We come to the end of Ephesians today. At the beginning of his letter to these dear Christians, Paul prayed that they would come to know the significance of what it meant to be a Christian and what it meant to be the Church: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph. 1:18–19a). Isn’t this what we want for our own selves? To see with the eyes of our hearts the hope we have because of God’s calling, to wrap our hearts around the profound implications of what it means to belong to God as His inheritance, and to have our hearts full with the reality that the boundless greatness of the power of Almighty God now belongs to those of us who have been redeemed by God’s own Son.
What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be the Church? The answer is provided for us more than 200 times in the New Testament and over 30 times in Ephesians alone; the answer given for what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be the Church is that you are a Christian and you belong to His church if you are “in Christ.”
Before He spoke Creation into existence, God chose you and set His love upon you for the purpose that you would be holy and blameless... in Christ (1:4-6). Your sin was not so great to keep you from the love of God, for He made your salvation and redemption possible through His Son who died upon a cross for your sins and lavished His grace upon you (vv. 7-12). You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit which guarantees your complete and total salvation... and He did it “in Christ” (vv. 13-14). Oh, dear Christian, what did you ever do to deserve so great a salvation? Nothing, because all of it was provided for you in and through Christ!
The Christ who was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly places is now yours (1:20-21)! The Christ who is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, the One to Whom belongs the obedience of the nations, and He who is head over all things... is now yours (vv. 22-23)! Christian, what did you do to receive Him as yours? You who were once dead in your offenses and sins, was there anything in you that warranted God’s grace? You were listed among the “sons of disobedience,” you “lived in the lusts of your flesh,” you “indulged the desires of the flesh and of the mind,” and because of your sins... you were categorized by the Almighty as a “child of wrath” (2:1-3). What was it about you that compelled God to save you instead of leaving you in your sins? It was His rich mercy, His great love, and His all-sufficient grace that made you alive in Christ (vv. 4-9). You are now in Christ, and all because of Christ!
Now that you have been saved by Christ, you who were once far away have been brought near so that He is now your truth, He is now your righteousness, and He is now your peace (2:11-16). You are now united to Christ and belong to His body (4:1-32). As a member of His body, you now belong to the Bride of Christ, and because you are His Bride, Jesus is cleansing and sanctifying you through His word and the power of the Holy Spirit (5:22-32).
So, when you come to Ephesians 6:10 and read: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” you should know by now where it is that you are able to find that strength. It is found... “in Christ.” We are strong in the Lord when we put on the “full armor of God.” Yet, the irony is that it is already provided because of our union in Jesus. He is our belt of truth, He is our breastplate of righteousness, He is our peace through the gospel, He is our shield of faith, He is our helmet of salvation, and He is our sword of the Spirit. We are stronger in the Lord the more we recognize our weakness and how much we need to pursue Him.
Listen, the only way you will discover how weak you are is by seeing how big God is, how sufficient Jesus is as your Savior, and how powerful the Holy Spirit is as the One who is keeping you.
How We Are to Pray
So here is what I want to do with the remainder of our time together. First, I want to look at how we are to pray and then I hope to show you what that kind of praying is where the power of the armor of God is experienced.
There are four categories of prayer that ought to be a part of our prayer life as Christians listed in Ephesians 6:18. The Greek word that is used four times in verse 18 that can be translated “all” or “every” is the Greek word, “pas” (πᾶς). Some versions of the Bible have chosen to translate pas as “all” every time it is used in verse 18, while others like new version of the NASB translate pas as “every” and “all.” In an effort to make the translation read smoothly, the NASB translates it this way: “With every [pas] prayer and request, pray at all [pas] times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all [pas] perseverance and every request for all [pas] the saints...” So how are we to pray?
We are to pray in ALL ways to God (v. 18a).
