Ep. 1:16-17
Acceptable Prayer
Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds Ephesians 1:16-17a, focusing on the essential characteristics of acceptable prayer. He argues that proper prayer must be directed to the Triune God, specifically 'the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,' emphasizing both God's majesty and filial intimacy. Martin stresses that acceptable prayer must always be accompanied by thanksgiving and marked by constancy, challenging listeners to examine their prayer lives against these biblical directives and warning that prayer offered outside of Christ's mediation is an abomination.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 9 sections · 50 min
- Introduction: The Discipline of Preaching and the Context of Ephesians 1 0:04
- The Essential Characteristics of Paul's Prayer 4:26
- The Necessity of Scriptural Guidance for Prayer 6:08
- The Proper Object of Acceptable Prayer: The God of Our Lord Jesus Christ 7:40
- The Proper Object of Acceptable Prayer: The Father of Glory 20:29
- The Proper Accompaniment of Acceptable Prayer: Thanksgiving 32:14
- The Proper Occasion of Acceptable Prayer: Constancy 39:35
- The Essential Condition for Acceptable Prayer: Through Christ Alone 42:33
- Pastoral Prayer 46:59
Key Quotes
“Are the doctrines you know and love becoming fuel for praise and worship and fervent prayer? If not, you're not holding them aright, for the contemplation of these things must drive us to worship the God who's revealed them.”
“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his tongue, his prayer shall be an abomination. So that if we pray, ignorant of the directives of Scripture concerning prayer... that very act of prayer may be an abomination in the sight of God.”
“If your God is not that God you're not praying I don't care what you're doing... you have never uttered one word of acceptable prayer in your whole life not one not one not one not one not one.”
“Take all the tender love that was ever in the heart of every father that ever lived upon the face of the earth through every generation and if you could compress all of that genuine filial fatherly affection into one heart it would be but the drop of water compared to the ocean when we think of the love in the father's heart for his children.”
“To pray without thanksgiving is no duty of a Christian to pray without thanksgiving is no duty of a Christian to pray with thanksgiving is the duty of every Christian.”
“Whenever I think of you Ephesians and I realize you were chosen you were redeemed you were accepted in the beloved I would not frustrate the very end for which God did this the very end for which he did it was that he might be praised so when I think of you and make mention of you in my prayers I do so with thanksgiving.”
“Until he has become your Lord you cannot pray you are a rebel against God until he has become your Jesus that is God's only Savior until he has become your Christ your prophet priest and king you cannot pray you cannot praise for all prayer and praise is acceptable only through the mediation of Christ.”
Applications
All listeners
- Examine whether the doctrines you know and love are fueling praise, worship, and fervent prayer.
- Do not pray with Jehovah's Witnesses or Arians, as they pray to an idol, not the true God.
- Do not be sentimental about those who deny Christ's deity, resurrection, or hell; they do not pray to the true God.
- Examine if the God you pray to is the Triune God, the one who sent the Son, and the one revealed in Jesus Christ.
- Ensure your worship and prayer terminate upon the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not solely on Jesus.
- Approach the Father with both filial freedom and reverence for His glory, avoiding both overly casual and overly distant attitudes.
- Discipline yourself to accompany prayer with thanksgiving, even when you don't feel like it, as it is a duty.
- Incorporate the discipline of thanksgiving into family worship, ensuring praise precedes requests.
- Cultivate constancy and regularity in prayer, making it an integral part of your life, not just occasional fits and starts.
- If you are not savingly joined to Christ, your first acceptable cry to God is 'God be merciful to me a sinner.'
- Cry to God for grace to perform your duty of praying with thanksgiving and constancy, and start performing it.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 46 paragraphs, roughly 50 minutes.
