Praying at All Times (6:18-24)

29

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. And I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts. But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. And I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts.

Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible. (6:18-24)

In the seventeenth century a man named Johann Burchard Freystein wrote the following hymn:

Over a hundred years ago Charlotte Elliot wrote the words for another hymn:

Both of those hymns point up the reality that victory over Satan and his hosts in the great spiritual warfare in which we are engaged demands unceasing and diligent commitment to prayer. That is exactly what the apostle Paul says as he closes his appeal for Christians to put on the full armor of God. Is it perhaps this passage that inspired still another hymnist to write, “Put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer.”

In his Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan tells of Christian’s weapon called prayer, which, when everything else failed, would enable him to defeat the fiends in the valley of the shadow. Prayer is the closing theme of Ephesians, and though closely related to God’s armor, it is not mentioned as part of it, because it is much more than that. Prayer is not merely another godly weapon, as important as those weapons are. All the while that we are fighting in the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet or salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, we are to be in prayer. Prayer is the very spiritual air that the soldier of Christ breathes. It is the all-pervasive strategy in which warfare is fought.

Jesus urged His disciples to pray always and not to lose heart (Luke 18:1). He knows that when the battle gets hard soldiers easily become tired, weak, and discouraged. In the struggle with Satan, it is either pray or faint. Paul’s closing admonition for believers to “pray at all times” is not accidental. Not only does it give final instruction about the believer’s warfare but it is the climactic truth of the entire epistle, because prayer fills all of Christian life. Prayer is the crescendo at the end of Paul’s anthem of Ephesians.

No New Testament book so fully delineates the resources and blessings of the believer as does Ephesians. Throughout the book Paul magnifies and expands the truth that he briefly mentioned in Colossians, “in Him you have been made complete” (2:10) and that Peter touched on in his second epistle, “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness” (1:3). Here is a monumental catalog of all that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Paul begins Ephesians with the comprehensive declaration that “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (1:3). He then proceeds to tell us that we are chosen, predestined, and adopted as God’s children (1:4-5); lavished with His grace (1:6, 8; 2:7); redeemed and forgiven (1:7; 4:32); given the mystery of His will (1:9; 3:4-6); receivers of an inheritance (1:11); have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (1:13-14; 4:30); greatly loved by God (2:4; 5:25); made alive with new life (2:5-6); the workmanship of Christ, created by Him for doing good works (2:10); given God’s own peace (2:14); made one with Christ and with every other believer as His own Body (2:13-19; 3:4-6); made citizens of God’s kingdom and members of His family (2:19); built into God’s own temple and the dwelling place of His Spirit (2:20-22); given boldness and confident access to God (3:12); made powerful beyond our imagination (3:20); given the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (4:3); individually and uniquely gifted by Christ (4:7); blessed with specially gifted leaders to equip us in the work of ministry (4:11-12); taught by Jesus Christ Himself (4:20-21); given a new self in God’s holy likeness (4:24); made light (5:8); offered the fullness of the Holy Spirit (5:18); given the instructions and resources to make all relationships with others what God intends them to be (5:21—6:9); and given God’s full armor to make us invincible against Satan and his demonic forces (6:10-17).

After a believer contemplates that breathtaking list of blessings he possesses as an exalted child of God, Paul realizes the great danger that is likely to follow: temptation to self-satisfaction and spiritual arrogance. The student of Ephesians does well to take to heart Paul’s warning to the Corinthians: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). The magnificent and boundless blessings described in Ephesians are so enriching that Satan will try to use them to turn our thoughts to ourselves as the blessed ones rather than to the One who gives us the blessings. In light of our immeasurable and wondrous privileges, we can easily begin to think we are adequate in ourselves and thereby lose the essential sense of dependence on God.

Each time his team loses a game, a well-known professional football coach tells the players in the locker room afterward: “Gentlemen, I told you how to win. You didn’t do what I told you, and you lost.” Just like an athlete, a Christian can have great skills, the best training, the best equipment, and a good understanding of what he is supposed to do—and yet fail because he does not follow instructions. If a football player does poorly when he fails to follow his coach, how much worse does a Christian fare when he fails to follow his Lord?

