Prayer – Ephesians 1:13-23
PREPARATION TO PRAY
TO KNOW HOW AND WHAT TO PRAY
TO PRAY ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD
We Must Start as a People SEEKING Christ
When we grow up into Christ we find our prayers are IN CHRIST
We pray “IN THE NAME OF JESUS” – according to His Will and Character. According to the KNOWLEDGE of HIM.
Ephesians 1:13-23 (New King James Version)
13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
“In Christ” so many passages throughout the New Testament make reference to our status, position or condition as being “In Christ”. It is essential that we recognise that outside of Christ we are nothing and that only in him do we attain to the fullness of salvation and eternal life with all its heavenly blessings.
It is in Him the we trust not in any other and this was as a result of hearing the word of truth, which is the gospel of our salvation.
And in Him in whom we believe we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
Sealed in the Greek conveys three idea’s “ownership, security, destination”
The Holy Spirit of Promise is the “Promised Holy Spirit”
14 who[a] is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
The promised Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we the purchased possession of God are redeemed on the great and glorious “Day of the Lord”.
This great activity of God will be to the praise of His Glory a praise that like our inheritance is eternal.
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,
Paul states two key elements of the salvation experience which combined prove the position of the saints at Ephesus as “In Christ”. These two elements combined demonstrate the genuine nature of the saved saint. That they:
- Have faith in the Lord Jesus
- Love all the saints.
We cannot have one without the other, both are combined in the life of the saint, were one or both are absent then salvation will also be absent. 1 John 2:9-11
16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:
Paul prayers for the saints without ceasing, with regularity and continued rememberence. Here we have confirmation of what we have expected of the Apostle, a reliance on prayer and a love for the saints that directs his prayer life to the express benefit.
If we love the saints then shall we not find ourselves continually in prayer for their blessing!
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
Paul prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the “Father of Glory”
Will give the saints the “spirit of wisdom” and “revelation” which is to be found “in the knowledge of Him
That they would have a spirit of wisdom to apply the revelation of the knowledge of Him that is given by the Holy Spirit.
We must have been given a spirit of wisdom to be able to understand and apply the revelation which is also given by the Holy Spirit.
This revelation is of the knowledge of Him.
When we first attained our salvation we received a revelation of the knowledge of Christ as
- Lord – that He is the Master of us all, that He is to be followed in total committed allegiance as our God.
- Saviour – that He is our redeemer, our sacrificial substitute and the one who give life to us who were dead.
With this knowledge and with faith in these truths “in Christ” applied we are saved.
In 1 Corinthians Paul says
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Many have used this to restrict their preaching to the simple message of the Cross but Paul explains that they were babes and could accept nothing more:
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly.
The Ephesians are different and ready for the wisdom and revelation of God, the deeper knowledge of CHRIST.
Ephesians 4:11-13
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
Colossians 3:10-12
10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
2 Peter 1:3-5
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Pressing On In the Knowledge of Christ
18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
This knowledge of Him results in our perception of truth being enlightened, so that we are able to
KNOW:
- What is the hope of His calling
- What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints
- What is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.
- 1. What is the hope of His calling:
It is “In Christ” that we experience and understand the “hope” of His calling. All that experience is IN Him and therefore His calling becomes ours IN CHRIST
- 2. What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints:
It is “In Christ” that we experience and understand the “inheritance in the saints” that is His inheritance that becomes ours also. We are His inheritance, we are His for all eternity. The riches of this glorious inheritance are realised in the saints, that we His body are united with Him and partakers of this glorious inheritance, eternal life in union with Christ.
- 3. What is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe. According to the working of His mighty power
We are to know and experience the greatness of His power, it is we who believe who have the marvellous joy of understanding and experiencing this power
And we are to know this in accordance with its WORKING – so we have an active experience of this in our daily lives and grow in faith IN HIM.
We can learn of Him and Know Him as:
Teacher : John 6:44,
Helper (in temptation) : 1 Cor 10:13
Deliverer : Rom 11:26
20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
This same mighty power was demonstrated in Christ – “He worked” being an active and applied power to raise Him from the dead and then seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places
This mighty power raised Christ from the dead.
Christ was seated “seated being an expression for accomplishment of His work in redemption “Its is Finished” completed!
That we as Christ’s body are also partakers of the inheritance and seated at the right hand of the Father In the heavenly places and that every resource or need is available IN CHRIST.
21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
Our Head “Christ” has placed us with Him above all things and therefore we pray from a position of heavenly authority “but only IN HIM”
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
We the church, the body of true believers are the body of Christ in the world, we are the working and connecting life of Christ to our communities, We are the body of ministry to each other in love, we are the body of Christ to the peoples of the nations who are lost without salvation.
Conclusion
We like Jehoshaphat need to be seekers after God, we need to seek after the knowledge of Him that we might pray with wisdom, understanding and revelation, in order that our prayers that we utter are “In Christ” according to His will. For if we are like Him we will pray like Him and hence pray His will on earth and in the heavenlies.
Thoughts / Inspiration / Revelation
We have looked at the Prayer of Jehoshaphat and seen that some good principles are those of preparation for prayer, praying according to God’s will.
We have in this text a clear indication of God’s will for his people as expressed in this mighty prayer of Paul.
It says that Paul prays continually giving thanks and asking for specific things for the Ephesians.
This is not something that they once had and lost or forgotten, It is clearly a higher thing than the pure beginning of understanding of the saved ones.
Paul mentions in his letter to the Corinthians that he preaches Christ crucified and nothing else. Some have taken justification from this statement to just preach the Cross of Christ and nothing else. But clearly Paul preaches this for the Corinthians because in his own words they are still only fit for milk.
There is far greater for us as believers we are to move on in our understanding and knowledge of Christ.
This is in fact a sanctification process and it is obtained by faith in Him by an ever-increasing faith through revelation and the knowledge of Christ.
He prays for three things
- may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him
- the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
- what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
We have seen in the prayer of Jehoshaphat our need to prepare and know the will of God in order to pray effectively.
Here we have a clear and certain objective in prayer.
We can here tonight begin to pray for each other, for ourselves, for the rest of the body
Is it God’s will – with certainty yes – it is obvious
So let us prepare ourselves to pray that we may be willing recipitants of this great blessing and that those we pray for may also partake of such great blessing.
