Those confined in Prison have been known to make Sustained Pleas. The Prayer-Life of Prisoners is Primary! I want to talk about that Prayer-Life. Let’s consider:
“The Prayer Of A Prisoner”
Ephesians 1:15-23 contains the Petitions of a Prayer of a Prisoner (read).
In my estimation, this ecclesiological epistle embraces Eminence; in my opinion. This Prisoner of Providence inaugurates this excellent epistle on the lofty peaks of Mount Zion. Paul is dictating from the prominent perspective of Heavenly Places. This epistle is heaven odorized. It smacks of the flavor of glory. It drips with the dew of grace. It exudes the incense of holiness.
At the very outset we find Paul poised in the Highest Position: he is On His Knees. I submit that On One’s Knees is the Highest Position. James agrees. He wrote: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.” In Ephesians we catch sight of a Prisoner who ‘broke down and lifted up.’ Knee-bent and body-bowed with upraised hands, Paul immediately broke forth in a Doxology. He Blessed the Triune God for what He has done for us. Paul is Glorying in God’s Grace.
Now if we would suspend our suspicions, I think we would detect this strain of Excitement in his voice as He Catalogues The Blessings of the Blessed.
In Verse 4 he says, God Chose Us.
In Verse 5 he says, God Has Adopted Us.
In Verses 6 he says, God Has Accepted Us.
In verse 7 he says, God Has Redeemed Us.
In Verse 8 he says, God Has Graced Us with Wisdom and
Prudence.
In Verse 11 he says, God Has Given Us An Inheritance.
In Verse 13 he says, God Has Saved Us.
And in Verse 14 he says, God Has Sealed Us.
Now I contend that Paul Is Excited, because when he gets to verse 6, he hints that we ought to “Praise the Glory of God’s Grace.” Seeing that God has made us recipients of all those blessings catalogued, he suggests that we ought to Praise the Glory of His Grace. So we find that PAUL PRAISED IN PRISON.
What a Place For Praise: PRISON!
In Prison: Confined, Constrained and Constricted!
In Prison: Grounded, Guarded and Governed!
In Prison: Stifled, Stabled and Stigmatized!
In Prison: Cuffed, Chained and Checked!
In Prison: Concealed, Condemned and Contemned!
Yet, with chains on wrists and ankles and coupled to house-guards, PAUL PRAISED IN PRISON!
My friends, A Confining Circumstance Is A Good Place For Praise!
A Locked-In Look-Out is a good place for praise.
A Cramped-In Spirit is a good place for praise.
Chained with Cares and Coupled to Confusion is a good place for praise.
Hemmed-In by Doubts and Surrounded with Gloom is a good place for praise.
Floored by Failure and Penned-Down by Poverty is a good place for praise.
Locked-In by Sickness and Locked-Out by Scorn is a good place for praise.
A Confining Circumstance is A Good Place For Praise: PAUL PRAISED IN PRISON!
Not only did he PRAISE, but in Verses 15 and 16, he is calling our attention to A SECOND AND THIRD ACTIVITY HE PERFORMED IN PRISON.
He informs us here that some news had reached his ears. Someone had informed Paul concerning the FAITH AND LOVE of some saints who resided in a distant city called Ephesus. Their Faith and Love had Sounded-Out across the Mediterranean Sea, traveled the imperial city streets of Rome and had pedestrianed into his cell. And that additional news was added cause for Paul to THANK IN PRISON. He says in Verses 15 and 16, “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease TO GIVE THANKS FOR YOU …”
Says Paul: Because of hearing the good news of your new-found Faith in the Lord Jesus coupled with your Latitudinal Love that extends unto all the saints, I have Additional Cause to Celebrate Thanksgiving on a daily basis: “because of this, I do not cease to give thanks for you.”
Says Paul: I’m grateful that after you heard the good news of your salvation as proclaimed in the Gospel you trusted, believed and consequently you were sealed.
Says Paul: In fact, ever since I heard about it, I haven’t stopped thanking God for you—”I do not cease to give thanks for you.”
Says Paul: Even though I’m a prisoner in chains, yet I’m grateful that other captives have been set free. I’m thankful that you have been delivered from the chains of guilt and the penitentiary of sin. Says Paul: even though my freedom has been curtailed, yet I’m thankful for your freedom in the Lord.
My friends, we too can be Thankful For Others. Our gratitude does not necessarily have to be predicated solely on Our Own Personal Blessings; we can be Thankful For Others. Even though your deliverance from a present-prison tarries, yet you too have cause for unceasing thanksgiving if you have heard of the salvation of others. You ought to be grateful for the grace of God working in the life of someone else. You ought to be able to thank God for His benefits to others. And I’m convinced that if WE START TELLING WE’LL START THANKING. IF WE WITNESS WE’LL WORSHIP! Paul not only PRAISED, HE THANKED IN THE TANK!
However, its this third activity which Paul performed in prison that I want to explore and extricate. Verse 16 says that Paul also PRAYED IN PRISON. Paul states that he continually made mention of them in his prayers. Now I’m convinced that Paul had A Long Prayer-List, to make mention of others in his prayers. I’m convinced that he spent much time interceding for others. He not only prayed ’Lord, bless the Body collectively,’ he called out Names Individually. He says, “I Make Mention Of YOU in my prayers.”
