Message 11 - Tailor Made - We've Got Your Back

Ephesians 6:18.19

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A year ago, this uh past Thanksgiving week, uh, many of you in this room uh shared a miracle with Mary Lou and I. Uh as you remember, I had just got a pretty dire prognosis in my cancer journey. I had just had my uh three-month PET scan regarding the cancer that had been discovered back in in May of 22, and I wasn't good. Uh once again, the tumors had grown in size, uh, and on top of that, they had now spread from uh my kidney to my lungs, and now they had moved into my uh the lining of my stomach. Uh as I met with my oncologists to talk about what was next, uh it wasn't a comfortable discussion for sure. We had walked through uh in that two-year period uh four out of the five uh treatments that uh they that were out there for my type of cancer. Uh so we had one left that we could try, but my oncologist didn't believe that uh it would work. He was upfront about that. He'd always been up front, which I've always appreciated. Uh, but he said we're gonna we'll do it, but uh I don't expect it to work. And uh so while you're walking through that, I'm gonna be looking for a clinical trial for you to try out. Uh and uh that was the discussion. Uh came home, obviously, uh told we told our family, and uh and then uh my son said, Dad, I think we need the whole church to pray about this. Probably should have figured that out a little earlier, maybe wouldn't have gone to as much. And so he uh called together a time of prayer uh that very next Sunday evening, and a lot of you in this room were there at that prayer. Uh we came into in fact the com part of the comical side of that was you know, it's funny how the weird how you think weird about things, but so when Josh first talked to me about it, he says, I think we need to have a church time of prayer for you, and I said, Okay, I said, Yeah, that's probably good. Do I need to be there? And and uh he said, he said, yeah, I think you probably ought to, and I yeah, you're probably right. Uh and then that night as we met for prayer, uh uh Christoph and Josh and all of you organized, you kind of made a circle, and uh uh we set Mary Lou and I right in the middle of that circle and spent time uh calling out to our Heavenly Father, asking him to do something to heal in my body. And uh so after that time of prayer, then we just waited on God. Three months later, I had my next PET scan. I was getting them at that time every every three months, and uh waited for the phone call from the doctor uh that I would usually get or or and uh or the message on my uh shows up on an app on my phone. Sometimes the app is faster than the phone call, and so waited uh one day, didn't get a call, waited until the next day, and uh look checked my phone in the morning. In fact, I was just getting ready. I did see that there was a uh the there was a message to me that uh the results will come back, and I was just getting ready to look at them when I got a phone call from my oncologist, and uh uh and here's what he said he said, Paul, you are a Christmas miracle. This is uh Thanksgiving week, and uh he said to me, he said, the tumors are all gone. All of them. He says, Yeah, they're all gone. Now I remind us of a story that's you you all were a part of uh with me, and and ever since then, uh my every pet every PET scan or with or uh MRI or whichever one I'm having, they've all said the same thing. They're gone. No, the tumor has that have not returned. Uh uh and I'm sharing this because of where Paul takes us in our Ephesians 6 journey, looking at the armor of God as we're gonna wrap it up this morning. Uh, and so if you want to go ahead and get there in your Bibles, uh you'll see the connection. Ephesians chapter six, and we worked our way down to verse 18, and here's what Paul says. He says, keep on praying for the saints. Now, when it went mentions the word saints there, I want to make sure you understand who that is speaking of. It's not speaking, well, I was gonna say it's not speaking of a special category of people. It is speaking of a special category of people, but not as it's often uh taught or viewed nowadays. The special category of people that it is referring to here is anyone who has accepted the offer that God has given us to have our sins forgiven and our relationship restored because of what Jesus did on the cross. And so if you've accepted that offer, you've accepted that gift of uh salvation, of forgiveness paid for by Christ on the cross, you're who it's talking about there. You are the saints. And so Paul, as we have been walking through this armor together, uh says, now pray, we could translate this way pray for each other. Pray for this for each other, pray for the your church family. Uh uh, and and that's what he's talking about. Uh that we pray for each other, for each everyone who's invited Christ to be their savior. That is the saints. Uh so that's where we go now, and that's why for me, as soon as I read and started digging into this passage, I thought of that experience, because for me, that's the one I've had lots of op, I can share lots of situations, experiences where I've seen God answer prayers, or you could too, but obviously that is a biggie for for me. So we pray for each other. That's who the saints are. And if you you want to uh check that out, look at AI, it'll tell you the same thing. That's what a saint is. No, don't, I'm kidding. Don't I'm in fact, uh uh side warning: don't rely on AI, rely on the word of God. That's too, you know, uh you if you get too trapped with thinking AI has all the answers, you're gonna get in trouble someday. So make sure you're you're digging into the the word of God. Uh so we talked about last week that as Paul has gotten to this last part in this list of the armor of God, he dropped the metaphors. This was, and and I, you know, I'm just uh uh my my question was why? Why, Paul? Why would you quit using metaphors? And and so we discussed this last week, and I think that his the reason is he's this is so significant. Prayer is so, all the armor of God is