How Do I ‘Wrestle’ in Prayer?

00:00:00.000 | (music)

00:00:04.000 | Good Monday morning to you. Thanks for listening to the podcast.

00:00:07.000 | We're going to start this week talking about prayer.

00:00:09.500 | Sometimes we say that we are wrestling in prayer for something.

00:00:13.500 | We hear others use that phrase as well.

00:00:16.500 | And that phrase, "wrestling in prayer," is a biblical one,

00:00:19.000 | used by the Apostle Paul in the book of Colossians.

00:00:21.500 | But it only appears one time.

00:00:24.000 | So, what does he mean, biblically speaking, to wrestle in prayer?

00:00:29.000 | That's the question from a listener to the podcast named Jason.

00:00:31.500 | Pastor John, hello. I listen to your podcast daily through my iPhone.

00:00:36.500 | Thank you for helping me think through questions,

00:00:38.500 | even questions I didn't even know should be asked.

00:00:41.500 | Here's mine.

00:00:43.000 | In Colossians 4, verse 12, Paul affirms Epaphras

00:00:47.000 | because he is always wrestling or struggling in prayer for the church of Colossae.

00:00:52.500 | What does it mean to wrestle in prayer?

00:00:55.000 | Who is the wrestling against?

00:00:57.500 | How do I, and all of us, learn to wrestle like this, to wrestle in prayer ourselves?

00:01:03.000 | Well, the first thing I'd say is that kind of question is so good, so important.

00:01:08.000 | And it's so simple.

00:01:09.500 | You're reading along and you tend to just breeze by something.

00:01:13.000 | And he's stopping and saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

00:01:16.000 | What's that really like?"

00:01:18.000 | He says he's wrestling in prayer.

00:01:21.000 | What would that feel like?

00:01:22.500 | What would I be doing differently than I'm doing?

00:01:24.500 | It's just a great question and good for me to think about.

00:01:27.500 | And I think, and this is the best I know how to proceed,

00:01:31.000 | the best way forward in answering a question like that

00:01:34.000 | is not first to look into my experience and say,

00:01:36.500 | "Okay, where have I done that? What's wrestling like for me?"

00:01:39.000 | Because I might just read in my experience into the text.

00:01:43.000 | So I think the best thing to do is to take the word "wrestle" or "struggle"

00:01:47.500 | or whatever the word happens to be you're working on

00:01:50.000 | and look up the ways in the Bible with a concordance.

00:01:54.000 | How Paul, or whoever you're reading, used it in other settings

00:01:59.000 | so that the word, in this case, the Greek "agonizomai"

00:02:03.500 | and you can hear the word "agonize" in English in the Greek "agonizomai."

00:02:08.000 | Where has he used that word?

00:02:10.000 | Or you could just use the English with "wrestle" or "struggle."

00:02:14.000 | And what light might that shed on the way you pray?

00:02:19.500 | So let's start with Colossians 4.12

00:02:23.000 | because that's the text he's asking about.

00:02:25.000 | Here's what it says.

00:02:26.500 | "Epiphras, who is one of you,"

00:02:29.000 | so Epiphras was from Colossae, but he was with Paul.

00:02:33.500 | That's why Paul knew how he was praying.

00:02:36.000 | "Epiphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus,

00:02:40.000 | greets you always struggling," or wrestling,

00:02:45.000 | "on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature

00:02:49.000 | and fully assured in all the will of God."

00:02:51.500 | So the answer that Epiphras is after in his prayers

00:02:57.500 | for the Colossian believers would be that they stand

00:03:00.500 | and that they stand mature and be fully assured of God's favor

00:03:06.000 | and God's will as they live their Christian life.

00:03:09.000 | But what Jason is asking about is not what they're praying for,

00:03:13.000 | not what Epiphras is praying for,

00:03:16.000 | but about the way Epiphras is praying.

00:03:20.500 | And he's wrestling.

00:03:22.000 | He says he's wrestling and he wants to know, and I want to know,

00:03:24.500 | "Well, what's that like? Should I be doing more of that?

00:03:28.000 | And if I did, what would it look like?"

00:03:30.000 | So let's go to those other uses of the word wrestle or struggle or fight

00:03:36.000 | or however that agonizomai is translated.

00:03:39.000 | Probably the most important one is right here in Colossians,

00:03:43.000 | back in chapter 1, verse 28-29.

00:03:46.000 | Paul says, "Christ we proclaim,

00:03:49.000 | warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom,

00:03:53.000 | that we may present everyone mature in Christ."

00:03:57.000 | Same goal as Epiphras' prayer, by the way.

00:04:00.000 | "For this I toil."

00:04:03.000 | Now, that's not the word,

00:04:05.000 | but the modifying participle that comes after is the word.

00:04:09.000 | "For this I toil," wrestling.

00:04:11.500 | "For this I toil," struggling,

00:04:14.000 | "with all the energy that he powerfully works within me."

00:04:18.000 | "He works within me."

00:04:20.000 | Now, two things stand out there concerning this wrestling.

