Praying in the Spirit

SERMON: 2017-03-05--e0611--praying-in-the-spirit-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:43:55.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the speaker introducing the topic ('This morning I want to come back...') and concludes with a final exhortation ('...be alert'). Both segments are core parts of the sermon. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:43:46.680-00:43:52.220 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- This morning I want to come back to where we left off two weeks ago, praying in the spirit part two, Ephesians chapter six, the verses 18 to 20. Let's read them one more time. Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. As I said a few moments ago, I want to try to pick up where we left off two weeks ago. At that time we looked at the first of three aspects of prayer that Paul mentions here in Ephesians chapter six in the context of spiritual warfare. Very quick review. The first thing that we looked at is that Paul says there are many different kinds of prayer. Pray in the spirit, verse 18, on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and we looked at prayers of adoration and confession and thanksgiving and different postures of prayer and so on. Then Paul says we are to pray on all occasions. Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. We looked at that a little bit and saw that that means not only praying in the good times and in the bad times, but cultivating an atmosphere and a walk of prayer with God day by day, moment by moment. And then we saw that we must pray in the spirit. Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. To pray in the spirit is to be led by the Holy Spirit not only, but also to be empowered by him. We don't know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit will strengthen us in our weakness and help us to cry out to God from the deep places in our lives in the context of the challenges of life and the difficulties that we experience. Well, that brings us this morning then to two more elements that I want to look at with you. There are another three that I want to look at with you. I think we can only do two this morning. Let's pick it up where we left off. Number four, Paul says we must remain alert. Listen again to verse 18, how it goes on. Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert. Now, to be alert is to be wide awake, is to have your eyes open, it's to stand guard, it is to watch out so that you do not get surprised or overtaken by the danger that you experience. And the reason for that, of course, is that we have a vicious enemy. We constantly underestimate his power or his wickedness. He wants to take you and me out and destroy the work of God and we must remain alert. Peter talks about that in a verse that you've heard me quote a number of times in recent weeks, 1 Peter 5, 8, be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. A roaring lion. Lions roar for multiple reasons. They roar because they want to communicate with the rest of the herd. They roar because they're claiming territory and they roar to paralyze their opponent when they are about to spring on them. And Peter uses a very powerful word picture to show what is the enemy that you and I face, a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Our job is to be on guard and to watch out to make sure that doesn't happen. And for our purposes this morning, I think there are at least two areas where being alert is of critical importance for every child of God. The more so, the more the enemy goes around roaring like a lion seeking whom he may devour. Number one, we need to make sure that our spiritual armor is solidly in place. We've been looking at that off and on for a number of weeks now and we have seen that our only protection biblically against the wiles of the devil is the full armor of God. Paul repeatedly mentions that in the verses leading up to this, verse 10 and verse 11, be strong in the Lord, he says, and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Verse 13, same thing. Put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand. Notice the responsibility lies with you and me. God in Christ has provided the strength and the protection of God in the battles of life that we face, but the responsibility to put on the full armor of God lies with you and lies with me. Of course, that's also where lies the problem, does it not? Because not infrequently, we get rather careless about maintaining the armor of God and making sure that it's in good shape and that we are solidly buckled up. And so sometimes instead of putting on the breastplate of righteousness, covering the affections of our hearts and other vital organs, we will sometimes allow our hearts to drift to loves of the world that are not sanctioned by God. And before we know it, we're tripped up in our walk with God. And sometimes instead of having our feet shod with the equipment of the gospel of peace, we allow little foxes to spoil the vineyard. We get into relationships where tensions exist and where irritations take place and before you know it, our hearts are burdened with the activities of resentment and all the energy that goes into that. And sometimes instead of holding on to the shield of faith or putting on the helmet of salvation, we allow thoughts and ideas to enter our minds that take us away from God and before you know it, the enemy has found an opening that he can put pressure on to try to wear us down and to trip us up. Paul talks about that earlier on in Ephesians chapter 4, gives a very practical example when he says in Ephesians 4, 26 and 27, "In your anger, do not sin," that's a quotation from the Old Testament. Most of us will remember it as be angry