Pray This When You Feel Down & Dejected

You know, Martin Luther said that prayer is the most powerful force in creation. He said that in the midst of probably one of the most dynamic, chaotic times in the last 1,000 years. It was about 500 years ago and the church was torn apart, world powers were at each other's throat, economic issues were changing, there were riots, there were all kinds of things happening in the world. And in the midst of that, this monk who was holding on to God's Word, who actually believed what God had said in His Word was true, came to the conclusion that prayer, coming before God in faith, is the most powerful force on the earth.

Well, I don't know about you, but as I look at our world right now and the challenges at every level, there's times where I pray. And I'm asking God and I look around and I wonder, “Lord, where are You?” I mean, there's so many challenging things. And there's lots of good teaching on prayer. I have a couple books here that have meant a lot to me over the years. R.A. Torrey, an older person of a century ago, How to Pray, great book. Or Richard Foster's book on prayer where he talks about all kinds of different prayer. What I want to talk to you about isn't prayer in general. I want to talk to you about how do you pray when you don't know what to pray.

I think there's three or four times in your experience and in my experience that we are either so overwhelmed or paralyzed or fearful or discouraged. We literally are... “I don't know what to pray.” And that's what I want to talk about. We'll look at four specific passages that I'll outline in the days ahead. But here's what I want you to know. I want you to know that when you don't know what to pray, the Lord has given us in His Word actual prayers that people were given to pray when things were so hard and so desperate, they literally didn't know what to pray. The first one I'm going to look at is when we feel dejected.

I know you don't use that word. We hear rejected, we hear sad, we hear dispirited. The word dejected is sort of a combination of sad, a feeling of hopelessness, a sense of, “I don't think I can go on.” It's this overwhelming sense of life doesn't make any sense. It's a, “God help me, but I don't know what to pray.” David prays a prayer when he's dejected in Psalm 31. And follow along as I read in the New Living Bible. It says:

“Have mercy on me, Lord, for I'm in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and my soul are withering away. I am dying from grief. My years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength. I'm wasting away from within. I'm scorned by all my enemies and despised by my neighbors. Even my friends are afraid to come near me. When they see me on the street, they run the other way. I'm ignored as if I were dead, as if I were a broken pot. I've heard the many rumors about me and I've been surrounded by terror. My enemies conspire against me, plotting to take my life.”

Now, I don't know about you, but I think if we sat next to David after he prayed that and we said, “I mean, aren't you the man after God's own heart? I mean, aren't you the one that have had these mountaintop experiences and you wrote a lot of these Psalms and you were anointed as the king and, you know, like on a good day, you threw that slingshot and the giant went down. I mean, how can someone as godly as you be praying those kind of prayers because you feel those kind of feelings?”

I began to think about his life, and early on he says, “My body and soul are withered away. I'm dying from grief.” Some of you know what it's like to lose a child, and David did. What do you pray when a brand new baby dies or dies in childbirth, or there's a miscarriage, or there's an accident with your 18-month-old? He says, “I was drained because of my sin, wasting away.” We've all made mistakes, and some of us have made really big ones. David's talking here about committing adultery, covering it up with murder, and then he lives with this secret. He doesn't tell anyone. He fakes it, and he pretends for well over a year until he's confronted. And what I would remind you is he's a man after God, not because of his behavior or of his morality. It's how he responds when God confronts him with his sin. And he repents. Later on, he talks about, “They see me on the streets. My friends are afraid of me. They won't come near me.”

He was betrayed by his own son. He was betrayed by one of his wives. I mean, this is a man who was the king and loses his kingship, who is now in his older years hiding, wondering what the future will hold. And he's crying out to God and saying, “I am absolutely dejected. What do I do?” Dejected is sad, depressed, and dispirited. And whether it's Moses face down as they're threatening to kill him, or whether it's Elijah saying, “I'm done. Just kill me. I can't take it anymore,” or whether it's an Esther saying to her uncle Mordecai, “What do you mean? You want me to go before the king and the whole history of the Israel nation is dependent on me?” I mean, what do you do when you feel sad, depressed, dejected, that overall sense of hopelessness?

And I would remind you, according to Hebrews chapter 5 verse 7, it says that in the days of His flesh... notice the days, plural... Jesus cried out with tears in His prayers to God. When you feel dejected, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. What it does mean is that you're human. And there are times in your experience and my experience where the circumstances and the relationships and our emotions and things that we can't control, and unfortunately some things that we actually have to own, create in us this overwhelming sense of hopelessness, of - I can't go on, I can't take it anymore.

And into that situation, there's a group in a little church called Ephesus, and it's a city of great renown, and the Apostle Paul has, on his first journey, heard about it. On his second journey there's a little quick visit. And then on his third journey he spends about three years there. And he gets kicked out of the synagogue and he finds himself realizing there's idols on every corner. There's this temple of Artemis where it's like Vegas. I mean, it's a sex temple. There's one of the wonders of the world over here. It's this place that has, I mean, commerce and trade. It's multicultural. It's got entertainment, you know, like L.A. I mean, there's this big amphitheater. 25,000 people can come in. There's trade coming in from all around the world. It's on a port of modern-day Turkey.

And into this, this little group come to know the Lord. And then once he gets rejected, he does something really smart. He rents a lecture hall so Jews and people from other temples, they can come to this neutral place. And for three years, he teaches the Word of God. And as he teaches, it multiplies, and it multiplies. And it does great things. It's like what's happening all around the world. Unfortunately, many of us only look at the news or we scroll on the internet and there's a shooting here and there's economic issues here and they're arguing about this over there and this superpower's doing that over there. The fact of the matter is the gospel is spreading and people are coming to Christ and churches are being planted and wonderful things are happening all across the globe. But it's in the midst of great opposition.

And it's into that context that the Apostle Paul is going to first write a letter. It's the letter written to the Ephesians. And then after the quick introduction, verses 3 through 14, it's one long sentence. He basically says to this group of people that are tempted every single day to be dejected. I mean, every single day there's political issues. There's division. There's a Jewish family that some decided that Paul's right, Jesus is the Messiah. Other people in the family said he's wrong. So now there's fights within family. There's fights in politics. There's ethnic issues. By the way, does any of this sound remotely similar to our day?

