The Armor of God: Prayer

Man, it's good to be together today. And I say this every week, but, man, what a gift it is that we can come together to encourage each other, to see each other's smiles, to pray for each other, to maybe even weep with each other, to grieve with each other. It's great to be with you this morning, if you're a guest here today. My name is Josh, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm glad you're here.

It's a body of believers who love Jesus and are very broken and messed up just like you and love you, too. So we hope that we can show that to you today. If after the service you'd like to connect with Whitewater at all any further, you can head out to the information desk. We got a team out there that would love to get you connected, get you a next step and get you in community. Here today is the final message in this Armor of God series.

We've got some guests up here on the front row with us from Wheels, which is right down the street.

If you don't know what Wheels is, you should look them up. They provide cars. Cars are a rather important thing in our society, and so check them out online. I'll give them. Give you guys a plug.

If you have a car that you would like to donate that is in great working order because they would love that, too. You can drop it off at Wheels as a donation as they help other people. So these guys have been studying this Armor of God series on Saturday morning with their Bible study, and many of them go to other churches, and it's great to be with them today. But today's the final message in this series, and the series has been all about recognizing that there is a spiritual battle that is being waged in and all around us. It's far more than the cartoon devil on one shoulder, an angel on the other shoulder trying to get us to do good things or bad things.

It's far more than good behavior. It is a war being waged against sin and death and decay, and a war that's being fought for the restoration, the recreation, the reconciliation, reconciliation of this world and the institution, the expansion of God's kingdom here on earth. And while there is brokenness and sin and death on this earth, as long as we are here. The book of Ephesians is this explosive book that tells us that God has provided the path of reconciliation through his son, Jesus. And on week one, we talked about how reconciliation is both restoring things back to the Genesis 2 world.

The Shalom. The things are as they were, as God intended them to be. But it's also this exchange. We are exchanging anxiety for peace. We are exchanging brokenness for wholeness and death for life.

We read in Ephesians that in Christ we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. That is a lot of blessing. That through Jesus Christ we have been chosen to be holy and blameless. I don't know if you feel holy and blameless. Most of the time I don't feel holy and blameless.

But Christ came so that we could be holy and blameless. That through Christ we can live lives that are worthy of his calling. Until we reach what Paul says is unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, and until we become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. That is fantastic news for us that we have access to this. God's plan for reconciliation is that by the way of the life, death and resurrection of King Jesus, through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, which is the same power that raised Christ from the dead, not only can we die to sin sin, not only can we put off death and put on Christ, but we can become ambassadors of reconciliation to this world and warriors conscripted into this army.

Paul says that to do this God has given us a very special kind of armor. An armor that's not to be used against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. This is not a Harry Potter novel. This is reality. This is the real reality.

In fact, what we're living right now is less real than that reality, the spiritual reality. Let's read this section of Scripture one more time today. Let's look at how we got to put on this armor and we got to put off our old, rotting dead flesh. Paul says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from The Gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And then we get to the final instructions for the armor of God and also the final instructions of this incredible book of Ephesians. If you have not spent time in the book of Ephesians, read it. It is explosive, and it isn't to roar into battle, slashing and sweeping, swinging and wielding and conquering. Paul says that after we have put on this whole spiritual, heavenly armor, we are to stand firm and do something that looks nothing like war, he says, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.

He says, pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the Gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. What do we do after we put on the whole armor? We pray. That's it.

That's all we have to do. We just do everything we talked about for the last seven weeks and we pray. That's it. It's been a great series. You can go home now.

Sounds easy, but prayer is difficult, and it's one of the most important things that we can do as believers. And yet we got to deal with the giant elephant in the room. By a show of hands. Just be honest. How many of you believe that you should pray?

You know that it's a good idea. You know that you've been instructed to pray, but you have a difficult time having a meaningful and consistent prayer life. Raise your hands. Be honest. Be honest.

Keep your hands up. You have a difficult time having a consistent and meaningful prayer life. Look around the room. Hold your hand high. Look around the room.

You are not alone. This is an elephant in the room. Today. We know we should. It sounds like a great idea, but we struggle to do it.

And if you're anything like me and the many people I've talked to over the years in ministry, then you got a lot of questions about prayer that no one really seems to have the answer to, questions that, if we're honest, we're just kind of embarrassed to ask because we assume that everybody else has the answers to these questions. We've got questions like, how exactly does prayer work? Why do we think that having 10 people praying for something is better than having two people praying for something. How come sometimes prayer seems to work? Sometimes it seems to just bounce off the ceiling instead.