Introduction: The Discipline of Preaching and the Context of Ephesians 1
It's Ephesians chapter 1, and in preparation for our study this morning, I was reminded again of the great blessing to me personally is the discipline of having to face a regular congregation. If ever one would be tempted to rationalize into preaching something that one had preached before, it would be after the schedule I've had in the past couple of weeks and just getting home Thursday night, and yet I'm grateful to God for the discipline of knowing that I had a responsibility under God to face you with a word fresh from God's own word, and if for no other reason, I feel these men who cut themselves loose from a visible local congregation bring upon themselves great spiritual dangers, who just spend all their times looking at the upturned faces of the conference crowd. That's a very...
That's a very unrealistic world, and one can drink the heady wine of that atmosphere and become drunk with a perverted sense of his own importance and his own understanding, and if you want to know how ignorant you are, you just get into the next verses in a book like Ephesians, and you say, I know nothing yet as I ought to know, and then you dig in and cry to God for light and for grace to be able to handle aright the word of truth.
Ephesians chapter 1.
And our attention this morning will be focused upon verse 16 and the first phrase of verse 17, but in order to catch the thread of thought, let me just read, beginning with verse 15. For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Just briefly, by way of broad overview and review, I would remind you that the basic division of chapter 1 of Ephesians is a division into that great paragraph of praise, verses 3 through 14, which we studied in some detail, and then this second major paragraph, which is a paragraph occupied with prayer. And so we are reminded that all of the lofty doctrines of chapter 1, and there are many lofty doctrines, they are couched in a very significantly and pervasively religious context. They flow out of praise and they flow out of prayer.
Hence, any idea that doctrine is something detached and lifeless, and cold and unrelated to the real issues of the Christian life, is a denial of the very context in which the doctrines come to us here. They are always to be fuel for praise and worship and prayer. Conversely, those who say that doctrine is unimportant, that all we need is the discipline of inward joy that leads to praise, all we need is the discipline that leads to pray, but doctrine is irrelevant. They are terribly embarrassed by a chapter like this, for it is in the very context of praise and of prayer that the lofty doctrines of election and foreordination and redemption and the mystery of the gospel and all of the other truths that we'll consider in this present paragraph, it is in that context that they come to us. And so I would stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance and lay the question upon your own conscience. Are the doctrines you know and love becoming fuel for praise and worship and fervent prayer? If not, you're not holding them aright, for the contemplation of these things must drive us to worship the God who's revealed them.
The Essential Characteristics of Paul's Prayer
And having worshipped Him for what He has done, it will drive us to seek Him in fervent prayer that He would carry on that good work which He has begun in us. Now, in our study thus far in this second paragraph, we have considered just one major element of truth, namely, what it was that provoked the Apostle Paul to pray. It was this report of the increased faith and love of the Ephesians which moved him to pray for greater measures of grace. And then we digressed or amplified the second facet of that report, love to the brethren, and spent some weeks on love of the brethren, how it acts in the presence of sin, and how it acts in the presence of obvious need. Now, in verses 16 and the first part of verse 17, which is the focus of our study this morning, we have given to us the essential characteristics of Paul's prayer. What were the things that characterized Paul's prayer for the Ephesians? And then 17b, through the end of the chapter, we have the principal concerns.
The concerns of Paul's prayer. So you have then how Paul prayed, verses 16 and 17a, and then the things for which he prayed, 17b through the end of the chapter. Now, our focus, as I've mentioned, will be upon 16 and 17a, the essential characteristics of Paul's prayer, and we want to study it with a view to learning the kind of prayer that pleases God.
The Necessity of Scriptural Guidance for Prayer
Now, some would say, well, it's a matter of relative unimportance to even consider how we should pray. The important thing is that we pray. But a study of the Scriptures will not warrant that conclusion. For we need just as much the directive of the Word of God as to how to pray, as we need the exhortations of the Scripture to pray.