And so the Apostle Paul wants to remind them. He says to them, beginning in verse 3, “Every spiritual blessing in heaven is yours.” And then he begins to do this great theological reminder. He said, “Since the day that you trusted in Jesus, when you turned from your sin and in the empty hands of faith received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the Spirit of God came into your mortal body and God chose you and He adopted you.” And He said, “I want you to be in my family.” And He redeemed you. He paid a price. And the price was the blood of the Lord Jesus. And then he says, “You have this inheritance. And then he says, “He put His Spirit within you.” And then He sealed you. And He wants you to know this is who you are.

This is what you have. And then, knowing all the challenges, how discouraging it can be... the family rejection, the economic pressure, the Roman persecution... he says, “I want to pray for you.” We pick it up in context in verse 15. And in verse 15, it says:

“For this reason” — right? For this reason, you have all these things in you that you're in this hostile world. “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparable great power for us who believe.”

And then he gives just a little context after that request: “That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

And then just... he wants to remind them when it feels out of control, I'm praying this prayer that we'll look at in a minute. But he says in this last verse, “And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him, Jesus, to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.”

And so here's what I want you to get. There is a prayer here where what he's going to do and what he's going to say to you and me is, I first want you to learn about an 18-inch journey, because when your focus is outward on the political division, the family struggles, the economics over here, the persecution over here, the terrible things that are happening to some people that you love, where there's death and oppression in our world now, school shootings, he says, “I want you to remember who you are and what God has done.”

The second thing he's going to tell us is, “I want you to grasp that there is a future, there is a calling, there is something that you already possess that you need a new set of glasses.” And your glasses cannot be, you know, what's happening when you see the news or what you hear or just your personal experience. You need a set of glasses where you and I will look at life, even the tragedies, even the pain, even the times when our emotions don't even want to pray, through this eternal perspective of who we are, what God has already done, what the future will hold with every single believer. And then he prays about this power... this ability, this strength that raised Jesus from the dead and it dwells in you and it dwells in me as a follower of Jesus Christ.

And what I'd like to do is unpack this passage and then help you begin to make this a part of your prayer life. In fact, we're going to look at four passages, and I have all four passages just on a little card. Two on one side, two on the other. And I pray them. I pray them very specifically for me. I pray these out loud when... like you, I'm sure you think that those of us that teach the Bible or pastors, maybe we don't have as many bad days as you. But I've lost friends, say, in the pandemic who died. I have seen horrendous things. I got a call from South Africa last night and just a guy in a voice message pouring out his heart and saying to me, “What do I do? I don't know what to do.” There's pain and tragedy and hurt. And like you, you know, I do pretty well most days. And then there's days where... right... it just kind of mounts up and it mounts up and it mounts up and it mounts up. And I just feel like, “Is what I'm doing making any difference? Lord, what do I do?”

And what I do is I get these four prayers out. And the first one is this one. And this one is verses 17 through 19b. And you'll notice in your notes that I laid it out in what I call a mechanical outline. When I study the scriptures, I want to lay it out where I can make observations so that I interpret it rightly and then I can put it into practice. And so it says: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation.”

So what he's saying is, “Okay, look, I've told you, here's all the things that you already possess, right? This is who you are. You've been adopted. You've been redeemed. Here's the request. I want you to make an 18-inch journey from your head down to your heart.” And it says, “I am praying.” And notice it's present tense. “I keep asking.” That's a good example for me. I'm asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, the all-powerful One, that He would give you... and many of your passages say “the spirit.” Literally, there's no article. It's “a spirit.” This isn't the Holy Spirit. He's praying, “I'm praying that God will give you a spirit” ... you already have the Holy Spirit... “of wisdom and revelation.”

The word wisdom here is skill, insight, the ability to discern and ascertain what you already have. It's remembering what it means to be adopted or redeemed. It's the skill and insight about who I really am and what God has done. And it's filtering that through all the things that are coming in your life. He says, “I pray for a spirit of insight or wisdom and also of revelation.” And that word just means to unveil or uncover the truth. In other words, he says, “I want you to have this skill, this ability to grasp who you already are. And then I want you to have the truth made clear about who Jesus is, who God the Father is, who the Holy Spirit is.”

He says, “I pray a spirit of wisdom and revelation,” then notice the purpose clause. “So that you may know Him better.” In your notes there, if you happen to be available with a pen or something, circle that word, know, because there's two very specific words in the New Testament. One is a knowing by experience. It's a personal knowledge. It's an intimate knowledge. For example, it's different from knowing about. Like there might be a star or an influencer that you know about, and you've read about them and maybe read their biography. I'm reading a couple biographies right now. One is this huge, thick book like this. So I'm listening to it about Winston Churchill. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating. I know a lot about Winston Churchill, but I've never met him. I don't have a relationship with him.

This word, Paul's praying. You know, when you feel sad, when you feel dejected, when you feel hopeless, I'm praying that whatever skill, whatever needs to happen inside your heart, that the Spirit of God would take your spirit and give you this spirit of wisdom and opening of truth that you could actually know Him better, deeper, clearly, authentically, a connection.

I think so often... I was thinking about this this morning sitting on a chair... I was thinking so often, even though I know better. It's like somehow Jesus, yes, I believe in Him. He died. He rose from the dead. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. He's praying for me, right? But I get this idea that that happened back then. And this morning as I was reading this, especially the part about all this power that's available, it was like... I mean, I've been a pastor for a lot of years... this thought was, “Jesus is alive. He's not some historical character. He's alive, and He's praying for me.” And He's praying, “Chip, you know, when you get overwhelmed, when you're struggling” ... and I've got a couple pretty big issues in my life now, like I'm tempted to be dejected like the Ephesians... “Chip, I want you to know I'm alive. This is real.” And that's what he's praying. He's praying, “I want you to know that you can know Him. He’s powerful. He’s good. He’s already told you these things He’s done.”

