[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So last week we talked about the first half of chapter one, and so tonight we're going to go to the second half of Chapter one, and it's where Paul prays for the church in Ephesus. And we're going to do a little different in that we're going to talk about how we as parents should pray for our children. What do we include in those prayers, how we're going to look at what Paul said and see how that applies to it. So let's go to Ephesians chapter one, and we're going to start with verse 15.
All right, so Ephesians chapter one, beginning with verse 15.
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
So we have Paul talking about how he prays for the church at Ephesus, and this is what he includes in his prayer. And it really starts in verses 15 and 16 of Paul praying about his gratitude. In other words, Paul is praying for the things that God is already doing.
And I think this should be very important for us because I think before we ask God to start making changes, we ought to thank God for what he's already done.
So we've got to start with this whole idea of gratitude. God's already working in our lives.
And so before we start asking him to change our, you know, to correct how our child behaves or to do this for our child and to give our child patience, we ought to just thank God for our children, right? And so Paul starts off with this whole idea of gratitude and having this gratitude that we have.
And then this is where we'll spend some time in verses 17 to 19.
Because Paul lists what he prays for or things in his prayer. And I think these are the things that matter most.
And when you look at that list that Paul does, I think it matches what we as parents should think about as what matters most. The first one is, if you'll notice, Paul says that he prays that they'll have wisdom. It's never too early for you to start praying that your child has wisdom. Don't pray that your child will have good friends.
Pray that he will have the wisdom to choose good friends, right? And so this whole idea of wisdom, the whole purpose of wisdom, is so that our children will know God in a personal level, that they will understand His Word, that they'll recognize his voice, and that they'll be able to make their discernment of what is good and what is bad.
So the first thing that you pray for what matters most is this whole idea of wisdom. And then notice what Paul says where he prays in verse 18.
Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. And so you pray for this enlightenment, right?
But where we head with that as parents is we pray that their eyes are open to the truth and that they'll need the help of God to see things spiritually, right? And so our prayer should include to open our child's eyes, open our children's eyes, so that they will see you for the glorious God that you are.
Notice it says Paul says that. And I know I'm going fast because the weekly challenge this week, it's long, so I want to make sure we get there.
Notice Paul talks about this idea of a hope.
I think it's very important for us as we teach our children, to teach them to understand hope.
And what this hope is that we have, we talked about last week, right?
Knowing who their identity is, that their identity is found in Christ.
Having them understand that their lives have a purpose.
They'll do the things they enjoy as children. If they're baseball players, they'll do the things they enjoy in their lives. But that's not their purpose.
Their purpose is serving God and what God has planned.
And that is this whole idea of that hope. And when things get difficult, and you always tell your children there'll be times when things get difficult, right? When they get difficult and they get discouraged, they'll never. Or they will always have hope that God is always there for them.
And then I think we pray that they're going to know, as Paul talks about, they're going to know the riches of God's inheritance. In other words, pray that your children will value things above and not things below.
Teach them that it is spiritual things and heavenly things that are the riches, not the material things that we gather here.
And then Paul talks about praying that they will know God's power as much as we would like.
Our children are going to face things that.
That are beyond their control.
They're going to face things that they can't control.
They're going to have to deal with things that they can't control.
And so they need to realize that God is greater than anything that they're going to face in life, right? They're going to face disappointment, they're going to face discouragement, they're going to face difficult times.
But God, they'll never face anything that's greater than God.
And then I think verses 20 through 23, so those first verses, we're going to apply them to the kids.
But I think verses 20 and 23 are for us, right? When we look at those, because the first thing it says is Jesus.
Paul talks about that Jesus reigns overall, you know, most of y' all know we have a granddaughter, two and a half years old, and they're great. If I had known grandparenting was this great, we would have done that first, right?
But, you know, like, she'll go outside with me and I'll watch her really close and I'll protect her, and I don't want anything to happen to her, you know? And that's what we do with our kids, right?
We hold them tight.
We hold them.