Well, the Scripture tells us in Proverbs 28.9, He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his tongue, his prayer shall be an abomination. So that if we pray, ignorant of the directives of Scripture concerning prayer, if we pray simply as the profusions and outpourings of a heart that is intensely concerned with seeking God, while the mind remains unenlightened by the Word of God, that very act of prayer may be an abomination in the sight of God. And Jesus said that we are to make disciples baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever He commanded us.
And one of the things He commanded is a kind of prayer that is pleasing to God. After this manner, therefore, pray ye. And He gives us the framework or the ingredients of acceptable prayer. So then, with this passage before us, consider with me the kind of prayer which pleases God as found in the example of Paul.
The Proper Object of Acceptable Prayer: The God of Our Lord Jesus Christ
And the first thing that should strike us as we read these verses is the proper object of acceptable prayer. Who is the proper object of acceptable prayer? When you go to pray, when I go to pray, what should be the self-conscious awareness of our minds and hearts as we come into the presence of God? If ever the first commandment is applicable, it is, it is applicable in the engagement of prayer.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Certainly, that should be true when we pray. Well, how then does the Apostle Paul approach God? What was the object of his prayer?
Well, he describes Him in two phrases. He says, I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you. And the two phrases by which Paul identifies the object of his prayers are these. He is the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, and secondly, he is the Father of glory.
Now, let's look at those two words and what they say to us concerning the proper object of acceptable prayer. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ. You will notice that the Apostle Paul does not use the full phrase that he used earlier in the letter, chapter 1 in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here he simply addresses Him as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, to open up this phrase in its full significance would take a whole series of sermons, and I'm not going to do that. I'm not saying that to be humorous. There is packed into that phrase the sum and substance of the whole biblical revelation concerning the nature of God, concerning the doctrine of salvation, and all the many things that flow out of it.
But I want to reduce these things to a minimum in order that we might get through the assigned text this morning. What does it mean when Paul says, when I pray, I pray to the God of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the object of my prayers. Let me suggest at least three things.
One, he prays to the God who exists as one essence with the Lord Jesus Christ in the mystery of the Trinity. When he says, I pray to the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul is confessing that he prays to this God of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of whom he can never think apart from his essential relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ in the mystery of the Trinity. He's praying to that one described in John 1 and verse 1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. He's praying to that one who said in John 10, I and my Father are one. He's praying to the one of whom Christ spoke when he said in John 14, 9, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
Whoever this Father of glory is, Paul does not think of him as a being distinct from and separate from the Lord Jesus in his essence. He is praying to the triune God. Secondly, when he describes him as the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is thinking of God as the one who sent the Lord Jesus Christ on his unique mission and work. He's thinking of him as the one to whom the Lord Jesus as a mediator constantly refers as his own God.
You remember that Jesus prayed to the Father as his God. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I go unto my God and to your God, to my Father and to your Father. And this brings into our perspective that unique place the Lord Jesus had as the mediator sent by the Father to do the will of the Father to establish the kingdom of God.
So that when it is complete as we read in 1 Corinthians 15 he will then deliver that kingdom back up to the Father that God may be all in all. And so when he is called the God of the Lord Jesus Christ Paul is thinking of him as that God who in a very special way commissioned Christ as his anointed. It's bound up in the word Christ. He is the Father's anointed.
