Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome back to Roots of Faith, where we journey deep into God's word, equipping believers to grow strong in their faith and stand firm in the spiritual battle. Today's message is one that every believer needs to hear. Have you ever felt like you've failed the Lord? Like Peter, who denied Christ three times? Have you ever heard the enemy's whisper of shame and wondered if God could still use you? In today's episode, we'll see how Jesus not only foresaw Peter's failure, but also prayed for his restoration. And just as Christ interceded for Peter, he intercedes for you. The spiritual battle is real, but God has given us his armor and the power of prayer to stand firm against the enemy's attacks. If you've ever struggled with doubt or weakness or feeling unworthy, this message will encourage and equip you to draw near to the Lord through the power of prayer. Let's dive into today's teaching, standing firm in the power of prayer.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: The room was dimly lit.
There was a flickering oil lamp, and it cast very jagged shadows on the stone walls.
And he sat there alone, rubbing his hands together.
Though the chill in his soul was far colder than the night.
His heart pounded as echoes of his own voice screamed in his mind.
I don't know him.
I swear I don't know him. I don't know that man.
I have nothing to do with that man.
Three times.
And his chest tightened as he remembered the moment that Jesus turned and their eyes met.
And the weight of the sorrow, love and knowing in that glance.
His friend, his teacher, his Lord, and yet he had denied him.
Then another voice crept in.
This one was darker and more sinister, and it whispered from the shadows. He knew that you would fail.
He told you.
He told you that Satan had demanded to have you and look at you just as weak as he said.
Do you think there's anything and there any way of coming back from this?
And that whisper slithered through his soul, wrapping him like a constricting snake with the suffocating squeeze of his own shame.
It was true.
He had failed. He had fallen.
He had not stood.
Then there was a memory, a memory from just hours before.
And the words of the Lord had spoken with unshakable certainty, gathered around the table. And while they were ministering together, fellowshipping together at that last supper, Jesus clearly said to him, simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat.
But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.
And when you have turned again Strengthen your brothers.
Tears burned in his eyes as he clung to that very last part.
When you've turned again.
It wasn't if it was when Jesus had known not just of his failure, but is returning again, turning back.
And Jesus had prayed.
The accusers whispers faded away.
The chains of shame fell off.
And instead there was a new resolve for him to serve.
He had been prayed for.
He would stand up again.
The next time he would stand.
I don't think I've ever thought of Peter that way before.
But what is it like?
You know, we often say, I'd love to be a fly on the wall.
I wonder what it was like when Peter heard his name. Simon.
Simon.
And then two hours later realized that you had failed. You had denied the Lord three times. The crow cawed.
And to realize Jesus said, I have prayed for you.
I have prayed for you.
He, the one who ever lives to make intercession for us at the right hand of the Father and who has given the comforter, the Holy Spirit.
When we come to this portion of Scripture, the first three chapters are the doctrine of what we know is the God given life of a believer as part of a body specially called out indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
It's called the Church.
And to realize that all the power that's there is not our power, but it's the power.
The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the power that the Holy Spirit has ready to enable our lives to serve Jesus Christ.
And when we come down to chapters four through six, it's the practical side.
Paul was writing this letter to the Church in Ephesus and he says, I want to be very practical. I want you to understand this, this is how it applies.
And so he continued to write there.
And when we came down to the verses in chapter 6 and verse 10, he talks about the spiritual armor.
And that armor is to be a second skin to us is what I told you last week. Putting on the whole armor of God so that you can stand what Paul wrote to them in that, that letter. He says, you're going to be able to stand against the methods of the devil.
Satan wanted Peter. Satan demanded Peter before God.
There's a great many years between Job and Peter.
I'm sure Satan only went twice.
No, Satan by his very definition is the great accuser.
And believe me, he goes and accuses us because he wants to sift out and see who he can get.
And when it says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, we're Wrestling an unseen enemy, it's like facing a sniper. You don't see where they are, but those principalities and powers. The prince of this age works to attack both the unsaved and the saved.
And Paul wrote to the church at Ephesian, at Ephesus, and he says, putting up all of it, in all things, you are able to stand.
That word stand is what hinges on all the pieces of armor that were listed.
Every piece of that armor was to be enabling us to stand against that sniper, that unseen world.
And then, after naming the pieces, both defensive and offensive armor, the final verse in verse 18 states that his armor is only effective when the soldier of Christ is praying always and being watchful with prayer.
I've modified a bit of what Dr. Kenneth Wiest had put down as an expanded Greek translation for verse 18.
So this comes with my flavors, too.
It's not the gimme revised version, but it is praying through the instrumentality of every prayer and supplication for need at every time or season by the means of the Spirit and maintaining a constant alertness in the same way, with every kind of unremitting, unremitting watchful care and supplication for all the saints.
