Sermon Notes!! 3-9-2014

I am Heard

Ephesians 3:14-21

PAUL PRAYS FOR THE CHURCH

People who love their church, they get on their knees and they pray for it, and that’s exactly where we find ourselves in Ephesians today. Paul is on his knees, praying for his church. Like me, he was the founding pastor of that church, and he loved those people, and he couldn’t be with them.

To better understand how finding our identity in Christ through prayer is importatnt lets look at Paul’s circumstances

·      In Jail

·      Bears the scars of Jesus on his body

·      Been beaten

·      Jailed

·      Disowned

·      All for following Jesus!

So you can imagine this man and how hard it would be for him to get down on his knees. That’s not an easy thing for him to do, but it’s certainly a humble thing for him to do. And he’s praying. He’s praying for his church, and he’s praying for his people, and he’s praying for the forward progress of the gospel of Jesus.

So as we get into this section, “I Am Heard” in Ephesians 3:14–21, it’s actually a prayer. It’s a prayer from Paul in jail that he is writing down and sending to his church, and a lot of Ephesians involves prayer.

Please pray for our church!

First prayer is personal!

Ephesians 3:14 (ESV)

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

Paul is saying, “I’m praying.” It’s a personal thing.

·      It’s something that you need to decide that you will, in fact, do.

·      sometimes in the Bible,

o   people sit to pray,

o   sometimes they stand to pray,

o   sometimes they’re lying in bed and they pray,

o   and here we see that the Apostle Paul is kneeling in prayer.

·      Some times we should get down on our kness

o   It's a sign of humility

o   It's so a obedient heart

o   It's an act of surrender

·      You can pray standin, kneeling, walking, lying in bed it's all ok, but some times we need to fall to our knees

A few things about prayer

·      Prayer includes silent prayer because God knows your thoughts. And for some of you, you know this, but some of you, this is brand new.

·      It can be out loud where you’re just talking to God.

·       It can be alone, all by yourself.

·      It could be in a group with other people.

·      It can include singing! We should stand and praise God

God always answers!

·      Sometimes it's yes

·      Sometimes it no

·      Sometimes it's wait

Prayer is for us!

·      I think prayer is primarily to change us.

·      I don’t think it’s always primarily to get God to do something

·      Sometimes prayer is us talking to God so that our will aligns with God’s so that we’re the one who changes.

·      This is why God sometimes tells us in the Bible to pray for our enemies, so that our hearts wouldn’t get embittered toward them, that we’d still have love and affection toward them. The prayer there is not necessarily just to change our enemy, but it’s to change our attitude toward our enemy.

·      How many of you, there’s something you really, really wanted, you started praying about it, and you’re like, God’s changing my heart on this.

Sometimes God acts!

·      Sometimes he just waiting on us to ask!

·      So prayer is to have God to respond, to act

Praying is not grumbling!

·      Grumbling is when we’re unhappy and we’re just sort of leaking and talking about it. I’ve certainly been guilty of this.

·      Paul here has a lot that he could be grumbling about. “I’m in jail again, I’m impoverished again, and there are two guys above me again.” There’s a lot he could be grumbling about. He’s not grumbling, instead he’s praying.

·      As we hit difficult circumstances in life, we can either be praying or grumbling.

·      Grumbling is where we leak, and we complain, and our attitude is sour.

·      And prayer is where we’re talking about the exact same things, but we’re talking to God about them and working them out in relationship with him.

So what I don’t want you to do is pretend that everything’s okay, and everything’s fine, and you’re not struggling, you’re not hurting, you’re not suffering, everything’s great. I’m not saying that. I’m saying be honest, but be honest with him, because he can handle it, and work it out with him. And once you’ve worked it out with him, maybe then you can talk to other people about it.

Praying is not Gossip!!

·      Gossip is when you talk about someone rather than to them.

·      Let God be your lightning rod in prayer.

·      a lightning rod—when a storm comes, a lightning rod grounds out the storm. Otherwise, things blow up. Let’s say there’s a storm in your life and you’re really frustrated. Prayer grounds it out.

Second Prayer is Relational!

Ephesians 3:14–15 (ESV)

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,

There are two things here I need you to see a family and a father

I need you to understand thatmwe are a family, the church is a family!

·      We have made church a business and you consumers, critics and complainers

·      The bible teach that we are all brothers and sisters adopted in to gods family

·      Jesus is our big brother, that died so we could be in the family

·      We tend to pray for our family

·      I don’t think you pray for your grocery store

·      I don’t think you pray for the hardware store

·      We like a family have revenue, and bills, and we want to be good stewards

·      Be praying for your family

·      Be praying for all our church family all 3 locations

·      If you don’t pray for your church, your family you will see it as a business

·      To business we give little and want much

·      Family you give generously and bless the whole family

God is a dad!

