Stewardship of Prayer

Can you believe that we are already at the end of Stewardship month? It’s always a joyful time of the year to be reminded of the principles of stewardship and to just have a dedicated time to thank the Lord for all of the blessings He has given us.

As has already been said, this evening we will be having our annual Stewardship Celebration where we will be again singing to our Lord but also spending time hearing testimonies and ministry updates of what the Lord has been doing through Faith Church, which means through you, this year. It truly is a celebration so we hope you can join us tonight.

Well before we land the stewardship month for the year it’s probably appropriate for us to have one more review of the four principles of stewardship isn’t it?

Stewardship: God given responsibility with accountability.

SLIDE ON THE STEWARDSHIP PRINCIPLES

If you are new with us, we have been taking these principles and applying them to some of the various areas of stewardship in our lives.

So, for the first week, Pastor Viars spoke to us about what Scripture teaches about the Stewardship of our Mission. It was a great time to be reminded of what God has called us to as His people and what it looks like for us to be working for the Kingdom of God.

The second week, Pastor Birk brought us a message on the Stewardship of Personal Discipline where we examined the value of godliness and the rewards that come from pursuing godliness through discipline.

And last week, Pastor Nitzschke delivered a message on the Stewardship of the Next Generation. This was an encouraging time for us to be reminded of all those who have gone before us in Christ and also a challenge for us to be thinking about how we can teach those younger than us in the faith to use their lives not for their own glory but for the glory of God.

Today we will be diving into God’s word to study the Stewardship of Prayer. This morning we find ourselves at the end of the book of Colossians in chapter 4 verses 2-4. You can find this passage on page 158 of the back section of the Bible under the chair in front of you.

If you are not familiar with Colossians, this is a letter written by the Apostle Paul where he explains in detail how Christ is sufficient for all of our spiritual needs. Christ was sufficient to redeem us from sin and Christ is still sufficient to make us mature believers in the Lord.

In the second half of this letter, Paul lists many different ways believers should be acting so that they can grow spiritually but also so that they are effective Christians living in this world.

And what is so interesting about this letter is that Paul writes this while in prison. Paul is a steward seeking to be faithful while he doesn’t have freedom, and one of the main messages he wants his readers to understand is the importance of prayer.

In chapter 3, he lists all these different actions believers should be doing but he concludes these lists with a call to prayer.

You see prayer is something we do, but the very act of praying is admitting there are things we have the inability to do. Biblical prayer is a faithful cry to God expressing that there are things that only God can do in our lives and in the lives of others.

And who better to give us instruction on this divine dependence than the Apostle Paul, who was imprisoned for being a steward of the Gospel.

Follow along with me as I read in Colossians 4:2-4

In our time together this morning, let’s look at 4 keys to growing in our prayer life that are given by the Apostle Paul.

Devote yourself to prayer

Colossians 4:2 -² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;

And this word “devotion” carries with it the idea of being persistent in what you do. It means to do something with intense effort and to be busily engaged with it.

This concept of devotion is something that we are all familiar with because as humans there always seems to be something we want to be devoted to.

There are certain things in our life we see as a priority and other tasks that can regularly be placed on the back burner. We will set aside time for the things we are devoted to in life because they are the things we value.

There is even a degree to which the things we are devoted to have a specific compartment in our minds. It’s almost like we think about these things so much that in a time of quietness, that is where our minds naturally go. They go to what we are devoted to.

And Paul commands his readers to be devoted to prayer…

Because it is a key part of the Christian life

The Scriptures use the idea of eating food as a way to explain the importance of listening to and reading the word of God. The Bible is the sustenance and the daily nourishment for the Christian life.

Now prayer is not necessarily like eating, but many have equated prayer to breathing. We might eat three times a day, but we breathe all day long.

