If you would go ahead and turn your copies of God's Word to Paul's letter to the Ephesians. We're getting close to wrapping up our series through Ephesians. This morning we'll be looking at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 18. And up to this point, we've seen in this kind of final section of Paul's letter, which again does run from chapter 6, verses 10 through 20, we've seen Paul give his final main concluding exhortation to you to Be strong in the Lord. And we've seen that you are called to do that really in essence by putting on, taking up and putting on the whole armor of God. And then in verse 14, you were exhorted by the Lord to stand therefore. Remember that is to withstand and to overcome the devil. And then Paul began to unpack all of the parts of the armor of God. And we saw that, in essence, what he was doing there was telling you and I how we are to stand. We're to stand, therefore, by, you remember, putting on all of the various parts of the whole armor of God, which we've been looking at together over the course of really what's been the past couple of months now. You've been called to take up the girdle of true belief, the breastplate of legal and ethical righteousness, the shoes of gospel peace with God, with self, with saints and with sinners, the shield of justifying faith, the helmet of salvation from sins. And then finally, last Lord's Day, we looked at the final part, the sword of the spirit. And we saw that the sword of the spirit is none other, as Paul expressly says, it's none other than the very word of God. In that sermon, we learned that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God and that they are the only ultimate rule of our faith and obedience. And so in light of Paul's exhortation in Ephesians 6, 17, the second half, and in light of the example of our Lord Jesus Christ that we looked at from his war with the devil in the wilderness, we saw that we are indeed to take up the scriptures in order that we may withstand and overcome the devil in the evil day. And so now, this morning, though we'll move on from looking at the various parts of the whole armor of God, we will not move on from God telling us how we are to stand, therefore, against the devil. This morning we'll see the critical place that prayer has in standing against the devil. We'll unpack prayer this morning. And more specifically, we'll see this morning from our passage that believers are to pray for all in the spirit. Believers must pray in the spirit for all things. at all times for all the saints and with all watchfulness and perseverance. And so with all that in mind, let's hear now God's word to us from Ephesians chapter six, verses 10 through 20. Finally, my brethren, 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. And therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, 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 to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. God be pleased to bless the reading, especially the preaching of his word this morning. Well, in the Greek of verse 18, the first word is actually a little preposition that's not necessarily translated, but it's the preposition that can and often is translated as through. And the only reason I bring that to your attention is that it emphasizes what we've been pointing out all along, which is that all of these I-N-G words, all of these participles in this section after verse 14, Are the Lord telling you how it is that you are to stand against the devil? You're to do so by, as we've been seeing, taking up each part of the armor of God. And then now you are to do so to stand by or through praying in that always, literally at every time, at all times, at every suitable occasion or fitting season is the sense of always here. As we learned when we looked at chapter 1, verse 16 of Ephesians, we saw there Paul speak about praying without ceasing, that biblically this idea of praying always or without ceasing can often have reference to praying constantly, to praying often, to praying regularly, to even praying routinely, as we already have sung about in Psalm 55. It can have this idea of planned, scheduled, and executed prayer. And so you stand against the devil through praying routinely and during all suitable occasions With all prayer and supplication, this phrase all prayer and supplication is simply a way of summarizing every kind of prayer for all things. It has reference to praying every kind of prayer for all things. So all means all. Public prayer, family prayer, private prayer, prayer of adoration, prayer of confession, prayer of thanksgiving, prayer of supplication. All means all. It's a summarizing statement. And so pray routinely, Paul's saying, during all suitable occasions with all and every kind of prayer for all things. In this you are to do in the Spirit, God says, in the Spirit, which is to say simply in the Spirit's strength and in accord with the Spirit, in accord with the Spirit's will, which is revealed to you in His Word. So pray in the strength of the Spirit and pray in accord with the Spirit's will. And to this end, Paul says, you are to be watchful. And the end that he is speaking about is the end he just spoke about. Praying at all times for all things in the Spirit. Paul says to this end, you're to be watchful. You're to be watchful, which means you're to be awake too. to be vigilant in, you're even to be sleepless at times concerning. And this also with all perseverance and perseverance here has the sense of unremitting continuance, persistence, intense engagement, constant attendance, you see. And then Paul. repeats his call for supplication and gives the final of his four alms. You're to pray for all saints. And again, all means all. Every one of the older saints and each one of them. Every one of the younger saints and each one of them. Every one of the saints you know well and that you're close to and each one of them. everyone that you don't know well, or that you may even have conflict with, and