Welcome back to Aspastor John. This summer Pastor John is out of the studio preaching in Belfast in Scotland before returning to the States for a 40-day writing leave to finish up a book on Providence on the sovereignty of God a book he started last summer and hopes to finish this summer I cannot wait to see it and all of it the travel the book writing in this very podcast is all made possible by you we are supported by the prayers and the funding of God's people so thank you for generously

investing in this important and eternal work so with Pastor John busy we're diving into our archive of 1500 episodes and this summer we're pulling out some of your favorites about once every 50 episodes we release one that touches a nerve and touches the 300,000 play mark these are the elite episodes in our six and a half year history we only have about 30 of them and here's one of them

Thanks for listening to the Aspastor John podcast we begin the week with a question from Zach a listener to the podcast who writes and to ask about prayer hello Pastor John thanks for being such a great resource in answering hard questions in this podcast my question for you is this in your own words and in your own application what does it mean to pray without ceasing well let's get the text in front of us with a little bit of context I think because that that really has

significant things to say about the little phrase so here's first Thessalonians 5 and we'll do maybe verses 15 to 18 see that no one repays anyone evil for evil but always note that word always seek to do good to one another and to everyone

So start here with with verse 8 15 just so that we can see that Paul's burden is not just a kind of private piety when he comes to speak of prayer this is a radical call to counter intuitive counter cultural love don't repay people evil for evil do good to everyone always next verse rejoice

always which is not the kind of emotional response one would ordinarily have to be mistreated and treating others better than we are treated you might be wounded you might be spurned you might be in jail if people have treated you badly so this is a really amazing way of life

in in Paul's mind a miraculous one being treated badly returning good for evil and all the while rejoicing always so always doing good to those who do bad you always rejoicing this is incredible and and then comes the phrase that Zach was asking about and it makes sense now a little more pray without ceasing if that life sounds hard to you

pray without ceasing and then he gives a specific example of the kind of prayer in verse 18 not just help Lord which course we would pray help all time I need help to live this way but he goes on and says give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ uses for you so let's keep in mind two things about the context

one is the every's and the all's one do good always to everyone to rejoice always three pray always or without ceasing for give thanks always or in every circumstance the other contextual observation is that there seems to be a deepening to the question how how to live answer do good always to everyone

even when they don't do good to you how rejoice always find your joy in something other than the way you're treated how pray without ceasing how be in a continual disposition of thankfulness to God

so in those contexts what does pray without ceasing then mean that's what Zach asked and I see at least three things here that it means first it means that there's I think a spirit of dependence a spirit of dependence that should permeate all we do this is the very spirit and essence of prayer dependence so even when we are not

speaking consciously consciously to God there's a deep abiding dependence on him that is woven into the very essence of our faith in that sense we are praying

we are experiencing a spirit of dependence continuously and that kind of disposition is I think right at the heart of what God creates when he creates a Christian second meaning that it has and I think this is probably the one that's foremost in Paul's conscious intention here praying without ceasing means praying repeatedly and often

often repeatedly and often and I base that on the way he used the word ideolapetose unceasing in Romans one nine listen how how he uses it here so same word without ceasing he says for God whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel enough his son is my witness as to how I ideolapetose without ceasing unceasingly make mention of you

now we can be sure can we that Paul did not make mention of the Romans in every minute or second of his prayers or his days or his preaching he prayed and he spoke about lots of other things

besides the Romans but he mentioned them over and over he mentioned them often he mentioned them regularly so he says I mentioned you without ceasing it doesn't mean that he was verbally and mentally always every second mentioning them it means that over and over

and over always repeatedly without fail when I get on my knees you're in my you're in my prayer that's that's basically what I think he means by without ceasing repeatedly and often

and the third thing I think he means is not giving up on prayer without ceasing means don't ever come to a point in your life where you say prayer doesn't work I'm done I'm giving up on God I'm giving up on prayer

that would be the very opposite of without ceasing it means don't ever do that don't ever get to that point so that the key to rejoicing always is to pray continually that is to lean on God

God all the time and call to him repeatedly and often never give up looking to him for help and come to him repeatedly during the day and come often make the default state of your mind a God word longing and a God word thankfulness

and what one last thing maybe it would be helpful to say I think it's important to notice that in real life some discipline in regular times of prayer during the day keep this kind of without ceasing prayer alive

you know that I know a lot a lot of people well I don't know a lot of people but I've heard enough people say that they want to pray spontaneously they want to be always in a spirit of prayer they don't need set times of prayer that's legalistic I think that's ridiculous I think it's unbiblical and I think it's unrealistic if they just knew themselves because it's disciplined regular times of prayer

...