What are the ways you can pray? You can pray quietly to God. You can pray vocally to God. You can pray with groups of other Christians to God. You can pray privately to God. You can pray while prostrate on your face to God. You can pray while standing, you can pray while kneeling, and you can pray while walking. You can pray with your eyes closed, you can pray with your eyes open, and you can pray with your head bowed or lifted up. You can pray in all ways to God because of who you are in Christ.
We are to pray at ALL times to God (v. 18b).
You can pray in the evening to God. You can pray in the morning to God. You can pray midday to God. You can pray while suffering, while hungry, while in good health, or when in ill health. It does not matter what the circumstances are or if it is in the early morning hours or in the midnight hour... there is no time when God’s door is shut, or His time limited so that His redeemed children are not permitted to come before Him in prayer.
We are to pray with ALL perseverance (v. 18c).
While we pray in all ways and at all times in the Spirit, we are to do so while alert and do so persistently. We stand between the first advent and the second advent when Jesus will come again as King, until He comes again, we are to remain alert for two reasons: first, while we wait, we are in enemy territory where our adversary is categorized as a roaring lion who longs to destroy and devour (1 Pet. 5:8). Jesus told His disciples that while we wait for His return that we must, “Watch out, stay alert; for you do not know when the appointed time is” (Mark 13:33). Sinclair Ferguson said of prayer: “Christ is building his church on territory that has been occupied by an enemy. Alertness is always essential when living in a war zone.”[1]
We are to pray for ALL the saints (v. 18d).
In the same way that we pray for ourselves, we must also pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ! We do not just pray for those who we agree with theologically, but for every Christian regardless of where they fellowship, what church they attend, or in what part of the world they live. This also means praying for your spouse, praying for your children, praying for your grandchildren, and anyone else in your world who believes in Jesus. When it comes to their relationship with God, God cares more about their spiritual health than you ever could, so pray expecting that God can do, “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think...” (3:20) in the lives of those saints you pray for more than your imagination can come up with.
There is a fifth way we are to pray: We are to pray in all ways and at all times in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power that makes the armor of God effective so that you can stand strong, stand against the schemes of the devil, and stand firm on the evil day.
The Power of the Armor of God is in Who it Belongs To
To Pray in the Spirit according to Ephesians 6:18 is not to pray in tongues, that is a different type of praying addressed elsewhere in the Bible, but not here. When we pray in the Spirit, we pray with the confidence that we have access to God Almighty who spoke billions of stars into existence with just the word of His power; not only does He hear us as our Heavenly Father, but He can, “do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (3:20) because we are in Christ and He is our Heavenly father. It is the kind of confidence we read about in Romans 8:14-16, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God...”
Do you remember what I said about what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit when we covered Ephesians 4:30 and 5:18 in this sermon series? I said to be filled with the Spirit is not about you getting more of the Holy Spirit, but about the Holy Spirit getting more of you. The more of you that the Holy Spirit has, the more power of the Holy Spirit you will experience! Same is true when it comes to experiencing the strength of the Lord: the more of our hearts, the more of our obedience, and the more of our dependance He has of us... the more of His strength we will experience through His Holy Spirit.
The power of the Armor of God is not in our ability to put it on but in the One who it belongs to! This brings us back full circle from what we read in the first sentence of Ephesians (1:1-14) to Ephesians 6:18-24.
Conclusion
The baby born on the first Christmas and laid in a manger is Christ the Lord! He who was born of a virgin, is the same One who formed Mary in her own mother’s womb. The One who through whom all things were created, was laid in a manger for the purpose of carrying a cross to die for sinners. The One who lived the life we could not, to die a death we deserved is not only our Savior, but our Mediator: “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all...” (1 Tim. 2:5–6). The Christ in the manger is ours not because of anything we have done, but because of His victory on the cross and over the grave: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us” (Eph. 1:7-8a).