each and every one of them. All means all. You're to pray for all the saints. And so we see, and this paraphrase is there in your overview, in some we see that in our passage Paul is calling the Ephesians to withstand and overcome the devil through praying routinely and upon every suitable occasion for all and every kind of thing, as well as for all and each of the saints in the strength and will of the Spirit with all vigilance and constant attendance. And from that, we can see then the transcendent teaching point, the transcendent doctrinal point, our main point for this morning, which is that the church in all ages, so believers must pray for alls, in the spirit. Believers must pray in the spirit for all things at all times for all the saints and with all watchfulness and perseverance. Believers must pray for all in the spirit. And we'll unpack now and support that main point in five parts. Look at each of the four alls, plus that idea of praying in the spirit and support those from the scriptures. And we'll look at in the spirit first. And we see our need, perhaps preeminently, to pray in the Spirit in Romans chapter 8, verses 26 through 27, where we read, likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So we see our utter need of the strength of the Spirit due to our weakness. We see our need to pray in accordance with the will of the Spirit. And we know that we are not left in the dark as to what the Spirit's will is. We're not to go around mystically groping in our prayers, wondering what the will of the Spirit is, asking Him to reveal some special thing about His will to us. Remember in the sermon on Ephesians 5.17, discerning the will of God, we looked at what it means to discern the will of God. So I'd encourage you to go back to that sermon. You need a refresher to see what that means. You can apply all of those same things to praying according to the will of God. Which is simply to say, as we saw there, and as it applies here, to pray in accord with His will as it is revealed concretely to us in His Word. Second, that we are to pray every and all kinds of prayers for all things. We see examples of every kind of prayer in the scriptures. We see all kinds of examples of men like David and Solomon and the Levites leading the people of God in public prayer. We see examples of all kinds of small group prayer in the book of Acts. And then all across the pages of scripture, we see littered throughout an abundance of examples of private and individual prayer. and that we're to pray for all things, we also see taught to us in Matthew 6, 9, when Jesus commands us to pray according to the pattern of the Lord's Prayer. which we confess is a most comprehensive and perfect prayer. And therefore, in that sense, it's kind of like the Ten Commandments, which summarizes for us the moral law of God. So it is with all the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. They essentially comprehensively and in general cover all the various things we are to pray for. So we are to pray every kind of prayer. and for all things. The third, that we're to pray routinely and during every suitable occasion. We read in First Thessalonians 5.17, pray without ceasing. And we have the examples of Daniel and David, one of which we already sung about, of them praying routinely. planning and scheduling prayer multiple times a day. Psalm 55, 17 again, evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. And we see that the apostles themselves carry on this routine kind of prayer in Acts chapter three, verse one. Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And the point for us to get from both the command to pray without ceasing and the biblical examples of these routine scheduled prayers is not as we've seen before that we are to literally pray without literally ceasing. That'd be impossible. You can't be spoken to by God and give your attention to that if you're constantly speaking to him. It's just not how dialogue works. You couldn't work diligently at your workplace and focus if you were to literally pray actively, attentively, without ceasing. Nor is the point that you are bound to pray morning, noon, and evening at those exact times three times a day or only those three times a day. Rather, as we've seen before, the commands have the point for us that we're to be praying often throughout the day. We're to be praying consistently, regularly, daily, and routinely. We should be scheduling prayer. We should be praying when requests come in. These are the kinds of points that we're to draw from these examples. We should plan, schedule, and execute when it comes to prayer. Because it's that important. It's how you commune with God. It's how the scriptures say that you receive from Him that peace which surpasses all understanding. And from our passage, we see it's one of the preeminent ways that you withstand and overcome the devil. Fourth, that we're to pray for all the saints, 1 Timothy 2.1. Where we read, therefore, I exhort, first of all, that all supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men. Which is to say, we're to be praying for all kinds of men, women and children. And therefore, we're to be praying for all the saints. Then we hear Paul, Philippians 1, 3 to 4. