Sermon Tone Analysis

Praying in the Spirit, Part 2

Praying in the Spirit, Part 2

Today, we come to the end of our series of studies on the Armour of God.

We’ve covered a lot of ground over the past 12 weeks – even if we’ve spent 12 weeks on 10 verses.

We’ve seen that every single Christian, from the moment of conversion to the last earthly breath - - is involved in a monumental struggle for joy … under constant attack from the enemy of God’s glory – who becomes our enemy, the moment we change allegiance … the second God picks calls you to Himself, picks you up and transfers you from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of His beloved Son – you are placed, smack dab onto the middle of a battlefield.

You are under attack, Christian.

Every.

Single.

Christian.

It’s a battle for your joy.

This is our battle.

We’ve looked at some of Satan’s subtle attacks … we’ve seen that to stand firm in God-glorifying, Christ-exalting joy, we need to put on the armor that God provides for us because He loves us.

He is most glorified in us, when we are most delighted in Him.

So put on the armour for delight.

Over the course of the past several weeks, we’ve looked at the armour in detail.

We looked at the belt of truth – That was first – the first thing you need for joy is to build your life on the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Word of God.

Then, we looked at the BREASTPLATE of RIGHTEOUSNESS – that protection for your heart and mind.

We saw that, if you want to hold on confidently to your joy – you need to be protected – armoured in the awareness that, as a Christian, when you do struggle – as you will – when you fall into sin – as you will, without doubt –

You need to know that Jesus Christ in His work has taken your sin on Himself and nailed it to the cross, where he died.

He cancelled the record of debt.

Your sin is gone – it’s paid for.

Now you are not seen as a sinner any longer - - - no God, now IMPUTES – CREDITS Jesus’ righteousness to your account.

In Christ you are radiant.

We looked at the shoes of readiness – the balance and sure-footedness that comes from ……

…. the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God – the weapon to push back.

And last week, we saw that we are not finished dealing with the armor of God, until we deal with prayer.

As we sang in the words of the hymn earlier: “Put on the Gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer”.

True words: Prayer is not just an add-on, an appendix at the end of the list, after everything else is done … prayer is HOW YOU PUT THE ARMOUR ON.

Everyone who steps onto the battlefield to engage in spiritual warfare, no matter how well you wear truth and righteousness and faith and salvation, no matter how well you are grounded in peace, no matter how well you wield the Word, you’ve got to make prayer the first thing.

The Christian soldier fights on his knees!

As Edward Payson said: “Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to minister.

Pray, therefore, my dear brother, pray, pray, pray.”

Seven is the Biblical number that symbolizes completion and perfection.

It’s no coincidence that, after Paul lists off SIX pieces of spiritual armour – he names PRAYER as the seventh thing we need.

Prayer completes.

Prayer perfects.

In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian takes out a weapon called ‘All-Prayer’.

Prayer isn’t an add-on, at the end of the list of pieces of armour – it’s the supreme weapon to use “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (v.

12).

Verse 18 tells us to pray in a distinct way.

I want us to finish our series with this – I want to wrap everything up by looking at one aspect of how Paul describes the prayer that is fitting for spiritual warfare, wearing the armour of God.

Look at v. 18: “Praying at all times IN THE SPIRIT”.

Praying in the Spirit.

You’ve likely heard the term before, but what does it mean?

1. WHAT IS IT?

Some people would say that this ‘praying in the Spirit’ is another piece of armor – that you ‘put on’ after you have put on everything else.

You put on your breastplate, grab your shield and sword – Then you put on another piece of armour – then you put on your ‘praying in the Spirit’.

That doesn’t work.

Paul is carefully describing the armour of God by going piece by piece through the kind of battle-gear that Christians in his day could read and then imagine – because they could picture what Paul’s talking about from the Roman soldiers they saw with their own eyes, day after day.

And Roman soldiers didn’t carry anything called a ‘prayer in the Spirit’.

Some people notice ‘praying in the Spirit,’ comes right after the Sword of the Sprit and they say –“praying in the Spirit’ is HOW you use the Sword of the Spirit.

“You pull the sword of the Spirit out of your belt and wield it by “praying in the Spirit” – as if this is a special type of praying – a super-spiritual type of prayer – ‘praying in tongues’.