but do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and then do not give the devil a foothold. Do not give the devil a foothold. Paul says the same thing in 2 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11, "If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake in order that Satan might not outwit us." Why? We are not unaware of his schemes. What are his schemes? He wants to find weakness in our armor. And if he can find a place where our armor is not properly in place, where it hasn't been properly maintained, where we haven't been alert, then he will zero in on that place in an effort to take us out and the responsibility lies with you and me to watch and to be alert to make sure that does not happen. And that is why Jesus, speaking to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he invited them to stay awake, but they kept on falling asleep, he said, "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation." So it begins by being careful about our lives and recognizing that the enemy will find our vulnerabilities, will find our weaknesses, anything that hasn't been surrendered to Jesus, anything that hasn't been given over to him by faith will become a place where he puts pressure on us to try to walk, have us walk away from the living God. And you and I both know in our own lives and certainly in the lives of many people around us, the road to the kingdom is littered with the carcasses of those who started out with enthusiasm and excitement to follow Jesus, but like the five foolish virgins in the story of the coming of the bridegroom, they didn't make proper preparations. In the hour of temptation, in the hour of spiritual warfare, they didn't have enough oil in their lamps to keep on going and the warnings in biblical language are severe. So we need to keep alert for our own personal lives in this way. But secondly, I think we need to keep alert as to what is happening in the world. One Chronicles chapter 12 has an interesting little tidbit of information about 200 chiefs of the tribe of Issachar. One Chronicles 12 tells the story of different groups of people in the nation of Israel coming over to David from the house of Saul. And one of the groups that comes over to him are these 200 chiefs and their families who belong to the tribe of Issachar. And they are described interestingly enough in this way in verse 32 of chapter 12 of First Chronicles. They were men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do. Interesting phrase. They understood the times and they knew what Israel should do. What does it mean? Well, they were in touch with the, what the Germans would call the sightgeist, the spirit of the age, they could see the writing on the wall. God had promised the kingdom to David. It was being taken away from Saul. They understood the times and they knew that Israel needed to join up with King David. And there's a profound lesson in just that little phrase. Because what it means is that you and I as the children of God filled with the spirit of God need to have our eyes open so that we can see the signs of the times. Fascinating conversation in Matthew 16 between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day. It goes like this, verses two and three, Jesus says to them, "When evening comes, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning today it will be stormy for the sky is red and overcast." And then he says, "You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times." You cannot interpret the signs of the times. What is he meaning? Well, what he means is this, that in the history of the world there are two primary forces that are constantly at work. There is God in his purposes. There is Satan in his purposes. Those two are always in conflict with each other. God is trying to build his kingdom. God is wanting to bring people back through repentance and faith in Jesus to his authority so that he can bless them and they can do his will. Satan opposes that with everything that is within him, is constantly trying to destroy it and is constantly trying to bring people under his dominion and under his authority. These forces are constantly at work in the universe and they play out in the thousand and one little decisions that you and I and other people make every day because they either contribute to the one kingdom or they contribute to the other. And they play out in the huge movements of history, the movement of the nations, the movements of the spirits of the age. And our job as intercessors, our job as people who are united to Jesus by the Holy Spirit is like the men of Issachar to understand the signs of the times and to pray according to the will of God as to what is happening in the world. Now that's not always very easy. Let me give you two examples. Who would have thought that the deaths of six million Jews in World War II in what is known as the Holocaust would be used of God to establish the nation of Israel in the land of their forefathers. Now many students of prophecy believe that that is a very important part of God moving forward building his kingdom. There were other people who disagree with that. But the reality is the nation of Israel would have never been established had it not been for the terror inflicted upon the Jewish people during the horrific actions of the Nazi regime in World War II. God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. And you and I need to be alert to seeing where God is moving and how he is moving. Another example we all know the stories the horror stories that come out of the Middle East the way God's people are being persecuted and people are are being killed left right front and center. But who would have thought that in the middle of all of that there is an