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you and every prayer of mine making a request for you with all joy. We see Paul upon every remembrance, upon every suitable occasion, praying for all of you, praying for every one of the saints and Philippi. And so it is that we are to pray for all of the saints locally and globally. Even those saints that we don't have names, faces, and situations for, we know the teaching of scripture. We know the trials that the church at large faces. And so we can pray in accord with the spirit, even for all the saints, locally and globally. And then fifth, the fifth part of our main point, that we are to pray with all watchfulness and perseverance, Colossians 4.2. Continue earnestly in prayer, being diligent in it with thanksgiving. And then remember from our reading, Luke 18, the parable of the persistent widow, what Christ said was the main point of that parable. that men are always to pray and do not lose heart. And then Christ again, Luke 21, 36, watch therefore and pray always. So we see that it is the teaching of God in the scriptures that believers must pray for all in the spirit, that believers must indeed pray in the spirit for all things, at all times, for all saints, and with all watchfulness and perseverance. And just to drive home the nail. We can also see that it's one of the primary reasons for which God gave us the Holy Spirit, that we would pray in this way, in these ways. We saw that from Romans 8, 26 and 27. One of the many reasons for which you've been given the Spirit of God is to pray these four alls. And therefore to not do so, It's to grieve one of the purposes of God. Second, God works through prayer. Another reason to pray in this way. James 5.16 tells us that the prayer of a righteous man avails much. In Matthew 17.20, Revelation 8, 3 through 5, we're taught that God moves and He shakes nations and kingdoms of this world in response to His people's prayer. And so because God reveals to us, to you, that He works through your prayers, therefore you must pray for all in the Spirit. And then lastly, in Galatians 6.10, You're called to do good to all as you have occasion, especially to those who are of the household of faith, to the saints. And seeing that prayer is one of the preeminent goods that you can do for and on behalf of others, therefore it follows that you must be about this business. of praying these for alls in the Spirit. And so it is, beloved believers, must pray in the Spirit for all things, at all times, for all the saints, and with all watchfulness and perseverance. Now as we begin to apply this main point of this morning, You need to consider first that if believers, and really since believers, are to pray these four alls in the Spirit, then you are dependent on God, even in your dependence on God. We are so dependent on our God that we cannot even rightly express our dependence independent of Him. We need Him in order to rightly tell Him that we and others need Him. You see, and so in every kind of prayer, for everything at all time and for every saint, Not only must we, but we need, we need to pray in the Spirit's strength and according to His will. Second, second, beloved, be comforted that you have, if you be in Jesus Christ, that you have such a high priest as Christ who's praying for you and praying for His church, these four alls, in the Spirit, and that He's doing so perfectly. Hebrews 7.25, speaking of our great high priest, Jesus Christ, says, Therefore He, that is Christ, is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Beloved, he lives in glory. Not to just be so high and lifted up and to look down on you, His lonely and sin-stained bride. But He lives. He lives to pray all things at all times for all the saints with all perseverance and watchfulness in the Spirit in that perfectly And we should be comforted by that. But if Christ isn't your high priest. Then you have no comfort from that. If he's not your high priest. Through you having received the washing of your sins. Through faith alone by his blood. Alone. then he's not your high priest. He's not making intercession for you. And every one of your weaknesses and sins, not only in regard to praying these four awls, but in regard to every law of God, none of them are covered. You lie naked in your sins before a holy God. And so you have no comfort. There's no sweetness to be tasted here for you. It's only terror and warning to flee to Jesus Christ. To beg his forgiveness, to plead his blood. To believe in him. And he calls you to believe in him and to turn from your sin. And then you may find comfort. from our passage this morning. So beloved, you have comfort here this morning if you are in Christ. Even when you fail to pray these four alls in the Spirit how you ought, you have a high priest who never does. Third, and kind of the main pressing application of this morning, is that believers must pray these for all's in the Spirit. So if that's true, and since it's true as we've seen, then you, you being a believer in Jesus Christ, you must pray in the Spirit for all things, at all times, for all the saints. and with all watchfulness and perseverance. So you must strive to pray in the Spirit. You, you must strive to pray in His strength and according to His will. And all too often, that's why we prayed about it earlier, all too often, Though it almost seems impossible, like how could I pray in my own strength? How could I confess my dependence in my own strength? Yet we do it. We trust in chariots and horses, even in our prayers. And so we need to get in the habit of more often confessing our neediness as we begin our prayers, of begging the strength of the Spirit, confessing our weakness when we pray. So what I'm about to say, it's not that some magical formula, O Spirit help me, thereby makes your prayers in His strength or somehow makes them effectual, or that's the only way your God hears your prayers. He's not some genie, and nor is He that ruthless to His saints in Christ, so mechanical. Again, Christ covers your weakness, but nevertheless, it'd be good for us to beg the Spirit's help more often in our prayers. I have an elder from our home church back in Indiana that ever since my days in seminary has literally called virtually every Monday to pray with me. I've talked to you about some, talked about him to some of you. And almost every time, in some ways I've been taught this by example, though I don't do it how I ought. And so I've been convicted over this, but almost every time he's praying, he's praying for the Spirit to guide his prayers for me on my behalf, that he may pray them with a fervency and that they may be in accord with the Spirit's will as that's been given to us in His Word. And so, beloved, to better pray in the