Our prayers look different throughout the day. Sometimes it is a dedicated time that has been set aside to pray and at other times we are just praying in the moment. We might be going on throughout our day when we are reminded of someone in the body who is going through a trial at the moment and our natural cry to God is for Him to use that trial in that person’s life for their good and for God’s glory. Or we might have a specific sin struggle we are constantly seeking to put to death and our prayer throughout the day might be that God would help us to put off our sinful thoughts and actions and replace them with righteous thoughts and actions that are pleasing to him.

So, prayer is like breathing in that it should be happening throughout our day and in a variety of ways.

Another way to view prayer is that it gives us the opportunity to have a conversation with God. Now it is not like a conversation we have in the sense that there is direct communication going back and forth. When I’m in my office and my wife and I are talking on the phone, the conversation is moving because we’re going back and forth. I’m sharing things about how my day is going and then she shares details about her day and the conversation goes on.

Now when we pray and we talk to God, it’s not like that. Prayer is not two-way communication I can access at any moment. Prayer is one-way communication from me to God. It is me opening up my heart to the Lord, crying out to my Creator, and bringing my requests before Him.

But the one-way dialogue of my heart toward God is made into two-way communication when you add what? -The word of God.

In God’s word, He is not bringing requests to us, but He is absolutely opening His heart up to us. It’s because of the word of God we can understand what God’s character is like. We can understand what He values, what He wants for His people, and we can see how much He loves us.

So, prayer is essential to the Christian life because with prayer we are able to open our hearts up to the God who has spoken to us first.

Prayer is a unique way to glorify God because in prayer we can respond to what He has already said to us and prayer is an opportunity to…

1. Luke 18:1 -¹ Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart,

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 -¹⁷ pray without ceasing;

1. It is fitting that Paul begins with prayer, because it is the most important speech the new man can utter. Prayer is the strength of the believer’s fellowship with the Lord and the source of his power against Satan and his angels (cf. Eph. 6:18). Through prayer, believers confess their sin, offer praise to God, call on their sympathetic High Priest (Heb. 4:15–16), and intercede for each other. Prayer from a pure heart (Ps. 66:18) is to be directed to God (Matt. 6:9), consistent with the mind and will of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 6:18), in the name of Christ, and for the glory of the Father (John 14:13). ^[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1992). Colossians (pp. 179–187). Moody Press.

Because it expresses a dependance on the Lord and aligns us to His will

When we think about the concept of prayer, we should always be thinking about it in reference to our relationship with God. It is easy for prayer to become something that is routine, something that is monotonous, or something that is just a duty.

Prayer is commanded in the passage we are studying this morning but that doesn’t mean prayer is sheer duty. No, rather prayer should be considered sheer delight to a Christian because it is a time to fellowship with our God who has chosen to have a relationship with us. It is a time to draw near and a time to open up to God to express our neediness and dependence on Him.

We need God to sustain our physical lives. Whether it be our overall health or even just the basic necessities of life, it is clear that God is the one who has provided all these things for us. There is no other explanation for all the blessing we possess physically in this life than the explanation that our loving God provides for us each day.

And more than our physical lives, we know that God provides everything we need for our spiritual lives and that is exactly how Paul begins this letter to the Colossians.

1. Colossians 1:9–12 -⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰ so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Paul expresses his dependence on the Lord to change the Colossians because God is the only one who is able to change the hearts of men and women.

Christians can read the Bible each day and we go to church on Sundays. We can be involved in Bible studies, fellowship groups, and serving opportunities. But we must not forget that only God is the One who is able to change the desires and posture of someone’s soul.

I cannot walk in a manner that is worthy of the Lord by gritting my teeth. God has called me to faith and obedience but the only way I will grow in my obedience is if God is the one who performs spiritual surgery on my heart.

It is once God is at work that we can grow in our wisdom and understanding and ultimately grow in our faithfulness to God.

Prayer is so important because it is a cry to God acknowledging that He is the only One that can change the inner man. Through prayer, God aligns us to His will in that He changes the direction and the posture of our hearts so that we desire what He desires, and we love what He loves.

