Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Focus Thought
After completing his teaching, Paul touches base with the Ephesian church about prayer. He emphasizes looking outside of ourselves and looking out into the harvest. Living with that mindset helps us to see the big picture and keeps us from getting sidetracked by the details of the moment.
The Next Step
In the 50's and 60's, Jimmy Reed was the name and face of Electric Blues. Tony Russell, in his book, "The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray" wrote that Jimmy's "lazy, slack-jawed singing, piercing harmonica and hypnotic guitar patterns were one of the...most easily identifiable sounds" of that era (pp. 76-77). Many experts believe that it was Reed who caused "The Blues" to be recognized as a musical genre.
No one could do Blues like Jimmy Reed.
As Mr. Reed rose in popularity and more and more people began to listen to his records, reports began to flood in that as people listened they could hear a faint, female voice in the background of the music. She didn't sing with everyone else and her words weren’t very clear. No, instead, she would quietly murmur the next verse of the song a few seconds before it was sung.
It was later found that the voice was none other than Jimmy Reed's wife, Mary. The story was that Mr. Reed tended to get caught up in the moment when he played. He would get so absorbed with playing his music that he would forget the words as he sang. Knowing he needed help with the lyrics, his wife would patiently sit by his side, whispering the words to his songs in his ear in advance, devotedly coaching her husband through the recording session as he sang. It was Mary's voice that kept Jimmy on track. Without Mary, Jimmy would have been lost in the moment and the music would have come to a screeching halt.
Mary chose to whisper the lyrics. Mary chose to keep things in order. Mary chose to keep things on track and look at the bigger picture. And the world benefited as a result.
After all the teaching that Paul has done, he asks Ephesus to hone in on the ultimate purpose of the church: to spread the Gospel. Everything that Paul asks for connects with the purpose of sharing the message of Jesus. The Gospel is our mission. The Gospel is our goal. The Gospel is the set of lyrics that keeps the song of our lives on track. It's the lyrics of the Gospel that keep us from going off on our own little tangent. They keep us from being enamored with the here-and-now moments of the song of our lives. They keep us from getting so wrapped up in our preferences and our problems and our circumstances, that we neglect to look around us; that we neglect to see the bigger picture. Without his wife's coaching, Jimmy Reed's music would have come to a screeching halt. Without the Spirit of God whispering the lyrics of the Gospel in our ears, our efforts will do the same. It's not enough to play church, we have to know the reason why we do what we do.
The lyrics give us the reason why we sing.
Without lyrics a song is just music. It may convey feelings and tug at the emotions, but it doesn't convey a message, not in and of itself. Without the Gospel or a Gospel mentality, we have no message and the church becomes nothing more than a social club with the name of Jesus tacked on the door. We feel good, we look good, we sound good, but we don't DO good. Why? Because, like Paul said here in our text, we're not speaking "as we ought to speak" (Eph. 6:20).
It amazes me that Paul's first course of action is to challenge Ephesus to look outside of themselves. In verse 18, he asks them to pray "for all saints" and in verse 19 he asks that they would pray for him specifically. He challenges them to look beyond themselves.
And that's important because many times we get so wrapped up in ourselves that if it doesn't fit into our mentality, if it doesn't fit into our ideology, if it doesn't fit into our preferences, our style, our way of doing things, then to us, it doesn't exist. But Paul tells Ephesus to take the opposite approach. Paul tells us to look beyond ourselves and to look toward the Gospel.
Looking at the Gospels, it’s interesting to note that all four record Jesus' statement about the harvest being great and the laborers being few. But John, who was in Jesus' inner circle, takes a vastly different approach from the other three Gospel writers. Matthew, Mark, and Luke write Jesus' words as a general statement as if Jesus is just stating a fact, but John takes it a step further. Listen to what he says:
"Say not ye, 'There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.'" (John 4:35)
John takes it from being a simple statement of fact to being a command. He presents it as a challenge to change a mentality. Make a change. Lift up your eyes. Look on the fields. Re-align your focus.
And one of the primary ways to do that is through prayer.
When Jesus was in the Garden right before He was arrested, He started off by praying “Remove this cup from me” but ended by saying “nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). His humanity experienced a change in mentality. And if Jesus needed to undergo a change in mentality, how much more should we?
All throughout his writings, Paul tends to use the same Greek word when he writes about prayer. It's a compound word, the first half of the word means "with” or “in relation to” and the second means “desire.” And so the word literally means “in relationship to my desire.”
The interesting thing is that in Greek culture, the pagans used the same word for prayer. Except that they used it to describe the elaborate ceremonies they would use to “butter up” their god before asking him or her for something. The would offer their god or goddess the best things they had. They would slaughter their animals. They would pour out their wine. They would make vows. The greater their desire for the need, the more elaborate their ceremony and the more costly their sacrifice. To the Greeks, worship and prayer were tied together so closely that they were in many cases seen as one and the same. In fact, Strong’s concordance actually defines the word “prayer” in Ephesians 6:18 as “worship.”
True prayer cannot take place outside of worship.
But Paul was not the only one to express prayer in this way. Jesus does it too. In Matthew 6:9-13, we come across Jesus teaching His disciples to pray. This text is the most complete version of the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus prayed the Lord’s Prayer to be a template for his followers. It was never meant to be an empty recitation. It was a pattern they were supposed to follow.
In the KJV, the Lord’s Prayer has 66 words. Of those words, 28 are used to talk about needs and 38 are used to talk about worship. I don't care how bad you are at math, everyone knows 38 is larger than 28. 42% (less than half) of Jesus’ prayer deals with needs. 58% deals with worship. Majority of Jesus' prayer is focused on God, yet we tend to do the opposite. When we pray, majority of the time is spent focusing on us. When we pray, we pull out our little lists and we just start naming off needs. When we pray, our eyes are inward on ourselves. Then at the last moment, we tack on a little worship for good measure.
We make worship an afterthought when it's meant to be a starting-point.
In reality, everything starts with worship. It starts with looking beyond yourself. It starts with lifting up your eyes and focusing upon your God and as you do, your eyes gradually gravitate downward until they come to rest upon the fields of harvest. Lift up your eyes. Look on the fields. Hear the Spirit of God whispering in your ears. Let the voice of God, speaking the lyrics of the Gospel, keep you playing in tune.
Here are some things to do this week:
Reflect
Think over this past week and the situations you've faced. How have you furthered the Gospel this week? How many times have you heard the voice of God. How many times did you respond to it?
Reflect Again
One of Jimmy Reed's biggest problems was that he would get wrapped up in the moment. Do you feel that happens to you? Do you feel that sometimes you get so focused on what's happening in your life in your little corner of the world that you miss the big picture? I think we all do. Thankfully, God is persistent and He continues to whisper direction into our ears.
Pray
Pray that God would help you to see the opportunities taking place around you. Pray that you will hear his voice and be willing to follow. But most importantly, simply bask in His Presence and worship. Take your focus of of yourself and your life and your needs and place it on your God and on the harvest.