The one who is Jesus conceived in the womb of the Virgin who went about doing good healing the sick in the power of the Spirit sent down upon him from the Father. He is thinking of him as the Lord. The one whom the Father exalted with his right hand because he was willing to empty himself and become obedient unto death even the death of the cross. The whole theology the whole spectrum of biblical revelation concerning the Father's sending the Son the mission of the Son the Father's exaltation of the Son it's all bound up in that phrase the God of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the proper object of the Apostle's prayer is not only that God who is one essence with the Son in the mystery of the Trinity but that God who sent the Son as the appointed mediator of sinners and then thirdly he's thinking of him as the God whom Christ revealed in his person and in his work. Our Lord Jesus said and I recorded the verse earlier he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. John says no man hath seen God at any time the only begotten
who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him. And so when Paul says the object of my prayer is the God of the Lord Jesus Christ he said he's that God who is revealed in Jesus Christ in his person in his word in his works so then he's the God who hates sin enough to prepare a hell for the devil and his angels and to send to that hell all who refuse to repent you must bring all the words of Christ who said I don't speak my words but what I hear of the Father that I speak the whole doctrine of hell the whole doctrine of the necessity of an atonement for sin I have come he says to give my life a ransom for many what does that reveal about the Father? It reveals that the Father will not accept sinners on any other basis than the shedding of the blood of an innocent victim. So you bring every doctrine taught by Christ every doctrine confirmed in his ministry and life now and at the right hand of the Father and all that is bound up in this word the God of the Lord Jesus Christ and I suggest that those are three minimal things bound up in that phrase to pray to God as the proper object of prayer is to pray to him
as the God of the Lord Jesus Christ hence it is to acknowledge him as being one with the Son in the mystery of the Trinity it is to acknowledge him as the one who sent the Son to be the mediator of sinners it is to acknowledge him as the God revealed in Jesus Christ now what does that say to us by way of application? well it says if your God is not that God you're not praying I don't care what you're doing it means that those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity don't pray to God they pray to an idol so when the Jehovah's Witness asks you if you would have prayer with him you say no we can't pray together we've got two different gods don't you flatter him by agreeing to pray together he says can we pray you say yes I will lead in prayer and pray that my God then you pray for him but don't you ever pray we if you pray with Jehovah's Witness you're flattering him he doesn't pray to the true God the true object of prayer is the God of the Lord Jesus Christ and every Arian that is the Jehovah's Witness the modern counterpart of the old heresy of Arianism they don't pray to God they pray to an idol so when they meet in their kingdom halls and they bow their heads
and close their eyes and mumble their words it's all religious mumble jumble God doesn't hear a word all the liberals who deny the essential deity of Christ who say that he is of a lesser essence than the Father we believe in the divine we believe in the divine the divinity of God the Father that we do not believe in the essential deity of God the Son they can read their prayer books until their eyeballs hang out of their sockets it's abomination to the living and the true God they don't pray all who refuse to accept the works and mission of Christ is found in the word of God those who deny the doctrine of hell they don't pray to God they've got a different God than the God Jesus revealed he revealed a word of God the God whose anger against sin is such that he prepares hell for heaven and his angels and he cast into hell all the wicked who refuse to repent who is that God that has no hell he's not the God of the Lord Jesus he's some other God but he's not the God revealed by the Lord Jesus the appointed mediator all those who deny the fact of his resurrection and the necessity of blood atonement all dear fellow believers be done with the sentimental attitude that says well they are sincere and though we can't believe they're preaching at least we must grant them the right to pray
no they don't pray they mumble words with religious flavor but they do not pray for there is but one proper object of prayer the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is he the object of your prayers when you bow your knees to pray and say oh to whom are you praying do you acknowledge him to be that one who with the Son and with the Spirit exists as the God in the Trinity the oneness of the divine essence manifested in the three persons is that the God before whom you bow is it the God who sent his Son the Father who directed every word that he spoke every deed that he accomplished is he the one revealed in Jesus Christ well that's the only proper object of prayer and if you don't pray to that God I want to say it as bluntly and as forcefully as I know how you have never uttered one word of acceptable prayer in your whole life not one not one not one not one not one but then in the second place the proper object of prayer
