Prayer for Wisdom
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Introduction
Introduction
According to a poll by Pew research, 55% of Americans pray daily. This study included people of all religious backgrounds (buddhist, hindu, muslim, jew and Christian as well as even atheists) - yet over half of Americans polled stated that they pray at least once a day. 16% said that they pray at least weekly. That means that nearly 3/4 Americans pray at least on a weekly basis. There is certainly something interesting about that statistic considering the fact that we live in a very secular culture that seems to push things like “God” away more times than not. People recognize that there is something unique and special when it comes to prayer, though. We know this firsthand, do we not?
As Christians we have the ability to pray to the Creator of the Universe whenever we want to! We don’t have to go through a pastor or priest in order to do this, we can do this from our own homes and with our families. We are able to come before the Father with our concerns and praise Him for who He is. This is a special thing and even non-Christians seem to recognize that prayer is something “worth” doing even if they don’t completely believe the same way about God that we do.
As we began our study of Ephesians two weeks ago, we mentioned that this was a church that was going through a bit of an identity crisis. They had many great teachers and leaders who had given them instruction throughout the years, yet we know in Revelation that they had “lost their first love”. In we see Paul introduce himself and give a very powerful argument to them about why we should praise God (because we are chosen, redeemed and assured). This message is extremely relevant to us today because we need to be reminded of why we praise God as well. What we see Paul do in the next portion of this wonderful letter is transition to prayer and talk about the importance thanking God, of growing in our knowledge of God and continuing to praise God for the gift of salvation that we have in the person of Jesus Christ.
Let’s dive into this “Prayer for Wisdom” in
15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will 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 surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might 20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
We see the apostle Paul talk about three key things in these verses regarding prayer: thanksgiving, intercession and praise.
Thanksgiving (15-16)
Thanksgiving (15-16)
Paul begins verse 15 by saying “for this reason” and this is kind of an awkward place for us to begin in order to understand what he is talking about. In order to understand, we must backtrack to the previous section in which Paul talked about giving praise to God. At the end of the day, we give praise to God because of what He has done for us! We are chosen, redeemed and assured - the only logical thing for us to do as Christians is to praise our Lord and Savior! We see Paul remembers this church in his prayers - even though he hasn’t been to this church in nearly a decade, he continues to pray for this church. Have you ever been in a similar situation in your own spiritual life? You are sharing the Gospel with an individual and you pray for them to come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and you continue to do so for years and years? What a wonderful blessing it is to be prayed for! On the other side, how many of you have had a mentor or a close friend that you have prayed for for years and years? We know that there is great power in prayer and we are called to pray without ceasing in . It is a blessing to pray for one another and as we see Paul do, we are to give thanks to God for these individuals in our lives.
We see that Paul is thankful for two specific things in these opening verses: their faith in Jesus and their love for others. These are very common things that we see throughout Scripture, do we not? We know that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ - we know that this is certainly important for a Christian. What a blessing for the believers of this church to hear from Paul that he has heard of their faith in Jesus Christ. This would bring about a dose of encouragement, would it not? How would we feel if JD Grear (President of the Southern Baptist Convention) wrote us a letter that said, “I have heard of the outstanding faith that Morgan Baptist Church has in our Lord Jesus Christ.” That would be pretty cool! We know that faith is at the foundation of Christianity. If someone were to ask you “What is a Christian?” how would you respond? Probably something along the lines of, “someone who believes in Jesus Christ, loves others and has hope.”
The second part of verse 15 is that these believers had love towards all the saints. What a tremendous testimony that this church had going for it! Not only did they have faith in Christ (a great vertical faith) but they matched that with love for all the saints (a great horizontal faith). We see Jesus say in that
35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
We know that states that faith without works is dead. The converse is true, as well. Works without faith is also dead! We must see to it that we have both as Christians and as Paul does in verses 15-16, he illustrates that this church was doing both of these things and that he was continuing to pray for them. He is giving thanks to God for the Christians in Ephesus. This is the legacy that we want to leave behind about our church today in Morgan, is it not? We want people to look at our church and say that Christians over there believe in Jesus Christ and they love other people. If the church became known for what we are for rather than what we are against then our impact on those around us would be far greater than what it currently is!
There is certainly something for us to learn from Paul’s prayer in these verses. A good prayer life is both ongoing and planned. As mentioned before, Paul states that we are to “pray without ceasing”. We can pray as we drive to work. We can pray at work. We can pray at school. One of the things that many people say in the Bible belt is that we want “prayer back in our schools”. Guess what? Prayer never left the school! Pray at school. Pray with your friends before you eat and before your recital or sporting event. Pray without ceasing! We also know that Jesus had specific times where He would get away from His disciples and His followers in order to spend time with God. He would get away from the distractions in order to fixate His mind on the things of the Father. This is a great reminder for us today as well. Sure, we are to pray without ceasing and there are always opportunities for us to pray, however we also need times to get away from our phones, tv’s and even family members in order to spend time with our Creator in an undistracted manner.