important, but prayer is such a significant part of doing battle with this enemy that he didn't want to make any mistake that we didn't understand what he was saying, that the that the metaphor might uh confuse us. He wanted to make sure we are talking about talking to God, uh, which is exactly what prayer is conversations with God, where we we pray, we go to the Father, our Heavenly Father, about something. Uh and we've also looked, as we saw last week, that when he talked about this issue of prayer, about talking to God, uh, there are a number of things he mentioned that we've already looked at. Uh he says that we we should we can we can feel very comfortable with having constant conversation with God. It it doesn't have to be uh this very formal uh, you know, drop down to our knees uh uh conversation prayers. Uh in fact, we need to be careful of that. We need to be careful, especially in public prayers. A few years ago we did a study looking at uh the uh the uh uh uh prayer that Jesus walked through with his disciples, the Lord's prayers, it's often called. Uh I think Jesus, as if you remember in our study that uh he laid it more out as an example of prayer. Uh but but uh one of the things that uh he made clear in that in that example prayer for us is that uh this is not about special kinds of words. Uh it is really about just understanding that we need to have a conversation with God. And one of the things he warned us about in that prayer was public praying, because we have a tendency sometimes when we pray publicly, that we think we have to use certain words, or it doesn't count. Or we can become more concerned about what people, the people that are listening to us about what they think, and not enough about what our God thinks. So this is all wrapped up in this discussion of prayer, and as we saw last week, Paul said we need to understand that we we should, we can and we should talk to God constantly. Uh uh, you know, uh from the vantage point that he's always there, he lives within us. And and so whatever is going on, not at any given moment, we can talk to God, we should talk to God about it. Uh but then he also mentioned, as we walked through last week's message, that uh there are times when uh we should uh make divine appointments, if you will, where where these there are times where we say that we purposely set apart time to specifically spend time with our Heavenly Father. Uh every good relationship is gonna have a lot of communication, a lot a lot of things, but good relationships are also gonna have very important times where they specifically make sure that together they're sitting down and talking through the things that are really important at the moment that they need to be discussed. And then we talked about last week that also a part of those times should be where we listen. You know, that we don't always do all the talking that that we uh we looked at the vast the passage of script that says, you know, be silent before God, be quiet and hear from God. And so they're all things that we that we shared with uh uh last week as we were looking at the example of prayer, and and so we're gonna move on this morning after thinking about all these things with and read, and we're gonna talk about these things. And with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. So Paul continues this discussion as we draw this to a close. And he says, keep praying, keep praying. Don't ever lose that opportunity to have those conversations, to be in communication with God. The significance of the battle that we're in needs to be realized and recognized in the emphasis of talking to God about what is going on. And so he says, keep praying for all the states. Now, I skipped a section, we're gonna go back to it, uh, this section, and we're gonna talk about it. But uh uh as we talk about this issue of praying for each other, and as we look at the verse eight, uh, and this constant conversation we're to have with our heavenly for Father, uh uh we should, and as he's walking through this together, and those designated times that we should also have with the Father. Uh so he goes on, he says, there are a number of instructions. He kind of did this last week as well, as he talked about prayer, but then he goes into some details and uh and gives us some instructions about prayer uh and how it's to be done. And so here he says, with this in mind, be alert. Two things going on here that I want to make sure we understand in regard to what he is teaching us about prayer, so we can apply it to our prayers. And so the first one is what's he mean by with this in mind? What's going on? Uh well, a couple of things. Scriptures are clear that in here's what Paul's addressing here is that Christianity is not an individual sport. Uh a while back in uh as we've been looking at the the uh this armor of God, I talked about wrestling, which is pretty much it's an individual sport. Uh certainly there's a lot of training behind it that goes into it, but when it comes down to the day of uh the wrestling matches, it's one person against one person. Well, Christianity is not that. One of the things that God wants to make clear, one of the things that that Paul's making clear, especially in this battle that we're involved in uh with an enemy that is powerful and is about and wants to destroy us, is that when it comes to this and and to our walk with God and to this issue of prayer specifically, Christianity is not, it is a team sport. Uh it is that there is things that we need to understand, especially when it comes to prayer, that we need to recognize that what we're doing here is a team sport. We serve together, we watch out for each other, we take care of each other, uh, we have a responsibility for each other. Uh, and and specifically, we need to be praying for each other. So he says, what's with this in mind? What this means is uh it's the idea of looking down the path, looking down the road. And uh what we were talking this week, uh Mary Lou and I brought up, and I think we were camping with some of the couples in the church, and and Mary Lou brought up uh she went