Now comes a chance for us to foster a habit that’s important to Bible feeding – to begin noticing times when If I’d written this passage, I wouldn’t have put it that way… – and then ask ourselves, why not? Maybe that’s how we catch ourselves reacting to Paul’s repeated habit of giving thanks for his sisters and brothers (Eph 1:16). That isn’t a habit I’d have developed if it wasn’t for Paul. And it may well be how we react to Paul’s `hitlist’ of three key prayer concerns that he `keeps asking’ (v17), the topics of vv18-23. Again, let’s be honest – these aren’t issues I’d have focused on if left to myself – which suggests I’ve been missing the point somewhere…
So if we want to develop our spiritual lives, it’s probably good to pray about these three issues?- specifically for ourselves, and then for someone we care about, as Paul does here. How, after all, does God want us to pray for each other? Think of someone you care about, or serve alongside. How do you pray for them? Here (also in the prayers of Phil 1:9-11 and Col 1:9-12) we have the huge privilege of seeing how Paul prays, and learning to pray for some things that are evidently on God’s agenda. (And yes, until I studied those passages I seldom prayed the way God shows us there either.)
`For this reason I haven’t stopped giving thanks for you’, he begins. He always does this first; even when he’s writing to the unfortunate Corinthian church he says, `I always give thanks for you.` Do I? Sometimes it will involve an effort – but what it helps us remember about certain people can really help in delicate relationships with them! Remember too Phil 1:6: `Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ` – so there’s something to thank God for: `Pete [or whoever] is not going to be like this forever!` We want to see the glory of God in each other (Peter Drucker says that uncovering that glory in each other is the goal of management!) And prayer helps with that. So, thank God for your friend’s or relative’s or colleague’s potential. This is very practical; let’s make it a habit like Paul’s!
And then, he says, he `keeps asking…` (v17). It’s worth thinking just what has helped him to `keep on` praying, because being consistent in prayer can be hard, can’t it. And obviously the phenomenal vision in the preceding verses, that we looked at last week, are the first place to find out what fuels Paul to pray. Maybe go back over them! As John White says, `If we want to pray for others, we must soak our minds in the Bible, so that the Holy Spirit may have fuel to light within us.` If that fuel’s not there, there’ll be no fire, and we’ll struggle to be consistent in prayer. We need to make it a passion to grow in daily Bible feeding; then we’ll find that the intuitions come that give us the fuel to pray. And that’s something to pray for ourselves and for somebody else…
But then what Paul `keeps asking` is that God `may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.` How will we know God better? It’s not, `If only I’d been to Bible College`! We know the Lord better by receiving more of the Spirit’s wisdom and revelation – that is, through life lived day by day in step with God the Spirit himself. So – there’s something else to pray for your friend or family member or colleague. The Spirit’s work inside us is the gateway for God’s presence (look at 1 Cor 2:9-10, 2 Cor 3:18, Gal3:14); but he genuinely is a Person, a Person with genuine, wondrous emotions (eg Eph 4:30), and so we must welcome him! Again, then, practically, make this a specific, regular prayer for yourself. Let’s stop and do it now, interact with God; and pray it also for someone you care about…
And then, Paul doesn’t just pray vaguely `Bless their spiritual lives`. He prays that the Spirit will `enlighten the eyes of your heart’ in three specific ways. Like I say, I never used to pray like this! What are they exactly?
The first of these three enlightenments is that we `may know the hope to which he has called you’ (1:18). This fantastic hope (that is, certainty) about the `more than all we ask or imagine` that God has in store for us (3:20), is a preoccupation we’ll see recurring more deeply in Ephesians; but let’s note here how vital it is to Paul’s spirituality. In fact in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 our longterm hope turns out to be nothing less than the `helmet’ that protects our thinking. It can protect us from concern for status now; from bitterness and being unforgiving; from the materialism and covetousness that can be spiritually fatal – because if we grasp the hope of heaven’s million-year wonder and glory, we won’t worry too much if we do without a few toys now! Likewise for Hebrews’ writer it’s an `anchor for the soul’, stretching beyond the veil that hides the unseen world (6:19; see also 10:32-34, 12:2) – an anchor holding firmly to the unseen ocean floor, so that we are not blown around by the waves on the surface. Lord, please help me, and [….] who I care about, to grasp, and glory in, this hope…
Then the second enlightenment Paul prays for is that we might grasp `the riches of [God’s] glorious inheritance in the saints’. This we are likely to reverse, thinking Paul is describing the riches of our inheritance in God. But if the NIV and NASB reading is correct – and the earlier reference to us as `God’s possession’ (v14) would confirm it – it’s the other way round; Paul’s passion is that we should grasp how remarkably precious we are to God! To grasp this properly we’ll need to absorb the passage about the Bride in chapter 5; but meanwhile it has all kinds of challenging implications for our self-image…
Some years ago I went through a phase of feeling fairly discouraged, and during that time a Malaysian friend gave me a simple plaque with Christ’s words from John 15:9: `As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.’ For me, this took some believing. That Christ loves us, in general terms, I believed; that he could tolerate me personally, I understood too. But that his love for each of us was equivalent to that vast, infinite, oceanic love that the Father feels for his utterly perfect Son – this took some faith. But so it is; this is how we are loved; we are the inheritance he is waiting for! (Calvin compares God to a husband saying, `I seem to be only half a man when my wife is not with me’!) This amazing thing is what Paul wants us to grasp here; indeed, it’s also a prime purpose of heaven, that there God should show us the `incomparable riches’ of his love for us (2:7, and see 3:18)! It can really anchor us. Fears about redundancy, or about money, or singleness, or the future? Those things have their place within the overall fact that God loves us infinitely; we are what he cares for above all, because we are his Bride! Here’s John White again: `Christ who dwells within you is a Christ who loves you as no one else has, or ever will!` Grasp this & it will make a colossal difference to your life. So: should I stop & pray this now for myself, and for somebody else? Indeed also our response must surely at the very least be, Thankyou, Lord…?
And then the third enlightenment from the Spirit that Paul prays for, is that we might know what is God’s `incomparably great power for us who believe'(1:19). Immediately Paul goes on to compare it to the resurrection: power that broke the grave, power that brought the dead to life – let loose in each of us! Again, the horizons sweep back endlessly: if that power – let’s look at it rather than ourselves – is loose in my life, then there is nothing he cannot do; no stronghold of darkness or resistance to truth that is impregnable; no personality weakness (`But that’s the way I am`), no emotional scar, no past folly (compare 3:8) that is beyond the reach of his transformation. We are not doomed to the prison of any habit or tendency or addiction; what matters about us is not what we are, but what, through this kind of power, we can become. Inside us or outside us, as Paul puts it two chapters later, God can `do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’ (and see also Phil 4:13); it’s a charter to dream about the possible, based on the vision Paul is praying into us here. In this culture we’re surrounded by the media’s silent brainwashing that God never does anything. So our spirituality must build on this liberating certainty of a God who can do these things and does!- of power that can (in his own time) do more in us than we’re capable of dreaming. It will make such a huge difference if we can believe and grasp this vision. And therefore Paul says: I keep on praying for you!
All we can capture of this wonderful book is just a drop in the bucket. But again, now let’s do it. We want to interact with God; now is a moment to move beyond studying the text and use it to worship the Lord, and then pray his goodness into our own lives and those of some people we care about. That is the heart of spirituality…!
(For the rest of this series please click on https://petelowmanresources.com/category/bible-introductions-3/romans-to-philippians/ .)