If you have ever used a compass to navigate outdoors, it matters whether or not you are off by just a few degrees. If you travel for miles when your compass is not calibrated right, then you are miles off where you were supposed to be. Prayer is a time when we depend on God to continually recalibrate us so that we will be pleasing to Him in everything we do and continue to walk down a path according to His will and one that pleases Him.

This kind of prayer is something we do individually, but it is also something we do corporately as an entire body…

Because it unites the body of Christ

Prayer has a way of almost holding the body of Christ together like glue. If our mission is not unified or if there is ever division amongst part of the body, prayer is a key way we can come together in fellowship. If we all naturally want to run in our own direction, corporate prayer has a way of not only aligning us up to God’s will but in doing so it aligns us up to one another.

You can see this in the book of Acts. Right after Christ ascended into heaven, the early church was unified through their time of prayer together.

1. Acts 1:14 - These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer

And you can see throughout the rest of the book of Acts that they continued to be unified through prayer so that they were with one mind when it came to doing the will of God.

Corporate prayer is also a way that we can be devoted to one another.

1. Romans 12:10–13 -¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; ¹¹ not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, ¹³ contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

It is through prayer that we have a unique way in which we can love one another but in order love one another well through prayer, it is important that we are…

Be alert when you pray

Colossians 4:2 -² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;

It is easy for our prayers to become inattentive and thoughtless. Prayer should be purposeful and intentional, rather than aimless. I’m going to God bringing these specific needs before Him because I know that He is the one that can specifically answer those needs.

When our prayer is aimless, it is like sending your husband to pick up three items at the grocery store without giving him a list.

If I ever go to Meijer by myself to pick up just a few times it becomes an entire event. That’s why my wife texts me a list of the things she wants me to purchase. If I walk into the grocery store without being aware of what I’m there to get one of two things happens.

1. I end up waltzing back and forth between the isles trying to find where the peanut butter or where the flour is. It takes me 10 times as long to find what I’m there to purchase.

1. And you know the other thing that’s bound to happen when you send a man to the grocery store alone. He’s walking down the center aisle, sees something, and thinks to himself “what’s this?” And at that point it’s game over. The guys comes home with a whole bag full of random items and then the wife says, “wait, where is the flour?”

And so, it is when our prayer is not alert and aware! We end up spending time in prayer and when it is all done, we haven’t got a clue what we just prayed for.

When we are not alert, we are either aimless or distracted in our prayer.

And there are really two things we need to be alert to…

Be alert to the needs of the moment

In the church, there are always physical needs to be met.

We can always be bringing our brothers and sisters to the Lord in prayer, asking God to help provides for people’s physical needs.

And this is something that our church does so well at.

There are many people in our church that are currently going through physical trials. I just think of all the times when our church body has come together on a Sunday morning to plead with God and ask that He provide healing to those of us who are suffering from an illness or injury. Whether someone is going through cancer treatment, or they have undergone a serious surgery, our church family has been faithful to pray and ask God for help in those times of suffering. And however God answers those prayers, this church family has been able to praise God for how He uses trials in our lives.

But not only are there physical needs, there are countless spiritual needs we are to pray for.

One of the best ways to grow in our walk with the Lord is to be alert to the current ways we need to be growing in Christ. When we are alert, we understand how we need to be growing in humility and growing in our love for one another. We can see how our character needs to change and ask that God conforms us more to the image of His Son.

We should also be praying that God would give us strength in the moment of temptation. When we are enticed with sin and are at the crossroads of whether we will choose to please God or self.

We have an example of a group of men who failed to pray in the moment of temptation don’t we?

1. Matthew 26:40–41 -⁴⁰ And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? ⁴¹ “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And their failure is a reminder to us to be alert in our prayer, knowing that it is only by the power of our God that we will be able to resist the desire to sin in the moment of temptation.

One the one hand we should be aware of our own sinful tendencies and on the other we should…

Be alert to what honors God

We need to understand how we fall short but also understand what righteousness looks like.

Understanding what the will of God is for our lives will give us direction in our prayer and it will aid us in being alert.