unprecedented number of Muslims turning to faith because their eyes have been opened to the glory of Jesus. See. We need to be alert to what is happening in the world from a biblical perspective. It was Billy Graham as I recall many years ago who made the observation that God's people should be looking at current events with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other hand always asking the question God what is really happening behind the scenes. How is how are your purposes playing out. And to those who say well I don't understand I haven't got enough wisdom the word of God says but you do because you're not children of the night you're children of the day. Love the way Paul puts it in one Thessalonians four five and six you brothers are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then let us not be like others who are asleep but let us be alert and self controlled. Keep your eyes open says Paul not only making sure that your armor is in place but try to discern in the movements of history what are the signs of the times what is the indication that this present world is coming to an end and God's kingdom is emerging. There is system to what God is doing it's not for nothing that so many of Jesus's parables are drawn from agriculture because just as the crop of good wheat grows and the crop of weeds are growing our discernment ought to indicate which is which and how it is that we need to pray and where it is that God is at in the times of history. It will turn against nation the present system will increasingly become conflicted it will fall apart persecution will abound Jesus says when that happens lift up your eyes because you know that your redemption is drawing nigh. Keep your eyes open do not allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security. God grants you the Holy Spirit so that you can see what is happening and interpret it properly. Brings me then to a fifth instruction that Paul gives us here in Ephesians chapter 6 and that is the fact that we need to pray for all the saints. With this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Now the word saints is used differently in different religious traditions in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Church and some other churches of similar background a saint is a person who has deceased and has gone to heaven and also refers to saints who have been canonized in the Roman Catholic Church last count 810 believers have been canonized. To be canonized means that you have to have been a Christian of particular merit and holiness a number of miracles have to be ascribed to you and you join the list of saints and you can be prayed to in heaven as people who will support you in your particular needs. That's sainthood in that particular tradition. That's not what Paul is talking about here and that's not the way Protestants typically understand the concept of sainthood. When Paul says pray for all the saints by saints he means all other Christians. The word saint means to be holy or to be separated to God. And when you and I come to faith in Jesus from Paul's perspective we are saints instead of sinners doesn't mean we don't do things that are wrong doesn't mean that we have come to perfection but it means that from God's point of view he sees us in Christ as saints. We are the children of God and our identity now is that of children of God and so when Paul says pray for all the saints he doesn't just mean you know pray for really good and mature and solid Christians and that's an okay thing to do but he's talking about you pray for all other believers. Why? Because we are all members of one body. We're drawn from every tribe tongue and nation to be a people belonging to God sharing the blessings of God and being called to the purposes of God both in this life and in the age to come raises the question of course then what does praying for the saints look like? How should we pray for each other? Well remember the context is praying in the spirit that is to say let your prayers be directed by the Holy Spirit let your prayers be empowered by the Holy Spirit raises the next question then how does the Holy Spirit direct us to pray for each other and how does he empower us to pray for each other? Now typically when we pray for each other we pray for the very practical needs of life when we have congregational prayer we often pray for people who are ill or people who are celebrating good things and all of those things are really good and fine and dandy but if you really want to understand the burden on the heart of God for his children then study the great prayers of scripture especially study the prayer of Jesus in John chapter 17 which is known as his high priestly prayer we're of course accustomed to calling the our Father the Lord's Prayer and that's good and proper but the real prayer of Jesus is his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17 in the time that remains going to walk you through that prayer very quickly and point out three main movements in that prayer that ought to be reflected in your prayer and my prayer for each other and for the worldwide church is really simple but very profound nevertheless so if you look at John chapter 17 Jesus's high priestly prayer you'll discover that as it relates to the church there are some other things that he prays for there as well including his glory and the Father's glory but when he prays for the church he prays number one that God's people would be protected from the evil one he prays for protection for God's people verse 11 I will remain in the world no longer he's getting ready to go back to the Father by way of the cross but they that is his disciples are still in the world and I'm coming to you Holy Father protect