And then the second request is he moves from that and he wants them to understand you need to grasp a perspective of today through the lens of tomorrow. All of us, right, we have challenges. And whether it's like David was praying when he was betrayed, or some of our challenges, we make really big mistakes. And I don't know about you, when I make a mistake, I really have to fight the tendency that, “Well, I don't want to pray right now,” or, “You know, I don't want to hang around other Christians because it makes me struggle.”

I have to remember the moment I come to God and ask for forgiveness, His blood keeps on cleansing. And He forgives me. He wants to restore me. But there's times where it's hard to do that. Especially, some of you, that you’ve got a secret right now, just like David did, and secrets destroy.

And whether it's a secret habit, whether it's a secret lust, whether it's a secret something you have with another person, God wants to bring those things into the light. And so what he says to them, he goes, “I want you to grasp and understand how to look at everyday life through this lens, through this calling of who you are.” Notice the second request. He says:

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart” — not just your intellect, the eyes of your heart, the seat of your emotions, your will, your reason, the real you — “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” Purpose clause. Why? “In order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance, and the great power toward us who believe.”

Let me just make this really, really, really simple, and then I want to break it down, and I want to give you some pictures. Basically, what he's saying is, “Okay, you're tempted to be dejected like the Ephesians. Big request: I want you to know the person of God for who He really is.” Second, “I want you to grasp and remember the promises He made, the hope of your calling.” What is the hope of your calling? Well, you were called to what? Be adopted, to be redeemed, that you have an inheritance. I want you to know it's not just that there is a heaven waiting for you and a perfect environment. That is true. But he says, “I want you to know the hope of your calling.”

In other words, hope in English is a wishful thought. You know, “I hope it doesn't rain. I hope I meet the right person someday. I hope maybe we can relocate. I hope I get a better job.” That's not this word. This is the absolute certainty. “I want you to know the hope that can't change because Jesus said, 'I go to prepare a place for you. And if it weren't true, I wouldn't have said it. I love you. I'm for you. No matter what happens in this life that you can't control in a fallen, evil, difficult world, I want you to know.’” And this is that other word. This isn't a “know” by experience. This is the word for a fact. “I want you to know 2 plus 2 is 4. I want you to know 4 plus 4 is 8.” It's just a reality. It's just a fact.

I want you to know that no matter how dejected your emotions and your feelings and your relationships and your circumstances feel right now, I want you to know there is a certainty about your calling. And yes, it ultimately ends up in a perfect environment with a loving Savior where there's no sin or sorrow or tears. But I want you to know your hope is you're adopted right now. You are valuable right now. You are redeemed. You have an inheritance. You have the Spirit right now.

And that's something I pray. I was in the midst of a pretty tough situation just last week. And I got a text from my wife and said, “Chip, there's been a shooting.” And she named the high school. And it's where two of my grandkids go. And they were on alert, and there was a shooter. And, you know, I mean, what do you pray? And I remember stopping my car, obviously praying for their protection, praying that person would not shoot anyone, praying the police would get there. I prayed all the practical prayers, that we pray all those, right? And then I prayed:

“Almighty God, when I think of Ella and Ryder right now, I don't know what's going on, but I'm asking You, because I know this is Your will, that right now You'd give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation into who You really are. And Lord, I ask that You would help them to grasp the hope of their calling right now, what they have, what they possess, that it would allow them to be calm and allow them to do the right thing in the right way to protect them and other people.”

I prayed that prayer because that prayer is a prayer for people in the midst of very difficult and challenging times. And I praise God with all my heart that they got the shooter before he did anything, that my grandkids are safe.

But you know, sometimes we just pray sort of logistics, right? We pray, “God, can You make that happen? Would You help them get that job? Would You restore that marriage? Could You take care of this? Could You take care of that?” And those are fine, right? We're going to pray those things. But what the Apostle Paul prays for this group, knowing that the bombardment is from everywhere at every level, he wants them to get rooted. He wants them to get grounded. He wants them to grasp who they are, what they already have, to live with a sense of confidence. To have this sense that, you know, circumstances and tragedy and difficulty. Yes, they're hard, but wouldn't you understand who you are? When you understand through eternal perspective, when you have real hope, you can weather the storm. Because now is not all there is.

But he goes on, and he talks more than just about praying that our heart might be enlightened. In fact, I love that. You might put a line just under that phrase, “may be enlightened,” for those of you that are Bible students. In Greek, it's called the perfect tense. The perfect tense means it's something that happened in the past that continues on continuously in the future. So what he's really praying, he says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart, the real you, the depth of your being, having already been enlightened, your eyes are open, you've met Jesus, you know the future, and they're continuing to be enlightened, that they would be enlightened in such a way that you would grasp, number one, all that you already have, the hope of your calling.”

And second, this is this next part: “the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.” Let me say that again. The riches … the lavish riches of His, God's, glorious inheritance in the saints. Now, I've got to say something here, and I don't want to diminish in any way your confidence in any translations, but if you read that verse, verse 18, in multiple translations, it will talk about... and they'll kind of shift it... they'll talk about “our inheritance.” He's already talked about our inheritance in verse 11. He's already talked about our inheritance in verse 14. That's not what it says. What it says, Paul's praying, “I'm praying that you could grasp the riches of the glory of the Father's inheritance in the saints.” In other words, when do you get an inheritance? Someone dies and they leave a will. Jesus dies. He's risen from the dead. The Father's inheritance is you. The Father's inheritance is me.

The reconnection of lost humanity to whosoever would believe... God sees us crossing the threshold. God sees us forgiven, redeemed, clothed in righteousness. And this inheritance that He has is a forever and ever and ever and ever relationship with all the redeemed. And it's awesome. In other words, have you ever thought about what could I ever give God, and what He really wants? What He wants today is you and me as a living sacrifice. But one day what He'll have, He'll have all of us in a perfect environment.

