Praying Always With All Prayer | Dr. David Jeremiah | Ephesians 6:18

Message Description:

Spiritual warfare is a reality, and God has given you a formidable set of spiritual armor for fighting the forces of evil. But what about marching orders? In this message, Dr. David Jeremiah returns to Ephesians 6 to reveal God’s strategy for helping believers conquer the enemy—prayer.

Lord, help me understand this moment in my life.
It’s sort of like Peter when he was beginning to drown on the lake after he tried to walk to the Lord.
I would imagine that Peter was very delighted that he was in good praying condition when he started to drown, because he didn’t have time to do much except cry out, Lord, help.
You see, if you keep the relationship open, it’s available to you at any moment, in any situation.
And that’s the way we ought to pray. We are always to be in the spirit of prayer.
The possibilities of prayer are many, on all occasions, in every place, at all times, for all things we can pray.
Is there anything too small for which we cannot pray? No, there is not.
What we’re saying is that in every situation, if you begin your day with God, you open up the communication, you know that God is there and He will help you in every moment of time.
It’s interesting, if you do not believe in the importance of prayer, to consider what Jesus is doing right now.
The only thing you will find in the New Testament is that He’s at the right hand of God, interceding for us.
In 3 years of active ministry, Jesus changed the moral landscape of the entire planet.
And for nearly 2000 years since, he’s been using another tactic. He’s been using prayer.
If the Lord Jesus figures it’s important for him to pray and he has been interceding for us at the throne of God for 2000 years, maybe we should stop and ask ourselves, are we missing something here?
Is there something we ought to note that we’re not catching?
So I want to take you through this little verse, Ephesians 6 18.
I wanna unpack it for you. You won’t believe how much is in 1 verse in the New Testament.
First of all, notice as you begin reading the 18th verse of Ephesians 6. The persistence of the warrior’s prayer.
Says in verse 18, praying always.
Now if you’ll look at verse 18, you will note that the word all occurs 4 times in that verse.
In fact, you might want to just fill it in in your notes.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
In other words, this verse is talking about a comprehensive view of prayer.
Luke 18:1 says: Then he spoke a parable to them, that men ought always to pray and not to faint or to give up.
Men not always to pray. 1st Thessalonians 5 17 says, praying without ceasing.
Now, whenever I’ve read those verses in the past, I I’ve wondered what what could that mean?
Do we just walk around like a bunch of zombies mumbling mantras under our breath?
Is that what it means to pray always?
Uh, or does it rather mean that we are in constant contact with God, and we learn how to live our lives every day in momentary fellowship with him?
1 person has said the receiver to heaven has to be left off the hook. Don’t ever hang up.
Leave it off the hook so you always have access to the Father.
As we study the Bible and we learn about the prayers of the New Testament people, even in the prayer of our Lord, we discover that prayer changes things.
That’s true. But prayer also changes people, and the people that usually get changed by prayer are the people who pray.
Prayer changes me, prayer changes you. Now notice the possibilities of it.
Praying always with all prayer, all prayer. What does that mean?
What does it mean to pray with all prayer?
Well, first of all, it could mean we are to pray on all occasions.
When Paul writes that our prayer is to be all prayer, he might mean first of all that we are to pray on all occasions.
In prayer meetings, in prayer groups, in public worship, and in social occasions. Praying in all times.
Maybe he means we are to pray in all places. All prayer might mean in all places.
He might mean that we are to pray in the prayer closet.
We are to pray around the family table. We are to pray in bible classes.
We are to pray in our own personal devotional times.
We are to pray on all occasions and in all places.
He may also mean that we are to pray in prosperity and in adversity.
On all occasions, in all places, at all times, we are to pray in prosperity and adversity.
We are to pray in sickness and in health. We are to pray morning, noon, and night.
There’s never a time when we cannot pray.
Remember, this is not about formal prayers as much as it is having an open relationship with the Lord, where you can breathe a prayer to Him at any moment of time.
We are to pray on all occasions, in all places, in prosperity and in adversity.
And finally, we’re to pray for all things.
We are to pray for all things, for personal things, and home things, and business things, and work things.
All things should be covered by prayer.
When the Bible says we’re to always pray, and we are to pray with all prayer, it means that in all kinds of prayer, in every situation, our whole life ought to be a prayer as we walk day by day with God.
Literally, it ought to be possible for us at any moment to be in touch with God.
Do you ever find yourself breathing a prayer to God?
