Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

Text:

Jesus withdrew from His disciples many times to pray. When he prayed, he poured Himself into it. He prayed until he sweat. He prayed all through the night. I often wonder why He needed to pray at all. Jesus, after all, is God in the flesh. He knew God’s will better than anyone. Yet even the Son of God needed to constantly talk with His Father in Heaven in order to resist temptation and for His heart to find constant encouragement.

Yet when most people today examine their prayer lives, they fall drastically short of the example of Christ. If anything, we need to rely more upon God in prayer because we’re not omniscient, we’re not all-powerful, and we constantly fall into doubt. We need prayer.

So the question is, how do we ignite our prayer life?

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison– that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” (Colossians 4:2-4)

Paul encourages us to continue steadfastly in prayer (v. 2a). What does it mean to be steadfast? Both the running and training for a marathon is the picture of steadfastness.

Paul seems to have changed the subject when he began talking about prayer. The rest of this book flows from verse to verse so smoothly, it’s hard to divide it up to preach. For example, I divided 1:14 from 1:15, but if you read them together you see how Paul’s train of thought progresses. And the last couple of weeks, I divided the section addressed to families from the section addressed to slaves and masters, but it reads as one passage, giving instructions to each.

The passage we read tonight is obviously the beginning of the end of the book. Paul has just a few more commands that he wants to give before concluding his letter. Yet if we fail to connect the dots scattered throughout this letter, we will miss something crucial about the Christian life that can drastically change the way you pray.

We are to be watchful in prayer with thanksgiving (v. 2b). What are we to be watchful of? Going backwards through the book, we are to be watchful of:

1.Our families, praying for each member, and for your own role in the family (3:18-21).
2.Our resting in the peace of Christ (3:15).
3.Our inclination to return to our old sinful lifestyle (3:5-6).
4.Our mind, making certain it is set on heavenly things (3:2).
5.Our theology, making sure we are trusting Christ alone and not being deceived (2:17, 4).
6.Our witness (1:28).
7.And in 4:3, he tells them to be watchful over his ministry as well. Just as Paul was praying for them (1:9-10), he requested that they pray for him.

Even when Paul was in prison, he constantly looked for opportunities to witness. He was in prison because of the gospel, and he was in prison to share the gospel. He made it his goal to make known the mystery of Christ.

It’s a mystery that God would love us, though He is holy and we are sinful. It’s a mystery how He could become a man and die for our sins. It’s a mystery how we will one day go to be with Jesus for all eternity.

Paul needed prayer in order to speak the mystery clearly so that it would be understood (v. 4). The sharing of the gospel is dependent upon our prayer life. Ever since the command in 3:2 to set our mind in things above, Paul has been showing us how to do just that. And every since he reminded us in 3:12 that we are people chosen by God, he has been describing how a person chosen of God acts.

Prayer fits in with all this perfectly. There are no random commands in Scripture. He’s not changing the subject, he’s saying that prayer is the capstone that ties all these things together. If we are to be thoroughly Christian, we must gain our strength to do all these things from God, not ourselves. It’s not that we need to ignite our prayer life, it’s that we need to realize that we need prayer to ignite our Christian life.

Prayer is the great spiritual indicator of the Christian’s life. Find a person who prays steadfastly, and you’ll find a person who is fruitful in his Christian life. Find a person who does not pray, or does not pray often, and you’ll find an unfruitful person. They may do a lot of things. Even a lot of good things. But unless they are leaning upon God and being thankful to Him in prayer, they are doing those things by their own strength, and for their own glory.