Spiritual Warfare: Part 8 - Principles of the Power of Prayer

0:24 All right, open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Today is the final installment, finally, of this series on spiritual warfare. We've gone through Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 20, and we've been looking at these. weapons, this armor that Paul tells the church in Ephesus to have. We have put on, looked at each one of these weapons, each one of these, this armor. Finally, my brethren, verse 10. Verse 10, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

1:25 Therefore, take up the whole arm of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand therefore, verse 14, having girded your waist with truth. Somebody say truth, truth, truth. Having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Somebody say righteousness. and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace above all. Somebody say above all. Above all. Taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And verse 17, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. and then verse 18, I'm going to finish today, finish this series with verse 18, 19, and 20. 18 and 19.

2:18 It says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me, that utterance may be given for me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. I love this series. I love this passage of Paul's instructions to the church in Ephesus. He in fact gives them instructions through these six chapters and it is a powerful church. They impacted their community. They changed the circumstances and the life of how the people in that community lived. And one of the things that was very significant that he did was he talked to them and gave them this session, section on spiritual warfare. How many of you know and remember that we are involved in a spiritual battle?

3:18 We are dealing with spiritual elements that are seeking to discourage us, frustrate us. We do not war and fight using carnal weapons. That's what the scripture is. We don't fight by cussing people out. You might feel better, but you ain't changing nothing. How many of y'all have ever cussed somebody out? See y'all lying. Y'all can't even tell the truth. A whole lot more of y'all done cussed some people out, giving them a piece of your mind. And you felt big. I told them. I straightened them out. Ain't nothing changed, but you feel better.

4:05 This series, these weapons, he closes with one of those powerful weapons there is which is prayer. 18 and 19 talks about prayer. This is the most powerful. Out of all of the weapons that we have, prayer is one of the most powerful weapons that we have. And so I'm entitling this message tonight, The Principles of Powerful Prayer. Somebody say, The Principles of Powerful Prayer.

4:33 Let me give you an opportunity to write that down because I want you to understand that this is a very, very significant thing. It's prayer. This is a thing that helps us win. It's an element of what helps us to win. Jesus prayed all night in Luke 6. Daniel prayed three times when he was cast into the lion's den. Jesus instructs us to pray. It is a spiritual weapon. Gideon prayed when he was in a battle. Hannah prayed. Elijah prayed. Hezekiah prayed. Matter of fact, Hezekiah was coming to the end of his life and he prayed and God gave him 15 more years because of his prayer. Peter was locked up in jail in the early church and the church started praying for him while he was in jail. Check this out.

5:30 While they were praying for him in jail, they heard a knock at the door. they went to answer the door and it was Peter, the very guy that they were praying for. You know what that tells me? God can fix it even while you're praying about it. So we want to understand about prayer, and that's why I'm going to spend this time talking to you today about this weapon. It is, in fact, a weapon that God gives us to win, to be victorious, is our communication with God, our trust in talking with God. I want to teach you to pray because a lot of y'all are stressed out right now. A lot of y'all are stressed out. A lot of y'all are scared of losing your job. Can I tell y'all something? Here's a position I want you to understand that we're taking as a church.

6:23 And I want to encourage you to understand our confidence in life is not dependent on who sits in the White House. Amen. I need y'all to get that because I know we right here in the smack of Washington, D.C. Let me see how many federal employees we got. If you're a federal employee, then raise your hand. Don't get scared. God, it's been God a long time. He was, guess what? He was God before he went in office and he'll be God after he's gone out of office. And he will not stop looking after and taking care of you.

7:08 I need y'all to get that. I need y'all to not be worried or stressed out. He is still God. He's still a way maker. He's still a burden bearer. He's still a God that answers prayer. He still fights our battles. He still looks out for us. He already got your destiny mapped out. He already has your future worked out. He knows what's coming down the pike. He knows what's going to happen. And he will not stop being God. Amen.

