Praying by the Spirit

Praying is difficult!

It’s difficult because it reminds us that we’re not in control of our lives or our world.

it’s difficult because so many other things from hobbies to reading to TV and even our work seem to be more enticing or at least more pressing.

It’s difficult because it takes time…

and it’s difficult because the rewards from prayer are seldom immediate.

However, prayer for a Christian life is as vital as breath is for physical life.

Prayer is breath, the breath of God’s Holy Spirit breathing life into our spirit.

Just like a lion goes for the throat of it’s victims if it can because it knows that, while hooves may flail for a while and while the struggle may be intense short term, to cut off the breath is to cut off the life.

Satan knows that if he can discourage Christians from praying, he has cut us off from our life source… and all activity after that is harmless to him.

Go to church if you want to… no harm done.

Witness if you must.

Because to be without prayer is to be without breath

To be without breath is to be without life

Without life, our activity ceases to have eternal spiritual consequences.

John 15:5 “5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Spirit empowered prayer is the life of Jesus in his people.

It’s been well said that if you want to humble a person, ask them about their prayer life!

Few will reply, “Yeah, mate. Thanks for asking; it’s going great!”

We all need encouragement to persevere, to understand and to develop our prayer life.

Prayer… the story so far…

In the lead up to Easter we began a short series about prayer.

In the first sermon we thought about prayer as conversation between friends.

Not equal friends, but God is a true Friend and He created us that we would converse with him.

Then Sam talked to us about prayer to God the Father.

A good Father who hears and responds to our prayers.

Then we thought about how God is not simply a Friend of sinners… but awesomely holy.

And prayer in Jesus name doesn’t mean finishing every prayer the three words, in Your name.

Praying in Jesus name means walking with him, becoming more like him, and knowing Him well enough so that in all the things that are happening in our lives and in our world we pray in ways that we think he would pray Himself.

So, let’s put our shoulder to the wheel again and rededicate ourselves to this activity that is as vital as breathing!

I have a book on my computer, written 110 years ago.

It’s about prayer and a sentence in it caught my eye.

“Prayer, my brethren, is a work of grace, and not of nature.”

That means we will never learn to pray more effectively by simply trying harder.

Any more than we’ll get to heaven by trying harder.

Getting a better technique, learning some new words, praying this way not that way… pray longer, harder, better… is the world’s way to do things, not the churches!

Salvation is God’s gift to his people… we cooperate with God in receiving by faith.

Prayer is also God’s gift to his people… our part is to be aware of and obedient to the Spirit’s leading us in prayer.

Did you hear that?

Our part is to cooperate and be obedient to the Spirit’s leading in prayer.

I think it is a most unfortunate fact of life that through much publicity, talking about God’s Holy Spirit is a topic that frightens many Presbyterians today.

There have been too many suspect reports about miraculous healings and ecstatic experiences…

We’re inclined to say, “No, not for me… it’s safer to go back into my shell. I’ll stick to what I know… thank you very much!”

I’ll talk to the Father and say “in Jesus name” at the end of my prayers… and so long as I read the Bible, go to church and pray, I should make it safely to heaven when I die!

Is that an over the top caricature of reality in our churches today? I hope it is… but I fear it may not be.

Rom 8 drawing together the themes in Rom 1-7

Today in thinking about the role the Holy Spirit plays in our prayer life, we’re turning to Rom 8.

Rom 8 is the climax chapter that brings the first half of Romans together…

We have the victory and we reign in life through Christ…

and yet we suffer and continue to groan in life

Rom 8 says that though we continue to sin in life; there is no condemnation.

And though we are God’s adopted children… but still we await our adoption as sons.

AND…in the meantime we still groan

because we are part of the old broken, painful, suffering creation as well!

But Easter means we also take part in the new creation that dawned on the Sunday morning when Jesus triumphed over death, rose from the grave, and now reigns in glory until the day when he reappears on earth to put everything to rights.

So even as we groan, we have hope!

We are excitedly anticipating the fullness of the new creation.

Knowing we’re part of that unseen reality is a work of the Spirit which God puts in each of his children.

Romans 8:9 (NIV84)

9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

In other words, if the love and work and pursuit of you by the Lord Jesus has brought you to the place of repentance and faith, you have the Holy Spirit.