And Paul prays that we could grasp... are you ready for this?... that's how valuable we are. You know, my parents received an inheritance. It wasn't a lot, but it was a piece of property that their parents left to them and the three children. And after they died, then it was left to us. And then pretty soon with like three or four different families, there's like 10 of us involved. And the lawyers got involved and all this stuff was happening. And I mean, it took years and years and years. And for the last, I don't know, 10 years, every year I get a tax bill from West Virginia, you know, $352 on some land that I don't know anything about, that it doesn't mean anything to me. It's like, “Are you kidding?”

But way back, there was my grandfather who gave it to my mom, who gave it to us. And in his mind's eye, he wanted to understand, “I wanted to leave some things to you because you matter, because you're valuable to me.” And just about a month ago, we were able to sell that land, and everybody got a few thousand dollars and some a little bit more. And it wasn't the amount of money, it was, “Wow. There's a granddad that I only met when I was maybe five, six, seven years old, who he wanted me to share in something that he owned.”

And to think that the Father of all life, creation, and eternity... part of His riches is you. You know, when we get dejected, at least, we feel hopeless. We feel worthless. We feel like, “What's the use? I'm a nobody. What's it going to matter?” We've got an epidemic of young people that are suicidal and depressed and anxious. Can you imagine? This is... I pray. I pray this a lot for my grown children, for my grandchildren. I pray it for the Living on the Edge staff, the Living on the Edge board. I pray, “Oh God Almighty” ... I take walks... “Oh Lord Jesus, I pray that You would open the eyes of their mind and their hearts that they could grasp the hope of Your calling and the glorious riches that they are to You. That they would feel valuable. That they would feel loved.

That they would feel like they are important and matter regardless of their circumstances.” You see, the Apostle Paul is praying prayers that cut through circumstance and cut through evil and cut through difficulty and cut through pain. And he's helping them and saying, “Oh God, would You do something inside their heart and their life and their perspective that allows them to be sustained, that allows them to see who You are and then what they have.”

And then just in case someone's thinking, “Well, how in the world is that going to happen?” look at verse 19. He says, “And the incomparable great power for us who believe.” The final thing he says is, when you feel dejected, you feel like you can't do it, and you start telling yourself, “It's just too hard. This marriage is too hard. This job is too hard. These circumstances are too hard,” and so many of us, we opt out in some way, right? We medicate ourselves with food or shopping or work or porn or whatever.

And it's in those times... that's one of the things I pray. I pray for me. “God, would You help me to grasp the power that's already available to me?” And I don't know if you have done much study, but this is one of the most interesting passages in all of the New Testament, as he uses four different words for power. He wants you to understand, only here, this “incomparable” ... the word is, we get our word “hyper” from it. In other words, there's this power that's from another realm, it's from another world, and this power is for you. And he talks about it's “mighty” and it's “strong.” The word for mighty is dunamis. We get our word for dynamite. The word for strong is a word for the power or strength against resistance. And then it has a fourth word that talks about how it operates. We get our word “energy” from it.

Here's what I want you to understand. When you feel dejected and it's hard, you have to just choose it. You can pray, and you can pray prayers that make a difference. And this is what you pray for yourself. “Lord, first, like David, I feel down. I feel abandoned. I feel like life's not fair. I'm discouraged. I don't want to do anything. I can't believe You let this happen.”

Go ahead. Share your heart. Let it out. And then you pause and you say, “And this, I pray, I ask You, Almighty God, for me. I ask You right now to give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation into who You really are.” And then pause. This is why I carry that card. Pause. Right now, I don't want to just think about being adopted or redeemed or having an inheritance or sealed with the Spirit. I want a spirit where the Spirit of God in my spirit makes that a reality in ways that I can't understand, that God is real.

And then I pray, “Since my heart has been enlightened by the Holy Spirit as a follower of Jesus, I pray that You would help me grasp the hope of my calling. Not just my hope for heaven, although great, but my hope today. My hope today is not that I find the right person. My hope today is not that my kids turn out right. My hope today is not someday I get a better job. My hope today is not that this will happen or that will happen in America or that China or North Korea or some other great power. I long for peace and things and all those. But my hope today is in You. The hope of my calling in this moment in world history. I have been adopted into a family. I am valuable. I have an inheritance no matter what that no one can take away. I have a Spirit living inside me that sealed me and no one can take me out of Your hands. I want to know the hope of that calling.”

And then, “Almighty God, I pray, I pray that You would grant to me exactly what it says in verse 18, that I might know the glorious riches of Your inheritance in me, that I could actually see myself of a great value to the eternal King, Creator of the universe, regardless of where my emotions are right now, and that I could then step in and know there is power for me to live that out right now, regardless of my circumstance, regardless of relationships, regardless of health, regardless of pain.”

And so, by way of application, I would encourage you to just write down verses 17 through about 19b. And if you don't do it, and it's hard for you to sit still, that's why I walk. I can't concentrate very well. I've probably got ADD or something else. My mind jumps all over the place. And what I want to encourage you to do is, just by way of the next step. First and foremost, when you feel dejected, tell God about it. It's really important to share those things with friends, but I think we've gotten into a therapeutic age where we think that every time I feel low and I struggle and I'm dispirited, that I either go to a person or go to something just to make me feel better.

And I think in a world that is hostile and getting more and more hostile, I want to believe what Martin Luther said. I want to begin to act on and believe that prayer... is the most powerful force in all creation. And that when I pray that and believe that, God will infuse me with hope. And I have power, but you don't experience power until I step in and act. And when I step in and act, this is what I choose to do. This is the attitude I choose, that the power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in me, and... in the midst of the fears and anxieties that I have, and I'm sure you have, is there is One who is in control. Who is positioned at the right hand of authority with God, and all things are under His feet, and this is a done deal. And you can pray with authority, and you can pray with power, and you can pray with hope when you feel absolutely overwhelmed and dejected.

And so, Lord, that's my prayer for my brothers and sisters. You know what they're going through. You know where their mind drifts to. Like me, You know where I go, that are not good places, instead of coming to You when I feel dejected and sad and hopeless. Almighty God, when we don't know what to pray, when we feel deeply dejected and have despair, might we run to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 17 through 19, and pray specific, powerful prayers with the confidence that You will deliver us, in Jesus' name. Amen.

