Always Pray & Never Give Up!

Rich Nathan
Just Pray! Series
Sermon Text - Ephesians 6:18
November 1-2, 2014

Attention Leaders!
Be prepared for God to speak to your group. The Holy Spirit is with you as you prepare,
as you open Scripture, and as you lead discussion. Prayerfully consider the needs of
your group; who will be there; and what God has done recently in your group.
Remember, aim for balancing discussion and teaching; more sharing than answering;
and more listening than telling.

Sermon Summary (Time Suggestion: 5 minutes)

These notes are to help you give your group a quick recap of the weekend sermon in your
own words. If God spoke to you personally through the message, be sure to share that, as
well.

Have you ever prayed for something or someone, not just once or twice or three times,
but dozens of times, or maybe hundreds of times? When we encounter significant
needs and difficult situations, we find ourselves praying more intentionally and intensely.
But we come to quickly find that prayer is not magic. There arent magic words that we
pray, a certain intensity that our loudness that we need, or specific postures that we
choose that will get our prayers answered. What we learn from praying and bringing our
needs to God our Father is that prayer isnt only about changing our circumstances but
it is also about changing us!
Over the past several months, Pastor Rich has been feeling a strong call from the Lord
for our entire church to engage in a greater way in prayer. And this weekend he started
a new series entitled, Just Pray!
For the next three weeks, we will be taking a closer look at Ephesians 6:18 just one
verse but one that is filled with insight into to how and why we should pray. This verse
contains the final weapon that Paul spoke about in Ephesians 6 the armor of God
that we spent several weeks discussing in the Story of the Kingdom.
In v. 18, Paul mentions the word all 4 times in reference to how and why we pray

Ephesians 6:18
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lords people.
This week well be discussing two of the alls:

Pray in the Spirit on all occasions

Always keep on praying

These can be summed up by:

Pray all the time and never give up!
So what does it mean to pray in the Spirit? To pray in the Spirit is to pray:

In harmony with the Spirit-inspired Bible

In accordance with the budging of the Holy Spirit
With the guidance of the Spirit
Under the leading of the Spirit
In submission to the Holy Spirit

What is the purpose of prayer? Its not to gain stuff, but if most of us were honest,
thats often how we pray! The purpose of prayer is

To gain Christ which means to

o To open the door to Christ
To pray if nothing more involved than to open the door, giving
Jesus access to our needs and permitting him to exercise his own
power in dealing with them. To pray is to open the door to Jesus.
Ole Hallesby
o To grow in relationship with Christ
You arent going to have a very deep relationship with God unless
you communicate with him!
To embrace the person of Christ means
o To embrace the character of Christ (Gal. 4:19)
o To embrace the counsel of Christ (Psalm 127:1)
o To embrace the composure of Christ (Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7)
o To embrace the kingdom of Christ
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What does it mean to pray all the time? It means that we dont need a special place to
pray. Its good if you have a preferred place to pray and preferred order, but it isnt
necessary. We can pray everywhere we are and at any time!

And we dont need to feel a certain thing or be in a certain mood either.

We should pray when were in a praying mood, for it would be a sin to
neglect so fair an opportunity. We should pray when were not in a praying
mood, for it would be dangerous to remain in so unhealthy a condition.
Charles Spurgeon
So we pray regardless of how we feel.
So why do we always pray?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

We always have access to God.

We always have needs.
Others always have needs.
Satan is always at work.
Your pastor and your church always need your prayers.

Finally, Pastor Rich is going to start a practice once a day on Twitter and Facebook to
ask you to take 10-20 seconds to pray for him, for the church, and for Vineyards
leaders. If you dont currently follow him on Twitter or are not friends with him on
Facebook, he asks that you do!

Link to the Sermon (Time suggestion 5 minutes)

When you think of prayer, what comes to mind? (e.g. folded hands, closed eyes,
complete silence, solitude, boring, difficult, etc.)

What are the circumstances where you find yourself praying the most often? (e.g.
before a presentation, when you have a financial need, when youre sick, etc.)