through uh a few years ago uh through motorcycle school. Uh she wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. And one of the things they taught her, and she had brought this up, was when you're on a motorcycle, uh, and you're you should always be looking down the road. Uh a lot of accidents are caused when you forget that and you and you look on the side of the road or you get too looking too close, and then you something comes up on you and you weren't ready for it, uh, and all of a sudden you're you're off the road and into the ditch, or or worse. And so he says, so they were taught, always keep your eyes down the road, be looking down the road, and uh that will protect you. Well, that's what this actually means. Uh but it's interesting, it's in the context of watching out for each other, that as fellow believers, uh that then, and it's part of our prayer for each other, is that we are attentive to, we are caring enough for each other that we're watching down the road for each other. Uh, that if if we see something uh maybe that's showing up in us, our uh someone we love, one of our fellow believers lives, and and we get we get this uh front, this little uh uh uh tickle maybe from the Holy Spirit says something something's not right about that. Something doesn't look right. That that we care enough about each other that we look into it further. We we we we are we talk to God about it. What is it, God, about what's happening to my fellow believer, that person I care and love about, that's that's bugging me. Uh help help show me what is going on so I can help protect my friend. We're supposed, this is what it's saying. We're supposed to be doing that for each other. This is so counter, again, counter culture when we're we're in a day and a time where it's like where so often our perspective about relationships is it's none of my business. Right? That's not my it's none of my business. I I shouldn't, you know, I sh I sh that that's their thing. Uh, you know, I need to stay out of it. It's not what he thinks says about our relationship with each other. It is our business. We watch out for each other, we pray for each other, and when we have a sense that something is not right, we're looking down the road and we see things happening in their lives, and it's bothering us that something is not right, then Paul is saying we we should address that. We should be involved. We should talk to God about that as we get clarity, and if he leads us to actually talk to our brother or sister about that, uh then that that is a responsibility. That's what it means when it says, with this in mind. And then, secondly, in this subject of prayer and prayer and specifically for each other, he says that we need to be alert. Not only are we looking down the road on each other's behalf, uh, but we're also watching very carefully what's going on around us. Uh now we're not talking about riding a motorcycle down the road. We're talking about what's going on at this moment. And again, he's saying, be alert, because this enemy is always working, always trying to attack you personally and others. And in regard to each other, he's saying that we should be watching uh for each other, watching, protecting each other, be alert of the things that happen. So many, you know, I've talked on several occasions these last few years, as we see pastor after pastor fall. Uh, these spiritual leaders, some of them, some of them are have an amazing ministry that has grown to thousands upon thousands. And in the process of that, all of a sudden something moves into their life that shouldn't be there. Exactly what the enemy is constantly trying to do. And and then, and then before long uh it seeps out and the public gets in, it's a headline in a paper, and a ministry falls apart. Uh those are those are things that happen all the time. Those are the kind of things that we we're watching for in each other's life. A pastor, nobody should ever get in a position where they get themselves so isolated from their fellow believers that no one's watching out for them, or that everybody's afraid to talk to them about it. That you know they're too powerful, or they're the they're the ones that are bringing the money into the church, whatever the case might be. So we can't say that to them. The individual that gets in that position or allows themselves to be in that position or desires to be in that position where they're isolated from fellow believers and no one feels comfortable addressing issues with them is in a very, very dangerous place. And so Paul says, as we're praying for each other, uh, we should be alert uh for the things that our enemy might be going after in each other's life. Mary on on more than one occasion has protected me from something that that the enemy had in mind. We uh in our church in Maryland, uh, there's a lady that uh was uh very she was the head of our our ladies' minus women's ministry, a very godly woman. Uh but my wife was watching and and picked up on the fact uh that that maybe uh uh her heart for me had gone in a direction that it shouldn't. Now she never did anything, we but but after my wife one day said to me, you know, I don't uh I'm not saying that she's a bad woman. Uh I I know she loves God, but Paul's something's just not quite right there. I'm not sure she she even knew it herself. Something's quite not quite right, and I want you to be careful. And I kind of remember after that, then I started paying attention. I I didn't really notice before. I just, you know, uh she was she did a great job at the middle of women's ministry, and and but after that I started watching and then I picked up on it too. And so after that, we I changed the ministry around, and I made sure I didn't ever spend uh uh uh when she was in charge of the women's ministry, she sometimes would knock on my door, and we didn't, I didn't, we didn't have that kind of thing anymore. I always made sure my wife was there, and and I'm all I because I know what the enemy had in mind, and like I say, I don't know if she even recognized it, uh, but it was there. That those are the kind of things