 
You know, Martin Luther said that prayer is the most powerful force in creation. He said that in the midst of probably one of the most dynamic, chaotic times in the last 1,000 years. It was about 500 years ago and the church was torn apart, world powers were at each other's throat, economic issues were changing, there were riots, there were all kinds of things happening in the world. And in the midst of that, this monk who was holding on to God's Word, who actually believed what God had said in His Word was true, came to the conclusion that prayer, coming before God in faith, is the most powerful force on the earth.

Well, I don't know about you, but as I look at our world right now and the challenges at every level, there's times where I pray. And I'm asking God and I look around and I wonder, “Lord, where are You?” I mean, there's so many challenging things. And there's lots of good teaching on prayer. I have a couple books here that have meant a lot to me over the years. R.A. Torrey, an older person of a century ago, How to Pray, great book. Or Richard Foster's book on prayer where he talks about all kinds of different prayer. What I want to talk to you about isn't prayer in general. I want to talk to you about how do you pray when you don't know what to pray.

I think there's three or four times in your experience and in my experience that we are either so overwhelmed or paralyzed or fearful or discouraged. We literally are... “I don't know what to pray.” And that's what I want to talk about. We'll look at four specific passages that I'll outline in the days ahead. But here's what I want you to know. I want you to know that when you don't know what to pray, the Lord has given us in His Word actual prayers that people were given to pray when things were so hard and so desperate, they literally didn't know what to pray. The first one I'm going to look at is when we feel dejected.

I know you don't use that word. We hear rejected, we hear sad, we hear dispirited. The word dejected is sort of a combination of sad, a feeling of hopelessness, a sense of, “I don't think I can go on.” It's this overwhelming sense of life doesn't make any sense. It's a, “God help me, but I don't know what to pray.” David prays a prayer when he's dejected in Psalm 31. And follow along as I read in the New Living Bible. It says:

“Have mercy on me, Lord, for I'm in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and my soul are withering away. I am dying from grief. My years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength. I'm wasting away from within. I'm scorned by all my enemies and despised by my neighbors. Even my friends are afraid to come near me. When they see me on the street, they run the other way. I'm ignored as if I were dead, as if I were a broken pot. I've heard the many rumors about me and I've been surrounded by terror. My enemies conspire against me, plotting to take my life.”

Now, I don't know about you, but I think if we sat next to David after he prayed that and we said, “I mean, aren't you the man after God's own heart? I mean, aren't you the one that have had these mountaintop experiences and you wrote a lot of these Psalms and you were anointed as the king and, you know, like on a good day, you threw that slingshot and the giant went down. I mean, how can someone as godly as you be praying those kind of prayers because you feel those kind of feelings?”

I began to think about his life, and early on he says, “My body and soul are withered away. I'm dying from grief.” Some of you know what it's like to lose a child, and David did. What do you pray when a brand new baby dies or dies in childbirth, or there's a miscarriage, or there's an accident with your 18-month-old? He says, “I was drained because of my sin, wasting away.” We've all made mistakes, and some of us have made really big ones. David's talking here about committing adultery, covering it up with murder, and then he lives with this secret. He doesn't tell anyone. He fakes it, and he pretends for well over a year until he's confronted. And what I would remind you is he's a man after God, not because of his behavior or of his morality. It's how he responds when God confronts him with his sin. And he repents. Later on, he talks about, “They see me on the streets. My friends are afraid of me. They won't come near me.”

He was betrayed by his own son. He was betrayed by one of his wives. I mean, this is a man who was the king and loses his kingship, who is now in his older years hiding, wondering what the future will hold. And he's crying out to God and saying, “I am absolutely dejected. What do I do?” Dejected is sad, depressed, and dispirited. And whether it's Moses face down as they're threatening to kill him, or whether it's Elijah saying, “I'm done. Just kill me. I can't take it anymore,” or whether it's an Esther saying to her uncle Mordecai, “What do you mean? You want me to go before the king and the whole history of the Israel nation is dependent on me?” I mean, what do you do when you feel sad, depressed, dejected, that overall sense of hopelessness?

And I would remind you, according to Hebrews chapter 5 verse 7, it says that in the days of His flesh... notice the days, plural... Jesus cried out with tears in His prayers to God. When you feel dejected, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. What it does mean is that you're human. And there are times in your experience and my experience where the circumstances and the relationships and our emotions and things that we can't control, and unfortunately some things that we actually have to own, create in us this overwhelming sense of hopelessness, of - I can't go on, I can't take it anymore.

And into that situation, there's a group in a little church called Ephesus, and it's a city of great renown, and the Apostle Paul has, on his first journey, heard about it. On his second journey there's a little quick visit. And then on his third journey he spends about three years there. And he gets kicked out of the synagogue and he finds himself realizing there's idols on every corner. There's this temple of Artemis where it's like Vegas. I mean, it's a sex temple. There's one of the wonders of the world over here. It's this place that has, I mean, commerce and trade. It's multicultural. It's got entertainment, you know, like L.A. I mean, there's this big amphitheater. 25,000 people can come in. There's trade coming in from all around the world. It's on a port of modern-day Turkey.

And into this, this little group come to know the Lord. And then once he gets rejected, he does something really smart. He rents a lecture hall so Jews and people from other temples, they can come to this neutral place. And for three years, he teaches the Word of God. And as he teaches, it multiplies, and it multiplies. And it does great things. It's like what's happening all around the world. Unfortunately, many of us only look at the news or we scroll on the internet and there's a shooting here and there's economic issues here and they're arguing about this over there and this superpower's doing that over there. The fact of the matter is the gospel is spreading and people are coming to Christ and churches are being planted and wonderful things are happening all across the globe. But it's in the midst of great opposition.

And it's into that context that the Apostle Paul is going to first write a letter. It's the letter written to the Ephesians. And then after the quick introduction, verses 3 through 14, it's one long sentence. He basically says to this group of people that are tempted every single day to be dejected. I mean, every single day there's political issues. There's division. There's a Jewish family that some decided that Paul's right, Jesus is the Messiah. Other people in the family said he's wrong. So now there's fights within family. There's fights in politics. There's ethnic issues. By the way, does any of this sound remotely similar to our day?