This Weeks Bible Study

Text: Luke 11:1-13
Background
This passage is one of many passages in the gospel of Luke that record what Jesus
taught his disciples. What makes this passage unique is that this is the only case in
Luke where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them anything. Since this is Jesus
response to the disciples request for teaching on prayer, we can assume that what
Jesus says here is what he thinks is most important for us to know about prayer.

Study & Discuss

Read Luke 11:1-13
To help increase participation in your group, ask two people to read this passage out
loud. Break it up verses 1-8 & 9-13.
1. Look at Luke 11:1. What do learn about how Jesus prayed in this verse?
What do we learn about the disciples? Why do you think they asked Jesus
how to pray?
We dont learn anything about how he prayed in this verse other than he prayed.
It seems that the disciples were intrigued and hungered to pray like Jesus. They
recognized that Jesus knew how to pray and werent ashamed to ask for help.
2. Many of us struggle with prayer, but many of us have never asked Jesus
for help in praying. Why do you think that is?
3. There are all different types of prayers that we see in the Bible and maybe
you learned at one point or heard about. In vv. 2-4, what kind of prayer(s)
does Jesus teach his disciples?
Worship/adoration, confession, thanksgiving, intercession/supplication/requests,
etc.
4. What types of prayers do you find yourself praying the most often?
5. What does Jesus tell his disciples to ask for in prayer? How often do you
think we need to ask for these things?
There are five requests in Jesus prayer. Hallowed be your name, your
kingdom come, give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins, and deliverance
from temptation.
This is something we should pray for every day because it is a reminder that we
are completely dependent on him! Each day we need every one of these things.
6. If you look at the pronouns in this prayer, it seems to be a communal
prayer to be prayed together Our Father How often do you pray with
others? What kinds of prayers do you pray together? Can you share an
example?

7. In Luke 11:5-8, Jesus tells a story to make a point about prayer. This story
recounts an incident involving three friends. Imagine yourself as one of the
characters. Given the circumstances, how would you feel? What would you
do?
A few things to note:
1. In hot climates like the Middle East, one might travel at night to avoid the
heat of the day.
2. There were no good ways to store prepared food so it wouldnt be a
surprise that the host did not have any food for his/her guest. And there
were no 24/7 stores available. Since hospitality was highly valued in
Jesus culture, it would be very embarrassing to not be able to feed a
guest.
8. How do vv. 9-10 help us understand the parable Jesus told?
9. Jesus story is supposed to teach us something about our prayers to God.
What do you think we are supposed to learn from this story? What are we
NOT supposed to learn from it?
This story is a parable and parable usually only has one main point of
connection. In this parable the main point is that the neighbor was rewarded for
asking with shameless audacity. Boldness. Other translations say persistence.
Jesus wants us to learn that we are to pray with boldness, without shame of
having to ask for help when we are helpless.
We are NOT supposed to learn that God is any of these characters. He isnt like
the neighbor who is clearly bothered by asking for help. He is never asleep and
never too busy to help us in our time of need. The prayer that he taught his
disciples just a few verses earlier are filled with requests that we are to ask God
for.
10. How do vv. 11-13 help us better understand the parable and ultimately,
Gods heart in answering our prayers? In what way is he better than any of
the three characters or anyone else we know for that matter?
11. What picture do you have of God as you pray and ask him for help? Is your
idea of God more like the sleeping neighbor or the images in vv.11-13?
12. How might this teaching change your view of God?
13. How might this teaching change your view of prayer?

Ministry Time
Take some time at the end of your group to welcome the Holy Spirit and seek Him for
direction as you pray for one another. When we make space for Him, God is pleased to
come and show Himself to us in our groups, and to genuinely touch and change us,
often in powerful ways.

With the question of how do we see God when we pray can come some
significant responses and realizations. Create some space for people in your
group to either pray silently to God about the image of God that they see or
maybe give out some blank paper for people to journal about it.

Ask the group to think of one part of their day where they would like to become
more aware of Gods presence in their life through prayer. Have your group pair
up to pray and have them share this with another person. Commit to pray for
each other for the week and check back in at the next small group.