The Ephesian church had problems. We talked about some of those problems two weeks ago in that they became very legalistic, they lost their first love and they were trying to add things to Jesus (namely magic). Yet, Paul does not address all of those negative things in these verses. He focuses on the good things. This is certainly a good principle for us to strive to emulate whenever we pray for others. We need to focus on the good things that other people do, not be self-righteous. This doesn’t mean that we are naive to the weaknesses of others, but we are to recognize the grace in other believers. This takes a great amount of maturity, does it not? Our tendency is to often tear others down and point out the weaknesses of others! We can spend hours talking about things that we don’t like about individuals but it can be difficult to talk about the things that other people do well. Paul focuses on the grace that this church makes evident. We should also try and encourage other believers whenever we see evidence of grace in their lives!
Intercession (17-20)
Intercession (17-20)
Whenever we pray, we often times are quick to make our request known to God. We are great about asking God to do something that we want Him to do. “God just help me to pass this test”, “God please help this appointment to go well”, “God please let my team win!” just to name a few. What we see in verses 17-20, though, is a significantly different prayer from the apostle Paul. Paul prays that these believers would have wisdom and knowledge. It is absolutely necessary to seek the Spirit’s help in understanding Scripture! In Scripture we see the heart of God time and time again. As Charles Spurgeon put it, “It is easier to teach a tiger vegetarianism than to teach a non-Christian the gospel apart from the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit helps to open our eyes and to know Scripture deeply. We see an example of this in as Jesus opened the eyes of the lost to see His Word. Here in Ephesians we see Paul ask God to give these Christians eyes to see who they are. We see this in as the Psalmist writes “Open my eyes that I may contemplate wonderful things from your instruction.”
It can be difficult to see our need for God sometimes. Whenever life is going good or whenever we feel good about ourselves after a great day at work or after acing a test. We can have a very high view of ourselves. In these moments, it can be very easy to lose sight of the fact that we need God desperately. Many people today have a very low view of God as well. They see God as a genie of sorts to grant their requests whenever they call upon Him to do so. Prayer is simply God doing whatever we want Him to do. He must obey our command because we tell Him to do so. Whenever we treat prayer in this manner (“God you must do this”) then we lessen the power of God and we miss the boat. Throughout Scripture we see that prayer should cause us to be humble because we desperately need understanding and wisdom! Paul had a very high view of God and calls Him “the Father of glory”! God is omnipotent. He is completely capable of giving us whatever it is that we need. We are not praying to some magical genie or some little god who is weak. We are praying to the “glorious Father”. He is intimate. He genuinely cares. He is a good Father and He loves His children. Paul is confident when he prays not because he is confident in himself but because he is confident in who he is praying to!
Paul gives several reasons why we need God to open the eyes of our hearts. First, in verse 17, we see that Paul does this so that we might have wisdom and knowledge - that we might know God better. As D.A. Carson stated, the one thing we need in the Western Church is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better. This is certainly true! We see that Paul prays for believers to know God better throughout his letters. As mentioned two weeks ago, there exists a close tie between Colossians and Ephesians and we see in Paul pray for God to give these believers the wisdom to continue to grow in the knowledge of God. We must strive to know God during the beginning, middle and end of our Christians lives. We must seek to know Him more each and every day! We must know Him and make Him known to others. We should pray daily that we know Him better.
Secondly, Paul prays that they might know the blessings of the Gospel better in verses 18-20. There are three blessings in these verses: 1) the hope of His calling. 2) the riches of His inheritance. 3) greatness of His power to those who believe.
As we looked at in , we are chosen, redeemed and assured. Before the foundations of the earth, God knew us. This should give us a tremendous amount of hope! Our salvation is not placed in our obedience but in Christ’s obedience - the battle is already won! We are to know the hope that comes along with this blessing that the rest of the world has no idea about! There are many dangers and storms coming our way in this life, however as Paul writes in these things are incapable of measuring up to the glory coming our way. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus! We are to live a distinct life on this earth because we live with the expectation that there is hope because we have glory coming our way. Where the world sees a dead end, the Christian marches on with confidence that there is something greater on the other side.
We then see in verse 18 that we are blessed with an inheritance. We talked about the assurance of the Holy Spirit acting as a downpayment of our salvation and the proof of our eventual glorification, and this too makes that point abundantly clear. FF Bruce writes this regarding this inheritance in , “That God should set such a high value on the community of sinners rescued from destruction and still bearing too many traces of their former state, might well seem incredible were it not made clear that He sees them in Christ, as from the beginning, He chose them in Christ.” There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is a great inheritance waiting for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. Even though we continue to struggle with our sinful desires and weaknesses, we have hope because when God sees us, He sees Christ Jesus. This should lead us to praise God and make known His name among the nations!
We then see the climactic request that Paul makes in verse 19. Paul states that God’s power is available to His saints. Only by praying and seeking His will are believers able to participate in the spiritual battle that we see Paul talk about in more detail in . There is power in the name of Jesus Christ and we are able to call upon the name of Jesus and we experience the peace and understanding that His power brings into our lives on a daily basis.
