Sermon Idea: Prayer is a means of grace through which God builds up the church as we commune with Him in the name of Christ and the power of the Spirit.
Introduction: Just a few weeks ago, we reflected on the early church’s priorities in corporate worship from Acts 2:42. Among the ordinary acts they devoted themselves to was prayer.
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Ac 2:42.)
The picture we are given is much more than prayer being relegated to a mere transition between more meaningful moments in the worship service. Prayer was and should be a central part of every corporate worship service.
As Acts continues, prayer plays a primary role in all the church does. The church’s dependence upon God and seeking of God are always expressed through prayer. The church’s boldness, power, and effectiveness are always the result of prayer.
Prayer is primary because it is an ordinary means of grace through which God builds up the church as she communes with Him in the name of Christ and the power of the Spirit. That will be my main point this morning.
I want to show this in two ways. First, I want to speak generally about prayer as a means of grace. I want to remind you that the Lord Jesus commands prayer and so expects of us. I also want us to survey several texts that remind us that the promises of God accompany prayer.
After that, I want to consider how prayer is a means of grace for us with a particular example. I want us to think about how God builds the church up as we commune with Him in the name of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, from Ephesians 3:14-20, one of the richest prayers in the New Testament.
Before we dive in, it is worth asking a more basic question: What is prayer? I want to share a robust definition of prayer that I came across this week in my reading, and a straightforward definition.
The robust definition comes from Charles Hodge, a theologian who was the principal of Princeton Theological Seminary in the 19th century. It is beautiful, so now you have to hear about it.
“Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Therein we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for his divine perfection, our gratitude for all his mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope for his forgiving love, our desires for his favor, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others.”
That is a rich definition of prayer, and if you listened carefully, it taught you all the essential components of good prayer. When we pray, we are to adore God for who He is, confess our sin in light of God’s goodness and holiness, be thankful for all God’s grace and goodness to us, and seek the Lord for all the blessings needed for ourselves and others.
A few months ago, one of our dear brothers approached me after one of our services and told me he was having difficulty in his prayer life. He didn’t know where to start or what to pray for. I encouraged him to remember the acronym A.C.T.S.
A stands for adoration. Start your prayers by adoring God’s beauty, glory, and majesty.
C stands for confession. In light of God’s glory and holiness, we acknowledge our sins, confess them, and rest in the finished work of Christ.
T stands for thanksgiving. We follow confession by giving thanks to God for his grace, salvation, spiritual blessings, etc.
S stands for supplication. We ask God for all we need, and we intercede for others. We make requests for ourselves and others.
The simple definition is this: prayer is talking to God. It is simple, but think about all that this simple definition takes for granted. If prayer is talking to God, God must be personal and welcoming of communion with us. This is amazing. In prayer, the one, true God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who created all things from nothing by His Word, gives us his attention. And he does so, not as a king hearing the desperate pleas of a peasant but as a Father who delights in his children seeking his presence and provision.
Prayer is commanded by the Lord Jesus
The church was so devoted to prayer because prayer was commanded by Jesus and expected of followers of Jesus.
We read the Lord’s Prayer earlier in the service, and in Matthew 6, Jesus expects that his disciples will pray.
“And when you pray…” (Matt. 6:5)
“But when you pray…” (Matt. 6:6)
“And when you pray…” (Matt. 6:7)
“And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart .” (Lk 18:1)
This command to pray is reinforced in Paul’s letters.
“Devote yourselves to prayer.” (Colossians 4:2)
“Pray continually.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
We could also survey the numerous examples of Jesus praying privately, with his disciples, and for his disciples. If we want to be like Jesus, we must be people of prayer. Prayer is commanded for the good of God’s people, and so we should devote ourselves to it. It is a means of grace, and although it is a command, it is also an invitation to receive blessings from God as we commune with him.
Prayer is accompanied by the promises of God
1. God promises to hear us
14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (1 Jn 5:14–15)
2. God promises peace
in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Php 4:6–7)
3. God promises mercy and grace
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:14–16)
If this is all we said, it would be enough to establish prayer as a means of grace. God, by the Holy Spirit, bestows the blessings secured by Christ to his people through prayer. God hears us, offering peace, mercy, and grace.
I want to spend the rest of our time basking in the truths of Ephesians 3:14-20, which I think is the richest prayer in the New Testament and the prayer that teaches us very specifically how God builds us up through prayer.
Paul makes three main requests as he intercedes for the Ephesians, and they are identified by the word “that.”
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father… (v. 14)
- that…he may grant you to be strengthened … and so Christ may dwell in your hearts (vv. 16-17a)
- that you…may have strength to comprehend…and to know the love of Christ (vv. 17b-19a)
- that you may be filled with the fullness of God (v. 19b)
To make it applicable to us, we can say it this way. Prayer is a means of spiritual strength, a means of knowing the love of Christ, and a means to grow in the fullness of God.