It is especially easy for Christians who live in a free and prosperous society to feel secure just as they are, presuming on instead of depending on God’s grace. It is easy to become so satisfied with physical blessings that we have little desire for spiritual blessings, and to become so dependent on our physical resources that we feel little need for spiritual resources. When programs, methods, and money produce such obvious and impressive results, there is a proneness to confuse human success with divine blessing. A happy marriage, where children are well behaved and all are enjoying a church that is growing, tends to make people smug and self-satisfied. They can even become practical humanists, living as if God were not necessary. When that happens, passionate longing for God and yearning for His help will be missing—along with God’s empowerment. It is because of this great and common danger that Paul closes this epistle with an urgent call to prayer.

Ephesians begins by lifting us up to the heavenlies, and ends by pulling us down to our knees. “Don’t think,” Paul concludes, in effect, “that because you have all these blessings and resources that you can now live the Christian life without further help from God.” God’s armor is neither mechanical nor magical. We cannot simply take hold of it on our own and expect it automatically to produce supernatural feats. If James Russell Lowell’s eloquent saying, “The gift without the giver is bare,” is true in human relationships, it is immeasurably truer in our relationship to God. Our divine gifts—marvelous as they are—are bare without the divine Giver.

In the closing verses of this letter Paul first gives believers some general instruction about prayer, then a specific illustration of prayer, and finally a benediction.

THE GENERAL INSTRUCTION

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. (6:18)

The four alls introduce the five emphases Paul makes regarding the general character of the believer’s prayer life: the variety, the frequency, the power, the manner, and the objects of prayer.

THE VARIETY OF PRAYER

Proseuchē (prayer) refers to general requests, while deesis (petition) refers to those that are specific. The use of both words points to the idea that we are to be involved in all kinds of prayer, every form of prayer that is appropriate. Scriptural precept and allowance suggest we may pray publicly or privately; in loud cries, in soft whispers, or silently; deliberately and planned or spontaneously; while sitting, standing, kneeling, or even lying down; at home or in church; while working or while traveling; with hands folded or raised; with eyes open or closed; with head bowed or erect. The New Testament, like the Old, mentions many forms, circumstances, and postures for prayer but prescribes none. Jesus prayed while standing, while sitting, while kneeling, and quite probably in other positions as well. We can pray wherever we are and in whatever situation we are in. “Therefore I want the men in every place to pray” (1 Tim. 2:8), Paul said. For the faithful, Spirit-filled Christian, every place becomes a place of prayer.

THE FREQUENCY OF PRAYER

The Jewish people of Paul’s day had several prescribed times for daily prayer, but the coming of the New Covenant and the birth of the church brought a new dimension to prayer as it did to everything else. Jesus said, “Keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place” (Luke 21:36). Among other things, the earliest Christians in Jerusalem “were continually devoting themselves … to prayer” (Acts 2:42). The God-fearing Cornelius, to whom the Lord sent Peter with the message of salvation, “prayed to God continually” (Acts 10:2). In many of his letters Paul urged his readers to regularly devote themselves to prayer (Rom. 12:12; Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17). The apostle assured Timothy, his beloved son in the Lord, that he prayed for him “night and day” (2 Tim. 1:3). The early church knew the importance of prayer, and God honored their prayers, even when faith was sometimes weak—as in the case of those who were praying for Peter’s release from prison but did not believe Rhoda when she reported that he was knocking at the door (Acts 12:12-15).

David said, “Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He will hear my voice,… God will hear and answer” (Ps. 55:17, 19). There is no time when we do not need to pray and no time when God will not hear our prayers. In many ways prayer is even more important than knowledge about God. In fact, only through a regular and sincere prayer life can God’s Holy Spirit add spiritual wisdom to our knowledge. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “our ultimate position as Christians is tested by the character of our prayer life.” A person may be a Bible school or seminary graduate, a pastor or a missionary, but his deep knowledge of and relationship to God are measured by his prayer life. If knowledge about God and the things of God do not drive us to know Him more personally, we can be sure that our true motivation and commitment are centered in ourselves rather than Him. Jesus’ deepest prayer for His disciples was not that they simply know the truth about God but that “they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Studying and learning God’s Word in the right spirit will always drive the believer to know Him more intimately and to commune with Him more faithfully in prayer.

