Sermons from Lone
Rock Bible Church General Quarters (Part 2) Ready to go to battle?
I continue to marvel at the fact that after the apostle goes through all he does to describe the armor and to identify the enemy, when it comes time to engage the fray, all we do is pray. That almost doesn’t seem to fit, does it? You would think someone ought to have to go charging into the middle of something. Well, perhaps we do and that’s where prayer will take us. I’m going to read Ephesians 6:17-20
It’s interesting that in verse 17 we are to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, God’s word to us, and turn around in verse 18 and discuss our words to God. That’s quite a combination. Ponder some of the great battles of the Bible and there are many. Work your way through the Old Testament especially, battle after battle. Think of it. Think of how God’s people carried the day at Jericho. How it was they marched around the city once a day for six days, on the seventh day seven times. They carried no rocket-propelled grenades. They didn’t have catapults or battering rams or even bows and arrows and spears ready to throw at those folks of Jericho. They didn’t have a way to knock the walls down. All they did was what God told them to do, and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. Isn’t that amazing! Did you ever think of that? They didn’t have to breach the walls; God handled that for them. Further in the book of Judges we hear the story of Gideon. Tens of thousands of the Midianites have God’s people completely under their pagan thumbs. No hope. The only hope they have is in this guy, Gideon, whose is raised up by God to be the leader to free them. Gideon is a frightened individual himself. He sees himself as weak and inadequate and incapable of doing what God has called him to do. He even hides. But what a battle! When they took on those Midianites, recall how they all drew those long swords and just overwhelmed them. No, they didn’t. Three hundred men. Forces reduced among the Israelites to a mere three hundred men armed to the teeth with pitchers, torches, and trumpets. That’s all they had. They had the torches hidden inside the pitchers to keep the light from shining out, and once God gave the word they broke the pitchers. Suddenly the Midianites were surrounded by lights and heard this horrendous sound of the trumpets, and away they went. Other times when God would move among the people of Israel to defeat their enemies, the enemy would turn on one another and God’s people had little to do. There was a time when the Assyrian hoards (and they were the worst of the worst) had conquered the city of Lachish in Judah, had already overwhelmed the northern kingdom of Israel, and now were threatening Jerusalem itself. It was a no-win deal. God’s people were just toast. They might as well give in to these barbarians, these Assyrians. But what did God do? Once the Assyrians issued their ultimatum to the people of Jerusalem, what did they do? What was their first recourse in battle? It was prayer. They prayed and never had to raise anything against the Assyrians. God took them away. God solved the problem. I suspect that’s what God wants of us. When it comes time to engage the fray, to defeat the enemy, the Bible is pretty clear. Paul doesn’t talk here about mounting mass mailings campaigns or writing your politician or going to a rally and trying to gin up all kinds of energy for the Christian cause, although there are times and places for those types of things. God first calls us to pray. Why? Because the fundamental point of prayer is to remind us of who we are and whom we serve. It’s to remind us that the battle is the Lord’s and we are completely dependent upon Him to prevail. That’s what prayer is about – a reminder to us before our God that He is the Creator, we are the creature, and we must put all our trust in Him alone. It’s a call to faith. It’s a call to trust. It’s a call to submission. So the apostle, after giving these Ephesians believers a rundown of their armor, says their first recourse is to pray. Last week we started talking about the broad strategy, the basics of prayer. I want to finish that today and then move into specific strategy. We talked last week about praying at all times. Now I want to mention praying in the Spirit. Notice that in verse 18. I sometimes think that we miss very simple yet very critical points by reading the Bible too quickly and thinking perhaps we already know what it means. What does it mean to pray in the Spirit?I have a hunch of a couple of things it does not mean. For one, it does not mean meaningless repetition. Jesus talked about that. Do not think by your many prayers, you are praying in the Spirit. Just because you are going through the motions of some rote words to God over and over again in some sort of mindless fashion, that is praying in the Spirit. No, I would suggest that’s praying in the flesh. I would suggest that’s an expression of religion, not the communion of relationship. You know how that can be. "God bless the missionaries, Amen. God bless the missionaries, Amen." Come on, that’s not praying in the Spirit. That’s meaningless repetition. Another thing that prayer is not, is arrogant demand. "God, now I’m fasting here and I’m being really good too. And you know what my deadline is so God, I’m going to make it yours." Arrogant demand is not where it is either. Let me suggest this. Praying in the Spirit as the apostle uses that expression is a conscious, deliberate trusting in God that He knows what He is doing and knows what is best, and He can be trusted. There is a passage in the Bible which everyone ought to commit to memory, in Isaiah 55. You will recognize it the minute I read it to you. It’s a fundamental principle of what it is to be God, where He lives and what He is like and what He is up to. God says very clearly:
We need to understand that God has an agenda. God has a plan. God is working it out and it is not ours. Ours is self-centered; His is God-centered. That’s just how it is and He is doing fine with it. His plan will be the plan that prevails. We need to know that as well. His ways and His thoughts are not ours. There are not only not ours; they are different than ours. They are not a little bit different; they are lot different.