Lord, show me what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Lord, help me understand this moment in my life.
It’s sort of like Peter when he was beginning to drown on the lake after he tried to walk to the Lord.
I would imagine that Peter was very delighted that he was in good praying condition when he started to drown, because he didn’t have time to do much except cry out, Lord, help.
You see, if you keep the relationship open, it’s available to you at any moment, in any situation.
And that’s the way we ought to pray. We are always to be in the spirit of prayer.
The possibilities of prayer are many, on all occasions, in every place, at all times, for all things we can pray.
Is there anything too small for which we cannot pray? No, there is not.
What we’re saying is that in every situation, if you begin your day with God, you open up the communication, you know that God is there and he will help you in every moment of time.
If it is difficult for you to pray, and this is all like a foreign language to you, and you’re a Christian, just then offer this little prayer, Lord, teach me to pray.
There’s nothing that He, the spirit of prayer, would rather do.
Isn’t it interesting that the disciples never went to the Lord Jesus and said Lord, teach us to preach.
Lord, teach us to administer. Lord, teach us to heal.
But they did say, Lord, teach us to pray.
And I take great comfort for that because I recognize that prayer is is perhaps the last discipline that we as Christians get our arms around.
It should be the first but sometimes it’s the last.
And all the lives we could live if we could get our arms around this truth.
So we’ve looked at the persistence of it, praying always with all prayer, and the possibility of it.
Notice the petition of it. And it says and supplication, praying always with all prayer and supplication.
Now the word supplication simply means to ask.
It means to ask God for what you need.
Surely we come with worship and thanksgiving and gratitude, but we also must come asking.
Over in Matthew chapter 7, it says ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.
For whatever you ask it says, you will get if you ask it in the name of the Lord.
And James chapter 4 verse 2 gives us the reverse of that equation.
He says, you do not have because you do not ask.
I remember when I was studying Matthew chapter 7, that I read this illustration, and I’ve never have forgotten this because it reminds us of the power of asking.
It’s a story about a couple that went to heaven, and when they got to heaven they were ushered into a vestibule.
And when they walked into this vestibule, the walls were surrounded with file cabinets.
Everywhere you looked, file cabinets piled on top of each other.
And so 1 of the new entrants into heaven said, what are all these file cabinets?
And Saint Peter said, well, there’s a file drawer in here that has your name on it.
Oh, they said, that couldn’t be possible.
Oh, yes, said Peter, there’s a drawer here with your names on it.
And they said, well what’s in the drawer?
And Peter said, In the drawer are all the things God wanted to give you that you never asked for.
Boy, I’ll tell you what, that gets your attention in a hurry, doesn’t it?
It’s been my experience as a pastor that people will come off it and ask me if I will pray for them, and I’m always happy to do so.
But on occasion, I ask them, have you asked the Lord about this?
And they kind of look at me with a blank stare.
And and the thought is, I’m happy to pray for you, but why don’t you just go straight to the top?
Why don’t you just bypass them all the middle people and go right to the top and ask the Lord?
The Bible says, if we ask, He will hear us.
And so, if we do not ask, God will not hear us. Here’s a way to think about that.
God could do anything He wished, but he has hardwired this world to work through prayer.
Like it or not, that’s the way it is.
God has said through prayer, I will administrate my kingdom.
You know, I don’t know that there’s ever been a time when there have been more needs.
We have many needs. Can I get a witness? Is that true?
And folks, I do not mean by any intention of mine at all to diminish the importance of those needs or to trivialize them.
But I just want to ask you, have you talked to God about it?
You say, well pastor, come on, get serious. Of course. No, no, no.
I really mean have you seriously gone to God specifically and said to him, Father, these are the needs we have.
We bring them before you. We ask you in Jesus’ name to hear our prayer.
Have you ever done that? You know what happens when we have a problem?
We get on the phone and call our friends.
We go to our bible study, and we unload it on the bible study.
Sometimes we write a letter to the pastor, or to a radio minister, or someone that we think might be able to get through to us.
I wanna tell you something, Billy Graham does not stand in a better position before God than you do.
You have instant access to Him. He cares about you deeply.
When you come before him, he hears you at the same way and level he hears anyone, because you are not there in your own standing, you’re there in the standing of Jesus Christ.
When you go in the name of Jesus, he hears your prayer.
We’re talking here about the persistence of prayer, and the possibilities of it, and the petition of it.