But I think oftentimes what we have to remember is that ultimately our children is in his hands, that we have our children and we teach our children. But ultimately they're going to be in God's hands and in Jesus hands. And so for us it's kind of difficult, right, because we've got to realize at times we just have to put our faith and our trust that we can't be there. You know, right now it's pretty easy for us, for you, with the age that your children are, to help them with their decisions.
But when they become teenagers, when they go off to college, we can't be there.
We have to kind of release and trust that God and realize that God reigns over all authority, that Jesus is above every authority, he's above every power. He's the head over the church and he's completely sovereign.
And so I think as we start thinking about prayer and these connections with prayer, I think prayer helps to remind us that we are parents, but we're not the ones who are ultimately in control.
We cannot control every decision our child is going to make.
We can't control every influence that they're going to encounter.
We cannot guarantee their future.
But we can entrust them to the one who has authority over all things.
We can entrust them, you know, we can entrust him.
Prayer is one of those ways that as parents, it helps us release, right? Release them and give them over to God.
And so what we're going to do this week, we're going to hit a few questions, discussion questions.
But this week we're really going to focus, I want you to really focus your prayers on your children. And we're going to walk through. I'm going to kind of, when we do our weekly challenge, it's going to be two slides. So I've already given John a heads up so he can make sure he takes those and then gets them. But, but let's talk a little bit about the passage.
Is there anything that you notice Paul didn't pray for.
[00:12:11] Speaker C: He didn't pray for their physical parity
[00:12:15] Speaker B: or their health or things like that.
He didn't pray for those physical things.
You also never see him say anything about Paul, right?
I think sometimes when we pray, perhaps our prayer is help me, help me get me through this. Which is fine. God has that.
But our prayer life needs to exceed beyond the things we ask about ourselves. Right? Our prayer life needs to be for those children. Also notice that.
What stands out about his priorities and Ben, I think this alluded to what Ben said. What stood out about his priorities for the Ephesians is not their physical, necessarily their physical well being, their physical things, but rather those spiritual things for them.
Why do you think Paul focuses so much on this idea of knowing God?
[00:13:32] Speaker C: Because it's everything. The more you know, about him, the more you understand how he wants us to live and how he wants us to treat other people, the priorities he has, you know, he wants us to have.
The closer we grow to God, the more we know about him, the different we're going to live our lives differently.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: It's a lot like last week, right, when we talked about why did Paul talk about identity before starting to talk about the problems in Ephesus. Right. Christianity is not a list of commands. Christianity is. Is your identity. Christianity is all about your relationship and knowing God. It's not that list of do's, don'ts. It's not those things, but rather it goes back to that relationship.
So let's talk a little bit about our kids.
When you pray for your children, what do you find yourself praying for most often? Sleep.
What are some of the things that you pray for that's probably most frequent in your prayers when you, when you talk about or pray for your kids? Choices on their way from us and that they're safe? Yeah. And I will tell you as a parent of adult children, those things change as your child grows. Right.
Wait, we don't have anyone yet who's got children driving, Right. Okay. Well, that's when you really pray.
[00:15:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: But you'll, you know, as they move into their teenage years, as they move into middle school, your, Your prayers change and they move into high school and then they start driving, they go to college, you know, And I know those who have adult children.
Our adult children are in my. Are my, Our adult. Amy and my adult children are in my prayers every day, just like when they were kids. Meaning they never leave your children never leave your prayers? No. No matter how old they are. But, but they vary through.
How can we have, how can we make prayer be a more consistent part of your family routine?
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Whenever we do, like, dinners or, you know, eating at home or Depot or John and I like to ask the boys, who was the prayer tonight? You know, and sometimes they won't because everything that happened the day, you know, that day. But normally they're both just so excited to have that opportunity that they're usually both jumping feet first. You know, I want to pray about it.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: You know, if you're not praying at mealtime, make that a part of your family tradition.
And I would encourage you to make anything you do together, right?
Going to school, pray. They'll, you know, maybe have them say pray. They'll have a good day. Right. A good day that dad has a good day at work or whatever. But to me, it's almost like, well, when are you going to talk to your kids about Jesus? When do you work Jesus into your conversations? Hopefully you work Jesus into every conversation you have.