7:41 Okay, so now I got 20 minutes to preach a 40-minute message to you. I might go overtime today. I got seven points. So I mean, I got to spend two minutes on every point. Maybe three, two and a half. Can y'all hang with me just if I go a little bit over? So let me give you, let me give you, let's put the scripture up. He starts off, here's what verse number 18 says. Here's what it says. It starts off in verse 18 saying, praying always with all prayer. Stop, stick a pen right there. Here's my first point is he gives us the posture of prayer. Somebody say the posture of prayer.

8:36 You know what that is? Praying always. We need to be in a posture of always communicating with God. Now this is important. I need you to understand this, that you got to be in a posture to pray. What does that mean? Let me see how many of y'all are telling the truth. If y'all remember, this might not be true for the 10 o'clock crowd. I know it's not true for the 12, what I'm getting ready to say. But for the 8 o'clock crowd, it was very true that when they was dating their girlfriend, their boyfriend back in the day, that they would sit on the phone. You got it. You hang up. No, you hang up. Yeah, just breathing. That's right, just breathing. I ain't saying nothing. But the fact is the phone line stayed open.

9:31 You were still on the phone line. And this was praying always means we're staying in a constant posture of always communicating with God. You know why that's important? Because it means I don't have to be in a particular place. I don't have to be facing in a certain direction. I don't have to be on my knees you can pray while your boss is cussing you out you can be praying Come on, let's practice it. Lord, please help me not to cuss this man back out while he's talking at me like this. Lord, help me not to give him a piece of my mind. Come on, y'all ain't listening to me. Y'all ain't hear what I'm saying. You can pray while you're driving. You can pray while you're doing whatever you do. We are staying in a constant posture of prayer. always communicating with God.

10:24 That's my lifestyle that I can always talk to God. Don't have to be in a certain position. Don't have to face a certain direction. Don't have to be on my knees. Don't have to be in a certain place. Don't have to be in a certain room. God keeps the prayer line always open. Do I have a witness right there? And we want to always, always be in a posture of praying. I cannot tell you any time in my life that I've prayed for a whole hour. Some people, I pray for three hours a day. Well, bless you. I ain't never prayed for a whole hour, but I can't think of an hour that I haven't been in a posture to pray. So that's number one, posture. Somebody say posture. We got to be in a posture to pray.

11:17 So it says with clarity and instructions to us today, praying always with all prayer. And then it says prayer and supplication in the spirit. Here's the second point I want to make, is we not only want to be praying, but it says supplication. And that word supplication, By the way, all my points begin with a P. All my points begin with a P and my point and the subject of my presentation is... the principles of powerful prayer. Go ahead, Pastor, with your peas. I need y'all to appreciate my peas. I worked hard on pulling these peas together. Petition.

12:10 That's my second point, the petition. And the word, it's supplication. It means petition. What does it mean? It means to beg God, solicit God. And I want to tell you that we make our petitions to God. We bring our prayers to God, our petitioning. We ain't looking at Capitol Hill. We're not looking to people for prayer. We are petitioning God. We're praying. Now, the question is, what's the difference between the word prayer and supplication? Because it uses those verse words. Put that verse back up there for just a minute because it says, praying always, yeah, put it back up there, put it back up there. Praying always with all prayer and supplication. What is the difference between the word prayer and the word supplication? I'm glad you asked the question.

12:56 The word prayer is a Greek word, which means this, that I'm directing my request to God. That's what it means. It means I'm not, I don't know if y'all ever been around people who pray and while they're praying, they're really pointing the prayer towards somebody in the prayer group, you know. When you pray, you don't have to inform God. You don't have to, you know, sister so-and-so is in the hospital, room 730. I don't see God sitting on this throne with you inform him saying, what, she in the hospital?