Now notice the power of prayer in this same verse.
Praying always with all prayer, and then it says, in the Spirit.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. What is the power of our prayer?
It is the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
The Holy Spirit within us determines not only the character, but also the content of our prayer.
How can I know what I should pray for in the will of God?
The Holy Spirit who wrote the word of God is the same Holy Spirit who lives in my heart.
Could you ever think about that?
The Holy Spirit who inspired the word of God through human authors, so that it is in fact the word of God as Beth Moore says, warm from the mouth of the Lord.
The same Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit who lives within you and within me.
As I submit myself to the Holy Spirit, he directs me to the things which God has already promised in his word.
And the Spirit who controls me and the Spirit who wrote the word of God come to agreement when I pray God answers.
Have you ever read this verse in Romans chapter 8?
Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses, For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Now he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
All I can tell you is that when you pray, friends, you enter into a supernatural element that’s not explainable.
I’m not really even sure it’s teachable, it’s only experienceable, if you can use that word.
When you begin to pray and you ask the Lord to give you guidance as you pray, you discover a power in prayer that perhaps you have not known before.
Let’s move on in this little verse.
We’ve looked at the persistence of prayer and the possibilities of it, and the petition of it, and the power of it.
Notice the precision of it. Watching to this end, being watchful to this end.
Some commentators believe the apostle is encouraging us to be alert, watching in expectation for the Lord’s coming.
That’s often in the Bible, isn’t it? We’re to be watchful for the coming of the Lord.
For instance, 1st Corinthians 1622 says, oh Lord, come. Revelation 2220 says, come Lord Jesus.
We’re to always be looking for the coming of the Lord.
But I’m not sure that’s what this means in this passage.
I think what it means is that when we get involved in praying, there are some decisions we have to make.
The prayer warrior has to permit nothing in his life that unfits him for prayer.
He has to guard his time, kinda work on his schedule.
He’s gotta watch for everything that feeds and fosters his prayer life.
And he must guard against everything that hinders it.
Did you know there are 3 places in the Bible where we are told to watch and pray, just 3 that I’m aware of.
And it’s interesting how they fit into a pattern. Watch carefully.
Jesus said watch and pray, and you will win over the world.
Mark 13:33, take heed, watch and pray, for you do not know when the time is.
The second time he said it twice actually, watch and pray and you will win over the flesh.
Matthew 26:41, watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Can I get a witness?
Mark 14:38 says watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
So the first time we’re told to watch and pray, if we do so, we’ll win over the world.
The second time, we’ll win over the flesh.
And here in this passage that we’re studying today, it says watch and pray, and you will win over the Devil.
Is there anything you can think of that will help you to win over the world, win over the flesh, and win over the Devil?
The Bible says it’s prayer. So we’ve had the persistence of it, the possibilities of it, the petition of it, the power of it, the precision of it, and the perseverance of it.
Oh, I love this. With all perseverance. Here is the 6th principle, the perseverance of your prayer.
The early church seemed to get this, I’m not sure we do.
In Acts chapter 1 in verse 14, we read they all continued with 1 accord in prayer and supplication.
In verse 42 of Acts 2, it says, they continued steadfastly in prayers.
In Acts 6:4, we will give ourselves continually to prayer.
In Romans 12:12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continually steadfast in prayer.
What that means is, when it comes to praying, we need to hold on.
We need to hold out. We need to don’t faint, don’t quit, don’t yield to discouragement, don’t be deflected by the pressure of other things, don’t ever give up, don’t ever quit.
Now listen to this carefully. When you stop doing it for a little while, start doing it again.
Some of you are discouraged about your prayer life today.
There are 2 things that I want you to know Satan will use to keep you discouraged.
And I speak of this by personal experience.
1st, if you’ve had 2 good days of prayer, He will try to get you to believe that it will be like that for the rest of your life.
It’s just not true.
The 3rd day, when it doesn’t work, he will come and say, well you’ve blown it, so there’s no use trying anymore.
Satan is a master at getting you to believe that because you missed a day of prayer, you might as well cancel your prayer life.
Now how ridiculous is that?
1 writer brings a sense of reality to the practice of prayer.
He says, as life changes, our prayer practice will no doubt change with it.
A person battling chronic illness will pray differently than a college student who mainly is worried about final exams and a noisy roommate.
Taking a mission trip, getting married, managing a household of kids, giving care to an aging parent.
Every major life change will have its effect on prayer, both its practice and its content.