Paul was saying to the church at Ephesus, hey, you have all this armor, but it's not effective unless it is activated, motivated, and controlled by prayer. Constant prayer in every time, in every season.
One of the things that I noticed as I was studying through this, how many times the word all showed up in this verse, because a lot of times we relegate prayer to our fire alarm.
If the alarm goes off, okay, quick, I'm going to pray.
And the rest of the time, it kind of just sits back in the background. And when I think about it, I might pray.
Or, you know, maybe I've developed this habit that, you know, when I get up in the morning, I pray. And being a good kid, I was taught, going to bed now, I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul will keep. And if I die before I wake, you know that prayer?
We relegate prayer to some kind of form, but prayer is the spark that converts mere physical armor into a living defense.
What good is it to put a soldier in the middle of a battlefield and give him a gun?
But, oh, by the way, the ammo didn't get here yet.
He has all the body armor on.
He has all of the communications equipment so they can communicate back to the commander of the theater.
Sir, we need bullets.
Yeah, they're coming.
No, you See, prayer is what activates God's supply in that battlefield that we are constantly in. Because Satan never takes a vacation.
He's not everywhere. He's not omnipresent. That is only a living God who is omnipresent. But that's why Satan has so many minions.
And we fight against an unseen enemy, the snipers that come to our mind.
You're not good enough as a Christian.
You're not spiritual enough.
I may not be spiritual enough. I may be weak.
But you know what Scripture says.
He says, my strength is made perfect in your weakness.
That's the Lord that we have.
And prayer takes on a lot of different, different forms.
It can be something that is formal or something that we take from as a model for prayer.
It might be something that's silent.
It might be something that's voc.
Might be something that's in secret, or it might be something that publicly we share.
It's why we pray on Sunday mornings together, corporately, as a body.
Not just because that's the only day those needs get prayed for, but because it reminds us, as a body, we are to be caring for one another.
It might be something where we're pleading with God, or it might be those times when there's an emergency.
The dreaded phone call of every parent. I remember getting it.
Where?
This is Lancaster General Hospital. We have your sons here. They've been involved in an accident.
Wonderfully quiet Thanksgiving because they both had their jaws wired shut after the car accident.
But that time in between going from Columbia and jumping in the car and driving into Lancaster City, and I was a very good father. I went and looked at my one son, Joel. He waved at me, being quiet.
And then I went over to where Stephen was.
I looked at him.
And then the nurse said to me, sir, do you need to sit down?
Yeah, I need to sit down.
They're both still alive. They're both kicking. It's going to be a great Thanksgiving. It's going to be quiet.
Scripture says in James, chapter five and verse 13 to 17, and I want you to listen to this carefully. It says, if anyone among you is in trouble, let them pray.
Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. And by the way, I want to stop right there because I want you to recognize that praise is a form of prayer.
In prayer, we ought to be giving thanks to God for that, all that he's done.
So it says, if anyone's happy, let them sing songs of praise. If anyone among you is sick, let them call the elders of the church. To pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up.
If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another. Pray for each other so that you may be healed.
And the prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective.
And James says, elijah was a human being even as we are, but he prayed earnestly that it would not rain.
And it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
You see, it's not our humanity that holds us back.
It's the conversation to the Lord.
Does every prayer get answered the way we want?
No, but, you know, prayer helps us to understand what God's will is.
And he is perfecting us to be the testimony with our lives.
And it's appropriate to pray together as a group of individuals. Maybe it's calling the leaders.
I remember as a very, very young pastor in the big, huge, booming town of Tippecanoe, Indiana. No, it was Akron, Indiana.
There is an Akron in Indiana.
And I remember a deer saying her name was Goldie.
And I got a note and said, pastor, will you come and pray and anoint me with oil?
Never done that before.
What I do with this, there's got to be a rule book for this. There's got to be something I can go look at. And I remember going to Dr. Boyer, one of my professors, and I said, Dr. Boyer, what do I do?
And I said, do I have to go find some holy oil or can I take it out of the transmission?
And he said, you go. And the presence of oil is a testimony of the presence of the Holy Spirit?
I thought, that's unique. You mean when I'm going to pray, I'm giving a visual that says, you know, here's the Holy Spirit present, and when the Spirit of the Lord is present. And I remember taking the other deacon in that church, and I said, you know, we're going to go and pray for Goldie.
And we went. And to this day, it's probably my old Adel brain. I can't remember Goldie's last name, but I just remember that dear lady and going and praying with her that the Lord makes his will known and he ministers his peace and his will, because his will is perfect.
That scripture that I just read is actually a perfect picture of verse 18, where it says, praying through all prayers and supplications. That's what it says in verse 18, chapter 6.
Very particular requests, particular needs in your life. Or those of others are appropriate with all prayers, which is generally. That word means generally praying, coming before the Lord, having that conversation with the Lord and saying, lord, you know, this is my heart I'm sharing with you.