I think it's the same thing with prayer, right? Prayers don't have to be long and elaborate. They can be short and quick. Just, you know, work them in as we see fit.
Let's talk a little bit and we'll finish up early because we won't talk too much. But I do want to share with you our weekly challenge.
So the weekly challenge I forgot to put in here is the family memory verse is verse 17.
So work as a family memorizing verse 17.
For those who may not have been here last week, what I'm going to do for your homework is I have a set of questions that are designed for you. These are things I want you to think about. And so your reflection, personal reflection questions.
These are things I want you to think about yourself, right?
What spiritual quality am I asking God to develop in my child? What concern about my child? Do I need to surrender to God? Right. Sometimes it's hard to let go of those certain things. But these personal questions, I want them to be those that you work through this week.
Talk to your spouse, okay? Because, you know, communication is the key.
And there may be some that when you talk to your spouse, you're surprised, you know, so communicate with them. But then this is the big structured thing that I want you to do for your children. This week.
We're going to take seven days.
Day one, I want your prayers for day one to be exactly what we read in Ephesians that Paul lists as what matters most. The first one, starting of knowing God.
Day one, your prayer should be that your children develop this personal, genuine relationship with God. So that's what I want you to do on day one.
Day two, I want you to pray for spiritual eyes. I want you to pray that your children are going to be able to see God's truth, recognize his work in their lives, and understand what he wants them to know. I know some of you have young children.
That's fine, right? These are things that we pray for our kids, regardless.
Day three, as we go down Paul's list, pray for hope, right?
Pray that when they get discouraged and when they get afraid, that they know their hope is found in God and God is bigger than anything that they're going to face.
Day four, I want, you know, you pray about that they understand God's goodness, that the riches that God gives, that they value those spiritual things much more than they value the temporary things.
Day five is about God's power. So pray your children will understand the greatness of God's power.
And then day six, pray a little bit about yourself. Surrender.
Pray for wisdom. Even though there are circumstances and things that we don't want to release control of, we want to hang on to.
Pray that you will trust God in those times that you're not there, that when they're at school and you're not there, that you're going to be okay with that, that you can surrender those things that you cannot control.
And then on the seventh day, it's like Joshua, okay, going around Jericho, okay, On the seventh day, all of them, the whole passage that we read in Ephesians 15:23, Pray that whole passage over your children, which would be all those things, all those things that Paul says matter the most.
Include them in your prayer.
And then this is what I want you to do, because I'm very specific when I pray.
I know that God knows what's on my heart. He understands what my heart. But for me, being specific helps me in my daily walk. You guys will probably notice when I do public prayer, I usually write it out. I usually have it written out beforehand. Right?
So what I want you to do on that seventh day, I want you to find three specific things in each of your children.
Three specific things.
And thank God for those three things.
Right? We got to start with. Before we start asking stuff, we got to start with gratitude. God has given precious things about your child in his life and in their life. Identify those three things that you're thankful for that you see in your child, and include those in day seven as blessing and gratitude when you pray.
All of Ephesians. Okay, so that's our weekly challenge. I'm hoping, right?
Seven days of prayer.
Maybe this will, you know, together as a spouse pray. I think praying with your spouse is a way to bring you closer, but also don't necessarily ignore it in your personal prayer. Right? But this is your weekly challenge on parenting for this week, and then the questions ahead. And I know pictures were taken, so they'll send them out.
I know I flew through things kind of fast, but I mainly wanted to get to these slides and not just leave them without any explanation.
One thing you'll notice is I'm not necessarily giving you what we're going to be going over next week.
My thought is, is that we'll have the weekly challenge be based upon whatever we do in class versus being prepared for next week. So that's one thing that's a little bit different than the way I normally handle that, but we'll close with prayer, and then we'll go ahead and get dismissed.
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this time we have to come together. Father, we're so thankful for your word. We're thankful for the time that we take to study from that word and we learn from that word. Father, we know that prayer is something that we cannot live without.
We know, Father, that it is something that we need as well as something that you desire. Father, this week, as we pray for our children, help us to be good parents. Help us to use that wisdom and be with us through this week. And in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