God’s ways and thoughts are not only different; they are better. They are not only better; they are higher. How much higher? Well, how high is the heaven above the earth? That’s high. So He is working. He is always working. He is building His kingdom. Jesus told Peter that. "I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." "I will have my way," God says. So when we pray, fundamentally we must line ourselves with who God is and what He is about. That’s why so significantly placed in the Lord’s Prayer is "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." "Because God, it’s about You." There is another mystery verse in the Bible I am going to share with you in Romans 8, verses that are frequently misunderstood. I believe this is what Paul is talking about when he mentions praying in the Spirit. I believe that in Romans 8 we see a parallel to what we just read in Isaiah 55. The argument that Paul is making in Romans 8 is that if you ain’t got the Holy Spirit, you ain’t got nothing. That’s my paraphrase. The Holy Spirit makes the difference as whether or not we are Christians. The Holy Spirit makes the difference in how we live as Christians. The Holy Spirit is our tangible link to deity. He is God’s agent of application. He is the one who lives in us. He is the one who links us to heaven. He is the one who goes between us and the exalted Christ at the right hand of the Father. He is the one with whom we have to do. This is one of His ministries in our behalf. It’s described in Romans 8:26. I want to pause here so that we don’t miss it. I believe this is what is being said about praying in the Spirit.
May I repeat: we do not know how to pray as we should. I heard this said one time, "You know, sometimes you just don’t know how to pray." No, that isn’t it. What this is is a reference to the fact that God is working. He is weaving an intricate, beautiful tapestry, and we can only see the backside in this life. We can’t see His side of it. We’re not equipped. We’re not there yet, so what are we left with? We’re left with some colored threads going in a vaguely familiar pattern, and we have to trust the One who running the loom.
Literally it says, "with unutterable words." We can’t hear the words. This is absolutely not any reference to any sort of private prayer language or speaking in tongues or anything of that nature. These are words you can’t hear because they are words communicated among deity. This is the Spirit speaking for us. Every bit as much as we cannot see Him anymore than we can see the wind or the air, we cannot hear Him. He is doing the interceding. He is doing the praying. It says that He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is. They understand one another. They know the routine. They know the plan. The Spirit knows. When we are praying in the Spirit, fundamentally we are resting in Him. We need Him for this if our prayers are to reach heaven and if they are to be collected in those vials, those urns, those jars described in Revelation 5. The Spirit gets them through. He takes what is ours and translates it into the language of heaven, if you will, and there our prayers are deposited in glory. I think that’s a wonderful picture. Do I understand it thoroughly? No! The Spirit helps us. We don’t help Him; He helps us. There was a time in my life, and perhaps some of you have had the joy, of pulling boards off the chain at a mill. There is a long ramp run by a chain and all these boards come clattering down. They have just been sawn from logs and they come out in different dimensions, different lengths, 2x4, 2x6, 8 foot, 10 foot, 12 foot, 16 foot. Different guys are stationed along the side of this conveyer and you have, thankfully, a heavy leather apron and heavy leather gloves because you are assigned a certain dimension When you see yours you pull it off and put it on a stack. You stack it neatly. Somebody else is pulling one size, somebody else is pulling another size, and you rotate so that nobody gets the worst all day long. The worst, by the way, is when they are cutting 2x12 fir and larch because then you are assigned to stack 2x12 green fir and larch up to 16 feet in length. That’s not a board; that’s not a plank. It’s like a rectangular tree and you’re supposed to stack it. Everybody understands that when somebody has the fir and larch they are in over their heads, so a helpful crewmate will go on the other end and pick them up and stack them. The word for help in Romans 8:26 is a long, compound that’s a fun one to say. It means "he takes up on the other end together with us." That’s exactly what happens at the chain and that’s what the Holy Spirit does. He doesn’t need our help. That’s absurd. But we sure need His, and He comes through for us as we pray in the Spirit – that is, with a conscious trust in God that He knows what He is doing and He knows what is best because we cannot know. So we give it our best shot. We do it privately. We do it corporately. But we do it submissively and we do it humbly, trusting that the God who knows what He is doing will indeed make it come together for good. By the way, isn’t that what Romans 8:28 says? "We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Pray in the Spirit. Be on the alert with all perseverance and petition (verse 18). This business of being on the alert is the word for going without sleep. The apostle says there is a time not to sleep. Now the older I get, that time seems to be more illusive. He says there is a time not to sleep. There is a time to be vigilant, for instance, the