Remember the city/church that Paul is writing this letter to. Ephesus was a city bombarded with magic, cultic worship, astrology and worshipping of the Roman emperor. They were lost in utter darkness until Christ saved them and opened their eyes! Paul is showing these people that they are blessed in Christ Jesus and His power is greater than any of these other powers of darkness!
We know that we face opposition today as well. We face a world that is generally hostile to the message of the Gospel. We participate in Spiritual Warfare daily. We must remind ourselves that the power of the risen Christ is ours! The victory is won! Why do we allow things like worry, temptation, doubt and failure to ruin our day? Why do we fail to rest on the power of the risen Christ? We must understand whose we are! We know that we have opposition and they (forces of darkness) cannot stand what we are doing as Christians. The enemy will attack our faith, the church, the Christian marriage and the family. We must lean upon Christ and pray for strength and understanding as we go through this thing called life. We must pray for power as we strive to live to bring glory to our God.
The great hope that we have is that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside you as a child of God. Paul writes as much in
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Praise (20-23)
Praise (20-23)
Paul talks about 4 different aspects of praising in these verses.
The Resurrection. If you died with Christ, you too will be raised with Christ. It can be difficult for us to get to this point in our prayers. We generally are great at asking for things that we need help with, however our praise portion is usually lacking. Paul shows us in verse 20 that we are to praise God for the resurrection. Death was defeated in this one action. We know that no other individual could have defeated this enemy, yet Christ did exactly this and made it so that we have nothing to fear as Christians! The Resurrection gives our lives meaning and bears witness to the fact that Christ truly is who He said He was. This should give us reason to praise God for what He has done - set us free from the bondage of sin and death. Even on our worst day, we can praise God for setting us free from the chains of sin and death. This is a truth that we need to meditate upon every day as a Christian.
Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus is not just alive and in heaven, He is reigning! This is a teaching that was commonly taught by the disciples in Acts, however the idea has lost steam in recent years. We are quick to talk about Christ’s death, burial, resurrection and ascension, however we fail to talk about what the resurrected Christ is doing in heaven now. He is reigning. He rules over everything! Everything is under His feet as shows us. If Christ holds all universe while sitting down then we can certainly trust Him with our deepest thoughts, concerns, problems and questions. Our hope is not in a small, removed god but in the seated, intimate King.
Christ’s Supremacy. In verses 21-22 we see that Christ is above all other powers and authorities. Christ is not only above all things but all things are also subject to Him. Whenever we pray, we do not have to hope that God is capable of getting us through whatever situation we find ourselves in, we know that He is all-powerful. We must realize this and submit to His will and pray for understanding and wisdom through the suffering/situation.
Christ’s headship (22-23). Paul ends this passage of Scripture by showing that Christ is the head of the church. The church is said to be the body of Christ - not creation but the church! Jesus identifies with the church and is head over it - Paul will talk of this relationship more later in Ephesians. This is something that we know in our heads (that Christ is the head of the church) but is something that we have a difficult time in reality. Whenever a pastor who has been at a church for several decades leaves the church (under good circumstances) and half the congregation leaves to follow him to a church across town, there is a problem in that many people can think that the pastor is the head of the church. The pastor is the shepherd but Christ is the head. We see that the church is Christ’s fullness. We know that we do not fill Christ but He fills us. We know that He gives us gifts and fills us with His Spirit time and time again. Whenever we pray and we praise God, we must praise Him for what He has done and what He has given us.
Not only does Christ fill things but there is a special relationship between the church and Christ. As a member of the church (universal), this should give us encouragement whenever we gather to praise our Savior. We know that where two or more are gathered, He is with us! This prayer from Paul must have been extremely encouraging for the various house churches in Ephesus to read and understand that this apostle was praying to God on their behalf and giving them a template to model as well. This should serve as a dose of encouragement to us as well 2000 years later!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Whenever we pray we are quick to ask away. The next time you pray, though, will you pause and pray like Paul with thanksgiving, intercession and praise? Will you pause and thank God for all that He has done in your life recently? Will you ask God for wisdom and understanding so that you might know Him better and know the blessings of the Gospel? Finally, will you praise God for what He has done through His Son, Jesus Christ?
In our world where we expect immediate reactions and responses, prayer can be a very difficult thing. As the Pew research poll indicated, 55% of Americans pray daily, however how many of those individuals pray for something to be done and then get angry with God whenever things do not work out according to the way that they wanted? I pray that this is not the camp that we fall into. I pray that our minds will be conformed to the things of Christ and that we would pray for understanding and wisdom in order to see things through a different set of lenses.
I hope that by looking at Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church that you see how important prayer is for the Christian. It is not simply something to do whenever you are in a rough spot in life (although it certainly is something to do in that situation!) and it is not just something to do whenever you need guidance (although you should certainly pray in that situation as well!) but it is something that you should seek to do daily as you try and live a Christ-like life. We must daily seek first the kingdom of God. We die to ourselves and pick up our cross. We know that our Savior has all the power in the world and we have confidence that He is working all things for our good and that we are going to be more like Christ.
Pray without ceasing and pray for those you know who are going through a difficult season of life. Pray for those who are not saved and pray for those who are. Pray that God’s will would be done and that you would submit to His good and perfect plan today.
Let’s pray!