The Proper Object of Acceptable Prayer: The Father of Glory
is not only called the God of the Lord Jesus but this the God of the Lord Jesus the God of the Lord Jesus the God of the Lord Jesus very wonderful phrase he is called the Father of Glory now it can have two possible meanings when Paul says the object of my praying is the Father of Glory what did he mean? well he could have meant the Father who is the source or the author of glory glory is the outshining of the perfections of the divine essence what the rays of the sun are glory is the outshining of the perfections of the sun the glory of God is to God it is the outshining of the essence of the sun its rays are the glory of God is the bursting forth of all the beauty of his own being so it could mean the Father who is the source or the author of glory or secondly and I believe this is the meaning he is the Father who is characterized by glory so that when you think about it when you think of the Father all you can think of is glory the outshining of the sum total of all the perfections of the divine being he is called this in other places of the word of God in Acts chapter 7 and in verse 2 he is called the God of Glory in that great sermon
by Stephen we read brethren and fathers hearken the God of Glory appeared unto our father Abraham the same phrase the God who is characterized by glory so that whenever men saw him there was such an outshining of his perfections that they were prostrated before him we read in the adult class this morning Isaiah chapter 6 I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple above him stood the seraphim two wings cover face two cover feet with two they fly and they cry one to another holy holy holy is the Lord God of hosts the whole earth is full of what of his glory the outshining of the perfections of this great and holy God he is called the King of Glory in Psalm 24 7 he is called the God of Glory in Psalm 27 3 now what does the phrase speak to us about that if the proper understanding is he is the father who is characterized by glory what does it say to us well it sets in apposition not opposition but apposition one over against the other as two glorious truths on the one hand
the intimacy and the filial tenderness that is in God he is the father he is the father when Paul approached God he approached him in all that unbounded freedom of an adopted son how he loved to revel in that concept Galatians chapter 4 because ye are sons he hath sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts whereby we cry and then he takes the word that would be most intimate in the one language Abba Father frankly this is one of the reasons why I believe in the word why I believe in the word why I believe in the word why I believe in the word why I believe in the word I've given up praying in a special kind of Elizabethan English for some of you who wonder why I don't approach God is thee and thou there's a theological reason along with some practical reasons and one is that the language of the New Testament forbids anything our spirit would indicate that God is something so distant and so other that we cannot come as a child comes and says Daddy that's the intimacy of it Father Father it's wonderful to hear someone praying new converts praying in Spanish where they have no elevated thee thou concept and I don't know much Spanish but I love to hear a godly Spaniard praying and you hear again and again Oh Señor
Oh Señor Oh Señor they're approaching the Lord with a term of intimate friendship He has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts whereby we who by nature should shrink from a God of love glory should hide ourselves in shame may come and say Father like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him he knoweth our frame he remembereth that we are dust he will not always chide neither will he keep his anger forever take all the tender love that was ever in the heart of every father that ever lived upon the face of the earth through every generation and if you could compress all of that genuine filial fatherly affection into one heart it would be but the drop of water compared to the ocean when we think of the love in the father's heart for his children Paul came to the Father of glory indicating that filial access and intimacy but listen set over against that of these words he's the Father of glory and there you have his majesty and the transcendent concept of an exalted God for what is glory
as I've indicated it is the outshining of the totality of the perfections of God so that the glory of God was always what an awesome thing no man ever saw the glory of God and snuggled up to the God of glory woe is me I'm undone I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips why mine eyes have seen the King Jehovah of hosts you say well look I don't understand that here you tell us he's Father and that's intimacy and nearness and confidence and yet he's the God of glory that's distance transcendence we come before him with holy trembling my friend in the heart of every true Christian there is a resolution of those things that the ungodly can never understand Jesus taught it when he prays say what not our God who art in heaven not our sovereign who art in heaven but what our Father filial intimacy and access but lest we start snuggling up in a sinfully brassy way he reminds us that he's our Father who's where in the heaven of heaven the place of supreme majesty