What's the threshold of importance for prayer? Does God care which car I buy? Does he care where I go out to eat? Does he care which shoes I buy? And why do we even need to pray?

Doesn't God have a will that's going to be done no matter what we pray and ask for anyway? Doesn't the Bible say that he knows that we need knows what we need before we even ask it? And if he does have a will that's going to be accomplished no matter what, then certainly he would already have in his will and wouldn't need us to pray for things like children, innocent children, to not be sick and die. And yet they still do. Or maybe God's just sitting around waiting for us to come up with a compelling enough or a loud enough argument that he'll give in.

Like that parable that Jesus talked about. There's this widow and she just keeps hounding the judge until the judge does what she wants. And it says that God will hear the cries of his people who knock on his door day and night. Anybody else have these questions? Am I the only one here?

And the Book of Proverbs tells us that God hears the prayer of the righteous. So maybe my problem was I wasn't good enough this week. I'll just be extra good next week and then I'll ask him and then he'll do it. Maybe it's First Peter where he suggests that husbands, when we don't care for and honor our wives gently, that our prayers are hindered because of it. Maybe I just wasn't good enough husband this week.

Maybe I've got to work on that and I'll ask again next week. Jesus says, ask anything in my name and it will be given to you. So we ask in his name and then it doesn't work. Then the Book of James says, well, you ask and you don't have because you don't have enough faith. Okay, I'll ask, I'll be really good and then I'll be a really good husband.

And then I'll ask in Jesus name. And then I'll have. I'll squeeze my faith muscles really tight. And then it didn't work. But then five times after that it did work.

And then 20 times after that it didn't work again. And we're left tapping the microphone going, is this thing on? Please tell me I'm not the Only one. If prayer's the most important thing, if this is the thing that we do after we put on the whole armor of God, why is it so hard? Why is it so confusing?

Why does it not seem to be working? It's because Satan knows how incredibly dangerous and powerful we would become if we were a faithfully and properly praying people. That's why it's so hard, because we're at war. And as the greatest deceiver in history, he has convinced us that prayer is something that it is not, something that is not. So that when we show up to that well to drink, we always walk away still just a little thirsty.

So that eventually we'll start to believe that maybe prayer isn't quite so important at all. But here's the thing. All these questions that we have about prayer, this is a brutal truth for me. For us, if we boil all these questions down, they all point to the one question we're actually asking. Why didn't God do what I told him to do?

That's the question we really are asking, why didn't God do what I told him to do? When we ask, why didn't it work? We're actually asking, why didn't? Why didn't God do what I asked him to do? Right.

And this question reveals one of Satan's oldest tricks, and that is to convince us that all of this, the armor, the prayer Bible, the church, the Holy Spirit singing, everything, it's all about you. This is what Satan wants us to believe. Jesus dying on the cross, the Holy Spirit serving sermons, it's all about you. You're the main character. You're the center of the universe.

And no matter how selfless our prayers might sound, the truth is that our frustrations with prayer are rooted in the belief that we are the center. We're the main character. That God owes us something and that we know better than him what we need, what is good and what is right. So when God does what we want him to do, we say that prayer works and that he is good. And when he does not do what we want him to do, we question prayer and we question whether he is actually good.

In the book of Job, in the Bible, Job is a man who has some very serious loss in his life, lots of suffering. He loses his children, his home, his servants, his livestock. And after all of this, he's covered, literally covered in sores from head to toe. And he has three punk friends and an unsupportive wife that tell him to curse God and die. Please don't Ever tell your husband that it's in the middle of all this that Job says something to one of his friends?

In Job 23, starting in verse 2, he says, Today also, my complaint is bitter. Yeah, I wonder why. Because your life is bitter. My hand is heavy on account of my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him.

He's talking about God. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat. I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. This is what Job says. He goes on to say that if he could just get to God and make his arguments, then surely God would do what he wants him to do.

Surely God would pour out his judgment and suffering onto someone else who actually deserves it. Not on Job. And then in chapter 38, God responds. And this is a response. This is a two by four to the teeth.

This is a response we need to hear. It's a response we need to hear. God basically says, I don't know who you think you are, Job, but you're not God. This is what he says. Chapter 38, God says, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding, who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

God goes on for three chapters like this. Three chapters. Were you the one who told the ocean where to stop? Were you the one who hung the stars in the sky? When were you the one who spoke life into being?

