Ephesians 6:18
~15 min read
💭 Consider this: Your prayer life is a reflection of your spiritual health—how would you describe it? What specific steps can you take to grow your prayer life this year?
TRANSCRIPT
As this is the first prayer meeting of the year 2025, I have prayerfully decided to take a break from the book of Exodus and speak on another topic, and it is about prayer. Our text is taken from Ephesians 6:18: "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints”.
Throughout the Bible, Christians have been commanded to pray. To understand the importance of prayer in the life of a believer, we do not have to look far. We just need to look to the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who took on human flesh and dwelt amongst men. He knew the Father and was known of the Father perfectly, and yet Jesus was always praying. Throughout His earthly life, He taught us the importance of prayer.
In the Gospel of Luke 6:12, the Bible says, "And it came to pass in those days, that [Jesus] went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." In Matthew 14:23, "And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone." He was the Son of God in human form, but yet He took the time—He made it His priority—to pray. What about us? What about our prayer life?
We do not know what is ahead of us in the year 2025. There may be trials and tribulations, we will have to face many challenges along the way, or perhaps we are already facing challenges at the start of this new year. But as the saying goes, if we fail to pray, we are bound to fail. The title of our message is ‘Be Prayerful’. There are four points in our message: ‘The Variety Of Prayer’, ‘The Frequency Of Prayer’, ‘The Power Of Prayer’, and ‘The Manner Of Prayer’.
I. The Variety Of Prayer
Firstly, let us consider ‘The Variety Of Prayer’. Paul said, "With all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:18a). Here, he used two different words for prayer. The word "prayer" speaks of prayer in general, and the other word, "supplication," can mean petitions, and it is about specific requests. When you read through the Bible, you will find different kinds of prayers being mentioned, and we must know them so that we can effectively use them.
Firstly, there are private prayers, like Jesus taking the time to be away from the multitude so that He can commune with the Father. That is private prayer. Private prayer is of utmost importance because if we live a prayerless life, we will be the first to suffer. Our spiritual lives will be affected. We may still say a word of prayer during meals or when we go to bed at night, but if you and I do not set aside everything to spend time alone with God in private prayer, our relationship with Him will be affected.
Secondly, there are corporate prayers, as the church comes together as a body of Christ to pray. Those are the prayers uttered in a worship service or prayer meeting like this. We need to participate in corporate prayers because there may be a brother or sister in Christ who is troubled and grieved in the heart, and he or she needs someone to come alongside to pray, and we can be that someone.
There are also prayers of adoration, praises, and thanksgiving. When a man becomes prayerless, the first obvious thing you notice is that he is unthankful. He is not giving thanks to God, or praising Him for His attributes, or being grateful for His love, grace, and mercy. Our prayers are worthless unless we begin by acknowledging and praising God for who He is, and what He has done for us.
Otherwise, we will be just going through the motions: ‘Here I am, Lord, and this is what I want from You’—We would be treating God like an ATM machine. R.A. Torrey said, "Before we even begin requesting for things we need, we must first make sure that we are really coming to God and meeting with Him."
There are some prayers that are spoken out, and there are silent prayers. At times, when we are so troubled that we do not know what to say, we do not have any words, and we can only cry. Have you ever cried in your heart? No words, nothing to say. Then you wonder, does God really know what I'm going through?
Well, God knows, and the Bible tells us that in those most difficult times, it is the Spirit of God who helps us to pray. Romans 8:26 says, "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
There are also prayers that are written down. Some people think that if you were to write down your prayers, it is not sincere because you are speaking to God, so we ought to be natural and spontaneous. That is not true. If that is true, then we would be wrong to write letters to our earthly parents, and all our letters, including greeting cards, would be insincere.
The Puritans used to write down their prayers. They would compose their prayers by spending time to think through the doctrines, the attributes of God, the theology, the adoration, praises, and thanksgiving. It was not some kind of mechanical repetition; it was real because it was from the heart and mind, and in an orderly fashion, they put their prayers in writings.
I knew the late Elder William Sia from Calvary Tengah BP Church, who loved to write down his praises. Sometimes he even would write them into songs. You can imagine he would have taken hours and hours, weeks if not months, to think through those words and then write them down in an orderly fashion for the glory of God. The bottom line is that we all need to pray.