And so the Apostle Paul wants to remind them. He says to them, beginning in verse 3, “Every spiritual blessing in heaven is yours.” And then he begins to do this great theological reminder. He said, “Since the day that you trusted in Jesus, when you turned from your sin and in the empty hands of faith received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the Spirit of God came into your mortal body and God chose you and He adopted you.” And He said, “I want you to be in my family.” And He redeemed you. He paid a price. And the price was the blood of the Lord Jesus. And then he says, “You have this inheritance. And then he says, “He put His Spirit within you.” And then He sealed you. And He wants you to know this is who you are.

This is what you have. And then, knowing all the challenges, how discouraging it can be... the family rejection, the economic pressure, the Roman persecution... he says, “I want to pray for you.” We pick it up in context in verse 15. And in verse 15, it says:

“For this reason” — right? For this reason, you have all these things in you that you're in this hostile world. “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparable great power for us who believe.”

And then he gives just a little context after that request: “That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

And then just... he wants to remind them when it feels out of control, I'm praying this prayer that we'll look at in a minute. But he says in this last verse, “And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him, Jesus, to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.”

And so here's what I want you to get. There is a prayer here where what he's going to do and what he's going to say to you and me is, I first want you to learn about an 18-inch journey, because when your focus is outward on the political division, the family struggles, the economics over here, the persecution over here, the terrible things that are happening to some people that you love, where there's death and oppression in our world now, school shootings, he says, “I want you to remember who you are and what God has done.”

The second thing he's going to tell us is, “I want you to grasp that there is a future, there is a calling, there is something that you already possess that you need a new set of glasses.” And your glasses cannot be, you know, what's happening when you see the news or what you hear or just your personal experience. You need a set of glasses where you and I will look at life, even the tragedies, even the pain, even the times when our emotions don't even want to pray, through this eternal perspective of who we are, what God has already done, what the future will hold with every single believer. And then he prays about this power... this ability, this strength that raised Jesus from the dead and it dwells in you and it dwells in me as a follower of Jesus Christ.

And what I'd like to do is unpack this passage and then help you begin to make this a part of your prayer life. In fact, we're going to look at four passages, and I have all four passages just on a little card. Two on one side, two on the other. And I pray them. I pray them very specifically for me. I pray these out loud when... like you, I'm sure you think that those of us that teach the Bible or pastors, maybe we don't have as many bad days as you. But I've lost friends, say, in the pandemic who died. I have seen horrendous things. I got a call from South Africa last night and just a guy in a voice message pouring out his heart and saying to me, “What do I do? I don't know what to do.” There's pain and tragedy and hurt. And like you, you know, I do pretty well most days. And then there's days where... right... it just kind of mounts up and it mounts up and it mounts up and it mounts up. And I just feel like, “Is what I'm doing making any difference? Lord, what do I do?”

And what I do is I get these four prayers out. And the first one is this one. And this one is verses 17 through 19b. And you'll notice in your notes that I laid it out in what I call a mechanical outline. When I study the scriptures, I want to lay it out where I can make observations so that I interpret it rightly and then I can put it into practice. And so it says: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation.”

So what he's saying is, “Okay, look, I've told you, here's all the things that you already possess, right? This is who you are. You've been adopted. You've been redeemed. Here's the request. I want you to make an 18-inch journey from your head down to your heart.” And it says, “I am praying.” And notice it's present tense. “I keep asking.” That's a good example for me. I'm asking the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, the all-powerful One, that He would give you... and many of your passages say “the spirit.” Literally, there's no article. It's “a spirit.” This isn't the Holy Spirit. He's praying, “I'm praying that God will give you a spirit” ... you already have the Holy Spirit... “of wisdom and revelation.”

The word wisdom here is skill, insight, the ability to discern and ascertain what you already have. It's remembering what it means to be adopted or redeemed. It's the skill and insight about who I really am and what God has done. And it's filtering that through all the things that are coming in your life. He says, “I pray for a spirit of insight or wisdom and also of revelation.” And that word just means to unveil or uncover the truth. In other words, he says, “I want you to have this skill, this ability to grasp who you already are. And then I want you to have the truth made clear about who Jesus is, who God the Father is, who the Holy Spirit is.”

He says, “I pray a spirit of wisdom and revelation,” then notice the purpose clause. “So that you may know Him better.” In your notes there, if you happen to be available with a pen or something, circle that word, know, because there's two very specific words in the New Testament. One is a knowing by experience. It's a personal knowledge. It's an intimate knowledge. For example, it's different from knowing about. Like there might be a star or an influencer that you know about, and you've read about them and maybe read their biography. I'm reading a couple biographies right now. One is this huge, thick book like this. So I'm listening to it about Winston Churchill. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating. I know a lot about Winston Churchill, but I've never met him. I don't have a relationship with him.

This word, Paul's praying. You know, when you feel sad, when you feel dejected, when you feel hopeless, I'm praying that whatever skill, whatever needs to happen inside your heart, that the Spirit of God would take your spirit and give you this spirit of wisdom and opening of truth that you could actually know Him better, deeper, clearly, authentically, a connection.

I think so often... I was thinking about this this morning sitting on a chair... I was thinking so often, even though I know better. It's like somehow Jesus, yes, I believe in Him. He died. He rose from the dead. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. He's praying for me, right? But I get this idea that that happened back then. And this morning as I was reading this, especially the part about all this power that's available, it was like... I mean, I've been a pastor for a lot of years... this thought was, “Jesus is alive. He's not some historical character. He's alive, and He's praying for me.” And He's praying, “Chip, you know, when you get overwhelmed, when you're struggling” ... and I've got a couple pretty big issues in my life now, like I'm tempted to be dejected like the Ephesians... “Chip, I want you to know I'm alive. This is real.” And that's what he's praying. He's praying, “I want you to know that you can know Him. He’s powerful. He’s good. He’s already told you these things He’s done.”