His prayer was TWOFOLD. Paul’s desire was that God would First BESTOW in order that Second THEY WOULD KNOW.
First, he asked that God Would Bestow in verses 17 and 18. For he recognized the fact that if God didn’t Bestow, they would never Know. Paul says he makes mention of them in his prayers, but that was not the totality of his prayer-list. He says he has something specific in mind that he asked God for on their behalf. He asked that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Father of glory, might give to them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, and that God would enlighten the eyes of their understanding.
What he is actually asking God to Bestow is the Teaching Ministry of the Holy Spirit. They had been Saved and Sealed, and there was no doubt about that; but they needed to Grow. They had already been given wisdom and prudence initially to understand the purpose of God for saving them (vs. 9-10). Yet they needed to Mature in the Knowledge of the Continuing Operation of God. So Paul prayed that God would bestow the Teaching Ministry of the Spirit to Enlighten the Eyes of their Understanding regarding God’s Method of Operating.
We need Divine Insight and Understanding so that we might perceive How the Lord Works in a Storm, in the Sunshine, in our Sickness and Sadness, in our Perplexity and Persecution, in our Dilemmas and Distresses, in our Relationships and Fellowship. We need to Understand HOW GOD OPERATES! We need KNOW HIM and THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION AND THE PAIN OF HIS SUFFERING.
So Paul asks God To Bestow Insight and Understanding in order Second that THEY MAY KNOW. Three Things we need to Know.
First, we need to Know the Hope of God’s Calling—verse 18b. We must know the Hope to which God has called us. The Call has come thru the proclamation of the Gospel. Thru the Foolishness of Preaching, God calls us to embrace salvation in His kingdom. The Call only comes thru the Preaching of the Gospel, in which Gospel is depicted before our eyes Jesus as the only Lamb who takes away our sin, as our sole Substitute taking upon Himself the curse and wrath of God for us that we might be saved thru believing on and in Him. God is calling unto us.
Yet still we need to know that God’s Call Always Has A Hope; there is A Hope To His Call! He does not call us out of darkness into His marvelous light to afterwards abandon us! No, the Call has a Final and Ultimate Destination. Listen, whatever situation we are now in, THERE IS HOPE! Certainly if God can call us out of Darkness, He can deliver us from the Shadows! If He can quicken us from Spiritual Death, then He can certainly deliver us from Anything!
If you read the Bible with an enlightened understanding and disciplined by the Teaching ministry of the Spirit, you know every situation or dilemma in which Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the children of Israel, Moses, Jeremiah, David, Ruth, the Apostles or the Early Church were, God Always Brought Them Out. THEY HAD HOPE!
You need to know that whatever you are in now is not your final state: it too shall pass and come to pass. The Hope is that ultimately we’re going to be Redeemed from ALL THINGS. We always have something to Look Forward To! God has called us to a High, Holy, Heavenly and Steadfast Hope.
Second, we need to Know How Rich We Are - verse 18c. “What the Riches of the Glory of His Inheritance in the saints.”
A. You have the Riches of A Present Glory. When Jesus came, he brought with Him some of the riches of glory. Irreversible Election-verse 4. Irrevocable Adoption-verse5. Unconditional Acceptance-verse 6. Never-Failing Redemption-verse 7c. Assured and Limitless Forgiveness-verse 7b. Eternal Security, The Permanent Indwelling of the Holy Spirit-verses 13b-14.
B. You also have the Riches of a Perspective Glory: an Inheritance reserved in heaven for you! 1) A heavenly Estate (Mansion, Servants) verse 11; 1 Peter 1:4. 2) Kingdom Rulership - Kings/Queens, Revelation 1:6. 3) Perpetual Ministry - Priests, Revelation 1:6.
Harriet Bell put it this way: “I once was an outcast stranger on earth, A sinner by choice, and an alien by birth; But I’ve been adopted, my name written down, An heir to a mansion, a robe and a crown.”
We need to know How Rich we are: “My Father is rich in houses and lands, He holds the wealth of the world in His hands! Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, His coffers are full, he has riches untold. I’m a child of the King. With Jesus my Savior, I’m a child of the King.”
And Third and Last, we need to Know THE MASSIVE AND MAJESTIC POWER OF GOD: “the exceeding greatness of His power,” verse 19a.
A. This Omnipotent Power Works Towards Us, On Us, In Us and For Us: “to us-ward who believe according to the working of His mighty power …”
B. Same Power that Raised Christ from the dead is the Same Power that Works For, On and In Us.
C. Same Power that Exalted Christ as Lord is the Same Power that Works In, On and For Us!
No wonder Edward Perronet wrote -
“All hail the power of Jesus’ name! Let angel prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all.”
For God raised Him “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named … and has put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church.” Therefore-
“All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice with, sing Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
thou silver moon with softer gleam:
O praise Him, Alleluia!
Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
Ye clouds that sail in heaven along,
O praise him, Alleluia!
Thou rising morn, in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening, find a voice,
O praise Him, Alleluia!
All ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part,
O sing ye, alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care,
O praise Him, Alleluia!”
THIS IS THE PRAYER OF A PRISONER!