Prayer is an effective indicator of our spiritual condition. We know our communion with God is suffering when some of these prayer activities have stopped or are slacking. The first to go would be our own private prayer life. Then we will stop attending prayer meetings. We do not pray in adoratio n, praises, and thanksgiving. We do not pray aloud anymore. We do not write our thoughts in prayers because all these need effort, time, and discipline, and most importantly, an intimate relationship with the Almighty God.
Dear friend, is that happening to you? Is that the reason why you are not spending your own quiet time with God? Is that the reason why you have stopped attending the prayer meeting? The word "supplication" is not referring to general prayers but to bring our specific requests to God. It is very comforting to know that through the Apostle Paul, God is telling us to bring our requests to Him.
Praying for a specific request is not, ‘God bless the church,’ or ‘God bless my family,’ or ‘God save our country.’ When we are praying for the salvation of a particular individual, or for a certain financial need, or for a relationship issue, or the family crisis, we are mindful of those matters, and we take all those matters and commit them into the Almighty God's hand. And as God helps us to walk through those circumstances, you and I are reminded of His goodness. God does not need to be reminded, but rather we need to be reminded of who He is and how faithful He is.
On this note, I want to encourage every individual or every family to keep a prayer journal for this new year. In your prayer journal, you can have a section for special specific requests, and on another section, you have specific answers. In life, there will always be times when we are overwhelmed by the adverse circumstances. In those darkest moments of our lives, we look back to that journal, and then we see how we actually felt in those times.
It could be three years ago or ten years ago when we were so depressed and devastated, and then we look at the specific answers section, and we see how faithful God has been to us. When we learn to consider the faithfulness of God in answering our prayers in the past, it will surely encourage our hearts to look to Him as we live our days in the future. As the Bible says, "With all prayer and supplication" (Ephesians 6:18a).
II. The Frequency Of Prayer
Our second point is ‘The Frequency Of Prayer’. Paul said, "Praying always" (Ephesians 6:18a). The word "always" means at all times, at every opportunity, and in every season. We must live every day of our lives with this awareness that our God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
When do people usually pray? In times of trouble, right? Even professing atheists will sometimes break down and pray. They may do it subconsciously when they cry out, ‘Oh God, what am I supposed to do?’, but sadly, some Christians live just like them. They will pray in church; they will give thanks before a meal, but other than that, the only other time they will pray is when things go bad for them, when they find themselves in deep trouble.
It is not wrong for us to pray in difficult situations. It may be true that God allows those situations into our lives so that you and I will pray. But the command given to us, "Praying always" (Ephesians 6:18a), means all the situations of life should draw forth prayers from us. That is what it means. If we are happy, we should express our happiness to God. If we are afflicted, we should commit our afflictions to God.
We should pray when we are at work. We should pray when we go for vacation. We should pray when we are with our friends. When we meet someone who does not know Jesus Christ, we pray that God will draw the person to Himself and use us as an instrument to share the gospel. There should be no situation in life from which God will not hear from us.
If you have a child, and he only communicates with you when he needs your help—’Daddy and Mummy, I need your help. I need some money’—it is most pathetic, right? How much more the child of God, saved by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and he only looks to God as if He is an ATM machine? God forbid!
"Praying always" (Ephesians 6:18a) also means to persist in our prayers. Our children, no matter what happens, no matter what trouble comes, they have a special place in our hearts because of the fact they are our children. As children of God, we have a special place in the eyes of the Almighty God. We are His precious elect. He has saved us. Will He not continue to protect and preserve us? Will He not answer our prayers when we cry unto Him day and night? Most certainly, He will.
I love the testimony of George Müller, who was praying for the salvation of his two friends. For 50 years, he prayed that those two men would be converted. One day, someone asked him why he was still praying after such a long time. George Müller replied, ‘Do you think God would have kept me praying all these years if He did not intend to save them?’ Eventually, both men were saved—one shortly before George Müller died, and the other after his death.