The only fatal mistake is to stop praying and then not begin again.
I learned this a long time ago, that God is our Father.
He understands that we are dust. He understands that we are not perfected yet.
He’s not asking us, even as followers of Christ, to live in a way that we’re not ever gonna live until we’re with Him.
Someday we’ll be perfect when we see Him as He is. In the meantime, we’re all under construction. Amen?
And then notice number 7, the purpose of the warriors prayer.
This kinda bleeds over into the next 2 verses, but notice and supplication for all the saints and for me.
When you pray, the purpose of your praying is that you might pray for others.
You know prayers is mostly about others.
It’s not necessarily about ourselves, although in our kind of self centered culture, it has become about us.
I remember when we studied the book of Job, I came to love this little verse in the 42nd chapter.
It said, the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. You remember that? What a great verse.
The Bible says that the purpose of our praying is to intercede for 1 another. Now watch carefully.
When we pray for 1 another, everybody in the body is praying for everybody else in the body.
And while I may not be praying for myself, I’m praying for you, but I don’t have to worry because you’re praying for me.
You see how that works?
Let me show you how blessing comes when we allow this to take control of our lives.
David Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote about this, and he makes a point that is so good.
He says before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, Madrid, and other places, there were psychological clinics with large numbers of neurotics undergoing drug treatment, and others attending regularly for psychoanalysis and such like.
They had their personal problems, their worries, their anxieties, their temptations, having to go back week after week, month after month to the clinics in order to be kept going.
Then came the civil war, and 1 of the first and most striking effects of that war was that it virtually emptied the psychological and psychiatric clinics.
These neurotic people were suddenly cured by a greater anxiety.
The anxiety about their whole position, whether their homes would still be there, whether their husbands would still be alive, whether their children would be killed.
The greater anxieties got rid of the lesser ones.
And in having to give attention to the bigger problem, they forgot their own personal and somewhat petty problems themselves.
And Lloyd Jones goes on to summarize. He says, a greater fear drives out lesser fears.
And I am applying that principle to this whole question of prayer.
And you cannot forget yourself when you are sorry for yourself and feeling that you are having an unusually hard time with everything against you, and it’s almost enough to drive you to despair, 1 of the best remedies is to sit down and say, what about so and so?
What about his person? What about that person? What about the Christians in other countries?
Get down on your knees and pray for them, and you will soon get up finding that you have forgotten yourself.
You will find that in praying for them, you are solving your own problems and obtaining release.
What an interesting thought.
Let’s all confess before God today that it’s easy for us to get into our own selves, isn’t it?
And I’ve often said to you that here in America, our very worst day ever is better than the best day most people ever experience around the world.
That’s not meant to make us feel guilty.
It’s simply to say that sometimes if we don’t get away from our own situation and begin to look at the bigger picture, we get just burdened down with our own stuff, and there’s no cure for that.
The cure is to get our eyes off of ourselves and onto others, and to intercede for others.
Paul said pray for all the saints and pray for me.
And when we began to do that, we began to sense that God is using us even in the midst of our own stresses and troubles, as many as they may be and as difficult as they may be.
He begins to use us to help others, and in the helping of others, we end up helping ourselves.
Pray what you can pray, ask God to teach you to pray, learn how to pray, and then, whatever you do, just pray.
Pray, and see what God will do in your life.
And now, with 1 last word for today’s program, here is Doctor. Jeremiah.
As you’ve just learned, prayer for the Christian is an ongoing line of open communication with God.
But there is 1 prayer that must come before all others.
That is the prayer in which we express our faith in Jesus Christ and receive His gifts of forgiveness and eternal life.
If you have never prayed a prayer like that, I hope you will without delay.
And to encourage you in that decision and your Christian life, I would like to send you free of charge 2 Turning Point resources.
1 is our booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, and the other is our monthly magazine called Turning Points.
We will gladly send both of these resources to you free and without any obligation if you will contact us here at Turning Point.
Next time on Turning Point.
We are in a world where people are afraid of what’s come.
They’re afraid of what’s happening in our world.
They can’t control everything, and sometimes we try to save ourselves by some means.
We try to save ourselves with good behavior or trying to be a good person if I just do these right things.
And Jesus says, um, I’m not just teaching you some truth.
I’m not just teaching you a way to, like, have the good life. I am the way.
I am the truth, and I am the life.
Thank you for being with us today.
Join Turning Point next time for a special interview.