00:04:24.000 | One is the word toil.

00:04:28.000 | So this form of wrestling is work. It's work.

00:04:32.000 | So Paul is saying that his teaching, his warning,

00:04:36.000 | his ministry efforts to present the Colossians mature in Christ

00:04:40.000 | is toil. It's work.

00:04:43.000 | It's the kind of work that involves wrestling,

00:04:46.000 | and it sounds like, in other words,

00:04:48.000 | there are hardships and obstacles in this work

00:04:52.000 | that have to be wrestled out of the way.

00:04:55.000 | It requires exertion and effort,

00:04:58.000 | as if there were this big boulder on the path,

00:05:01.000 | and you've got to wrestle, put your shoulder into it,

00:05:04.000 | and push it out of the way so you can get on with your work

00:05:08.000 | of teaching and working and praying

00:05:12.000 | for these people.

00:05:15.000 | It's a rigorous kind of work.

00:05:19.000 | So I think it would be right for us to say that,

00:05:22.000 | in Paul's understanding, Epaphras, in praying,

00:05:26.000 | was doing something similar.

00:05:29.000 | The kind of prayer that he undertook for the Colossians

00:05:32.000 | involved toil.

00:05:34.000 | The kind of toil that included wrestling with hindrances

00:05:38.000 | or barriers, it's got to be pushed out of the way

00:05:40.000 | in order to be able to keep praying.

00:05:42.000 | Now the other thing that stands out, it's almost

00:05:45.000 | the opposite, or at least it's a relief

00:05:48.000 | from the pressure of putting your shoulder against a boulder.

00:05:51.000 | The other thing that stands out in Colossians 1:29

00:05:55.000 | is this, wrestling with all the energy

00:05:59.000 | that Christ powerfully works within me.

00:06:04.000 | So Paul does not think of his ministry wrestling

00:06:08.000 | as something he does in his own strength,

00:06:13.000 | even though there's enormous effort and toil.

00:06:16.000 | It's not being done in his own strength to try to get Christ

00:06:21.000 | to be active for him.

00:06:23.000 | It's just the other way around.

00:06:25.000 | He says Christ is super active prior to his effort

00:06:30.000 | and in his effort, enabling his effort to toil with wrestling.

00:06:36.000 | And I think that's the idea with prayer.

00:06:38.000 | You don't pray, even though it may be hard,

00:06:41.000 | there may be work in it, but you don't do it

00:06:43.000 | in your own strength.

00:06:45.000 | And I think in 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul is saying, in effect,

00:06:50.000 | that the fight of faith is exactly that.

00:06:55.000 | That word "fight" there is agonizami.

00:06:58.000 | He says, "Fight the good fight of faith, Timothy."

00:07:01.000 | And the word "fight" is the same word as "wrestle"

00:07:04.000 | and "struggle."

00:07:06.000 | So the point is that the very nature of the Christian life

00:07:11.000 | is that we are to live by faith and fight all our battles

00:07:17.000 | by faith, that is, seeking to rely on the strength of another

00:07:23.000 | and do everything we do, easy or hard, by faith,

00:07:27.000 | by relying on the one who is at work in me,

00:07:30.000 | enabling me to do what I'm striving to do.

00:07:35.000 | So even though the word "wrestle" sounds demanding,

00:07:39.000 | what it demands, above all, is faith that God is the one

00:07:45.000 | who wrestles in us and through us and for us.

00:07:50.000 | Another implication of wrestling comes from the way he uses it

00:07:54.000 | in 1 Corinthians 9.25, where he says, "Every athlete"—

00:08:00.000 | now, that word "athlete" is one who wrestles,

00:08:03.000 | one who struggles—

00:08:05.000 | "Every athlete, every wrestler, exercises self-control

00:08:11.000 | in all things.

00:08:12.000 | They do it to receive a perishable wreath,

00:08:15.000 | but we an imperishable.

00:08:18.000 | So I do not run aimlessly.

00:08:21.000 | I do not box as one beating the air,

00:08:24.000 | but I discipline my body and keep it under control."

00:08:28.000 | I think this implies that Epaphras, in his praying

00:08:33.000 | for the Colossians, used self-control,

00:08:37.000 | and he disciplined himself in his prayer.

00:08:41.000 | Maybe that means in order to find the time in his busy life,

00:08:46.000 | he had to get up earlier.

00:08:48.000 | So he denied himself half an hour's sleep,

00:08:52.000 | and he pommeled his body, as it were, to say, "Body, get up!

00:08:57.000 | This bed feels really good right now."

00:08:59.000 | And he says to his body, like an athlete who gets up

00:09:02.000 | to train at 5 a.m., he says, "Get up, body."

00:09:06.000 | And he devoted himself to focused time in prayer

00:09:10.000 | for his loved ones back in Colossae.

00:09:13.000 | That took control of his own inner impulses,

00:09:18.000 | which might have preferred to stay in bed.

00:09:21.000 | Maybe one more example.