and power the object of the adoring wonder of seraphim and cherubim seraphim and cherubim and all the redeemed hosts and I submit to you that the apostle Paul embodies those concepts in that little phrase when he describes the object of his prayer he is none other than the Father of glory now again by way of application there are some who claim to be Christians who have all of their approach to God terminate upon the Lord Jesus this is one of the great weaknesses of the so-called Jesus movement when men's religious worship terminates upon the second person of the Godhead as a general rule it is unbiblical to whom did Paul pray he doesn't say I cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers that the Lord Jesus would give unto you or nor does he say that Jesus would give unto you nor that our Lord Jesus Christ would give unto you the object of his prayers was the Father as the Father of glory as the God of the Lord Jesus Christ we emphasize this in a different direction in chapter 1 with reference to worship and it's also true with reference to prayer
when we pour out our worship to God by and large worship is to terminate upon the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we're to worship the Son and the Spirit yes as the old creed say so clearly and so definitively but the overriding drift of vigorous New Testament religion is that the Father is worshipped and the Father is sought in prayer Paul states it even more explicitly in chapter 3 when he says for this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named on the other hand there are others who come to the Father but they come with an ease and a lightness forgetting that he is the Father of glory and I actually heard someone say one time in prayer and I think I opened my eyes because I felt they weren't praying to the God I knew when they talked about they were so glad they could snuggle up to God no my friend he's the Father of glory it's not enough that you terminate your prayers upon the Father but he must be the Father of glory but then there are others and I've been in their presence and I've been reminded of it this recent trip in the British Isles who in their jealousy
to preserve him as the God of glory never come with filial freedom and access but it's always worth upon us sinners woe upon us in our sin woe upon us in our darkness woe upon us in our blindness woe upon us in our barrenness but they never say Abba Father oh the imbalance that comes when we let our religious tradition and contemporary winds of theological nature blow across our hearts and shape our prayers rather than the word of God but rather molding our prayers and I submit that if you and I are molded in our praying not by what our peers are saying so that we become little parrots of our peers but by what the scripture teaches the object of our prayers will always be the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Father of glory now let us hurry on and touch a very brief the proper accompaniment of acceptable prayer that's found in verses verse 16 I cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers
The Proper Accompaniment of Acceptable Prayer: Thanksgiving
what was the accompaniment of his prayer why it was thanksgiving just as certainly as Sam accompanies our good friend David when they go out to play piano and fiddle and they go out and the piece is incomplete the one without the other so likewise when the apostle prayed there was always his accompanist with him he never went out without his accompanist and the accompaniment of his prayer was always praise or the giving of thanks now most of us would say well that's all well and good that's nice but we would not admit that it is a duty for us to make conscious effort of accompanying our prayers with thanksgiving in fact I want to state it this way to pray without thanksgiving is no duty of a Christian to pray without thanksgiving is no duty of a Christian to pray with thanksgiving is the duty of every Christian look at several texts of scripture that teach this the one that I'm sure has come to the minds of many of you already is Philippians chapter 4 what is the duty of every Christian
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 6 in nothing be anxious but in everything by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God is it your duty to let your requests be made known unto God yes is it your duty to be free of sinful anxiety for which prayer is the cure yes it is but the third part of that trilogy of duty is that that prayer must be attended with thanksgiving it is your duty Colossians chapter 4 and verse 2 Colossians 4 and verse 2 continue steadfastly in prayer constancy in prayer is that your duty yes watching therein with thanksgiving it is your duty to join thanksgiving to your prayers and then you have that directive in 1 Thessalonians 5 17 and 18 in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you pray without ceasing and there you have the two duties set in separate phrases of directive in everything give thanks pray without ceasing