13:39 God already knows. We don't have to inform God. What we do is make our requests known to God. Lord, we're praying for healing for this particular person. We make our requests. We don't have to inform him. God don't know about your bills. Lord, I need some money to pay this bill. You don't have to tell him my electric bill is $300 and I don't have it. He knows. Our job is to make our requests known to him. So petition means we beg God. We are pleading with God. We bring our requests to God. We come and bring him. And so the difference is prayer means worship. I forgot, I don't know if I said that at 8 o'clock or not. I think I forgot. Did I say worship?

14:31 Yeah, a part of our communicating with God is to worship him. Amen. We're to give him the praise and the glory and the honor for the prayers he's already answered on our behalf. Everybody in here who has a relationship with God, at some point in your life, you can look back and see something that you asked God to do, and he did it for you, and it's appropriate for you to be able to say, God, I know that you've answered my prayer in the past, and I'm giving you praise for the doors you've opened, and the prayers you've answered, and the victories you've won, and the things you've done on my behalf. It's worship. Somebody say, let me start by worshiping the God that I serve, and then I will beg him. Some of y'all, y'all prayer is all about just asking God. You begging and pleading? No. Before you ask him anything, give him thanks for what he's already done. So the difference is prayer is worship and directing our request to God.

15:34 Petition is we beg and ask God. We plead with God. We solicit God. And by the way, when you, supplication, here's what I believe about supplication too. When you make your petition to God, be specific with God. Don't be general. Some of y'all pray general prayers. Bless everybody. let's be specific with God the thing I love about God that I've seen him here's what I've seen I've seen God answer specific prayers even before I gave him the specificity of what I wanted him to do but I know what I wanted him to do y'all hear what I'm saying? so petition the point two here is petition here's number three verse 18 it says prayer and supplication in the spirit Somebody say in the spirit.

16:29 And I call that power, the power of prayer. This is what in the spirit means. Here's what I believe that means. I believe that when we say in the power of prayer, I believe we are saying to God, we're praying by the power and presence of God, by his spirit. Now, a lot of people pray programmed prayers. They don't allow the Holy Spirit to pray through them. When I say the power and pray in the spirit, I mean let the Holy Ghost pray through you. And don't pray programmed prayers. When I was growing up in First Baptist Church, you know, I don't mean no harm deacons, but the deacons prayed programmed prayers. And every Sunday you hear somebody pray these programmed prayers. Here I come with my head bowed down between the locks of my shoulder coming to you as humble as we know how. pray Father that somewhere over there where Job declared that the wicked will cease from trouble and the worry will be at rest and where every day will be Sunday and Sabbath will have no end y'all ain't hear what I'm saying, some of y'all ain't never experienced that because we don't let our deacons pray program prayers but that's how they used to pray, the program stuff, it's the same terminology the same words, the same thing used every day, Sunday in Sunday out, Monday in, Monday out the same words, the same thing, let's not pray program prayers, let's let the power of the Holy Spirit pray through us to God. And sometimes what that means for me is that while I'm praying, God will bring somebody's name to my mind. And what do I do with that? I don't know the circumstance they're in. I don't know what that situation, but what I do is I call their name out before God while I'm praying. Sometimes letting the Holy Spirit praying through you might mean this, because this is what happens in my prayer life. Sometimes that I let the Holy Ghost pray through me and what the Holy Ghost will do will cause, call to my mind certain syllables and words that I do not know what they mean. And I will utter those words and I will pray those words because I believe the Holy Spirit is interceding through me to God on my behalf.

18:35 Are you hearing what I'm saying to you there? I don't understand. I don't expect everybody to understand that it's okay. But when I do that, I feel a release. I feel a breakthrough. I feel God has somehow grabbed my prayer and wrapped it up in the Holy Spirit and carried it to the very throne of Almighty God. The devil wants you to feel stupid and crazy that here you are praying and uttering words that don't mean anything to you. But that's what we call praying in the Spirit. We allow the Holy Ghost to intercede on our behalf. Somebody say pray in the spirit. Look at your neighbor say pray.