Now he (the Holy Spirit) can manifest more strongly in your life at times; and Christians can grieve Him and he retreats and we become less aware of his presence, but He…

Ephesians 1:14 “14 is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”

He has been given to God’s people to connect us in this life and as we groan, with God in glory… and he will not be taken away.

We cannot get more of Him… he was given to us by God…

Romans 5:5 “5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Heaven is connected to earth because the Spirit confirms with us what God says in his Scriptures.

We don’t have to con ourselves… Christian faith is not believing something our hearts say isn’t true!

Christian faith comes from the work of the Spirit in our hearts convincing us that what God says is true… as unlikely as earth life day be day may make it seem!

That doesn’t mean we’re free agents to do whatever we like.

Romans 8:12“12 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.”

Romans 8:15–16 (NIV84)

15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

At the Hymnfest last month a song that was requested was a hymn called “In the Garden”

And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own; And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.

The conviction that we really are God’s children and that prayer is a valid expression of hope for a better future is a work of God’s Spirit within his people.

Sometimes our groaning can be so intense, and our ignorance so profound that we make a real mess of our prayers.

Life hurts so much we don’t know what to pray

Life has hurt for so long we’ve prayed every prayer that we can think to pray.

Or we’re so uninformed about the circumstances that we pray the wrong things.

In tough and confusing and painful circumstances we need to stop talking about God… bow our heads and start talking to God.

Someone may say: “But I don’t know what to say!”

vv26-27 is wonderful!

Romans 8:26–27 “26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”

These verses are to be heeded not just when we’re groaning in a crisis.

We live daily in the weakness of human beings living in the old creation, even as we share the first fruits of the new creation.

Thank God we have the Scriptures that inform us of a lot of God’s will for his people.

But how do we pray for sick people; for specific circumstances not clear in God’s word; what’s best for us, for others, let alone for God’s glory?

Rom 8 says we may be unable to form our words, and we may be form the wrong words.

But the Spirit prays for us without words; because God searches our hearts and knows exactly what the Spirits groans are saying.

It’s a bit like a foreign student studying in Australia and churning out their first assignment in broken English.

Their assignment is horrible!

Grammar is all over the place.

Correct spelling has gone awol in most of it.

Sometimes it’s almost gobbledygook!

But their university has given them an English tutor who knows the subject well.

And the English tutor takes their best effort with all its mistakes and turns their work into polished English prose that expresses the intent of the student in ways acceptable to the lecturer!

That’s part of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer.

Our prayers can be riddled with mistakes and silly requests but the Spirit takes them and presents them as they should be before God.

Richard Trench Quote

Richard Trench was dean of Westminster Abbey in the middle of the 19th C and in a sermon wrote:

“We pray because God, God the Holy Ghost, puts it into our hearts to pray, helps our infirmities, suggests to us what things we ought to pray for, and how.

Look at a ship without a wind, becalmed in the middle sea, its sails flapping idly hither and thither;

what a difference from the same ship when the wind has filled its sails, and it is making joyful progress to the haven whither it is bound!

The breath of God, that is the wind which must fill the sails of our souls.

We must pray in the Spirit, in the Holy Ghost, if we would pray at all.

Lay this, I beseech you, to heart.

Do not address yourselves to prayer as to a work to be accomplished in your own natural strength.

It is a work of God, of God the Holy Ghost, a work of His in you and by you, and in which you must be fellow-workers with Him—but His work notwithstanding.”

Do you converse regularly with God as your Friend?

Is He your heavenly Father to whom you can bring any problem, however unknowable, unsolvable, even unforgivable… knowing full well God knows… and has the power to do as he knows best!

You can safely bring and leave the worst of the worst with Him!

Are you living and loving, dying and rising everyday… in the way God’s Son, our Lord Jesus lived, loved, died and rose to new life?

Then your prayers will be in Jesus’ name… whether you say that or not!

And because God is in the highest glory… and we dwell here on earth… new creation to be sure, but still with a foot firmly planted in this old, broken, groaning creation… is the Spirit of God the wind under your wings lifting, convincing and renewing you as he moves you towards eternal glory?