them by the power of your name the name you gave me and then in verse 15 same thing now he's praying not just for the disciples who are immediately with him but for all those who believe through their ministry my prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one our first item of prayer not only for ourselves but for other people ought to be Lord protect them from the evil one remember we talked about Satan being a roaring lion seeking someone to devour he is without mercy he is ruthless any weakness that he can find he will move into without regard to fair play without regard to justice without regard for anybody's feelings and the more vulnerable we are the more prone we are to his attacks and you and I therefore need to be alert on the watch on the lookout for those places where Satan is going to attack the people of God and so we need to pray for our children before they're even born I've shared with you before every time we discovered ourselves pregnant with another child as soon as we discovered it I would lay my hands on my wife's tummy and we would pray Lord as this body this infant is being knit together in its mother's womb would you surround it with your care would you surround it with your protection would you bless the child we need to pray for the process of delivery for infants because if Satan can mess up that process he can create lifelong issues in that person's life and I could tell you story upon story that'll make your hair stand on end and how he tries to destroy the very fundamentals of people's lives and then of course as they're growing up as they face the teenage years as they become adults as they choose careers and as they choose marriage partners and and as people come to faith and as people struggle with putting off the old and putting on the new you and I have a responsibility to stand in the breach and to know that protection from the power of evil is simply one of the most important things in the world because Satan hates the church he hates Christians and he will do everything that he can just this past week Franklin Graham put out a call to prayer for Christians in the nation of Egypt of all places currently one of the more stable countries out of the Middle East but ISIS has just gone on record declaring war on Christians in Egypt and they are systematically trying to take them out in Iraq before current world events there were a million point four a million point five Christian believers in the days of Saddam Hussein you know how many are left today 200,000 maybe the rest of either fled or have been slaughtered though thank God with recent military gains in in Iraq Christians are reasserting their authority there was a story in the news just a couple of weeks ago one of the villages close to the city of Mosul or Mosul that has been recaptured have returned the Christians have returned to their church and they have begun to worship and to celebrate mass and what a lot of these villages around Mosul are doing is they are raising these huge crosses to demonstrate the victory of Jesus here's a picture of one of them in this village I don't know how to pronounce that telekouf to scope I'm assuming you can see how big that cross is the archbishop there said that Christians will demonstrate to the world that the forces of darkness which wreak havoc and ravage their land are only temporary and the Church of Christ although it suffers is built upon the rock guess who wins at the end it will always be God in God's people but it will be through fire and you and I particularly let's hear it for the persecuted church and you and I living in the comfort of North American society where persecution is also not very far around the corner just so you know we need to carry our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world in our hearts and cry out for protection because Satan roars like a lion he is destructive to the nth degree second element of prayer that you will find in John chapter 17 which after all is Jesus's high priestly prayer is for God's people to remain closely united to the Lord this is eternal life says Jesus that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent and to know God is not just you know a nice intellectual knowledge of facts or an intellectual or historical faith knowing somebody in scripture is always like the intimacy of a sexual relationship between a husband and a wife where you truly are joined to each other and the whole message of scripture of course is that next to God Satan is the most powerful factor and force in the universe and the only way that we can be protected against him and from him is to be in close union with the Lord Jesus and so therefore the foundation of our prayer for people ought always to be that they grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ that's why the prayers of Paul in the book of Ephesians earlier on are so powerful where he prays for the eyes of your heart to be open so that you can see the glorious inheritance that you have in Christ that you can experience the love of God the height and the depth and the whole shooting match of what it is that in Christ Jesus you are and so if ever you wonder what it is that you ought to be praying for for other believers pray for them to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of Jesus for eyes to be open for hearts to be transformed for the power of Jesus to be made manifest because ultimately that's what's going to make us stand in the battles of life many years ago did a little Bible study because trying to figure out when you pray for other people what can you pray for that you know for sure is the will of God you know it's not hard to pray for this that and the other thing but how do you pray with faith believing