Garden of Gethsemane. This could not be illustrated any more starkly than in the garden. Jesus is preparing to consummate the most pivotal act of all human history – the cross. He is in the garden. Judas has departed, even now is in the process of bringing the officers to arrest Jesus. All those terrible things are about to happen. The weight of the sin of all mankind is getting ready to come to bear on the shoulders of Jesus, and you bet He is praying! He is casting Himself before His Father, and He is trusting His Father for grace. He is agonizing over what He is about to do. "If it is possible, if there is any other way..." There wasn’t any other way. If there was, Jesus would have taken it. But there wasn’t, and He says to His disciples, those disciples who had said, "I will die with you. I will never betray you. I will never let you down," "Could you please just be with me and be watchful and prayerful? This is a very critical moment." And they slept. They didn’t begin to grasp the gravity of that moment. He did, of course. They did not. "Can’t you keep watch with me," He says, "and pray, even for an hour?" The spirit is willing; the flesh is weak. May the spirit be willing. May, by the grace of God, the flesh rise to the occasion. Are we watchful? Are we informed? Are we sensitive? Do we say, "God bless the missionaries"? Is that it, or are we informed as to what the needs are, what the challenges are, what the potential difficulties are, what is personally happening in one another’s lives as well as in the lives of those for whom we care who live far away? Are we cursory? Are we quick? Are we in too big a hurry to get on to something more important, or are we just too sleepy? We need to be vigilant in prayer. That’s what he is saying. Keep on the alert. Be informed. Be ready. Know what the opportunities and the issues are, and pray for all the saints, he says, near and far, new and old, young and old, right and wrong, those who are doing well, those who are struggling, for all the saints. I ask the question, how do you reduce this to some sort of practical form? We try. Who has God put in your life? In whose life has God placed you and me to have meaningful influence? Am I lifting them up in prayer? Do I have them in my mind? I find that if I am praying for somebody I am sensitive to that person. I am quicker to sense the needs they might have, the issues they might need help with. Who is on my prayer list? Do you have a prayer list? Who are my missionaries? Who do I know? Who have I had in my home? To whom am I giving personally, contributing? Am I following them spiritually as well as monetarily? Am I in any sense appreciative of what they are living with and what they are going through? That’s why in small groups we try to do this, praying for one another and praying for missionaries, trying to establish a setting in which we can be as Paul wants us to be here, on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. That’s what we want. That’s what we are working toward. It seems to me that a believer has three ingredients for kingdom advancement. This is coming off the top of my head. First of all, if we are going to advance the kingdom, we need to share the gospel. We need to be caring for other people because people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. We are to be loving one another and loving the lost. Sharing and caring, and third, prayering. I had to make it rhyme. It seems as if those are weapons as well. Are we humbly trusting God? In verse 18 Paul is talking about all the saints. He is speaking in generalities, and now he is bringing it down to himself, an individual. "Pray on my behalf," he is saying, "that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." Specifically then, what does Paul want? First he wants opportunity. I like that. Let me read two verses from Colossians chapter 4. You will notice some parallel thoughts between Colossians and Ephesians. Actually, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon were all written from prison. He tells the Colossians:
"Give me an opportunity, an open door. Make me sensitive." Folks, if we are not people of prayer, how can we be sensitive to the doors that God opens to us? If we are not thinking in terms of His kingdom, if we are not thinking in terms of His all-sufficiency and our total dependence and of the people He has providentially brought into our life, however will we see an open door? It would be difficult indeed, it seems to me. This was clear to him. "God, show me where. Show me who. Open that door, so that I might open my mouth." In II Thessalonians 3 he asks the Thessalonians, "Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you." Open door, opportunity, that’s what he wants. Now he is in prison, he is chained much of the time. He is surrounded by Roman soldiers. In the first chapter of Philippians, he tells us how he has been able to testify under those circumstances, and he knows that the gospel is going out all over the place. When in the fifth century missionaries finally reached the British Isles, they were amazed that there were Christians there. They thought they were the first ones. How did they get there? The gospel had been carried there by Roman soldiers who had been transferred there. Because Paul was faithful in prison to share to the gospel, God opened doors. God planted seeds. God then moved people and they opened their mouths and the gospel got around. God does know what He is doing. For this we need to be praying deliberately and continually. We