That doesn’t work either.

This passage isn’t talking about that.

Verse 18 says, “praying at all times” in the Spirit.

Don’t miss that.

Praying at all times in the Spirit.

Paul is saying that ALL of our prayer MUST be ‘praying in the Spirit’.

When you get out of bed in the morning – Pray in the Spirit

When you pray with your kids, leading them to the throne of God.

Pray in the Spirit.

When you come here to join with the congregation and worship God in prayer.

Pray in the Spirit.

When you crumple to the floor – because your world is falling down around you – and everything you thought you could count on – health, finances, relationship … it’s all falling to pieces and you don’t know what to do except groan in prayer: PRAY IN THE SPIRIT

. . .

It all needs to be “praying in the Spirit.”

It is not a TYPE of Prayer - - IT IS HOW YOU REALLY PRAY.

And if this is the type of prayer that we need to always use – then don’t we need to understand what it is?

That is exactly what we want to do today.

The 2 questions we want to answer are:

1) What is it?

2) How do we do it?

To find out what ‘praying in the Spirit’ means in , we need to look at how it is used in other places of Scripture.

I’ll say it again: Let Scripture interpret Scripture.

So, let’s look at other places in the NT where the prayer and the Holy Spirit are brought together.

1. ,: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, BY WHOM we cry ‘Abba!

Father!’

The Spirit himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God.”

Praying in the Spirit means FIRST – that the Spirit of God motivates us to pray by causing us to lift up a cry/ a prayer from the heart.

It says in that NOBODY can say “Jesus is Lord’ apart from the Holy Spirit.

“Wait a minute.

How can you say that?

… I can take my brother, put him in a headlock – tell him that I’m not going to let him breathe until he says, ‘Jesus is Lord’.

If I’m strong enough … eventually he’ll say ‘Jesus is Lord’ – whether he’s a Christian or not.

So how can Paul say that?”

That’s not what Paul means in - - What he means is that nobody can authentically, from the heart, surrender themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord of their life, without the Holy Spirit.

Sure, anybody can SAY the words, “Jesus is Lord”, meaning He is, in fact, Ruler over the earth – without any impact on themselves.

But … to AUTHENTICALLY give yourself to Jesus Christ – to say, ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it – prone to leave the God I love - - But Jesus is my LORD and my DESIRE - - - and when I don’t desire Him – I WANT TO … My affections are so, so small … but I WANT TO TREASURE JESUS CHRIST … you CANNOT DO THAT UNLESS the HOLY SPIRIT WORKS IT IN YOU.

So here, when tells us that NOBODY can recognize God as not only real, but also, because you have put your trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior you need more than anything else!!!!

Because you have offered yourself to His service, made Him the LORD – master over your life … Because of that – now, the God who once was just your Creator … Who once, you would meet, only as your Judge - -- now He has joined Himself to you in the closest relationship possible - - He is your FATHER.

You know that you depend on Him for every breath … and still you are confident enough to call Him, ‘ABBA’.

NOBODY can do that, except by the Holy Spirit working inside.

“Abba” – that’s the Aramaic word that occurs 3 times in the New Testament – without being translated into English.

Just brought straight across into our English Bibles – “Abba” – it’s word for the most intimate term for a father, in Jesus’ original language.

It was like ‘daddy’ – except different, because it was a word that an adult could use just as properly as a child.

Just an aside – I’ve been in some circles where people understand that ‘Abba’ is a term for Father than shows close intimacy – they’ve heard that it’s kind of like a little child calling out ‘Daddy’ to an earthly father - - that complete trust … so they apply that in their prayer life – and I hear them, in public prayer, calling out ‘Daddy God’.

Can I ask you a favor?

You can do what you want in private – but if you’re praying with me around – First of all, don’t be self-conscious - - let’s just go to God’s throne of grace together … don’t start worrying about what you’re going to say.

… But secondly – can I just ask you a favor – if you’re praying with me around … Please don’t pray ‘Daddy God’.

Don’t say that!

It’s not a sin … but it will very likely make me throw up … and that would wreck the whole prayer time.

“Abba” is a word that expresses intimacy like a little child calling out ‘daddy’ – but it’s different because a grown man could just as appropriately use it.