Spirit, strive to get and a habit of asking more often for the Spirit's aid in your prayer life. And then when it comes to praying better in accordance with His will, you already know that the how-to there is rather simple. You must know better His will. And that requires time in His Word over time. It's only by becoming more familiar with God's will revealed by the Spirit through the Word that you can better pray in accord with His will. And so to pray more often, or so we should pray more often for the Spirit's assistance as we begin our prayers. We must spend more consistent time becoming familiar with His will if we would better pray in the Spirit. And then when it comes to praying every kind of prayer for all things, again, it's rather simple. Continue or endeavor to diligently attend to all of the different kinds of prayer. that we've spoken about. Private prayer. Small group prayer. Praying, husbands and wives, often, daily even, with one another. I was looking out for the little ones. We also need to pray, though, Fathers, mothers, children together in family prayer, family worship. Prayer must be a part of it. And then if you're able, you know we have the weekly prayer meetings after evening service. I know not everyone can make those for a variety of reasons. But if you can, I can guarantee you wouldn't be the worse off. You wouldn't regret that you joined in prayer. And then make sure that you're attending to the public prayer. Join your hearts and minds as I lead us in prayer to the Lord. Attend to every kind of prayer. And then when it comes to praying all things, again remember what we said about the Lord's Prayer. Comprehensive prayer. So we should use it in our prayers and we should use that acronym that many of you know, we've talked about before, ACTS, A-C-T-S, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. Use the petitions of the Lord's prayer and that acronym to aid you in praying for all things. And to help all of us in that, you'll notice if you've been using the personal and family devotion guide that's on the back of your sermon overview, I changed up the prayer on that to provide for you and myself daily reminder of praying that A, C, T, and S. And then you'll notice that the supplication has there an encouragement to pray one of the six petitions of the Lord's prayers, Monday through Saturday. And so I'd encourage you to use that to help you pray for all things. And then concerning praying at all times. routinely, every suitable occasion. Again, it's simple. We need to plan prayer. We need to schedule prayer. We need to have a part in our daily routine. And remember the sermon on redeeming the time. We talked about that morning routine summarized by that acronym POWER, and the P is for prayer. And so that would be an easy way to implement prayer into your daily routine. Just like you do anything that your life depends upon. If you take some sort of medicine, you plan it. You plan eating. You plan all sorts of things that matter. And thus you are with prayer as well. So whether it be that power routine or something else, again, as I've said, I'd love to help you implement a routine that includes these aspects, prayer in particular. And so come talk to me afterwards if you're interested in that. So these two things, implementing planned Oh, I'm sorry about skipped ahead here. Another help. Is when you receive a request when it comes to praying upon every suitable occasion, commit. Commit to praying if you can right then. Or immediately noting that prayer. And planning to pray it at a later time. Remember Jesus when Peter and he were talking about the devil sifting him like wheat. Jesus says, I have prayed for you. And what a comfort that must have been to Peter. And so if somebody texts you a prayer request, not that saying I will pray is not encouraging, but to say I have prayed or that I'm praying right now, it is an experiential comfort. that there's already been a prayer lifted up on your behalf before the Lord. And so, beloved, when you have a request, immediately respond is the point I'm making. Either if you can, pray then, or jot it down and schedule to pray it later. So then, these two things, implementing planned and scheduled prayer into your routine, along with immediately praying for a request, and immediately noting and scheduling to pray for it will help you better to pray always at all times. And then when it comes to praying for all the saints, again, just to encourage you. Use that personal family worship guide and pray daily each day for the prayer household that's listed there on that will help you in praying regularly for all of the saints in this local body. And then doing that in conjunction with praying the Lord's Prayer petitions for yourself and others will force you and help you to also pray for the saints globally. And then when it comes to praying with all watchfulness and perseverance, certainly most of what we've already talked about will help you in this, but also consider Some of Scripture's reasons for praying in these ways. Five brief reasons. First, watchful and persevering prayer imitates your high priest who prays for you in such ways. It imitates the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, pray this way. Pray with all watchfulness and perseverance. lest you enter into temptation. Matthew 26, 41, Christ says, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. So such watchful and persevering prayer guards you from falling into temptation. Third, pray with all watchfulness and perseverance because you know not. the day or the hour that your Lord will return. He calls you to such prayer in Matthew 25, 13, in the prayer of the ten virgins, where He commands, watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. It's a watchful and persevering prayer keeps you in a state of readiness for the return of the Lord. It keeps you in status yellow, if you will. Fourth, pray this way because blessed, the scriptures say, blessed are those who so watch and pray. Revelation 