each have been given by God our own sphere of influence. Nobody else knows identically the same people you and I know. God has us in a place that we might represent Him there. It is for us to be sensitive to opportunities. "Oh God, how can I share the gospel? What opportunities are you presenting to me?" We have to learn, brothers and sisters, to get our minds off ourselves and how miserable I am in this job or how unhappy I am with this situation and start thinking in kingdom terms. God doesn’t make mistakes. God isn’t late. The old saying above the kitchen sink, "Bloom where you are planted" – that’s what it means. "God what are You doing? What do You want?" And we will find our place in Him, getting our minds off ourselves and praying deliberately and continually that He will make us sensitive to opportunities. I will always remember what J.D. Price said upon his commissioning in the U.S. Navy many years ago. He said "God has made me a missionary in the U.S. Navy, and the government is paying me to be a missionary." He understood, and still does, that his fundamental role wherever the U.S. Navy places him is as a witness, a missionary for Jesus Christ. Oh, that we would all have that attitude. What an amazing thing that would be. Secondly, this word "bold" occurs twice here in Ephesians, at least in the New American Standard Bible. It is the word that means "confidence, no shame." He says "I want to make known with boldness… I want to speak boldly. I want confidence." A lot of Christians really struggle here. "Oh, I know the truth. I know I’m a Christian. I even know some Bible verses, but just try to get me to open my mouth some place to say yes, I trust Jesus and you should too." That is so difficult for some reason for so many. The apostle Paul in Romans 1:16 says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" [or the Gentile]. "I am not ashamed…it is the power of God." This gets you to heaven. Why be ashamed of what gets you to heaven? He’s excited to share the gospel because he knows where he has been and how God has changed his life. He knows where he is going and is asking for boldness. Evidently Paul had a struggle too. It’s one thing to write these words to Christian readers, it may be quite another to say them to someone who may not be interested. The apostle John had something to say about boldness. It’s also translated confidence. There is very interesting insight by this brother in I John 2:28: "Now, little children, abide in Him." Abide in Christ; abide in Jesus. Hang onto Him, in other words. Keep Him foremost in your thinking. Allow Him to run your life. Abide in Him so that when He appears, as He will, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. Abiding in Him brings us confidence. This is not confidence itself. Some people are naturally confident people, at least they have a pretty good presence. If those people are Christians that doesn’t necessarily mean that when it comes time for that confident personality to share the good news of Jesus that that confidence will remain. We’re not talking here about self-confidence. Again, it’s time to get our minds off self. This is confidence in Him that comes only through abiding. I have thought this through. I believe there are three hindrances to confidence. "Why am I not confident?" I ask. I think the first one, and this is where so many of us struggle, in sharing the gospel with confidence, is ignorance. I think far too many Christians are not familiar enough with eternal truth from the Bible, have not yet made that truth a part of life to a point where we will actually talk about it as though it meant something. Hopefully we are working in that direction, but I’m not sure we know our Bibles that well. I am not sure we are convinced of the truth that much because we have not been transformed as we ought to by the renewing of our minds, which is only available through the Word of God. We have to jump in there and allow the Word of God to change us by continually being in it, hearing it, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, and meditating on it so that it overtakes our brains and becomes a meaningful part of our lives. I think ignorance is a part of it. Secondly, I think distractions are huge. I think a lot of Christians are far too distracted, maybe mostly in a culture like ours where we have lots of things to distract us – hobbies, toys, pursuits, investments, things, places, people, and all kinds of things. So it’s harder for us focus on what lasts forever. If we would only learn that there are just two things that last forever other than God: people and His Word. That’s it. Everything else is going to burn. It’s gone some day, it will all burn. People and God’s Word. They need to hear God’s Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. People come to know Him when we share the Word. If we lack confidence, that’s not going to happen. Third, sin. The most-lacking-in-confidence Christians are those who are in sin, who are dabbling in things they shouldn’t, who are overtaken by bad habits or bad practices or bad obsessions. They have no confidence then. They join Paul in Romans 7:14-20: "I know what’s right but I’m not doing it, and it’s driving me nuts. I’m in turmoil and I’m in bondage and I feel like I’m losing." How in the world can a person who is in that sort of relationship with sin have confidence in the gospel to share it? It’s time to confess and it’s time to repent and it’s time to learn to abide, hang onto Him. Corrie Ten Boom said, "There is no pit so deep that