Phase 3: Praying in th Spirit

Big Idea:

Spiritually mature people pray in the Spirit.

Intro:

Good morning [Church Online]...

Well, welcome to Phase 3 of our 2023 Vision. If that makes no sense to you, let me take a moment to explain...

Our 2023 Vision (what our church is focusing on this year as a church) is “Moving On Up!” We believe God is calling our church to “grow up” - to spiritually mature. And this belief is built on a couple of things...

We are no longer a young church plant. Now, we’re only 6 years old, but we are an established, healthy, growing church. We’re not wondering if we’re going to survive anymore. Therefore, we need to shift our thinking… and we need to start thinking about about how can we grow up and grow stronger.

We believe God wants to do amazing things in and thru our church. One phrase we’ve been using is, “God wants us to experience a harvest.” And in John 4, Jesus defines the “harvest” as many people experiencing eternal life. We believe God wants to use our church to help our community, love Jesus, so they can experience the joy of salvation. That we’d no longer be living under the burden and bondage of sin, but would receive the forgiveness Jesus won for us on the cross and gives us new life - eternal life!

…but here’s the thing about “harvests.”

Proverbs 14:4 NLT

Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.

Harvests require strong oxen. And put in the context of the church, our community experiencing eternal life requires our church spiritually maturing.

And so far this year...

In Phase 1, we’ve learned how “Growing in Christ” is necessary to spiritual maturity.

In Phase 2, we learned how spiritual maturity is a messy process. Again, the goal isn’t keeping the stable clean. The goal is collecting a large harvest. However, strong oxen poop in the stable. And people growing in spiritual maturity is a messy process. But it’s a worthy process.

…but in Phase 3, we’re going to talk about recalibration. Earlier this year, I gave us a preview of this theme and I started by talking about the basketball team I coach.

There was a point in the season when our team (that was a good team) started making a lot of mistakes, which resulted in losing a lot of games. The problem wasn’t in the potential of the players - the problem was the fundamentals. They weren’t doing the foundational, fundamental things of smart basketball necessary to win games.

And so, I had to adjust my coaching. I started coaching them back to the basics. And in the end, though we didn’t win the championship, we did have a successful season and got to the final four in our league.

Let me give you an additional example… How many people have heard, “God helps those who help themselves.” How about “follow your heart?” Or “Only God can judge me.” Did you know these statements are either not in the Bible or used in a completely unbiblical way? And yet, people build their lives on this statement.

People think they have to work hard to be perfect in order to get God’s favor; yet, the Bible says we are to live by grace (receiving things from God that we don’t deserve).

People value “following their heart” and then wonder why their lives fall apart because they selfishly pursue their sinful desires instead of sacrificially following God’s dreams (purposes) for their lives.

People justify their sinful living by saying, “Only God can judge me.” Now, honestly, that’s true. Then again… you don’t want God to judge you! You want God to save you!

There are a lot of things that we believe (regardless of how we came to believe them) that radically impact our lives. And the radically hinder our spiritual maturity… keeping us from living out our God-given purposes. And sometimes, the best thing we can do to correct these things is to get back to the basics - the fundamentals - to recalibrate.

And so for the first part of Phase 1, we are going to topically discuss foundational things we need to learn to spiritually mature. And… we’re going to use the Book of Acts (the story of the early church) to learn these lessons. Acts is the Holy Spirit inspired story of how God intended the church to live, which is why we need to use it as a reference for recalibration.

And today, we’re going to talk about the foundational practice of praying in the Spirit.

Body:

We have a motto in our culture that says, “Work smarter, not harder.” I like that statement. I think there’s a lot wisdom in it. But it also seems to fight against biblical practices… like prayer.

How many of us feel like prayer is hard? I’m a pastor and I think prayer is hard! I’m also a runner. You know what many runners hate? They hate running on a treadmill. Treadmills are like doing something really difficult while going nowhere. And sometimes that’s what prayer feels like. Many times prayer feels really hard, but feels like we’re doing/accomplishing nothing. But I’ll tell you this… regardless of our feelings… prayer is foundational.

Foundational:

Jesus said, “My house shall be a house of prayer.” It’s how we speak and hear from God. It’s how we have relationship.

Jesus not only said it, He practiced it.

And then, when He returned to heaven after the resurrection, His disciples regularly practiced prayer.

We see this in the book of Acts.

Give examples

Prayer was a regular, foundational part of the life of the early church.

But it’s not just about prayer… because I said “praying in the Spirit.” What’s the difference?

Praying in the Spirit:

How do we practice this?

Relational surrender. He’s inside of us and leads us according to the Father’s will/heart.

Access to resurrection power.

Give: Peter and James example.

Receive: Electricity goes to the house, but isn’t activated until the light switch is on. Flip the switch.

When the Spirit of God is moving in your life, you will be led to pray.

Response:

Thanks for joining us for Church Online. If this was your first time joining us, fill out a Connect Card. We’d love to say hi and send you a gift. Also, if you have prayer requests, would like to know more about TRC, or you decided to follow Jesus today - we want to hear from you. And there’s an easy way to do that on our website (riverchurchct.com), or you can text TRCConnect to 94000.