and so I repeat it is no duty of a Christian to engage in praiseless prayer and in thankless intercession now why is this well as one has said by prayer we show our dependence upon God for what we need and desire in praise we return our acknowledgements to God for what we've already received thanks is for mercies bestowed and passed prayer is a seeking of God for mercies not yet bestowed and which are to come now in the context of Ephesians 1 I think we can see something I hope we do we saw in our study of that first paragraph that the end for which God has given this tremendous display of grace is the praise of his glory verses 12 and 14 look at them to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory the last part of verse 14 unto the praise of his glory not just that we might receive the glory of God manifested in redemptive privileges not just that we might see them but that's receiving and seeing them we might praise him for them hence if the end of all that God does in redemption is to receive
is the praise of his glory we are frustrating the end for which God has bestowed mercy upon us if we do not praise him and so the proper accompaniment of all acceptable prayer is thanksgiving I cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers why has God saved you Ephesians why has he chosen you predestined you to sonship called you through the gospel and called you to the kingdom of God accepted you in the beloved made known the mystery of his will why the whole end is that his glory might be seen and praised so whenever I think of you Ephesians and I realize you were chosen you were redeemed you were accepted in the beloved I would not frustrate the very end for which God did this the very end for which he did it was that he might be praised so when I think of you and make mention of you in my prayers I do so with thanksgiving oh dear God dear fellow Christians that we might recognize that all the blessings that God bestows upon us he bestows upon us to the end that we may see him to be the God of James 1 the father of lights with whom is no bearableness nor shadow cast by turning the giver of every good and every perfect gift and what is praise and thanksgiving
but our amen to that statement yes we are yes he is the giver of every good and every perfect gift God is revealed as the fountain of all good in prayer we acknowledge that fact and we depend on him for all good that we expect in thanksgiving and in praise we look back over our shoulders and we say God you have indeed given all that I have now by way of application let me say that like every other duty you've got to set yourself to perform it I venture to say that the reason most of you here don't have this accompaniment of your prayers is that you only praise when you feel like it and you really thought you were making some progress because you've begun to learn to pray even when you don't feel like it you've just been about to reach around and pat yourself on the back haven't you you say I'm beginning I think I'm beginning to learn I must pray because it's my duty to pray even when I don't feel like praying you've begun to learn that some of you haven't you never shall I forget the shocked look on many of your faces the first time you told me in my study when you came for counseling that you didn't feel like praying and I looked you in the eye and said join the club and I told you that most of the time when I go up in the morning to pray I don't feel like praying all I feel like doing is going back to sleep some morning
The Proper Occasion of Acceptable Prayer: Constancy
all I feel like doing is kicking everything in the shins that I can set my eyes on I just feel mean and ugly and tired but I'm going to pray pray why because it's my duty to pray ah dear child of God catch that perspective with regard to praise it is your duty to accompany prayer with thanksgiving but I don't I don't care what you feel like it's your duty and you perform your duty as a disciple of Jesus Christ because he's worthy of obedience render that praise to him of which he is infinitely worthy and then let me touch for about three minutes on the third thing that's here in the text this morning it's what I'm calling the proper occasion of acceptable prayer having looked at the proper object the God of the Lord Jesus Christ Father of Glory the proper accompaniment of prayer praise and thanksgiving what's the proper occasion of acceptable prayer notice his words I cease not to give thanks for you the apostle indicates something of the constancy with which he labors in prayer for the Ephesian Christians and to be able to say to them as he did to so many churches I cease not to give thanks making mention of you in my prayers
it is obvious that the apostle prayed not by fits and starts and when it was convenient or by the whims of his emotional state but rather his praying was based upon the recognition that it was his duty and his need even as our Lord says in Luke 18 1 men ought always to pray and not to faint just as praise is a duty so constancy in prayer is a duty Ephesians 6 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit 1 Thessalonians 5 17 pray without ceasing Romans 12 12 continuing instant in prayer Colossians 4 2 watching thereunto with all perseverance continuing instant in prayer dear fellow Christians it is our duty to pray with constancy that does not mean pray without ceasing every moment of the day is to be engaged in conscious communion with God that would be to negate all the other directives even in this book masters are to do certain things fathers, servants and all the rest but it means that my engagement in the duty of prayer is to be an integral part of my total life experience not in fits and starts but in constancy
The Essential Condition for Acceptable Prayer: Through Christ Alone