And then there's very particular needs in my mind. I see my diagram of the original language because that's the only way I begin to understand. I learned English by taking Greek.
I really did. I did not know English well, and I aren't kidding.
But it hangs all on the word stand.
Everything hangs on that phrase in verse 14 where it says, therefore stand. That's the command that Paul wrote down.
And everything that follows from verse 14 and that phrase on all the way down to verse 18, all hang on.
The things that cause us to stand, to be enabled to stand.
It says also in there. The next thing it says. First of all it says, praying and supplication through prayer and supplication. That's to be the active phrase in there. You're to be praying with prayer and supplication. And then it says, praying in every season.
Literally, that's what it says, praying at all times.
And the word for time, that's used there, chronos, means the season, the occasion. So on every occasion I have to pray, and I'm praying in the Spirit. What does that mean?
Will the mind governed by the flesh in death is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. That's what Romans 8:886 says in First Corinthians chapter 2 and verses 11 to 13 it says, for who knows a person's thoughts except their own Spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
What we have received is not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak and in words taught to us, not by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining the spiritual realities with Spirit taught words.
The Holy Spirit doesn't merely assist our prayer, but he actually radically transforms it.
So when we feel insufficient to understand our prayers not being answered the way we want, our need is to continue in prayer.
Because that's what it says. Praying at all times, in all seasons, with prayer and supplication, knowing that the Holy Spirit is the one who knows the will of the God.
And I want you to. There was a person by the name of Andrew T. Lincoln who said this about a passage in verse 18. He says, Prayer is not another weapon, but the Spirit in which the whole armor is to be worn and battle ready when you are to stand. It takes that bathing in prayer.
And the second part is the alertness says being watchful.
Being watchful because being watchful with all perseverance, supplication. I want you to understand in closing what that word perseverance means.
Because it's actually a word that is only found here in all of scripture. And even it's not found in classical Greek.
And it's only found in the early church fathers writing for this one particular word.
Because when it says perseverance, it literally means going towards being steadfast.
Do you ever know that when you're going someplace, it just seems like you're always going and going and going? Well, that's kind of the idea that comes here. Our prayer is to keep on going and going. Better than the Energizer Bunny.
Persevering in prayer.
I don't see you answering, Lord, I've been bringing this petition to you for 20 years.
Paul did the same thing.
He wanted the Lord to take away the problem that he had.
The Lord was very kind. He says, hey, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. You know, I'm in control.
Don't worry about it, Paul.
I'm still going to use you.
How often do we remain alert in prayer, continuing steadfast persevering until we have the Lord's perfect answer?
That's putting ourselves in the hands of a living God.
The problem with most of us is we want to put it in his hands and then take it back.
This is my problem. Thank you, Lord for taking it for a few minutes. No, it's persevering with supplication.
But I want you to see the last words of that.
Because Paul said, when you're persevering in prayer for all of the saints, prayer is not just for us.
It's not part of my family tree. It's not gimme, gimme, gimme, but it is prayer for all of the body of Christ that we know. And that is where we are united in the spirit of God as a church.
So when you think about this, spirit led prayer is the very heart and soul of all that armor God says we have so that we can stand.
When you're standing in the Lord, we may be like Peter, we may falter, but when we turn back, he's there.
He's ever living to make intercession for us.
God doesn't leave us alone.
God does not leave you alone in your trials and testings.
God is there as we communicate with God. That's what prayer is making known to him our thanksgiving and our petitions.
Lord, you know the problem in my heart. You know this problem. You know this testing.
And Satan certainly wants to use that to sift us.
Do you get the sense that we need to be praying for one another because we can't see the unknown enemy for anybody else?
We can't see the unknown enemy that's attacking somebody else's mind, but we're part of a body of believers so that we need to pray for one another so that Christ might be seen in us the hope of glory.
Today I would challenge you to look at a prayer life.
I'm not saying sit down and say a rote prayer.
All I'm saying is to sit down with the Lord and talk with him at all times, in all seasons, in all prayer.
And every problem, supplication, asking, every testing.
Don't make it some habit that you've got to hang on the wall.
Make it just the conversation of your heart at all times, in all seasons.
Commit yourself to that today and let the Lord remind you that that is the way of prayer that he wants in our lives.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Roots of Faith, a ministry of Lawn Evangelical Congregational Church in Lawn, Pennsylvania. We hope today's message has uplifted you and deepened your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, whether you're new in the faith or have walked with him for years, God's Word is always fresh and powerful to transform. If you were blessed by this episode, please share it with friends. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. We would love for you to join us on Sunday at 10:30am at 5566 Elizabethtown Road, Route 241 in Lawn, Pennsylvania. As always, stay rooted in the Word, stand firm in faith and keep growing in Christ.