19:13 Repeatedly through various sections of the scripture it tells us about praying in the spirit, with the spirit, by the spirit. Let the Holy Ghost pray for you. Here's something else about the Holy Spirit. Because see sometimes what you praying is not the will of God. Amen. Sometimes what you're asking God to do is not what his will is. God does not always answer our prayers the way we want them to answer. How do you know? I know because sometimes I've prayed and God didn't do what I wanted. And guess what? I recognize that sometimes God doesn't answer the prayer the way I want it. But if he doesn't answer the way I want it, I know because of my walk with God and my experience and my history that there's a reason why. And matter of fact, there's some things he didn't answer that I wanted him to answer in a certain way. But I can look back and thank God for some things he did for me that I didn't know that I didn't really want what it is that I was asking for.

20:11 Do I have anybody who understand what I'm saying today? Anybody have ever gone back to say, God, thank you for not letting that happen. Thank you for not responding to what I wanted. Thank you that you didn't make, didn't give me what I asked for. Somebody say, I thank you that you did not do what I asked you to do. And sometimes God holds things back because you ain't ready for what you're asking for. And sometimes God will hold it back because he knows if he gives it to you when you ask for it, it will mess you up. God, don't put me in a situation that I'm not ready to handle. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? Here's number four. I got to hurry up.

21:03 I got six minutes. Overtime. Okay. I can't stay all day. I got a game to catch tonight. Don't y'all call me at 6.30. Don't text me. I'm going to be sitting on my couch doing the same thing the Ravens is doing watching the game. And the commanders are doing, come on. And the cowboys are doing. What was my first point? My second point? My third point? Here's my third point is prudence.

21:58 Verse 18 says being watchful. It says being watchful to this end. Watchful. And I use the word prudence. That means to stay awake. Not to go into hibernation. The devil wants you to go to sleep while you're praying. But this word being watchful means, or prudent, it means to show care and thought about what you're praying for. That we're just not uttering words that we're not paying attention to. That I'm specifically asking God for something that I have thought about. That's what that means. It means we are requesting God. We are making a request of him. Because the devil wants to put you to sleep and make you not care about it. not be watchful. Matter of fact, when you pray for something, when you ask God for something, be on the lookout for how God might be answering that prayer.

22:51 Somebody say, be prudent, be prudent. Here's number five. Here's number five. It says, it says, it's the word persevere, perseverance. It says, being watchful to descend with all perseverance, perseverance, perseverance. What does that mean? It means to be patient. That's what perseverance means. It means I'm going to keep on hanging on, praying, and believing God, and I'm going to be persevered. I'm going to be patient and wait and see what God's going to do. Persevere. It means I'm going to keep bringing up before God. It's okay to keep asking God for the same thing over and over again. As a matter of fact, there is in Luke chapter 18, you read it when you get an opportunity, there's a parable about being persistent. Keep asking God. Keep bringing it before God. Keep putting it on the table.

23:43 Keep making your requests known. Continue in prayer. And the devil will try to make you see it ain't going to happen. There's no chance it's going to come to pass. It's impossible for God to do this. The devil will keep saying those things to you, but you are demonstrating perseverance by you continuing to ask God, especially when what you are asking God lines up with the scripture you have the authority and the right and God has the expectation that you'll keep on putting it in front of him it's not that he don't remember it's that you will be able to remember that you asked God for this that you know that he's a way maker and a burden bearer that he will solve your issue and solve your problem don't let any opposition don't let any difficulties don't let anything that the devil put in front of you make you think that God is incapable of answering your prayer. I wish I had a praying witness. Somebody here who knows that there have been some things in my life that I have prayed for that I thought was never going to happen, but when I kept on putting it before the Lord, he brought it to pass. He showed me he had my back. Y'all know God got your back. You know that God has you covered.