so that I've learned the discipline of prayer if my need is constant and if God's willingness to give is constant and if the promises of God are yea and amen if they are constant and if God's directive is unchanging then the proper occasion of acceptable prayer is that of constancy regularity working into the total life style and program of our own individual lives stated seasons to pray and then learning to cultivate the attitude of prayer I suggest to you then that in this prayer of the Apostle Paul we have in verses 16 and 17a three very helpful directives concerning acceptable prayer you'll notice there's one little word I made no comment on because I wanted to keep it for the close notice he doesn't say cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers that the God of the Lord Jesus may give you a spirit of wisdom but he says the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only proper subject of acceptable prayer the person who can say my Lord and my God
in the face of Jesus Christ until he has become your Lord you cannot pray you are a rebel against God until he has become your Jesus that is God's only Savior until he has become your Christ your prophet priest and king you cannot pray you cannot praise for all prayer and praise is acceptable only through the mediation of Christ this is made very clear in passages like Hebrews 13 and 1st Timothy 1st Peter 2 where he says by him let us offer the sacrifice of praise it is through Christ that we offer up acceptable sacrifices and so if you are here today this morning and you're not savingly joined to Christ my friend you can't pray acceptably and the first cry that God will ever hear from your heart is the cry God be merciful to me a sinner I should say the first cry you have any grounds to believe he'll hear God does in mercy hear the cry of unregenerate men on occasions but they have no grounds to believe he'll hear can you say my Lord Jesus Christ this morning how about you children you young people you young people visitors can you say my Lord and my God where when by what means did God bring you to the end of yourself
until you cast yourself upon the Lord Jesus Christ where by what means were you stripped of your own righteousness glad to find yourself accepted in the beloved until that issue is settled my friend you cannot pray but if in grace God has brought you then will you not be stirred up to pray with acceptable prayer prayer that has a proper object the God of the Lord Jesus Christ you see now the relationship between understanding the word and prayer the more you know of the whole teaching of scripture concerning Christ and his mission and his word and his work all that gets poured into your prayer life so that he becomes more and more the God of the Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory the proper accompaniment of prayer if you want to see how selfish your heart is you try to discipline yourself as I do with myself and then with my children say now look we don't ask God for a thing till we thank him for at least one thing and time after time I have to stop and say uh uh wait a minute no no good you haven't praised God for anything yet it's so easy to come gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme it's your duty to pray with thanksgiving now cry to God for grace to perform your duty
Pastoral Prayer
and start performing it you heads of families you start incorporating that into your family worship and you see how difficult it is we've all got a gimme spirit and like those ten lepers that were healed only one paused to give thanks let praise be the accompaniment of every prayer you utter and then let the occasions of your prayers be that which reflect God's grace constancy and persistence for men ought always to pray and not defect may God make us mighty in prayer to the end that all the blessings he designs upon us may be precipitated in answer to our cries let us pray together O God our heavenly father the father of glory God of our Lord Jesus Christ we worship and magnify your name today we thank you for the revelation you've made of yourself in Jesus Christ we thank you for the many here who have become recipients in their heart of hearts of that revelation and who if we could somehow open their hearts and visually see what is there we would see the Lord Jesus
enshrined as God and his savior loved above all others worshipped and served oh we plead for any who cannot say this morning my Lord and my God oh have mercy upon them we pray bring them to yourself that they might begin to pray and when we ask for us as your children that our praying may be disciplined by the directives of Holy Scripture forgive us for our sins forgive us for our sins forgive us for our sins for the many times we've just carelessly uttered the first thoughts that have come to our minds forgive us for our carnal praying teach us how to pray in such a way that our prayers under the regulation of the word may be acceptable in your sight thank you again our Father for your word for your spirit who is present to open our understanding who enables us to embrace this instruction and now be pleased to dismiss us with your blessing who are with us throughout the hours of this day that we may be refreshed in the inner man and that your name may be praised hear us and accept the thanks we bring through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This passage is the central focus, from which Martin extracts the characteristics of Paul's acceptable prayer.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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