00:09:23.000 | This time it comes from the way the Gospel of John uses

00:09:28.000 | agonizomai, or wrestle or struggle.

00:09:31.000 | John 8, 1836, Jesus said to Pilate,

00:09:36.000 | "My kingdom is not of this world.

00:09:39.000 | If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting."

00:09:44.000 | Now, that's the word.

00:09:46.000 | And you know that in this context, that means they'd be pulling out

00:09:50.000 | their swords and sticking your soldiers in the throat

00:09:53.000 | to keep me from being handed over to you.

00:09:55.000 | So agonizomai here isn't wrestle a boulder out of the way.

00:10:01.000 | It's kill somebody to keep them from making your Jesus ineffective,

00:10:09.000 | at least as they understood it.

00:10:11.000 | So that means literally fighting against the Roman soldiers

00:10:16.000 | with swords and clubs.

00:10:18.000 | So I think when Paul says that Epaphras is wrestling, struggling,

00:10:25.000 | or fighting, there really is warfare going on.

00:10:30.000 | So I'm drawing in the warfare imagery now,

00:10:35.000 | not just the athletic imagery.

00:10:37.000 | You've got athletes who need discipline.

00:10:39.000 | Now you've got war, and you need to defeat an enemy.

00:10:43.000 | And we all know from Ephesians 6, 12, that Paul says,

00:10:48.000 | "We don't wrestle against flesh and blood."

00:10:51.000 | Now, that's a different word for wrestle in the Greek,

00:10:53.000 | but the idea is the same.

00:10:55.000 | We don't wrestle against flesh and blood,

00:10:57.000 | but against principalities and power.

00:10:59.000 | So when Paul says that Epaphras is fighting, not just wrestling,

00:11:04.000 | but fighting in prayer, he probably includes the reality that Satan

00:11:09.000 | does not like what Epaphras is doing at all and is trying to stop him,

00:11:16.000 | and he must take the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith

00:11:19.000 | and quench the prayer-destroying, fiery darts with that shield of faith

00:11:27.000 | and with the sword of a good promise from God.

00:11:30.000 | So those are a few of the ways that prayer is like a wrestling match.

00:11:37.000 | It's like wrestling in hard work with obstacles to be removed.

00:11:42.000 | It's like wrestling with athletic efforts,

00:11:45.000 | with the need for self-control and discipline.

00:11:48.000 | It's like wrestling in a fight with swords when the devil has to be driven off.

00:11:53.000 | Anyone who has ever tried to pray in any focused or sustained way

00:12:00.000 | for some spiritual breakthrough knows something of this kind of struggle.

00:12:07.000 | So don't think of prayer always as an easy conversation.

00:12:13.000 | You hear so many people talk about prayers,

00:12:16.000 | "It's wonderful to have a little conversation with Jesus."

00:12:20.000 | Well, it is sweet, and it is easy sometimes.

00:12:25.000 | But often it is a walkie-talkie during war.

00:12:31.000 | The bombs are dropping. The enemy fire is heavy all around.

00:12:36.000 | Prayer is embattled, and we are called to get on the frequency

00:12:43.000 | of the heavenly headquarters and send in for fire cover here.

00:12:48.000 | It's like, "I've got to have the Air Force quick, Father, because I'm in trouble."

00:12:53.000 | But never forget, even our call for help is an act of help

00:13:00.000 | from the Lord who is innocent for us.

00:13:04.000 | Yeah, so good. Thank you, Pastor John.

00:13:06.000 | That prompted me to look just now on this podcast.

00:13:09.000 | In 10 years, we've never talked about prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie,

00:13:13.000 | but that's a point that you've made a lot over the years.

00:13:16.000 | We need to pull some sermon clips on this, I think.

00:13:18.000 | More on that later. We'll pick that up in the APJ series.

00:13:21.000 | Thank you for joining us today.

00:13:22.000 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive,

00:13:25.000 | or subscribe to the podcast, all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:31.000 | Wednesday, we're going to address the love of money.

00:13:35.000 | When we think of the love of money, we tend to think of the lavish lifestyle

00:13:38.000 | of a billionaire sultan in the Middle East,

00:13:41.000 | or we think of a big tech CEO who catapults himself

00:13:44.000 | into outer space just for the fun of it.

00:13:46.000 | Mostly the love of money we ascribe to the irreligious, the opulent,

00:13:50.000 | those with lavish lifestyles that gives evidence to a love of money in their heart.

00:13:55.000 | But the Bible speaks of the love of money in different terms altogether.

00:13:59.000 | A love of money inside the heart of the religious zealot,

00:14:03.000 | an idol that infects even the staunchest religious person,

00:14:06.000 | even those who claim to follow the law in detail and with great zeal.

00:14:12.000 | This is a fascinating point. Pastor John is going to make it on Wednesday.

00:14:15.000 | I'm your host, Tommy Reinke. We'll see you back here for that.

00:14:17.000 | Thanks for listening.

00:14:18.000 | [Music]

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How Do I ‘Wrestle’ in Prayer?

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