And then in chapter 40, God says this. Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God's? Can your voice thunder like his?

You want to be God? Then do it. Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor. Clothe yourself in honor and majesty. Unleash the fury of your wrath.

Look at all who are proud and bring them low. Look at all who are proud and humble them. Crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together. Shroud their faces in the grave.

Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.

Then we read Job's response in chapter 42. He says, I know that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge? Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me to know.

You said, listen now I will speak. I Will question you and you shall answer me. This is the hinge pin. Here. Don't miss this.

My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. I thought I knew you. I thought I knew what this is about. I thought I understood. But I get it now.

Therefore, I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. When Job is reminded that God is God and he is not, the only way he can respond these the only way we can respond when we recognize this is complete humility, reverence, and repentance. This should teach us something about the way that we question God when He does not do what we told him to do in prayer. It should challenge the way we approach God when we pray or even when we refuse to pray. Somehow, even in Job's loss and suffering and physical and emotional agony, God was doing something with Job's life that he simply could not understand.

Imagine if God were to explain to Job in that moment that thousands of years later, some guy would be standing on a stage in Cleves, Ohio, telling his story, looking at his faithfulness, looking at what he realized, and saying, we need to be more like him. Job couldn't even begin to fathom that God could be doing something beautiful in his mess.

But we have to accept that we are not the center of the story, that God is is doing what God wants to do. And whatever he's doing, if he is who he says he is, then whatever he is doing is good. Whether we can accept it or not. We're not the center of the story. Our understanding is so shallow and one dimensional.

It's so conditional.

So with all of this in mind, let's get back to Ephesians 6. Paul gives us three little words to tell us how to pray. He says, pray in the Spirit. In the Spirit. Now, a lot of people have gotten really lost in this phrase.

What does it mean to pray in the Spirit? Actually, the idea of acting or doing something in the Spirit is a very common thing on repeat in the New Testament. In Galatians, we're instructed to walk in the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, and to live in the Spirit. Ephesians and Jude tell us to pray in the Spirit. Romans instructs us to be fervent in the Spirit.

Philippians tells us to worship in the Spirit. When I think of being in the Spirit, I think of a swimming pool. Swimming pool. Some of us walk up to the edge and we dip our toe in and we go, ooh, that's enough. That's enough.

I don't really need that in my life. Some of us are tired and exhausted and hot. And we go down into the spirit and we wade in a little bit, kind of get up to just about here, and we just kind of put a little spirit on, cool off a little bit, and then we're back out. Some of us sit on the edge of the pool and put our legs in the spirit. And we convince ourselves that we are in the spirit, living in the spirit.

But when I'm thinking about being in the spirit, what God is calling us to do, to be in the spirit is like my kids. When they jump in the deep end of the pool and they don't come out. You can't get them out of the pool. They've been in there so long, their fingers and toes are wrinkled up because they are in. In the pool.

This is the way that we need to live in the spirit. Drenched, soaked, covered up, head to toe, dripping wet in the spirit. So that when we step out and we go into the workplace, when we step out and we go into the world, we're making a mess everywhere we go. That's what it is to live in the spirit.

And all this is described to be the opposite of a different way of living, which is in the flesh. You want to know what in the flesh is? The simplest way to live in the flesh is do whatever you want, whatever you feel like, whatever you think of first, whatever comes to your mind, whatever your body wants to do, just do it. You want to know what that looks like? Go outside.

Go outside. The world is full of people who are living in the flesh. Quite frankly. Look in the room.

Look at me. Most of us are way more comfortable living in the flesh than we are living in the Spirit. So Paul already described this kind of living in Ephesians 2. He said, as for you, you were dead. You were dead.

Gratifying the cravings of your flesh and following its desires and thoughts. But to live in the Spirit is to deny our flesh. It's to deny what we feel, deny what we desire, and do what the Spirit would have us do in this sense. When we pray in the Spirit, we pray the prayer that Jesus told us to pray. Pray your kingdom come, your will be done.

Not my kingdom, not my will, Father yours. To pray in the Spirit is to pray in harmony and alignment with the mind of the Spirit and the will of God. And how do we pray? With alignment with the will or in alignment with the will of God? We drench ourselves in the Word.