·      You can pray to any part of the trinity

·      But normally it's by the power of the holy spirit, through the Son, to the father!

God’s a Father, God’s a Dad, and so when we pray, we’re talking to our Dad.

·      So, here’s my big idea. Don’t focus too much on prayer; get to know your Dad.

·      If you get to know your Dad, talking to him is going to be pretty easy.

·      God loves his kids

·      Jesus used language like Dad, or Daddy

·      God is a great Dad

·      For those who are Christian, our identity now is he is our Father and we’re the sons of God.

If you want to understand prayer, don’t look at the most religious, devout people. Look at kids who really love their dad and have a dad who really loves him, and see how they interact and communicate, and that’s a better example and training for prayer than anything else I can think of. Jesus, when he was asked, “How should we pray?” he says, “Pray like this: Our Father, Dear Dad.” And here, Paul is echoing the Lord Jesus, reminding us that God is our Father.

Third, Prayer is asking!

Ephesians 3:16–17 (ESV)

¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith

Unlike God, who is independent, self-sufficient, and lacking in nothing, we need. Thankfully, our Father is a generous giver who welcomes us to ask for anything

God wants us to ask

·      God isn’t looking to take from us, doesn’t need us.

·      God’s looking to give to us because we need,

·      So we bring our requests to God.

·      We ask him for help.

·      Jesus tells us, “Pray for food, daily bread.”

Paul also asks for Jesus to dwell in us!

·      “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”

·      Jesus wants to take up resedents

·      He wants to live in you

·      Work on you

·      Like buying a house verse staying in a hotel

o   We don’t paint and renovate the hotel

o   We fix up our house

·      Jesus wants to start changing, working on projects in your life

·      Find your identity in Jesus and lets get started on fixing that fence, painting that barn, ridding that bronc!

·       

Forth, Prayer is yearning!

Ephesians 3:17b–19 (ESV)

¹⁷ That you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

·      Paul prayed, not only for the Ephesian church but also for you, saying,

·      “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,

·       May have power, together with all the saints,

·      To grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ

·      Paul wanted God’s love to be set firmly in our minds

·      But he wanted more. He wanted the love of God, like a plant rooted deeply, able to flourish, to be the deep root in our soul.

·      He wanted us to know that God’s love is

o   Wide enough to welcome anyone anywhere,

o   Long enough to stretch from the beginning of time to the end,

o   Deep enough to reach down to the worst of sinners,

o   High enough to transport us to God’s heavenly kingdom. Because God’s love is boundless, infinite, unending, and something we can know truly but not fully, Paul strained to find the words to explain it.

Our affections determine our actions. As we’re rooted and grounded in love, we begin to love what God loves, and subsequently hate what God hates, namely, sin. This transforming of our affections results in the transforming of our actions. The truth is that there is one answer to all our problems—a full understanding of God’s love for us.

Fifth, Prayer is expecting!!

Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

·      Paul prayed because God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

·       More is a vital word. God isn’t only powerful; he is also generous.

·       Do you believe God can do anything? The true test of your theology is not just what you say, but also how you pray.

·      If others listened in on your prayer life, would they hear you praying the kind of prayers that could only be answered if God really showed up in a big way?

·       Do you truly believe down deep in your gut that God can do more than you can ask or imagine? Pray as big as your Dad.

·      Not only is our all-powerful, mind-blowing, creation-ruling, crazy-generous God at work; he is “at work within us.”

·      And God’s power working in us gives us hope. We can change when God powerfully and continually transforms us by captivating us with his love.

·      Paul modeled prayer that expected God to continue working in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. In light of God’s power at work in us,

·      we should pray expecting to be heard, if we pray within God’s will, which is how Paul closed his prayer!

Sixth, Prayer is Revealing!!

Ephesians 3:21 (ESV)

²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

·      You can learn a lot about people when you listen to them pray.

o   You learn who or what is on their hearts and minds,

o   What they care about, and where their passions lie.

·      You can also learn a lot about yourself by listening to how you pray.

o   In prayer, your heart, motives, desires, false gods, and functional saviors are exposed.

·      Paul’s prayer (as all prayer should) begins and ends with God.

o   It begins by speaking of and to God as Father and ends with the glory of God revealed through the person of Jesus Christ and through the witness of his church.

o   It’s fitting that Paul would end his prayer with the glory of God, because that is the purpose of all things

·      We exist to glorify God as fish exist to swim and birds exist to fly. The glory of God is a mega-theme in the Bible

o   God is big; we’re small. God is good; we’re bad. We exist for God; God doesn’t exist for us. Yet, he hears us and loves us.

·      Our big brother Jesus showed us the way!

o   In suffering, loneliness, singleness, poverty, betrayal, and even death, Jesus perfectly and continually lived to the glory of the Father.