I.) Prayer is a means of spiritual strength (Eph. 3:14-17a)
Prayer is the means through which God bestows the gracious blessing his people in Christ through the Spirit. In verses 16-17, Paul speaks of God’s glory as a depth of riches. In other words, there is an exhaustive source of strength for the people of God. That source is the riches of God’s glory, and we can further share in these riches through prayer.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 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 (Eph 3:14–17)
In prayer, the Spirit of God strengthens believers in their inner being. This means that no matter how weak or fragile the physical body becomes, in Christ, believers can continue to be strengthened, renewed, and refreshed by the Spirit. This is a very similar idea to 2 Corinthians 4:16.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. (2 Co 4:16)
The result of this strengthening, according to verse 17, is “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”
Of course, this does not mean believers don’t have Christ dwelling in their hearts before praying this way. What Paul says about the Ephesians is true for every believer in Christ.
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:13–14)
Although this is true of every Christian, we don’t always fully realize it and live in light of it. Prayer, then, is a means that God uses to strengthen us by his Spirit so that our lives may increasingly experience the benefits of having Christ dwelling in our hearts.
We can think of it as a deeper awareness of and thankfulness for the gracious reality that Christ indwells us. That deeper awareness and thankfulness come by the strengthening work of the Spirit in prayer.
Illustration: Dad’s house growing up vs. Dad’s house after marrying Candice.
When this happens, we can think of our life as Paul thinks of his life in Galatians 2:20.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Ga 2:20)
II.) Prayer is a means of knowing the love of Christ (Eph. 3:17b-19a)
This next point has frequently been a topic of reflection, meditation, and sheer astonishment in my own life. The reason for that is that Paul speaks of the love of Christ in such a way that it is beyond our comprehension. The love of Christ for the church and for every believer is so immeasurably great that we have to actually seek the Spirit’s help through prayer just to understand it.
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 (Eph 3:17–19)
Prayer is a means by which God roots and grounds our life to be nourished by the love of Christ. You can think of a tree with deep roots by a flowing stream of water. The deeper the roots, the stronger the tree. The more nourished the tree, the healthier it is.
Through prayer, we come to comprehend the immeasurable greatness of Christ’s love for us. The love of Christ has breadth, length, height, and depth. There is nowhere to ascend to find the end of Christ’s love for the church. There is nowhere to descend to find the end of Christ’s love for the church. You can go as far as the East is from the West, but you’ll not see the limit of Christ’s love for the church.
When you think about Christ’s purity, holiness, and greatness, and then your impurity and sin, there is a temptation even in the Christian life to wonder how Christ could love us. But he does and does so immeasurably.
This passage reminds me of one of my favorite confessional articles. In Article 26 of the Belgic Confession of Faith on the intercession of Christ, the confession offers encouragement to any who would have any fear because of Christ’s greatness.
“But this mediator, whom the Father has appointed between himself and us, ought not terrify us by his greatness, so that we have to look for another one, according to our fancy. For neither in heaven nor among the creatures on earth is there anyone who loves us more than Jesus Christ does.”- Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 26
The more Christians comprehend the immeasurable greatness of Christ’s love for them, the more they have real knowledge of it, and they’ll experience more joy and thankfulness, be less inclined to sin, and be strengthened against temptation.
There is not a single person in this room who doesn’t need to have a deeper knowledge of Christ’s love. There is not a single person who doesn’t need more joy, gratitude, and strength against temptation and sin.
“The love of Christ is held out to us as the subject which ought to occupy our daily and nightly meditations and in which we ought to be wholly plunged. He who is in possession of this alone has enough.“- John Calvin
Prayer is the means through which God, by his spirit, strengthens us to comprehend the love of Christ.
III.) Prayer is a means of growing in the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19b)
The third and final request is that the the Ephesians would be filled with the fullness of God, “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”(Eph 3:19)
Prayer is the means that God uses to mature us into the fullness of who he created us to be and who he has redeemed us to be in Christ. Two verses in Ephesians shed light on what Paul means.
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Eph 4:12–13)
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph 5:1–2)
Allow me to make this applicable. God, who can do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, could mature us without prayer, but he won’t. It is his will that the children of God grow into the fullness of God as they sit in his presence. That is how we grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and it is how we learn to be imitators of God as beloved children. We seek the presence and provision of our Father in prayer.
Prayer is a means of grace through which God builds up the church as we commune with Him in the name of Christ and the power of the Spirit.
The Lord Jesus commanded it, so the Lord expects us to pray. God’s promises accompany prayer. It is the means to spiritual strength, knowing the love of Christ, and growing into the fullness of God.
So let us respond to the Word of our Lord the best we can. Let us pray.
Nathaniel R. Martin 