So, it makes perfect sense that Paul would conclude his letter with a call to all of those who are in Christ to pray in the Spirit in all ways, all the time, with all perseverance, and for all the saints because in Jesus, “we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens...” (Heb. 9:1). If you are a Christian, then one of the things you learn from Ephesians is that you are “in Christ.” To be “in Christ” means that you now share an unbreakable union with Christ because that union was chosen by God the Father, purchased by His Son’s own blood, and sealed by His Holy Spirit. Prayer is the fruit of our union in Christ, prayer is communion we have with God, prayer is the direct access we have to God because of our union in Christ. Prayer is the power source to the strength of the Lord that is available to the Christian with the armor of God.
Jesus is the belt of truth, which is your identity in Him, but the security you have with Jesus as your truth will only be as firm as your understanding and confidence that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Jesus is your breastplate of righteousness, but your confidence in Him as your righteousness will only be as firm as your confidence that His righteousness is all the righteousness that you will ever need. Jesus is the shoes of the gospel of peace, but the extent you will be able to stand firm in the gospel will only be as secure as your understanding of the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the shield of faith, but your shield will only be as large as your understanding of who He is based on how saturated your faith in the Word of God is. Jesus is the helmet of salvation, but the hope of your salvation will only be as effective as your joy in just how great your salvation really is. Jesus is the sword of the Spirit in that all the word of God points to Him, but your ability to wield the truth of God’s word will only be as effective as you are willing to use it. Prayer is what happens when you understand how weak you are and how big God really is.
Prayer is the evidence that we are growing in our relationship with Christ! Sam Allberry, in his excellent book, One with My Lord, put it this way: “Growth in the Christian life is needing God more, not needing him less. So we will be doing more asking over the years, not less asking. We don’t grow out of prayer, just further into it.”[2] This is why it is only fitting that Paul would conclude his epistle with the appeal to pray at all times! The more we seek God out of a growing awareness of our weakness, the more like Jesus we will become. Again Sam Allberry is spot on: “Prayer is not about bending God to our wills but about expressing our own wills as they are being bent to his.”[3]
Here is the thing though: Our union in Christ is not dependent upon our performance as Christians. Our union in Christ was, is, and forever will be dependent upon the life and faithfulness of Jesus. To the extent that we depend upon Him will determine just how much of our hearts He really has, and to the extent of how much of our minds, our hearts, and our will that He has will determine just how much of His power we will experience in our lives. You will never be less in Him than you already are, but His power will only be experienced in and through your life to the extent of how much of you Jesus really has. So, my question to you dear Christian is simply this: How much of you does Jesus really have?
Oh, dear brother... oh, dear sister in Christ, do you not want to see with the eyes of your heart the hope of His calling, the riches of His inheritance, and know the power of the Holy Spirit (1:18-19a)? Do you not want to know the joy of a life built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as your chief cornerstone (2:20)? Do you not long for the kind of life that comes out of comprehending the width and length and height and depth of what you have in Christ (3:14-19)? Are you not tired of the cheap thrills this world offers when it is through Christ that you can know the kind of satisfaction that comes with walking in a manner worthy of the calling in which you have been called (4:1-3)?
If you understood your union in Christ, you would seek to enjoy the unity we are called to with those who belong to His Church (4:4-6). If you understood what it is that you share with Christ, you would desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit instead of looking for ways to grieve Him (4:30; 5:18). Oh, because of the great redemption you now enjoy, do you not hate the things that displease Him (5:1-13)? Do you not want to come out of this life smelling like the sweet aroma of Christ; can you not hear the Holy Spirit’s call upon your life at this very moment: “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (5:14)?
To be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might (6:10), the ability to stand firm against the devil’s schemes, and to be able to resist when the evil day comes... will only be experienced more frequently when you see just how weak you are and how sufficient Christ is in all things, in all ways, for all times, and for all people! In so doing, may we be known for our love for Jesus and in the way we live for Him and serve those around us.
[1] Sinclair Ferguson, Let’s Study Ephesians (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust; 2021), p. 186.
[2] Sam Allberry, One With My Lord (Weaton, IL: Crossway; 2024), p. 151
[3] Sam Allberry, One With My Lord (Weaton, IL: Crossway; 2024), p. 152.