that this is really what God wants you pray for people who are sick but you and I both know that not everybody that is sick is going to get healed you can pray for people to come to faith but you and I both know there are places where people will not come to faith is there anything that we know for sure is the will of God interested in knowing what I found what I found is the one thing that you can always pray for that you know is the will of God is that people who are in Christ will grow up in Christ to maturity Paul puts it this way he says it is God's wheel that you should be sanctified sanctified means made holy separated from sin set aside from God so when you're praying for your kids or when you're praying for your friends or you're praying for your neighbors you can pray with confidence that what God wants is for people to grow up in Christ and to bear fruit for him the only thing is we often need to release our loved ones to him so that he can do what needs to be done to get them to where they need to be because sometimes our human sentimentality gets in the way and we don't want God to hurt our little children we don't want God to hurt a little friends and we certainly don't want God to hurt us well you know Jesus has some interesting things say about that he says it's better to go it's better to lose your right hand or lose your right eye or lose your whatever than to go to hell with all your limbs intact from God's point of view a hundred years from now won't matter much how well somebody fared in life whether they were rich or poor healthy or sick but it'll make a big difference whether they wake up in Abraham's bosom or if they wake up in the lake of fire we need to learn to look at life from God's perspective and we need to put to death false human sentimentality and we need to say at the end of the day all that really matters is that we be found in Christ and in his righteousness would you not agree but man that is hard and our human affections tug at us because we all like to be comfortable and we all like to be happy well the Bible is more concerned about us being blessed than simply being happy there's a third thing that Jesus prays for in John chapter 17 and then will be done and that is for God's people to be unified my prayer says Jesus is not for them alone that is his immediate disciples I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one father just as you are in me and I am in you may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me I have given them the glory that you gave me but they may be one as we are one I in them and you in me may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and I've loved them even as you have loved me wow unified as you and I father are one that the world may know that you have sent me I've said this many times it bears repeating God isn't only interested in you and me as individual Christians is he he's interested in building Christian community he's interested in building a community of people that is a colony of heaven live in among the nations of the world he's interested in building a people who learn to love God above all and who truly love their neighbor as they love themselves people who would rather die than defraud each other or take from each other people who would rather lay down their lives for each other than seek to climb over each other to gain an advantage in the world people who are truly characterized by the movements of heaven as opposed to the movements of the earth that's God's passion and when you signed up for Jesus you were not only baptized into Jesus you were baptized into the body and what God is working at in all of our lives is to break down all the obstacles that stand to that to that to fill us with his Holy Spirit so that there is a bond of intimacy among God's people that is characteristic of the union between God in Jesus in my more desperate moments I don't ever believe that it's going to happen I just want you to know that but every so often you'll see a glimpse of it and I'll tell you when I see somebody come to faith in Jesus that person's life begins to change and they learn to take responsibility for their sins and they learn to to work on relationships in a way that shows the grace of Christ my life soars and the greatest pain I don't mind admitting is when I see people who should know better who when they come up against the places of hardness and pride of their own life instead of putting it to death and seeking God's grace and the help of Christian community to put it to death they depart from the way because they don't want to pay the price Jesus died and rose again and poured out his Holy Spirit to build a people of praise and to build a people of power and you and I as we remain alert as we learn to pray for all the saints according to the will of God and we ask God to keep his church safe and we ask him to help the church to grow up in Christ so that we may share in all the fullness of his riches we also need to pray that God will bind his people worldwide together so that in them the love of God for the world may be seen and shown it means putting our shoulders to the wheel it means being an answer to our own prayers it means knowing that in the Lord our labor will not be in vain because the day is coming when the nations of the world will experience the wrath and the judgment of God and the people of God are going to hear those words well done good and faithful servants you have been faithful over little I will put you over [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:43:46.680; remove through 00:43:55.000] much that is the God we serve be alert be alert [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:43:55.000; resume after this marked segment]