To pray at all times obviously does not mean we are to pray in formal or noticeable ways every waking moment of our lives. Jesus did not do that, nor did the apostles. And it certainly does not mean we are to devote ourselves to ritualistic patterns and forms of prayer that are recited mechanically from a prayer book or while counting beads. That amounts to no more than the “meaningless repetition” that characterizes pagan worship (Matt. 6:7).

To pray at all times is to live in continual God consciousness, where everything we see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to our heavenly Father. To obey this exhortation means that, when we are tempted, we hold the temptation before God and ask for His help. When we experience something good and beautiful, we immediately thank the Lord for it. When we see evil around us, we pray that God will make it right and be willing to be used of Him to that end. When we meet someone who does not know Christ, we pray for God to draw that person to Himself and to use us to be a faithful witness. When we encounter trouble, we turn to God as our Deliverer. In other words, our life becomes a continually ascending prayer, a perpetual communing with our heavenly Father. To pray at all times is to constantly set our minds “on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2).

The ultimate purpose of our salvation is to glorify God and to bring us into intimate, rich fellowship with Him; and to fail to come to God in prayer is to the deny that purpose. “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also,” John said, “that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Our fellowship with God is not meant to wait until we are in heaven. God’s greatest desire, and our greatest need, is to be in constant fellowship with Him now, and there is no greater expression or experience of fellowship than prayer.

THE POWER OF PRAYER

The most important and pervasive thought Paul gives about prayer is that it should be in the Spirit. This supreme qualification for prayer has nothing to do with speaking in tongues or in some other ecstatic or dramatic manner. To pray in the Spirit is to pray in the name of Christ, to pray consistent with His nature and will. To pray in the Spirit is to pray in concert with the Spirit, who “helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27). As the “Spirit of grace and of supplication” (Zech. 12:10), the Holy Spirit continually prays for us; and for us to pray rightly is to pray as He prays, to join our petitions to His and our will to His. It is to line up our minds and desires with His mind and desires, which are consistent with the will of the Father and the Son.

To be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) and to walk in His leading and power is to be made able to pray in the Spirit, because our prayer will then be in harmony with His. As we submit to the Holy Spirit, obeying His Word and relying on His leading and strength, we will be drawn into close and deep fellowship with the Father and the Son.

THE MANNER OF PRAYER

Whenever he prays, the believer should be on the alert with all perseverance and petition. Jesus told His disciples to watch and pray (Matt. 26:41; Mark 13:33; cf. Luke. 18:1). Paul counseled the Colossians to “devote [themselves] to prayer” (Col. 4:2). The Greek verb behind “devote” (proskartereo) means to be steadfast, constant, and persevering. It is used of Moses’ faithful endurance when he led the children of Israel out of Egypt (Heb. 11:27). To be devoted to prayer is to earnestly, courageously, and persistently bring everything in our lives before God.

The parables of the persistent neighbor and the importunate widow were both told by Jesus to illustrate the manner in which His followers should pray. At the end of the first parable He said, “And I say to you, ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened” (Luke 11:9). At the end of the other parable He explained, “Now shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily” (Luke 18:7-8).

To dispersed and persecuted Christians in the early church, Peter wrote, “Be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (1 Pet. 4:7). To pray in the right manner is to pray sensibly, with our minds and our understanding as well as our hearts and spirits. “I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with the mind also” (1 Cor. 14:15), Paul said.