Perhaps you have been praying for the salvation of your loved ones, and you are discouraged and disheartened because of the constant rejection. Please do not give up, but press on, and remember this command: "Praying always" (Ephesians 6:18a)—at all times, at every opportunity, and in every season. Do not give up.
III. The Power Of Prayer
Our third point is ‘The Power Of Prayer’. Look at the structure of the verse: "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:18a). Our prayers would be nothing but meaningless utterances, words without power, if they are not prayed in the Spirit. As believers, we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit, and our prayers must be led and taught by the Spirit of God. Any prayer apart from the Spirit of God is just empty words. It is just praying with the mind. As the old Christians would rephrase it by saying, ‘It is just playing with the mind’—playing with the mind with empty words.
To pray in the Spirit is to pray in the name of Jesus Christ. It is to pray consistently with His nature and His will. To pray in the Spirit is to pray communing with God. Our prayers can be doctrinally sound; the words can be right and carefully articulated, but at the same time, they can be absolutely without power because there is no real communion with God.
James 5:16 says, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The original Greek word for "effectual" is from where we get the English word for ‘energy.’ "Availeth much" means accomplished much, or in a literal sense, it is very strong. Weak prayers come from weak people; strong prayers come from strong people—not because they themselves are strong, but because they are energised by the Holy Spirit. When the righteous man prays, he relies on the power of God. That is the reason why James says, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
Often, people do not pray because they do not really understand the power of prayer. I once read this wonderful testimony of how God answered the prayers of a poor widow. One day, a tired-looking woman came into a stall and asked the owner for some food to feed her hungry children. He asked her how much she could afford to spend. She answered, ‘My husband was killed in the war, and I have naught to offer but a little prayer.’
Instead of helping her, the owner made fun of her and said, ‘Write your wishes now on a piece of paper, and I will give you according to how much it weighs.’ To his surprise, she immediately took out a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him over the counter, and she said, ‘I wrote this prayer down during the night as I watched my hungry baby.’
The customers were gathering around, and the owner wanted to drive the woman away quickly. Without even reading the paper, he placed it on the scales and said, ‘Let's see how much food this paper is worth.’ To his shock, the scales would not go down when he put a loaf of bread on the other side. And to his confusion and embarrassment, it still would not go down, though he kept on adding more food. He could not stop because the people were watching him, and he had to keep to his words.
He kept adding and adding, and finally, he said, ‘Well, that is all the scales will hold. Anyway, here's a bag. Take it and go. I'm busy.’ When the woman had gone, he went to the scales, scratching his head in bewilderment. Then he found out the reason: the scales were broken. The piece of paper was still lying on the scales. He took it and read what the woman had written, and he said, ‘Please, Lord, give us this day our daily bread.’
We may not have experienced how God has answered our prayers in such a dramatic fashion, but somehow, we all have experienced the power of prayers in very special ways. It is dramatic nonetheless—whether it be the salvation of our loved ones, the blessing of a child, the provision of our jobs or a life partner, or delivering us out of a deadly sickness. All of us have experienced the power of prayers in one way or another. Indeed, the God who has commanded us, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit," (Ephesians 6:18a) He will never fail us.
IV. The Manner Of Prayer
Our fourth and final point is ‘The Manner Of Prayer’. Look at the second half of verse 18: "And watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." (Ephesians 6:18b) We are to be watchful and alert because the devil is like a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). And our Lord Jesus warned His disciples in Matthew 26:41, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Many Christians never get serious about prayers until a problem creeps into their lives or into the life of someone they love dearly. Then they are inclined to pray intensely and persistently. But that is exactly how every Christian should always pray, all the time—intensely and persistently, and for things that really matter. When we are sensitive to the problems and needs of others, especially the believers, we will pray day and night for them.
Dear friend, do we only pray for their physical needs? What about their spiritual needs? Our greatest problems are always spiritual, so our greatest prayers—whether it be for ourselves or for others—should also be spiritual: for the spiritual protection and strength that God would give to the people around us.
There is nothing wrong for us to bring our physical needs before our heavenly Father. We should bring everything before Him, but our greatest focus should be for spiritual needs: for victory over sin and temptations, for forgiveness, for the cleansing of sins, for the strength to live each day of our lives, for the believers to be strong in the Lord.