24:56 Somebody tell your neighbor he got you covered. Here's number six. Here's number six. Put the verse up there again. Being watchable to the same with all perseverance and supplication. And then it says this. Here's point six. For all the saints. Do y'all see that? Pray for people.

25:18 People. Somebody say people. Prayer ain't all about you. Some of y'all, the only people you pray for is yourself. pray for somebody else. Matter of fact, if the truth be told, you got where you are today because somebody prayed for you.

25:39 Now, the thing is, the thing is, and it's, it's, it's, the truth is people, when you ask people to pray for you, they done forgot about praying for you before they even left your presence. How many of y'all know you talking to somebody and they say, child, the Lord worked it out and I know it's because you prayed for me. And while they talking, you're saying, Lord, I forgot to pray for you. So here's what I do. When somebody asks me to pray for them, I pray for them right then.

26:25 Because I'm not going to remember. With all that I got on my plate, I'm not going to remember to pray for you. So I said, let me go ahead and pray for you right now. Let's pray right this moment. Somebody say, pray for people. Tell them on the other side, pray for people. Intercede for people. Make a list of people that you need to pray for. Pray for all the saints. That's what the scripture tells us to do. Pray for all the saints. He's telling us to pray for people. And that's what we are called to do, to pray for people. Amen. Okay, I got, no, my time is up. Oh, Lord have mercy. Can I take five more minutes? 10, 15, 15. Take 20. They know I can't take 20 minutes, but... Number 7. Verse number 19.

27:25 Here's what he says in verse 19. Look at this. Look at that. You see verse 19? You know what it says? And for me. Paul says pray for me. So this last P is to pray for your past. Amen.

27:46 Pray for me. Pray for your pastor. There's something powerful about praying for people who are in authority over you. Yeah, you gotta pray for them because here's what I believe. I believe, has God's favor rest on me? It drips down to you. Somebody say amen. Let it pour down. Drip, drip. Somebody say drip, drip. Drip, drip, drip, drip. As God blesses me, he's going to favor you, bless you, shower you. Pray for me that God opens up doors. Pray for me that God blesses my life. Pray for me. Pray for your pastor. Amen.

28:30 Amen. Somebody say amen. Pray for people who are in positions of authority. Pray for the elders of this church. We got wonderful elders at this church. I'm grateful for the elders at this church. Thankful for them. Amen. They are blessed. I'm so thankful for every last one of them and what they mean. Pray for us as we make decisions and as God guides our path and orders our steps. Because the favor that's on this house is coming to your house. Somebody look at your neighbor and say.

29:00 God blesses us. And you know what I'm grateful for? I'm grateful because I have seen God do miracles for people in this church. Matter of fact, some of you, your life never got better until you joined the First Baptist Church of Glen Armie. There's something about coming under the umbrella of this kind of house that causes God's supernatural provisions to fall on your life. Can I get a witness? Anybody know that I'm telling you the truth here today? Amen. I'm grateful for the people that are under the umbrella of this house And under the ministry of this house And under the members of this house And participating in this house You will get the favor of God upon your life It's just a spiritual principle It's just true that you're under the umbrella And whatever God does for us He's going to make it possible to you I wish I had a praying crowd with me right here today I'm thankful for that I'm giving God the glory for that Somebody say and for me And for me Pray for me Pray for me that God would open it.

30:00 And matter of fact, pray for me that I can speak boldly. Come on, put that verse back up there one more time. That I can say what I need to say. I can preach what I need to preach. That I can have the holy boldness to open my mouth and make known the mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That I would declare it is that mystery of the gospel that I preach that saved your life and delivered your life. And healed your marriage and healed you from your sickness or diseases. and brought hope to you. Amen. and for me.

30:39 Pray for me. Can I get an amen right there? Man, my time is up. I got to stop right now. I got to finish. Praise the Lord. So prayer is a spiritual weapon. It is one of the spiritual weapons that we can spend so much time. Thank you very much. So much time that God wants us to understand that we remain in a posture and a mode.