To pray in the right manner also involves praying specifically. “Whatever you ask in My name,” Jesus promised, “that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13). God answers prayer in order to put His power on display, and when we do not pray specifically, He cannot answer specifically and thereby clearly display His power and His love for His children. To pray, as young children often do, “God bless the whole world,” is really not to pray at all. We must think about particular people, particular problems, particular needs, and then pray about those things specifically and earnestly, so that we can see God’s answer and offer Him our thankful praise.

Most Christians never get serious about prayer until a problem arises in their own life or in the life of someone they love. Then they are inclined to pray intently, specifically, and persistently. Yet that is the way Christians should always pray. Sensitivity to the problems and needs of others, especially other believers who are facing trials or hardships, will lead us to pray for them “night and day” as Paul did for Timothy (2 Tim. 1:3).

Because the greatest problems are always spiritual, our greatest prayer concern and concentration—whether for ourselves or for others—should be for spiritual protection, strength, and healing. It is certainly appropriate to bring physical needs before our heavenly Father, but our greatest focus should be for spiritual needs—for victory over temptation, for forgiveness and cleansing of sins already committed, for unbelievers to trust in Christ for salvation, and for believers to have greater dependence on Him. The context of Paul’s call to prayer is that of spiritual warfare, and the Christian’s prayer should, above all, be about that warfare. Our greatest concern for ourselves and for other believers should be for victory in the battle against the enemy of our souls. Our deepest prayers for our spouse, our children, our brothers and sisters, our fellow church members, our pastor, our missionaries, and all others would be that they win the spiritual battle against Satan. Examining the prayers of Paul throughout his epistles yields the insight that he prayed for the spiritual well-being of the people of God (see, e. g., 1 Cor. 1:4-7; Phil. 1:9-11; Col. 1:9-11; 2 Thess. 1:11-12).

Many years ago a saint of God prayed:

THE OBJECTS OF PRAYER

Elsewhere Paul commands us to pray for unbelievers, for government leaders, and for others, but here the focus is on all the saints. It is only saints, Christian believers, who are involved in the spiritual warfare for which God provides the armor Paul has just been describing and who are able to pray in the Spirit.

It is not inappropriate to pray for ourselves any more than it is inappropriate to pray for physical needs. But just as the Bible primarily calls us to pray about spiritual needs rather than physical, it primarily calls us to pray for others rather than ourselves. Even when he was concerned about his own needs, Paul does not mention that he prayed for himself but that he asked other believers to pray on his behalf, as he does in the next two verses (Eph. 6:19-20). The greatest thing we can do for another believer, or that he can do for us, is to pray. That is the way the Body of Christ grows spiritually as well as in love. When one member of the Body is weak, wounded, or cannot function, the other members compensate by supporting and helping strengthen it. Samuel said to the people of Israel, “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:23). With God’s own Holy Spirit to indwell us and help us even when we do not know how to pray (Rom. 8:26), how much more do we as Christians sin against God when we fail to pray for fellow saints?

The spiritually healthy person is devoted to the welfare of others, especially fellow believers. On the other hand, the root of both psychological and spiritual sickness is preoccupation with self. Ironically, the believer who is consumed with his own problems—even his own spiritual problems—to the exclusion of concern for other believers, suffers from a destructive self-centeredness that not only is the cause of, but is the supreme barrier to the solution of, his own problems. Usually such selfishness isolates him from the other believers, who if they were intimately involved in fellowship with him, would be regularly praying for his spiritual welfare.

Praying for others with sincerity and perseverance is, in God’s immeasurable grace, a great blessing and strength to our own souls. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reported that before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war that country was experiencing such an epidemic of neuroses that psychiatrists could hardly handle them all. But the war, terrible and destructive as it was in most respects, had the unexpected effect of “curing” many of Spain’s thousands of neurotics. When they became concerned about the welfare of their families, friends, and country instead of their own, their neuroses disappeared and hospitals and clinics were almost emptied of such cases. “These neurotic people were suddenly cured by a greater anxiety,” an anxiety that reached beyond their own selfish welfare. The Christian Soldier [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977], pp. 357-58.)