And then the second request is he moves from that and he wants them to understand you need to grasp a perspective of today through the lens of tomorrow. All of us, right, we have challenges. And whether it's like David was praying when he was betrayed, or some of our challenges, we make really big mistakes. And I don't know about you, when I make a mistake, I really have to fight the tendency that, “Well, I don't want to pray right now,” or, “You know, I don't want to hang around other Christians because it makes me struggle.”

I have to remember the moment I come to God and ask for forgiveness, His blood keeps on cleansing. And He forgives me. He wants to restore me. But there's times where it's hard to do that. Especially, some of you, that you’ve got a secret right now, just like David did, and secrets destroy.

And whether it's a secret habit, whether it's a secret lust, whether it's a secret something you have with another person, God wants to bring those things into the light. And so what he says to them, he goes, “I want you to grasp and understand how to look at everyday life through this lens, through this calling of who you are.” Notice the second request. He says:

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart” — not just your intellect, the eyes of your heart, the seat of your emotions, your will, your reason, the real you — “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” Purpose clause. Why? “In order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance, and the great power toward us who believe.”

Let me just make this really, really, really simple, and then I want to break it down, and I want to give you some pictures. Basically, what he's saying is, “Okay, you're tempted to be dejected like the Ephesians. Big request: I want you to know the person of God for who He really is.” Second, “I want you to grasp and remember the promises He made, the hope of your calling.” What is the hope of your calling? Well, you were called to what? Be adopted, to be redeemed, that you have an inheritance. I want you to know it's not just that there is a heaven waiting for you and a perfect environment. That is true. But he says, “I want you to know the hope of your calling.”

In other words, hope in English is a wishful thought. You know, “I hope it doesn't rain. I hope I meet the right person someday. I hope maybe we can relocate. I hope I get a better job.” That's not this word. This is the absolute certainty. “I want you to know the hope that can't change because Jesus said, 'I go to prepare a place for you. And if it weren't true, I wouldn't have said it. I love you. I'm for you. No matter what happens in this life that you can't control in a fallen, evil, difficult world, I want you to know.’” And this is that other word. This isn't a “know” by experience. This is the word for a fact. “I want you to know 2 plus 2 is 4. I want you to know 4 plus 4 is 8.” It's just a reality. It's just a fact.

I want you to know that no matter how dejected your emotions and your feelings and your relationships and your circumstances feel right now, I want you to know there is a certainty about your calling. And yes, it ultimately ends up in a perfect environment with a loving Savior where there's no sin or sorrow or tears. But I want you to know your hope is you're adopted right now. You are valuable right now. You are redeemed. You have an inheritance. You have the Spirit right now.

And that's something I pray. I was in the midst of a pretty tough situation just last week. And I got a text from my wife and said, “Chip, there's been a shooting.” And she named the high school. And it's where two of my grandkids go. And they were on alert, and there was a shooter. And, you know, I mean, what do you pray? And I remember stopping my car, obviously praying for their protection, praying that person would not shoot anyone, praying the police would get there. I prayed all the practical prayers, that we pray all those, right? And then I prayed:

“Almighty God, when I think of Ella and Ryder right now, I don't know what's going on, but I'm asking You, because I know this is Your will, that right now You'd give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation into who You really are. And Lord, I ask that You would help them to grasp the hope of their calling right now, what they have, what they possess, that it would allow them to be calm and allow them to do the right thing in the right way to protect them and other people.”

I prayed that prayer because that prayer is a prayer for people in the midst of very difficult and challenging times. And I praise God with all my heart that they got the shooter before he did anything, that my grandkids are safe.

But you know, sometimes we just pray sort of logistics, right? We pray, “God, can You make that happen? Would You help them get that job? Would You restore that marriage? Could You take care of this? Could You take care of that?” And those are fine, right? We're going to pray those things. But what the Apostle Paul prays for this group, knowing that the bombardment is from everywhere at every level, he wants them to get rooted. He wants them to get grounded. He wants them to grasp who they are, what they already have, to live with a sense of confidence. To have this sense that, you know, circumstances and tragedy and difficulty. Yes, they're hard, but wouldn't you understand who you are? When you understand through eternal perspective, when you have real hope, you can weather the storm. Because now is not all there is.

But he goes on, and he talks more than just about praying that our heart might be enlightened. In fact, I love that. You might put a line just under that phrase, “may be enlightened,” for those of you that are Bible students. In Greek, it's called the perfect tense. The perfect tense means it's something that happened in the past that continues on continuously in the future. So what he's really praying, he says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart, the real you, the depth of your being, having already been enlightened, your eyes are open, you've met Jesus, you know the future, and they're continuing to be enlightened, that they would be enlightened in such a way that you would grasp, number one, all that you already have, the hope of your calling.”

And second, this is this next part: “the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.” Let me say that again. The riches … the lavish riches of His, God's, glorious inheritance in the saints. Now, I've got to say something here, and I don't want to diminish in any way your confidence in any translations, but if you read that verse, verse 18, in multiple translations, it will talk about... and they'll kind of shift it... they'll talk about “our inheritance.” He's already talked about our inheritance in verse 11. He's already talked about our inheritance in verse 14. That's not what it says. What it says, Paul's praying, “I'm praying that you could grasp the riches of the glory of the Father's inheritance in the saints.” In other words, when do you get an inheritance? Someone dies and they leave a will. Jesus dies. He's risen from the dead. The Father's inheritance is you. The Father's inheritance is me.

The reconnection of lost humanity to whosoever would believe... God sees us crossing the threshold. God sees us forgiven, redeemed, clothed in righteousness. And this inheritance that He has is a forever and ever and ever and ever relationship with all the redeemed. And it's awesome. In other words, have you ever thought about what could I ever give God, and what He really wants? What He wants today is you and me as a living sacrifice. But one day what He'll have, He'll have all of us in a perfect environment.