16, 15, Christ proclaims, behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And then fifth and final reason for praying with all watchfulness and perseverance. Pray this way that you may be counted worthy, Christ says, of escaping His wrath and standing before Him. Luke 21, 36 again, in all of it, Christ says, Watch, therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. And so, beloved, pray with all watchfulness and perseverance, because it imitates Your high priest, because it guards you against temptation, because it keeps you ready for his return, because it is the blessed thing and because through it you're counted worthy, not on the basis of it, but you're counted worthy to escape his wrath and stand before him when he comes. And so, beloved, we must avoid neglecting Christ's command to pray these four alls in the Spirit. And this not only preeminently because He commands it, but because neglecting to do so endangers not only your own soul, but the souls of one another. To neglect such prayer, beloved, endangers your own soul for many of the reasons we just heard. To neglect such prayer. is to unnecessarily open yourself up to all kinds of temptations. To neglect such prayer lulls you into an estate of spiritual sleepiness and apathy, just like the five virgins who weren't ready for the Lord's return. To neglect such prayer is to forfeit some of the Lord's blessings. according to what he says. And to neglect such prayer, beloved, is to neglect a primary means of your preservation in the faith unto the end. And so to simply neglect such prayer is to endanger the eternity or the eternal destiny of your soul. But it's also the case that you're not only in danger, your own soul, by not praying these four alls in the spirit, but you endanger one another. How do you do that? Well, think about all of the military metaphors that have been behind what Paul's been speaking of here, the reality of our spiritual warfare, and that we war and battle together as a unit. And it's not hard to see how neglecting, simply neglecting such prayer could endanger not only you, but the brother or sister next to you. Think about it. If you neglect such prayer in the spirit, then that might be the day that you're not able to gird yourself with true belief. It may be the day that you're not able to take off the breastplate or that you're not able to put on the shoes. or to pick up the shield or to put on the helmet or to take up the sword. And therefore, that might be the day that you fall, that you fall into some grievous sin. And what happens in a battle when one soldier falls next to the other? Is it not the case that then the guy next to him is more vulnerable himself, that he may now fall to an attack he otherwise may not have fallen to, that he might be negatively impacted because of your sinful neglect. He's either got to expend all sorts of extra effort, which he may not have otherwise needed to, or he's just going to fall. because he can't handle the attacks. And so it endangers, beloved, it endangers not only your own soul, but the souls of your brothers and sisters if you sinfully neglect to pray such for all in the Spirit prayers. And so you do need to ask yourself this morning, have you been Have you been sinfully neglecting to pray these four all's in the Spirit? And if you have, you need to repent. I need to repent. I was failing in these things. We need to apprehend anew the mercy of Christ. Run to Him for forgiveness. But then we need to hate the sin. We need to hate our sinful neglect of praying in such ways and actually then endeavor to walk in righteousness and holiness and to implement some of the ways that we've talked about this morning for praying these four Alls. in the Spirit. And if Jesus Christ is not your High Priest this morning and you know it, if the Spirit of God is not dwelling in your heart this morning and you know it because you've never believed in Him, You've never believed in Jesus Christ. You've never turned from your sin to Him. Then there's only one prayer. There's only one prayer that you have to pray, that you must pray before you leave this morning. You must pray that the Spirit would create in you a clean heart. That's the one prayer, the one thing that you cannot go to bed this night without doing. You must cry out that He would enable you to embrace Jesus Christ crucified and raised and to turn from your sin. Because without Him, you can't do that. But you must do it. And so you never just sit there on your couch or in this chair right now I'll just just change me and I'll believe once I'm changed. No, you cry out and then you believe, you turn. And so trust in Jesus Christ, turn from your life of sin and then follow him. Follow him. And one of the ways you do that. By praying these four all's in the spirit. So let's pray together now. that our God would bless in such ways. Our Father in heaven, we do praise your great name. Praise your mercy and your grace, oh God. That you're patient with the weakness, even the sinful neglect of your people. We thank you that we have such a high priest as Jesus Christ. That we're not under this command today as a law of a covenant of works. That our failures don't condemn us. And yet, oh God, let us not go to the place that therefore doesn't see our neglect as grieving you, as displeasing our Father in heaven. And so, God, we pray because we need it. That you, O Spirit, would do what you say that you do, work in us to will and to work and to pray according to your good pleasure. So, God, we pray that you would do this this morning. If there's any here that do not have Jesus Christ as their high priest, That their sin has not been cleansed by His sacrifice. That He lifted up through the eternal Spirit. That today would be the day of salvation for them. That they would pray this one prayer. That they would be born again this morning. They would be new creations in Jesus Christ. And that He would preserve them to the end. Bless, we pray, O God, in Christ's name.