We must be in the Word to know how to pray in the Spirit. I told you, this whole armor intertwines and is interdependent with itself. So Paul says how we should pray in the Spirit, and then he tells us the frequency with which we should pray on all occasions. This literally means in every season, pray when things are good. Pray when things are hard.

Pray when things are at peace. Pray when you're grieving. Pray when someone needs healing prayer. Pray when it makes sense. Pray when it doesn't make sense.

Pray when it's dark. Pray when the sun's up. Pray on all occasions. Praying as an act of war is an activity that is for every season of life. So with a posture and attitude of humility, of submission to God's decisions and his will and his way, we're instructed to pray in the Spirit on all occasions.

And the third piece he gives us is. Is with all kinds of prayers and requests. I love how simply John MacArthur puts this. He says, this is the belief that every single thing in your life is something to talk to God about. I love that.

Prayer is a constant, unhindered relationship and communion with God and full submission or yielding to his will. We have a hard time with the word submit. Maybe it's a little easier to view this as a yielding, a yielding. I pull up to that yield sign and I give in to that yield sign. And this constant and unhindered relationship in communion with God is an act of war because it is an act of reconciling our hearts, our minds, our bodies and this world.

Shalom. Prayer doesn't work when God does what we tell him to do. Prayer is working when we are completely surrendered with all of our concerns, desires, joys, hopes and requests to the sovereign will of the King of the Universe. And when we're praying for his kingdom to come and his will now, there's a ton more. I could do a whole series just on prayer.

God wants to hear from you. He wants to hear your anger. He wants to hear your frustrations. He wants to hear your joy, your sorrow, your brokenness, your need. He wants you to ask.

He wants you to ask, and he wants you to ask with open hands, accepting that he knows better than we do. Full submission to God is a proclamation that God is God and we are not.

I came across some questions that I thought were really powerful questions to ask ourselves as we think about this. What if tomorrow you woke up and all you had was the stuff you thanked God for yesterday?

This one's even harder. What if you woke up tomorrow and everything you've been praying for happened. How would the world be different? Would you just be healthier and skinnier and smarter, more comfortable? Would you just have more stuff, or would the whole world be more reconciled to God?

What would be different about the salvation of the world? What would be different about the plight of the exploited? What would be different about evil or poverty or broken marriages and dying children?

These are compelling and convicting questions, aren't they? What do your prayers consist of? Everything in our lives is something worth talking to God about. So Paul instructs us to pray in the spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. And then he says this weird thing.

He says, with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Why does he say this? Because you are at war and I am at war. And we are at war against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. It is an act of war against our own sinful nature to pray.

It's an act of war that can expand God's kingdom and empower, protect and unify his believers. I was super challenged by this. How much am I praying for all the Lord's people? How much are we praying for unity among the body of Christ? In fact, most of us are still mad at that last church that we used to go to because there are people there that we don't like because they stepped on our tail.

We're not praying for them. If we are, we're praying that God would smite them. Right? I mean, I. Not I.

You're probably not.

I love this quote from John Piper. He says probably the number one reason why prayer malfunctions in the hand of believers is that we try to turn a wartime walkie talkie into a domestic intercom. Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. But what have millions of Christians done? We have stopped believing that we are in a war.

No urgency, no watching, no vigilance, no strategic planning. Just easy peace and prosperity. And what did we do with the walkie talkie? We tried to rig it up as an intercom in our houses. Not to call in firepower for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask for more comforts in the den.

Ooh, Mr. Piper, that one's sharp. To properly wield this weapon of prayer, we need to pray in the spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests, in an alert posture, and always praying for all the Lord's people. That's a lot of alls. And always it's Time that we start praying like this. And still so many of us in the room right now are scared to death of prayer.

We don't know what to pray. We don't know how to pray. So as we close out this series and close out this message, I just want to practice. I want to practice a very simple method of praying. Now, I know that not all of you love to pray, but it is a scientific proven fact that everyone loves tacos.

I'm not much of an acronym guy, but the tacos acronym really works for me. And who doesn't love tacos? If you don't love tacos, don't say anything. Okay? T. T for Thanksgiving.

A for adoration. C for confession. That one's painful. O for others. S for self.

And instead of explaining them all to you in theory, we're just going to do it. We're going to practice. We're going to walk through each of these letters and we're going to pray the tacos prayer. After that, we'll spend a couple minutes just in quiet prayer and then we'll sing a little bit together.

