He said to me, “Son of man, now adig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. (9) And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here.” (10) So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around.
(11) Standing in front of them were aseventy belders of the house of Israel, with each man with his ccenser in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising.
(12) Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘aThe LORD does not see us;
· God’s strength comes in our inner man by our surrender to the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives and Paul says the main way we do this is through faith.
3) Faith is lived out by choices we make: God’s will instead of our own, choice to confess our sin, to lay aside the old life and put on the new, choices to forgive, to love others as Christ has loved us.
4) All these are decisions of faith which allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse the life of our inner man and then make us powerful Christians by God’s strengthening process.
5) Then we are a dwelling place that Christ can enjoy.
Robert Munger wrote a book entitled, ‘My Heart Christ’s Home’. In it he pictures the Christian life like a house.
Jesus enters this house and goes from room to room finding many things that He is uncomfortable with:
1) He goes into the library of the mind and begins to clean out the thoughts that are there on the shelf and replaces them with His Word.
2) He goes into the dining room of the appetite and finds many sinful desires listed on the menu. He replaces things like materialism, envy, pride and lust with humility, love, meekness, and such.
3) He enters the living room of fellowship and finds worldly companions in the activities and television.
4) Finally in a closet he finds many hidden sins.
Christ could only be comfortable after He had cleaned every room and then He could settle down and be at home.
Paul’s first request is that the heart of every Christian, the inner man would be swept clean of the things of this world thru the work of the Holy Spirit in each and every life.
Then Satan better look out: You pop a firecracker and it is not too disturbing, you catch a fireworks warehouse on fire and you better run for cover.
I pray that we can be that kind of church, of 100% DYNAMITE CHRISTIANS.