And Paul prays that we could grasp... are you ready for this?... that's how valuable we are. You know, my parents received an inheritance. It wasn't a lot, but it was a piece of property that their parents left to them and the three children. And after they died, then it was left to us. And then pretty soon with like three or four different families, there's like 10 of us involved. And the lawyers got involved and all this stuff was happening. And I mean, it took years and years and years. And for the last, I don't know, 10 years, every year I get a tax bill from West Virginia, you know, $352 on some land that I don't know anything about, that it doesn't mean anything to me. It's like, “Are you kidding?”

But way back, there was my grandfather who gave it to my mom, who gave it to us. And in his mind's eye, he wanted to understand, “I wanted to leave some things to you because you matter, because you're valuable to me.” And just about a month ago, we were able to sell that land, and everybody got a few thousand dollars and some a little bit more. And it wasn't the amount of money, it was, “Wow. There's a granddad that I only met when I was maybe five, six, seven years old, who he wanted me to share in something that he owned.”

And to think that the Father of all life, creation, and eternity... part of His riches is you. You know, when we get dejected, at least, we feel hopeless. We feel worthless. We feel like, “What's the use? I'm a nobody. What's it going to matter?” We've got an epidemic of young people that are suicidal and depressed and anxious. Can you imagine? This is... I pray. I pray this a lot for my grown children, for my grandchildren. I pray it for the Living on the Edge staff, the Living on the Edge board. I pray, “Oh God Almighty” ... I take walks... “Oh Lord Jesus, I pray that You would open the eyes of their mind and their hearts that they could grasp the hope of Your calling and the glorious riches that they are to You. That they would feel valuable. That they would feel loved.

That they would feel like they are important and matter regardless of their circumstances.” You see, the Apostle Paul is praying prayers that cut through circumstance and cut through evil and cut through difficulty and cut through pain. And he's helping them and saying, “Oh God, would You do something inside their heart and their life and their perspective that allows them to be sustained, that allows them to see who You are and then what they have.”

And then just in case someone's thinking, “Well, how in the world is that going to happen?” look at verse 19. He says, “And the incomparable great power for us who believe.” The final thing he says is, when you feel dejected, you feel like you can't do it, and you start telling yourself, “It's just too hard. This marriage is too hard. This job is too hard. These circumstances are too hard,” and so many of us, we opt out in some way, right? We medicate ourselves with food or shopping or work or porn or whatever.

And it's in those times... that's one of the things I pray. I pray for me. “God, would You help me to grasp the power that's already available to me?” And I don't know if you have done much study, but this is one of the most interesting passages in all of the New Testament, as he uses four different words for power. He wants you to understand, only here, this “incomparable” ... the word is, we get our word “hyper” from it. In other words, there's this power that's from another realm, it's from another world, and this power is for you. And he talks about it's “mighty” and it's “strong.” The word for mighty is dunamis. We get our word for dynamite. The word for strong is a word for the power or strength against resistance. And then it has a fourth word that talks about how it operates. We get our word “energy” from it.

Here's what I want you to understand. When you feel dejected and it's hard, you have to just choose it. You can pray, and you can pray prayers that make a difference. And this is what you pray for yourself. “Lord, first, like David, I feel down. I feel abandoned. I feel like life's not fair. I'm discouraged. I don't want to do anything. I can't believe You let this happen.”

Go ahead. Share your heart. Let it out. And then you pause and you say, “And this, I pray, I ask You, Almighty God, for me. I ask You right now to give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation into who You really are.” And then pause. This is why I carry that card. Pause. Right now, I don't want to just think about being adopted or redeemed or having an inheritance or sealed with the Spirit. I want a spirit where the Spirit of God in my spirit makes that a reality in ways that I can't understand, that God is real.

And then I pray, “Since my heart has been enlightened by the Holy Spirit as a follower of Jesus, I pray that You would help me grasp the hope of my calling. Not just my hope for heaven, although great, but my hope today. My hope today is not that I find the right person. My hope today is not that my kids turn out right. My hope today is not someday I get a better job. My hope today is not that this will happen or that will happen in America or that China or North Korea or some other great power. I long for peace and things and all those. But my hope today is in You. The hope of my calling in this moment in world history. I have been adopted into a family. I am valuable. I have an inheritance no matter what that no one can take away. I have a Spirit living inside me that sealed me and no one can take me out of Your hands. I want to know the hope of that calling.”

And then, “Almighty God, I pray, I pray that You would grant to me exactly what it says in verse 18, that I might know the glorious riches of Your inheritance in me, that I could actually see myself of a great value to the eternal King, Creator of the universe, regardless of where my emotions are right now, and that I could then step in and know there is power for me to live that out right now, regardless of my circumstance, regardless of relationships, regardless of health, regardless of pain.”

And so, by way of application, I would encourage you to just write down verses 17 through about 19b. And if you don't do it, and it's hard for you to sit still, that's why I walk. I can't concentrate very well. I've probably got ADD or something else. My mind jumps all over the place. And what I want to encourage you to do is, just by way of the next step. First and foremost, when you feel dejected, tell God about it. It's really important to share those things with friends, but I think we've gotten into a therapeutic age where we think that every time I feel low and I struggle and I'm dispirited, that I either go to a person or go to something just to make me feel better.

And I think in a world that is hostile and getting more and more hostile, I want to believe what Martin Luther said. I want to begin to act on and believe that prayer... is the most powerful force in all creation. And that when I pray that and believe that, God will infuse me with hope. And I have power, but you don't experience power until I step in and act. And when I step in and act, this is what I choose to do. This is the attitude I choose, that the power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in me, and... in the midst of the fears and anxieties that I have, and I'm sure you have, is there is One who is in control. Who is positioned at the right hand of authority with God, and all things are under His feet, and this is a done deal. And you can pray with authority, and you can pray with power, and you can pray with hope when you feel absolutely overwhelmed and dejected.

And so, Lord, that's my prayer for my brothers and sisters. You know what they're going through. You know where their mind drifts to. Like me, You know where I go, that are not good places, instead of coming to You when I feel dejected and sad and hopeless. Almighty God, when we don't know what to pray, when we feel deeply dejected and have despair, might we run to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 17 through 19, and pray specific, powerful prayers with the confidence that You will deliver us, in Jesus' name. Amen.