Gen 25:21, And Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. 
	We have been spending a great deal of time looking at the reality of what it means to pray effectively as the Church of God on this earth. We have read many quotations from ministers and learned authorities on this matter of prayer and we have considered many scriptures. We have regarded various elements of prayer and the attitudes with which we need to pray. We spent some time with Daniel in respect to his heart and dedication to prayer before God for the sake of the exiles taken by the Babylonians. 
All of this has been facilitated because of our reading of the passage in Genesis 25 where Isaac prayed on behalf of his wife, Rebekkah. We are not yet at an end of this consideration of prayer because it is so vital to who we are on this earth. We are God’s representation of the ministry of intercession for the sake of His testimony in this very day. 
	This morning, we will continue with two other prayer warriors as described in scripture. The first is also from the Old Testament during the time period of the return from captivity of the Children of Israel. The second is a New Testament example of prayer and dedication to the heart of God. 
	Please turn in your Bibles to Ezra 10:1-8. Ezra 10:1-8, Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women, and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly. And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God, and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act." Then Ezra rose and made the leading priests, the Levites, and all Israel, take oath that they would do according to this proposal; so they took the oath. Then Ezra rose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. Although he went there, he did not eat bread, nor drink water, for he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles. And they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the exiles, that they should assemble at Jerusalem, and that whoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the leaders and the elders, all his possessions should be forfeited and he himself excluded from the assembly of the exiles. Amen.
	One of the key aspects that we want to see in this reading is the fact that because Ezra prayed for them, the people were greatly affected. The Holy Spirit moved on the hearts of those exiles to make them compliant to the things that needed to be done before God. This was due to the fact that Ezra counted on the Lord to change the hearts and attitudes of those whom he lifted before the throne of God. 
	As Wiersbe points out, quote, Never underestimate the power of the prayers of one dedicated believer (James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much), for the intercession of only one concerned person can make a difference in what God will do to and for His people. As Ezra prayed and wept at the altar before the house of God, "a very great congregation of men and women and children" came together, and they fell under conviction of sin.
"They too wept bitterly" (Ezra 10:1, NIV). This response wasn't something that Ezra worked up; it was something that he prayed down. The priests had offered a lamb on the altar, but Ezra gave the Lord an even greater sacrifice. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart — these, O God, You will not despise" (Ps 51:17, NKJV). End quote. (from The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament © 2001-2004 by Warren W. Wiersbe. All rights reserved.)    
	There are several truths inherent in this example which we would best recognize. The first is that we cannot change the heart of anyone. No matter how logically we may present an argument, no matter how eloquently we may express ourselves, no matter how forcefully we may urge them to change, only God can change the heart! Ezra was in great travail over what had happened to the Children of Israel in their disobedience and their conceit and their hopelessness. He earnestly brought them before God’s Throne for The Lord to effect a change and that is what God did in the individual and collective heart of His people. 
	This is where we need to join with Ezra and pray for the Lord to deal with those whom He puts on our hearts. We cannot make the decisions for them and neither can we lose hope in what the Lord can affect in each individual. We pray and we trust God to do that which He has determined in the lives of those whom we lift up. Job 33:16-18, Then He opens the ears of men, And seals their instruction, That He may turn man aside from his conduct, And keep man from pride; He keeps back his soul from the pit, And his life from passing over into Sheol. We must trust God to change the hearts and minds of each of the beloved ones lifted up in our prayers before Him. 
The key to this is that the change begins in us and in our hearts of prayer. Consider how Ezra was affected before the Lord. Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God… He was before the throne of God in confession and humility of heart, not exalting himself in any manner. He was crying out to God in tears and anguish for the sake of God’s own people. He was not lording any sense of superiority over them, but taking upon himself the guilt and the torment and the distress of their disobedience unto God. He confessed Israel’s unfaithfulness and misery and painful disregard for God’s Law with all repentance and contrition.
The other truth in this passage is that the people, under the Hand of the God, were made to be cooperative to the dealings of the Lord as directed by Ezra. He prayed with all his heart and then gave instruction from the Lord. The people were willing to hear and to obey that instruction. They even encouraged Ezra to tell them the heart of God in the matters before them. Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act. 
This is the heart with which we all must come before the Lord in our prayers. As the Lord gives direction, we must be willing to do all that He requires. And, we must be willing to encourage those who minister the Word to do so with courage and with conviction and in the assurance that we will respond and go forth together in obedience to the Word. 
Many of us gather together, even in this room, with the idea that we will listen to a point because of our social responsibility as Christians. We are willing to endure the hour and a half or so of this assembly. Then, in our self pride, we return to our lives of comfort outside these walls. We feel that we have done our duty by thus attending to our spiritual requirements in this manner. 
