Pastor Pat Edwards 1/28/2007
Grace Baptist Church in Bountiful, Utah

How many of you struggle with your prayer life? I do. I wrestle with prayer a lot. I’m not sure that the Lord sees that as a bad thing but a lot of the time if feels that way to me. Sometimes as I’m praying it just feels so unnecessary. I feel about as necessary as a weather forecaster the last three weeks, sunny, 20 degrees and an inversion that will last until August. After all, I’m asking God to do something he’s already doing much better than I ever could imagine. And what I’m asking is often rooted in a certain level of ignorance. I try to pray for each household in our congregation at least once a week and my prayers often focus on your needs, the ones you’ve told me you have and the ones I think you have. God’s ways are a mystery to me - no surprise - but at times I pray he will violate your free will and make you respond, all the time knowing I want you to freely choose whatever holy thing I’m praying for. Unlike a lot of TV preachers I don’t know if God is using your illness to discipline you, if he wants you to find a new job or move across the country. I only know that I feel like I come fumbling before him trying to figure things out so you can be closer to the Lord. And often my prayers seem so repetitive. Lots of things take a long time and change doesn’t come easily so I recite the same words week after week wondering if I’m praying for the right things or if this issue has already been settled in heaven.

But here’s the ironic thing. I started this introduction as I prepared to write this sermon. But I just put down a sentence or two as a reminder.

After writing most of the sermon I came back to the introduction and began writing these words. You know what I discovered? According to this passage, I’m doing okay. Oh, I need to adjust my attitude and refine a few things but generally I’m headed in the right direction. All this wrestling is what God wants. And I’m sure what’s true for me is also true for most of you. You don’t need to go to seminary to learn how to pray; you just need some pointers to keep you focused. Like Jacob we need to wrestle with God until we find understanding and strength for ourselves and for one another.

In the verses we looked at last week we saw Paul giving thanks for all the good things he had heard about the Colossian Christians. "we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints...All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it..." Those are not only words of thanksgiving but words of praise as well. He compliments the Colossians for their believing and obedient response to the good news when they heard it.

So it’s interesting that when you look closely, you see in today’s verses that the apostle repeats in the form of a prayer what he’s already praised them for. Why does he do that? If they had it nailed, if they were doing everything perfectly, that prayer wouldn’t be required. Apparently there’s some room for growth. If they didn’t need this stuff he wouldn’t be praying about it.

I can think of two reasons he is praying this particular prayer. The one I’ve already mentioned, there’s still room for improvement in their basic skills. The second is that they need to be ready for the new challenges that lie ahead.

Next week the Chicago Bears face the Indianapolis Colts in the Superbowl. Chicago is the National Conference champions and Indianapolis is the American Conference champs. A week ago today they were both holding up trophies and rejoicing in their success. What do you think they are doing today? We really don’t have to ask do we? While both teams are pleased with all they’ve accomplished they also know they have to continue improving their skills while preparing for an opponent they haven’t played this year. A certain skill level is required regardless of the opponent - running, passing, tackling - but special skills and preparation are also required depending on the opponent. One team may attack you with the passing game while another is strong in running. Another team may be very quick while another has huge linemen. Each require special preparation.

When we read Paul’s words today it might help to see him as a football coach. Tony Dungy, the Indianapolis coach, is a committed Christian so let’s use him as a coaching guide. His pep talk might go like this, "Guys, you’ve done a great job up to this point. We’ve overcome a lot of injuries and a tough schedule to get here but the job isn’t finished. We can’t rest yet. We’ve got to be in the best shape we’ve ever been in, we need to execute better than we ever have and we need to prepare for challenges the Bears will hit us with. That’s the only way we’re going to win." That’s why Paul is telling believers we wrestle with God in prayer for wisdom and strength.

Do we believe that or are we coasting? Do we really think that we need more knowledge and greater obedience or are we content with the life we’ve established? When we pray for ourselves or others what is the heart of our prayers? Often it seems like the primary focus is the physical side of life, health concerns, employment, finances, travel.

Let me share some of the common failures that exist concerning prayer. Some call times of group prayer an organ recital, not a musical one but a medical one: great aunt Edna’s gall bladder, Uncle Homer’s heart condition or cousin Phyllis’s bad knee. We can and should pray for physical needs but are they primary when they should be secondary?

Another commentator says too often what God hears is "thy will be changed" rather than "thy will be done." We don’t trust God to do what’s best so we plead with him to do what we want. Another says we fail to understand that the purpose of prayer is not to make God listen to us but to make ourselves listen to God. And another writes, "The great problem for most of us is not knowing God’s will but doing it." Think of how often we read about people who know better and fail to do it.

This week I saw an article that accuses Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually abusing women who trusted him. I don’t know if the accusations are true but when a number of women from different parts of the country come forward with similar accusations one thinks "where there’s smoke, there’s fire." Yet he’s been the family values spokesman for much of the black community, a man who challenges people to take responsibility for their actions and to make good choices.