So, T Thanksgiving, that brutal question. What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things that you thanked God for today?

So just close your eyes. Consider for a moment, what are you most thankful for in your life right now? And whether you say it out loud, you whisper it, you mouth it, you just say it in your head. The act of prayer is to say, God, thank you for. And you fill in the blank.

God, thank you for the breath in our lungs. Thank you for the beautiful relationships of love in our lives. Thank you for every good gift that you've poured out on us. Thank you for your church. Thank you for a warm sun.

Thank you for the beauty of your creation. Thank you for the gift of music.

Thank you for lemonade in the summer, hot chocolate in the winter.

Thank you for Jesus.

A is for adoration.

It's just a bigger word for thinking about how awesome God is. What do you adore about God?

This one just goes, God, you are awesome because.

God, we adore you. You are awesome because you spoke the world into existence.

It's beyond our understanding. You are awesome because you loved us first. And you loved us so much that you sent us. Jesus. Jesus.

Lord, we see your awesomeness in creation. We see. We taste your awesomeness in delicious foods and textures and flavors. We feel your awesomeness in the wind.

We adore you, Father.

C is for confession.

Do you know that there is no sin that is bigger than God's grace?

None.

And when we confess, it's like a child who got something, some food on their shirt, and. And they think that it cannot be taken care of, but they've never heard of a washing machine before.

God says, oh, we got something for that. We got something for that. And so we can confess with boldness. We can confess in humility. We can confess with sureness that his grace is enough.

This starts with God. I just need to confess that you fill in the blank, God. We need to confess that we're terrible at praying.

We need to confess that we more often give in to our flesh than into your spirit.

We need to confess that many of us are sitting on the edge of the pool with our legs in your spirit and not drenched in your spirit.

We need to confess that we struggle. We struggle with substances. We struggle with anxiety. We struggle with images.

We struggle with addictions. We struggle with harsh words coming out of our mouths.

We confess that we're weak and we need you.

Oh, as for others, just praying for others, praying on behalf of others, praying for all the Lord's people, praying for our loved ones, praying for our enemies.

It starts with God, I just want to talk to you about.

And you name the person.

God. We pray for all your people across the globe that you will embolden them and empower them and bring them together in unity for your glory and for the expansion of your kingdom.

We pray for our children who don't know you.

We pray because it keeps us up at night.

We pray because our hearts are wrenched for them that they would know you, that they would have faith in you.

We pray for a world that is so blind, so lost that they can't even pick up their heads to even begin to look at you.

Help us to love them.

Help us to be your light and salt in this world for their sake.

We pray for the sick, for the anxious, for the depressed, for the hurting, for the grieving.

We pray for those who have been living in pain for what seems like forever.

And God, it is our desire that you would heal all of that. That's what we want. That's what we ask for in the power of your spirit and the power of the resurrection through the blood of Jesus. We ask for healing and restoration and reconciliation. We pray for the weak and the broken, for people who are being trafficked.

We don't know what to do. So we pray that you show us what we can do, what you want, want us to do. And we pray that we can give in to you for the rest. And we pray for your people all across the world that they can step into darkness, wherever it is, and be the answer to these prayers too.

And then at the very end, we get to self and it's at the end on purpose. We don't start with ourselves, we end with ourselves.

And it's as simple as saying, God, I fill in the blank.

God, I need you God, I want to be more for you. God, I want to understand your word more deeply. I want to be more obedient. I want to be the man, the woman, the son, the daughter, the sister, the brother, the husband, the wife, the grandparent. I want to be the employee or the boss or the leader.

I want to be the servant that you want me to be. I can't do this without you.

I pray for my job. I pray for my family. I pray for the desires of my heart to be more in line with the desires of of your heart. I pray that you would replace my mind with your mind. I pray that you would replace my vision with your vision.

I pray that you would replace my words with your words. My heart with your heart. That you would replace my spirit with your spirit. That you would replace my desires with your desires. I pray that you would strengthen my legs with your strength that I might stand.

And I pray that you would replace my feet of clay with your feet of iron.

I need you, God, I need you.

Thank you for loving us. Thank you for teaching us through your word how to pray today.

Thank you for silly acronyms like tacos that we can just walk away with and remember. And I pray that you'll just kick us all week until we pray. These prayers help us to trust that you are who you say you are and that we are who you say we are. In Jesus name, amen.