But I now warn each person in this room, including myself, that if we truly desire to pray effectively, it will necessitate an absolute change in our lives. Look at what the Children of Israel had to do in obedience to the Lord after Ezra’s intensity of prayer. "We have been unfaithful to our God, and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law… And they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the exiles, that they should assemble at Jerusalem, and that whoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the leaders and the elders, all his possessions should be forfeited and he himself excluded from the assembly of the exiles. 
This is no minor adjustment in our daily routine! This is not a small change in our habits! To truly and effectively give ourselves to the Lord in obedience and reverence and submission, in response to His Heart, is to give ourselves completely to Him in every facet of our beings! We can never be prayer warriors; we can never know the intimacy of true communion with God in prayer; we can never know what it means to be in the constant presence of God; and neither can we reap the full bounty of the Living Word of God unless we give ourselves wholly and unreservedly to God! This means that all that matters to us is complete obedience and dedication to Him as our only course of life on this earth! To reiterate, we can never know the complete joy of our promised living relationship with God in Jesus Christ unless we obey Him in everything! 
This means that we truly do set aside all those elements of this age that so easily distract and remove our hearts from Him. We do not have two separated courses of living, one in this world such as at work or at school or at home and then our spiritual life which we practice at certain times in the week. That is not the call upon our hearts and spirits. We can not act one way in this situation and a completely different way in that situation, as many of us do. 
If we are truly desirous after the Lord, then He will be our everything at all times! He will be the only One to Whom we listen in every interaction of our daily lives. If this is our heart, then we will be those prayer warriors of Christ because it is only in that constant and obedient life of prayer that we can so honor and represent Him each moment of each day of our lives.
This, then, brings us to the beginning of our consideration of Epaphras as recounted in Col 4:12+13. Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. 
	In this passage, we have the Apostle Paul commending a prayer warrior to the Church of the Colossians. This is important to us because this is not one of the great Apostles with whom we would expect such a steadfast ministry of prayer. This was one of the ordinary redeemed of the Lord’s saints, such as you and me. This was a man in whom the Lord had developed an intense ministry of prayer as should fill our hearts and minds. We need to examine the characteristics of Epaphras in terms of what it means to pray as put forth by the Holy Spirit in Paul’s writing. It does very much concern our focal point of living completely unto the Lord. 
	Quote, He prayed constantly (v. 12 "always"). He was a good example of Paul's admonition: "Continue in prayer" (Col 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving). Epaphras did not pray only when he felt like it, as do many Christians today. Nor did he pray when he was told to pray, or when the other believers prayed. He was constantly in prayer, seeking God's blessing. End quote. (from The Bible Exposition Commentary. Copyright © 1989 by Chariot Victor Publishing, and imprint of Cook Communication Ministries. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)
	Many of us think that this constant prayer is just something for those in the field of ministry or for those who have nothing else to do in their lives, such as the elderly and retired. We do not really accept this as it is truly put before us in scripture. We are too busy making a living or meeting the demands of our daily schedule to find time to pray one or twice during the day, much less constantly, always, continually, continuously, and at all times. We use the excuse that we are under so much stress and anxiety to succeed in today’s constantly evolving society. We explain away the practicality of being earnestly and constantly in prayer because the demands of the marketplace and the expenses of this modern civilization are incessantly draining away our resources and our time and our energy. 
	However, the Apostle Paul addresses that very concern in Phil 4:6+7. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus… in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 
	Epaphras knew all the burdens and the pressures of daily making a living and meeting the demands and obligations of his society. He was an ordinary Christian doing ordinary work in order to make an ordinary living. He was just like all those countless saints who have preceded us in the throes of their own societal battles for survival. Everyone has to deal with the anxiety and the stress of endurance within the confines of our daily routines and expectations. The only way of doing so with success, as we are so encouraged by the Apostle Paul, is to do so in prayer. 
Without our constant communion with the Lord, we will be bombarbed and beleaguered with every kind of stressful anxiety. It is only as we can learn to take everything to the Lord in prayer, with that attitude of thanksgiving, that we can find His peace at work as our reality of life on this earth. 
This fully means that at work, every decision is first brought before the Lord for His ruling and overruling. At school, before each class, we find ourselves in prayer for the sake of the Lord’s testimony to be evident in our interaction with classmates and teachers. As parents and spouses, every word we utter, especially to our loved ones, becomes subject to the prayerful scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. 
Thus is the case at the market, at the doctor’s office, everywhere we go, we do so in prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord. This is the reason that Epaphras could be so constantly in prayer. This is what we need to learn in our every moment-by-moment walk on this earth and I pray that we each learn this reality starting this very moment.
Next week, Lord willing, we will continue with the example of Epaphras, a fellow saint and prayer warrior after the heart of God. So be it!
And Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 96:1+2. Sing to the Lord a new song; Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Amen.