The problem for Bill and for many of us is that we know what’s right but we don’t always do what’s right. Even if we never attended another Bible study all of us would have our hands full being obedient to what we already know. Now one final thought about why we pray, "We pray, not in order to escape life, but in order to be better able to meet life." When you pray for me don’t ask God to remove my trial because another one is just waiting down the road. Instead pray God will teach me how to handle trials when they come for come they will. That’s what we pray when we wrestle with God. And today’s passage is the model prayer to guide us. William Barclay, the great New Testament scholar wrote the following about these verses, "It may well be said that this passage teaches us more about the essence of prayer’s request than almost any other passage in the New Testament." So let’s look at Paul’s example to see how he prays for his brothers and sisters in the faith. Notice in verse 9 that’s his prayer is immediate, "since the day we first heard about you." In recent years I’ve tried to make my prayers more immediate by stopping when I hear about a prayer issue and praying right then. Some of you know that when you’ve called me or stopped by my office I try to pray with you right then and there. Next note that his prayer is unceasing, "we have not stopped praying for you." Maybe you struggle with that like I do. Sometimes it feels so hopeless, the years drag by and our prayers aren’t answered and we want to give up and sometimes we do but usually the Lord prompts us to begin praying again.

Part of the reason we might give up is that we aren’t praying for the right things. That’s where Barclay’s observation about the value of this passage can help because it teaches us how the inspired apostle prayed. So here are those pointers on prayer.

The core of the believer’s life is to know God and his truth so Paul prays they will be filled with "the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding." But of course he’s not content with knowledge and wisdom alone. The whole purpose of knowing God is so that we may "live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way." God wants us with him and that only happens when we live like him.

The next lines tell us how we do that. We are to bear fruit in every good work; there should be results that anyone can see. And let’s remember that every work of our’s is to be good. It’s not enough to have a few good deeds, every action, thought and word should be preceded by the familiar question, "What would Jesus do?" But remember our focus right now is not on us but on wrestling in prayer for others.

Finally he prays that we will be strengthened with all his power so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully thank God for making you his heirs. Knowledge and wisdom without the power to follow through is next to useless. A dying man crawling across the desert knows he needs water but if he doesn’t have the strength to reach the water hole his knowledge does him no good. So we pray others will be strengthened with God’s power so they will have great endurance and patience. The Greek word translated endurance (hupomone) "means not only the ability to bear things, but the ability, in bearing them, to turn them into glory. Hupomone is the spirit which no circumstance in life can ever defeat, and which no event can ever vanquish. Hupomone is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life can do to us." This word endurance is seen in a person like Joni Erickson Tada, paralyzed from the neck down all her adult life, saying she wouldn’t have chosen any other path, that this was God’s best for her. Hupomone is all those people you see in wheelchairs doing marathons and playing basketball, hupomone is someone like Helen Keller squeezing the goodness from life despite all her handicaps. Hupomone is Jesus, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

The strength Paul prays for also includes patience which in the original Greek had the primary meaning of patience with people." So we are to pray for others that they will have the strength to endure whatever trials life throws at them and the patience to deal with the people in their lives as well. But here’s the topper; we pray they will do it joyfully, giving thanks to the Father. One commentator has written, "If joy is not rooted in the soil of suffering, it is shallow." Anybody can be joyful if life is just sitting on the patio at Starbucks on a spring morning or as Jesus said, anybody can love a person who loves them. The reality is that when we walk with the Lord there is an underlying joy that nothing can take from us. It isn’t automatic, it takes practice; that’s why we wrestle with God in prayer.

In verse 13, Paul reminds us why we can pray this prayer and expect it will be answered, For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Believers have been transferred from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from condemnation to forgiveness, ultimately from death to life.

The first sentence of Moby Dick is the well known line, "Call me Ishmael" but today I’m going to change it to, "Call me Israel" and claim it for myself. I hope you’ll do the same. In Genesis 32, we read, 28Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Israel means "he wrestles or struggles with God" and that’s what we do in prayer. We wrestle with God to understand - not his love or his purpose - but how those things work out in our lives and the lives of others. And we wrestle with God so others will understand as well. The good news is not that I know how Ralph’s retirement details will work out but that I can ask a wise and loving God to give Ralph and Mary knowledge and wisdom and strength to know and do the right thing. I don’t know how Ted and Kathy juggle the work schedule of two doctors with four children at home and conflicting commutes but God does. So my prayer is for God’s knowledge and wisdom to fill Ted and Kathy, for God to give them the strength to follow through in joyful obedience. I’m not sure exactly what our youth group sponsors should be teaching each week or how our single parents can juggle all the demands of life but our Lord knows these things and so my prayer for them and all of us is to hear his voice and accept his wisdom and grace so that we bear fruit in every good work and never lose the joy of our salvation. And so I wrestle with God for you to understand and accept his wonderful and life-changing grace in your lives and I pray your are wrestling as well.

"Make me, O Lord, victorious over every circumstance; make me patient with every person; and give me the joy which no circumstance and no man will ever take from me."