that we do in our relationship with each other. One of the things that uh I think that AA grabbed on to is this principle. Uh, and that's why if you're in AA, you have a sponsor, because they they've they've recognized what what God is bringing out here, that we need to be praying for each other, and we need to be specific specifically praying with an alertness to where the enemy might be attacking each other, what he may be trying to do. And so he says, uh, with this in mind, first of all, looking down the road for each other, helping protect each other in that way. Be alert, watching what's going on now, uh, and and where the potential dangers are, uh, and and what the enemy might be trying to do in this very moment in tr in his approach of trying. Bring destruction. And then he says, keep on praying. It'll come up here. Just got ahead of my notes, is what happened. Then he then he brings it back to always keep on praying for all the saints. We are to be in constant prayer for each other. One of my daily prayers is for God's protection of us as a church family. We've talked about this in the Yelder Board, as your leaders also are praying for you. But we know that the enemy is planning something. He's never idle. He's never taking a break. He doesn't go on vacation. He's always looking for a way. He's looking for a way in your life, your individual lives. And I suspect if we sat down and talked about it, you could probably tell me where you think he might be trying to attack. Because we kind of know our own weaknesses. You might be wrong, by the way, because remember back in the beginning of this study, he has strategies, and as soon as you figure them out, he's going to switch it up and attack and have a different direction. He's a very, very smart and devious person. But he's always on the attack. And so I pray on a regular basis for this church family, for God's protection. I pray as a whole. When I know something's going on in your life, part of my appointment with God is I pray for you individually for what it might be a struggle with just one of those things that and songs that we sing this morning talked about where just life's hardness hits us in the face sometimes, and I hear about it. And so when I have my appointment with God, I talk to him, talk about you and about what's going on in your life. Sometimes it's more general things, sometimes it's health issues. That's what we're supposed to be doing. That's what he's saying here. But here's what, uh just as he draws this to close, and as we draw this to a close, here's where Paul goes next. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Here's the most prolific, powerful preacher and writer of the scriptures, our whole of the New Testament scriptures. Obviously a godly man, a man that God has used in a powerful way. And he says to these individuals he's writing this letter to in Ephesus, he says, brothers and sisters, I need you. I can't go it alone. I need to know that you are praying for me. And in specific, and you see how specific he is in regard to my ministry. Please pray that when I talk about God, that he gives me exactly the right words, that I need to say. Paul says, I need you. Please pray for me. And this Paul says, I need you. Please pray for me. And the message that Paul says as he draws this section of scripture, this letter to a close about this powerful enemy that is out on the tack trying to discourage us to just to cause destruction in our lives. The final message that Paul has to you and I is we need each other. Please. Thanks, Father. I I thank you for uh the reminder and being able in my own personal testimony to start this this last message in this series by sharing how these people sitting in this room were used in such a powerful way in my own life, which is an amazing thing that even caused a man who does not know you and who is totally convinced that science is the answer to say that this is a Christmas miracle. Thank you, Father, for just that that example in my own life of how powerful prayer is that we as a church family got to see it played out that way. And Lord, and now as we have been reminded in the this closing uh message regarding the battle that we're in, that we need to be praying for each other, watching out for each other. We need to be looking down the road for each other, and and if there's things that we we see in each other's life that that might be destructive, dangerous, and and we see a fellow believer heading down that path, and and and we can see what might happen, that we we should take responsibility for each other. And and in our prayers and in our conversations with them, that we we should let them know what we're what God has put on our minds and in our hearts. And then we're also gonna be very alert about even right now what's happening. And Lord, that we're gonna that we love each other enough that when we see those things that are dangerous, we confront them. Thank you for giving us the privilege of being a team and this team. I I I love this this church. They're my family. I have good reason to call them family. And we need to be praying for each other because we know we have an enemy and we know he wants to cause destruction. So, Lord, thank you for the privilege of being able to talk to you constantly, all day and all day and all night. Anytime you give us opportunity or put something on our heart, we can talk to you at that very moment about what it is. But also for those special times, those precious times that we set apart just for for you and us privately to talk together about what's going on. And Lord, help us to hear your voice. So, Lord, now we are thinking about the fact that we are moving out into that dark world that needs to hear about you, needs to see examples of you, of your children living out their faith in in wonderful ways. Lord, we we're asking you now to help us to do that well and to love those people because you love them so much that you sent your son to die for them, and we get the privilege of sharing the good news. So, Lord, help us to do that well. Pray these things in your son's name. Amen.