CROWN
OF LIFE EV. LUTHERAN CHURCH
Pastor
John C. Schneidervin
17th
Sunday After Pentecost September
15, 2002
What
Shall I Pray For?
1.
Strength
2.
Knowledge
3.
Fullness
Text:
Ephesians 3:14-21
14
For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in
heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches
he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to
know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness of God.
20
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Sermon:
You
are probably wondering why I have placed this little Christmas tree here on the
communion rail, correct? No, I do
not have this Christmas tree here because I have lost my marbles and think this
is the Christmas season. Nor do I
have this little tree here to remind you that you have only 94 shopping days
left before Christmas.
After
Thanksgiving and during December we put up our Christmas decorations, like this
little tree for example. During
that same time we also begin to wonder what gifts we would like to give to our
family members, correct? How many
of you have ended up not knowing what would be a good gift to give a family
member? When you found yourself in
such a quandary, what did you do? How
many of you at sometime have asked that family member what he or she would like
for Christmas?
On
the other hand, how many of you at some time have been asked what you would like
for Christmas? Now you children
probably knew exactly what you wanted to ask for. A doll. A bike. A game.
Or something else. But how
many of you adults did not know what to ask for?
There have been times in my life when I couldn’t think of anything I
wanted to ask for. When this has
happened to us, didn’t we find ourselves wondering: “What shall I ask for?”
Well,
we are members of another family--God’s family, the holy Christian Church. And in God’s family every day is
Christmas. Each day our dear Lord
invites us to ask for whatever we want. Let’s
read aloud together what our Lord Jesus says to us in John 14:14, “You may ask
me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
Let’s also read aloud Mark 11:24.
Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” You see, it is Christmas in God’s
family. Jesus is giving us a blank
check to ask for whatever we want.
We
then must answer this question: “What shall I pray for?” Let’s discover a few vital things to
ask for.
Our
text is Paul’s prayer for the Christians to whom he ministered in ancient
Ephesus on his third missionary journey. He
wrote to them in verses 14 and 15, “For this reason I kneel before the Father,
from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” Like Paul did, we address our prayers to
our Father in heaven. We may pray
kneeling, as Paul did, as a display of humility before the great and mighty God
to pay homage to him who is above all. Or, we may pray standing and folding our hands in reverent
respect for the King of the Universe. Or,
we may pray holding up our empty hands to show that only the almighty God can
give us what we ask and fill our empty hands.
In whatever outward manner we may pray, we bring our requests to God the
Father from whom his whole family of believers, those who are already in heaven
and those of us who are still here on earth, derive our name--the holy Christian
church.
But
when we come to our Father in prayer, we must know the answer to this question:
“What shall I pray for?” From
Paul’s prayer for the Christians in ancient Ephesus we can discover several
important things to ask for. Let’s
look first at what Paul prayed for in verse 16 and the first half of verse 17. Paul wrote, “I pray that out of his
glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your
inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Based on what Paul prayed for in behalf
of the Ephesian Christians, what do you find that you can pray for? Let’s pray that our heavenly Father
will strengthen us with power through his Holy Spirit in our inner being, our
new Christian spirit. Simply
stated, let’s pray for “Strength.”
Let’s
pray for spiritual strength. Let’s
pray that our Father will make our Christian spirit strong. Now note that becoming spiritually
strong is not something we do ourselves. Our
heavenly Father makes us spiritually strong with power by means of the Holy
Spirit. As verse 20 states, it is
“God’s power that is at work within us.”
According to Ephesians 1:19, 20 the power God exerts within us is the
same power God exerted in raising Jesus from the dead and seating him at his
right hand in heaven. It takes this
divine power of God himself to raise up our spiritually dead hearts to bring us
to faith in Jesus and to make our faith strong. When we pray for strength, then, we are asking that God’s
almighty power will work within us to make us more and more sure and confident
that we have everlasting salvation in heaven by his grace through the redeeming
sacrifice of his Son Jesus for our sins.
This
almighty power of God the Father is put to work within us by means of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s work
through the gospel in the Word and Sacraments is bringing us to faith and making
us strong in faith in Jesus Christ. Through
this faith Jesus Christ then dwells and lives in our hearts as our Lord and
Savior.
So
what shall I pray for? Pray our
heavenly Father will give us the Holy Spirit to spiritually strengthen our faith
in Jesus. For only through faith in
Jesus do we have everlasting salvation.
Every
day in God’s family is Christmas. He
invites us to ask for whatever we want. So
ask yourself: “What shall I pray for?” Besides praying for strength, learn from Paul what to ask
for. Look at what Paul prayed for
in the last half of verse 17 to the first half of verse 19 in behalf of the
Christians in Ephesus. Paul wrote,
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,
together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is
the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” Did you find what you can pray for? Pray for “Knowledge.”
Having
been brought to faith in Jesus, so we are rooted and founded upon his love for
us, let’s pray that our Father will grant us the power to be spiritually
strong enough to grasp and understand the tremendous greatness of Christ Jesus’
love for us. His love for us
surpasses human understanding. We
need our Father to exercise his almighty power in us through the Holy Spirit so
we begin to understand just how much Jesus loves us.
This
past week our country remembered the tragic bombing of the World Trade Center on
September 11th and honored the firemen and policemen who surrendered their own
lives in the process of trying to save the lives of so many others. They died for those whom they considered
to be innocent victims. Our hearts
have been touched by the love of those who gave their lives that others might
live. Jesus’ love for us is far
greater. Jesus gave his life, not
for innocent victims, but for us sinners the world over, who deserved death as a
punishment for our sins. He
suffered our death that our sins would be forgiven and that we may have life
everlasting. So pray for the
knowledge of just how much Jesus loves you.
Every
day in God’s family is Christmas. He
invites us to ask for whatever we want. So again ask yourself: “What shall I pray for?” Let’s learn from Paul what more we can
pray for. Paul’s last prayer
request for the Ephesians in the last half of verse 19 was “that you may be
filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Did you find what more you can pray for? Pray for “Fullness.”
Let’s
pray that being strengthened spiritually and given the knowledge of Jesus’
love for us, we will be filled to the fullest extent possible with all the
wonderful blessings God gives us through Jesus.
At the beginning of his letter Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:3, “Praise be
to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the
heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Our heavenly Father has blessed us in
heaven with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
So let’s pray that we may be filled with the full measure of all those
good things our Father gives us through Jesus.
In
God’s family every day is Christmas. God
invites us to pray for whatever we want. We have now discovered we can pray for strength, knowledge,
and fullness. And we can be sure
our prayer for these blessings will be given to us. So let’s end our prayer with Paul’s
doxology, a hymn of praise, written in verses 20 and 21. “Now to him who is able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at
work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all
generations, for ever and ever!”
Our
heavenly Father, to whom we take our prayer, has the power to do far more than
we ask or can even imagine. Thus he
has the ability to give us the strength, knowledge, and fullness for which we
ask, as well as whatever else we may ask. So
to our Father with our Savior Christ Jesus be the glory in the church for ever
and ever. For which reason we say,
“Amen,”, which means, “Yes, truly it shall be so.” For every day in God’s family is Christmas.
Amen.