Kevin Dibbley - May 12, 2024
"Fostering a Passion for Prayer"
This sermon, from Ephesians 6:18-20, is called Fostering a Passion for Prayer. As the apostle Paul comes to the end of this letter to the church, he calls for an all-out commitment to prayer. Paul knows that human effort and ingenuity cannot advance the kingdom of Christ. Unlike Muslims who respond to an external call to prayer 5 times a day, Paul wants believers to respond to an internal call to prayer continuously. Prayer is Paul’s passionate conviction. It is Paul’s confidence in his life and ministry. Paul prayed earlier in Ephesians 3:20 declaring that God “is able to do abundantly more than we ask or think according to the power at work in us.” Every day when Paul looked in the mirror (or whenever, Paul could see his reflection), he saw the biggest miracle of his day. A hater, a blasphemer, a persecutor of the church is now one of Christianity’s greatest ambassadors. If God could save Paul, he could save anyone! Oh, that God would give us all a passion for prayer! Would you pray this week that you would start to pray kingdom-advancing, strong-hold breaking prayers? Would you pray that God would teach you to pray so that prayer would not just be a Christian task but what you look forward to most each day? Would we all pray for each other that we would continuously be in prayer for the people of God and the mission of God?
Scripture References: Ephesians 6:18-20
From Series: "Ephesians: One In Christ"
We are beginning a sermon series focusing upon the New Testament letter of Ephesians. Our series is called “One in Christ”. In Japan, there is a form of artwork called Kintsugi art. Kin means gold. Tsugi means to mend. In Kintsugi art, an artist will take, for example, a piece of ceramic teaware that has been broken during an earthquake or something like that. Instead of repairing it to make it look like the original plate or teacup, the artist will instead use Japanese lacquer and gold to actually highlight the fractures. Out of the broken vessel comes a brand new piece that is considered more beautiful and more valuable than the original. The apostle Paul teaches in Ephesians that God in Christ has chosen to take our lives broken and alienated from God and each other by sin and make one new community. John Stott writes “Through Christ and in Christ, we are nothing less than God’s new society, the single new humanity which he is creating and includes Jews and Gentiles on equal terms. We are the family of God the Father, the body of Jesus Christ his Son, and the temple and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.” Our hope and prayer is that over the next several months, we would get a vision of the church as God’s new creation, His masterpiece, which is just the beginning of what God intends to do throughout all eternity and throughout the entire heavens and on earth. Out of his brokenness, we become one. Pray that together we would become in real relationships what we are in positionally through the gospel – One in Christ.