One of the best things you can do for your personal prayer life is to have a prayer list. Now if you’ve never made a prayer list this might seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. I know some people who have an entire binder as their prayer list but others have their list on just one piece of paper. If you’ve never made a list like this you could even write the list on a simple notecard.

The idea of having a list is not to become mechanical or impersonal. It’s supposed to do the opposite. Without a prayer list our mind often wanders and they can often be more mechanical without a list because you spend half of your time repeating yourself and asking for the same thing over and over again.

If you do not have a regular time of personal prayer, where you are alone with no one else around, I would encourage you to find 5 minutes a day this week to get alone with the Lord. Write up a short prayer list that you can bring with you and spend that time praying to God and pouring out your heart to Him.

And when you are creating your prayer list, here is an acronym you can use to help you.

A – Adoration

C – Confession

T – Thanksgiving

S – Supplication

(Can this be on one slide?)

Having a prayer list and a dedicated time for prayer is a great way to steward your prayer life this week.

1. Ephesians 6:18–20 -¹⁸ With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, ¹⁹ and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰ for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Cultivate an attitude of thanksgiving

Colossians 4:2 -² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;

What’s interesting about this is that Paul says we are to come with an attitude of thanksgiving. He doesn’t say here that we are to come with a variety of things to be thankful for, though we can see that in other parts of Scripture. Here Paul is saying that all of our prayer should be characterized by thanksgiving. This includes even our times of confession and our times supplication and that is because…

Thankfulness should permeate our walk with the Lord

Colossians 3:15–17 - ¹⁵Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

This includes all of the blessings that God has given us. He has given us an uncountable amount of both physical and spiritual blessings we enjoy. Blessings are obviously an opportune time for us to be giving thanks to the Lord but we should also be giving thanks in the midst of trials knowing what God is doing in us through trials.

James 1:2–4 — ²Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, ³knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Trials are an important time for the Christian to be thanking God, not because trials in and of themselves are good things, but because of what God is doing through trials. James teaches us that God is using trials and suffering to create faith that has endurance, to make us complete and perfect, lacking in nothing.

All of our prayer should be thankful because God is always using the circumstances in life for the good of His children.

And we should be thankful most of all for…

1. Psalm 107:1 -¹ Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

1. Colossians 3:15 -¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Thankfulness for Christ work

Romans 5:8 (NASB95) — 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

If there is one thing to be thankful for it is the saving work that the Lord Jesus did for us in His death, burial, and resurrection.

Because of the Gospel, we have been made right with God. Our sin that was once a record of debt against us has now been completely paid by the shed blood of Christ and not only has our debt been paid, we are now rich in Christ because of the righteousness He has given us. Our lives look completely different because of what God has done to save us. He sent His own Son to die for sinners!

Brothers and sisters, if there is anything that will motivate you to grow in your stewardship of prayer, anything that will deepen your time alone with God, anything that will produce thankfulness in your prayer, it is the reminder that the sinless Son of God died and rose again on your behalf, so that you no longer live as someone who is a servant to sin, but you now live as a servant of God.

And this constant meditation on the gospel caused the Apostle Paul and should cause us as well to not only be thankful in prayer but also to…

1. Colossians 4:2 -² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;

1. Colossians 3:17 -¹⁷ Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 -¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Focus regularly on gospel opportunities

1. Colossians 4:3 – 4 ³ praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; ⁴ that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.

We need to…

Understanding that we need God to open doors

We can see all throughout the life of the Apostle Paul that God was the One opening the doors and creating opportunities for the spreading of the Gospel.

1. Acts 14:27 -²⁷ When they had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.

And we should be asking God to open doors…

Knowing that God’s plan is for us to be actively engaged in the spread of the Gospel

1. Colossians 4:4 -⁴ that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.

1. Colossians 1:3–6 -³ We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, ⁴ since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; ⁵ because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel ⁶ which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;

Gospel Call

As we conclude this month of stewardship, we can remember that God commands us to be good stewards of prayer. Our prayer should be devoted, characterized by an alertness and thankfulness, and focused on Gospel opportunities.