Today we continue to look at prayers from the New Testament. Jim Partridge, a retired elder at City Reformed, has written several posts this week about Paul’s prayers in the book of Ephesians. I am particularly thankful that he was willing to write about the realities of prayer and pain in his own life as he continues his fight against cancer. (MK)
Day #24 – Paul’s Ephesian Prayers, #1 – Praying with Depth and Boldness (Jim Partridge)
Text – Ephesians 1: 15-23 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked 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 above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things 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.
The epistle of Paul to the Ephesians has been called “the gospel of the church”, and Paul the apostle in the first 3 chapters applies his apostolic calling to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up of the body of Christ” (Eph.4:12), even as he has the church apply in chapters 4-6 what he has taught in those first three chapters.
The focus of Ephesians 1-3? A beautiful exposition of the doctrine of the church, which Paul does by with a combination of prayer and preaching and doxology (he at times interrupts his own prayer with a doctrinal exposition, then returns to his prayer). He prays about 45% of the time, most expansively in 1: 15-23 and 3: 14-21. So, Paul equips the saints to see the beauty of the church while simultaneously praying over his hearers/readers. Today we will consider the first prayer in Chapter 1, then tackle the prayer of Chapter 3 tomorrow. Finally, the apostle shows prayer to be the ultimate piece of spiritual armor and our greatest weapon. We will look at spiritual warfare (Eph 6:10-20) on Day 26 – stay tuned!
Briefly, as one reads Eph.1:15-23, one can see a depth of content and expression that is frequently absent in our broad and shallow prayers… (“Lord, would you bless Tom today in his struggle against ____” … “Lord, would you make Joan’s procedure to go smoothly”… “Lord , help the boy!”) Such prayers are not wrong or inherently deficient, but they lack depth, don’t they? And yet I often find this is how I pray for people. Too often the modus operandi of my prayers is that they are shallow and lack boldness.
By contrast, we see in this text Paul praying boldly for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (v.17) for his readers. What does he ask for? Three things are petitioned:
1) enlightened “eyes” of the heart, so that his readers would know experientially the amazing hope that they are called to;
2) the riches of a glorious inheritance that they have as a people, and
3) immeasurable power that the Lord gives to His saints, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and then seated Him at the righthand of the Father in Heaven.
This is a prayer of great depth over His readers! How often do we pray like this over our brethren? Think on these truths…meditate on them: Biblical hope, a glorious inheritance and power* that we access through our union with Jesus. All yours in Him, brethren!
Tomorrow: thepower train, Eph.3:14-21.
*Appendix: How do we handle perceived unanswered prayer?
The disconnect we might feel between the power promised in passages such as the ones here in Ephesians, and our own experience? Not to mention what some have called the “extravagant promises” of our savior Jesus surrounding prayer. (John 14: 13-14, 15:7, 15:16b,16:23-24 and many more…) What happens when we compare this with long periods of waiting for God to fulfill His promises?
As this is an appendix to an already long devotional, and on a really challenging topic, please do not expect a comprehensive answer to any of these questions. I would like to point you to some great resources to help you struggle with such good and honest inquiries. In Paul Miller’s first book on prayer, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, he devotes several chapters to address Jesus’ prayer promises and how we might faithfully approach them. He focuses on the barriers to asking or asking selfishly. In his second book, he deals with issues surrounding problems experienced in group prayer meetings, like overemphasis on medical issues or problems. All of these things he handles with remarkable grace.
There are many other resources that I could point you to: Tim Keller’s, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering is helpful, as is another Paul Miller book, J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life.
Let me focus the rest of this appendix on my own personal response to questions like these as I have encountered them over the almost 15 months since my cancer diagnosis. Pastor Matt asked me some of these questions just this last week and asked me to reflect on them in this blog. As he asked, I realized that several of these I really do not recall addressing in my thinking, so perhaps this blog can be a helpful journey for me to take even as I share with you!
Let me say initially that I am so thankful for the clear Reformed theology taught at CRPC, as I feel that such teaching has made endurance of this trial that much easier. One example of this is that both Tracy and I believe we were spared concerns over the “Why?” questions so many struggle mightily with; as we have been taught a robust doctrine of the sovereignty of God and of His goodness. Against the backdrop of this teaching, such questions have not been an issue. Matt’s repeated emphasis on the realities of biblical faith being “hard” and yet the Lord being ever present IN the hard has been good preparation and help to sustain our journey.
Let me give another very simple but hopefully not simplistic example. Psalm 103 has often been a favorite psalm of mine, and it was our part of our liturgy just last Sunday as our call to worship. It contains the tremendous promise that the Lord is the one who “heals ALL your diseases” (v.3). An emphasis on future hope contained in the gospel teaching week after week leads me to think and believe that the Lord in fact IS my healer and will heal this cancer either in this life or the next. He is not bound by time and will be true to His promise. Another help to our journey has been the tremendous gospel hope in the midst of reality contained in our music. These gospel psalms, hymns and spiritual songs have SO lifted Tracy and I week by week – kudos to our music team who pick great songs every week. One that we have sung perhaps not frequently is Whatever my God Ordains is Right and this song fills me with great hope as
does Christ is Mine Forevermore. Thus through robust teaching/preaching and hymnody, we have been given a robust “theology of suffering” that I believed prepared us well for this trial – especially for one who really had no history of personal suffering prior to 12/19/22. (The date I was diagnosed with aggressive cancer.) Thanks be to our gracious God!
I am going to stop here and offer if anyone reading wants further counsel on struggles they might be having surrounding the difficult questions posed in this appendix, please, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] or call me at 412-417-9352 and I would be glad to pray with you and offer whatever help I might be able to provide.