His grace isn’t deeper still." We haven’t yet done that sin that will keep us away from God’s redeeming grace. It’s not possible. He will always, always hear us when we cry to Him. He will always work us back as we trust Him and as we learn to abide. That’s good news. So the hindrances are not excuses. They are hindrances and each one can be overcome. Finally he says this, and this is arguably my favorite point. He says, "What I want to do is make known with boldness, with confidence, the mystery of the gospel." Dear friends, could we please be clear on the gospel if nothing else? You don’t have to have chapters of the Bible memorized. You don’t have to be a theologian or a scholar, but you sure have to know the gospel. It’s very simple. The gospel is good news. That’s what the word literally means, good news, good announcement. First, what the gospel is not. I like to do that first, so that we are clear. It is not some sort of wishy-washy, do good, be good, judge not, don’t be a hypocrite kind of watered-down nonsense. That is not the gospel. You hear this in media. You hear this when people are asked about what it is to be a Christian. "Well, being a Christian means judge not, do good, be good, and that’s what God wants." Sure God wants that, but that doesn’t get you to heaven. That would apply in any culture, under any circumstances. This business of just being sincere and not being a hypocrite, well you can be sincerely lost. That’s not the gospel. It’s not remembering the Ten Commandments and keeping the Golden Rule and trying to live by the Sermon on the Mount. That is not the gospel and it is nowhere put that way in Scripture. This is where a lot of people are who have gone extremely liberal in a theological way. They have missed the point of the cross. You don’t need a cross for this, you just need a conscience. Secondly, the gospel is not going to church. "Dear God, if I go to church, then you will like me." "God, I’ll even take communion and you’ll like me." "God, I’ll get baptized and you’ll like me." "God, I’ll just involve myself with Christian stuff." No, that’s not it. Who is it that said, "Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car"? That is not the gospel. It’s fine, I love it when people say I want to invite my friends to church. Do it. Sure, invite your friends to church, but be aware that getting them in church isn’t the same as getting them right with God. You know that. Be sure they know that. They may think that. Be sure you are clear. That isn’t how you get right with God, just by going to church. You go to church to worship the God with whom you are already right because He saved you by His grace through the blood of His Son. So the gospel is not going to church. Thirdly, the gospel is not name it, claim it and make God my magician to get me what I want. "If you just pray right, you just do it right, you just claim it in Jesus’ name, and God will make your life come up roses." I can introduce you to dozens of people who would testify otherwise. The ones for whom this seems to work are all on TV. We only get to see them with carefully edited clips. That is heresy! It’s not in the Bible, and it will lead many people down a very discouraging and very destructive path. The Bible is not a name-it, claim-it, good time, rock and roll situation. The gospel, further, does not clean up your act. "If you just start behaving yourself and get rid of all those bad habits, then God will now like you." That’s not the gospel. Here’s the gospel: It has four points. Point 1 – This world is a mess. It is fallen; it is doomed. The prince of the
power of the air has a certain amount of freedom to make people’s lives miserable,
and he is capitalizing on it every chance he gets. We’ve talked about that for weeks
now out of Point 2 – The world cannot fix itself. We can’t fix it. You can’t fix it. I can’t fix it. Even the Secretary General of the United Nations can’t fix it. No one can fix it. Our best efforts won’t fix it. Throwing more money at it won’t fix it. Point 3 – God has taken the initiative to fix it. It won’t be fixed except God fix it, and He has stepped in and done that. That’s why Jesus died on the cross. There isn’t a human being alive who in their wildest imagination would have thought that up. The world is broken beyond repair and can only be fixed by the One who made it. That is God. He sent His Son to pay that price to get it fixed. That, folks, is good news! God sent His Son to pay the price for an eternal fix of all that is broken. Point 4 – Trust Him. That’s it. I go before Him and say, "God, I am so glad you have sent your Son. I’m so glad You have taken the initiative, have stepped in and brought the fix. I’m just going to trust You. I’m going to trust You that those sins for which Jesus died were my sins. I’m going to trust You that You are in charge. I’m going to trust You with my life, this life, next life. I’m just trusting You." That’s it. Is there any way I can make it simpler? It is easy? No, it’s not easy to trust because we are proud. We are self-centered. You can’t do a thing. By grace, through faith, plus nothing. That way God gets all the credit. If you or I can do something, we get a little bit of credit. God says, "I don’t share that; it’s all Mine. You just get to bask in My goodness and My grace to you." And He stays forever the hero. That’s the gospel. It’s broke, can’t fix itself, God provides the fix. All we have to do is trust Him in it. That’s good news.
Jim Carlson 2007, Lone Rock Bible Church, Stevensville Montana, USA |