So, we need to pray for our husbands and wives, our children, our fellow church members, our leaders, our missionaries, and other believers, that they will be victorious against the wiles of the devil. If we truly believe that the devil is like a roaring lion, and he is walking about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8), then we ought to be praying always for the believers—for all the saints.
Today, we live in a free and prosperous society, and it is so easy to be satisfied with physical blessings, so much so that we have little desire for spiritual blessings. We have our families, our homes, our children, our jobs. Everything seems to be going on so well, and then we live our lives as if we do not need God—as if prayers are unnecessary.
When we don't pray, we are like telling God, ‘I don't really sense my need for You. I don't really feel that I need You. I'm still strong and healthy. I still have much resources saved up for rainy days. Why would I need You?’ All it takes is for a drastic event to happen—something that we do not have control of—and then what do we do spontaneously? What do we do instinctively? We pray.
If we are true believers, we do not need a drastic situation to turn us to the Almighty God. Whether in sickness or in health, in joy or in sadness, in prosperity or in poverty, we want to commune with the God who loves us with an everlasting love, who sent His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus, to save us. We want to commune with Him, and we acknowledge His beauty, His attributes. He is so good to us, and we want to pray.
Dear friends, I urge all of us, as we begin this year 2025, if there is one important spiritual lesson for us to remember as we embark on this new year, it is to be prayerful. We need God at every moment of our lives. May the Lord remind us that you and I will be prayerful.
Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, indeed we are a forgetful people. Oftentimes, we pray only when things go bad for us or when we find ourselves in deep trouble. Oh Lord, forgive us. As believers, we acknowledge and praise Thee for who Thou art and what Thou hast done for us through Thy only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As believers, we want to commune with Thee. We want to be with the One who loves us with an everlasting love, and we pray that Thou wilt remind us each time we forget. May the Spirit of God convict our hearts and remind us to be prayerful.
Thou hast taught us about the variety of prayers, the frequency of prayers. We have to pray always, at all times, at every opportunity, and in every season. Thou hast reminded us of the power of prayers—not because we are able, not because of the words that we have articulated, but because as we pray in the Spirit, our prayers are energised by Thee. And it is effectual; it is strong because of Thee. And Thou hast taught us the manner of prayer—what we ought to pray for. Often, our minds are consumed with the things of this world, which will soon perish. We ought to be focusing on the important things of life: spiritual things, spiritual blessings, spiritual resources.
And we ought to always pray for the believers, whether it be our husbands or wives, our children, our church members, our regular worshippers, our leaders, our missionaries, and other believers living around the world. We want to pray for all of them spiritually, that they will be strong to fight against the wiles of the devil, to be victorious over sin and temptation, and to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, as we continue our days on this earth, in this year and beyond, if our Lord Jesus will tarry in His return, remind us always to be prayerful. We give Thee thanks, and we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
THE BOOK OF EPHESIANSThe Exceeding Greatness of His PowerThe Exceeding Greatness of His PowerEphesians 1:20-23
Message 1: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 1)Message 1: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 1)Ephesians 2:1-10
Message 1: The Nature of FaithMessage 1: The Nature of FaithEphesians 2:8, Hebrews 11:1
Message 2: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 2)Message 2: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 2)Ephesians 2:11-18
Good Friday Service: Reconciliation with GodGood Friday Service: Reconciliation with GodEphesians 2:11-18
Walk Not as the GentilesWalk Not as the GentilesEphesians 4:17-24
A Walk to RememberA Walk to RememberEphesians 4:17-32
Be Careful How You LiveBe Careful How You LiveEphesians 5:15-17
Message 6: What is a healthy and strong marriage? One that obeys God’s model!Message 6: What is a healthy and strong marriage? One that obeys God’s model!Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:22-33
Honour and Obey Thy ParentsHonour and Obey Thy ParentsDeuteronomy 5:16; Ephesians 6:1-3
Message 7: What are children for? Heritage of godly seed for Christ!Message 7: What are children for? Heritage of godly seed for Christ!Psalm 127:3, Malachi 2:15, Ephesians 6:4
Be PrayerfulBe PrayerfulEphesians 6:18