THE SPECIFIC ILLUSTRATION

and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. (6:19-20)

Paul did not plead, pray on my behalf, in order that his ankles, raw and sore from his shackles, might be healed, or that he might be freed from prison and suffering. His deep concern was that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. When Satan tempted him to keep quiet about Christ, he wanted God’s help to be bold and faithful to proclaim the gospel. He wanted help in his own battle against Satan, and he pleaded with his brothers and sisters at Ephesus to pray toward that end.

That he was in chains was incidental. His great concerns were for the mystery [see on 3:3] of the gospel, for which he was an ambassador, and for those to whom he was sent to proclaim it. He wanted fellow believers to pray for his victory in the spiritual warfare that this ministry provoked from Satan. Paul confronted the enemy face to face and knew he was not able to win in his own resources.

Compared to most believers Paul was gifted, courageous, morally upright, and spiritually strong beyond measure. Yet he greatly needed God’s help and the help of fellow Christians. He knew that the power and blessings he had were not of his own doing, and his spiritual maturity and effectiveness were grounded in that awareness. God cannot use the self-sufficient person, because such a person feels no need for God. It is the humble believer who knows his own need and is genuinely poor in spirit whom the Lord can use and bless.

Paul also needed the prayers of fellow believers because he was a leader. Our enemy knows that when he strikes the shepherd, the sheep will scatter (Matt. 26:31), and church leaders—even as the Lord Himself—are Satan’s special targets. The more faithful and fruitful a pastor is, the more his people need to pray for his strength and protection. He is more subject to the devil’s schemes to make him discouraged or self-satisfied, hopeless or superficially optimistic, cowardly or overconfident. Satan uses every situation—favorable or unfavorable, successful or unsuccessful—to try to weaken, distract, and discredit God’s gifted men in their work of “equipping of the saints for the work of service” (Eph. 4:12).

In a letter written shortly after Ephesians, Paul testified, “My circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear” (Phil. 1:12-14). Even in prison it was important to Paul that he would make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, because it was his own boldness that attracted the praetorian guard to the gospel and that inspired boldness in other witnessing Christians. Even when he requested prayer for himself, Paul’s purpose and motive were selfless—to further the gospel, to encourage other believers, and to glorify his Lord.

Realizing that the Ephesian Christians could not pray specifically or intelligently for him without more information, Paul added, But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. And I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us. Tychicus, an Asian, had been chosen to accompany Paul and the others in taking the relief offering to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4-6), was with Paul during his first Roman imprisonment, and was frequently sent on missions by the apostle (see 2 Tim. 4:12; Titus 3:12). He not only delivered this letter for Paul but the one to Colossae as well, in both cases being instructed to give the recipients additional information about the apostle’s situation (Col. 4:7-9). In both of these texts he is called the beloved brother, because he was especially dear to Paul.

In addition to informing the Ephesian believers, Tychicus, who was commended as a faithful minister in the Lord, was to encourage them: that he may comfort your hearts. The letter itself would seem to have been encouragement enough, but Paul knew that a personal word from someone who had been with him recently would be an added comfort to their hearts. The man in chains sought to comfort others.

THE BENEDICTION

Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible. (6:23-24)

In its beautiful clarity and simple dignity, the apostle’s closing benediction resists being analyzed. It is not unlike others of Paul’s benedictions, yet it seems uniquely to reflect the themes of this rich epistle. Certainly peace (cf. 1:2; 2:14-15, 17; 4:3; 6:15), love (cf. 1:15; 4:2, 15-16; 5:25, 28, 33), and faith (cf. 1:15; 2:8; 3:12, 17; 4:5, 13; 6:16) are recurring touchstones in the thought of this great letter. Little wonder Paul gathers all three together and prays that they would be the experience and commitment of all believers.

Grace, or divine favor, was the gift Paul desired for all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible. That is the love that belongs to true believers; so Paul is really identifying the ones who will receive grace as only those whose love is not temporary and thus untrue but permanent and thus genuine!

To apply obediently in the power of the Holy Spirit the principles of peace, love, and faith taught in this epistle will yield to every believer the blessing and favor of God.